tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-197511212024-03-07T17:33:21.365-05:00Unideal Observersa graduate student ethics blog
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bowling green state universityDavid Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-14491156170101610562013-09-09T13:59:00.001-04:002013-09-09T13:59:16.278-04:00Graduate Student Workshop in Applied Philosophy<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Extended </span></i></b><b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Call for
Papers<br />
<i>Inaugural Bowling Green State University
Graduate Student <br />
Workshop in Applied Philosophy</i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">November 15-16, 2013<br />
Bowling Green, OH<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The Philosophy Department of Bowling Green
State University invites submissions to its inaugural Graduate Student Workshop
in Applied Philosophy. The aim of the workshop is to bring together graduate
scholars working in applied philosophy topics to encourage constructive
discussion and debate. Each presenter will be given an undivided audience, a
commentator and at least 20 minutes for questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This Year’s Theme: <br />
Animal and Environmental Philosophy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
Philosophy Department of Bowling Green State University welcomes high-quality
paper submissions from graduate students that engage issues in animal and
environmental philosophy, broadly construed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Keynote Speaker: Paul B.
Thompson<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">W.K. Kellogg Chair in Agricultural, Food
and Community Ethics<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Michigan State University<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Submission Guidelines</span></b><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Submissions
should include two separate documents: A cover page that includes the title of
the paper and contact information for the author; a paper, not to exceed 4000
words, should be included in a separate document and prepared for blind review.
Please submit all documents in .doc/.docx or .pdf format to </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="mailto:bgsu.workshop@gmail.com"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">bgsu.workshop@gmail.com</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> by
<b>September 20<sup>th</sup>.</b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01018219440834282106noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-35303679821832510212009-12-01T15:32:00.004-05:002009-12-01T15:40:59.959-05:00Check It OutOur blog has been included on a list of "100 Ethics Blogs Every Business Student Should Read." You can check it out <a href="http://www.onlinecourses.org/2009/11/30/100-ethics-blogs-every-business-student-should-read/">here</a>.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-31628182508747171712009-10-05T19:20:00.003-04:002012-09-08T19:41:54.901-04:00ConundrumImagine that we have embraced modal, global normative skepticism: we have concluded that we never do and never could be aware of the normative facts. We may continue to ask questions about what we ought to do, but we can never properly answer these questions. Proper answers necessitate our knowing what is of value, or what normative reasons there are, or what moral obligations we have—facts to which we have no access.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
At this point, we ask a further question: <i>Are</i> there any normative facts? Given our skepticism, asking this question is largely pointless. But, on its face, the question still seems sensible. We might continue to wonder about it, if only out of some morbid obsession with the question itself.<br />
<br />
It seems to me, however, that this further question is not, in fact, sensible. It makes no sense to say that something is a reason for me to act in a particular way if it is not possible for me to be <i>aware</i> that it is a reason for me to so act. Similar claims can be made regarding values or obligations. Put simply, normative facts are inherently action-guiding. This is a conceptual claim, one I hope you share. As the primary intention of this post is not to defend this claim, I will not say anything more about why I take this to be the case, though I am happy to argue the point in comments or elsewhere. Rather, my concern is with how to <i>express</i> this claim, a challenge I have found surprisingly difficult.<br />
<br />
Consider:<br />
<ul>
<li>X is a normative fact iff X is action-guiding.</li>
</ul>
This seems a simple way of putting the point. As I've cashed it out, this becomes:<br />
<ul>
<li>X is a normative fact iff X is capable of guiding action. Then,</li>
<li>X is a normative fact iff some possible agent is aware that X is a normative fact.</li>
</ul>
This last highlights the problem: the biconditional generates a paradox. The claim is that something is a normative fact only if someone can recognize this. But, of course, someone can only recognize that something is a normative fact if it <i>is</i> a normative fact. So this will not do.<br />
<br />
So, how do I express my claim? I have tried several ways, but all seem ultimately to run into this problem. Yet the intuition does not seem paradoxical: You may not agree with me, but surely my thought is coherent. Surely, for instance, I can create some new concept: 'arglax'. Arglaxes are inherently knowable entities. There is no such thing as an arglax that no one is aware of. Again, this is a conceptual claim, not a metaphysical one; we are not imagining some strange creature that pops out of existence if no one is aware of it. Rather, we are claiming of each thing in the world that it cannot turn out to be an arglax unless it is in principle possible for us to know that it is an arglax.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-35802572425133568172009-02-20T01:21:00.002-05:002009-02-20T01:47:52.959-05:00Student Grade ExpectationsTo most of us teaching here this is probably not news, but I thought it was worth posting:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html?_r=1&emc=eta1">NY Times: Student Expectations Seen as Causing Grade Disputes</a><br /><br />I suspect that the gut reaction for most of you is the same as for me: disgust. Grades are a mode of assessment, not only of effort, but of the quality of a student's work (perhaps on the theory that this, in turn, is a way of assessing that student's skill or skill+effort). When I read that students are willing to ask, boldly, "what else is there?" when considering grading criteria beyond effort, I am left in abject horror.<br /><br />That's what my attitude is (well, most of the time). But what <i>should</i> it be? Certainly, grades aren't <i>just</i> about effort, but is it really still reasonable to treat a C as an acceptable grade for a diligent student who meets our expectations? And if not, what does this mean for grades; or, rather, what do grades mean? Should graduate schools (or whoever cares about undergraduate grades) just treat transcripts as reports on how hard-working their applicants are?