[PHI 2200] Do we have an obligation to resist oppression?

According to Carol Hay, we can say what makes sexual harassment morally wrong by appealing to Kant's ethical theory, in particular, to what Kant says about our duty to respect the dignity of others and our own, given that we are rational beings. As Hay writes:

Because we have an obligation to prevent harms to our rational nature, and because oppression can harm our capacity to act rationally, we have an obligation to resist our own oppression. Despite what Kant himself might've thought, we know that women's rational capacities are no different from men's. Thus we can use Kantianism to explain why women are just as deserving of respect as men and why this respect is incompatible with sexist oppression.

Her argument can be reconstructed as follows:

1. We have an obligation to resist attempts to hinder our capacity to act rationally.
2. Sexual harassment (sexist oppression) is an attempt to hinder women's capacity to act rationally.
3. Therefore, women have an obligation to resist sexist oppression.

Do you think that Hay's argument can be extended to other forms of oppression as well?

For example, could one argue from Hay's premises that the poor have an obligation to resist economic oppression?

[PHI 2200] Can excessive wealth and inequality be justified?

According to Oxfam, "Extreme Wealth and Inequality is unethical."

Gandhi famously said "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed." From an ethical point of view, it is extremely difficult to justify excessive wealth and inequality. In fact, most philosophers and all of the major religions caution against the pursuit of excessive wealth at all cost and prescribe sharing of income with less fortunate members of the community. For instance, the Koran bans usury and says that the rich should give away a portion of their money. The decision of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to give away their fortunes or to call for greater taxation of excess wealth is an example to the rest of the world's billionaires.

Is there a moral justification for excessive wealth and inequality?

Are billionaires, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and other rich and famous people (see YouTube video), doing enough to alleviate the suffering of poor people or should they do more?

[PHI 2200] Don't dictators deserve to be entertained?

Kanye West performed at the wedding reception for the grandson of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, while Jennifer Lopez sang Happy Birthday to the president of Turkmenistan.

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What, if anything, is morally objectionable about the actions of Kanye West and Jennifer Lopez?

[PHI 2200] Fight fire with fire?

According to The Guardian:

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

One of the ways in which Palestinians are being mistreated by Israel is collective punishment. For example, according to Amnesty International, Israel uses house demolitions as a form of collective punishment.

Now, if a boycott is a form of collective punishment, too, insofar as innocent people are being punished for the actions of their government, which they may or may not support, are those who support the academic boycott of Israel guilty of being inconsistent? That is, are they protesting the collective punishment of Palestinians by collectively punishing Israeli academics? Or are they fighting fire with fire?

[PHI 2200] Is it wrong to eat animals?

Loren Lomasky gave a talk at St. John's University, titled "Is It Wrong to Eat Animals?," the other day. In support of the claim that it is not morally wrong to eat meat, Lomasky put forth the following reasons:

1. Meat tastes good.
2. Most people like eating meat.
3. Meat is a key ingredient in any cuisine.
4. We don't really know whether animals feel pain or not.
5. For animals that are bred and raised for slaughter, their existence is better than no existence.

Are these good reasons to think that eating animals is morally permissible? What do you think?

[PHI 2200] What's the freedom of us all against the suffering of the few?

Robert Nozick's Wilt Chamberlain case is supposed to show that any distribution which results from exchanges between people who are entitled to their property must be just. According to Nozick, to redistribute property that people have acquired as a result of free exchanges is a form of theft.

But what if those free exchanges result in a distribution that causes pain and suffering to some?

Does liberty always trump other moral considerations?

[INTER 2103] Does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state?

In the latest post on The Stone, "On Questioning the Jewish State," Joseph Levine writes about the tactic of charging with antisemitism anyone who questions "Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." Levine argues that, even if it is granted that the Jews constitute "a people" with a right to self-determination, and that they have a claim to the disputed territory in question, it still doesn't follow that "Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state." Why? Because, according to Levine, the Jewish people's right to self-determination comes at the expense of non-Jewish peoples. Levine mentions the Palestinians, of course, but there are other non-Jewish minorities living in Israel, including the Adyghe people, the Bedouin, the Druze, and the Samaritans, among others.

Levine concludes that "the very idea of a Jewish state is undemocratic, a violation of the self-determination rights of its non-Jewish citizens, and therefore morally problematic." According to the UN's Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

If Levine is right, then does that mean that peoples can exercise their right to self-determination only if it does not infringe on other peoples' right to self-determination? If so, does that seem like a reasonable restriction on rights? [Compare Article 4 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789): "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights."]

[PL 211] Women's War Daily: Military Brohesion

The main reasons against allowing women to serve in combat units include:

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• Women are not physically suited for combat roles.
• Women in combat units will adversely affect unit cohesion.
• The presence of women can be embarrassing and humiliating for men.
• The presence of women in a masculine environment can lead to sexual harassment.

What do you think? Are these good reasons to ban women from combat units?

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[PHI 2200] Ethical riddles in HIV research

The story told by Boghuma Kabisen Titanji in this TED talk raises interesting questions about research ethics:

• Is it morally wrong to ask patients who are most affected by a pandemic, such as HIV, to participate  in a clinical trial?
• How can researchers make sure that they are not exploiting those who are most vulnerable to the pandemic?
• After a clinical trial is over, do researchers have a moral obligation to provide care to the participants?
• Once a clinical trial ends, and the results show that the treatment is safe and effective, do the participants have a right to receive this treatment?

[PHI 2200] An unjust law is no law at all

In Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. writes:

I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Suppose that St. Augustine is right that "an unjust law is no law at all," does it follow that one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws, as Martin Luther King argues, or that one does not have a moral responsibility to obey unjust laws?

[INTER 2103] jus trans bella

Just War Theory is usually divided into three parts:

1. jus ad bellum: the justice of resorting to war in the first place.
2. jus in bello: the justice of conduct within war.
3. jus post bellum: the justice of peace agreements and the termination phase of war.

To these, Zeev Maoz adds a fourth category, namely, jus trans bella, which is the justice of conduct of "states that resort to violence at a disproportionate rate compared to what would be expected by chance." Maoz mentions the following states as examples of what he calls "fighthaloics":

States that are addicted to violence can be divided roughly into three groups: First, "old and permanent" fightaholics: These are states whose international history is saturated by violence throughout. Major powers like Britain, France, the United States, or Russia, or minor powers like Turkey and Greece are cases in point.

The second group consists of "old but recovered" fightaholics. This group consists of states, such as Germany, Japan, or Italy, who had a fair share of their history that displayed addictive behavior, but at some point these states were "cured."

The third group consists of "young" fightaholics: States with a relatively short history, but one that is saturated by violence. Here we have states like Israel, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, India, or Pakistan. If we divide the number of conflicts in which a state has participated by the number of years it was independent, Israel goes to the top of the fightaholics list with an average of one war every eight years.

Maoz argues that "fightaholic" states warrant a higher level of moral scrutiny from the international community than other states do. His argument is an analogical one:

Consider a residential neighborhood that is considered to have high rates of violent crimes. There are many families in this neighborhood, but only a few of them are engaged in violence, typically against other residents who are also prone to violence. The violent crime marking of this neighborhood is due to only a small minority of its residents.

Do you agree?

[INTER 2103] They have it too good

David Ha'ivri wrote a column for Ynet in which he raises the following questions:

1. Are the Palestinians a distinct race? If not, how could they be victims of racism? (The same can be asked about Israelis: are they a race? If not, how can they be perpetrators of racism?)
2. Does Israel have any security threat coming from Arabs both inside and outside the borders of Israel? And if so, does Israel have a right to protect itself?
3. Do people in all countries, communities and neighborhoods around the world enjoy the same standard of living, freedoms and rights?
4. Do Arab residents of Israel really have it that bad?

Presumably, these questions are meant to be rhetorical. First, Ha’ivri thinks that the Palestinians are not victims of racism. Second, he thinks that Israel does have a right to protect itself. Third, he thinks that "Israel is a haven for Arabs." Finally, he thinks that "Arabs under Israel might very well have a better standard of living than what is available in neighboring Arab regimes."

As for (1), whether or not the Palestinians are a "race" is a red herring. People and groups can be victims of discrimination and oppression because they are perceived as belonging to "the wrong racial group," "the wrong ethnic group," "the wrong religious group," "the wrong gender," and so on. So the real question is this: are the Palestinians victims of discrimination and oppression?

As for (2), note that Ha’ivri switches from talking about "Arabs" to talking about "Palestinians." But they are not the same. The Palestinians are those who inhabited the region of Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel; many of whom (or rather their descendants) now live in the Occupied Territories. So the real question is this: in what sense, if any, can an occupier be said to be "protecting" itself from the occupied?

As for (3), even if rights and liberties vary across national and geographic regions, so what? Is that a reason to think that some people should have no rights and liberties?

As for (4), even if "Arabs under Israel might very well have a better standard of living than what is available in neighboring Arab regimes," so what? Is that a reason to discriminate against them? Oppress them? Or mistreat them in any other way?

