PPECMC2022Sextons

I wanted to reply on the general topics being discussed in Zac’s and Tim’s blog posts since they discuss some issues that also came up in tutorial with Marta this past Tuesday. Specifically, I am intrigued by the discussion of the role power plays in the actual practice and domain of human rights.  Zac argues that the natural-rights and political-pragmatist formulations of human rights seem to open the door to colonial intervention masquerading or “geopolitical pragmatism” as humanitarianism. There is a long list of human rights claims, abuses, and actions taken by the United States—a prime example in Zac’s blogpost—that seems to serve as an effective record for judging the US’ commitment to human rights. Taken in context, it seems to tell a stronger story about the pursuit of strategic interests than it does about mere arrogant hypocrisy on the matter.  This also dovetails with Zac’s concerns that the right of intervention “always lies with colonial powers” which is related, ...

 Beitz explores four features of natural rights models: 1) natural rights are not dependent on “the moral convictions and positive laws of their society”; 2) natural rights are “pre-institutional in a logical” rather than historical sense; 3) natural rights are possessed by persons “at all times and in all places”; 4) natural rights are “simply in virtue of their humanity” which means it applies to all human beings regardless of their spatial location or social relationships (52-53). Beitz further explains that naturalistic interpretation of human rights presents limitations to the scope and content of human rights, as their contemporary practice can be divergent and go beyond from the understandings of natural rights. I generally agree with Beitz on his account of why naturalistic theories are limited. His argument presents a sharp contrast with Rawls’ notion of the original position, which is a thought experiment that asks people to suppose no societal affiliations or labels bei...

 Human history for the majority of our time has been fraught with violence, bloodshed, and the artificial imposition of one power over another. The conquerors of old, such as Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar, did so in the name of honor or glory. More modern conquerors such as the British or French empires did so in the name of trade, economy, and resources. In the modern age, many would argue that the West partakes in the same activity of conquest as they did in the past, now in the name of human rights. At the end of the day, this is an issue of ideology. Specifically, human rights are now the predominant ideology we use to justify actions that we otherwise would not partake in. In this case, I am specifically referring to external militant actions.  While I agree, and I think Beitz would also agree in part with this observation, the issue here is whether or not human rights as an ideology is still preferable  to whatever other alternative we can conjure up. History...

                   What is the purpose of human rights? Are they a desirable framework? These are some of the questions I've had about Bietz's account especially as articulated. I understand Bietz isn't offering a justification for human rights but simply an explanation for how they operate, but in doing so I fear he's ignoring the important colonzing role of how they have and continue to operate, and creating a faux neutrality (or even assumed positivity) on the ethics of human rights.      The two major categories of justifications from human rights appear to be eitheir those which appeal to human rights on the basis of being natural rights bestowed on humans by nature, or those which appeal to human rights as a useful pragmatic political tool for international relations or diplomacy. Both of these seem ripe to be used to justify international action for colonizing purposes, whether it be a justification of r...

     On page 54, Beitz says that human rights are like natural rights in that they are "critical standards" not determined by legal rules, but unlike natural rights in that they do not presuppose one view about their justification. He seems to be basing this off of Maritain's conclusion that human rights are a common ground for action despite different reasons for justification for different people. He uses this to say that human rights are not "out there" as natural rights are and continues the argument on 57. He argues that there seems to be no good reason for why we should  conceive of human rights as natural ones.      Beitz points to natural rights theorists like Locke, conceived of natural rights " formulate constraints on the use of a government’s coercive power in circumstances of religious and moral diversity" (57). While I suspect that Locke would argue that he had other reasons for posing these as natural rigthts and this was a just a desira...

Anderson in Unstrapping The Straitjacket of preference develops an idea of - The Priority of Identity to Rational Principle. This principle states that “principle of choice it is rational to act on depends on a prior determination of personal identity, of who one is” (30). In her discussion of the principle she runs into the idea of rational self-identification and questions in what contexts is it rational to identify with others or see oneself as an independent agent (32). To illuminate this point, Anderson turns to women. Anderson points to women, who are systematically disadvantaged in many parts of the world due to income inequality, inability to find employment, and wealth gaps and shows that it can be traced back to the institution of marriage. When a woman enters marriage she is assumed to be taking care of the household and doing all of the unpaid labour, thus stopping her self-development. All of this makes women not see themselves as  “rational egoists” because they do no...

