This comes from a critique of Ted Kennedy. Those who know me know I am quite wingnut in my liberalism, so it brings up points interesting to ponder.
Kennedy championed a plethora of liberal causes that are surrounded by an aura of nobility: the defense of the poor, the disabled and the sick, the rights of women and minorities. Yet many of the measures he supported are prime examples of the discrepancy between idealistic causes and unintended effects. Thus, the vast majority of economists agree that increasing the minimum wage—one of the legislative achievements with which Kennedy is credited—leads to increased unemployment among the most vulnerable portion of the labor force, pricing the least skilled workers out of the labor market. Affirmative action, which Kennedy helped uphold on the federal level, tends to result in race discrimination against working-class whites (and, in many cases, Asians as well) and often backfires against its supposed beneficiaries as well. Some of Kennedy's other noble causes have been largely symbolic: thus, the Violence Against Women Act and hate crimes legislation create federal penalties for offenses that are already criminally prosecuted by the states. More...
Monday, August 31, 2009
Short Sandel interview
There's not much here, although the book, Justice, is obviously intriguing to those of the LD persuasion. I like his take on writing so that people can understand him. Case writers take note!
Your book is completely free of cant, but still rigorous. What do you think accounts for some philosophers' dependence on jargon and impenetrable language?
I don't think philosophy should be seen as a medicine that is good for you but hard to choke down. My goal was to bring out the excitement of moral and political philosophy—to make it accessible and inviting without cheating the ideas. Some branches of philosophy are technical and remote from everyday experiences. But political philosophy is about how we think and act as citizens. It needs to reach beyond the academy and connect with the experience of ordinary citizens. More...
Your book is completely free of cant, but still rigorous. What do you think accounts for some philosophers' dependence on jargon and impenetrable language?
I don't think philosophy should be seen as a medicine that is good for you but hard to choke down. My goal was to bring out the excitement of moral and political philosophy—to make it accessible and inviting without cheating the ideas. Some branches of philosophy are technical and remote from everyday experiences. But political philosophy is about how we think and act as citizens. It needs to reach beyond the academy and connect with the experience of ordinary citizens. More...
Friday, August 28, 2009
Realism
Catch some good material on Realism over at foreignpolicy.com.
Americans agree that foreign-policy goals should be achievable -- that the United States should match its ends with its means. What sensible person could argue with that? That is simply pragmatism. But "realism" as a doctrine (I'll spare you the quote marks henceforth) goes much further: In the words of one leading realist, the principal purpose of U.S. foreign policy should be "to manage relations between states" rather than "alter the nature of states." More...
And followup articles here.
Americans agree that foreign-policy goals should be achievable -- that the United States should match its ends with its means. What sensible person could argue with that? That is simply pragmatism. But "realism" as a doctrine (I'll spare you the quote marks henceforth) goes much further: In the words of one leading realist, the principal purpose of U.S. foreign policy should be "to manage relations between states" rather than "alter the nature of states." More...
And followup articles here.
Thomas Paine
Paine is one of the wackiest of the figures in early American history. If you're not up on him, here's your chance.
Depending on whom you ask, he was either an uncompromising free-thinker who made possible the popular embrace of the Declaration of Independence, or "a filthy little atheist," as Teddy Roosevelt once described him. More...
Depending on whom you ask, he was either an uncompromising free-thinker who made possible the popular embrace of the Declaration of Independence, or "a filthy little atheist," as Teddy Roosevelt once described him. More...
Gay adoption
Florida has a great history (not) on civil rights. I love this one, about why gays can't adopt.
Yesterday the state tried to convince an appeals court that Lederman erred, arguing that the ban is justified by higher rates of breakups, psychiatric problems, and domestic violence among gay couples. Lawyers for Martin Gill, a gay man who is seeking to adopt two foster children he has been raising for five years, disputed the statistics and argued that, in any event, "group generalization makes no sense," since the government can, should, and does evaluate would-be adoptive parents as individuals. More...
Yesterday the state tried to convince an appeals court that Lederman erred, arguing that the ban is justified by higher rates of breakups, psychiatric problems, and domestic violence among gay couples. Lawyers for Martin Gill, a gay man who is seeking to adopt two foster children he has been raising for five years, disputed the statistics and argued that, in any event, "group generalization makes no sense," since the government can, should, and does evaluate would-be adoptive parents as individuals. More...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Foreskins
It's always something. The CDC has come out with the idea that we should require circumcisions. In response, certain folks have gone ballistic.
