Ben Davies

What the People Really Want: Narrow Mandates in Politics

by Ben Davies
August 6, 2019June 30, 2020

Written by Ben Davies

Last week’s by-election in the Welsh constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire saw a reduction of Boris Johnson’s government majority to just one, as Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds won the seat. The result was an interesting one: more voters went for No Deal-friendly parties (mainly Johnson’s Conservatives and the Brexit Party) than for the out-and-out Remainer Lib Dems. Dodds won not because a majority of voters supported her, but arguably because the pro-Brexit vote was split, and the Lib Dem vote was boosted by Plaid Cymru and the Greens declining to field candidates (it can’t have helped that the Conservatives also simply reselected their candidate whose unseating for expenses fraud triggered the election).

The result generated two sets of comments by Conservative Chair James Cleverly. Cleverly’s first claim was that the Liberal Democrats had engineered a “back room deal” with other Remain-friendly parties – Plaid and the Greens – in a way that was, he implied, undemocratic.Read More »What the People Really Want: Narrow Mandates in Politics

Arbitrariness as an Ethical Criticism

by Ben Davies
May 7, 2019June 30, 2020

Written by Ben Davies

We recently saw a legal challenge to the current UK law that compels fertility clinics to destroy frozen eggs after a decade. According to campaigners, the ten-year limit may have had a rationale when it was instituted, but advances in freezing technology have rendered the limit “arbitrary”. Appeals to arbitrariness often form the basis of moral and political criticisms of policy. Still, we need to be careful in relying on appeals to arbitrariness; it is not clear that arbitrariness is always a moral ‘deal-breaker’.

On the face of it, it seems clear why arbitrary policies are ethically unacceptable. To be arbitrary is to lack basis in good reasons. An appeal against arbitrariness is an appeal to consistency, to the principle that like cases should be treated alike. Arbitrariness may therefore seem to cut against the very root of fairness.

Take Back Control? Doctors as Appointed Fiduciaries

by Ben Davies
February 11, 2019June 30, 2020

Written by Ben Davies

There’s a story that’s often told about the evolution of the doctor-patient relationship. Here’s how it goes: back in the bad old days, doctors were paternalists. They knew what was best, and the job of the patient was simply to do as they were told and hopefully get better. Then, in part because of abuses of power, and in part because of cultural changes, a new model emerged. This model cast patients not as passive recipients of instruction, but as active, autonomous agents, put in charge of their own medical decisions. The doctor-patient relationship was remodelled, from a paternalistic relationship (doctor looks after patient’s health) to a service relationship (doctor does what patient wants, within limits).

That story is almost certainly too simple to be true. But even histories that aren’t wholly accurate can come to influence our culture and expectations. And the dominant assumption between both patients and medical professionals seems to be that our relationship will be cast on what is sometimes called the “informative model” (Emmanuel and Emmanuel, 1992), where the medical role is simply to provide the patient with empirical information, such as information about likely risks and outcomes.