Necessary & Sufficient Conditions

 

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Summary Videos)

Thomas Sowell - A Conflict of Visions - Animated Book Review

Free Will versus the Programmed Brain

Scientific American: Free Will versus the Programmed Brain


"On the other hand, the results fit with what some philosophers had predicted. The Western conception idea of free will seems bound up with our sense of moral responsibility, guilt for misdeeds and pride in accomplishment. We hold ourselves responsible precisely when we think that our actions come from free will. In this light, it’s not surprising that people behave less morally as they become skeptical of free will. Further, the Vohs and Schooler result fits with the idea that people will behave less responsibly if they regard their actions as beyond their control. If I think that there’s no point in trying to be good, then I’m less likely to try."

Derren Brown & Michael Shermer

Notes:
@27:38 Brown summarizes a major aspect of stoicism stating
"one of the big the big building blocks of stoicism is this familiar idea now of you know, it's not things in the world that cause our problems but it's those stories we tell ourselves about those things"

@38:41 When talking about happiness vs pleasure Brown says
"because that's the difference isn't it between a pleasurable thing in the moment you know if you have the choice between going on a roller coaster, I think Daniel Kahneman used this example, going on a roller coaster with your friends versus looking after a sick relative, you probably have more pleasure on a roller coaster but afterwards when you think about what you've done with your day you might be happy with the fact that you chose to look after the sick relative because the story that you're telling yourself about who you are and the choice that you made are more conducive to happiness"

Victims, Victims Everywhere: Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, and Academic Freedoms

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying makes some intriguing points:

@16:11
(Bret) yeah can I synthesize several things that have come up that are really at least are the same thing? So we have all experienced the kind of, what seems like an insane deafness to transparently obvious realities and it's very bewildering to hear people denying things that are just simply factual and could be tested in this room if we wanted to bother. But this also reflects the failure of, as Heather was pointing out, the lack of outdoor play for example. The thing about play outdoor is it teaches you when you're confused. If you're confused then you fall rather than make the leap that you think you're going to make and so you end up with pain which then gets pondered and you realize that there's something in error in your thought process.
And so by eliminating this kind of outdoor play what we do is we decide that all reality is abstract and that all reality being abstract it's very easy to go down some road where, wouldn't it be nice if we could say males and females are the same, therefore anything that turns out uneven as the result of some broken process that we should then seek to fix. The problem is that doesn't map to reality and the, I think what is actually taking place and it is surprisingly postmodern, is that there is this sort of abandonment of obligation to reality itself almost as if the people who are engaged in it don't believe that reality is a thing. And I would just submit to you that it is much more likely that that idea will take hold in an era where so much is done online, where you don't end up with a skinned knee because you were confused.
(Heather) yeah, prediction people who spent a lot of time hiking or playing sports or doing anything with their hands where they've created something at the end of the day, and they've got a chair that functions or there on the floor, are less likely to buy into the idea that reality is a social construct. If you are engaging with the physical world you know that there's a reality out there that abides by what you do or doesn't. Whereas if you're mostly engaged in the social world, it's much easier to delude yourself into imagining that maybe reality is a construct because social reality is.

Voltaire Quote

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. – Voltaire

Heather Mac Donald: How Much More Delusional Can University Students Get?

Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism

Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (2005) is a three-hour PBS documentary film.

Justice with Michael Sandel Episode 5

Episode 5
Part I - Hired Guns

Michael Sandel: When we ended last time, we were discussing Locke's idea of government by consent, and the question arose, what are the limits on government that even the agreement of the majority can't override? That was the question we ended with.

We saw, in the case of property rights, that on Locke's view, a democratically elected government has the right to tax people. It has to be taxation with consent, because it does involve the taking of people's property for the common good, but it doesn't require the consent of each individual at the time the tax is enacted or collected. What it does require is a prior act of consent to join the society- to take on the political obligation. But once you take on that obligation, you agree to be bound by the majority. So much for taxation. 

John Locke on Right to Life

But what, you may ask, about the right to life? Can the government conscript people and send them into battle? What about the idea that we own ourselves? Isn't the idea of self-possession violated if the government can, through coercive legislation and enforcement powers, say you must go risk your life to fight in Iraq. What would Locke say? Does the government have the right to that? Yes. In fact he says in 139, he says, "What matters is that the political authority, or the military authority, not be arbitrary. That's what matters." And he gives a wonderful example. He says, "A, a sergeant, even a sergeant, let alone a general, a sergeant can command a soldier to go right up the face of the cannon, where he is almost sure to die. That the sergeant can do. The general can condemn the soldier to death for deserting his post or for not obeying even a desperate order. But with all their power over life and death, what these officers can't do is take a penny of that soldier's money. Because that has nothing to do with the rightful authority. That would be arbitrary, and it would be corrupt. So, consent winds up being very powerful in Locke, not consent of the individual to the particular tax or military order, but consent to join the government, and to be bound by the majority in the first place. That's the consent that matters. And it matters so powerfully, that even the limited government created by the fact that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty and property. Even that limited government is only limited in the sense that it has to govern by generally applicable laws, the rule of law, it can't be arbitrary. That's Locke. 

Consent and Military Conscription

Well this raises a question about consent. Why is consent such a powerful moral instrument in creating political authority and the obligation to obey? Today we begin to investigate the question of consent by looking at a concrete case, the case of military conscription. Now some people say, if we have a fundamental right that arises from the idea that we own ourselves, it's a violation of that right for government to conscript citizens to go fight in wars. Others disagree. Others say that's a legitimate power of government, of democratically elected governments anyhow, and that we have an obligation to obey. 

Let's take the case of the, the United States fighting a war in Iraq. News accounts tell us that the military is having great difficulty meeting its recruitment targets. Consider three policies that the U. S. Government might undertake to deal with the fact that it's not achieving its recruiting targets. Solution number 1) increase the pay and benefits to attract a sufficient number of soldiers. Option number 2) shift to a system of military conscription. Have a lottery, and whoever's numbers are drawn go to fight in Iraq. System number 3) outsource. Hire, what traditionally have been called, mercenaries. People around the world who were qualified, able to do the work, able to fight well, and who are willing to do it for the existing wage. 

So let's take a quick poll here. How many favor increasing the pay? Huge majority. How many favor going to conscription? Alright, maybe a dozen people in the room favor conscription. What about the outsourcing solution? OK. So there are maybe, two, three dozen. 

During the Civil War, the Union used a combination of conscription and the market system to fill up the ranks of the military to fight in the Civil War. It was a system that began with conscription, but if you were drafted and didn't want to serve, you could hire a substitute take your place and many people did. You could pay whatever the market required in order to find a substitute. People ran ads in newspapers, in the classified ads, offering $500, sometimes $1000 for a substitute who would go fight the Civil War in their place. In fact, it's reported that Andrew Carnegie was drafted and hired a substitute to take his place for an amount that was a little less than the amount he spent in a year on fancy cigars.

Student Discussion
Now, I want to get your views about the Civil War system, call it the hybrid system, conscription but with a buyout provision. How many think it was a just system? How many would defend the Civil War system? Anybody? One. Anybody else? Two, three, four, five. How many think it was unjust? Most of you don't like the Civil War system. You think it's unjust. Let's hear an objection. Why don't you like it? What's wrong with it? Yes.

Liz: Well by paying $300 for a, to be exempt one time around, you’re really putting a price on the, on valuing human life. And we established earlier that's really hard to do. So they're really trying to accomplish something that really isn't feasible.

Michael Sandel: Good. So, so paying someone $300 or $500 or $1000...

Liz: You're basically saying that's their life is worth to you.

Michael Sandel: That's with their life is worth. It's putting a dollar value on life. That's good. And what your name?

Liz: Liz.

Michael Sandel: Liz. Ah, well, who has an answer for Liz, You defended the Civil War system. What do you say?

Jason: If you don't like the price, then you have the freedom to not be sold or hired, so it's completely up to you. So I don't think it's necessarily putting a specific price on you and if it's done by himself, I don't think there's anything necessarily morally wrong with that.

Michael Sandel: So the person who takes the $500, let's say. He's putting his own price on his life, on the risk of his life, and he should have the freedom to choose to do that.

Jason: Exactly.

Michael Sandel: What's your name?

Jason: Jason.

Michael Sandel: Jason. Thank you. Now we need to hear from another critic of the Civil War system. Yes.

Sam: It's a kind of coercion almost, ah, people who have lower incomes. For Carnegie, he can totally ignore the draft. $300 is a, you know, irrelevant in terms of his income. But someone of a lower income, they're essentially being coerced to draft, to be drafted. Or, umm, I mean it's probably they're not able to find a replacement or...

Michael Sandel: Tell me your name.

Sam: Sam.

Michael Sandel: Sam. Alright, so you say, Sam, that when a poor laborer buys his, accepts $300 to fight in the Civil War, he is in effect being coerced by that money, given his economic circumstances. Whereas Carnegie can go off, pay the money, and, and not serve. Alright. I want to hear someone has a reply to Sam's argument. That what looks like a free exchange is actually coercive. Who has an answer to, to Sam. Go ahead.

Rauel: I'd actually agree with him in saying that...

Michael Sandel: You agree with Sam.

Rauel: I agree with him in saying that it is coercion in, in the sense that it robs individual of his ability to reason.

Michael Sandel: OK. And what's your name?

Rauel: Rauel.

Michael Sandel: Alright, so Rauel and Sam agree that what looks like a free change, free choice, voluntary act is actually it, it involves coercion.

Rauel: It's profound coercion of the worst kind because it falls so disproportionately upon one segment of the society.

Michael Sandel: Good, alright. So, Rauel and Sam have made a powerful point. Who would like to reply? Who has an answer for Sam and Rauel. Go ahead.

