Throw your hatred down
Moral disagreement and demonization
Writing for The Washington Post, Robert Samuelson claims that dysfunction in American politics has reached a new low. Samuelson diagnoses several reasons for the surging dysfunction in politics, but one strikes a particular chord with me:
Second, politics has become more moralistic from both left and right. Idealistic ideologues campaign to “save the planet,” “protect the unborn,” “reclaim the Constitution.” When goals become moral imperatives, there’s no room for compromise. Opponents are not just mistaken; they’re immoral. They’re cast as evil, ignorant, dangerous, or all three.
Anybody who is familiar with the basic premise of this blog can probably guess I disagree with this statement. As I’ve written before, the solution to this problem is not to avoid moral philosophy – but to do better moral philosophy. Read more
Fear and loathing redux
Radley Balko at Reason magazine argues that the close association between democratic politics and crime policy results in a vicious cycle of fear-mongering, excessive incarceration, and intergenerational poverty. He cites a Boston Globe article that reveals a tendency for undue and irrational pessimism and fear among the population. I explored the problem of irrational fear in a previous post, where I noted that there is often a gap between realistic and imagined levels of danger. In the case of crime, it is extreme. Although crime has been declining since the mid-1990s, 74% of Americans insist that crime is getting worse.
Balko’s solution to the vicious cycle is to divorce crime policy from the political process. Today, many judges and prosecutors in America are elected officials and as a result have been hijacked by public demands for tough sentencing. In most other countries, these jobs, which are technical in nature, are held by more-or-less impartial civil servants.
In any fair legal system, judges are supposed to be impartial, and so there is an argument for taking direct democracy out of the legal system. But we should be leery of technocracy more generally. There is a danger to having too many degrees of separation between the public and its agents. While public sentiments can certainly hijack policy for the worse, so can interests that have no accountability whatsoever to the public, with the results being systematic corruption and abuse.
In a complex society, we will always have to tread a fine line between technocracy and democracy.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user bitzcelt used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
TPP Weekly Rewind
Monday, October 18 – Friday, October 22
TPP Week-In-Review
- On Monday, Han pointed us to a piece at Newsweek disparaging the tea party’s veneration for the Constitution, and Charles explored the place of fear and revulsion in policy debates in response to a piece at Project Syndicate
- On Tuesday, Luke considered two Supreme Court Justices and their respective forms of constitutional originalism in light of Han’s post on Monday; Charles reflected on the decline of multiculturalism in Europe, and compared European immigration to immigration in the United States; and Han rallied to the side of contemporary philosophy and American university education in the face of a critique at The Wall Street Journal
- On Wednesday, Jake reflected on a proposed parallel between fire insurance and health care, and argued that health care is not a collective good
- On Thursday, Han highlighted an initiative in the United Kingdom to create the world’s first philosophy town, and warned that the project could create confusion and dogmatism if completed hastily; Sam explored forward-thinking policy measures in Europe and emphasized the importance of setting aside our moral feelings when making long-term decisions; and Charles reported on a new policy at Westfield High School in Virginia, and the tendency of fairness to require reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator
In Others’ Words
- Chris Rickert at Wisconsin State Journal defended the ‘Liberal’ name
- Atheists tried to work out how aggressive they ought to be
- Newsleader published a piece on everyday experience informing moral discussions
- The Guardian reported, in light of some New Yorker works, that David Cameron is having difficulty realizing his political philosophy
- A Coastal Carolina University lecturer published a book on philosophy and Facebook
- Glenn Beck lambasted the news media’s coverage of the current election season
- Southern California Public Radio wondered whether or not DNA defines your ideology (see the PDF they link to, also)
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Does learning begin and end in the classroom?
In a bizarre twist on the grade school classroom contract, ABC News reports that Westfield High School in Virginia has prohibited students in AP World History from consulting any outside sources, including parents, classmates, the internet, or anything other than their textbooks and lecture notes.
It’s not clear if this is a serious policy. A spokesman for the Fairfax County Public Schools described it as “… a little tongue-in-cheek from the teachers,” but the principal of Westfield High claimed that the policy “guaranteed fairness among students and wouldn’t give a student with more resources an advantage.”
There is of course a serious side to the “fairness argument.” Things like a supportive home environment can have a real impact on educational achievement and it is clear that such factors are not consistent across families. It’s possible that the policy was meant to address this imbalance.
