The court of public opinion
The New York Times has a cool interactive feature where you can compare your views on certain issues with the Roberts court and the general public. However, comparisons can be slightly misleading since the questions are framed as policy questions not constitutional questions. While readers are asked whether they would support a ban on partial birth abortion, the justices are not supposed to be considering whether or not the law is smart policy but whether it is constitutional.
-Luke
Is eating healthy a choice?
Or can the poor simply not afford nutritious meals?
A few weeks ago I explored whether we should subsidize healthy habits and tax unhealthy ones. In the post, I quoted Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, who questions if we should “trust” the government to act as our “guardian.”
To what extent should we use the power of the state to protect us from ourselves? If we go down that route, where do we stop?
Mankiw frames the issue as whether we need the government making choices for us, but in a recent blog post at The Atlantic professor Ellen Ruppell Shell questions this idea. Read more
Graham’s vote for Kagan
When should senators confirm judges whose judicial philosophy differs from their own?
On Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The vote split along party lines, with the exception of South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, who broke rank to support Kagan’s nomination.
Graham defended his choice by saying that while he disagreed with Kagan on many issues, he felt it was his duty to support President Obama’s nomination provided she was fair and competent. The conflict raises an interesting ethical and constitutional question, should, and if so when, may Senators vote against judicial nominees on ideological grounds? Read more
Happy 4th of July!
For Fourth of July several pundits at Bloggingheads TV debated the merits of patriotism. What a way to spend your holiday weekend, eh!
Attacking the notion of patriotism, Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute argued that “loving liberty through ones country” is problematic because it leads to the assumption that America always acts in defense of these values. Wilkinson, a sharp critic of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, contends that Americans initially supported these conflicts so wholeheartedly in part because of a belief that our country “must be doing the right thing when it acts on the world stage.” Read more
The morality of espionage
When is is it justifiable?
Earlier this week, Marc commented the arrest of ten individuals for allegedly being involved in a Russian spy ring. The case is somewhat humorous in that the spies did not seem to be snooping for information of any significant worth; but, in any case, the incident raises some interesting ethical questions. For instance, when do the benefits of the intelligence obtained from espionage outweigh the deceptive means used to obtain that information? In their article Ethics and Morality in US Intelligence Arthur Hulnick and Daniel Mattausch explain that one can use Just War theory for determining the circumstances under which spying is permissible. Read more
Teacher knows best?
Should the preferences of students be used to evaluate professors?
In Monday’s New York Times Stanley Fish wrote on Texas A&M’s plan to make the university like a “businesses” in which the professors are held more accountable to student evaluations. The problem, according to Fish, is that students are not in the proper position to make a fair “judgment of value” about their educational needs and the quality of a professor.
Students tend to like everything neatly laid out; they want to know exactly where they are; they don’t welcome the introduction of multiple perspectives, especially when no master perspective reconciles them; they want the answers.
In contrast, Fish comments that the best teaching often involves withholding the gratification of simple answers, even if students only come to appreciate the wisdom of this approach many years down the road. Read more
The taxes I pay keeps the doctor away
The ethics of “sin taxes”
The other day Marc linked to a New York Times Room for Debate discussion on whether people should be paid to stay healthy. While that post focused on rewarding healthy behavior, much of the current debate and policy centers on restricting and discouraging unhealthy behavior. A common method for doing this is by imposing “sin taxes” on “certain objectionable products.” For instance, taxing cigarettes at a high rate in part to discourage people from purchasing them. These sorts of taxes are often popular with voters, but are they justifiable? Read more
The world court
When is it appropriate for American courts to reference foreign law?
The other day Jake posted on the Supreme Court ruling that teenagers cannot be sentenced to life in prison for non-homicide crimes. In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy referenced the consensus in the international community against such punishments:
There is support for our conclusion in the fact that, in continuing to impose life without parole sentences on juveniles who did not commit homicide, the United States adheres to a sentencing practice rejected the world over.
In other recent decisions outlawing the death penalty for juveniles and overturning laws prohibiting sodomy the court has also referenced international law. These cases raise an interesting question, what role, if any, should the opinions of foreign nations play in our constitutional interpretation? Read more
On oil & the environment
Our ethical stance towards the natural world
In response to the recent oil spill Andrew Sullivan writes that it’s time to reconsider the “morality of oil” He argues that even if the “cost benefit analysis of offshore drilling make sense” there are deeper ethical concerns to consider: Read more
Democracy & judicial review
The dangers of an overly partisian Supreme Court
Daniel had a really good post yesterday on the Supreme Court and the tension between the need for judicial review and a respect for democratically enacted laws. While I agree with almost everything he said I would take issue with the notion that purely partisan nominations would necessarily “infuse a measure of legitimacy into an otherwise undemocratic institution.” Daniel explains: Read more
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