Non-Intervention

I was talking with a friend recently about the Australian Defence Force, and whether it was just that - a defence force. We seemed to be in agreement that it was an offensive force, yet I, unlike my friend, saw this to be a good thing. I am not a big fan of the policy of non-intervention - it seems to me irresponsible to stand by idly by and let evil run its course. They say, 'Evil triumphs because good men do nothing', but I think the man who does nothing is part of the evil, and can’t be separated from it.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we all need to go sticking their hand into every dispute we know about. For example, hindsight shows us that the American intervention in Vietnam escalated a small scale conflict into a huge scale war. It increased involvement from major Communist powers, brought in far more destructive weaponry and ended up costing millions of lives. But where we have the capability, we also have the responsibility to prevent evil.

I can think of a number of reasons I can think of that are given as a defence for passivity:

(1) The Postmodern View - given that right and wrong are products of a society s culture and heritage and therefore there is no universal right/wrong. Because of this, one culture can not criticise another based upon its own understanding of morality. This leads to the tag of neo-colonialism whenever the need for intervention arrives.
(2) Karma – if you believe ‘what goes around comes around’ then any suffering that you witness is the just return for somebody’s wickedness. Thus, to intervene would be to divert the divine course of justice, creating more unbalance.
(3) The Pacifist View – there are plenty of people out there who seem to think that ‘violence is never the answer’. Among the advocates of such a view are the Christian ‘peace churches’, such as the Church of the Brethren, the Mennonites, and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), who somehow got in their head that Jesus promoted non-violence.

On the other hand, we have some strong reasons for being interventionist:

(1) Utilitarian View – ‘the end justifies the means’. If by intervening more suffering is prevented than created, then intervention is a moral imperative. However, one should not intervene if such an action will increase the overall suffering. This can be a useful way about thinking, but it can be unhelpful as you can’t really know how events will turn out (would the US have joined the Vietnam War if they had known the outcome?).
(2) Deontological View – if you hold that there are certain moral absolutes than it is necessary that you defend these absolutes, even if to do so would mean risking your life or the lives of others. So, if you actually think genocide is wrong, and that we ought to avert what is wrong, then you can not let genocide occur. Indeed, to not intervene would be to tacitly consent to genocide.

I wouldn’t be the first to criticise the isolationism of the Allied powers pre-WWII which allowed the rise of Hitler – whose views had been quite clearly stated in Mein Kampf. The decision not to intervene allowed the situation escalate into a world war. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who I consider something of an authority on the subject, claimed,
'There can only be a community of peace when it does not rest on lies and injustice. Where a community of peace endangers or chokes truth and justice, the community of peace must be broken and the battle joined.' [1]
When there is injustice, peace can not be present. First remove the injustice, paving the way for peace.


[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords

Intellectual Property

I realise my blog has received very little use for some time, not sure whether I think less during holidays or just am less motivated to write my thoughts. In either case, uni is back, so also is the blogging.

Just a warning, this one is rather long because I didn't have the motivation or ability to condense it.

I recently took part in a very interesting conversation on the topic of music piracy. A friend was adamant that illegally sharing music is immoral as it is a form of stealing. However another friend raised the validity of ideas of intellectual property on which copyright laws are based and which had been an assumption for the first friend.

The conversation got me thinking about what value I place on intellectual rights.

I am no economist, but I can see the rationality in intellectual property laws. If there are high monetary incentives for creativity in a society then people will continue to strive for new ideas, inventions, marketing methods etc. which leads to more efficient methods of production. If everyone was permitted to download music, books, research papers for free, then the musicians, authors, and researchers would have lower incentives to produce.[1]

So I may concede that it is rational for intellectual property to be defended by law. But is there any moral basis for it? I struggle to see knowledge as property, largely because it is a public good, not a private good. A public good is something that is both non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Knowledge is former because the use of knowledge does not preclude its use by others. For example, if I discover that lemon juice is the cure to cancer (which, incidentally, it is not) and you used this knowledge to cure yourself of cancer, then your neighbour would be no less capable of using this knowledge as a cure because it has been used once. However, the neighbour would be less capable of accessing lemon juice because there is a limited supply of lemons in the world and you had just used some of them up in curing yourself from cancer. The more lemons you used, the less access others would have to lemons, however the you can use the information all you like and it is no less abundant because of your use.

