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”
The Democracy Pendulum
I was reminded of an old thought I had about democracy the other day that I had not as of yet put into blog form. The contention is basically this–one cannot derive the social interest from an amalgamation of individual or subgroup interests. Let me explain.
A Stark Response
Recently I made an argument that the minimum wage should rise. In that argument, I sought to refute some of the things fellow blogger Rick Stark said to the contrary. Stark has done me the great honour of a thorough two part response. It demands answer–either I must concede his expanded, larger argument, or I must explain where I differ with it. Having read both posts in their entirety, I find myself still unconvinced. Here’s why.
Benjamin Studebaker 