News Spreads

I've mentioned my up-coming move to Stirling a couple of times here (e.g. one, two). Obviously, news is spreading, because my academia.edu page (EDIT: now moved/updated to here) just got its first hit from someone searching for 'Ben Saunders Stirling'. Hopefully a few more posts like this will help it in the search rankings!

Anyone looking to contact me from 1st September (by email or snail mail) would be well-advised to check for my new address, as I'm not sure how long I'll be getting stuff forwarded from Oxford.

Critiqued in JME

I had a piece on organ donation, called 'Normative Consent and Opt-out Organ Donation,' appear in the Journal of Medical Ethics back in February.

Thanks to following JME on academia.edu, I saw last night that my article has now been subject to a published critique (in the latest, August 2010, issue). They even call my proposals a 'recipe for totalitarianism' (and cite my colleague, C. C. W. Taylor, in doing so).

I'm already working on a response, so watch this space...

Vine: Meanwhile

I've mentioned before being involved in Amazon's Vine program. I recently noticed that their terms and conditions actually encourage Vine Voices to post their reviews elsewhere online, provided that the places in question don't themselves sell the products. So I thought I'd give it a go here.

Here's the first in what I hope will be a series of such posts, my review of Jason Shiga's choose-your-own-route graphic novel, Meanwhile.

This rather novel book combines are comic with a 'choose your own adventure' story. You follow the events in the life of young Jimmy, after he eats an ice cream and then stumbles upon a professor with a lab full of ingenious inventions. The story progresses from one panel to the next following little arrows and, periodically, you the reader get to choose between one of two different paths, which lead down different routes and ultimately to different endings.

Unlike the traditional choose your own adventure series that I remember as a child, this is picture rather than text based. Nonetheless, I wouldn't say that it's for young children: there's still a reasonable amount of dialogue to read, a fair amount of patience needed, and some slightly complicated instructions. Following the arrows isn't too difficult, once you get what to do, but it's not always so obvious what your choices are in some cases (and I still don't think I've really got the hang of how the access code is supposed to work either).

It doesn't seem to involve that many choices and, because the story includes a certain amount of looping around, it can get quite repetitive after a read or two. I wouldn't say that it's likely to keep anyone amused for a long stretch of continuous time - though maybe that's my short attention span and others will enjoy revisiting the same nodes and trying the various permutations in succession.

For me, this is a book that I think I could come back to again and again (there are apparently 3,856 story possibilities), but not spend too long with in any given visit. Jason Shiga definitely is some kind of genius to have come up with this though, even if it took a computer program to help organize it into book form.

Available to buy from Amazon. Disclaimer: I'm a member of Amazon's affiliate scheme, so purchasing through those links may earn me money, though it won't cost you any more. (The fact that I could earn commission won't bias my reviews - though I expect that I'll only be bringing the good stuff to the attention of my readers here.)

Mitchell Channels Mill

I'll be lecturing on J. S. Mill's On Liberty in the coming semester. It turns out that I might not need to though, since this piece by David Mitchell (on whether burqas should be banned) seems to channel his spirit rather well. As he puts it:
"In a free society, people should be allowed to do what they want wherever possible. The loss of liberty incurred by any alternative principle is too high a price to pay to stop people making dicks of themselves. But, if people are using their freedoms to make dicks of themselves, other people should be able to say so."

Ethics

I've got my name in Ethics - one of the top journals in my field. The latest issue (120:4), p. 881 (the list of manuscript reviewers for 2009).

Migrating

As I've mentioned here, I'm moving to Scotland in just over a month. The hassles may make blogging slightly more sporadic - as indeed may the fact that we'll probably be on pay as you go internet once we get there, due to the cost of reconnecting the phoneline.

In any case, I'll be documenting the process here, for anyone keen to keep in touch. My girlfriend, Eloise, will be moving up (and in) with me, so I just wanted to insert a plug for her new blog, A Duck on the Move, which seems dedicated to our migration (or should that be emigration, what with it being a new country and all?)

Of course, we're not the first to have this idea - one of my colleagues to be has a (now seemingly moribund) blog based on her new life in Scotland.