 I love Anderson's idea of the principle of a collective agent on pg 29 "that whatever you can count as a reason for action for one member of the collective must count as a reason for all." Like prof. Hurley said in the email and what Anderson says in the paper, this is a kind of economic model that gravitates toward Kantian ethics and I love it. This idea of acting in only a way that is justifiable to everyone and for everybody to act which builds up the Kingdom of ends that Anderson invokes is exemplified through the voting thought experiment (with voting as the action and democracy as the kingdom of ends.) If everybody adopts a maxim of no voting when my marginalized utility is ~ 0 (aka only voting if its in my self-interested utility) then no very many people will have reason to vote and all power will rest in a few... the very thing that democracy is aiming to stop. If these citizens were rather to choose a maxim of voting because it is collectively beneficial to ful...

  In Anderson’s account of women in the context of collective identity and individualism, she explains that women suffer material disadvantages regardless of which view we take. When placing women in positions as the rational egoist, they have a higher cost of exiting marriage due to the inherent barriers placed in front of them such as sex discrimination, access to education, etc. When considering their collective identity role within the family, there are expectations for them to be committed to harmful social norms and to always be altruistic. As a result, many women do not have conceptions of their abilities to choose as individuals. Not only are they supposed to accept a smaller share of family resources, but they are also supposed to believe that is what they deserve. However, Anderson states that women do not have to choose between conceiving of themselves as rational egoists versus as family members in oppressive commitments. As an alternative, women should seek employment ...

In this blog post, I want to lay out Anderson’s presentation of the case study of women and her proposed solution to improve the unequal share in the benefits of marriage women receive. I seek to critically examine Anderson’s solution, especially as it relates to the distinction between identifying as an individual and identifying as a member of a group.  Anderson points to the fact that wives’ performance of the majority of domestic labor enables husbands’ production of household income. In this way, the income earned by husbands, who are able to pursue employment outside the household, is really the product of the joint production of the married couple. This is because, had the wife not performed domestic tasks, the husband would have had to spend some of his time doing these tasks, and would have been unable to devote the same amount of time to his employment outside the household. Despite the fact that husbands’ earned income is the product of the married couple’s joint product...

In this blog post, I want to touch upon some of the same themes being discussed by Tim and Zac. For one, I thought Anderson’s discussion of how we become collective agents was a bit dubious. Admittedly, Anderson seems to layout a more compelling framework for conceptualizing rational choice than traditional economics does. An act-consequentialist framework does not seem to be effective in parsing out the motivations for human behavior, nor in revealing what we ought to do. However, it seems to me that she lays out a similarly dubious model for understanding human behavior that relies upon several unspoken assumptions and normatively loaded connections. It seemed to readily draw a connection between membership in a certain group and the possession of joint interests/preferences and thus the existence of a joint commitment to acting together. I think the link between one’s identity and adopting a joint strategy is not as strong as Anderson’s account seems to suggest. Her account seems to...

I share and wanted to extend Tim's concerns about collectivism and communitarianism, although I would add that the GDP case Tim analyzes seems to be more of a problem of capitalist pressures to squeeze efficiency through constant improvement, then a problem unique to collective societies. Specifically Anderson on pg. 28 gives Sen's example that Indian women concieve as themselves as more members of their families than as individual selves. This is replicated in the US, where even progressive families typically place a majority of child care burdens on women. Rather then the decisions of individuals or individual families, these decisions seem indicative of broader collective communities, which inform discriminatory social norms.  Unfortunately, I fear Individualism simply adopts an intentional ideological blindness to the communities and social structures around a person, and does little to change their communally determined social condition, i.e. access to child care. To be un...