From The Daily Dish: The procedure is only "controversial" because people have emotional, psychological and religious reactions to it. Scientifically speaking, it's not remotely controversial. The anti-circumcision sites always refer to the American Academy of Pediatrics' 1999 policy statement on circumcision, which declined to recommend the procedure. But that statement was issued before the most compelling studies emerged about the role circumcision plays in reducing the risk for transmission of HIV and other STD's. More...
From The Daily Dish: The procedure is only "controversial" because people have emotional, psychological and religious reactions to it. Scientifically speaking, it's not remotely controversial. The anti-circumcision sites always refer to the American Academy of Pediatrics' 1999 policy statement on circumcision, which declined to recommend the procedure. But that statement was issued before the most compelling studies emerged about the role circumcision plays in reducing the risk for transmission of HIV and other STD's. More...
Hollywood images lead to thumbs-up for torture?
Interesting thought: Hollywood portrays torture positively, so people condone it in real life.
For example: Harrison Ford in the Tom Clancy movies would never torture wholly innocent and underserving victims for the same reasons he wouldn't beat his kids or hurl racial epithets at black people. But given sufficient time to lay out the context and inform the viewers of the stakes, as well as Ford's motives, the audience not only understands but applauds his actions. More...
For example: Harrison Ford in the Tom Clancy movies would never torture wholly innocent and underserving victims for the same reasons he wouldn't beat his kids or hurl racial epithets at black people. But given sufficient time to lay out the context and inform the viewers of the stakes, as well as Ford's motives, the audience not only understands but applauds his actions. More...
Monday, August 24, 2009
Required reading on Women's Rights
This week's Sunday Times Magazine finally had something important in it aside from the puzzles: Why Women's Rights are the Cause of Our Time (via).
Child poverty
Another Human Rights Map, Child Poverty in the US. The facts here are stupefyingly depressing. The Federal Poverty Level is $20M a year? Makes one feel decidedly rich by comparison.
Men are genetically predisposed to do math
And, of course, women are not.
Needless to say, we find this hard to believe. The data also find it hard.
A surprisingly large number of people are willing to uncritically accept the idea that boys outperform girls at the top end in maths performance, and that this is genetically determined (despite problems for it that we’ve noted before). Rob has pointed us to this very interesting article about cross-cultural variation. One fascinating thing is that some of the best countries for girls’ performance are Islamic ones. More...
Needless to say, we find this hard to believe. The data also find it hard.
A surprisingly large number of people are willing to uncritically accept the idea that boys outperform girls at the top end in maths performance, and that this is genetically determined (despite problems for it that we’ve noted before). Rob has pointed us to this very interesting article about cross-cultural variation. One fascinating thing is that some of the best countries for girls’ performance are Islamic ones. More...
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The woman (?) runner
As Conor Clarke says, all they have to do is look. (Actually, Irving Berlin said that, but Clarke says roughly the same thing.) But what do genetics say about equality?
But there is one general point to make about this kind of story, and I think it's an important one. If it turns out that the young woman has a muddily advantageous genetic composition, we would all consider it "unfair" to the other young women against whom she competes. After all, the outcome of a competition like running is supposed to be determined by training and grit, not the utterly arbitrarily presence of an extra gene.
And yet that intuition is impossible to extend. More...
But there is one general point to make about this kind of story, and I think it's an important one. If it turns out that the young woman has a muddily advantageous genetic composition, we would all consider it "unfair" to the other young women against whom she competes. After all, the outcome of a competition like running is supposed to be determined by training and grit, not the utterly arbitrarily presence of an extra gene.
And yet that intuition is impossible to extend. More...
Sad education fact
A chart pointed at no particular problem for debaters except the loss to humanity in general when people are not educated.
Although there has been some progress in the proportions of children of primary school age actually receiving and completing primary education, some 101 million children worldwide are still denied this right. Not surprisingly, most of these children live in developing countries. More...
Although there has been some progress in the proportions of children of primary school age actually receiving and completing primary education, some 101 million children worldwide are still denied this right. Not surprisingly, most of these children live in developing countries. More...
Hobbes and language
Maybe the social contract is an agreement to define words the same way?
