Is there anything in human nature that says we ‘need’ 24-hour rolling news?
Of course not, the factor that determines whether or not we ‘need’ 24-hour news is financial.
Like Gucci bags or the Apple ‘tablet’, 24-hour news is a commodity, created in the market place and consumed by customers. It is possible to envisage a life without 24-hour news, as it is possible to envisage a life without a mobile phone or a 150 gigabite mp3 player.
However, once the Pandora’s Box of this ‘need’ has been opened, it is difficult to shut it again (though the thought of stuffing 24-hour news into a box, slamming its lid and straddling it like an overloaded suitcase, does have cathartic appeal).
Anyway I ask this question about 24-hour news because of an exchange on the radio this morning between two Today Programme journalists (well one a journalist, Norman Smith, the other, the presenter Justin Webb). The exchange took place in response to a report by the Better Government Initiative which suggests, (among its many findings which the BBC to its credit also covered) that rolling 24-hour news might be having a negative impact on the decisions politicians make.
During the exchange Mr Smith described the civil servants’ report as a ‘lament about modernity,’ [cue eye-rolling in the studio] conjuring the idea that civil servants who bemoan 24-hour news might be nostalgic for a ‘more sedate’ age when the business of state was conducted differently old chap.
Now I don’t want to get bogged down in the well-worn ethical discussion about whether or not news ought to consist of a journalist interviewing a fellow journalist about a story that could be seen as critical of other journalists in general. I also don’t want to go on about the ‘false consciousness’ that journalists seem to suffer on this issue. Isn’t 24-hour news a product? In principle, might not journalists have reservations about 24-hour news themselves? Is it the 24-hour news agenda itself that results in a situation in which journalists - starved of contacts willing to appear on the Today Programme at 7am – resort to interviewing each other?
What a rubbish argument. We have already established that 24-hour news cannot be stuffed back into a box. But what we have not established clearly is the effect a rolling 24-hour news agenda can have on the quality of the decision-making process.
The report by the Better Government Initiative, far from advocating a return to a ‘more sedate’ age, merely asks whether we need to, at least consider, what effect the media has in influencing the poor decisions that politicians sometimes make.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Thursday, 7 January 2010
The Good and Conscience: will Tony Blair use 'Conscience' as justification for his decision to invade Iraq
A ticket ballot has been arranged for members of the public eager to hear former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s, evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the invasion of Iraq.
I’m interested in Mr Blair’s account of the role his conscience played in the war.
A number of arguments have been outlined to explain why we went to war. Most of the arguments have failed to convince most people that the war was justified.
Conscience appears to be Mr Blair’s ultimate justification for invasion and, if used at the inquiry, it will be fascinating to see how he makes his argument.
His evidence is clearly of interest to ordinary members of the public (hence the need to hold a ticket ballot for attendees), but I wonder if any moral philosophers will be present in the audience.
I am currently reading GWF Hegel’s argument about ‘Conscience and the Good’ contained in his Philosophy of Right (sections 129-141)
It gives an interesting account of the role that conscience plays in deciding on what is the right thing to do.
Hegel was particularly concerned that the formal, content less and abstract nature of the subjective consciousness could lead the moral subject to take up erroneous positions when judging the right or moral thing to do.
He further outlined the pitfalls that conscience can fall into, its fallibility, its susceptibility to caprice and the danger that conscience justifies arbitrary acts. Ultimately Hegel warns us that a pure reliance on conscience can serve to undermine the difference between right and wrong. For example, I might tell you that I act with a good conscience when I hold open a door for you. But I might actually hold the door open for different reasons. I might be holding it open for the person walking behind you, or in order to lock the door behind you in order to imprison you.
I don’t know whether Hegel’s account presents anything like the definitive account of the dubious operation of conscience in deciding moral questions. But if it does, then it might have important implications for what I think was Mr Blair’s motivation to go to war.
I hope to write a comprehensive blog that considers Mr Blair’s position alongside Hegel’s arguments once the former PM’s testimony is available.
I’m interested in Mr Blair’s account of the role his conscience played in the war.
A number of arguments have been outlined to explain why we went to war. Most of the arguments have failed to convince most people that the war was justified.
Conscience appears to be Mr Blair’s ultimate justification for invasion and, if used at the inquiry, it will be fascinating to see how he makes his argument.
His evidence is clearly of interest to ordinary members of the public (hence the need to hold a ticket ballot for attendees), but I wonder if any moral philosophers will be present in the audience.
I am currently reading GWF Hegel’s argument about ‘Conscience and the Good’ contained in his Philosophy of Right (sections 129-141)
It gives an interesting account of the role that conscience plays in deciding on what is the right thing to do.