Emily: Umm, I just, I don't think these drafting systems are really terribly different from, you know, all volunteer army sort of recruiting strategies. Umm, the whole idea of, you know, having benefits and pay for joining the army is sort of a coercive strategy to get people to, umm, join. Umm, it is true that military volunteers come from disproportionately, you know, lower economic, umm, status, and also, you know, from certain regions of the country where you can use, like, the patriotism to try and coerce people to feel like it's the right thing to do, to volunteer and go over to Iraq.

Michael Sandel: Good. And tell me your name.

Emily: Emily.
Michael Sandel: Alright, Emily says, and Rauel you're going to have to reply to this, so get ready. Emily says, fair enough. There is a coercive element to the Civil War system, when the laborer takes the place of Andrew Carnegie for $500. Emily concedes that. But she says, if that troubles you about the Civil War system, shouldn't that also trouble you about the volunteer army today? And let me, and before you answer, how did you vote on the first poll? Did you defend the volunteer army?

Rauel: I didn't vote.

Michael Sandel: You didn't vote.

Rauel: No.

Michael Sandel: By the way, you didn't vote. Did you sell your vote to the person sitting next to you? No. Alright. So what would you say to that argument?

Rauel: I think that the circumstances are different in that, there was conscription in the Civil War. There is no draft today. And I think that volunteers for the army today have a more profound sense of patriotism that is of an individual choice than those who were forced into the military in the Civil War.

Michael Sandel: Somehow less coerced.

Rauel: Less coerced.

Michael Sandel: Even though there is still inequality in American society. Even though as Emily points out.

Rauel: Yes.

Michael Sandel: The makeup of the American military is not reflective of the population as a whole. Let's just do an experiment here. How many here, umm, have either served in the military or have a family member who has served in the military in this generation, not parents? Family members in this generation. And how many have neither served, nor have any brothers or sisters who have served? Does that bear out your point Emily? Alright, now we need, we need to hear from, most of you defended the idea of the, ah, of the all volunteer military, overwhelmingly. And yet, overwhelmingly, people consider the Civil War system unjust. Sam and Rauel articulated reasons for objecting to the Civil War system. It took place against a background of inequality, and therefore the choices people made to buy their way into military service were not truly free, but at least partly coerced. Then Emily extends that argument in the form of a challenge. Alright everyone here who voted in favor of the all volunteer army should be able, should have to explain, well what's the difference in principle? Doesn't the all volunteer army simply universalize the feature that almost everyone found objectionable in the Civil War buyout provision. Did I state the challenge fairly Emily?

Emily: Yes.

Michael Sandel: OK. So we need to hear from a defender of the all volunteer military who can address Emily's challenge? Who can do that? Go ahead.

Student: The difference between the, the Civil War system and the all volunteer army system is that, in the Civil War you’re being hired, not by the government, but by an individual. And, and as a result, different people'll get hired by different individuals get paid different amounts. In the case of the all volunteer army, everyone who gets hired is hired by the government and gets paid by the same amount. It is precisely the universalization of, ah, of essentially paying your service, paying your way to the army, that makes the all volunteer army just.

Michael Sandel: Emily?

Emily: I guess I'd frame the principle difference slightly differently. Umm, on the all volunteer army it's possible for someone to just, you know, step aside and not really think about, you know, the war at all. It's possible to say, well I. I don't need the money. You know, I, I don't need to have an opinion about this. I don't need to, you know, feel obligated to take my part and defend my country. With a coercive system or, or I'm sorry, with an explicit draft, then, you know, there's the threat, at least, that every individual will have to make some sort of decision, you know, recording military conscription and, you know, and perhaps that way it's more equitable. It's, it's true that, you know, Andrew Carnegie might not serve in any case, but in one, you know, he can completely step aside from it, and the other there's some level of responsibility.

Michael Sandel: While you're there Emily, so, what system do you favor? Conscription?

Emily: I, I would be hard-pressed to say, but I think so because it makes the whole country feel a sense of responsibility for the conflict instead of, you know, having a war that's maybe ideologically supported by a few, but only if there's no, you know, real responsibility.

Michael Sandel: Good. Who wants to reply? Go ahead.

Jackie: Umm, so I was going to say that the fundamental difference between the all volunteer army and then the, the army in the Civil War is that, in the all volunteer army, if you wanna volunteer that comes first, and then the pay is, ah, comes after, where as in the Civil War system, the people who are, who are accepting the pay aren't necessarily doing it because they want to, they're just doing it for the money first.

Michael Sandel: What motivation beyond the pay do you think is operating in the case of the all volunteer army?

Jackie: Like, patriotism for the country.

Michael Sandel: Patriotism. Well what about the...

Jackie: And the desire to defend the country. I mean, there is, there is some motivation in pay, but the fact that, that it’s first and foremost an all volunteer army will motivate them. I think.

Michael Sandel: You think it's better, and tell me your name.

Jackie: Jackie.

Michael Sandel: Jackie, do you think it's better if people serve in the military out of a sense of patriotism than just for that money?

Jackie: Yes, definitely, because the people who, that was one of the main problems in the Civil War, I mean, is that people that you're getting to go in it are, to go to war, aren't necessarily people who want to fight. And so they won't be as good soldiers as they will be had been there because they wanted to be.

Michael Sandel: Alright, what about Jackie's having raised the question of patriotism. That patriotism is a better or a higher motivation than money for military service. Who, who would like to address that question? Go ahead.

Phillip: Patriotism absolutely is not necessary in order to be a good soldier because mercenaries can do just as good of a job of the job as anyone who waves the American flag around and wants to defend what the government believes that we should do.

Michael Sandel: Did you favor the outsourcing solution?

Phillip: Yes sir.

Michael Sandel: And, alright, so let, let Jackie respond. What's your name?

Phillip: Phillip.

Michael Sandel: What about that Jackie? So much for patriotism.

Jackie: If you've someone whose heart is in it more than, more than another person’s, they're going to do a better job. When it comes down to the wire, and there's like a situation in which someone has to put their life on the line, someone who's doing it because they love this country will be more willing to go into danger than someone who's just getting paid. They don't care. They've got the technical skills, but they don't care what happens because they really have, they have nothing, like, nothing invested in this country.

Conclusion
Michael Sandel: There's another aspect though. Once, once we get on to the issue of patriotism. If you believe patriotism, as Jackie does, should be the foremost consideration and not money, does that argue for or against the paid army we have now? We call it the volunteer army, though if you think about it, that's a kind of misnomer. A volunteer army is, as we use the term, is a paid army. So, what about the suggestion that patriotism should be the primary motivation for military service, not money. Does that argue in favor of the paid military that we have? Or does it argue for conscription? And just to sharpen that point, building on Phil's case for outsourcing, if you think that the all volunteer army, the paid army is best because it lets the market allocate positions according to people's preferences and willingness to serve for a certain wage, doesn't the logic that takes you from a system of conscription to the hybrid Civil War system, to the all volunteer army, doesn't the, the idea of expanding freedom of choice in the market, doesn't that lead you all the way, if you followed that principal consistently, to a mercenary army? And then if you say no, Jackie says, no patriotism should count for something, doesn't that argue going back to conscription? If by patriotism you mean a sense of civic obligation.

Let's, let's see if we can step back from the discussion that we've had and see what we've learned about consent as it applies to market exchange. We've really heard two arguments, two arguments against the use of markets and exchange in the allocation of military service. One was the argument raised by Sam and Rauel. The argument about coercion. The objection that, letting the market allocate military service may be unfair, and may not even be free, if there's severe inequality in the society, so that people who buy their way into military service, are doing so, not because they really want to, but because they have so few economic opportunities that that's their, that's their best choice. And Sam and Rauel say there's an element of coercion in that. That's one argument. Then there is a second objection to using the market to allocate military service. That's the idea that military service shouldn't be treated as just another job for pay, because it's bound up with patriotism and civic obligation. This is a different argument from the argument about unfairness and inequality and coercion. It's an argument that suggests that maybe where civic obligations are concerned, we shouldn't allocate duties and rights by the market.

Now, we've identified two broad objections. What do we need to know to assess those objections? To assess the first, the argument from coercion, inequality and unfairness, Sam, we need to ask, what inequalities in the background conditions of society undermine the freedom of choices people make to buy and sell their labor? Question number one. Question number two, to assess the civic obligation patriotism argument, we have to ask, what are the obligations of citizenship? Is military service one of them or not? What obligates us, as citizens, what is the source of political obligation? Is it consent or are there some civic obligations we have, even without consent, for living and sharing in a certain kind of society? We haven't answered either of those questions but our debate today about the Civil War system and the all volunteer army has at least raised them, and those are questions we're going to return to in the coming weeks.



Part II: Motherhood: For Sale

Michael Sandel: Today I'd like to turn our attention and get your views about an argument over the role of markets in the realm of human reproduction and procreation. Now, with infertility clinics, people advertise for egg donors. And from time to time in the Harvard Crimson, ads appear for egg donors. Have you seen them? There was one that ran a few years ago that wasn't looking for just any egg donor, it was an ad that offered a large financial incentive for an egg donor from a woman who was intelligent, athletic, at least 5 ft. 10, and with at least 1400 or above on her SATs. How much do you think the person looking for this egg donor was willing to pay for an egg from a woman of that description? What would you guess? $1000? $15,000? $10? I'll show you the add. $50,000, for an egg. But only a premium egg. What do you think about that? Well, there are also sometimes ads in the Harvard Crimson and other college newspapers for sperm donors. So the market in reproductive capacities is an equal opportunity market. Well not exactly equal opportunity, they're not offering $50,000 for sperm. But there is a company, a large commercial sperm bank that markets sperm. It's called California Cryobank. It's a for-profit company. It imposes exacting standards on the sperm it recruits. And it has offices in Cambridge, between Harvard and MIT, and in Palo Alto near Stanford. Cryobanks marketing materials play up the prestigious source of its sperm. Here is, ah, from the web site of Cryobank, the information. Here they talk about the compensation. "Although compensation should not be the only reason for becoming a sperm donor, we are aware of the considerable time and expense involved in being a donor". So you know what they offer? Donors will be reimbursed $75 per specimen, up to $900 a month, if you donate three times a week. And then they add, we periodically offer incentives such as, such as movie tickets or gift certificates for the extra time and effort expended by participating donors. It's not easy to be a sperm donor. They accept fewer than 5% of the donors who apply. Their admission criteria are more demanding than Harvard's. The head of the sperm banks said the ideal sperm donor is 6 ft. Tall, with a college degree, brown eyes, blond hair, and dimples. For the simple reason that these are the traits that the market has shown the customers want. Quote, quoting the head of the sperm bank, "If our customers wanted high school dropouts, we would give them high school dropouts." So, here are two instances, the market in eggs for donation and the market in sperm, that raise a question. A question about whether eggs and sperm should or should not be bought and sold for money.