GDP growth has been a hallmark representation of societal "welfare" since the end of the Second World War. GDP's almost mystical role in evaluating welfare is not entirely dissimilar to Anderson's argument about rationality. In short, it seems that both metrics are extraordinarily simplified means to measure exceptionally complex things. Indeed, GDP growth is actually more prone to Anderson's "practicality argument" in terms of collective action, especially on an international level.  It is uncontroversial to say that East Asian cultures tend to be more collectivized, homogenous, and most importantly, communitarian than Western cultures. Even in liberal democracies such as Japan or South Korea, the signs of "collective action" and "collective duty" could be seen in all aspects of society. One could point to the region's unusual political stability and cleanliness as evidence. However, what is notable about all of these nations is ...

Last time I wrote about Anderson, I discussed how her theory related to constitutional incorporation. This time, her analysis made me think about another constitutional concept: the aggregation principle.  The aggregation principle was established in a case I have talked about in a prior blog post, Wickard v Filburn (1942). The Commerce Clause states that the federal government has the power to “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes.” The federal government used this to establish wheat quotas. As a result, farmers could not produce more wheat than the quota allotted them. Filburn was a farmer who produced more wheat than the quota allowed him too. However, the amount of wheat he sold was less than the quota; he used the extra wheat to feed his livestock. The court ruled that this was illegal as it violated the quota and upheld the quota as constitutional. The Court established that Wickard’s excess wheat production would...

  This blog post is inspired by my macroeconomics class, where we’ve been discussing models that show our job search model. Most recently we’ve been analyzing the McCall Model, bathtub model and soon the DMP model. Essentially the McMall Model shows the cost of accepting a job offer and the benefit of not accepting a job offer. It gives us a very simple framework to understand why people may not accept a job offer. With this framework we are viewing preferences as a choice, where one wants to maximize income and thus will make decisions accordingly.  However, this model doesn’t capture certain flaws that Sen pointed out. It doesn’t show why there may be some outliers who have a very low “reservation wage” which is the minimum wage one will work for. As Sen noted, there are some people who are in a disadvantaged position and live in poor circumstances, as a result their reservation wage may be very low. This means their standard of living may be very poor, and there is no way t...

 I would like first to elaborate on the conversation between Blackburn and Sen, and then offer some elaboration on Sen’s arguments. individual freedom not as a fundamental right but a social product: The evaluation position that evaluates the success of a society in terms of the substantive freedoms that the members of that society enjoy resonates with Blackburn’s argument that winning the empirical games depends on understanding the interpreted game, especially the interpreted choices/options that the opponent holds dear (pg. 18). Sen also took an “informational” focus than normative approaches, which focus on other variables such as utility, procedural liberty, or real income (pg. 18). But Sen’s second point on why individual freedom is important to development puzzled me. He argues that “greater freedom enhances the ability of people to help themselves and also to influence the world”, or the so-called “agency aspect” - when individual freedom is expanded or optimally substant...

After reading the first few chapters of Sen, what I took issue with most were Sen’s alternative uses of capability information. While he argued for three alternative approaches to the foundational concern, none of them seemed to bring us to an actual understanding of how development as freedom could be practically used. Although Sen gives reasoning as to why other approaches (ex: utilitarianism) do not work due to the heterogeneity of factors that influence individual advantage and the impossibility of conducting interpersonal comparisons, he does not give a clear explanation as to how capabilities can be used. I understand this is part of his intention in explaining that no one can tell a specific group of people what freedoms should matter to them, and the trade-offs of different freedoms should be decided through the democratic process. Additionally, I understand how the enhancement of freedoms as a whole should be the goal and society is improving if you are expanding the freedoms ...

In response to Zac’s post: Zac references Sen’s argument regarding famine in autocracies versus democracies. Zac includes this relevant passage: “Authoritarian rulers, who are themselves rarely affected by famines (or other such economic calamities), tend to lack the incentive to take timely preventive measures. Democratic governments, in contrast, have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentives to undertake measures to avert famines…” Then, Zac argues against this account by pointing out that the democratic politicians, like the authoritarian rulers, don’t have to deal with the catastrophes that affect the common people. I agree with Zac that, if there were a famine in the United States, members of Congress would remain well-fed. However, I don’t think that’s what matters. Authoritarian rulers “tend to lack the incentive” to prevent famines because unhappy populations can’t vote them out of power. Democratic rulers, even if they won’t themselves starve duri...

