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Penn Jillette’s Deceptively Simple Rhetoric of Libertarianism

July 25, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 28 Comments

One of our intermittent tasks here on The Partially Examined Life is to try to engage with current rhetoric in popular intellectualism. Our recent episode on white privilege attempted to separate the facts involved (race disparities) from the concepts used to characterize those facts ("privilege") and from what concrete actions could be used to address the actual problems  Continue Reading …

Topic for #123: F.A. Hayek and Amartya Sen on Assumptions of Economics

August 19, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 24 Comments

On 8/17/15, Mark, Seth, and Wes were joined by Boston University economics grad student and long-time PEL fan Seth Benzell to talk about two texts: “The Use of Knowledge in Society” by F.A. Hayek (1945) and On Ethics and Economics by Amartya Sen (1987). Go listen to Seth Benzell's introduction for a straight-up summary of the two essays and how they relate. Seth Paskin  Continue Reading …

Libertarianism Sensibilities and the Tools of Social Change

November 1, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 58 Comments

I'm gratified that from what I can tell, we weren't wildly unfair in our Nozick episode, and in particular that Metcalf's participation apparently didn't irredeemably taint our coverage, what with his being an already established opponent of the text. As is typical when we cover and largely pan a work related to a movement that people are invested in, we get more requests to  Continue Reading …

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 …

Precognition of Ep. 104: Robert Nozick

October 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Seth Paskin introduces Anarchy, State, and Utopia about libertarianism and the limits of legitimate government power. Watch for the full discussion to be released in a couple of weeks. Read more about the topic and get the book.  Continue Reading …

Precognition of Ep. 104: Robert Nozick

October 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Seth Paskin introduces Anarchy, State, and Utopia about libertarianism and the limits of legitimate government power. Listen to the full discussion. Read more about the topic and get the book.  Continue Reading …

Ignoring Metcalf’s Central Point

June 22, 2011 by Wes Alwan 11 Comments

Julian Sanchez has some criticisms here (hat tip to commenter HPG) of Metcalf on Nozick and libertarianism. They seem fair, although I don't have time to evaluate them in detail (it's been a long time since I read Anarchy, State and Utopia): Nozick is here setting up a dilemma: Under these idealized circumstances, from what is stipulated to be a perfectly just starting  Continue Reading …

Stephen Metcalf on Nozick and “The Liberty Scam”

June 21, 2011 by Wes Alwan 68 Comments

The snark-factor is high in this entertaining, well-written indictment of libertarianism by Slate critic Stephen Metcalf: "Libertarianism" places one—so believes the libertarian—not on the political spectrum but slightly above it, and this accounts for its appeal to both the tricorne fringe and owners of premium real estate. Yowza.  Continue Reading …

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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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