A way of looking at fairness and justice

I learn interesting things when Mrs H is doing her crosswords. Obviously because she knows stuff that I don't but also where I think I might know the answer but then have to check it. "John Somebody, American political philosopher" she said. "Got any letters?" "Blank - Blank - W - Blank S". I said I had a feeling it was Rawls but then thought I was mixing him up with the singer and producer, Lou Rawls (Loo Rolls, we always said, haha). 

Turned out it was John Rawls and it also turns out that Rawls enunciated rather more clearly than me some of the points that come up when I chat about fairness and justice with Democracy Man and others of the liberal left. Which Rawls himself was (at least as defined in America).

Rawls set out his theory of "justice as fairness" in a book called A Theory of Justice in 1971. In it he recommends equal basic liberties, equality of opportunity, and facilitating the maximum benefit to the least advantaged members of society in any case where inequalities may occur. Rawls's argument for these principles of social justice uses a thought experiment called the "original position", in which people deliberately select what kind of society they would choose to live in if they did not know which social position they would personally occupy. He called this concept the "veil of ignorance". By being ignorant of our own circumstances, we can more objectively consider how societies should operate. In his later work Political Liberalism (1993), Rawls turned to the question of how political power could be made legitimate given reasonable disagreement about the nature of the good life.

The "original position" is a useful contrivance to test views on many situations, generalising the argument "you wouldn't think that if you were....". But there are limitations in a democratic society. For example, what we think about tax levels. Responses to questions can appear to show that a majority favour spending more on public services and agree that taxes might have to be higher to pay for it. But when asked if they personally think they should pay higher taxes the answers are often rather different. In other words higher taxes are ok as long as it's others ("high earners" or "big business") who would have to pay it. Imagine you have no idea whether you would be paying the tax or desperately needing the benefit from the spending and you might see things differently. But then when you are in a booth with a ballot paper....

There are other limitations flowing from individual behaviours. Higher taxes might not produce the expected revenue as people's behaviour might change. I read a piece recently which said don't kid yourself, Scandis don't like high taxes as much as we think. (Their high rollers go and live abroad for a bit just like anyone else's). Decisions have to take account of the fact that the country isn't a closed system and is part of a bigger world economy.

So tax rates need to take account of their impact on the economy as the biggest single way for a government to have more money to spend on good causes is to have a flourishing economy.

Of course these bits of punk economics I'm spouting might actually driven by a desire on my own part not to pay more tax.

Various authors and philosophers have made criticisms of the Rawls approach, among them for encouraging people to think about justice while divorced from the values and aspirations that define who they are as persons and that allow people to determine what justice is and, rather more bizarrely, for being "inherently white" by having nothing to explicitly say about racial justice (which is logical tosh as one could use the "original position" to put oneself in the shoes of disadvantaged victims of any persecution or prejudice).

The approach has been criticised (as I was doing above) for ignoring real world behaviours and because ideas about a perfectly just world do not necessarily help redress actual existing inequality, understate the difficulty in getting everyone in society to adhere to the norms of a just society and that multiple conflicting, yet just, principles may arise, which undermines the multistep processes that Rawls laid out as leading to a perfectly just society.

So the "original position" concept has its limitations. Nevertheless it's an interesting way of making one look through the other end of the telescope, as it were in considering fairness in our society.

Lou Rawls, on the other hand, sang "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine".

Rawls's original book A Theory of Justice  was published in 1971. It was challenged and then refined in a 1985 essay Justice and Fairness  and a 2001 book Justice and Fairness: A Restatement. Or you could do what I did and read the summary in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theory_of_Justice (which is also summarises the critical views mentioned above)

Matchplay golf: Solheim Cup shows it isn't all about player rankings

Wasn't the Solheim Cup just wonderful entertainment at the weekend? It had slow burn drama, with Europe coming back from 4-0 down to the USA after the first session on the Friday morning. Then it had intense drama on the final day, with the teams going into the last series of matches level and swings of fortune with good and poor shots as the pressure grew towards the end. There were great individual stories with Spaniard Carlota Ciganda, playing in her home country, scoring the most points of the 24 players and recording the only perfect performance with 4 wins in her 4 matches.

I don't watch that much women's sport. I used to watch the tennis a lot but when I do now it is almost always the men. This isn't sexism, it's availability of time to watch sport when there is so much good live televised action available. I'm a bloke, so I watch the men partly because I know more about the players and the teams so an unexpected result is, well, unexpected. If you haven't got a clue about the background to what you are watching then it doesn't mean as much to you. 