Birds do it, bees do it. Why can’t humans live together peacefully outside a coercive political order? Thomas Hobbes offers as one part of the explanation, that such creatures “want that art of words by which some men can represent to others that which is good in the likeness of evill; and evill in the likeness of good… discontenting men, and troubling their peace at their pleasure.” (L 17) Indeed, the human art of words opens a Pandora’s box of sources of conflict—conflict over what is “yours” or “mine”, “right or wrong”, “reasonable” or “unreasonable”, “orthodox” or “heretical”—as passion-tinged and indexical uses of terms make for a babel that ensures not just a failure to communicate, but a war of all against all. More...
Birds do it, bees do it. Why can’t humans live together peacefully outside a coercive political order? Thomas Hobbes offers as one part of the explanation, that such creatures “want that art of words by which some men can represent to others that which is good in the likeness of evill; and evill in the likeness of good… discontenting men, and troubling their peace at their pleasure.” (L 17) Indeed, the human art of words opens a Pandora’s box of sources of conflict—conflict over what is “yours” or “mine”, “right or wrong”, “reasonable” or “unreasonable”, “orthodox” or “heretical”—as passion-tinged and indexical uses of terms make for a babel that ensures not just a failure to communicate, but a war of all against all. More...
Friday, August 21, 2009
Immigrant narrative from Slate
Another piece for our PF brethren. It's mostly just narrative value, but I worry that we might argue immigration from just the point of view of the place they immigrated to, and not who they are themselves.
Moving migrants across the border and into the United States has become so profitable that even Mexico's narcotraffickers have become involved. Drivers use a single twisting dirt road, rutted with pot holes, to bring their human cargo the 60 miles from Altar to the border town of Sasabe. The road, referred to by local media as the "route of death," is controlled by local narcotraffickers.
According to Enriquez, the cartels have consolidated their control over the area in the last three years. They levy a tax of roughly 50-150 pesos (about $4-$12) on every migrant shipped north; those from countries other than Mexico pay more. Grupos Beta estimates that as many as 500,000 migrants are moved through Altar on the way to the United States during the busiest years. This "tax" represents an incredible source of extra income. Once the migrants reach Sasabe, they set out for various points east and west, obscure desert outposts where the U.S. Border Patrol has a light presence. They wait for the sun to set and begin their march into the United States with the arrival of a cool night breeze. More...
Moving migrants across the border and into the United States has become so profitable that even Mexico's narcotraffickers have become involved. Drivers use a single twisting dirt road, rutted with pot holes, to bring their human cargo the 60 miles from Altar to the border town of Sasabe. The road, referred to by local media as the "route of death," is controlled by local narcotraffickers.
According to Enriquez, the cartels have consolidated their control over the area in the last three years. They levy a tax of roughly 50-150 pesos (about $4-$12) on every migrant shipped north; those from countries other than Mexico pay more. Grupos Beta estimates that as many as 500,000 migrants are moved through Altar on the way to the United States during the busiest years. This "tax" represents an incredible source of extra income. Once the migrants reach Sasabe, they set out for various points east and west, obscure desert outposts where the U.S. Border Patrol has a light presence. They wait for the sun to set and begin their march into the United States with the arrival of a cool night breeze. More...
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Deep background on judicial power
This article talks about where the courts ought not to go, especially into areas of foreign policy, about which they may be ill-informed. It's worth a look.
The present expansion of judicial power began after World War II, when the Supreme Court found a new meteor in the vindication of individual rights and liberties. In a series of epic decisions, the Warren Court outlawed segregation, expanded free speech and the rights of criminal defendants, and created a right to privacy that is not found in the text of the Constitution. Some of these cases certainly were correctly decided—the Constitution's text, for example, never supported a rule of "separate but equal" segregation. However, the courts quickly moved beyond saying what the law is, in the Marbury court's phrase, to devising elaborate enforcement schemes that brought judges, among other things, into the business of supervising school districts and effectively determining how federal and state prisons must be designed. More...
The present expansion of judicial power began after World War II, when the Supreme Court found a new meteor in the vindication of individual rights and liberties. In a series of epic decisions, the Warren Court outlawed segregation, expanded free speech and the rights of criminal defendants, and created a right to privacy that is not found in the text of the Constitution. Some of these cases certainly were correctly decided—the Constitution's text, for example, never supported a rule of "separate but equal" segregation. However, the courts quickly moved beyond saying what the law is, in the Marbury court's phrase, to devising elaborate enforcement schemes that brought judges, among other things, into the business of supervising school districts and effectively determining how federal and state prisons must be designed. More...
