Why Hopenhagen Turned into Nopenhagen

While it is not over until it is over, on this the penultimate day of the most important international conference on global climate change in this decade, it seems pretty clear that it is going to end in failure. There will be no binding treaty. It is not clear there will even be an agreed framework for such a treaty. There is no agreement or targets or benchmarks. Maybe there will be some progress on REDD and on a fund to help vulnerable nations adapt to some of the predicted effects of global warming. But overall, the COP15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen will go down in history as a failure.

Why did this happen? Did it really have to turn out this way? I am sure there will be lots of post-mortems written in the coming days and weeks. Here is my first volley.

The US never joined the 1997 Kyoto Treaty that COP15 was supposed to come up with a new treaty to extend or replace. At the time the U.S. Congress was controlled by the Republican Party (the GOP -- Guardians of Profit). The nominally Democratic President, Bill Clinton, knew full well that getting this treaty ratified in the US Senate had about the same chances as a snowball in hell. So even with Al Gore as his Vice-President, he caved to Republican opposition and adopted a negotiating position that said that the US would not commit to binding carbon emission reductions until the developing countries also accepted them.

At the time, major developing economies such as China, India and Brazil, were refusing to do so because, they argued, most all of the CO2 in the atmosphere that was causing the problem was the result of historical emissions by the older industrialized countries. most notably the USA, which at the time accounted for roughly 25% of global emissions but had only 5% of the world's population. So there was an "After you Alfonse" type stalemate. The US would not agree to binding emission targets until the developing countries did, and they would not agree to reduce their emissions until the USA owned up to its responsibility.

But things began to change dramatically two years ago at the Bali climate conference when the US representative was heartily booed when she reiterated this tired old position that the Bush administration had stuck with. Moreover, China and other major developing industrial countries announced at Bali that they were now willing to commit themselves to carbon emission targets, removing one of the big obstacles to successfully negotiating a new treaty regime in Copenhagen this December.

So what happened? Well we got a new US President who says he is committed to the US doing its part to address the threat of global climate disruption. And now the US Congress is controlled by members of his own party in both the House and the Senate. Good opportunity right?

Wrong. The US moved the goal-posts. Now they are saying that they cannot commit to any binding agreement with robust emission reduction targets because they are not sure they can get any bill through the Senate unless Senators from coal-producing and oil-producing, and smoke stack industry states can be assured that China, and India and Brazil are not cheating on their claimed emission reductions and taking jobs away from American workers while continuing to pollute the atmosphere.

The developing nations have bristled at the suggestion that they cannot be trusted to keep their words, so we have another "After you Alfonse" type stalemate. This time the US will not say it can commit to binding emissions targets unless the developing nations first commit to a verification scheme of some sort. While the developing nations are saying, we already came halfway on our own, but what have you (the USA) done? Bupkiss.

The emissions targets suggested in the current House bill that form the basis of the current US negotiating position, are terribly weak. They are really only 4% below the internationally accepted 1990 baseline, and they are not even law yet and may never get to be law. The Europeans, the Japanese, and other developed countries, have stated that they will commit to 2020 reduction targets below the 1990 baseline of between 20-25%

Why is the US target so weak? Because, well, you see, we have this stupid procedural rule in the Senate that says that you need 60 senators to end debate on proposed legislation. If you cannot reach the 60 vote threshold you cannot end debate on the floor, and if you cannot end debate it you cannot vote on a bill and perhaps pass it.

That is why Sen. John Kerry went to Copenhagen this week to try to reassure COP15 delegates that the US Senate will pass a bill this spring with binding emissions targets, but only if the Chinese and other developing countries first agree to a verification scheme that they can use to convince recalcitrant and obstructionist Senators (read Republicans, a few conservadems, and of course our friend Joe Lieberman) from filibustering to block it in the Senate just as they have done with Health Care Insurance Reform this fall. So the Fate of the Earth comes down, again, to the dysfunctional US Senate and its stupid filibuster rule.

Or does it? According to the US Constitution, treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, that is, by 66+1 Senators. In the United States, the term "treaty" has a different, more restricted legal sense than exists in international law. U.S. law distinguishes what it calls treaties from treaty executive agreements, congressional-executive agreements, and sole executive agreements. All four classes are equally treaties under international law; they are distinct only from the perspective of internal American law.

The distinctions are primarily concerning their method of ratification. Whereas treaties require advice and consent by two-thirds of the Senate, sole executive agreements may be executed by the President acting alone. Some treaties grant the President the authority to fill in the gaps with executive agreements, rather than additional treaties or protocols. Currently, most international agreements are executed by executive agreement rather than treaties at a rate of 10:1.

Despite the relative ease of executive agreements, the President still often chooses to pursue the formal treaty process over an executive agreement in order to gain congressional support on matters that require the Congress to pass implementing legislation or appropriate funds, and those agreements that impose long-term, complex legal obligations on the U.S.

So what are the chances that President Obama is going to use his power to make executive agreements to bind the US, even provisionally, to a binding treaty? Bupkiss. He needs political cover from the Congress. This is also the reason why he is not going to use the newly sanctioned power of the EPA to directly regulate greenhouse gasses as harmful pollutants. Doing so would bypass the Congress and expose him to merciless attacks from the GOP, threatening his prospects for re-election in 2012.

But in order to get Congressional cover (buy-in) he needs both the House and the Senate, and we already know what a cesspool of deceit and obstruction the Senate is these days. So, sadly, once again, the Fate of the Earth hangs on the existence of a stupid procedural rule of the Senate that prevents electoral majorities from passing legislation without the consent of 60 Senators before they can end debate.

To be fair, the failure of COP15 is not entirely due to US non-commitment. Our neighbor the the North, Oh Canada, with its current conservative government, has linked itself to the US position on reduction targets and binding agreements and is standing with the US in blocking a deal in Copenhagen. Canada is, in case you don't know, the #1 supplier of petroleum to the US market, far ahead of the Middle East. Canada also has the Athabasca oil sands (or tar sands) in Northern Alberta, which are really going to start paying off big time once we reach Peak Oil (perhaps we already have) and the price of petroleum starts to relentlessly rise as supply declines while demands increases.

Peak Oil is the real underlying driver of the "go slow" or "go not at all" approaches to an energy transition in this century. The oil producing states, and the major oil companies that hold long term leases, want to delay the transition to a carbon-neutral energy economy as long as they possibly can. It they don't they stand to lose something on the order of $100 trillion in revenues during the remainder of this century. Much of that money that would be left on the table if the world manages to accelerate the shift to carbon neutrality sooner rather than later by making green energy cheaper than dirty petroleum and other fossil fuels. The environmentalists, of course, are worried that if we prolong the end of the Oil Age we are risking cooking the planet and producing catastrophic changes in the climate that will take centuries to correct, if they can ever be corrected at all.

Hey, but what does catastrophic damage to the Earth, its people, and its living species, matter if the oil companies lose all those healthy profits in the process? The Bush administration made no bones about its non-energy policy being designed (in still secret meetings with oil company officials in Dick Cheney's office) to protect future oil company profits. At least Dubya was not a hypocrite.

But Obama campaigned on the slogans "Hope You Can Believe In" and "Yes We Can" Well those slogans are wearing pretty thin right now. If Obama is not willing to take any political risks to lead this country to a better place, then in three years people in his base will not be talking about "Hope" any more. They will be saying "Nope."

The Great Health Care Give-Away of 2009

In an earlier blog post I explained why health care insurance reform without a robust public option is a huge government give-away to the private health insurance industry. But that is just what is coming out of the US Senate this week. Harry Reid has reportedly dumped both the public option and the idea that people 55-64 years of age should be able to buy into Medicare, in order appease Joe Lieberman (the Senator from Aetna), Ben Nelson (another recipient of insurance industry largesse) and other conservadems.

This is truly outrageous! What we are getting from the Sausage Factory that is the Senate is a bill that will require millions of Americans to purchase expensive private health insurance, many of whom will be subsidized by taxpayers dollars in order to do so, with absolutely no mechanism to prevent these corporations from using the proceeds to pad their profit margins. This is disgraceful.

