reading George W. Bush

I’ve been thinking a bit about various theories that eorge

Bush is pursuing war for unstated motives, some nefarious and some honorable.

These thought are prompted by a Michael

Kinsley editorial and various conversations and email exchanges with friends.

As a general rule, I don’t believe that we should try to assess leaders’ motives.

That’s because:

  1. We can never tell for sure what their motives are.

    (Or even what motivates our own actions.)

  2. Motives don’t matter.

    You can do a bad or stupid thing with the best intentions, or you can do a great

    thing for awful reasons. We need to spend our time thinking about policies, not

    policymakers.

  3. A focus on motives makes us turn for advice to insiders,

    those who may have insight into leaders’ secret thoughts. (For example, presidential

    advisors, speaking off the record.) We should instead listen to fellow citizens

    and experts with knowledge of the substantive issue.

Unfortunately,

we cannot make a very intelligent judgment about war in Iraq, because so much

of the important information that George W. Bush has on his desk is classified.

Also, much depends on how the war will turn out in the end. No one knows, but

George Bush’s motives are relevant, since he will make many crucial decisions.

Thus it is hard not to think about his motives as a surrogate way of grappling

with the issue.

local governments and independent civic websites

I’m beginning to think about my presentation at the American Society

for Public Administration conference next Monday. (Click for the practical

details.) My title is "Local Governments and Independent Civic

Websites." I submitted the following abstract: "Communities

benefit when they have strong, broad-based, active, civic organizations.

Today, there is a need for new civic organizations or networks that are

devoted to producing public goods for distribution on the Internet: things

like searchable databases of local assets, interactive digital maps, structured

forums for informed public deliberation, alternative local news sources,

and art and history projects. These goods are not widely available, because

businesses have not learned how to make money from them, and they are

too expensive to be produced by individual citizens. However, for a reasonable

price, local governments can support such work without compromising its

independence."

what is moral philosophy?

My Dante book (in progress) is really an essay

on the limitations of moral theory. But what is that? I’m playing

with the following definition: Moral theories are collections of descriptive

terms, each of which has a known moral valence. For example, "unjust"

is a descriptive term with moral significance. We might argue that anything

that is "unjust" is wrong—at least all else being equal.

In that case, the moral valence of the term "unjust" is negative;

calling something "unjust" pushes us toward rejecting that action

(or institution, or character).

Knowing the moral valence of a descriptive term does not always tell

us what to do, because a single act can be described in multiple ways.

A given action may be "unjust" but also "loving."

(For example, a parent might favor her own children over others.) In such

cases, the negative moral valence of injustice is countered by the positive

moral valence of love, and we have a difficult decision to make. In another

kind of situation, an action may be "unjust" but also "necessary";

and if something is necessary, then we may have to ignore moral considerations

altogether.

Few (if any) philosophers have ever believed that moral theories could

be sufficient to determine action; we also need judgment to tell us which

moral terms to apply in particular cases, and how to balance conflicting

terms. Nevertheless, philosophers generally think it is useful to have

a moral theory composed of terms with known moral valences.

A moral theory can simply be a list of such terms (this was W.D. Ross’

view); but preferably it is an organized structure. For example, a theorist

may argue that some moral terms underlie and explain others, or trump

others, or negate others. The more the full list can be organized and/or

shortened, the more the theory has achieved.

talking about race

During our high school class today, we had a good and useful time talking

about statistics on race and school enrollments. The bottom line

is that the proportion of African American students in Prince George’s

County school soared upward by 72 percentage points from 1960 to the present.

Around 1980, the Black and White student populations were about equal.

Since there was mandatory busing in those days, we assume that a lot of

students attended truly integrated schools. Then the White students left,

at a faster rate than the White population of the county. Now the "exposure"

of Black students to White students (as measured by civil

right lawyers) is very low compared to other counties.

I think our students learned a fair amount about statistics and were

intrigued by the facts. But when we started asking them what they thought

about the trends, they clammed up. The history of school desegregation

in this County could be viewed as a temporary success (until the 1980s)

and a long-term failure because schools are almost as segregated today

as they were in 1960. Or one could say that the departure of White students

is not bad news at all, since the Black population is extremely diverse

(65 languages are spoken at Northwestern High School alone), and the median

income of the County is much higher than the national median—so there

are plenty of resources for an excellent school system. Our students wouldn’t

say what they thought, and I don’t blame them. Not only is this a difficult

issue, but three White college employees were suddenly asking them for

their candid opinions of a sensitive racial issue—a really unfair

demand. Yet I was disappointed, because I would like to know what they

think.