I see. Just to clarify, would you have the same concern about the other examples I gave? Eg Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were good friends, do you think RBG should have recused herself from any COIs Scalia where Scalia did as well, and vice versa?
I think I trust the professionalism of supreme court judges quite a bit more than that of EA grantmakers. But it’s hard for me to say conclusively. I’m not sure any such situation with the supreme court has ever arisen.
I’m not sure any such situation with the supreme court has ever arisen.
See here, here, here, here, and here. The reported COIs are all financial rather than personal[1], however the concern with billionaires giving gifts to supreme court justices is under most conditions more concerning than for grantmakers receiving gifts (from non-grantees). The primary worry for justices (at least in recent years) is with money buying influence, whereas the primary worry for grantmakers (iiuc) is with influence buying money.
Indeed, a common defense for non-disclosure appears to be “X billionaire is a personal friend of mine offering personal gifts,” to demonstrate/claim it’s not a financial/corporate transaction.
Great comment, though I’m still more confident of supreme court justices’ professionalism than that of grantmakers. I also think perhaps your will to vote in favour of whomever is giving your friend free luxury trips is different from that to vote for their partner. You did make me more concerned about it than before though.
I will say that money can also probably buy influence with grantmakers. Exaggerating a bit, why donate $1M when you can give a $10K gift to Alice and just tell her how much you think Bob deserves a $1M grant from her budget?
I wouldn’t be that much more confident in the Supreme Court justices in the US. In the US, constitutional law, and the federal judiciary are highly politicized. The most visible and attention-grabbing parts of the job involve figuring out how to use the constitution and legal precedent to advance the policy goals of the Democrat or Republican party (or maybe your own idiosyncratic moral and political goals), whilst pretending, to yourself and others, that you are a neutral arbiter who is just applying the law.* This is why who gets appointed to the Supreme Court in the US has been so politicized since the late 80s, at an absolute minimum. (It’s not a case of nasty right-wing populists appointing hacks and liberals appointing neutral professionals either, as far as I can tell.)
More generally, it’s always easy to look at big important institutions and conclude “that’s where the sensible, competent adults are”. But nearly everyone who sees these institutions close up, seems to end up somewhat disabused of that belief. An acquaintance of mine who is a top Scottish civil servant told me they once had major problems in her department because they simply could not find a key administrative document. I don’t know if you consider this “unprofessional”, but I also know of another UK civil servant who’s held highly responsible positions, who could be pretty reckless with their recreational drug use at parties. The Tory politician Michael Gove who has held multiple cabinet posts since the Tories got in in 2010, once had to admit to taking coke as a young man, at exactly the same time period as he was writing tabloid newspaper articles demand harsh punishment for cocaine users.
*For boring historical reasons, the last thing is a bit more common on the Republican side, and liberal judges tend to hew to theories of legal interpretation that make it a bit clearer they are to some degree making stuff up.
Supreme court judges in any country have vastly more experience in their profession than EA grantmakers.
They have to do a much more thorough job of justifying their decisions and connecting them to constitutional law and case law, even if they have an agenda.
I see. Just to clarify, would you have the same concern about the other examples I gave? Eg Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were good friends, do you think RBG should have recused herself from any COIs Scalia where Scalia did as well, and vice versa?
I think I trust the professionalism of supreme court judges quite a bit more than that of EA grantmakers. But it’s hard for me to say conclusively. I’m not sure any such situation with the supreme court has ever arisen.
See here, here, here, here, and here. The reported COIs are all financial rather than personal[1], however the concern with billionaires giving gifts to supreme court justices is under most conditions more concerning than for grantmakers receiving gifts (from non-grantees). The primary worry for justices (at least in recent years) is with money buying influence, whereas the primary worry for grantmakers (iiuc) is with influence buying money.
Indeed, a common defense for non-disclosure appears to be “X billionaire is a personal friend of mine offering personal gifts,” to demonstrate/claim it’s not a financial/corporate transaction.
Great comment, though I’m still more confident of supreme court justices’ professionalism than that of grantmakers. I also think perhaps your will to vote in favour of whomever is giving your friend free luxury trips is different from that to vote for their partner. You did make me more concerned about it than before though.
I will say that money can also probably buy influence with grantmakers. Exaggerating a bit, why donate $1M when you can give a $10K gift to Alice and just tell her how much you think Bob deserves a $1M grant from her budget?
I wouldn’t be that much more confident in the Supreme Court justices in the US. In the US, constitutional law, and the federal judiciary are highly politicized. The most visible and attention-grabbing parts of the job involve figuring out how to use the constitution and legal precedent to advance the policy goals of the Democrat or Republican party (or maybe your own idiosyncratic moral and political goals), whilst pretending, to yourself and others, that you are a neutral arbiter who is just applying the law.* This is why who gets appointed to the Supreme Court in the US has been so politicized since the late 80s, at an absolute minimum. (It’s not a case of nasty right-wing populists appointing hacks and liberals appointing neutral professionals either, as far as I can tell.)
More generally, it’s always easy to look at big important institutions and conclude “that’s where the sensible, competent adults are”. But nearly everyone who sees these institutions close up, seems to end up somewhat disabused of that belief. An acquaintance of mine who is a top Scottish civil servant told me they once had major problems in her department because they simply could not find a key administrative document. I don’t know if you consider this “unprofessional”, but I also know of another UK civil servant who’s held highly responsible positions, who could be pretty reckless with their recreational drug use at parties. The Tory politician Michael Gove who has held multiple cabinet posts since the Tories got in in 2010, once had to admit to taking coke as a young man, at exactly the same time period as he was writing tabloid newspaper articles demand harsh punishment for cocaine users.
*For boring historical reasons, the last thing is a bit more common on the Republican side, and liberal judges tend to hew to theories of legal interpretation that make it a bit clearer they are to some degree making stuff up.
I’m basing this view on two things:
Supreme court judges in any country have vastly more experience in their profession than EA grantmakers.
They have to do a much more thorough job of justifying their decisions and connecting them to constitutional law and case law, even if they have an agenda.