Lecture Lists

Next term's lecture lists are already available. Interestingly - and it's the first time that I've seen this - there's also a PPE lecture list.

I'm organizing another graduate class of my own, following on from its success last year. Provisional details:

Issues in Democratic Theory
Wednesday, 11-12:30, weeks 1-4.
Corpus Christi College seminar room.

These are research seminars for those interested in contemporary democratic theory. They are primarily intended for graduate students in philosophy, e.g. those taking the B.Phil political and legal philosophy option, but graduate students in other areas (e.g. M.Phil/D.Phil in politics or law) are equally welcome. Undergraduates should seek permission from the lecturer (ben . saunders [at] ccc . ox . ac . uk) first, in order to keep a cap on numbers (this should be forthcoming).

Each week’s session will begin with the presentation of a work-in-progress paper in the field of democratic theory. I will begin, with a paper on the problem of defining democracy, and will probably present in later weeks too, but there will also be opportunities for interested graduate students to present. Volunteers are encouraged to email me before the first session.

My papers at least will be posted on WebLearn beforehand, at http://tinyurl.com/democseminar though reading them before the seminar is not required. This site will also include an updated schedule and a couple of relevant background readings for those interested.

Week 1: Ben Saunders – A Relativized Definition of Democracy
Weeks 2-4: t.b.c.

Philosophers in the Media

Jonathan Dancy on Craig Ferguson and A. C. Grayling on the BBC. I wonder if this is the kind of impact that the REF will acknowledge?

Magnet Moralia

I seem to remember reading - I forget where, sorry - that people with certain forms of brain damage were more likely to reason like consequentialists. Now it seems that our moral reasoning can even be affected by magnets.

Of course, this raises a host of interesting questions, some of which have already been picked up on over at Crooked Timber. It's not obvious what this shows about the correctness of our moral reasoning, if you believe in such a thing. I think that, like Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's famous work on framing effects, it should encourage us to be wary about accepting our ordinary intuitions, knowing that they could vary on the basis of seemingly irrelevant factors. (Another example I heard in a recent talk was that experimental subjects made harsher moral judgements when disgusted by their surroundings - e.g. when there was half-eaten pizza left on the table.)

Meow

I heard something on the news about this a week or two ago, but was away travelling so didn't get round to posting. It seems that the government are banning currently legal drugs such as Mephedrone.

I heard people saying that, because they're dangerous, they ought to be banned. Lots of things are dangerous but not banned, like extreme sports or an unhealthy lifestyle. No doubt John Stuart Mill would be turning in his grave. His famous 'harm principle' insists that we should only interfere with someone's liberty in order to prevent harm to others, not for their own good.

If a drug is dangerous, then the appropriate thing to do (as we do with tobacco, for example) is to warn people, and maybe regulate it (obviously we need to be sure that it doesn't end up in the hands of children, etc). To ban something just because we think that people would be better off not doing it risks the state imposing too far on individuality. Next we know the state may be banning a whole range of activities on the grounds that they're bad for those who indulge in them...

Fabre to Oxford

This isn't news to me, but since it's now confirmed on Leiter I guess that it can be made public: Cecile Fabre is on her way to Oxford.

Academia as a Vocation

Here are some interesting pieces from the Chronicle. To many in the academic world, it seems that leaving academia - even for an otherwise desirable job - is automatically considered failure. Given the bleak job prospects, however, perhaps we should think of grad school less like professional training (e.g. law school) and more like moving to the big city to be a struggling artist. So, at least, say these authors. (References via comments at the Smoker.)

Elected Lords

It seems that we may soon be heading towards an elected second chamber (replacing the current House of Lords). The problem with an elected chamber is, of course, that it potentially threatens the mandate of the Commons if there is a conflict between the two.

One way round this is to have the two elected on a different basis - for instance, in the US the Senate is elected on the basis of two senators per state, rather than being proportioned to population as the House of Representatives (their lower chamber) is. This provides some protection for the rights of small states, but also ensures it doesn't present a serious rival to the lower house's claim to represent the people. In the UK, it seems that the second chamber could be elected on longer terms and by proportional representation (though I think that may be dangerous if it led to them being seen as more legitimate).

