From time to time I am asked what I am going to do with my summers. Am I going to get a job? An internship? What productive, respectable use will I make of my time? The answer is no such use at all–I spend my summers enjoying myself. Why? Because time is valuable.
Tag: Philosophy
Puritans and Libertarians
Within the hallowed halls of academia, there is a terrific and vibrant discussion about ethics and morality, about how we should conduct our lives and what the best way to live a good life is. There are utilitarians, contracturalists, rights theorists, all kinds of fun thoughts flitting about. However, amongst the wider population, this great conversation fails to penetrate. Among the wider population, the moral debate is a mere shadow of what goes on at the universities. Increasingly I observe a contest among young people in the public sphere between two equally simplistic, poor moral conceptions–the puritanical ideology, which is under decay, and the libertarian ideology, which is on the rise.
A Critique of Ronald Dworkin
Lately I have often praised the work of Ronald Dworkin, writer of Justice for Hedgehogs, a book I have recently been reading. Indeed, Dworkin’s views on scepticism, interpretation, and the independence of value from metaphysics are all very persuasive, and I have adopted partially or completely several of his positions on those topics, as regular readers may have observed in recent posts. However, at around the halfway point in Hedgehogs, I have come upon a position of Dworkin’s I cannot accept which I believe undermines much of the rest of his philosophy.
Police Prejudice
I ran across an interesting old Supreme Court decision today from the mid-2000’s. It was a 7-2 decision and if I remember it didn’t get much play at the time in the press–though that was eight years ago, and I may just be forgetful. The court ruled that the police do not have a legal duty to protect any given citizen. The decision justifies a whole slew of first principle injustices–it was wrong, and we are worse off for it. Here’s how.
Divorcing Morality from Metaphysics
Religious deontologists and subjectivist relativists have something in common–both believe that they can derive moral conclusions from their metaphysical theories. This is the most significant mistake made by both groups. Here’s why.
Benjamin Studebaker 