Letter: Education ? All Types of Placement poverty in Australia

by Neville Buch | Mar 2, 2024 | Concepts in Educationalist Thought Series, Concepts in Public History for Marketplace Dialogue, Letter

TO WHOM IT CONCERNS…who cares?

Thanks for the information on what is being discussed in the communities and the media.

Yes, we have two reasonable options here in policy: [below and to the ABC link] Free higher education for courses with large fieldwork programs. Or the industries of the industry partnerships in the fieldwork programs contribute significantly to the students’ personal income cost, at a reasonable rate for the work performed, with the university bearing the administration cost of the industry partnership on both ends, e.g. university school and hospital administration. As I understand it, the latter is being considered in some fashion, somewhere in government, but who really knows their philosophical intent and its translation into the practice of the sociology.

So there is some very creative thinking, just off the top of my head, and off the top of the head of 1,000s who are experts and have the same common sense and thinking. SO WHY is it that our federal and state bureaucracies cannot get their act together? If governments had the will to effectively change policies, they could. It would be too easy….with philosophic intelligence and intellectual historiography.

I get exhausted of sending our postings to these departments, pointing out the obvious (to us intellectuals), and I am not being paid and in financial strife.

We are all citizens in agreement on the common principle for the State and the Public sharing the economic weight in fairness. Unfortunately, most politicians have never had the opportunity for an education in a university classroom of philosophy to fully understand what the concept of fairness means according to Martha Nussbaum and Helena Rosenblaatt, rather than the narrow and populist reading of John Rawls.

Neil, I will write this letter up as an essay [this is the essay you are now reading] which will add a “Theory” section, and have it done by tonight.

Dr Donnell Davis might like to review it.

The critical point, though, is that it only takes me a day to write a high-level brief for a government and I am the one without an income, no paid job or contract, but do plenty of work, 6-8 hours 7 days a week.

I would like to know why?

THE REPLY SECTION OF THE LETTER

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Dr Donnell Davis <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 at 08:16
Subject: Education ? Placement poverty in Australia
To: Many Australian citizens

Dear colleagues,

It’s interesting that the countries with greatest advancements have free tertiary education, as we did from 1975 until education was commodified. What have we done so that 46% of high schoolers actually go to study for a trade or degree? The rest work in service industries, live on the dole, or are lucky to have a second chance eduction later in life.
I think we have the formulae wrong.

https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/103511408
And reform?
https://amp-abc-net-au.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/103511408
Regards Donnell
D Australia

BIBLIOGRAPHY SECTION OF LETTER
Broome, J. (1984). Uncertainty and Fairness. The Economic Journal, 94(375), 624–632. https://doi.org/10.2307/2232707
Carr, C. L. (2002). Fairness and Political Obligation. Social Theory and Practice, 28(1), 1–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23559201
Hooker, B. (1995). Rule-Consequentialism, Incoherence, Fairness. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95, 19–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4545206
Klosko, G. (1987). The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation. Ethics, 97(2), 353–362. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381353
Klosko, G. (1993). Rawls’s “Political” Philosophy and American Democracy. The American Political Science Review, 87(2), 348–359. https://doi.org/10.2307/2939045
Neal, P. (1990). Justice as Fairness: Political or Metaphysical? Political Theory, 18(1), 24–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/191478
Nussbaum, M. C. (1993). Equity and Mercy. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 22(2), 83–125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265442
Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 39(1), 3–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41301860
Nussbaum, M.C. (2018). The Monarchy of Fear: a philosopher looks at our political crisis (First Edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Rosenblatt, H. (2007). On the Intellectual Sources of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, and the Debates about a National Religion. French Politics, Culture & Society, 25(3), 1–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42843511
Rosenblatt, H. (2008). Rousseau, the Anticosmopolitan? Daedalus, 137(3), 59–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543798
Rosenblatt, H. (2016). Rousseau, the “Traditionalist.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 77(4), 627–635. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jhistoryideas.77.4.627
Rosenblatt, H. (2016). On Context and Meaning in Pocock’s “Barbarism and Religion”, and on Gibbon’s “Protestantism” in His Chapters on Religion. Journal of the History of Ideas, 77(1), 147–155. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43948778
Rosenblatt, H. (2018). The Lost History of Liberalism: from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press, Princeton; Oxford.
Ryan, A. (2006). Fairness and Philosophy. Social Research, 73(2), 597–606. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971838
Smith, C. R. (1999). The Campaign to Repeal the Fairness Doctrine. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 2(3), 481–505. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41940183

