Beijing Boycott (by Jonathan Quong)

[This is an email sent to me yesterday by my friend and colleague Jon Quong. It is posted here with his permission.]

Dear Norm,

A few days ago you had two posts on normblog regarding the idea of boycotting the Beijing Olympics. In the first post you said that you don't favour a boycott, but you haven't given it that much thought, and so you might want to change your mind after considering further arguments. With that in mind, I'd like to offer the following argument to try and get you to change your mind.

Your main objection to a boycott, as I understand it, is that it unfairly requires athletes to shoulder a heavy burden for China's human rights violations. If a particular country, like Ireland, were to boycott the Games their athletes might miss a once in a lifetime opportunity to participate in the Games, and that seems like an unreasonable burden to impose on the Irish athletes. In your exchange with Sean Coleman, it turned out that he was not advocating a nationally-imposed 'top-down' boycott, but rather encouraging individual athletes to make that decision for themselves. Your proposed reason for opposing a nationally-imposed boycott obviously would not apply to such individual decisions of conscience.

The argument I want to press on you is this. The best argument as to why individual athletes ought to boycott the Games also justifies the national Olympic committees of countries imposing a top-down boycott on their own athletes. Here is how I see the argument going:

(1) There is ample evidence that the Chinese government is cracking down on dissidents in the lead-up to the Games in order to ensure that there will be no unrest or political protests by Chinese citizens when the Games occur. In other words, we know that hosting the Games is leading the Chinese government to engage in serious human rights abuses (detail is provided by Joshua Kurlantzick in this piece for The New Republic).

(2) We are each under a duty of justice not to participate in, or benefit from, projects or activities that involve violations of other people's rights. I assume this premise is uncontroversial.

(3) The duty described in (2) is very stringent, and it cannot be ignored on the grounds that doing so would prevent us from achieving something we very much desire to achieve, even if this means we will never get to achieve the thing in question. Here's an example in support of this premise. One of the things I would most like to have done in my life was talk about political philosophy with John Rawls. Suppose, before Rawls died, I were invited to a dinner party where Rawls would be the guest of honour. But also suppose, unbeknownst to Rawls, that the host of this dinner party would be employing slave labour to work in the kitchen. I am under a duty not to go to the party, even if we are certain this represents the one and only chance I will ever have to talk philosophy with Rawls, and even though my non-attendance will not halt the party. If I went to the party I would be participating in, and benefiting from, a gross injustice, and the duty not to do so is more weighty than my desire to take the once in a lifetime opportunity to engage with Rawls.

Steps (1)-(3) establish, I think, that individual athletes have a stringent duty of justice not to participate in the Beijing Games (though I acknowledge some non-western athletes might be exempt from this duty if, for instance, going to the Games was the only plausible way for them to escape from their own country's dire circumstances).

I also deny that the athletes should, instead of boycotting, go to the Games and then engage in various forms of protest while there. This suggestion fails for the following reason. If the aim is to publicize the Chinese government's human rights record, this can be achieved either by boycotting the Games, or by going to the Games and engaging in some act of protest. Given the uncertainty regarding how easy it will be to engage in an act of protest once there, there is no reason to suppose going to the Games will be a more effective means of publicizing things, and there is some reason to think it may be less effective. Boycotting the Games, on the other hand, achieves the goal of publicity and also ensures that the boycotter does not participate in, or benefit, from injustice.

The next part of the argument requires showing that this individual duty of justice entails that national Olympic committees would do nothing wrong (and indeed do a great deal of good) by imposing this boycott from the top down. This part of the argument requires two premises:

(4) When one person is under a stringent duty of justice to do or forebear from doing X, it can be permissible for some other person to demand that they do or forebear from doing X, and even use some measure of coercion to enforce this demand. Suppose there's a baby drowning in a pond and justice requires me, as the nearest person who can swim, to rescue the baby. I cannot claim that the decision about whether to rescue the baby is a personal matter for me alone to decide - justice demands this action from me. If I seem unwilling to do what justice requires, someone else could permissibly use some force to get me to act. Suppose someone standing next to me (who can't swim) threatens to tear up my ticket to the upcoming Manchester United game if I don't do what justice requires and rescue the baby. This coercive threat seems perfectly permissible to me. I cannot rightfully complain since this person is only using mild force to get me to do what justice requires of me. Even if this was my one and only chance to see United win the European Cup, this does not override the duty of justice I owe to the drowning baby.

The most obvious way to resist applying (1)-(4) to the case of the Games is by pointing out that a boycott, unlike rescuing the drowning baby, will not necessarily do any good. If I rescue the baby then the baby is saved, end of story. If, on the other hand, only Ireland boycotts the Games, the Games will still go ahead, as will the Chinese government's human rights abuses. So why make the Irish athletes miss out? I don't think this line of reply works. We cannot ignore our duties of justice by appealing to the fact that other people are ignoring their duties.

Suppose a country, say Germany, has started using a racial minority within its territory as slave labour to produce goods to be sold on the international market. Let's assume that one of the things that justice requires in this case is that all other countries refuse to trade with Germany until it ceases this practice. But there is a collective action problem here - each country might worry that all the other countries will continue to trade with Germany, and then their lone boycott would deprive their citizens of economic benefits and have no (or very little) tangible effect on the German slave labour. This kind of reasoning does not justify any country's refusal to boycott the Germans. An action prohibited by justice (trading with the Germans) cannot be made permissible by pointing out that the unjust behaviour of others would have perpetuated the injustice anyway. If this is right then we can endorse:

(5) You cannot permissibly join in collectively unjust behaviour on the grounds that you might as well participate in the injustice since it is going to happen anyway.

I think that (1)-(5) establish that there would be nothing wrong with national Olympic committees imposing top-down boycotts on their athletes, indeed I think they ought to do this. The duty the athletes are under not to participate in these Games is not like the much weaker moral duty I am under to call my mother on her birthday, or to help my friend with a ride in my car when he asks. Those duties are not stringent demands of justice, they belong to a lesser moral category. The duties of this lesser category really are up to individuals to fulfil or not according to their own conscience - no one else has the right to make them fulfil these duties.

But duties of justice are different - we have to fulfil these duties, and we cannot rightfully complain when others make us fulfil them. The duty the athletes are under not to participate in an Olympic games whose build-up involves gross and systematic rights violations by the Chinese government is this kind of stringent duty, and so it is more than just a matter for the individual conscience of the athletes. It is, of course, tragic and deeply unfair that a particular generation of athletes should miss the opportunity to compete in the Olympics, but in our non-ideal world, sometimes justice will require serious sacrifices. At any rate, the sacrifices made by the athletes pale in significance compared with the rights violations that have occurred, and will continue to occur, to Chinese citizens in the build-up to the Games.

That's my two bits – have I persuaded you?

Cheers, Jon (Jonathan Quong)