As September and ergo a new year of school begins, the stories of woe from the latest range of disappointed students start to pour in. Idle speculation concerning the perturbing future of my own higher education already dominates dinnertime chit-chat. Deferrals, fees, grades, retakes, UCAS, back-up offers, personal statements...etc. etc.
Despite my displeasure and lack of interest in the subject, tt now seems inevitable that a serious public debate on what we are going to do about higher education will need to occur in the near future. Between Labour's proposals to get 50% of young people into higher education, the Liberal Democrat's plan for ending tuition fees, a record high number of university applicants and burgeoning finacial crisis required a massive cut in public spending as it's only remedy, it seems a new and coherent policy on higher education spending and administration needs to be thought through, quickly.
But for fear of sounding like Socrates who, as one fellow student earlier described as 'constantly showing that everything is wrong but never proposing anything himself', I will offer my proposed solution: means-tested tuition fees on a much bigger scale. The aim of these aforementioned proposals is to get as many elligible candidates into higher education regardless of their finacial or social background. Whilst maintaining the same extremely high quality of education that our nation's great academic institutions have always provided.
A far more developed means-tested system, in which the poorest pay what they can afford and the richest shoulder considerably more of the cost (although still remaining well within their means, and the cost being significantly less significant for them compared to the impact of the far smaller costs on the poorest candidates), seems to me to be the only solution. Not only is it fairer than the current system and indeed the proposed end of tuition fees but it could help provide a better service and force students to value their degrees far more.
Currently, every tax-payer contributes to the cost of every students degree, regardless of whether or not they benefit from the degree. Surely, it would be fairer for those who benefit most to pay the most. By increasing the amount students pay towards university fees you could both reduce the tax burden on the poorest taxpayers and shift the weight of the cost of university to student loan repayments after graduates find employment.
In conclusion, a more proportional, means-tested tuition fee system combined with an upgrade in size of the student loan operation would produce a fairer and more effective programme of educating our nation. It would produce a programme that would perfectly embody both sides of the virtuous sword that is a meritocracy; not only would it allow even more members of our society access to higher education based solely on academic merit, but it would also place the finacial burdens to those who deserve or rather merit the cost.
Monday, 6 September 2010
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Where Have All the Good Men Gone?
The recent revelations of the cost of Tony Blair to the taxpayer is the latest in a series of stories concerning eyebrow-raising amounts of public spending on controversial superfluities.
'It follows newspaper reports that Tony Blair's bodyguards are costing taxpayers £250,000 a year in expenses.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10500996.stm
They have been other similar stories, such as the amount the Government spends on wine for state events, (£18,000 in one month following the election, although the state department says orders are only placed two or three times a year, a reassuringly cheap pricetag when you actually think about it) and these stories have led to huge public outrage both on the blogosphere and in various newspapers including several reputable ones.
Furthermore, the entire issue at stake here is the same as the anger at the expenses scandal. The point is not, as so many politicians seem to think it is, whether or not you break the expenses rules or are a downright crook (although this is demonstrably the case for several ex-MPs). The point is that public service is about giving yourself to the country and the people you represent, not about how much you can get out of the system for doing so. Perhaps my expecations of politicians are just unrealistic, romantic and outdated ideals; and in fact I need to bite the bullet and accept reality: we need to pay more to get better candidates. This probably is the case at the moment, which is not to say that this should be the case by any stretch of the imagination. What I want to say is that it would be a breath of fresh air to not have to see so many mediocre, reactionary, stale, selfish, unprincipled and ignorant politicians who seem never to think what someone struggling to get by would think about their actions-even if there is nothing inherently wrong or criminal about them.
It might be the case that there are honourable and even numerous exceptions to this (certainly Paul Burstow MP, who I work with, is a dedicated and hardworking public servant albeit somewhat worthy of his nickname 'Boring Burstow'). It is definitely the case that we, the public, want to read about scandal and not virtue and the state of much of our media is sickeningly poor (especially the right-wing press' performance during and after the General Election).