Progressives need to learn a lesson from this. The reason why this happened is nicely summed up in an article by John Neffinger "Why We Lost Health Care." The US Senate is a dysfunctional and undemocratic institution.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has now called upon democrats to "Kill the Senate Bill" and start over with the House of Representatives. Without a public option or a Medicare buy-in provision it is not real reform at all. It is just a huge corporate welfare bill for the private insurance industry.

The people need to rise up and demand better of their government.

Pascal's Wager and Climate Change (Revised)

Current climate science suggests that the Earth's temperature has been steadily rising due to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by our use of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, and that the rate at which are pumping CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere exceeds the ability of the oceans and the plants to absorb them. If GHG emissions continue unabated then, scientists predict that the Earth's average temperature will continue to rise, and this may cause some potentially very serious climatic changes such as melting glaciers and icecaps, rise in sea levels, species displacement and extinction, spread of tropical diseases, refugee flows, droughts, floods, increasingly powerful cyclones, and so forth.

While there is a strong consensus among climate scientists that the theory of anthropocentric (human-induced) global warming is true with a high degree of certainty, a great many people still refuse to believe it. Some of these skeptics are suspicious of the explanation that humans burning fossil fuels is the cause of the warming trend and point out the existence of some studies that cast doubt on the consensus view (Alexander Cockburn claims the theory is a farce) . The recent release of "climate gate" emails from scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit suggesting that they had tailored some data to fit this theory fueled climate change skeptics and deniers. Recent Polls show that the percentage of Americans who believe in anthropogenic global warming has declined. Some climate skeptics believe that the whole story is a hoax concocted by a vast left-wing conspiracy. Many of these climate skeptics are also vehemently opposed to the world's nations taking any serious steps to reduce GHG emissions in order to mitigate the threats predicted to arise due to global warming by reducing the use of fossil fuels and moving rapidly to a carbon-neutral energy economy.

But the question about whether or not we should now take serious steps to reduce GHG emissions is a classic case of decision-making under uncertainty. The question whether we should believe or disbelieve in current climate science is analogous to Pascal's Wager, named for the mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) whose Pensées contained the following intriguing paragraph:

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up... Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose... But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is... If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

In this argument Pascal portrays the decision about whether to believe in God or not as a wager made under conditions of uncertainty. In modern decision theory the logic of his argument is represented by a decision matrix such as the following:

	God exists (G)	God does not exist (~G)
Believe God exists (B)	eternal heavenly bliss	-N (none)
Not Believe God exists (~B)	eternal damnation or (perhaps) purgatory	+N (none)

His argument suggests that if God exists, the reward for believing that God exists is very high, whereas the cost of not believing in God (if indeed He does exist) is very great --- eternal damnation. Therefore, it is a good bet to believe in God. If, on the other hand, it turns out that God does not exist, then the benefits as well as the costs are negligible (perhaps some Sunday mornings wasted going to Church), and perhaps, if God does not exist, we will never really know anyway whether our bet paid off.

Philosophers have found various reasons to object to this argument as providing a good basis for theism. But I leave these philosophical niceties aside, interested readers might want to consult the article on Pascal's Wager in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. My intention here is to suggest that there is a similar (and much better) argument to be made about the uncertainty of catastrophic climate change due to anthropogenic (human-induced) changes in the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the Earth' atmosphere.

There will be a big payoff if we believe in current climate science and take steps to reduce carbon emissions, and it turns out the theory was correct. And there will also be a big loss if we do not believe in current climate science, when it turns out that the theory was correct -- oops, we cooked the planet. Assuming that there is a greater than zero chance that current climate science is correct, then the rational wager would be to accept it and act so as to gain the best outcome and avoid the worst one, even if there remain some doubts about whether the current science is indeed correct. As a decision matrix this set of choices would be represented like this:

	Current Climate Science is correct (C)	Climate Science is not correct (~C)
We believe in climate science and act (B)	F1	F2
We do not believe in climate science and do not act (~B)	F3	F4

What are the relative values of F1...F4 in this payoff matrix? In order to make the answers more concrete suppose that you will be able to experience the planet Earth as it will exist 100 years from now. Perhaps you will still be alive because of miraculous new lifespan enhancing medical technologies. Or if you prefer a more supernatural possibility, suppose that you do die but will be reincarnated as one of your own great great grandchildren, or as another member of their generation.

Let's first examine the value of F3. If we do not believe in current climate science and act (~B) to mitigate its predicted catastrophic effects by rapidly transforming our energy economy so as to radically reduce GHG emissions, and it turns out that the current science is correct (C) in predicting catastrophic climate changes 100 years from now if we do not act, then you or your great great grandchildren will be very unhappy campers on Planet Earth. The payoff value of F3 (~B & C) is strongly negative. How would you feel about F3? Well probably a lot like an atheist who dies and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates --"Oops, I guess I was wrong, Gulp!"

What then is the value of F1? In this case, we decided to believe in current climate science and acted in order to mitigate its worst predicted effects, and it turned out that our current theories were indeed correct (B & C). The payoff for F1 is then very high indeed. F1 is analogous to the situation of the faithful religious believers who discover that the God they accepted does indeed exist, except that their reward is an earthly one, a planet whose climate is not greatly altered and disrupted by human activities.

So, just looking at these two values F1 and F3, we can say that F1 dominates F3, that is, that the expected utility of believing in climate change is far greater than the expected utility of not believing in it. Therefore, even with uncertainty about C, it is rational to bet that current climate science is correct and take steps now to significantly reduce our GHG emissions.

But we must also consider the costs and benefits of F2 and F4, the cases where current climate science is not correct. Suppose that in 100 years we learn that the climate science of the early 21st century was wrong in predicting catastrophic climatic changes due to anthropogenic GHG emissions (~C), but because people in the early 21st century believed in it (B) they spent a lot of money and effort on energy efficiency, electric cars, windmills, solar panels, and hydrogen fuels cells, and all that green stuff. How would you feel about that? I guess you would probably feel pretty okay about it; it would be kind of like learning that you had already been saved through God's grace, and it really didn't matter whether you went to church or not, even though you did. But your ancestors did make a big effort to "Go Green" for nothing, so let's say that F2 is marginally negative.

Now, finally, for F4 suppose that at the present we do nothing to prevent further increases in global temperature by altering our current fossil fuel energy economy (the so-called "business as usual" scenario), but that it turns out that current climate science is wrong, and nothing very bad happens. This is like finding one has a "Get into Heaven Free" card even though one lived a life of sin. One can imagine this would make one pretty happy. So let's say F4 is marginally positive.

Since F1 and F2 together still yield a strongly positive payoff, while F3 and F4 still yield a strongly negative one, it is still rational to bet that current climate science is correct and act on that belief.

Critics of this argument may want to quibble with my estimate of the cost of F2. Climate skeptics are likely to argue that the cost of mitigating global warming is going to be greater than marginally negative. We will have to make some real sacrifices in order to reduce our GHG emissions to safe levels by mid-century. Let's assume this is correct. Even so, it is worth it because the expected loss if we do nothing is too great. As the authors of a recent report on the economics of climate change argue, it is also possible to think of the choice we face as analogous to the decision to buy fire insurance:

The reason people buy fire insurance is not because they are certain that their house will burn down; rather it is because they cannot be sufficiently certain that it will not burn down. Likewise, the projections of dangerous climate risk if the world exceeds 350 ppm CO2 in the long run are not certainties; they are, on the contrary, necessarily uncertain. If the worst happens our grandchildren will inherit a degraded Earth that will not support anything like the life that we have enjoyed. On the other hand, if we prepare for the worst, but it does not happen, we will have invested more than, in perfect hindsight, was necessary in clean energy, conservation, and carbon-free technologies. How would we feel about discovering we had done too much about climate change, compared to discovering that we had done too little? (DeCario, S.J., Norgaard, R .B, Norman, C. S., and Sheeran, K.A. "The Economics of 350: The Benefits and Costs of Climate Stabilization." Economics for Equity and Environment. www.e3network.org. October 2009, p. 6.)

So how much is catastrophic climate change insurance going to cost? According to this study, which is based on a comparable analysis of several economic projections done both by business-sponsored groups, and nongovernmental and academic groups, it is estimated that climate insurance would cost between 1% and 3% of global GDP in order to reach the lowest carbon target currently being discussed, 350 ppm. As the authors of this report reckon:

Suppose the cost of climate protection turns out to be 2.5% of global GDP, toward the high end of the global scenarios just discussed. In an economy that is growing at 2.5% per year, a rate that is common for developed countries, spending 2.5% of GDP on climate protection each year would be equivalent to skipping one year's growth, and then resuming. Average incomes would take 29 years to double from today's level, compared to 28 in the absence of climate costs. In an economy experiencing 10 percent annual growth, as China has in many recent years, imposing a cost of 2.5% per year is equivalent to skipping 3 months of growth; if 10% growth is sustained, average incomes would reach twice the current level in 86 months, compared to 83 months in the absence of climate costs.

In fact, these authors argue that at the early stages of a climate mitigation program we might actually save money because we are reaping the benefits of greater energy efficiencies. But the bottom line conclusion derived from this study is that, "There are no reasonable studies that say that a 350 ppm stabilization target will destroy the economy; there are no studies that claim that it is desirable to wait before taking action on climate protection" If this is correct, then buying climate insurance is a good investment because we can easily afford it and with a relatively modest cost we can avert a disaster in the making.

On the other hand, if we disbelieve in current climate science and do nothing now to reduce our carbon emissions, then either we discover that we spent 1%-3% of global GDP converting to a carbon-neutral energy earlier than we had to, or we find that we overheated the Earth and our house burned down.

So you climate change skeptics and deniers out there, which risk would you rather take? Would you rather that we now take steps to prevent catastrophic climate change when we can easily afford climate insurance, or do you want to go on business as usual without spending anything on insurance and risk the catastrophic climate changes that current science is predicting? You must choose now. Choose wisely.

My Apology

I have never killed anyone.
I have never stolen anything.
I have never been arrested.
I have never cheated on my wife.
I pay my taxes.
I don't covet other people's possessions.
I don't spread lies.
I don't use racial epithets.
I am productively employed.
I exercise regularly.
I eat fruits and vegetables.
I keep myself well-informed.
I never hit my children.
I donate to charities.
I recycle paper, cans and plastic.

I am sorry.
Being good is boring.

Please forgive me.

Joe Wilson's outburst

Rep. Joe Wilson's (R -SC) shouting "You lie!" during President Obama's nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress last week proved that Van Jones was right when he said the Republicans are assholes.

A health insurance mandate without the public option is a real loser

In his speech last night President Obama for the first time made it clear that he will be insisting on a mandate for individuals and most companies to buy health insurance.

This is a huge boon for the private insurance companies who stand to gain millions of new members. However, if as proposed they will not be allowed to "cherry pick" subscribers or deny benefits for pre-existing conditions, then their bottom-lines will also take a hit.

The natural thing for them to do would be to pass on these additional costs to their members in the form of higher premiums, larger deductibles, fewer benefits or all three.

If there is no strong national nonprofit public health insurance plan they are competing with, this is just what they will do. The result will be a government mandated windfall for the private insurance companies, and higher (not lower) premiums for the insured.

With a public plan, however, they will be forced to offset the increased costs of "stable and secure" health insurance with real efficiencies and even, perhaps, by forgoing some profits and disappointing their Wall Street analysts.

This is why having a public health insurance option is so essential to the overall effectiveness of health insurance reform.

Wishing to secure insurance industry profits, some Repbulicans are now proposing that there be a waiting period before the public plan is introduced, and suggesting a trigger under which it would only be introduced after this period if the anticipated cost savings in health insurance do not materialize.

The idea of delaying implementation of a public option so the insurance companies can enjoy several more years of windfall profits is crap that ought to be firmly rejected. Those who favor this idea are counting on being able to demonstrate that the reforms enacted this year did not reduce costs (as they won't without a public option) and then arguing for their repeal hoping that this will give them an issue to regain control of the Congress several years down the line. In the meanwhile their allies in the private insurance business will be reaping the benefits. This is why stock in the major private insurers rose after Obama's speech.

Addendum (9/11/09) An interesting commentary by R J Eskow published this morning makes a similar argument while also explaining why health insurance company stocks went up the day after the President's speech.

Addendum (9/12/09) Jed Lewison has also noticed that a mandate without a robust public option is a gift to the private health insurance industry.

Addendum (9/13/09) David Sirota provides examples of other "triggers" that are legislative bullcrap.

What Ever Happened to Moral Hazard?

The term "moral hazard" has a long history, but it was brought into prominence by economist Kenneth Arrow to describe situations in which governments step in to rescue private financial institutions from the consequences of their own risky or imprudent behavior. The term itself has an interesting etymology; hazard was originally a dice game, like craps, in which bettors would often wager (and lose) their fortunes, which, come to think of it, is really not that different than banks making disastrous bets on subprime mortgages, credit default swaps, toxic assets and the other forms of financial chicanery that caused the financial meltdown in September 2008 and let to a global recession that is still not over.

The word "moral" also did not necessarily have to do with ethical evaluation and accountability as it does today. According to Martha C. White, "moral hazard was an assessment of risk based on the situation. For instance, a log cabin was more susceptible to fire damage than a stone cottage. Over the years, though, “moral hazard” also came to mean a situation in which the insured became cavalier about due diligence on their end—leaving a cooking fire unattended in that log cabin, for instance—banking on restitution in the event of a disaster" [Martha C. White (2008) . What is a Moral Hazard? From Slate - The Big Money].

The basic idea of moral hazard as we use the term today is that people and institutions will be encouraged to take greater risks than they should or otherwise would if they believe that someone else will take responsibility for rescuing them if things turn out really badly. For instance, the government, an insurance company, or bleeding heart liberal do-gooders will step in to save people from the worst consequences of their own irresponsible behavior. If the government has a track record of stepping in to rescue banks that are "too big to fail" from the consequences of their own greed and poor judgment, this creates a moral hazard that encourages future risky behavior on the parts of bankers.

This outcome is particularly likely, many people believe, if those who were rescued in the past are not forced to accept any of the costs of their own bad behavior and, moreover, are rescued without agreeing to accept any new regulations that would prevent them from making similarly poor choices in the future. This sort of governmental response to a financial crisis rewards irresponsible behavior by privatizing the profits while socializing the costs. It is a perverse incentive that encourages irresponsibility.

This is just what the US government did last fall in response to Wall Street's bad bets and the collapse of credit markets. Many people, including myself, accepted the argument at the time that, although a massive government bailout could indeed create moral hazards, this risk was insignificant compared to the very real and immediate risk of a panic that would trigger an economic depression. In doing so I had assumed that eventually we would start addressing the risk of moral hazard and do something to re-regulate the financial industry in order to prevent the banks and insurance companies that were rescued from engaging in the very kinds of risky investments that got them, and all the rest of us, into this mess. Whatever happened to that?

What happened is that financial re-regulation got put on Obama's back burner and no one is talking about it any more. Now people are talking about a "government take-over" of health care insurance. The language of "take overs" is important, because the idea resonates with something a lot of people object to about the way the government has handled the financial crisis, the recession, the failures of GM and Chrysler, and yes, even the "Cash for Clunkers" program that is due to expire tomorrow.

In each of these cases it appears that government intervention undermines the value of personal responsibility. Steeped in the Protestant Ethic of self-reliance and independence, there are many American's whose sense of morality is offended when they think that the government, or indeed anyone else, is planning to "take over" matters that should properly be one's own business. Adults are supposed to take care of themselves and it is an affront to one's dignity to have the government involvement in what should be a matter of personal responsibility. The term "take over" also connotes loss of control, so the term delivers a double-whammy to people who fear that the government is trying to run their lives.

Obama and his advisors would do well to recognize this and to start re-framing the national debate over health insurance reform to highlight the need for greater personal responsibility in matters of health. They should hammer on this theme whenever they talk about the way health insurance works in this country. What we really have is "sick care" rather than health care. People with health insurance are not necessarily encouraged to stay healthy by, for instance, joining a gym, stopping smoking, losing weight, getting regular physicals, engaging in wellness programs, eating healthier foods, and so forth. Rather, they are paying for the assurance that that when they get sick or are injured someone will help them pay their medical bills.