But it reveals one of the principle conundrums of the principle of fairness: for things that are not (easily) redistributable, like the quality of parenting, fairness may require bringing everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
This seems particularly troubling in the case of education. It severely truncates the scope of learning and inquiry to the viewpoints offered by the texts and teachers, reducing what should be an exploration to mere rote learning. So even if fairness is important, should it ever be an excuse to compromise the general quality of education?
-Charles
Photo by Flickr user alamosbasement used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
No cheers for austerity?
Welcome to revolution Europe
Ask any youngster–eating vegetables is no fun. Or ask Europeans for that matter. Major European economies have begun to make tough choices to rein in public benefits and curtail government programs in order to reduce their debt burden. Much of the attention has been on Greece, partly because their austerity measures were so severe and partly because the public reaction was not exactly peaceful.
But even some of Europe’s flagship economies are also beginning to take a sober look at the long term. Yesterday England recently announced hundreds of billions in cuts over the coming years and France is seeking to increase the retirement age from 60 to 62 (it’s 65 in the United States, and will rise to 67 in the coming decades).
Much of the French population are less than thrilled with the proposed change, and widespread protests and strikes over the last week have grounded planes, caused fuel shortages and even forced Lady Gaga to cancel a concert.
I’m not interested in whether people have a right to strike, although that question certainly remains a live one. But, to many Americans, the vehemence of the European response feels disproportionate. We don’t have close to the public benefits they will still have after the reforms, many of us say. Read more
Cities on flame with philosophy
A small town in the United Kingdom, hometown of Thomas Hobbes, hopes to become the world’s first “philosophy town.” There are many proposals, including a festival, a philosophy walk, and a bookstore/coffee house for philosophical discussion. ”Town philosopher” Angie Hobbs on the project:
“I think people are hungry for this stuff,” she said. “We’ve got ourselves in such as mess in the world – the environment, the banking crisis, the whole issue of fairness. Philosophy may be able to help a bit. We don’t have all the answers but we can help the debate.” […] But she is excited at the prospect of non-academics getting stuck into philosophy. “You don’t have to want to be a professional philosopher,” she said. “You don’t have to be able to wrestle with the knottier passages of [Immanuel] Kant to be able to get a huge amount out of the subject. “It’s OK to dabble. Don’t be scared. There are a lot of people thinking we really need this because we’ve got into such a mess not using human reason to its full potential.”
I share Hobbs enthusiasm for the project, although I think it should proceed with caution. Learning philosophy – its arguments, its theories – is one thing, but all students of philosophy also want to argue and push back. This is one interesting aspect of teaching philosophy that separates it from teaching, for example, the sciences. When this type of engagement is done carefully and with intellectual honesty, it is a great way to learn and explore the contours of an issue. However, if it is done in haste, without sufficient commitment, it can result in confusion and even dogmatism. The architects of the project should be careful about how they present material in a non-academic setting in order to combat this tendency.
-Han
Photo by Flickr user Dogfael used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
Are firemen like doctors?
How deep does the analogy go? Not deep enough to justify universal health care.
At the Washington Post blog, Ezra Klein discusses the parallel between firefighters letting someone’s house burn because he didn’t pay $75 for fire insurance—which happened a few weeks ago in a rural area of Tennessee that doesn’t guarantee fire protection—and letting a person die because they didn’t purchase health care insurance.
When liberals explain why health care needs an individual mandate, the traditional metaphor is firefighting: Everyone needs to buy insurance for the same reason that everyone needs to buy fire protection. But if you leave the market unregulated, some people won’t buy — or won’t be able to afford — fire protection. And we’re not comfortable letting their houses burn down. Similarly, if you leave health coverage to the market, some people won’t buy it, and others won’t be able to afford it, and then, when they get sick and need it, insurers won’t sell it to them. But we’re not comfortable letting them die in the streets. Hence, the health-care law.
Klein argues that fire protection and health care are both “collective goods” which the government must guarantee.
Sam and I discussed a similar question over a year ago, when I attempted to parallel the government’s obligation to protect its citizens against Swine Flu (remember that?) with its obligation to protect citizens against other serious illnesses like cancer.
The parallel between fires and non-epidemic diseases, generally following Sam’s post, does not work perfectly. Fires spread. Non-epidemic diseases, like cancer, do not. If one person isn’t protected against fires, we are all thereby threatened, because those flames can jump from his house to our houses.
