Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy

Brink, David, "Mill's Moral and Political Philosophy"
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition)
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming

Here is an excerpt:

2.6 Utilitarianism as a Standard of Conduct

We might expect a utilitarian to apply the utilitarian principle in her deliberations. Consider act utilitarianism. We might expect such a utilitarian to be motivated by pure disinterested benevolence and to deliberate by calculating expected utility. But it is a practical question how to reason or be motivated, and act utilitarianism implies that this practical question, like all practical questions, is correctly answered by what would maximize utility. Utilitarian calculation is time-consuming and often unreliable or subject to bias and distortion. For such reasons, we may better approximate the utilitarian standard if we don't always try to approximate it. Mill says that to suppose that one must always consciously employ the utilitarian principle in making decisions

… is to mistake the very meaning of a standard of morals and confound the rule of action with the motive of it. It is the business of ethics to tell us what are our duties, or by what test we may know them; but no system of ethics requires that the sole motive of all we do shall be a feeling of duty; on the contrary, ninety-nine hundredths of all our actions are done from other motives, and rightly so done if the rule of duty does not condemn them. (U II 18)

Later utilitarians, such as Sidgwick, have made essentially the same point, insisting that utilitarianism provides a standard of right action, not necessarily a decision procedure (Methods 413).

If utilitarianism is itself the standard of right conduct, not a decision procedure, then what sort of decision procedure should the utilitarian endorse, and what role should the principle of utility play in moral reasoning? As we will see, Mill thinks that much moral reasoning should be governed by secondary precepts or principles about such things as fidelity, fair play, and honesty that make no direct reference to utility but whose general observance does promote utility. These secondary principles should be set aside in favor of direct appeals to the utilitarian first principle in cases in which adherence to the secondary precept would have obviously inferior consequences or in which such secondary principles conflict (U II 19, 24–25).

The entire entry is here.

Messy Morals

By Anthony Painter
The RSA Blog
Originally posted on May 29, 2014

David Marquand wants a new public philosophy. This philosophy will be based on ethics – a morality of social justice beyond the market. He sees that we are in a ‘moral crisis’. Markets, individualism and greed have taken over. The public good has been in retreat since Margaret Thatcher came to power.

He has found unlikely allies this week. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, and a group of capitalists gathering under an ‘inclusive capitalism’ banner have also suggested a different moral economy – though they would not necessarily express it that way. Smart business people and financiers see that the legitimacy of their activities relies on a different alignment between ethics and business. It is more about self-interest than morality. Nonetheless, the crossovers with David Marquand are intriguing.

The entire article is here.

Authors call for 'digital bill of rights'

BBC News
Originally published December 10, 2013

Hundreds of authors from around the world have written to the United Nations urging it to create an international bill of digital rights.

More than 500 writers signed the open letter condemning the scale of state surveillance following recent leaks about UK and US Government activities.

Ian McEwan, Tom Stoppard and Will Self are among the British signatories.

"To maintain any validity, our democratic rights must apply in virtual as in real space," the letter says.

The entire story is here.

The Real Privacy Problem

As Web companies and government agencies analyze ever more information about our lives, it’s tempting to respond by passing new privacy laws or creating mechanisms that pay us for our data. Instead, we need a civic solution, because democracy is at risk.

By Evgeny Morozov on October 22, 2013
MIT Technology Review

Here is an excerpt:

First, let’s address the symptoms of our current malaise. Yes, the commercial interests of technology companies and the policy interests of government agencies have converged: both are interested in the collection and rapid analysis of user data. Google and Facebook are compelled to collect ever more data to boost the effectiveness of the ads they sell. Government agencies need the same data—they can collect it either on their own or in coöperation with technology companies—to pursue their own programs.

Many of those programs deal with national security. But such data can be used in many other ways that also undermine privacy. The Italian government, for example, is using a tool called the redditometro, or income meter, which analyzes receipts and spending patterns to flag people who spend more than they claim in income as potential tax cheaters. Once mobile payments replace a large percentage of cash transactions—with Google and Facebook as intermediaries—the data collected by these companies will be indispensable to tax collectors. Likewise, legal academics are busy exploring how data mining can be used to craft contracts or wills tailored to the personalities, characteristics, and past behavior of individual citizens, boosting efficiency and reducing malpractice.

The updated story is here.

Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange: our new heroes

As the NSA revelations have shown, whistleblowing is now an essential art. It is our means of keeping 'public reason' alive

By Slavoj Žižek
The Guardian
Originally published September 3, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

Back in 1843, the young Karl Marx claimed that the German ancien regime "only imagines that it believes in itself and demands that the world should imagine the same thing". In such a situation, to put shame on those in power becomes a weapon. Or, as Marx goes on: "The actual pressure must be made more pressing by adding to it consciousness of pressure, the shame must be made more shameful by publicising it."