Williams, B. (2000). Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline. Philosophy, 75(294), 477–496. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3751721

Duff, A., & von Hirsch, A. (1997). Responsibility, Retribution and the “Voluntary”: A Response to Williams. The Cambridge Law Journal, 56(1), 103–113. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4508303

And I am looking forward to the end of “The Great Australian Silence“…the conversation continues…

THEORY SECTION

What would it mean to be fair in higher education policy? To be able to answer this question the reader need to go to the philosophy literature to unpack the semantics of fairness. Using a research method of working the literature in chronological order, the following is a literature review on the topic and concept, of fairness:

Broome, J. (1984). Uncertainty and Fairness. The Economic Journal, 94(375), 624–632. https://doi.org/10.2307/2232707

Broome untangles the problem of consequentialism for understanding fairness: “I shall explain in a moment, that ‘social’ preferences do not obey the sure-thing principle, which is generally taken to be an essential requirement of rationality.” In doing so, and as my assessment, the critique of the sure-thing principle makes a nonsense of the (reductive) ‘unnecessary commitments’ claims for utilitarianism. The necessity of the calculation can be seen as perjurious from the defeat of the sure-thing principle for preferences; as preferences can never be completely true, and the otherwise-claimed testimony has sourced in some false information. Thus Broome has two-part argument on fairness:

1. even granted that equalising people’s utilities is a way to be fair, that is no reason to think equalising expected utilities is.
2. even granted the fairness of random selection on appropriate occasions, this fairness is not captured by valuing equality in expected utilities.

The issue here is the negativity, we don’t know what we don’t know. Only very tight contextual descriptions might provide an adequate basis for a political “calculation”. In time, though, most political calculations are shown to have missteps. Constant reviews of logical steps combined with the acceptance/room for fallible human action will provided the very tight contextual descriptions that would provide an adequate basis for a political judgement, not a numeric calculation. Here fairness can be achieved as a parameter.

Klosko, G. (1987). The Principle of Fairness and Political Obligation. Ethics, 97(2), 353–362. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381353

Klosko helpfully unpacked the ethics of John Rawls and H. L. A. Hart. He shows that the obligations of the fairness principle generates widespread
and familiar attitudes toward political obligation, but its formulation as ethics is problematic. Bernard Williams resolved the issue in the distinction between moral obligation and ordinary, or political, obligation. The former is a problematic ethical formulation, the latter is normative.

Neal, P. (1990). Justice as Fairness: Political or Metaphysical? Political Theory, 18(1), 24–50. http://www.jstor.org/stable/191478

Neal brings out the wider historiographical and political philosophy issue, an almost impossible binary between the Political and the Metaphysics, which in most applied situations is false. This is why the populist reading of Rawls is almost always false:

It is not uncommon these days to hear John Rawls’s post-A Theory of Justice writings referred to with sentiments of regret, even disappointment. As has often been remarked, A Theory of Justice had an impact on the Anglo-Saxon intellectual world far beyond that achieved by most academic books. One (certainly not the only) reason for this was a widespread perception that Rawls was therein attempting a project of heroic proportion and classical scope: articulating a comprehensive and universal theory of justice founded on first principles. It is impossible to understand the praise bestowed on Rawls by friend and foe alike for “reviving” the practice of normative political theory without taking into account this perception. Of course, such praise was usually the prelude to a not so faint damnation, as critic after critic pointed to the gaps, holes and presuppositions in the (apparently not so) architectonic structure of Rawls’s theory, which I shall follow him in referring to as “justice as fairness” (JAF).

The general conclusion from Neal is that Rawls’ approach can work in political discourse but only with further structural work in the JAF concept, which goes beyond the normative use/abuse of the fairness concept.

Klosko, G. (1993). Rawls’s “Political” Philosophy and American Democracy. The American Political Science Review, 87(2), 348–359. https://doi.org/10.2307/2939045

By early 1990s Klosko took on Rawls head-on:  “I criticize both Rawls’s general claims about the role of political philosophy and his particular defense of the principles of justice.” Rawls’ general claims is an argument around well-known principles of justice which can serve in a capacity for an overlapping consensus. Klosko is pointing to a rather different overlapping consensus that appears to contribute to stable democracies, a larger moral framing than the utilitarianism of Rawls. Fairness, in many technical senses, is at the heart of this wider project.

