Thoughts on Brexit - and what next

As the dust settles after June’s referendum, it’s notable that the leaders of the Leave campaign (Johnson, Gove, Farage, Leadsom) have all vacated the main stage, leaving it to others to negotiate Britain’s exit from the EU. This is probably wise on their part, not only because the political divorce is likely to produce considerable short-term discomfort, but also because it seems that no one had any clear post-exit strategy.

We’re told that the British people have spoken and their will must be respected. But, even setting aside reports of widespread protest voting and regretful Leavers, it’s not clear what ‘the people’ (or 52% of them) voted for, beyond the obvious (leaving the EU). Leaving the EU doesn’t itself specify what alternative arrangements should be put in place.

Some want to withdraw as completely as possible from the European project – in particular, in order to control migration. Call this Total Exit, or TE for short. But not everyone in the Leave campaign favours TE. Others made quite clear that they welcome trade and cooperation with our European neighbours, they merely oppose the EU organisation and the threat of a federal European state. These people would be happy for the UK to adopt a position like Norway or Switzerland, not an EU member but not so different in practice. For want of a better label, call this Weak Exit or WE. (For simplicity, I’ll only consider two alternatives, though there are many possibilities.)

Obviously, these alternatives are incompatible. If the UK opts for WE, then we will have no more control over migration or over laws and regulations that continue to bind us. The referendum result will, officially, be respected – we’ll be out of the EU – but many of the 52% won’t be satisfied. But, on the other hand, if we got for TE then, though we’ll have control over these things, we won’t have the strong relations with Europe that were promised and, further, this is more likely to cause great economic disruption than WE. Again, a significant number of the 52% are likely to be dissatisfied – while they may have wanted out of the EU, they didn’t necessarily want TE.

It might be that the 52% are so strongly committed to leaving the EU that they would prefer either TE or WE to continued membership, but I doubt all of them feel this way. Someone who dislikes loss of sovereignty, but is also concerned about the possible economic effects of Brexit, might reasonably prefer WE to Remain, but also prefer Remain to TE. That is, their preferences might be WE > R > TE (with ‘R’ standing for ‘Remain). If they were moderately optimistic about what ‘Leave’ meant (i.e. WE), they would vote for Leave, but they would prefer Remain if the alternative were TE.

Conversely, someone whose chief concern was migration, while ideally wanting TE, might prefer Remain to WE. The Leave campaign emphasized the threat of Turkey joining the EU but, as a member, the UK would have a veto over this. If the UK ends up like Norway, having to accept free movement but without that veto, then the UK would actually have less control over migration than before. So it could be perfectly consistent for someone to prefer Remain over WE, even if their first choice would be TE. That is, TE > R > WE.

The Leave campaign was actually a coalition of people wanting inconsistent things. Some were voting for TE and some for WE. Since we can’t have both of these, it’s likely that a considerable number of Leave voters will end up disappointed, whatever the eventual outcome – and some of them might even have preferred to remain in the EU to the eventual outcome.

Given the closeness of the result, it might seem reasonably likely that, given a choice between ‘Remain or TE’ a majority of the population would have voted to Remain and, likewise, that given a choice between ‘Remain or WE’ a majority of the population would have voted to Remain. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. So far, I’ve only highlighted divisions amongst the Leavers, but the Remain voters might also have been influenced by lack of clarity over the options.

No doubt many amongst the 48% who voted to Remain prefer that to either TE or WE. However, it could be that some were simply pessimists about the likely consequences of Brexit. Suppose, for example, that someone would really prefer WE to Remain and Remain to TE (i.e. WE > R > TE). Such a person might nonetheless have voted to Remain if they (pessimistically) thought that Brexit was more likely to result in TE than WE. Had the ballot in fact given the choice between ‘Remain or WE’ then they would have switched their vote from Remain to WE. Likewise, someone whose preferences were TE > R > WE might have voted Remain had they feared that Leave would result in WE.

So, even if some Leavers would have voted Remain, given this choice, it’s also the case that some who actually voted to Remain might have voted to Leave, given a more concrete proposal. For all the talk about ‘respecting the will of the people’ the problem is that there are more than two options. The referendum didn’t really present a choice between two clear options, but rather a choice between the status quo and a mystery box. Now we’ve chosen to open the box, what’s inside is still unclear.

Though the referendum was not legally binding, I think it would be politically impossible for the government to ignore the result. The problem, however, with respecting the will of the people is identifying what it is that the people want. Given that the only really clear outcome of the referendum is that the people are deeply divided, and that both the Conservative Party and Labour Party have been plunged into leadership contests, probably the only certainty is that the political landscape will be unsettled for some time.

One Person, One Vote?

Today the UK held a referendum on whether to remain in the EU or leave. There's an awful lot that could be said and written about this issue and the referendum campaigns, though I haven't felt the need to comment because of so many others already doing so.

As I tune in to follow the results, however, I was struck by this explanation on the BBC:

"Although the results are declared by local authority area, a referendum is different to a general election in that every individual vote across the UK counts equally towards the final result."

This does acknowledge, in passing, that this is not true in General Elections - so much, perhaps, for the argument that a vote to leave is a vote for democracy...

MPs as Trustees

One topic covered in my u/g Democratic Theory module is the nature of representation, starting with the delegate vs. trustee argument. At least since Burke, it's been argued that MPs should exercise their own judgement, rather than simply being a voice for whatever their constituents want. But delegates are also representatives. A point seemingly missed here, when it says: "Members of Parliament are representatives, not delegates, the difference being they are there to decide what in their judgment is good for us and the country, not  simply to do what we say."

University Rankings

Top universities, as rated by their students at WhatUni.com, here. A few select highlights:

1. Harper Adams University.
2. Loughborough.
...
13. Falmouth
...
22. University Campus Suffolk
...
34. York
35. St Andrews
36. Birmingham
37. Aston
38. Edinburgh
39. Royal Agricultural University (Cirencester)
40. Southampton
41. Liverpool
42. Essex
43. Cardiff
...
46. Cambridge
...
49. Warwick
50. Oxford
...
61. LSE
...
77. Bristol
78. Stirling
...
81. UCL
82. Queen Mary
83. KCL

On the one hand, it's nice to see Southampton ranked ahead of Oxbridge and most London rivals but, on the other, one can't help thinking that the whole list looks very random. Maybe it's, in part, down to the way that this 'overall table' covers a wide variety of factors ("accommodation, city life, clubs and societies, courses and lecturers, job prospects, student union, facilities, support services and an overall rating"), but perhaps it also demonstrates the folly of ranking universities based on the reviews of students who a) arguably have some vested interest and b) generally know nothing of what other universities are like to compare.

Pensions Crisis?

A friend posted this Telegraph piece on Facebook and I felt the urge to comment. According to the article, George Osborne is at least considering replacing current tax relief on pensions contributions and replacing it with a flat rate for all. The Telegraph takes a scaremongering tone, arguing that this will discourage the middle classes from saving, when many already face a pensions shortfall.