The so-called "public option" (a terrible name) needs to be described as a low-cost form of health insurance that will create incentives for people to get primary medical care, engage in personal behaviors that encourage wellness and disease prevention, pay doctors and hospitals for keeping people healthy rather than treating them when they get sick, and employing the best evidence-based treatments available in a coordinated and efficient manner. It should be called something like "WellCare" or "Amerihealth" to give it the right vibes. Above all the pitch should emphasize that it is not a substitute for individuals taking personal responsibility for their own health. Rather it will operate so as to make it easier for folks to do so by creating positive incentives that will lead to better health outcomes and lower costs for everyone.

The outstanding success of the "Cash for Clunkers" program demonstrates that even proud and independent-minded Americans are not averse to accepting government help in doing what they should be doing for themselves anyway. "Sure," they will say, "I probably made a mistake when I bought that Ford Expedition ten years ago, never expecting that the price of gasoline would go over $4.00 a gallon." "But, I am damn happy to accept a government check for $4500 to trade it in for a Toyota Corolla. If the banks can get billions why can't I get a few thousand?" The moral hazard here, that people will continue to make stupid consumer decisions expecting that the government will bail them out, is not so serious, and most of us will just shrug our shoulders and accept the risk.

But what about the people who never bought an SUV in the first place, or who never smoked, who exercise regularly, eat fresh healthy food, invested their money prudently and cautiously, and generally accepted personal responsibility for taking good care of themselves? What are we getting? We are getting screwed. We did the right thing, after all, and accepted our personal responsibility and also some share of our social responsibilities. We could at least get a little credit, you know.

There is, in fact, no contradiction between accepting personal responsibility for caring for oneself, and also accepting a share of social responsibility for caring for others. Generally speaking, living a life of personal responsibility is an achievement for which individuals can be justly proud. Living such a life is also, generally speaking, a precondition for accepting one's social responsibilities, particularly those that involve caring for others. Accepting the burdens of parenthood and raising children is the primary way in which most adults express their social responsibility, their willingness to make sacrifices for the good of others. This is fine and good, and responsible parents should get a lot of credit.

Some individuals extend their social responsibility beyond the confines of their own family, and accept some responsibility for fixing some of the "big problems of society". Such people manifest a higher virtue by voluntarily "taking responsibility" for helping to "repair the world", but those who stop at personal responsibility and familial responsibility are not to be faulted on that account. These folks understand that by taking care of themselves and their loved ones, they are doing a good service to society by not having to ask anyone else for help in what should properly be their own responsibility.

These folks don't get enough credit; we should let them know that by caring well for themselves and their families they are fulfilling their primary social responsibilities. But, they might also need to be reminded that their are lots of folks who are not so fortunate, who for one reason or another, mostly not because of their own choices and actions, are unable to fully take care of themselves and for minor children who depend on them, and could use some help getting to a position of self-reliance. Framed in this way, most people will respond with compassion rather than with scorn or indifference. Particularly if one invokes the principle of reciprocity (popularly known as the Golden Rule) and proposes that they themselves should be entitled to similar help if ever they falter and cannot fully take care of themselves. We humans are wired for reciprocal altruism; we just have to figure out how to activate these responses when mutual aid is mediated by large governmental institutions.

If people take personal responsibility for themselves, and accept a fair share of their social responsibilities, they should be lauded and indeed rewarded for doing so. The problem, once again, is one of perverse incentives. We are embracing policies that discourage people from taking personal responsibility when we should be doing the opposite. The idea that our major institutions should be incentivizing and rewarding both personal and social responsibility is a winner both politically and morally.

So why don't more politicians get it?

Addendum 9/12/09: This New York Times story explains what happened to the idea of moral hazard in the financial industry. It morphed into I.B.G.

Death Squads, American Style

The term 'death squad' entered the lexicon back in the 1980s when it was used to refer to gangs of off-duty military personnel who were hired by right-wing military dictatorships in countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador to kidnap and murder people they suspected of sympathizing with the Marxist guerrillas who were fighting the army in the mountains.

In a story published in the New York Times this week it has been revealed that in 2004 the CIA hired the private military contractor Blackwater to organize a program to locate and assassinate suspected Al Qaeda operatives. The program was top secret and Vice President Cheney allegedly specifically ordered that Congressional oversight committees not be informed of its existence.

It seems like there might still be more surprises in store for those of us who have been paying attention to Bush and Cheney's little shop of horrors. The list of human rights violations and abuses that can be laid at the feet of the Bush administration is long and includes: the “disappearance” of suspected terrorists into CIA-run secret prisons, the denial of the right of habeas corpus of detainees, the use of ‘enhanced’ interrogation methods, a.k.a. torture, such as water-boarding, sleep deprivation, and auditory stimulus overload by military interrogators and the CIA, the indefinite detention without charges or trials of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo, the construction of the concept of “unlawful enemy combatants”, the use of Predator drones to assassinate suspected terrorists, the detention of an American citizen, Jose Padilla, without charges or trial for more than three years, the irregular renditions of persons such as Maher Arar to countries such as Syria, Egypt and Yemen where they have been tortured, the torture of persons such as Khalid Al Masri in secret CIA prisons, ill-treatment and deaths of detainees held at Baghram airbase in Afghanistan, and the secret and illegal eavesdropping on American citizens by the National Security Agency in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, among others.

A number of these human rights abuses have been the subject of several high-level special reports on U.S. human rights violations prepared by the charter-based bodies of the United Nations. In the report dealing with respect for civil and political rights while conducting counter-terrorism, the Special Rapporteur for the Mission to the United States of America, Martin Scheinin, identified, "serious situations of incompatibility between international human rights obligations and the counter-terrorism law and practice of the United States. Such situations include the prohibition against torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; the right to life; and the right to a fair trial” (Scheinin 2007). He has also identified deficiencies in United States law and practice pertaining to "the principle of non-refoulement; the rendition of persons to places of secret detention; the definition of terrorism; non-discrimination; checks in the application of immigration laws; and the obtaining of private records of persons and the unlawful surveillance of persons, including a lack of sufficient balances in that context"(23).

It is now clear that senior officials of the government of the United States conspired to break the law, and that the Department of Justice was complicit in these crimes and their cover-up. The New York Times stated unequivocally that "some of the very highest officials of the land not only approved the abuse of prisoners, but participated in the detailed planning of harsh interrogations and helped create a legal structure to shield from justice those who followed orders," and this was done "with President Bush's clear knowledge and support"(20 April 2008). The President’s top national security advisors, Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, held dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to enhanced interrogation methods, including brutal methods of abuse that all civilized nations consider to be torture.

A report issued by the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 11, 2008, the day after the sixtieth anniversary of the passage of the Universal Declaration of human rights, concluded that, “the authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques by senior officials was both a direct cause of detainee abuse and conveyed the message that it was okay to mistreat and degrade detainees in U.S. custody,” saying also that, “The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of ‘a few bad apples’ acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees”.

These reports, and many others dealing with the human rights record of the Bush administration, demonstrate that there is ample reason to believe that senior officials of the George W. Bush administration, conspired to systematically violate human rights, broke U.S. laws, and authorized the commission of war crimes.

Yet calls for accountability for these crimes, even for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate them, have been pushed aside by the Obama administration again and again using the specious argument that it is better to look forward than back. But the only way we can hope for a American future in which these kinds of abuses will not be repeated is by fully investigating what happened during the Bush-Cheney administration and holding the architects of these policies accountable.

Rather than misinformed people screaming at their Congressmen about "death panels" that were never even contemplated, progressives should be screaming about the government-sponsored "death squads" that were authorized by the former administration. Where is the sense of moral outrage on the left? Why are progressives allowing themselves to be "slow-walked" into accepting the fact that the Obama adminstration is allowing political considerations to interfere with the investigation of these crimes and the administration of justice?

