|
Roots of Unity GOOD REASONS AND BAD EXCUSES |
|
|
||
|
Mike Allen,
President, |
||||
|
Some of you know that I have training in philosophy as well as mathematics, and perhaps won't be surprised that I've spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between acceptable reasons for actions versus attempted excuses for those actions that just don't wash. In philosophy this comes up at the point of convergence between the two main approaches in Western ethics, namely utilitarianism and Kantianism. To oversimplify, the utilitarian approach for determining acceptable behavior is to examine expected consequences for all, whereas Kant's approach is to ask whether it would be rational to wish that such behavior become universal. However to ask Kant's question is to think about consequences of adopting the principles of the behavior as a rule, and there is likewise a rule-oriented version of utilitarianism that focuses on the expected consequences of the rule followed in the behavior, rather than on the expected consequences of the act considered in isolation. Now Kant has often been criticized for being too rigid, for example in defending the principle that one should never ever lie. However, many have adopted Kant's approach, without his insensitivity to situations. One may, for example, defend "no one should ever lie, except in circumstances X, Y, and Z" as a rationally universalizable principle. Sensitive Kantianism of this sort is very similar to rule utilitarianism in terms of approach, the main difference at this point being their philosophical grounding. Both basically ask the question "what principles of behavior, if followed by all persons situated so that the principles apply to them, lead to the best consequences?" OK, so where the hell am I going with all this? Well, I think that the difference between good reasons and bad excuses is simply how "sensitive" we allow ourselves to be in describing the situations in which the rules should apply to us. Define those situations too narrowly and you can let yourself off the hook in a way that others may have a hard time buying. For example, these thoughts have come up recently with regards to a very lonnnnnggggg discussion we have had in certain corners of this campus about our budget development process. Decisions about drafting our college's budget every year are primarily made at a meeting in June still called the budget "retreat" even though we haven't had this meeting off campus for years. Participation had been ended for everyone except high-level administrators, but agitation a few years ago got the invite list expanded back to include members of the Budget committee and Campus Executive committee. A task force was formed in 2001 to revise the process that leads up to this retreat, and produced recommendations after two years of work. Another year of floating trial balloons from the recommendations, as well as inconclusive debate in the Academic Senate, was followed by a year of inactivity on them. Finally, Larry Serot jumped into the void this year with a proposed revision of the process which follows some of the recommendations, but contains some major divergences as well. The Senate is now on board with his plan, and it should be coming to Campus Executive committee in June. The main point of contention is whether some requests for increased funding should be sent directly to this retreat or whether, as is normal, they should go through a process of winnowing by one or more governance committees first. From more universal to more sensitive, one can imagine a hierarchy of stances various groups could take on this, such as:
Although I prefer principle #1, I believe a principle like #2 could conceivably work if the characteristics were such that they constituted good reason for allowing such groups to bypass the process. However, many participants in budget discussions appear to have adopted principles like #3, 4, or 5. That is to say, they have only bad excuses for why they should be given preferential treatment, rather than good reasons. Now understand, the Guild and CSEA unions don't submit their requests for increased money to the budget retreat, but rather at the negotiating table. Thus, we haven't needed to decide whether or not we should pursue preferential status in the budget development process. However, we are active participants in the process, as we certainly don't want to see money go to dubious requests and then not be available for negotiations. My fear is that the more groups given preferential access to the budget retreat, the less scrutiny proposals will receive by knowledgeable members of the campus, and thus the more money that will be spent on good-sounding but fairly useless projects. I think we should end the practice of preferential access to the budget retreat starting next year (it's too late for this year), and have everyone's proposals examined carefully. Who's with me? & |
|
|||
