It's not like Obama fought for a public option. I mean, I understand your point, but still, if he wanted a public option, he could have at least made the case for one. Particularly since the mandate doesn't make a whole lot of sense without it.
There's a whole thread on Rawls here without a single mention of Kant. That's kind of impressive. Of course for Rawls moral principles are invariant: he's a Kantian. In a sense he sees his work in ToJ as a reworking or the categorical imperative, or at least a new method for discovering and justifying Kantian moral principles. The idea has little to do with whether people act rationally out in the world. I’m sure Rawls was well aware that they do not. Instead, Rawls is trying to force them to be rational by putting them behind the veil of ignorance. Here, he assumes, people will behave as rational, self-interested actors. Whether they will or not is of course an open question, but it has little to do with whether they’ll behave rationally on this side of the veil of ignorance (if they did, there’d be no need for the veil of ignorance, eh?).
You know, Rawlsekian sounds like a Polish guy in Chicago. "Yo, Rawlsekian, how 'bout them Bears?" Kantekian is the country way of referring to someone from Kentucky.
The piss poor part, as I said, was the hazing part. Religiosity is high among African Americans, and more specifically, evangelical Christianity is high among them, so they tend to be socially conservative. That's not a good justification, but it's the cause. It has nothing to do with hazing.
I'm not sure that a state that arises for the mutual protection of citizens is a bad thing. And it may be the case that some mesoamerican states arose that way.
As for whether we're better or worse off without the state, there's the rub. I'm not a big fan of Nozick, so I have no problem violating his philosophical demands, but it's still an important empirical question.
I’m not sure anything said here implies that the state cannot be philosophically justified. Looking at the origins isn’t enough to determine that. I mean, if we’re looking at the origin of human institutions and ruling out those whose origins were bad in some way, we’re pretty much fished. What’s more, there’s a difference between the origin of the state and the origin of the modern state. And even more, while we don’t really know the origin of the state, it’s entirely possible that there were different reasons for the creation of the state in different areas. For example, there may have been differences in the creation of the state in Mesopotamia vs. Mesoamerica, the latter of which may very well have arisen in order to protect either larger areas or areas of increasing density from marauders (whether it is a larger area or an increasingly dense population depends on where you were in the Americas, and how you look at the archeological evidence), rather than the facilitate marauding. We can be fairly certain that it didn’t arise the way Nozick described, which of course he knew, but philosophical justification is not just about the empirical origins of an institution.
I suspect that this is where the “overlapping consensus” of PL is doing much of the work. That is, the facts that make it in would probably have to be part of the latent principles that are shared by all of the world views within the population. Admittedly, it’s a lot of work to do, but this has always been the first criticism of the original position, even before it was refined in PL. It’s why much of the Western left may be comprised of loose Rawlsians, but very few of them get there through any consideration of the original position as Rawls envisions it, but instead use it, or a naïve version of it, as a loose heuristic.
I was just amused by the idea of a really rich pick pocket who was trained as a neurosurgeon. Presumably neurosurgeons have good hands, so it seems at least remotely plausible.
The origin of the state is an open, and hotly debated question in anthropology. Olson’s work is interesting, and represents one of the main types of theories of the origin of the state, but it’s not the only theory, and there doesn’t seem to be a real consensus, though it’s been about 10 years since I read anything on the subject. However, its origin almost certainly looked nothing like Nozick’s version. In fact, one of the other common theories is that it arose because of the development of class strata, which led to the need for the privileged class(es) to maintain their advantages through coercion. That’s not going to lead to a state like Nozick’s, that’s for sure.
Two things not really related to your central point:
Have you read Ortega’s essay titled “The sporting origin of the state”? If not, I recommend it. In fact, I recommend the entire collection found under the title History as a System. Anyway, in that essay, Ortega posits an origin of the state that is similar to Olson’s and Hume’s, but much more scandalous (and somewhat more disturbing). It looks like the essay is available in its entirety in Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=att5WcMlI-cC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Second, a neurosurgeon pick pocket who manages to pick pocket as much money as he would have made being a neurosurgeon is one seriously good pick pocket.
Jay, that's partially what I was getting at in that second paragraph: the analogy wouldn't be that apt if it weren't for the fact that those who oppose gay marriage sound an awful lot like those who opposed interracial marriage.
I wonder which "discourse surrounding" the veil of ignorance you mean. That found in blog comments? I wonder because it seems strange to criticize the veil of ignorance because people use a version of it that has nothing to do with the one put forward by Rawls. I mean, behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, one wouldn't know one's natural abilities, so the sorts of questions you raise are precisely the ones that are supposed to be raised. Perhaps you need to hang out with people who've actually read Rawls.
I miss ~Blaise already. Dude, that’s a piss poor explanation. Black people and Hispanics don’t oppose (some) gay rights in large numbers because they want to haze gay people, or anything like it. It’s largely a matter of religion and the social conservatism it’s created among two populations that are relatively more religious than white people. What’s more, black people tended to be socially conservative in the same ways before the civil rights movement, and for the same reason.
I think, by the way, that the SSM-interracial marriage analogy is, on the surface, pretty poor, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that anti-gay bigotry ain’t racism. Gay people can be openly gay and go to just about any school (though they might not fit in too well at Olivet or Trevecca), they can eat at just about any restaurant they want, they can sit anywhere on the bus (behind the yellow line, at least), use any water fountain, swim in any public pool, and they can vote. However, since the arguments used against gay marriage are often quite similar to the arguments used against interracial marriage, the analogy is forced upon us in some ways. In particular, if the arguments were bad then, then we have good reason to think they’re bad now in this new context. That may not always turn out to be the case, but it’s a pretty safe starting assumption, particularly given how irrational those arguments were the first time they were used.