When a person is ill with a non-epidemic disease, we are not thereby threatened ourselves, or at least not enough of us to say that the community is endangered. This is why fire insurance is a real “collective good” and health care is not. Health care may be (and I think to a degree is) an individual right, of course, but that’s a different argument.
Blinded by the light
Feeding the national dialogue
“The dialogue is impoverished.” This lament is heard across the political spectrum, echoing between the margins of opinion pages and muttered by graying professors in an air of resignation. It’s the reason this website was created. It’s a statement we all seem to agree on, and one thing we are all trying to fix. This makes it all the more regrettable when an attempt at the solution only adds to the problem.
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Professor Peter Berkowitz begins well enough: liberal commentators have been dismissive in their views of the Tea Party movement, and this is wrong. I agree completely with this statement – there are many powerful (and perhaps ultimately correct) reasons to believe in the principles of personal liberty and limited government. These reasons constitute philosophical arguments, and they’re arguments that opponents of the Tea Party should engage with in good faith, clear logic, and intellectual honesty.
Berkowitz, unfortunately, believes the debate should lie elsewhere. Read more
Would you like a melting pot or a salad bowl?
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that multiculturalism has “utterly failed” amidst growing anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany. In the Netherlands, anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders was recently acquitted of discrimination and hate speech. Both of these mark serious departures from what was formerly the European consensus on multiculturalism. Given that immigration is both necessary and inevitable in the modern world, how should a country deal with immigrants from radically different cultures?
There are two widely regarded approaches to cultural pluralism. The prevailing European approach consists of treating immigrant populations as distinct subcultures, with few efforts made to integrate them into the broader society. Originally, this idea was in part tied to an expectation that most of these migrants were to be temporary migrant workers only. The idea that cultural integration need not accompany immigration has persisted even though it has become clear that millions of (mostly Muslim) immigrants are in Europe to stay. Although dressed in the benign language of “multiculturalism,” it is effectively a policy of exclusion.
The other approach is the “melting pot” that is usually attributed to the United States. In a melting pot, disparate ingredients blend together, creating something new that is (hopefully) greater than the sum of its parts. Of course, immigration in the United States has been anything but smooth. Successive waves of immigrants faced tremendous hostility. But by and large immigrant populations assimilated within the space of a few generations, gradually assuming full participation in society and escaping the confines of ethnic ghettos. The same has not happened in Europe, with tragic consequences.
There are certainly merits to cultural diversity. To paraphrase John Stuart Mill, a diversity of viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas is necessary to inform human flourishing. But diversity is a means and not an end in its own right. This is a crucial point that, until recently, the European approach to immigration has overlooked.
-Charles
Image by Flickr user SpreePix – Berlin used under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Two strands of originalism
Yesterday Han highlighted the differences between two versions of constitutional originalism. On the one side, are those like Justice Clarence Thomas who contend that fidelity to the constitution requires “rolling back the welfare state, repealing regulations, and perhaps even putting an end to progressive taxation.” In contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia adapts a more pragmatic approach, arguing that “upending post-1937 case law and reversing settled principles would prove extremely disruptive, both in the courts and society at large.”
Scalia’s position is, in many respects, intuitively appealing. Such a drastic shift in constitutional interpretation would no doubt be “disruptive” to institutions and the lives of citizens. But, “this faint-hearted originalism” is also problematic in that it introduces a subjectivity that his theory prides itself on avoiding.
By focusing on the original meaning of the constitution, originalists seek to prevent judges from basing their decision on personal political beliefs and values. For example, the question of whether the death penalty is unconstitutional for minors depends solely on the common understanding of cruel unusual punishment at the time the constitution was ratified, not any personal feelings about capital punishment.
But, if Scalia admits that sometimes “settled principles” should be respected, than he has to make subjective choices about when originalism should be applied. Certainly rolling back the welfare state would be disruptive to a society, but so to would overturning Roe v. Wade. There is no objective criterion for deciding when past precedent should be respected and when it can be ignored.
Perhaps Scalia is right that it would be too costly to remain faithful to originalism in all cases, but such a concession also undermines part of what makes the doctrine of originalism appealing in the first place.
-Luke
Image by Flickr user stephen.makser under a Creative Commons Attribution License
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