Must we call genocide “genocide”?
The Armenian genocide? Or The Armenian mass killings? And does it matter?
In a debate that seems to recur every few years, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted today to condemn as “genocide”, the mass killing of Armenians during and after World War I. Like in 2007, the last time an Armenian Genocide resolution came up, the Administration (then Bush, today Obama), sought to halt the vote - both times to no avail.
Unlike with the situation in Darfur, the hesitancy to use the word “genocide” stems not from worries about the responsibilities to which the use of the word would commit the United States, but from simple geopolitics. Turkey, while acknowledging that as many as 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turks, has always denied that the deaths were part of a planned orchestrated campaign - a prerequisite for calling them “genocide.” And fearing the genocide label would tar their national reputation, Turkey has long fought the official declaration by other governments of the events as such. Because of this lobbying, only twenty countries, to date, have recognized the Armenian genocide. Read more
How should we pick judges?
The fight over judicial elections
On Tuesday, I attended a conference put on by the Aspen Institute and Georgetown Law on the topic of judicial selection. In light of two recent Supreme Court cases, Caperton v. Massey Coal (in which the court held that judges should recuse themselves from cases involving donors to their campaigns) and Citizens United v. FEC (in which the court ruled that corporations and unions may spend without restraint to influence elections), debate has been heating up about the effect of elections on the judiciary.
There were a number of interesting questions raised at the conference, which featured a wide range of authorities on the subject, including several state supreme court justices, politicians, legal scholars, and the keynote speaker, Sandra Day O’Connor.
The broad question is, of course, whether we should subject judges to popular election in the first place. It was pointed out that the public tends to hold two strong but contradictory views on the subject: First, that judges are often corrupted by political and financial forces; and second, that popular elections are necessary to hold them accountable. But these elections, so it was suggested, are the problem, not the solution.
Dealing with death
The New York Times has a nice update to an issue I discussed months ago - end of life decisions in health care and the angst that accompanies them. Official guidelines call on doctors to begin “the conversation” (about how a terminally ill patient would like to spend their final days) at about 1 year away from estimated death. But it seems that there are diverging opinions on the viability of these guidelines; this “conversation,” after all, is perhaps the most difficult a person will ever face and such emotionally taxing questions are sometimes as difficult for doctors to broach as they are for patients to digest.
One one hand, there’s our desire to remain hopeful as long as possible, if not to the end. Many patients - even when faced with dire forecasts - demand that doctors continue chemotherapy and other intensive (and expensive) treatments even when their effectiveness has worn off. They want to live like Sisyphus, knowledgeable of their unwinnable predicament yet committed to fighting ’till the end.
But of course, fighting costs money, time, and diverts resources away from others, and when patients request major surgeries and experimental treatments in the face of extremely low or impossible odds, utility seems to demand that they be overridden. Can we do so, however, without succumbing to the “death panel” argument? Is there something just inherently wrong about telling the terminally ill to give up?
The existentialist in us says that we can come to terms with our finality without falling into despair, but something tells me that doctors don’t read Camus in medical school.
-Colin
No visa for oil
Balancing values and interests
The New York Times has an article today on Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the forest and agriculture minister of Equatorial Guinea, who, despite being a corrupt foreign official, is regularly granted visas for travel to the United States. Internal government documents assert that “most if not all” of Obiang’s wealth comes from corruption. So why does the State Department fail to enforce the federal law prohibiting corrupt foreign officials from receiving American visas? The answer, claim a number of former U.S. officials: oil. Equatorial Guinea produces nearly 400,000 barrels of oil a day, mostly by American oil companies.
We’ve written on this blog about conflict among values (e.g. freedom and equality). Just as common is conflict between values and interests. In personal life, we face such conflicts all the time: when a grocery store clerk gives you too much change do you pocket the money or give it back? When you walk by a homeless person carrying a doggie bag of leftovers do you give it to them or save it for tomorrow’s lunch? Values and interests exert a constant tension on foreign policy - do we pursue our material interests in the world or promote the values we hold dear? Sometimes these two align (ex. foreign aid may help “drain the swamp” of violent extremism), but more often they come into conflict - call out human rights abuses in Russia or gain an ally in efforts to stop Iran’s nuclear program? Promote democracy in Pakistan or further counter-terrorism efforts?
