Vox Issue X - Future Realities

VOX

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The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Published termly by the Club of PEP at the University of York

Issue X- Autumn 2009

FUTURE REALITIES

Emancipation of creative content Future of Economics Considerations Against Human Enhancement Could a machine think Is Fake Nature less valuable than the real thing Future of Fish Predictioneering in Economics intergenerational contract Potential humans

VOX

voxjournal.co.uk

The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

The Club of

PEP Journal

ISSUE X - AUTUMN 2009

Future Realities

ESSAY

PAGE

Future Culture: The Emancipation of Creative Content

By Luke Smalley

6

The Future of Economics

By Leoni Marie Linek

10

Equality, Autonomy and Control

14

By Daniel Brigham Could a machine think?

By Moses Lemuel

18

Is Fake Nature Less Valuable than the Real Thing?

By Rob Nightingale

22

The Future of Fish

By Alice Cornthwait

28

Predictioneering in Economics

By Ilaf Scheikh Elard

32

The Intergenerational Contract

By Dana Andreicut

36

Potential Humans

By Elena Villarreal

42

Photo credit: sxc.hu

New technology forces people to rethink how they live their lives, and even to question what is moral.

Luke Smalley on morality of creative content

by Leonie Gavria

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

VOX

The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

EDITORIAL

I __________________ VOX is a student journal that serves as a platform for insight into topics relating to Politics, Economics and Philosophy (PEP).

The essence of VOX is its interdisciplinary approach to each edition’s issue.

VOX is published triannually by the Club of PEP at the University of York and distributed on York’s campus as well as other universities in the UK. __________________ VOX committee: Cameron Dwyer Luke Smalley Simon Fuchs Spencer Thompson Paul Mertenskötter Therese Herrmann Adam Czopp Magda Assanowicz Alexandra Aninoiu Christina Dimakoulea Moses Lemuel Mira Wolf Alexander Skelton

t would be fair to say that people do

not really understand the future. Time is apparently just a dimension, yet an object in the future seems so different to an object on our left.

Niels Bohr remarked, “Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future.” So it seems that this issue’s authors face a challenging task. They could take comfort in Aristotle’s belief that statements concerning the future are neither true nor false. I wouldn’t encourage anyone to see ‘Future Realities’ contents as trivial though. Instead, consider Louise Hay’s words, “Every thought we think is creating our own future.”

The current VOX, ‘Future Realities’, tackles several issues. First there is the future of the planet. A critique of ‘fake’ nature (p.22) is followed by a piece on our impact on global fish stocks (p.28).

There are also articles on how advancements may strain our current conceptions of what is moral. The future of creative content is considered (p.6) along with problems surrounding human enhancement (p.14). In another piece the current criteria for a thinking machine are critically analysed (p.18). Two articles deal with the future of the discipline of Economics (p.10 and p.32).

I hope that you enjoy this edition. Finally, intergenerational responsibility and the status of embryos are discussed (p.42 and p.36).

In addition, I should mention that the Club of PEP will be holding elections in February. Amongst the available positions will be editor of VOX. We are also currently taking on new committee members who will be able to work with us on the next issue ‘Education’.

If you are interested in helping create VOX or if you would like to write an article, please email us at vox@clubofpep.org .

Details on the next theme, submission requirements and some suggested topics can be found on the back cover.

Cameron Dwyer

Issue X - Autumn 2009

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

C. S. Lewis

The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.

Rainer Maria Rilke

And in today already walks tomorrow.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Future Culture: The Emancipation of Creative Content

By Luke Smalley “The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” -- Thomas Jefferson

M

usic, videos, and books, infinitely available to all

at no cost, websites that provide such a service (Limewire, and the recently slaughtered Napster) are the prime targets of the entertainment industry, using all technological and legal means to prevail against them. The goal: to implement widespread copy prevention of digital files, so that people can view or listen to content on their computer but can’t copy or distribute it. But underneath this headline-grabbing war lie some fundamental questions about culture, technology and freedom of speech.

Whilst this article will show that the attempts by the recording industry to prevent the free distribution of creative content are futile, it will also raise more important questions; if creative content is to be free in the future, then how will authors and publishers be compensated, but furthermore, is the

liberation of creative content a good thing, or just piracy?

Doomed to Fail Why is creative content (music, videos, books) becoming a free public good? Modern day creative content differs significantly from its predecessors in that it is ‘non-rival’; I can copy any software for a miniscule price without any hindrance to the original owner. This is a result of the digitization of media. Converting all content into streams of zeros and ones entails making it infinitely copyable without any loss of quality, the very essence of what economists define as ‘non-rival goods’ (1).

Creative content is becoming non-excludable too. Goods are ‘non-excludable’ when it becomes impractical to stop everyone from making use of the item once one person is able to. It is not possible to stop people from view-

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ing terrestrial television (non-excludable), while it is very easy to stop additional people from entering a cinema (excludable). Economists call non-rival, non-excludable items ‘pure public goods’ (2).

The entertainment industry has created a variety of ways to make digital content uncopyable, such as encrypting content so that it can only be viewed through an authorized player, unremovable watermarks (e.g. Adobe), or some form of activation registration (e.g. Microsoft Office). However, as Bruce Schneier points out, such attempts are futile. Three kinds of people inhabit the Internet: average users, hackers, and professional ‘pirates’. Any security measure will work against the average users, who are at the mercy of their software. Hackers are more difficult to deter. Schneier writes; “Fifteen

years of software copy protection has taught us that, with enough motivation, any copy protection ... can be broken”. The professional pirate is even harder to deter; “if he can make a profit selling the hacked software or stolen music, he will defeat the copy protection. “ (3).

By keeping the average user and most hackers at bay, the entertainment industry could protect 98% of media from being copied, a level which is satisfactory in the same way that supermarkets calculate a presumed level of stolen goods in their inventories. That works for supermarkets because their goods are ‘rival’, so that even if a few shoplifters get their items for free, everyone else still has to pay. However, the non-rival nature of creative content means it only takes one hack for media to be distributed everywhere;

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

“one smart hacker to defeat the copy protection schemes for everyone” (4).

Then, even the most hardcore technophobe can access the media in an easy to use format.

Beyond Wages; New Methods of Payment If the future of creative content is one where it is liberated from the price tag, then what are the options for our future authors, musicians and publishers? Dan Kohn suggests four ways in which future content creators could be compensated. Firstly, government support. Whilst the idea of politicians choosing which artists receive money seems tyrannical, Kohn proposes measures based solely on popularity; so, for example, “a new government program could offer grants to the authors of the top 1,000 most popular Web sites, MP3s, movies, and so on, encouraging innovation not just in the creation of new content but also in its successful promotion.” (5).

Micropatronage is a second method by which artists could be paid; a system in which the public directly supports the work of artists by making donations through the Internet (6). Whilst micropatronage means artists are open to influence from their patrons, the advantage of this method is that with the near-zero cost of information distribution, finding patrons becomes simpler, as does having one artist supported by numerous patrons. For example, a successful author would find it quite easy

to find 5,000 individuals to contribute £100 each towards her next book.

Corporate Philanthropy is the third method Kohn suggests. Today, public goods such as medical research are funded through non-profit organizations such as Cancer Research UK. This method involves raising a larger amount of money for a larger cause, and then distributing the money, via funding schemes, to those who are deemed most worthy (7).

This approach, according to Kohn, could be how content is funded in the future; “imagine a National Country & Western Foundation, or an American Society for Horror Flicks. That is, some potential micropatrons (especially companies) may wish to fund a genre as a whole, and have the experts employed by non-profits decide which established and up-and-coming artists are most deserving of their funds” (8).

The final method Kohn suggests is ‘selling atoms associated with certain bits’. Whilst the ‘bits’ (the digital media) will be impossible to charge for, it would be possible to sell rival goods (the atoms) associated with the media, such as concert t-shirts, or to make money out of excludable media, such as the concerts themselves, which fans will continue to pay money for.

These four methods provide a glimpse into the future of how people could be compensated for the creative content they produce. But even if this is the inevitable future of content, it still begs

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the question: Is this a good thing?

