OCT 29

19: OCT 29.

Assigned

• Libertarianism in Six Minutes
• Libertarianism wiki See for historical detail.
• Sapolsky, Chapter 17, “The View from the Bottom” from Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Recommended p. 353-383. If you don’t have time for the whole chapter, read from 362 to 383.

In-Class

• Justice is Expensive - Tax rates by country.[1]
• Imagining the Just Society
• PP1 assigned

Justice is Expensive

• We've spoken about the cost of extending obligations to strangers already. $260 billion to make disability benefits a reality for 10 million Americans, mostly strangers. California is planning to spend $6 billion on the homeless.

• Tax rates for wealthy countries that have more extensive social justice measures approach 40-45% of GDP.

• Income tax is only part of the tax revenue of a modern state, but consider this comparison. As a professor, my salary is nominally taxed at 24%, but my effective tax rate is only 16%. If I worked in Italy for the euro equivalent of my salary, it would be taxed at 43% (nominally). Italians also allow for deductions, so I'm guessing the effective tax rate would be about 33%? About double. And then many of the goods in stores will have a VAT tax that could be 20%. But then poverty is very low, everyone has health care, universities are affordable or free, etc.

Libertarianism as a moral and political theory

• Libertarianism in Six Minutes (notes)

• Historical look: Libertarianism comes out of radical emancipatory politics.

• 17th century resistance to oppressive conditions. “Rent seekers”. Payne. "Those who pay taxes & those who live on taxes."
• Similar to socialism and capitalism, a view about what is fair.
• "Libertarianism originated as a form of left-wing politics such as anti-authoritarian and anti-state socialists like anarchists,[6] especially social anarchists,[7] but more generally libertarian communists/Marxists and libertarian socialists." (from wiki).

• US libertarianism closer to free market capitalism vs. European meaning is more socialist. (Note: Political ideas can take multiple forms in relation to conservative/liberal.)

• Assumption of natural harmony among productive people with liberty of contract. Laws limited to protection and protection of natural rights. Anything more violates the "Non-aggressive principle". No regulation of market. Low social spending - people are responsible for themselves and their families. Taxes are presumed to be coercive and confiscatory.
• Conservative libertarian theorist, Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia: "Night watchman" state. (Not so close to anarchy, except consistent with strong sense of public order.)

• Problems identified in Thought Monkey Youtube:

• No libertarian candidates on the national stage in two party state.
• No successful libertarian states. No one's tried.
• Monopolies, poverty. (We have extraordinarily high inequality right now.)
• Doesn’t solve conflicts bt “Rentier” and propertyless. (Consider current inflationary rental markets.)
• No guarantee that you won’t “bleed out in the street” for lack of healthcare.
• Non-aggression principle unlikely in free market. Markets can be quite aggressive. Putting people out of their homes. Eviction.
• Assumes increase in wealth produces increase in happiness (Easterlin paradox - comes up in Happiness class)
• Environmental concerns require collective action, libertarians have idealistic response: people will buy from sustainable companies with coercion.

• Summing up:
• (US conservative) Libertarianism: fundamental concern with human freedom understood as avoidance of coercion; minimal state; some morals legislation - often anti-abortion; no redistribution of income or wealth. Strong concern with equality of liberty and avoidance of oppression, understood as forced labor.

• Basic intuition for conservative libertarianism: Taxation (beyond minimal state functions) is a form of forced labor. Only legitimate for a narrow range of goals that we mutually benefit from, such as defense.

• (US Liberal) Libertarianism: Also focused on freedom, especially regarding respect for identity differences and private behaviors (favors decriminalization/legalization of drugs), but retains some of the original left-wing concerns of socialism. ::*Liberal Libertarianism has a more material interpretation of rights.

• Liberty includes "bodily autonomy" - control of reproductive choices, choices about whom to be intimate with
• Are you really free if you are living on the street?
• Are you really free if you are discriminated against?
• Are you really free if you work full time and can't afford to take care of basic needs?

• To be fair, conservative libertarians have responses to these challenges: Charity, persuasion, voluntary methods.

• Basic intuition for liberal libertarianism: Government isn't the only source of coercion. Abstract negative liberty (freedom from coercion) doesn't full describe liberty. Positive liberty requires protection for specific behaviors and choices.

Sapolsky, Chapter 17, “The View from the Bottom” 353-383

• Example of social epidemiology in practice. [2]

• tension between reductive biology which focuses on immediate mechanisms of disease and illness and social or behavioral medicine, which looks at socio-political causes of illness.

• Famous pioneer in social medicine: Rudolph Virchow -- noticed in 1847 Typhus outbreak that disproportionately affected people living in poor social conditions.

• Focus of the chapter on how social rank (SES- socio-economic status) is a determinant of health and mortality.