Addendum: August 31, 2009

We now learn that Blackwater was supposed to provide foreigners for surveillance and support for death squads so as to make sure there were no "American fingerprints" on these secret operations. Fortunately, the program never became operational and was downgraded and finally ended before anyone was assassinated.
See this report in the Huffington Post for details.

Big Lies

If different months of the year reflect different personality types, then August must be the month for idiots and liars. All of the reasonable and responsible people are away on vacation so the field of play is left to the nutcases. This is particularly evident this August in the so-called debate (really what has become a shouting match) between the proponents and opponents of health care reform. The pity of it is that with all of the lies and disinformation that are being spread by opponents of health care reform, and the need by the supporters to constantly rebut them, ordinary people are being prevented from learning the facts and hearing about the real issues.

President Obama, who is an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, should recall that he once said that you can "Fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time". Lincoln, however, failed to note that in a democratically-governed society all you need to do is to fool most of the people most of the time, and you can get what you want.

That is the strategy that the Republican Party (the GOP -- Guardians of Profit) and their allies in the health insurance industry seem to be counting on to derail Obama's health financing reform agenda. Their preferred tactic is known in the public opinion and propaganda industry as the "Big Lie". It is really very simple to use and usually works quite well.

All one needs to do is to invent a lie so preposterous that most people will think that no one would ever say such a thing if it wasn't true. It is important that the lie be something that induces fear in people and that it be made to seem that the supposed fearful thing is being kept secret. Then one gets a lot of important people to repeat the lie over and over again at every opportunity.

This is why one is hearing about "death panels" and FEMA concentration camps as elements of Obama's health care proposal, and why loyal Republican operatives can be relied upon to repeat these canards on every cable channel new show that will give them a pulpit from which to broadcast their propaganda talking points. When one "big lie" gets debunked they just invent another one and the beat goes on. But all the while the real issues are never discussed as the electorate is being whip-sawed between the conflicting emotions of fear and hope.

The biggest lie the opponents of reform are using these days is the claim that America has "the best health care system in the world." If this is true, then of course there is no reason to reform it and doing so is only likely to make it worse. But this is a outright lie as any objective assessment of the facts would reveal. The three basic criteria for judging national health care delivery systems are access, quality, and cost.

The U.S. health care system does not provide universal access, as for instance, does France or Britain; the health outcomes for the American people are worse that those of many countries, for instance, Canada or Denmark, and the cost per patient to deliver poor care to only a portion of the population is the highest in the developed world. By any objective assessment the U.S. health care system is one of the worst systems found in any rich country, but many people continue to solemnly repeat the claim that it is the best. They do so because the statement has a positive emotional valence to patriotic people, because believing it undermines the argument for reform, and because they know that if it they repeat it often enough with enough sincere feeling, a lot of people will believe it is true.

The political game this month is to see which side can nudge the poll numbers a few percentage points in one direction or another. Recent polls have shown opponents of reform slightly ahead. After the Congress returns from its August recess, there will be a final "scrum" in which compromises will be accepted and deals will be made, and some kind of health care bill will be cobbled together. For members of Congress who are on the fence, or just being cagey, a shift in public opinion about health care reform could sway their votes and mean the difference between legislative victory or defeat for Obama's initiative.

Some commentators have compared the angry demonstrations and shouting at recent town hall meetings to the tactics used by fascist brown shirts in the 1930s. At the same time, Republican propagandists have suggested that Obama and the Democrats are Nazis; Rush Limbaugh has described Obama's healthcare logo as "right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook". Last week someone painted a swastika on the door of democratic congressman David Scott, and a woman at a town brawl demonstration held up a sign with a picture of Obama's face superimposed on a picture of a Nazi stormtrooper.

The opponents of health care reform, having unleashed the dogs "Fear" and "Anger" in order to prevent proponents of reform from actually answering questions from their constituents, are innoculating themselves against the charge that they are behaving like fascists by leveling this same accusation preemptively at their targets. Also, of course, everyone hates Hitler and the Nazis so getting that label to stick to Obama will carry a lot of emotional weight.

All of these tactics and techniques are well known. An earlier politician wrote the following about the use of big lies:

All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true in itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.

The author of his quote is Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X).

Addendum: For the story about who exactly were the expert liars who conspired together to create the myth of death panels see this story in the New York Times.

Obama's Strategy for Health Care Reform

Thus far the Obama administration has been letting Congress take the lead in framing legislation to bring about fundamental change in the way Americans get their health care paid for. The bills being developed in Congress currently feature a "public option" that would create a government run and financed health insurance fund that would compete with the big private health insurers, like Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, and the other for profit health insurance companies. These companies, as well as the for profit hospitals, the manufacturers of medical equipment and supplies, the big pharmaceutical companies are now launching a massively funded public relations campaign designed to get rid of the public option idea and go on with "business as usual" for another few decades.

At the same time, the Obama plan has ticked off progressives because he and his democratic allies in Congress have decided at the outset to take a "single-payer" option off the table. There was a good discussion of this on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now show the other day with Bernie Sanders and the President of the California Nurses Union, Rose Ann DeMoro in which they both expressed frustration and anger about Congress not taking the single-payer option seriously. The single-payer option is the only possible plan that offers significant cost savings while also ensuring universal coverage. It has been empirically tested and refined in Canada and other countries that have long ago accepted the proposition that health care is a human right, to another opportunity to make a killing in the market. There is a well-developed proposal for a system of national health insurance (see PNHP)

There is no good reason for Congress not to even consider a single-payer option. But perhaps this is a calculated political strategy. The insurance industry and their Republican allies in the Congress are already lining up to oppose the "public option" that they claim will eventually threaten the private insurance business. The public option plan does not have the advantages of the single-payer system in terms of cost saving and administratiive simplicity nor in terms of universality. But it does allow the private health insurance business to stay in existence to compete with a government financed insurance program. But the private insurers and their allies are already whining that by offerring the public a lower cost option for health insurance, the public option will eventually take over the market and price private companies out of the competition.

I believe that this argument is total bullshit -- did all private schools and colleges go out of business when state governments started funding schools? But in any case, what Obama ought to say to this argument is: "OK, if you guys won't let us have the public option which may eventually drive some of your insurance companies out of business, then we are putting the single-payer option back on the table and that is what we will be pushing through Congress this year." Your choice is between accepting a proposal that may put some of insurance companies out of business eventually, or one in which they will all be put out of business immediately. Your choice."

It is likely that if the Democrats in Congress and the President play this particular brand of political hard ball the Republicans will walk and refuse to vote for any plan. But once Al Franken gets seated, the Democrats have enough votes to pass it anyway, without any Republican support. If they avoid the 60 vote threshold by means of reconciliation they will need only 50 votes to pass it in the Senate, and they should be able to do that even if convervative Democrats such as Arlen Spector and Ben Nelson vote with the Republicans.

If the Republicans start screaming bloody murder about employing this tactic to get a long overdue national health insurance bill passed, I suggest that President Obama dispatch Rahm Emanuel to Capitol Hill to convey to them the immortal words that Vice President Dick Cheney said to Senator Patrick Leahy --- "You can go fuck yourselves".

Killing Abortion Doctors vs. "Killing Babies"

The murder of Dr. George Tiller is another demonstration (as if we needed one) why it is a mistake to allow idiots access to handguns. It also illustrates the illogical nature of the anti-abortionist argument that equates performing abortions with "killing children". Before he was murdered, allegedly by a right-wing extremist by the name of Scott Roeder, Dr. Tiller's name often came up on the Fox channel's show The O'Reilly Factor, where he was referred to as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

The term "baby" is used to refer to offspring of a certain age. I was my mother's baby at one point in my life, then I was her child, then her teenage son, and now I am her adult son. I am now called "middle-aged" a euphemism for "old". The terms "ovum", "embryo", "fetus" refer to mammalian offspring during gestation, that is, before they are born. The term "infant" refers to a newborn who is unable to speak. We use "toddler" for very young children who are just beginning to walk.

