NOV 3

19: NOV 3. Unit Four: Justice, Justified Partiality, and Fair Contracts

Assigned

Hidden Brain, "Playing Favorites: When kindness toward some means callousness toward others"

Introduction to Justified Partiality Unit

• A typical question for thinking about social justice is, "What do I owe strangers?". You can think of our approach in this unit as a sneaky way of addressing that question by asking, "What, if any, are the limits of partiality to non-strangers (family, intimates, friends...)?"

• Today's class is focused on "personal partiality," the kind that shows up in our interpersonal social relationships. The next class is focused on "public partiality", the kind that shows up in our commitments, if any, to benefit strangers (roughly, people with whom we do not seek reciprocal relationship).

• Let's define a couple of views to get started:

• Tribalism - the view that there are no limits to partiality to our social network. Just as no one has a right to my friendship, no one has a moral complaint against me if I spend all of my resources on my partiality network.
• Utilitarian Globalism - Following the equal happiness principle, the view that we ought to constrain our natural tendency to favor our own. In principle, saving a life 12,000 miles from here is the same as saving a life in your community. So, if you can save two lives....etc.
• Extreme Altruism - Maximize giving. Don't leave any organs un-recycled.

• Major questions for our work:

• How does partiality fit with a desire for justice as equal treatment? (Rawl's "equal opportunity" principle)
• How big is your US? What is the range of humans you care about and in what degrees? Is it ok to base your concern (interest in showing partiality) by kinship, geography, membership in a society, ethnic or racial affiliation, viewpoint similarity?
• How does partiality and preference work to increase trust and cooperation in social networks? If partiality does these, it can't be all bad, right?

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. (Invite examples.)
• How does Partiality fit with a desire for justice as equal treatment?

• Discrimination research: IAT - Implicit association test - Mahzarin Banaji one of the researchers on IAT.

• Mahzarin Banaji and Carla Kaplan. Friends in the 80s being 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.
• 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"? 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.
• Story by Mahzarin about interview. Suddenly, the in-group information about being a Yaley was enough to trigger a preference. Preference networks in Ivy leagues schools. But also Gonzaga!!!
• "Helping those with whom you have a group identity"
• Favoritism doesn't get as much attention as discrimination.

• Can you avoid favoritism?

• Could be based on "green beard effect" same school, etc.
• Story of Dillon Matthews. Girlfriend didn't like Peter Singer! So he studied him. Singer's argument about helping others in need. Saving a child from a pond. ruins your suit. Utilitarian altruism. Not helping others is similar to killing them. Give Well. Effective altruism movement. The most good you can do. Evidence based altruism. Hannah. Focused on family, friends, your neighborhood, city. Parental lesson. Dinner together. Debating moral philosophy on a first date! Wow! It doesn't get any better than that.
• Utilitarian logic. Equal happiness principle. Dillon not focused on preference to people near him, but on effectiveness of altruism.
• 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. Stranger made a diff. to her.
• 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. 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, but no. She wouldn't.
• Greene: She recognizes that what he would do is rational. He's willing to override it, but might not be able to live with himself for doing that.

• Naturalness of preference. Evolutionary background

• Preference promotes cooperation. Suite of capacities. A package. Don't lie, cheat, steal...
• Kin cooperation....Cooperation among friends... reciprocity...semi-strangers (same religion. friend of friend)...
• Moral concentric circles. How big is my "Us"? What is the range of humans I care about?
• Greene's analogy of automatic and manual camera modes. (Two systems. Automatic and Deliberate.) Difficult decisions might require manual mode. dlPFC for utilitarians (high cog load). Automatic -- amygdala. Snakes in the grass. Thank your amygdala. (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.
• Lack of Tribal identify might tilt us toward rule based ethics. Equal treatment.
• Loyalty cases: men placing loyalty to men above other virtues. assumptions about family relationship. Maybe not....
• Back to Dillon: Acknowledges limits. Liver story. Bits of liver. It grows back. Partners not so much.

• How do you decide the limits of your partiality. How big is my "US"?
• Donations matter even if you don't give your kidney. This can save lives.
• If you saved a life in person, you'd never forget it, but most professionals in the US have this ability, if not in person.

Small Group Discussion: Ethical problems in showing personal partiality

• Introduction

• Tell anecdote about having "best friends".
• Take a minute to remember back to middle school, when showing preferences and defining social groups started in earnest. Typical examples include: inviting some friends, but not others out; gift giving; defining partiality in intimate vs. social relationships. Try to recall how you become sophisticated about the social rules for showing preferences (inviting friends to party, or out). Can you recall conflicts or awkward situations as you and social group figured out how to show partiality without upset feelings?

• Within your small groups, try to address these two topics.

• In the first part of your discussion, try to identify the common social rules that you follow when showing personal preferences, like preferring the company of some people to others, or offering help or cooperation to someone you like. Give examples of when it is ok or not ok to make your partiality known, for example, in invitations or gift giving.

• In the second part of your discussion, consider how our social rules and systems for showing preferential treatment may or may not have ethically problematic consequences. Many theorists will confirm our common sense intuition that "partiality networks" serving good ends. They define groups for trust and cooperation, giving us people to spend positive emotional time with and get help from when needed. At the heart of many "partiality networks" are family and intimate partners, from whom we often hope for great partiality! Moreover, many of the networks Gonzaga community members travel in are quite privileged and highly resourced. While having a good partiality network makes many problems easier to solve, could they also be sources of systemic bias and unfairness? Consider partiality networks you hope to benefit from, like GU alumni who might hire you, as well as friends that might tip you off to a job prospect.

• You may want to argue for one or more of the following positions:

• Partiality networks are fundamentally unfair, just like friendship itself, and there is nothing to be done about.
• Partiality networks are unfair, but they serve some natural and good ends. We can avoid some of the problems with them if we adopt the right personal rules.
• Partiality is a natural expression of our freedom and nothing to apologize for. We ought to help intimates, family, and friends. If we enjoy good fortunate and can express greater generosity to friends, so much the better.
• Feel free to add your own positions here.