Hegel was particularly concerned that the formal, content less and abstract nature of the subjective consciousness could lead the moral subject to take up erroneous positions when judging the right or moral thing to do.
He further outlined the pitfalls that conscience can fall into, its fallibility, its susceptibility to caprice and the danger that conscience justifies arbitrary acts. Ultimately Hegel warns us that a pure reliance on conscience can serve to undermine the difference between right and wrong. For example, I might tell you that I act with a good conscience when I hold open a door for you. But I might actually hold the door open for different reasons. I might be holding it open for the person walking behind you, or in order to lock the door behind you in order to imprison you.
I don’t know whether Hegel’s account presents anything like the definitive account of the dubious operation of conscience in deciding moral questions. But if it does, then it might have important implications for what I think was Mr Blair’s motivation to go to war.
I hope to write a comprehensive blog that considers Mr Blair’s position alongside Hegel’s arguments once the former PM’s testimony is available.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Should equestrians ride horses or get high?
The case of the senior scientist sacked for straying into the moral debate on drugs policy goes to the heart of the conflict between science and morality. It also shows how moral discussions can be hijacked by bad arguments.
Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, sacked Alan Nutt, Professor of Pharmacology and chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for overstepping the line between advising about the comparative dangers of ecstasy and government policy on its prohibition.
The case prompts us to consider whether we should draw normative moral conclusions regarding how we should live from objective statements of fact.
In the case of the disagreement between Nutt and Johnson, the argument is roughly as follows:
Nutt: ‘The health dangers caused by widespread use of ecstasy and cannabis are less than the dangers associated with riding a horse. The government should take this into account when weighing its drug prohibition policy.’
Johnson: ‘Prof Nutt’s assertion about horse riding being more dangerous than ecstasy is a political rather than a scientific point. There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse – there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction.’
Why horse riding is more dangerous than ecstasy
First, let’s consider Professor Nutt’s position. His role was to provide scientific advice to the government on the relative dangers of drugs and to recommend how they should be classified. In this role he has one foot wholly inside the empirical, fact-based world of scientific discourse. But his other foot appears to have clumsily landed on the uneven terrain of the moral world with its attendant obstacles of beliefs, values, validity and sincerity.
The delineation between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in this case corresponds to Prof Nutt’s view of his role in highlighting sound evidence about the relative safety of ecstasy in comparison to horse riding, and using that evidence as a rational basis for a wider moral discussion of what the relevant prohibitions ‘ought’ to be.
The link between horse riding and ecstasy is established in a paper published by Prof Nutt in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. He says that around 10 people die annually after falling from a horse and that the long term health effects of ‘equasy’, his term to describe addiction to horse riding, include: brain damage; memory loss; irritability; and personality change. Among the social costs of ‘equasy’ are approximately 100 road traffic accidents per year; and public order problems at organised hunts in which riders participate. Based on this evidence, he argues that ‘equasy’ could be banned by the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (1)
Prof Nutt concedes that there are moral and social reasons why ecstasy is banned and horse riding remains legal. His point is that moral deliberations about ecstasy use could benefit from recourse to comparative evidence to the dangers associated with other hobbies. On this basis he concludes that we have as much to fear from horse riding as we do from ecstasy (2).
He wants the government to use facts about the comparative harm of drugs in moral deliberations about prohibition. But he is also aware of the barriers politicians face in sincerely addressing the health and social costs of consuming certain drugs relative to other (legal) hobbies or pursuits. In some interviews he has argued that scientists are better placed than politicians to encourage a non-hysterical, reflective attitude among the general public about the risks of different drugs(3).
Nonetheless, in attempting to derive a normative position about what we ‘should’ do about drugs from an empirical ‘is’ position about the relative harm drugs cause, he gets into trouble.
How many kids in West Hull ride horses?
Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s argument seems to be this: that to compare ecstasy use to horse riding is not a scientific, but a political (and therefore moral) point. In a letter to the Guardian he makes three points, including that:
• riding a horse is not more dangerous than taking ecstasy;
• few children ride horses in his constituency; but
• thousands are at risk of drug addiction.(4)
If drug use is a moral issue, how well does Mr Johnson conduct the moral argument? Firstly he adopts an evidence-skeptic position. He rules out a discussion based on reasons by objecting to Prof Nutt’s comparison of horse riding and ecstasy use. Horse riding is not even remotely comparable to ecstasy use never mind more dangerous, he says (5). So Prof Nutt has made a category error, horse riding is a hobby, taking ecstasy is not.
Now, let’s be clear, this is not an assertion backed by reasons. Mr Johnson offers no evidence to refute Prof Nutt’s findings, he contents himself with the assertion that there is no comparison between horse riding and ecstasy use. He does not explain why taking ecstasy is not a hobby and therefore of the same category as horse riding.
Nevertheless we cannot discount that Mr Johnson could, if necessary, supply evidence to prove that taking ecstasy is not a hobby, whilst horse riding is. So let’s award victory in this particular phase of the argument to Mr Johnson.
Prof Nutt 0-1 Mr Johnson.
Mr Johnson then moves to a second argument designed to show that horse riding is not a health or social problem. Let’s assume that his assertion that few ‘kids in [his] constituency [are] in danger of falling off a horse’ is empirically correct. Let’s also assume that the reason for this is that there are not that many kids who ride horses in West Hull. We have established that there are few horse riding kids in West Hull. Therefore, the risks to personal health and to society of falling off a horse in West Hull are negligible.
On the other hand, the health and social risks associated with taking ecstasy are not negligible. This we can infer from Mr Johnson’s remark that, whilst there are few young horse riders in West Hull, there are thousands at risk of a life of drug dependency.
The problem here is that Mr Johnson appears to be making the same category error as Prof Nutt. As we have seen, comparing horse riding with ecstasy use is a category error. Horse riding is a hobby, taking ecstasy is not. I think that by continuing with this line of argument Mr Johnson comes perilously close to a performative contradiction. In such a case we are entitled to ignore Mr Johnson’s argument.
The only fair thing to do is to stick with the ban on comparing the relative health and social harms of ecstasy and horse riding.
Prof Nutt 1–1 Mr Johnson
What should horse riders do?
To the crux of the matter. Until this case emerged, I doubt many horse riders thought their usually sedate hobby was more dangerous than taking ecstasy and dancing to techno. But now this Pandora’s box has been opened, what are they to do? Do we think it likely that many horse riders will cease riding in favour of getting mashed at all night raves? Will it convince safety conscious horse riders who already take drugs to hang up their saddles and stick to pills? Will it convince hedonistic horse riders to combine horse riding and ecstasy use? Probably not.
Prof Nutt has commented that it is the government’s job to have a moral debate about whether ecstasy ‘ought’ to be prohibited. But the moral debate about whether ecstasy ‘ought’ to be prohibited is a discussion that people have.
People have views on drugs though they may not be as well grounded as Prof Nutt would like them to be. People are entitled to make comparisons and to draw helpful analogies to decide what they should do about horse riding or ecstasy use, and some empirical context might help in deciding which of those comparisons are useful and which are category errors.
Ultimately the moral discussion about riding a horse while high on ecstasy is something best left to ordinary people.
Footnotes
(1) Nutt, J, Equasy: An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 23 (1) 2009 3-5.
(2) ibid
(3) Nutt, J, Interview on PM, BBC Radio 4, 30 Oct 09
(4) Johnson, A, letter to the Guardian newspaper, 02 Nov 09
(5) A similar point was made by the previous Home Secretary, Jackie Smith, in the House of Commons in February 09
Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, sacked Alan Nutt, Professor of Pharmacology and chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for overstepping the line between advising about the comparative dangers of ecstasy and government policy on its prohibition.
The case prompts us to consider whether we should draw normative moral conclusions regarding how we should live from objective statements of fact.
In the case of the disagreement between Nutt and Johnson, the argument is roughly as follows:
Nutt: ‘The health dangers caused by widespread use of ecstasy and cannabis are less than the dangers associated with riding a horse. The government should take this into account when weighing its drug prohibition policy.’
Johnson: ‘Prof Nutt’s assertion about horse riding being more dangerous than ecstasy is a political rather than a scientific point. There are not many kids in my constituency in danger of falling off a horse – there are thousands at risk of being sucked into a world of hopeless despair through drug addiction.’
Why horse riding is more dangerous than ecstasy
First, let’s consider Professor Nutt’s position. His role was to provide scientific advice to the government on the relative dangers of drugs and to recommend how they should be classified. In this role he has one foot wholly inside the empirical, fact-based world of scientific discourse. But his other foot appears to have clumsily landed on the uneven terrain of the moral world with its attendant obstacles of beliefs, values, validity and sincerity.
The delineation between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in this case corresponds to Prof Nutt’s view of his role in highlighting sound evidence about the relative safety of ecstasy in comparison to horse riding, and using that evidence as a rational basis for a wider moral discussion of what the relevant prohibitions ‘ought’ to be.
The link between horse riding and ecstasy is established in a paper published by Prof Nutt in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. He says that around 10 people die annually after falling from a horse and that the long term health effects of ‘equasy’, his term to describe addiction to horse riding, include: brain damage; memory loss; irritability; and personality change. Among the social costs of ‘equasy’ are approximately 100 road traffic accidents per year; and public order problems at organised hunts in which riders participate. Based on this evidence, he argues that ‘equasy’ could be banned by the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (1)
Prof Nutt concedes that there are moral and social reasons why ecstasy is banned and horse riding remains legal. His point is that moral deliberations about ecstasy use could benefit from recourse to comparative evidence to the dangers associated with other hobbies. On this basis he concludes that we have as much to fear from horse riding as we do from ecstasy (2).