We can play semantic games with these words, for instance, we can say to a pouty teenager that they are "Acting like a baby," which will generally be taken as an insult. Calling a teenager a baby is misusing the language: if we take these terms in their literal and precise meaning, a teenager is not a baby. Similarly, calling a fetus a child is misusing the language. But here there is an obvious point that people are trying to make when they misuse the language in this way -- they are saying that they believe that fetuses (and perhaps ova and embryos) have the same moral status as babies.

Rather than playing these semantic games, why not just address this question frankly? The reason is is that once one does so it becomes clear that it is not at all obvious that it is true that fetuses have the same moral status as children. Simply calling fetuses children begs the central question in the debate over abortion. Unfortunately, however, some people seem to believe that begging this question is a way of answering it. That is, they believe that if one repeats the mantra "Abortion is killing babies." often enough with enough sincere conviction, it becomes true.

There is no similar problem for the sentence "Killing doctors who perform abortions is murder." This is quite literally and obviously true because no one in their right mind doubt that doctors who perform abortions are persons who have certain moral and legal rights which are violated when they are deliberately killed. This is a settled question of ethics and law.

There are, however, some people who seem to believe that it is morally justifiable to murder doctors who perform abortions in order to save the lives of "babies", by which they mean fetuses. Here is where the misuse of the language leads to moral confusion and error, not to mentioned incitement to hatred and violence.

It is not a settled question as to whether fetuses are persons who have certain moral or legal rights which are violated when the women who are gestating them decide to end their pregnancies. It is a hotly contested question subject to intense debate. To describe the fetuses who die as the result of abortions as "babies" or "children" treats that debate as though it were settled, when in fact it is not.

What is settled as a matter of law is that it is legal in the United States of America for women to seek and have abortions. One may not like this law, or agree with it, but it is in fact the law. Wishing the law were different than it is does not change the law. Calling fetuses "babies" and calling abortion "murder" does not change the law. It only serves to mislead people and to incite hatred against women who seek abortions and doctors who provide them with these medical services.

The murder of Dr. Tiller illustrates that words can be harmful. From what I can gather from press reports, the person accused of his murder believed that abortion was "baby-killing" and therefore that Dr. Tiller was literally a "murderer". Since the law was not going to punish him for his crimes or prevent him from committing similar ones in the future, the murderer decided to become a vigilante and give Dr. Tiller what he deserved himself, namely that he deserved to die for performing abortions. Nor was this the first time Dr. Tiller was targeted by members of the "pro-life" movement. Nor was he the only abortion doctor to have been murdered --David Gunn was gunned down in Florida in 1993 --and Barnett Slepian was slain in 1998. These killings reveal a pattern: the reasoning that allows some people to reach the conclusion that it is permissible to murder abortion providers is a trifecta of moral errors.

First, as I already noted, it is wrong to simply assume that abortions are murder. Second, it is wrong to take the law into ones own hands. And third, it is wrong to suppose that death is an appropriate and ethical punishment for murder.

When one commits murder one violates another person's right to life. To deter and punish murder by having a private individual or state deliberately kill the offender is another violation of the right to life. I don't have time to argue the case for this here (see my "Death Penalty and the Forfeiture Thesis" in the Journal of Human Rights), but even murderers do not "forfeit" their right to life, and no one, neither private individuals nor states, have the rightful authority to cause that right to be forfeited. In particular, vigilantes like Scott Roeder do not have this power.

I do hope that if Roeder is convicted of this heinous crime that he is severely punished, for instance, that he spend the rest of his life in prison. But I am glad that he will not be subject to the death penalty under Kansas law.

I suppose that this makes me "pro-life".

The Golden Rule

There is…one rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples – a belief that isn’t new; that isn’t black or white or brown; that isn’t Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It’s a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It’s a faith in other people, and it’s what brought me here today.

--President Barack Obama, speaking in Cairo Egypt, June 4, 2009

The Golden Rule (GR): Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is widely accepted as a valid moral rule. However, it is fairly easy to show that it yields incorrect and inadequate moral guidance in many cases. But there are reasons why it has been so widely accepted and continues to be taught, and these reasons have to do with its very incompleteness as a principle of ethics, and its connection with the idea of reciprocity.

The GR can be stated in either a positive or a negative manner:

GR+: Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you.

GR-: Do not do unto others as you would not have done unto you.

In the first version it states a principle of positive duty while in the second it states one of negative duty. However, it is possible to state the GR in a way that is neutral between acts and omissions:

GR0: Treat others as you would have others treat you (where "treatment" can be understood as involving both acts and omissions).

By employing the subjunctive "would" the GR is quite different in its implications than the principle:

GR%: Treat others as they have treated you.

The GR% is a principle of pure reciprocity. Using it prescribes returning kindness for kindness and cruelty for cruelty, presumably in the same proportions as they are received from others. One might regard the GR% as "fair" in that it would rule out repaying a kindness with cruelty, and also, repaying cruelty with kindness. But unless you have already been acted upon by others in some way, there is no way to interpret the GR%. The change to talking about how one would want to be treated, obviates this problem, but as we shall see, creates other problems.

Also by way of preliminary clarification, one should understand the GR as having implicit universal quantifiers:

GRQ: Everyone should always treat all others as they themselves would wish to be treated.

Making the quantifiers explicit allows us to see more clearly why GR provides incorrect moral guidance in many cases.

Consider the rich man who does not wish to be given money as charity in order to feed his children (because he doesn't need it) who reasons that since he does not want to be treated as a recipient of charity, others, who might be much poorer than he, should not either. Or consider a case from my own experience. I would like my wife to attend my lectures because I would want to get her honest opinions on how I did. She, on the other hand, has repeatedly told me that she does not want me to attend her lectures since she thinks I would distract her and make her more nervous. If I followed the GR I would attend her lectures and if she followed the GR she would not attend my lectures. But this is clearly wrong: the right thing to do is for me not to attend her lectures and for her to attend my lectures.

In order to be successfully applied the GR assumes that there is a symmetry in the conceptions of the good between the agent and the patient, that others would want to be treated as oneself wants to be treated, but this is obviously untrue in many cases.

But, it will be objected, the cases I have chosen to illustrate a problem with the GR are framed at the wrong level of abstraction. Rather than framing the application in terms of specific types of actions (giving charity or attending lectures) the GR should be understood as recommending that one treat other persons in accordance with their own conception of their good. Since I would want others to respect my own conception of my good I should assume that others would likewise want that I respect their conceptions of their own good.

So then we might restate the GR as: "Everyone ought always treat all others in accordance with their own conceptions of their own good" or more succinctly:

GR*: Treat others as they want to be treated.

GR* is an improvement over GR because rather than assuming that the agent's own preferences are automatically a good guide to the patient's preferences, it asks us to consider the patient's preferences directly. But one immediately sees there is another problem with this formulation. What if the moral patient involved has a mistaken view of what their own good consists in?

Suppose Janine has a fifteen year old son, call him Oscar, who thinks it is in his best interest to drop out of high school and get a job as a gas station attendant. Janine, as Oscar's parent, would be acting irresponsibly to simply agree to this idea. Oscar has a mistaken view of what his good consists in and his own wishes in this case ought to be set aside in favor of Janine's more adequate conception of her son's good.

The problem with GR* is that in some cases one ought to treat people in ways that those people should ideally wish to be treated rather than in the ways they actually do wish to be treated. So we need to revise the GR once again:

GR*I: Treat others as they should ideally want to be treated.

But now we can clearly see that in order to apply GR*I one needs to have a theory of the good which tells one what it is persons ideally should want for themselves. Since the GR purports to be a moral rule or principle, let's assume that the term "should want to be treated" can be understood as meaning how he or she "morally ought to be treated." On this interpretation, the GR tells us something uncontroversial but also rather unhelpful, namely that we ought to treat people the way they ought to be treated.

