Problems

I have been thinking about the ethics of racial profiling. Say that racial profiling, roughly, involves law enforcers paying extra attention to members of a certain race, because it is known that members of that race are more likely to commit certain crimes. My familiarity with the philosophical work on the topic is entirely due to two very good articles, one by Arthur Applbaum:

“Racial Generalizations, Police Disretion and Bayesian Contractualism.” In J. Kleinig (ed) `Handled with Discretion: Ethical Issues in Police Decision Making.’ New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996.

and one by Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser (linked to here):

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~mrisse/papers_Misc.htm

Both articles argue that under the right conditions - and conditions not too different from those obtaining in many countries at present - racial profiling is justified.

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I had to take a break from this but am back at it full force. What do people think of the following as a definition of waste? I think it gets around some of the problems people pointed out earlier (here and here). I’m sure it invites new ones.

Waste is “either (a) any process wherein something useful ceases to be useful or becomes less useful or (b) the output of such a process.”

Greetings Public Reasoners, Nicole’s post has gotten me thinking (okay, it’s gotten me to post; I’ve been thinking about this for a while) about the significance of data to political theory. In particular, it’s gotten me thinking about people charging that some political theory is too utopian.

For example, suppose I propose that we eliminate the system of nation-states and replace it with some other system (take your pick). One might reject that proposal out of hand simply because it is too utopian. But to what does this claim amount? Is it a sort of “Can’t get there from here” sort of claim? I.e., does it amount to saying something like, “That would be great, but we could never achieve that state of affairs given present, although contingently existing, constraints”? Or, is it something more - a claim about nomological necessity? But, what laws of nature would the realization of such a proposal (whatever it is) violate?

I ask this question partially because it seems to me that the question of empirical research in political philosophy is largely used in order to make arguments that, while they do not have the form of the utopia-charge above, nonetheless suggest one of the readings of the utopia-charge. The arguments run as follows:

1. Political theory P runs afoul of empirical evidence X and Y.

2. Political theories must not run afoul of empirical evidence of Type A, of which X and Y are tokens.

3. So, P should be rejected.

The major premise is (2), but why accept ANY premise like (2)? I presume any answer would appeal to something about the *aims* of political theory and then claim that anything with aims of that sort (i.e., the sort of aims that political theory has) must be regulated by certain norms, N1, N2, etc. And, among these norms is N*, which is Premise (2) above.

Now, that is not a simple argument to flesh out. It certainly isn’t something at which we can merely wave our hands. A lot more needs to be said, and a lot of it will be thickly normative in character.

Anyway, I am working on a paper on this, but I would really enjoy reading people’s comments about this. I know that what I have written is pretty jumbled and inchoate, but hey, such is my life. In general. Like, I live a jumbled, inchoate life.

Too early for bourbon, Matt

Some people might be interested in an experiment that will be appearing in Utilitas on how people think about meeting needs. I should mention that the experiment plays a rather minor role in the paper which argues for a new principle for meeting needs and critiques several of the alternatives (including the principle David Miller advocates in Principles of Social Justice). It will appear on my website shortly. I should also mention that the experiment was conducted with Yali Corea-Levy at the University of Arizona.

experiment

Thanks! -Nicole

I came across a nice paper by John Simmons a while back on why libertarians should be actual consent theorists and decided that I could combine his argument with something derived from an argument I’ve got coming out in the American Philosophical Quarterly to show that libertarians (who accept the following assumptions) should be welfare liberals. I’ve got the link to a draft of the paper on my website (http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/papers.php) but thought I’d post the argument here, just to see if any one has any thoughts on it. The assumptions that follow block some obvious objections.

1) Assumption: Libertarians agree that any existing states must be legitimate and some states should exist.
2) Assumption: Libertarians hold that for any existing states to be legitimate they must only exercise coercive force over (rights respecting) individuals to protect these individuals’ liberty.
3) From Simmons’ argument in “Consent theory for libertarians”: Libertarians should agree that for state to be legitimate, they must secure their subjects’ autonomous consent.
4) For states to secure their subjects autonomous consent, they must do what they can to enable their subjects to secure sufficient autonomy to autonomously consent to its rules.
5) To secure this autonomy most people (in all states) must be able to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
6) So, states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
7) Implicit premise: If libertarians must agree that states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter, they must be (some kind of) welfare liberals.
So libertarians should be (some kind of) welfare liberals.

Thoughts?

Thanks, -Nicole

Recently, British MP’s voted to allow the creation of hybrid embryos for medical research. These embryos would be 99.9% “human” but 0.1% “cow” or “rabbit” — the animal element is simply the use of animal eggs, from which animal DNA is extracted, human DNA implanted, the “hybrid” embryo is then given an electric shock, and then stem cells harvested for use in research. All matter must be destroyed within 14 days. (Q&A on hybrid embryos can be found here.)

