Kevin Rudd is caught in the most pure example of the Prisoner's Dilemma in post-War Australian political history. How he progresses the whole environment debate re the ETS and the reaction to the Copenhagen fiasco will be a severe test for his own ethical scaffolding. For Kevin Rudd this Dilemma traps him in the gap that has always existed between his Christian virtue-ethic and his Labor traditional realpolitik utilitarianism. Now I am not going to claim that utilitarianism is opposite to a virtue based ethic, I would in fact claim that underpinning utilitarianism is its own view of virtue regarding the individual, that is that an individual should be free, independent and as autonomous as possible within a rule governed society. But having said that the situation Kevin currently finds himself in throws into sharp relief the problems inherent in his trying to appear as if his ethical raison d'etre is virtue based while it is a plain fact that seizing political power requires a certain level of let's say malleability in framing one's virtue in the light of the ways in which political machinery demands manipulation in order for power to be attained. I sincerely think Kevin is spending the Christmas holidays squirming his soul through the sieve the dilemma presents in an honest attempt to find a way out. Whether he can or not will be interesting.
The Prisoner's Dilemma
There are two prisoners, kept separate from each other and asked to confess to some crime. If A confesses and B doesn't then A goes free and B gets 10 years, or vice versa if B confesses. If both confess they both get 5 years. If neither confesses they both get 6 months. In normal readings of this game it is most commonly asserted that the best thing to do is confess, because in any situation you are going to be relatively better off by confessing if the other prisoner confesses. But obviously you would both be better off if neither of you confessed. This is cited as an example of when rationality can lead to the not-best solution to a problem.
But if you believe your co-prisoner is a rational being some would say you are better not to confess. That is, if you can think that your co-prisoner knows that you know that if you confess it would be rationally better, but that your co-prisoner also knows that you know the co-prisoner knows this, and you can therefore both assume that both parties are assuming the other one knows this, then surely, by logical extension, you can assume that your co-prisoner also knows that you know that the best thing to do is not confess, and that you know the co-prisoner knows you know this, so that you know your co-prisoner knows that by logical extension you will not confess and thus won't confess.
So don't confess, unless you want to be a bastard and send your co-prisoner down for ten years and walk away scott free. But again, if you think you should do this and you consider your co-prisoner rational you would need to think your co-prisoner knows you know of this option, and you will reject it because you also know your co-prisoner knows you know your co-prisoner knows you know this option, and that your co-prisoner, knowing this, would confess but for the fact she knows you know this and therefore wont do it because you understand it's better not to confess.
Put another way, and as others have also suggested, one elemental part of this dilemma is that you can not communicate with your co-prisoner. This needs to be central to the dilemma because obviously if you could communicate you would both agree not to confess. So if you imagine for a moment that within this imaginary game there is a radio by which you can both communicate. If you could communicate you would both agree not to confess. Now realise that the presence or absence of the radio has no bearing on the logical steps you need to take in deciding whether to confess or not, the radio would just be a comforting device that you would both use to reaffirm to each other the (as it would appear if you were talking on the radio) obvious fact that the best thing to do is not confess. So don't confess.
And lastly, there are (admittedly deliberate) gaps in the story of the dilemma, most importantly for someone attempting to hold a virtue based ethic is whether or not you actually did the crime of which you are being accused. For a person with a virtue based ethic this is crucial and would almost certainly dictate which way you went, regardless of the resultant number of days of cold porridge.
But I don't really want to go on about the Dilemma as it can get really circular and tricky as you can imagine. My point is that Kevin is stuck in one now.
How is Kevin Rudd stuck in the Prisoner's Dilemma?
It will appear as if carrying on with the ETS is like deliberately not confessing when you know your co-prisoner is going to confess. You know Kevin knows this by the immediately invented phrase that Australia will go only so far as the rest of the world in terms of carbon reduction but no further, which is the most ridiculous phrase I have heard in Australian politics in a long time. It completely drains his position of any virtue.
Because:
Either Kevin believes the world is reducing its carbon usage enough or he believes it is not. One would suspect he thinks it is not, or else he would not have attempted to bring in the ETS nor bothered going to Copenhagen (unless it was for the beer or the weather or something).
If he believes it is not, then reducing our own carbon emissions only in line with the rest of the world is just completely contradictory to his own belief that the reductions are not enough. If he believes that the rest of the world is reducing carbon emissions at the correct rate to the correct levels then there is clearly no need for an ETS.
The only two 'rational' responses are:
- Continue with the ETS anyway.
- Forget about it.
The problem with 1. is that continuing with the ETS when the rest of the world refuses to come along leaves the rest of the world at a perceived economic advantage. This will be translated inevitably and instantly by the Opposition into a picture of Kevin perpetrating economic sabotage on his own country in the name of alleviating an environmental problem that many in the Opposition (and in the community) believe is itself a furphy, and that anyway were it true will now not be alleviated by the ETS as the rest of the world is backing out/not interested. The Opposition will make merry hell with this, I can envision them already gaggling about haggling over who will get to do the speaking in Question Time.
The problem with 2. is that he will lose large sections of voters and the Opposition will crow with victory.
Now these few sentences above have a distinctly 'utilitarian' flavour to them in that they are framed in basic political terms. But we should never forget that running parallel to the above will be Kevin's own I think deeply held virtue ethic that he should attempt to do the 'right' (big-picture style) thing, which in Kevin's mind is almost certainly going to be reduce carbon emissions through the ETS. Not because of what the rest of the world may or may not do but because reducing carbon emissions through an ETS is just plainly the right thing to do (for Kevin). Or ipso facto, not reducing carbon emissions by the levels attainable through an ETS would be to deliberately do something he believes is morally (in a virtue sense) wrong. And he's been going around telling us he believes it would be morally wrong not to introduce an ETS for the last year.
So for Kevin the choice is do what he believes is morally right in a virtue sense and take a severe beating in the polls and risk his government (if he continues to believe it is morally right to have an ETS when the rest of the world doesn't), which risk itself is also an affront to his ethical picture in terms of the 'whatever it takes' ethos of the Labor Party, ie. How can it be morally defensible to deliberately let the Coalition take power?
Or, drop it and try to win back the green constituency in some other way. Probably by attempting to reframe the whole debate away from an ETS, or by introducing calibration to the legislation that only commits Australia to staged introduction in concert with the rest of the world. 'Subject to certain conditions', as Humphrey might have said.
Neither of these positions is ethically 'nice' and both of them are eminently exploitable even by the current conga line of dimwits and UFOlogists who make up the Opposition.
It will certainly be an interesting couple of months.
I expect to hear a message along these lines from Labor:
'A balanced approach that seeks to reduce our own carbon emissions while at the same time securing the nation's economic potential.'
What none of them (internationally) have come to accept is that at some point economic potential and environmental security will be incompatible if economic potential remains defined as ever increasing industrial growth. I am sure many understand this, but they do not yet accept it as an acceptable price to pay, and that's understandable if your country is made up of 800 million angry hungry peasants. It's understandable, but not acceptable.
I have only sympathy for poor Kevin stuck in this vice. For I suspect he knows also that when it comes down to it the genesis of this problem is not in the political machinations of nations but in the minds of the people who make up those nations, all of them.
With thanks to the people who taught me about the Prisoner's Dilemma.
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