USUPhilosophy

Here is an interesting review of a book arguing that the good of using markets to help distribute goods outweighs the sometimes distasteful appearance of buying things that in some intuitive sense shouldn’t be bought.

I’ll explain a bit. Michael Sandel, in his book What Money Can’t Buy, argues (surprisingly) that there are some things money shouldn’t buy. Consider, for example, a service that writes personal, heartfelt speeches for best men to give at their pals’ weddings; or consider the companies that, for a tidy sum, will send someone over to apologize to someone on your behalf. Consider getting out of jury duty by paying someone else to serve in your stead, or selling U.S. citizenship, or selling organs, or blood. In many of these cases, there is a worry that putting such things up for sale corrupts our moral relations to other people, or simply provides unfair advantage to those with more money.

On the other hand, one of the most efficient ways to get goods to those who value them the most is to put price tags on them. The best man who pays a lot for a heartfelt speech is showing how much he cares by paying a lot; same for the person who apologizes by proxy; and so on. It may be that the presence of these price tags offends our moral sensibilities; but if those sensibilities are accidents of evolution or culture anyway, perhaps that offense is a “price” we should be willing to pay for a more efficient distribution of goods. As the authors write, “when there is a clash between [these intuitions] and consequences, consequences win.”

 

Next Friday (April 22). Details here.

It is that time of year when we solicit applications from those wishing to join Phi Sigma Tau, the national honor society for philosophy. One needn’t be a major or a minor; one need only have been at USU for over a year, and have completed (or about to complete) at least 3 philosophy classes, with at least a “B” average. Well, that, and $25 for the national membership fee. More details here. Each spring we have a silly indoctrination ceremony, with plenty of philosophical phellowship and good cheer. Please contact Huenemann if you are interested in joining!

Walter Kauffman was a great historian of philosophy. More than any other single person, he was responsible for making Nietzsche a philosopher worth studying in the post-WWII era (as well as Kierkegaard and a range of existentialist thinkers). Open Culture has made available recordings of three lectures he gave in 1960 about Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre, and the nature of philosophy. They are wonderfully erudite, graceful, and funny.

Find them here.

Brockmeyer didn’t set out to be a philosopher. He was, first and foremost, a mechanic. Born in Prussia in 1826, he lived at a strange moment in intellectual history, at a time when philosophy was read widely and had a hand in determining the social and political destiny of Europe. In the early 19th century — in the wake of an age of revolutionary idealism — philosophy had not given up its intimate relations with politics and culture. It was still written by humans, for humans, like a young Brockmeyer. And it wasn’t read for the sole purpose of becoming a professional thinker but in the hopes of becoming a better or at least a different person. This was a task that Henry undertook passionately.

When Henry was 16, his mother, a thoroughgoing pietist, burned her son’s copy of Goethe’s poems. Henry did what any self-respecting Romantic would do: He disowned her and ran away from home, all the way to the United States. This sort of gumption strikes most people as equal parts foolhardy and frightening. And it probably was, but Brockmeyer had been brought up in Prussia at a time when anything still seemed possible.

Read more here!