-
36190.151819
It is a pleasure to read and respond to Professor Orr’s learned statement of a conservatism, one that is both rooted in tradition and updated to the contemporary. Conservatism’s top values, we learn, are order, hierarchy, a sense of belonging to a particular community in a particular time and place, a deference to tradition, and a resistance to changes that are too sweeping or too quick. Simultaneously, conservatism is distrustful of abstract definitions, eschews commitments to universal principles and certainties, preferring the empirical, the particular, and the pragmatic. Professor Orr devotes a paragraph or two to explicating further each of those core concepts.
-
36224.151895
The most direct route to political fundamentals is to ask: What should governments do? The different ‘isms’—liberalism, socialism, fascism, and so on—answer that question based on their most cherished values, holding that the purpose of government is to achieve those values. Yet societies are complex and we create many kinds of social institutions—businesses, schools, friendships and families, sports teams, churches/synagogues/mosques/temples, associations dedicated to artistic and scientific pursuits, governments, and so on—to achieve our important values.
-
36248.151907
It is difficult to overstate the extent to which contemporary political debates fail to address the underlying philosophical arguments that inform the way we govern our societies and the leaders we elected to do so. It is therefore with tremendous pleasure that I hosted a set of both written and in-person discussions between two of the great minds of modern political and philosophical thought. As you will see, Dr. James Orr, a friend and regular guest on my show, sets out with tremendous clarity and skill the arguments for the conservative worldview. He is ably challenged by Professor Stephen R. C. Hicks, another friend and favourite interviewee of mine, who argues for liberalism as the correct orientation towards the world. The debate is hugely informative, productive, and, I hope, of use to the reader—it certainly has been to me.
-
164881.151921
The work of George Eliot (1819–1880) challenges any strong
disjunction between philosophy and art. Her deepest philosophical
interests were in ethics, aesthetics, and the relation between them. Indebted above all to Spinozism and Romanticism, she developed her
thinking in sustained dialogue with the European philosophical
tradition, both before and after she began to write fiction under the
pseudonym “George Eliot” in 1857. She wrote novels,
shorter stories, poetry, and review essays, and throughout her career
she experimented with literary form. Through her bestselling novels,
her engagements with philosophy and with contemporary questions about
morality, art, politics, feminism, religion and science reached wide
readerships.
-
308305.15193
This post is free to read, so please ‘like’ it via the heart below and share it widely. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription. It’s the most predictable thing imaginable: the Trump administration, co-helmed by the rabid pro-natalist Elon Musk and the sadsack pallbearer of patriarchy, J.D. …
-
365400.151938
Quarrels and wisecracks are essential features of interpersonal life. Quarrels are conflicts that typically take place only between friends, family, and those with whom we are personally engaged and whose attitudes toward us matter. Wisecracks are bits of improvised wit—banter, teasing, mockery, and ball busting—that also typically take place only in interpersonal life (note the following odd but revealing comment: “I can’t tease her like that; I barely even know her!”). Quarrels and cracks are, though, mutually exclusive. People know their quarrel is basically over once they start being amused by each others’ wisecracks again, and if you’re enjoying wisecracks with each other, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to quarrel at the same time. Why is this and what does it mean for interpersonal conflict? In this paper, I attempt to answer this question via a deep dive into the nature of wisecracking humor to explore the unrecognized—and valuable—role it plays in our interpersonal lives. In particular, there is a type of wisecracking humor that has a distinctive sort of interpersonal power, the power to dissolve the anger in quarrels in a surprising and productive way.