In time I may have to concede that the current system is inherently the best and that we can only realistically expect so much from our leaders, but if this is the case then I think Churchill's hackneyed addage of democracy being the least worst option probably rings true. However, until then I would like to echo FDR's call:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
'It follows newspaper reports that Tony Blair's bodyguards are costing taxpayers £250,000 a year in expenses.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/politics/10500996.stm
They have been other similar stories, such as the amount the Government spends on wine for state events, (£18,000 in one month following the election, although the state department says orders are only placed two or three times a year, a reassuringly cheap pricetag when you actually think about it) and these stories have led to huge public outrage both on the blogosphere and in various newspapers including several reputable ones.
Furthermore, the entire issue at stake here is the same as the anger at the expenses scandal. The point is not, as so many politicians seem to think it is, whether or not you break the expenses rules or are a downright crook (although this is demonstrably the case for several ex-MPs). The point is that public service is about giving yourself to the country and the people you represent, not about how much you can get out of the system for doing so. Perhaps my expecations of politicians are just unrealistic, romantic and outdated ideals; and in fact I need to bite the bullet and accept reality: we need to pay more to get better candidates. This probably is the case at the moment, which is not to say that this should be the case by any stretch of the imagination. What I want to say is that it would be a breath of fresh air to not have to see so many mediocre, reactionary, stale, selfish, unprincipled and ignorant politicians who seem never to think what someone struggling to get by would think about their actions-even if there is nothing inherently wrong or criminal about them.
It might be the case that there are honourable and even numerous exceptions to this (certainly Paul Burstow MP, who I work with, is a dedicated and hardworking public servant albeit somewhat worthy of his nickname 'Boring Burstow'). It is definitely the case that we, the public, want to read about scandal and not virtue and the state of much of our media is sickeningly poor (especially the right-wing press' performance during and after the General Election).
In time I may have to concede that the current system is inherently the best and that we can only realistically expect so much from our leaders, but if this is the case then I think Churchill's hackneyed addage of democracy being the least worst option probably rings true. However, until then I would like to echo FDR's call:
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.
Monday, 14 June 2010
My Nasty Drug Habit.
On reflection, I am fairly sure I have a drugs problem; that is to say I find myself trying to make exceptions to my moral code concerning legalising drugs. For years I have maintained the notion that cannabis should be legalised (in fact my first ever proper public speech was about why I believing in decriminalising cannabis). However, I draw the line at cannabis- I do not think I want to decriminalise ectasy or heroin or cocaine. Nor conversely do I want to criminalise alcohol or tobacco.
So the question I am posing myself, and yourself, today is why anyone should draw a distinction between the legal status of illicit substances and what criteria should form these demarcations?
Is it, as the Government seems to accept, the relative danger of the substance. Currently in the UK drugs are classified in this manner; although whether they are correctly classified is an entirely different kettle of fish and one, and one which although I think they may have got it wrong on, I will leave for another day.
It is a fact that alcohol and tobacco kill hundreds of thousands more people than any other drug and indeed probably all the other drugs put together. I have yet to encounter a case in which a person has died directly as a result of smoking cannabis. Similarly, numbers of deaths attributed to harder drugs remain low and considerably lower than alcohol or tobacco. It can be argued that this is because abuse of these harder drugs is far less common due to their illegality. However, I am not sure this is the case for cannabis. As a teenager I have been approached by drug dealers and friends who knew drug dealers, asking if I wanted to purchase cannabis. Whilst there have been occaisons between the ages of 13-17 for me to drink alcohol, (with a dramatic increase this year) either at parties-the booze being nicked off parents-or occaisonally at disreputable venues. Despite this, I would maintain that until recently it would have been much easier for me to regularly smoke cannabis than drink alcohol, and not considerably more expensive. This seems at odds with the argument that health issues caused by illegal substances are less common (and therefore the drug is still more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco and should be illegal) because they are strictly controlled.
My train of thought for believing that cannabis should be legalised has roughly been as follows: people are going to smoke cannabis regardless of whether it is illegal or legal, because it is illegal it is not properly controlled which makes it more dangerous, easier to get hold of for teenagers, perpetuates crime and puts millions of pounds into the pockets of drug dealers, as well as exposing soft drug users to dealers who sell harder drugs. Therefore, it makes sense to legalise cannabis in order to: remove the illegal market in cannabis, prevent more dangerous and stronger strains of cannabis being ab/used, provide revenue for the NHS to make more treatments available and make it as difficult to get hold of as alcohol and tobacco when the venders are strictly monitored.