<br /><br />And even if we <i>should</i> grade that way, can one, in good conscience, continue to do so knowing that one is <i>alone</i> in so doing, and that one's students will suffer for it in terms of comparative standing? What do we do when we have to choose between our convictions about grading and our convictions about fairness?David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-60343486293753433722009-01-27T13:28:00.004-05:002009-01-27T13:58:59.940-05:00An Epistemic StandardI'm looking for feedback on the plausibility of a <i>MINIMAL</i> epistemic standard:<br /><br /><b>MES</b>: My belief that <i>b</i> counts as knowledge/epistemically justified only if its being the case that <i>b</i> factors into some <i>possible</i> explanation of my belief.<br /><br />I don't think it matters whether we talk about knowledge or epistemic justification, though I'm open to disagreement on this point. Also, I <i>think</i> the relevant kind of possibility is nomological, but I have to think about it more.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-9946123019579799152009-01-13T20:32:00.004-05:002012-09-08T19:44:01.515-04:00Does 'Has Reason' Imply 'Can'?I'm in the process of reading through <a href="http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~maschroe/">Mark Schroeder's</a> latest (fascinating) book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Slaves-Passions-Mark-Schroeder/dp/0199299501/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231897296&sr=8-1"><i>Slaves of the Passions</i></a>. Therein, he makes the following argument about Brett, who is in a position where he can only satisfy one of two conflicting desires:<br />
<br />
". . . there simply can't be a reason for Brett to do everything that promotes his desires. His very situation shows that it is <i>impossible</i> for him to do everything that promotes his desires. So on a generalization of the principle that 'ought' implies 'can', we simply shouldn't accept that there is a reason for Brett to do this." (53)<br />
<br />
What I'm curious about here is this generalization of 'ought' implies 'can'. Do we need to think that the generalization holds, that 'has reason' also implies 'can'? I will make a few preliminary remarks about my thoughts so far, and then I'd like to see what people think.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
First, a bit about why we might think this is <i>true</i>: Of course, one might think that 'has reason' implies 'can' is just intuitively true (perhaps in the same way that 'ought' implies 'can' is). For a more principled reason, consider the fact that many (including myself) take it that oughts and reasons can be understood in terms of one another, allowing for the following platitudes (my thanks to Christian Coons for mentioning the relevance of the latter): (A) <i>x</i> ought to <i>φ</i> just in case <i>x</i> has most reason to <i>φ</i>; (B) If <i>x</i> has reason to <i>φ</i> then, <i>ceteris paribus</i>, <i>x</i> ought to <i>φ</i>.<br />
<br />
If one accepts (A) and (B), it does seem <i>prima facie</i> plausible that having a reason to <i>φ</i> means one can <i>φ</i>. After all, consider a case in which one's <i>only</i> reason were to do some impossible thing. In such a case, one would (it seems) have <i>most</i> reason to do that thing, in which case—by (A)—one <i>ought</i> to do that thing. But then, of course, 'ought' implies 'can' has been violated.<br />
<br />
But I find none of this particularly persuasive. First, I do not find the idea that 'has reason' implies 'can' intuitive. It seems to me that if I want to experience what it is like to be a bat, I have some reason to turn into a bat.<sup>*</sup> Now, of course, it is not possible for me to turn into a bat, and so it will never be the case that I <i>ought</i> to do so, but this doesn't make me think that I have no <i>reason</i> to do so. <br />
<br />
But what of the connection to 'ought'? I'm not sure how I feel about this, but let's try it on for size: What if I take the very fact that it is impossible for me to turn into a bat as a <i>very</i> good reason for me <i>not</i> to do so? What's more, I take it that <i>any</i> act's being impossible is going to be a very good reason for me not to perform that act. Then (A) and (B) don't seem to pose a problem any longer. It will never turn out to be the case that my reason to do something impossible is what I have <i>most</i> reason to do (or that all else is really equal) because I will always have a stronger reason <i>not</i> to do it—namely that it is impossible.<br />
<br />
Then again, I must admit I'm a bit queasy about the idea that something's being impossible is a reason not to do it. There is something odd about the idea that I take the fact that I can't <i>φ</i> as a consideration against my <i>φ</i>-ing. Then again, there might be other solutions in the same area. Perhaps the impossibility isn't itself a reason against, but there is some other explanation for why it will never turn out that in the balancing of reasons, those to do impossible things rise to the top (or that everything else is ever equal when one has reason to do an impossible thing).<br />
<br />
Anyway, I'd like to know what people think. Where do intuitions lie? Is this just an intuitive matter? Or is there some more principled reason to accept 'has reason' implies 'can', perhaps stemming from acceptance of 'ought' implies 'can'?<br />
<br />
<br />
<sup>*</sup>Actually, I don't believe this at all, but insofar as I'm playing with this Humean framework, I think it plausible that if desires were connected with reasons in the relevant way, then this desire would mean I had this reason.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-26371220339780269582009-01-13T20:18:00.002-05:002009-01-13T20:29:08.520-05:00CFP: Princeton Graduate Conference in Political TheoryGraduate Conference in Political Theory<br />Princeton University<br />April 17-18, 2009<br /><br />The Committee for the Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton University welcomes papers concerning any period, methodological approach, and/or topic in political theory, political philosophy, and/or the history of political thought. Approximately eight papers will be accepted.<br /><br />Each session, led by a discussant from Princeton, will be focused exclusively on one paper and will feature an extensive question and answer period with Princeton faculty and students. Papers will be pre-circulated among conference participants.<br /><br />The keynote address, "Utopophobia," will be given by <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/faculty/estlund.html">David Estlund</a> (Professor of Philosophy, Brown University).<br /><br />Submissions are due via <a href="https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/submit.php">the submission form</a> on the conference website by <b>January 31, 2009.</b> Please limit your paper submission to <b>7500 words</b> and format it for blind review (the text should include your paper's title but be free of other personal and institutional information). Papers will be refereed on a blind basis by current graduate students in the Department of Politics at Princeton. Acceptance notices will be sent in February 28, 2009.<br /><br />Assistance for invited participants' transportation, lodging and meal expenses is available from the committee, which acknowledges the generous support of the <a href="http://uchv.princeton.edu/lectures_seminars/democracy_and_human_values_project.php">Democracy and Human Values Project</a>, <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~uchv">University Center for Human Values</a>, <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/history/">Department of History</a>, <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/~classics/">Department of Classics</a>, and <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/politics/">Department of Politics</a> at Princeton University.