the burden of proof: nurturing public reason in response to climate change
TRANSCRIPT
Folsom, New Mexico
“Folsom”
“The Folsom Point was crafted from flint some 10,000 years ago. Discovered in the 1920s on a joint expedition by this Museum and the Denver Museum of Natural History, this
spear point is among the most important archaeological finds ever made on this continent. The discovery of the Folsom Point, which was found embedded in a bison that
has been extinct for 10,000 years, provided evidence that humans arrived in North America much earlier than scientists previously thought.”
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/human-origins-and-cultural-halls/hall-of-eastern-woodland-indians/folsom-spear-point
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/freshwater-hero-jonathan-waterman/
The Burden of Proof: Nurturing “Public Reason”
in Response to Climate Change
Tom MoritzAdjunct Professor
University of the WestOctober 13, 2014
Letter: Charles Darwin to Alfred Russell Wallace May 1, 1857
“…it is lamentable how each man draws his own different conclusions
from the very same fact.”
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2086
Darwin Correspondence Project
“Public Reason” ???
“The idea of public reason specifies at the deepest level the basic moral and political
values that are to determine a constitutional democratic government's relation to its
citizens and their relation to one another. In short, it concerns how the political relation is
to be understood. “
John Rawls “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,”The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 765-807
John Rawls: “Public Reason”
“Public” ???
“…such reason is public in three ways:
1) as the reason of free and equal citizens, it is the reason of the public;
2) its subject is the public good concerning questions of fundamental political justice, which questions are of two kinds, constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice;
3) its nature and content are public, being expressed in public reasoning by a family of reasonable concep-tions of political justice reasonably thought to satisfy the criterion of reciprocity.
John Rawls: “Public Reason”
“Of course, every society also contains nume-rous unreasonable doctrines. Yet in this essay I
am concerned with an ideal normative conception of democratic government, that is, with the conduct of its reasonable citizens and the principles they follow, assuming them to be dominant and controlling. How far unrea-sonable doctrines are active and tolerated is to be determined by the principles of justice
and the kinds of actions they permit. “John Rawls “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,”
The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 765-807
John Rawls: “5 Different Aspects of Public Reason”
1) To which political questions does it apply?2) To whom does it apply (government officials
and candidates for public office)? 3) Are its contents consistent with a family of
reasonable political conceptions of justice?4) Are coercive norms consistent with
fundamental conceptions of justice -- as enacted in the form of legitimate law for a democratic people?
5) Do citizens’ recognize that the principles derived from their conceptions of justice satisfy the criterion of reciprocity?
John Rawls “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,”The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 765-807
“The zeal to embody the whole truth in politics is incompatible with an idea of public reason that belongs with democratic citizenship.”
-- John Rawls
John Rawls “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,”The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Summer, 1997), pp. 765-807
A fundamental problem in building and sustaining any democratic polity
is successful mediation between necessary adaptation
for the common good and centrifugal counter-social tendencies of individuals
To stipulate some models…
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
“Knowledge Pyramid”
http://www.wipo.int/global_ip/en/knowledge_gap.html
Repatriation of biodiversity information through Clearing House Mechanism of the Convention on Biological Diversity and Global Biodiversity Information Facility; Views and experiences of Peruvian andBolivian non-governmental organizations. Ulla Helimo Master’s Thesis University of Turku Department of Biology 6.10. 2004
p.11. http://enbi.utu.fi/Documents/Ulla%20Helimo%20PRO%20GRADU.pdf [06-06-05]
“KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES”:
TechnologyInsight
The inter-subjective domain of public reason
is also the domain of ‘third person ontology’ (the definitive construct
for scientific data / evidence)
“Objectivity” and “Invariance” ?
A fundamental problem in building and sustaining any polity
is successful mediation between necessary adaptation
for the common good and centrifugal counter-social tendencies of individuals
Physics
Biology
Cognitive StudiesSocial Sciences
Engineering
Problem Domain of
“CONSCIOUSNESS”
Personal PERCEPTION
Personal “VALUATION”
(Selection by Memory
)
Personal REASON
Personal EXPRESSION
“Subjectivity”: ”First Person Ontology”
Personal “INTUITION”
Ostrom: “The Internal World of Individual Choice”
Elinor Ostrom,, Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ Press, 1990. p.37
The Social Enterprise Spectrum
Purely Philanthropic Purely Commercial
Motives
Methods
Goals
Appeal to Goodwill
Mission Driven
Social Value
Mixed Motives
Mission and Market Driven
Social and Economic Value
Appeal to Self Interest
Market Driven
Economic Value
JG Dees, “Enterprising Non-profits" in Harvard Business Review on Non-Profits Harvard, Cambridge, 1999, p.147
Poder Politico y Conocimiento
Políticos
Administradores
o Gestores
Analistas-Técnicos
Científicos
Conocimiento (en términos científicos-occidentales)Bajo
Alto
Alto
(Sutton, 1999)
From: Organizaciones que aprenden, paises que aprenden: lecciones y AP en Costa Rica by Andrea Ballestero
Directora ELAP
???