Knowledge is also non-excludable.[2] Once I tell you the cure for cancer is lemon juice there is no possible way I can take that information back from you; I can't prevent you from accessing it. However, I could steal your lemon juice to prevent you from accessing it. Ergo, knowledge is a public good, lemons are a private good. It makes no sense to claim ownership of a public good because this ownership is not naturally exclusive. It follows that you also can't steal knowledge, because no-one owns it.

Whilst someone can not own a public good, they can be credited with making it a public good. Knowledge can be discovered, air can be made clean by not polluting, safety can be maximised by punishing crime - but no-one can own knowledge, clean air or safety. You can't steal any of these public goods, but you can steal credit for them. The government could claim that increasing air quality is due to the new wind farm when instead it may be the result of favourable winds, or the judges can claim their 'zero tolerance' policy caused a reduction in crime which actually resulted from decreasing poverty, or I can claim that I, and not Pascal, discovered at a2 + b2 = c2. However, I would see this act of taking credit more as lying than stealing. But I would say it is immoral to wilfully take credit for another person's idea, not because the idea belongs to them, but because of dishonesty in such a claim.

In The Second Treatise of Government, John Locke uses an analogy of a fountain of water, which is abundant to the degree that we can call it a public good - you can take a pitcher of water from the fountain and it will not be noticeably affected, so that by taking out a pitcher of water your neighbour is no less capable of taking out a pitcher of water for themselves. So you can't claim ownership of the water in the fountain. However, you can claim ownership of the water in the pitcher because your "labour hath taken it out of the hands of Nature where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath appropriated it to [yourself]". For a while I was tempted to think the same of knowledge: a person who laboured to discover the fact that lemon juice cures cancer had taken what was common and made a claim to own it by their labour. If your pitcher of water was stolen, you could no longer take it to the market to sell it to me. If my knowledge that lemon juice cures cancer was stolen, I could no longer take it to the market to sell it. But they are not the same. In one case you have lost your pitcher of water, in the other you have only lost your ability to sell the knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Rather than having a private good stolen, this situation is analogous to the market closing down, or the price for pitchers of water falling to zero, so they could no longer be sold for profit. So it is with music/video piracy. The musician has not actually had anything taken from them when their song is illegally downloaded, rather they have lost the opportunity to sell that song to the offender.

But perhaps you think they have lost the fruits of their labour, to which they are entitled? I would also dispute an argument such as this. I don't feel as though people have a right to be paid for their ideas or their labour. Say there are two people, Bill and Ben. Bill is a very hard working farmer. With his work his produces wheat, which people like to buy, so Bill's labour earns him money. Ben is also very hard working. He spend all day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year looking for and collecting rocks that are spherical. Through his work he has amassed an impressive collection of spherical rocks. However, no-one likes to pay money for his rocks, so his labour doesn't earn him money. My point is that labour can be used to gain wages, but there is nothing fundamental about it which established that all who labour should be paid for labour. If a person desires money it is rational to look for work which society is willing to pay for. Now, if a person professionally comes up with bright ideas or writes songs and is able to get money from that, all good and well. But just because they did the labour to come up with that idea or song doesn't entitle them to wages for it.