In any case, there is another alternative - we could use sortition (random selection) to achieve a representative sample of 'people's peers'. Proposals along these lines are outlined here and here. I'm not sure whether I'm in favour of this all things considered, but I think it's certainly a shame that it seems to have been neglected in public debate. In light of such possibilities, Lord Adonis' claim that election is "the only way that a legislative assembly can be legitimate in the modern world" seems far from obvious.

Lottery Balls

Schools are allowed to use lotteries for places to make the allocation fairer and avoid discrimination. It's a topic that's been discussed here before - and in my papers in Philosophy and JAP. It seems, however, that Ed Balls is in the news again, complaining about the 'destabilising' effects that lotteries have.

I'd like to see some support for his claim that this is bad for the welfare of the students involved. As someone who went to the same secondary schools as only three of my 63 primary school peers, I didn't find the process too destabilising. Moreover, even if there's an acknowledged cost on this point, it would have to be set against improvements achieved in social justice and exposing students to diversity (no longer are middle class and working class children de facto segregated), which could outweigh any losses by making greater positive contributions.

I can't, of course, say that this is the case any more than Ed Balls can - but simply making assertions or conjectures about the effects of a lottery isn't a helpful basis for informed public policy. We need both more empirical research and a sensible public debate.

Rights Inflation?

Critics of Human Rights often argue that many supposed rights - like that to paid holidays - are really aspirations, rather than fundamental rights. Well, now it seems that many people regard internet access as a fundamental right.

Admittedly, though, this BBC article isn't the clearest. It seems that the question asked was not 'is internet access a right?' but 'should the internet be a fundamental right?' Moreover, the report states that "Countries such as Finland and Estonia have already ruled that access is a human right for their citizens" - I do think that human rights are fundamentally legal creations rather than moral, because I doubt morality tracks something as arbitrary as species membership, but I'm not sure how a human right can belong only to citizens of certain countries.

Maybe there really is a lot of rights confusion out there...

Animal Representation

Robert Goodin argues that democracy requires all affected interests to be considered, and that mute interests ought to be represented by each voter engaging in a process he describes as 'democratic deliberation within.'

This case actually concerns representation in court, rather than democratic representation, but nonetheless it's interesting that the Swiss have rejected plans to have lawyers represent animals' rights/interests.

Incubus

I can't remember off hand the last time that I either went to a gig or got some use out of my Union membership, so when I saw that Brandon Boyd and Mike Einziger of American rock band Incubus were speaking tonight, I thought I'd go along. I do own several of their earlier albums - Fungus Amongus, SCIENCE, and Make Yourself - though I haven't really followed their career too closely since and wouldn't say that they were one of my favourite bands.

Unfortunately, not all of what they said was very audible from the back of the debating chamber and some of their comments seemed to be rather banal platitudes about music being a universal means of communication, etc. They did, however, shed a little light on their personal lives - Brandon telling of his first kiss, age 12, on Hallowe'en to The Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Mike of how music helped him through a serious car accident, much as others may turn to religion. In response to a mixed bag of questions, Brandon revealed that he's happy for people to hear their music any way (though it's better if they buy it) and they also spoke highly of Lollapalooza (both seeing Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Ministry in 1992 and performing in 2003).

The real treat of the evening was a disappointingly short two person set, in which they played a new song called (I think) 'Tomorrow's Food' and 'Drive' - I'd forgotten just how good that song is...

Consequences of Self-Ownership

Libertarians often assert that we own our bodies, as property. It's rather hard to argue for such a claim, which operates as a premise of their political philosophy, but many think it reflects our ordinary attitude to rights over ourselves.

That this may in fact have counter-intuitive implications is nicely illustrated by Walzer and Fabre. If our bodies are private property, then we should be able to do what we want with them (subject to not violating others' rights), which would include - for example - selling them (prostitution, organ sales, etc).

There are two related features currently on the BBC website - one about a woman raising money for charity by selling herself for dates and one about the commodification of cadavers. I have an article on organ procurement in the latest Journal of Medical Ethics (subscription required).

