Judith Sloan

It’s good to see Judith Sloan (Productivity Commission and Australian Fair Pay Commission Commissioner, Director of the Westfield Group and Board member of the Lowy Institute) moving into comedy:

In the Weekend Australian (Nov. 26-7), she writes,

…in a perfect world, the ideal arrangement is for employers and employees to reach agreement about wages and conditions by mutual and private consent.
(p. 22)

‘Bahahahaha’, as the youth say.

In the real world, there are more employees to choose from than there are employers. In the real world, employers hire trained negotiators to carry out their end of the bargaining.

In the real world, employers wield more power than employees.

So in the real world, employees increase their power by acting collectively.

But then you get two parties wielding equal power but pursuing opposing desires: employers, higher productivity (read: more work for less pay); employees, better pay and conditions.

So workers strike and management ground the fleet.

And that’s why you sometimes need arbitration — mediation of the two parties’ claims.

And that’s why, even though it may be the case that the ‘idea that a third party should be deciding on aspects of the employment relationship between an employer and the workers is anathema to contemporary thinking on human resource management and the promotion of high-productivity workplaces’ (ibid.), one should not put too much stock in orthodoxy, particularly when that orthodoxy is nothing but the conclusion deduced from a set of premises lifted from that intellectual fiction: a perfect world.

Andrew Bolt

As part of strike action against Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd, from Wednesday 9 November Baiada workers and their supporters set up a picket line to block access to Baiada’s Pipe Rd processing plant in Laverton. On Thursday 17 November the Supreme Court of Victoria issued an interim injunction against the ‘National Union of Workers [NUW] & Others’, the result of which listed parties were required not to block access to the Laverton plant. NUW employees and the listed ‘others’ left the picket line or were removed by police while Baiada workers and their allies who were not listed in the injunction continued to picket. Yesterday, Tuesday 22 November, the picket ended as management and workers reached an agreement on pay and conditions.

In defence of those who continued to hold the picket line, the NUW made the following argument.

1. There’s a Supreme Court interim injunction stopping persons {A, B and C} picketing at Baiada.
2. Such injunctions are only granted when there’s suspicion of illegal activity.
3. As a result of the injunction, police have the power to stop the suspected illegal activity.
4. However, Supreme Court injunctions only apply to listed defendants.
5. Therefore, although persons {A, B and C} could no longer picket at Baiada, any person not listed in the injunction, i.e. Baiada workers and their supporters, could continue to picket.

Yesterday, Andrew Bolt asked why the Victorian police didn’t clear away all protesters earlier. The Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) parroted Bolt’s line on their own blog.

Bolt and VECCI seem to be running the following counterargument.

1. There’s a Supreme Court interim injunction stopping persons {A, B and C} picketing at Baiada.
2. Such injunctions are only granted when there’s suspicion of illegal activity.
3. As a result of the injunction, police have the power to stop the suspected illegal activity.
4. If police have the power to remove persons {A, B and C} from the picket because it is suspected that their activity is illegal, then it is fair to assume that persons {D, E, F, …} who are carrying out the same activity are also acting illegally.
5. Therefore, police were also warranted in removing persons {D, E, F, …} from the picket line.

But it is not immediately apparent that Bolt’s and VECCI’s counterargument holds. The integral question is on what grounds were those against whom the injunction was issued (as far as I understand, the NUW, its employees and some know union organisers) suspected of acting illegally?

Was the picket illegal, and the NUW and known union organisers listed simply because they were identifiable? If so, then Bolt and VECCI could be right.

Or were the NUW and Co listed because they were suspected of breaching industrial relations laws, which specifically limit the powers of unions on work sites? If so, then the NUW argument seems to be the right one: the injunction could only be interpreted as extending to union employees and, maybe, known union organisers because only they are in breach of workplace relations laws.

If the NUW’s argument is right then the illegality of the picket was not grounds for the Supreme Court injunction and therefore, contrary to Bolt’s and VECCI’s claim, not grounds for clearing all protesters.

Indeed, the facts that a general injunction against protesters was rejected in the Supreme Court late on Friday 18 November and that the police didn’t clear out the protesters who remained after the initial injunction was enforced lends weight to the NUW’s argument.

As always, I’m happy to be corrected.

Noam Chomsky (pictured right) has recently claimed, repeatedly, that moving to a publicly funded healthcare system would provide sufficient savings to eliminate the deficit from the US budget. In what follows I show why his claim is plausible.

Here’s Chomsky’s claim in black and white. In response to current discussion about measures for dealing with the US deficit, Chomsky notes that it is

Not even discussed … that the deficit would be eliminated if, as economist Dean Baker has shown, the dysfunctional privatized health care system in the U.S. were replaced by one similar to other industrial societies’, which have half the per capita costs and health outcomes that are comparable or better.
(Chomsky 2011b)

Here’s a relevant excerpt from Baker’s blog:

The problem with Medicare is that our healthcare system is broken; we pay far more than other wealthy countries for our care and get worse outcomes. We don’t need to fix Medicare; we need to fix our healthcare system, and this is something we should have started yesterday.

The remedies are actually easy; the problem is that the political will does not exist to challenge powerful vested interests such as the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the doctors lobbies. Close to 20% (about $500 billion a year) of our healthcare spending is wasted on financing the insurance industry and the paperwork requirements that it imposes on providers.

We pay almost twice as much for prescription drugs as other countries. If we could get our costs in line, it would save us close to $100 billion a year. If drugs were sold in a competitive market without patent protection, we would save more than $200 billion a year. If we paid our doctors the same salaries as those in other wealthy countries, we’d save another $80 billion a year.
(Baker 2009)

That’s a potential total saving, on the most generous interpretation, of $880 billion. That’s exciting. The normative claim that people should have access to publicly funded healthcare would be all-the-more convincing if it could be shown to save the US a bucketload of money. But notice that Baker’s talking about total healthcare spending, public and private, not simply healthcare spending from the US budget. You cannot claim savings in the private sector as savings to the US budget. If a public healthcare system reduces private healthcare spending, those savings cannot be claimed as budget savings because the expenditure was never counted in the budget. Therefore, for Chomsky’s claim to be true, a public healthcare system would have to provide sufficient savings in the US budget alone to eliminate the deficit—no easy task for a country that has a largely private healthcare system and a massive budget deficit.

So let’s crunch the numbers.

The limit case
The US budget deficit for fiscal year 2011 was $1,298,600,000,000. For Chomsky’s claim to be true, a shift to a public healthcare system in 2011 would have to save the US budget $1.3 trillion. Is a $1.3 trillion saving possible?

In 2011, the US budget allocated $488 billion to Medicare, $276 billion to Medicaid and $80 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services (OMB 2010, pp. 79, 174). That’s a total spend of $844 billion. Deduct from that figure the $187 billion income from Medicare payroll tax (OMB 2010, p. 174) and the total budgeted public outlay for healthcare in the US in 2011 looks to be roughly $657 billion.

These figures provide a limit case with which to test Chomsky’s thesis. In 2011, even if the US state spent nothing on healthcare there would still be a $643 billion hole in the budget. Even if the US could provide its citizens with a public healthcare system that cost the US government $0, that system would not put the budget back in the black. So, on these figures, Chomsky’s claim that shifting to a public healthcare system would eliminate the deficit is false. In fact, Chomsky doesn’t even appear to be in the ballpark.

But let’s change the data source. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) estimates that 2009 US government—yes government—health expenditure totaled $1.164 trillion (OECD 2011, no figures for later than 2009 are currently available). Now I’m not entirely sure how the OECD comes to that figure, but let’s assume that it is correct—the OECD is, no doubt, better than I am at calculating the tax breaks offered to businesses who provide their employees with health insurance, and other such less-than-clear added healthcare costs in the US budget. If we plug this new figure into our limit case and accept that in 2009 the US government spent $1.164 trillion on healthcare, a year in which it ran a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion, then Chomsky’s back in the ballpark.

But remember, this is the limit case where the US spends $0 on healthcare. In the limit case, the US government is making a 100% saving on healthcare expenditure. A public system is going to cost the US government something. So how much will they spend? The best way to estimate, though it is far from perfect, is to use a first-world country that produces comparable health outcomes for its citizens but which is publicly funded as an example of what it could possibly cost the US to run a public healthcare system.

