Is murder ever justifiable?
By Wei Seng
'Justice with Michael Sandel' series of lectures
I apologise for having not written in a very long time. I have been very busy last week with bringing my Canadian relatives around town, and I have a very short weekend this week as I came back from camp on Saturday and have to book back in by tonight. I have not found much inspiration for writing these days, but I was inspired by a video that I was introduced to by a friend. This friend's Law module in Nanyang Business School, taken as part of his studies for an Accounting degree, introduces concepts in law to familiarise students with the relation between law and business. But this video that I watched, while not exactly directly relevant to business law or anything like that, is something good to ponder about as you ask yourself what morality is.
Justice with Michael Sandel is a video production put up by Harvard University. Showcasing Prof Michael Sandel's popular Justice course lectures in Harvard, this production is available online for all to see, to experience for oneself how Harvard teaches, as well as to allow oneself some exposure to some concepts in philosophy and law. I watched the first video, a series of two lectures that first introduces viewers (and students in the auditorium where the video was filmed) to the concept of justice and morality using examples, and then introducing a real-life court case that forces us to question if murder (in the court case, cannibalism) can ever be justifiable / moral.
Fundamentally, the question posed: "Is it permissible to harm a smaller number of innocent people to prevent greater harm to a larger number of people?"
It is a bit lengthy, 55 minutes in total for the first video, but it is worth viewing for some thought-provoking questions to ask yourself, as well as to learn more about concepts in philosophy such as consequentialist moral reasoning, utilitarianism and categorical moral reasoning.
Is mandatory caning necessary for convicted vandals?
By Martin See
Who did the painting on this MRT train?
Michael Peter Fay, a mischievous American teenager, shot to worldwide fame after he was given the taste of Singapore's rattan rod (hint: it is not one of those Singapore delicacies). After being convicted of two charges of vandalism in 1994, he was sentenced to a total of four months' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane. Even a plea of clemency by the then US President Bill Clinton could not save Fay's bare buttocks (although it did reduce the number of strokes from six to four by the then Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong).
Following Fay's sentence, Singapore became internationally recognised as the country where chewing gums are banned and people are caned for vandalism. Even "Sue Sylvester", a fictional character from the Fox musical-comedy series glee, came out to say "You know, caning has fallen out of fashion in the United States. But ask anyone who safely walked the immaculate sidewalks of Singapore after winning an international cheerleading competition, and they will tell you one thing: Caning works! And I think it is about time we did a little more of it right here... yes, we cane!"
This issue has been brought to relevance by the recent vandalism of an MRT train committed by a 32-year-old Swiss national Oliver Fricker and his accomplice Dane Alexander Lloyd, a 29-year-old Briton. Both men slipped into the SMRT train depot in Changi, a protected place, under the cover of darkness and decorated an MRT train with the words of 'McKoy' and 'Banos'. While Lloyd remains at large, Fricker was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and the minimum three strokes of the cane after being convicted of the vandalism charge.
These two cases beg the question, is mandatory caning necessary for convicted vandals? Before I delve further into this question, it will be helpful if I educate our fellow readers on the relevant laws.
Under section 3 of the Vandalism Act, Cap. 341, "any person who commits any act of vandalism or attempts to do any such act or causes any such act to be done shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, and shall also, subject to section 231 of the Criminal Procedure Code, be punished with caning with not less than 3 strokes and not more than 8 strokes". Under section 231 of the Criminal Procedure Code, such convicts cannot escape the rattan rod unless they are "a) women b) males sentenced to death c) males whom the court considers to be more than 50 years of age".
Apart from the provisions stated in the earlier paragraph, "punishment of caning shall not be imposed on a first conviction under this [Vandalism] Act in the case of any act falling within (a) paragraph (a) (i) of the definition of “act of vandalism” in section 2, if the writing, drawing, mark or inscription is done with pencil, crayon, chalk or other delible substance or thing and not with paint, tar or other indelible substance or thing; or (b) paragraph (a) (ii) or (a) (iii) of that definition". For the references to the paragraphs, you will have to read the Vandalism Act.
As stated in the preamble, the Vandalism Act is "to provide for exemplary punishment for acts of vandalism". But why is exemplary punishment necessary for such a non-violent crime? To answer the question satisfactorily, we have to understand its legislative intent. During the trial case of Michael Fay, it was put forward that the "original legislative intent behind the provision for caning in s 3 of the Vandalism Act was directed at suppressing those violent political elements which existed in Singapore in the 1960s and which wreaked havoc throughout our city by, inter alia, inscribing anti-national slogans in public places..." and subsequently, the then Honourable Chief Justice Yong Pung How also clarified, in his written judgment, that "the legislature was simultaneously concerned with containing anti-social acts of hooliganism." But these reasons do not answer why caning is to be of a mandatory nature.
Why not give the judiciary the discretion of sentencing them to caning instead of maintaining it as a mandatory punishment? Let the court consider the factual matrix and severity of each case before deciding on the appropriate sentence. In this way, it would give the court more flexibility in varying the sentence while deciding on the most appropriate punishment for the convicted vandals. After all, acts of vandalism are mostly non-violent and its damages usually non-permanent. At this point of time, I want to stress that I do not condone acts of vandalism and that these convicted vandals do deserve some sort of punishment. However, to impose mandatory caning on these convicted vandals, without considering the facts and circumstances of each case, would be too harsh a punishment.
What do you think?
