by Kieran Healy on July 24, 2003
This piece of disingenuous nonsense from Volokh Conspirator Randy Barnett has already been kicked around by Henry and Brian, so I’m not going to write about it. But I’m pleased to see that Head Conspirator Eugene Volokh agrees with pretty much everything Henry has been saying.
Eugene attacks a Slate column which argues that conservatives in general — Ann Coulter, right-wing intellectuals, the White House, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all — are a monolithic unit differentiated only by their willingness to say what they really believe. Coulter is just a more loud-mouthed version of Ari Fleischer, and the Volokh Conspirators are separated from the wingnuts only by the occasional “empty semantic difference.” Eugene is properly outraged that someone would be so stupid or spiteful as to lump responsible conservatives like him in with Ann Coulter. He persuasively argues that when someone does this “it’s hard to give much credit to the rest of his moral — or logical — judgment.” Too true, Eugene. You should send Randy an email with a link to your blog or something — he’d really benefit from reading it.
by Brian on July 24, 2003
Like Henry I was bemused by Randy Barnett’s MSNBC effort. I was thinking of teeing off on some of the details, but Fisking is so 2002. And Henry’s and Tim Lambert’s responses are better than anything I could have done. So instead I’ll just mention something that arose almost in passing in the article.
bq. The Supreme Court “decided the election” (rather than reversed a rogue Southern state Supreme Court and restore the rulings of local, mainly democratic, election officials).
I guess there is a typo here, and ‘democratic’ should be ‘Democratic’. Either way, there is something very odd about the fact that we can tell the political sympathies of electoral officials from their past public pronouncements.
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by Henry Farrell on July 24, 2003
“Randy Barnett”:http://volokh.com/2003_07_20_volokh_archive.html#105898768113978353 blogs to tell us about an “article”:http://www.msnbc.com/news/856672.asp#030723 he’s just written; it asks why the Left is living in its own “constructed reality,” where Bush didn’t lie, Al Gore is President, Bellesisles didn’t cook the books _und so weiter_. Fellow Volokh-blogger, Juan “chimes in”:http://volokh.com/2003_07_20_volokh_archive.html#105899198850087066 that he’s reminded of the Left’s contortions over fascism in the 1930’s. Readers (at least this one) wonder why they’re getting this sort of knockabout stuff from the Volokh Conspiracy, usually a reliable source for challenging and thought-provoking arguments.
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by Daniel on July 24, 2003
Since it’s “contrarian” silly ideas week on CT this week, here’s another one for fans of Tyler Cowen’s telemarketing argument (see below). It’s something that’s bugged me for a while. Various versions of the libertarian creed seemed to be based on allowing people to do anything they like as long as it doesn’t involve “force or fraud”. My question is; why have they got such a downer on fraud?
The prohibition on force is easy to understand. Force is nasty; it harms people directly and interferes with their liberty. But defrauding someone is just offering them an opportunity to harm themselves. Rather like selling them heroin, or persuading them to opt out of a defined benefit pension scheme, two activities that most of us would support people’s right to do, even though we might disapprove of the consequences. If we’re going to establish a strong principle of caveat emptor, as most libertarians seem to think that we should, why should we have a prohibition on that form of free speech known as “lying”? If someone wants to be fooled by a smooth-talking charmer, or decides rationally that they can’t be bothered verifying the accuracy of claims made to them, why should the govenrment step in and paternalistically demand that they be insulated from the consequences of their actions?