This, exactly, is our situation today: we are facing the shameless cynicism of the representatives of the existing global order, who only imagine that they believe in their ideas of democracy, human rights etc. What happens in WikiLeaks disclosures is that the shame – theirs, and ours for tolerating such power over us – is made more shameful by publicising it. What we should be ashamed of is the worldwide process of the gradual narrowing of the space for what Kant called the Immanuel "public use of reason".

In his classic text, What Is Enlightenment?, Kant contrasts "public" and "private" use of reason – "private" is for Kant the communal-institutional order in which we dwell (our state, our nation …), while "public" is the transnational universality of the exercise of one's reason: "The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of one's reason, on the other hand, may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. By public use of one's reason I understand the use that a person makes of it as a scholar before the reading public. Private use I call that which one may make of it in a particular civil post or office which is entrusted to him."

The entire article is here.

Bioethicists must not allow themselves to become a 'priestly caste'

The increasing use of expert bioethicists has profound anti-democratic implications

By Nathan Emmerich
The Guardian - Political Science Blog
Originally published May 18, 2013

In a secular age it might seem that the time for moral authorities has passed. However, research in the life sciences and biomedicine has produced a range of moral concerns and prompted the emergence of bioethics; an area of study that specialises in the ethical analysis of these issues. The result has been the emergence of what we might call expert bioethicists, a cadre of professionals who, while logical and friendly, have, nevertheless, been ordained as secular priests.

This suggestion – that there are expert bioethicists – might appear to have profoundly anti-democratic implications. Indeed handling expertise, including scientific expertise, is a central difficulty for democratic societies and its extension into the realm of moral values seems, on the face of it, to compound the problem. Nevertheless the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has constantly made use of expert bioethicists and two members of the recently convened Emerging Science and Bioethics Advisory Committee (ESBAC) are listed as "bioethics specialists".

If we are to govern the biosciences and medical practice effectively there seems to be increasing need for expert bioethicists. Nevertheless, there is a different dynamic to the politics of bioethical expertise precisely because the opinions of bioethical experts cannot be used to obviate those of other moral agents.

This might seem like an odd claim. If there are expert bioethicists surely we should prefer their opinions to those of non-experts? However this is to assume bioethical expertise is modelled on scientific expertise. The idea of the scientist as expert is so strong we often forget that there are other forms of expertise.

The entire post is here.

Say twenty hail Autonomy’s and reflect on what you have done – bioethicists as having some, but not priestly authority

By David Hunter
BMJ Group Blogs
Originally published May 17, 2013

Nathan Emmerich, occasional commentator here at the JME blog has recently published an interesting piece in the Guardian which argues against us taking bioethicists as having a particular type of expertise. While I enjoyed and agree with much of what he argues I do have a couple of quibbles – in particular I worry that the emphasis on inclusiveness and democracy could in effect lead to the exclusion of the bioethicist, which I think would be a mistake.

The type of expertise he argues against bioethicists having is basically what I will refer to as authoritative expertise – someone who has authoritative expertise in a particular field ought to be deferred to when there is a disagreement – their opinion is “better” than ours as lay decision makers. So for example when deciding how long an object is, and whether it will fit in the boot of our car, we ought to defer to the chap with the tape measure, since their measured judgement is better than ours.

I use this example for a reason – Emmerich focuses on knowledge based expertise (no doubt because it is easier to explain to the lay public…) but this isn’t the only form of expertise that warrants some deference there is also expertise which is performative (in this case the act of measuring well). I’m inclined to think that if bioethicists deserve any deference it will be due to their performative expertise, rather than their knowledge.

Emmerich suggests however that bioethicists should not be taken as having authoratative expertise because he thinks knowledge about morality is more like knowledge about aesthetics than knowledge about facts. Hence we ought to give no more weight to the bioethicists opinion about an ethical issue, than we do someone heavily steeped in the Art’s worlds opinion about a piece of modern art – they have a “sophisticated” view but that doesn’t tell me what I should think about the piece.

(cut)

I think the bioethicist is in a position to contribute something useful to such deliberation, debate and discussion in two ways, both of which require some expertise – even if it is not totally authorative expertise. The first way is this, the bioethicist I assume will have access to more knowledge both about what has been argued in regards to ethical theory and in regards to moves in applied ethics. Knowing these moves can short-cut some discussion and debate by showing paths that will lead nowhere – the implications and consequences of particular arguments.

The entire response is here.