Liam Fox channels Edmund Burke

I'll be teaching the trustee-delegate debate as part of my democratic theory module next semester, so here's a convenient example: Liam Fox saying "We are not elected to do what we want to do, but to do what is in the national interest".

Of course, no one defends the view that representatives should do whatever they want. The crucial question is whether they should exercise their own judgement as to what's in the national interest or accept the people's verdict.

Fox seems to agree with Burke, in suggesting that they focus on the national interest (rather than particular interests, such as their constituency), but perhaps to disagree on whether they ought to exercise independent judgement. Burke famously argued that MPs should make their own minds up about what is in the national interest.

Publication: Altruism and Organ Donation

My latest paper just appeared in print here (subscription required). Here's a word cloud illustrating the content:

And, for those interested, here is the abstract:

It has traditionally been assumed that organ donation must be altruistic, though the necessity of altruistic motivations has recently been questioned. Few, however, have questioned whether altruism is always a good motive. This paper considers the possibility that excessive altruism, or self-abnegation, may be intrinsically bad. How this may be so is illustrated with reference to Tom Hurka’s account of the value of attitudes, which suggests that disproportionate love of one’s own good – either excessive or deficient – is intrinsically bad. Whether or not we accept the details of this account, recognising that altruistic motivations may be intrinsically bad has important implications for organ procurement. One possible response is to say that we should take further measures to ensure that donors have good motives – that they are altruistic is no longer enough. An alternative is to say that, since altruistic donation need not be intrinsically good, we have less reason to object to other motivations.

Cats and Dogs

I commented recently on proposals to ban the consumption of dog meat in the UK. I don't know whether this is really going anyway - I suspect our political class have greater concerns right now. However, it seems that the US House has just passed a bill penalizing consumption of dogs or cats (with exemptions for native religious customs).

Again, the logic seems to be that these animals ought not to be slaughtered because of how beloved they are by people. It doesn't seem to be based on anything like intelligence, since pigs seem to be as smart as dogs (see here and here).

According to what moral system does an animal's right not to be slaughtered depend on its popularity?

Food Choices and Voluntariness

While making some updates and changes to my Ethics of Public Policy module, I decided to change one of the core readings on the food topic. I use a piece by Sarah Conly arguing for paternalistic interventions, but wanted to pair it with something defending a more traditional liberal approach.

I found this piece by Alex Rajczi, which outlines some fairly standard liberal positions, for instance denying that voluntary self-harm is a reason for government interference. There are, however, two arguments that he does give some credence to, both suggesting that people's unhealthy choices are not substantially voluntary.

First, he suggests that people may lack the necessary information to make good choices (by their own lights). For instance, calorie information is not always easy to find or may be difficult to interpret. Rajczi argues that this is not itself reason to ban unhealthy food, since there are less intrusive measures available, such as better food labelling.

This is topical, since it seems there's currently disagreement between the Department for Health and the Treasury over proposals to require restaurants to provide calorie information. (See BBC report here.) The main argument against this proposal seems to be economic - the cost to small businesses in particular - though the article also raises the interesting point that calorie labelling can exacerbate eating disorders. I'd like to see the evidence mentioned, but not specifically referenced, in the article. It does raise an interesting health vs. health conflict though.

The second argument that Rajczi gives some credence to says that people's food choices are non-voluntary because they cannot afford to eat more healthily. As it happens, this is also in the news at the moment. According to this story, 3.7 million children live in homes struggling to afford a decent, healthy diet.

Rajczi considers that some of us may live in an unjust nutritional environment. This is not immediately obvious, since it depends on what theory of justice one subscribes to. On some, such as libertarianism or luck egalitarianism, the inability to afford healthy food is not itself sufficient to establish injustice. However, one need only accept some kind of sufficientarian minimal safety net - and not full-blown egalitarianism - in order to think that this is unjust.

Again, Rajczi argues that the appropriate response to this problem is not to ban unhealthy foods, or even to tax them (which, by increasing the cost, exacerbates problems for the poor), but rather addresses the affordability of healthy food. Rajczi proposes either income/wealth redistribution or subsidies for healthy foods.*

*There's an unfortunate typo in the last sentence before the concluding section, which actually says subsidies for unhealthy foods. In context, this is obviously a mistake, though I took the trouble to confirm that with him.

For the Dogs

It seems that there's sufficient concern around dog meat that some people want the UK to ban its consumption.

I'm unclear what could justify singling out dogs in particular. If the UK really is a nation of animal lovers, then I'd have thought more people would be vegetarian - but, even then, I'm not sure it would be legitimate for the state to ban the consumption of meat.

But to argue for a ban on dog meat, while happily eating pigs, cows, etc, seems hypocritical.

J. S. Mill argued that, if Muslims were a majority, they would have no right to ban the eating of pork, simply because they find it abhorrent. The same seems to apply, mutatis mutandis, to dog meat.

Edit: see also this later post on US measures.

