Difference between revisions of "NOV 2"

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==16: NOV 2. Unit 4: Ethical Issues in Eating and Food Production==
+
==20: NOV 2: Unit Four: Justice and Justified Partiality==
  
===Assigned Reading===
+
===Assigned===
  
:*Lawless, Kristin. Formerly Known as Food, Chapter 8, "Food Choice" (197-217)
+
:*[https://www.npr.org/2020/06/05/870352402/playing-favorites-when-kindness-toward-some-means-callousness-toward-others Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites: When kindness toward some means callousness toward others"]
  
:*Winders and Ransom, "Introduction to the Global Meat Industry" 1-23 (22)
+
===Introduction to Justified Partiality Unit===
  
:*Mayer, Jane. "How Trump is helping tycoons exploit the pandemic" New Yorker, July 13, 2020. (first seven pages)
+
:*A typical question for thinking about social justice is, '''"What do I owe strangers?"'''. We've mentioned the social contract, or even the constitution, as a place where this set of values (expectations) is realized, but there are some other avenues to justice that we explore in this unit.
  
===Some questions for this unit===
+
:*Some concepts:
 +
::*You owe strangers a '''duty of justice''' - something they can make a claim upon you for - (Examples) or
 +
::*You can also owe someone an informal or civil '''duty of interpersonal fairness/justice''' - you can't take me to court for not showing this sort of fairness or just treatment, but if you are on board with impersonal honesty, impersonal trust, and pro-sociality, you probably accept this duty at some level.  (Examples)
  
:*Is the American food production system a result of the American diet or vice versa? Who is driving the demand curves?
+
:*You can think of our approach in this unit as an indirect way of addressing the question of these two sorts of justice duties by starting with a different question:
:*Does Montgomery's perspective apply to the American food production system?
 
::*Some similarities: Mining soil for food export. Stratification in access to food. Contentious foreign policy issues over food. Population increases through the present.
 
::*Some dissimilarities: Global corporations with intensified production and distribution systems and access to new markets.  Corporate concentration has its own effects (see "Global Meat")
 
:*Do we find evidence of "regulatory capture" in the meat industry?
 
  
===Slaughter vs. Hyperslaughter===
+
::*'''"What are the limits (if any) of partiality to family, intimates, friends?" (Your preference network)'''
 +
::*'''Personal Partiality''' - the legitimate preferences and treatment we show to friends, family, and intimates.
  
:*A few slides from some research on industrial slaughterOn Sharepoint.
+
:*Today's class is focused on "personal partiality," the kind that shows up in our interpersonal social relationshipsThe next class will focus on '''"impersonal altruism"''', which shows up in our commitments, if any, to benefit strangers, especially strangers in our society, but in some cases, globally.  
  
===Lawless, KristinFormerly Known as Food, Chapter 8, "Food Choice"===
+
:*Three big questions:
 +
::*1. What are some the social functions of '''personal preferential treatment'''? (Draw in material from podcast)
 +
::*2. Could our networks of preferential treatment be the effect of and also promote injustice?
 +
::*3. What principles or considerations might lead to you recognize a '''duty of interpersonal justice'''? (that is, should you direct some resources (time, money, in-kind aid) outside your preference network? (We need additional resources for Question #3)
  
:*We are "upside down" on food
+
===Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites"===
::*concentration of companies, controls of foods
 
::*poor disproportionately exposed to BPA (needs more research).
 
::*poor have double the diabetes rate.  p. 200 other SES related food/health outcomes
 
::*advertising effects: logos stimulate taste buds.  targeted advertising
 
  
:*Thesis: Am food companies have created a kind of acceptance of ind. foods and set of ideas about health and nutrition that are largely the product of advertising by industrial food companies over about 40 years.  - food elites and food desert dwellers alike.  interesting.   
+
:*Intro
::*At Occupy Wall street protests: vegan oatmeal from McDonalds, veggie sandwiches from Subway.
+
::*Expectations for unique attention from one's beloved. We'd rather an inferior unique message than a message shared with others.  '''We want partiality'''. (Think about cases in which someone shows you a simple preference -- offering to pay for coffee, give you a ride somewhere, just showing you attentionIt's wonderful!)
::*Households over $60k eat the most f. food.
+
::*How does partiality fit with a desire for justice as equal treatment?  Can partiality cause injustice?
  