However, the idea that the government should not be giving an effectively larger subsidy to higher earners actually strikes me as one of the more reasonable things to come from this government. Here is where the article actually sets out, in concrete terms, the implications of the change:

"At present basic-rate taxpayers receive a £20 top-up from the Government for every £80 they pay into a pension.

Higher rate taxpayers, classed as those earning more than £42,385, receive £40 for every £60, while top-rate taxpayers receive £45 for every £55.
Under plans being considered by Mr Osborne for a flat rate relief of 20 per cent for all, savers will receive £25 for every £75 they contribute."

Since tax relief is worth more to those who pay more tax, higher earners currently enjoy a bigger rebate on their pension savings. Proposing a flat rate for all is actually a progressive measure - though one might even argue that lower earners should get a bigger rebate.

The Telegraph suggests that it would be the poor middle classes getting hit:

"It found that 69 per cent of those paying the 40p rate of tax are unlikely to have enough income when they retire. Basic rate taxpayers are also struggling to save enough for their retirement, with 62 per cent failing to put enough aside."

Those figures make it sound as if higher rate tax payers are less likely to have enough savings than basic rate tax payers. That's surprising. It turns out, however, that the goalpost (of adequate savings) is a moving one:

"Under official measures, the majority of higher rate taxpayers are considered to have an "inadequate" level of savings if their income in their retirement is less than half the salary they enjoyed when they were working."

In other words, higher rate tax payers are only more likely to have inadequate pension savings than basic rate tax payers because what counts as 'adequate' for them is higher. Someone currently earning £60k/yr is deemed to have inadequate savings if they will only have a £25k/yr pension. But someone earning £25k/yr has adequate savings if they will have a £13k/yr pension.

I'm no tax expert, but these proposals sound surprisingly progressive to me.

Disclaimer: I'm a higher rate tax payer.

Sortition and the House of Lords

I know that the idea of using random selection to reform/replace the House of Lords is not exactly new - see, for instance, this book - but there was a recent-ish column on the BBC website, which proposes a hybrid chamber one-third of which made up of ordinary citizens chosen at random (the other thirds being party representatives based on proportional representation and independents chosen for their expertise). Nice to see such ideas getting more public exposure.

More Liberal Alcohol Guidelines

Following my recent comments on the government's new alcohol guidelines, I have a blog post on The Conversation in which I consider them from a Millian liberal perspective.

In short, I argue that there's nothing objectionable about warning people of the dangers of alcohol, but that the guidelines would better respect individual autonomy if they simply presented the risks of different levels of consumption, allowing people to decide for themselves how much risk to accept. In other words, I think it's somewhat objectionable for the government to take it upon themselves to decide for everyone that 14 units per week is the right trade off between benefits and risk, even though the guidelines aren't actually coercive.

There's a slightly longer version of much the same argument, but with a bit more Mill in it, over on my department's blog.

Alcohol Guidelines (Again)

I already mentioned the new government guidelines last week (here), but now that they're out some further comment...

Recommended limits are indeed reduced to 14 units per week. One thing that I found interesting is that, aside from the reduction in the limit, the way that it is communicated has also changed.

At one point, the recommendation was 21 units per week for men. There was a worry that people would 'save this up' and consume all 21 units on a Friday night. Consequently, the advice was changed to 3-4 units per day, to underline that it couldn't be 'saved up'. Now, however, the worry is that people are drinking every day and not allowing their body 'recovery days' and so we're back to weekly guidelines (with an explicit recommendation not to drink every day).

I guess this is just another case that highlights the difficulty of imparting nuanced advice - based on scientific findings - in simple guidelines. That said, an older piece from Lee Jones - here - questions to the extent to which the policy really is evidence-based. He suggests that politicians have a moralistic agenda and cherry-pick evidence (and ignore counter evidence) in order to serve their purposes.

Clearly not all politicians take this view though. I wouldn't normally approve of Nigel Farage's pronouncements, but he's suggested that we all have a glass of something to protest against this state nannying.

Alcohol Guidelines

Long-term readers will possibly recall my interest in alcohol policy, chiefly minimum pricing.

It seems that new UK guidelines could reduce the recommended maximum for men, as well as recommending two 'dry' days per week and stressing that there is no 'safe' level of drinking. I don't have a problem with any of these measures; people need to be given the information necessary to make responsible decisions for themselves. It's only when the government starts to coerce competent adults for their own good that I think we ought to worry.

It was also pretty decent of them to delay these guidelines until after the Christmas/new year period too ;)

Another recommendation is to include calorie information on alcoholic drinks. Aside from helping to combat obesity, by helping people to policy their calorie intake, I've long suspected that this might do more to encourage some people to drink less than the existing warnings about the health effects of alcohol...

Festive Leicester

Consulting Garth Crooks' latest team of the week, I see he picked Robert Huth for helping Leicester to take six points out of six over the festive period.



That's odd, given that Leicester lost to Liverpool on the 26th and then drew with Man City on the 29th. Unless 'the festive period' refers to their wins over Everton on the 19th and Chelsea on the 14th, it looks like Mr Crooks dropped a bit of a clanger there...

College Lotteries

One perk of no longer being at Oxford is no longer having to participate in the annual admissions interviews, which are pretty draining for staff as well as candidates. One way to simplify the process, somewhat at least, would be to use a lottery to decide between suitably qualified applicants. I advocated such a proposal here.

This recent US-centric piece also advocates lotteries, noting that they allow colleges to draw in more diverse classes without requiring quotas (which are apparently unconstitutional in the US). Peter Stone - who drew my attention to this piece - is also an advocate of lotteries.

Election by Lot: Mississippi edition

The BBC reports that a seat in the Mississippi House was determined by drawing straws, after two candidates each received 4,589 votes.

This isn't a 'first'. The BBC mentions cases in New Mexico and Alaska, without giving any details. I suspect the former is this case (which I commented on at the time). I'm also aware of a case concerning a local, city council in Florida last year (Guardian; me).

Intriguingly, the report ends by saying that - after using a coin toss in 2006 - the state of Connecticut eliminated chance games the following year. There's no indication as to what method they do use though. Does anyone out there know?

Child Selection in the News

There's a piece in today's Guardian about whether parents should genetically engineer their children. It does note that editing children's genes goes beyond merely selecting them (via Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). Nonetheless, the piece refers to the ideas of Julian Savulescu - who has defended the view that parents have a moral obligation to select for better children - so it seemed like a reasonable excuse to point again to my latest publication, which defends Savulescu's position against one particular line of criticism. More details here.

Publication: Procreative Beneficence, Intelligence, and the Optimization Problem

The Oxford philosopher Julian Savulescu proposed that, where screening technology is available, parents have a moral obligation to select the children expected to enjoy the best lives. He terms this the principle of procreative beneficence. Unsurprisingly, this principle is controversial and it has been subjected to a number of criticisms, including accusations that it is eugenic. (I have criticised it myself here.)

