Miller Conference

By the time this post is scheduled to go 'live' I should already be on my way to St Andrews for this colloquium on David Miller's National Responsibility and Global Justice (I'm giving a paper Saturday morning). It'll be nice to go for many reasons, one of course being a reunion with my former supervisor, but also because it will be my first visit to St Andrews - despite the fact that they operate a joint graduate programme (SASP) with Stirling, with I've been teaching on this semester. I hope my cold goes away though...

The Drugs Don't Pay

It seems that paying people to stay off drugs works. Not too surprising I'd have thought. A basic lesson of economics is that people respond to incentives (this is essentially the central theme of Freakonomics and the reasoning behind Nudge).

Of course, one aspect of such a scheme that may be controversial is it means paying people to do what's already in their interests. It seems that the government has recently decided that people ought to pay for what benefits them - at least when it comes to university education, though their policy may not be entirely consistent, as my friend Thom discusses here.

PHI9R4 Political Philosophy

We're still only halfway through the current semester, with most of my teaching (and all of my marking) still to come, but here's a teaser for the course that I'll be teaching next semester (the webpage having just been updated). Guess I'll need to get on with actually compiling a syllabus and reading list before long, not to mention writing the lectures...

Pammy @ Oxford

I hardly used my Oxford Union membership while in Oxford. Funnily enough though, since leaving I still get bombarded with facebook invites to events. I missed this one though - Pamela Anderson. Actually, it seems that she was talking about vegetarianism, alongside someone from PETA, which may have been interesting. But I probably wouldn't have gone...

Banning Miniskirts

I was lecturing last week on Mill's harm principle and various applications, such as what he might say about mephedrone or cannibalism. Now it seems that there's another example: an Italian town that wants to ban miniskirts and low-slung jeans! Now, back in Mill's day, it would probably have been considered indecent to show off a bit of ankle, but arguably that's just the kind of society-regulating-morality that he was trying to resist (though there is a problematic passage about public decency). Maybe I need a new irregular series about Mill spinning in his grave...

Reviewing Papers

I have a manuscript sat on my desk that I have to review for a journal. It's something I've done a good few times now, but it's surprising how little feedback one gets on the process. I only really get an idea of what's expected from the reports that I get on my own work, which vary a lot. Well, thankfully Thom Brooks is out to put that right. He's working on a piece of advice for refereeing papers (following his previous advice for publishing) and currently inviting suggestions here.

A Couple of Political Theory Bargains on Amazon

It's been suggested that we read some of Sen's The Idea of Justice in our political philosophy group here in Stirling. I have to say, I've not heard good reports about it, but I noticed that (at time of writing) it was available for only £7.65 on Amazon so thought I'd better buy it.

While looking, I also saw that they had Sandel's Justice for £2.29 (77% off RRP), which I somewhat more excited about (though I guess it will be a while until I can read it). I thought others might be interested in some bargains. (Disclaimer: Affiliate links contained above. If you purchase through these, it won't cost you anything extra, but I may earn a small commission.)

More Football Lotteries

I've long been aware of European Cup matches featuring Liverpool and Celtic that were decided by the toss of a coin. In fact, I mention these cases in a piece I wrote about the difference between penalty shoot outs and lotteries in Soccer and Philosophy. It seems that this tie-breaking method was more widespread than I'd realised though. I was just reading a preview of Liverpool's Europa League clash with Napoli and find (about half-way down) that Napoli "have met English opposition twice in Europe, being eliminated on both occasions. In 1966-67 they were beaten by Burnley 3-0 on aggregate in the Fairs Cup and in the same competition two seasons later Leeds knocked them out on the toss of a coin. Strangely Liverpool suffered the same fate in the same campaign, losing to Athletic Bilbao."

One (or two) to look up I think...

(In other news, Liverpool are being flown out by Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden!)

Blood Bowl

Eloise and I have been working through things to do in the evenings since moving to Scotland. So far, that's included several films and the first series of Yes Minister on DVD. We also have a pile of old board games to get through though, including Blood Bowl - a Games Workshop game that's basically a more violent version of American football set in the Warhammer world. It must be well over ten years since I played and the first time for Eloise, but it was good fun.

For the record, I was orcs and she was humans. I was receiving the ball (and thus attacking) in the first half, but got so stuck into pummelling her team that I forgot to do anything with the ball until too late. The strategy paid dividends though as by half-time I'd ko-d three of her lineman. We'd both had a man sent off for fouls, but I was able to start the second period with a numerical advantage of 11 to 8, which gave me a greater chance to stop her scoring.

