Arms Race: a Competition Between Two Or More Parties to Have the Best Armed Forces. Each

Arms race: A competition between two or more parties to have the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology.

Birth lottery (or lottery of birth):We do not choose the circumstances into which we are born (being rich, being poor, your country of birth, whether you have disabilities, etc.) and therefore, we should not be held responsible for them.

For example, if a child is born into a poor family that cannot afford to pay for his/her education, that is not the child’s fault. Therefore, society should pay for his/her education.

Collective action problem:A situation in which multiple individuals would all benefit from a certain action, but whoever tries to do it alone will bear a huge cost, and therefore no one does it. The rational choice is for everyone involved to undertake collective action or for some authority (usually the state) to impose a uniform policy for everyone.

For example, collective action problems are widespread throughout environmental issues:

Individuals often want to do things that emit a lot of greenhouse gases, but society overall may be better off with less climate change.

Individuals often want to drive cars so as to get around faster, but driving causes more air pollution that harms the whole group. Additionally, driving can cause traffic jams, whereas public transit avoids traffic jams. The car/transit decision is often a collective action problem for travel time: each individual travels faster by driving regardless of what other individuals do, but the group will overall travel faster if everyone takes transit than if everyone drives.

Individuals often want to consume scarce natural resources, but society overall may be better off if everyone avoids using a lot of these resources.

Sometimes, this is a situation where the “good” is something you can’t stop people from accessing, but one person’s consumption does affect other people – something like global fishing grounds (sometimes, the term used is tragedy of the commons).

Imagine that there are no regulations on fishing in global fishing grounds, so everyone just keeps fishing. The stocks may eventually be exhausted. However, every individual has the incentive to consume as much as possible– because even if they hold back, that simply means others will use more and deplete the resource. So, they need to maximize consumption to gain benefit before it runs out. Everyone thinking like this leads to the resource running out. Ways to fix it are usually centered around creating a market to trade the rights.

Another example would be protests: no rational, self-interested individual has an incentive to participate. Everyone benefits from a successful revolution, but only the protesters may bear most of the costs. As the number of participants in a revolution grows, the probability of success rises. More and more individuals take part, as the chances of suffering falls.

Other examples: Think of labor unions and how they use collective bargaining strategies. What happens if some workers decide to accept abusive labor conditions while others don’t? Think of the minimum wage – why do states impose this? Without a required minimum wage, how will companies behave?

Coming out: This is a figure of speech that refers to the process by which someone reveals their secret identity. For example, if someone is gay but they kept it a secret (this is also referred to as ‘hiding in the closet’) then they chose to tell people, they are ‘coming out’. However, to ‘out’ someone means to do it without their permission. Note the examples.
John came out to his parents. This means John revealed to his parents that he was gay.
John’s teacher outed him to his parents. This means that John’s teacher told John’s parents that John was gay WITHOUT John’s permission.

Conflict of interest: A situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests which makes it hard to stay fair or neutral.

For example, if you are judging a debate round and your sister is debating in one of the teams or if you are interviewing job candidates and one of the applicants is your cousin.

Consent: Agreement or permission to do something.

However, consent needs to be free and informed. Even if someone says “yes” or agrees to something, we need to examine whether it was a free and informed choice.

What does this mean? Ask yourself: Do they understand the facts involved? Do they understand the consequences involved? Are they under any kind of pressure to say yes? How strong is that pressure? This is usually why children cannot consent to things like smoking and drinking. This is also why we don’t allow people to sell themselves into slavery.

For example, if someone sells their organs because they are desperate to feed their family and they don’t have other options, how meaningful is their consent? If a woman gets plastic surgery to make herself thinner because she is being bullied for being overweight, how meaningful is that consent? How about if no one forced her, but she is surrounded by images of thin women who are making her insecure?

Deterrence (or deterrent): To deter means to discourage someone from doing something as a result of fear or doubt. Deterrence means using punishment or threat to prevent people from doing something (usually something bad).

Some people will argue that the death penalty deters crime because it scares potential criminals.

Some argue that private gun ownership deters crime because it makes criminals hesitate to attack innocent civilians who have guns.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is the theory that if many countries have nuclear weapons, no country will use their weapons because if they use it, other countries will retaliate, and they will all be destroyed.