This move has been highly controversial for several reasons. Some of these reasons include the following:

1. It is morally wrong to mix human and animal DNA in this way.

This first reason is perhaps the primary reason behind opposition to this legislation. There are several problems with this argument.

First, what do we mean by “morally wrong”? It is easy to claim a position is “morally wrong”; it is difficult to prove a position is morally wrong in a compelling way. That is, deontologists and consequentialists can agree on many ethical issues, but they will not agree on all ethical issues. Who then decides? We would have to see the best arguments on both sides in order to see which view should prevail. It is no use to say that x is “morally wrong” without a full account of morality, not least as there are many different camps and what is wrong (and right) is not self evident.

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Here’s a quick question: What are the best discussions in the literature of why the original position has justificatory force? I’m particularly interested in those papers that address Ronald Dworkin’s “no pale form” point that since the contract is only a hypothetical contract, it does not have any of the binding force of contracts. I don’t need persuading that this is not a good objection to the original position, given that the OP models fairness and not contractual obligation, but I would like to know the best papers that make the response elegantly.

Since my first post on this topic, I’ve toyed with different ways to define waste (I was trying to do only conceptual analysis, leaving the normative work for later) and seem to be ending with “the under-usage of something we should use.”  It may seem an unexciting definition, but I’ve yet to find or think of a better one.  So, I’m interested to see what people think of it. 

Consider Simon’s example of the rich heiress who buys a $3000 dress, wears it once, then hangs it in her storage closet to be forgotten and buys another for the next occasion, and repeats the process indefinitely.  I think we could say here that the heiress is under-using the dress that she should use (because she bought it).  I think we could also say that the resources that went into creating the dress were under-used (and plausibly should be used).  Still, I have to admit that if the definition is right, it means waste is necessarily normative.  This is so in two ways: not only in the second part, where we explicitly say that the item in question is something “we should use,” but also in the first part, where we reference “the under-usage of something.”  If that is an accurate understanding of waste, we will need some standard to determine if a particular use is under-usage or proper usage and this will (usually) be normative.  I think we should accept that there is this double normativity in the proper understanding of waste. But I’m curious to hear what people think.

I’ve just started working on a paper about Socrates and heroism, looking at the speeches and deeds of the Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. Given that something on the order of a million books and articles have been written about Socrates, I thought I would write a short note here to see if there were any suggestions for readings I absolutely must not miss. I’ve found a number of very good articles (highlights include Greenberg (1965), Weinrib (1982), and Zuckert (1984)) and a couple of good books (Ahrensdorf (1995) and Hobbs (2000), in particular). But where else should I be looking? Thanks in advance! 

So, I’ve been thinking about utilitarianism and non-ideal theory. Although what I’ve come up with may be quite obvious, I’d be interested in reflections on the thought.

It seems to me that there are times when we might do best (even on utilitarian grounds) not to do what would maximize utility in non-ideal circumstances. Consider an instance in which this point may have practical bite. Some argue against ending child labor because the children we prohibit from working may suffer more for our good intentions. Child prostitution may be their second best option. But that this would be so, holding everything else fixed, does not mean we should not try to end child labor. What it shows is that we should try to end child labor and help educate the children we liberate. If one says that we do not have the resources to do this then we should reply that we can and need to find the resources — that is what justice requires. Even for a utilitarian, there are times when we should not do what might initially seem to maximize utility because doing that will only maximize utility conditional on facts that we can and should change. Perhaps there is reason to worry about doing non-ideal theory in some circumstances. Or, more precisely, that we have to be careful about what kind of non-ideal theory we are doing. Consider another example to support the point. Aid organizations spend a great deal of time and money figuring out how to allocate scarce resources. For instance, the WHO tries to prioritize health interventions to maximize the number of disability adjusted life years (or whatever) that it can save with its resources. But if the global distribution of medical resources is unjust and can be changed, the WHO might better spend its time trying to change the global distribution of medical resources.

I’ve been working on Berlin-style value pluralism lately. I’m particularly concerned with the attempt (made by Galston and Crowder, among others) to derive liberal political commitments from value pluralism. My sense is that value pluralism has no entailments regarding politics. But that’s a topic for another day. I’m writing here to try to get some help on the meaning of a comment by Bernard Williams frequently cited approvingly in the value pluralist literature.

In his introduction to Berlin’s *Concepts and Categories*, Williams claims that “if there are many and competing values, then the greater the extent to which a society tends to be single-valued, the more genuine values it neglects or suppresses. More, to this extent, must mean better.”