The problem with this is that by saying 'people are going to smoke cannabis regardless, I do not seem to have much a reason to disagree that 'people are going to pop pills or snort cocaine if they want to'. Granted there might be far less of these people, back to the previous argument about a drugs relative dangers, but this leaves a vast grey area that I cannot quite answer. Upon reflection I think I do want to legalise cannabis because I do not see smoking cannabis as a bad thing, I have no wish to smoke it but if I wanted to smoke it then I would not see the problem with doing so. But why then do I care if people take harder drugs, and I have given several friends grief for taking harder drugs which is something I do have a problem with. Underlying my reasoning for not caring about cannabis is surely the classical liberal line that so long as my actions do not affect someone else then I should be able to do so. But then when I consider harder drugs I think that, even if it does not affect me personally, I do think the state and mankind as a whole has a duty of care to protect a fellow citizen from the horrific cycle of drug abuse. However, does this sentimentality arise from an inherently human compassing for other human's suffering as Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued? Or perhaps because I view a drug addicts actions as an unfree choice, incompatible with the liberal line? Or maybe because I simply find the idea of the horrors of the drug addict's life too horrible to consider and want the state to put an end to it.
Social acceptability is another area frequently raised to explain our classification of different illicit substances. Several colleagues have recently put forward the statement that if alcohol was discovered today then it would be illegal, which is all well and good except for the fact that we have been smoking cannabis-like drugs for centuries, as well as taking hallucinagenics and even cocaine until 70 years ago or so. However, the social argument can be approached in a different way; perhaps the reason why alcohol and tobacco are legal is because they can be enjoyed in moderation and ergo socially. It is true that alcohol and tobacco at the least can avoid obstructing socialising where other, harder drugs might, but can also in fact lubricate conversation and social interaction. Perhaps this is why there is a grey area around cannabis, some people purpout that it can be used in a similarly social manner, whereas others argue that that is an absurd view.
As this blog post extends and extends I realise I must bring this post to a point. During the hours and days of thought, reading, writing and reflection which have provided the background to this arduous(on my part, hopefully not yours!) piece, I have come to the conclusion that our legal system is inherently hypocritical and flawed, which is not necessarily to say it shouldn't be thus. Where we apply certain principles of justice and liberty in some cases, we apply different ones in others. But perhaps this is the wrong way to approach our legal system, instead it may be more accurate to think of our legal leviathan as an organic, living and changing beast. Instead of starting with abstract principles or concepts of justice and trying to manufacture an entire system of wide-reaching laws based on these pure concepts, it might be better to create laws based on their application in our society. You could even go as far as to say that a society's legal system is relative to it's culture. If this is the case then pure, timeless, theoretical concepts of justice and liberty are of no use to us. Instead the power of judical review and judicial precedent are more important; perhaps instead of a moral code we simply conjure ideas of justice based on similar incidents we have experienced and then apply these to new situations. If this is the case then I may have cured my nasty drug habit, instead of concering myself with sticking to one theory of justice, perhaps I should consider the practical applications of these laws in my society and then decide what is the best option.
The problem with this is that I have left the criteria for this judicial ruling undiscovered; the more and more I think about it, the more and more I think that we can never empirically or objectively define or explain morality. Furthermore, morality may be an organic and personal process, a process tied to our culture and personality, influenced by our experiences and informed but not decided by theoretical works on the subject. On that note I am going to rest in my quest to objectively qualify my own moral code and accept that whatever that 'feeling' is, it is telling me that cannabis should be legalised and harder drugs should not.
So the question I am posing myself, and yourself, today is why anyone should draw a distinction between the legal status of illicit substances and what criteria should form these demarcations?
Is it, as the Government seems to accept, the relative danger of the substance. Currently in the UK drugs are classified in this manner; although whether they are correctly classified is an entirely different kettle of fish and one, and one which although I think they may have got it wrong on, I will leave for another day.