 

My latest publication, ‘Procreative Beneficence, Intelligence, and the Optimization Problem’ (forthcoming in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy; doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhv026), is a response to another line of criticism.

 

In a recent piece in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Adam Carter and Emma Gordon argued that even if we accept the principle of procreative beneficence, the results are less radical than Savulescu suggests. They accept, at least for sake of argument, that parents might have an obligation to choose healthy children rather than those that will suffer (or are likely to suffer) from disease or disability. However, they argue that Savulescu fails to provide a clear example of a non-disease trait that parents have an obligation to select for (or against). In particular, they focus on Savulescu’s favoured example of intelligence, arguing that greater intelligence need not conduce to greater wellbeing.

 

My paper responds to this criticism, on behalf of Savulescu. First of all, I argue that while greater intelligence does not necessarily improve wellbeing, it is nonetheless plausible that if often does (at least within a certain range). Second, I argue that, even if this is false, Carter and Gordon’s objection to Savulescu succeeds only if the net effect of intelligence on wellbeing is neutral. If, contrary to my earlier argument, intelligence is inversely correlated with wellbeing, then parents should select in favour of lower intelligence.

 

Finally, I note that the effects of intelligence on wellbeing are likely to vary at different levels, partly for social or positional reasons (for instance, as Carter and Gordon point out, someone much more intelligent than his or her peers may have difficulty finding companions). Consequently, the optimum intelligence, with respect to wellbeing, is unlikely to be either the maximum or minimum possible. Further, this optimum level will likely vary depending upon the reproductive choices of other parents. Thus, the principle of procreative beneficence does make demands on parents, but compliance with these demands is likely to be more difficult than hitherto realised.

College is certainly no ordinary commodity...

A friend shared this on Facebook back in June, but I've scheduled this post for now because it seems relevant to those starting university this month or next.

It's an interesting piece because, rather than simply attacking the idea that college should be seen as an economic investment, it makes the point that what you get out of education largely depends on what you put in. Though students are consumers, lecturers cannot simply pocket their fees and force an education into their heads.

I sometimes use an analogy (not my own) with gym membership. Paying a subscription to a gym doesn't magically make you fitter and healthier - it provides you with opportunities to use the facilities, but you still have to work to make the most of it. So it is with university: there are many opportunities available to students at any university, but students have a responsibility to make the most of them.

This is one reason why it's difficult to rank universities based on results - those results depend not only on the 'service providers' but also the 'service consumers'.

Queues, Fairness, and Efficiency

When a scarce good has to be allocated, 'first come, first served' is often considered a decent allocative principle. According to a recent study, however, this is inefficient because of the time wasted. Adopting the principle 'last-in, first-served' - provided everyone knows this - is more efficient, because people will stagger their arrival times.

The brief BBC report - here - also mentions the possibility of picking people from the 'queue' at random. I don't see a link in the report, but it seems to be based on 'The curse of first-in-first-out queue discipline', available as a working paper here, so it's an unpublished finding as far as I'm aware. I've not had chance to read the paper yet, but it sounds interesting.

Bioethics Paper on Procreative Beneficence

My latest publication appears in the September issue of Bioethics.

The article is a response to Rebecca Bennett's criticisms of Julian Savulescu's Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PPB). Briefly, she argues that the Non-Identity Problem (NIP) shows that there cannot be a duty of Procreative Beneficence, since no one is harmed by non-compliance with this alleged duty. I reply, firstly, that she misinterprets the NIP as an argument, rather than a trilemma. One way out of this problem is to accept the notion of harmless wrongs (a possibility that she neglects, assimilating it to impersonal harm).

Second, I argue that, even if she is right that PB is not a moral duty, this doesn't show that it is a 'mere preference'. Some preferences, such as those over works of art, exhibit a similar objective or categorical status as moral judgements purport to.

Summer Berry Smoothies

We recently acquired a new blender (this one if you're interested - Amazon affiliate link) and, as a result, have rediscovered our love for smoothies. Luckily for us, this coincided with receiving some vouchers from Tesco for money off their summer berries and cherries range, which meant we #TriedForLess.

Here I'm getting things started, with bananas, raspberries, and blueberries...

 

 

You may notice this isn't our new blender - that was waiting to be washed, so using our old smoothie maker in the meantime.

 

'Recipe' 1 just uses milk (soya milk alternative in our case), plus two bananas and about half the packet (100g) of raspberries.

 

 

 

The result looks like this:

 

 

That was it for my partner, since she doesn't like blueberries in smoothies (she describes the texture as 'gloopy'). Nonetheless, blueberries are supposed to be very good for you, so here's 'recipe' 2 - pour out my partner's raspberry smoothie and now add a small handful of blueberries (about 40-50g):

 

 

The result is clearly darker:

 

 

The downside of the blueberries is that they do make more of a mess of whatever you're drinking out of - but that's what the dishwasher is for!

 

School Trip Lottery

Lotteries are often used to distribute goods (e.g. scarce resources such as transplant organs) and bads (e.g. military conscription). Of course, this isn't particularly surprising since any lottery distributing a good can be re-described as one distributing the bad of not getting that good, and vice versa.

Recently in the news was this case of five primary school children who were excluded from an over-subscribed school trip to Disneyland. The headline highlights that names were drawn from a hat to decide who WOULDN'T go, but names could just as easily have been drawn to decide who would go - it would simply have taken much longer and not obviously been at all preferable.

The bullet point below ("School says drawing names was fair way to deal with over-subscription") also seems to implicate that a lottery was not fair - since it does not state this as fact but only as something the school says (though no better alternative is suggested).

To be clear, we have to separate two distinct issues here. The first is whether it's necessary to exclude five children from the trip at all. One might argue that the school could somehow have avoided this situation arising. However, if we take as given that there are 54 people wanting to go and only 49 places, so that the only question is how to allocate the good of places fairly, then a lottery seems pretty clearly fair.

New Publication: Fairness and Aggregation

Now published (online) in Utilitas - available here (with subscription).

This was my first experience of co-authoring a journal article - something that's common in many fields (particularly the sciences) but still pretty rare in philosophy. It's something that I'd be happy to do again though.

Happiness, Happiness...

There's an interesting piece in the Guardian here about how pressure to be happy all the time contributes to making us unhappy. (Hat-tip: Lee Jones.)

All very sensible, but not anything particularly new. It's something that J. S. Mill was well aware of as demonstrated by this passage (from chapter 2 of Utilitarianism, shortly after the higher pleasures bit):

"If by happiness be meant a continuity of highly pleasurable excitement, it is evident enough that this is impossible. A state of exalted pleasure lasts only moments, or in some cases, and with some intermissions, hours or days, and is the occasional brilliant flash of enjoyment, not its permanent and steady flame. Of this the philosophers who have taught that happiness is the end of life were as fully aware as those who taunt them. The happiness which they meant was not a life of rapture; but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing. A life thus composed, to those who have been fortunate enough to obtain it, has always appeared worthy of the name of happiness. And such an existence is even now the lot of many, during some considerable portion of their lives."