A comparable ‘public’ system
Canada provides the best example. A 2010 report comparing health outcomes in seven first-world countries shows that Canada and the US have similar health outcomes (Davis, Schoen & Stremikis 2010). However, in 2009 Canada spent 4,363 US dollars per capita on healthcare versus per capita spending of $7,960 in the United States (OECD 2011). Furthermore, of the $7,960 spent in the US, 48% or $3,795 came from government. The remaining $4,165 or 52% came from direct payment by private citizens and their insurance companies (OECD 2011). By comparison, of the US$4,363 spent in Canada, 70% or $3,081 came from government. The remaining $1,282 or 30% came from direct payment by private citizens and their insurance companies (OECD 2011). That’s a much higher percentage of public funding in the Canadian healthcare system than the US system. (And, yes, the Canadian government actually pays less per capita for a healthcare system that is 70% publicly funded than the US government does for a healthcare system that is 48% publicly funded.) Canada therefore provides a good comparison with which test the plausibility of Chomsky’s thesis. Not only does Canada produce similar healthcare outcomes to the US, it also provides those outcomes for a lot less per capita than the US does and is largely publicly funded.

So, what do we get if we plug Canadian healthcare figures into the US system? Canadian government healthcare expenditure was US$3,081 in 2009. Mapped onto the US population at the time (306,656,300), that amounts to a healthcare spend of $945 billion. As you will remember, 2009 US government health expenditure totaled $1.164 trillion. While that’s a saving of about $219 billion, $219 billion is still a long way short of the savings necessary to eliminate the US budget deficit of, in 2009, $1.4 trillion. When we consider how much a publicly funded healthcare system will actually cost the US government, Chomsky’s claim seems implausible—he is, again, not even in the ballpark.

Revised Chomsky thesis
But what if we reinterpret Chomsky’s claim. One could take Chomsky to be claiming that a public healthcare system would eliminate the US deficit if the total US per capita spending on healthcare remained the same but the government took control of all healthcare, pocketing the per capita difference between what it costs for the state to run healthcare and what the US state and citizens currently spend. That is, Chomsky may be thinking, ‘Well, if the US is going to get Canadian-level healthcare then the state may as well pay Canadian prices and keep the change to pay off the deficit each year’. So, let’s crunch the numbers on this modified claim.

In 2009 the US spent $7,960 per capita spent on healthcare whereas Canada spent US$4,363. Assuming that the per capita price difference between the US and Canada for a very similar level of healthcare is due to the efficiency of state-run over privately run healthcare systems, the US could potentially save up to $3,597 per capita on healthcare if it moved to the Canadian model. In total, that’s a potential $1.1 trillion saving.

How does this fit into the revised Chomsky thesis? If the US government provided healthcare, continued to charge citizens and their employers what they are currently paying and kept the $1.1 trillion difference generated by the increased efficiencies of a state-run system, then the 2009 US deficit of $1.4 trillion would be close to eliminated. Furthermore, if we consider that in 2009 the US government spent $714 more per capita than the Canadian government on healthcare, on a Canadian model the US deficit would have been about $219 billion less, reducing the 2009 deficit to about $1.2 trillion. The $1.1 trillion in new government revenue collected as a result of the efficiencies gained by moving to a state-run healthcare system would then have been even closer to eliminating the US budget deficit. In fact, it’s close enough to claim that the revised Chomsky claim is plausible. Not only is Chomsky in the ballpark, he’s hitting well.

Ideology
So why wouldn’t US citizens agree to such a plan? They’d be spending the same amount on healthcare for the same outcome and would almost eliminate the US budget deficit. The only difference would be that instead of a private health insurer taking their premiums the US government would collect an annual healthcare tax for the same amount. If the costings that I’ve set out here are correct, then for no difference in cost or standard of healthcare the US could almost eliminate its budget deficit. The only possible reasons for rejecting Chomsky’s proposed reform to the healthcare system are, therefore, ideological.

Introduction and disclaimer

0.1 I’ll focus on ethics
Tonight, as the title of my talk indicates, I will argue that we don’t need God. And I will specifically discuss why we don’t need God in ethics.

Ethics deals with the question of how we should act — as individuals, and as groups. Insofar as each of us is concerned with the question of how to act well, ethics is a field that concerns us all — Christian, Muslim, Buddhist and atheist alike.

0.2 I’ll make a very simple argument as to why we don’t need God
The argument I will present is quite simple. It is simple because establishing that we don’t need something is quite easy. All one has to do is show that, when it comes to fulfilling some particular aim, the thing is question is redundant. We don’t need something that is redundant. This is the argument I’ll make about God in ethics — that we can act well without Him (or, if you fancy, Her, or It).

I’ll present my argument in three parts. First, as mentioned, I’ll attempt to show that we can act well without God. But I’ll also argue, second, that people who wish to invoke God as the basis for ethics face some irresolvable problems and, third, that we have a responsibility to avoid invoking God’s authority or command as the reason why actions are good.

0.3 I’m not an ethicist
But before we proceed I have one disclaimer. In my professional capacity (insofar as I have one), I am not an ethicist. I’m a political philosopher. So, I talk to you tonight as a fellow human being concerned with the questions of how to act well and how to live a good life. And I’m keen to hear what you have to say about whether we do, or do not, need God in ethics.[1]

1. We can act well without God

1.1 Acting well without God
I want to begin with a simple example to show that we don’t need God in ethics. For many of our actions, we can decide how to act well in two steps — one empirical, one rational. In neither of these steps do we need to invoke God.

• Step 1. Inference by analogy (empirical)
• (P1) I find an action (personal attacks, for example) hurtful;
• (P2) Other people seem to be pretty much like me;
• (C1) Therefore, I can infer, by analogy, that other people may also find personal attacks hurtful.

• Step 2. Logical consistency (rational)
• (P3) Other people may not like to suffer personal attacks (C1).
• (P4) ‘I should treat other people as I would like to be treated’ (Golden Rule).
• (C2) Therefore, I should not personally attack other people.

If we can find good, simple reasons like these for choosing a course of action in most of the ethical decisions we make every day, then in these cases we don’t need God to act well.

1.2 What if we are facing an ethical dilemma?
But, you may ask, ‘What if the right course of action is not so obvious?’ ‘What about those rare, ethically sticky situations where I’m torn between two courses of action?’ Philosophers like to call these rare cases ‘ethical dilemmas’. They are cases where we are torn between two or more actions, with the right action not immediately clear. To act well in such situations we really need to weigh the options.

“Out of control. How should I act?
Does not compute.”

Here’s one version of a popular ethical dilemma. Imagine you’re a railway switch operator. There’s a runaway train carriage. If the runaway carriage continues on its course it will kill five workmen who are conducting maintenance down the line. Fortunately, you can flip a switch and divert the carriage onto another line. Unfortunately, there is one workman conducting maintenance on that track, and he will be killed if you flip the switch.

Given this dilemma, how should we act? Well, if we have the time, we should weigh the pros and cons of both choices — the reasons why choosing one course of action is better than choosing the other. If one option is clearly better, that’s the one we should choose. We’ve then weighed the options and acted of the best available information. We’ve acted ethically. At no point did we need to invoke God when deciding how we should act.

1.3 But what if we are facing a particularly difficult ethical dilemma?
Now, not all ethical dilemmas are so easily solved. The choices in our real-life ethical dilemmas are not so clear. Indeed, you may argue that the ‘runaway train carriage’ example is so farfetched as to have no bearing on real-world ethics. So let’s take a real-world example of a very difficult ethical dilemma.

Who remembers the case of Tom Smith,[2] the boy who was trapped with his family in their car during the Queensland floods? When rescuers arrived to assist the family, Tom told them to save his younger brother first. The rescue team saved his younger brother but failed to save 13yo Tom. He drowned.

Now, to avoid playing on the emotion of this example, I’ll take from it the critical elements — limited time and a zero-sum choice (a choice where helping one party is bad for the other party) — and construct a realistic ethical dilemma.

Imagine you’re part of a flood rescue team. Your town is flooding. Two families (both consisting of two parents and two young children) are stranded in their cars, pinned against a bridge railing by floodwaters. It is very likely that both cars will soon be swept under the bridge. If this happens, there is no real prospect that the families will survive. Time is of the essence. You estimate it will take 10 minutes to rescue each family. But at the pace the flood waters are racing, you probably only have time to rescue one family. Which family do you choose to rescue?

A philosopher would like to pore over the reasons for and against choosing one course of action over the other — something for which, as rescue workers on the scene, we have neither the time nor (likely) the inclination. We have to make a quick decision about how to act.

Let me ask you this? When faced with this particularly difficult ethical dilemma, would invoking God possibly help us to find a solution? Probably not.