• Pecking Orders Among Beasts with Tails

• wide range of animals engage in dominance hierarchies -- hens, baboons -- examples of types of dominance behavior. Subordinate male baboons have elevated resting glucocorticoid levels. Chronically activated stress levels predict a range of other physiological disregulation, including cholesterol, testosterone, immune response, etc. Stress related disseases.

• On the other hand, low rank in a dominance hierarchy in many species does not result in a chronic stress response. Ex: marmosets, wild dogs, and dwarf mongooses (359). Why? Short answer: in some species being low ranked isn't such a bad deal and being dominant is stressful. Typical factors that decide this question: being harassed by dominant members and being denied social support predict health effects from dominance. Stable dominance hierarchies also matter (for humans this would mean not expecting to get out of a low SES status).

• Do Humans have Ranks?

• Need to distinguish dominance from aggression. A Type a personality can be aggressive without being dominant. Studies of corporate hierarchies suggest top execs "give ulcers rather than get them". It's the middle managers who are stressed - responsibility without control. Sapolsky is a bit skeptical of these studies (363), especially as most of human history has been, we think, unhierarchical. (Hunter-gatherers were likely egalitarian.)

• The question of dominance among humans is also hard to assess because we are complicated. You can have low status and high stress at your job, but high status from church or community engagement. We also think about our challenges is diverse ways. (You may be far from winning the Bloomsday race, but having a great time.)

• One place Sapolsky is not skeptical about: being poor is a huge health risk.

• Socioeconomic status (SES), stress, and disease

• Description of poverty stress factors p. 364.

• Poverty also limits coping strategy resources (frequent crises, lack of social support, few resources in general). Poverty reduces personal choices for outlets for stress and limits personal safety (the poor experience crime more than high SES people).

• Only a few studies, but they support this claim. Montreal study: low-SES kids have double circulating glucocorticoids as high SES kids.

• Health risk from poverty is the biggest effect in behavioral medicine. Cardiovascular disease, resporatory disease, ulcers, rheumatoid disorders, psychiatric disorders, some cancers, infant mortality and mortality from all causes. Low SES predicts low birth weight (which has life long effects). Could be a 5-10 year difference in life expectance depending upon the country. Nun study (367)

• Puzzle of Health Care Access

• You would think access to health care would explain the difference, but only part of it. SES gradient in England worsening in spite of universal health care. You might suspect that people don't get treated equally in the health system (Carla's story!).

• But also, it's a "gradient". Marmot study used British Civil service ranking and found a gradient by job status. 4x great carido risk from low SES.

• The SES gradient exists for diseases not sensitive to health care access. juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis, for example. (369).

• Risk factors and protective factors

• Poor people smoke more, eat less well, don't exercise as much, have less adequate heat in winter, more exposure to crime. Being poorly educated is a big risk factor, because it can affect your understanding of risks and ways to protect yourself (the poor are less likely to wear seat belts). These are risk and protective factors. Controlling for these factors may only account for about 1/3 of the SES gradient.

• You might think living in a wealthy country is a protective factor. One study of wealthies 1/4 of countries showed no relationship between wealth and health of citizens.

• Stress and the SES gradient

• Sapolsky thinks psychological factors, such as stress, may be part of the explanation for the SES gradient.

• 1. Poor have higher stress levels.
• 2. The SES gradient tracks stress related diseases.
• 3. Not clear what the competitor explanation would be, if not stress.

• Being poor versus feeling poor

• Newer research on "subjective poverty" not just actual SES status, but also how one perceives their SES status. Research question for subjective poverty 374. Subjective SES predicts health outcomes better than objective SES.

• Subjective SES is also about education, income, and occupational position, but also includes satisfaction with one's standard of living and feeling financial security about the future.

• Poverty v Poverty amid Plenty

• Wilkinson research (375): Income inequality increases the effect of the SES gradient. Other research compared most and least egalitarian states in the US (New Hampshire v Louisiana), finding 60% higher mortality rate. Canada / US comparisons also show an "inequality" effect, esp interesting as Canada is a bit less wealthy overall than US. (The inequality effect is less apparent within highly egalitarian societies.)

• The most relevant comparison in subjective SES is to your immediate community. Could be that modern life makes for more comparisons outside of community as we see more of how others' live.

• Technical issue (377)

• You might wonder if correcting for inequality simply makes wealthy people less healthy and poorer people more healthy. But the Wilkinson research suggests that lower inequality improves health across SES.

• How does income inequality and feeling poor translate to bad health?

• Research on "social capital" -- def at 378. read ("civic participation, volunteerism, safety" "trust, reciprocity, lack of hostility, heavy participation in organizations for common good") . Kawachi research: high inequality predicts low social capital. General Trust Question (378). Kawachi argues that reciprocity requires equality, while dominance is inequality. Can't have high income inequality and high social capital

• Inequality in a society also predicts high crime rates (even better than poverty does), which visit low SES citizens more.