Interpretation: Tangible Objects

I remember legal philosophy seminars on interpretation featuring some pretty interesting cases, like judges deciding that '5th' was reasonably interpreted to mean '6th' (or something along those lines anyway). Here's another case that may feature in interpretation cases. I'm not clear whether it's accurate to say that the Supreme Court ruled that fish are not tangible objects. It's probably more accurate to say that they interpreted 'other tangible objects' in the law more narrowly, so as not to include fish. It's an interesting case also for those who think that legislators are prone to over-criminalization.

ACN Lottery

Penalty shoot outs are often derided as being lotteries. (An issue I've written about before.) Prior to the introduction of shoot outs, proper lotteries - such as a coin toss - were sometimes used. Nowadays, this is rare, if not unheard of. However, sometimes two teams may be tied in a league table, not only on points but also goal difference and goals scored. Since they're not playing against each other at the time, extra time or penalties are not an option. In this case, the African Cup of Nations employs a lottery - which, most recently, saw Guinea progress at the expense of Mali. Representatives of both nations criticised the process as unfair, though without suggesting a better alternative.

Relationships and Liberty

J. S. Mill argues that individuals should be able to engage in 'experiments in living' free from social pressures (provided that they do not harm others). His On Liberty contains only a brief discussion of Mormon polygamy, which he makes plain that he dislikes but is prepared to tolerate provided that it is consensual. The Subjection of Women has much more to say about marriage, unsurprisingly, but I think it fair to say that it's two main themes are: a) Women should have other options in life than marriage, to ensure that if they choose marriage they do so freely (which, Mill assumes, will make marriage more attractive) and b) Partners within a marriage should be able to decide for themselves how it will operate, which may mean dividing conjugal roles, reversing traditional patterns (e.g. the man being a home-maker), or indeed following them.

As far as I'm aware, Mill has surprisingly little to say about alternatives to marriage. (Surprising, I suggest, because although he was writing in the context of Victorian England, his own relationship with Harriet Taylor must have raised the issue in his mind.) This interesting post about the 'relationship escalator' seemed to illustrate Mill's views about the dangers of social conformism quite nicely. Society expects relationships to follow a certain pattern that simply does not work well (or at all) for those with 'deviant' preferences (polyamory, etc), who find their chosen way of life stigmatised.

Speaking of such things, it's interesting to hear tht mixed-sex couples are now appealing for the right to civil partnerships in the name of equality. This seems like a sensible move to me - it could have been avoided had gay marriage been introduced instead of civil partnerships, but it seems discriminatory if homosexual couples have the option of civil partnership or marriage, while mixed-sex couple can only marry. I doubt that it's likely to lead to state recognition of other non-standard romantic relationships though.

Making a Meal from Party Food

We picked up a selection of Creamy Cheese Canapes from the Tesco Finest party food range, but didn't really know what to do with them, since we weren't planning a party and my partner wouldn't eat them (being vegan). Having the whole pack as a snack would be rather extravagant, not to mention unhealthy (the whole pack having 60% of an adult's RDA fat), so I decided to make a meal out of them - literally.

While my partner had a veggie burger, chips, and baked beans, I decided to have these in place of the burger, with a few chips and beans. The oven was on anyway and these are easy as anything to prepare - stick them in for the last 6 minutes, just before putting the beans in the microwave. The result can be seen below.

My favourites were the breaded camembert wedges. I don't normally have baked camembert, but it was lovely and goo-ey and stringy in the middle. Sadly, by the time I got to the last one, it had cooled down and wasn't as nice. If you're putting these out for a buffet or similar then I'd definitely recommend going for those first, while they're hot.

The goats' cheese and sweet onion pastries (the ones that look like Cornish pasties) were also nice and soft. They were described as lemony as they definitely were, this being the dominant taste (though not overpowering), with just a hint of the onion.

Finally, the Wensleydale and sweet cranberries were definitely my least favourite, but I've never particularly like Wensleydale (or most fruit and cheese combinations). They clashed a bit with the rest of my meal, so I left them for 'dessert', but still wasn't that keen. I guess the advantage of sharing these with others is that hopefully you'll each have different favourites.

Obviously, this isn't the sort of meal I'd ordinarily have, it was only because we #TriedItFree that we ended up with the cheeses at all. If you get some of these for a party, and share them round, then I doubt there will be leftovers - but if there are, they make a surprisingly satisfying basis for a meal on their own.

Random Electoral Timing

It seems that I forgot to plug my first contribution to Politics Upside Down, my department's blog, back in October. It's a piece about election timing and the merits of randomizing, rather than fixed terms (as in the UK since 2011) or Prime Ministerial discretion (as previously the case).

Anyway, if you didn't see it before, a re-worked version of the same basic idea now appears on The Conversation, which will hopefully bring it to a wider audience.

Representing the Regions

This is old news now (a Miliband speech from October), but apparently I missed it at the time. I don't know whether it's official Labour policy - presumably their 2015 manifesto will make this clearer - but Labour are seemingly proposing a senate (second chamber) to 'represent the regions'. While I agree that the current Lords is unrepresentative, on this front and others, this seems like an odd choice of remedy.

First, why should regions be represented, rather than people? Israel, for example, has no regional constituencies but uses a nation-wide PR system. If it happens that people vote along regional lines, so be it, but other cleavages may be more important and there's no obvious reason why our political institutions ought to be designed around geography (the idea that 'all politics is local' may be a consequence of these institutions, rather than a justification for them - as Andrew Rehfeld argues).

Secondly, the House of Commons is already elected on a geographical basis, so presumably the regions are already represented there. If we're to have an elected second chamber, why not constitute it on some other basis? For instance, we could assign people to constituencies based on age or even randomly (again, Rehfeld's proposal).

Pears and JD

Here's the recipe I promised in an earlier post (again, it was Eloise who made this and, again, I #TriedForLess thanks to a Tesco voucher for the pears - and the JD was bought in a Black Friday promotion!)

Ingredients:
4 large pears, halved and thinly sliced
2-3 shots of Jack Daniels
Sugar to taste – I used about a teaspoon on each layer
Ginger and cinnamon – about a teaspoon each altogether

Drizzle some JD in the bottom of a flat oven dish. Place a layer of pears over it. Sprinkle sugar, cinnamon and ginger over the top, then pour some more JD over it. Repeat with each layer. Avoid putting sugar on the top unless actively seeking caramel. You’ll get 2-4 layers depending on the size of your dish. Put in a preheated oven at gas mark 7 (approx. 220 C) and cook for half an hour.
Serves 4-5.

Unfortunately, I didn't try any of the pears without the JD treatment, so it's hard for me to say how sweet (etc) they are naturally. I can, however, recommend this recipe. Now we just need to find a use for the leftovers...

Hakim, Attractiveness, and Voting

We had Catherine Hakim give a talk at our department seminar (C2G2) last week, based on her controversial book Honey Money. I haven't, to be honest, read the book itself, so wasn't sure what to expect. The idea that attractive people benefit from their attractiveness in all sorts of ways sounds like a typical case of much academic research being done to prove the bleeding obvious, but I think Hakim does raise important issues.