Emancipation of the Press New technology forces people to rethink how they live their lives, and even to question what is moral. Martin Luther’s Protestant Revolution would not have had the incredible impact it did without the broad availability and consequential wide literacy enabled by Gutenberg’s Bible. Gutenberg’s printing press drastically reduced the cost of reproducing information and can be seen to catalyse the entire Enlightenment, as well as the intellectual offshoots of that period, liberal democracy and free market capitalism.

Historically, the distribution of information has been controlled by a smallbut-powerful elite. The Roman Catholic Church held an essential monopoly on manuscripts, which were produced by scribes scattered about the monasteries of Europe. On the advent of printing, Pope Alexander VI deemed it necessary to issue a bull against the “menace” of the printed word, and as a result censorship laws were strung up around Europe throughout the 1500s (9).

The situation today is no different; the majority of media distribution channels are still controlled by a small elite of publishers and broadcasters. An oligopoly of five powerful companies has nearly exclusive control in deciding what media people are exposed to.

The digital media available over the internet is different from all preceding

information technology revolutions.

This is because anyone with basic literacy skills can use the internet to reach an enormous and growing audience at almost no cost. A.J. Liebling said that “freedom of the press belongs to those who own one”; that the price of distributing media has been reduced to the £1 an hour charged by Internet cafes may mean that ‘freedom of the press’ can truly be realised. A world in which media distribution is free is one in which everyone’s voice has a chance to be heard.

Bibliography: 1: Kohn, Dan. ‘Why Encryption Doesn’t Help’ 2002a 2: Kohn, Dan. ‘Content is a Pure Public Good’ 2002b 3: Schneier, Bruce. ‘The Futility of Digital Copy Prevention’ 2001 4: Kohn, 2002b 5: Kohn, Dan. ‘How to Finance Content Creation’ 2002c 6: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micropatronage 7: http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/ 8: Kohn 2002c 9: de Sola Pool, Ithiel. ‘Technologies of Freedom’ pg 11-23. _____________________________ Luke Smalley is a third year undergraduate reading PPE at the University of York.

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

The Future of Economics

By Leoni Marie Linek

T

he unprecedented financial turmoil and the current

recession have provoked much talk about the world’s economic outlook.

This article, however, shall not be concerned with the future of our economy – but with that of the discipline economics.

10

In order to understand the status quo, both of the field of study and its real world counterpart, one must consider the course that economics has taken over the past decades. When, in light of the stagflation of the 1970s, the untenable assumption of a trade-off between inflation and unemployment

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made Keynesianism lose its credibility, a neoclassical approach to macroeconomics emerged in its place. The rational expectations revolution and the real business cycle theories of the 1970s and 1980s promoted the belief in market clearing, perfect information and rational agency. The reinstating of classical theory, however, seemed more convincing this time, because it was now clad in mathematics.

The “sophistication” of economics, which came hand in hand with the advent of the neoclassical school, gave rise to the conception that economics is a precise science akin to the natural sciences. As Harvard professor Gregory Mankiw explains in his renowned textbook: “Economists ... approach the subject of the economy in much the same way as a physicist approaches the study of matter and a biologist approaches the study of life.”1 This view puts the economy among matter and life as something given by nature, not made by humans.

Such an understanding of economics has posited market forces as something inevitable, like gravity. Noticeably in current debates, this naturalistic notion of economics has prompted us to mistakenly speak of the financial crisis as an “earthquake” or a “hurricane”: a natural catastrophe, which has come upon us and is seemingly beyond the reach of our influence. This fallacy has lead to perplexity and apathy towards the challenges that we are facing. Indeed, the credit crunch has shaken the

economy tremendously and wiped out the jobs of many. Yet the crisis was not caused by some mysterious mechanism of the natural laws of economics but has its roots in the decisions of human beings.

The events since September 2008 have refuted the predictive claims that had been ascribed to economics. “Why did no one see the crisis coming?” Queen Elizabeth asked an economics professor at the London School of Economics in November of last year, and a group of prominent economists wrote to her this summer to point out that many had in fact foreseen parts, yet no one the whole of the crisis. Unfortunately, they missed the point.

Such an understanding of economics has posited market forces as something inevitable, like gravity.

The crisis has corroborated, once more, that economics is a social science, as it deals with human behaviour.

The economy is not a part of nature but a product of human interactions.

As even Alfred Marshall, the father of neoclassicalism, knew: “economics cannot be compared with the exact physical sciences for it deals with the ever-changing and subtle forces of human nature”2 . Although the contrary 11

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

has often been assumed (usually in sentences beginning with “Let us assume that”), human behaviour is thus everything but mechanistic or uniform, and its prediction is confronted with great uncertainty. This uncertainty, it must be acknowledged, cannot be calculated with absolute accuracy.

The crucial difference between the behaviour of humans and that of particles or cells is the concept of volition. “Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being has […] a will“, Immanuel Kant discerned3 . Natural sciences collect statements about certain phenomena, which help to describe and predict these. Whilst matter always (or almost always) behaves the same way and scarcely ever deviates from the laws governing it (note, however, that Kant had no clue about Quantum Physics yet), humans act upon their wills, which do not follow a simple rule.

...economists must also give up their predictive pretensions and should be more reserved about detailed mathematical forecasts.

However, free will should not be misemployed as a reason to reject social science in general. Although human behaviour may not follow strict laws, there are evident regularities in human actions, and it is the task of so12

cial science to examine and identify these. Yet caution is to be exercised.

Humans are fallible. Unlike particles, they make mistakes and they fail to recognize things. Economics should therefore depart from the assumptions of mechanistic rationality and perfect information. This entails that economists must also give up their predictive pretensions and should be more reserved about detailed mathematical forecasts. Instead, they should focus on what they are good at: explaining the past, examining the present and guessing at the future.

Moreover, much of neoclassical thinking tied macroeconomics increasingly to its microeconomic foundations to make the subject more rigorous. Yet the financial crisis has highlighted the need to examine ‘market sentiments’ more closely- there is a certain “madness of the crowds”. Mainstream economics can currently account neither for collective moments of euphoria nor for mass phenomena of panic.

However, the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. If macroeconomists wish to shed light on the economy in its entirety, they must attempt to model these phenomena, even if this is a very difficult task.

Redefining economics as a social science with moderated claims and attempting to account for mass phenomena would furthermore urge us to strive for a more comprehensive picture of economics, embracing its inextricable links to related fields. Just

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as the concept of an economic sphere separate from and alien to the rest of social life is fallacious, the belief that economics can be studied on its own is pure delusion. While mathematics is crucial to the field, economics, particularly macroeconomics, should not be taught merely as a device for operating complex mathematical systems. University degrees in economics should also encompass the study of philosophy, sociology, political economy and the history of economic thought. Such vision of a broadly educated economist seems to coincide with Keynes’ idea of a mathematician, a historian, a statesman and a philosopher in one.

Many may object that this is too much to ask for. Yet the formation of economists is so utterly important, because their ideas “both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else”.4 After all, economics as a discipline cannot carry on ‘business as usual’. Economists in the public eye have shown their willingness to be self-critical, and economists at universities should follow their example both by refining and broadening their teaching of economics, bearing in mind that their students will soon assume responsibility in the real world economy. By embracing philosophical, sociological and historical components, while still teaching the necessary mathematical competence and efficiency, they would also

remind aspiring economists of the indeterminism of economics – and thus of the significance of their own actions.

The Club of

PEP Journal

Bibliography: 1. Mankiw, N.G. (1997) Principles of Economics (Ft. Worth: Dryden Press), p.18 2. Marshall, A. (1961) Principles of Economics (London: MacMillan), p.

32 3. Kant, I. (2002) Groundworks for the Metaphysics of Morals Ed. and tr.

by Allen W. Wood (New Haven: Yale University Press) AK 4:412 4. Keynes, J.M. (1964) The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York and London: Harcourt, Inc.) p. 383

_____________________________ Leoni Marie Linek is a second year undergraduate student reading Economics and Philosophy currently studying at Columbia University.