<br /><br />All papers should be submitted through the <a href="https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/submit.php">online form</a>. Submissions by email or snail mail will not be accepted.<br /><br />Questions and comments can be directed to: <a href="mailto:polthry@princeton.edu">polthry@princeton.edu</a><br /><br />For more information, please visit the conference website at: <a href="https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/">https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/</a>David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-79825398854046479792009-01-01T19:04:00.003-05:002009-01-01T19:07:12.619-05:00Happy New Year!I just want to wish all our bloggers and readers a happy and healthy 2009.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-51933914316679253602008-11-06T14:29:00.002-05:002008-11-06T14:34:13.762-05:00Moral Utterances, Nihilism and the Negation ProblemI am working on an argument that expressivism is incapable of making sense of certain kinds of nihilistic utterances. Dave Shoemaker and the editors over at Pea Soup have been generous enough to allow me to post my argument there for feedback. I thought I'd put a note up here in case anyone would like to look at or participate in the discussion. There is a general link to Pea Soup on the sidebar. Click <a href="http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2008/11/moral-utterance.html">here</a> for the discussion itself.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-40388525588761739792008-07-19T22:29:00.003-04:002008-07-19T23:20:55.703-04:00Tortured Beef, It's What's for DinnerLet's say we accept an argument similar to a voter irrationality argument, but applied to the meat industry. I won't rehearse the argument in detail, but it's something like:<br /><br />1. Given the extent of the meat industry and the amount of meat consumed by the average person, no single person's decision to stop eating meat will in any way affect the number of (we'll stick with cows here) killed over any given period of time.<br />2. Given this, no single person can, on their own, have any effect whatsoever on the number of cows killed over a period of time.<br />3. Thus, to stop eating beef for the purposes of saving the lives of cows is an entirely ineffective means to that end.<br />4. Thus, if one's sole purpose in not eating beef is to save the lives of cows, not eating beef is irrational.<br /><br />OK, now, let's say that you accept the validity of this argument. Here's another:<br /><br />1. It is worse to end the life of a non-suffering being than it is to end the life of a suffering being, at least in the case that one has no power to alter the amount of suffering in the situation other than through the being's death.<br />2. Thus, if one has decided to take a life, it would be better to take the life of a suffering being than that of a non-suffering being.<br />3. Thus, eating beef from a factory farm is prima facie better than eating beef from somewhere less tortury.<br /><br />Of course, the conclusion here has two caveats. First, we are assuming that in eating meat one is taking a life at all; if the first argument is sound, this is not the case. Second, the ought generated by this argument is merely prima facie. It could be overridden by other moral considerations.<br /><br />At this point, one might think that it just doesn't matter where the beef we eat comes from. If the first argument is to be believed, then we can have no effect either way, and thus barring the introduction of other moral considerations in favor of vegetarianism, eating meat, regardless of its source, is permissible.<br /><br />But notice something: the number of cows killed in non-factory farms over a given period of time is much lower than the number killed in factory farms. Thus, when one purchases meat from a non-factory farm, one has a greater chance of affecting the number of cows killed than one does by purchasing meat from a factory farm. Of course, the chances still might be zero, but if non-zero, they are larger. <br /><br />So, we are now in position for the following:<br /><br />1. Assume that the only moral reason not to eat beef is for purposes of avoiding killing cows.<br />2. If Argument 1 is sound, then one cannot reduce the total number of cows killed by not eating beef.<br />3. If Argument 1 is unsound (because premise 2 is false), it is most likely to be because one can affect the number of cows killed in non-factory farms more easily than in factory farms.<br />4. Thus, if Argument 2 is sound, then either:<br />5a. It is impossible to affect the number of cows killed by not eating beef, and thus there is no moral argument (recall premise 1) for a single person to refrain from eating beef; or<br />5b. One can only affect the number of cows killed by refraining from eating non-factory farmed beef, and thus if one wishes to lower the number of cows killed, one has a prima facie duty to eat only factory farmed beef; or<br />5c. One can affect the number of cows killed by refraining from eating beef in all cases, though one's influence will be greater in the case of non-factory farmed beef. However, while other interests (such as the prevention of factory farming specifically) may override, one still has a prima facie duty to eat meat from factory farms.<br /><br />If I am correct about premises 2 and 3, I think it most likely that either 5a or 5b is the case. But of course, we have something of an epistemological problem; we may be unsure of which actually <span style="font-style: italic;">is </span>the case. If, however, we can rule out 5c (which I suspect we can, though I fully admit I don't have the numbers to back me up), then in the case where we are unsure whether 5a or 5b obtains, we ought to prefer eating factory farmed beef, since we will either be choosing one of two equally permissible options or will avoid killing non-suffering cows. <br /><br />Even if 5c is still an option, however, we still have some reason to prefer eating the factory farmed beef, though I suspect many will argue that even the epistemic possibility that we are negatively affecting the factory farming industry overrides these other considerations. In that case, Herman, you may continue to ease your guilt with Chipotle.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-65878719112589262852008-07-12T15:08:00.001-04:002008-07-12T15:09:39.611-04:00Ownership, Guardianship, StewardshipI'm busy working on a paper. I'm trying to make sense of what Kant and Locke said in the context of self-ownership. But it isn't just of historical interest, I'm pretty sure that what I have to say about Kant and Locke can easily be transferred to what current self-ownership theorists have to say.<br /><br />Kant says something like: "We are masters over ourselves, but we are not owners of ourselves." He then offers what might be seen as two arguments against self-ownership: The first is the problem of self-reflexivity (how can the proprietor and property be the same thing?), while the second is the problem of viewing persons as things (we can own things, but persons are not things). In addition, Kant tells us that we are to act in a way that is consistent with the humanity-in-ourselves, and he thinks this means a prohibition on suicide, masturbation, and a bunch of other things.