Author: Huenemann

Then here are some FAQs for you, courtesy of Michael Huemer at UC-Boulder. I think most of what Huemer says is true, though the picture he paints is a bit too bleak. What he leaves out is just how much fun it is to go to grad school in philosophy (at least, if you’re a philosophy geek): all of the classes, the late-night conversations, the stories you build up about goofy, smart professors and the trials they put you through, etc. Also, it’s a fact that there’s no better job in the world than helping students think through philosophical problems. (I am of course setting aside jobs requiring the operation of minisubs by remote control.)

I never really get the chance to teach Rawls in my classes, since I’m usually teaching either history or metaphysics and epistemology. But if I did, I think I would assign students to create Rawls’ version of the Monopoly board game.

I think you don’t have to change the game at all to get Nozick’s view of economic justice. Each player has the freedom to invest or not invest, and so individuals have maximal economic freedom. But Rawls suggests that, if everyone starts in an equal position, the outcomes will be just only if the players agree to a difference principle: there can be a change in the economic distribution only if the change makes the worst-off player better off (roughly). So how would the Monopoly game rules change? One idea would be to tax every transaction so that some amount goes to the poorest player. There probably are other more creative changes that could work too.

When I express this idea to folks, they complain, “But then no one would ever win!” Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? Is an economic system just if it allows there to be losers? Especially: losers who lose due to the luck of the dice, and luck of the draw?

Peter Railton in the NYT:

So, are the optimistic Darwinians wrong, and impartial morality beyond the reach of those monkeys we call humans? Does thoroughly logical evolutionary thinking force us to the conclusion that our love, loyalty, commitment, empathy, and concern for justice and fairness are always at bottom a mixture of selfish opportunism and us-ish clannishness? Indeed, is it only a sign of the effectiveness of the moral camouflage that we ourselves are so often taken in by it?

In early November, Birkbeck College of the University of London hosted a conference called “Why Humanities?”, in response to the government’s onslaught against higher education taking place in the UK (and taking place here, with slightly less severity). One of the speakers was philosopher Raimond Gaita, in a short address entitled “Callicles’ Challenge.” At the heart of his talk is whether Philosophy should try to promote its worth by listing the extrinsic benefits of studying and teaching it. It’s an interesting and intelligent talk; here’s the link.

ADDENDUM: Towards the end, Gaita offers this quote from Hannah Arendt:

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.

“And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something unforeseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world.”

I love language used well. Stephen Fry, in this little video, provides a reminder not to make a fetish of its myriad rules. (Yes, I promise to grade with this in mind henceforth.)