Liveblogging Brexit #3: Federal union?

I'm not sure whether this link will work - it's intended to go to comment 300 on this story. In case it doesn't, or ceases to in future, here is the relevant comment:



The relevant part, corrected for better English, is:

"How can the Brexit referendum result be to leave, if three countries voted against leaving and only one voted to leave? It's really not democracy, if three countries are held to ransom by one."

First, this is factually inaccurate, as Leave won in Wales and England so, on a country by country basis, it's actually two apiece, not three-to-one.

Suppose, however, the facts were as 'gerry' suggested and only England had voted to leave. Would this be democratic?

The referendum was a UK-wide one. There were over 28m votes cast in England (plus Gibraltar), compared to around 5m from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Or, in terms of potential electorates, 39m to 7.5m. Thus, a large enough majority in England would be able to outvote the other countries on a 'one person, one vote' basis. That's how most people normally understand democracy.

There are some countries where major constitutional decisions would have to be ratified by a majority of constituent federal units or similar. I'm sympathetic to the idea that a major constitutional decision should not be left to a simple majority process. However, I'm not sure whether treating the UK as a four-country federal system is the answer.

Suppose it had been specified, in advance of the referendum, that Brexit would only happen if at least two of the four countries voted to leave the EU. In that case, just 4m people (majorities in Wales, Scotland, and N.I.) would have been able to block Brexit, even if over 40m others (the whole population of England plus the minority in each of those three countries) had voted to leave. Surely, that would be undemocratic...

Liveblogging Brexit #2

Update from the BBC:

Boris Johnson says Jeremy Corbyn "has become the first leader of the opposition in the democratic history of our country to refuse the invitation of an election".

My comment:

Prior to the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the PM could call an election whenever (s)he wanted, so there was no need to invite the opposition to vote for one. It's therefore not so surprising that the 'democratic history of our country' has never previously need the leader of the opposition refuse such an invitation, because I doubt there's ever really been one...

If the Fixed-term Parliaments Act continues, then such refusals may be more common than one might expect, given that the point of the Act was to prevent PMs from calling elections at opportune moments.

Liveblogging Brexit #1

 I'm going to start a series of small blog entries that I'll call 'Liveblogging Brexit'. Obviously, I don't actually plan to live blog the whole Brexit process, but the current political crisis is throwing up many snippets that may be useful for classroom discussion, so I want to preserve some of them for posterity... Here's the first.

From the BBC:

Conservative MP Nigel Evans says, "the British people have voted to leave the European Union [in the 2016 referendum]. If this Parliament decides we are not going to leave the European Union, then the British people ought to have an opportunity to change their Parliament."

My comment:

This argument may have been all very well in late 2016 or early 2017, but the current parliament was elected more recently than the referendum - that is, voters have already had one chance to change their parliament.

If the outcome of the 2017 election seems to conflict with that of the 2016 referendum, then perhaps the more recent should take precedence. At the very least, there's as much case for re-running the 2016 referendum as there is for re-running the 2017 general election.

Diet and Nutrition

There was a sad story in the news today about a teenager who went blind due to living on a diet of junkfood - chips, crisps, bread, and no fruit or vegetables.

Even the BBC article, linked to in the previous sentence, takes this opportunity to 'lecture' on how vegans can get vitamin B12, although the problem in this case was clearly nothing to do with a vegan diet (it mentions that he had occasional ham or sauage).

This piece at The Conversation goes even further, with the gratuitous statement that "Without nutrient supplements or fortified foods, strict veganism can lead to irreversible blindness." This is true, but the case supposedly under discussion shows that a non-vegan diet can also lead to irreversible blindness, if lacking essential nutrients.

The case in question involves a 'picky eater' who may even qualify as having an eating disorder, but the more important general lessons are probably those about nutritional education and the dangers of food poverty.

An end to smoking?

