Wow. I wonder what you mean by ethics, then. A change in economic or foreign policy may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths if there’s a war—how can these not be ethical matters?
Interesting. Our minds work sufficiently differently so that we hit minor misunderstandings on a very regular basis :-/
When I said “close to zero ethics in economics and foreign policy” I meant that decisions in this spheres are not driven by ethical considerations. Once you take out things like naked self-interest, desire for money and/or power, the necessity to keep up appearances, etc. the remaining influence of ethics, IMHO, is very small.
You, on the other hand, said “there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy” meaning that decisions in that sphere have meaningful consequences which we can evaluate ethically. That’s certainly true, but under this approach I can say that there is a lot of ethics in earthquakes. An earthquake “may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths”, but is it an ethical matter?
No one (so far as we know) chooses whether there are to be earthquakes.
People do choose whether to start wars, increase or decrease minimum wages, levy new taxes, etc. (Governments choose directly; in democracies, their electorates choose indirectly.)
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are. I am fairly sure that when I vote, I am greatly influenced by my estimates of the candidates’ parties’ likely foreign and economic policy, and that I am thinking in ethical terms about what policies would be best.
Of course I may be fooling myself about that, and the politicians may certainly be lying about what drives their policies. But the same is true on “social” issues. I don’t know of any reason to be more confident that (say) abortion policy is really more driven by politicians’ or voters’ ethics than (say) taxation policy.
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are.
You can examine their decisions (“revealed preferences”) and check whether they require ethical imperatives as an explanation or they can perfectly well be explained without considering ethics.
I appreciate that this is not a trivial exercise (e.g. distinguishing between “we cannot ethically do that” and “we cannot do that for the sake of keeping up appearances” is going to be difficult), but so is much of real-life analysis.
Interesting. Our minds work sufficiently differently so that we hit minor misunderstandings on a very regular basis :-/
When I said “close to zero ethics in economics and foreign policy” I meant that decisions in this spheres are not driven by ethical considerations. Once you take out things like naked self-interest, desire for money and/or power, the necessity to keep up appearances, etc. the remaining influence of ethics, IMHO, is very small.
You, on the other hand, said “there’s a lot of ethics in economics and foreign policy” meaning that decisions in that sphere have meaningful consequences which we can evaluate ethically. That’s certainly true, but under this approach I can say that there is a lot of ethics in earthquakes. An earthquake “may put many thousands of people out of or into work, it may result in lots of deaths”, but is it an ethical matter?
No one (so far as we know) chooses whether there are to be earthquakes.
People do choose whether to start wars, increase or decrease minimum wages, levy new taxes, etc. (Governments choose directly; in democracies, their electorates choose indirectly.)
I don’t know to what extent people in government are thinking ethically when contemplating foreign and economic policy, though they frequently claim they are. I am fairly sure that when I vote, I am greatly influenced by my estimates of the candidates’ parties’ likely foreign and economic policy, and that I am thinking in ethical terms about what policies would be best.
Of course I may be fooling myself about that, and the politicians may certainly be lying about what drives their policies. But the same is true on “social” issues. I don’t know of any reason to be more confident that (say) abortion policy is really more driven by politicians’ or voters’ ethics than (say) taxation policy.
You can examine their decisions (“revealed preferences”) and check whether they require ethical imperatives as an explanation or they can perfectly well be explained without considering ethics.
I appreciate that this is not a trivial exercise (e.g. distinguishing between “we cannot ethically do that” and “we cannot do that for the sake of keeping up appearances” is going to be difficult), but so is much of real-life analysis.