I am still debating with myself the extent to which artists/thinkers/inventors are responsible for what they produce. As a researcher, for example, I can't make lemon juice the cure for cancer, it is simply an apparent fact (or in this case a fiction). Inventions, songs and novels, on the other hand, are not apparent facts, but the degree to which they are original creations is debatable. If I write a song (those who know me will know just how farfetched this hypothetical scenario is), I am taking things from the world around me - singular musical notes and singular words, as well as series of notes and series of words which, through language, can be deciphered to form ideas - and arranged them using my creativity and knowledge of what combinations of notes sound good and what words invoke thought and feeling. It would be a part-whole fallacy to say that just because each of the components of a song (words and notes) are unoriginal, the song itself is too, but still the extent of originality is vague. In examining this question let us take the example of Yesterday by The Beatles. The song was by The Beatles, credited to "Lennon /McCartney" but written and performed solely by Paul McCartney (with string quartet accompaniment). I had a read of Wikipedia and it appears that the song purportedly shows similarities in lyrics to a Nat 'King' Cole song, Answer Me and musical similarities to Georgia on My Mind. However, the rather lengthy description of how it came to be written shows that it was original, although McCartney himself suspected he had subconsciously plagiarised saying, "For about a month I went round to people in the music business and asked them whether they had ever heard it before. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought if no-one claimed it after a few weeks then I could have it."

How much has to be plagiarised before a song would be considered unoriginal? Only two lines bear any resemblance to the lyrics of Answer Me and that caused an accusation. Ian Hammond has written a quite detailed piece on the similarities with Georgia on My Mind yet considers these purely innocent, saying "Every Beatles' song is constructed largely out of style components, and thus borrows from other songs, as all songs must". This isn't simply a matter of part-whole, because obviously much less than whole - just a 5 or 10 second snippet - would be considered the artist's creation. I wonder how the copyright laws deal with the vagueness of all this.

Even seeing the extent to which songs are creations, I would say that the issue of plagiarism in music is one of dishonesty rather than stealing. But what of the question of illegally sharing music? I am not all that cluey on copyright laws, but I have been informed that you are permitted to make a singly hard copy and unlimited soft copies of a piece of music that you buy [3]. It is also legal to share these copies. However it becomes illegal when the same product is being used multiple times simultaneously. For example, I can put my Beatles album onto iTunes, and I can also lend that CD to a friend. But it would be illegal for me to listen to the album on iTunes whilst my friend is playing in the CD in their house.

Personally, I have always thought of sharing as a good thing, and I think the sole reason the law opposes this is because it destroys the economic incentives for artists because they will sell less if their music is freely shared. Thus, the law is perhaps rational, but not just. I believe the role of the law is to enforce what is just, and not to determine what is just, so I think it is fair to disagree with the law.


[1] Result specific to the music industry would include a greater emphasis on live performances (an experience that can't be downloaded), albums being promoted for bonus material rather than songs, and poorer musicians. A positive effect would be that, with the easier access to a wide range of music, there should be a greater appreciation for music in society as a whole, and so less people would be listening to bad pop. Thus, pop artists would be earning far less, be getting less attention and the media would finally be free from reporting the riveting Britney Spears saga.
[2] Perhaps the existence of copyright laws suggests that knowledge can be made excludable, but it is not naturally so, and laws that make public good excludable are notoriously difficult to enforce (as it exemplified by the prevalence of music/video piracy).
[3] When you purchase a CD you are buying both the physical CD and the material on it. You don't buy ownership of the material but only the use of it, if that makes sense.


NB: It was not my intention from this argument to gain a license to ignore the law, because I acknowledge that following the law is of value in itself.

Robin's Moral Conundrum

Me, myself and my inner utilitarian were recently arguing over the justifiability of the Robin Hood ethic of robbing the rich to feed the poor [1]. So I thought I might think about it a bit more with a blog.

Hypothetical situation: You are paying for a meal at a restaurant and the cashier gives you $10 extra change, which you return without thinking, as I presume most of us would. Walking back home you pass a homeless person and so you give him $10 for dinner. Walking on you pass a second homeless person, but find that you have no more cash on you so you leave him nothing. Now he will go and eat his dinner out of a trash can, an end you would have prevented had you kept the additional change rather than returning it.

Clearly the restaurant is the lawful owner of the $10, but is it the rightful owner? The $10 would make a real difference to the homeless person, but would have been dismissed as shrinkage with little thought or care by the restaurant. Presumably a utilitarian perspective would then support the theft.

Is it morally significant that the rule of law is breached? Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13, Titus 3:1 seem to suggest so. But surely our case is entirely unlike, say, an armed robbery, which creates fear and disorder on a wide scale. Our situation seems more like a civil dispute than a criminal offence since no-one but the restaurant seems to be negatively impacted at all. Neither was this ‘theft’ planned; rather, circumstances were outside of the control of the agent; it was almost as if luck had bestowed on him the opportunity. Is this then not an act against the authority?

But perhaps it is wrong because the agent is claiming for himself the power over a decision that rightfully belongs to the lawful owners of the money. In providing their service, the restaurant acquired the right to the money and removing their property right may be wrong in principle. Eighth commandment: Do not steal. I think it is fair to say that not giving someone their property is equivalent to taking it away from them [2].

But does the right to property outweigh all others? Or is the right to subsistence more essential and able to ‘trump’ property rights. I think most people would agree that some rights are of greater weight than others. For example, Article 24 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including…periodic holidays with pay” - an assertion that seems almost trivial beside the right to life, liberty and security of the person, or freedom of expression. So then, can we say it is better to deny a man his property rights than let a man starve? In our hypothetical situation both can not be had; either one actively breaks a rights, or passively submits to one being broken. What is one to do?

So far I think I have just asked the questions without giving much opinion (not that ethics is a matter of opinion - you heard me all you moral relativists, not a matter of opinion). Basically I have to say that one must give the change to the lawful owner and, operating within the constraints of the law, do as much as possible to assist the more needy person. If you discard absolutes such as those that prevent stealing then you place yourself on shaky moral ground, and its only a matter of time before you lose your balance.


[1] Not that Robin Hood ever robbed, he just sort of borrowed a bit from those who could afford it, to cite the classic Disney movie
[2] So, unfortunately for Robin, failure to return borrowed funds adds up to the same thing as robbing. Can’t escape on a technicality there.

Euthanasia

In a previous post, I reflected on some of the ethical considerations involved in abortion. My emphasis was placed on the understanding that an unborn child was entitled to rights alike any other person. What I neglected to discus in any detail was whether it was justifiable for a parent or doctor to assume the right to take life. I would like now to address this question in greater depth in relation to the question of euthanasia. Should individuals have the right to choose death and, if so, is it the role of the physician in assisting an incapacitated patient to this end?

Responsibility of the physician
The principle of non-maleficence (not doing harm) has been a core of medical ethics since the time of Hippocrates – the ‘father of medicine’. Under the Hippocratic Oath the physician swears:
“I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel…”[1]
I don’t believe you can remove the ethical foundational of the medical practice without weakening the entire structure, and history proves my point. In my view, this is sufficient reason to exclude physician-assisted suicide.

Right to take life
I think it is proper to be extremely hesitant to grant the power to take life to any person or institution, primarily because such power is so often abused. As Lord Acton famously stated, “All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment all carry with them the risk that the power may be abused. It is by no means alarmist to suggest that this is likely to occur if euthanasia were legalized, as this is precisely what has occurred in the past. It was recognized at the Nuremberg trials that the Nazi euthanasia programs were a natural progression from mercy killings by German doctors in the 1920’s. Designating the right to take life detracts from a belief in the dignity and value of all life, creating opportunity for the violation of the human right to life.[2]

Right to choose death
I think the majority of people consider life to be the sole possession an individual. The argument goes: ‘It’s my life, so, assuming I am not compromising the well-being of others, it’s my choice how I use it, and my choice how I end it'. Putting aside the other issues of euthanasia, is suicide ethically defensible?

Personally, I think suicide undermines the dignity of human life and I also do not think that life is the agent’s possession.[3] Certain behavior is not just preferable but obligatory and, as such, freedom is secondary to morality. We have the power to take life, so in law we place restrictions upon ourselves to prevent the abuse of this power. Similarly, we have the power to end our lives and live our lives in a manner that is morally indefensible and here also the law is a tool by which this also should be restricted.[4]

Issue of Suffering
On a more philosophical and abstract note, I think suffering is first and foremost an existential problem and it can not be solved by physicians. I think legalizing euthanasia medicalises the issue, denying psychological, cultural and spiritual factors. Death is not the answer to the issue of suffering.

Conclusions
The Netherlands provides an interesting example of the impact of legalizing euthanasia. Initially, the law specified that the it must be carried out only on the terminally ill and only by consent. The first of these restrictions has now been removed. The second is also somewhat compromised, with almost six thousand reported cases in a single year of non-voluntary euthanasia.[5] Studies also show a complication rate of 23%. So much for that peaceful death.

It is entirely right that individuals maintain the right to refuse treatment, particularly as many drugs have potential side-effects. Physicians’ responsibility to care for their patients does not compel them to force beneficial medication upon them, but it does compel them not to force harmful medication upon them. To allow physicians this power undermines the medical profession and societies ethical foundations.



[1] Hippocratic Oath, 4th century BC
[2] Of course, there are cases where the right to take life is defensible and appropriate as it prevents the loss of life. This applies to abortion when the mother’s life is endangered and also in war.
[3] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
[4] As clarification, the law is society’s tool, not the individuals. Refer to Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, for an explanation of why the latter can not be the case.
[5] Remmelink Report, 1991

Society and Justice

Should society punish law-breakers on the grounds of retribution, rights, or the welfare of society?

I should, first of all, clarify what I mean by these terms. Retribution presents punishment as a matter of justice. Immanuel Kant argued that, “Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime” (The Metaphysical Elements of Justice). Justice for Kant is the ultimate end. No man* ought to be wrongfully punished, even if it would result in huge social benefits, and no man ought to be justly released from punishment proportional to his crime. To do otherwise would be to compromise justice.

In contrast, an emphasis on rights presumes that the ultimate aim is the liberties of the individual. If we grant that a society owes each individual citizen certain unalienable rights, the foremost being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then it must serve these rights above moral deserts of punishment. Of course, in order to maintain the liberty of citizens a state must also maintain the law and order, necessitating punishment. The ultimate aim is, therefore, the welfare of individuals in society, rather than justice†. Under this conception, there ought to be an emphasis on rehabilitation through punishment. A citizen can be denied their rights only as far as is necessary to protect the right of other citizens, and there is an assumption that these rights will be restored as quickly and fully as possible.

There is also, I think, a third major conception of justice which prioritises society itself over the individuals within that society. Punishment is used to deter actions that might harm society. If an individual has an adversely effects the welfare of society, they ought to be removed from that society. This does not necessarily entail that capital punishment is liberally applied‡, rather incapacitation may serve society better by causing less discontent and unrest.

It sounds irresolute, but I have to say that the best system has to be a combination of the three, but with the emphasis on rights. I don’t want to marginalise justice, and I do think there is a duty to punish culpable offenders, but I don’t see retributive justice as practical. Utopia is not possible in a world of imperfect people and to some extent we need to account for this. And ultimately, I believe, justice will occur regardless of what are courts do.§ The third view I laid out is, quite clearly, the most pragmatic and probably the one most evident in our current system, yet has many short-comings. I think it often leads to inhumane forms of punishment. A felon is still worthy of basic human dignity.