Freud
I like to think of myself as one of the first post-Freudians, but that's neither here nor there. In our world view, we see Freud as, well, wrong, but his influence has been enormous. Also, it's clear from learning about him how assigning constructs to difficult realities helps us understand those realities better even if the constructs are wrong. If you're interested in the Weiner schnitzel, check out this lecture on YouTube.
The culpability of autonomous machines
Yeah, it's golden age science fiction stuff, but it's now real enough to engage the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Automation can create hazards as well as removing them. How reliable does a robot have to be before we trust it to do a human's job? What happens when something goes wrong? Can a machine be held responsible for its actions? More...
Automation can create hazards as well as removing them. How reliable does a robot have to be before we trust it to do a human's job? What happens when something goes wrong? Can a machine be held responsible for its actions? More...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Scalia says: Execute the innocent
Well, he sort of says that. This Conor Clarke post dives into the middle of the discussion, but it's interesting. There's back links in the post to the original materials.
Procedural rights normally aren't things that stand or fall depending solely on the outcomes they generate. More...
Procedural rights normally aren't things that stand or fall depending solely on the outcomes they generate. More...
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
For those on the PF trail this September
Benefit to legalizing undocumented workers:
A new study from the libertarian CATO Institute concludes that legalizing the more than eight million undocumented workers in the United States would have significant economic benefits for the country, while simply enhancing border enforcement and applying restrictive immigration laws would actually hurt the U.S. economically. More...
A new study from the libertarian CATO Institute concludes that legalizing the more than eight million undocumented workers in the United States would have significant economic benefits for the country, while simply enhancing border enforcement and applying restrictive immigration laws would actually hurt the U.S. economically. More...
What snacks do they serve at dogfights, anyhow? Do we want to know?
Peter Singer, commenting on the signing of Micheal Vick, cast a stone or two at the rest of us. Here's a little commentary on the issue.
It is an empirical fact that both dog-fighting and factory farming subject non-human animals to incredible cruelty. I suspect people will grant this in the case of dog-fighting, but will, if my students are any indication, be reluctant to admit this about animals in factory farms. I’m not going to try to defend the empirical facts. Some quick research will support these facts. More...
It is an empirical fact that both dog-fighting and factory farming subject non-human animals to incredible cruelty. I suspect people will grant this in the case of dog-fighting, but will, if my students are any indication, be reluctant to admit this about animals in factory farms. I’m not going to try to defend the empirical facts. Some quick research will support these facts. More...
Monday, August 17, 2009
Women paid less than men
That's the belief, of course. Maybe the facts aren't as dismal as one thinks. Statistics can so easily be manipulated.
These wage ratios are calculated from government data and do not take into account differences in education, job title and responsibility, regional labor markets, work experience, occupation, and time in the workforce. When economic studies include these major determinants of income, rather than simple averages of all men and women’s salaries, the pay gap shrinks even more. More...
These wage ratios are calculated from government data and do not take into account differences in education, job title and responsibility, regional labor markets, work experience, occupation, and time in the workforce. When economic studies include these major determinants of income, rather than simple averages of all men and women’s salaries, the pay gap shrinks even more. More...
Who owns Superman?
If you've followed this story, you know that once upon a time the creators of Superman owned, well, squat. Then things changed. It's a matter of intellectual property going to the creator versus the publisher. Judge for yourself.
....on Wednesday, Judge Stephen Larson awarded the Siegel family rights to more additional works, including the first two weeks of the daily Superman newspaper comicstrips, as well as the early Action Comics and Superman comicbooks. What this means is that the Siegels now control depictions of Superman’s origin story. Everything from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-L and Lora, the launching of the infant Kal-L into space by his parents as Krypton is destroyed. More...
....on Wednesday, Judge Stephen Larson awarded the Siegel family rights to more additional works, including the first two weeks of the daily Superman newspaper comicstrips, as well as the early Action Comics and Superman comicbooks. What this means is that the Siegels now control depictions of Superman’s origin story. Everything from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-L and Lora, the launching of the infant Kal-L into space by his parents as Krypton is destroyed. More...
Friday, August 14, 2009
Freedom of expression in China
There's been a couple of items this week, sourced out from this article. In the main, the thought seems to be that money trumps everything, sooner or later. Cap good? Maybe.
