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

October 27, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On Anarchy, State & Utopia (1974), ch. 1-3 and 7. 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  Continue Reading …

Episode 104: Robert Nozick’s Libertarianism

October 27, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 37 Comments

On Anarchy, State & Utopia (1974), ch. 1-3 and 7. 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  Continue Reading …

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

July 19, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On his book 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, though of course, there's some disagreement about what counts as a "right." Sandel thinks that there's  Continue Reading …

Episode 97: Michael Sandel on Social Justice and the Self

July 19, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 17 Comments

On his book 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, though of course, there's some disagreement about what counts as a "right." Sandel thinks that there's  Continue Reading …

Google Scholar citations–a measure of academic importance:

July 15, 2014 by Wayne Schroeder 6 Comments

A scan of Google Scholar revealed the following citations since 2009 for philosophers: Rawls: 250,000 Quine: 146,000 Kant: 119,000 Rorty: 105,000 Foucault: 62,300 Nietzsche: 38,500 Hegel: 38,500 Heidegger: 38,300 Derrida: 26,900 Wittgenstein: 25,400 Deleuze: 23,600 Husserl: 20,000 Lacan: 21,300 Gadamer: 16,600 Zizek: 15,400 What are we to conclude from this  Continue Reading …

Public Reason

December 23, 2013 by David Buchanan 3 Comments

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 his thought experiment asks us to assess  Continue Reading …

Is Rawls’ Difference Principle Egalitarian?

December 22, 2013 by Seth Paskin Leave a Comment

[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  Continue Reading …

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

December 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

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  Continue Reading …

Cooperative Society and Natural Rights

December 17, 2013 by Seth Paskin 5 Comments

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  Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

December 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

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  Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

December 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 30 Comments

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  Continue Reading …

Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls

December 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Listen to the full PEL episode. Read more about the topic at partiallyexaminedlife.com. A transcript is available on our Citizen site's Free Stuff page.  Continue Reading …

Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls

December 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Read more about the topic. Listen to the full episode. Read a transcript.  Continue Reading …

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

November 10, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

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

July 31, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 13 Comments

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  Continue Reading …

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