by John Q on December 20, 2003
One of the most striking historical facts I’ve learned this year is that George Washington freed all his slaves in his will despite opposition from his family, including his wife Martha. It’s surprising and revealing that this fact has never been part of the standard account of Washington’s life.
It is also one of the facts leading me to an increasingly negative view of Thomas Jefferson. The parallel between Jefferson’s unacknowledged slave children by Sally Hemings and the more recent case of Strom Thurmond, on which Kieran has recently posted, is striking. (Jefferson was, quite literally, the first Southern Democrat). Until now, I’ve tended to vaguely excuse Jefferson’s actions here as a case of personal inability to resist the thinking of the times, but Washington’s example undermines this.
I think you can go from the personal to the political here as well. The course leading to the Civil War was set when the Northern States adopted emancipation around the time of the Revolution and the Southern states did not. Jefferson advocated gradual emancipation in Virginia at this time (1783), but he didn’t fight hard on the issue after this. Given Washington’s personal evolution on the issue, it seems plausible that a determined effort by Jefferson in the years after Washington’s death, during which he was president for eight years, could have achieved a peaceful end to slavery.
by Brian on December 20, 2003
I’m in the odd position that my favourite ethical theory is one I regard as having been decisively refuted. The theory is a form of consequentialism that I used to think avoided all the problems with traditional forms of consequentialism. I now think it avoids all but one or two of those problems, but those are enough. Still, whenever I feel like letting out my inner amateur ethicist, I keep being drawn back to this theory.
[click to continue…]
by Kieran Healy on December 20, 2003
An article in the New York Times reports that the (white) relatives of Strom Thurmond are all upset since (black) Essie Mae Washington-Williams told the world last week that Thurmond was her father. Her mother had been a teenage maid in Thurmond’s household when Strom was in his early twenties. The article doesn’t have much in the way of commentary, but it doesn’t have to because you just have to listen to them damn themselves out of their own mouths.
They say, variously, that the announcement “was like a blight on the family”; that “For the first time in my life, I felt shame;” that “My family always had help around the house. But it just seems Strom would have been above that” (?!); that the publicity was “embarrassing and awkward”; that if Washington-Williams had been white “it would be a whole other situation,” because criticism wouldn’t have been as harsh (you don’t say); that they “don’t know why this lady is doing this”; that she had better be “coming out for the right reasons”; and that anyways at least she was “humble,” if you know what I mean. Thurmond’s nephew, Barry Bishop, said “For something to be done so publicly … well, we’re just not comfortable dealing with things in that way.” You never spoke a truer word, Mr Bishop. Finally, Thurmond’s niece, Mary T. Thompkins Freeman, said she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to meet Washington-Williams just yet. “If I do, I’m not going to go with open arms,” Ms. Freeman said. “It’s too much to accept right now.” Yes, dear. This must be such a burden for you all.
by Henry Farrell on December 19, 2003
“Nasi Lemak”:http://nasilemak.blogspot.com/2003_12_14_nasilemak_archive.html#107160604501240875 (a pseudonymous UK political scientist) talks in his blog about a disturbing phenomenon. Students applying for a Ph.D. usually need good letters of reference from well-known academics to get into the better programs. One of Nasi Lemak’s former students recently asked a professor at a top US research university for a reference letter, and was told to write a draft of the letter himself, which the professor would then edit and sign. Nasi Lemak did some asking around, and found a surprising number of people who seem to believe that this is acceptable practice.
[click to continue…]
by John Q on December 19, 2003
In a couple of recent posts, Matt Yglesias has raised the question of how consequentialists should handle “other-regarding” preferences. He gives two examples. The first is about the possible execution of Saddam Hussein
My own take on the punishment issue leads to a somewhat paradoxical result. … If Iraqis would feel better with him executed, then go for it…
I like to think of this as a wise and sophisticated point of view, but the trouble is that my preferences depend on other people’s preferences. As long as not very many people agree with me, that’s fine, but if some huge portion of the world were to decide I was right, then you’d wind up with an unfortunate self-reference paradox. Sadly, consequentialist attitudes tend to have these kind of results and I think that if I were smarter I would dedicate my life to resolving the problems.
The second is about the preferences of people who are repulsed by overtly gay behavior. Matt concludes that their preferencesmust be counted, although they should be argued against.
This is an issue of considerable practical interest to resource and environmental economists, because of the popularity of stated preference methods for evaluating public goods such as environmental preservation. I find these methods problematic and one big problem is the treatment of other-regarding preferences.
This is why I have an article on the topic in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, (PDF and algebra alert). Not, I imagine the kind of journal that philosophers like Matt read with any regularity
[click to continue…]
by Daniel on December 19, 2003
Via Brad, I notice that what appears to have happened is that Iraq’s debt, so far from being forgiven by the French and Germans (shame really, just when I was looking forward to chastising American rightwingers for not giving credit where it was due), has been chucked into the Paris Club process. The what? Time for a mug’s guide, I think.