Surrogacy Contracts
As you ponder that, I want you to consider another case involving market and, in fact, a contract human reproductive and the human reproductive capacity, and this is the case of commercial surrogate motherhood. And it's a case that wound up in court, some years ago. It's the story of baby M. It began with William and Elizabeth Stern, a professional couple, wanting a baby, but they couldn't have one on their own, at least not without medical risk to Mrs. Stern. They went to an infertility clinic where they met Marybeth Whitehead, a 29-year-old mother of two, the wife of a sanitation worker. She had replied to an ad that the center had placed seeking the service of a surrogate mother. They made a deal. They signed a contract, in which William Stern agreed to pay Marybeth Whitehead a $10,000 fee, plus all expenses, in exchange for which, Marybeth Whitehead agreed to be artificially inseminated with William Stern's sperm, to bear the child, and then to give baby to the Sterns. Well you probably know how the story unfolded. Marybeth gave birth and changed her mind. She decided she wanted to keep the baby. The case wound up in court in New Jersey. So let's take, put aside any legal questions, and focus on this issue has a moral question. How many believe that the right thing to do in the baby M case would've been to uphold the contract, to enforce the contract? And, and how many think the right thing to do would've been not to enforce that contract? So it's about, the majority say enforce, so, let's now hear the reasons that people had, either for enforcing or refusing to enforce this contract. First from those, I want to hear from someone in the majority. Why do you uphold the contract? Why do you enforce it? Who can offer a reason? Yes. Stand up.

Discussion
Patrick: It's a binding contract. All the parties involved knew the terms of the contract before any action was taken. If the voluntary agreement, the mother knew what she was getting into, the, all for intelligent adults, regardless of formal educational or whatever. So, it makes sense that, if you know what you're getting into beforehand, and you make a promise, you should uphold that province in the end.

Michael Sandel: OK. A deal is a deal in other words.

Patrick: Exactly.

Michael Sandel: And what's your name?

Patrick: Patrick.

Michael Sandel: Is Patrick's reason the reason that most of you in the majority favored upholding the contract? Yes? Alright, let's hear, now, someone who would not enforce the contract. What do you say to Patrick? Why not? Yes.

Evan: Well, I mean, I agree. I think contracts should be upheld when, when all the parties and all the information. But, in this case, I don't think there is a way a mother, before the child exists, could actually know how she's gonna feel about the child. So, I don't think the mother actually had all the information. She didn't know the person that was going to be born, and didn't know how much she would love that person. So that's my argument.

Michael Sandel: So you would not, and what's your name?

Evan: Evan Wilson.

Michael Sandel: Evan says he would not uphold the contract because, when it was entered into, the surrogate mother couldn't be expected to know in advance how she would feel. So she didn't really have the relevant information when she made that contract. Ah, who else? Who else would not uphold the contract? Yes.

Anna: Umm. I think, I also think that a contract should generally be uphold, but I think, umm, that the child has an inalienable right to, ah, it's actual mother. Umm, and I think that, if that mother wants it, then that child should have that, the right to that mother.

Michael Sandel: You mean biological mother, not the adopted mother.

Anna: Right.

Michael Sandel: And why is that? First of all tell me your name.

Anna: Anna.

Michael Sandel: Anna. Why is that Anna?

Anna: Umm, because I, I think that, umm, that bond is created by nature is stronger than any bond that is created by, you know, a contract.

Michael Sandel: Good. Thank you. Who else? Yes.

Kathleen: I disagree. I don't think a child has an inalienable right to her biological mother. I think that adoption and surrogacy are both legitimate trade-offs. Umm, and I agree with the point made, umm, that it's a voluntary agreement, ah, an individual made. It's voluntary agreement and I, you can't apply coercion to this argument.

Michael Sandel: You can't apply the objection from coercion to this argument.

Kathleen: Correct.

Michael Sandel: What's your name?

Kathleen: Kathleen.

Michael Sandel: Kathleen, what do you say to Evan, that though there may not have been, Evan, Evan claimed that the, the consent was tainted, not by coercion, but by lack of adequate information. She couldn't have known the relative information, namely, how she would feel about the child. What do you say to that?

Kathleen: I don't think the emotional content of her feelings plays into this. I think, and, you know, in the case of law, and the justice of this scenario, her, her change of feelings are not relevant. If I give up my child for adoption, and then I decide later on that I really want that child back, too bad. It's, it's a trade-off. It's a trade-off that the mother has made.

Michael Sandel: So, a deal is a deal. You agree with Patrick.

Kathleen: I agree with Patrick. A deal is a deal.

Michael Sandel: A deal is a deal.

Kathleen: Yes.

Michael Sandel: Good. Yes.

Andrew: I would say that, though, I'm not really sure I agree with the idea that the child has rights to their mother. I think the mother definitely has a right to her child, and I also think there are some areas where market forces shouldn't necessarily penetrate. I think that the whole surrogate mother area smacks a little bit of dealing in human beings. Seems dehumanizing, and it doesn't really seem right. So, that's my main reason.

Michael Sandel: And what is, could, tell us your name.

Andrew: I'm Andrew.

Michael Sandel: Andrew. What is dehumanizing about buying and selling the right to a child for money? What is dehumanizing about it?

Andrew: Well because you're, you're buying someone's biological right. I mean you can't, in the law, as it, as it's stated, you can't sell your own child. Like, were you to have a child, I believe that the law prohibits you selling it to another person or so on...

Michael Sandel: So this is like baby selling.

Andrew: Right. To a certain extent. I mean that, though, though there is a contract with another person, you've made agreements and whatnot, there is undeniable emotional bond that takes place between a mother and a child. And it's wrong to simply ignore this because you've written out something contractually.

Michael Sandel: Alright, you want to reply to Andrew? Stay there.

Kathleen: Ah, you point out there is an undeniable emotional bond. Umm, I feel like we're, in this situation, we're not necessarily arguing against adoption, or surrogacy in itself, we’re just sort of pointing out the emotional differences.

Andrew: But, but, but wait. I mean, it’s, it's easy to break everything down to numbers and say, oh we have contracts, like you're buying a selling a car. But there are underlying emotions. I mean, you're dealing with people. I mean, these are not objects to be bought and sold.

Michael Sandel: Alright. What about, what about Andrew's claim that this is like baby selling?

Kathleen: I believe that adoption and surrogacy should be permitted. Whether or not I will actually partake in it is, is not really relevant, but I think that the government should, if the government should give its citizens the rights to allow for adoption and surrogacy.

Michael Sandel: But adoption, adoption is not, is not, according to the law...

Kathleen: Is adoption baby selling?

Michael Sandel: Well, do you think you should be able to, to bid for a baby that's up for adoption? That's Andrew's challenge.

Kathleen: Do I think I should be able to bid for a baby? I'm not… Sure. It's a market. I mean, I, I feel like the extent to which it's been applied, I'm, I'm not sure if the government should be able to permit it. And I have to think about it more, but...

Michael Sandel: Alright. Fair enough. Are you satisfied Andrew?

Andrew: Well yeah. I mean, I just, I think surrogacy should be permitted. I think that people can do it. But I don't think it should be forced upon people, that once the contract is signed it's absolutely, like, the end all. I think that it's unenforceable.

Michael Sandel: So people should be free, Andrew, to enter into these contracts, but it should not be enforceable in a court.

Andrew: Not in a court, no.

Michael Sandel: Who would like to join in on one side or the other? Yes.

Vivian: Umm, I think I have an interesting perspective on this because my brother was actually one of the people who donated to a sperm bank, and he was paid a very large amount of money. He was 6 ft. tall but not blond. He had dimples though. So he actually had, I'm an aunt now, and he has a daughter. He donated his sperm to a lesbian couple in Oklahoma, and, umm, he has been contacted by them, and he has seen pictures of his daughter, but he still does not feel an emotional bond to his daughter. He just has a sense of curiosity about what she looks like, and what she is doing, and how she is. He doesn't feel love for his child. So, umm, from this experience, I think the bond between a, a mother and a child cannot be compared to the bond between the father and the child.

Michael Sandel: That's really interesting. What's your name?

Vivian: Vivian.

Michael Sandel: Vivian. So, we've got the case of surrogacy, commercial surrogacy, and it's been compared to baby selling, and we've been exploring whether that analogy is apt. And it can also be compared, as you point out, to sperm selling. But you're saying that sperm selling, and baby selling, or even surrogacy are very different because...

Vivian: Because they're unequal services.

Michael Sandel They're unequal services. And that's because, Vivian, you say, that the tie, the bond...

Vivian: And also the time investment that's given by a mother, nine months, cannot be compared to a man, you know, going into a sperm bank, looking and pornography, and, you know, depositing into a cup. I don't think those are equal.

Michael Sandel: Good. Alright. So we...

Vivian: 'Cause that's what happens at a sperm bank.

Conclusion
Michael Sandel: Alright, so, this is really interesting. We have, right, notice the arguments that have come out so far, the objections to surrogacy, the objections to enforcing that contract are of at least two kinds. There was the objection about tainted consent. This time, not because of coercion or implicit coercion, but because of imperfect or flawed information. So, tainted or flawed consent can arise, either because of coercion, or because of a lack of relevant information, at least according to one argument that we've heard. And then a second objection to enforcing the surrogacy contract, was that it was somehow dehumanizing.

