Last week, the University at Albany and the Moscow State University’s philosophy departments held a joint video-conference. The conference spanned over two mornings (in Albany, evenings in Moscow), with around six 30-45 minute presentations (including discussion) from each department. The topic was “What Progress Has Philosophy Made in the Last 50 Years?” One of the goals was to allow each department to get a sense of the research interests of the other as a basis for possible future collaborations and exchanges. So, the Albany faculty gave presentations on changes in philosophy of science, language, political theory, Kant interpretation, and applied ethics. Basically, we all thought that there had, in fact, been progress in these areas and we described the more important changes. The Moscow faculty tended to discuss the nature of philosophy and what it would mean for philosophy to make progress in the first place, although there was some discussion of changes in more specific areas. There was good discussion of these issues and interesting overlaps and complementary interests and perspectives. I was in Moscow in the fall, and a colleague had been there last year, and the personal connections that we made helped ensure the tone was very good. Obviously, one appealing aspect was that it was very inexpensive. We used a conference room that had two large-screen monitors and a camera, and we connected over the internet. It really worked well and everyone felt it was a big success. This was the first event like this that I’ve been involved with, and I would definitely recommend it and expect that this type of thing will become much more frequent.
First of all, sorry that this has taken so long. What follows are some reflections on ch. 4 of G.A. Cohen’s _Rescuing Justice and Equality_. I _think_ I’ve got the basic argument right, but I’d welcome corrections and clarifications.
The key shock of this chapter is Cohen’s rejection of the difference principle itself as a basic principle of justice. In the earlier chapters, Cohen focused on the fact that the inequalities supposedly justified by the difference principle might often be the result of more talented people holding out for higher pay, despite the fact that they could perfectly well supply their labour for less. To act thus, is, according to Cohen inconsistent in people who affirm a commitment to the difference principle (as _ex hypothesesi_ all citizens of the well-ordered society do). Contra Rawls and most Rawlsians then, Cohen there argued that the difference principle ought to mandate a more equal society than is commonly supposed, because most applications of the standard incentives argument ought to fail. It isn’t that we must pay the talented more because otherwise they won’t be able to supply the labour that benefits the least advantaged; it is that they choose not to supply it unless they are bribed. But a person sincerely committed to maximizing the expectations of the least advantaged wouldn’t need to be bribed.
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I held out for the new iMac and now it’s here! (Unfortunately, Belle’s cute little white Macbook just up and died. Poor thing was only 16 months old. Motherboard dead. Battery toast, too. Repair cost: roughly the same as replacement cost. Sigh.)
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Some people “are laughing”:https://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/03/where-the-rawlsian-rubber-meets-the-randian-road/ at wingnuts who are ‘going Galt’ by signing up for Medicare early. Me, I think it’s wonderful that the right is discovering the joys of solidaristic (well, sort of) strike action. So much so that I’m “asking readers to encourage the leaders of this movement”:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=71729916270 (Facebook group1 – I hope but don’t know whether this link will work for everyone) to take the obvious next step.
The ‘Go Galt, Go!’ Manifesto
We proudly salute “Dr. Helen,” Glenn Reynolds, and Michelle Malkin, for identifying the only possible response to Barack Obama’s victory – ‘going Galt.’ By withdrawing their creative and intellectual achievements from the economy and stopping tipping waitstaff, the schmibertarian right can surely bring the parasites and Democrats to their knees. We look forward to these three thought leaders striking the obvious first blow, by refusing to blog for the ungrateful masses and withdrawing to a secret compound until the world capitulates to their demands! Only a universal wingnut blogging strike can bring the moochers to their senses. John Galt lives!
1 We also have a “Crooked Timber group”:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2403393389 by the way.
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From the New York Times editorial page, and on the day when we’re expecting the International Criminal Court to hand out its decision on whether to indict Omar al-Bashir for genocide (or for a lesser charge of crimes against humanity) in Darfur, the two opposing points of view on the role of the ICC set out pretty clearly.
Update: the warrant’s out. Five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes (specifically, ordering attacks against civilians, and pillaging). But, no genocide charge (the warrant might be amended later to include genocide but this one doesn’t have it). Moreno-Ocampo was very insistent on this six months ago, but it was widely thought at the time that it looked like overreach and apparently the court has decided to stick with what it can definitely prove. More discussion perhaps later.
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Washington, DC — Responding to Republican charges that President Obama’s proposed budget includes $8 billion for a high-speed, magnetic-levitation train that “<a href=”http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017129.php”>will deliver customers straight from Disney . . . to the doorstep of the moonlight bunny ranch brothel in Nevada</a>,” Democratic leaders today unveiled plans for a “<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOV6siQOwYc&feature=related”>Love Train</a>” that will join “people all over the world.”
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The Online Photographer reports that the firm of Franke and Heidecke is going out of business – perhaps permanently. That’s very sad news, for they are the firm that launched the famous Rolleiflex brand in 1929. As it happens, I bought a 1932 Rolleiflex Standard that I bought in a junk shop in Wales last year. I’d actually seen it a year before. The owner had spotted me with a camera and asked me whether I was interested in the Rollei. At the time I declined, but regretted it as I thought back to the beauty of the image in its ground-glass screen. So I was amazed, when I went back, to find it still unsold and snapped it up. I keep meaning to write a post about what you could, pretentiously, call the “phenomenology of technology”. The Rollei feels so different to a modern digital camera: since it is a twin-lens reflex, you hold it at waist level and look downwards; like other film cameras you don’t get the instant satisfaction of digital – you have to wait and see what came out; and since you have a mere 12 shots on 120 medium format film, you can’t just snap away and select for the best. There’s also the fact that is is a superbly made object. How many other machines made in 1932 still work, and work pretty well. Vorsprung durch Technik, I suppose. Here’s a photograph I made with it:
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From the “Chronicle of Higher Education”:http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=6065&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en
Brigham Young University has rejected an appeal from a student who had completed all the requirements for a degree but saw his diploma withheld last year after he published Men on a Mission, a calendar of buff Mormon missionaries without shirts, the Associated Press reported.