• Spending on public goods - transit, safety, clean water, schools, health care -- reduces effects of inequality. In unequal society, wealthy have disincentive to support public goods spending as they depend less upon it. (pause for examples and application to current US politics.) Comparisons of Eastern block countries after fall of Soviet Union -- high income equality, but differential access to public goods. And US: high wealth, high inequality, low social capital. Unprecedented health disparities.

• Why is the stress - disease connection so variable in primates, but so consistent in humans. Sapolsky speculates that agriculture may be the difference. Agriculture may have invented poverty.

Imagining the Just/Good Society

• Think of this “checklist” as a kind of experiment in triggering your intuitions (the elephant) on “what a just society looks like”. You still need to develop reasons for the vision you come up with. It’s new for me, so I don’t know how successful it will be in teaching, but here it is:

A Checklist for imagining the just society.

• Track your agreement with each of the items below. This might help think about how you imagine justice. Whether you find yourself agreeing with the items or not, try to use your reactions to tell yourself something about your image of justice. In some cases, you might agree with an item, but not see it as a matter of justice. For each item, assume you are referring to a wealthy society, like the United States.

• A. Basic Formal Justice and Equality. These are likely to be in everyone’s list. In a just society,

• …the constitution guarantees equal rights and protects the due process rights of all citizens.
• …the administration of justice promotes non-discrimination and enforces all laws related to equal opportunity and non-discrimination.
• …there are laws against discrimination.
• …opportunities are based as much as possible on merit.

• B. Material rights, Moral arbitrariness, and Social justice. Some of these items involve human rights, some involve morally arbitrary traits or conditions. In a just society,

• …it should not be possible to work a full time job and become homeless.
• …it should not be possible to work your whole life and retire to absolute poverty.
• …kids always have enough to eat, a safe place to live, and appropriate care.
• …the society has an interest and obligation for child welfare.
• …the quality of a public primary and secondary education does not depend upon the class and wealth of the school's students.
• …we agree to pay for the public education of others’ kids.
• …post secondary educational opportunities are not limited by personal income or wealth.
• …some bad outcomes, like those leading to disability and inability to work, are insured by the society.
• …some bad outcomes, like natural disasters and failures of government, are insured by the society.
• …old age poverty is prevented, possibly by a Social Security model.
• …your “basic quality of life” should not be determined by arbitrary things like genetic lotteries and accidents.
• …income and wealth inequalities can be a threat to social justice because they can weaken our commitments to each other. A just society is one in which people have stable and strong bonds.

• C. Justice in a Free Society You may think of justice as serving a conception of a free society. A just society protects liberty. In a just society,

• …our mandatory (e.g., through taxation) social obligations would be limited to formal justice (A above), common defense, public order and safety, and some practical matters, like infrastructure planning.
• …the protection of liberty is seen as a form of social justice, because free people renounce coercion from government or each other.
• …everyone is responsible for their own success or failure.
• …your basic quality of life depends upon your own efforts, plus the voluntary charity of others.
• …you are free to choose to help others achieve happiness or not. Justice is not necessarily about happiness.

A continuum of justice positions

• One very straightforward way to approach PP1 is to arrange the theories of justice we have been considering on a continuum. In this case the continuum is based on "thin" v "thick" theories of justice. A thin theory commits you to less and has a lower "burden of proof" while a thick theory demands a stronger set of expectations (values).

• We will fill in notes in class, but here are some of the main resources we have for PP1.

• Formal theories of justice as a framework of formal rights.

• Justice not so much about outcomes as it is about fair rules. Whatever happens as a result of fair dealing (inequalities, homelessness, poor health outcomes) may be unfortunate, but not necessarily unjust. Private charity is the best response to unfortunate outcomes.
• All of the following views embrace the idea of formal justice.

• Libertarianism - Justice as "non-coercion"

• The just society has a minimal state because large government are inevitably coercive, either because they tax at levels that result in a kind of wage slavery or because they interfere with people's lives in other ways.
• Private charity is the best response to unfortunate outcomes.

• Rawls. -

• The way to determine the principles of justice is from behind the veil of ignorance, where you do not know many things about your fortunes that are morally arbitrary to you. An assumption here is that your life should not be worse off for morally arbitrary factors.
• 1. Egalitarian about rights and liberties (includes formal justice).
• 2. Justifies some inequality by Difference Principle, but uses redistribution of income to maximize the conditions for the worst off.

• Capabilities view. Amartya Sen.

• Capabilities are possibilities for choice that affect well-being. Promoting capabilites is not about promoting happiness directly (as in strong well-being approaches), but about realizing choice and freedom.
• For Sen, capabilities enable "functionings" that realize human freedoms.

