1.
In this chapter, we never actually defined “exploitation.” What is one dictionary definition of the word?
Decide whether the six cases of alleged exploitation we discussed earlier in the chapter fit your dictionary’s definition. Yes, this will involve quite a bit of personal judgment, as will most of this chapter’s questions.
405
In your opinion, does the dictionary definition go too far or not far enough when it comes to labeling some voluntary exchanges as exploitation?
2. Of the three ethical theories we discuss (Rawlsian, utilitarian, and Nozickian), which two are most different from the third? In what way are the two different from the third?
3. One of Nozick’s arguments against utilitarianism was the “utility monster”: a person who always gets enormous happiness from every extra dollar, more happiness than anyone else in society. If such a person existed, the utilitarian solution would be to give all the wealth in society to Nozick’s utility monster; any other income distribution would needlessly waste resources. This possibility was appalling to Nozick. Nozick’s argument is intentionally extreme, but we can use it as a metaphor to think about the ethics of real-world income redistribution.
Do you know any utility monsters in your own life: people who get absurdly large amounts of happiness from buying things, owning things, going places? Perhaps a family member or someone from high school?
Do you know any utility misers? That would be people who don’t get much pleasure from anything they do or anything they own, even though they probably have enough money to buy what they want.
In your view, would it be ethical for the government to distribute income from real-world utility misers to real-world utility monsters? Why or why not?
4.
Just thinking about yourself, if you did not know in advance whether you were a Red, Blue, or Green person, would you rather live in Society A, B, C, or D, discussed in the Rawls’s section of the chapter? Why?
Which society would you like least? Why?
5. Rawlsians support government income redistribution to the worst-off members of society. If “society” means the whole world, how much redistribution might be involved? In other words, what fraction of people in the rich countries might have to give most of their income to people in the poorest countries? Keep in mind that the poorest Americans have clean water, guaranteed food stamps, and free health care, while billions of people around the world lack such guarantees.
6. Would a “global utilitarian” (someone who values the utility of everyone in the world equally, without giving more weight to people in their own country) who lives in America want more immigrants from poor countries or more immigrants from rich countries? Why?
1. To a Rawlsian, would the world be better off without the Harry Potter novels and one additional billionaire?
2. Some people say that the right to equal treatment has no price. But it seems that most people don’t really believe that: Those are just polite words that we tell one another. Consider the following cases:
What if it costs $10 million per kneeling bus?
What if it costs $10,000 to hire translators to translate ballots into a rare language spoken by fewer than 10 voters?
What if it costs the lives of dozens of police officers to ensure the right of a persecuted minority to vote?
At these prices, is the right to equal treatment too expensive for society to buy it? In each case, describe what you think the exact price cutoff should be (in dollars or lives), and briefly explain how you came to that decision. Why not twice the price? Why not half?
3. The line between “having a meddlesome preference” and “recognizing an externality” is not always clear. Both are ways of saying, “What you’re doing bothers me.” As we used it in this chapter, a “meddlesome preference” is something that reasonable people should just not worry about so much. By contrast, “recognizing an externality” is a way of advancing the subject for public discussion and perhaps even for a vote. In the town you grew up in, which of the following issues were considered things that should be left to individuals and which were things that should be put up for a vote? Is there a good way of distinguishing between the two?
The amount of pollution emitted by a local factory
406
How much noise would be allowed after 11 pm
Whether siblings should be allowed to marry, even if it is consensual
Where liquor stores could be located
How people should dress in public
How many children someone should have
4. Let’s see how a utilitarian dictator would arrange things for Adam, Eve, and Lilith. One heroic assumption that utilitarians make is that you can actually compare happiness and misery across different people: In reality, brain scans are making this easier to do but it’s still a lot of guesswork. Let’s suppose that this utilitarian dictator has eight apples to distribute: The table shows the utility that each person receives from their first apple (a lot), but extra apples give less extra happiness (apples give “diminishing marginal utility,” in economic jargon).
|
Utility per Apple |
Adam |
Eve |
Lilith |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1st |
1,000 |
600 |
1,200 |
|
2nd |
140 |
500 |
200 |
|
3rd |
20 |
400 |
100 |
|
4th |
1 |
300 |
50 |
So, if the dictator wants to maximize the sum of Adam, Eve, and Lilith’s utility, how many apples does each person get?
If instead, Lilith received 2,000 units of utility from the first apple, how would this change the optimal utilitarian distribution?
5.
The “trolley problem” is a famous ethical puzzle created by Philippa Foot: You are the conductor of a trolley (or subway or streetcar or train) that is heading out of control down a track. Five innocent people are tied to the track ahead of you: If you run over them, they will surely die. If you push a lever on your trolley, it will shift onto another track, where one unfortunate person is tied up. Either you let five people die or you choose to kill one person: Those are your only choices. Which will you choose and why? Which ethical view from this chapter best fits your reasoning? (If you Google “trolley problem,” you will find many other interesting ethical dilemmas to debate with your friends.)