To avoid this tautology, those who employ the GR as a guide to moral action must have a substantive ethical theory which describes the kinds of treatment which persons are morally entitled to receive. The GR*I will thus yield rather different prescriptions depending on which moral theory the agent has. If the agent is an ethical egoist he would want to be treated in ways that maximize his self interest. As Brian Medlin points out, it is doubtful that this principle can be consistently universalized. If the agent is an act utilitarian he wound want others to treat him so as to maximize the utility of all concerned on each occasion in which he is acted upon. On this view, the agent must be prepared to accept the fact that his or her own interests may be sacrificed at the altar of utility. If the agent is a contractarian he will want that others keep their agreements with him in cases in which he keeps his agreements with them. In this case, the relationship between the GR and the principle of reciprocity comes into focus. To the extent that the rules of morality can be viewed as conventions that are chosen and followed because they are in the long run mutually beneficial, the GR functions as a way of reminding us to be faithful to these agreements and the practices they support. If you would want others to keep the promises they make to you, then you are required to keep the promises you make to others. If the agent is a Kantian he will want others to treat him as an end in himself. If he is a virtue theorist he will want others to treat him so as to promote his eudaimonia, and so forth.

Depending on the moral theory of the agents who apply the GR*I, it will yield rather different moral prescriptions, and this feature of the GR may, as Paul Weiss has observed, be the basis of its nearly universal appeal, "because it allows and even tempts as many interpretations as there are modes of self-regard and systems of ethics" (Weiss 1941, 421).

But the GR can also support quite wicked actions if only the agent is willing to be treated in a similar fashion. If my ethical theory prescribes wanton murder and mayhem, and I am willing to be the recipient of such actions myself, then the GR does not rule it out. According to Weiss's analysis, for the GR to function as a moral rule three conditions must also be met:

(a) We know what we want.

(b) What we want is identical with what we ought to desire.

(c) What is good for us is also good for the rest. (Weiss 422).

The key conditions are the second and third – that we know how ideally we should want to be treated, and this idea of the good is valid for others. But how can we prove (a) and (b)? Kant provides at least the beginning of an answer. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) he observes:

Let it not be thought that the common "quod tibit non vis fiery, etc." could serve here as the rule or principle. For it is only a deduction from the former, though with several limitations; it cannot be a universal law, for it does not contain the principle of duties to oneself, nor of duties of benevolence to others (for many a one would gladly consent that others should not benefit him, provided only that he might be excused from showing benevolence to them), not finally that of duties of strict obligation to one another, for on this principle the criminal might argue against the judge who punishes him, and so on. (note 7)

In the Second Formulation of the Categorical Imperative he proposes a different principle, that persons (both ourselves and others) be treated as ends in themselves rather than as means only. We can then reinterpret the GR as follows:

CI2: Everyone ought always treat all other persons as ends in themselves rather than as means only.

CI2 says that one should always regard other persons as rational agents in their own right who have a good in themselves and for themselves. In the case of competent adults, this is usually understood as entailing that one respect the other person's autonomous wishes concerning themselves. So, in the case of competent adult moral agents, CI2 is equivalent to GR* -- we should treat other adults in the ways in which they autonomously wish to be treated. This reading of the GR follows on the assumption that competent adult moral agents are the best judges of what is in their own good consists in. In cases involving minors or adults with impaired judgment or mental capacity, the alternate rule would be to do what is in their best interest, which is equivalent to GR*I in that it allows a substituted judgment as to what a person's good consists in. It does not, however, automatically assume that the agent's conception of his or her own good is a reasonable approximation to the patient's good. If the patient is, say, suffering from advanced dementia, then if I am their caregiver I ought to take care of various tasks for them, such as paying their bills, but I would not consider it in my best interest to have them take care of paying my bills for me. Kant's Categorical Imperative can thus be understood as an improved version of the GR. It is an improvement because rather than relying on a subjective and perhaps idiosyncratic conception of the good which an agent may have and which the agent may or may not share with the patient, it proposes a general conception of the good for rational moral agents that could in principle be embraced by all rational moral agents.

Kant claims that the second formulation of the CI is equivalent to the first formulation: Act only on that maxim that one can at the same time will to be a universal law. So then can the GR pass the universalization test? Not, it seems in the standard version, since I would not want other people to treat me in accordance with their conception of their good in cases in which their conception was mistaken or in cases in which it disagreed with my conception of my good. Willing the standard version of the GR would result in a contradiction of my will since in cases in which my conception of my good implied A and other agent's conception of his good implied ~A, I would be willing both A & ~A by willing that both of us follow the GR. I can, however, will the GR*I without contradiction since in this case if I am a competent and autonomous moral agent I would be willing that others treat me in accordance with what I conceive to be in my own best interests, and if I am not autonomous, then I would be willing that they treat me in accordance with what I should regard as in my best interests. In both of these cases, other agents would be directed to treat me as an end in myself whose best interests are morally considerable and should be taken into account in their decisions about how to treat me.

But Kant's theory provides only a "thin" conception of the good. A utilitarian theory attempts to put some additional flesh on the bare bones of respect for persons. Utilitarians often argue that in deciding how one ought to act one ought to take into consideration the interests and preferences of other persons as well as one's own interests and preferences. They also agree that one should be impartial and give equal consideration to the interests of other persons. In these particular respects, the GR captures the notion of equality of consideration that is found in utilitarianism. GR* expresses a moral rule that is similar to the Principle of Utility (PU) as understood by a preference utilitarian. If we assume that utility can be measured in terms of preference satisfaction, the preference utilitarian version of the GR would be to "Do unto others so as to maximize aggregate preference satisfaction of all concerned, where each person's preferences should be considered to have equal weight to one's own." This is similar to GR* which advises us to treat others as they want to be treated. However, the idea that people's preferences provide an adequate conception of the good is highly doubtful for reasons already discussed.

Perhaps only a fully developed virtue ethics can provide us with an adequate conception of the personal good that would apply with equal force to oneself as well as to others. According to the virtue ethics view what we ought ideally wish for ourselves is what will make us better people; but "better" in the virtue sense, that is, what will make us more just, more courageous, more charitable, more wise, and so forth. Ideally we should all wish that we become the most virtuous people we can be. This leads to a version of GR*I which tells us that we ought to treat others in ways that will make them more virtuous persons. Ideally, everyone ought to desire that they become more virtuous persons, since on this view, the attainment of virtue is considered to be the highest good for human beings. We should aim for eudaimonia (moral virtue, flourishing, or happiness) both for ourselves as well as for others.

This then leads to another version of the GR:

GR*E: Treat others so as to promote their eudaimonia.

GR*E is more adequate than the earlier versions, but is still lacking as a practical moral rule because it is not easy to interpret and apply. The specific actions that one ought to take in order to fulfill this maxim will vary depending on both the characteristics of the agent and also those of the patients to whom the actions are directed. Rather than a guide to practical action, the GR*E can function as a way of interpreting the Golden Rule so as to fulfill Weiss's conditions (b) and (c), but applying it depends on our knowing what virtue consists in and how best to promote it.

REFERENCES

Paul Weiss. "The Golden Rule." Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 38. No. 16 (1941): 421-430.

The Republican Party

I must confess to being rather pleased with the way the Congressional Republicans comported themselves during the recent debate over the economic stimulus plan. They convincingly demonstrated once again that as a party they are intellectually bankrupt and have absolutely no new ideas. They are sticking to the same low taxes + small government ideology that got us into this economic mess. They continue to use lies and distortion and overheated rhetoric to disguise the fact that they see their job as blocking progress.

The majority of the people voted last November for change and hope. But the Republicans stood up resolutely for "No change" from the failed economic policies of the past, and "No hope" for preventing a further decline of the economic situation. While the President and the Democrats were busy trying to figure out a way the stop the bleeding, the Republicans were standing around trying to prevent the emergency plan from succeeding and complaining about how many bandages were being used.

I really do hope they keep it up. The politics of obstruction, their putting party ideology ahead of what is best for the country and its people, their insistence on digging even deeper into a political dry hole, is going to lead the Republican party further into the political wilderness. If they keep this up the Republican Party will end up as a club for angry white men from the South.

So my advice to the Republican leadership is "Keep up the good work!"

