NOV 8

21: NOV 8.

Assigned

• Today's class has no reading assignment. We will be working with ideas and theories that help with PP1.

Justice from an Evolutionary Ethics Standpoint

• Old model: We need to pursue justice and fairness to overcome a "bad thing" about us. We are fallen, we are selfish.

• New model: evolutionary ethics model:

• 1. We need to pursue justice because some of the really good, useful, and even beautiful things about us as socially evolved creatures create injustices.

• "Actions from love can lead to an unjust world" (from last class). Partiality is one of those beautiful things.

• 2. If morality is part of an evolved functional system for individual and collective “surviving and thriving” then we ought to assess the quality of the society that our values produce rather than only campaigning for the values themselves. What does the just society look like? Could a just society include a lot of suffering? A lot of exclusion? Maybe. Consider some examples.

• Our evolved (automatic) responses have a bias toward discounting the well-being of outgroups and strangers. This leads to bigotry, groupishness, and racism.

• One could argue, then, that partiality is justified because it is part of our evolved social behaviors for benefiting from cooperation. On the other hand, the moral limit of partiality might be found at the point that it promotes injustice. PP1 invites you to give an analysis of how we would know that we were at that point.

Small Group Discussion: How Big is Your "Us"?

• Imagine three futures for yourself. In all of them, you grow up to have a successful career, a family with two kids, and a medium size extended family. You are approaching retirement and your retirement and estate planning recalls a distant memory of an ethics class which talked about "justified partiality." You and your partner are wondering if you should leave all of your estate to your children or not. Remember, you will have access to this money until you die, so you could cover end of life care for yourself and your partner. Consider these three scenarios:

• A. You and your partner retire with about 1 million dollars, a paid off house, and good health insurance.
• B. You have all of the conditions in A, but 2 million dollars in net worth.
• C. Same as B, but 8 million dollars.

• For all three scenarios, assume that all indications suggest continued growth of your assets. You are also "aging well"!

• Data on household net worth at retirement

Resources for Transition from "What are the limits of partiality?" to PP1: What Do We Owe Strangers?

• Our small group exercise on estate planning helped us as the question of justified partiality from a "first person singular" perspective. But it really only gave you a little information about your intuitions about impersonal prosociality, generous, and maybe dozen other little things about you. But this could also inform an intuition about justice.

• Now we consider the question from the "first person plural" perspective. "What do we owe strangers?" "How big is our "us"? What does a just society look like?. To take on this question, we need to round up some resources and take stock of some of the theories we have already been studying.

• Theoretical and reflective resources for developing a position on the question, "What do we owe strangers?"

• 1. Which "goods" does justice involve?

• a. Promotion of basic subjective well-being -- Do we owe any strangers (perhaps those in our social contract) an obligation to promote their basic happiness? I'll bring in some ideas from "happiness economics" here. Happiness economists critique the use of GDP as a sole goal of public policy. They point to the limited ability of money (after a threshold amount) to improve subjective well-being (SWB). Some argue that the "just society" promotes human development and that there are basic goods that at least wealthy societies could provide that would raise SWB. A typical list includes: child care, education, food security, employment security, health security, and security in meeting the challenges of aging and dying.
• b. Economic justice -- Are there economic outcomes in a society or in the world that would be fundamentally unfair or unjust? If inequality continued to increase even from normal market behaviors, would it ever be unjust? Should we think of Rawls' "veil of ignorance" on a global level?
• c. Promotion of rights and anti-discrimination -- Typically, people who feel that "rights promotion" is an international
• d. Promotion of values related to autonomy -- rights, self-determination, security
• e. Aid and development -- Some argue that valuing human dignity obligates us to provide direct aid in some circumstances, such as disaster relief. Others go further, and argue that we are obligated to help the "bottom billion" to develop productive economies. Are these just good things to do and not obligatory or are they collective obligations?

• 2. Which obligations of justice extend to which strangers?

• Strangers in your own community, your nation, and the world -- With any of the "goods" mentioned above, you may decide that they extend to different types of strangers. For example, you may not believe obligations to promote happiness go beyond borders, but you might still believe that personal or collective beneficence (charity) is a good thing. Or, you may address all of these groups with the same theory of obligation if you think obligations of justice apply to all strangers equally. Notice that the more you are like Dillion (a strong utilitarian), the less you will distinguish among kinds of strangers.

• 3. What are the limits of justified personal partiality -- For some of you, this earlier work may set a "baseline" for thinking about obligations to strangers. Partiality is wrong if it promotes injustice and discrimination, but within limits it reflects a natural, evolved strategy for cooperation. Consider the positions we outlined during last class: Tribalism, Post-tribal Urbanism, Utilitarian Globalism, Extreme Altruism. You may want to use versions of these in your position.

• 4. Standard moral and political theoretical resources:

• Rawls' Theory of Justice -- which addresses both rights and economic justice.
• Duty to an ideal. This could be a Kantian ideal of supporting reason and autonomy in others, or it could be a more traditional ideal about human dignity and the importance of supporting human life and what a decent life entails. You may certainly draw on values from your faith commitments and life experience, but try to explicate them in ways that might be attractive to those who do not share your particular faith.
• Virtue Ethics -- Promoting human virtues may require specific sorts of aid or support.
• Utilitarianism -- The principle of utility has several theoretical virtues. For meeting acute human needs, it gives us a way of prioritizing need and calculating benefits. Accepting the "equal happiness" principle allows you to compare goods globally (a latte vs. saving a life).
• Libertarianism -- A good starting point if you feel very minimal "collective" obligations (such as through taxation). For libertarianism, the primary duty is not to impede other's rights while pursuing their life plan, but also to voluntarily aide those whom they wish to help (remember, Liberatarians can be individually beneficent). So, "live and let live," plus help those you like or feel deserving.

• 5. Use your understanding of culturally evolved values -- We have been studying the origins and value of cooperation, as well as psychological adaptations of WEIRD culture, such as impersonal prosociality, impartiality in rules, and other traits that seem to orient our obligations away from kin and friends. There is some evidence that these psychological adaptations facilitate markets and some forms of justice, such as those "impersonal" virtues mentioned above. If you endorse these aspects of WEIRD culture (if you think humans "survive and thrive" better with these mental adaptations), you may draw on them in thinking about your obligations to strangers. "Post-tribal Urbanism" is an example of this. We have also studied two theories (Haidt and Hibbing) that help us think about standing challenges we face as a social species. You might argue that we have duties toward those in our community to help with the most basic challenges life poses for humans.

• 6. Consult your moral matrix. Work from your identity, especially as it is reflected in your "moral matrix." Write from your own moral matrix.