:*Thesis: Am food companies also divide us, stigmatizing whole foods as food for elites. McD's commercial as example. [Healthy food culture is often stigmatized as extreme, counter-cultural, and obsessive.]
+
:*'''Segment 1: Carla's Story'''
::*Bloomberg soda case
+
::*Discrimination research: IAT - Implicit Association Test - Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard) one of the researchers on IAT.
 +
::*Mahzarin Banaji and Professor Carla Kaplan (Yale English at time of story). Also a quilter. Friends in the 80s, among the few women at Yale.  Story of injury to Carla.  She gets preferential treatment because she is a professor, rather than because she was a quilter. Class based.
 +
::*Is it discrimination if you are given a preference? [Imagine a system of preferences given to those we know. Could such a system support systemic injustice?]  Someone decides to show you "special kindness" -- above and beyond the ordinary. Language of discrimination based on "commission".  But what about omission?  Hard to know if you didn't get preferential treatment.  Yikes!  Carla got to see both what it was like to be treated same and different. 
 +
::*Most injustices of "omission" are invisible.  
 +
 +
::*Story by Mahzarin about interview from former student journalist from magazine the professor didn't respect.  Suddenly, the in-group information about being a Yaley was enough to trigger a preference.  Preference networks in Ivy leagues schools. But also Gonzaga!!! We actively cultivate a preferential network for you!  Because we care about you!
 +
::*"Helping those with whom you have a group identity" is a form of modern discrimination, acc to Mahzarin.
 +
::*Interesting feature of favoritism -- You often don't find out that you didn't get preferential treatment.
 +
::*'''Favoritism doesn't get as much attention as discrimination.'''
  
:*208: Background to industrial food advertising.  Targeted women ('60s): ind food higher SES, part of the future.  Critique of food movement for elitism and paternalism.
+
::*Can you avoid favoritism? 
 +
::*Could be based on "green beard effect" same school, etc.  
  
===Winders and Ransom, "Introduction to the Global Meat Industry"   ===
+
:*'''Segment 2: Dillon the Altruist''' 16:00 minutes.
 +
::*What would it be like to try to overcome favoritism.
 +
::*Story of Dillon Matthews. Tries to avoid favoritism. Middle school story. Utilitarian primer: Singer's argument about helping others in need.  Thought experiment: Saving a child from a pond ruins your suit.  Utilitarian altruism. 
 +
::*''Singer's Principle'': If you can do good without giving up something of equal moral significance, you should do it. 
 +
::*"Give Well" - documented charity work. (One of many sources that can assure you that your money did something good. Other examples: Jimmy Carter's mission, Gates' missions.  If you had contributed to such a cause, you would have been effective.)
 +
::*Hannah’s model:  Value the person in front of you.  Then move out to others.  Courtship with Dillon involves debate over these two approaches:  Partiality justified vs not justified. Debating moral philosophy on a first date! Wow! It doesn't get any better than that. 
 +
::*'''Effective altruism movement'''. The most good you can do. Evidence based altruism.  Vs. Hannah: Focused on family, friends, your neighborhood, city.  Parental lesson.  Dinner together. 
 +
::*Utilitarian logic.  Equal happiness principle.  Dillon not focused on preference to people near him, but on effectiveness of altruism. (Feel the rationality, and maybe the unnaturalness of this.)
 +
::*Dillon donates a kidney to a stranger.  Hmm. Not giving his kidney felt like hoarding something.  Hannah felt her beloved was taking an unnecessary risk.  "Being a stranger" made a difference to her. Audio of Dillon’s recovery. Hmm.  Dillon honored by Kidney Association. 
 +
::*The Trolley Problem again, this time from Joshua Greene himself!!  Watch "The Good Place"
 +
::*What if the person you had to sacrifice was someone you loved, your child.  Dillon might do it. Dillion would do it.  "They are all the heroes of their own stories..." Dillon would sacrifice Hannah.  Hannah might sacrifice Dillion just know that's what he would want that, but no.  She wouldn't. Dillion jokes that he might kill himself after killing his child. 
 +
::*Greene: She recognizes that what he would do is rational.  He's willing to override it, but he might not be able to live with himself for doing that.  (Elephant and rider.)
  