Some people had been uneasy about the invitation, I believe because they thought that Hakim's research was somehow anti-feminist. In fact, she did a good job of emphasizing that her findings apply to both men and women, using Barack Obama as one of her main examples (though she did note some particular issues of concern to women - apparently women, on average, possess more 'erotic capital' then men, but are less effective in exchanging it for other goods). I thought she might try drawing all kinds of unwarranted normative conclusions, such as suggesting that women should exploit their erotic capital in order to get ahead (which I believe is the message of Lean In), but I was pleased that Hakim didn't in fact seem to make any normative claims at all, merely to present her findings on the effects of attractiveness.

Attractive people, she said, are likely to earn 10-20% more and also to win around 15% more votes in elections. (Other studies have also suggested that Beauty Pays.) On almost any account of justice, this seems like an injustice - and one that hasn't gone unnoticed, particularly by the 'ugly'.

It's interesting to see that BBC coverage of this book raises the issue of attractiveness in elections (although suggesting that the effect is only 2%).

Winter Recipes

While I'm not a big fan of the colder weather, I do rather like winter cooking - stews, casseroles, and the like. As a new member of Tesco's Orchard programme, I was pleased to receive some vouchers from Tesco for their Elfe potatoes and root vegetables, which look like just the thing and meant I should have #TriedForLess. Unfortunately the branch I visited didn't actually have the Elfe potatoes, so I wasn't able to make use of that voucher :( Still, we did pick some up in an online order (where I couldn't use the voucher, but they were on offer anyway) so I got to try them anyway. We did get some parsnips and pears though - the parsnips went in the casserole, while the pears are for a later post.

My partner is the main cook in our household. She can turn ingredients like this:

Into a tasty meal like this:

Ok, casserole isn't too difficult. In fairness, that's one I could manage to make myself - but credit where it's due, this was her effort. And she was also able to turn the leftover potatoes into a soup for a lighter lunch. Here I am about to enjoy that (excuse the clutter in the background - we still haven't sorted the conservatory since moving!):

Goes good with a bit of warm French bread:

Anyone got favourite winter recipes to share?

Electoral Ping-Pong

A tied election in Florida was decided by drawing numbered ping-pong balls out of a bag. In fact, they drew names out of a bag, to decide who got to call a coin toss, to decide who drew the first ball - sounds like something worthy of Venice! Some interesting comments on the piece too, ranging from those who suggest that we may as well select all politicians by lottery to those who suggest that an IQ test would be better.

Lotteries Improve Access

A study, involving academics from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, has concluded that lotteries for school admissions can improve access to elite universities. This is, as long-time readers may remember, a topic that I've previously published on.

The news coverage linked to above is only from a student newspaper, but I couldn't help thinking it interesting that, by way of balance, they include the opinion of a 2nd year undergraduate. While I'm sure there are some good arguments against lotteries, these weren't really explored - rather, the coverage seemed to exhibit false balance.

Democracy and Referenda

Here's a selection of popular pieces on democracy and referenda... Martin Gilbert applauds the Scottish independence referendum for bringing about greater engagement and participation. George Schöpflin cautions that referenda are unaccountable and may be instruments of populism, rather than democracy. Chris Prosser points out that agenda-setters are often able to manipulate referendum outcomes. Alex Hern argues that the government's use of referenda is opportunistic, rather than principled.

Southampton

I've been quiet of late. Partly due to on-going technical issues, but mostly because I've been gearing up to move to the other end of the country (again). From next week, I officially take up a new position at the University of Southampton. My new department has an active group blog, Politics Upside Down, so maybe I'll be blogging there as well as here (and occasionally elsewhere) in future.

EUDO Debate on Secession

Hot on the heels of my last bit of guest-blogging, I was recently invited to contribute to a EUDO debate on secession. You can read my contribution here and the whole debate here.

Ask the Experts: Scottish Constitution

I'm one of the experts sharing my thoughts on the draft Scottish Constitution over at the Democratic Audit today.

Attitudes to Alcohol Pricing

A new survey reveals that Scottish attitudes to minimum pricing legislation are split, with slightly more in favour than against the measure. Interestingly, "People educated to degree level were much more likely to approve of minimum pricing than those who were not". So much for the liberalising effect of higher education! (I've written on this here [subscription required].)

Love Locks and Public Nuisance Legislation

According to Mill's harm principle, the state or society may only interfere with an individual's actions in order to prevent harm to others. This is generally taken to restrict paternalistic or moralistic legislation, which raises questions about many generally-accepted laws (including those on drugs, incest, seat belts, etc).

I wasn't previously aware of the trend for couples of signify their love by attaching a lock to a bridge and throwing away the key, but apparently this has been a 'thing' since at least 2009. Moreover, enough of these 'love locks' can actually damage bridges. As reported (see article in link before last), some places, including Rome, have banned these love locks.

Is this ban consistent with the harm principle? On first sight, perhaps not: it would seem to be stretching the notion of 'harm' to suppose that they are. Admittedly, Mill does suggest that 'public decency' might provide grounds for certain restrictions, which seems to be allowing a limited place for something other than harm to justify interference. However, on further consideration, such a ban might be upheld as a protection of property rights. I wouldn't want someone attaching a lock to my fence, even if the lock didn't in any way damage the fence. Presumably, there's little reason to object to a bridge-owner saying that locks should only be attached to her bridge with her consent.

Matters are slightly more complicated when it comes to public bridges, where there is no particular owner as such. Why shouldn't members of the public attach love locks to a bridge that is (in part) theirs? I suppose, however, there is an answer to be found based on the fact that the bridge does not belong to that couple exclusively but to all members of the public. One cannot, for instance, freely block a public road, because that interferes with others using it for their own purposes. While love locks don't prevent others from crossing a bridge, they do amount to one individual (or one couple) assuming rights over public property as if it belonged to them alone.

A Real Life Wilt Chamberlain Case

In Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick argues that free market transactions will, if not interfered with, upset distributive patterns, such as equality. Nozick's famous example features the basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. In Nozick's example, Chamberlain signs a contract giving him 25 cents out of each ticket sold for his games, the result being that at the end of the season he is vastly richer than everyone else.

Given that few current students (especially in the UK) have heard of Wilt Chamberlain, the example is sometimes made more relevant by substituting the name of a more recent sports star, such as David Beckham or Wayne Rooney. I thought it interesting that ex-England cricketer Andy Flintoff has apparently signed a contract like Chamberlain's, giving him £1 from each ticket sold (above a certain number). It looks like a nice example to use in future.

Ballot Ordering

When voting in yesterday's European elections, I was struck by the fact that the first parties on the ballot paper were Britain First and the BNP. It seems that the Scottish Government is considering alternatives to alphabetical ordering, including random ordering.