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VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Equality, Autonomy and Control : considerations against human genetic enhancement

By Daniel Brigham

I

t is not unfair to claim that it is the biogenetic sciences that

will drive the applied ethical agenda for the first half of the 21st century.

With purposeful genetic and embryonic manipulation fast becoming not just a futuristic possibility but a scientific actuality, we are forced to deal with the resultant moral questions not as intellectual exercises but as concrete problems. One such issue, which this piece hopes to cast some light onto, is whether it is permissible to genetically enhance people. Setting aside drier, more technical qualms, I highlight and discuss three main considerations against genetic enhancement. The views expressed in what follows are not necessarily my own, nor are they alone meant to amount to a strong case for a negative answer to our question. Rather, in the interests of informed debate, people ought to at least be aware of such considerations. My modest aim, then, is that after reading this article some people will be.

But firstly, what is genetic enhancement? Well, genetic enhance14

ment is the intentional manipulation of an organism’s genetic code with the aim of increasing its capacities beyond normal levels. It is human genetic enhancement that is most interesting morally and the focus of this article.

The idea is that by altering someone’s genes we could make them more intelligent, better looking, physically stronger etc. Although there is no hard and fast distinction (consider immune system enhancement) in general genetic enhancement is not done for medical reasons (i.e. the restoration of good health or the correction of genetic disorders) but rather for social, cosmetic and personal reasons. Now, there are going to be practical questions about how to actually enhance such-and-such a trait and in principle questions about, say, the possibility of enhancing something as subtle as intelligence, which may be the product of more than just brute genetics. These are important to the wider debate, but for now let’s just assume that there is a fairly impressive array of features which can be enhanced. Should we do it?

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(1) Socioeconomic considerations.

Genetic enhancement is expensive.

On either a global or national scale only the rich will be able to afford it.

This is going to exacerbate existing social and economic injustices and, over the course of a few generations, could push such inequalities to absurd extremes. A radical yet sobering prediction, offered in one form or another

by the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk and the Princeton molecular biologist Lee Silver amongst others, is of a hu-

manity divided into two groups – the enhanced, ruling elite super-humans and the unenhanced, ruled over basehumans (Paul: 2005: 134). Be that as it may, there remains the serious danger that the benefits of genetic enhancement could be outweighed by adverse, even if unintended, social consequences. True, rich people have been paying to enhance their children for years. On the basis of this, one might then object as follows. Private schooling, although environmental rather than genetic, is an example of people paying to enhance their children and it isn’t objectionable. Two ripostes.

Firstly, justifying one injustice by appealing to the existence of another is a sham - no matter how institutionalised that other is. Secondly, there is a considerable difference of degree between private schooling and genetic enhancement, blowing such appeals out of the water.

(2) Autonomy Considerations. Some people might worry that enhancing somebody for musical ability, say, is going affect their autonomy by making them in some sense pre-determined to like music or follow a musical career.

Such worries are misplaced – enhancing a capacity is different to instilling a preference (Holland: 2003: 181). If anything, a range of enhancements would increase a person’s freedom by giving them more “life options”. However, there is still an important sense in which genetic enhancement can be said to undermine the autonomy of the 15

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

person who is enhanced. Genetic enhancement is both costly and complex, so being enhanced for such-and-such a trait sends out a powerful message about the desirability of that trait, be it the judgement of one’s parents or one’s wider community (cf. Barclay: 2003).

Now, the point is not that this message will biologically force a person to do anything but, rather, that it will nevertheless exert a very strong social pressure – so strong, in fact, that it goes beyond the normal social pressures we all face and falls within the category of coercion. Admittedly, such a worry is highly speculative and therefore contestable but it remains important to 16

lay such worries on the table in order to have a fair discussion of the issue.

Quite simply: worries add up.

(3) Control. The third consideration revolves around the question of who should control genetic enhancement procedures. We are faced with a dilemma: either prospective parents have control or the state does. The first horn is unacceptable because parents may well select for controversial and bizarre traits. Could deaf parents choose to genetically ‘enhance’ for deafness? Could bereaved parents choose to genetically ‘enhance’ their new child to look just like their dead one? Here, of course, the vague

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distinction between enhancement and engineering surfaces. The second horn is equally unacceptable. Genetics is

...a humanity divided into two groups – the enhanced, ruling elite super-humans and the unenhanced, ruled over base-humans.

a totally inappropriate area for the state to operate in. Firstly, historical issues lead us in this direction – we need not be reminded of them here.

Secondly, the state should serve its subjects, not determine who they are – state intervention in genetics reverses the subject-state order of determination1 .Furthermore, it’s obvious that the state’s idea of what makes a better human being is probably not going to be co-extensive with your, mine or the average citizen’s idea, e.g. from the eyes of the state servile, slavish traits (“law-abiding and industrious”) may be seen as enhancements whereas the population at large might question this. Perhaps this is a false dilemma.

Couldn’t there be a third way, for instance parental control embedded in a reasonable legislative framework?

No, this is not a false dilemma; there is no convenient third way. The real issue with control is this: no one person or institution, or collection thereof, is privileged enough to legislate over

what it is to be a better human being.

Admittedly every society is going to have norms and idealisations, in itself that is not necessarily bad. It is quite another thing to encode these norms and idealisations in future generations.

1. Note, immigration control poses an interesting challenge to this view.

Bibliography: Linda Barclay, ‘Genetic Engineering and Autonomous Agency’, in The Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol.

20, no.3 (2003).

Stephen Holland (2003), Bioethics: A Philosophical Introduction, Polity Press Cambridge.

Diane B. Paul, ‘Genetic Engineering and Eugenics: The Uses of History’, in Is Human Nature Obsolete? Harold W. Baillie and Timothy K. Casey (eds.)

(2005), MIT Press. _____________________________ Daniel Brigham is a third year undergraduate student reading Philosophy at the University of York

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VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Could a machine think?

By Moses Lemuel

T

his question is certainly not new. In 1950, Alan Turing devised

a test to answer it. A machine needs only to exhibit the ability to communicate like a human being to pass what 18

is now known as the Turing Test (TT).

However, does it really prove that a machine thinks? In this short essay, I will examine the possibility of thinking machines with reference to the TT,

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since it has served as a useful point of reference in discussions on artificial intelligence (AI). I will find that, as with many controversial questions, there is no definite answer. Yet there is some reason to believe that a thinking machine is plausible, with a caveat that mere imitation of human behaviour is probably not enough to prove it.

The TT is a modified form of a party imitation game that involves a judge, a man and a woman.

A machine takes the place of one of the participants, excluding the judge.

Although the rules for the versions Turing proposed are more complex, the standard interpretation of the TT is simply one where a judge communicates to a machine and a person without being able to see them. He directs a question at one of them at a time and attempts, through his questioning, to determine which of them is the machine. The machine tries to convince the judge that it is the person, while the person helps the judge identify the machine. If the machine succeeds in its goal, it passes. The rationale behind this is if a machine exhibits the ability to communicate like a person, then it would functionally be a thinking object, just like a person. This assertion is rooted in the Behavioralist school of thought, which asserts that “what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions” (Levin, 2004).

... there is some reason to believe that a thinking machine is plausible, with a caveat that mere imitation of human behaviour is probably not enough to prove it.

There are many who disagree with this. John Searle has, with his ‘Chinese Room’ thought experiment, offered a seminal critique. In the experiment, he imagines being isolated in a room furnished with three sets of Chinese writing and rules written in English, which correlate the second set with the first and the third with the other two. The rules also instruct him to write the appropriate Chinese characters in response to the third set. With no knowledge of Chinese and without knowing that the three sets correspond to a set of Chinese script, a story and a set of questions respectively, he might unknowingly be able to follow the rules and write, in Chinese script, the correct answers to the questions. The answers might even be “indistinguishable from those of native Chinese speakers” (Searle, 1980). Yet, in this exercise, no understanding is involved at all. Thus, a machine might be able to “manipulate formal symbols”, as Searle was doing in the Chinese Room, but in doing so it would not possess any intentionality, which only arises from an understanding of the content (Searle, 1980). Hence, it cannot think 19

VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

in the sense that human beings think.