USS Pension Changes

It seems that changes in the USS pension scheme (which covers UK academics) are close to be agreed. It looks like pensions for new entrants will be based on career average earnings, rather than final salaries, which seems like quite a blow given that most don't start paying until their late 20s and often have to go the first few years post-PhD in low-paid under-employment.

To be honest, my pension is so far off that it's rather hard to predict what effects this will have on me, other than that I'll be worse off (effective immediately, as employees' contributions rise to 7.5% of salary). I think I'm glad I joined when I did though, assuming I can at some point reach a respectable 'final salary'...

Amazon Speculating

If you leave items hanging around in your Amazon shopping basket, you'll occasionally find notifications that they've changed price (particularly if on sale). This in itself isn't too surprising, though I do find it odd that sometimes things change by just a few pence and wonder whether it's really that important. I assume some of the fluctuations are linked to exchange rates, though that probably isn't all.

Anyway, this can make it rather hard to know when - or even whether - to purchase. I've recently noticed several items in my basket gradually edging downwards, but periodically one will shoot up drastically. This means that, on the one hand, there's an incentive to wait hoping for further falls, but also an incentive to buy once you're happy that the price is low enough in case it rises.

A month or so ago I bought this for £4.09 only to find it's now fallen to £1.86. On the other hand, just today I received this, which I'd caught at it's lowest price (£1.76) days before it shot up to £12.99. It seems that prices, like those of shares, can go either up or down. I'm curious whether there's any pattern to it though - and would welcome insight from anyone with knowledge, or even a hypothesis.

I've heard that Amazon may be deliberately trying to gauge customers' price sensitivity. I wouldn't have thought it would be particularly worth their while, but it occurs to me that I have no way of knowing whether price discrimination is occurring (Do I get offered what's in my basket at a different price than others? It would be possible to check, by logging out, but I've never tried...)

In any case, there's something curiously satisfying about the feeling that you got a bargain, whether by skill or luck - but caveat emptor.

UPDATE (23/7): Scored a pretty decent success today. Just found four albums before dinner that looked interesting and decided to take a punt at £7.28 the lot. By the time I got back from dinner, three of them had gone back up to normal, full price (between £10.49 and £14.49) so the same four would have cost over £40. Bargain!

Elective on Plato

I don't yet have my own staff webpage at Stirling, but I do now have a page advertising a course that I'll be running in the Spring Semester: a directed independent study 'elective' on Plato's Republic.

Advice to Journal Reviewers

From Phil Anon.

Away

Sorry that posts here have been sparse lately. I've been busy with conferences (SAP and BSET) and am currently staying in Nottingham before heading up to Stirling for a quick visit tomorrow. Normal service should be resumed shortly.

Singer on Cheating in Football

Good to see that big name moral philosophers are tackling the important ethical questions of the day, such as whether German goalkeeper Neuer should have admitted that the ball crossed the line. (Hat tip: Dominic Roser.)

It's an interesting read, though the Fowler anecdote isn't as I remember it: I seem to recall him once being booked for disputing the award of a penalty and then scoring it (but maybe I'm wrong or perhaps that was a different incident). There are, however, other cases that are rather like a batsman 'walking' - such as when a player does after a professional foul or red card.

I have to say though that I thought Singer's article was a little simplistic. It assumes that some standard set of moral rules applies universally, to footballers both qua human beings and qua football players. Maybe matters are more complicated. Perhaps - despite their gloves - goalkeepers, like politicians, cannot avoid dirty hands.

Moreover, one of the rules of football is that the referee's decision is final. Had the referee awarded a goal when the ball didn't cross the line, then it would have stood. Can the Germans really be blamed for taking advantage of the fact that he ruled this ball not to have done so? Maybe it's unreasonable to expect that, unless we're sure what we'd have done had the situation been reversed.

I haven't given a great deal of thought to these topics, but readers looking for more philosophical reflection on football are reminded of the recent Open Court title Soccer & Philosophy.