Glass ceiling: An unfair system or set of attitudes that prevents some people (usually women or people of a certain race) from getting high-level jobs or powerful positions.

Hierarchy of needs: Basic needs have to be met first before we can satisfy other needs or pursue other goals (for example, food, water, sleep are the most important, followed by physical security, employment, health, and property, then other things such as free expression, sense of belonging and community, etc., will follow).

For example, if people are poor, it is harder for them to demand more political rights because they are too busy trying to feed their families. This is why many dictators keep most of their people poor.

Indigenous people (sometimes also called tribal peoples, native peoples, or first peoples): Groups that retain social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live. They are different from present-day immigrants because indigenous people have a historical connection with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies (for example, Native Americans in the US, aboriginals in Australia, Amazon tribes in Brazil, Maori in New Zealand, etc.).

Marginalized: Individuals or groups who are treated as less important or less powerful (for example, poor people or people of a certain race).

Power asymmetry: A relationship where one party has a greater ability to influenceor control the behavior of another party.

For example: parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee.

Privilege:A special advantage available only to a particular person or group.

For example, it is so much easier to travel using certain passports than others. Some people grow up with nannies or servants while others don’t. Some people can afford to pay for an expensive private education and tutors while others cannot. Some people own fancy cars while others need to walk or commute. Because some people are privileged and others are not, people do not have equal opportunities to succeed.

This word has other possible meanings, so pay attention to the context also!

Progressive tax:Ataxthat takes a larger percentage from the income of high-income earners than it does from low-income individuals.

Race to the bottom: The situation in which companies and countries try to compete with each other by cutting wages and living standards for workers, and the production of goods is moved to the place where the wages are lowest and the workers have the fewest rights.

Redistribution:The transfer of income and of wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others by means of a social mechanism such as taxation, monetary policies, welfare, land reform, charity, confiscation, or divorce.

This can be linked to the birth lottery – If individuals are not at fault for their life circumstances, then we should seek to create equal opportunities for people (or at least reduce inequality) by redistributing resources.

Self-actualization: Realizing one’s full potential and finding meaning in life; living a life that matches your capabilities and goals and therefore, increasing your happiness.

For example, you want to be an artist, but if you are forced to work as a soldier, you cannot fully self-actualize.

Self-defense (or right to self-defense):The right to use reasonable force to defend yourself or someone else against harm. Sometimes, this right can extend to the defense of your property. Often, you will need to prove that you had a reasonable belief that you were under threat or that a third party was under threat.

The police often uses the right to self-defense as a justification for shooting people. It is also used as a justification for private gun ownership.

The idea of self-defense can also be extended to countries who have a reason to believe they will be attacked or who have been attacked.

Sovereignty: The full right and power of a country to govern itself without any interference from outside sources. This is usually an important principle in international law.

For example, other countries cannot just attack other countries because of the principle of sovereignty. If you go to another country, you will need to respect their laws. If you violate the law in another country, your government usually has to respect the law of that country (for example, if an Australian is caught with illegal drugs in Singapore and sentenced to death, Australia cannot do much about that).
Sovereignty is not absolute. If the leaders of a country commit major human rights violation or threaten other countries, it may be acceptable for outsiders to intervene (read about genocide in Rwanda or Israel’s occupation of Palestine).

This is similar to self-determination or the freedom of thepeopleofagivenareatodeterminetheirownpoliticalstatus; can also mean independence).

Veil of ignorance: This is a method of determining themoralityof a certain issue based upon the followingthought experiment: you know nothing about their particular abilities, tastes, and position within the social order of society. When you are selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society you will live in, the veil of ignorance prevents you from knowing about who you will be in that society. For example, for a proposed society in which 50% of the population is kept in slavery, it follows that on entering the new society there is a 50% likelihood that you would be a slave. The idea is that you will make choices based upon moral considerations, since you will not be able to make choices based on specific interests.

Vigilantism:Taking the law into one’s own hands and implementing punishments based on one’s own understanding of right and wrong.

For example, Batman.

Another example would be citizens beating up suspected criminals instead of reporting them to the police.