Now when this case was decided by the courts, what did they say about these arguments? The lower court ruled that the contract was enforceable. Neither party had a superior bargaining position. A price for the service was struck and a bargain was reached. One side didn't force the other, neither had disproportionate bargaining power. Then it went to the New Jersey Supreme Court. And what did they do? They said this contract is not enforceable. They did grant custody to Mr. Stern as the father, because they thought that would be in the best interests of the child. But they restored the rights of Marybeth Whitehead, and left it to lower courts to decide exactly what the visitation rights should be. They invoked two different kinds of reasons. Along the lines that Andrew proposed. First, there was not sufficiently informed consent, the court argued. Under the contract, the natural mother is irrevocably committed before she knows the strength of her bond with her child. She never makes a truly voluntary informed decision for any decision prior to the baby's birth, is, in the most important sense, uninformed. That was the court. Then, the court also made a version of the second argument against commodicification in this kind of case. This is the sale of a child, the court said, or at the very least the sale of the mother's right to her child. Whatever idealism may motivate the participants, the profit motive dominates, permeates and ultimately governs the transaction. And so regardless, the court said, regardless of any argument about consent or flawed consent or full information, there are some things in a civilized society that money can't buy. That's what the court said in voiding this contract.

Well, what about these two arguments against the extension of markets to procreation. How persuasive are they? There was, it's true, a voluntary agreement, a contract struck between William Stern and Marybeth Whitehead. But there are at least two ways that consent can be other than truly free. First if people are pressured or coerced to give their agreement, and second, if their consent is not truly informed. And in the case of surrogacy, the court said, a mother can't know. Even one who already has kids of her own, what it would be like to bear a child and give it up for pay.

So in order to assess criticism, objection number one, we have to figure out, just how free does a voluntary exchange have to be with respect to the bargaining power and equal information? Question number one. How do we assess the second objection? The second objection is more elusive, is more difficult. Andrew acknowledged this, right? What does it mean to say there is something dehumanizing to make childbearing a market transaction? Well, one of the philosophers we read on this subject, Elizabeth Anderson, tries to give some, bring some philosophical clarity to the unease that Andrew articulated. She said, by requiring a surrogate mother to repress whatever parental love she feels for the child, surrogacy contracts convert women's labor into a form of alienated labor. The surrogate’s labor is alienated because she must divert it from the end, from the end, which the social practices of pregnancy rightly promote. Namely, an emotional bond with her child. So, what Anderson is suggesting is, that certain goods should not be treated as open to use or to profit. Certain goods are properly valued in ways other than use. What are other ways of valuing and treating goods that should not be open to use? Anderson says there are many. Respect, appreciation, love, honor, awe, sanctity, there are many modes of valuation beyond use. And certain goods are not properly valued if they are treated simply as objects of use. How do we go about evaluating that argument of Anderson? In a way it takes us back to the debate we had with utilitarianism. Is use the only, is utility, is use the only proper way of treating goods, including life, military service, procreation, childbearing? And if not, how do we figure out, how can we determine what modes of valuation are fitting or appropriate to those goods.

Several years ago there was a scandal surrounding a doctor, an infertility specialist in Virginia, named Cecil Jacobson. He didn't have a donor catalog, because unknown to his patients, all of the sperm he used to inseminate his patients came from one donor, Dr. Jacobson himself. At least one woman who testified in court was unnerved at how much her newborn daughter looked just like him. Now, it's possible to condemn Dr. Jacobson for failing to inform the women in advance. That would be the argument about consent. The columnist Alan Goodman described the bizarre scenario as follows. "Dr. Jacobson," she wrote, "gave his infertility business the personal touch. But now the rest of us," she wrote, "are in for a round of second thoughts about sperm donation." Goodman concluded that fatherhood should be something you do, not something you donate. And I think what she was doing, and what the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson is doing, and what Andrew was suggesting with his argument about dehumanization, is pondering whether there are certain goods that money shouldn't buy, not just because of tainted consent, but also, perhaps, because certain goods are properly valued in a way higher than mere use. Those at least are the questions we’re going to pursue, with the help of some philosophers, in the weeks to come.

Richard Feynman quote

“ I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and then many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. ”
                              ~ Richard Feynman; (Born 95 years ago today, May 11, 1918)

Roger Scruton: “Why Beauty Matters?”

Vimeo Link

Ship of Theseus

One of my favorite philosophical ponderings is the paradox known as the ship of Theseus. The oldest known written version of the story was presented as a brief interlude in Plutarch's The Life of Theseus. A much more interesting version was written by Thomas Hobbes.

Basically, Theseus was a Greek hero who did all sorts of great things like slaying the Minotaur and becoming king of Athens. The ship which he had sailed upon (ship A) was preserved by the Athenians for many years. In order to keep the ship in pristine shape, older planks were replaced with new identical parts as needed.  Eventually, no part of the ship had been left unreplaced.  Unbeknownst to the Athenians, the ship repairman had kept every old plank and had been slowly building another ship using these parts. The parts were arranged exactly as they were on the original ship. This ship (ship B) was eventually revealed and docked next to the other.

The questions now posed is, which is the ship of Theseus?

The primary issue here is one of identity. More precisely, it is how identity relates to the passage of time and the degree of change it may bring.

One answer would be to say that ship B is the ship of Theseus since it is composed of all the original parts. This solutions brings up an interesting question. If the identity of the ship relates to it's material parts, then at what point in time did ship A stop being the ship of Theseus? Remember that the parts of ship A were only replaced little by little over the course of many years. With this in mind would we say that ship A stopped being the ship of Theseus after that first single plank was replaced? Most would think not. Say another year passes and ten more planks are replaced. At this point there is still only one ship with eleven old planks sitting in a shed. Wouldn't most people say that ship A is still the ship of Theseus?

Ok, so lets say that ship A is the ship of Theseus. After all, it is the original ship and as we demonstrated above changing a single small part at some point in time shouldn't change it's identity. But this of course forces us to confront the fact that ship A in it's current state is not composed of a single part of the original ship of Theseus.

Of course there is no easy answer to the question but it does force one to think about some pretty deep questions. The following links provide some followup material for those who are interested.



Wikipedia: Identity and Change
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Identity Over Time
NeuroLogica: The Continuity Problem

Justice with Michael Sandel Episode 4

Episode 4
Part I - This Land Is My Land

Today, we turn to John Locke.

On the face of it, Locke is a powerful ally of the libertarian. First, he believes, as libertarians today maintain, that there are certain fundamental individual rights that are so important that no government, even a representative government, even a democratically elected government, can override them. Not only that, he believes that those fundamental rights include a natural right to life, liberty, and property, and furthermore he argues that the right to property is not just the creation of government or of law.The right to property is a natural right in the sense that it is pre-political. It is a right that attaches to individuals as human beings, even before government comes on the scene, even before parliaments and legislatures enact laws to define rights and to enforce them.

Locke and Natural Rights
Locke says in order to think about what it means to have a natural right, we have to imagine the way things are before government, before law, and that's what Locke means by the state of nature. He says the state of nature is a state of liberty. Human beings are free and equal beings. There is no natural hierarchy. It's not the case that some people are born to be kings and others are born to be serfs. We are free and equal in the state of nature and yet, he makes the point that there is a difference between a state of liberty and a state of license. And the reason is that even in the state of nature, there is a kind of law. It's not the kind of law that legislatures enact. It's a law of nature. And this law of nature constrains what we can do even though we are free, even though we are in the state of nature.

Well what are the constraints? The only constraint given by the law of nature is that the rights we have, the natural rights we have we can't give up nor can we take them from somebody else. Under the law of nature, I'm not free to take somebody else's life or liberty or property, nor am I free to take my own life or liberty or property. Even though I am free, I'm not free to violate the law of nature. I'm not free to take my own life or to sell my self into slavery or to give to somebody else arbitrary absolute power over me.

So where does this constraint, you may think it's a fairly minimal constraint, but where does it come from? Well, Locke tells us where it comes from and he gives two answers. Here is the first answer."For men, being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker," namely God, "they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure." So one answer to the question is why can't I give up my natural rights to life, liberty, and property is well, they're not, strictly speaking, yours. After all, you are the creature of God. God has a bigger property right in us, a prior property right.

Now, you might say that's an unsatisfying, unconvincing answer, at least for those who don't believe in God. What did Locke have to say to them? Well, here is where Locke appeals to the idea of reason and this is the idea, that if we properly reflect on what it means to be free, we will be led to the conclusion that freedom can't just be a matter of doing whatever we want. I think this is what Locke means when he says, "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it which obliges everyone: and reason, which is that law, teaches mankind who will but consult it that all being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions."

This leads to a puzzling paradoxical feature of Locke's account of rights. Familiar in one sense but strange in another. It's the idea that our natural rights are unalienable. What does "unalienable" mean? It's not for us to alienate them or to give them up, to give them away, to trade them away, to sell them. Consider an airline ticket. Airline tickets are nontransferable. Or tickets to the Patriots or to the Red Sox. Nontransferable tickets are unalienable. I own them in the limited sense that I can use them for myself, but I can't trade them away. So in one sense, an unalienable right, a nontransferable right makes something I own less fully mine.

But in another sense of unalienable rights, especially where we're thinking about life, liberty, and property, or a right to be unalienable makes it more deeply, more profoundly mine, and that's Locke's sense of unalienable.

We see it in the American Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson drew on this idea of Locke.
Unalienable rights to life, liberty, and as Jefferson amended Locke, to the pursuit of happiness.  Unalienable rights. Rights that are so essentially mine that even I can't trade them away or give them up. So these are the rights we have in the state of nature before there is any government. In the case of life and liberty, I can't take my own life. I can't sell myself into slavery any more than I can take somebody else's life or take someone else as a slave by force.