Reclining is Good for You

Personally, I tend to feel more comfortable leaning backwards in a chair, even if I sometimes worry that it suggests that I'm rather too relaxed and not paying enough attention (in a tutorial, for example). The good news is that it looks like I can now justify my preference on the grounds that it has been shown to be a better posture for your back (which is, I guess, why I feel more comfortable that way in the first place...).

Stirling

This is something that I've already told many of those who know me, but now it's on the department website I may as well make it completely public. I'll be moving to Scotland over the summer to take up a lectureship at the University of Stirling. Finally, I also get to see my name on Leiter's list of job hires! The move may make blogging sporadic over the summer, but I hope to keep updating everyone with developments.

It Could Take A Lottery To Get Us Through...

I've been keenly following the World Cup, mostly because it's football on TV and just because I can now that I'm almost finished with marking. But, while the group stages have contained some memorable matches, it's the knockout stages that I'm really looking forward to. In particular, they raise the possibility of the dreaded penalty shootout - often derided as a lottery.

Regular readers will know about my interest in lotteries, and I've already had my say on penalty shootouts in Soccer and Philosophy (currently 25% off at Amazon UK).

I'm happy to see that there's actually a role for lotteries - genuine lotteries - in the group stages too. Reading the BBC's build up to the match I see: "England must win to potentially top the group, but if both they and the US - who face Algeria - draw their matches, Capello's side need to score two goals more than the Americans to stand a chance of qualification through the drawing of lots."

This page further explains the possible permutations: "In this scenario [i.e. England and USA both drawing], England need a high scoring draw on Wednesday. Slovenia would go through as group winners, with England and USA finishing level on three points. Goals scored would decide who progresses. There is the possibility for drama even greater than that of a penalty shoot-out - if both sides are totally even then lots will be drawn to decide who goes through and who is out." Basically, the two teams will be level on head to head results, goal difference, and goals scored - so what fairer way to break the tie than a lottery?

It's not the first time lotteries have been used to decide the outcome of a football match - it's happened to both Liverpool and Celtic in the European Cup - but I wonder if they'll become more popular should England progress?

Milibands on Corpus Rents

Could disputes about 9% rent rises in Corpus Christi next year affect the Labour leadership contest? Probably not in fairness, but both Milibands (being alumni of the college) have a say here, which was picked up in the Guardian.

OUP Sale

I'm now starting my second batch of marking, and have the distractions of the World Cup and end of term when not doing it, so little time to post right now. In lieu of anything more interesting, I thought I'd draw readers' attention to the OUP summer sale (until 16th July). Up to 75% off titles including the Oxford Handbook of Political Theory and the selected papers of my colleague C. C. W. Taylor.

Voting is Compulsory in Australia

I've just dug out this reference, since it came up in a seminar today, so I thought that I may as well post it here for future reference.

It's commonly known that Australia is one of several countries where voting is compulsory. It's also commonly said that compulsory voting is a misnomer, since all that's usually required is turnout (i.e. people can come to the polling station and cross their names off without even taking a ballot paper).

Well, I can't speak for other countries, but it seems that in Australia it's actually voting that's required to fill your legal duty, even though (for obvious reasons to do with the secret ballot) no more than turnout is enforced. This position is stated by the Australian Electoral Commission here (page 4):

"The Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, under section 245(1), states:
"It shall be the duty of every elector to vote at each election".
• Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.
• It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off, and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions:
• High Court 1926 – Judd v McKeon (1926) 38 CLR 380
• Supreme Court of Victoria 1970 – Lubcke v Little [1970] VR 807
• High Court 1971 – Faderson v Bridger (1971) 126 CLR 271
• Supreme Court of Queensland 1974 – Krosch v Springbell; ex parte Krosch [1974] QdR 107
• ACT Supreme Court 1981 – O’Brien v Warden (1981) 37 ACTR 13"

Earthtone 9: Free Download

I completed my collection of the Earthtone 9 back catalogue about a year ago now. A nice nostalgia trip back to circa-2000 British metal. For anyone that missed out first time round though, they've released a best of collection that's available for free download here. Particularly recommended 'Tat Twam Asi' and 'Amnesia' (yes, I much preferred the later more melodic stuff).

May the Best Party Win...

A triumph for local democracy in Iceland...