The big news of the day was the announcement of Boris Johnson as the new Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. In light of this, much may change regarding future priorities. However, what caught my eye was the announcement that the (current) government intends to end smoking in England by 2030.

That's a rather bold move. It's probably misleading for the BBC to describe this as a 'pledge' though, given that it's only a green paper for consultation. The end of the article says this consultation runs until 14th October, with a government response due in spring (2020). I can't help thinking they might have other priorities, perhaps even including an early election...

Universal Credit and Prostitution

I've been reading some stuff on prostitution lately, for my Ethics of Public Policy module. Predictably, much of it focuses on whether prostitutes have any free choice over engaging in sex work or whether they are coerced, for instance by poverty and a lack of acceptable alternatives.

This piece on the BBC is therefore timely. It reports that a number of women, particularly single mothers, are forced into 'survival sex' as a result of changes to universal credit. Unfortunately the deadline for submitting evidence has now passed, but this was a concern of the DWP.

Vegan-Friendly Cities?

I've seen a couple of people sharing this ranking of vegan-friendly cities, which has also been picked up by some news sources, such as The Metro.

You wouldn't know the methodology from the news reports but, if you go to the original source, it seems to be based entirely on total population divided by the number of vegan/veggie-only restaurants. It takes no account of things like quality of restaurants or how accommodating other restaurants are for vegans (which I'd say is pretty important in branding a city 'vegan-friendly').

 Indeed, despite labelling the table 'most vegan friendly cities' it doesn't even seem to distinguish vegan from vegetarian. Theoretically, somewhere could top this list based on having a lot of vegetarian restaurants without any vegan dishes.

I'm also curious as to how this ranking would compare with one of total restaurants per person. While I'd expect some places to have a higher proportion of vegan/vegetarian restaurants than others, it seems this methodology will simply favour places with more restaurants per head (assuming some will be vegetarian/vegan).

It's a pretty meaningless ranking I'd say.

I wonder if she smiles - the danger of gender expectations

This is a quite moving piece. I may use it when teaching about sex selection in future.

Plain packaging for sugar

We already tax sugary drink. Now, this BBC column suggests going further, adopting 'plain packaging' requirements that have been used for regulating cigarettes. The idea apparently comes from this IPPR report (press release), which is mentioned but seemingly not linked to by the BBC.

I'll be running an undergraduate version of my ethics of public policy module in the autumn, so topical discussions like this are useful - expect to see more links posted here as I stumble across them.

David Davis on Referendums

Back in 2002:

"Referendums should be held when the electorate are in the best possible position to make a judgment. They should be held when people can view all the arguments for and against and when those arguments have been rigorously tested. In short, referendums should be held when people know exactly what they are getting. So legislation should be debated by Members of Parliament on the Floor of the House, and then put to the electorate for the voters to judge.
We should not ask people to vote on a blank sheet of paper and tell them to trust us to fill in the details afterwards. For referendums to be fair and compatible with our parliamentary process, we need the electors to be as well informed as possible and to know exactly what they are voting for. Referendums need to be treated as an addition to the parliamentary process, not as a substitute for it."

Source.

Which 'constituency' should MPs be responsive to?

According to Edmund Burke, MPs should exercise their own judgement, rather than being beholden to what 'the people' want. Many disagree. But even if we accept that MPs should do what 'the people' tell them, it is still an open question which people they should listen to.

I'm getting to Burke in my lectures in a couple of weeks, but this is such a good example that I may have to save it for then...

Gerard McMullan says: "The DUP are representing their constituents, their constituents told them, 'We want to Remain.' The DUP don't represent the UK, they represent Northern Ireland. And Northern Ireland say they want to stay."

 

Adam Petticrew says: "People voted to leave so we have to leave.... I think it's a joke that the DUP get to decide [what's going to happen] because the people decided already what's to happen. The DUP should be doing what the people said - they want to leave. Northern Ireland is part of the UK and on the whole the UK wanted to leave."