Pain-Free Meat

I find quite persuasive that what's morally wrong - if anything - about eating meat is not that it involves the death of an animal but animal suffering throughout its life. Torturing an animal seems far worse, morally speaking, than having one painlessly killed (e.g. put down by a vet), because it's clear that animals feel pain but not that they have consciousness of themselves as on-going agents with future projects.

If this is right, then eating meat per se isn't wrong, it's simply the meat industry that is. Maybe if animals were kept in good enough conditions, it would be ok to eat them. I don't think there needs to be too much debate as to whether animals like cows, pigs and even chickens can feel pain - though there is for some animals (like fish). An alternative to treating the animals better, however, might be to genetically engineer them to they don't feel pain. An intriguing suggestion...

(Hat-tip Lise. Her post here.)

Electoral Reform

The BBC has had a couple of interesting features on electoral reform recently, which I thought I'd highlight here:

This one explores why voters vote against their self-interest, suggesting that they may be more swayed by rhetoric than facts or that the working classes may resist the paternalism of liberal 'do-gooders.'

This provocatively-titled piece suggests that we could elect MPs in the same way as reality TV stars, eliminating the least popular until we end up with a majority vote between two candidates. As it recognizes, this is really similar to the way French presidents are elected, though a more realistic approach is to have just one vote with voters numbering their candidates, so that votes can be redistributed without the need for another poll. That's how many student politics elections work, but I worry whether all voters would understand the system were it practiced at national level.

Finally, I wanted to highlight this piece as absolute trash. They try to predict how electoral results of the past might have been different had we used Alternative Vote rather than our current First Past The Post system. The problem is that, even if the survey about what people's second choice would have been is accurate, the whole point is that their first preference may well have been different (a point acknowledged at the bottom)!

Under our present system, many people vote for one of the main two parties - which is not their real preference - simply in order not to have their vote wasted. Indeed, it's quite possible that someone who voted Labour in the last election, but really understood the implications of this survey, could have answered that Labour would have been their second-choice under AV - but that would have harmed, not benefited, Labour...

Jan Palmowski is a Disgrace: He Must Go

Protest against proceedings at King's College, London. See here.

Tory Tombstones

The spoofing of Tory campaign posters continues. Hot on the heels of MyDavidCameron comes MyToryTombstone!

Here is my go at the original:

A First Step Towards Eugenics?

I've posted stories before about incentive payments being used for various ends, such as to encourage patients to take medicine or to be good parents. Well, now it seems that a group in the US is paying drug users to get sterilised! I'm not sure I really agree that this is exploitative, whether or not I agree with it all things considered. What worries me is that it could be the first step towards more widespread eugenics, if other 'undesirable' groups were to start being paid not to breed...

Graduate Salaries

I was pleased to find that, after an extra 5 years of (postgraduate) university education, my starting salary last year was - slightly - higher than the average graduate starting salary, which is apparently £25,000. Mind you, I suppose the average for those with a degree in PPE from Oxford may well be higher...

Interviewees CVs

Via a comment on the Philosophy Smoker, I found that you can see the CVs for four interviewees for a tenure-track position in Ethics at University of Florida. Since those of us on the market often have only a vague idea of what we're up against, this kind of insight into who is competitive for such a hire is potentially very helpful. That said, however, three of them are ABD with no significant publications, so presumably being looked at more on grounds of potential and great letters of recommendation. Unfortunately, since I don't even know what my referees write, I can't know how I compare there...

How to Decide Who to Lay Off...

There's been a lot of discussion lately about King's College, London choosing to lay off several members of faculty (compulsory retirement/redundancy), for example on Leiter. In some cases, it appears that members of staff fall victim to 'restructuring' while others may lose their jobs due to lack of productivity (in practice, the difference can be hard to discern, since the former may be a mere cover for the latter).

It appears that Monty Python already discovered the best way to decide who to lay off in these difficult circumstances - namely, a fight to the death. Thanks to Chris for informing me of this sketch.