*   *   *

When it comes to questions of practical ethics, God isn’t much help. From the most basic question of whether or not I should engage in personal attacks to the particularly difficult choice of which family to rescue, we don’t need God in order to choose the right course of action? In fact, as these examples show, when choosing how to act there is little room for considerations of God.[3]

I believe that these examples go some way to establishing a strong case why we don’t need God in ethics. No doubt some of you will disagree. Some people will insist that we need God, or some sense of God, to act well. So I now want to change tack and highlight particular problems that arise if we do invoke God when deciding how to act. I must warn you, this next section is a bit philosophy-heavy.

2. The problem with invoking God as an authority in ethics

The problem with invoking God when deciding how to act is as follows. You cannot invoke God’s command or God’s will as the reason why an act is good without (a) reducing ‘God’s authority’ to the claim that ‘might equals right’ or (b) applying some external measure to decide when you think God’s authority is good, thereby recognising that we don’t really need God to act well.

So, what, for believers, makes an action right? This questioned is captured by what philosophers call the Euthyphro Dilemma, named after the Platonic dialogue in which a version of it occurs. Here it is.

“So, Euthyphro. How's your old man faring?”

2.1 Euthyphro dilemma
Any person who employs a religious framework to make ethical decisions faces a particular question: ‘Is this action right because God commands it, or does God command this action because it is right?’ This question is of first importance for anybody who cites God as the authority on good acts.[4] If an action is right simply because God commands it, then the fact that God commands the action is the reason why it is right. If, on the other hand, God commands an act because that act is right, then it is not the fact that God commands it that makes it right; rather, there is some reason why God commands it, and that reason makes the action right. This is an important distinction. If you choose the first fork of the dilemma — that acts are good because God commands them — then you are in philosophical trouble.

2.2 God’s will and the runaway train carriage: let things be
The religious reformer John Calvin chose the first fork of the dilemma. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, he writes, ‘…everything which [God] wills must be held to be righteous by the mere fact of his willing it’ (1599, III.23.2). So, how do we know God’s will? One answer is Scripture, another revelation, another the actual events that occur around us. Let’s take the last first. Think back to the ethical dilemma presented by the runaway train carriage. In this situation, what is God’s will?[5] As things stand, if you don’t intervene the carriage will mow down and kill five hapless souls. It therefore appears to be God’s will for five people to die, not one. It doesn’t seems to matter that you can cite reasons why you should switch the tracks and save four lives. If God’s will is sufficient for an action to be good, and the best way to know God’s will is by what actually occurs, then God’s will is fulfilled by simply ‘letting things be’.

Interpreting God’s will as simply ‘whatever happens’ appears to leave little or no room for human will and, therefore, little or no room for believing that we should act well.[6] The reality is a different matter. It is quite consistent to view God’s will as ‘whatever occurs’ while also believing that we should act well. If ‘what happens’ is God’s will, then what happens in those cases where I intervene, and what happens in those cases where I don’t, are equally God’s will. So, there seems to be room to reconcile a religious ethic — the religious call to act well — with an interpretation of ‘good’ as ‘whatever happens’.

But then, how do we reconcile the idea that God’s will is ‘whatever happens’ with the fact that, in some instances, the particular course of action we choose to take will not be realised? To return to the example, if I have interpreted it as God’s will that I intervene and divert the runaway train yet for some reason or other my attempt fails (say, the switch jams and the carriage continues on its original course), how do I determine what was, in fact, God’s will? I cannot have been God’s will for the four lives to be spared because the switch jammed, foiling my intervention. I must have been wrong.

In this case, there was a divide between what I saw as God’s will (the command ‘Switch the track’) and his true will: that five should die. The fact that my interpretation of God’s will as the command ‘Switch the track’ doesn’t match God’s actual will reveals that my method for determining His will is faulty. But if so, God’s command is no longer a sufficient basis for determining what is right. My interpretations of God’s will are sometimes false. I could continue to interpret God’s will, but I would also have to recognise a distinction between my interpretation of God’s will and His actual will.[7] But once I concede that what I read as God’s commands are but my fallible interpretations, revelation is out the window as a reliable source for knowing God’s will. So is Scripture. Scripture is always interpreted. I’m pretty sure there is no direct prescription ‘Switch the tracks when it will save four lives’ in the Bible. We’d have to employ a little interpretive license to get to that particular command from Scripture. But then, we’d have to recognise, as with revelation, that our interpretation may be wrong.

So, we’ve sought to secure the first fork of the Euthyphro dilemma by making ‘an act is good because God commands it’ into ‘an act is good because God wills it’. But in an attempt to rescue God’s will from my fallible interpretation of it, I have merely recognised that God’s command is not a sufficient basis for ethics. Given that our interpretation of God’s will is fallible, the only way to know God’s will is to see how things pan out. But then we face the problem of reducing God’s will to what actually occurs. ‘What’s the problem?’ you may ask. Well, if something is God’s will by the mere fact that it happens, and God’s will is good, then everything that happens is good. Everything that does happen then ought to have happened. Every ethical ‘ought’ reduces to an descriptive ‘is’.[8] In war and politics this position translates as the realist mantra ‘might is right’. Might and right become identical because, when ‘what happens’ is God’s will, victors are always fulfilling God’s will.

*   *   *

Given these problems, the religious believer is left two options: accept that what happens is always God’s will (that might equals right) or admit that God’s will alone does not determine when an action is good. I will now give two reasons why the latter is the better option. (Rest easy, the heavy argument is over. Now comes the rhetoric.)

3. Our responsibility to avoid invoking God as the sole reason why an action is good

3.1 Knowing why an act is good makes for a stronger reason to carry it out
Why is it better to understand the reasons why God thinks an act is good? Firstly, because understanding the reasons why God thinks an action is good makes for a stronger reason to carry it out than the mere fact that God commands it.

Let me explain by analogy. How can we best explain the existence of the human eye? We could argue that God made it and invoke his authorship. Or, we could hold off invoking God, ‘set Him aside’ and entertain the idea that He did not make it. Which is the better option? When we set aside the idea that the human eye is made by God, we can understand it more fully as the product of evolution. It would be impossible to discover this alternative genesis if we were satisfied with the explanation ‘God made it’. By setting God aside we can add to the store of human knowledge.

Now, given we can explain more about the existence of the human eye by setting aside the idea of God’s authorship, it would be wise to set God aside in other areas of human knowledge such as ethics — at least while we look to see if there are better reasons for acting well than God’s command to do so. This ‘setting aside’ of God’s command opens up the possibility that we can better understand what makes an act good.

So, I ask one question of those who are yet to be convinced. Which is the stronger reason for carrying out a particular action: the mere fact that God commands it, or the fact that it is right? The former leaves us none-the-wiser about why God commands an act. We just look for the command, and carry it out.[9] The latter opens up the opportunity to understand the reasons why God commands an act. Therefore, even if something is right because God commands it, it is our duty to try to understand the measure of right that He employs. When asked ‘Why is this act right?’ a believer should not answer ‘Because God commands it’ without also understanding why God commands it.

3.2 Knowing why an action that God commands is good makes for a stronger religious conviction
This process of setting God aside not only creates the possibility of a better understanding of right actions, it can also strengthen belief for those who continue to desire God. This is the second reason why it is better to know God’s reasoning. True conviction flows not from merely accepting religious doctrine; true conviction comes when one understands doctrine.[10] One’s religious conviction will be stronger for questioning why God thinks an action is good.

3.3 Even religious people know what is good without God
I don’t think that this is as controversial as it might once have been. Consider, for example, Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. King was a man of faith who also understood the value of reason in deciding matters of right and wrong. Letter from a Birmingham Jail is replete with arguments against segregation — arguments that appeal to religion and reason.

To recap, even if God is the author of your actions — even if you are acting on God’s authority — as a believer it is better for you to know the reasons why God authorises your acts than to simply carry them out because He authorises you to. Not only will you add to the store of human knowledge if you do, you may also strengthen your religious belief. But if you recognise that there is some measure by which God deems act to be good, you must also recognise that, technically, we don’t need God to act well. If the measure of good exists independent of God, then that measure is accessible to believers and non-believers alike. As such, even atheists can act well.

“I swear, the act contained no malus.”