:*major concerns and questions, p. 1.
+
:*'''Segment 3: Neurobiology of Preference'''. 33:15 minutes.
:*paradoxically, increased meat production can create food insecurity for some. 2.  
+
::*Naturalness of preference. Evolutionary background: Preference promotes cooperation. Suite of capacities.  A package.  Don't lie, cheat, steal...
 
+
::*”Morality is fundamentally about cooperation” (Greene): Kin cooperation....Cooperation among friends... reciprocity...semi-strangers (same religion. friend of kin. friend of friend of kin. Friends!  
:*global meat industry is a product of gov't and industry collaborating
+
::*Moral concentric circlesHow big is my "Us"?  What is the range of humans I care about and to what degree?
:*overproduces food animals relative to population.
+
::*Greene's analogy of automatic and manual camera modes.  (Two systems. Automatic (elephant) and Deliberate (rider).) Difficult decisions might require '''manual mode'''. 
:*creates dangers for environment and workers. (from hyperslaughter)
+
::*Manual mode: dlPFC (activated in utilitarian thought) (high cog load)Automatic -- amygdalaSnakes in the grass. Thank your amygdala.  Point: We need both systems.  We need lying, cheating, and stealing to be pretty automatic NOs!
 
+
::*List: Easy calls: sharing concert tickets with a friendBuying dinner for an intimate partner. Giving a more valuable gift to one person than another. Harder: Figuring out whether to donate money to help people far awayHow much?
:*Data 1960-2016
+
::*'''Crying baby scenario'''Inevitable outcomes seem to matter hereBrain wrestles, as in experience. vmPFC (evaluates/weighs) 
 
+
::*Lack of Tribal identity might tilt us toward rule based ethics. Equal treatment. Automatic systems not designed for a world that could help strangers 10,000 miles away.
:*45 million metric tons to 259 MMT.
+
::*Loyalty cases: men placing loyalty to men above other virtues. Assumptions about family relationship. Do families sometime impose on your loyalty (can be disfunctional)? [Recent example of the Jan 6 insurrectionist who threatened his family not to rat him outThey did.] The "worth being loyal to" part is sometimes unexamined. [recall the passenger dilemma]
:*$65 billion to about $400 billion.   
+
::*Example: Spending lots of money on a birthday party.
:*note that US has declined from peak consumption, also some Europeans.   
+
::*Back to Dillon: Acknowledges limits.  Liver story.  Bits of liver.  It grows back. Partners not so much.  
:*population increase 1960-2016 3 billion to 7.4.  (Recall discussion of dem. transition.)
+
::*Mazarin’s story about giving to alleviate Japanese disasterWe can retriever.
:*increases in numbers of animals: 270% for pigs and 900% for chickens.
+
::*— Giving Well — you really can save lives.  
 
+
::*Closing point by Joshua Greene. If you ran into a burning building and saved someone, it would be a highpoint of your life. Why not consider the same outcome heroic even if it doesn't involve a burning building?
:*meat exports: mostly from global northAsian and emerging industrial countries importersp. 12: increases in China, for example, 3.5kg to 57.6kg.
 
 
 
:*How did global meat grow so much?
 
::*increases in feed grainsalong with ag tech to put more land into produciton, GE corn and soybeans increased yields.
 
::*WTO - promotes free trade agreements for meat import/export.   
 
::*former communist countries became markets.
 
::*increased corporate concentrationboth production and processing.   
 
 
 
:*3 consequences of global meat for consideration:
 
::*1. corporate concentration - read at 16.
 
::*2. tension bt. cheap meat and food insecurity - smallholder meat production in decline from competition.
 
::*3. social and environmental injustice.
 
 
 
:digress on slaughter and hyperslaugter
 
 
 
===Mayer, Jane. "How Trump is helping tycoons exploit the pandemic"  ===
 
 
 
:*Unionization efforts at meatpacking plants and slaughterhouses (2/3 of beef and 1/3 of poultry workers)NLRB surprisingly open to challenges to union certification in last few yearsWouldn't stay cert. election even in Covid crisis. 
 
