Pragmatism cont.
In his column today, David Brooks discusses the Democrats commitment to political pragmatism, whereby they are ready and eager to make big compromises in order to pass big legislation. His distinguishes between legislative and policy pragmatism:
But the new approach comes with its own shortcomings. To understand them, we have to distinguish between two types of pragmatism. There is legislative pragmatism — writing bills that can pass. Then there is policy pragmatism — creating programs that work. These two pragmatisms are in tension, and in their current frame of mind, Democrats often put the former before the latter.
This mirrors the distinction between Pragmatism 1 and Pragmatism 2 that I discussed earlier.
-Jake
Private values, public policy
Senator Jeff DeMint (R-SC) says that America has three core values: “faith, family and freedom.” Now, he argues in today’s Washington Times, we’ve lost the connection between lawmaking and those basic principles:
Political leaders since Mr. Reagan have destroyed our national consensus by disconnecting our beliefs and values from national policy, and by telling Americans we can have it all without making the difficult choices.
–Sam
How much do CEOs deserve to make?
A philosophical look at executive compensation
The American public may have viewed the bonuses paid to executives of companies who received bailout money as a novel practice, but the issue of executive compensation is not new. In 1980 the average CEO earned 42 times as much as the average blue collar worker, by 2000 this ratio had ballooned to 531 to 1. While there is much debate over how much executives deserve to make, and how their salaries should be regulated, there has been less philosophical investigation into the issue—despite the relevance to modern political theory. Read more
An uncertain climate
The uncharted ethics of climate change mitigation
While the environmental movement — and many other developed nations — have long stressed the imperative to address global climate change, the public ethics of the issue have lagged far behind. On the one hand, it has taken time, aided by the release a blockbuster Al Gore documentary, to transform climate change from an environmental issue to a moral one. On the other hand, the ethical thorns adorning climate change are particularly sharp, with a wide gap between the immediate consequences of action versus the extended and distant consequences of inaction.
Now that the House of Representatives has passed the first ever mandatory cap on greenhouse gasses in the United States, it has become impossible for the political class and the public at-large to dodge the debate. Currently, both lesser and greater philosophical issues have reared their not-quite-congruently sized heads.
Evaluating democracy promotion
Michael Gerson writes about the trials and travails of democracy promotion in the Middle East in today’s Washington Post. On the seeming retreat of democracy during 2006, Gerson notes:
Some American conservatives found Burkean lessons in the fading freedom agenda, asserting that democracy is a fragile flower that grows only in a rich cultural soil tended by Jeffersons and Hamiltons. Many liberals seemed relieved that President Bush didn’t seem right after all, though this involved global setbacks for political liberalism. It may seem strange that anyone should feel a thrill of vindication when the ideals of their nation appear to falter. But let us judge not, that we be not judged.
The “Burkean lessons” refer to Edmund Burke, regarded as one of the great intellectual forebears of conservatism. Gerson treats Burke’s views on democracy as questions about feasibility, rather than moral ones. Yet for Burke, the critical question was more likely whether cultivation of democracy in a poor soil is simply wrong.
Burke saw attempts to radically change society and government, particularly through violence, as misguided. Societies should evolve organically and by drawing on their own rich tradition. You can’t transplant Hamiltons and Jeffersons to Iraq. They have to be there already, as well established landmarks in the cultural firmament.
It seems the key questions for democracy promotion in modern societies are:
(1) Do we have an obligation to promote democracy abroad?
(2) If yes, is it appropriate to use force?
(3) Is it possible to promote democracy successfully in all countries?
The truth is that liberals and conservatives probably agree to a large extent about these three questions.
–Sam
Banning the burqa
Liberalism vs. freedom of religion
On Monday I noted that the French President Nicolas Sarkozy had come out in support of a parliamentary commission to consider a proposed ban on burqas in public. I suggested that both the case for and the case against the burqa ban are grounded in the liberal philosophical tradition. Today I want to consider how this conflict might be possible.