-
480424.151949
It has been argued that adult humans are absolutely time biased towards the future, at least as far as purely hedonic experiences (pain/pleasure) are concerned. What this means is that they assign zero value to them once they are in the past. Recent empirical studies have cast doubt on this claim, suggesting that while adults hold asymmetrical hedonic preferences – preferring painful experiences to be in the past and pleasurable experiences to lie in the future – these preferences are not absolute and are often abandoned when the quantity of pain or pleasure under consideration is greater in the past than in the future. Research has also examined whether such preferences might be affected by the utility people assign to experiential memories, since the recollection of past events can itself be pleasurable or aversive. We extend this line of research, investigating the utility people assign to experiential memories regardless of tense, and provide – to our knowledge – the first quantitative attempt at directly comparing the relative subjective weightings given to ‘primary’ experiences (i.e., living through the event first-hand) and ‘secondary’ (i.e., recollective or anticipatory) experiences. We find that when painful events are located in the past, the importance of the memory of the pain appears to be enhanced relative to its importance when they are located in the future. We also find extensive individual differences in hedonic preferences, reasons to adopt them, and willingness to trade them off. This research allows for a clearer picture of the utility people assign to the consumption of recollective experiences and of how this contributes to, or perhaps masks, time biases.
-
626459.151957
[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Klaas Kraay replaces the
former entry on this topic by the previous author.]
The topic of divine freedom concerns the extent to which a divine
being — in particular, the supreme divine being, God — can
be free. There are, of course, many different conceptions of who or
what God is. This entry will focus on one enormously important and
influential model, according to which God is a personal being who
exists necessarily, who is essentially omnipotent, omniscient,
perfectly good, and perfectly rational, and who is the creator and
sustainer of all that contingently
exists.[ 1 ]
(For more discussion of these attributes, see the entries on
omnipotence,
omniscience,
perfect goodness,
and
creation and conservation.)
-
828986.151965
Philosophers interested in medicine and healthcare research should focus on the choice of health concepts. Conceptual choice is akin to conceptual engineering but, in addition to assessing whether a concept suits an objective, or offering a better one, it evaluates objectives, ranks them, and discusses stakeholders’ entitlement. To show the importance of choosing health concepts, I summarize the internal debate in medicine, showcasing definitions, constructs, and scales. To argue it is a philosophical task, I analyze the medical controversy over health as adaptation and self-management. I conclude with a to-do list of conceptual choice tasks, generalizable beyond medicine.
-
829006.151974
Since Andrew Jameton first introduced the concept of moral distress, a growing theoretical literature has attempted to identify its distinctive features. This theoretical work has overlooked a central feature of morally distressing situations: disempowerment. My aim is to correct this neglect by arguing for a new test for theories of moral distress. I call this the disempowerment requirement: a theory of moral distress ought to accommodate the disempowerment of morally distressing situations. I argue for the disempowerment requirement and illustrate how to apply it by showing that recent responsibility-based theories of moral distress fail to pass the test.
-
833246.151982
I wrote these words about 20 years ago. They seem especially apt these days. Leaders have been known to inspire blind faith. Michels (1962: 93) refers to "the belief so frequent among the people that their leaders belong to a higher order of humanity than themselves" evidenced by "the tone of veneration in which the idol's name is pronounced, the perfect docility with which the least of his signs is obeyed, and the indignation which is aroused by any critical attack on his personality." …
-
1030515.15199
Very short summary: This essay reflects on how the state and its bureaucratic machinery can shape social reality. The state is unique among human institutions for its performative power. This power is however not unlimited and its use can have adverse consequences. …
-
1285640.151999
I’m on holidays this week, spending some time in Cracow (Poland) and Slovakia. Today’s post is a bit off-topic compared to what I’m used to publish here, but still I hope you will enjoy it! If not the case already, do not hesitate to subscribe to receive for free essays on economics, philosophy, and liberal politics in your mailbox! …
-
1346303.152008
Every week, I tell myself I won’t do yet another post about the asteroid striking American academia, and then every week events force my hand otherwise. No one on earth—certainly no one who reads this blog—could call me blasé about the issue of antisemitism at US universities. …