The “Progress” of Science…?
Saturn images courtesy of R J Robbins and The Research Coordinating Network for the Genomics Standards Consortium…
Saturn images courtesy of R J Robbins and The Research Coordinating Network for the Genomics Standards Consortium…
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/31/world/after-350-years-vatican-says-galileo-was-right-it-moves.html
Cholera
Cholera“Cholera is a disease characterized by rapid onset of explosive diarrhea, massive dehydration, and
death. It is caused by the bacillus Vibrio cholerae and spread through fecal contamination of drinking water or food. In the 19th Century epidemics began in Asia and then spread to Europe and the Americas. Medical opinion was that it was spread through the air, in keeping with the
miasma theory of disease. Overcrowding and poor sanitation were thought to lead to air contamination and the rapid spread of the disease, particularly in low-lying foggy areas near rivers and other bodies of water. Diseases such as malaria (literally, bad air) were associated
with mists over swampy areas. Drainage of low lying areas lowered the incidence of malaria and other diseases, an observation considered to be further proof that disease was spread through
the air. Cholera first appeared in England in 1831 and was characterized by a high incidence and fatality rate in local areas — one village of 550 inhabitants recorded 320 cases and 55 fata- lities
(Vinten-Johansen, 2003). During the initial epidemic and a subsequent reoccurrence in 1848 there were intense scientific debates about its cause (Smith, 2002). The two major theories of
disease at the time were those of the contagionists and those of the anti-contagionists. Cholera fit neither theory very well. Its rapid onset fit best with anti-contagionism; and its dependence on human contact fit best with contagionism ( Vinten-Johansen, 2003). But among the medical
and scientific experts involved in these often acrimonious debates there was general agreement that disease was spread by air.”
“John Snow, the Broad Street pump and the precautionary principle,” Bernard D. Goldstein, Environmental Development 1 (2012) 3–9.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/EnvDev1_3_9_2012.pdf
“A representation of the cholera epidemic of the nineteenth century”
http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/index.html
“the general rule that the mortality of cholera is inversely as the elevation of the people assailed above the sea level.”
– Wm Farr (19th April, 1852)
“A representation of the cholera epidemic of the nineteenth century”
http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/index.html
Air or Water?
A drop of Thames water, as depicted by Punch in 1850
“Cholera came to Florence in 1854 during the Asiatic Cholera Pandemic of 1846-63. [Filippo] Pacini became very interested in the disease. Immediately following the death of cholera patients, he performed an autopsy and with his microscope, conducted histological examinations of the intestinal mucosa. During such studies, Pacini first discovered a comma-shaped bacillus which he described as a Vibrio. He published a paper in 1854 entitled, "Microscopical observations and pathological deductions on cholera" in which he described the organism and its relation to the disease. His microscopic slides of the organism were clearly labeled, identifying the date and nature of his investigations …”
Filippo Pacini
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html
Edwin Chadwick“His extensive research on the living conditions of the slums of England led him to publish The Reporton the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain in 1842. In a unique bureaucratic
way, this pamphlet highlighted the unreasonable living conditions and the virtually complete lack of sanitary infrastructure in Great Britain. Chadwick’s writing was concerned with state control, shifting all of the blame of
poorhealth on poor sanitary conditions, whilst ignoring other factors such as diet and labouring conditions. Despite this administrative slant in Chadwick’s writing, it led to a total revolution in social thought. It established a link between sanitary conditions and high mortality rates showing that the misery of the poor lay within the government’s control, not in some intrinsic deficiency in the class.