Although I see prison as a necessary form of punishment for the protection of society, I think that prison conditions must be of a certain standard. Apparently, in the US 68% of released prisoners end up back behind bars with three years of their release, and I doubt other nations are any different. Juvenile detention centres and prisons tend to be breed rather than rehabilitate criminals; Bentham’s Panopticon and other highly regimented prison inhibit rehabilitation as released inmates struggle to readjust to life on the outside; and obviously torture (physical and psychological) undermine the dignity of human life. Prison and all other punishments should, of course, be unpleasant in order that they be feared and deter criminal acts, but they must not challenge the recognition of basic human rights.



* Once again, I will apologise to any person offended at the generic use of ‘man’. That is, I regret that you take offence; I don’t regret using the word.
† ‘Justice’ here being in the Kantian sense. Of course, one may see as ‘just’ that which is most beneficial to the greatest number of people, in which case retribution would be ‘unjust’
‡ In fact, the case for capital punishment can be made most strongly with appeals to retributive justice. Kant vehemently supported capital punishment, asserting “If legal justice perishes, then it is no longer worthwhile for men to remain alive on this earth.” I am also quite fond of this extract from his work: “Even if a civil society were to dissolve itself by common agreement of all its members (for example, if the people inhabiting an island decided to separate and disperse themselves around the world), the last murderer remaining in prison must first be executed, so that everyone will duly receive what his actions are worth and so that the bloodguilt thereof will not be fixed on the people because they failed to insist on carrying out the punishment; for if they fail to do so, they may be regarded as accomplices in this public violation of legal justice.” (The Metaphysical Elements of Justice)
§ For those confused, I am talking God’s judgement (not karma).

Abortion

Supporters of abortion campaign for the woman’s right to choose an abortion. I would like to provide a critical response to the legitimacy of this claim, and also look at how it relate to the recent abortion bill approved by the Victorian state government.

Is a foetus a ‘person’?
The crux of the argument rests on how one answers this question. Personally, I would be prone to thinking that life begins at conception, and therefore the foetus is a morally significant person. I take this view because I find no other point at which life can be distinguished. I would argue that late-stage abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide, making it inconsistent to defend one and not the other. Derek Parfit, a British philosopher, has argued that survival is a matter of degrees rather than a matter of all-or-nothing. So one could say a foetus is gradually more and more of a life as it develops, a process that may begin even before conception and would continue without ever reaching a final point. Though I don’t accept this, it seems to be the only real alternative to life from the time of conception.

Rights of the woman
Right to security of the person
Every person, including a pregnant woman, has an inherent dignity that grants them a right to life and security of person. As such, if the process of giving birth would threaten a woman’s life and welfare, then there are, I would think, reasonable grounds for considering an abortion. Although the foetus’ life is of value, I can’t see that we are in any position to prioritise this life over that of the mother. I would argue that in cases where there is a reason to believe the mother’s life would be endangered (beyond normal expectations), the choice of abortion should be made available.

In any case where the actual life and security of the mother are not endangered beyond what may be expected of childbirth, there should be no claim for an abortion. Serious medical, financial or psychological detriment to the mother resulting from raising a child I would consider insufficient grounds for terminating the life of the unborn child. Rather, avenues such as adoption should be considered. I understand that this is terribly difficult for a mother, but I would consider abortion more morally repulsive.

Right over a child
I would argue that parents should have the right to raise their children, and do so in a manner that they perceive as best for the child. However, in an abusive household it is just that the child be removed from the care of their parents for their own protection.* The child’s right to safety, as it were, trumps that of the parent’s right to raise their child in a manner they see fit. So, parents do not have a right over their child in any absolute sense.

Extending this ethic, one would have to agree that any parent who desires and actively pursues the death (or injury) of their child forfeits any right to care that they might have otherwise had. Any mother pursuing an abortion is just the parent who should be denied freedom over the child for which they have so little affection.

Rights of the child
As I made clear before, I consider a foetus a person and, as such, it also has claim to a right to life and security of person. This view is heavily influence by my Christian worldview, which insists both in the dignity of all humans and the moral significance of an unborn child, expressed in biblical passages like Psalm 22:10 and Psalm 139:13.

