ASSIGNMENT FOR THE FINAL PAPER

The final paper, 3-4 pages in length, is due Tues 10 May, by 5 pm, in your TA’s mailbox, WAG 316. Earlier submissions are encouraged.

The general requirement for the final paper is to use ethical theories and arguments we’ve reviewed to illumine not just one of our problems (war on drugs, just war, absolute poverty, and ecology), with an eye towards public policy, but one or more in interrelationship. If you decide to rewrite one of your exams, try to expand your investigation to include one or more of the other problems we’ve addressed, and/or other theories. Nevertheless, your principal focus should normally be just one problem. The “interrelationship” requirement is to bring in in some way or other what you see as consequences of proposed policies or actions that target another of our concerns, e.g., poverty or degradation of the environment through war or through economic development. (Thus subsidized primary education in the Third World for alleviation of absolute poverty that may appear worthy according to some ethical standard could be less worthy, perhaps, if it would lead to further degradation of fragile environments.) Try to endorse positions. Don’t just tell us what X or Y thinks. Use your understanding of X and Y to shore up the stances you take.

Please be concise. You may presuppose that we understand the theories you mention, though brief elaborations are encouraged. For example, choosing to apply the Confucian particularist ethics to the problem of absolute poverty in a distant place, you might have two or three sentences about how jen, “humanity,” is, despite the view that our first duties are to ourselves and family and friends, a universal touchstone, according to Confucius, which rightly determines our attitudes towards distant strangers (as well as underpinning reform of inherited practices).

Encapsulations of candidate theories and arguments, including a few from the third exam, follow below. Some suggestions for applications are also made. Feel free to take up others not mentioned.

JAINISM. The doctrine of “non-injury” has relevance to ecological issues through the dependence of life on the environment. The Jaina argument about “moral pull” has perhaps more obvious relevance to Third World poverty caused, let us say, at least in part by colonialist or neo-colonialist regimes from which we in the developed world have benefited. A tie to deep ecology in the Jaina identification of a moral sphere created by “being a self” or “being capable of feeling pain” might also be fruitfully explored. The Jaina ethic might also be connected to

the environmental prescription (endorsed by Ramachandra Guha as well as by the Ecologist editors) of reducing one’s ecological footprint and the motto, “Watch your quality of life rise by being ecologically responsible.”

CONFUCIANISM. The Confucian ethics jibes with the theme of “local control of commons” since Confucius stresses mastery of practices inherited from one’s family and community. His ethical particularism meshes not only with a politics of local empowerment but also with endorsement of ecological yoga since he says that each of us has to discipline herself by mastering societal practices, holding ourselves to the highest standards.

TAOISM. Lao Tzu endorses a pantheistic mysticism and view of our true selves as Tao. This position has affinities with the sympathies of deep ecologists of all subgroups, it seems, though the Taoist emphasis on te, “individual and distinctive virtue,” should be addressed whatever else one might say.

ZERA YACOB’S NATURALISM. Zera Yacob uses the criterion of overall harmony to test all teachings and practices. War, if avoidable, is surely wrong on this score. (Note that several writers on ecology, e.g., Guha, point out that there is nothing more destructive of the environment that humans at war.) War to restore a political harmony disturbed by aggression might nevertheless be justified in the same fashion as a principle of individual self-defense: a person defending himself restores a natural balance. Charity for those in absolute poverty as making the world more just (and thus harmonious) would also be praiseworthy. Harmony is of course a byword of the deep ecology movement. And, indeed, the kind of natural order that the Ethiopian philosopher has in mind would include a healthy relationship between humans and other species. Note that Yacob’s argument for monogamy hinges on a fact of equal distribution of the male and female sexes throughout the human population, for instance.

AL-FARABI’S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Uniformity of interests as discerned by the prophet or philosopher-king (or the “experts”) in Al-Farabi’s ideal state would secure the solutions to pollution and poverty endorsed by some of our contemporary polemicists (though perhaps for different reasons), for example, by Amartya Sen and other “liberals” as well as by socialists such as Carl Cohen. You might envisage a debate between this group and, on the other side, Isaiah Berlin joined by those who stress the virtues of individual autonomy and local control.

W. D. ROSS’S ETHICAL PLURALISM. This view might be used to support an individual practice of moderate beneficence guided by one’s best lights in that Ross upholds a range of prima facie duties—including gratitude to parents and self-development—some of which would presumably trump a radical practice such as that advocated by Peter Singer. There are many more possibilities here. Review the overhead (web-link) provided for the first class.

FANON’S ANTI-COLONIALISM. The injustice of colonialism would justify violence to bring about a communitarian ideal state. Terrorism, as in the suicide attacks by Palestinians against what they perceive to be Israeli colonialists (or “neo-colonialists” or both?), might by this logic be justified too. Sensitive exploration of such an urgent issue as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be okay.

KANT. There are many possibilities. Kant’s categorical imperative—“Respect others,” or, “Do only that which falls under a rule that you can will as a universal law of nature” —has lots of applications, one would hope. How might this ethical theory be pertinent to, let us imagine, a decision of the World Bank to provide or not to provide a subsidized loan to a state or national government in the Third World to build a dam that would displace villagers but significantly increase gross national product?

On other issues, here are a couple of notes or comments that may prove of interest. First, Kant was an uncompromising pacifist, urging, for example, to a young person who had been drafted into service in Prussia, that morality demanded he flee though failure to show might cost his life and certainly much of his property. Second, valuation of autonomy in the fashion of Kant can be used as an argument to support Amartya Sen’s insistence that development policies target “basic capacities” rather than commodities, etc. An excellent paper might take this up.

MILL’S UTILITARIANISM. “Maximize happiness” is a principle that has been invoked by several of our contemporary disputants either in support of policy X or as an inappropriate criterion or standard given concern Y. An interesting way utilitarianism might be engaged in the ecology debate would be to argue that animal happiness should be included in policy calculations according to a consistent concern for the “general weal.” (NB. Neither Bentham nor Mill viewed animals as within the scope of the happiness principle, but the contemporary utilitarian Peter Singer does.) This is only one possibility.

THE MALTHUSIAN ARGUMENT. Purported policy X to achieve goal G is self-defeating because X has consequences C that lead to not-G.

THE MALTHUSIAN PREDICTION. There is no stopping disaster.

PRISONERS’ DILEMMA. How to act individually to secure a possibility that seems to require cooperation. (Imagine a matrix with four boxes capturing four pairings.)

TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS (in the “small is beautiful” version): open-access regimes displacing true commons regimes.

ECOLOGICAL YOGA. “Be a leaver, not a taker.” “Reduce your ecological footprint.”

LIFEBOAT ETHICS. Do not adopt policies, on immigration, for instance, that would sink the lifeboat, injuring those already on board.

CARRYING CAPACITY. “Inherent limitations.” A metaphor sometimes based on the lifeboat and sometimes on the biological principle of environmental limitations on a species’ population growth. Be careful to avoid equivocation if you use the expression.

ECOLOGICAL INTERDEPENDENCE. The welfare of different species as interrelated in complex ways.

DEEP ECOLOGY. Don’t be anthropocentric. Respect other life forms as you respect members of your family. All nature deserves reverence.

ECOFEMINISM. Develop feminine virtues including an ecological consciousness and, in the religious sphere, reverence for the earth as Gaia, the Divine Mother.

THE MARKET EFFICIENCY ARGUMENT. Markets provide better allocation of scarce resources than do government bureaucracies (which rely on central planning) because markets are more sensitive to changing preferences and positive performances by individuals and companies. In other words, the greater efficiency of markets flows from government bureaucracies being self-perpetuating regardless of success and real demand.

“MADISON AVENUE.” A symbol for the brainwashing accomplished by advertising and the inciting of desire or “demand.” (Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York is the traditional location of the advertising industry or its command center.)