Nussbaum, M. C. (1993). Equity and Mercy. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 22(2), 83–125. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265442

Martha Nussbausm discussed in a completely different and much more hostile context than most in the law and public affairs, where it is normative to expect leniency:

By this time, the original and real etymology of the word epieikeia-from eikos, the “plausible” or “appropriate,” — is being supplemented by a popular derivation of the term from eiko, “yield,” “give way.” Thus even in writing the history of the term, Greek thinkers discover a connection between appropriate judgment and leniency.

The emphasis here is on connections not understood.

The puzzle lies, as I have said, in the unexplained connection between appropriate situational judgment and mercy. One might well suppose that a judgment that gets all the situational particulars correct will set the level of fault sometimes high up, sometimes low down, as the situation demands. If the judgment is a penalty-setting judgment, it will sometimes set a heavy penalty and sometimes a light one, again as the situation demands. If the equitable judgment or penalty are being contrasted with a general principle designed beforehand to fit a large number of situations — as is usually the case-then we might expect that the equitable will sometimes be more lenient than the generality of the law, but sometimes harsher.

This is one conception of fairness.

Hooker, B. (1995). Rule-Consequentialism, Incoherence, Fairness. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 95, 19–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4545206

Hooker argues that the normative understanding of fairness gives us no reason for thinking a maturely-developed Rule-Consequentialism is inferior to Contractualism. This is a technical argument over ethical theories. The point here is a debate over the fairness doctrine where the public has grossly misread the technical arguments.

Smith, C. R. (1999). The Campaign to Repeal the Fairness Doctrine. Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 2(3), 481–505. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41940183

In the United States during the 1980s Smith applied an ideological approach to communication strategies in a “Campaign to Repeal the Fairness Doctrine” for government funding and public policy:

Senator Packwood and I established a foundation which would coordinate the repeal effort using non-public funds and which could provide lobbyist, editorialists, and other opinion leaders with needed arguments and evidence. In December of 1982, the Freedom of Expression Foundation was established in Washington, D.C., using contributions from the major networks, AT&T, Washington Post Company, and Times-Mirror Company.

 

As president of the Foundation, I had a clear view of the campaign to repeal the Fairness Doctrine and saw that such efforts are easily caught up in the crosscurrents of ideology and partisan politics. From this perspective, I provide an inside look at public policy reform while revealing the role public address plays in a bureaucratic republic where there are multiple forums for persuasion.

The same communication strategies were applied in the Australian governmental bureaucracies, meaning too few can today have a fuller understanding of fairness.

Carr, C. L. (2002). Fairness and Political Obligation. Social Theory and Practice, 28(1), 1–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23559201

By the turn of the century the law was forced to catch up in the conceptual problem of fairness. Carr explains that unfortunately a false binary was created in public opinion in the choice of one school of theory:

Some philosophers think the demands of fairness will support an obligation to obey the law in what I will call reasonably decent polities. Of these, some hold the strong thesis that all persons who happen to reside within a reasonably decent polity are obligated upon pain of unfairness to obey the law regardless of whether they are, or consider themselves to be, citizens of the polity. Others hold the weaker thesis that only citizens are obligated to obey the law by the concerns of fairness. The difference, which spins upon the notion of membership in the polity, will likely seem cloudy at this point but should become more apparent momentarily. It should also become apparent that the distinction is a matter of some theoretical importance.

Carr takes a third theoretical position: “…I think fairness concerns give rise to an obligation, holding against acknowledged citizens only, to consider whether they should or should not obey the laws of their polity provided they are confident that their polity qualifies as reasonably decent.”

Ryan, A. (2006). Fairness and Philosophy. Social Research, 73(2), 597–606. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40971838

Ryan provided the history lesson on the concept of fairness, going back to David Hume. It is the necessary history lesson which, up to now, the political class has failed to understand, but it is a flawed lesson. From Hume, one school of philosophers see normative acts of praising and blaming as expressive and not descriptive. Hart developed this school of thought significantly, seeing ethics as non-obligatory, replaced by the obligation of the law. In this Bernard Williams followed Hart, but broke at certain stage of thinking on moral responsibility. Antony Duff and Andrew von Hirsch (1997) best explains it:

…Williams asserts, we should follow H.L.A. Hart in founding the argument for moral responsibility on the value of political freedom: if citizens “should be able to conduct their affairs so far as possible without the state’s power being unpredictably directed against them”, then punishments “should be applied to [and only to] voluntary agents”. We also should not expect too much, Williams asserts, from concept of the voluntary, since it is “both vague and superficial” The concept’s scope, that is, is indeterminate – we cannot always say whether an agent acted voluntarily, not because we cannot determine the truth of the matter, but because there is no “truth” of to be determined. And the concept cannot give us the kind of deep, or metaphysical, idea of “real” freedom of the will for which many (too many) still hanker. The upshot is that we should accept the conception of moral responsibility for what it is: a conception that is useful in certain contexts, but which does not reflect any profound truth about human agents or about how they should be treated.