“Chadwick’s writings led to the Public Health Act of 1848 in which the government began to acknowledge some responsibility for upholding the health of the population. Following this public health initiative, the Board of Health was created and Chadwick was appointed the Commissioner. During the cholera epidemic of 1848-49, Chadwick ordered the replacement of the traditional brick sewers with his self-flushing, glazed pipes in hopes of conveying the sewage to farmers for use as manure. This antagonised many engineers who thought that he was overstepping his bounds. Furthermore in 1848 in a well-meaning attempt to rid poverty stricken areas of their filth in cesspools, he ordered the sewers of London to be flushed into the Thames. This was a devastating move leading to extreme contamination of the Thames with over 20,000 cubic meters of sewage dumped into the Thames from March to May of 1848 and over 50,000 cubic meters from September to February, 1848.
“Chadwick’s very strong and opinionated personality combined with his seemingly anti-democratic views alienated many people and led to his eventual resignation. In 1854 he was attacked publically in the House of Commons by Benjamin Hall, his eventual successor as Commissioner to the Board of Health. Hall attacked both his personality and his career, calling him “an unscrupulous and dangerous man” who had worked in the public service for years but had not provided any positive impact to the community. In light of this massive loss of Parliament’s support, Chadwick was forced to resign in 1854.”
http://www.choleraandthethames.co.uk/cholera-in-london/cholera-in-soho/edwin-chadwick/
http://brianaltonenmph.com/gis/historical-medical-geography/1852-william-farr-elevation-and-cholera/
William Farr
JOHN SNOW
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/snowmap1_1854_lge.htm
http://johnsnow.matrix.msu.edu/images/online_companion/chapter_images/fig12-6.jpg
Voronoidiagram
MAP OF LONDON WATERWORKS, 1856
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/watermap1856/watermap_1856.html
John Snow’s Analysis of London Waterworks
http://www.cdc.gov/ophss/csels/dsepd/SS1978/Lesson1/Section2.html
Fast Forward – 1990’s…
From US Center for Disease Control: “Global Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (WASH) ”
“Disease & Death: An estimated 801,000 children younger than 5 years of age perish from diarrhea each year, mostly in developing countries. This amounts to 11% of the 7.6 million deaths of children under the age of five and means that about 2,200 children are dying every day as a result of diarrheal diseases 4.
“Unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation together contribute to about 88% of deaths from diarrheal diseases 1.
“Worldwide, millions of people are infected with neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), many of which are water and/or hygiene-related, such as Guinea Worm Disease, Buruli Ulcer, Trachoma, and Schistosomiasis. These diseases are most often found in places with unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation, and insufficient hygiene practices 8, 9.”
http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html#four
“Microbiological Analysis of Drinking Water of Kathmandu Valley”
“Abstract: Drinking water quality assessment in Kathmandu valley has always been crucial with reference to public health importance. A study was conducted to evaluate the quality of drinking water of the valley. A total of 132 drinking water samples were randomly collected from 49 tube wells, 57 wells, 17 taps and 9 stone spouts in different places of Kathmandu valley. The samples were analyzed for microbiological parameters. Total plate and coliform count revealed that 82.6% and 92.4% of drinking water samples found to cross the WHO guideline value for drinking water. During the study, 238 isolates of enteric bacteria were identified, of which 26.4% were Escherichia coli , 25.6% were Enterobacter spp, 23% were Citrobacter spp, 6.3% were Pseudomonas aeruginosa, 5.4% Were Klebsiella spp, 4.0% were Shigella spp , 3.0% were Salmonella typhi, 3.0% Were Proteus vulgaris, 3.0% Were Serratia spp and 1.0% were Vibrio cholerae .”
Scientific World, Vol. 5, No. 5, June 2007
http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/SW/article/viewFile/2667/2361
Haitian Earthquake and Relief Efforts
“Understanding the Cholera Epidemic, Haiti”by Renaud Piarroux et al.
Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 17, Number 7—July 2011
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/17/7/11-0059-f1
http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/hti_cholera_cases_23072012.pdf
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/01/29/150501695/port-au-prince-a-city-of-millions-with-no-sewer-system?ps=cprs
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/12/haitians-sue-un-overcholeraepidemic.html
Ebola
An aid worker removes the body of
a dead woman in Monrovia, Liberia.
Photograph by Kieran Kesner / Rex
Features VIA AP
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/27/ebola-wars
1976: “Peter Piot and the other team members
collected blood samples and epidemiological data to
establish modes of transmission of Ebola.”
Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp
http://www.wsj.com/articles/footage-from-1976-documents-discovery-of-
ebola-virus-1413470954
World Health Organization: “Ebola virus disease”Fact sheet N°103 Updated September 2014
Key facts• Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal
illness in humans. • The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through
human-to-human transmission.• The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in
past outbreaks.• The first EVD outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests, but
the most recent outbreak in west Africa has involved major urban as well as rural areas.• Community engagement is key to successfully controlling outbreaks. Good outbreak control relies
on applying a package of interventions, namely case management, surveillance and contact tracing, a good laboratory service, safe burials and social mobilisation.