Food Regulation

As long-time followers of this blog will know, I have an interest in potentially paternalistic regulations. It's interesting to see that there are now calls for (unhealthy) food to be regulated in the same way as tobacco. The BBC article has one expert point out that we need food, whereas we don't need tobacco. This misses the point that the main justification for regulating tobacco (e.g. the ban on smoking in public places) is that it causes harm to others. While my eating unhealthy food might cause you some harm (e.g. by setting a bad example or through costing the NHS more) these harms are indirect and uncertain.

Apologies for Lack of Posts

I realise that this blog has not been updated much of late. That's partly because, with a return to teaching for the first time in 9 months, I've been rather busy. This is compounded by the fact that for some reason (an outdated browser?) I now seem unable to post here at work. Obviously I can still blog from home, but I used to do much of my blogging from work, partly because we have metered internet at home, but mostly because it can fill in 'dead' time like empty office hours or just before a meeting. Rest assured that the blog is not intentionally dead; while updates may be less frequent, I do still intend to keep posting when I get the chance.

First-Time Compulsory Voting

The idea of first-time compulsory voting is discussed on Democratic Audit. (It's an idea that I'd previously proposed myself.) Unfortunately, the text doesn't have any links - I guess it may have been simply copied and pasted from the IPPR report, rather than being reformatted for blog publication. I'd be interested to see Andrew Adonis's thoughts on young people voting.

How to Derive Ought from Is: SNP on Alcohol Pricing

The great Scottish philosopher David Hume famously remarked that one cannot derive an ought (that is, a normative conclusion about what one should do) from an is (that is, a mere statement of fact). It seems, however, that the SNP have cracked the problem. Alcohol is cheap, therefore minimum pricing is needed. Why didn't Hume, or one of the many philosophers who've considered his problem, think of that?

A Real Life Isle of Pines

One book that I clearly remember reading during my undergraduate days is Henry Neville's The Isle of Pines, a sort-of dystopian work about an island community all descended from one European male and his four female consorts. Something along these lines is clearly possible, as shown by the example of Palmerston, part of the Cook Islands. According to this BBC feature, 59 of its 62 inhabitants are descended from William Marsters, an Englishman who settled on the island in 1863. Sounds like a remarkable place, despite some inbreeding.

I Blog on Scottish Independence at Democratic Audit

See here. (As noted at the end of the post, my piece is a summary of an article originally published in the journal Politics.) Since I submitted mine, they also published this piece on implications for Cornwall (which I would have cited, had it been published earlier).

Prisoner Voting

An interesting proposal here, from Chris Bennett and Daniel Viehoff, is that all prisoners should be allowed to vote in the final election before their release. I think it's one job for us academics to add to the options on the table for policymakers (as well as to then help choose between them) and I think this is an interesting suggestion, though I'm not sure of its practicality. As I put it in my comment: "An interesting proposal, but how do we identify the final general election before their release? Not only might their release date not be certain in advance, but also general elections (in the UK) are not held at fixed intervals but called by the government. If the next general election is in 2015, and we gave everyone due to be released by 2020 a vote in it, what would happen if there was another general election in 2017? Then some of those prisoners enfranchised in 2015 ought not to have been."

Glasgow Games Lottery

Organisers of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games have defended random ticket allocation. The reaction seems to reflect a popular ambivalence towards lotteries. I think, where more people want tickets for an event than there are tickets, a lottery is fair as a tie-breaker. The controversy, however, concerns the fact that tickets for each event were allocated entirely independently, with the consequence that some people applied for several events and won nothing, while others won multiple times. It's not clear that this is fair, because it's not clear that someone who already has tickets for one event has an equal claim on tickets for another event as someone who does not already have tickets. This isn't to say that lotteries are inherently unfair, of course, but only that we need to be careful how they are administered.

Newsnight

I was on TV tonight. Admittedly, I was only in the audience, I didn't speak, and in fact you only catch a very brief glimpse of me as the camera pans across the audience (I was sat back left), but I was at the BBC studio in Glasgow for the filming of an episode of Newsnight Scotland focused on the arts. (I believe anyone in the UK can watch for the next week here.)

I was surprised how much waiting around there was. We were told to turn up around 5:45 and certainly by 6:15, for filming to start at 7:30. I assumed we'd get some extensive briefing or something but for the most part we did nothing until around 7 (though those who had been pre-selected to ask questions may have received some further advice).

Democracy Max

The Electoral Reform Society has recently released this video-clip of events in Scotland. I was at the People's Gathering in Edinburgh - though you can only just about see me at the back, towards the left, around 2:30. There's a much clearer shot of me at one of the public events in Stirling, at 4:35 (perhaps not the most flattering shot, but you can see that I'm talking).

There was a previous video of the Edinburgh People's Gathering, using much of the same footage, but in which I am more clearly visable - albeit behind a flipchart - around 1:40-2:00 and again, standing on the right, at the very end.

Are We Being Lied To?

Apparently - according to this BBC story - a good number of buttons on pedestrian crossings do nothing, as crossings are often automated, at least part of the time. This isn't simply in response to traffic. Some stops in North London are timed to avoid Jews having to operate them on the Sabbath!

The article focuses on whether we're being lied to when buttons don't actually do anything. I'm not sure I've ever been clearly told, by someone in charge of them, that the buttons do something; the authorities need only give the instruction 'press the button and wait for the green man' which is reasonable advice, even if the button may do nothing in some cases.

I found the brief comments on jaywalking more interesting, given that I've recently been thinking about paternalism and cases like Mill's bridge-crosser. Martin Low, transport commissioner for Westminster City Council, apparently thinks that we should allow individuals to judge for themselves whether it's safe to cross.

Targeted Compulsory Voting

It seems that a new (forthcoming?) report from the IPPR will recommend that young people be required to vote in the first election in which they are able. This is actually an idea that I proposed in Public Policy Research (the IPPR's own journal) three years ago.

Alcohol Minimum Pricing Shelved in Rest of UK

I recently published a piece arguing that the SNP's minimum pricing proposals ran counter to Millian liberalism, since the aim is protect drinkers from themselves (paternalism), rather than to prevent harm to others. At the time the Westminster coalition government were considering following the Scottish lead and introducing minimum pricing in England and Wales. It now seems, however, that this plan has been shelved. Too bad they didn't cite my article as a key driver of policy...

Literacy Tests for Voters

J. S. Mill argued that voters should have to satisfy general literacy and numeracy tests before being allowed the franchise. The idea doesn't sound ridiculous in the abstract, but the danger lies in how the tests are administered.

This is apparently the kind of literacy test used to deprive blacks of the vote in the US South. It's full of trick questions (like 25) and others that are so ambiguous (20 and 27) as to, in effect, allow the sheriff arbitrary power to decide who has the answers right and wrong.

Special Issue on After-Birth Abortion

A Journal of Medical Ethics paper on 'after-birth abortion' caused quite a stir around a year (?) ago. While looking for something else, I just saw that the whole May 2013 issue seems to be devoted to a discussion of it and the issues that it raises (including not only abortion but also free speech). Sadly, I don't think my University library has an up to date subscription to JME, but a few pieces at least are Open Access. Worth a look I think.