My previous comments should show how the right to life and security relate to abortion. But I should make clear that these rights necessitate humane manner in which an abortion must be carried out, if one were to occur (as I granted may be defensible in very specific circumstances). There must be minimal pain to both mother and child, and I would also insist on the availability of psychiatric assistance for the mother.

Victorian Abortion Bill
There a number of issues specific to the bill recently passed that I feel are worthy of note:
(1) It makes no restrictions on the means by which abortion is carried out, allowing for inhumane methods.
(2) It allows abortion at any stage of pregnancy. This is particularly significant if we judge ‘personness’ as a continuous concept (Parfit), where a nine-month-old is more morally significant than a one-month-old foetus.
(3) It jeopardises the freedoms of doctors by demanding that they either carry out an abortion or refer patients to a doctor that will.
(4) In my opinion it is wrong that abortion should be seen as purely the choice of the mother, disregarding the other parent. I think that fathers ought to be involved in the process (although this right may excluded if they have no continuing contact with the mother and would be unlikely to be involved in the child’s life if an abortion did not occur).

Although I do not readily support a government system that imposes the moral views of a minority upon a majority, I think the case ought to be made in this case. I am not sure what proportion of the population supports each side, but a (relatively small) majority seems to support legalising abortion. But if the people supported the use of torture would that be sufficient reason for legalising such an atrocity? In my opinion, abortion is excluded in the international laws that affirm human rights (such as the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) recognised by the Australian and, by extension, Victorian governments.


* Practically, of course, it is difficult to enforce this ethic. An outsider will never fully know what goes on in the household. Also, ‘abusive’ is no exclusive category, but a situation may be abusive to lesser or greater degrees. But ultimately, the courts must be responsible for determining the outcome.

Property Rights

With the American election almost upon us, I thought I might take this opportunity to muse over certain issues of political theory from a position of ethics.

Most people recognise care for the poor as valuable and, to some extent, morally obligatory. Yet, these same people will recognise the value and necessity of property rights. But when considering the welfare state it is clear that they two are in opposition, if not mutually exclusive altogether.

John Locke claimed that, “…every man has a ‘property’ in his own ‘person’. This nobody has any right to but himself. The ‘labour’ of his body and the ‘work’ of his hands, we may say, are properly his…That labour put a distinction between them and the common.” (The Second Treatise of Government, 1688).

Locke’s theory of property suggests that the individual has an exclusive right to that which has been earned through their labour (i.e. wages). To deny wages, or steal without consent, it follows, is unethical. This is, of course, very practical as a rule of law because it means that an individual can invest their labour with a guarantee of return, motivating them to work hard and efficiently. The government ought not to take wages from the individual beyond those necessary to fulfil its role of defending property rights.

This conception of property rights can be contrasted with that of utilitarian ethicist, Peter Singer. Singer contends that an individual has a right to the product of his or her labour only so far as it benefits him/her more than it would benefit someone else. Consequentially, it is immoral for an individual not to give up their own property for the advantage of others “at least up to the point at which by giving more one would begin to cause serious suffering for oneself and one’s dependents – perhaps even beyond this to the point of marginal utility” (from his essay ‘Famine, Affluence, and Morality’).

It is counter-intuitive to say that someone else has a right to my wages just by virtue of the fact that they are poorer than me, but still much of what Singer says is genuinely appealing. It affirms the equality of everyone, despite varying ability to earn wages. The ability to make money is, after all, morally insignificant, “since the initial endowments of natural assets and contingencies of their growth and nurture in early life are arbitrary from a moral point of view” (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice). Thus, it is just that there should be equal distribution of wealth.

But can a government practically or morally enforce such an ethic? Certainly not the former and I think not the latter either. I would have to say that the role of the government is to maintain peace and facilitate freedom. A minimalist government can do no more than protect property rights. It then falls on the individual and not the government to give their excess wealth in order to fulfil their moral obligations.