And inevitably in most sports the best men represent the elite level. That could change over time, but probably only on a theoretical, "pound for pound" basis. According to the Bleacher report Sugar Ray Robinson was the best ever boxer in the world on a pound for pound basis*. He boxed initially at welterweight, moving up to middleweight and eventually light heavyweight by the end of his career. The Bleacher Report puts heavyweight Muhammad Ali at 4 on their list, but we know who would have won on most occasions if they could have got in the ring together with both at their peak.

I watch the occasional boxing match but generally only a world heavyweight bout. It's the elite level, isn't it? 

I have started to watch quite a bit of women's football, though only the international matches. I remember my then teenage sons guffawing in the 1990s when I said I thought women's football would become a big spectator sport. I just didn't see why it wouldn't. It's a team game so players can adopt positions that suit their balance of speed and strength. Physical size and strength alone is far from everything, technique and teamwork matters. But there is a reason that men and women don't compete together in most sports: it wouldn't be a fair competition. And therein lies the crux of the transgender issue in sport. There is a reason you don't see trans men attempting to compete in men's events. On that basis the women can never be as "good" (in the round) as the men on a head to head basis.

But there is no reason why women competing with women can't make just as good - and sometimes better - entertainment than watching the men. The Solheim Cup was indeed superb, with the tight finish that made for uncertainty of outcome and excitement to the end.

So now I'll really upset some of the ladies and say - it was a superb starter for the main course of the Ryder Cup this week. Indeed, many have said that the Solheim and Ryder Cups being played in consecutive weeks should become the plan (it last happened that way in 2002). It seems like a good idea to me.

We'll both be watching the Ryder Cup - it's Mrs H's favourite sporting competition bar none. It may or may not prove as riveting as the Solheim Cup - that depends how the tournament unfolds. But the brave effort of Europe's Ladies should give encouragement to the men.

On world rankings alone the USA would be strong favourites. The average world ranking of their 12 man team is 13 to Europe's 29. The USA team has the same core as their team that beat Europe comfortably two years ago. Ah, but. That was at home, in the USA. It's our turn to host and it's in Rome. The USA hasn't won in Europe in their last 6 attempts, since 1993. They tend not to travel as well, or compete as strongly for each other, though last time out they did seem more of a "team". (A strange concept in what is essentially an individual sport, I know, but team matchplay does feel very much like a team event).

When you look at those world rankings, it's the "tail" in Europe's team that affects the numbers. The lowest four ranked players in the Europe squad are at 36, 55, 80 and 81 in the world rankings compared with the USA's supposedly weakest four at 19, 20, 24 and 25.

The median ranking isn't very different for the two teams: 6 of USA's players have a world ranking above 11, 6 below. For Europe the median is 15.

The rankings reflect performance over a two year period, though with a front end weighting to more recent performances. So they don't fully reflect current form. Or take account of a golfer improving rapidly. Europe's theoretically next weakest golfer, with a world ranking of 80, is the Swede Ludvig Aberg, who only turned professional in June. In that time he has recorded several top 10 finishes and has already won one tournament, the Omega European Masters at the beginning of September.

And, as the Solheim Cup showed, world rankings aren't a predictor of outcomes in head to head matches. Europe's highest rated player, Celine Boutier, 3rd in the world when the teams were picked, lost all three of her matches, including her singles match to Angel Yin, ranked 32nd. Meanwhile Caroline Hedwall, ranked 120th, beat Ally Ewing ranked 33rd to record a vital win late in the singles and Emily Kristine Pederson, ranked 114th, got 2.5 points out of a possible 4 in her matches.

The men know this of course. One remembers several European golfers beating Tiger Woods, for example and famously Welshman Philip Price beating Phil Mickelson, 117 places above him at number 2 in the world rankings at the time, in his only Ryder Cup appearance in 2002. "Tell them who I beat" he shouted to Lee Westwood at the post event dinner and who could blame him?

So it's all to play for. Go Europe! I can hardly wait.

PS Here are Europe's ladies with the Solheim cup, having retained it as holders after their 14 -14 tie. The (American) Ladies Professional Golf Association (LGPA) rather embarrassingly said on their website that Europe defeated team USA....still it must have felt like a defeat to them I suppose. The men need to win this week, a tie would see USA retain the trophy.

* https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1436191-the-top-50-pound-for-pound-boxers-of-all-time

Some shocking and surprising statistics from the news

 A few stats caught my eye last week.

