Difference between revisions of "OCT 27"

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==15: OCT 27 - 5. The Enlightenment, American Experience, Money and Happiness==
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==18: OCT 27==
  
 
===Assigned===
 
===Assigned===
  
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:*McMahon, C6, “Lib and discontent” (313-331)
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:*Tribe, Lawrence. "Deconstructing Dobbs" (1st half, 1-9)
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:*"Economics of Happiness" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-t8-Vq0HO0]
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:*Supreme Court of the US, "Excerpts from the Dobbs Decision," (13-29) (recommended)
  
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===In-Class===
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===Tribe, “Deconstructing Dobbs”===  
  
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:*Introduction to Easterlin Paradox [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox]
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:*Concerns: 10 year old rape victim in Ohio; criminal penalties for doctors, no IVF, Texas style enforcement, criminalizing abortion seeking?
  
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===McMahon, Chapter 6: Liberalism and Its Discontents (1st half to 331)===
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:*The jurisprudence:
 +
::*Majority makes Roe and Casey look like isolated precents, but not so. 
  
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:*'''Enlightenment liberalism''' and '''Classical Republicanism''' in the American experiment
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::*”Eggregiously wrong”? In what sense?  (Mention interpretive difference.)
  
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::*example of Franklin as quintessential representative of the American appropriation of Enlightenment liberalism.   
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::*9th amendment: enumeration of rights isn’t exhaustive.   
  
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::*symbol of thrift and accumulation, self-made, tract, The Path to Riches and Happiness.  But then, McMahon raises the question of whether the money - happiness connection is really central to the American experiment.  Need to go into Enlightenment thought behind the “pursuit of happiness” phrase.
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::*Is limiting the option of pregnant women a form of sex-based discrimination?
  
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:*'''Trivial Pursuits'''
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::*Jurisprudence on Roe recognized states interest in protecting fetal life, contrary to Dissent’s view.
  
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::*Dec. of Independence: tracing "pursuit of happiness" in enlightenment texts. Jefferson claims that he was trying to express a “common sense” of the American mind.  However, he is altering Locke’s “Life, liberty, and property (estates)” phrase.  Critic might call this a smokescreen for protecting property. 
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===Group Discussion: New liberties: Determining Unenumerated Rights over Time===
  
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::*Locke did think of happiness as a natural part of a Christian worldview, leading us to God.  Virginia Declaration on Human Rights, contemporary, shows the liberty — property — happiness connection (318).
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:*How should we decide on unenumerated rights?
  
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::*Connotation of “pursuit” - Locke and Jeff understood hedonic treadmill at some level.  McMahon suggests that this negative connotation is part of a deeper Christian line of thought that survived in the Enlightenment.  Christianity teaches us not to expect ultimate desire satisfaction in material goods.  Sermons of the time routinely linked happiness to Christian virtues. 
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===Some details from Dobbs===
  
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::*Jeffersonian Christianity focused on teachings of Jesus. The Jefferson Bible…. Jefferson is identified with “'''Classical Republican'''” less individualistic than Locke, focused on civic virtue and civic participation.  Quote at 324.  Jefferson’s knowledge of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers would also inform him of a critical issue in Locke (raised by Hutchison), that pleasure may just lead to self-centered hedonism.  Postulated “moral sense” as counterweight.  A capacity to feel pleasure from good.
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:*What was wrong with Plessy v Ferguson?  Segregation ''was'' deeply rooted in our tradition.  Other decisions: treatment of women, tolerance of non-cis-gendered identity.  
  
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::*McMahon traces this appreciation of limits of “trivial pursuits” of pleasure in Hume and Smith.  Smith theorized that the illusory goal of desire satisfaction could have positive social effect, motivating pursuit of wealth, which is good for the society, even at the sacrifice of individual Happiness.
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:*Roberts’ alternative (11): judicial restraint.
  
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:*'''Strange Melancholy'''
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:*Dissent:  opening claim at 13,
 +
::*Concerns:
 +
:::*prohibition of travel, possibility of Federal ban
 +
::*Basic liberties: 17 “protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions.”
 +
::*Historical record:  19th century criminalization of abortion was short term change, common law not so harsh on “pre-quickening” abortion.  21.
 +
::*On interpretation:  24; response to conservative concerns 25. 
 +
::*Tough issues not decided:  When does a women’s right to her life “kick in” 28
  
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::*Alexis de Tocqueville's contribution:  Democracy in America 1835 1840:  Sociological insight into sadness in the American experiment.
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===1st Small group discussion of basic liberties===
  
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::*Of Toq's thesis: Macmahon writes: "perhaps, the cynic, or at least the skeptic, may be on firmer ground. For in a society in which the unhindered pursuit of happiness (to say nothing of its attainment) is treated as a natural, Godgiven right, the inability to make steady progress along the way will inevitably be seen as an aberration, a suspension of the natural order of things." big passage: 333-334
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:*Body, Bodily Autonomy, and Physical Intimacy:  
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::*In a free society, you should expect to have a great deal of control and decision-making about your body, your health, and intimacy. Some of these liberties are covered by your due process rights, which place rules on the condition under which you can be incarcerated, especially prior to a trial.  But many other bodily autonomy rights are not specifically enumerated as basic liberties. Which of the following hypothetical laws would you not want a simple majority to make actual?
  
