measuring virtue
The capacity of
government,
parliament,
central banks or
private banks for
measuring virtue has been a central topic of public debate, under changing names, for several hundred years.
[+] (Allegedly) virtuous regimes
Attempts to measure
In addition to
stewsinc at eol.ca" class="wiki wiki_page">monetary policy where it is most obvious, virtue debates affect also
fiscal policy and the award of
punitive damages in
civil law and
torts.
Tort reform and
monetary reform may constant reference to measures and means of
measuring virtue.
Key debates and definitions on this issue tend to focus on
intangibles:
- measuring progress
- Genuine Progress Indicator
- Genuine Progress Indicator Atlantic
- triple bottom line
- ICLEI Triple Bottom Line
- measuring happiness
- measuring well-being
- value of life ratio
- value of Earth
- Canadian Index of Well-Being
- natural capital adequacy
- ecological footprint
- ICLEI ecoBudget
- measuring biodiversity
Most of these debates require assessing some intangible
capital asset value. They reflect attempts to address failures with
virtue measures based on
financial capital alone, such as
Consumer Price Index increases,
debt to GDP ratio,
GDP itself, and
Net Domestic Product.
All of these debates accept the most basic premise that an
ethical decision can be
quantified as a
cardinal number.
position: Measuring public virtue should be conducted wholly in public.
[+] argument for: if governments need money, they can tax it
The difficult process of arguing for
tax increases and collecting them is the main barriers to government overspending that causes
inflation.
[+] counter-argument: the taxes that are resisted are often those that are required
Public resistance to taxes is not generally proportional to their
virtue or the (public harm))s or
regrets of not imposing them. A
carbon tax, for instance, has been resisted by
Big Oil for many years, but seems required to meet
Kyoto Accord commitments.
Bernard Crick defined politics as the public resolution of ethical issues.
In a
democracy definitions of virtue in the form of
political party formations can compete directly in the
electoral system and the winners can impose
tax and
other measures that reflect public values. The public can choose one party or another based on what adjustments seem to be currently required:
swing voters in particular seem to play this key role.
Parties do not act as honest representatives of values but for
interest groups and often as
self-interest groups. Their
integrity is reduced proportionately to the lack of public scrutiny and control on their internals.
[+] counter-argument: Canadian law inhibits attempts to require political entities to actually express the virtues they avow
[+] argument against: virtue and value assessing expertise is not evenly distributed
[+] argument against: public choices of leaders are not necessarily competent ethical choices of values
[+] argument for: Public virtue can now be assessed by non-legislative means
[+] argument for: Public virtue can now be assessed by non-legislative means
position: Public virtue requires at least some private deliberation based on a wide range of expertise the public lacks
[+] argument for: expertise of ethicists, economists, sociologists, ecologists is routinedly used in decisions
[+] argument for: voters have little time or interest in details of public debate
Too few people holding power concentrates it and increases
conflict of interest between various forms and sources of power. If
absolute power corrupts absolutely then lesser degrees of power corrupt to lesser degrees, but still enough to distort public values and make decisions on public virtues all suspect.
If nothing else, too few people involved in measuring virtue cannot defend decisions to all constituencies
[+] position: Public virtue can't be measured, as measurement itself cannot process or reflect virtue accurately
Virtue is an attribute of bodies and of decisions regarding bodies. Measurements and methodologies aren't subject to the constraints that bodies are subject to. No
group entity can reflect
If public virtue can only be assessed by
empathy of a body, then a single very powerful leader making all decisions is the optimal model: a
dictatorship. The many bad empirical effects of such a form of government is an argument against repudiating methods, measures, and numbers in the assessment of virtue for the public.
The many observed good examples of this form of government prove that concentrating formal
veto power in one person, even someone chosen by
birthright and trained for life for the tasks, is a valid form of democracy.
As long as the
head of state is not also the
head of government!
Almost all extremely important decisions in the world involve quantification and group agreement at some level. The
United Nations nor
IMF do not admit any particular dictatorial power.
[+] argument against: failure to participate leads to narrower agreements and thus corruption
[+] position: Public virtue can be measured only by ecologists
A global consensus of ecologists, e.g. on
global warming, is the only extant or useful example of public virtue agreed on all over the world by competent assessors.
Ecological wisdom is objective and an attribute of living as a primate on Earth.
Social justice on the other hand has very many contradictory definitions and can never be the basis of any agreement beyond the borders of one language, nation or otherwise. This is a direct consequence of the difficulty of measuring.
The
Kyoto Accord is an example of a successful measurement of public virtue by ecologists and economists in cooperation - the
value of life calculations used in that agreement
It's compromised by dealing only with
point sources of
greenhouse gases and failing to establish any uniform way to deal with
audits. Even if it was working it wouldn't prove that ecological measures had been assessed and enforced as virtue measures. That would require at least a much more comprehensive reflection of the value of
climate stability directly in the
global monetary system.
[+] position: Everything is business
A
business process is defined in terms of how measurable it is, whether it has a recognizable start and a measurable end.