The Right to Property
But how does that work in the case of property? Because it's essential to Locke's case that private property can arise even before there is any government. How can there be a right to private property even before there is any government? Locke's famous answer comes in Section 27."Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself." "The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his." So he moves, as the libertarians later would move, from the idea that we own ourselves, that we have property in our persons to the closely connected idea that we own our own labor. And from that to the further claim that whatever we mix our labor with that is un-owned becomes our property. "Whatever he removes out of the state that nature has provided, and left it in, he has mixed his labor with, and joined it to something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property." Why? Because the labor is the unquestionable property of the laborer and therefore, no one but the laborer can have a right to what is joined to or mixed with his labor.

And then he adds this important provision, "at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others." But we not only acquire our property in the fruits of the earth, in the deer that we hunt, in the fish that we catch but also if we till and plow and enclose the land and grow potatoes, we own not only the potatoes but the land, the earth. "As much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivates and can use the product of, so much is his property.

Locke & The Libertarians
So the idea that rights are unalienable seems to distance Locke from the libertarian. Libertarian wants to say we have an absolute property right in ourselves and therefore, we can do with ourselves whatever we want. Locke is not a sturdy ally for that view...but when it comes to Locke's account of private property, he begins to look again like a pretty good ally because his argument for private property begins with the idea that we are the proprietors of our own person and therefore, of our labor, and therefore, of the fruits of our labor, including not only the things we gather and hunt in the state of nature but also we acquire our property right in the land that we enclose and cultivate and improve.

Property Rights: Respecting Patents
There are some examples that can bring out the moral intuition that our labor can take something that is unowned and make it ours, though sometimes, there are disputes about this.

There is a debate among rich countries and developing countries about trade-related intellectual property rights. It came to a head recently over drug patent laws. Western countries, and especially the United States say, "We have a big pharmaceutical industry that develops new drugs. We want all countries in the world to agree to respect the patents."


Then, there came along the AIDS crisis in South Africa, and the American AIDS drugs were hugely expensive, far more than could be afforded by most Africans. So the South African government said, "We are going to begin to buy a generic version of the AIDS antiretroviral drug at a tiny fraction of the cost because we can find an Indian manufacturing company that figures out how the thing is made and produces it, and for a tiny fraction of the cost, we can save lives if we don't respect that patent." And then the American government said, "No, here is a company that invested research and created this drug. You can't just start mass producing these drugs without paying a licensing fee."

And so there was a dispute and the pharmaceutical company sued the South African government to try to prevent their buying the cheap generic, as they saw it, pirated version of an AIDS drug. And eventually, the pharmaceutical industry gave in and said, "All right, you can do that." But this dispute about what the rules of property should be, of intellectual property of drug patenting, in a way, is the last frontier of the state of nature because among nations where there is no uniform law of patent rights and property rights, it's up for grabs until, by some act of consent, some international agreement, people enter into some settled rules.


Student Debate/Discussion
What about Locke's account of private property and how it can arise before government and before law comes on the scene? Is it successful? How many think it's pretty persuasive?... All right, let's hear from some critics. What is wrong with Locke's account of how private property can arise without consent?

Rochelle: Yes, I think it justifies European cultural norms as far as when you look at how Native Americans may not have cultivated American land, but by their arrival in the Americas, that contributed to the development of America, which wouldn't have otherwise necessarily happened then or by that specific group.

Dr. Sandel: So you think that this is a defense, this defense of private property in land...

Rochelle: Yes, because it complicates original acquisition if you only cite the arrival of foreigners that cultivated the land.

Dr. Sandel: I see. And what's your name?- Rochelle. Rochelle says this account of how property arises would fit what was going on in North America during the time of the European settlement. Do you think, Rochelle, that it's a way of defending the appropriation of the land?

Rochelle: Indeed, because I mean, he is also justifying the glorious revolutions. I don't think it's inconceivable that he is also justifying colonization as well.

Dr. Sandel: Well, that's an interesting historical suggestion and I think there is a lot to be said for it. What do you think of the validity of his argument though? Because if you are right that this would justify the taking of land in North America from Native Americans who didn't enclose it, if it's a good argument, then Locke's given us a justification for that. If it's a bad argument, then Locke's given us a mere rationalization that isn't morally defensible.

Rochelle: I'm leaning to the second one.

Dr. Sandel: All right, well, then, let's hear if there is a defender of Locke's account of private property, and it would be interesting if they could address Rochelle's worry that this is just a way of defending the appropriation of land by the American colonists from the Native Americans who didn't enclose it. Is there someone who will defend Locke on that point? Are you going to defend Locke?

Dan: Like, you're accusing him of justifying the European basically massacre of the Native Americans. But who says he is defending it? Maybe the European colonization isn't right. You know, maybe it's the state of war that he talked about in his Second Treatise, you know.

Dr. Sandel: So the wars between the Native Americans and the colonists, the settlers, that might have been a state of war that we can only emerge from by an agreement or an act of consent and that's what would have been required fairly to resolve...

Dan: Yes, and both sides would have had to agree to it and carry it out and everything.

Dr. Sandel: But what about when...But Dan, what about, Rochelle says this argument in Section 27 and then in 32 about appropriating land, that argument, if it's valid, would justify the settlers' appropriating that land and excluding others from it, you think that argument is a good argument?

Dan: Well, doesn't it kind of imply that the Native Americans hadn't already done that?

Dr. Sandel: Well, the Native Americans, as hunter-gatherers, didn't actually enclose land. So I think Rochelle is onto something there. What I want to -- go ahead, Dan.

Dan: At the same time, he is saying that just by picking an acorn or taking an apple or maybe killing a buffalo on a certain amount of land, that makes it yours because it's your labor and your labor would enclose that land. So by that definition, maybe they didn't have fences around little plots of land but didn't...

Dr. Sandel: They were using it...So maybe by Locke's definition, the Native Americans could have claimed a property right in the land itself...All right, good. Okay, that's good.

Dr. Sandel: One more defender of Locke. Go ahead.

Feng: Well, I mean, just to defend Locke, he does say that there are some times in which you can't take another person's land. For example, you can't acquire a land that is common property so people, in terms of the American Indians, I feel like they already have civilizations themselves and they were using land in common. So it's kind of like what an analogy to what he was talking about with like the common English property. You can't take land that everybody is sharing in common.

Dr. Sandel: Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting.

Feng: And also, you can't take land unless you make sure that there is as much land as possible left for other people to take as well. So if you're taking common, so you have to make sure that whenever you take land that there is enough left for other people to use...that's just as good as the land that you took, so...

Dr. Sandel: That's true. Locke says there has to be this right to private property in the earth is subject to the provision that there be as much and as good left for others. What's your name?

Fang: Right. I'm Feng.

Closing Statements
So Feng, in a way, agrees with Dan that maybe there is a claim within Locke's framework that could be developed on behalf of the Native Americans. Here is the further question. If the right to private property is natural, not conventional, if it's something that we acquire even before we agree to government, how does that right constrain what a legitimate government can do? In order, finally, to see whether Locke is an ally or potentially a critic of the libertarian idea of the state, we have to ask what becomes of our natural rights once we enter into society. We know that the way we enter into society is by consent, by agreement to leave the state of nature and to be governed by the majority and by a system of laws, human laws. But those human laws are only legitimate if they respect our natural rights, if they respect our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. No parliament, no legislature, however democratic its credentials, can legitimately violate our natural rights. This idea that no law can violate our right to life, liberty, and property would seem to support the idea of a government so limited that it would gladden the heart of the libertarian after all. But those hearts should not be so quickly gladdened because even though for Locke, the law of nature persists once government arrives, even though Locke insists on limited government, government limited by the end for which it was created, namely the preservation of property, even so, there is an important sense in which what counts as my property, what counts as respecting my life and liberty are for the government to define. That there be property, that there be respect for life and liberty is what limits government. But what counts as respecting my life and respecting my property, that is for governments to decide and to define. How can that be? Is Locke contradicting himself or is there an important distinction here? In order to answer that question, which will decide Locke's fit with the libertarian view, we need to look closely at what legitimate government looks like for Locke, and we turn to that next time.




Part II - Consenting Adults
Last time, we began to discuss Locke's state of nature, his account of private property, his theory of legitimate government, which is government based on consent and also limited government.

Natural Rights
Locke believes in certain fundamental rights that constrain what government can do, and he believes that those rights are natural rights, not rights that flow from law or from government. And so Locke's great philosophical experiment is to see if he can give an account of how there could be a right to private property without consent before government and legislators arrive on the scene to define property. That's his question. That's his claim. There is a way Locke argues to create property, not just in the things we gather and hunt, but in the land itself, provided there is enough and as good left for others.

Today, I want to turn to the question of consent, which is Locke's second big idea. Private property is one; consent is the other.

What is the work of consent? People here have been invoking the idea of consent since we began since the first week. Do you remember when we were talking about pushing the fat man off the bridge, someone said, "But he didn't agree to sacrifice himself. It would be different if he consented." Or when we were talking about the cabin boy, killing and eating the cabin boy. Some people said, "Well, if they had consented to a lottery, it would be different. Then it would be all right." So consent has come up a lot and here in John Locke, we have one of the great philosophers of consent.

Consent is an obvious familiar idea in moral and political philosophy. Locke says that legitimate government is government founded on consent and who, nowadays, would disagree with him? Sometimes, when the ideas of political philosophers are as familiar as Locke's ideas about consent, it's hard to make sense of them or at least to find them very interesting. But there are some puzzles, some strange features of Locke's account of consent as the basis of legitimate government and that's what I'd like to take up today.

The State of Nature
One way of testing the plausibility of Locke's idea of consent and also of probing some of its perplexities is to ask just what a legitimate government founded on consent can do, what are its powers according to Locke. Well, in order to answer that question, it helps to remember what the state of nature is like.