-
1352048.152016
Standardized testing is glorious, but many standardized tests royally suck. The worst prominent test is almost surely the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). About 9% of test-takers get a perfect score of 170 on the Quantitative part of the exam. …
-
1440771.152023
A friend and I were discussing whether there’s anything I could possibly say, on this blog, in 2025, that wouldn’t provoke an outraged reaction from my commenters. So I started jotting down ideas. Let’s see how I did. …
-
1786269.152032
Bet On It reader Ian Fillmore recently sent me a very insightful email on natalism, which I encouraged him to expand upon. In fact, I’ll put it squarely in the obvious-once-you-think-about-it category. …
-
1804624.15204
In a recent essay, I explained that the right to exit is often given great importance in liberal thought. In some cases, it is almost as if nothing else matters than the guarantee that individuals can —in principle or effectively— exit a group, a community, or a society. …
-
1849067.152048
Karl Marx rejected the ideal of equality as bourgeois. And yet, the most significant attempt in recent years to distinguish socialist theory from liberal egalitarian theory, G.A. Cohen's critique of John Rawls, relies almost entirely on an egalitarian principle. Although Cohen’s critique often seems to have a great deal of intuitive force, a number of Rawls’ defenders have argued, quite convincingly, that Cohen’s critique is unsuccessful. For those of us attracted to broadly socialist ideals, there does seem to be something importantly right about Cohen’s criticisms of Rawls, and more substantively, something deeply problematic in the kinds of market-based leveraging of productive abilities that would be permitted in a fully just Rawlsian society. My diagnosis is that Cohen has the right target, but the wrong fundamental value. I develop an alternative to these liberal egalitarian approaches in contemporary socialist ethics, building on the famous slogan: ‘from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.’ This alternative ideal of Caring Solidarity draws on rich socialist, Christian, and feminist traditions, and emphasizes the importance of care, recognition, and solidarity in political and economic organisation. This alternative approach leaves a certain amount of inequality legitimately in place, whilst providing a moral framework for a radical reorganisation of production.
-
1870767.15206
On my flight back from Spain, I watched Subservience, yet another a cautionary tale of artificial general intelligence. I kept laughing at its many absurdities. If Robin Hanson viewed it, I fear that his head might explode in social scientific outrage. …
-
2043426.152068
This paper argues that lockdown was racist. The terms are broad, but the task of definition is not random, and in §2 we motivate certain definitions as appropriate. In brief: “lockdown” refers to regulatory responses to the Covid-19 (C-19) pandemic involving significant restrictions on leaving the home and on activities outside the home, historically situated in the pandemic and widely known as “lockdowns”; and “racist” indicates what we call negligent racism, a type of racism which we define. Negligent racism does not require intent, but beyond this constraint, we do not endorse any definition of racism in general. With definitions in hand, in §3 we argue that lockdown was harmful in Africa, causing great human suffering that was not offset by benefits and amounted to net harm, far greater than in the circumstances in which most White people live. Since 1.4
-
2043443.152077
This paper argues against the view, proposed in Langland-Hassan (2020), that attitudinal imaginings are reducible to basic folk-psychological attitudes such as judgments, beliefs, desires, decisions, or combinations thereof. The proposed reduction fails because attitudinal imaginings, though similar to basic attitudes in certain respects, function differently than basic attitudes. I demonstrate this by exploring two types of cases: spontaneous imaginings, and imaginings that arise in response to fiction, showing that in these cases, imaginings cannot be identified with basic attitudes. I conclude that imagining is a distinct attitude: it enables us to freely conjure up scenarios without being bound by the restrictions that govern basic folk-psychological attitudes.
-
2043459.152086
According to the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare, something is good for me to the extent that I desire it. This theory faces the “scope problem”: many of the things I desire, intuitively, lie beyond the scope of my welfare. Here, I argue that a simple solution to this problem is available. First, I suggest that it is a general feature of desires that they can differ not only in their objects but also in their “targets,” or for the sake of whom one has the desire. For example, I can desire that my child win an award either for their sake or for my own sake. Second, I show that we can use this idea to solve the scope problem by holding that something is good for me to the extent that I desire it for my own sake. Despite first appearances, this solution is not ad hoc, incomplete, or circular.