It is a fact that alcohol and tobacco kill hundreds of thousands more people than any other drug and indeed probably all the other drugs put together. I have yet to encounter a case in which a person has died directly as a result of smoking cannabis. Similarly, numbers of deaths attributed to harder drugs remain low and considerably lower than alcohol or tobacco. It can be argued that this is because abuse of these harder drugs is far less common due to their illegality. However, I am not sure this is the case for cannabis. As a teenager I have been approached by drug dealers and friends who knew drug dealers, asking if I wanted to purchase cannabis. Whilst there have been occaisons between the ages of 13-17 for me to drink alcohol, (with a dramatic increase this year) either at parties-the booze being nicked off parents-or occaisonally at disreputable venues. Despite this, I would maintain that until recently it would have been much easier for me to regularly smoke cannabis than drink alcohol, and not considerably more expensive. This seems at odds with the argument that health issues caused by illegal substances are less common (and therefore the drug is still more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco and should be illegal) because they are strictly controlled.
My train of thought for believing that cannabis should be legalised has roughly been as follows: people are going to smoke cannabis regardless of whether it is illegal or legal, because it is illegal it is not properly controlled which makes it more dangerous, easier to get hold of for teenagers, perpetuates crime and puts millions of pounds into the pockets of drug dealers, as well as exposing soft drug users to dealers who sell harder drugs. Therefore, it makes sense to legalise cannabis in order to: remove the illegal market in cannabis, prevent more dangerous and stronger strains of cannabis being ab/used, provide revenue for the NHS to make more treatments available and make it as difficult to get hold of as alcohol and tobacco when the venders are strictly monitored.
The problem with this is that by saying 'people are going to smoke cannabis regardless, I do not seem to have much a reason to disagree that 'people are going to pop pills or snort cocaine if they want to'. Granted there might be far less of these people, back to the previous argument about a drugs relative dangers, but this leaves a vast grey area that I cannot quite answer. Upon reflection I think I do want to legalise cannabis because I do not see smoking cannabis as a bad thing, I have no wish to smoke it but if I wanted to smoke it then I would not see the problem with doing so. But why then do I care if people take harder drugs, and I have given several friends grief for taking harder drugs which is something I do have a problem with. Underlying my reasoning for not caring about cannabis is surely the classical liberal line that so long as my actions do not affect someone else then I should be able to do so. But then when I consider harder drugs I think that, even if it does not affect me personally, I do think the state and mankind as a whole has a duty of care to protect a fellow citizen from the horrific cycle of drug abuse. However, does this sentimentality arise from an inherently human compassing for other human's suffering as Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued? Or perhaps because I view a drug addicts actions as an unfree choice, incompatible with the liberal line? Or maybe because I simply find the idea of the horrors of the drug addict's life too horrible to consider and want the state to put an end to it.
Social acceptability is another area frequently raised to explain our classification of different illicit substances. Several colleagues have recently put forward the statement that if alcohol was discovered today then it would be illegal, which is all well and good except for the fact that we have been smoking cannabis-like drugs for centuries, as well as taking hallucinagenics and even cocaine until 70 years ago or so. However, the social argument can be approached in a different way; perhaps the reason why alcohol and tobacco are legal is because they can be enjoyed in moderation and ergo socially. It is true that alcohol and tobacco at the least can avoid obstructing socialising where other, harder drugs might, but can also in fact lubricate conversation and social interaction. Perhaps this is why there is a grey area around cannabis, some people purpout that it can be used in a similarly social manner, whereas others argue that that is an absurd view.