:*Montaire Corporation - privately held, mostly by Ronald Cameron. 
 
 
 
:*Characteristics of employment at meatpacking plants.
 
::*Use of temp agency for deniability on immigration status.  
 
::*Typical for ICE raids to target slaughterhouses.   
 
::*Wages often very low and limited to no healthcare.
 
 
 
:*Covid meat crisis: Tyson ad, Emergency order declaring slaughter workers essential  (also a crisis in supply chain), limited liability for illness. Hard to credit the shortage scare given export production, but we could have cut production to domestic supply needs.  Company could withold health data with impunity. 
 
 
 
:*Waivers of regulations: Line speeds.  Upton Sinclair's ''The Jungle''.
 

Latest revision as of 16:32, 2 November 2023

20: NOV 2: Unit Four: Justice and Justified Partiality

Assigned

Introduction to Justified Partiality Unit

  • A typical question for thinking about social justice is, "What do I owe strangers?". We've mentioned the social contract, or even the constitution, as a place where this set of values (expectations) is realized, but there are some other avenues to justice that we explore in this unit.
  • Some concepts:
  • You owe strangers a duty of justice - something they can make a claim upon you for - (Examples) or
  • You can also owe someone an informal or civil duty of interpersonal fairness/justice - you can't take me to court for not showing this sort of fairness or just treatment, but if you are on board with impersonal honesty, impersonal trust, and pro-sociality, you probably accept this duty at some level. (Examples)
  • You can think of our approach in this unit as an indirect way of addressing the question of these two sorts of justice duties by starting with a different question:
  • "What are the limits (if any) of partiality to family, intimates, friends?" (Your preference network)
  • Personal Partiality - the legitimate preferences and treatment we show to friends, family, and intimates.
  • Today's class is focused on "personal partiality," the kind that shows up in our interpersonal social relationships. The next class will focus on "impersonal altruism", which shows up in our commitments, if any, to benefit strangers, especially strangers in our society, but in some cases, globally.
  • Three big questions:
  • 1. What are some the social functions of personal preferential treatment? (Draw in material from podcast)
  • 2. Could our networks of preferential treatment be the effect of and also promote injustice?
  • 3. What principles or considerations might lead to you recognize a duty of interpersonal justice? (that is, should you direct some resources (time, money, in-kind aid) outside your preference network? (We need additional resources for Question #3)

Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites"