Finally, if any person of faith still doubts that we can know the difference between good and evil without God, I refer you to the Good Book to convince you otherwise. The Book of Genesis states, ‘And the Lord God said’, after Adam ate from the tree of knowledge, ‘“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil”’ (Genesis 4:22). Since that time humankind has had the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It may be the original sin, but it is a sin that makes it possible for man to know what is good independent of God. Knowledge of what is good is the first step to acting well. So, ‘the fall of man’ is the first step to humankind acting well without God.

Notes

[1] I later regretted making this last statement. ↩

[2] I’ve changed the boy’s name for this posting. I find it distasteful and unnecessary to use his real name on the Internet. ↩

[3] There is a more important point to take from these examples, however. Regardless of which particular religion people adhere to, most will conclude that it is not right to engage in personal attacks, most will choose to save five people over one person (Mikhail 2007), and most will find it difficult to decide which family to rescue. The difficulty of making these decisions will be about equal for most people. It will be pretty easy to decide not to engage in personal attacks, more difficult to decide to save the five over the one, a most difficult to decide which family to rescue. This similarity in the level of ‘choice difficulty’ across religions (or in the absence of religion) indicates that there is something other than religion influencing people’s choices. This something, I would argue, is a shared concern to act well combined with something of a consensus about what the difficulty level of ethical decisions.

Sure, there will be exceptions and some people will disagree about what is the right course of action in some ethical dilemmas. For example, there may be disagreement about whether it is right to sacrifice the one person on the train track to save five. But rather than showing that we do need God as an ultimate authority on matters of ethics, these disputes, when they do arise, prove the exact opposite. Disputes that arise over which is the right course of action are disputes over reasons why one course of action is better than another. As disputes about reasons they are not, primarily, disputes about religion or God. What such debates reveal is that God’s authority alone is insufficient to establish that an act is right. The very fact that the right choice can be contested shows that, in these difficult cases, something other than God’s authority leads us to decide which action is best. ↩

[4] Are all acts that God commands good and is the fact that God commands them sufficient for them to be considered good, or does God Himself employ some measure to determine when an act is good and only command an action when it accords with this measure? ↩

[5] God’s will as what actually happens is a common position of people who suffer tragedy. Think back to Tom Smith’s death. What was God’s will in this tragedy? Some people will say that Tom’s death was God’s will — that God works in ‘mysterious ways’. ↩

[6] Which requires human freedom to be an ethic. It’s not an ethic if your actions are determined. ↩

[7] This is the only reasonable claim for people who accept that they are fallible. It’s absurd to claim from the fact that God is infallible the infallibility of one’s interpretation of his will — interpretations carried out by fallible human beings. My ethics is fallible: it sometimes doesn’t align with God’s will. ↩

[8] This is the naturalistic fallacy. William of Ockham thinks there is no problem with this position — that the naturalistic fallacy is not a fallacy at all. You can avoid the naturalistic fallacy if you include an intermediate premise linking the ‘is’ claim with an ‘ought’ claim. ↩

[9] This option gives rise to another problem not mentioned. What if God commands us not to obey his commands? In this case, God’s command is sufficient reason not to carry out his commands, if this is what He commands. ↩

[10] See, for example, JS Mill’s On Liberty (1859). ↩

Offering a helping hand

No doubt you’ve heard someone complain that Occupy Melbourne lacks a clear aim. While advocates from many diverse causes are participating in the movement, they share a common concern. The Occupy Melbourne website states:

Our democracy is unwell. Our elected representatives no longer represent their constituents, instead their ears are turned by wealthy lobby groups, whilst the common interests of the people they were elected to represent, are ignored.

This grievance focuses on the lack of truly democratic representation. The passage could be taken as a call for what in democratic theory is known as a ‘delegate’ as opposed to a ‘trustee’ model of representation.

Though models of democratic representation go back much further, the particular distinction between the delegate and trustee models can be traced to conservative political philosopher and British parliamentarian Edmund Burke. As Burke proclaimed in his 1774 speech to the electors of Bristol, ‘Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion’ (1999, p. 11). For a number of reasons, from the physical absence of constituents during parliamentary debate to what Burke considered the sheer idiocy of dogmatically adopting the position of his constituency before the parliamentary debate had been had, Burke thought it appropriate to represent as a trustee—that political power had been entrusted to him by his constituents.

A simple yet surprisingly familiar rationale led Burke to favour this model of representation. In his victory speech he declared of himself and his fellow representative that,

We are now Members [of parliament] for a rich commercial City; this City, however, is but a part of a rich commercial Nation, the Interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. We are Members for that great Nation, which however is itself but part of a great Empire, extended by our Virtue and our Fortune to the farthest limits of the East and of the West. All these wide-spread Interests must be considered; must be compared; must be reconciled if possible.
(Burke 1999, p. 12)

A political representative must look out for the national interest, not just the interest of his or her constituents, Burke here claims. But as he equally recognises, the interests of the nation include its commercial interests. And a political representative, in serving the national interest, must give due consideration to those interests.

More than 30 years ago, Charles E Lindblom identified the fatal flaw of Burke’s favoured model—the very flaw to which the Occupy Melbourne protesters are drawing attention. When a representative swears to serve the national interest in a commercial society, commercial interests soon override the interests of the people.

Consider the following. ‘Suppose … that we faced the fanciful task of designing a political system or a political/economic system that would be highly resistant to change’. ‘How to do it?’ Lindblom asks in his 1982 essay The market as prison. Easy. Design institutions so that any attempt to diverge from the status quo produces an automatic adverse response. Even if the proposed changes are sound, the response should be the same: automatic and adverse, ‘like the tantrums of a spoiled child raging at even mild attempts at parental control’ (Lindblom 1982, p. 324). This is the politico-economic system in which we live, Lindblom argued. The spoiled child is business, the parent is government. In this dysfunctional relationship the child must be induced to do what its parent desires. Provide insufficient inducement or fail to convince the impetuous child beyond all doubt that change will be in its interest and the next tantrum begins. But when it’s business who’s throwing the conniption, the ensuing rage will contain threats of unemployment or a sluggish economy (Lindblom 1982, p. 327).

Lindblom was responding to a model of politics proposed by Robert Dahl (1961)—a model that dominated twentieth-century political science. According to Dahl’s pluralist model, various interest groups exist within civil society and, from a level playing field, compete for government’s attention. Government listens to their demands and gives priority to those who win the fair competition of policy ideas. However, Lindblom recognised that once the economy becomes a state’s central focus, business is no longer one interest group among many. In market societies, business organises the nation’s workforce, directs investment, distributes income and resources, produces goods and gets them to the consumer, builds homes. And because business plays such an integral role, politicians give commercial interests pride of place. For Lindblom, this is just how it is in market societies.

Occupy Melbourne shows less resignation. Protestors are claiming that it shouldn’t be this way. As part of its push for change, Occupy Melbourne seems to be calling for an alternative model of political representation—a model other than Burke’s trustee model, which due to the structure of market societies merely becomes a vehicle for business interests. On the alternative, delegate model (the model Burke warned against) politicians represent the express will of their constituents. The interests of constituents are not handed over or entrusted to politicians; rather, politicians have little or no scope for diverting from policies determined by their constituents. There’s no room for delegates to decide on a policy position once the parliamentary debate has been had nor to vote according to reason or conscience when either of those faculties has told the delegate which is the right course. The policy debate is had among constituents, not on their behalf. Occupy Melbourne may have this model in mind when it claims that politicians no longer represent their constituents.

But there may be an irresolvable tension in Occupy Melbourne’s demand for greater representation. The movement claims to represent the 99%. However, fewer than 99% of people support the movement. How, then, can they maintain the claim? There’s only one way. Occupy Melbourne has to claim to represent the interests of the 99% even if the 99% don’t know that those interests are their interests. But this is exactly what politicians do when acting on the trustee model. As Burke implied, the citizenry has imperfect information—they may be willfully ignorant, lack the capacity to take every relevant fact into consideration or not be privy to parliamentary debates. Their say is then entrusted to a political representative who is, supposedly, free of these limitations. If Occupy Melbourne claims to represent the 99% but doesn’t have the support of the 99% then they too are asking to be entrusted to serve the true interests of the 99%.

If Occupy Melbourne wants a true delegate-style democracy, they have to accept that citizens may vote against their best interests. It’s no good claiming to represent the interests of the 99% if the 99% don’t recognise those interests as their interests. Nor is it satisfactory to respond that if only citizens knew their true interests they’d vote for the policies defended by Occupy Melbourne. That’s the very pseudo, trustee-style democracy which Occupy Melbourne is against. A true delegate model of democracy, on the other hand, would treat citizens as truly autonomous—free to make their own political decisions, act against their own interests and stuff it up if they will.