As this blog post extends and extends I realise I must bring this post to a point. During the hours and days of thought, reading, writing and reflection which have provided the background to this arduous(on my part, hopefully not yours!) piece, I have come to the conclusion that our legal system is inherently hypocritical and flawed, which is not necessarily to say it shouldn't be thus. Where we apply certain principles of justice and liberty in some cases, we apply different ones in others. But perhaps this is the wrong way to approach our legal system, instead it may be more accurate to think of our legal leviathan as an organic, living and changing beast. Instead of starting with abstract principles or concepts of justice and trying to manufacture an entire system of wide-reaching laws based on these pure concepts, it might be better to create laws based on their application in our society. You could even go as far as to say that a society's legal system is relative to it's culture. If this is the case then pure, timeless, theoretical concepts of justice and liberty are of no use to us. Instead the power of judical review and judicial precedent are more important; perhaps instead of a moral code we simply conjure ideas of justice based on similar incidents we have experienced and then apply these to new situations. If this is the case then I may have cured my nasty drug habit, instead of concering myself with sticking to one theory of justice, perhaps I should consider the practical applications of these laws in my society and then decide what is the best option.
The problem with this is that I have left the criteria for this judicial ruling undiscovered; the more and more I think about it, the more and more I think that we can never empirically or objectively define or explain morality. Furthermore, morality may be an organic and personal process, a process tied to our culture and personality, influenced by our experiences and informed but not decided by theoretical works on the subject. On that note I am going to rest in my quest to objectively qualify my own moral code and accept that whatever that 'feeling' is, it is telling me that cannabis should be legalised and harder drugs should not.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Cumbria And A New Era For Politics,
I found it absolutely riveting and heart-warming that in wake of the soul-numbing, senseless and gratuitous violence of the half-term week that David Cameron has led a thoughtful and parliamentary response from his Government to the tragedy.
Firstly, instead of travelling alone -in presidential or Blair-esque manner- Cameron was accompanied by Theresea May, the new Home Secretary, to visit victims of the shootings. Whilst it may seem mundane to those not engulfed in the political world that the Home Secretary would accompany the PM on a visit concerning Home Affairs, I struggle to imagine Blair embracing such Cabinet style of Government.
My heart also leapt when I read that senior figures in the Government were warning against a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis. Perhaps finally the coalition will be the pancea to the era of poor governance under Labour. Critics have long since bemoaned the impact of the 24 hour news cycle on our politics and its subsequent encouragement of poorly thought-through legislation, passed by a weak parliament at the behest of an elective dictatorship. Whilst it is important that we have a debate on gun-control laws (a fact acknowledged by the figure who warned against a knee-jerk reaction), this debate should try to seek the best solution and good laws, not just sate public anger and appease the press.
Similarly, in the first response from David Cameron, he stated that a full report would be made to parliament the following morning. Gone are the days of Prime Minister (Presidential?) press conferences made outside Downing Street before any consultation of parliament.
Whilst there are still furlongs between me and the beliefs of the conservative side of the coalition, I cannot fault them on their manner of governing. Let us hope this really is a new era of politics and the coalition has led to the 'strange death of Presidential Britain'.
Firstly, instead of travelling alone -in presidential or Blair-esque manner- Cameron was accompanied by Theresea May, the new Home Secretary, to visit victims of the shootings. Whilst it may seem mundane to those not engulfed in the political world that the Home Secretary would accompany the PM on a visit concerning Home Affairs, I struggle to imagine Blair embracing such Cabinet style of Government.
My heart also leapt when I read that senior figures in the Government were warning against a knee-jerk reaction to the crisis. Perhaps finally the coalition will be the pancea to the era of poor governance under Labour. Critics have long since bemoaned the impact of the 24 hour news cycle on our politics and its subsequent encouragement of poorly thought-through legislation, passed by a weak parliament at the behest of an elective dictatorship. Whilst it is important that we have a debate on gun-control laws (a fact acknowledged by the figure who warned against a knee-jerk reaction), this debate should try to seek the best solution and good laws, not just sate public anger and appease the press.
Similarly, in the first response from David Cameron, he stated that a full report would be made to parliament the following morning. Gone are the days of Prime Minister (Presidential?) press conferences made outside Downing Street before any consultation of parliament.
