As commenters and my last post, and others, have pointed out, there’s a logical gap in my argument that, given imperfect knowledge and the recognition that we tend to overestimate our own capabilities, we should adopt a rule-based version of consequentialism which would include rules against pre-emptive or preventive wars[1]. The problem of imperfect knowledge also applies to the consequences of deciding not to start a pre-emptive war. As I’ll argue though, the symmetry is only apparent and the case for caution is strong.
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Month: December 2004
Consequentialism for beginners
Now that, thanks to Kieran Healy and the Medium Lobster, we’ve all had our fun with Richard Posner’s case for pre-emptive war, complete with toy numerical example, it’s time for me to play straight man.
Posner’s starting assumption is consequentialism: that we should evaluate an action based on whether its probable consequences are, on balance, good or bad. I broadly agree with this, so I’ll try to explain why it shouldn’t lead to conclusions like those derived by Posner.
I’ll ignore a range of more complex objections and come straight to the first distinction learned by beginning students of the subject. Should we evaluate the consequences of general rules such as “don’t engage in pre-emptive wars” (rule-consequentialism) or should we evaluate each action on a case by case basis (act-consequentialism)
For perfectly rational decision makers, following the rules of Bayesian decision theory, the answer is easy and, in fact, trivial. It’s best to make the optimal decision on a case by case basis, and an optimal set of rules would be so detailed and precise as to yield the optimal decision in every case. Posner routinely assumes this kind of perfect rationality, which is why he doesn’t see any big problems with toy examples, or with claiming that this kind of reasoning can usefully be applied to improbable catastrophes with incalculable consequences.
There are two objections that can be made here
* Human beings are not perfectly rational and do not follow the rules of Bayesian decision theory
* Since war is a negative sum game, rational decision makers do not fight wars
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Multinationals, chains and coffee
My views about multinationals and chains are generally pretty nuanced, except when it comes to coffee. So I’m happy enough to go to Borders in a (successful) search for “The Nutmeg of Consolation” (Patrick O’Brian) especially since, as I recall, there’s quite nice little independent coffee shop in a corner of the store. I get the book and order my coffee. I’m vaguely aware that something is wrong, but, given my decaffeinated state, it’s not until I look around and see everyone drinking out of paper cups that I realise the awful truth – the place had turned into a Gloria Jean’s. I drank the coffee anyway, and it wasn’t as bad as my previous experience several years ago, but I certainly won’t be going back.
Then I come home to write this post on multinationals, flick to the SMH, and discover that GJ is about to become an Australian multinational. I don’t have any particular thoughts on this, other than to say that the idea that there might be 240 000 people willing to pay to drink this stuff every day is alarming.
Kyoto: the empire strikes back
One of the nice things about being the resident opposition at the Financial Review is that, as well as lots of letters, my articles often attract full-length replies. Mostly these are from right-wing thinktanks, but on several occasions they’ve been from government ministers I’ve managed to prod into a response. This kind of thing tells me I’m doing my job (of course, I also welcome support in the form of letters to the Fin or directly to me).
Today’s Fin (Subscription required) has a piece from Ian Campbell, the new minister for the environment, responding to my piece on Kyoto, which I’ve placed over the fold. I’ve heard that my piece, which I thought was pretty mild, upset the government, and that the original draft was considerably hotter than the published version. I’m pleased to say that I agree with a substantial part (though not all) of Campbell’s intro which reads
Without intervention projected changes in global temperatures are expected to cause major environmental and economic impacts on agricultural industries, on human health, on businesses and through a greater number of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, drought, bushfires, storms and flooding.
Contrary to John Quiggin’s assessment (AFR, December 2), it’s precisely because Australia understands that climate change will not go away that we are working to meet our Kyoto target. However, we do not believe the protocol is an effective response to climate change.
At least on the science, this is a clear-cut rejection of the wishful thinking that still seems to have plenty of supporters.
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Bremer’s last gift
As the American ruler of Iraq, Paul Bremer had the amazing knack of being able to pick the worst possible decision on every occasion[1]. From the dissolution of the Iraqi army to his refusal to hold elections in 2003, when there was some chance they could have worked, he did everything wrong he possibly could. Now he’s gone, and most of his policies have been abandoned, but he’s left one last gift, which may turn out to be the most poisonous of the lot.
When Bremer set up the electoral system for the elections that are supposed to be held in January, he went for a single nationwide electorate, rather than having representatives of provinces or individual constituencies[2].
In any case, what this means is that, to the extent that fighting depresses the turnout in Sunni areas, Sunnis get less seats. Being a minority, they’re bound to lose most of the power they’ve traditionally held in any case, but under Bremer’s rules, they could be excluded almost completely. By contrast, under a constituency system, provided some sort of ballot could be held, Sunni candidates would be elected from Sunni areas.
To address this problem, Juan Cole is suggesting an emergency intervention, setting aside 25 per cent of the seats for Sunni candidates. It’s probably about the best that can be done in the circumstances, but the outlook is not that good.