 

This touches on another point, namely whether MPs should pursue the national interest or the interests of their constituents. Burke thought that MPs should pursue what they think is in the national interest, but one might disagree on both points or only on one of them. This gives at least four options:

 

A. MPs should make their own independent judgement of the national interest.

B. MPs should make their own independent judgement of their constituents' interests.

C. MPs should accept the people's view of the national interest.

D. MPs should accept their constituents' view of their local interests.

 

(Obviously, this could be further complicated. I assume that if MPs are to promote the national interest, but not exercise their own judgement, then they should respond to the national vote. But, in principle, they could do what their constituents think is in the national interest.)

The Difficulty of Targetting Junk Food (Advertising)

It's often suggested that the state should ban the advertising of junk food, particularly to children. Saqiq Khan's (long proposed) ban on such advertising on London public transplant recently came into force. (This, of course, comes on top of the recent sugar tax.)

This Spectator article neatly summarises one problem with these proposals though. There is no agreed definition of junk food. What's actually banned is the advertising of food high in fat, sugar, or salt, but this includes (amongst other things) many tinned fruits, cereals, and jams. (Another blow for our post-Brexit economy, based on jam and biscuits.)

A lot of foods people might think of as 'healthy' could fall foul of these restrictions on supposedly 'unhealthy' food. For instance, fruit smoothies are high in sugar.

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.

Iterated Games

An important part of game theory is that the payoffs of a one-off game may differ if it were repeated (especially if infinitely or indefinitely). A nice illustration of that can be found here.

In a one-off game, getting $1 beats getting 50c. But taking $1 ends the game, whereas if the boys keeps taking 50c then he gets another chance to play (indefinitely), allowing him to win much more over time.

Unusual Marriages 3: Yourself

It's often said that a marriage is between a man and a woman. This excludes not only homosexual (same-sex) marriage, but also polygamous marriage. And it also excludes sologamy, yet it seems that some people are marrying themselves. This BBC story partially repeats an earlier feature on Laura Mesi.

It takes two to tango, but not necessarily to marry...

Unusual Marriages 2: A Chandelier

When I posted this piece, about a woman who married a bridge, a while ago, I think I had a couple of other examples that I meant to post in a little series. Unfortunately, it looks like I never did. I just saw this piece, about a woman who proposed to a chandelier.

The piece clarifies that this marriage won't be recognised by Church or law, though as far as I can tell no marriage has actually taken place yet anyway. The woman in question apparently wants a commitment ceremony, although it seems she's in an open/polyamorous relationship that involves sleeping with other light fittings too.

SCDTP funding

The ESRC's South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (Southampton, Brighton, and Portsmouth) will fund at least 38 PhD students this year, on either a +3 (PhD) or 1+3 (MSc and PhD) basis. Some of these studentships will be for particular projects, advertised separately, but there's also an open call for student proposals here. Deadline end of January 2018.

I'm not directly involved in the ESRC funding decisions, but I am Doctoral Programmes Director for Politics And International Relations.

What is a political symbol?

In 2016, FIFA fined the home nations for displaying poppies at international football matches. Players cannot wear political or religious images, either on their shirts or on armbands. More recently, they have suggested that poppies may be allowed. They've now tightened up their definition of a 'political symbol' - though it is still broad enough to include any national government and also any specific political act or event (which seems circular).

What seems strange, then, is that they never seem to have had a problem with national flags or emblems such as the 'three lions' on England shirts (which are the royal arms of the Plantagenet kings). Several other nations, such as Italy and Norway, wear shirts featuring their national flag. Indeed, in some cases even the colour of the shirt can signify political and/or religious allegiances, hence the strong feelings over green and blue around certain parts of Glasgow. Surely, if all political and religious symbols are forbidden, these are also problematic...

I can sympathise with those who wish to keep politics out of sport, but apparently it's impossible to keep sport out of politics, as shown by President Trump's recent comments over NFL players and the national anthem. Plenty of people seem to be boycotting the NFL because they don't want politics in their sport, but in that case why is there a national anthem in the first place? And is anyone boycotting Trump for putting sport in politics?