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Locke insists that we own ourselves, that God also owns us, and that we have legitimate authority over our children to tell them what to do, and so on. Locke insists that there are restrictions on what we can do with ourselves, something that we are told we own. We can't committ suicide, or harm ourselves, and this is explained, at least in part, by appeal to the fact that God ultimately owns us, and that he commands us to preserve ourselves and others.<br /><br />There are ways to work with the concept of ownership and these views. There are ways to reconcile everything that Locke says, and everything that Kant says. But all of the ways are clunky, and require adjustments to the concept of ownership. I think I have a better idea. I think we have access to concepts that make making sense of Locke, Kant, and the special case of children easier. Those concepts are guardianship and stewardship. I think Kant's view is best expressed as a self-stewardship view, while Locke's view is best viewed as a self-guardianship view. Children, meanwhile, don't count as things to be owned, but as wards to be guarded.<br /><br />To be an owner over something, call it x, is to have most of the sticks in the bundle of rights that make up the concept property. This is A.M. Honore's view. There are 12 "sticks" ("incidents" more formally) in the bundle: I have a right to use, transfer, derive income, and so on, things that I own.<br /><br />For Honore, there are no "essential" rights in order to be able to say that we "own" something. Others disagree. These people say that alienability (right to sell or transfer), and disposability (right to destroy) are fundamental features of ownership. They say that we are not really owners of x unless we can sell x or smash/destroy x. I have similar linguistic intuitions with these other theorists. I really think that it makes no sense to talk of "owning" something unless I can really sell it or destroy it.<br /><br />If these others and I are right, then not being permitted to sell ourselves into slavery, or not being permitted to harm ourselves or commit suicide, are inconsistent with the principle of self-ownership, strictly understood. At least some self-ownership theorists agree, and bite a big bullet. They say we can sell ourselves into slavery (no one really thinks permitting suicide or harm to ourselves is a devastating objection to self-ownership anymore).<br /><br />Turning to the distinction I want to introduce: We can distinguish ownership, stewardship, and guardianship in the following way.<br /><br />To be an owner is to have legitimate authority over what is to be done with something that we own. To be an owner is to choose the sake that will be targeted when it comes to things we own. For example, we can smash our telephone, or use it to make a phone call, or do whatever we like with it, even on a whim. There is no special moral obligation that we have to heed with respect to what we own (we only have to heed general moral obligations that are moot about specific things--like, we can't hurt others, even when what we use to hurt others is something we own).<br /><br />To be a guardian over something is to have legitimate authority over the thing guarded on the condition that we be guided by the sake of our ward. We are under a moral obligation to always regard what is best for our ward when we deal with our ward. For example, we are morally required to do what is best for our children.<br /><br />Meanwhile, to be a steward is to have legitimate authority over a thing on the condition that we heed the sakes of third parties when we are making decisions with respect to the thing we are a steward over. We are under a moral obligation to heed those sakes. For example, we can be a steward over a forest for the sake of future generations, and we are under a moral obligation to preserve the forest for the sake of those future generations. Or, we might be a trustee (I think this is just a special case of stewardship) over a trust fund for someone's children. And so on.<br /><br />If we have to heed the sake of the humanity-in-us, as Kant says, when we do things with ourselves, then it might be better to view ourselves as self-guardians (or self-stewards, I'm not clear). It is not difficult to see how someone can be a master over x, while not an owner, when we think of what we mean by the concept of guardianship. A guardian is a master, but his or her having this legitimate authority is conditioned by a moral obligation to heed the sake of the ward (in this case, the humanity-in-us). We do not own ourselves, strictly speaking.<br /><br />For Locke, we have been given legitimate authority over ourselves by God, but only on the condition that we act in accordance with what God wants for his property, us. We are self-stewards. Both masters over ourselves, and under a moral obligation to heed God's sake when we do things with what we are stewards over, ourselves. We do not own ourselves, strictly speaking.<br /><br />The same might be said of children (and the elderly suffering from neuro-degenerative diseases). We are not owners of our children, but guardians over them. We are required to heed their sake when we have dealings with them.<br /><br />I think this makes better sense of Kant and Locke than other attempts. I think guardianship and stewardship are good concepts to use in some cases in place of ownership. We can now begin to wonder about when it is fitting to view ourselves as stewards or guardians, rather than owners, when it comes to some special categories of things. Like our pets, our children, and certain cultural artefacts (like Rembrandt paintings and so on).P. M. Jaworskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06786126111454336767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-29287708224746566912008-06-19T15:43:00.003-04:002008-06-19T16:29:08.412-04:00Singer's Child in the Pond: Variations on a ThemeSo because I like testing-out paper ideas here...<br /><br />I'm tinkering around with some variations on Singer's Child in the Pond case, trying to figure out the extents/limits of the obligations we can get (if we think we can get any) out of examples such as these. Specifically, I'm trying to get at just how much we can be obligated to do. So here are the cases I'm playing with.<br /><br />Case 1:<br />There's a man drowning in the pond (I'm jettisoning the children bit... too many knowledge/responsibility problems). I'm on the shore, too far away to swim to get him. But there is a vending-machine-type thing next to me that offers two possible rescue-options for people who are drowning in the pond.<br /><br />(a) For $100 I can have a little device teleported into the drowning man's hand (maybe he's not drowning per-se, but he's clutching to a piece of driftwood and will be drowning shortly). The device has a button on it that, if pressed, will teleport him safely to the shore.<br /><br />(b) For $500 I can activate a giant crane that will reach out and scoop the man out of the water and carry him to safety. <br /><br />I have only $500 with me. We can presume I am obligated to do one of these. But am I obligated to do (b) instead of (a)? Or have I discharged my obligation if I pursue (a) instead of (b)?<br /><br />Case 2: <br />The same as Case 1 except now I have $600 with me. I opt to send the teleportation-button out to the man and he refuses to push it. He knows it will save him, at no cost or other adverse consequence to him. He just refuses to make the minimal effort required. Am I now obligated to send out the $500 crane? <br /><br />Case 3:<br />Identical to Case 1 again (where I have only $500), but instead of a teleportation-button, the $100 sends out a rope that the man can use to pull himself to shore. (Here presume the man physically capable and that I know this.) Have I discharged my obligation if I send out the rope instead of the crane?<br /><br />Case 4:<br />Like Case 3 except I have $600 available. I send out the rope and the man refuses to pull himself to shore. Must I now send out the $500 crane?<br /><br />What if, in all the above cases, I know that the man is remarkably lazy and will quite likely be unwilling to push the button/pull himself to shore? What If I'm certain that he'll be unwilling? In cases 1 and 3 where I can only use one of the methods, must I then opt for the more expensive crane-rescue? In cases 2 and 4 when this comes true, does my foreknowledge change what I'm obligated to do once my expectations are indeed met?<br /><br />Thanks for all responses in advance...<br />CorwinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-8489951632359300852008-06-02T19:39:00.003-04:002008-06-04T10:47:40.309-04:00Best Philosophical WritersSo in an effort to be a better writer I'm interested a list of those you consider the best philosophical writers. William Zinser, acclaimed book editor, says that there are several writers he will always read no matter the subject matter they write about. The idea is to identify those philosophers that you think are the model of philosophical writing--whether or not you agree with their position. It might be good to include a favorite article or chapter of theirs. But most important (at least for me) is why they deserve to be on the list. What is it about their writing that makes it exceptional? I'm still working on my list but at the risk of being too hasty, I'll list a few that I've concluded are philosophers that I will try to read anytime I see one of their articles even if the subject is out of my field of inquiry. My list is probably influenced by my personal writing vices. These people are who I am trying to emulate<br /><br />In no particular order:<br /><br /><em>Christopher Shields </em>(I tend to overcomplicate my writing. Shields to me is the paragon of simple direct claims, reasons, and conclusions. He even announces his claims by saying "claim"! His new summary of Aristotle is both philosphically astute and critical but upper level undergraduates could use it. <br /><br /><br /><em>Etinne Gilson </em>(A thomist who is clear, concise, and doesn't have an ax to grind with analytic philosophy. He is a model of the principle of charity without being soft on his opponents.) The Unity of Philosophical Experience is his best work. Although from Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again is good as well. <br /><br /><em>Ken Greenawalt </em>A philosopher who writes like a lawyer and a lawyer who thinks like a philosopher. As a lawyer he doesn't fill his law review articles with thousands of cases but rather can summarize complicated concepts into a few short paragraphs with clarity. Above all his prose is interesting. ) Check out his Speech, Crime, and the Uses of Language. <br /><br /><em>Harry Frankfurt</em> I can't put my finger on it yet, but the importance of what we care about reads so nicely. <br /><br />That's all for now. More as I think through this. Look forward to your own listUnknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-85732890026948607532008-04-09T08:54:00.005-04:002008-04-09T09:29:29.228-04:00Torture and Walzer's Sliding ScaleSo here's a thought that occurred to me recently. Chapter sixteen of Michael Walzer's excellent <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Just-Unjust-Wars-Historical-Illustrations/dp/0465037070/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207745718&sr=8-1">Just and Unjust Wars</a> offers the argument that violations of just conduct in war (<em>jus in bello</em>) have been justified in some historical circumstances where the moral emergency of losing was sufficiently great.<br /><br />His first example of this is the bombing of Dresden. In this case, because the threat of Nazism's victory constituted a supreme moral catastrophe, and because the British seemed genuinely in danger of losing the war at that moment, the British bomber command was justified in destroying Dresden in spite of the fact that the attack's intent was to terrorize the civilian population and restore British war morale. Walzer suggests that this justification is not absolute, but that there is a "sliding scale" that can justify normally prohibited actions (bombing civilians) when the moral emergency represented by losing the war is sufficiently high.<br /><br />Walzer's contrast case is Hiroshima. At that point in the war, Japan's navy was essentially non-existent and her ground forces had been beaten back to their home islands. Walzer argues that dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima was not justified in the way that bombing Dresden was because America was in no danger of losing the war at that moment. (I realize that there are lots of reasons why we dropped atomic weapons on Hiroshima, and I think the most compelling ones are utilitarian arguments based on casualties to the Japanese had we invaded their mainland. However, I wish to bracket these other reasons, and for the purposes of this essay assume that civilian non-combatant immunity is sufficient to overrule them.) Walzer claims that we owed the Japanese an experiment in diplomacy given our position in the war in 1945, and that dropping the bomb was not the right thing to do.<br /><br />Now we come to an interesting question. Suppose that Walzer's right. If the test case is not bombing civilians in wartime, but torturing terrorists who know the location of a weapon of mass destruction, can Walzer's sliding scale be used to justify such actions? Both are thought to be violations of <em>jus in bello</em>, and I can imagine cases in which there might be imminent threat and supreme moral emergency. Suppose that we knew there was a nuclear device disguised as a vending machine somewhere in Washington D.C., and that we had a man in custody who knew its location. If the weapon goes off, then all at once we lose the White House, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institute, effectively decapitating our country. (This is not an exhaustive list of what would be lost, and we might have the upside of losing a few special interest lobbies, but let this case stand as a sufficient example of moral emergency.) In this case, can we make the claim from this Walzerian argument that torturing the prisoner is <em>morally</em> justified?<br /><br />I can think of at least two objections. The first is that this is a veiled utilitarian argument, and so just losing the lives of a few people would be enough for Walzer's argument, but not enough for our intuitions about torture. Against this charge, I suggest that the aggregate value of life is problematic to policy-making mainly because to the extent that it's an absolute value, it can stall any policy making that has that value on each side of the equation, and simply aggregating that value can justify policies of majority tyranny that we historically reject. In other words, one need not be utilitarian to take the view that it may be the right thing to do to perform a little evil to prevent a lot of evil.<br /><br />The second objection is that we might reject the reasoning in the last objection and take a strong Kantian line: we say that the value of life is absolute, and that moral responsibility for the chaos that ensues following the destruction of our government in the above example attaches exclusively to those who perpetrated the act. We should not engage in further wrongdoing. Against this objection I suggest that the objection seems less intuitively plausible the greater the degree of moral emergency one stacks on the other side. One's imagination can run wild here, but I won't turn this post into a Stephen King story; I simply reject the intuition <em>as an intuition</em> when the moral stakes are high enough.<br /><br />So what say you all? Shall we torture to prevent moral catastrophe?Ben Dyerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17211445387058812404noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-46445051960985537292008-03-09T14:58:00.001-04:002008-03-09T14:58:45.550-04:00It has been silent here...so what have you all been observing? Let's liven things up!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-78065820796975243132007-12-31T14:28:00.000-05:002007-12-31T14:46:49.183-05:00Reasons and JustificationI'm working on a paper and would like some input on an argument I'm putting together.<br /><br />The thought is basically this:<br />If reasons (for action) are supposed to be the kinds of things that can/do justify actions, and we adopt an instrumental model of reasons that grounds all of our reasons in our desires/interests/ends/what-have-you, then do we need to craft an argument for why our desires/interests/ends/what-have-you are themselves justified? I'm working from an analogy from epistemology. If we take a foundationalist approach to knowledge, then the "foundation" needs itself to be justified in order to confer justification on anything built upon it. The concept of "the given" (or variations thereof) is usually invoked to this end. If we're going to preserve the justificatory force (assuming we want to - I'm just assuming this for the moment) of our reasons for action, then, do we need to make a similar case for the justification of our desires if we're going to preserve the thought that instrumental reasons are justifying reasons? <br /><br />Here's a nice 'diagram' of the question:<br /><br />Simplified Model of Instrumental Reasons:<br />Desires (taken as basic) for X -----> Instrumental reasoning says Y is a good/efficient/whatever way to achieve X ----> Reason for agent to Y<br /><br />Simplified Model of Foundationalism:<br />"The given" (whatever it is) -----> "Good" reasoning says "the given" entails a particular proposition P ----> Reason for agent to believe P.<br /><br />The typical problem for foundationalist epistemology is that "the given" stands itself in need of justification, or stands in need of an argument saying why "the given" (whatever it is) is justified if its really going to give justifying reasons for the agent to believe P. What I'm wondering is whether or not we need a similar argument in the case of instrumental reasons is even needed (whether or not we think such an argument is possible - I happen to think it might not be, but thats not the issue at hand) if we're going to consider reasons for action as being justifying reasons. In the end my worry is this: if we do need such an argument to preserve the justificatory force of reasons for action, AND if one cannot be given - say, for instance, that desires are just not the kinds of things that can be justified or unjustified, or are not the kinds of things that can be apt or inapt - then are we just left in the position of being unable to say that our actions are ever justified/unjustified at all? Just as with the epistemological problem, if the "foundation" is not justified (whether that is taken to mean unjustified or just a-justified), then is the Reason at the end also not possessed of any justificatory force too? <br /><br />Thanks for your help!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-79959730451503332152007-12-25T11:16:00.000-05:002007-12-25T11:17:34.000-05:00A Serious Ethical Dilemma that Needs Everyone's Attention IMMEDIATELYJust kidding, Merry Christmas, everyone.David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-36959924687085920262007-12-14T17:03:00.000-05:002007-12-14T17:09:24.514-05:00Andrew Napolitano InterviewHere is the excerpted interview we did with Andrew Napolitano.<br /><br /><center><br /><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.podiobooks.com/player/player.swf" width="290" height="24" id="audioplayer4011"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://www.podiobooks.com/player/player.swf" /><br /><param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=4011&bg=0xF8F8F8&leftbg=0xEEEEEE&text=0x666666&lefticon=0x666666&rightbg=0xCCCCCC&rightbghover=0x999999&righticon=0x666666&righticonhover=0xFFFFFF&slider=0x666666&track=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x9FFFB8&border=0x666666&soundFile=http://www.bgpoliticalanimals.com/podcast/016_12-12_Andrew_Napolitano_Interview.mp3" /><br /><param name="quality" value="high" /><br /><param name="menu" value="false" /><br /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /></object></center><br /><br />Visit <a href="http://www.bgpoliticalanimals.com">our website</a> for more. Or check out our <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=269663875">ITunes feed</a>. (And subscribe!)P. M. Jaworskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06786126111454336767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-89820477876105777692007-12-09T01:29:00.000-05:002007-12-09T15:07:50.273-05:00the distinction between ethics and aestheticsI'm writing a paper on attempts to make the distinction between ethical judgments and aesthetics judgments and would be interested to hear why people think there is a distinction and how they make that distinction.<br /><br />Though this might sound simple its actually a lot harder than you might think.<br /><br />edited to say I should have said ethical JUDGMENTS and moral JUDGMENTS not just ethics v artUnknownnoreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-21020054166180869232007-12-01T16:52:00.001-05:002007-12-03T00:50:25.238-05:00AbortionAs most of you know, Miles, Terrence, and I do a <a href="http://www.bgpoliticalanimals.com">weekly radio show on 88.1 FM</a>. We talk politics, and often veer into more philosophical subjects. For instance, last week we chatted about abortion for a while. David (Faraci) called in and carried the conversation further, and Brandon tried to join in but we ran out of time. I think we will be talking abortion next week, so be sure to listen in and call in for that.<br /><br />Here's the podcast. The abortion chat doesn't happen until about halfway through Hour 2.<br /><center><br /><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.podiobooks.com/player/player.swf" width="290" height="24" id="audioplayer4011"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://www.podiobooks.com/player/player.swf" /><br /><param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=4011&bg=0xF8F8F8&leftbg=0xEEEEEE&text=0x666666&lefticon=0x666666&rightbg=0xCCCCCC&rightbghover=0x999999&righticon=0x666666&righticonhover=0xFFFFFF&slider=0x666666&track=0xFFFFFF&loader=0x9FFFB8&border=0x666666&soundFile=http://www.bgpoliticalanimals.com/podcast/014%2011-28%20William%20Cohen%20(former%20Sec..mp3" /><br /><param name="quality" value="high" /><br /><param name="menu" value="false" /><br /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /></object></center>P. M. Jaworskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06786126111454336767noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-16401558661263376482007-11-24T10:29:00.000-05:002007-11-24T11:17:42.045-05:00Sensible Torture PolicyFor years I've been baffled by the huge mess the Bush administration has made of "the torture issue."