DISQUS

Hah! I remember seeing a Thomas episode with Carlin's name in the credits and thinking "no way". But it was!

This was a really interesting & thought-provoking post.

This post title also pretty much sums up the idea behind the sitcom "Yes Minister".

"Power to the People", a classic episode of Yes Prime Minister, develops Will's last point in sitcom format.

If the capital invested in the sweatshop were forced to remain in the same country then raising labor standards would actually help people.

if only the Berlin Wall had been about sweatshops!

Wow, berger's comment is a real smorgasbord of grammatically correct sentences that display more different types of incoherence than one typically sees in blog comments.

I read the transcript at the Brookings site. Very interesting. I liked your commentary. Benjamin Barber strikes me as sort of the Michael Novak of the left -- erudite, articulate, and utterly unable to comprehend how unpersuasive his arguments are to anyone who doesn't share all his priors. At least Novak has an excuse for his writings' not having any data.

I gave up on Sullivan for good several months ago, and this post gives me no reason to regret that decision.

I don't understand. If MONEY DOESN'T BUY HAPPINESS, then why is inequality the biggest problem in our society?

Well, it's important to distinguish between instrumental and intrinsic value. It's easy to think of situations where equality might have some instrumental value, but Will (and Krugman, presumably) are talking about intrinsic value.

I can't believe he's for real. In a few months he'll tell everyone that the game's up.

Property rights are very weak and originate from the state.

Peter Singer? Jacob Hacker? Good lord, Cato isn't messing around with this Cato Unbound thing, are they?!

Countdown to brain-dead "monkyboy" post starting now...

I think there's a good case to be made that Leiter is mildly autistic.

Monkyboy wouldn't know an argument if it bit him in the ass.

Seriously, Will, hasn't he overstayed his welcome yet? I've actually stopped bothering to read a lot of your comments threads because I'm sick and tired of having to scroll past his brain-dead non sequiturs and slanders. He's already proved he's not interested in debate; why don't you start deleting his posts?

Thanks!

Ah, thanks. I am possibly going to be working on a game about some of these issues (I'm a computer game designer) so it's never too early to start looking at some detailed stuff.

The link to the Cooter paper in the kittens/wolverines post is broken. I'm really interested in the topic -- know where I can find a copy of the paper?

I don't have time to read the whole paper you linked, although I see that it is about different senses of ability ("can"). What about Mike's argument is question-begging? In particular, does commitment to ought-implies-can commit one also to rejecting determinism, in your view?

Dunno what happened to my previous comment but --

For a good paper arguing that determinism is self-refuting, see: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm

Boy, if Velleman's post was more confusing than this one, I'm glad I didn't go read it.

What does your thirst or my desire to go to dental school have to do with morality? Nothing. People have different goals, so it's rational for them to do different things to achieve them. It may be right for you to drink water to satisfy your thirst, but not *morally* right... right?

Perhaps Velleman is just talking about a standard definition of relativism, namely, that relativism is the view that the truth or falsity of moral propositions depends on someone's perspective. (Maybe the speaker's, maybe his culture's if there is such a thing, etc.). That could be what he means by "agent-relative." I dunno. But your post isn't helping much!

I have to say, I was going through the post over lunch, and when I got to the part about the telekinetic dwarves, I nearly spewed hunan chicken all over my monitor. That was very, um, jarring.

I think he takes the parody a little far by referring to a respected Nobel Prize winning economist as a "paid hack", personally. But it's not lack of education he's feigning; it's lack of honesty. Note his absolute unwillingness to engage arguments rather than motives. To him, the fact that an article appears in the WSJ is evidence that anything it says is false.

I hate trolls. It's too bad no commenting software currently available supports killfiles.

Don't feed the troll, folks.