Whilst there are still furlongs between me and the beliefs of the conservative side of the coalition, I cannot fault them on their manner of governing. Let us hope this really is a new era of politics and the coalition has led to the 'strange death of Presidential Britain'.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Society's true value
This has to be one of the finest pieces of rhetoric I have read for a very long time. We should certainly reassess what we value in our society in the wake of this extract because GDP is clearly not an accurate measurement:
| On Gross National Product |
| "The gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors, and jails for the people who break them. "The gross national product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles with nuclear warheads.... "And if the gross national product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.... "The gross national product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile; and it can tell us everything about America except whether we are proud to be Americans. |
Guilty Grammar
I am currently reading Michael Sandel's wonderful book 'Justice', it leads you on a moral journey in which various modern(and true) or hypothetical situations are raised to explore competing theories on justice. If you are a die-hard conservative or a bleeding-heart lefty like myself you will have your beliefs tested and trialled but ultimately justified. The most interesting thing about this book is that it does not seek to convince you whether we should have free-market liberalism, a meritocracy or a Rawlsian egalitarian society; rather it helps you to understand why people have these different views and helps to develop your own justified moral code.
Some of the situations explored are affirmative action, price-gourging and a horrific situation in which four soldiers had to choose between letting two innocent afghans go at the risk of placing their own lives in risk or to kill them in cold blood. The area I would like to cover in this post is however the issue of affirmative action and it's implications for selective education.
Firstly, I am now convinced of the view that we deserve no reward for the qualities we possess, insofar as to say that you have done nothing to deserve greater intelligence, good looks or a propensity for working hard. From this it can be said that any wealth or success that you acculumate as a result of possessing these qualities is undeserved, you are just simply lucky. Here controversy arises, the free-market liberal will dispute this and say we have a right to do whatever we like (so long as it does not infringe on someone else's rights) and anything we achieve is ours to enjoy. Somewhat similarly, the meritocrat will say that you deserve what you achieve provided we all start the race from the same point i.e. if through a progressive tax system we can provide a standard level of education and opportunity for all, then it is fair to let you be rewarded for where you excel. Rawls would disagree, and this is where I find myself torn. By all means we should exploit our natural gifts according to Rawls, but only so that we might contribute to the community or specifically the least well-off. The point is that we have no more a right to what we accumulate through our natural talents than anyone else in our community because the qualities we have that allowed us to accumulate such wealth are not deserved in themselves they are pure luck.
This can be applied to justify affirmative action (positive discrimination). Universities are a tool for doing something, they have a specific mission and their admissions criteria should be catered towards achieving this end. We might say that the universities mission should be to offer an opportunity for study to the most able students in our society in order to ensure we produce the best possible class of intellectuals to run our businesses, courts and parliaments. Conversely, a university's mission might be to improve social mobility or produce community leaders. Here it might be more useful to include a significant proportion of different races or a specific gender, a university would then be justified in operating a system of affirmative action which is technically in place in every university just that the discrimination is focused on academic ability (a policy that might not serve the university's mission best). The point is that if I do not get accepted to Cambridge specifically because I am a white, middle-class, grammar school student, my complain cannot be that I deserve the place more than someone else, so long as that student would be a better choice in order to achieve the mission statement. I might have a legitimate recourse in arguing that the mission of the university is misguided and that it should instead be to focus on producing the most academic students possible -although the university might maintain that a diverse range of students allows greater personal and academic progress through an interchange of more diverse ideas. Similarly, students who are accepted should not consider themselves better students, only that they are better suited to achieving society's or the university's mission at that particular time in history.
This system has allowed me to keep my faith in Rawlsian justice whilst still disagreeing with affirmative action in the form that it currently takes. However, I need to take a long look in the mirror and ask myself whether this is because I cannot bring myself to agree with discriminating against myself or because I genuinely believe in Rawls fairness principle.
Some of the situations explored are affirmative action, price-gourging and a horrific situation in which four soldiers had to choose between letting two innocent afghans go at the risk of placing their own lives in risk or to kill them in cold blood. The area I would like to cover in this post is however the issue of affirmative action and it's implications for selective education.