In Obiang’s case, the conflict is between punishing corruption and ensuring U.S. access to Equatorial Guinean oil and wealth for American business. So how do you balance the two? Do values always trump interests? Read more
Healthcare is nice, but (morally) expensive
Robert Samuelson at the Washington Post does some moral cost/benefit analysis on healthcare reform.
Pro-reform:
…almost everyone thinks that people in need of essential medical care should get it; ideally, everyone would have health insurance.
Con:
First, the country has other goals — including preventing financial crises and minimizing the crushing effects of high deficits or taxes on the economy and younger Americans — that “health-care reform” would jeopardize. And second, the benefits of “reform” are exaggerated. Sure, many Americans would feel less fearful about losing insurance; but there are cheaper ways to limit insecurity. Meanwhile, improvements in health for today’s uninsured would be modest. They already receive substantial medical care. Insurance would help some individuals enormously, but studies find that, on average, gains are moderate. Despite using more health services, people don’t automatically become healthier.
The first point reveals the problem of prioritization I discussed in an earlier post and the second shows, once more, how the factual and empirical invade the moral.
-Jake
Do the right thing
When principles conflict
This past weekend provided a supreme example of how to address conflicting moral priorities. Democrats in the House of Representatives managed to collect enough votes to pass a historic expansion of health care in America. But they only had a enough if they allowed an amendment that forbade the use of government subsidized insurance plans to cover abortions.
For the strong contingent of anti-choice Democrats, this was a morally desirable outcome: expanded health care, without the worry that access to abortions would become easier.
But many liberal Democrats faced an unpalatable dilemma. Pass a health care bill, replete with abortion restirctions, or vote against the bill in defense of choice?
Although utilitarianism has taken on negative connotations in recent years, many pro-choice Demorats made a purely utilitarian calculation: they could do more good for more people by passing health care, even if it would do harm for some in addition to undermining a perceived right.
Deciding between conflicting principles is no easy task. One way to start is by cataloging all the issues in play (note the following list applies only to pro-choice Democrats; the list for those with different principles would obviously look quite distinct):
Moral harms
- Uninsured
- High costs
- People improperly dropped
- Those unable to afford abortions
Moral goods
- Universal coverage
- Lower costs
- Fairer plans
- The right to choose
With something like 50 million uninsured, it probably felt to many pro-choice Democrats that the moral harm that would persist were the bill to fail far outweighed a relatively small encroachment against the right to choose.
But can principles ever outweigh lives? Take torture. Some believe torture is permissible when significant lives are at stake, but many believe torture is immoral no matter the cost.
These are tough questions, but they are the reason we need more public philosophy. Public affairs rarely presents us with choices between right and wrong. Too often, we are forced to choose between different evils, and compromise on the good.
-Sam
Augusta rules
Does it matter who hits the links with the President?
In a town always in search of a news story, it should perhaps come as little surprise that newspapers have been eager to report that Melody Barnes, the President’s top domestic policy adviser, yesterday became the first woman to golf with Obama since the inauguration.
The now famous golf round did not come before some controversy. The President recently hosted a basketball game with male Cabinet members and Members of Congress–none female. The “boys club” speculation erupted almost immediately.
Is gender equality at stake in the composition of the President’s sporting crowd?
The American public and Afghanistan
Political judgement
With Shalev Roisman, I published an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor on the role domestic support should play in Pres. Obama’s pending decision on whether to escalate in Afghanistan.
The main argument raises questions about the obligations of democratically elected leaders:
Rescinding recission
Causality and the cancellation of health coverage over unreported pre-existing conditions
Laura Clawson at Daily Kos writes about a health insurance company maneuver known as recission, which she suggests “pretty much everyone agrees is a disgusting, immoral practice.”
Recission is when health insurers cancel coverage because they claim they were misled. So, for example, if you mentioned your peanut allergy when you applied for coverage — but not your elbow tendinitis — your insurer could void your coverage if they ever found you had lied.
Stated that way, it doesn’t sound so bad. After all, you did fail to report your condition and violated an agreement with the insurance company.
Yet the reality is often more complex. Read more
The lessons of the Stephen Farrell rescue
What are our obligations to kidnapped war journalists?
There has been much criticism in the past several days over last week’s military operation in Afghanistan that rescued British journalist Stephen Farrell but left four others dead. The issue raises interesting questions about what actions the military should take to aid a captured journalist. Journalists inevitably put themselves in dangerous situations when covering a war, and how much responsibility for their safety should governments and the military accept? Read more
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