Obesity Warnings / Advice in Clothes

Here is an interesting - and probably controversial - example of a 'nudge'. I've not read the BMJ piece referred to, but I think it's this one.

Quotable Philosophy

Whilst reading through a number of articles of late, both for teaching prep and research purposes, I came across a couple of wonderful quotations, so I thought I'd share them:

"I could here have bored the reader with a long theoretical explanation of why such a critical or deconstructive reading is warranted, and mentioned names like Habermas, Foucault and Derrida. But I am not convinced that that would really add to the strength of my argument, apart from the implicit appeal to authority and the number of extra footnotes it would have allowed me."
Holm (2004), p. 30.

"I recognize the importance of these points, and have discussed them in a longer draft; unfortunately, space limitations prevent me from adequately addressing them here."
Temkin (2008), p. 194.

Eugenics

My latest publication is another on procreative beneficence.

I just happened to stumble upon this relevant SMBC strip on eugenics too. I was obviously distracted in summer 2013 and missed the working out of ethics. Can anyone fill me in?

XKCD comics for teaching

A couple of useful comics to link to.

One on voting methods, for my democratic theory class.

And one on identifying reliable sources, which should be useful for first years. On a related note, this looks a helpful source for many occasions.

Grenfell and Politics

Over the last few days, many in the UK have been shocked by a large tower block fire in London. Though the latest confirmed death toll is 'only' 30, this number is bound to rise - though we may never know exactly how many were involved.

Just the other day, I was reading a book chapter that pointed out how the number and distribution of deaths resulting from disease, famine, etc is always in part the result of political decisions. While we may think of some things as 'natural disasters', political decisions determine who is affected and how badly. As the author put it, “politics plays a major role in determining the kinds and distribution of diseases in societies” (Adrian Leftwich, in his (edited) book What is Politics?, p. 82).

I'm pleased to see that, despite some criticism of 'politicising a tragedy', this point has been picked up by some commentators. It's been noted that the fire is political and that those who died were victims not only of fire but also bad government.

Though politics is sometimes seen as a peaceful alternative to war, it's a sad fact that it is still sometimes a matter of life and death.

Goal of the Season and the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives

The principle of the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) says that the choice between A and B should not depend on whether or not other options, such as C, are on the menu. If you prefer A to B, then your preference should be unaffected by the presence or absence of C.

This seems pretty commonsensical. Imagine you're in a restaurant and you're offered the choice of apple crumble or ice cream for dessert and you choose apple crumble. Now suppose the server tells you that they have a chocolate cake too. You might happen to prefer the chocolate cake, in which case you'd change your order, and that would make sense. But if you were to say 'In that case, I'll have the ice cream' we'd think there something pretty odd about your choice.

Yet it seems that Alex Mccarthy, writing at Give Me Sport, is not a fan of IIA. He criticises the Goal of the Season shortlist for omitting Giroud's scorpion kick against Crystal Palace, on the grounds that it didn't win Goal of the Month (being pipped by Andy Carroll).

Well, if Carroll's goal was better than Giroud's - which was what was decided in January - then there's no chance of Giroud's winning Goal of the Season. The Goal of the Season shortlist is not necessarily the ten best goals of the season, as Giroud's could be better than many of the others that did win Goal of the Month. But there's no point shortlisting a goal that has, in effect, already been eliminated as a contender.

Dementia Tax

Apparently the Tories have been buying Google adverts so that searches for (so-called) dementia tax are directed to their home page for 'the truth'.

I think it's important that links go here for another perspective on the dementia tax.

New Publication on Mill's Harm Principle

I don't bother to mention every minor publication any more, but my latest piece on the interpretation of Mill's harm principle is now online and forthcoming in Mind (ranked 4th in Leiter's survey of philosophy journals).

The abstract should be freely available, but I also made this word cloud: