Conflict of Interest: Case Study #2

How real estate markets inflate

In February, I promised three case studies in professional conflict of interest, derived from personal experience. Here is the second one. Although I suspect you may find these examples rather mundane, it is their very mundaneness that I find interesting. I keep coming across issues of conflict of interest in my everyday professional life, so in that sense, they are literally mundane. And they arise from the actions of people who should know better. This I find interesting. People that are intelligent and not otherwise immoral seem unable to identify conflicts of interest in their own conduct. This may be because examples presented to them in various resources on the subject tend to be more dramatic than the situations in which they are most likely experience it. So, mundane examples might be more helpful than very dramatic ones that people are less likely to encounter in their daily lives.

Here is the situation. There was a certain research funding competition, with the following two characteristics:

1.    Applications were institutional, meaning that the university was technically the applicant, rather than an individual researcher, though the latter would still be the project leader.

2.    There was a certain “envelope” of funds allotted to each institution by the funding agency, meaning roughly that there was a limited amount of funding a given institution could apply for.

Under these circumstances, it was in the university’s interest to make sure that they put forward the best quality projects so that they could capture as much of their allotted funding envelope as possible. It was also in the university’s interest to not put forward too many projects, since doing so would mean that the university’s own projects were essentially competing against each other, while wasting the resources that go into putting together unsuccessful applications (the application process for this competition is remarkably onerous and difficult).

With all this in mind, the university devised a process whereby interested applicants were required to submit an internal notice of intent (NOI) — through their faculty’s Dean — to the university’s Vice-President Research. The Vice-President would then make decisions about which projects would go forward to the application stage.

If a faculty was forwarding more than one NOI, the Vice-President required that faculty’s Dean to rank them. In our faculty’s case, we had a problem: we had two NOIs being submitted, one of which belonged to our Dean (the other belonged to a high-performing researcher who also was a prima donna — but that’s another story). To his credit, our Dean immediately recognized the conflict of interest this put him in with respect to ranking. Clearly it would have violated the fundamental principle of justice that nemo iudex in causa sua (“No one ought to be a judge in his own case”).  I phoned the Vice-President’s office to explain the situation and find out if this requirement still applied to us. I was told that it did. Furthermore, I was told that it was the prerogative of the Dean, by virtue of his office, to rank his own application higher if he wished.

Not even the Crown’s prerogative extends to violating the principles of fundamental justice. A large and burgeoning branch of law — administrative law — is predicated on the idea that there are limits to such prerogative. But apparently, high-ranking university administrators do not have such a limited prerogative.

It is not difficult to see that it would be wrong for the Dean to take part in his own ranking. If he had ranked his own project higher, his competitor would naturally believe that the fix was in, even if the Dean ranked honestly. And if he had ranked himself lower, his competitor might still conclude that he had done so only to avoid controversy, even if the Dean had ranked honestly. The issue is not about the Dean’s honesty, but about justice being done and, as importantly, being seen to be done. In this case there would have been no way for justice to be seen to be done, even if it had been done.

Beyond the principle that justice must be done and seen to be done, conflict of interest also has the corrosive effect of lessening respect and trust in legitimate authority. (Illegitimate authority, however, deserves no respect or trust; but legitimate authority may become illegitimate precisely because it is prey to systemic conflicts of interest, also known as corruption.)

Another way to look at the wrongness of conflict of interest is by looking to the objective supposedly being served by a process or system: if the objective is good, and if the conflict of interest thwarts the process and/or undermines the objective it serves, then the conflict of interest is bad. In this case, a process was put in place to serve the objective of efficient use of resources, by a) not duplicating effort, and b) making maximal use of the available envelope — i.e. not “leaving money on the table”. This required that those projects be identified which are of the highest quality, and hence, most likely to succeed. The Dean’s participation in his own ranking would have muddied the waters in this last regard. The Vice-President would not be able to rely on the rankings he received. This makes the Vice-President’s attitude all the more puzzling. He was essentially asking our Dean to undermine his (i.e. the VP’s) own process.

The Vice-President’s insistence on the Dean’s prerogatives at first troubled me most because it caused problems for us that are best described as “political”. A prominent and accomplished researcher with an ego to match would have been rightly angered at being cheated, with predictable internal repercussions down the road for our faculty. But aside from politics, there was the greater ethical problem conflict of interest represents. Laudably, our Dean simply forwarded both NOIs without providing the required ranking. But if he had provided it, and especially if he had ranked himself higher, his action would have the effect of:

1. Undermining reasonable goals.
2. Undermining institutional trust.
3. Advancing personal interests at the expense of the common good.

Therein lies the wrongness of conflict of interest in this case.

Bird-Batting and Bat-Fowling

In a post back in November on English editions of Lord Shaftesbury’s Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, I had a few things to say about the emblematic engravings that Shaftesbury designed to illustrate his work. In 1974 Felix Paknadel wrote what still remains the most detailed account of the symbolism encapsulated in these engravings. Although anyone interested in the subject must ever be grateful for Paknadel’s effort, a new attempt at interpretation is long overdue. I would like to give an idea of what I mean.

Paknadel was particularly puzzled by the decorative headpiece in Volume III of Characteristicks, illustrating Shaftesbury’s “Miscellaneous Reflections” (pictured above). Paknadel wrote that “The emblems on each side have little to do with the texts of reference. Nor have we found in the treatise any metaphor of which they would be the graphic representation.”

The texts of reference inscribed on the plate are to pages 1, 3, 5, 95, and 132. Of these, pages 1, 95, and 132 refer simply to the first pages of three of the five "Miscellaneous Reflections", which contain little more than titles and descriptive lists of contents. So in a sense Paknadel was correct, in that there are no specific reference texts for the page references. The page references seem not to lead the reader to anything specific. However, I submit that Paknadel was being too literal in looking for specific passages corresponding to the headpiece design. Although Shaftesbury often did refer to specific passages, here I believe he simply intended the headpiece to illustrate general themes treated of in the “Miscellaneous Reflections”. After all, the latter were consciously meant not to be systematically organized, so why should we expect the headpiece illustrating them to be so? Indeed, I will attempt to show that just one small panel of this headpiece has multiple allusions and significations. Examine, if you will, the left panel of the triptych comprising the headpiece:

There is a net strung across some trees, full of ensnared birds, as well as various other traps. This seems to bear some relation to the following passage in Butler’s Hudibras, II.iii.1-10:

    "DOUBTLESS, The pleasure is as great,
     Of being cheated, as to cheat.
     As lookers-on feel most delight,
     That least perceive a Juglers slight;
     And still the less they understand,
     The more th’ admire his slight of hand.

     Some with a noyse, and greasy light,
     Are snapt, as men catch Larks by night;
     Ensnar’d and hamper’d by the Soul,
     As noozes by the Legs catch Foul."

A similar reference occurs in John Webster’s The Dutchesse of Malfy (1623), III.v.98-101:

    "Is that terrible? I would have you tell me
     Whether is that note worse, that frights the silly birds
     Out of the corne or that which doth allure them
         To the nets? You have hearkned to the last too much."

The Butler passage seems the more important, in that a major theme Shaftesbury is illustrating here is superstition and its duperies, a major theme in the “Miscellaneous Reflections”.

Further light is shed (pardon the pun) on the practice depicted in this image in Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742), Bk. II, ch. 10, p. 230: “These People who now approached were no other, Reader, than a Set of young Fellows, who came to these Bushes in pursuit of a Diversion which they call Bird-batting. This, if thou art ignorant of it (as perhaps if thou hast never travelled beyond Kensington, Islington, Hackney, or the Borough, thou mayst be) I will inform thee, is performed by holding an large Clap-Net before a Lanthorn, and at the same time, beating the Bushes: for the Birds, when they are disturbed from their Places of Rest, or Roost, immediately make to the Light, and so are enticed within the Net.”

The first French edition of Joseph Andrews (London, 1743) calls it éclairer l’oiseau. Interestingly, some modern editions, including the most recent Oxford World Classics edition, replace “Bird-batting” with “Bird-baiting”. This is a mistake. First of all, it is not a typographical error. The separate first Dublin edition also has “bird-batting”, as does the “revised and corrected” second London edition. Second, more detailed accounts of the practice describe it as consisting of beating the bushes, and then using a lantern to see where to hold the net. In other words, the person who beat the bushes could be characterized as the “pitcher”, and the person or persons holding the lantern and net would be the “batters”. In fact, the sense was even more literal: instead of a net, a bat was commonly used to stun or kill the startled birds. Furthermore, an alternative name for the practice is “bat-fowling”, an obvious play on words for that other winged creature that flies at night. Reverse the order of the words in “bird-batting” and you get “bat-birding” or “bat-fowling”.

Bat-fowling appears in Shakespeare, The Tempest, II.i.188: “We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.” Indeed, the very passage in which it occurs is likely what Shaftesbury had in mind for his illustration (supplemented by the interpretation inspired by the passage from Hudibras, above):

    "GONZALO. I do well believe your highness; and
          did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen,
          who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that
          they always use to laugh at nothing.
     ANTONIO. ‘Twas you we laughed at.
     GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing
          to you: so you may continue and laugh at
          nothing still.
     ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!
     SEBASTIAN. An it had not fallen flat-long.
     GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave metal; you would lift
          the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
          in it five weeks without changing.

     [Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music]

     SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a bat-fowling.
     ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
     GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure
          my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh
          me asleep, for I am very heavy?"

Antonio and Sebastian are having a go at the serious Gonzalo. He is soothed by Ariel’s music, and no more takes offense at the ridicule he is receiving. The allusion is to Shaftesbury’s doctrine that there is nothing wrong with injecting a little humour into a serious debate. Such levity, if well-placed and tasteful, will contribute to civility of discourse where gravity might lead parties to come to blows. On a more general level, the advice is to not take ourselves too seriously. Which brings us to the next allusion in the piece…

As if allusions to Hudibras and The Tempest were not already enough to pack into this little section of a headpiece, I submit that the panel would also have summoned in readers’ minds La Rochefoucauld’s Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales (1st ed. 1665), a work whose 17th-century editions contained a frontispiece that would have been familiar to Shaftesbury’s audience:

In Rochefoucauld’s frontispiece, a laughing cherub (rather than Shaftesbury’s satyr) points to a bust of Seneca, the pedestal of which contains the Latin inscription “QUID VETAT”. This is a reference to Horace, Satires, 1.1.24-25: “ridentem dicere verum / quid vetat?” (“what is to prevent one from telling the truth as he laughs?”). The same quotation became the motto on the title page of Shaftesbury’s “Letter concerning Enthusiasm” upon its re-publication in Characteristicks. Why was Seneca the target of ridicule for Rochefoucauld? For one thing, as a Stoic, Seneca had what the cynical Frenchman would consider to be an over-inflated opinion of the nobility of human nature. For another, Seneca took himself very seriously (and unlike Horace, wrote tragedies rather than satires). Also, Seneca, the high-ranking courtier and politician under the emperor Nero, would have been anathema to the politically embittered and cynical Rochefoucauld, living under the absolutist regime of Louis XIV. There is no indication of whom, if anyone, the busts in Shaftesbury’s design are intended to represent. In his instructions to Gribelin, he merely refers to them as “a Set of Vizzard-Masks of several Kinds”. However, they bear severe — even angry — expressions, as did the bust of Seneca. In the Rochefoucauld frontispiece, beneath the feet of the cherub, is inscribed “L’ amour de la verite” (“Love of truth”). The general idea being offered by both Rochefoucauld and Shaftesbury in these designs is that humour may be used to speak truth to power, whether those powers happen to be self-important politicians, or the Church.

It is also worth noting that English editions of Rochefoucauld’s work tended to be titled Moral Maxims and Reflections, more than a little reminiscent of Shaftesbury’s title for the contents of Volume III of Characteristicks, “Miscellaneous Reflections”.

The Janus-faced nature of the bust being pointed to and laughed at by the satyr may also allude to the following passage of Characteristicks, Vol. I, p. 66: “But at present there is nothing so ridiculous as this JANUS-Face of Writers, who with one Countenance force a smile, and with another show nothing but Rage and Fury.” The quote is from Shaftesbury's treatise in Vol. I, "Sensus Communis", where raillery is recommended for such hypocrites, symbolized by the satyr.

All this rich texture of allusions, packed into one little section of this symbolically overstuffed headpiece, went largely unnoticed by Paknadel. Hence I think it is time for a new study.

The Spectacled Avenger's Reading List, 2015

At the beginning of every year, it has been my habit to post a list of the books that I read the previous year, sometimes with a few remarks thereon. Below you will find the list for 2015.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. My total was 65 volumes read, which compares somewhat unfavourably to the 2014 total of 76. In my defense, I would note a few things. First, I was simply busier this year, personally and professionally, and these activities ate somewhat into my reading time. I had to do research for a paper, and I was also involved in an intensive reading of Milton with a friend (sessions spent reading him aloud and then discussing), which took considerable time. In light of this, I consider 65 to be a pretty good number. Second, my 2015 reading tended towards multi-volume works (e.g. Kent and Richardson, below), which tend to be harder slogs. Third, although I don’t publish here the corresponding list of academic papers that I’ve read in the past year (maybe I should?), I did read a few more of these than I do in a typical year —37 in 2015. In part, this was connected to the professional pressures I alluded to.

Aside from the quantity, in terms of content, I can say that in continuation of a trend begun in 2014, I continued to read more novels than I typically do (Dickens, Goldsmith, Fielding, and Richardson), few as these may seem to most readers. In 2015 I read fewer classical authors than I used to (only Cicero and Xenophon this year), and, shocking to me, 53 of the 65 titles I read were written before the 20th century. Of course this last fact is partially counterbalanced by the academic papers I read, almost all of which were written after 1900.

As with the list in other years, books I particularly enjoyed are in bold.

*    *    *    *

ADAMS, John. The Portable John Adams. John Patrick Diggins (ed.). New York: Penguin Books, 2004.

ADAMS, John. Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History. Boston: Russell and Cutler, 1805 (facsimile, New York: Da Capo, 1973).

ADDISON, Joseph and Richard Steele. The Spectator (Vol.VII). Dublin: George Grierson, 1728.

BEER, Anna. Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer, Prophet. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

BERKELEY, George. Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (Works, Vol. III). A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop (eds.). London: Nelson, 1967.

BRETT, R. L. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury: A Study in Eighteenth-Century Literary Theory. London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1951.

BROWNE, Sir Thomas. Religio Medici. London: Andrew Crooke, 1643 (facsimile, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909).

BURKE, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (2nd edition). London: R. and J. Dodsley, 1759 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1972).

BURTON, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy (Vol. I). London: Everyman Library, 1932.

CHANDLER, Richard. The History and Proceedings of the House of Commons (Vol. VII). London: Richard Chandler, 1742.

CHAPMAN, Matthew. The Snail and the Ginger Beer: The Singular Case of Donoghue v Stevenson. London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 2010.

CHARLES I. Eikon Basilike: The Portraiture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Sufferings (with selections from Eikonoklastes, John Milton). Jim Daems and Holly Faith Nelson (eds.). Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2006.

CICERO, Marcus Tullius. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. William Armistead Falconer (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001.

DAVIS, Jefferson. Jefferson Davis: The Essential Writings. William J. Cooper, Jr. (ed.). New York, Modern Library, 2004.

DICEY, A. V. Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century (2nd edition). London: Macmillan, 1914.

DICKENS, Charles. Bleak House. London: Penguin, 2003.

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo. Nature, Addresses and Lectures. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1903.

ERSKINE, Thomas, 1st Baron. The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine (now Lord Erskine) when at the Bar, on Subjects Connected with the Liberty of the Press, and against Constructive Treasons (Vol. I). London: J. Ridgway, 1810.

ERSKINE, Thomas, 1st Baron. The Speeches of the Hon. Thomas Erskine (now Lord Erskine) when at the Bar, on Subjects Connected with the Liberty of the Press, and against Constructive Treasons (Vol. II). London: J. Ridgway, 1810.