Maybe I’m just being thick-headed about this, but I don’t see how “more must mean better,” unless some common measure among values is presupposed; but value pluralists must deny that this kind of common measure exists (the lack of common measure in part explains the incommensurability among values and the unavailability of rational rank-orderings among them). So it seems to me that Williams’ “better” must not mean *morally* better. But if that’s the case, then I don’t see how Williams’ point is of much use to the value pluralist.

Am I missing a natural reading of Williams’ comment that’s both consistent with value pluralism and of use for making the case that value pluralism entails liberalism?

Hi,
So I have this argument I’ve been thinking about for the conclusion that, theoretically, it is quite possible that Fair Trade will offer Pareto superior improvements for the poor. I’d love any thoughts. The argument makes the standard economic assumptions about competitive markets and consumers and producers trying to maximize profit and utility respectively and tries to show that Fair Trade will offer Pareto superior improvements for the poor if the consumer does not change the amount of goods she purchases and will continue to buy Fair Trade goods into perpetuity.

Here’s the thought:

Suppose that a consumer is trying to decide whether or not to buy Fair Trade bananas and will either purchase bananas from a Fair Trade source for (say) $2 a bag or non-Fair Trade source for $1 a bag. If the consumer buys from a Fair Trade source the poor people who receive her money would, without her money, either have gone out of business or not. If the poor people she supports would otherwise have gone out of business they would have either gone into a more profitable business (than the regular banana business) or not. If not, then the consumer has benefited them. If the poor people the consumer supports would have otherwise gone into a more profitable business (say sugar) then they have done better to make Fair Trade bananas, otherwise they would have gone into sugar. The poor people this consumer supports are, thus, better off with Fair Trade. The consumer knows that she has helped the poor people who make her Fair Trade bananas.

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The US House Foreign Affairs Committee has just approved House Resolution 106 which acknowledges the Armenian Genocide of 1915.¹ President Bush, like President Clinton before him, is opposed to the resolution, given the expected Turkish reaction and the strategic links between the US and Turkey. It’s unclear to me what the short or long-term consequences of an official US acknowledgment of the genocide may be, but I find myself firmly behind the resolution, so much so that my intuitive sense is that opposition to it is just a disgrace, something beyond the pale of reasonable, principled politics. I admit, this is not something I feel like being open-minded about in the slightest.

But I don’t really know how I can defend that intuition philosophically, and I’m not sure if there has been much good philosophical literature on why genocide denial is a moral problem or on whether genocide acknowledgment is some sort of moral imperative. Generally, it’s been historians who have written about genocide denial and their moral conclusions have not been terribly nuanced. Denying the travesty is murdering the victims once again, it is sometimes claimed, and there endeth the metaphor.

So my question is two-fold: what exactly makes genocide denial morally problematic, if it is (and is there any good philosophical literature on this?); and what exactly makes genocide acknowledgment morally important, if it is (and is there any good philosophical literature on this?).

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1. Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide, Harper Perennial, 2003; Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, Harper Perennial, 2004; Taner Akcam, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Holt Paperbacks, 2007 [↩]

First, I want to thank Simon for starting this blog. I think its a great idea and suspect it will flourish.

Now, my first post:

I’ve long considered writing a paper about Waste and now have an extrinsically important reason to do so.

People have thought that Locke’s (first) proviso–the requirement that there must be “enough, and as good, left in common for others”–can’t be satisfied in the modern world. People seem to think Locke’s second (waste or spoilage) proviso–the requirement that we must “make use of” that which we want to claim as property “before it spoils”–is settled by the existence of a means of exchange (money) as it allows us to store value so that nothing need spoil.

I think this is backward. I think David Schmidtz has shown that the first proviso is easily settled (and far from limiting property, sometimes requires that we take property). I think the second proviso is too often ignored. Nozick only calls it a “further condition.” It seems to me that “waste” must be understood normatively. I’m not inclined to spend much time doing textual exegesis to determine what Locke meant by the term “spoilage” though that might be part of the project. More interesting to me is determining the best way to understand the term and, with that in place, the best way to understand the proviso. The next question would be: should we take the waste proviso as providing an inherent limit to property? I’m inclined to think we should (and to think there is a moral duty not to waste).

OK. There’s the project. Now the question: any suggestions for reading? I believe Jeremy Waldron was working on something like this at one point but I don’t recall anything in print. Any ideas? There is a recent piece in Locke Studies by Helga Varden¹ and a 1993 piece by Bernard Baumrin in the J of Social Philosophy,² but I haven’t found much else.

Comments and suggestions very much welcome!

1. Helga Varden, “Locke’s Waste Restriction and his Strong Voluntarism,” Locke Studies, vol. 6, 2006: 127-42 [↩]
2. Bernard Baumrin, “Waste,” Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 24, #3, Winter 1993: 5-18 [↩]