[INTER 2103] Your humus is worth dying for

According to Just War Theory, a resort to war is justified just in case the following requirements are met:

1. Just Cause. A state may launch a war only for the right reason.
2. Right Intention. A state must intend to fight the war only for the sake of its just cause.
3. Proper Authority and Public Declaration. A state may launch a war only if the decision has been made by the proper authorities and made public.
4. Last Resort. A state may resort to war only if it exhausted all peaceful alternatives to resolving the conflict.
5. Probability of Success. A state may not launch a war if it can foresee that doing so will have no measurable impact on the conflict.
6. Proportionality. Prior to going to war, a state must weigh the expected universal goods (e.g., securing the just cause) against the expected universal evils (e.g., casualties).

Now, suppose that state S is about to wage war and all the aforementioned requirements are fulfilled. Do they also justify the decision to send troops into battle?

Or is the decision to send troops into battle a separate decision that requires additional justification? If so, what could justify that decision?

[INTER 2103] Jewish and Democratic?

According to Avraham Burg, "Israel defines itself as 'Jewish and democratic state'." But Burg identifies a trend in Israel and says that

If this trend continues, all vestiges of democracy will one day disappear, and Israel will become just another Middle Eastern theocracy. It will not be possible to define Israel as a democracy when a Jewish minority rules over a Palestinian majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — controlling millions of people without political rights or basic legal standing.

Even without this trend, however, does it make sense to define Israel as both a Jewish and a democratic state? If Israel is a state for the Jewish people, and there are people who are not Jewish living within its borders, then, by definition non-Jewish citizens are not equal to Jewish citizens. If so, in what sense can Israel be said to be a democratic state?

[INTER 2103] Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Commenting on the death of Faris Odeh, the French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff said that the Palestinian response to Odeh's death is a manifestation of a "culture of death," in which the shahid, or martyr, is held in the highest regard.

This notion of a "culture of death" is often used by supporters of Israel to criticize Palestinian organizations, such as Hamas, and claim that "Israel does not have a partner for peace."

What is the difference between teaching Palestinian kids that it is good to die for the Palestinian cause and teaching Israeli kids that "it is good to die for our country"?

[INTER 2103] Johnson vs. Trumpeldor

Do you agree with Samuel Johnson or with Joseph Trumpeldor?

[INTER 2103] Is there a right to refuse?

Shministim are Israeli high school students who are imprisoned for refusing to serve in the IDF.

Do they have a right to refuse? Assuming The Universal Declaration of Human Rights as our framework for a global ethics, does their imprisonment constitute a violation of their human rights? If so, which human rights?

[PL 431] Voluntary Compulsion

From roughly 1999 to 2006, the IDF tested an anthrax vaccine on its soldiers. After numerous cases of severe side-effects started to surface, the Israel Medical Association conducted an investigation and determined that the anthrax experiments were "unjustified."

At the time, however, the experiments were approved by a committee whose public representative was Asa Kasher, the IDF's in-house philosopher.

the Health Ministry's Helsinki committee on human experiments has found that the experiment was necessary, that its scientific background was solid and that its protocol met all the standards codified by the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki, thus leading the committee to approve the experiment.

According to the WMA Declaration of Helsinki (Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects), "participation by competent individuals as subjects in medical research must be voluntary."

Now, in what sense can a conscript's participation in a military experiment be said to be "voluntary"?

[INTER 2103] The best defense is a good offense

Asa Kasher is the in-house philosopher of the IDF. He argues that Israel's obligation to defend its citizens and soldiers is prior to the obligation not to harm innocent Palestinians (non-combatants). As Kasher puts it:

From the standpoint of the state of Israel, the neighbor is much less important. I owe the soldier more. If it's between the soldier and the terrorist's neighbor, the priority is the soldier. Any country would do the same.

Kasher's argument is based on the assumption that Israel is justified in defending itself from terrorism. But in what sense is Israel "defending" itself?

Do you agree with Chomsky that an occupier cannot be said to be "defending" itself?

[PL 211] What's the fallacy?

In response to the UN council's appointment of a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations in the West Bank, Israel issued the following statement:

The mission's existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UNHRC treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important human rights agenda by non-democratic countries.

Israel was left with no other choice than to take this decision, after it became apparent that putting the disproportionate focus on Israel, while systematically ignoring massive human rights violations in the very countries who bear responsibility for this focus, only leads to the contempt and degradation of the important cause of universal human rights.

One example among many: in times when president Assad's regime massacres thousands of its own people, the UNHRC only dedicates it symbolic time, as if to go through the motions, while turning its resources to obsessively focus on Israel, yet again.

Putting aside for now the false claim that the UNHRC is ignoring the human rights crisis in Syria, what sort of informal fallacy is being committed here?

1. Red herring
2. Appeal to pity
3. Straw man
4. Two wrongs make a right