-
2043476.152095
Agents are said to be “clueless” if they are unable to predict some ethically important consequences of their actions. Some philosophers have argued that such “cluelessness’’ is widespread and creates problems for certain approaches to ethics. According to Hilary Greaves, a particularly problematic type of cluelessness, namely, “complex” cluelessness, affects attempts to do good as effectively as possible, as suggested by proponents of “Effective Altruism,” because we are typically clueless about the long-term consequences of such interventions. As a reaction, she suggests focusing on interventions that are long-term oriented from the start. This paper argues for three claims: first, that David Lewis’ distinction between sensitive and insensitive causation can help us better understand the differences between genuinely “complex” and more harmless “simple” cluelessness; second, that Greaves’ worry about complex cluelessness can be mitigated for attempts to do near-term good; and, third, that Greaves’ recommendation to focus on long term-oriented interventions in response to complex cluelessness is not promising as a strategy specifically for avoiding complex cluelessness. There are systematic reasons why the actual effects of serious attempts to beneficially shape the long-term future are inherently difficult to predict and why, hence, such attempts are prone to backfiring.
-
2043514.152104
I argue that there are Kantian grounds to endorse a Universal Basic Income (UBI) and that Kant’s practical philosophy can contribute to current debates about the ethics of UBI. I will make two points that mutually support each other. Firstly, there is a pro tanto argument for Kantians to work towards a UBI. A UBI, more so than conditional welfare schemes, enables agents to live up to their duty to be a useful member of the world. This should be conceptualized as an indirect duty to implement a UBI. Secondly, Kant’s ethics suggests a way to tackle the most pressing ethical objection against a UBI, the unfairness or surfer objection. The requirement that agents be useful for others is ethical and thus cannot be enforced externally. Yet, there is rational pressure on agents to do their part. Kant and UBI advocates can learn a great deal from each other.
-
2043563.152114
LOGOS Research Group in Analytic Philosophy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Perception is said to have assertoric force: It inclines the perceiver to believe its content. In contrast, perceptual imagination is commonly taken to be non-assertoric: Imagining winning a piano contest does not incline the imaginer to believe they actually won. However, abundant evidence from clinical and experimental psychology shows that imagination influences attitudes and behavior in ways similar to perceptual experiences. To account for these phenomena, I propose that perceptual imaginings have implicit assertoric force and put forth a theory—the Prima Facie View—as a unified explanation for the empirical findings reviewed. According to this view, mental images are treated as percepts in operations involving associative memory. Finally, I address alternative explanations that could account for the reviewed empirical evidence—such as a Spinozian model of belief formation or Gendler’s notion of alief—as well as potential objections to the Prima Facie View.
-
2146892.152124
Philosophers have struggled to explain the mismatch of emotions and their objects across time, as when we stop grieving or feeling angry despite the persistence of the underlying cause. I argue for a sceptical approach that says that these emotional changes often lack rational fit. The key observation is that our emotions must periodically reset for purely functional reasons that have nothing to do with fit. I compare this account to David Hume’s sceptical approach in matters of belief, and conclude that resistance to it rests on a confusion similar to one that he identifies.
-
2172720.152136
1. Milton’s final work, Samson Agonistes, is built on an historical and aesthetic foundation many layers deep—as one might expect from this poet: ancient greek tragedy; the Aristotelian theory of tragedy it inspired; the Biblical story of Samson, of which this is a transformational re-telling; and Samson’s place in the larger history of Israel. …
-
2559111.152145
This paper explores the theme of human limitedness and the virtues in David McPherson’s The Virtues of Limits. I survey some of the main themes of his discussion— including kinds of human limits and the idea of “limiting-virtues”—and indicate salient themes in Buddhist and classical Chinese philosophical traditions. I then suggest that McPherson is too quick to dismiss forms of moral quietism and that his discussion of our limitedness rests on a latent pessimism worthy of further articulation.
-
2644403.152156
We draw on value theory in social psychology to conceptualize the range of motives that can influence researchers’ attitudes, decisions, and actions. To conceptualize academic research values, we integrate theoretical insights from the literature on personal, work, and scientific work values, as well as the outcome of interviews and a survey among 255 participants about values relating to academic research. Finally, we propose a total of 246 academic research value items spread over 11 dimensions and 34 sub-themes. We relate our conceptualization and proposed items to existing work and provide recommendations for future scale development. Gaining a better understanding of researchers’ different values can improve careers in science, attract a more diverse range of people to enter science, and elucidate some of the mechanisms that lead to both exemplary and questionable scientific practices.