Remember, the state of nature is the condition that we decide to leave, and that's what gives rise to consent. Why not stay there? Why bother with government at all? Well, what is Locke's answer to that question? He says there are some inconveniences in the state of nature but what are those inconveniences? The main inconvenience is that everyone can enforce the law of nature. Everyone is an enforcer, or what Locke calls "the executor" of the state of nature, and he means executor literally. If someone violates the law of nature, he is an aggressor. He is beyond reason and you can punish him. And you don't have to be too careful or fine about gradations of punishment in the state of nature. You can kill him. You can certainly kill someone who comes after you, who tries to murder you. That's self defense. But the enforcement power, the right to punish, everyone can do the punishing in the state of nature. And not only can you punish with death people who come after you seeking to take your life, you can also punish a thief who tries to steal your goods because that also counts as aggression against the law of nature. If someone has stolen from a third party, you can go after him. Why is this? Well, violations of the law of nature are an act of aggression. There is no police force. There are no judges, no juries, so everyone is the judge in his or her own case. And Locke observes that when people are the judges of their own cases, they tend to get carried away, and this gives rise to the inconvenience in the state of nature. People overshoot the mark. There is aggression. There is punishment and before you know it, everybody is insecure in the enjoyment of his or her unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property.

Now, he describes in pretty harsh and even grim terms what you can do to people who violate the law of nature."One may destroy a man who makes war upon him ...for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion. Such men have no other rule, but that of force and violence," listen to this, "and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy to you if you fall into their power", so kill them first.

Consenting to Leave the State of Nature
So, what starts out as a seemingly benign state of nature where everyone is free and yet where there is a law and the law respects people's rights, and those rights are so powerful that they're unalienable. What starts out looking very benign, once you look closer, is pretty fierce and filled with violence, and that's why people want to leave.

How do they leave? Well, here is where consent comes in. The only way to escape from the state of nature is to undertake an act of consent where you agree to give up the enforcement power and to create a government or a community where there will be a legislature to make law and where everyone agrees in advance, everyone who enters, agrees in advance to abide by whatever the majority decides. But then the question, and this is our question and here is where I want to get your views, then the question is what powers, what can the majority decide?

The Question of Limited Government
Now, here, it gets tricky for Locke because you remember, alongside the whole story about consent and majority rule, there are these natural rights, the law of nature, these unalienable rights, and you remember, they don't disappear when people join together to create a civil society. So even once the majority is in charge, the majority can't violate your inalienable rights, can't violate your fundamental right to life, liberty, and property.

So here is the puzzle. How much power does the majority have? How limited is the government created by consent? It's limited by the obligation on the part of the majority to respect and to enforce the fundamental natural rights of the citizens. They don't give those up. We don't give those up when we enter government. That's this powerful idea taken over from Locke by Jefferson in the Declaration. Unalienable rights.

Student Discussion
So, let's go to our two cases. Remember Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, the libertarian objection to taxation for redistribution? Well, what about Locke's limited government? Is there anyone who thinks that Locke does give grounds for opposing taxation for redistribution? Anybody? Go ahead.

Ben: If the majority rules that there should be taxation, even if the minority should still not have to be taxed because that's taking away property, which is one of the rights of nature.

Dr. Sandel: All right so, and what's your name?- Ben. So if the majority taxes the minority without the consent of the minority to that particular tax law, it does amount to a taking of their property without their consent and it would seem that Locke should object to that. You want some textual support for your view, for your reading of Locke, Ben?

Ben: Sure.

Dr Sandel: All right. I brought some along just in case you raised it. If you have your texts, look at 138, passage 138."The supreme power," by which Locke means the legislature, "cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent, for the preservation of property being the end of government and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires that people should have property." That was the whole reason for entering society in the first place, to protect the right to property. And when Locke speaks about the right to property, he often uses that as a kind of global term for the whole category, the right to life, liberty, and property.

So that part of Locke, that beginning of 138, seems to support Ben's reading. But what about the part of 138, if you keep reading, "Men, therefore, in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs." Look at this."And that no one can take from them without their consent." And then at the end of this passage, he says, "So it's a mistake to think that the legislative power can do what it will and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily or take any part of them at pleasure." Here's what's elusive. On the one hand, he says the government can't take your property without your consent. He is clear about that. But then he goes on to say, and that's the natural right to property. But then, it seems that property, what counts as property is not natural but conventional defined by the government."The goods of which by the law of the community are theirs." And the plot thickens if you look ahead to Section 140. In 140, he says, "Governments can't be supported without great charge. Government is expensive and it's fit that everyone who enjoys his share of the protection should pay out of his estate." And then here is the crucial line. "But still, it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or through their representatives."

So what is Locke actually saying? Property is natural in one sense but conventional in another. It's natural in the sense that we have a fundamental unalienable right that there be property, that the institution of property exist and be respected by the government. So an arbitrary taking of property would be a violation of the law of nature and would be illegitimate. But it's a further question, here is the conventional aspect of property, it's a further question what counts as property, how it's defined and what counts as taking property, and that's up to the government. So the consent, here, we're coming back to our question, what is the work of consent? What it takes for taxation to be legitimate is that it be by consent, not the consent of Bill Gates himself if he is the one who has to pay the tax, but by the consent that he and we, all of us within the society, gave when we emerged from the state of nature and created the government in the first place. It's the collective consent. And by that reading, it looks like consent is doing a whole lot and the limited government consent creates isn't all that limited.

Does anyone want to respond to that or have a question about that? Go ahead. Stand up.

Nicola: Well, I'm just wondering what Locke's view is on once you have a government that's already in place, whether it is possible for people who are born into that government to then leave and return to the state of nature? I mean, I don't think that Locke mentioned that at all in the...

Dr Sandel: What do you think?

Nicola: Well, I think, as the convention, it would be very difficult to leave the government because you are no longer, because nobody else is just living in the state of nature. Everybody else is now governed by this legislature.

Dr Sandel: What would it mean today, you're asking. And what's your name?- Nicola. Nicola, to leave the state. Supposed you wanted to leave civil society today. You want to withdraw your consent and return to the state of nature.

Nicola: Well, because you didn't actually consent to it. You were just born into it. It was your ancestors who joined.

Dr Sandel: Right. You didn't sign the social contract. I didn't sign it. All right, so what does Locke say there? Yes?

Unknown Student: I don't think Locke says you have to sign anything. I think that he says that it's kind of implied consent. Taking government's services, you are implying that you are consenting to the government taking things from you.

Dr Sandel: All right, so implied consent. That's a partial answer to this challenge. Now, you may not think that implied consent is as good as the real thing. Is that what you're shaking your head about, Nicola? Speak up. Stand up and speak up.

Nicola: I don't think that necessarily just by utilizing the government's various resources that we are necessarily implying that we agree with the way that this government was formed or that we have consented to actually join into the social contract.

Dr Sandel: So you don't think the idea of implied consent is strong enough to generate any obligation at all to obey the government?

Nicola: Not necessarily, no.

Dr Sandel: Nicola, if you didn't think you'd get caught, would you pay your taxes?

Nicola: I don't think so. I would rather have a system, personally, that I could give money to exactly those sections of the government that I support and not just blanket support of it.

Dr Sandel: You'd rather be in the state of nature, at least on April 15th. But what I'm trying to get at is do you consider that you are under no obligation, since you haven't actually entered into any act of consent, but for prudential reasons, you do what you're supposed to do according to the law?

Nicola: Exactly.

Unknown Student: If you look at it that way, then you're violating another one of Locke's treatises, which is that you can't take anything from anyone else. Like, you can't take the government's services and then not give them anything in return. If you want to go live in the state of nature, that's fine, but you can't take anything from the government because by the government's terms, which are the only terms under which you can enter the agreement, say that you have to pay taxes to take those things.

Dr Sandel: So you are saying that Nicola can go back into the state of nature if she wants to but she can't drive on Mass. Ave.? I want to raise the stakes beyond using Mass. Ave.and even beyond taxation. What about life? What about military conscription? Yes, what do you say? Stand up.

Eric: First of all, we have to remember that sending people to war is not necessarily implying that they'll die. I mean, obviously, you're not raising their chances here but it's not a death penalty. So if you're going to discuss whether or not military conscription is equivalent to suppressing people's right to life, you shouldn't approach it that way. Secondly, the real problem here is Locke has this view about consent and natural rights. But you're not allowed to give up your natural rights either. So the real question is how does he himself figure it out between "I agree to give up my life, give up my property" when he talks about taxes or military conscription for the fact. But I guess Locke would be against suicide, and that's still my own consent. I agree by taking my life.

Dr Sandel: All right, good. All right, what's your name?- Eric. So Eric brings us back to the puzzle we've been wrestling with since we started reading Locke. On the one hand, we have these unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property, which means that even we don't have the power to give them up, and that's what creates the limits on legitimate government. It's not what we consent to that limits government. It's what we lack the power to give away when we consent that limits government. That's the point at the heart of Locke's whole account of legitimate government. But now, you say, "well, if we can't give up our own life, if we can't commit suicide, if we can't give up our right to property, how can we then agree to be bound by a majority that will force us to sacrifice our lives or give up our property"? Does Locke have a way out of this or is he basically sanctioning an all-powerful government, despite everything he says about unalienable rights? Does he have a way out of it? Who would speak here in defense of Locke or make sense, find a way out of this predicament? Yes.- All right, go ahead.

Gogol: I feel like there is a general distinction we made between the right to life that individuals possess and the fact that the government cannot take away a single individual's right to life. I think if you look at conscription as the government picking out certain individuals to go fight in war, then that would be a violation of their natural right to life. On the other hand, if you have conscription, let's say a lottery for example, then in that case I would view that as the population picking their representatives to defend them in the case of war, the idea being that since the whole population cannot go out there to defend its own right to property, it picks its own representatives through a process that's essentially random and then these sort of elected representatives go out and fight for the rights of the people. It works very similar, it works just like an elected government, in my opinion.

Dr Sandel: All right, so an elected government can conscript citizens to go out and defend the way of life, the community that makes the enjoyment of rights possible?

Gogol: I think it can because to me, it seems that it's very similar to the process of electing representatives for legislature.

