Here’s something to keep you busy between PER episodes. Christian and I are going to start writing a regular column in the online magazine Policy Innovations. It’ll be called the Public Ethicist–or something like that. We’re still working out the details.
Our pilot article is up there now. We take a look at pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline’s decision to cut some prices in developing countries. Check it out and let us know what you think.
That’s right: new episodes coming soon! After a bit of an unplanned hiatus, we’re back at work churning out listening material for you fine listeners.
First on deck, the long-promised David Grewal discussion on network power. That should hit the tubes next week.
Followed, in no particular order, by Jennifer Ruger on public health priorities for the Obama administration, Sanjay Reddy on assessing poverty, and Jedediah Purdy on a topic to be announced. Check back soon for more details.
Out of some 1,300 Palestinians killed in Gaza, Israel claims that it can name more than 700 of the dead who were Hamas fighters. Claiming precise knowledge of their targets, Israeli officials insist that their attacks were judiciously planned so as to minimize harm to civilians. Despite this apparent caution, however, any assault on Israel’s enemies makes certain the deaths of innocent civilians.
Today on Public Ethics Radio, we discuss the role that civilian casualties play in assessing the justice of war.
I’m putting the finishing touches on a new episode on proportionality in war. The conversation is with the one and only Jeff McMahan, who graciously let us set this up on very short notice. The episode should be up by Wednesday.
Hello, dear readers, and welcome to 2009.
Christian and I are taking a short break from releasing PER episodes. It’s a productive break, though. We’ll be back with episode 7 on Jan. 26, which will feature the brilliant and charming David Grewal.
And we’ve got lots more in store. There will be plenty of short episodes (and some may really be short this time!). We’re also going to be bringing in a new collaborator to work on some long-form documentary pieces with us. And we’ll make a push toward making this website more vibrant.
It’s going to be a big year. Stay tuned.
What does it mean to live well? The U.S. Census Bureau informs us that an individual American with an income of less than $10,590 lives below the poverty line and is eligible for federal assistance. Add children and the number rises slowly: a father and two young children, say, is poor when their income is less than $16,689.
Certainly these numbers strike us immediately as indicative of low well being. But, as we are informed by Robert Goodin and Lina Eriksson, income figures don’t tell the whole story. Missing from this picture is the degree of control an individual has over how her time is spent.
In his victory speech, President-elect Obama singled out Ann Nixon Cooper. At 106 years old, she has borne witness to tectonic shifts in her society. Few of us would hesitate at a chance to live such a remarkably extended life. We can hardly imagine what our world will be like in forty, sixty, eighty years, but we’re certain it would be worth staying around to see. Today on Public Ethics Radio, we take a close look at that unhesitating certainty. What would a world in which everyone lived beyond 100 be like? Would it really be worth it for us?
Are habeas corpus petitions, as Barack Obama put it, “the foundation of Anglo-American law”? Or are they just nuisance lawsuits, “whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material,” that will just slow down the legal system and leave us “bollixed up,” as John McCain claims? On this episode of Public Ethics Radio, we discuss these issues with Larry May.
When we talk about theft in international trade, we usually mean piracy, smuggling, or copyright infringement. Professor Leif Wenar, of King’s College London, thinks that we might be missing the forest for the trees. Illegal transactions across borders are going on every day on an enourmous scale. Consumers cannot help buying stolen goods when they buy gasoline and magazines, clothing and cosmetics, cell phones and laptops, perfume and jewelry. Worse, the money consumers spend at the mall and the filling station ends up in the hands of some of the most brutal rebels and repressive regimes in the world.
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