Another ethical dilemma sounds quite different: You are a medical doctor trying to find five organ donors to save the lives of five innocent people. A new patient comes in for a checkup, and you find that this patient has five organs exactly compatible with the five innocent people. Do you kill the one innocent patient to save the lives of five innocents? Suppose you will never get caught: Perhaps you live in a country where people don’t care about such things. Is this the same dilemma? Is it the same dilemma from a utilitarian perspective?
6. What do you think best describes the reason that trade in recreational drugs is illegal: fear of exploitation, meddlesome preferences, notions of fairness, paternalism, concerns about equality, or some other factor?
7. Based on the tools from this chapter, how could a person reasonably justify a ban on gambling?
8. Compare a Rawlsian view with a utilitarian view on the question of whether it should be legal to copy movies and music freely.
1. Should responsible adults be allowed to sell a kidney? Why or why not? If so, what restrictions would you place on such sales, if any?
2.
In your view, when should governments enforce a “live and let live” rule: on issues that matter most to people (e.g., matters of life and death, matters of how much income to give to the government, matters of religion, matters of sexuality) or on the issues that matter least to people (e.g., what flavors of spices are permitted at the dinner table, what kind of clothing is acceptable in public)?
Europeans fought a lot of wars in the 1500s over the right to meddlesome preferences. Thinking back on your history courses, what preferences did Europeans want to meddle with?
What was the usual argument given in the 1500s for why it was right to meddle with other people’s preferences?
3. Philosopher Alastair Norcross poses the following question. Suppose that 1 billion people are suffering from a moderately severe headache that will last a few hours. The only way to alleviate their headache is for one person to die a horrible death. Can the death of this one person ever be justified in a cost-benefit sense?
407
4. If the rich countries were able to send individual cash payments to people in poor countries, bypassing possibly corrupt governments, would you let rich countries pay people in poor countries to take their high-polluting factories? If so, how high would the annual payment have to be per family? If not, why not?
5. You would probably sacrifice yourself to save all of humanity, but you probably wouldn’t sacrifice yourself to save the life of one random stranger. What number is your cutoff: How many lives would you have to save for you to voluntarily face sure death?
6. Some people feel inequality is justified if the people with unequal outcomes accepted risks voluntarily; it was simply the case that some won and some lost. Imagine two people, each spending $10,000 on lottery tickets, but only one of them wins. We end up with one poor person and one multimillionaire.
Is this inequality better or worse than if one person is born into a rich family and the other is born into a poor family? What exactly is the difference and why?
7. Sometimes poor countries have a lot of people; India has more than 1 billion residents. Indians are relatively poor, and we know that as families become wealthy, they tend to limit their number of children. So, a much wealthier India, over time, would probably have many fewer than 1 billion inhabitants. Would this make for a better India or a worse India? Although each Indian would have much more, there would be fewer Indians. As a result, is there any argument for keeping India poor, so as to have a higher number of people? If not, why not? In general, what can economics tell us about the ideal number of people in a society? Anything at all?
8. Let’s say that Tom, who is 25 years old, wants to smoke a cigarette. Consider the following two situations.
Tom is smoking. Suddenly, the government comes along and tells Tom that he cannot do this. The government claims that Tom is inflicting an “external cost” on other human beings. Is this a good policy or bad policy?
Tom is smoking a cigarette at home with no one else around. Suddenly, the government comes along and tells Tom that he cannot do this. The government claims that Tom is inflicting an “external cost” on another human being. Tom asks who this might be? The government says that the 65-year-old Tom will be harmed by the smoking-today-Tom. The government claims that today-Tom isn’t doing enough to look out for the well-being of future-Tom. Does this argument make any sense? Is it ethically correct? If so, can and should we trust our government to make these decisions for our future selves?
Let’s see how a utilitarian dictator would arrange things for Charles, Elizabeth, and Mary. One heroic assumption that utilitarians make is that you can actually compare happiness and misery across different people: In reality, brain scans are making this easier to do but it’s still a lot of guesswork. Let’s suppose that this utilitarian dictator has eight oranges to distribute: The table shows the utility that each person receives from their first orange (a lot), but extra oranges give less extra happiness (oranges give “diminishing marginal utility,” in economic jargon).
|
Utility per Orange |
Charles |
Elizabeth |
Mary |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1st |
2,000 |
1,200 |
2,400 |
|
2nd |
280 |
1,000 |
400 |
|
3rd |
40 |
800 |
200 |
|
4th |
2 |
600 |
100 |
So, if the dictator wants to maximize the sum of Charles’s, Elizabeth’s, and Mary’s utilities, how many oranges does each person get?
If instead, Mary received 4,000 units of utility from the first orange, how would this change the optimal utilitarian distribution?
408