Therefore, the question to Occupy Melbourne is which would you prefer: representatives who do as their constituents desire, or representatives who do what Occupy Melbourne desires?

Advance Australia Fair (Skinned)

Australia is a barren land,
Where bogans can be free;

With iron ore and coal from soil;
We’ll all drive HSVs;

“F#ck off, we’re full” our bumpers say
We like our refos rare;

From Herald’s page to talkback rage
Advance Australia Fair.

With drawn-out vowels, now let us sing,
Advaance Austraalya Fair.

Richard K Dagger opens his very good Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on political obligation with the following claim:

To have a political obligation is to have a moral duty to obey the laws of one’s country or state. On that point there is almost complete agreement among political philosophers.

There are two problems with this opening gambit.

Firstly, and of least importance, agreement in any amount—be it no agreement, little agreement, almost complete agreement or complete agreement—does not itself establish the truth of a proposition. One’s suspicion should always be roused by attempts to use claims of ‘near complete’ or ‘general agreement’ to establish a point.

Secondly, and more importantly, a political obligation is not always a moral duty. For a political obligation to always be a moral duty, one of two conditions must be met. The terms ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ must be synonymous, thus rendering the proposition tautological or true by definition. If this condition is met then to have an obligation means the same thing as to have a duty. If this condition is not met, then for Dagger’s principal claim to hold all ‘political obligations’ have to fall within the set of what we consider to be ‘moral obligations’. To have a political obligation would then be to have a moral obligation because there would be no political obligations which were not also moral obligations. Let’s deal with these two conditions in turn.

Are the terms ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ synonymous?
So, to the question of the equivalence of ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’. Compare the statement ‘I have a duty to obey the law’ with the statement ‘I am obliged to obey the law’. According to common usage at least, the former statement leaves room for discretion. If I am not inclined to fulfil my duties then I may ignore it. The statement is, at most, a prescription. However, the claim that I’m obliged to obey the law doesn’t permit such discretion. An obligation to obey the law implies that I should obey the law even if I think I shouldn’t. On common usage, therefore, to claim that I have a duty to obey the law is not the same as claiming that I have an obligation to obey the law. The obligation claim carries more weight—the possibility of enforcement, maybe. Nevertheless, the terms ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ are not equivalent.

Framing the problem of political obligation as an answers to the question ‘When do I have a duty to obey the law?’ already assumes that questions of political obligation are really questions of duty and, therefore, moral questions. But given that the terms ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ are not equivalent, in the absence of further argument the claim lacks sufficient justification. The first condition having failed, as Dagger has elsewhere recognised that it does (1977, p. 88), we can now revise his claim:

To have a political obligation is to have a moral obligation to obey the laws of one’s country or state.

With ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ failing the common usage test of synonymity, all ‘political obligations’ must fall within the set of what we consider to be ‘moral obligations’. Only the fulfilment of this second condition will save Dagger’s opening gambit.

So, are there any political obligations that are not moral obligations? As an example, take punctuality. One may have an obligation to be punctual, but that obligation is hardly a question of morality. Set beside such moral questions as, say, ‘Is it ever right to kill a human being?’ we can see that only those prone to hyperbole would label the obligation to be punctual a moral problem. Punctuality is a question of common courtesy rather than morality.

Some people may claim that the question ‘Are there any political obligations that are not moral obligations?’ is based on a confusion between the morality of the acts we are obliged to fulfil and the morality of fulfilling obligations. When Dagger claims that ‘To have a political obligation is to have a moral duty to obey the laws of one’s country or state’ he is claiming that the obligation to obey the laws of one’s country is a moral obligation. He is not arguing that all of the laws of one’s country are moral, just that the question of political obligation is a moral question. According to Dagger’s claim, therefore, there are no amoral, immoral or non-moral political obligations. If this were true, it would only be true to the extent that obligations are duties and questions of duty are moral questions. That is, if we forget that the terms ‘obligation’ and ‘duty’ are not equivalent and allow the terminological leap from political obligation to moral duty then Dagger’s claim is true, but true by definition—it is tautological, vacuous, empty. Presented with a substantive case of a political obligation that is not a moral obligation, however, the claim is proven false.

What are the limits of political obligations?
The proper focus for the question of the morality or otherwise of political obligations is the morality of the act or acts one is obligated to fulfil. As J Peter Euben recognises, a political obligation cannot be separated from its content (1972, p. 450). A thought experiment will clarify what it means for a political obligation to be tied to its content. But before proceeding, here’s a précis.

What follows is not some attempt to emphasise the content of the meta-ethical ponderings of Dagger and the like in the hope of revealing the possible brutality that may follow from ‘morally’ abiding by one’s political obligation—for example, fulfilling one’s political (and, therefore, moral) obligation to uphold segregation laws or to carry out a head-of-state’s order to murder innocent civilians. While this could be the point of a shift in focus from conceptual considerations of political obligation to the concrete considerations of the morality of obligatory acts, that is not the intent here. Rather, the concern is to show the importance of the political obligation’s content and the limits of the political obligation that follows from that content. It’s a focus that does not stop amoral obligations following from amoral content or immoral obligations following from immoral content. As will be argued, both remain obligations despite the morality or otherwise of their content. One is obliged to carry out the associated action if one has such a political obligation. This last claim may trouble some people, but the trouble is caused by a false inference—the attempt to draw from an obligation with particular content a general principle of political obligation. What follows will clarify the false inference, so bear with me. To our thought experiment.

It may or may not be controversial to argue that you, as a citizen, have a political obligation to kill another person in inter-state warfare. Let’s assume for the sake of the example that it is not and that you are in fact a citizen of a state. let’s also assume that you think that killing (and not just murder) is always immoral. There are many levels of content here. They can be ordered from the general to the specific, as follows.

• (1) You have a political obligation
• (2) You have a political obligation, even if that obligation is immoral
• (3) You have a political obligation to kill enemy combatants, even if that obligation is immoral

Now, if (3) is true and you are obliged to kill enemy combatants even though you think it is immoral, then propositions (1) and (2) are also true. (3) is a political obligation, rendering (1) true. You also think killing enemy combatants is wrong, rendering (2) true. However, despite the necessary truth of (1) and (2) when (3) is true, (1) and (2) cease to be true once you change the content specific to proposition (3)—the content referring specifically to the act in question, ‘to kill enemy combatants’. Proposition (3) is not a political obligation to act immorally towards non-combatants, just as it isn’t a political obligation to do anything other than kill enemy combatants. It is not grounds for inferring that you have any political obligation other than to kill enemy combatants. To claim otherwise would be to make the false inference referred to earlier.

From a more specific proposition (one down the list) you cannot move to a more general proposition (one up the list) and then back down. For example, from (3) you cannot claim

• (2′) ‘You have a political obligation, even if that obligation is immoral’ is true;

therefore,

• (3′) You have a political obligation to kill civilians, even if that obligation is immoral.

From political obligation (3) and, consequently, the truth of (1) and (2), political obligation (3′) simply does not follow. If the political obligation is (3), then (1) and (2) are not true for cases other than (3). (3) is tied to its content. (3) stripped of its independent content renders (2) false. To then infer obligation (3′) from (2′) is fallacious. No general rule of political obligation follows from (3) upon which to extend political obligation to (3′).

A political obligation only extends so far as its particular content permits. This includes soundly inferring related yet more specific propositions from the content of a political obligation. For example, from (3) you can infer

• (4) You have a political obligation to kill enemy combatant C, even if that obligation is immoral.

If you have a political obligation to kill enemy combatants then you have a political obligation to kill enemy combatant C. Why? Because enemy combatant C is an enemy combatant. You can move to a more specific proposition (down the list) from a more general proposition.

Are political obligations always moral obligations?
With these point in mind, the principal question for theorists of political obligation is, therefore, ‘What is the scope of political obligation?’, not ‘When do I have a duty to obey the law?’. Take the social contract tradition as an example of one school of political obligation theory. This principal question applied to the social contract tradition is ‘What’s the scope of the political obligation established by the social contract?’ Did the social contract establish universal political obligation, like (1)? Or was the initial political obligation only an obligation to abide by the law, like (2)? Or, further, was the initial political obligation an obligation to abide by a particular law, like (3)? The answer to this question is of foremost importance for the question of political obligation.

If the initial obligation had any specificity, and even general propositions contain some specificity, then the obligation only extends as far as that specific content. If the initial obligation is to abide by law only when it is moral, as the natural law tradition claims in the US Declaration of Independence, then one is not obliged to abide by immoral law; nor is one be obliged to follow political dictates which apply to areas other than moral laws (e.g. an order by a head-of-state to kill someone outside of the rules of war). If the initial obligation is a political obligation to abide by all law, as the legal positivist would claim, then it’s not an obligation to abide by political dictates that do not apply to law (i.e. extra-legal dictates); however, it is an obligation to abide by law even when that law is immoral. And if the initial obligation is limitless, as Divine Right and absolutist theorists claim, then it’s an obligation to abide by all political dictates issuing from on high.

To close, the answer to the question ‘What is the scope of political obligation?’ can only be answered by reference to the particular content of an obligation. If the particular content of that obligation includes immoral acts, then the political obligation is immoral. Nevertheless, it holds. We can, therefore, revise Dagger’s opening gambit:

To have a political obligation is to have an obligation that is political.

This definition is deliberately tautological or ‘true by definition’—vacuous, devoid of content—precisely because the content of the particular political obligation is important, not the definition. Thomas Hobbes understood this point; nevertheless, for him political obligations, although more akin to (1), only exist outside of the state of nature and cease when they run contrary to the natural obligation to preserve one’s life.

Simon Bogojevic-Narath's (2006) 'Leviathan'

In forming his theory of political obligation, Thomas Hobbes deliberately distinguishes between men and subjects. For example, Hobbes argues that a man can resist any attempt by the sovereign to kill him and any command issued by the sovereign that he kill or injure himself (Leviathan, ch. XXI). This seems to contradict the point Hobbes makes in the same chapter that it is not unjust for a sovereign to put an innocent subject to death. The apparent contradiction is resolved, however, when one understands that there is a distinction between men and subjects, just as there is between a man as a man and that man as sovereign. The political status attributed to men in the ‘subject’ and ‘sovereign’ cases are human fabrications—ones that Hobbes argues are required for peace and civil society.

For Hobbes, individual men become subjects when they enter the social covenant; however, they do not thereby cease to be men. They now possess a civil status as subjects as well as their natural status as men. And when the sovereign mortally threatens a subject, that subject, as a subject, is obliged to obey. Hence, in such instances it is not unjust for the sovereign to put a subject, even an innocent one, to death. It just so happens, however, that in each instance that a sovereign mortally threatens a subject, he or she also mortally threatens a man. Facing a mortal threat, that man, as a man, may disobey. He retains that primary right of nature—the right to self-preservation. In such instances, it is the individual threatened man versus the man (or woman) of the sovereign. Such a situation returns the two individuals to the state of nature. Therefore, mortal threats by the sovereign fall outside the scope of the social contract because the social contract applies only to individuals as subjects.

Two further conditions follow from the distinction between man and subject. Firstly, although at the point of mortal threat the individual man (or woman) who was the subject comes face-to-face in the state of nature with the individual man (or woman) who was the sovereign, the individual who was the sovereign may engage the services of other subjects to carry out the mortal threat. Only the threatened individual has exited the social covenant; the sovereign for that individual is but another man in the state of nature. However, the social covenant remains intact for all other subjects. The sovereign, therefore, remains sovereign for all of the other subjects. Hence, the sovereign may engage the remaining subjects to kill the recently-lapsed subject.

Secondly, subjects may not defend an individual against the sovereign. So long as the subject retains his or her status as a subject, he or she remains obliged to obey the sovereign. Assisting an individual in mortal danger from the sovereign would amount to exiting the civil association, at which time, in assisting that individual, one would have ceased being a subject and would be but another man (or woman) assisting a man (or woman) in the state of nature. It is therefore impossible, by definition, for a subject to disobey the sovereign. Only men can disobey the sovereign, at which time they forfeit all of the privileges afforded them by the social covenant.

Understanding this distinction between man and subject is integral to understanding the importance of the artificiality of Hobbes’ theory of political obligation, however much the distinction may appear to be pure semantics—‘a distinction without a difference’ as Martinich puts it in his Hobbes biography (1999). The distinction between man and subject, and the positions that I’ve claimed follow from it, make it possible to understand as consistent Hobbes’ claims (1) that no man is bound by the civil covenant to kill himself, or any other man and (2) that a sovereign may not unjustly kill an innocent subject.

Deakin University Vice-Chancellor Jane den Hollander

On 22 July this year, Deakin University Vice-Chancellor (VC) Professor Jane den Hollander emailed Deakin students and staff proposing a number of changes to car parking at the university in 2012. The proposed changes include:

• • increasing the annual fee for general (blue) parking permits from $203 per annum to $250 for students and $400 for staff;
• • increasing fees for daily parking from $5 per day to $7.50 per day;
• • abolishing free car parks at the Geelong Waurn Ponds and Warrnambool campuses, converting them to permit parking areas;
• • discontinuing red parking zones, which are situated further from university buildings but which, at $101.50 p/a for red zone permits, offer a cheaper option than blue permits.

The proposed changes emerge from a review of parking at Deakin by the university’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Graeme Dennehy and the Finance and Business Affairs Committee (FBAC). The review was tabled at FBAC’s 10 May 2011 meeting and forwarded to the university Council. Council discussed (and presumably passed) the review at its 9 June 2011 meeting [1].

Parking at Deakin has been a nightmare for years, with permits only entitling permit holders to hunt for a park and Deakin’s Facilities Management Services Division placing no cap on the number of permits that it sells in any one period. The problem was formally recognised in Deakin’s 2010 Annual Report, which states that

In 2010 there were a number of improvements that were implemented as a result of action on complaints. These included:
…
— the engagement of an external consultant to provide advice on Deakin’s car parking administration and overall car parking strategy
(p. 62)

How engaging an external consultant actually constitutes an implemented improvement is beyond me, but the growing chorus of complaints led university Council (to whom the VC answers) to decide that the best way to solve Deakin’s parking woes is to increase prices. And here we are.

According to the VC’s own statements, the proposed changes are part of an attempt to move Deakin parking from the current university-subsidised model (where the fees the university charges for parking do not cover the expenses of maintaining sealed parking bays and the Burwood multi-storey car park) to a user-pays model where the university’s parking-associated costs are covered by the fees they charge students and staff.

No doubt there are students and staff who drive to campus because it’s convenient and cheap(ish). Some of these people could probably catch public transport at little extra inconvenience. The proposed user-pays system may push these people to use public transport, therefore reducing demand for on-campus parking. But there are a number of problems with the user-pays model as it stands.

Firstly, user-pays systems are regressive market mechanisms. They apply to everyone, but adversely effect the poorest people. They reduce demand, but only by making parking unattractive to people who previously could only just afford it — namely, impoverished students. There are students who truly need to park on campus but who may not be able to afford the price increase — for example, parents who study and have to drop their kids off at school, people who don’t live close to public transport. The proposed changes disadvantage these people. To her credit, the VC is looking to implement a financial assistance program for students who can establish that they need to park at Deakin but can’t afford it. However, having to apply for such assistance carries its own disincentives. Some students who would qualify won’t be bothered with the no-doubt tiresome application process. Many students will be too proud to apply for what amounts to a financial handout.

Deakin's Burwood campus

The second problem with the proposed user-pays model is that it’s a faux user-pays model. Deakin parking permits cost the same across all campuses. Yet the largest parking-associated cost for Deakin is the Burwood multi-storey car park. As such, parking at Waurn Ponds is not subsidised to the same degree as parking at Burwood. Parking at Waterfront is not subsidised to the same degree as parking at Burwood. And parking at Warrnambool is not subsidised to the same degree as parking at Burwood. Accordingly, if the university truly want the user to pay, it needs to charge for permits on a campus-by-campus basis. Otherwise, when the price rise kicks in the university will no longer be subsidising parking at Burwood — Waurn Ponds, Waterfront and Warrnambool staff and students will be.

There is one more problem with the proposal. The VC is using university-incurred parking costs as a justification for the price rise, but these figures are not available to students or staff. Deakin’s 2010 Annual Report clearly states that 2010 parking revenue was $2,966,000 — up from $2,737,000 in 2009 (p. 81). However, there is no specific parking-related expense account. Staff and students are simply expected to take the VC’s word for it that parking revenue doesn’t cover costs.