Searle’s conclusion demands that a machine possess “intrinsic intentionality” (Searle, 1980) before it could be considered a thinking machine.

However, there is also some practical criticism of the TT and its ability to prove a thinking machine. A referee in the first TT-inspired Loebner Prize competition held in 1991 reported negatively on it. He noted that trickery had prevailed as the winning computer program was imitating ‘whimsical conversation’, which was unfalsifiable since it was nonsensical (Shieber, 1993). Ned Block, also a referee, took this observation to its conclusion by criticising the TT itself as “a sorely inadequate test of intelligence because it relies solely on the ability to fool people”, stating that such a test is “confoundingly simple to pass” (Shieber, 1993).

The sole requirement of human imitation is evidently too limited, prone to mistaking crafty programming for thinking ability. Such practical criticism and Searle’s criticism both indicates that thinking machines are not so easily realised and are perhaps unforeseeable at the current technological level.

Nonetheless, AI and behavioural experts have come up with some good responses to sceptics.

One is to say that understanding is precisely the manipulation of formal symbols through the application of rules, that computers do this just as a child does when she learns to add 20

(Abelson, 1980). Consequently, understanding improves simply when “more and more rules about a given content are incorporated” (Abelson, 1980).

This implies that better programming might confer a computer the ability to understand, and with understanding, it would be capable of thinking.

The sole requirement of human imitation is evidently too limited, prone to mistaking crafty programming for thinking ability.

However, human beings possess sensorimotor learning capabilities, which allow us to understand the world in ways that the mere application of rules on symbols in the abstract cannot. As long as machines are unable to experience the world as we do, it would be possible to maintain that they are not capable of understanding nearly as much and can therefore not be fully capable of thinking.

The idea of the ‘super-robot’ has been proposed as a solution to this problem. This hypothesis accepts that understanding entails having “all of the information necessary to construct a representation of events in the outside world”, and that this must be accomplished by the mental manipulation of symbols that represent the outside world and checking them

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against the ‘rules’ established by sensory experience (Bridgeman, 1980).

Naturally, what is hence needed to fulfil the vision of a thinking machine with full person-like intentionality is a robot that is capable of sensorimotor learning (Bridgeman, 1980). And as a testament to the completeness of this idea, Searle has expressed his agreement that such a robot might indeed be a thinking machine (Searle, 1980).

Thus, we have arrived at a possible answer. Although our treatment of the question is certainly far from comprehensive, we can reasonably infer from it that machines could think. However, in order to prove this, it would require much more than a trial by standard TT.

Bibliography: Abelson, P. (1980). ‘Searle’s argument is just a set of Chinese symbols’, commentary/ Searle: ‘Minds, brains, and programs’. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 3: 424-425.

Bridgeman, B. (1980). ‘Brains + programs = minds’, commentary/Searle: ‘Minds, brains, and programs’. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 3: 427-428.

Oppy, G. and Dowe, D. (2008). ‘The Turing Test’. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://plato. stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/ [Accessed 21 July 2009].

Searle, J. (1980). ‘Minds, brains, and programs’. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Available at http://www.bbsonline. org/documents/a/00/00/04/84/ bbs00000484-00/bbs.searle2.html [Accessed 21 July 2009].

Searle, J. (1980). ‘Intrinsic intentionality’, response/Searle: Minds, brains, and programs’. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

3: 450-456.

Shieber, S. (1993). Lessons from a Restricted Turing Test. Available at http:// www.eecs.harvard.edu/shieber/Biblio/Papers/loebner-rev-html/loebner-rev-html.html [Accessed 21 July 2009].

_____________________________ Moses Lemuel is a third year undergraduate reading PPE at the University of York

Levin, J. (2004). ‘Functionalism’. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/functionalism/ [Accessed 21 July 2009].

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VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy

Is Fake Nature Less Valuable than the Real Thing?

By Rob Nightingale

A

round the world there have been attempts by hu-

manity to undo the harm caused by population growth and industrialization. This takes many forms, for example the reintroduction of species or restoring landscapes. In the future it is likely that such actions will be more frequent still. Various philosophers hold that no matter how convincingly an area of nature is restored or recreated, there will always be a loss of some kind of value that would have remained had it not been for man’s interference. However, as Belshaw asks, ‘do we have reason to value things just because they are old, or natural?’

(Belshaw, 2001, p248). What follows will examine why we often place value on ‘old’ or ‘natural’ entities and whether we are right to do so, I hope to show that value is irretrievably lost in fake nature, and that we are indeed right (all things being equal) to value areas, objects and phenomena of natural origin over those of man-made origin.

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It is helpful to clarify what is meant by ‘fake nature’ and ‘real nature’. ‘Fake nature’ shall mean land, objects, or phenomena that have been openly constructed or restored by man without deceitful intention. It will be assumed that the genesis of any land, object or phenomena is known. By ‘real nature’ I shall mean: nature that has not had its natural processes dominated over or widely interfered with by man.

Elliot posits that an ‘origin value’ is irretrievably lost in fake nature. The story and genesis of a modified tract of land is altered, and this is the lost value that cannot be rekindled even when an area of nature is perfectly restored. He does not ‘want to be taken as claiming that what is natural is good and what is non-natural is not’ (Elliot, 1982, p4); sometimes other forms of value will override origin value. Elliot is arguing that something will always be lost, and that ceteris paribus, fake nature will indeed be less valuable than real nature because of its altered genesis.

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These claims largely rely on Elliot’s proposal that ‘what is significant about wilderness is its causal continuity with the past’ (Elliot, 1982, p7) and through man’s interference we lose this continuity and distance nature from its valuable origins.

As an analogy, an exact copy of Whistler’s Mother may be visually indistinguishable from the original, but with the original the stroke on the lips of the subject was made with an emotion only Whistler felt. The copy only replicates the emotion as opposed to holding it like the original seems to.

The point is that given the choice real nature is of a higher value than fake

nature because of its seemingly richer, fuller story and genesis, as opposed to fake nature’s shallower content and genesis. So fake nature is not the direct result of purely natural processes and it is because of this that value is lost.

Katz gives another perspective. Fake nature has different value to real nature because ‘once we begin to create restored natural environments, we impose our anthropocentric purposes on areas that exist outside human society…they will be anthropocentrically designed human artifacts’ (Katz, 1992, p98). It is held that these artifacts have an intrinsic function, as a playground does, whereas nature has 23

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no such function, restored nature is a mere artifact, not nature. We can never recreate nature; we can only satisfy our anthropocentric desires by manipulating and dominating nature to create artifacts that merely appear natural.

These views explain differences between fake nature and real nature. Both attack the restoration thesis, which says that we are able to restore nature to its previous value through recreation and restoration. Nevertheless, Belshaw’s question remains: ‘Do we have reason to value things just because they are old, or natural?’ ‘We will regret the loss of the original world, but it isn’t clear to me that anything of value is lost’ (Belshaw, p248). So we might ask Elliot, though we often value entities based on origin, are we right to do so? To Katz, what gives natural entities significance over artifacts?

Monet said ‘The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration’ and Carson said ‘It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the Earth, and in the contemplation of her beauties know of wonder and humility’. These quotes exemplify the importance we often ascribe to nature, but seem to apply to real nature. If we gaze into the distance of a man-made savanna, can it really be said that we will feel the same ‘wonder and humility’ that we would feel while gazing over the wholly natural Serengeti? Belshaw says, ‘I agree that we will value the un24

touched woodland more highly than the restored’ (Belshaw, p248), but cannot see a solid reason for us valuing it more. The fact remains that we do, I shall look at why this is so.

The value ascribed to real nature is extremely vague, but a possible solution can be found in the Works of Rolston. In Valuing Wildlands, he puts forward various types of value that nature holds, and the three most poignant seems to be historical, character-building and religious value. These values seem to be most present in real nature, while less so in fake nature.

...the awe and intense wonder we would feel through real nature would be replaced with an aesthetic appreciation and impressiveness of man’s capabilities.

Historic value can be understood as a parallel to Elliot’s origin value. It seems harder for us to picture a wildland as it would have been several millennia ago if we know it was recently planted by conservation workers. Its story seems tarnished and its history degraded by man’s interference.