FIELDING, Henry. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Martin Battestin and Fredson Bowers (eds.). Middletoen, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1975.

FRANKLIN, Benjamin. The Autobiography. New York: Library of America, 2011.

GIFFORD, William (ed.). The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner (Vol. I). London: J. Wright, 1799 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970).

GIFFORD, William (ed.). The Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner (Vol. II). London: J. Wright, 1799 (facsimile, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1970).

GOLDSMITH, Oliver. The Vicar of Wakefield. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

GRANT, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Vol. I). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1885.

GRANT, Ulysses S. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant (Vol. II). New York: Charles L. Webster and Company, 1886.

GRAY, Thomas. The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray. H. W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson (eds.). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

HALE, Sir Matthew. Historia Placitorum Coronæ: The History of the Pleas of the Crown (Vol. I). Sollom Emlyn (ed.). London: E. and R. Nutt and R. Gosling, 1736.

HALE, Sir Matthew. Historia Placitorum Coronæ: The History of the Pleas of the Crown (Vol. II). Sollom Emlyn (ed.). Philadelphia: Robert H. Small, 1847.

HALEY, K. H. D. The First Earl of Shaftesbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968.

HOWE, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

HUME, David. The History of England (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1983.

JAMES, William. Psychology: Briefer Course. Boston: H. Holt and Co., 1892.

JAMES, William. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. New York: Longmans Green and Co., 1907.

JOHNSON, Samuel. The Works of Samuel Johnson (Vol. I). London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al., 1823.

JOYCE, Richard. The Evolution of Morality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. I). New York: O. Halsted, 1826.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. II). New York: O. Halsted, 1827.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. III). New York: O. Halsted, 1828.

KENT, James. Commentaries on American Law (Vol. IV). New York: O. Halsted, 1830.

MARSHALL, Alfred. Principles of Economics (8th edition). London: Macmillan, 1959.

MARVELL, Andrew. The Complete Poems. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1993.

McPHERSON, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

MENCKEN, H. L. The Days Trilogy: Happy Days, Newspaper Days, Heathen Days (expanded edition). New York: Library of America, 2014.

MILTON, John. Paradise Lost. London: Peter Parker, 1667 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1973).

MILTON, John. Paradise Regain’d and Samson Agonistes. London: John Starkey, 1671 (facsimile, Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1973).

PUFENDORF, Samuel. The Whole Duty of Man, According to the Law of Nature. Andrew Tooke (trans.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003.

RESCHER, Nicholas. Nature and Understanding: The Metaphysics and Method of Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. I). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. II). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

RICHARDSON, Samuel. The History of Sir Charles Grandison (Vol. III). London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, Duc de La. Moral Maxims: By the Duke de la Roche Foucault. London: A. Millar, 1749 (reprint, Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2003).

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Letters of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Author of the Characteristicks, Collected into One Volume. [Glasgow?]: n. p., 1746.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. I). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.

SHAFTESBURY, Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001.

SMITH, Captain John. Writings, with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America. New York: Library of America, 2007.

STORY, Joseph. A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States. New York: American Book Company, 1840.

TAYLOR, Jeremy. Discourses on Various Subjects (Vol. II). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1807.

TAYLOR, John (“of Caroline”). An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.

TUFTE, Edward R. Envisioning Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press, 1990.

VOITLE, Robert. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, 1671-1713. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1984.

WARREN, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Vol. I). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1994.

WARREN, Mercy Otis. History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (Vol. II). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1994.

WIDMER, Ted (ed.). American Speeches: Political Oratory from the Revolution to the Civil War. New York: Library of America, 2006.

XENOPHON. Memorabilia, Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology. E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979.

The Chinese Dream

In the December 5-11, 2015 issue of The Economist (p. 44), there appeared a little article entitled “That’s entertainment”, about the Chinese Communist Party’s enforcement of morality in the state-run entertainment industry. In part, this is not new. The Party has always enforced moral standards over what can be portrayed in film and music, to make sure they conform to moral standards. In addition,

“A new ‘Joint Pledge of Self-Discipline in Professional Ethics’ for the press, publishing, broadcasting and film industries has recently been signed by 50 official media and entertainment organisations. They, in turn, are expected to enforce the pledge among performers and other employees. Works must refrain from vulgar words or images, instead promoting ‘healthy’ and ‘advanced’ aesthetics, whatever they are.”