He wants the government to use facts about the comparative harm of drugs in moral deliberations about prohibition. But he is also aware of the barriers politicians face in sincerely addressing the health and social costs of consuming certain drugs relative to other (legal) hobbies or pursuits. In some interviews he has argued that scientists are better placed than politicians to encourage a non-hysterical, reflective attitude among the general public about the risks of different drugs(3).
Nonetheless, in attempting to derive a normative position about what we ‘should’ do about drugs from an empirical ‘is’ position about the relative harm drugs cause, he gets into trouble.
How many kids in West Hull ride horses?
Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s argument seems to be this: that to compare ecstasy use to horse riding is not a scientific, but a political (and therefore moral) point. In a letter to the Guardian he makes three points, including that:
• riding a horse is not more dangerous than taking ecstasy;
• few children ride horses in his constituency; but
• thousands are at risk of drug addiction.(4)
If drug use is a moral issue, how well does Mr Johnson conduct the moral argument? Firstly he adopts an evidence-skeptic position. He rules out a discussion based on reasons by objecting to Prof Nutt’s comparison of horse riding and ecstasy use. Horse riding is not even remotely comparable to ecstasy use never mind more dangerous, he says (5). So Prof Nutt has made a category error, horse riding is a hobby, taking ecstasy is not.
Now, let’s be clear, this is not an assertion backed by reasons. Mr Johnson offers no evidence to refute Prof Nutt’s findings, he contents himself with the assertion that there is no comparison between horse riding and ecstasy use. He does not explain why taking ecstasy is not a hobby and therefore of the same category as horse riding.
Nevertheless we cannot discount that Mr Johnson could, if necessary, supply evidence to prove that taking ecstasy is not a hobby, whilst horse riding is. So let’s award victory in this particular phase of the argument to Mr Johnson.
Prof Nutt 0-1 Mr Johnson.
Mr Johnson then moves to a second argument designed to show that horse riding is not a health or social problem. Let’s assume that his assertion that few ‘kids in [his] constituency [are] in danger of falling off a horse’ is empirically correct. Let’s also assume that the reason for this is that there are not that many kids who ride horses in West Hull. We have established that there are few horse riding kids in West Hull. Therefore, the risks to personal health and to society of falling off a horse in West Hull are negligible.
On the other hand, the health and social risks associated with taking ecstasy are not negligible. This we can infer from Mr Johnson’s remark that, whilst there are few young horse riders in West Hull, there are thousands at risk of a life of drug dependency.
The problem here is that Mr Johnson appears to be making the same category error as Prof Nutt. As we have seen, comparing horse riding with ecstasy use is a category error. Horse riding is a hobby, taking ecstasy is not. I think that by continuing with this line of argument Mr Johnson comes perilously close to a performative contradiction. In such a case we are entitled to ignore Mr Johnson’s argument.
The only fair thing to do is to stick with the ban on comparing the relative health and social harms of ecstasy and horse riding.
Prof Nutt 1–1 Mr Johnson
What should horse riders do?
To the crux of the matter. Until this case emerged, I doubt many horse riders thought their usually sedate hobby was more dangerous than taking ecstasy and dancing to techno. But now this Pandora’s box has been opened, what are they to do? Do we think it likely that many horse riders will cease riding in favour of getting mashed at all night raves? Will it convince safety conscious horse riders who already take drugs to hang up their saddles and stick to pills? Will it convince hedonistic horse riders to combine horse riding and ecstasy use? Probably not.
Prof Nutt has commented that it is the government’s job to have a moral debate about whether ecstasy ‘ought’ to be prohibited. But the moral debate about whether ecstasy ‘ought’ to be prohibited is a discussion that people have.
People have views on drugs though they may not be as well grounded as Prof Nutt would like them to be. People are entitled to make comparisons and to draw helpful analogies to decide what they should do about horse riding or ecstasy use, and some empirical context might help in deciding which of those comparisons are useful and which are category errors.
Ultimately the moral discussion about riding a horse while high on ecstasy is something best left to ordinary people.
Footnotes
(1) Nutt, J, Equasy: An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 23 (1) 2009 3-5.
(2) ibid
(3) Nutt, J, Interview on PM, BBC Radio 4, 30 Oct 09
(4) Johnson, A, letter to the Guardian newspaper, 02 Nov 09
(5) A similar point was made by the previous Home Secretary, Jackie Smith, in the House of Commons in February 09
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