Religious value seems more spiritual. Witnessing something as majestic as the Aurora Borealis is often the trigger for a ‘peak experience’. Maslow said these experiences were rare moments in a person’s life when one is

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filled with wonder and awe; where one feels more connected with both oneself and the world. Such an experience, rare as it is, seems to be much less likely if the Aurora Borealis were manually created. In such a situation, the awe and intense wonder we would feel through real nature would be replaced with an aesthetic appreciation and impressiveness of man’s capabilities. We would miss out on peak experiences that, once had, are extremely valuable.

Character-building value, to Rolston, is the providing by nature of ‘a place to gain humility and a sense of proportion…integrated into character, they increase well-being, and the social good is benefited by having such citizens’ (Rolston, p186). This is the case when nature is real. Being immersed in fake nature seems mainly to build respect for one’s species, possibly creating an overly important image of oneself and humankind. If every forest were planted, and every desert directed by man; if every storm was controlled, and every wave propelled by machine, we would feel not a wonder and awe, and a sense of humility and proportion, but rather a sense of immense self-importance and domination. Man may once again become the centre of the universe, only to leave us without the sense of respect for nature , and the humbling feeling of our proportion that provides us with such positive virtues.

It is for these reasons that we

do, and should, value real nature over fake nature. The more fake nature we allow into our surroundings, the less humility we feel and the more our sense of proportionality is lost. The connected positive psychological effects are reasons we should value real nature. This line of thought matches our inclinations. It provides an explanation why, given the choice, we would usually prefer to build a house on a replanted area of woodland as opposed to an adjacent area of completely untouched woodland. Although there is arguably no true intrinsic difference between the two, it is the psychological effect of understanding nature, its story, and our place within it that ascribes this additional value.

Applying this to Elliot’s argument, we see that through understanding the origin of an area, our position in nature becomes clearer, and we are humbled by the impressiveness and complexities of real nature. Attempting to look at fake nature in the same way brings man to the forefront, removing the humbling effects.

Katz’s argument can also be seen from this angle. By creating human-centred artifacts, and ascribing functions to everything, we lose interest in the natural world. Our domination seems to dampen nature’s inspiration. Allowing wildlands to have no function and merely remain natural instead of converting them into something artificial leaves scope for us to 25

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search for the historic, character-building and religious value in these things.

Once we introduce mankind into the picture through fake nature, this value is more challenging to discover - man’s power seems to override nature’s.

It seems that the reason we ascribe higher value to real nature is because of the values mentioned above and the psychological effect they have on many people educated and enlightened to the power of nature. Nature may be replicated so precisely that it is indistinguishable from the rest of the natural world, but our perception of nature, and the effects of this perception on our psychological state are very real yet immaterial, and these should be taken into account when decisions are made to restore land.

So, if asked again, are we right to value things just because they are natural? I say yes, for the effects of knowing something is natural seem to be rational. Knowing real nature keeps us grounded in a way knowing fake nature never could, giving real nature value that fake nature does not have.

We should take these values into consideration when attempting to recreate the natural.

ited, Chesham Carlson, A, ‘Appreciating Art and Appreciating Nature’ Elliot, R, (1982) ‘Faking Nature’, Inquiry, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 81-93 Katz, E, (1992), ‘The Big Lie: Human Restoration of Nature’, Research in Philosophy and Technology 12, pp93107 Kagan, S, (1998), ‘Rethinking Intrinsic Value’, The Journal of Ethics 2: pp227-297 Maslow, A. (1970), Religion, values and peak experiences. New York: Viking.

O’Neill, J, (1993) ‘Nature, Intrinsic Value and Human Well-Being’, Ecology, Policy and Politics, London and New York, Routledge Rolston, H, (1989) Philosophy Gone Wild, ‘Valuing Wildlands’, Buffalo, Prometheus Books Scott, R, ‘Obligations to Future Generations’ in Environmental Ethics and Obligations to Future Generations,(Sikora R, Barry B, 1978) Philadelphia, Temple University Press Taylor, P, (1986) ‘Having and Expressing the Attitude of Respect for Nature’ in Respect for Nature, Princeton, Princeton University Press

Bibliography:

____________________________ Rob Nightingale is a third year undergraduate reading Philosophy at the University of York

Belshaw, C, (2001), ‘Environmental Philosophy’, Acumen Publishing Lim26

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The Future of Fish

By Alice Cornthwait

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ceans are some of the world’s biggest natural re-

sources. However, less than 1% of them are protected, despite almost two thirds of the world being covered in water. In coastal areas of the LEDW (Less Economically Developed World), such as the Philippines, 70% of the population’s protein intake comes directly from fish, whilst in many parts of the western world it is so effortless to put an array of food in our shopping baskets that we forget that food availability and variety is not a norm across the globe. Between 2003 and 2005, 848 million people globally were recorded as undernourished by the Food Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations1; just imagine what the loss of a vital food source would do to this statistic.

The FAO also places global fish catches at 90-100 million tonnes per year. In their assessment of the status of major fish stocks around the world, an incredible 70% of stock was found to be considered either col28

lapsed or over-exploited.

Present Problems Over-exploitation happens for a number of reasons, of which the primary is demand. However, there are also a number of key political issues facing the fishing industry. Each year, quotas of catch from the North Sea are argued over in the EU, as politicians repeatedly ignore the advice of scientists who determine the safe quota of stock that can be caught without overfishing. This reduces our chances to provide for the future.

There are two types of overfishing: growth overfishing and recruitment overfishing. However, stock collapses

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can happen for other reasons. The life history characteristics of fish can dramatically differ from species to species, which can cause dramatic problems in mixed species fisheries. This is because fish mature at different rates and grow to different sizes, whilst fishing techniques such as trawling do not take this into account. Natural variations can also result in drastic differences in the stock-recruitment ratio, so management can be increasingly difficult. Furthermore, approximately 50% of fish catches are illegal, meaning that every figure in relation to fish could effectively be doubled, especially once issues such as bycatch are taken into account.

All this suggests that measures to better mitigate and sustain the ocean’s resources are crucial to the future of the fishing economy.

...increasingly species such as octopus, squid and algae will make their way into our baskets as we steadily fish down the food chain

In 1994, CITIES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) adopted the ‘precautionary principle’ which states that: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific cer-

tainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”2.

For this reason, even if it cannot be predicted what the effect will be upon ecosystems and therefore humans, a lack of proof should be a reason for caution, rather than continuation of ignorance.

By adopting the precautionary principle we can provide not only for our future, but for the future of some of the world’s most diverse biomes. There are only 15 marine species listed under Cities appendix 1 compared to 277 Mammals, 152 birds, 75 reptiles and 62 species of invertebrates3.

Even the Blue Fin Tuna, which Japan consumes 44,000 tonnes of per year (80% of stock catches from the Atlantic and Pacific combined)4, is currently fighting for its existence.

Even ‘in the absence of proof there is often enough information to identify a serious risk that some impacts are likely to lead to unacceptable high costs, which should be avoided’.5 The significance of preserving fish stock can be asserted not only through the precautionary principle, but also through the ‘preventative principle’ and sustainable development.

The preventative principle asserts that ‘States have the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of natural juris29

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diction’6. The definition of sustainability is that we can ‘Meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’7. If this definition of sustainability is to be accepted then we have a long way to go before consumers and the fishing industry achieve an acceptable level of sustainability. Failing to meet the ‘sustainability principle’ will have devastating effects upon 30

the shopping baskets of the future. A recent article8 commented that along with a lack of bread, beef, and bananas, a lack of fish such as tuna was evident while increasingly species such as octopus, squid and algae will make their way into our baskets as we steadily fish down the food chain. What was used as bait 30 years ago is food today, so why should this pattern not continue if we do not accept these principles

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and learn from our mistakes?

Future Realities We have managed, protected and categorised land, dependent upon its resources, which we use with increasing efficiency. Now is the time to do so for our oceans.

Marine reserves are the best hope for the continuation and rejuvenation of our seas, which are such a vital resource. Marine reserves allow time for stocks to recuperate and grow without interference. Furthermore, they provide two main economic benefits: firstly there is a density-dependent overspill of fish into surrounding areas, and secondly, fish live longer and produce more eggs, which are in turn released into the open ocean to increase surrounding populations.

Marine reserves play the roles of both areas of protection and conservation but are also economically viable in the long run. By closing part of the sea to fishing, reproductive output can potentially increase a hundredfold, protecting our resources for generations to come.

ary principle (European Commission, 2000) 3. http://www.cites.org/eng/disc/ species.shtml 4. The Times 11/08/09 5. Environmental law, Bell and McGillivray, Chapter 3, page 60 6. 1992 Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development, Principle 2.

7. Report of the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development Our common future (the Brundtland Report) 8. The Times 11/08/09

___________________________ Alice Cornthwaite is a third year undergraduate reading Environmental Geography at the University of York

Bibliography: 1. http://www.fao.org/economic/ ess/food-security-statistics/en/ 2. Com (2000) 1 on the Precaution31

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Predictioneering in Economics

By Ilaf Scheikh Elard

Men in positions of power need to act. They act by necessity, for inaction counts as action. Put more concretely, lack of change in behaviour, where persons in businesses, banks or the government are concerned, may appear to be a deliberate reaction to a crisis and a resolve to doing nothing else to deal with it save for 32

‘more of the same’. But those who need to act or refrain from acting may need advice, consultation, debate, with subordinates or colleagues in order to inform their decisions, or inform others about their decisions.

Hence, some of the discussions and the effort expended by economists in analysing what has been going wrong

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with the economy and how to get out of the impasse may very well be in order.

At the same time, economists can easily become a nuisance for their ‘masters’ – in the same way as priests advising generals in war. They themselves may need informing of what is going on. There may well be a ‘positive danger’, to paraphrase Hayek, if these lofty ‘servants’ of the real decisionmakers stop being curious or creative and, most importantly, cease to be critical of their own views, thinking, in the thick of it all, that their advice is not something inevitably ‘subjective’.

Why else did Lord Keynes observe that there are as many economists as there are facets of anything public?

However, many economists, or priests for that matter, wish to see themselves as strict spokespersons for something objective, even divine, instead of as what they are: self-appointed delegates of the Golden Bough, the ‘rainbow’ and whatever lies (or ‘does not lie’) beyond.

VOX Journal is presumably not in the business of advising ‘men in positions of power’, and this article is therefore in safe waters. The author can be free to indulge in a bit of analysis, in a purely subjective way, of some of those ‘objective’ discussions taking place all over the shop about the so-called ‘future of economics’ or the ‘economics of the future’ without being hesitant about making any policy recommendations or giving any advice

as to what in any case would be a premature account of the genesis of the crisis. The labour thereof will be left to the historians.

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Contemporaneous thought, that is thought busy with the ‘moment’, the here and now, has it on the authority of none but public sentiments that when one talks about economics one can only mean something yet to occur - some predictions about the economy outside the timeframe of the subject concerned. However, most of the prediction is no more than predication, where the horse is put before the cart now, and then after, often just beside the point laboured by either. One is reminded of that old, professional guru of thought-abuse, Francis Bacon, the forgotten father of modern sagacity. He writes that “prophecies, being infinite in number, have been impostures” and goes on to say, “and by idle and crafty brains, [they are] merely contrived and feigned only after the event past.” [(Bacon, F. (1972) Francis Bacon’s Essays (Dutton: London), p.

112].

Ironically, this Baconian view on prophecies forces one’s mind to focus on the present. The resultant ‘prophesising’ taking place today with a view of what is to become tomorrow may not be totally free of mixing tenses even when it is free of mixing metaphors. It is, therefore, pertaining to the future of the economic crisis, however defined, and specifically to possible ways of getting out of it, that the liquid in the pot must satisfy. It is a moot point that ‘what is’ relates little to what ‘ought to be’. This is however not so 34

in economics. The shouting is muffled and must be reserved to the day when a better code of intellectual conduct comes to pass in order to ensure that the social theology, parading as the ‘science’ of economics, is confined to certain pulpits instead of being on the loose.

The main divide in answering the moot, as commonly portrayed, is broadly between two shouters: the Keynesians of latter day saints, and neo-Classicists of the recent Roundheads. The former, who have little in common with the original inspiration of J. M. Keynes, propose a return to what they call ‘government intervention’ and ‘government regulation’, even ‘fiscal easing’ in the hope of bridging the so-called output gap and thereby ‘kick start’ the dead engine of the Rolls Royce economy in the same manner as repeated generations of Prime Ministers and Ministers of the Crown attempt to kick start the life of the ducks in St. James’ Park: the Commonwealth, the Pluralist Society, the Way Forward.

Across the vast water to the west it is the New Deal and supply-side Economics.

In contrast to these dubbed Keynesians, economists of the neo-Classical tradition, licking their wounds from being attacked for having become lame ducks, save their seven decadelong arduous science by pointing out inefficiency risks that might hamper the machine under the weight of huge

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effects arising from the kick-starting process. To them, intervention may amount to nothing but meddling in ‘perfectly competitive’ carts that got stuck in the quagmire of the pond otherwise known as ‘finance capitalism’.

Away from these self-serving doctrinaires, much of the public discussion in the press has shifted elsewhere. After Greenspan declared ‘never in the field of human folly was so much claimed, by so many, for so little’ (presumably referring to economics), the lesser tug of war between the two wings of Anglo-Saxon economics has shifted back to London. We witness the return, some would say the ‘return home’, of economic policy to the Keynesian view. But this back and forth, reminiscent of a dance where all act their part, over the practical answers to the question ‘What is to be done?’ can only be a reminder of the dire need for humility in anything touching the world of theoretical economics. ___________________________ Ilaf Scheikh Elard is an MPhil student reading Economics at Pembroke College, Oxford University

The IAPSS Conference is an international conference organised by the Club of PEP under the auspices of the IAPSS (International Association of Political Science Students - www.iapss. org).

Theme: Local Democracy for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion Dates: 27th of September - 2nd of October 2010 The Conference will include an introductory session with speakers from NGOs and the government, lectures by prominent academics (stay tuned to find out who they are), workshops and country case studies which will provide the basis for discussion of local democratic innovations, and a plenary session where conclusions reached in the seminars will be discussed.

Participants are required to submit a paper dicussing local democratic innovations in their countries or analysing the topic on a moral theoretical/abstract level. Academics will assess the submissions and the best ones will be presented during the conference.

Call for participants will take place next term.

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The Intergenerational Contract

By Dana Andreicut A PROBLEM OF MAJOR importance nowadays in environmental discussions, the issue of intergenerational justice, traces its origins back to political philosophy and to one of the most important events in recent history. This essay will look at the beginnings of the debate and then analyze its developments through the writings of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. It will conclude that out of the three thinkers, Wollstonecraft comes closest to a solution to the problem.

The French Revolution: A Platform for Debate On July 14th 1789, the citizens of Paris took over the Bastille, marking one of the most important moments of the French Revolution. The popular discontent against the monarchy had reached its peak, and further actions would follow in the months to come.

In 1790, Edmund Burke read the sermon written by Reverend Richard Price, entitled A Discourse on the Love of our Country. In the latter, Price praised the French movement, which, 36

in his view, had mirrored the political action taken during the English Glorious Revolution in 1688. Burke provided a response in the shape of his Reflections on the Revolution in France. His views on the 1688 events were radically different from Price’s. In 1791 Thomas Paine challenged Burke’s arguments by writing the first part of The Rights of Man. Only a few weeks after the release of Burke’s Reflections, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her reply in the form of a letter, entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Men . The French Revolution had provided a platform of debate on timeless issues such as natural rights, authority, the social contract and intergenerational accountability.

Edmund Burke’s Reflections “Society is indeed a contract […] between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

With these words, Burke succinctly depicts his belief in intergenerational accountability. One of Burke’s main concerns in The Reflections consists in his attempt to convince his con-

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temporaries that gradual reform is preferable to revolutionary acts, and that the political history of England, including the events of 1688, clearly reflects that tradition. He thus sets out to reject the three principles, which Price believed had been promoted by the English Revolution, namely a right “to choose our own governors; to cashier them for misconduct; and to frame a government for ourselves.”

For Burke, the French Revolution was “something without precedent in politics: an attempt at the wholesale social and political transformation of a society on rationalist a priori principles.” The Glorious Revolution of 1688, represented a turning back […] to the constitutional principles from which, it was felt, James II had departed.” It hadn’t been a sign of radical change, but merely an attempt to restore “a lost equilibrium.”xiii Above all, it hadn’t rested on abstract, metaphysical principles, which Burke strongly disagreed with. After James had lost the throne, William and Mary’s succession was natural for a Protestant Kingdom, in which the next in line to the throne was a male Protestant, who didn’t have to be “freely chosen by Parliament, much less ‘elected’ by ‘the people.’”

In contrast to the English, the French did not realize that they are no more than “life-renters”, not “entire masters” on the inheritance received from their forefathers, and that they aren’t, therefore, allowed to destroy “at their pleasure the whole

original fabric of their society.”

The image of the intergenerational contract is strengthened through Burke’s appeal to concepts such as Magna Carta, property and the church. The English Constitution serves the same purpose. Early on in The Reflections, Burke defines the “antient constitution” as the nation’s “only security for law and liberty.” He asserts his view that the reformations carried out before him had all been derived from the nation’s forefathers and had been carried out “upon the principle of reference to antiquity.”ix

For Burke, civil liberties dominate natural rights and he clearly states that “Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it.”

Therefore, one cannot “be judge in his own cause”, nor can one claim his or her right to self-defence.x Citizens, furthermore, lack any natural right to create their own government, as the social bond is not the result of consent, rather it is the one that “demanded the consent of free and rational creatures. ” Having reviewed Burke’s account, several objections can be raised. In Conservatism, O’Sullivan divides the doctrine into three schools of thought and argues that Burke belonged to the first school, which was characterized by a search “for what may be called an absolute principle of order.” In theory, this would imply going back to God’s creation. In practice however, O’Sullivan argues

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that one needs to find a “specific historical period as the one in which society conformed most closely to the divine plan, and then use that period as a yardstick.”xii Burke’s yardstick was the political arrangement of 1688.

The adoption of the yardstick along Burke’s guidelines, however, remains arbitrary and can potentially be extremely dangerous. To highlight this point assume one is born under Nazism. The regime has been in power for a few years, and for the generation born under the authority of this ideology, this represents the established order, the social construction one has inherited from one’s forefathers, which one has to obey and leave as an inheritance to one’s followers.

By promoting his respect for the established order of one’s forefathers, Burke has left present and future generations without any means of defence against tyranny. Additionally, his principle appears even more difficult to apply nowadays, as many nations have already experienced revolutions, which now form part of their history.

Thomas Paine and The Rights of Man A republican revolutionary, Thomas Paine became renowned after publishing Common Sense, his first political work in which he advocated American independence. Ten years later, he would publish The Rights of Man, strongly arguing against Burke and in favour of the French Revolution.

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Paine’s main objection, however, becomes apparent with regard to Burke’s choice of a yardstick. He argues that “the error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting the rights of man, is that they do not go far enough into antiquity.”

They choose a convenient “intermediate” stage “and produce what was then done, as a rule for the present day.” By employing this method, one can come across a multitude of “antiquities”, each proposing different standards of political practice. Paine suggests tracing “the rights of man to the creation of man”xiv because “if any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that existed.”xiv

Furthermore, Paine argues that “man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.” He thus believes that once one ceases to exist, one cannot impact current political institutions or impose any constraints on those who follow.

He then goes on to ask how, if no parent or parliament can control an adult older than twenty-one, can the 1688 Parliament, or any other Parliament, control “all posterity for ever”?

For Paine, “those who have quitted the world, and those who are not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive.”16 Hence no intergenerational contract

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could ever arise legitimately. What makes the law binding for present generations is the consent of the living.

Unlike Burke, Paine believes in the existence of natural rights, which, he argues, “appertain to man in right of his existence.” The latter are furthermore “identical” across generations. Civil rights on the other hand are linked to man’s belonging to society.

Overall, in The Rights of Man, Paine portrays a radical and revolutionary attitude towards the English Constitution. In his view, a constitution exists before the government, and the latter “is only the creature of a Constitution.” In the second part of The Rights of Man, referring to the English Parliament, he argues that “the whole is merely a form of Government without a Constitution, and constituting itself with what power it pleases.”

Paine’s argument suffers from

its own shortcomings. The issues that arise have been successfully pointed out in the correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1789. In a famous statement, Jefferson claims that “the earth belongs to the living, the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.” Jefferson then proceeds to defining the concept of a generation. The number he obtains for the life span of the latter is nineteen. Since both constitutions and laws can live no longer than nineteen years, “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law”xxi In his reply to Jefferson, Madison anticipated some of the practical difficulties posed by this solution, and argued his case for intergenerational dependence. As Terence Ball remarks, Madison’s arguments suggest that “we do posterity no favour by freeing it from our own well-in39

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tended legislation, leaving it for them to play the part of Sisyphus and roll up the hill the stone that an earlier generation had pushed up only to let it roll down again as they expired.”

In his account, Jefferson does distinguish himself from Paine, in that he creates a link between present and future generations, by arguing that present generations act like stewards or trustees, who are meant to pass on their inheritance in a condition no worse than the one they received it in. Thomas Paine didn’t have such a clause in his contract. However, Jefferson’s problems are his as well. Even if one successfully devises a method of measuring the duration of one generation, it is impossible for a generation to enter the world’s stage at the same time. People are born and people die every day, they do not enter the world in blocks, and one can therefore not change a constitution on a daily basis.

Lastly, even if one were able to separate generations, it would be impossible to ensure that every generation enjoys the same amount of freedom as its predecessors. Additionally, our belonging to a certain society and culture gives us a “context in and on which we must act.”

Mary Wollstonecraft and her Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke With her first Vindication, published only weeks after The Reflections, Wollstonecraft became Burke’s first 40

respondent. The letter reflects both Wollstonecraft’s belief that the past is “a scene of superstition,” as well as her hope that “the French Revolution might establish the rights of men for the first time in history by putting radical theory into practice.”xxvii Similarly to Paine, Wollstonecraft challenges Burke on his concept of a historical point of reference and wonders “how far we are to go back to discover the rights of men.” She then goes on to discuss what the beginning of society in England might have been. She has to decide between one strong individual asserting his power and a “weak prince” either submitting to the demands of the people, or to those of Parliament.

In either case, it remains to be asked if the latter are indeed “the venerable pillars of our constitution.”xxviii She then begins her attack on the English Constitution, by arguing that “the imperfection of all modern government” is a result of its being grounded on a constitution “settled in the dark days of ignorance, when the minds of men were shackled by the grossest prejudices and most immoral superstition.”

Wollstonecraft remains a supporter of natural rights and uses these as a tool to combat Burke’s theory of prescriptive right: “there are rights which men inherit at their birth, as rational creatures […] and that, in receiving these, not from their

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forefathers but, from God, prescription can never undermine” them.

Burke comes further under attack with regards to the arbitrary nature of his point of reference. Wollstonecraft thus argues that, had he been born a Jew, he would have regarded Jesus to be “the promulgator of a new doctrine, the violator of old laws, and customs […] a dangerous innovator.” She furthermore argues that “the whole tenor of ” Burke’s “plausible arguments settles slavery on an everlasting foundation.”xxx According to Burke’s account, “the slave trade ought never to be abolished.” xxx Wollstonecraft doesn’t deny the significance of the lessons that one might learn from the past, and emphasises how important it is for present generations to make use of their forefathers’ experience. Still, she argues that “of this bequest we can make little use till we have gained a stock of our own; and even then, their inherited experience would rather serve as lighthouses, to warn us against dangerous rocks or sand-banks, than as finger-posts that stand at every turning to point out the right road.”

Concluding Remarks The objections raised against the political thinkers presented in this essay tend to suggest that it is difficult to obtain a concrete solution for the intergenerational problem. By adopting Burke’s view, one could easily jus-

tify Nazism or slavery, and prevent the human race from bringing about any major changes. Similarly, Paine’s radical support of generational independence might result in political instability, and could render progress in science a very difficult task. Wollstonecraft’s concerns extend beyond those of intergenerational justice, and rest primarily with the promotion of female emancipation, yet, in that context, she highlights an important idea, namely that one cannot dismiss all past experience and give each generation absolute independence.

One can neither ignore the influence of the past, nor can one deny the human longing for progress and change. As Wollstonecraft suggested, the inheritance received from our forefathers should be “a basis for learning, not a ground for servility to dead authorities.” The solution to the problem is neither black nor white, but lies in-between, and it is up to present generations to find the ideal balance between the two.

For space reasons extensive footnotes are not included here but are available on request at vox@clubofpep.org

___________________________ Dana Andreicut is a third year undergraduate reading PPE at Warwick University 41

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Potential Humans and the future of stem cell research

By Elena Villarreal

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HE BENEFITS OF stemm cell research are unquestionable, the pluripotent nature of embryonic stem cells means that they can be used to effectively grow new organs in patients suffering from certain types of cancer and degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. If research is carried far enough, it may even be possible in the future for patients in need of transplants to grow their own organs, as research is now being conducted into creating adult pluripotent stem cells. This would involve a ‘reprogramming’ of skin cells to provide a source of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) . This kind of research means that the moral dilemma of creating and destroying human embryos, and the subject of this essay, would become irrelevant. However, the origins of this research are in embryonic stem cell research, so what about the status of those embryos being used to develop these new therapies? This article will attempt to discuss the moral status of embryos used in this 42

type of research and what that means for the future of stem cell research.

One argument against the use of embryonic stem cells for research is that the embryos used are human, and so must have equal moral status to all other living humans. As the former president of the United States of America, George Bush expressed it in 2003: “...no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment” (Bush, State of the Union, 2003). This is not the argument from potential, which argues that embryos are valuable because of what they could become, but that they are already human, of equal value to those humans.

The problem with that position is that it cannot account for the fact that the cells making up the early embryo will not be the same cells making up the baby when it comes out of the womb. As they divide and multiply to grow various organs, limbs, etc., the cells specialize so that none of them will be the same as the cells making up the embryo to begin with. There

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are no moral qualms about cutting off human fingernails or hair, despite the fact that these are as much human cells with the same genetic material as the cells used to make up a human embryo- just with less versatility.

So, why should these particular cells be so sacred? The most popular argument for this is the ‘potentiality principle’ (Holland: 2003: 18). This is the principal that what is valuable in a human embryo is its potential to become a human person. This can be seen as part of the Roman Catholic position, which argues that the purpose of a human embryo and all reproductive tissues is to create another human life. Thus contraception and abortion have been ruled out for one, as well as experiments on early human

embryos, even before the 14 day period allowed in most European countries.

A secular version of this argument is that of Massimo Reichlin (1997), involving the active potential, or Aristotelian telos, of a fertilised gamete to grow from embryo into baby, into person ‘autonomously’ (1997:4). The active potential argument means that there is some inherent human nature in the early embryo, even as a blastocyst (at five days, an embryo is just a ball of cells), which means that it must naturally become a human being which develops into a person. Reichlin gives the embryo equal status to humans at any stage in life, because he believes that the potential to become an actual person is never fully realised, and this is part of what defines ‘hu-

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man’. As we are all potential people, there is no difference between you and me, and this embryo, even in the very early stage of development, before it is even identifiable as a human.

The problem with both of the above arguments from potential is that they rely on an intrinsic human nature, evident in all humans from conception, which allows the early embryo to have the ‘active potential’ to become a person, so long as it is not interfered with. This cannot explain the phenomenon of twinning, where a blastocyst may split to form more than one embryo. If the blastocyst is already an individual soul, then it must be identical to each twin, thus two potential people occupied the same space. This is clearly impossible, and even if it were possible, the twins could not then be individuals, as they would have identical souls. The only alternative is that there is no soul until gastrulation, when the embryo becomes indivisible, in which case it cannot be of the same value as a human with a supposed soul. Christian Munthe (2001:382-397) has addressed this problem by arguing that, yes, it is clearly impossible for an early embryo to have a human nature, or soul before gastrulation, we may never have souls, but what is relevant is still the ability of an embryo to create human life.

This potential actually makes an early embryo more valuable than a developed human, as it still has the potential to develop several human beings, all of whom can be valuable, individual 44

people (2001:393). This changes the status of an early embryo from having equal value as a person to adults, to having ‘instrumental value’ (Persson: 2003:503-516) in the continuation of the human species, whose importance needs no further explanation.

If we take this argument to be convincing, which many government and administration bodies do, then we must ask the question: Should early embryos be used to create brand new humans, or to prolong or improve the lives of humans already existing? As the current president Obama stated after lifting funding restrictions on stem cell research, embryonic stem cells ‘... have the potential to help us understand and possibly cure some of our most devastating diseases and conditions’ (press conference, 2009). The view expressed here is similar to that of the British ethics committee, who agreed to keep legislation allowing the destruction of human embryos for research within fourteen days of conception (department of Health, 2002).

Although both administrations have agreed that the creation of embryos specifically for research is not to be permitted, the use of ‘spare’ embryos from fertilisation therapies means that similar amounts of research can be carried out. As this legislation would imply, the purpose of an embryo is to foster life, the most common way for a human embryo to do this is to develop into a child who is an individual and valuable person. This does not mean

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it should be universally the case, why should embryos not be used to preserve the life of an adult who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, or who has suffered severe spinal damage?

Campaigners against stem cell research have argued that by destroying an embryo by extracting stem cells, we are denying a potential human the right to live, and this immoral and dangerous. However, the same argument could be put to proponents of this argument by those affected by degenerative diseases, who could benefit from the progress that stem cell research is making; why should a new life take precedence over an old one? If you deny someone a possible treatment, no matter how far off now, then surely you are denying them and future sufferers the same right to live.

This essay has argued that the potential benefits of stem cell research and the medicine it could generate is of greater worth to society and humanity in general, than the potential lives those embryos could give rise to.

This is because early embryos, lacking individuality and a recognisable claim to personhood, should not be given the same moral status as those who are already alive. The value of a human embryo as an instrument for life creation cannot be denied, and once it has reached the stage where a child begins to develop from the embryo, should be given as much moral status as any other human. Before then, there is no reason to believe that an

early embryo’s value cannot be in its potential to help preserve life. Surely this is just as valuable? Therefore, stem cell research should have a future for the potential lives it could save.

Bibliography: • Munthe C. (2001) ‘Divisibility and the moral status of embryos’ Bioethics 15(5) pp.382-397 • Persson I. (2003) ‘Two claims about potential human beings’ Bioethics 17(5) pp. 503-516 • Reichlin M. (1997) ‘The argument from potential: a reappraisal’ Bioethics 11(1) pp.1-23 • Government Response to the House of Lords Select Committee Report on stem cell research presented by the Secretary of State for Health, July 2002. Available at http://www.dh.gov. uk/dr_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_4019747.pdf [Accessed 11.10.2009] ___________________________ Elena Villarreal is a second year undergraduate reading PPE at the University of York

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Call for Papers

VOX Spring Issue 2010 Theme: Education VOX - The Student Journal of Politics, Economics and Philosophy - is calling for the submission of articles for the Spring Term Issue 2010, which will be on the wide theme of “Education” (see list below).

The article should be between 1000-1500 words.

If you want to write, please let us know by emailing a short outline of your proposed article to vox@clubofpep.org by 27 December 2009.

You might want to pick an article idea from the following list or suggest your own topic: • A discussion on grade inflation • Education and the role of the state • Should university be free?

• Education in the Solow Model • Can a fair society permit private schooling?

• Punishment and education • Exporting education • Practical vs. technical knowledge • Education as a means or an end?

• ___________ (your own article idea.)

Note: Undergraduates, graduates and academics from any degree programme are welcome to contribute.