Leave aside for now the contestability of the meanings of such terms as “healthy” and “advanced”. Leave aside too the question of whether the Chinese Communist Party is the best arbiter of them. Yet, given the moral filth and degenerate aesthetics I am daily exposed to by the North American entertainment industry (no matter how hard I try to keep myself unpolluted by it), I can’t help but sympathize with the intention of the Chinese authorities.

If you have read this blog long enough, you will know that I am not a liberal in the classical sense: I believe there is a place for the legal enforcement of morals, and that, as a matter of fact, we do so whether we like to admit it or not. Indeed the only way we can make sense of many (if not all) of our liberal social policies is in moral terms. The very appeal to liberty is in fact itself a moral appeal, at least where it is not, for example an economic one (though even here, as I have argued before, I believe economic arguments are almost always reducible to moral ones). In this regard I am a conservative, or perhaps a liberal in the style of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. I further believe that liberty is not a trump card. Liberty ought to be the first word in any argument over the bounds of legislation. But it is not the last word. “Liberty”, much like “God” or “Jesus” or “religious faith” is not a magic talisman with the power to ward off all scrutiny or criticism.

Returning to the Economist article, as I said, the Communist Party has been overseeing the moral content of the end products of the Chinese entertainment industry for some time. What’s new is that it is now extending this role to the industry’s off-screen activities. Movie and pop stars will now have to live up to a certain (admittedly fairly minimal) level of moral good conduct:

“Also out is behaviour that 'violates morals or public order'. Pornography, drugs and gambling are spelled out. Even before the pledge, libertines have paid a price. Last year one big-budget film was in the last stages of editing when its star got arrested in Beijing for smoking weed. The film had to be reshot with a new leading man. Organisations that have signed the pledge are now bound to blacklist violators for up to three years.”

The tone of the article seems to more than imply that this is somehow onerous or overly intrusive, or at best quixotic. And yet, how many of us are subject to just such restrictions in our own employment relationships? Is it really asking too much? The only real difference here is that the enforcement is coming from the government rather than from the industry’s or employer’s own self-regulation.

I think that in conveying the view that the Chinese government’s initiative is somehow ridiculous, The Economist is implicitly depending that we will compare this moral regulation of employment not to ourselves, but to the North American entertainment industry. “Look,” the magazine seems to be saying, in a self-congratulatory way, “at how much more virtuous we are in the West, because we’re an open society that allows its entertainment industry to purvey whatever morally corrosive and degenerate filth the public desires. Is liberty not a grand thing?” I am less sanguine about the virtues of such liberty.

There are some who might say that what a Hollywood star does in her private life is her own business, and that we should separate the role on screen from the private life lived off it. It would be nice if the public and private spheres were that easily separable, even in our own lives, let alone Hollywood.

This relation between the public and the private is the major point of contention between, say, a John Stuart Mill and a James Fitzjames Stephen: The former says that whatever happens in the private sphere, not negatively affecting others, ought not to be the subject of government legislation. The latter says, that (i) there is effectively no such thing as an exclusively private sphere, (ii) that morality is not only other-regarding, but is also self-regarding, in that one’s behavior towards oneself is a valid subject of moral regard, and (iii) that legislation is not the only, or even the main way morals are enforced.

To be fair, I’m not sure that Fitzjames Stephen would agree with (ii), since he is in the end a liberal, just a different kind of liberal than Mill. But as a conservative, I believe that it is a legitimate object of government to try to legislate, insofar as it is practical or feasible, for the better moral health of the citizenry (I use the term moral “health” because I can’t think of a better concept to apply here). Indeed, I believe government has a duty to do so, one of its few legitimate duties in my view.

The connection between entertainment and people’s behavior is real, though it is not nearly as simple and direct as the purveyors of various moral panics would have us believe. Still, nobody disputes that Hollywood can get people to buy things, so in that sense we know they can influence behavior. Therefore, it seems Hollywood is worthy of moral scrutiny, and indeed, worthy of governmental moral scrutiny, given Hollywood’s reach and potential influence.