The first was that nearly a third of female NHS surgeons have been sexually assaulted by a colleague over the past five years. The British Journal of Surgery reporting a survey of over 1000 surgeons, the largest of its kind, also said that two thirds of women working in surgery report having been sexually harassed by a colleague in or around the operating theatre. Wow! What on earth is going on in the NHS? I don't blame the government for this - the issue is clearly one for NHS management. No wonder they can't run a system which properly reports and assesses patient safety, to the extent of allowing babies to be murdered, when they can't even run a management and HR system capable of keeping their own female staff safe. This report was in the Times.

The original version of the Hippocratic oath went:

“I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgement; I will abstain from harming or wronging any man by it”

Maybe they need to make clear to male doctors that includes women colleagues as well as patients. 

The second came from the Guardian which reported that, while 84% of medical students say they will complete their first two years foundation training, nearly a third say they will leave the NHS within two years of graduating either to practice abroad or pursue other careers. If that transpires I will blame the government for letting it happen. I expect most folk would agree that doctors should serve a minimum time in the NHS to repay the investment we have made in them. Indeed Jeremy Hunt proposed it should be four years when he was still health secretary in 2016 but I don't think it was implemented*. 

There are arguments to be made either way on a "lock in". For a start I'm not sure when a doctor counts as "qualified". After a typical five year medical course, trainee doctors spend two foundation years as house officers and two more as senior house officers before becoming a registrar in year 10. While continuing professional development implies training is never actually complete, after 15 years it is offically complete and doctors are eligible to become a consultant.  However, the GMC say that full registration is achieved after the first foundation year**. The survey question made it sound as if medical students are contemplating bunking off around then which, for me, is definitely not repaying the investment and commitment the NHS has made in them.  I accept that locking people in to contracts isn't easy but there must be ways in this case. For example, if a doctor leaves before a reasonable number of years of service, say five or perhaps seven, then their qualifications could be revoked. Other countries might still take them, though they may be wary if told that the NHS will not vouch for or confirm the training of the person in any way and will not even confirm that the individual has ever worked with the NHS. And they would be burning their bridges about coming back.

This issue is even harder to tackle in the middle of the biggest programme of strike action being taken by hospital doctors, but that actually makes it all the more important to tackle. The deal traditionally offerred to doctors is to work long hours for moderate pay while training so they can coin it later. Perhaps a restructuring of the whole career path is needed to resolve the various issues. One can't imagine this being easily achieved by a Conservative government but maybe a Labour one could. On the other hand I don't care for the doctors - or any other group - trying to choose our government. Of course that's their aim - "kick out the Tories" it says on their posters. How much will they sulk when they find Labour won't pay their 35% pay increase either? (That stat sticks in my throat nearly enough to require a Heimlich manoeuvre).

I recall that Mrs Thatcher felt her work in reforming the British economy was far from complete. She specifically felt the professions needed bringing in to line. More than thrity years on that remains the case.

The third stat I spotted was the Co-op reporting that police attend only 20% of cases where they apprehend a shoplifter, so they have to let them go. (The police say this is wrong, it's all of 37%). The government can take some blame for this also: it effectively decriminalised shoplifting to the value of £200 a couple of years ago. While in theory a sentence of up to six months is possible, generally it's no arrest and a fixed penalty of £70 leaving plenty of scope for profit even if nicked. This was presumably the calculation made by the woman who presented herself at the checkout in our local TK Maxx being operated by one of our friends. The 'shopper' presented two low price items for purchase while clearly toting many more in her bags. She was found to have come armed with a device to remove security tags while trying on.

Bizarrely above £200 a sentence of up to seven years is in principle available. In March the ONS reported that shoplifting was up 22% in the year to September. I'm sure it has gone up a lot more since and I expect lots of noise to be made about the issue at the Tory party conference. But surely changes could just be made by administrative action? Don't just spout about it, do something!

As you can tell I'm 100% cheesed off.

 

* Should junior doctors do 5 years of mandatory NHS service after they qualify? My Health Service Navigator,  https://www.myhsn.co.uk/whats-hot/should-junior-doctors-do-5-years-of-mandatory-nhs-service-after-they-qualify#:~:text=In%20March%202017%2C%20the%20then,to%20return%20to%20NHS%20work.

** Becoming a doctor in the UK. General Medical Council website

*** https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/shoplifters-repeat-offences-prison-home-office-b2385740.html