• Early supportive care with rehydration, symptomatic treatment improves survival. There is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralise the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development.
• There are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines but 2 potential candidates are undergoing evaluation.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
“Background:
“The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness which is often fatal if untreated. Ebola virus disease (EVD) first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous outbreaks, one in Nzara, Sudan, and the other in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The latter occurred in a village near the Ebola River, from which the disease takes its name.
“The current outbreak in west Africa, (first cases notified in March 2014), is the largest and most complex Ebola outbreak since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976. There have been more cases and deaths in this outbreak than all others combined. It has also spread between countries starting in Guinea then spreading across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, by air (1 travelleronly) to Nigeria, and by land (1 traveller) to Senegal.
“The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have very weak health systems, lacking human and infrastructural resources, having only recently emerged from long periods of conflict and instability. On August 8, the WHO Director-General declared this outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
“A separate, unrelated Ebola outbreak began in Boende, Equateur, an isolated part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The virus family Filoviridae includes 3 genera: Cuevavirus, Marburgvirus, and Ebolavirus. There are 5 species that have been identified: Zaire, Bundibugyo, Sudan, Reston and Taï Forest. The first 3, Bundibugyo ebolavirus, Zaire ebolavirus, and Sudan ebolavirus have been associated with large outbreaks in Africa. The virus causing the 2014 west African outbreak belongs to the Zaire species.“
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
World Health Organization: “Ebola virus disease”Fact sheet N°103 Updated September 2014
Sampling and investigation locations In southeastern Guinea (Sierra Leone, Guinea, and
Liberia are visible); scale bar stands for 50 km.
Saéz A M et al. EMBO Mol Med.
doi:10.15252/emmm.201404792
©2014 by European Molecular Biology Organization
http://embomolmed.embopress.org/content/early/2014/12/29/emmm.201404792.figures-only
Meliandou and the burnt tree that housed a bat colony AThe village of Meliandou.
Saéz A M et al. EMBO Mol Med.
doi:10.15252/emmm.201404792
©2014 by European Molecular Biology Organization
http://embomolmed.embopress.org/content/early/2014/12/29/emmm.201404792.figures-only
http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/ebola/
http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/
“Bats as bushmeat: a global review,”Simon Mickleburgh, Kerry Waylen and Paul Racey
“A questionnaire survey and literature review revealed the extent of hunting of bats for bushmeat in the Old World tropics. High levels of offtake were reported throughout Asia, the Pacific islands and some Western Indian Ocean islands, where fruit bats of the genus Pteropus are eaten extensively. Most hunting in Africa was reported in western states and the largest fruit bat Eidolon helvum was preferred. Insectivorous bats are also eaten, particularly Tadarida in Asia. Hunting is both for local consumption and commercial, sometimes involving cross-border transactions. The high levels of hunting reported and the low reproductive rate of bats indicate there are likely to be severe negative effects on bat populations, and declines of several species are documented. Although there has been only one reported attempt to manage offtake, this indicates that it is possible and apparently successful. Furthermore, voluntary controls on hunting have halted declines in bat numbers. There have been several initiatives to reduce hunting pressure and conserve threatened bat species, mainly on islands that, when sustained, have been successful. More education projects and community-based conservation initiatives should be encouraged together with further attempts at sustainable harvesting in situations where disease risk has been evaluated.”
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5487716&fileId=S0030605308000938
Oryx / Volume 43 / Issue 02 / April 2009, pp 217-234
“Uncovering the fruit bat bushmeat commodity chain and the true extent of fruit bat hunting in Ghana, West Africa”
“Harvesting, consumption and trade of bushmeat are important causes of both biodiversity loss and potential zoonotic disease emergence. In order to identify possible ways to mitigate these threats, it is essential to improve our understanding of the mechanisms by which bushmeat gets from the site of capture to the consumer’s table. In this paper we highlight the previously unrecognized scale of hunting of the African straw-colored fruit bat, Eidolon helvum, a species which is important in both ecological and public health contexts, and describe the commodity chain in southern Ghana for its trade. Based on interviews with 551 Ghanaians, including bat hunters, vendors and consumers, we estimate that a minimum of 128,000 E. helvum bats are sold each year through a commodity chain stretching up to 400 km and involving multiple vendors. Unlike the general bushmeat trade in Ghana, where animals are sold in both specialized bushmeat markets and in restaurants, E. helvum is sold primarily in marketplaces; many bats are also kept by hunters for personal consumption. The offtakeestimated in this paper raises serious conservation concerns, while the commodity chain identified in this study may offer possible points for management intervention. The separation of the E. helvum commodity chain from that of other bushmeat highlights the need for species-specific research in this area, particularly for bats, whose status as bushmeat is largely unknown.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3323830/
Biol Conserv. Dec 2011; 144(12): 3000–3008.