Meanwhile, the onset of civil war has been announced, not by leftist opponents of the war, but by arch-hawk Charles Krauthammer who complains (haven’t we heard this before) about the unreliability of our native allies
People keep warning about the danger of civil war. This is absurd. There already is a civil war. It is raging before our eyes. Problem is, only one side is fighting it. The other side, the Shiites and the Kurds, are largely watching as their part of the fight is borne primarily by the United States.
I don’t recall Krauthammer mentioning civil war as part of the plan in 2003. But maybe this is one of those four-war things.
fn1. I don’t think this was simple stupidity. His orders were, as far as I can see, to establish a secular free-market democracy that would be a reliable ally of the US and Israel. Any halfway realistic policy would have required him to abandon these objectives, and settle for a moderately theocratic, semi-socialist and imperfectly democratic state, on the “Iran-lite” model, because that’s what a majority of Iraqis want. Instead, he followed the dream.
fn2. My guess is that his motive was to allow votes for Iraqi exiles who could be presumed to be more favorable to the occupation than the people who were actually experiencing it.
Blogs meet the Harvard system
Martin Pike at Northcote Knob:
I just got back a masters essay in which I used a reference to a post on John Quiggin’s blog. I got a distinction, and despite there being a rather large swathe of pedantic comments scrawled on the pages the blogref got through unscathed.
For nerds; I was using Harvard system (eg Pike, 2004) but added a footnote disclosing that it was a blog, and who Quiggin is (or claims to be!).
Anyone heard of this being done, or am I breaking ground here?
Pinker
The discussion of Windschuttle has, not surprisingly, got us into the general nature-nurture debate. Here’s a link to my review of Pinker’s Blank Slate. I suggest that general comments on this topic, as well as responses to my review, be posted here.
Straws in the wind
In the discussion of the current account deficit, commenter Homer Paxton has emphasised the importance of terms of trade, a point I’ve tended to neglect. As Barry Hughes points out in today’s Fin (subscription required) terms of trade (the ratio of world prices for the things we export to prices for the things we import) have improved steadily throughout the life of the Howard government, making their job a lot easier and meaning that the trade deficit is much smaller than it would be otherwise. Hughes thinks the terms of trade will turn down within the next year.
Meanwhile, the US bond market bubble may be just about to burst. Ever since Bush was re-elected, people have been losing faith in the assumption that somehow everything will come right. The people who really matter are the Chinese and Japanese central bankers who hold about a trillion in US government debt. The headline on this Observer story Japan threatens huge dollar sell-off is slightly alarmist, since the threats are being made by an LDP official, but the explicit reference to the need for higher US interest rates is the first I’ve seen coming out of Japan.
Monday Message Board
It’s time, once again, for the Monday message board, where you are invited to post your thoughts on any topic. Civilised discussion and no coarse language, please. My suggested discussion starter is that hardy perennial: What does Christmas mean to you ?
The R-word
My post on Keith Windschuttle’s statements defending the White Australia policy drew an interesting response. No-one, as far I can see, was prepared to defend Windschuttle outright, but there was a sudden and startling outbreak of caution. Maybe Windschuttle had been misquoted. Maybe the interview gave a misleading picture of his book and we should all wait to read it. Maybe the term “White Australia policy” was never used officially. Maybe the dictation test was administered so as to admit educated Indians. Maybe my links were inaccurate.
All of this is very uncharacteristic of the blogosphere. The nature of blogging lends itself to summary judgements based on limited evidence, not waiting for years until all the evidence is in. You read the papers, make a judgement and (at least among the better class of bloggers) if you turn out to be wrong, you admit it with good grace. Why has the response in this case been so different ?
I think it’s because of the R-word racism. There is only one real instance of political correctness in Australia today and that is that you are never, ever allowed to call anyone a racist. It’s OK to say that Adolf Hitler was a racist, and that apartheid was racist, but the idea that any actual Australian could be a racist is utterly taboo. Even I can’t resist the Zeitgeist on this one. In my post, I called Windschuttle “a consistent apologist for racism, happy to use racist arguments in support of his cause”.
It’s obvious why this taboo has emerged. Racism is an evil, bloodstained ideology and no one wants to admit association with it. Hence, almost no-one is silly enough to come out with a clear-cut statement like “white people are inherently superior to black people, and should be able to use them as they see fit”.
In this respect, racism is very similar to Communism. But while few people were willing to endorse Soviet Communism openly, particularly after the purges and the exposures of Kruschchev’s secret speech, there were plenty who were always willing to make excuses for the communists along the lines of “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs” and so on. With his characteristic turn of phrase, Lenin called people of this type “fellow travellers” to their faces and “useful idiots” behind their backs.
Since his (still unexplained) swing from far left to far right about a decade ago, Windschuttle has consistently sought to excuse racist actions by whites (or, more precisely, British whites) by the usual range of strategies including denial of the facts, quibbling about irrelevant details, denunciation of witnesses and attacks on the victims as subhumans responsible for their own demise[1]. But, in politically correct Australia, that’s not enough reason to call him a racist. So, I’ll just call him a fellow-traveller.
fn1. There’s an obvious model for this kind of thing in the recent historical literature, but I’ll leave the identification as an exercise for readers.
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John Quiggin 