But estimates of Deakin’s parking-related expenses must exist. The VC is not flying blind. Her proposed changes come off the back of the COO-FBAC report to university Council. And then there is the external consultant’s report that was commissioned in response to complaints about parking at Deakin. Where are these reports? If the latter was commissioned in response to complaints then shouldn’t it (or its recommendations) be available to those people who lodged complaints? These reports, or at minimum the university-incurred cost of parking, should be released to staff and students.

If these figures aren’t forthcoming, Deakin students and staff may request them through the Freedom of Information Act. As Deakin’s 2010 Annual Report also states:

Consistent with the requirements of the Financial Management Act 1994 (Vic), the following additional information is available on request, subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 1982 (Vic):
…
— details of changes in prices, fees, charges, rates and levies charged by Deakin University
(p. 63)

‘Details of changes’ may include parking-realted costs if those costs are used to justify the proposed changes. But, then, the Annual Report continues,

Enquiries regarding any of the above should be addressed to:

The Vice-Chancellor
Deakin University
Geelong Waterfront Campus
1 Gheringhap Street
Geelong Vic 3217

Hmmm. I can see why you’d be starting to get angry. Believe the 2010 Annual Report (p. 63) and you’d think you had to direct FOI enquiries to the Vice-Chancellor — the very person whose assertions you’re questioning. Luckily, this isn’t the case. FOI requests for access to Deakin documents actually go to the manager of FOI requests in the Office of the Chief Operating Officer.

Notes

[1] The dates in this statement are incorrect. My information was based on the documents linked to in the above post, namely this one and, then, this one. However, it has come to my attention that the proposed changes to parking fees for 2012 were not presented to Council until its August 11 meeting. As it turns out, the Vice-Chancellor announced the proposed changes before Council had approved them. The VC sent her first mass email to staff and students on 22 July 2011. Council approved the changes on 11 August 2011. [Back to text]

Further Information

The Law

Deakin University Act 2009 sets out the powers and responsibilities of Deakin University.

Here’s the specific section of The Act relating to the legal status of Deakin-issued fines.

Deakin’s parking regulations can be found here: Regulation 06.01(6) – Use of Vehicles and Parking.

Parking infringement information is here. Note that Deakin outsources its initial debt collection to a private company.

A diagram of Deakin University’s executive structure can be found here.

Media coverage

Deakin staff express car parking anger, The Geelong Advertiser, 29 July 2011.

Deakin responds to parking fee concern, Deakin Univerity Newsroom, 29 July 2011.

Staff anger at deakin parking increases, Alex White, NTEU at Deakin University, 28 July 2011.

Parking fees drive Deakin staff, students mad, Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 28 July 2011.

Anger at university parking rate hike, Herald Sun, 28 July 2011.

The Dr & The Colonel and Deakin’s parking, The Warrnambool Standard, 28 July 2011.

EDITORIAL: Deakin parking fees poser, The Geelong Advertiser, 27 July 2011.

Deakin students feel parking pain, Tina Liptai, The Warrnambool Standard, 26 July 2011.

Deakin students to rally over parking costs, Tina Liptai, The Warrnambool Standard, 25 July 2011.

Deakin suffers with parking woes, The Geelong Advertiser, 18 March 2011.

Deakin University students cop blast for chocking up centre’s parks, James Dowling, The Whitehorse Leader, 23 April 2010.

The great individuals of world history … are those who seize upon th[e] higher universal and make it their own end. It is they who realise the end appropriate to the higher concept of the spirit. To this extent, they may be called heroes. They do not find their aims and vocation in the calm and regular system of the present, in the hallowed order of things as they are. Indeed, their justification does not lie in the prevailing situation, for they draw their inspiration from another source, from that hidden spirit whose hour is near but which still lies beneath the surface and seeks to break out without yet having attained an existence in the present. For this spirit, the present world is but a shell which contains the wrong kind of kernel. It might, however, be objected that everything which deviates from the established order — whether intentions, aims, opinions, or so-called ideals — is likewise different from what is already there. Adventures of all kinds have such ideals, and their activities are based on attitudes which conflict with the present circumstances. But the fact that all such attitudes, sound reasons, or general principles differ from existing ones does not mean to say that they are justified. The only true ends are those whose content has been produced by the absolute power of the inner spirit itself in the course of its development; and world-historical individuals are those who have willed and accomplished not just the ends of their own imagination or personal opinions, but only those which were appropriate and necessary. Such individuals know what is necessary and timely, and have an inner vision of what it is.

It is possible to distinguish between the insight of such individuals and the realisation that even such manifestations of the spirit as this are no more than moments within the universal Idea. To understand this is the prerogative of philosophy. World-historical individuals have no need to do so, as they are men of practice. They do, however, know and will their own enterprise, because the time is ripe for it, and it is already inwardly present. Their business is to know this universal principle, which is the necessary and culminating stage in the development of their world, to make it their end, and to devote their energy to its realisation. They derive the universal principle whose realisation they accomplish from within themselves; it is not, however, their own invention, but is eternally present and is merely put into practice by them and honoured in their persons. But since they draw it from within themselves, from a source which was not previously available, they appear to derive it from themselves alone; and the new world order and the deeds they accomplish appear to be their own achievement, their personal interest and creation. But right is on their side, for they are the far-sighted ones: they have discerned what is true in their world and in their age, and have recognised the concept, the next universal to emerge. And the others, as already remarked, flock to their standard, for it is they who express what the age requires. They are the most far-sighted among their contemporaries; they know best what issues are involved, and whatever they do is right. The others feel that this is so, and therefore have to obey them. Their words and deeds are the best that could be said and done in their time. Thus, the great individuals of history can only be understood within their own context; and they are admirable simply because they have made themselves the instruments of the substantial spirit. This is the true relationship between the individual and his universal substance. For this substance is the source of everything, the sole aim, the sole power, and the sole end which is willed by such individuals; it seeks its satisfaction through them and is accomplished by them. It is this which gives them their power in the world, and only in so far as their ends are compatible with that of the spirit which has being in and for itself do they have absolute right on their side — although it is a right of a wholly peculiar kind.

The state of the world is not yet fully known, and the aim is to give it reality. This is the object of world-historical individuals, and it is through its attainment that they find satisfaction. They can discern the weakness of what still appears to exist in the present, although it possesses only a semblance of reality. The spirit’s inward development has outgrown the world it inhabits, and it is about to progress beyond it. Its self-consciousness no longer finds satisfaction in the present, but its dissatisfaction has not yet enabled it to discover what it wants, for the latter is not yet positively present; its status is accordingly negative. The world-historical individuals are those who were the first to formulate the desires of their fellows explicitly. It is not easy for us to know what we want; indeed, we may well want something, yet still remain in a negative position, a position of dissatisfaction, for we may as yet be unconscious of the positive factor. But the individuals in question knew what they wanted, and what they wanted was of a positive nature. They do not at first create satisfaction, however, and the aim of their actions is not that of satisfying others in any case. If this were so, they would certainly have plenty to do, because their fellows do not know what the age requires or even what they themselves desire. But to try to resist these world-historical individuals is a futile undertaking, for they are irresistibly driven on to fulfil their task. Their course is the correct one, and even if the others do not believe that it corresponds to their own desires, they nevertheless adopt it or acquiesce in it. There is a power within them which is stronger than they are, even if it appears to them as something external and alien and runs counter to what they consciously believe they want. For the spirit in its further evolution is the inner soul of all individuals, although it remains in a state of unconsciousness until great men call it to life. It is the true object of all men’s desires, and it is for this reason that it exerts a power over them to which they surrender even at the price of denying their conscious will; they follow these leaders of souls because they feel the irresistible power of their own inner spirit pulling them in the same direction.

If we go on to examine the fate of these world-historical individuals, we see that they had the good fortune [to be] the executors of an end which marked a stage in the advance of the universal spirit. But as individual subjects, they also have an existence distinct from that of the universal substance, an existence in which they cannot be said to have enjoyed what is commonly called happiness. They did not wish to be happy in any case, but only to attain their end, and they succeeded in doing so only by dint of arduous labours. They knew how to obtain satisfaction and to accomplish their end, which is the universal end. With so great an end before them, they boldly resolved to challenge all the beliefs of their fellows. Thus it was not happiness that they chose, but exertion, conflict, and labour in the service of their end. And even when they reached their goal, peaceful enjoyment and happiness were not their lot. Their actions are their entire being, and their whole nature and character are determined by their ruling passion. When their end is attained, they fall aside like empty husks. They may have undergone great difficulties in order to accomplish their purpose, but as soon as they have done so, they die early like Alexander, are murdered like Caesar, or deported like Napoleon. One may well ask what they gained for themselves. What they gained was that concept or end which they succeeded in realising. Other kinds of gain, such as peaceful enjoyment, were denied them. The fearful consolation that the great men of history did not enjoy what is called happiness – which is possible only in private life, albeit under all kinds of different external circumstances – this consolation can be found in history by those who are in need of it. It is needed by the envious, who resent all that is great and outstanding and who accordingly try to belittle it and to find fault with it. The existence of such outstanding figures only becomes bearable to them because they know that such men did not enjoy happiness. In this knowledge, envy sees a means of restoring the balance between itself and those whom it envies. Thus, it has often enough been demonstrated even in our own times that princes are never happy on their thrones; this enables men not to grudge them their thrones, and to accept the fact that it is the princes rather than they themselves who sit upon them. The free man, however, is not envious, for he readily acknowledges and rejoices in the greatness of others.