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::*really about the dynamics of equality, freedom, and democracy vs. community and social values.  U.S. a big experiment.  Tocqueville also praised Americans for self-reliance and a sense of "enlightened self interest" -- realizing that it is in your self-interest to be concerned about others.
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::*Examples: Which of these laws would violate a "basic liberty" (something that should not be decided by majority rule?)  Can you think of more examples?  More "maybe not" examples?
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:::*A law allowing discrimination against women for hiring to jobs deemed too hard for women.
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::*And that, Tocqueville concluded in a famous line, "is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance, and of that disgust with life sometimes gripping them in calm and easy circumstances." praised enlightened self-interest of americans.
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:::*Pumping a person’s stomach for drugs as part of a criminal investigation.
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:::*Forced sterilization, forced reproduction.  
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::*Mill's contribution: Autonomy and Liberal Hope
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:::*A law prohibiting vasectomies or requiring men to reverse them.
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:::*A law allowing anyone doubting a student athlete’s eligibility for a team sport to demand “genital inspection” (actual proposed law).
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::*344:  image of John Stuart Mill reviewing Toq's essays and longing for democracy in Europe.
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:::*A law prohibiting you from receiving gender affirming care from a physician.  
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::*If. "Let the idea take hold," Mill warned, "that the most serious danger to the future prospects of mankind is in the unbalanced influence of the commercial spirit. .. ."^^
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:::*A law prohibiting tattoos.  
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:::*A law forcing a person to get an abortion.
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::*347:  section on Mill's depression -- famous -- finds solace in romatic poetry.  why?  evocative, imaginative against starker imagination of rationalist enlightenment.
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:::*A law requiring end of life medical care against a person’s wishes.
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::*also in Mill (and Butler), the problem of indirect happiness (similar to puzzle about enlightened self-interest).  Mill's passage 348 breaking with simple Benthamism.
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:::*A law requiring blood donations.
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:::*Laws prohibiting same sex marriage and intimacy, and contraception.
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::*Mill, On Liberty passage 350 - can't violate someone's liberty to make them happier...
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:::*A law requiring you to notify the government when you travel or restricting travel.
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:::*A law requiring cis-gender conforming dress and behavior in public.  
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::*McM: Is there a romanticism in Mill's position on Liberty?
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:::*But maybe not: A law prohibiting sex with minors or non-human animals.
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:*Weber's contribution: Socio-religious insight into the dynamic between capitalism and Protestant Christianity.
 
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::*Weber Section: 355 "In the Protestant anxiety over the fate of individual salvation, he argued, lay the motive force behind an impetus to capital accumulation, regarded as a sign and partial assurance of God's blessing. Combining ascetic renunciation, a notion of work as divine calling, and a critically rational disposition, the Protestant faith, Weber argued, brought together nascent capitalism's essential qualities: the restriction of consumption in favor of the accrual of capital, and a religiously consecrated ethic of discipline, delayed gratification, industry, and thrift.
 
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::*358: "Indeed, it was during the very period when Weber was writing that America, and the West more generally, began to undergo what the sociologist Daniel Bell has described as a monumental transformation, "the shift from '''production to consumption''' as the fulcrum of capitalism." Bringing "silk stockings to shop girls" and "luxury to the masses," this transformation made of "marketing and hedonism" the "motor forces of capitalism," driving over all restraints that stood in the way of the enjoyment of material pleasures with a momentum that would have surprised even Tocqueville."  (Note: Galbraith, "The Dependency Effect; reliance on raising GDP; sustainability of economy and population)
 
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::*"Material goods," he observed at the end of The Protestant Ethic, "have gained an increasing and finally an inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history."
 
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:*Discussion topic:
 
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===Crash Course on Happiness Economics, Adriene Hill===
 
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:*the presenter [https://www.marketplace.org/author/adriene-hill/]
 
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:*Typical correlates: $82K, keep your job, don't compare too much.
 
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:*General historical assumptions of economics: unlimited potential for desire and satisfaction, linear relationship with money.
 
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:*H&W Economics news!!: "Happiness economics" starts by studying the disconnects and gaps in theory based on this assumption. The Easterlin Paradox is a central area of study.
 