China has dropped plans to require “anti-pornography” (read “anti-political-freedom”) software on personal computers...Among the pressures that got the government to abandon this plan was an American threat to use international trade law against it. More.
China has dropped plans to require “anti-pornography” (read “anti-political-freedom”) software on personal computers...Among the pressures that got the government to abandon this plan was an American threat to use international trade law against it. More.
Anti-gay feelings
There's a surprising depth to these comments from Andrew Sullivan.
Campaigns against gay rights, gay people, and gay sex thus have a lot of the structural elements of other forms of crusading against sexual excess or immorality, but they’re not really asking most people to do anything other than become self-righteous about their pre-existing preferences. More...
Campaigns against gay rights, gay people, and gay sex thus have a lot of the structural elements of other forms of crusading against sexual excess or immorality, but they’re not really asking most people to do anything other than become self-righteous about their pre-existing preferences. More...
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Women get final parity at Olympics?
From Feminist Philosophers:
Women’s boxing is looking set to be introduced in the London 2012 Olympics. This will mean that the last Olympic men-only sport will be so no more. Hooray! (Even bigger hooray if the story didn’t involve people hitting each other but what can you do hooray!) More...
Women’s boxing is looking set to be introduced in the London 2012 Olympics. This will mean that the last Olympic men-only sport will be so no more. Hooray! (Even bigger hooray if the story didn’t involve people hitting each other but what can you do hooray!) More...
Implicit biases
This article (and the linked article) opens up some interesting lines of thought about our social expectations.
In the US, and presumably the UK and elsewhere, race, ethnicity and gender automatically trigger in-group/out-group classifications. And most unfortunately, “In general, people retain information in a more detailed fashion, remember more positive information, and are more forgiving of behaviors for ingroup compared to outgroup members.” More...
In the US, and presumably the UK and elsewhere, race, ethnicity and gender automatically trigger in-group/out-group classifications. And most unfortunately, “In general, people retain information in a more detailed fashion, remember more positive information, and are more forgiving of behaviors for ingroup compared to outgroup members.” More...
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Anti-Pollan
I'm a big fan of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but on the other hand, it's nice to know that somebody is pointing out that industrial food production actually has a few pluses.
From Andrew Sullivan: The romanticism of some industrialized food opponents can be naivete. I love organic produce as much as the next foodie, but it would be nice if food critics addressed the economic consequences of "sustainability" gone too far... More.
From Andrew Sullivan: The romanticism of some industrialized food opponents can be naivete. I love organic produce as much as the next foodie, but it would be nice if food critics addressed the economic consequences of "sustainability" gone too far... More.
We reveal ourselves in our actions, not our words
This is a brief post on actions versus words. For all of those who throw around the word/concept of discourse, there's this quote from Montaigne: "The true mirror of our discourse is the course of our lives."
Autonomy in moral and political philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia takes on individual autonomy. It's nice to have a source for something we argue so regularly.
SE: Individual autonomy is an idea that is generally understood to refer to the capacity to be one's own person, to live one's life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one's own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces. It is a central value in the Kantian tradition of moral philosophy but it is also given fundamental status in John Stuart Mill's version of utilitarian liberalism (Kant 1785/1983, Mill 1859/1975, ch. III). Examination of the concept of autonomy also figures centrally in debates over education policy, biomedical ethics, various legal freedoms and rights (such as freedom of speech and the right to privacy), as well as moral and political theory more broadly. More...
SE: Individual autonomy is an idea that is generally understood to refer to the capacity to be one's own person, to live one's life according to reasons and motives that are taken as one's own and not the product of manipulative or distorting external forces. It is a central value in the Kantian tradition of moral philosophy but it is also given fundamental status in John Stuart Mill's version of utilitarian liberalism (Kant 1785/1983, Mill 1859/1975, ch. III). Examination of the concept of autonomy also figures centrally in debates over education policy, biomedical ethics, various legal freedoms and rights (such as freedom of speech and the right to privacy), as well as moral and political theory more broadly. More...
No God in prison?
I love this. Apparently the warden of this prison didn't want any mention of God in the prisoners' mail. There's laws against that sort of thing (censorship, that is). One mention is made of complaints from an inmate's mother whose correspondence with her son was cut into "something resembling Swiss cheese" because of her frequent biblical references. More...
Back in business
We should begin refeeding the masses tonight. Don't eat any cookies in the meanwhile. You don't want to spoil your appetite.
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