Storms…
New Orleans
August 25, 2005, at 12:30 p.m., Eastern Daylight Savings Time
Updated August 27, 2005 10:42 a.m. EDT
Updated August 28, 2005 8:42 a.m. EDT
Updated August 29, 2005 8:20 a.m. EDT
The city of New Orleans pictured at dawn, Saturday, Sept. 3, 2005 as fires continue to burn and water still stands in many areas of the city. New York Times / Vincent Laforet
http://vincentlaforet.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/last-minute-advice-for-those-covering-gustav/katrina051/
Sept 15, 2005
September 8, 2005
New York City
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/F
TA_0001_-_Flooded_Bus_Barns_and_Buckled_R
ails.pdf
Hurricane “Sandy”
http://www.weather.gov/okx/HurricaneSandy
http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Research/Environmental/EMEP/climaid/ClimAID-Transportation.pdf
http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Files/Publications/Research/Environmental/EMEP/climaid/ClimAID-Transportation.pdf
New York City Subway
Hurricane Sandy
Recovery Service As of Nov 1 [2012]
http://www.wnyc.org/story/286581-subway-flooding-
predictable-eerily-matches-climate-change-model/
“Port Jefferson, NY” US National Weather Service http://www.weather.gov/images/okx/Sandy/ManhattanLexingtonAve_WzohaibFl
ickrNHCReport.jpg
Scientific Analyses
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n3/full/ngeo779.html
“Tropical Cyclones
and Climate Change”
“Increasing Destructive-
ness of Tropical Cyclones over the Past 30 Years”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7051/full/nature03906.html
The Evolution of Science
“Tragedy”?
“The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in
the solemnity of the remorseless working of things. This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in
terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama…”
-- Alfred North Whitehead Science and the Modern World (1848)
Science 13 December 1968: Vol. 162 no. 3859 pp. 1243-1248DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.124
So… Who else “believes”
that Climate Change is “real”?
US National Academies
http://nas-sites.org/americasclimatechoices/
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
http://climate.nasa.gov/
US National Institute of Health Science
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/about/visiting/events/pastmtg/2013/dert-climate/index.cfm
US Center for Disease Control
http://www.cdc.gov/climateandhealth/
US Department of Defense
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=121237
http://climateandsecurity.org/tag/department-of-defense/
Lloyd’s of London
http://www.lloyds.com/news-and-insight/risk-insight/reports/climate-change/climate-change-and-security
Munich RE
http://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate-change/index.html
SWISS RE
http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/climate_and_natural_disaster_risk/
Standard & Poors: “Re/Insurers Have ‘Coped Well So Far’ with Climate Change”
http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/features/2014/06/02/330251.htm
Harvard
http://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2014/confronting-climate-change
NYC and Storm Sandy
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/the-sandy-storm-surge-is-this-what-climate-change-will-look-like/264292/
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rahimkanani/2014/03/05/mike-bloomberg-on-the-un-climate-change-and-how-obamas-efforts-are-just-not-enough/
D. Nutt et al., “Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse,” The Lancet, Volume 369, Issue 9566, Pages 1047 - 1053, 24 March
2007 doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)60464-4. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2807%2960464-
4/fulltext
Tobacco
“CO2 is Green”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxCQHn-w0Bw
Public Reason?The Dilemma…
But what about… “Non-ideal Conditions”
“The idea of public reason is often presented as a normative ideal, as the way our moral or political rules ought, ideally, to be justified, and also as the way individuals ought, ideally, to engage in deliberation and discussion. Rawls, for example, stipulates that his account of public reason “belongs to a conception of a well-ordered constitutional democratic society” (Rawls 1999b, 573), by which he means a society where: (a) everyone accepts, and knows that others accept, the same conception of justice (or at least everyone accepts some member from the family of liberal conceptions); (b) the basic structure of society is publicly known to satisfy this conception and; (c) citizens have a normally effective sense of justice (Rawls 1996, 35).