Dr Sandel: Although here, it's as if the government is electing by conscription certain citizens to go die for the sake of the whole. Is that consistent with respect for a natural right to liberty?

Gogol: Well, what I would say there is there is a distinction between picking out individuals and having a random choice of individuals. Like ...

Closing Statements
Dr Sandel: Between picking out...let me make sure, between picking out individuals, let me... what's your name?- Gogol - Gogol says there's a difference between picking out individuals to lay down their lives and having a general law. I think this is the answer Locke would give, actually, Gogol. Locke is against arbitrary government. He is against the arbitrary taking, the singling out of Bill Gates to finance the war in Iraq. He is against singling out a particular citizen or group of people to go off and fight. But if there is a general law such that the government's choice, the majority's action is non-arbitrary, it doesn't really amount to a violation of people's basic rights. What does count as a violation is an arbitrary taking because that would essentially say, not only to Bill Gates, but to everyone, there is no rule of law. There is no institution of property. Because at the whim of the king, or for that matter, of the parliament, we can name you or you to give up your property or to give up your life. But so long as there is a non-arbitrary rule of law, then it's permissible.

Now, you may say this doesn't amount to a very limited government, and the libertarian may complain that Locke is not such a terrific ally after all. The libertarian has two grounds for disappointment in Locke. First, that the rights are unalienable and therefore, I don't really own myself after all. I can't dispose of my life or my liberty or my property in a way that violates my rights. That's disappointment number one. Disappointment number two, once there is a legitimate government based on consent, the only limits for Locke are limits on arbitrary takings of life or of liberty or of property. But if the majority decides, if the majority promulgates a generally applicable law and if it votes duly according to fair procedures, then there is no violation, whether it's a system of taxation or a system of conscription.

So it's clear that Locke is worried about the absolute arbitrary power of kings, but it's also true, and here is the darker side of Locke, that this great theorist of consent came up with a theory of private property that didn't require consent that may, and this goes back to the point Rochelle made last time, may have had something to do with Locke's second concern, which was America.

You remember, when he talks about the state of nature, he is not talking about an imaginary place."In the beginning," he says, "All the world was America." And what was going on in America? The settlers were enclosing land and engaged in wars with the Native Americans. Locke, who was an administrator of one of the colonies, may have been as interested in providing a justification for private property through enclosure without consent through enclosure and cultivation, as he was with developing a theory of government based on consent that would rein in kings and arbitrary rulers.

The question we're left with, the fundamental question we still haven't answered is what then becomes of consent? What work can it do? What is its moral force? What are the limits of consent? Consent matters not only for governments, but also for markets. And beginning next time, we're going to take up questions of the limits of consent in the buying and selling of goods.

Justice with Michael Sandel Episode 3

Episode 3 
Part I - Free To Choose

Mill's Theory Of Rights
Unlike many utilitarians, Mill accepts the existence of rights and believes that they fit comfortably within the utilitarian framework.  He does not support the idea of natural rights or god given rights but instead believes that the establishment of individual rights produces greater overall social utility.

Dr Sandel: "In the long run if we do justice and if we respect rights, society as a whole will be better off in the long run. Well what about that? 1) What if we have a case where making an exception in violating individual rights actually will make people better off in the long run. Is it all right then to use people? 2) And there's a further objection that could be raised against Mill’s case for justice and rights, supposed the utilitarian calculus, in the long run, works out as he says it will, such that respecting people's rights is a way of making everybody better off in the long run. Is that the right reason? Is that the only reason to respect people?

"...We need to look to see whether there are some stronger theories of rights that can explain the intuition, which even Mill shares, the intuition that the reason for respecting individuals and not using them goes beyond even utility in the long run.

Libertarianism
"Libertarianism takes individual rights seriously. It's called libertarian because it says the fundamental individual right is the right to liberty. Precisely because we are separate individual beings, we're not available to any use that the society might desire or devise. Precisely because we are individual separate human beings, we have a fundamental right to liberty. And that means, a right to choose freely to live our lives as we please, provided we respect other people's rights to do the same. That's the fundamental idea."

"Robert Nozick, one of the libertarian philosophers we read for this course puts it this way, 'Individuals have rights. So strong and far-reaching are these rights, that they raise the question of what if anything the state may do?' So what does libertarianism say about the role of government or of the state?

"Well there are three things that most modern states do, that on the libertarian theory of rights, are illegitimate; are unjust."

1) Paternalist legislation - "That's passing laws that protect people from themselves. Seat-belt laws for example, or motorcycle helmet laws. The libertarian says it may be a good thing if people wear seat belts, but that should be up to them, and the state, the government has no business coercing them, us to wear seat-belts by law. It's coercion so no paternalist legislation, number one."

2) Morals legislation - Many laws try to promote the virtue of citizens, or try to give expression to the moral values of the society as a whole. Libertarians say that's also a violation of the right to liberty. Take the example of, well a classic example of legislation offered in the name of promoting morality, traditionally, have been laws that prevent sexual intimacy between gays and lesbians. The libertarian says, nobody else is harmed, nobody else's rights are violated, so the state should get out of the business entirely of trying to promote virtue or to enact morals legislation."

3) Redistribution of income  - "Redistribution is a kind, if you think about it, says the libertarian, is a kind of coercion. What it amounts to is theft by the state or by the majority, if we are talking about a democracy, from people who happen to do very well and earned a lot of money. Now, Nozick. and other libertarians allow that there can be a minimal state that taxes people for the sake of what everybody needs, the national defense, police force, judicial system to enforce contracts and property rights, but that's it."

Dr. Sandel asks for his students thoughts on the third element of libertarian philosophy, redistribution of income.

Dr. Sandel:  "The United States is among the most inegalitarian societies, as far as the distribution of wealth, of all the advanced democracies. Now is this just or unjust? Well what does the libertarian say? Libertarians say you can't know just from the facts I've just given you. You can't know whether that distribution is just or unjust. You can't know just by looking at a pattern or a distribution or a result whether it's just or unjust. You have to know how it came to be. You can't just look at the end state or the result. You have to look at two principles. 1) The first he calls justice in acquisition or in initial holdings. And what that means, simply, is did people get the things they used to make their money fairly. So we need to know, was there justice in the initial holdings? Did they steal the land or the factory or the goods that enabled them to make all that money? If not, if they were entitled to whatever it was enabled them to gather the wealth, the first principle is met. 2) The second principle is, did the distribution arise from the operation of free consent, people buying and trading on the market? As you can see, the libertarian idea of justice corresponds to a free-market conception of justice. Provided people got what they used fairly, didn't steal it, and provided the distribution results from the free choice of individuals buying and selling things, the distribution is just. And if not, it's unjust."

Dr. Sandel then uses Bill Gates and Michael Jordan as two examples of wealthy individuals.

Dr. Sandel: "Now most of you will say someone that wealthy surely we can tax them to meet the pressing needs of people who lack in education or lack enough to eat or lack decent housing. They need it more than he does. And if you are a utilitarian, what would you do? What tax policy would you have? You'd redistribute in a flash wouldn't you? Because you would know, being a good utilitarian, that taking some, a small amount, he scarcely going to noticed it but it will make a huge improvement in the lives and in the welfare of those at the bottom. But remember, the libertarian theory says we can’t just add up and aggregate preferences and satisfactions that way. We have to respect persons. And if he earned that money fairly without violating anybody else's rights, in accordance with two principals of justice in acquisition and justice in transfer, then it would be wrong."

Dr. Sandel then has the students discuss the issue; then back to the lecture.

Dr. Sandel: "The idea that taxation is theft, Nozick takes that point one step further...Nozick says, if you think about it, taxation amounts to the taking of earnings. In other words it means taking the fruits of my labor. But if the state has the right to take my earnings or the fruits of my labor, isn't that morally the same, as according to the state, the right to claim a portion of my labor? So taxation, actually, is morally equivalent to forced labor because forced labor involves the taking of my, my leisure, my time, my efforts, just as taxation takes the earnings that I make with my labor. And so, for Nozick and for the libertarians, taxation for redistribution is theft...but not only theft. It's morally equivalent to laying claim to certain hours of a person’s life and labor. And so, it's morally equivalent to forced labor. If the state has a right to claim the fruits of my labor, that implies that it really has an, an entitlement to my labor itself. And what is forced labor? Forced labor, Nozick points out, is what? Is slavery. Because, if I don't have the right, the sole right to my own labor, then, that's really to say that the government or the political community is a part owner in me. And what does it mean for the state to be a part owner in me. If you think about it, it means that I am a slave, that I don't own myself."

"So what this line of reasoning brings us to is the fundamental principle that underlies the libertarian case for rights. What is that principle? It's the idea that I own myself.  It's the idea of self possession. If you want to take rights seriously, if you don't want to just regard people as collections of preferences, the fundamental moral idea to which you will be led is the idea that we are the owners or the proprietors of our own person. And that's why utilitarianism goes wrong. And that's why it's wrong to yank the organs from that healthy patient. You are acting as if that patient belongs to you or the community, but we belong to ourselves. And that's the same reason that is wrong to make laws to protect us from ourselves, or to tell us how to live, to tell us what virtues we should be governed by, and that's also why it's wrong to tax the rich to help the poor, even for good causes. Even to help those who were displaced by the hurricane Katrina. Ask them to give charity. But if you tax them, it's like forcing them to labor."


Part II - Who Owns Me

The Minimal State
Dr. Sandel starts with a short (somewhat one sided)  lecture on the libertarian ideas of the minimal state, paternalism and the role of public vs private goods.

Paternalism
"Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist, he points out that many of the functions that we take for granted as properly belonging to government, don't. They are paternalist. One example he gives is Social Security. He says it's a good idea for people to save for their retirement during their earning years, but it's wrong, it's a violation of people's liberty, for the government to force everyone, whether they want to or not, to put aside some earnings today for the sake of their retirement. If people want to take the chance, or people want to live big today and poor retirement, that should be their choice. They should be free to make those judgments and take those risks. So even Social Security would still be at odds with the minimal state that Milton Friedman argued for."

Public vs Private and Free Riders
"It's sometimes thought that collective goods like police protection and fire protection will inevitably create the problem of free riders unless they’re publicly (I think he meant to say privately) provided, but there are ways to prevent free riders, there are ways to restrict even seemingly collective goods like fire protection. I read an article a while back about a private fire company. This Saelam Fire Corporation in Arkansas. You can sign up with the Saelam Fire Corporation, pay a yearly subscription fee, and if your house catches on fire, they will come and put out the fire. But they won't put out everybody's fire. They will only put it out if it's a fire in the home of a subscriber or if it starts to spread and to threaten the home of a subscriber. The newspaper article told the story of a homeowner who had subscribed to this company in the past, but failed to renew his subscription. His house caught on fire, the Saelem Fire Corporation showed up with its trucks and watched the house burn, just making sure that it didn't spread. The fire chief was asked, well he wasn't exactly the fire chief, I guess he was the CEO, he was asked, "How can you stand by with fire equipment and allow a person's home to burn?" He replied, "Once we verified there was no danger to a member's property, we had no choice but to back off according to our rules. If we responded to all fires," he said, "there would be no incentive to subscribe." The home owner in this case tried to renew his subscription at the scene of the fire, but the head of the company refused. "You can't wreck your car," he said, "and then buy insurance for it later."

"So, even public goods that we take for granted as being within the proper province of government, can, many of them, in principle, be isolated, made exclusive to those who pay. That's all to do with the question of collective goods and the libertarians' injunction against paternalism."

Redistribution of Income
Dr. Sandel returns to the issue of redistribution of income as discussed in Part I.

"But let's go back now to the arguments about redistribution. Now, underlying the libertarians’ case for the minimal state is a worry about coercion, but what's wrong with coercion? The libertarian offers this answer. To coerce someone, to use some person for the sake of the general welfare is wrong because it calls into question the fundamental fact that we own ourselves. The fundamental moral fact of self possession or self ownership. The libertarians' argument against redistribution begins with this fundamental idea that we own ourselves."


Discussion
Dr. Sandel now has three students come forward to represent the libertarian point of view and address some of the objections which have been raised against it.  The three students are Alex, John and Julia.  I've included what I think are some of the better points.

Dr. Sandel: "While, while team libertarian is gathering over there, let me just summarize the main objections that I've heard in class and on the web site... 1) is that the poor need the money more. That's an obvious objection. A lot more than, thanks, than do Bill Gates and Michael Jordan. 2) it's not really slavery to tax because, at least in a democratic society, it's not a slaveholder, it's, it's congress. It's a democratic; you're smiling Alex, already. You're confident you can reply to all of these. So taxation by consent of the governed is not coerced. 3) some people have said don't the successful, like Gates, owe a debt to society for their success, that they repay by paying taxes."

"Who, who wants to respond to the first one, the poor need the money more."

John: "Ah, the poor need the money more, that's quite obvious...If you look at the argument, the poor need the money more, at no point in that argument do you contradict the fact that we've extrapolated from, umm, the agreed-upon principles that people own themselves. We've extrapolated that people have property rights. And so whether or not it would be a good thing, or nice thing, or even a necessary thing for the survival of some people, we don't see that justifies the violation of the right that we've logically extrapolated."
(Also) "there still exists this institution of...individual philanthropy, Milton Friedman makes this argument,

Michael Sandel: "Alright. So Bill Gates can give to charity if he wants to, but it would still be wrong to coerce it to meet the needs of the poor."

Michael Sandel: Alright. "Who would like to reply? Yes."

Rauel: "Going back to the first point, that he made about proper rights of the individual, the property rights are established and enforced by the government, which is a democratic government, and we have representatives who enforce those rights. If you live in a society that operates under those rules, then it should be up to the government, umm, to decide how, ah, those resources that come down from taxation are distributed because it is through the consent of the government. If you disagree with it, you don't have to live in that society."

Michael Sandel: "Rauel is pointing out, actually Rauel is invoking point number two, if the taxation is by the consent of the governed, it's not coerced, and it’s legitimate. Bill Gates and Michael Jordan are citizens of United States, they get to vote for Congress, and they get to vote their policy convictions just like everybody else. Who would like to take that one on? John?

John: "Umm, basically what the Libertarians are, umm, objecting to in this case is, the middle 80 percent deciding what the top 10 percent are doing the bottom 10 percent."

Michael Sandel: "But wait, wait, wait, wait. John, majority, don't you believe in democracy?...alright, Alex on democracy. Democracy, what about that?"

Alex: "I don't think the people should be, should have to convince 280 million people, others, simply in order to exercise their own rights in order to not have their self-ownership violated. I think people should be able to do that without having to convince 280 million people."

Michael Sandel: "Does that mean you are against democracy as a whole?"

Alex: "Ah, I, no. I just believe in a limited form of democracy whereby we have a constitution that severely limits the scope of what decisions can be made democratically."

Michael Sandel: "Alright. So, so you're saying that democracy is fine, except where fundamental rights are involved. And I think you could win if, you're going on the hustings, let me add one element to the argument you might make. Maybe you could say put aside the economic debates, taxation. Suppose the individual right to religious liberty were at stake. Then, Alex, you could say on the hustings, surely you would all agree that we shouldn't put the right to individual liberty up to a vote."

Alex: Ah, yeah. "That's exactly right. Umm, and that's why we have, ah, constitutional amendments, and we make it so hard to amend our constitution."

Michael Sandel: "So you would say that the right to private property, the right of Michael Jordan to keep all the money he makes, at least to protect it from redistribution, is the same kind of right with the same kind of weight as the right to freedom of speech, the right to religious liberty, rights that should trump what the majority wants."

Alex: Absolutely. "The reason that we have the right to free speech is because we have a right to own ourselves, to exercise our voice, ah, in any way that we choose."

Michael Sandel: "Alright. Good. Alright. So, there we, alright, who would like to respond to that argument about democracy being, O, OK, up there. Stand up."

Anna: "Umm, I think comparing religion, economics, it’s not the same thing. The reason why Bill Gates is able to make so much money is 'cause we live in an economically and socially stable society, and if the government didn't provide for the poorest ten percent, as you say, umm, through taxation, then we would need more money for police to prevent crime, and so, either way, like, there would be more taxes taken away to provide what you guys call, like, the, the necessary things. That the government provides."

Michael Sandel: "Would it be wrong for someone to steal a loaf of bread to feed, ah, his starving family? Is that wrong?"

John: "It violates property rights. It's wrong."

Michael Sandel: "Even to save a starving family?"

John: "I mean, there are, there are definitely other ways around that. And by justifying, no, hang on, hang on, before you laugh at me, umm, that didn't work, before, before justifying the, the act of stealing, you have to look at violating the right that we've already agreed exists, the right of self-possession and the possession of, I mean, your own things. We agree on property rights."

Michael Sandel: "Alright, we agree it's stealing, so property rights is not the issue...so why is wrong to steal even to feed your starving family?"

John: "Sort of the, the original argument, ah, I made in the very, in the very first question you asked, the benefits of an action don't justify, don't make the action just."

Michael Sandel: "Do you want, what, what would you say Julia? Is it alright to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving family or to steal a drug that your child needs, needs to survive?"

Julia: "I think, I am OK with that, honestly. Even from a libertarian standpoint, I think that, OK saying that you can just take money arbitrarily from people who have a lot to go to this pool of people who need it, but you have an individual who is acting on their own behalf to kind of save themselves. I mean, I think you said they, from the idea of, like, self-possession, they are also in charge of protecting themselves and keeping themselves alive. So therefore, even from a libertarian standpoint, that might be OK."

Michael Sandel: "Alright, that's good. That's good. Alright, what about, what about number three up here, isn't it the case that the successful, the wealthy owe a debt. They didn't do that all by themselves, they had to cooperate with other people. That they, they owe a debt to society and that that's expressed in taxation. You want to take that on Julia?"

Julia: OK. "This one, umm, I believe that there is not a debt to society in a sense that how did these people become wealthy, they did something that society valued highly. Since that, society has already been providing for that. Ah, of anything, I think that it's, everything’s cancelled out. They provided a service to society, and society responded by, somehow they got their wealth."

Michael Sandel: "Well that, so be concrete. In the case of Michael Jordan, some, I mean to illustrate your point, there were people who helped him to make the money, the teammates, the coach, people who taught him how to play, but they, but you're saying they've all been paid for their services."

Julia: Exactly. "And society derived a lot of benefit and pleasure from watching Michael Jordan play. Umm, I think that that's how he paid his debt to society."



Conclusion
"Is it true that we own ourselves or can we do without that idea, and still avoid what libertarians want to avoid, creating a society and an account of justice where some people can be just used for the sake of other people's welfare, or even for the sake of the general good. Libertarians combat the utilitarian idea of using people as means for the collective happiness by saying the way to put a stop to that utilitarian logic of using persons, is to resort to the intuitively powerful idea that we are the proprietors of our own person as Alex and Julia and John and Robert Nozick. What are the consequences for a theory of justice and an account of rights of calling into question the idea of self possession? Does it mean that we’re back to utilitarianism, and using people, and aggregating preferences, and pushing the fat man off the bridge? Nozick doesn't, himself, fully develop the idea of self-possession, he borrows it from an earlier philosopher, John Locke. John Locke accounted for the rise of private property, from the state of nature, by a chain of reasoning very similar to the one Nozick and the libertarians use. John Locke said, "private property arises because when we mix our labor with things, unowned things, we come to acquire a property right in those things." And the reason the reason is that we own our own labor. And the reason for that, we are the proprietors, the owners of our own person. And so in order to examine the moral force of the libertarian claim that we own ourselves, we need to turn to the English political philosopher John Locke and examine his account of private property and self ownership, and that's what we’ll do next time."