  • Intro
  • Expectations for unique attention from one's beloved. We'd rather an inferior unique message than a message shared with others. We want partiality. (Think about cases in which someone shows you a simple preference -- offering to pay for coffee, give you a ride somewhere, just showing you attention. It's wonderful!)
  • How does partiality fit with a desire for justice as equal treatment? Can partiality cause injustice?
  • Segment 1: Carla's Story
  • Discrimination research: IAT - Implicit Association Test - Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard) one of the researchers on IAT.
  • Mahzarin Banaji and Professor Carla Kaplan (Yale English at time of story). Also a quilter. Friends in the 80s, among the few women at Yale. Story of injury to Carla. She gets preferential treatment because she is a professor, rather than because she was a quilter. Class based.
  • Is it discrimination if you are given a preference? [Imagine a system of preferences given to those we know. Could such a system support systemic injustice?] Someone decides to show you "special kindness" -- above and beyond the ordinary. Language of discrimination based on "commission". But what about omission? Hard to know if you didn't get preferential treatment. Yikes! Carla got to see both what it was like to be treated same and different.
  • Most injustices of "omission" are invisible.
  • Story by Mahzarin about interview from former student journalist from magazine the professor didn't respect. Suddenly, the in-group information about being a Yaley was enough to trigger a preference. Preference networks in Ivy leagues schools. But also Gonzaga!!! We actively cultivate a preferential network for you! Because we care about you!
  • "Helping those with whom you have a group identity" is a form of modern discrimination, acc to Mahzarin.
  • Interesting feature of favoritism -- You often don't find out that you didn't get preferential treatment.
  • Favoritism doesn't get as much attention as discrimination.
  • Can you avoid favoritism?
  • Could be based on "green beard effect" same school, etc.
  • Segment 2: Dillon the Altruist 16:00 minutes.
  • What would it be like to try to overcome favoritism.
  • Story of Dillon Matthews. Tries to avoid favoritism. Middle school story. Utilitarian primer: Singer's argument about helping others in need. Thought experiment: Saving a child from a pond ruins your suit. Utilitarian altruism.
  • Singer's Principle: If you can do good without giving up something of equal moral significance, you should do it.
  • "Give Well" - documented charity work. (One of many sources that can assure you that your money did something good. Other examples: Jimmy Carter's mission, Gates' missions. If you had contributed to such a cause, you would have been effective.)
  • Hannah’s model: Value the person in front of you. Then move out to others. Courtship with Dillon involves debate over these two approaches: Partiality justified vs not justified. Debating moral philosophy on a first date! Wow! It doesn't get any better than that.
  • Effective altruism movement. The most good you can do. Evidence based altruism. Vs. Hannah: Focused on family, friends, your neighborhood, city. Parental lesson. Dinner together.
  • Utilitarian logic. Equal happiness principle. Dillon not focused on preference to people near him, but on effectiveness of altruism. (Feel the rationality, and maybe the unnaturalness of this.)
  • Dillon donates a kidney to a stranger. Hmm. Not giving his kidney felt like hoarding something. Hannah felt her beloved was taking an unnecessary risk. "Being a stranger" made a difference to her. Audio of Dillon’s recovery. Hmm. Dillon honored by Kidney Association.
  • The Trolley Problem again, this time from Joshua Greene himself!! Watch "The Good Place".
  • What if the person you had to sacrifice was someone you loved, your child. Dillon might do it. Dillion would do it. "They are all the heroes of their own stories..." Dillon would sacrifice Hannah. Hannah might sacrifice Dillion just know that's what he would want that, but no. She wouldn't. Dillion jokes that he might kill himself after killing his child.
  • Greene: She recognizes that what he would do is rational. He's willing to override it, but he might not be able to live with himself for doing that. (Elephant and rider.)
  • Segment 3: Neurobiology of Preference. 33:15 minutes.
  • Naturalness of preference. Evolutionary background: Preference promotes cooperation. Suite of capacities. A package. Don't lie, cheat, steal...
  • ”Morality is fundamentally about cooperation” (Greene): Kin cooperation....Cooperation among friends... reciprocity...semi-strangers (same religion. friend of kin. friend of friend of kin. Friends!
  • Moral concentric circles. How big is my "Us"? What is the range of humans I care about and to what degree?
  • Greene's analogy of automatic and manual camera modes. (Two systems. Automatic (elephant) and Deliberate (rider).) Difficult decisions might require manual mode.
  • Manual mode: dlPFC (activated in utilitarian thought) (high cog load). Automatic -- amygdala. Snakes in the grass. Thank your amygdala. Point: We need both systems. We need lying, cheating, and stealing to be pretty automatic NOs!
  • List: Easy calls: sharing concert tickets with a friend. Buying dinner for an intimate partner. Giving a more valuable gift to one person than another. Harder: Figuring out whether to donate money to help people far away. How much?
  • Crying baby scenario. Inevitable outcomes seem to matter here. Brain wrestles, as in experience. vmPFC (evaluates/weighs)
  • Lack of Tribal identity might tilt us toward rule based ethics. Equal treatment. Automatic systems not designed for a world that could help strangers 10,000 miles away.
  • Loyalty cases: men placing loyalty to men above other virtues. Assumptions about family relationship. Do families sometime impose on your loyalty (can be disfunctional)? [Recent example of the Jan 6 insurrectionist who threatened his family not to rat him out. They did.] The "worth being loyal to" part is sometimes unexamined. [recall the passenger dilemma]
  • Example: Spending lots of money on a birthday party.
  • Back to Dillon: Acknowledges limits. Liver story. Bits of liver. It grows back. Partners not so much.
  • Mazarin’s story about giving to alleviate Japanese disaster. We can retriever.
  • — Giving Well — you really can save lives.
  • Closing point by Joshua Greene. If you ran into a burning building and saved someone, it would be a highpoint of your life. Why not consider the same outcome heroic even if it doesn't involve a burning building?