<br /><br />I'm going to lay out a policy for torture (surprise - it's utilitarian) that I think a) any president's administration should hold, and b) any president's administration should keep SECRET. As I'll argue, (b) is essential, and without it, one shouldn't pursue (a).<br /><br />This is a pretty simple idea I'm recommending. Let's start by imagining a classic "ticking time bomb" scenario, where thousands of lives hang in the balance, and we're confident that a single person knows where the bomb is. If the question is whether to torture one person to save 3,000 lives (where other options have been exhausted) I think the obvious answer is that torture is morally permissible. Only the strictest of Kantians ought to object to this, I think. Most objections will be along epistemological lines, I think. That is, how can I be <span style="font-style: italic;">sure</span> that I've got the right guy and that this will save people's lives, etc. Well, put these questions aside for the moment. Imagine that we are confident about the cost-benefit analysis. <br /><br />So part (a) is just asserting that torture is permissible in cases where we're justified in thinking that torturing someone can directly result in the saving of many lives. This is, I think, exactly what Bush takes to be his mandate. But look at all the trouble this has caused! Not just hot water for the administration, but this news about Bush torture policy has made America objectively less safe. Obviously torture is offensive to people. It ought to be offensive! When people in middle eastern countries who already suspect us of ill deeds see something like guantanamo, they get even angrier at us. If a torture policy results in creating even more terrorists, it's a bad policy.<br /><br />This is why (b) needs to be integral to the policy. If I'm in charge, I want the freedom to torture people in circumstances where lives can be saved, but I don't want anyone to know about it. So here's how it should work: The president as well as several levels below him need to have plausible deniability. The policy needs to be that if someone finds out about the torture, only the torturer and perhaps his/her direct superior take the heat. After all, if many lives are at stake, sacrifice may be required of not just the tortured but the torturer too. If I'm some jail guard and I can save 3,000 lives by waterboarding (of COURSE waterboarding is torture) my prisoner, HIS sacrifice is called for, and MINE (in the form of firing, or prosecution) may also be called for (but only if it gets out). If it's worth torturing someone it's obviously worth losing my job over. It seems like this tactic (of blaming it on the guards) was tried at Abu Ghraib with modest success, but the problem there was that they weren't strictly obeying (a). They were torturing with no promise of lives saved.<br /><br />This kind of secrecy condition is what Bush has been lacking. Why the hell won't he and his attorney general(s) just come out and say that torture (including waterboarding, etc) is utterly impermissible?? They're obviously not allergic to lying, so what's the deal? I think they may be inept utilitarians.<br /><br />I know this sounds awful, and I probably just ruined by chances of getting elected to public office, but unless you're a "respect for persons though the sky may fall" nut, where have I gone wrong? <br /><br />One place to object might be that Bush isn't the kind of person to be trusted with this power. He's a power-hungry, slightly delusional, child, and yes, this makes me nervous too. But I actually think that my torture doctrine, if followed well, would be self regulating. Bush HAS abused his power, and he's taken heat for it. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are an absolute disgrace not because they torture people there, but because they're not discriminating enough about WHO they torture. %80 of the prisoners (perhaps even more) have been released from Guantanamo without charges, which means that basically they had the wrong guys. By being careless with who we torture we've lessened our ability to successfully get information out of the right guys. And obviously we've made everyone mad at us (the U.S.).<br /><br />So my torture policy would be rarely used. As I say, one needs to be very confident in both the veracity of the info and the payoff (lives saved). Torturing people willy-nilly as Bush has done is self-defeating. This hopefully makes me seem less of a monster. It allows me to forcefully disapprove of both Guantananmo Bay and Abu Ghraib. No one should be humiliated and tortured for no reason. Such evils are only permitted in the rarest of circumstances.<br /><br />Any thoughts?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-10820157860558464852007-11-14T20:28:00.000-05:002008-12-10T08:03:09.677-05:00Episode 121<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://personal.bgsu.edu/%7Efaracid/MD.html"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigHsYWlJsIwiNVNPeL-zTkaVP5K3StpcWn6HWY1aDrwux40JpuddsIE_hTB3UiaFTtx0vb4PQRHVWD3kQT_T4MvQOsHTMzD39P80J7aeH6pGu6wo_c5dFv8YdquGExIoOHEH6v/s400/MD121.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132873204572613586" border="0" /></a>David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-19406326275448597282007-11-12T14:02:00.000-05:002007-11-12T14:59:32.613-05:00One Laptop per ChildBecause I know one of the power players in the OLPC organization (I this for the sake of full disclosure) I've been following their effort to design and manufacture a $100 laptop to be made available to the world's poor children. <br /><br />It seems to me that this has the potential to be a world-changing force for good, but in discussing it with peers I've encountered almost universal skepticism, disdain, and eye-rolling. Since they've rolled out a <a href="http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php">give one - get one</a> program I thought this was a good time and place to mount a philosophical defense of the effort.<br /><br />Here are some objections I've heard:<br />-poor children don't need laptops, they need food and shelter.<br />-"handouts" are almost universally under-appreciated and squandered.<br />-the laptops replace schoolbooks in government spending, but are more easily broken or lost (or stolen) than books.<br /><br />The second two are economic and sociological concerns, so I'll quickly comment on those first, leaving the philosophical angle of the first question for last. It is true that when governments purchase these computers, they are spending money that would have otherwise gone towards text books. So it is worrisome to think of a student who loses his laptop in the first week, finding himself without school books for the next three years. Similar concerns of theft also might arise. The laptops are cute and cuddly in the hopes that they will be universally recognized as "for children," hopefully thereby preventing a robust black market from forming. Note that a given geographic location will be flooded with these things (literally one per child) so the thought is that any adult seen with one would be immediately recognized as having having gotten it illegitimately. As far as this being a "handout" program, meaning that the kids will be less apt to care for the laptop than for something that they have earned, aren't most items acquired by kids "handouts"? Perhaps there is a significant difference in the way an adult treats something they've earned versus something they've been given, but kids hardly earn anything at all! They acquire things from their parents and (in the case of books and pencils) from school, and I'd imagine they'd treat all such handouts more or less the same. If someone wanted to launch a serious objection on these grounds, however, I'm all ears.