[click to continue…]
by Daniel on December 19, 2003
Just “feeding the baby” with a couple of links really …
Stuff from Maxspeak, Paul Krugman and Calpundit relevant to our own discussion of “Equality of outcome versus equality of opportunity”. Read them all. (If you want to that is, I mean it’s not like I’m ordering you to read any of them or even suggesting that you’ll be materially less well-informed if you don’t. I’m just sort of suggesting that they might be a little bit more interesting than what’s in the newspaper today)
Personally, I’ve always had a hard time taking this debate seriously. Specifically, I’ve never received (not for want of asking) a satisfactory answer from anyone who talks about “equality of opportunity” to the following two questions (also inspired by my time at business school, which I am coming to believe may have been less wasted than it seemed to be at the time)
1. What’s the point of doing anything if you’re not going to check whether it worked or not?
2. How do you find out whether a course of action worked or not, other than by the results?
by Ted on December 19, 2003
I’m so glad that John Q. brought up the terrorism futures markets, because I’ve been dying to talk about them. The proposal to open a market in “terrorism futures” only lasted a day before it was retracted, and captured the imagination of many libertarians and libertarian-sympathizers. It was sharply criticized by Congressional Democrats, who felt that it was abhorent that the government would open a market that would allow terrorists to earn a monetary profit off of their terrorist actions. But there’s an answer to that:
“Why wouldn’t terrorists just hop online and start betting if they couldn’t either mislead American authorities about their plans or make money to fund more al Qaeda operations?” Wyden asked. Why not indeed? If terrorists were trying to use PAM to make money that “would mean that they are giving up information to gain money,” says Hanson. “In other words, we’re bribing them to tell us what they are going to do. That’s kind of like normal intelligence gathering when we bribe agents for information.”
I agree that the idea is fascinating, and it was probably retracted too soon. Nonetheless, I don’t see any way that it could work.
[click to continue…]
by John Q on December 19, 2003
The idea that speculative markets can be used to forecast political events hit the headlines a while ago with the furore over terrorism futures. This idea is still around and the general claim that political events can be forecast by futures or betting markets is still being pushed hard. The main source of data is at the Iowa Electronic Markets, but there’s plenty more. Reader Jack Strocchi sent me this report on a study of Australian betting markets and elections.
As it happens, I’d already looked at this and come fairly rapidly to the conclusion that the betting markets weren’t much good, so I was struck by the money quote from author Justin Wolfers
The data suggests the Australian betting market is extraordinarily efficient. And why not? There’s a huge incentive for participants to do their homework, collect reliable information and make sure the price is right.”
Looking at the report and also the Iowa studies, the evidence in support of this claim still seems very weak to me. In 2001, for example,
The night before the election, Howard [the incumbent Liberal PM] was ahead in two of three major polls ….[on Centrebet] Howard was the favorite with odds of $1.55, suggesting a 64 percent probability of his winning the election,”
That is, on the crudest possible use of the polls, two out of three suggested a Howard win, giving odds almost identical to Centrebet. In fact, I doubt that any serious analyst would have given the Labor Opposition even a 25 per cent chance by election night.
[click to continue…]
by Kieran Healy on December 19, 2003
Jennifer Roback Morse’s views on sex and marriage are worth reading if you are interested in what happens when natural law theory, evolutionary psychology and conservative family values are stewed together and left to simmer in a base of visceral disgust toward homosexuals. I leave it to legal scholars to explain what’s wrong with arguments from “what nature intended.” Feminists can take Morse’s complaint that “we have already redefined the social context of marriage in the name of equality for women” and invite her to pine for the days before the Married Women’s Property Act. And the political theorists amongst us can discuss how Morse manages to get from the premise “Sexual activity and childrearing take place inside the private spaces of the home, far outside the reach of the public-enforcement power of the state,” to the conclusion that it’s “utterly reasonable” for the law to ban homosexual unions.
I confine myself to a sociological observation. Morse claims that a central feature of heterosexual sex within marriage is that it is “an engine of sociability that calls us out of our self-centeredness.” If anything, the opposite seems to be the case. A long-standing idea in sociology is that as you meet someone and later marry and have children, your social network will tend to get smaller. It’s called dyadic withdrawal. The married couple looks within itself for its sociability. Your spouse is usually around and you already have their phone number. Beyond that, kids keep you pretty busy. Recent research confirms the basic tendency. So, natural or not, I wouldn’t rely on the idea that sex within marriage “builds up community, starting with the spousal relationship and adding on from there.”
by Daniel on December 18, 2003
In an otherwise perfectly fine post on some subject or other, Jim Henley says:
“I rather suspect that there would be states in which one could grow marijuana […] and states in which one could make a machine gun, but very few states in which one could do both […] which is too bad because if someone’s of a mind to make himself a machinegun I’d like him to be nice and mellow afterwards.