As it is, Eloise came pretty close to the opening touchdown, managing to run a catcher into my end zone and get a thrower with the ball dangerously close - only for him to fall over attempting to dodge by blitzer and open up a good scoring opportunity. At this point, one of my orcs was able to scoop up the ball, while I inflicted further damage by pushing two more of her players into the crowd (where they were also ko-d). By the end of the match, she only had four men left on the pitch - who were regularly getting knocked down - though it still required my lineman to 'go for it' (and use my final team re-roll in doing so) in order to score the game's only touchdown in the final turn. A fine example, I think, of the orc strategy (i.e. concentrate on roughing up the opponents first and then use numerical superiority to score a running touchdown).

Want to be my boss?

From January, my department ceases to exist. In fact, all of Stirling's departments will, as they merge into schools. If you fancy being my new boss, we're currently advertising for head of school...

Philosophy of Football Hits the BBC!

This BBC feature on the ethics of supporting footballers who are also convicted criminals (with focus on Marlon King) is quite interesting. There's been discussion of King's case before of course, such as this piece, but the BBC piece is notable because it actually quotes Prof Mike McNamee, editor of the British Philosophy of Sport Association journal, Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

It's good to see philosophy getting more mainstream coverage - I hope it counts as impact! Don't forget, if you want to read more philosophy about football, Soccer and Philosophy (including a chapter by yours truly) is available now.

Olympic Ticket Lottery

Want to pay £50-£725 to watch a ten-second race? You may also have to win a lottery to do so! The BBC reports here: "From March, people can register interest in an event and, if it is over-subscribed, they will be entered into a ballot."

Upcoming Talks

I'm going away for a couple of days, during which I'll be visiting Manchester to give this paper in the Mancept visiting speaker series.

It's the start of a busy period for me, as I take advantage of my light probationary teaching load. The next week I have a talk in Stirling's visiting speaker seminar (obviously not as a visitor, but a tradition for new staff apparently) and at the end of the month I'm giving a paper in a colloquium on David Miller's National Responsibility and Global Justice at the University of St Andrews.

Teaching Applied Ethics

I have a piece in the latest Journal of Medical Ethics (36:10) on teaching applied ethics. Abstract here, full text (subscription required) here.

This is my first publication under my University of Stirling affiliation, although they did get my email address wrong (that was partly my fault - I'd told them what I expected it to be, though I did then notify them that it wasn't as expected for some reason). I'm not sure whether I can legitimately count it as a 'research publication' or not though, since while it draws on discipline-specific expertise it's really a piece about teaching. Also it's published in their 'controversy' section, since it's a continuation of a debate between Rob Lawlor and David Benatar.

For those interested, the debate between Lawlor and Benatar focused on whether or not it was helpful to teach moral theories as part of applied ethics courses (particularly to medical students). The debate between them, as is often the case, seemed to reach an impasse, since both wanted to make weak claims while accusing the other of stronger ones (that is, Lawlor didn't say we should never teach moral theories).

My contribution is to suggest that, rather than focusing on whether - or how much - we teach moral theories (which may in any case be out of the instructor's control), we should focus on how we go about doing it. Specifically, I suggest that rather than starting with a theory-driven approach, we begin by examining particular issues and work from there towards theory-building.

Unfair or Unjust?

I have before wondered about the difference - if there is one - between what's (un)fair and what's (un)just. See, for example, p. 42, fn. 1 of my 'Fairness between Competing Claims' in Res Publica 16:1 earlier this year. I'm not convinced that there is any ordinary language distinction that native speakers recognize (like, say, that between mistakes and accidents).

Whilst reading about Liverpool's draw with Sunderland yesterday, however, I notice that Steve Bruce described the referee's decision to allow Liverpool's opener as "unjust, unfair and wrong". A statement from the Professional Game Match Officials (a body I'd never heard of either) argued that the decision was in fact correct, but I'm not here to debate either its substantive merits nor interesting questions about whether the referee's decision can be both unjust and the correct one for him to have made. Rather, I'm intrigued by Bruce's phrasing.

I guess it suggests that he thinks there is a difference between being unjust and unfair (and a further issue of being wrong). Presumably his distinction between what's unjust and merely unfair can't rest on an appeal to anything like the basic structure of society either, since this decision wouldn't violate Rawls' principles of justice. I wonder what he had in mind?

Challenging Degrees

A graduate from Belfast has taken his former university to court over his 2:2 degree, claiming that if he had better supervision he would have got a 2:1 (reported here). It's hard to know what to say. Firstly, I agree with the defence lawyer that court probably isn't the right place to settle such disputes. More importantly, though, I don't really see that he has a case even if his claim is true.

