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Episode 104: Robert Nozick’s Libertarianism (Citizen Edition)

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On Anarchy, State & Utopia (1974), ch. 1-3 and 7. What are the moral limits on government power? No redistributive taxation, suckah! With guest Stephen Metcalf. What moral limits should we put on government power? Nozick thinks that the only legitimate functions of government are protection and enforcement of contracts. Contra Rawls, Nozick’s “entitlement” version of justice doesn’t look at income inequality or any other pattern of holdings, but only at whether holdings were legitimately obtained. Learn more.

End song: “Samuel” (newly resung), by The MayTricks, originally from Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Read about it.

Episode 97: Michael Sandel on Social Justice and the Self (Citizen Edition)

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On “Liberalism and the Limits of Justice” (1982), mostly ch. 1 & 4. Classical liberalism from Locke to Rawls focuses on rights as primary: a good government is one that protects people from violations of their rights, and that’s what social justice amounts to. Sandel thinks that there’s a idea about the self behind this picture: we are selves that have interests, but are not itself composed of those interests. In other words, on this view, you are in your essence just a choosing being, not a member of your family or community. Sandel thinks that is bunk. It doesn’t allow for real introspection, or even real freedom. Learn more.

End song: “Wonderful You,” from Mark Lint and the Fake Johnson Trio (1998).

Public Reason

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John Rawls certainly has his fair share of critics, but he’s also widely considered to be the most influential political philosopher of the 20th century. As we heard in the Rawls episode, Rawls’s theory of justice is a kind of contract theory wherein he lays out the basic principles of a democratic society. In the same sort of way that Continue Reading …

Is Rawls’ Difference Principle Egalitarian?

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[From PEL Citizen and friend of the podcast Roy Spence] The publication of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice in the early 1970s led welfare economists to derive various interpretations of the Rawls’ second principle of justice, generally known as the “difference principle.  By way of background, a primary objective of “welfare economics” is to provide a guide for distinguishing between Continue Reading …

Rawls’s Second Principle: Compromise or Clusterf*#$?

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Rawls’s principle 2a, to remind you, is (quoting from wikipedia here): Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (Rawls, 1971, p.302; revised edition, p. 47): (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle (the difference principle). This has appeal to modern liberals because it Continue Reading …

Cooperative Society and Natural Rights

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When reading Rawls for the podcast, I took note of a seemingly innocuous distinction between Rawls and the traditional social contractarians that nonetheless struck me as odd given his appeal to social contract theory.  The traditional social contract theorists assume that rational individuals enter into social contracts to secure natural rights.  “Secure” here means ‘protect from the vicissitudes of the Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

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On John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971), most of ch. 1-4. What makes for a just society? Rawls gives us a thought experiment: Imagine you don’t know whether you’re rich or poor or any of the other specifics of your situation (he calls this going behind “the veil of ignorance” into the “original position”). Now what principles would you pick to determine basic social institutions? Learn more.

End song: “Yours to Keep,” by Mark Lint & the Madison Lint Ensemble, featuring Bob Linsenmayer. Read about it.

Topic for #85: John Rawls’s Theory of Justice

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Listen now to Seth’s Precognition for this episode. On the evening of 11/10, we’re discussing John Rawls. What is justice? Rawls interpreted this question as asking what basic social rules and structures would result in a society that we’d consider fair. Justice is fairness, on a social level. Fairness, of course, is an intuitive notion, and begs for a philosophical Continue Reading …

“You Didn’t Build That.” Political Ethics Summary in the Wash Post

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In this Washington Post editorial on Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog by Dylan Matthews, we get an attempt to connect philosophy to current political discourse, with the conclusion “…which is perhaps why, in general, politicians don’t spend a lot of time listening to philosophers.” The issue is desert, as in “do rich people deserve to keep their money?” Matthews characterizes the majority Continue Reading …

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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