The student, Chad Henry, was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the university, over the calendar last July. In September he was told that, to receive his degree, he would need to be reinstated as a member of the Mormon church.
Which reminds me that anyone who hasn’t read Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s wonderful account of how she “came to be excommunicated”:http://nielsenhayden.com/GodandI.html by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints really doesn’t know what they are missing.
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I am looking forward. . . .
<a href=”http://www.michaelberube.com/index.php/weblog/tuesday_potluck/”>On the bus home from Philadelphia a few weeks ago</a>, I had an Important Insight. It was an insight borne of decades of driving and my last couple of academic gigs, which (because of their locations far from airports) have entailed traveling in shuttles and buses and vans and town cars and rickshaws. And I’ve decided to share it with you, just because (and just below the fold).
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People who liked the John Martyn song I posted, or who are just mourning his loss, might want to listen to this loving tribute to the great man on Mike Harding’s show.[1] So many great songs it seems a shame to pick one out, but listen to the end, and hear him do “Singing in the Rain”. Sorry, I only noticed this today; it’ll go offline in about 24 hours.
[1] One of the great irritations of later life, more confirming evidence in this broadcast, is the dawning realisation that Phil Collins might be a nice chap — and one with real discernment.
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I know, readers, sometimes it seems that we at CT are determined to continue discussing Rawls vs Cohen on the requirements of justice until our last reader has been driven into screaming insanity, but have faith – this is empirically relevant stuff.
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David Brooks has been getting a “lot”:http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org/strategist/2009/03/the_ultimate_david_brooks_colu.php of “flak”:http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/03/03/on-moderation/ for this “column”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/03brooks.html?ref=opinion (which is a follow up from this “one”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/opinion/24brooks.html?_r=1 a week earlier).
We [moderates] sympathize with a lot of the things that President Obama is trying to do. … But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. … a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor … an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new. … U.S. has never been a society riven by class resentment … All the costs will be borne by the rich and all benefits redistributed downward. … U.S. … skeptical of top-down planning. … U.S. has traditionally had a relatively limited central government. … Obama … actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. …The first task will be to block the excesses of unchecked liberalism. … up to moderates to raise the alarms against these ideological outrages. … moderates will have to sketch out an alternative vision. This is a vision of a nation in which we’re all in it together — in which burdens are shared broadly, rather than simply inflicted upon a small minority.
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Five.
I especially liked this:
A newspaper columnist once told of her shock when, having struck up a rapport with a man over dinner, she was told at the end of the meal he had no vacancies for friends. He was operating a “one-in, one-out” policy. Six months later she received a card stating he was now available for friendship.
There’s a lot of fretting about Facebook in England these days, because it is creating attention-deficient friend-flators. When Henry announced that he had joined and pressed the rest of us to, someone criticized him for assuming that it was reaching a critical mass just because he, and his friends, had joined. I, by contrast, assumed that it was about to go belly-up because I had joined (I’m the classic late-adopter, as evidenced by my recent desperate bulk-buying of cassette tapes and tape players before they stop making them because the rest of you have started using ipods). That was a while ago, but I’ve got to tell you that its days are now definitely numbered, because not only has my wife joined but, worse, I just became friends with the mother of one of my secondary school friends.
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The blogospheric response to George Will’s recycling of long-refuted talking points on climate change (a good summary here) has produced lots of insights into the way the mainstream media (particularly the Washington Post) works, and some reasons to be less regretful about its seemingly inevitable demise.
I was particularly struck by the opening statement in the latest contribution of WP Ombudsman Andy Alexander who states:
Opinion columnists are free to choose whatever facts bolster their arguments.
Really? Where I come from, citing supporting evidence and ignoring the existence of directly contrary evidence is called “cherry-picking” (when we are being polite).
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The Telegraph reports that Ed Balls suggests that school admissions lotteries may be scrapped because they are unfair. I’ve dug around to find the actual speech, but can’t find it anywhere, and don’t entirely trust the report (or the Observer report, which makes him seem less hostile to lotteries) to have gotten the issues exactly right. The “twins” argument (that lotteries split up twins into different schools) is terrible — it is easy to build a sibling rule into a lottery (and that is what, for example, the Milwaukee voucher program lotteries have). This argument is pretty bad too:
“The issue of lotteries is causing some concern to parents around the country,” he said. “I have sympathy with the view that a lottery system can feel arbitrary, random and hard to explain to children who don’t know what’s going to happen and don’t know which children in their class they’re going on to secondary school with.
It is having the kid rejected, and having her go to a school other than her friends, that is the problem here, not the lottery — it’s an inevitable feature of school choice, and in fact has been with us since 1944 (the 11-plus lottery was abolished in lots of places after a while, but even in comprehensive LEAs friends got split up to go to religious or single sex schools, or just to some other school that had a nicer swimming pool, at the whim of their parents).
Can anyone point me to the whole speech, or explain what is really going on?
(It’s nice to see, by the way, that the Tories plan to abolish the lotteries — give power back to the state provider, where it belongs, that’s what I say.)
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