“But what does public reason entail in non-ideal circumstances, such as our own, where arguably none of the three conditions listed above are met (Boettcher 2012, 174–175)? Some proponents of public reason encourage us to observe the moral duty of civility in our political life, but if the duty of civility has been designed for ideal conditions, it is unclear whether or how it might apply under less than ideal conditions. For example, many accounts of public reason include a sincerity principle that directs individuals to only support those principles or rules they sincerely believe meet the test of public reason (Gaus 1996, 139–140; Rawls 1996, 241–242; Schwartzman 2011). But does this requirement still apply in conditions where many of those with whom we are debating do not embrace the idea of public reason, and may behave only strategically or cynically? “
Quong, Jonathan, "Public Reason", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/public-reason/
RR: “…government is not the solution to our
problem; government is the problem” Ronald Reagan 1st Inaugural Address 01/20/1981
http://www.reaganlibrary.com/reagan/speeches/first.asp
“Global Public Reason” ???“Another issue that Rawls lists as a problem of extension is the topic of international
relations. But the topic of international relations may not simply be a problem of extension, that is, it may not simply be a question of whether some existing account of public reason can be extended to provide the necessary answers to questions about international relations or global justice. There is also the further question as to whether the principles that regulate international or global justice require an independent or separate conception of global public reason. The case in favor of a distinct account of global public reason might appeal to at least three facts:
1) if the fundamental ideas that form the basis of “domestic” public reason draw on the shared public or political culture of a constitutional democracy (Rawls 1999b, 584), global public reason appears to require a different basis, since either there is no shared political culture spanning the globe, or else that shared culture looks very different to that of a constitutional democracy.
2) if the relevant agents in the global or international arena are not primarily individual persons, but are rather states or other collective entities, then global public reason may require a very different conception of the constituency of public reason.
3) if we assume that a global society regulated by a conception of global public reason is comprised of different states, which are each internally regulated by their own domestic forms of public reason, we face several questions regarding the relationship between these domestic and global principles…”
Quong, Jonathan, "Public Reason", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2013/entries/public-reason/
Nation-States and Multi-National Corporations
The presumption that states and organizations can be treated as “persons” is very risky…
To a reasonable degree the behavior of some of these entities would be judged psychopathicif held to the standards by which individuals are diagnosed…
And yet…
Progress does occur at the international level –treaties and conventions can sometimes be effective in regulating international conduct…
SEE: “Most-ratified international treaties”
http://blogs.un.org/blog/2012/09/24/most-ratified-international-
treaties/#sthash.Uh56CDrG.dpbs
It is worth pondering why these treaties have been “successful”…?
“The Commons”and “Common Pool
Resources” ???
The Commons and “tragedies”?
“We may well call it ‘the tragedy of the commons,’ using the word ‘tragedy’ as the philosopher Whitehead used
it: ‘The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the
remorseless working of things." He then goes on to say, ‘This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of
escape can be made evident in the drama.’ " – Garrett Hardin
“The Tragedy of the Commons”
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full
Science 13 December 1968: Vol. 162 no. 3859 pp. 1243-1248DOI: 10.1126/science.162.3859.124
1. Clearly defined boundariesIndividuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself,
2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditionsAppropriation rules restricting time, place, technology and/or quantity ofresource units are related to local conditions and to provision rules requiring labor, material, and/or money.
3. Collective-choice arrangements Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.
4. MonitoringMonitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.
5. Graduated sanctionsAppropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduatedsanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.
6. Conflict-resolution mechanismsAppropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas toresolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.
7. Minimal recognition of rights to organizeThe rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challengedby external governmental authorities.
For CPRs that are parts of larger systems;
8. Nested enterprisesAppropriations, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, andgovernance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.
OSTROM: “Design Principles Illustrated by Long-enduring Common Pool Resources [CPR] Institutions”
Elinor Ostrom : “Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action”Chapter 3: “Analyzing Long-Enduring CPRs” p.90
Southern California Groundwater Basins
Elinor Ostrom,, Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ Press, 1990. p.37
“We may insist as much as we like that the human intellect is weak in comparison with human instincts,
and be right in doing so.But nevertheless there is something peculiar about this
weakness. The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.
Ultimately after endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic
about the future of mankind.”
Sigmund FreudThe Future of an Illusion
“Dare to know! (Sapere aude.)
Have the courage to use your own understanding”!
-- Immanuel Kant
“What is Enlightenment?”
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html
Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge
