Disqus - Latest Comments for djw

Re: Privileged ignorance

djw — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:53:49 -0000

In Eastern Laos, there's a strange and beautiful archeological site known as the "Plain of Jars." It is just that, a plain filled with giant stone jars. Their origin and purpose is still something of a mystery.

The vast majority of the plain of jars is off limits because of ordnance.

(student_b, if you travel to Laos, you'll find very little animosity toward Americans. I spent almost a month there, and it was without question the warmest and friendliest country I've ever travelled to. I highly recommend it, actually.)

Re: Open Wide!

djw — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 01:59:22 -0000

It seems to me that the fall (in progress, not complete) of realism as the dominant approach to IR theory might make it all a bit more friendly to libertarians. Less reification/ontological sanctification of the state for neoliberals, constructivist approaches, etc.

Re: Against Patriotism

djw — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:35:21 -0000

Will, one of Kateb's central points is that family and nation are disanalogous sorts of groups in qualitative (in addition to quantitative) ways, and this sort of racialist babbling is precisely the sort of imaginary nonsense that's required to gnerate the fake moral principle of patriotism. Sailor-esque silliness exemplifies Kateb's objection, rather than refuting his point.

Re: Against Patriotism

djw — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:38:46 -0000

Of course, I meant that to be directed at James, not Will.

By the way, Amazon is selling Kateb's book for 7 dollars right now for some reason. A very good bargain, and really readable, accessable, engaging political theory.

Re: Is the Welfare State Justified? by Daniel Shapiro, Comments from Jason Furman

djw — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:56:42 -0000

Will, I'd love to read your thoughts on this book; I'm quite curious how libertarian and libertarian-leaning political philosophers have been reacting to it. (I've got some thoughts of my own, but I think someone from your perspective's response would be more interesting than mine)

Re: For Leaving the Community Behind

djw — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:51:40 -0000

I'm no communitarian, but I really don't get the first quoted paragraph. What holy straw man version of communitarianism suggests Maori can't be philosophers?

Re: Betsey Stevenson on Happiness on Nightline

djw — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:45:02 -0000

This post again reminds me that I really should follow and read more of your writing on happiness more closely, and I intend to get on that soon.

If you were to take requests, Yglesias style, I'd be particularly interested in seeing a post on where your libertarianism and the findings of cutting edge happiness research might point to different policy conclusions. (I'm also interested in how you might resolve that dilemma, but I'm more interested on what you think that dilemma--if it exists--look like).

Re: Two View on Luck and Redistribution

djw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:22:36 -0000

Hi Will, good post. In addition to the Scheffler paper, you should read (if you haven't) "What is the Point of Equality" by Elizabeth Anderson (Ethics 109:2, 1999). She, a Rawls student, agrees with you, Freeman and Scheffler that Rawls shouldn't be simply lumped in with Luck Egalitarians. Also, the first half of her paper does a very nice job of introducing a number of the major strands of luck egalitaranism (Dworkin, Arneson, Van Parijs, Cohen, Ragowski) and does a marvelous job of demonstrating the futility of this line of reasoning. (She also wins me over by being unusually frank about things--the opening sentence is "If recent academic work defending equality had been secretly penned by conservatives, could the result have been any more embarrassing for egalitarians?" I suppose it's possible, but....) She defends an alternative normative justification for egalitarianism that she calls democratic equality, which is vaguely in the vicinity of your social insurance justification in some ways, but goes beyond it in some some other important ways.

Count me as someone who wants to see the Tan paper too, Matt.

Re: Two View on Luck and Redistribution

djw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:31:06 -0000

As to this:

Could it be because a scheme of redistribution from the lucky to the unlucky that minimizes the harm from bad luck might do too little to limit the gains from good luck? Maybe. But that strikes me as a spiteful worry, hard to credit morally. What’s the moral point of limiting the gains from good luck, once the downside of bad luck has been successfully limited?

One possible answer, I think is that the two simply can't be analytically separated so neatly. I'm a big fan of Ian Shapiro's recent book The State of Democratic Theory for a variety of reasons; one salient point relevant to this concern is his entreaty to democratic theorists to concern themselves a great deal more than they are inclined to do with power. It should worry democrats, liberals, etc. that just hierarchies (potentially products of non obviously unjust inequalities) have a tendency to ossify and/or metastasize, and become forms of domination (and, on his view, democracy's central purpose is to limit, prevent, or ameliorate domination). Substantial concentrations of wealth, over time, become substantial concentrations of power. often that power form of power is exercised in informal ways that may not be compatible with democratic accountability, the rule of law, etc.

Re: The World Is Not a Zoo

djw — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:58:23 -0000

Will, while there is much to recommend and admire about the general type of position Malik stakes out in the multiculturalism debate, as a work of public political theory, it's a pretty atrocious piece. Kymlicka, Young, and Taylor are either badly mischaracterized or reduced to mere slogans, in the service of painting his opponents with a very broad brush. He's not building a strawman, exactly; there are people whose arguments about multiculturalism are as simplistic as he presents them here. Those people, however, are not Kymlicka, Young, and Taylor. Their arguments are actually a great deal harder to dismiss than they appear to be in Malik's presentation. He doesn't move the conversation forward, or even give an honest account of existing positions and where he stands on them. (Hell, he even oversimplifies Appiah, whom he agrees with). Anyone familiar with the countours of the debate, regardless of which side they may be on, should be frustrated to see such an important debate presented to a wider audience in such a silly manner.

Re: Bangkok Bleg

djw — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:03:26 -0000

Very generic standard tourist advice, but don't give yourself a few hours at the Grand Palace.

Re: Bangkok Bleg

djw — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:03:39 -0000

that's a negative that should be a positive. DO not don't.

I'm jealous you're going to Burma. I was going to go in August 06, but things got unstable, so I went to Malaysia instead.

Re: Cato Unbound in Unlikely Places

djw — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:16:21 -0000

One could rather easily construct a model of male policy preferences and voting tendencies that are hostile to libertarianism and libertarian outcomes. Which, for example, has contributed more to the growth of the oppressive power of the state--wars or welfare benefits? And which gender is easier to sucker into supporting the life-and-liberty destroying miracle gro-for the state practice we call war?

Furthermore, men are more likely to support anti-liberty socially conservative policy initiatives and goals than women. But you could play this game with any major voting bloc in the United States, becuase while all kinds of people are enamored of libertarian logic and/or rhetoric from time to time, they are not particularly libertarian at all. It's not that Thiel is wrong, it's that his singling out of women is arbitary, and his column could be repeated for any other group. Under such circumstances, why does Thiel focus on women? I can think of a few possible answers, and none of them speak particularly well of Thiel.

Re: Cato Unbound in Unlikely Places

djw — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:24:20 -0000

Yes, but libertarians are a tiny fraction of the (male) population. The rest of them start ugly, liberty-destroying, state-growing wars with alarming regularity.