I had an interesting lecture today in which Peter Singer came up. Singer is an interesting philosopher in so far as he is, like me, a utilitarian and a consequentialist, but I nonetheless find myself from time to time in conflict with him. Today I seek to identify where precisely Singer and I differ, and why one should agree with me rather than with him.
Author: Benjamin Studebaker
Can We Be Moral Without the State?
I noticed an interesting consequence of the moral theory I outlined yesterday–if it’s true, it is not possible to be moral beyond a limited scope in the absence of a state. Let me explain what I mean. Continue reading “Can We Be Moral Without the State?”
Am I an Egoist?
There was a very interesting tension pointed out to me yesterday in my moral philosophy. As regular readers know, I am broadly utilitarian–I think that we should try to promote the general welfare. I am concerned with the consequences of moral decisions rather than their motivation, and I do not think hard, fast rules forbidding given behaviours without regard to situational consequences are good ideas. I have, however, recently seemingly changed a position somewhere, because I now find myself embracing, in some situations, what looks like an egoist view. The egoist position is that a person should do what is good for them, not what is good for society at large. So how do I square this circle? Let me see if it can be done.
The Obama Austerity Package
Even I failed to anticipate that the end of February would approach and the president would make no serious effort at preventing the March 1 budget sequestration from taking effect. At the end of January, we noticed that, with sequester included, the United States was prepared to see an austerity package 1.9% the size of GDP in 2013, more austerity as a share of the economy than was seen in Britain in 2011 or 2012 (though not both combined). What’s important to note is that, despite Obama’s recent token effort to get congress to repeal or further delay sequestration, which accounts for $78 billion of the $304 billion in spending cuts and tax increases planned for this year, all of this is his fault and his fault alone. Continue reading “The Obama Austerity Package”
First World Problems
Today I had an old thought, half-forgotten, about the popular first world problems internet meme. For those of you who are unfamiliar with “first world problems”, it is type of internet joke in which a problem or complaint is dismissed as trivial due to its exclusivity to people living in developed countries. It’s funny, but there’s something that has been eating at me about it. Continue reading “First World Problems”
Benjamin Studebaker 