I say this with obvious important caveats: The first caveat is that I am assuming that there are certain shared core values that we, upon rational reflection can all agree on. This is a huge assumption. I believe it’s a warranted one, but I haven’t the space to argue that here (though I have elsewhere on this blog). For now, all I’m saying is that there are certain behaviours which, even if done completely in private and which affected nobody but the person(s) willingly engaging in them, we could still agree in saying that all things considered, a world without these behaviours is, in some morally significant sense, a better world than one with them. For example, imagine it were the case that prostitution involved no occupational hazards such as violence or disease, and that it was engaged in as a voluntary activity, free of coercion, economic or otherwise. Imagine an alternative world in which there was no such activity as buying or selling sexual favours. Which is the better world? I leave you to consider that question yourself, and to apply it to other behaviours, such as drug use, pornography, and self-mutilation (which is notably a private sphere matter in the liberal view of things).

Second, as Fitzjames Stephen recognized, government legislation is not always the appropriate, efficient, or effective vehicle for enforcing such values. Often, the most effective moral sanctions are societal ones. Many people would do things to avoid paying taxes to the government, but would blush with shame at the thought of being discovered doing so by their friends and neighbours.

I largely agree with The Economist’s implication that government is likely the wrong agent to effect moral reform in the entertainment industry. Government is often heavy-handed, too blunt an instrument to accomplish such a delicate task — especially a government that is unrepresentative and indistinguishable from a mere political party, as is the case with China’s. (I was tempted to mention corruption, but I’m not convinced that Western governments are much better in that regard, just more discreet).

However, interestingly, what The Economist seems to forget is that for several decades Hollywood conducted its own experiment in moral codification, the Motion Picture Production Code (or so-called “Hays” Code), in operation from 1930 to 1968. This was an industry-imposed measure intended to obviate the need for a government-imposed one. It was in response not only to a perceived moral decline in the content of films, but also to a perceived moral decline in the quality of Hollywood stars themselves, particularly in the wake of the Fatty Arbuckle affair.

Was the Hays Code a failure? Was it quixotic? Did it kill the motion picture industry? Did it lead to dull movies? The answer to these questions seems to be a resounding “no”. In fact, according to Jon Elster, in his book Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints (Cambridge University Press, 2000), it arguably led to better movies. It is no coincidence that the Hays Code was in place during the so-called “Golden Age of Hollywood”. Elster argued that working within constraints (moral codes, for example) can actually enhance rather than stifle creativity. For instance, many movies made during this period still managed to include risqué and even subversive content, but such content had to be presented in indirect, roundabout ways. For example, the constraints meant that methods had to be found to suggestively leave things to the imaginations of viewers. Such suggestion was more likely to induce thought rather than mere titillation, thereby preserving both good art and good morals.

There is another bothersome thing about this Economist article worth mentioning. The author writes:

“China’s top official in charge of ideology and propaganda, Liu Yunshan, held a gathering with leading figures in art and literature with the aim of promoting the ‘prosperous development’ of those fields. Mr Liu wanted to encourage works embodying the ‘Chinese dream’ and ‘positive energy’. These terms come straight from the dogma factory of Xi Jinping, China’s president. He has spoken often — if vaguely — of the Chinese dream as an organising principle for the country’s development.”

Again, as with much else in this article, one can sense the author’s sneering tone, as if an appeal to the “Chinese dream” is something laughable. In truth, is the “Chinese dream” any more vague or dishonest or vacuous than the “American dream”? And is the American political establishment any less a “dogma factory” on this score than the Chinese one? The “American dream” is a term that The Economist employs regularly in its publication without the least sense of irony. Why is the double standard?

I’m sorry to point out that to uncritically invoke the “American Dream” puts one in the same dubious company as Mr. Donald Trump, entertainer par excellence:

"'The American Dream is dead,' said Trump near the end of his remarks. 'But we’re going to make it bigger and better and stronger than ever before.'"

Are the Chinese not allowed to do the same?