HSE Moscow A (Ilya Androsov, Ivan Veliantsei) case book

Contents

1. Moral philosophy 2

1.1. Moral reciprocity as the nature of obligations 2

1.2. Duty to help 2

1.3. Lottery of birth as the nature of obligations 2

1.4. Autonomy / rational choice 3

2. Internal politics 3

2.1. Value of democracy 3

2.2. Parliamentary politics 3

2.3. Political campaigns 4

2.4. Mobilization of the electorate 4

2.5. Image of politicians 5

2.6. Current US elections 5

3. Social justice 6

3.1. Feminism 6

3.2. Identity politics 6

3.3. Affirmative actions in universities 7

3.4. Safe spaces / microagressions 7

3.5. Inheritance taxation 7

4. Economics 7

4.1. Banking 7

5. Law and order 8

5.1. Double jeopardy rule 8

6. War and soldiers 8

6.1. Drone strikes 8

7. International politics 9

7.1. Russia 9

7.2. NATO 9

7.3. Brexit 10

1. Moral philosophy

   1. Moral reciprocity as the nature of obligations

• Example 1: Children have obligations to take care of their parents as (1) their receive massive benefits of care from their parents; and (2) their parents are heavily coerced to provide this care (social pressure, biological pressure through maternal / parental instincts, direct legal coercion in many countries, etc.).

• Example 2: Citizens have obligations to their country (taxation, military service, etc.) because they receive massive benefits of public services (protection, education, and infrastructure).

• Example 3: States do not have obligations to citizens of other states because they do not claim authority / specific obligations to them.

• Critique 1. We can claim that X has duty to Y only if X provided the consent to Y. We may say that it’s morally good to provide to parents and to your community but in so far you didn’t have a choice to be born in a particular family or society we are not in a legitimate position to coerce you to do it. To think otherwise means to allow for manipulations of a kind: give something to a person and then demand something from her in for that.

• Critique 2. Even if Y was pressured or forced to provide benefits to X by the third party (societal norms, state laws and etc.) in so far X is a source of direct harm we can’t hold her liable. Opposite example here are privileges that imply getting benefits at expense of other people’s opportunities (e.g. if there is stereotypes on white persons being more hardworking it means that they are benefiting in job market directly at expense of people of colour)

1. Duty to help

• We may assume that X can help Y and if X doesn’t do this it will cause harm to Y therefore X is complicit with the inflicted harm. We have to consider two things here:

• A. Whether X undergoes a meaningful sacrifice from the enforced on her obligation to fulfil the duty (for instance we may accept that rich ought to pay a higher share of taxes from their income but we can’t force them to share their apartments or give up their property because money is depersonalised but property is a direct continuation of the holder infringing on which you infringe on a person in an almost intimate way therefore cause a direct psychological harm). If X experiences a clear harm which can’t be invalidated just by the presence of another harm because: we can’t calculate who really suffers more or less since it’s very subjective in most of the case and we treat all parties involved as equal with the respect to their autonomy and therefore their right to pursue their interest, assuming they don’t make harm to others, which would be impossible to hold if we instrumentalise them to maximise utility to others.

• B. Whether X is the best suitable actor here. We may agree that a doctor has a moral duty to help to a stranger that is in the emergency situation like a severe wound, however, we can’t hold liable an amateur with a zero knowledge about medicine to help a person a dare medical need.