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:*Example: non-economic satisfactions.  Cooking a meal for someone.  Being offered money could ruin the satisfaction.
 
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:*Thought bubble: relative income and satisfaction.  beyond some level of income the value of additional money has diminishing returns.  Basically, the idea that the law of diminishing marginal utility applies to income. "The law of diminishing marginal utility says that the marginal utility from each additional unit declines as consumption increases."  2010, about $82k in the US.
 
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:*Life satisfaction judgements (H-l)do track income and wealth across time.
 
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:*Unemployment trashes H-l.  Especially middle aged unemployed.  Greater than the money loss.  Affects future outlook. 
 
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:*U-shaped curves: for unemployment, long commutes, ccard debt, inflation. 
 
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:*Reference income hypothesis: Satisfaction from your income depends in part upon your reference set, who else you compare to. Living in a rich neighborhood in poor county give you a boost. Status.
 
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:*Easterlin Paradox introduced: "The 'Easterlin Paradox' states that at a point in time happiness varies directly with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not trend upward as income continues to grow."
 
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::*Explanations: status, set point theory, hedonic adaptation (Rousseau quote 6:45), not a paradox (possible counter evidence from low income countries).
 
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::*Steverson and Wolfers - average levels of happiness do rise in relation to GDP.
 
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:*The GDP debate -- Is GDP the right focus for economic policy? Bhutan...GNH.  (Some details from Easterlin on what that might mean.)  Kennedy observations: GDP counts everything, even bad things, and misses lots of things we do value.
 

Latest revision as of 20:28, 27 October 2022

18: OCT 27

Assigned

  • Tribe, Lawrence. "Deconstructing Dobbs" (1st half, 1-9)
  • Supreme Court of the US, "Excerpts from the Dobbs Decision," (13-29) (recommended)

Tribe, “Deconstructing Dobbs”

  • Concerns: 10 year old rape victim in Ohio; criminal penalties for doctors, no IVF, Texas style enforcement, criminalizing abortion seeking?
  • The jurisprudence:
  • Majority makes Roe and Casey look like isolated precents, but not so.
  • ”Eggregiously wrong”? In what sense? (Mention interpretive difference.)
  • 9th amendment: enumeration of rights isn’t exhaustive.
  • Is limiting the option of pregnant women a form of sex-based discrimination?
  • Jurisprudence on Roe recognized states interest in protecting fetal life, contrary to Dissent’s view.

Group Discussion: New liberties: Determining Unenumerated Rights over Time

  • How should we decide on unenumerated rights?

Some details from Dobbs

  • What was wrong with Plessy v Ferguson? Segregation was deeply rooted in our tradition. Other decisions: treatment of women, tolerance of non-cis-gendered identity.
  • Roberts’ alternative (11): judicial restraint.
  • Dissent: opening claim at 13,
  • Concerns:
  • prohibition of travel, possibility of Federal ban
  • Basic liberties: 17 “protecting autonomous decision making over the most personal of life decisions.”
  • Historical record: 19th century criminalization of abortion was short term change, common law not so harsh on “pre-quickening” abortion. 21.
  • On interpretation: 24; response to conservative concerns 25.
  • Tough issues not decided: When does a women’s right to her life “kick in” 28

1st Small group discussion of basic liberties

  • Body, Bodily Autonomy, and Physical Intimacy:
  • In a free society, you should expect to have a great deal of control and decision-making about your body, your health, and intimacy. Some of these liberties are covered by your due process rights, which place rules on the condition under which you can be incarcerated, especially prior to a trial. But many other bodily autonomy rights are not specifically enumerated as basic liberties. Which of the following hypothetical laws would you not want a simple majority to make actual?
  • Examples: Which of these laws would violate a "basic liberty" (something that should not be decided by majority rule?) Can you think of more examples? More "maybe not" examples?
  • A law allowing discrimination against women for hiring to jobs deemed too hard for women.
  • Pumping a person’s stomach for drugs as part of a criminal investigation.
  • Forced sterilization, forced reproduction.
  • A law prohibiting vasectomies or requiring men to reverse them.
  • A law allowing anyone doubting a student athlete’s eligibility for a team sport to demand “genital inspection” (actual proposed law).
  • A law prohibiting you from receiving gender affirming care from a physician.
  • A law prohibiting tattoos.
  • A law forcing a person to get an abortion.
  • A law requiring end of life medical care against a person’s wishes.
  • A law requiring blood donations.
  • Laws prohibiting same sex marriage and intimacy, and contraception.
  • A law requiring you to notify the government when you travel or restricting travel.
  • A law requiring cis-gender conforming dress and behavior in public.
  • But maybe not: A law prohibiting sex with minors or non-human animals.
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