<br /><br />The more serious objections from from philosophical worries about giving aid. Conservatives may see this as another hopeless liberal plan to ignore market forces and try to raise the quality of life in the third world by giving, giving, giving (perhaps along the lines of the "handouts do no good" objection). Liberals may see this as misallocation of aid, passing over goods such as food and medicine in favor of luxuries. I think both worries are off base. <br /><br />First, the liberal worry. Some may think that our obligation is to provide what is most immediately needed by people in the third world. This will of course be food, medicine, and shelter. Money spent on laptops would be better spent on more essential goods, the thought goes. But with a nod to the conservatives, let me point out that unless efforts are made to alter the causes of the squalor, putting band-aids on the wound is doing little good. Picture a machine that makes something fragile on a conveyor belt - lightbulbs, say. The machine is left on, and the conveyor belt keeps running, lightbulbs smashing on the floor as they reach the end. You arrive at the scene and find yourself at end of the conveyor belt, so you start catching the lightbulbs and laying them delicately on the floor. You tire, however, and realize that unless someone turns the damn machine off, the bulbs will come faster than you can catch them. If you turn off the machine yourself you'll be letting X number of bulbs smash (bulbs you could have saved). Surely if you're alone you'll eventually decide to sacrifice a few bulbs and turn the machine off. Giving kids these laptops, I think, will help create a middle class in a given country in as soon as 15 years time. During those 15 years you might imagine that many lives could be saved if the money had been spent on food and medicine, but you would not have cultivated a middle class. As the saying goes, "teach a man to fish..." For this it would certainly be worth some moderate frustration and heartaches in the present day with lost and stolen laptops, and forgone spending on other opportunities.<br /><br />This helps with the conservative worry. These aren't mere handouts, these are culture-altering, economy-altering handouts. The software on these machines is quite impressive, and kids learn so fast, so imagine the world 15 years from now when kids in rural peru, afganistan, and nigeria have learned not only math and history, but computer programming and english (more advanced with the audio pronounciation tools). Imagine how sophisticated the third world will be in 15 years when every kid in country X has had instant and immediate access to the internet. In my view, this is teaching them to fish, not giving them fish. <br /><br />The laptops aren't $100 yet, but more like $200. This is just a function of production numbers, though. The more that get ordered, the lower the cost will become. This is why they're letting americans and canadians buy them for a short period of time (you spend $400 and they give you one while donating one to a poor kid). Hopefully then they'll have the production costs down.<br /><br />It's obvious that I'm somewhat idealistic about this. Perhaps it will be an utter failure despite my optimism. But I think there's enough there for people on all sides of the "giving aid" debate to be supportive of the project.<br /><br />Look here for <a href="http://olpc.tv/2007/10/05/new-york-times-david-pogue-video-review/">a favorable review<br /></a>and here for a <a href="http://olpc.tv/2007/05/21/60-minutes/">60 minutes report</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-37272235547823194502007-10-10T21:43:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:03:09.919-05:00Episode 120<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://personal.bgsu.edu/%7Efaracid/MD"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_v4ilDDFju3_yi0En-9KGeseDzZGkD9q5envDx2gWhYo1bAgLlZd7MAFS021GxB-o5sFEaNYV9jJ1w4iXVGeFpNQ_OcAB-i9IPx9I804ETm9rYbj0VqVeSYYrsjUGDzw1IDl1/s400/MD120.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119889292846109794" border="0" /></a>David Faracihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731102863010694029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19751121.post-70421383483199363662007-10-08T12:44:00.000-04:002007-10-08T13:00:47.087-04:00Intuitions about property pleaseSuppose private property is justified. Take that as a datum.<br /><br />Here is my question: What intuitions/settled judgments must a theory of property account for in order to be the right theory of property?<br /><br />Here are a few jumbled thoughts:<br /><br />1. Replaceability<br /><br />The right theory of property will recognize the difference between external, physical objects that can, and those that cannot, be replaced without moral loss.<br /><br />Consider the case of objects we possess for purely instrumental reasons. I have a screwdriver set at home. If you were to replace it with a just-as-good set of screwdrivers, I don't think there would be anything wrong with that (holding other things constant). Many things are like this. What we want is that the object serve some purpose, goal, project, or aim. If you can find a substitute that will do just as well, then we have no moral complaints with replacement.<br /><br />I also have a watch that my grandfather gave me. You couldn't replace that with an object that is just as good, since no object, other than that one, will be just as good. I don't care that it tells time, that's not what matters to me when it comes to this watch. What matters is that my grandfather gave it to me. The originality of that object matters to me. Some people claim that this is true of Picassos and the Mona Lisa, of the Wayne Gretzky rookie card, and the pen that John Hancock used to sign that piece of paper Americans go crazy about.<br /><br />2. "Scalability"<br /><br />I don't know what to call this exactly, but here is the upshot: The right theory of property should recognize that some ownership relations are more important than others. The right theory of property should be sensitive to the difference, for instance, between my first and only dollar, and your million-and-first dollar. Or, if we think that it shouldn't be sensitive to this, to the difference in moral weight between your owning your home and your owning your screwdriver. The latter matters less.<br /><br />The right theory of property will be "scalar"--it will note and explain the fact that some ownership relations matter more than others, that ownership relations come with different moral weights.<br /><br />3. Instrumental and non-instrumental<br /><br />The right theory of property will note and explain the difference between objects we own (and want) for purely instrumental reasons, objects we own (and want) for instrumental reasons and for other reasons, and objects we own (and want) for purely non-instrumental reasons.<br /><br />Replaceability might track this. Purely instrumental objects will be replaceable, while non-instrumental objects may or may not be replaceable.<br /><br />Got any other intuitions about the right theory of property?P. M. Jaworskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06786126111454336767noreply@blogger.com6