The case against the burqa ban is based, of course, on freedom of religion - that individuals should be free to practice whatever religion they so choose. That a Muslim woman whose interpretation of her faith requires the wearing of a burqa has a right to do so, just as a Christian has a right to wear a cross in public and say grace before eating at a public restaurant. Read more
No hall pass
After writing about political conduct earlier this week, I can’t help but think about the implications of the Mark Sanford Saga. Infidelity is probably the most common conduct-based criticism of leaders. State Senator John Knotts — a Sanford critic — had another objection:
“I was worried about the state of South Carolina. I was worried about what would happen if a forest fire started, or a prison riot started, or something that needed the governor’s executive-level decision,” he said. “I was just making sure that we had someone at the helm.”
We so often focus on the obligations of citizens that it’s easy to forget that officials have obligations, too. Mark Sanford may have betrayed the trust of many South Carolinians when he lied about his conduct. But was that worse than going AWOL? Not as exciting as illicit assignations, sure, but perhaps more important.
–Sam
The originality of originalism
Conservative commentator Ramesh Ponnuru has an interesting take on judicial activism in today’s New York Times. According to Ponnuru, conservatives have become caught between identity politics and judicial activism, essentially advocating in favor of activism when it thwarts identity politics. Writes Ponnuru:
Many conservatives oppose Judge Sotomayor’s nomination because she does not appear to support originalism, the notion that legal texts, including the Constitution, should be interpreted according to the meaning that the informed public assumed them to have when they became law. We argue as well that judges should try to overcome the biases of their backgrounds in the name of self-restraint. But when it comes to the race cases before the Supreme Court, too many conservatives abandon both originalism and judicial restraint.
The Voting Rights Act decision was a case in point. Eight justices avoided weighing in on the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that certain jurisdictions, mostly in the South, get Justice Department permission before making any changes to election procedures. Instead they ruled that a utility district in Texas that wanted to be freed from the provision should have an opportunity to try.
But Justice Clarence Thomas went further, declaring the provision unconstitutional. Congress, he argued, was justified in the 1960s in responding to the denial of the voting rights guaranteed by the 15th Amendment, but things have changed and the provision is no longer needed.
Justice Thomas is, in my view, right to consider the law outdated. But is that really for him to say? Congress is the proper body to make that judgment.
What I have always found curious about originalism is that it’s an approach to historical texts somewhat opposite to one prominent view in academic circles. Led by Cambridge scholar Quentin Skinner, many intellectual historians have disposed of the idea that historical documents — even constitutions — have any significant meaning outside of their immediate social and political contexts. (An interesting interview with Skinner that addresses some of these issues can be found here).
This is to go further than even many non-originalists, who would say that the Constitution is a living document. Instead, it is to say, as would originalists, that the Constitution is fixed. But it is to then add further that the Constitution — being fixed — is no longer relevant to our present circumstances. That is a conclusion some originalists mind well find profane.
–Sam
Is poverty a human rights violation?
Via Andrew Sullivan, NYU’s William Easterly takes on Amnesty International for including poverty as a human right in its latest annual report. CATO’s Will Wilkinson offers a (somewhat unexpected) response. For a more philosophical take, see Thomas Pogge’s landmark book World Poverty and Human Rights.
France vs. the burqa
In a State of the Union-like address today to a joint session of the French parliament, President Sarkozy threw his weight behind a proposal to set up a commission to consider banning the wearing of burqas outside of the home. France is a country that takes liberalism, freedom of religion and the separation of church and state very seriously. So it is an substantial, but not necessarily surprising, development. France, you may remember, passed a law in 2004 prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols and clothing in public schools.
What is interesting from a philosophical point of view is that liberalism underlies both the case for and the case against banning the burqa. The case against, of course, rests on freedom of religion; the case for, on preventing the oppression of women. On Wednesday, I will consider this conflict in more detail - for now enjoy some recent press on the speech here, here, here and here.
-Marc
Photo by Flickr user tinou bao used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
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