• Strong Well-Being Approaches

• Utilitarian - think Dillon. Just societies maximize well-being. The "why" involves the equal happiness principle.
• Some Happiness Economists - Use SWB measures instead of GDP to guide policy. The "why" involves getting a more accurate measure of utility or SWB.

• Socialism / Communism

• Socialism with free market: Markets are good for promoting liberty and free choice, but they can create inequalities that become exploitative. In an important sense, the wealth of a country is a communal good that should serve the interests of the people in the society, but there is nothing inherently unjust about some inequality. Justice requires the state to intervene and take other measures to guarantee equity.
• Communist: Stronger, Marxian, critique of market as essentially exploitative. A just society treats it's productive wealth as a communal asset, to be distributed in an egalitarian manner to meet human needs and social goals.

PP1: "What Do We Owe Strangers" Position Paper: 1000 words

• Stage 1: Please write a 1000 word maximum answer to the following question by Sunday, November 3, 2024, 11:59pm.

• Topic: What do we owe strangers in our society, as a matter of justice? Consider the various approaches to justice we have been discussing and whether, why, and in what ways we should go beyond the "personal preference" we show friends and family and obligate ourselves to strangers in our society. Consider theories of justice which focus on formal rights and liberty, as well as theories that argue for more substantive or material rights and more material conceptions of freedom, like capabilities, or well-being. Are structural conditions, such as stress and SES relevant to the discussion of justice? Be sure to develop your own view (with both a "what" and a "why") using course resources and examples. Show why some other views are not appealing to you.

• Keep in mind:

• You are answering this prompt in the "first person," but you are giving reasons for your view and, implicitly, recommending it as a standard. Give reasons that you feel should appeal to a wide range of people in your society and across political orientation.
• Your readers will not necessarily share your view, so you should say why your position should be acceptable to someone with a different point of view. You will not be assessed on which view (within a wide range) of justice you adopt, but on the quality of your writing and reasoning, and your focus on the prompt.
• You should assume that any obligations you have to strangers are contingent upon adequate resources (national wealth and personal wealth). You do live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but you may not be personally obligated to help strangers if you are struggling to survive. (Philosopher's generally believe "ought implies can" - you aren't obligated to do something you can't do.)
• For this prompt you are only considering Justice to strangers in your society, the US.

• Advice about collaboration: Collaboration is part of the academic process and the intellectual world that college courses are based on, so it is important to me that you have the possibility to collaborate. I encourage you to collaborate with other students, but only up to the point of sharing ideas, references to class notes, and your own notes, verbally. Collaboration is also a great way to make sure that a high average level of learning and development occurs in the class. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to NOT share text of draft answers or outlines of your answer. Keep it verbal. Generate your own examples.

• Prepare your answer and submit it in the following way. You will lose points if you do not follow these instructions:

1. To assure anonymity, you must remove your name from the the "author name" that you may have provided when you set up your word processing application. For instructions on removing your name from an Word or Google document, [click here].
2. Format your answer in double spaced text, in a typical 12 point font, and using normal margins. Do not add spaces between paragraphs and indent the first line of each paragraph.
3. Do not put your name in the file or filename. You may put your student ID number in the file. Always put a word count in the file. Save your file for this assignment with the name: "ObligationsToStrangers".
4. To turn in your assignment, log into courses.alfino.org, click on the "PP1 - What do we owe strangers" dropbox.
5. If you cannot meet a deadline, you must email me about your circumstances (unless you are having an emergency) before the deadline or you will lose points.

• Stage 2: Please evaluate four student answers and provide brief comments and a score. Review the Assignment Rubric for this exercise. We will be using the Flow, Content, and Logic areas of the rubric for this assignment. Complete your evaluations and scoring by Thursday, November 7, 2024 11:59pm.

• To determine the papers you need to peer review, open the file called "#Key.xls" in the shared folder. You will see a worksheet with saint names in alphabetically order, along with animal names. Find your saint name and review the next four (4) animals' work below your animal name. If you get to the bottom of the list before reaching 4 animals, go to the top of the list and continue.

• Use this Google Form to evaluate four peer papers. Submit the form once for each review.

• Some papers may arrive late. If you are in line to review a missing paper, allow a day or two for it to show up. If it does not show up, go back to the key and review the next animal's paper, continuing until you get four reviews. Do not review more than four papers.

• Stage 3: I will grade and briefly comment on your writing using the peer scores as an initial ranking. Assuming the process works normally, most of my scores probably be within 1-2 points of the peer scores, plus or minus.

• Stage 4: Back-evaluation: After you receive your peer comments and my evaluation, take a few minutes to fill out this quick "back evaluation" rating form: [3]. Fill out the form for each reviewer, but not Alfino. You must do the back evaluation to receive credit for the whole assignment. Failing to give back-evaluations unfairly affects other classmates.

• Back evaluations are due TBD, 2023.