Shock Doctrine
By Kevin
Got shot by shock
I've previously read Shock Doctrine and written a review on my personal blog; it was a time before ERPZ started and became active. Here's a reproduction of the original review:
After 2 months of reading I finally finished Naomi Klein's powerful book, Shock Doctrine. It was a long ride deep into the dark old mines of history on the different 'economic revolutions' all around the world: Argentina, Chile, China, Russia, Bolivia and Poland. It was a book that was written with intentions to put down Milton Friedman, clearly anti-corporatist and in some sense, anti-globalization. From this book I understand finally how the term 'anti-globalization' have been mis-interpreted by so many people, even myself. I once thought that it means being against the integration of cultures, economies and companies but then I realised it gets way deeper than that.
The idea of anti-globalization is usually used to mean being against the way the phenomena is taking place in our world, that inequality is rising and corporates are like taking over the world while people in poor countries work in sweatshops, suffer in silence and endure the hardship only to realise generations later that nothing changes. It is the discovery of a certain helplessness in the bottom layer of the world. Shock Doctrine is clearly about that, and more.
In a clear but otherwise way too long writing, Naomi presented a very complete picture of how pure ideology-driven economist are used by corporates and government to advance their self-interest. And of course, in a capitalistic perspective, self-interest is just profit and money. She didn't over turn free market theories on how a perfectly free market is able to dilute power and increase freedom but she did show that the approach that allows for extreme free market is not exactly compatible with democracy and worst of all, economist have been naive about how a free market can be brought to exist. Case after case cited in the book, firms are privatize just be selling it out to the private sector without proper valuation of the assets and this hasty act would not only delay the attainment of a market equilibrium that would be at least more socially optimal but also create new forces that increases the inertia of the market. In other words, it makes the market less free.
In the area of corporate America and politics, Naomi is suggesting that the corporate people have penetrated politics too deeply with CEOs becoming civil servants in top positions of the government and politicians being lobbied by powerful companies with CEOs receiving incomes more than 400 times the average person on the street. And because of that, government becomes ran like corporations, public sector jobs being slashed and direct public spending is reduced while outsourcing (locally, giving contracts to companies) all the functions that can be done by the private sector. Worst, it is infected by a touch of cronyism; and this probably explains why contracts are rarely distributed by bidding and that the contracts concentrate in the hands of the few big firms that are always 'aiding the government' with 'planning'.
It has been a good read anyways and while Naomi Klein has a rather extreme stance, my reading of Joseph Stiglitz (Globlization & its Discontents as well as Making Globalization Work) have helped me appreciate the gravity of the matters she was talking about and I could understand her thinking. As always, the writer do give us a gleamer of hope about what the future may turn out to be when the 'Shock Wears Off' and how we can prevent similar stuff from happening again. I would recommend this book for people who have no fear of heavy non-fiction reading, a thorough interest in learning how and why corporate America is seen in bad light.
Age of Turbulence
By Kevin
Words of the Wise
I read the review of Alan Greenspan's book 2 years back in The Economist, but didn't buy it until late last year when I went on a book-shopping spree. The book gone on to stay on my book table (yes, I seriously need a bookshelf) for another year or so before I dusted it two weeks ago and began reading it. In any case, I bought an updated version, which features an epilogue detailing Alan Greenspan's take on the Subprime Financial Crisis and his prescriptions.
I was immediately surprised by Alan Greenspan's clear writing and simple style so contrary to his famous inscrutable public announcements about the Fed. It is this that earned The Economist's rare praise:
Sub-heading of the book review: "Not many surprises in this memoir-cum-essay except that it is an unexpectedly enjoyable read."
Book Review Quote: "[D]espite everything, the book turns out to be first-rate. It engages on different levels: it is intelligent in a way that few popular books on economics manage or even try to be; and, wonder of wonders, it is a good read."
The book begins as a memoir, detailing Greenspan's childhood, interest in music, schooling, economic/technical inclinations and his long career in the Federal Reserve Bank where he was Mr Chairman. His memoir ends somewhat abruptly in retrospect at the eleventh chapter, The Nation Challenged. Beginning with the chapter, The Universals of Economic Growth, he went on with his economy essays and analysis of various economies, industries and trends. Like what The Economist says, Age of Turbulence is a good read, his memoir was very neutral and he was very humble about his work at the Fed. His accounts of the workings of the Fed provides non-American readers a good starting point to learn about their system. Greenspan's essays on the world economy and economics stays faithful to his belief in the power of free markets and respect for the freedoms and rights that the American Founding Fathers have sought and preserved.
He defends his views that no one can possibly identify a bubble and actively sought to burst it before it gets too big and cause a crisis in its subsequent burst. As a matter of fact, this is the case because anyone who can confidently identify the bubble can profit from it by going against the flow and thus end up defusing it before it builds up. At times, when the so-called 'irrational exuberance' exerts too powerful a market force then regulators wouldn't actually be able to defuse it anyways. He seem to sigh at the voter's expectations that the government is almighty and is disappointed by typical politicians who doesn't seem to understand the meaning of 'trade-offs'. These are typical economist's perennial concerns about the world in democracies that never seem they'll ever go away.
As a pragmatist, Greenspan shows great appreciation for the rule of law that has maintained the workings of the market and fostered a culture of trust so essential to capitalism. And reflecting on that, Greenspan gives suggestions on how the emerging economies need to improve their governance and legal systems to catch up with their prosperity and march towards developed status. These are valuable insights gained from Greenspan's 19 years of being the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Indeed, Greenspan confesses that he knows little about international economics until he took on this role since his work at Townsend-Greenspan & Company (which closed following his nomination to that post) deals little with the economies of other nations.
Overall, Age of Turbulence provides wonderful insights into workings of the capitalist system of America and great ideas about emerging economies, the direction the world economy is heading to - knowledge significant to any economics students and economist-wannabe.