  Sen in chapter 2 engages in a brief discussion on the impact of war on morality reduction (49). He states that “each war situation produced much greater sharing of means of survival, including sharing of healthcare and the limited food supply” (49). This is because a war causes expansion of what we mean by “sharing” and public policies, which the NHS is a prime example of.  All of these actions do have an impact on the economic situation with cases of undernourishment  and mortality rates declining sharply. Furthermore, the most speedy expansion happened during “war decades” and therefore, there is a clear link between life expectancy and the social changes that happen in light of a war.  This brings me to today and the war that is happening in Ukraine. Will the same thing happen or are we past expanding our life expectancy? Moreover, will our concept of sharing shift?  At the beginning of the conflict, in particular in Poland, but I also feel that around the ...

As the founder of the Kuomintang, Sun-Yat Sen put forth many of his visions in the party's enacted policies. One of the core elements of his ideology was the theory of the "Three Phases of the Fundamentals of National Reconstruction". This was the dominant theory at the time on how the KMT was to secure power and enact a modern state in China. The first phase was military rule/revolution, the second phase was political tutelage (党国）, and the third phase was constitutional government. The first and third phases are relatively easy to interpret. Military rule was necessary to ensure that the KMT was actually able to unite the country and defeat the disparate warlords, along with the imperial government. The third phase is also intuitive - Sun-Yat Sen envisioned a multi-party democratic state to be implemented in China. Indeed, it is the second phase that is the most controversial. Political tutelage is characterized by a period of one-party rule, by which economic and polit...

Sen’s take on viewing development as freedom seems coherent when the developing body is a part of the community that is being developed. There are troublesome aspects (like the implicit acceptance of unequal distribution of freedoms), but those can be justified and or fixed with minor alterations. However, the account’s flaws become prominent when applied to situations where the developing body is external to the community that is being developed. Because Sen does not factor in the context of when the development occurs and does not outline who can even be a developer, his account would allow for white saviorism.  The issue is not with what Sen’s account includes, but what it does not. Sen’s account does not argue for an equal distribution of freedom. While he believes we should expand freedoms in the most effective way, if this does not expand freedoms equally, it is not clear that Sen would view that as a bad thing. This leaves room for marginalized people in society to be even...

We talked about how, similar to Shelby, Sen is talking about a non-ideal theory here. There is no perfect society as there is in Rawls, but simply increasing freedoms (development) is better than how it is now or just that more freedom is better than less. He sees his theory as viewing development as a soft and friendly process rather than a fierce one (35-6).  In the absence of this ideal theory, I wonder where we draw the line. As freedom increases, it will likely get harder and harder to "get more" or make society better than before. A fierce process of development certainly brings to mind some big tech slogans like move fast and break things. Technological development is certainly one way of improving substantive freedoms.  So firstly, is a move fast and break things approach to development necessary? Obviously, technological development is not the only way to increase freedoms, and it could be argued that tech is in fact too big, actually reducing freedoms at a certain p...

Disclaimer: I'm as far as you could be from supporting authoritarianism, I think it is unethically aligned with maximizing economic development in a capitalist economy, both of which I believe to be unethical.  At the crux of Sen's argument is that economic development is tied to freedom not merely financial metrics. While I sympathize in thinking economic development ought to develop freedoms, I'm skeptical that this occurs. Rather I believe one who maximizes economic development via maximizing economic measurements i.e. income, gdp etc. turns to an authoritarian model that is anti-freedoms, somewhat similar to what Sen calls "the Lee thesis".  First is the empirics debate. I don't have the economics research on hand to decide one way or another, but as Sen admits, South Korea, China and Singapore have seen massive economic growth despite shifts towards authoritarianism in political liberties. I will add that Sen is also not wonderful on the empirics question...