In the philosophy of language Williams followed Wittgenstein on the conditions of linguistic uncertainty. This goes beyond Humean expressivism and Hart’s legal ethics. The way we normatively express a moral or an ethic is always uncertain in the language of morality and the law. The point for this essay is that such obligations cannot establish fairness as a general ethical principle. Fairness ought not be conflated with obligation. The two concepts might be contextual related, but that needs sufficient explanation.

Rosenblatt, H. (2007). On the Intellectual Sources of Laïcité: Rousseau, Constant, and the Debates about a National Religion. French Politics, Culture & Society, 25(3), 1–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42843511

Helena Rosenblatt is the intellectual historian who has unpacked the history of liberalism for its virtues, flaws, and missing elements in practice. She has done extraordinary work in dissecting the key thinkers of liberalism and missteps in thinking for national religion. Fairness is often (but not always) tied to religious beliefs.

Rosenblatt, H. (2008). Rousseau, the Anticosmopolitan? Daedalus, 137(3), 59–67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40543798

One of Rosenblatt’s major contributions is to draw out missteps in the futile debate between the natural-birth and cosmopolitan visioning of nationalism. Behind the public ‘fairness’ discourses are these misconceptions.

Nussbaum, M. C. (2011). Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 39(1), 3–45. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41301860

Martha Nussbaum opens up an explanation of the different schools of liberalism in the late 20th century.  Nussbaum declared her subscription to the school of “Political Liberalism” which has its leadership in Rawls and Charles Larmore. The approach is structurally singular, compared to and in opposition to — according to Nussbaum’s argument — Isaiah Berlin’s and Joseph Raz’s “Perfectionalist Liberalism”. This latter school of thought is also a “Moral Pluralist” and “Autonomous” Liberalism, with Raz emphasizing pluralistic valuing and personal (autonomous) action. In my work I do not think that Nussbaum has described the positioning of Berlin and Raz well. Berlin was not as perfectionist in his doctrine of liberalism (drawing on Kant’s “crooked timber”), and Raz’s conception of valuing does give a singular framework to an otherwise pluralistic landscape. All of these conceptions mentioned shaped the public perception of “fairness”, and, again, popularist misunderstandings abound from matters of technical debates.

Rosenblatt, H. (2016). Rousseau, the “Traditionalist.” Journal of the History of Ideas, 77(4), 627–635. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jhistoryideas.77.4.627

These technical debates have unfortunately extended into other futile ‘separation-type’ debates: Enlightenment versus Counter-Enlightenment; Tradition versus Natural Science.

Rosenblatt, H. (2016). On Context and Meaning in Pocock’s “Barbarism and Religion”, and on Gibbon’s “Protestantism” in His Chapters on Religion. Journal of the History of Ideas, 77(1), 147–155. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43948778

These futile ‘separation-type’ debates are known to intellectual historians as making a mess in the tangled world of religion and secularity, particularly for the Protestant tradition, which I have spent a lifetime unpacking.

Rosenblatt, H. (2018). The Lost History of Liberalism: from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press, Princeton; Oxford.

Rosenblatt’s book goes to what is missing in the public practice of liberty and fairness.

Nussbaum, M.C. (2018). The Monarchy of Fear: a philosopher looks at our political crisis (First Edition). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Nussbaum’s book goes to the future, the severe risks to both democracy and fairness in the United States from Trumpism.

*****

It is hope that this theoretical “briefing” and letter will greatly assist government politicians and the bureaucrats in the fuller understanding of fairness, and that understanding will lead to practice.

—

Kind regards,

Neville Buch

Historian,

Professional Historians Australia (Queensland)

Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society (ANZHES)

Convenor, Sociology of Education Thematic Group, The Australian Sociological Association (TASA).

President, Southern Brisbane Suburban Forum (SBSF).

Director, Brisbane Southside History Network (BSHN).

MPHA (Qld), Ph.D. (History) UQ., Grad. Dip. Arts (Philosophy) Melb., Grad. Dip. (Education) UQ.

Call: 0416 046 429

ABN: 86703686642