Insurance

Back in the day, the day being 1973-1981, I worked in the insurance industry. Part of the training, you may be relieved to hear, was a course on Elements of Insurance. It was part one of a nine-part course to become an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII).

One of the first things we were required to learn was this. The basic principle of insurance is that the premiums of the many compensated the misfortunes of the few. Fair enough. Nobody gets stung by a big loss because everyone agrees to a small loss calculated on the basis of experience.

I had worries about this when various groups began to be set aside, told they represented a low risk, and offered cheap premiums. Think SAGA, women drivers, post-codes for house insurance and many other examples.

Today we hear often that young people, once they have passed their tests, cannot afford insurance for their cars.

This week I read that life insurance may, in the future, use genetic readers to anticipate a person's chance of an early passing and thus raising the premium for the life-limited. I hope that various ethical committees will say that this is a bridge too far, But I wonder if we have established  a dangerous precedent.

What would it be like if all insurance premiums were better rounded? Then the fortunes of the many would still contribute to compensation.

Not having a claim is not a matter, as one customer once told me, of not getting your money's worth. It is a cause for rejoicing about the absence of misfortune.

Learning Difficulties and the Minimum Wage

I have written here about Paul. My experience of working with Paul informs my understanding of the current debate about whether reducing the minimum wage would make it easier for people with difficulties to get on the bottom rung of the earnings' ladder.

It is a fascinating discussion. On the one hand the current legislation defines our desire as a society not to take advantage of people and to make sure that all employees are treated with dignity. On the other, the gap between the minimum wage and benefits for, especially, single people, does seem to reduce the number of low paid jobs available.

Paul was a guy who had severe difficulties and could only handle thinking about very low sums of money. The pocket money we gave him to hoover the church provided him with a small amount to handle and budget each week. All his other needs were looked after.

I think it is this last sentence that is important. If an employer is willing to take the risk, and invest the time, in a person of limited ability, where all that person's other reasonable needs are taken care of, why not allow an exception?

Because it would be exploited? Maybe. Does that make it wrong?

This issue is not as black and white as some are making it sound.

The Apprentice

This week's episode of The Apprentice raised an interesting issue. The task was to buy ten objects at the cheapest possible price. Any of the ten objects not purchased would lead to a fine. Arriving back late would also be fined. It was boys versus girls.

The girls' strategy was to research by phone, and then shop. They got all ten items but were late back and paid a lot for them.The boys' team blazed a trail of unplanned hopefulness, negotiated amazing discounts, arrived on time but only got seven of their ten.

Nevertheless the boys won. Not by much.

The boys' negotiating ploy was to 'have a story.' In other words to lie. They told fibs about going to a Scottish wedding, leaving books in Nottingham and cooking a gourmet meal.

In the follow up programme The Apprentice - You're Fired this was remarked upon. One of the panelists said that, of course, retailers would be aware they were being lied to but often went with the story to see if they were entertained enough to give discount.

What do we make of the ethics though? Does the presence of a camera (I never quite know what reasons are given for a camera following the players into places) make retailers less likely to challenge? Who wants such bad publicity? But would any retailer, now seeing the programme, sue for having given a discount under false pretences?

I know Lord Sugar wants people with initiative but at what point does integrity come in?

Ethical Dilemma for our Times

There are two types of biscuit on offer. The ones with the most fat and chocolate are the fairly-traded ones. Discuss.

What's Wrong

Some people think their way clearly and logically to their decision-making. Others just 'know' what's right. For those in the latter category the task is to convince waverers by showing working. Which means, having arrived at a decision that is obvious to us, we have to find ways to explain it to others. Don't worry Nailsea readers. This is not another argument about purchasing the Old Rectory. You know my view on that and outsiders won't care.

So people like me (no they don't, I mean 'such as') sometimes get a big hunch that something is wrong and then have to work backwards.

I got such a hunch the other day when reading about the thirteen year old girl who had been intercepted before attempting to be the youngest person to sail single-handed around the world. 'Quite right,' I thought. She shouldn't do that. And I have been the champion of young people's rights for as many years as I have not been a young person myself. Showing working may be awkward on this one.

A little thought this morning as I read a newspaper article about it and I came to the conclusion that we should discourage any records that are to do with 'the youngest.' By all means allow young people to be the fastest, strongest or whatever, competing against adults. There will always be early developers. Some records, such as swimming and gymnastics seem to favour youthful muscle and suppleness.

But if we say that 'the youngest person to...' is a category at all we run the risk of over-demanding parents pushing their offspring into vicarious accomplishments to make up for their own failures. And of young people attempting records of endurance before they understand the opportunity cost (friends/education) and yes, I did learn that expression in economics classes (see previous post).

'Where will it all end' is a fatuous Daily-Mailesque argument which imagines children in space if we allow children alone on boats. I won't go there. But I will say that childhood is a place for curiosity about everything and specialising too soon has a price. I'm immediately confronted by all the virtuosity of musicianship demonstrated by young people who started early and my own regrets at delayed introduction to the world of piano so the argument may suck a bit.

Need to do more thinking. But my hunch remains the same. Change my mind if you can.

The God Delusion 6

This is number six in a series of posts on each chapter of Richard Dawkins' latest book. In chapter six he gives his attention to morality. Where did it come from, in the absence of God? How do we know right from wrong?

The best conclusion I can come to about Dawkins' morality is that it operates on a sort of glorified case-law methodology. We assess the morality of an action in comparison with other, similar actions.

But first he has to deal with the question of selfishness. If our genes are essentially selfish, concentrating on reproducing at all costs, how does unselfishness evolve? He offers four ways:

1. Genetic kinship (related species learn to care for each other and protect each other, for in so doing they are protecting their own genetic material).
2. Reciprocation (repayment of favours given; giving favours in anticipation of pay back).
3. The benefit of acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness.
4. Conspicuous generosity (authentic advertising , or 'look at me').

Of course, as ever, the enemy he has in mind is the sort of mindless religious ethics which sees the holy books or leaders as speaking to 'them then' and 'us now' directly and unchangingly. I am one of the many Christians who doesn't feel ethics works like that and that taking religion out of ethics is a good thing. That said I believe there is a God who is in and above the world, whose relationship with the creation is best understood as between carer and cared-for. So I believe that my relationship with God affects my ethics but that I should learn to communicate it to those who do not share my faith without saying 'God says so.'

Dawkins recites three well known ethical posers.

1. A runaway train is heading for five people. You can change some points to divert the train into a siding but you will almost certainly kill one person who is working there. Will you change the points?

2. You are on a bridge next to a very fat man. You can stop the runaway train by pushing the fat man into its path. Will you?

3. You are in a hospital with five people who all need a different organ transplant. A man stands nearby who is fit and healthy. Will you kill him so his organs can save the lives of the other five?

Even though each dilemma poses the same quantity of problem, most people answer yes to question 1 and no to the next 2. Religion seems to make no difference to their answer. Dawkins says this demonstrates that most of us do morality outside the confines of religion. To put it another way, we don't need God to be good. True? Or is it that Judeo-Christian ethics has seeped so far down, so deep down, that we understand, at an almost subconscious level, that you can't co-opt someone to give their life for others, only make that decision for yourself. Life has a million Gethsemane moments a day.

He points out that in the USA there is more crime in Republican (and thus more likely to be Bible-believing) states than in Democrat voting ones. He also says there are no atheists in prisons. An alternative conclusion might be that people surrounded by crime and hopelessness tend to turn to prayer. Just a thought.

Trouble is, although he insists that religiosity is not correlated with morality, recent evidence of research in the UK is that most of the altruism in our society is based in faith communities. I feel quite insulted at the suggestion that I might be being the wrong sort of good and that his version of goodness is somehow superior to mine. Yet I hear the challenge of this quote, and want to encourage us to ponder it, '...adherents of scriptural authority show distressingly little curiosity about the ... historical origins of their holy books.'

It seems that church attendance over Christmas, during a time when anti-Christian thought got more publicity than I can ever remember, is generally up. That must make Dawkins so mad.

Bishops Banning Bombs

This is a nice little book. Some people have read it and don't get it; some only needed to read the title and got it.

There is a long letter from various Bishops in today's Independent. They make some strong practical, moral and economic arguments for not renewing the Trident programme. I can't help feeling though, that in arguing in the market place, the phrase which they chose to use, that the possession and use of nuclear weapons are 'anti-God acts' does not help their case.

If I say that your behaviour is anti-God then the answer 'There is no God' ends the argument. I cannot respond. It gives you a chink. I am becoming more and more convinced that as a Christian my relationship with God is not something I can use to add weight to an argument on matters of ethics or morality unless it is to do with matters concerning Christians alone.

I may believe, deeply and profoundly, that God has told me something I must do or say (I don't, usually) but in arguing with those who do not share my faith I do best appealing to logic and reason alone.

Many of my blog-friends are people with whom I have no common ground of spirituality or faith. I notice them being profoundly irritated, sometimes when commenting at Mustard Seed Shavings but more often at other sites and chat-rooms, where assumptions about God are made to them, or more often, at them. Then an argument ensues that goes, to summarise:

God says this...

No he doesn't there isn't a God.

Yes he does; it says so in the Bible.

What's the Bible got to do with God? People wrote it.

But it's God's word...

Continue ad absurdum

I believe in God, in my own way, and will gladly explain to anyone who is interested the complexities and peculiarities of how that works for me, but I am sure we can find enough non-theological reasons to defer upgrading Trident. If we can't, maybe we should upgrade Trident. Trying to second-guess God on the matter seems to me to over-complicate things.

I notice that one of the signatories to the letter is my current Diocesan Bishop and another will shortly be my new Diocesan Bishop so how intelligent is this post?