Firstly, I am now convinced of the view that we deserve no reward for the qualities we possess, insofar as to say that you have done nothing to deserve greater intelligence, good looks or a propensity for working hard. From this it can be said that any wealth or success that you acculumate as a result of possessing these qualities is undeserved, you are just simply lucky. Here controversy arises, the free-market liberal will dispute this and say we have a right to do whatever we like (so long as it does not infringe on someone else's rights) and anything we achieve is ours to enjoy. Somewhat similarly, the meritocrat will say that you deserve what you achieve provided we all start the race from the same point i.e. if through a progressive tax system we can provide a standard level of education and opportunity for all, then it is fair to let you be rewarded for where you excel. Rawls would disagree, and this is where I find myself torn. By all means we should exploit our natural gifts according to Rawls, but only so that we might contribute to the community or specifically the least well-off. The point is that we have no more a right to what we accumulate through our natural talents than anyone else in our community because the qualities we have that allowed us to accumulate such wealth are not deserved in themselves they are pure luck.
This can be applied to justify affirmative action (positive discrimination). Universities are a tool for doing something, they have a specific mission and their admissions criteria should be catered towards achieving this end. We might say that the universities mission should be to offer an opportunity for study to the most able students in our society in order to ensure we produce the best possible class of intellectuals to run our businesses, courts and parliaments. Conversely, a university's mission might be to improve social mobility or produce community leaders. Here it might be more useful to include a significant proportion of different races or a specific gender, a university would then be justified in operating a system of affirmative action which is technically in place in every university just that the discrimination is focused on academic ability (a policy that might not serve the university's mission best). The point is that if I do not get accepted to Cambridge specifically because I am a white, middle-class, grammar school student, my complain cannot be that I deserve the place more than someone else, so long as that student would be a better choice in order to achieve the mission statement. I might have a legitimate recourse in arguing that the mission of the university is misguided and that it should instead be to focus on producing the most academic students possible -although the university might maintain that a diverse range of students allows greater personal and academic progress through an interchange of more diverse ideas. Similarly, students who are accepted should not consider themselves better students, only that they are better suited to achieving society's or the university's mission at that particular time in history.
This system has allowed me to keep my faith in Rawlsian justice whilst still disagreeing with affirmative action in the form that it currently takes. However, I need to take a long look in the mirror and ask myself whether this is because I cannot bring myself to agree with discriminating against myself or because I genuinely believe in Rawls fairness principle.
Monday, 24 May 2010
Tits and Swallows
It seems good weather has struck at the most inopportune time, during revision. Whilst rain, frost and gusts would foster a better working enviroment, there are perks to the sunshine as I'm discovering. The best thing is that my fear of failing exams is significantly reduced by my increasingly simple satisfaction derived from nature.
As I watch bluetits, swallows and wood pigeons feed from the newly installed (anti-squirrel) birdfeeder I am overcome with an extraordinary sense of wellbeing. Watching a few sparrows gathering feathers and sticks for the nests was even more extraordinary; one sparrow had a length of straw-like debris in it's beak that was say half a foot to a foot long-too long to fly effectively with as demonstrated by a short practice flight with it-the sparrow then proceeded to hold the strip down with one foot and manipulate it so that it was folded over in several places so as to reduce it's length. Similarly, the first evidence of wildlife attracted to the newly built pond in my back garden came today in the form of two dragonfly-esque creatures. They were two-fold, a crimson colour and about an inch and a bit long; they flew attached at one end around the pond delicately trying to land on the pondweed. The irony that I was watching something so incredibly intricate and perfectly designed as I read cynically about the teleological argument was not lost on me!
As I watch bluetits, swallows and wood pigeons feed from the newly installed (anti-squirrel) birdfeeder I am overcome with an extraordinary sense of wellbeing. Watching a few sparrows gathering feathers and sticks for the nests was even more extraordinary; one sparrow had a length of straw-like debris in it's beak that was say half a foot to a foot long-too long to fly effectively with as demonstrated by a short practice flight with it-the sparrow then proceeded to hold the strip down with one foot and manipulate it so that it was folded over in several places so as to reduce it's length. Similarly, the first evidence of wildlife attracted to the newly built pond in my back garden came today in the form of two dragonfly-esque creatures. They were two-fold, a crimson colour and about an inch and a bit long; they flew attached at one end around the pond delicately trying to land on the pondweed. The irony that I was watching something so incredibly intricate and perfectly designed as I read cynically about the teleological argument was not lost on me!
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