I can’t think of any Nozickian or other libertarian grounds on which one should be able to object to someone earning their living as a confidence trickster; it’s a non-productive activity, certainly, and it degrades the general institution of trust, but these are social objections, not available to a consistent libertarian. None of us ever signed a contract saying we wouldn’t lie to each other, so we needn’t feel bound by any social objections. So I suggest that “or fraud” be dropped from the slogans of the Libertarian Party, and we leave it to the free market to weed out the dishonest timeshare promoters, merchants of patent medicines, Nigerian advance fee scam artists etc.
by Chris Bertram on July 24, 2003
The new issue of Prospect includes a rather meandering piece by Samuel Brittan on baby bonds, basic income and asset redistribution. A central issue in this area is how to finance such proposals, and that’s something Brittan gets down to at the end of his article. He canvasses Henry George-style proposals for land taxation and also mentions inheritance taxes, but finally comes up with a somewhat odd suggestion:
… a very simple practical proposal, why not auction planning permission? Many local authorities have approached this piecemeal by making such permission conditional on the provision of local services such as leisure centres, approach roads and so on. But why not return this windfall to the taxpayer in the form of asset distribution and let citizens decide how to spend it?
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by Chris Bertram on July 24, 2003
by Chris Bertram on July 23, 2003
I took the day off today for a trip to London (free lift from a mate who is a sales rep). The main thing I wanted to do was to go to the National Gallery. I’d been bowled over by a Bellini triptych I’d seen in the church of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice recently and planned to look through the Bellinis in the Sainsbury Wing with the aid of the little MP3-player guide they loan you these days. Very useful, except when the number displayed next to the painting fails to correspond with the commentary (the gallery’s only Giotto linked to a commentary on Duccio). Anyway, my attention was drawn to something I’d never noticed before: a number of paintings, originally painted on wood panels, had been transferred at some time in their history to canvas, and in one case to a “synthetic panel”. Probably this is just everyday stuff for art conservators, but it struck me that it was amazing that a whole painting could be lifted off the surface on which it was originally painted and transferred to a new one. How?
by Henry Farrell on July 23, 2003
Tyler Cowen has a “couple”:http://volokh.com/2003_07_20_volokh_archive.html#105888482984762773 of “posts”:http://volokh.com/2003_07_20_volokh_archive.html#105896942112479124 suggesting that there is a serious libertarian argument against initiatives like the US government ‘do-not-call’ list for telemarketers. His argument is that government shouldn’t be in the business of restraining peoples’ spontaneity.
(warning: lengthy argument follows)
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by Henry Farrell on July 23, 2003
One of the nicer things about trying to keep up a list of blogging academics, is that I’ve come across a whole bunch of blogging scientists. I’m a science junky, and love to read practitioners talk about how it’s done. Perhaps this is just discipline envy – we “political scientists” are often rather touchy about whether we’re actually scientists or not – but it probably has a lot more to do with my having read way too much science fiction over the last twenty years. Whatever. Anyway, to point you to a few particularly good science posts that I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks.
Chad Orzel, “here”:http://steelypips.org/principles/2003_07_06_principlearchive.php#105785171837597564 and “here”:http://www.steelypips.org/principles/2003_07_06_principlearchive.php#105766528719351705 on the discovery of a new type of subatomic particle. While you’re at it, check out his “index”:http://steelypips.org/principles/physposts.html of physics posts.
“Amity Wilczek”:http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/natureisprofligate/2003/07/13#a78 on how dung beetles navigate. This is a great blog on all manner of strange behavior in the animal kingdom.
“Cosma Shalizi”:http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/archives/000077.html on dumb research on mating behavior.
“John G. Cramer”:http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/av_index.html who has an incredible list of essays on cosmology, the physics of warpdrives &c &c (OK: he’s not a blogger, but his “daughter”:http://www.kathryncramer.com/wblog/ is).
And (not a scientist, but debunking bad science nonetheless), “Belle Waring”:http://examinedlife.typepad.com/johnbelle/2003/07/just_not_so_sto.html on _ad hominid_ arguments.
by Brian on July 22, 2003
From the NY Times review of 28 Days Later
bq. ”28 Days Later” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has many scenes of maiming, dismemberment, clubbing, shooting, bayoneting and shoplifting.