It’s a not uncommon argument in the legalisation debate; that if everyone smoked nice friendly mellow pot instead of drinking horrible yobbish alcohol, various beneficial social consequences would result. To be honest, though, there’s only one country in the world which has experimented in any serious way with the combination of widely available cannabis and widely available machine guns, and the results haven’t really been what you would call a roaring success. Apparently if someone isn’t of a mood to be mellow, that’s just more or less the kind of person they are and there’s surprisingly little you can do about it pharmaceutically. One of the few things we do know about people’s behaviour on drugs is that it’s very context-dependent and influenced by their state of mind at the time of taking them. You might have thought that if you took a bunch of chilled-out Scandinavians and fed them hippy magic mushrooms, you’d get a total peace-and-love-and-social-welfare trip, but look at the Vikings …
by Maria on December 18, 2003
If you haven’t seen already, the Guardian has announced its blogging award winners. They reminded me of how limited my knowledge of other (especially non-political) bloggers is, and the amazingly wide range of things you can do with a blog. Bruce Sterling was one of the judges.
There are a couple of absolute crackers. Call Centre Confidential reminds you that The Office is funny because it is so horrifyingly accurate.
Belle de Jour has its doubters, but seems to be the diary of a sassy and articulate London call girl. Warning; best read at home.
Going Underground’s Blog is all about the London Underground and has loads of pictures of drunken santa clauses. It’s my favourite UK public transport blog after Transport Blog. Who says the British are a nation of trainspotters?
by Chris Bertram on December 18, 2003
I’ve been scanning the press coverage of the Britain’s “Soham murder trial”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/soham/0,14010,1073385,00.html to see whether anyone has asked a very obvious question. So far, commentary seems to be concentrating on the failure — if it was a failure — of the Humberside police to pass on details of the “ten allegations of sex crimes”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/soham/story/0,14010,1109155,00.html that had been made against Ian Huntley. (Anyone who has had experience of Britain’s Data Protection Act will sympathise with the police when they declare themselves confused about which records they were allowed to retain, and how much they were allowed to disclose.) But the dilemma of policy and principle is obvious: on the one hand there was information that could have prevented the murders; on the other hand, it seems wrong to allow mere allegations that have not been tested to be a barrier to someone getting a job. The question nobody seems to be asking, though, is why didn’t the earlier allegations go anywhere?
And there seems a worrying possible answer to that question. In today’s target culture, neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service will proceed with an case unless they think they stand a very good chance of success. To risk failure is to risk bad statistical outcomes. In other words, maybe Huntley was able to continue his career of rape and under-age sex because the threshold at which the authorities will now initiate a prosecution is set too high.
by John Q on December 18, 2003
Once there were three bubbles. The one that attracted everyone’s attention was the dotcom bubble, of which no more needs to be said. The second bubble, noted by plenty of economists was the glaring overvaluation of the bubble. Given chronic deficits in both the budget and current account, and the fact that the US dollar was trading at a value well above purchasing power parity, anyone who gave any credence to the view that markets eventually reach equilibrium could conclude that the US dollar was bound to fall, and it has duly done so. (this only leaves the question of why putatively rational investors did not sell earlier)
The third bubble seemed, until this year, like part of the second. Rates of interest on 10-year US government bonds are amazingly low, currently around 4.25 per cent (the price is inversely proportional to the interest rate, so low interest rates mean a bubble in bond prices). Most economists would, I think have assumed that, as the US dollar declined in value, long-term interest rates would go up. But, apart from a brief panic a few months ago, this hasn’t happened.
[click to continue…]
by Maria on December 18, 2003
Today’s FT devotes almost half a page to the Irish presidency of the EU, which starts on January 1st and will be accompanied by a collective sigh of relief at the end to Berlusconi’s embarrassing ‘reign’ which “began with him comparing a German MEP to a Nazi camp guard and ended with the collapse of the stability pact and the diastrous EU summit in Brussels”.
The FT hits on a subject close to my heart; the big role that smaller countries play in greasing the wheels of the European machine. They also interview Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, who contradicts recent reports that the Irish would kick the stalled constitution talks into the long grass. (I can’t find that one in the online FT – it’s on page 3 of the European paper edition though.) Brian Cowen, who is widely acknowledged to be very smart and very astute, says that the team Ireland brings to the presidency has recent and deep experience in the extremely tricky negotiations on Northern Ireland. We also bring to the table a prime minister, Bertie Aherne, who, while no great visionary, is a superb deal-maker. And (cleverly, I think), Cowen says straight off the bat that any verbal deals struck with Berlusconi will expire with the Italian presidency on 31 December. The Irish will start with the constitution in its current draft, and a clean slate. So, if negotiations can be re-started soon enough, it’s possible that Ireland just might deliver the constitution.
But what do small countries bring to the EU decision-making process in general?
[click to continue…]