But such great men are fastened upon by a whole crowd of envious spirits who hold up their passions as weaknesses. It is indeed possible to interpret their lives in terms of passion, and to put the emphasis on moral judgements by declaring that it was their passions which motivated them. Of course, they were men of passion, for they were passionately dedicated to their ends, which they served with their whole character, genius, and nature. In such individuals, then, that which is necessary in and for itself assumes the form of passion. Great men of this kind admittedly do seem to follow only the dictates of their passions and of their own free will, but the object of their will is universal, and it is this which constitutes their pathos. Passion is simply the energy of their ego, and without this, they could not have accomplished anything.

In this respect, the aim of passion and that of the Idea are one and the same; passion is the absolute unity of individual character and the universal. The way in which the spirit in its subjective individuality here coincides exactly with the Idea has an almost animal quality about it.

A man who accomplishes something excellent puts his whole energy into the task; he is not sufficiently dispassionate to vary the objects of his will or to dissipate his energy in following various separate ends, but is entirely dedicated to the one great end to which he truly aspires. His passion is the energy of the end itself and the determinate aspect of his will. That a man can thus devote his whole energy to a particular cause suggests a kind of instinct of an almost animal quality. We also describe such passions as zeal or enthusiasm, but we only use the term enthusiasm when the ends in question are of a more ideal and universal nature. The man of politics is not an enthusiast, for he must possess that clear circumspection which we do not normally attribute to enthusiasts. Passion is the prerequisite of all human excellence, and there is accordingly nothing immoral about it. And if such zeal is genuine, it remains cool and reflecting; the theoretical faculty retains a clear view of the means by which its true ends can be realised.

We must further note that, in fulfilling their grand designs as necessitated by the universal spirit, such world-historical individuals not only attained personal satisfaction but also acquired new external characteristics in the process. The end they achieved was also their own end, and the hero himself is inseparable from the cause he promoted, for both of these were satisfied. One may, however, attempt to distinguish the hero’s self-satisfaction from the success of the cause itself and to show that the great men in question were really pursuing their own ends, and then conclude that it was only their own ends which they were pursuing. Such men did indeed win fame and honour, and were recognised both by their contemporaries and by posterity — at least so long as the latter has not succumbed to the temptations of criticism, and of envy in particular. But it is absurd to believe that anyone can do anything without wishing to obtain satisfaction from doing so. Nevertheless, since the subjective factor is of a purely particular character, and since its ends are purely finite and individual, it must necessarily subordinate itself to the universal. But in so far as it implements the Idea, it must also help to sustain the underlying substance.

To make a distinction of this kind, however, is simply psychological pedantry. Those who indulge in it label every passion as a lust, and thereby cast doubt on the morality of the individuals in question. In so doing, they present the results of such individuals’ actions as their actual ends, and reduce the deeds themselves to the position of means, declaring that those concerned acted solely out of lust for fame, lust for conquest, and the like. Thus the aspirations of Alexander, for example, are characterised as lust for conquest, which lends them a subjective colouring and presents them in an unfavourable light. This so-called psychological approach contrives to trace all actions to the heart and to interpret them subjectively, with the result that their authors appear to have done everything because of some greater or lesser passion or lust, and, on account of such passions and lusts, cannot have been moral men. Alexander of Macedonia partly conquered Greece, and then Asia; therefore he was filled with a lust for conquest. He acted from a lust for fame and conquest, and the proof that these were his motives is that his actions brought him fame. What schoolmaster has not demonstrated of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar that they were impelled by such passions and were therefore immoral characters? — from which it at once follows that the schoolmaster himself is a more admirable man than they were, because he does not have such passions (the proof being that he does not conquer Asia or vanquish Darius and Porus, but simply lives and lets live). These psychologists are particularly apt to dwell on the private idiosyncrasies of the great figures of history. Man must eat and drink; he has relationships with friends and acquaintances, and has feelings and momentary outbursts of emotion. The great men of history also had such idiosyncrasies; they ate and drank, and preferred this course to another and that wine to another (or to water). ‘No man is a hero to his valet de chambre’ is a well known saying. I have added — and Goethe repeated it two years later — ‘not because the former is not a hero, but because the latter is a valet’. The valet takes off the hero’s boots, helps him into bed, knows that he prefers champagne, etc. The hero as such does not exist for the valet, but for the world, for reality, and for history. Historical personages who are waited upon in the history books by such psychological valets certainly come off badly enough; they are reduced to the same level of morality as these fine connoisseurs of humanity, or rather to a level several degrees below theirs. Homer’s Thersites, the critic of kings, is a stock figure in all ages. Admittedly, not every age belabours him — in the sense of thrashing him with a stout cudgel — as happened to him in Homer’s time; but his envy and obstinacy are the thorn which he carries in his flesh, and the undying worm which eats at him is the tormenting knowledge that all his excellent intentions and criticisms have no effect whatsoever upon the world. We may even derive a malicious satisfaction from the fate of Thersites and his kind.

Besides, psychological pedantry of this variety is not even internally consistent. It depicts the honour and fame of great men as faults, as if honour and fame had been the objects they aimed for. Yet, on the other hand, we are told that the designs of great men must have the assent of others, that is, that their subjective will should be respected by their fellows. But the very fact that they rose to honour and fame implies that they did meet with this required assent and that their aims were recognised by others as correct. The ends which world-historical individuals set themselves in fact correspond to what is already the inner will of mankind. Yet the assent which they are supposed to receive from others is treated as a fault after they have received it, and they are accused of having coveted the honour and fame they achieved. To this we may reply that they were not at all concerned with honour and fame, for the ordinary and superficial appearances which had previously been revered are precisely what they would have treated with derision. And only by so doing were they able to fulfil their task, for otherwise they would have remained within the ordinary channels of human existence, and someone else would have accomplished the will of the spirit.

Yet, on the other hand, they are again censured for not having sought the approval of others and for having flaunted their opinions. It is perfectly true that they rose to honour by treating accepted values with contempt. Since the innovation they brought into the world was their own personal goal, they drew their conception of it from within themselves, and it was their own end that they realised. It was this which gave them their satisfaction. They willed their own end in defiance of others, and were satisfied in the process. The aim of great men was to obtain satisfaction for themselves, and not for the well-meaning intentions of others. They learnt nothing from others, and if they had followed their advice, it would only have limited them and led them astray. They themselves knew what was best. Caesar had formed an extremely accurate impression of the so-called Roman Republic, for he realised that the supposed laws of auctoritas and dignitas had fallen into abeyance and that it was right and proper to put an end to the latter as a source of individual arbitrariness. He succeeded in doing so because this course was the correct one. If he had followed Cicero, he would never have achieved anything. Caesar knew that the republic was a lie, and that Cicero’s words were empty. He knew that this hollow structure had to be replaced by a new one, and that the structure he himself created was the necessary one. Thus such world-historical individuals, in furthering their own momentous interests, did indeed treat other intrinsically admirable interests and sacred rights in a carefree, cursory, hasty, and heedless manner, thereby exposing themselves to moral censure. But their position should be seen in an altogether different light. A mighty figure must trample many an innocent flower underfoot, and destroy much that lies in its path.

—— GWF Hegel 1975 [1830], Lectures on the philosophy of world history, ed. J Hoffmeister, trans. HB Nisbet, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 82-89.

When do world-historical individuals know they’re world-historical individuals? When world history has unfolded, of course. In the meantime you’ve got a heap of lunchbox-historical individuals who think they’re the next Napoleon transgressing social norms. It’s a recipe for sociopaths, with a predictive power of 0. She’s all post-hoc justifications here, mate.