Actually it’s not _entirely_ obvious that any shoplifting takes place, but we’d need another law and cinema post to work that out.
by Chris Bertram on July 22, 2003
by Chris Bertram on July 22, 2003
The UK’s GM Science Review Panel has published its first report. Like many people, I’ve found it difficult to make my mind up on this issue in the face of conflicting reports, biased commentary, lobbying by vested interests and so on. There’s good reason to believe that this panel has done (and is doing) a good job. They’ve rejected most of the crazier scare stories about GM technology and food, but they’ve identified one real area of worry: the effect on wildlife diversity of extensive use of herbicide tolerant GM crops. If all the weeds are gone, the animals which depend on them for food will have a hard time. Generally, this is a biotech-friendly report, but one which is sufficiently sceptical and critical to displease the real pro-GM enthusiasts. (For full disclosure, I should say that one of the panel members is known to me, and that fact has enhanced my confidence in the process.)
by Henry Farrell on July 22, 2003
“Larry Solum”:http://www.lsolum.blogspot.com/2003_07_01_lsolum_archive.html#105872492716074656 and “Dan Drezner”:http://drezner.blogspot.com/2003_07_13_drezner_archive.html#105845808164583615 are having a minor _contretemps_ that touches on one of my pet peeves; the lack of a one-stop-shop for working papers in political science. Drezner takes issue with a recent “Slate essay”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2085668/ by “Steven Johnson”:http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000085.html which argues that Google is pushing academics towards writing (PDF-able) articles rather than books.
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by Daniel on July 21, 2003
America has become a second rate power. The trade deficit and the fiscal deficit are at mightmare proportions …. sorry, I was just memorising the opening paragraph of Gordon Gekko’s “Greed is good”1 speech. Though it did amuse me how his opening remarks had become topical again. “Wall Street” was on Sky TV at the weekend, and it reminded me that I’ve always wanted to do a particular kind of review of this film. I’m not really qualified to carry out a proper critique of it as a piece of work2, and the film probably deserves better treatment than to look through it for hilarious ’80s kitsch3.
But what I would like to do is make the following case; very few of the actions which bring down the whole house of cards on Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko were actually illegal under securities law at the time. In fact, I’d make a case that any sequel to this film would have to start with the premise that Gordon Gekko was acquitted on all charges of securities fraud.
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by Chris Bertram on July 21, 2003
Daniel’s post about the morality of snitching got me thinking about an issue that is, I think, related. Namely, the question of solidarity: what is it and how does it impact on our practical reasoning. Take the following dialogue from a recent episode of ER where the nurses have got up a petition against Luka Kovac:
Haleh: It’s nothing personal, Abby. I like Dr. Kovac.
Abby: Really? It’s hard to tell.
Haleh: He’ll be back to work tomorrow. We have to do this every couple years to send a message.
Abby: Do you even know what happened?
Haleh: I don’t care what happened.
Abby: You cared enough to sign the petition.
Haleh: Another nurse asks for my support, I’ll give it, every time.
Abby: Whether she’s right or not.
Haleh: I’ve been doing this job for 17 years, honey, doctors come and go, but nurses make this place run. We don’t get much credit, or much pay, we see a lot of misery, a lot of dying, but we come back every day. I’ve given up on being appreciated, but I sure as hell won’t let any of us be taken for granted.
The way in which the solidaristic consideration impacts on Haleh’s reasoning is just the same as the way in which an authoritative command would. That’s to say that she sets aside her own estimation of the rights and wrongs (and even of the facts) of the particular case and treats someone else as entitled to decide what she ought to do. That person’s decision pre-empts her own estimation of what reason requires. The interesting difference with more standard authority claims (officer commanding soldier, state commanding subject via law) is that authority here is diffuse and any member of the relevant group can exercise it over any and all of the others. Of course, there’s a risk that individuals will exercise their right of command irresponsibly, and so there will often be an interest in routing things through some appropriate body (like a union committee). But that doesn’t seem essential to the nature of the case.
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