Let's assume that with sufficiently better supervision he could have got a 2.i. The question is whether he has any right to that level of supervision. Presumably the level (quality and quantity) of supervision is one factor in determining the degree result, but many other factors play a role, in particular the student's own level of effort. Obviously I don't know the student in question, but for most students it's true that they could also have done better had they worked harder.

No student has a right to as much supervision as they can possibly benefit from. The question is whether they get a sufficient amount, both in absolute terms (what they paid for) and relative terms (i.e. in comparison to their peers). If he got as much supervision as others, but failed to make sufficient use of it, then surely some responsibility lies with him...

How Much Are You Worth?

The BBC reports here about the findings of a survey on pay. Predictably, it seems that the public think footballers and executives should be paid less than they are and carers, cashiers and call centre workers more. In other words, it generally looks like the public favour much greater equality in earnings.

Unfortunately, it's not entirely clear exactly what the public questioned were asked. The results are certainly reported as what people should earn rather than what they are in fact paid, but the mini-survey you can take on the site asks both and it's possible that some respondents failed to appreciate these subtleties.

Nonetheless, pretty interesting stuff. Too bad university lecturers weren't included...

Vine: Go From Good to Great

Another in my infrequent series of reviews from Amazon Vine. Usually, I use them to draw attention to things I like, but this time a negative review.

How to Succeed with NLP: Go from Good to Great at Work

I've read a few self-help type books in the past, but was particularly attracted to this one because of the NLP angle (not that I'm a confirmed fan, just because I was curious). Unfortunately, I can't say that I'm really any the wiser about Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Of course, this isn't a psychology textbook - the author is upfront about the fact that this isn't an introduction to NLP but rather how to use it to 'go from good to great at work' and thus all you need to know about NLP is that it works (p. 2).

Nonetheless, I found this approach rather unsatisfying, since the reader doesn't get much insight into why particular techniques are supposed to be effective. Ultimately, the author simply reels off instruction after instruction, all justified simply because 'this is what NLP says to do.' Maybe NLP does give good advice, but all the reader gets here is some jargon, which isn't always explained. Moreover, without any insight into the fundamental principles, I have to say that I found the advice confusing at times. Sometimes, for example, you're told that it's not enough to do a great job, you must be seen to be doing so, so you should change your behaviour to stand out (e.g. p. 99), but at other times it seems to suggest that you try to fit in rather than stand out to built rapport with your team (e.g. p. 132).

Admittedly, it's difficult to give general advice in books like this, so there's always some tendency for authors to hedge their bets ('do X - a little, but not too much'), but I have to say that I didn't find the advice very useful. Often you're told what to do but not how to do it or told that you can achieve it through visualization techniques, which sound rather far-fetched to me (I didn't really try the exercises).

It's hard to give a verdict on whether the techniques work - no doubt they will for some people and not for others. The most damning indictment, in my view, though must be how badly written the book is, given the regular refrain about the importance of communication and clarity. The repetition I can forgive, since the reader is invited to pick and choose the chapters most relevant to them rather than working through the whole book, but the material didn't seem to have any coherent organization and chapters tended to jump around haphazardly.

Even at the micro-level, a number of sentences didn't clearly communicate what the author meant, for instance: "recognize what it is that you are not doing that could be holding you back" (p. 189) and, on the importance of being seen, "Picture how useful this will be when decisions are being made about redundancies, promotions, transfers and salary increases. If people don't know who you are, you will never be on the list" (p. 211).

I can't really comment on the merits of NLP, but there must be better books out there.

My review, first published here.

Another Potential Real-Life Trolley Problem

Last month I posted on this story of a runaway train on London Underground. Now it seems that something almost happened again, with one train being sent the wrong way into the path of another during rush hour yesterday. Maybe London Underground do need to employ a moral philosopher...

Do School Lotteries Work?

I've been following the Brighton & Hove school lottery case for a while (see here) and, indeed, written about it in print (see here, subscription required).

It's interesting to see this BBC headline, suggesting that the lottery failed to achieve equal access for students from poorer backgrounds. On reading the accompanying piece, however, it seems that the basis for the story is as follows: "Research presented to the British Educational Research Association on Friday says the system does not give equal chances to all pupils because catchment areas are still the main determinants of access to particular schools."

In other words, the reason it failed is not because it's a lottery (though of course equal chances don't guarantee equal success) but because it wasn't a lottery. It's important to realize that restrictions on who can enter a lottery, for example, can go a long way to 'fixing' the outcomes and therefore cancel out the benefits.

For more on these issues, see the books by my friend Olly Dowlen and Conall Boyle's recent book specifically on school lotteries.