Are Playoffs Lotteries?

Not content with penalty shootouts often, misleadingly, described as lotteries, the BBC now asks whether promotion playoffs - in which the teams finishing 3rd-6th compete in a mini knockout tournament for a third promotion spot - are also lotteries. The outcome, however, is decided by playing football, rather than drawing straws, so the obvious answer is no, not unless all football is a lottery. I wonder if this (lottery) is how BBC journalists decide what to write about...

Nudge, Nudge

I discovered a 'new' (as in, new to me) weblog about nudging here, run by a group of geographers (mostly) from Aberystwyth. I've not thoroughly explored yet, but it looks interesting. Apparently, the term 'nudge' was suggested by the publisher. Perhaps this explains why Thaler and Sunstein (infamously) don't clearly define it...

This all came to my attention because one of the blog authors, Jessica Pykett, is speaking at Stirling next week.

Expatriate Voting

The UK disenfranchises expatriates who have lived abroad for 15 years or more. This policy has just been upheld by the ECHR. It seems reasonable to me.

To pick on some features cited in the story, as evidence of a close relationship with the UK, I don't see that having family in the UK or a UK bank account entitles one to a vote, or else many foreigners (who don't get to vote and probably shouldn't) would qualify for the franchise. Nor do I see why receipt of a British state pension should bring further entitlements, such as the franchise. Presumably the point is that this entitlement was accrued through years of contributions to Britain, but the veteran in question had the vote during those years of contribution. If he now no longer contributes to Britain, then still receiving a pension would seem more than enough - why should he get the vote as well?

Territory seems a pretty good basis for the franchise, since it is those within a territory who are primarily addressed and bound by the laws (though there are problems here with migration). If this is so, perhaps expatriates ought to be disenfranchised sooner. After all, if they're that close to the UK, why have they been living abroad for 15 years?

BSET 2013

Last year's British Society for Ethical Theory conference took place in Stirling and was very enjoyable. I don't expect to make this year's, since I'll have enough on my plate organising the Association for Legal and Social Philosophy conference (again in Stirling), but the BSET 2013 line-up has now been announced. It looks great!

'Evidence' Based Policy

There's on going controversy regarding minimum pricing for alcohol, with reports that the drinks industry gave weak or distorted evidence to influence Scottish government legislation.

Housing by Lottery

Well, not quite, but with more than 600 people having applied to buy one of 35 run-down homes in Stoke, "Stoke-on-Trent City Council said the initial 35 homes would be randomly allocated to the successful candidates", albeit with priority for those living in the area.

The FA and Retrospective Punishment

Today it was announced that the FA would not take action against Callum McManaman for his tackle at the weekend. The BBC quotes the FA statement that "Where one of the officials has seen a coming together of players, no retrospective action should be taken, regardless of whether he or she witnessed the full or particular nature of the challenge. This is to avoid the re-refereeing of incidents".

So far, so good, but clearly this isn't a consistent line. Go back to September 2006 and Ben Thatcher's elbow on Pedro Mendes, as covered here. The BBC's own description of events ran "Manchester City defender Ben Thatcher has been suspended for eight games by the Football Association for elbowing Portsmouth midfield man Pedro Mendes.... Thatcher was only booked at the time by referee Dermot Gallagher".

Clearly, then, it's not unprecedented for the FA to take retrospective action, even when an official not only saw the incident but when punishment was meted out at the time. In fairness, the BBC story on the Thatcher case notes that because "of the severity of the incident, the FA circumvented its own rules to lodge a charge of "serious foul play" against Thatcher". Since that set a precedent, however, it's disingenuous of anyone to suggest that the FA could not have acted in the recent McManaman case, had they wanted to; the fact is that they chose not to.

(For the record, I've not seen the McManaman incident and am therefore agnostic as to whether it deserved retrospective punishment; my point is simply that the reasoning offered by the FA for not taking such action seems weak, given that they have done so before.)

MPs and Hypocrisy

There's a piece by the BBC on MPs' practice of abstaining by voting both for and against a bill, rather than not voting at all. It's a slightly odd practice, but it seems that some MPs at least think that it allows them to register views such as that they support a motion in principle but have reservations about the particular implementation before them. In fact, it's not clear that this abstention is any more articulate than silence, since it seems that sometimes the double vote can be due to a mistake.

I was struck by the following quotation, from Andrea Leadsom:

I find myself genuinely torn... I cannot vote against a measure that would mean so much to the minority of homosexual couples for whom marriage is the ultimate recognition for their genuine feelings for each other. Yet nor can I vote for a measure that risks centuries of faith based belief in marriage.

Remember, this is supposed to rationalise voting both for and against the gay marriage bill. First, she says that she cannot vote against it, though she did so. Then she says she cannot vote for it, though again she did so. True she might reasonably say she did not support the bill, nor oppose it, since by casting a vote either way her influence cancelled out. But she specifically says she could not vote either way, even though she did in fact vote both ways.

It's often said that to vote a particular way is to align oneself with it, which explains why people sometimes feel that they cannot vote a particular way with a clear conscience. Voting both ways isn't to align oneself unambiguously with either, but if voting sends any signal then she has to admit that she did vote for gay marriage (and against it). Perhaps, if she really felt that she couldn't vote either way, she shouldn't have voted at all.

Women in the NFL

Apparently, women are allowed to play in the NFL (American football). I'll have to remember this when teaching feminism later in the semester.

Co-Authorship in Philosophy

There's an interesting discussion of co-authorship over on Leiter's blog. (The discussion is primarily about what input counts as 'authorship' and how credit should be divided between authors, rather than how to go about it or whether it's a good idea.)

My own contribution was to suggest that perhaps we should think of the 'authors' credited in a paper as contributors, rather than authors in the traditional sense. This, I think, better captures some of the reasons for which we may think that someone deserves credit, even if they weren't actually involved in the writing of a paper.

Pistorius and Ordinary Language Philosophy

This story seems tragic for all concerned. I couldn't help but notice, however, that this BBC feature on reactions to the news says "Early media reports suggested that Mr Pistorius may have accidentally shot his girlfriend, believing her to be an intruder".

Anyone familiar with Austin's 'A Plea for Excuses' is likely to remember the famous footnote in which he distinguishes between mistakes and accidents. The details of the Pistorius case aren't fully clear, but it seems that he purposely shot the person in his house - it wasn't an accident, where the gun just went off in his hand. What occurred was a case of mistaken identity: what he thought was an intruder was actually his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. He didn't intend to shoot her, but that makes the case a mistake, rather than an accident. Accidents just happen (befall), whereas mistakes depend on wrong choices.

Austin's distinction sounds plausible to me, but it's interesting (in this and other cases) to consider whether it describes a distinction implicit - albeit imperfectly observed - in ordinary language, or is simply a philosopher's stipulation about terms that, ordinarily, are interchangeable. The BBC's original story, however, does respect the distinction: "Reports say he may have mistaken her for a burglar".

