Week 6- Post 1: Markets & Morals

Source: Justice course on EdX by HarvardX

Lecture 9- military

• The government has a right to tax people with consent
• because it includes the taking of property
• with taxing, people consent to it before hand. not at the time the tax is collected. by giving prior consent, you take on the political obligation which means you agree to the terms
• raises questions about peoples right to life?
• can the government conscript people and send them into battle?
• what about the idea that we own ourselves?
• is the idea of self posession violated if the government says you must go risk your life to fight in iraq?
• What would locke say about whether self posession is violated if the government assigns you a role like that? does the govenrment have the right to do that?
• Yes. he says what matters is that the political/military authority not be random (arbitrary, random choice)
• ex. a sargeant can command a soldier to go right up to the face of a cannon where he is almost sure to die. the general can condem a soldier to death for not obeying a certain order. but what they can't do is take even a penny of that soldiers money, bc that has nothing to do witht he rightful authority.( it would be arbitrary and corrupt)
• consent is an important part of Locke's thinking in this situation. the consent to the particular order at the time of it does not matter in terms of whether the government is right to send people off to fight, it is the consent to have joined the military/gov in the first place. (and to be bound by the majority)
• people are divided. some think its a violation of self posession if the government conscripts people, other think its ok because they have the power to do that
• Case of the US fighting a war in Iraq
• military is having difficulties meeting its recruitment policies
• leads to policies being made to deal with this fact
• solution 1: increase pay and benefits   most students favored this
• solution 2: shift to military conscription (lottery, whoevers numebrs are drawn go fight in iraq)  barely anyone favored this
• solution 3: outsourcing- hire mercenaries (people around the world who can fight well and are willing to do it for the already existing wage) medium amount of people favored this
• during the civil war the union used a combination of conscription and the market sytem to fill miltary spots to fight
• if you were drafted and didnt want to serve, you could hire a substitute to take your place (people would offer money to get someone to volunteer as their substitute)
• unjust reasons by students: 1) by paying someone money youre basically putting a price on human life, so theyre trying to do something that is not feasible. (bc youre saying thats what their life is worth to you) 2) in favor of the rich, people who r poor cant rlly consider paying someone to take their spot and are essentially being coerced by the money bonus to fight
• if people are using these reasons to say that this substitute pay method is coercive and wrong, then why arent they thinking like that for the "increase pay and benefits" option? arent they basically the same thing of putting a price on a human life and coercing people to join for the money. yet people objected this one but voted in favor of the other one.
•  so overall, the issues with using the market to allocate(distribute) military service
• 1. many ppl have so few economic opportunities that the bonuses of joing the military is their best choice, so there is an element of coercion in that.
• 2. military service should not be treated as just another job for pay bc its bound up with patriotism. so people who join should actually want to join for the country.

Lecture 10- surrogacy

• An argument over the role of markets in human reproduction
• In fertility clinics ppl advertise for fertility donors. one ran a few years ago and they had an ad offering a large incentive for a woman who was athletic, intelligent, atleast 5'10, the price they were offering was 50k...for one egg.
• there were also sometimes ads in college newspapers for sperm donors. so the market in reproductive capacties is an equal opportunity market
• theres a company that markets sperm (California Cryobank). they have a focus of exacting standards on the sperm it recruits
• donors only got 75 per sperm donated. and 900 each month if you donated 3 times each week.
• donors had to be 6ft tall, blond hair, brown eyes, and dimples bc those are the traits majority customers seemed to want
• the market in egg and sperm donations raise a question about whether eggs and sperm should or should not be bought and sold for money?
•  a surrogacy case that got brought to court
• the story of baby M. william and elizabeth stern, a couple that wanted a baby but they couldnt have on of their own without medical risk to mrs. stern. they went to a fertility clinic where they met this woman, a mother of 2 and a wife to a sanitation worker. this woman had replied to an ad the center put out, wanting to be a surrogate mother. the couple and this woman signed a contract that agreed to mr. stern paying her 10k and in exchange the woman agrees to be artifically inseminated, birth the child, then give the baby to the sterns. later on when the woman birthed the child, she changed her mind and decided that she wanted to keep the baby.
• viewing this case in a moral way
• majority students say that it would have been the right thing to do to uphold the contract
• its a binding contract. everyone knew the terms so the mother shouldve known what she was getting into. so like a deal was a deal
• her change of feelings isnt relevant bc it was a tradeoff she already agreed to.
• few students say that it would have not been the right thing to do to uphold the contract
• no way a mother can know before the child is even born how they are going to feel emotionally about the child. so in disagreement to the "everyone knew the terms" the woman didnt know all the terms.
• the child should have a right tot heir biological mother. bond created by nature is stronger than that of a contract
• What did the court decide
• the lower court ruled that the contract was enforceable.
• a price was made, a bargain was reached, no sides were forced, no one held less of a bargaining power.
• new jersey supreme court ruled that the contract is not enforceable
• consent is tainted bc the mother did not knwo the bond that would form beforehand
• this is the sale of a mothers rights to her child. there are some things in society that money cant buy so the court voided the contract
• they gave mr stern custody of the child bc they thought that would be best for the child, and they restored the rights of the woman and left it up to the lower courts to decide what the details abt visitation rights should be

Objections to following through with the surrogacy contracts	this side never got filled out
1. Tainted or flawed consent       -coercion       -lack of information 2. dehumanizing       -selling and buying a kid (making childbearing a market transaction)

• ultimately, the situation shows that there are atleast 2 ways consent can be other than free
• 1)  if ppl are pressured or coerced to give their agreement
• 2) if their consent is not truly informed