Vulnerability and International Humantarian Law

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their optional protocols contain many elements that clearly derive from considerations of relative or special vulnerability. The VCP states that:

Moral agents acquire special responsibilities to protect the interests of moral patients to the extent that those moral patients are especially vulnerable or in some way depending on the actions and choices of those moral agents. (for more on the VCP see Ethics of Global Responsibility)

The core value of protecting human dignity found in international humanitarian law (IHL) parallels international human rights law (IHRL) but its principles are designed to apply in situations of warfare or armed conflict. The key principle is that of distinction or civilian immunity which requires that,

Parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants in order to spare civilian population and property. Neither the civilian population as such nor civilian persons shall be the object of attack. Attacks shall be directed solely against military objectives. (Crimes of War - An Educator's guide. ).

This principle, and the other core principles of IHL, such as concerning the treatment of wounded combatants or those who have surrendered, deal with what in just war theory is called jus in bello, that is, the law dealing with the moral and lawful means of war-fighting, not with the justification parties to the conflict have (or believe they have) for engaging in armed conflict, which is called jus ad bellum. Both parties to armed conflicts are equally bound by the principles IHL, whether or not they have a "just cause" for going to war. Moreover, the fact that one party to a conflict may have breached IHL and have committed war crimes does not give license to the other party to do likewise. All parties are bound by IHL at all times.

The VCP provides an ethical basis for the principles of IHL in that in situations of war and armed conflict civilians are clearly relatively vulnerable to harm as compared to armed, trained, and equipped soldiers. Civilians, whether they be women, children, or men who are unarmed and are not presenting a threat to military forces, must be protected because of their relative vulnerability. Similarly, soldiers who are wounded are vulnerable and must be protected, and so are soldiers who have surrendered and laid down their arms. It is a war crime and a violation of IHL to kill former combatants who have surrendered.

It is also quite counterproductive since if the opposing forces do not trust that if they are captured or forced to surrender they will be treated humanely, they have a greater incentive to fight to the death. In the closing days the WWII German soldiers more willingly surrendered to Allied forces than they did to the Soviet Army because the latter was under orders to "give no quarter" and take no prisoners.

The Geneva Conventions establish four general principles that are designed to regulate armed conflict so as to balance the attainment of legitimate military objectives with the protection of noncombatants:

1. Military Necessity: IHL seeks to ensure that there is a considered balance between civilian cost and military gain. The concept of military necessity acknowledges that armed forces have a legitimate interest in winning a battle or war, and that they can take military actions required to defeat their opponent. However, military necessity is always constrained by the humanitarian rules of IHL. Military necessity can never be a justification for violating the other rules of international humanitarian law, since it is already allowed for within the law.

2. Humanity: A principle that forbids the inflicting of suffering, injury or destruction not necessary for military purposes. This principle sets the framework for much of international humanitarian law, including restrictions on attacking civilian targets, use of unnecessarily cruel weapons, and humane treatment of prisoners.

3. Distinction (civilian immunity): A principle that attacks should be directed only against military targets. Some potential objectives are granted immunity, namely the general civilian population, places, localities, or objects used solely for humanitarian, cultural, or religious purposes (hospitals, churches, mosques, schools, museums, etc). Such immunity is lost if these localities are used for enemy military purpose. Yet, there is always a presumption in favor of the immunity.

4. Proportionality: A principle relating means to ends, used to determine the lawfulness of any armed attack which causes civilian casualties. "Collateral or incidental damage occurs when attacks targeted at military objectives cause civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects." "As formulated in Additional Protocol I of 1977, attacks are prohibited if they cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, or damage to civilian objects that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage of the attack."(Ibid).

It is important to think clearly about these principles in order to understand the criticisms that international human rights organizations raise about the behavior of parties involved in armed conflict, since they base their judgments on these principles IHL.

So, for examples, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and indeed every responsible human rights organization, has condemned the firing to Qassam rockets by Hamas militants into Israeli towns and cities as a war crime. The reason is that these weapons are inherently indiscriminate and they are not being used against military targets; they are being used against the civilian population of Israel. No one would for a minute take seriously a claim by Hamas fighters that they are, in fact, not intending to target civilians, but only Israeli military targets, but that, unfortunately, the only weapons that they have available are inaccurate and sometimes miss their intended targets and cause collateral damage to civilians.

If a weapon is inherently indiscriminate and is likely to cause civilian causalities that are disproportionate to any conceivable military advantage that might be gain from their use, they should not be used. It is not sufficient, in other words, for parties to a conflict to merely claim that they are not intending that their weapons kill or injure civilians; they must act so as to insure that civilians are protected from harm unless "military necessity" requires otherwise. The act of firing rockets into cities is clearly not required by military necessity, so this case is an easy call for the human rights NGOs.

Other cases present greater challenges in applying IHL to concrete events. In recent days both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports criticizing the Israeli Defense Forces for using artillery shells containing white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas of Gaza. (http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGNAU200901199045&lang=e&rss=recentnews.)

White phosphorus is a highly incendiary substance that ignites on contact with oxygen. According to the Amnesty researchers who collected the evidence of its being used,

"Yesterday, we saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army," said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert who is in Gaza as part of the four-person Amnesty International team.

"White phosphorus is a weapon intended to provide a smokescreen for troop movements on the battlefield," said Cobb-Smith. "It is highly incendiary, air burst and its spread effect is such that it that should never be used on civilian areas.”

"Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories said that such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's densely populated residential neighbourhoods is inherently indiscriminate. "Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," she said."

In recent days, before the cease fire, white phosphorus artillery shells landed near an UNRWA compound and al Quds hospital causing fires and civilian causalties.

We warned the Israelis hour by hour through the night of the vulnerabilities here as the shells came closer and closer, and shrapnel was coming into the compound on a regular occasion," John Ging, UNWRA's Gaza director of operations, told the media. "Nonetheless, we have now been subjected to these direct hits."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apologized for the attack, but said Israeli forces had come under fire from the UN compound. "It is absolutely true that we were attacked from that place, but the consequences are very sad and we apologize for it," he said. (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/16/israel-stop-shelling-crowded-gaza-city)

The doctrine of "military necessity" is sufficiently vague as to make it a difficult call as to whether the behavior of the IDF in this case was in fact a war crime. If indeed it is true that there were Hamas fighters attacking IDF soldier from or near the UNWRA site, then it is possible that military necessity required the use of these weapons in order to protect IDF soldiers on the battlefield.

Nevertheless, both AI and HRW have called for the cessation of the use of white phosphorus shells in Gaza, based largely on the pattern of evidence that the use of white phosphorus shells in crowded civilians areas is likely violate the principle of discrimination:

Human Rights Watch believes that the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles. Air bursting of white phosphorus artillery spreads 116 burning wafers over an area between 125 and 250 meters in diameter, depending on the altitude of the burst, thereby exposing more civilians and civilian infrastructure to potential harm than a localized ground burst.(http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/10/israel-stop-unlawful-use-white-phosphorus-gaza).

On January 7, 2009 an IDF spokesman told CNN, "I can tell you with certainty that white phosphorus is absolutely not being used." But on January 17th AI's researchers found indisputable evidence that it has been used in Gaza. The BBC reported on January 15th that white phosphorus shells had been used against the UN compound, and that doctors in hospitals had been treating many civilians with serious and unusually painful burns that are consistent with exposure to white phosphorus. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7831424.stm)

It appears that the IDF may not have been wholly truthful when it denied its use of this weapon, but of course, control of information about battlefield methods and tactics is standard operating procedure. But, given the evidence, it is hardly credible that the IDF took every reasonable precaution to prevent civilian casualties in the Gaza conflict. It is not sufficient to claim that civilian casualties in Gaza were not intended and that they are regrettable: international humanitarian law requires that the strong take every reasonable precaution to protect the weak, defenseless, and vulnerable from unnecessary harm and injury. Given the high number of civilian casualties produced the the Gaza war, it is evident that the IDF did not do this.

The fact that Hamas is also guilty of war crimes, and that it may have employed civilians as human shields, a practice that is also a war crime and a violation of IHL, cannot be used to condone or excuse Israeli violations of international humanitarian law. Israel is responsible for its own behavior. As the smoke clears and reveals the damage produced by this conflict, I expect it will become increasing clear to unbiased observers that the Israeli military action produced an unacceptably disproportionate number of civilian casualties relative to the military objectives it achieved.