Marching for Scottish Freedom

I don't know their exact route, but these marchers probably passed within a proverbial stone's throw of my old house up in Stirling.

According to the BBC coverage, and their website, All Under One Banner aim to "march at regular intervals until Scotland is free".

I think I'll use this to discuss the connection between freedom and independence when lecturing this autumn.

Pigeon Politics?

Are pigeons political animals? The subtitle of this Conversation article would suggest so, though the term 'politics' does not seem to appear in the original research that it reports.

The research is concerned with hierarchies, but it's plausible that not all politics involves hierarchy - a society of equals could still be political. But what of the reverse? Can there be hierarchies that are not political?

Publication: Altruism and Organ Donation

I have a new paper, forthcoming in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

I made a word cloud, to illustrate the main ideas:

You can also view this word cloud here. If you prefer the more traditional abstract, here it is:

"It has traditionally been assumed that organ donation must be altruistic, though the necessity of altruistic motivations has recently been questioned. Few, however, have questioned whether altruism is always a good motive. This paper considers the possibility that excessive altruism, or self-abnegation, may be intrinsically bad. How this may be so is illustrated with reference to Tom Hurka’s account of the value of attitudes, which suggests that disproportionate love of one’s own good—either excessive or deficient—is intrinsically bad. Whether or not we accept the details of this account, recognising that altruistic motivations may be intrinsically bad has important implications for organ procurement. One possible response is to say that we should take further measures to ensure that donors have good motives—that they are altruistic is no longer enough. An alternative is to say that, since altruistic donation need not be intrinsically good, we have less reason to object to other motivations."

Those with access to the journal can access the full paper, ahead of its print publication.

Fines and School Holidays

I saw this article about truancy fines for term-time holidays on the BBC website. I don't know about the content of the review being reported on, but the first two sentences of the article seem clearly contradictory:

"Fining parents for taking children out of school in term time in Wales has had no effect on overall absence rates, a review has found.

It shows the number of unauthorised family holidays actually increased after fixed penalty notices were introduced in 2013."

If there was an increase, then there was an effect on absence rates, though perhaps not the one expected. (It might perhaps be that the increase was attributable to something else, and the fine judged to have no effect either way, but there's no indication in the article that anything else was responsible for this increase.)

This isn't so surprising if you're familiar with the literature in the area. One of the most referred to studies is this one, concerning the introduction of fines for late collection of children from day care centres. Again, the study found that more parents were late to collect their children after the introduction of fines.

The usual interpretation is that the extrinsic motivation provided by the fine 'crowds out' intrinsic motivation provided by a sense of duty. Without the fine, people feel a moral obligation to collect their children on time. When there is a fine, they feel that they are paying for being late, so the feeling of moral obligation not to be late recedes. It seems there may be a similar effect in the case of term-time holidays.

Electoral Tie-Breaking

I've not seen national news coverage yet, but a (council?) by-election in Ockendon, Thurrock has been resolved by drawing a name out of a box. Local coverage can be found here and here.

So far, I'm not clear on the facts of the case. The Thurrock Gazette reports the first count gave a one-vote difference, before a recount led to an exact tie (696 each) and a lottery. In that case, I'd expect another recount, to confirm whether it really was a tie or not, before the lottery.

However, YourThurrock.com reports that there were three recounts. (I don't know whether they actually mean an original count and two recounts, or whether they really mean three recounts, i.e. four counts total.)

Predictably, comments sections show some opposition to lotteries, but I'm pleased to see that they continue to play a part in our democracy.

Age-based Voting in the EU Referendum

In the aftermath of the EU ('Brexit') Referendum, there was a lot of talk about the disparity between the old (who it seems voted in larger numbers and mainly to leave) and the young (who mainly voted to remain, but many of whom did not vote - or for under 18s were not eligible to do so).


Here is Sean Lock, proposing to include those over 10 but exclude those over 65. You'll need institutional access to Box of Broadcasts.

If you don't have that, my TV guide says it was from Series 4, Episode 6 of 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, which seems to be confirmed by 4OD. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to square with what I can find on Youtube, where episodes seem to be wrongly labelled. It featured Bill Bailey and Josh Widdicombe as guests.

A more serious, academic take on the issue is provided by this Van Parijs article (which I've shared before) but I think I might use Sean Lock in my lectures.

Votes for Immigrants

A nice blog here, arguing that the right to vote should not be restricted to citizens, but rather should extend to resident foreigners.

Some would go even further, questioning why even residency should be required, if people can be affected by decisions. It's been suggested, for example, that everyone in Latin America should get to vote on the US president. This would probably have made quite a difference to the 2016 election, where the Mexican border wall was one of Trump's main campaign promises.

Taxes for Children

The BBC just led me to this HMRC video explaining taxes for children (roughly 8-11). From around 3:30, it highlights that the target audience pay tax (VAT). This could be interesting in a discussion of voting rights.