EDL Link

I don't know how search algorithms work, but any little link helps I believe. The EDL I'm after is English Disco Lovers.

What Is 'A Song'?

It seems that BBC 6 Music recently produced a listener-voted poll of the Top 100 songs of the last ten years (the time the station has been in air). I'm not going to dispute the choices (de gustibus non est disputandum), but it did seem odd to me that the Top Ten included at least one cover version, specifically Johnny Cash's version of 'Hurt' (originally by Nine Inch Nails).

I don't know what the identity conditions, or ontological status, of a song are. But ordinarily I'd describe Cash's 'Hurt' as a new version of the same song, not as a new song. And, if it is the same song as the one NIN released in 1994, then it doesn't seem that it should be eligible.

Perhaps this is over-restrictive. Perhaps new (re)interpretations should be counted as new songs, rather than variations on old ones (though I don't think it's how we ordinarily speak). But, if this is so, I wonder how much has to change for the song to become a new one.

Nine Inch Nail's And All That Could Have Been live album was apparently released in March 2002, so also too long ago, but had that been a year later would that have counted as a new song of the last ten years? Taken to the extreme, is every new performance a new song? If so, I'd suggest that there are some real classics missing from this list of songs...

Sugar Tax

I read an interesting (unpublished) paper taking a Millian approach towards the taxing of unhealthy foods the other day. Turns out to be rather topical, since the BBC reports calls to raise tax on sugary drinks. I'm curious to know whether this would include orange juice, as well as cola, and why it shouldn't also include alcohol, on a calorific basis.

Revising Medal Tables

I mentioned in an earlier post that the London 2012 Olympic medal tables aren't finally final until 2020, since drug cheats can still be punished later. I see today that Lance Armstrong has just been stripped of a medal from Sydney 2000. This is actually even longer after the event than I thought possible.

Horse Burgers

It seems that scandal has erupted over the presence of horse meat in beefburgers. Apparently burgers sold as beef in fact contained both horse and pig meat. This is mentioned in the BBC report, but what I find strange is that the main focus seems to be given to the horse element.

I'd have thought it far worse that these burgers contain pig, given that many people have moral/religious objections to eating pork. No one, so far as I know, has any particular moral objection to eating horse (ethical vegetarians do of course object to eating horse but not horse in particular - they wouldn't eat beef either for the same reasons).

Of course it's true that horses aren't usually considered food in the UK, but there's no particular reason for this - I understand that the French happily eat horse meat. I think this highlights the somewhat arbitrary nature of what is and is not considered food, particularly when it comes to animals. (A further BBC feature follows this up, here.) But it's also surprising to see more focus here on what I take to be an aesthetic matter than a religious/moral one, given that most people usually hold the latter to be more important.

(Of course I don't mean to deny that there's a general objection here that consumers were misled about the content of what they were eating, which may be the most serious issue of all - but this doesn't explain the focus on horse meat.)

New Blog

I realised that I've been blogging here for over seven years. I never knew it would last so long when I first set out. Up until now, my blogging has been done exclusively here, barring the odd guest post (and Twitter, if that counts as blogging).

Recently I've created a new blog here. This new one isn't to replace this one. Whereas Praesidium is a personal blog with a fairly wide-remit, the new blog - as the name implies - is focused on organ policy. It's to tie-in with a grant I was recently awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh for a series of workshops on organ policy. If that's an area that interests you, then be sure to follow the Organ Policy blog for updates.

Incentives to Lose Weight

I hope that everyone had an enjoyable Christmas/New Year. Around now many people are probably starting new year diets in an effort to shift the extra holiday pounds. Apparently, however, Westminster Council are threatening to cut benefits for obese or unhealthy people who refuse to exercise (or lose weight?).

Long-time readers will no doubt be aware of my interest in incentives (click on the tag for more). This is a slightly unusual case. There seems, intuitively, to be a difference between cutting benefits and offering extra benefits. On the other hand, this also seems to be two ways of describing the same thing, so it may merely be a framing effect.

Referendum Cost

You may recall that one of the arguments used by the No2AV campaign against electoral reform was its cost. The costs were obviously misrepresented, since the supposed cost of the referendum was included as a cost of adopting AV, though it was a cost incurred whether or not AV was chosen. Today it emerges that the cost of the referendum was over-estimated in any case.

Gay Marriage

I saw this attack on gay marriage on Facebook. Since the comment I ended up writing (on FB, rather than the blog) was rather long, I thought I'd share it here too: I have to say I'm not at all convinced. First, marriage is not "the only relationship where children can be conceived and born within the life-long union of their own natural parents", since children can be born out of wedlock and their parents may still stay together. Second, even if this was distinctive to marriage, it would suggest that we need a word not for lifelong union of man and woman but rather lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children, if that's what's so special. This isn't what marriage means, as the author concedes ("This doesn’t mean that a man and a woman are obliged to have children, or that they are always capable of having children.") These examples apparently don't dilute the meaning of marriage, since it's still the case that marriage 'ordinarily' means lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children. But, if this is so, then I don't see why gay marriage is any threat, at least provided it's not so common as to change the 'ordinary' case. Then marriage ordinarily means lifelong union of man and woman raising their biological children, or relevantly similar cases, such as childless couples of either sex.

Alcohol Minimum Pricing

It looks as if England and Wales could follow the Scottish lead and introduce minimum pricing for alcohol. I have a paper, which should be published soon, that outlines a Millian perspective on the issue. (No link yet, but I'll probably post again when it becomes available.) In short, I argue that Mill would have opposed minimum pricing as a means to discourage drinking, though he would have been happy with a tax on alcohol for purposes of raising revenue.

Tied Elections Decided by Lottery (Again)

Apparently when US elections aren't decided by the Supreme Court - or the popular vote - they use various lottery mechanisms to break ties, as in this case of New Mexico state house. Thanks to Peter Stone for the link.

Plural Voting

Next week the Mill seminar that I've been running this semester reaches Considerations on Representative Government (included in Gray's On Liberty and Other Essays, which is the set text for my course). Anyone with passing familiarity with this work will know that one of Mill's most (in)famous recommendations is a system of plural voting, according to which the poor and uneducated (although not those living on welfare benefits or the illiterate) would get one vote, but other more educated citizens would get more than one vote.

This idea generally strikes students as repulsive - correctly so, perhaps - but one point I try to stress is that, at Mill's time, this was a progressive proposal. In other words, he was not advocating taking away anyone's vote (as a proposal with the same content would today), but extending the vote. He wanted to give the less educated some power, which seems a clear improvement on none. (Though I can see why someone firmly committed to political equality might think it better not to go down this road.)

This Wikipedia entry is remarkably interesting though. It was not until the 1948 Representation of the People Act (first applied in the 1950 general election) that the UK abolished plural voting. Belgium also practised plural voting, something like what Mill proposed, between 1894 and 1919, apparently to limit the impact of universal suffrage. In practice, universal unequal suffrage may be a stepping stone towards universal equal suffrage, rather than a step away from it.