Tom, your point, as best I can tell, is the same one you've been making as long as you and I have been commenting in the same place, namely that the practical effect, if not the intended one, of secularism on the left is the abolishment of morality through law (or reinterpretation of the Constitution, or both), or to make it dependent on the findings of the social sciences. Neither of those things are true, but your failure to see that, or to even be capable of seeing that, is simply due to the fact that you can’t see other values/ethics/morals (even when they differ only slightly from yours) as values/ethics/morals: it is either your way, or no way. I call it grumpy-old-fart silliness because this is precisely what grumpy-old-farts say when they are no longer a part of the defining generation of a culture, and start to feel like their values are being undermined by the generation currently shaping things.
Apparently you're not aware of what "ad hominem" is. Did I mischaracterize your position? You would deny objectively better conditions, and significantly better at that, to black people if white people aren't ready for it. That, in essence, is your position, is it not? It would have been better to wait for white people to be ready enough to make it politically feasible for legislatures to vote for desegregation, for example, than to do it through the courts. If I've mischaracterized your position, feel free to point out where. Even if I have, however, "ad hominem" is not appropriate in this context.
Haha... I love grammar nazi fails. Nice work, DensityD.
Anyway, it's true that they don't have equal access to the best public schools, but they have access to some public schools that aren't just afterthought schools for second-class citizens. And your argument is that they should have waited for even that, because some white people weren't ready for it (this, coincidentally, was an argument against abolishing slavery as well). I like it when people put that in public; better to know there are people like you than to have to wonder and suspect.
I love that you start by saying that someone else's restatement of Thomas' opinion is uncharitable, and then procede to give the most uncharitable description of the opposition as possible. It's perfect grumpy-old-fart silliness.
It took a while because black people could still vote. Once the southern states had effectively disenfranchised most if not all black voters, there was no stopping their creation of an apartheid state. In a sense, the laws didn’t need to influence public opinion: those who agreed with them enacted and maintained the laws, and at the same time made sure that those who didn’t agree with them couldn’t do anything about it.
There's been a trend away from “multiculturalism, and towards integration, in The Netherlands since the early to mid-90s. The multiculturalist views and policies of the 80s have long since been either been watered down or replaced by integrationist policies. The current right-wing government has, to be sure, been actively trying to get rid of the last vestiges of the 80s “multiculturalism,” but this is hardly a new position, or the work of kooks. These are the high ups in the cabinet we’re talking about.
ken, you have to understand that Tom is a frequent critic of social science research as a whole when it is presented as evidence against his positions, but will occasionally find one study that supports his views and throw it out as though it were the only study that could possibly matter. So yeah, the venom is necessary.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Who’s at the table”
It's not like Obama fought for a public option. I mean, I understand your point, but still, if he wanted a public option, he could have at least made the case for one. Particularly since the mandate doesn't make a whole lot of sense without it.
On “Rawlsekianism Reloaded: Normative justification”
There's a whole thread on Rawls here without a single mention of Kant. That's kind of impressive. Of course for Rawls moral principles are invariant: he's a Kantian. In a sense he sees his work in ToJ as a reworking or the categorical imperative, or at least a new method for discovering and justifying Kantian moral principles. The idea has little to do with whether people act rationally out in the world. I’m sure Rawls was well aware that they do not. Instead, Rawls is trying to force them to be rational by putting them behind the veil of ignorance. Here, he assumes, people will behave as rational, self-interested actors. Whether they will or not is of course an open question, but it has little to do with whether they’ll behave rationally on this side of the veil of ignorance (if they did, there’d be no need for the veil of ignorance, eh?).
You know, Rawlsekian sounds like a Polish guy in Chicago. "Yo, Rawlsekian, how 'bout them Bears?" Kantekian is the country way of referring to someone from Kentucky.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
I've used them, and alternatives (mostly EMA).
"
Blaise, I'm not excusing them. I think the intolerance of religion is inexcusable, on political, philosophical, and even theological grounds.
"
Way to cover, Blaise, but I'm right. Like I said, I miss ~Blaise. There were actual discussions.
"
The piss poor part, as I said, was the hazing part. Religiosity is high among African Americans, and more specifically, evangelical Christianity is high among them, so they tend to be socially conservative. That's not a good justification, but it's the cause. It has nothing to do with hazing.
On “Nozick and Process-Defective Fundamental Explanations”
I'm not sure that a state that arises for the mutual protection of citizens is a bad thing. And it may be the case that some mesoamerican states arose that way.
As for whether we're better or worse off without the state, there's the rub. I'm not a big fan of Nozick, so I have no problem violating his philosophical demands, but it's still an important empirical question.
"
I’m not sure anything said here implies that the state cannot be philosophically justified. Looking at the origins isn’t enough to determine that. I mean, if we’re looking at the origin of human institutions and ruling out those whose origins were bad in some way, we’re pretty much fished. What’s more, there’s a difference between the origin of the state and the origin of the modern state. And even more, while we don’t really know the origin of the state, it’s entirely possible that there were different reasons for the creation of the state in different areas. For example, there may have been differences in the creation of the state in Mesopotamia vs. Mesoamerica, the latter of which may very well have arisen in order to protect either larger areas or areas of increasing density from marauders (whether it is a larger area or an increasingly dense population depends on where you were in the Americas, and how you look at the archeological evidence), rather than the facilitate marauding. We can be fairly certain that it didn’t arise the way Nozick described, which of course he knew, but philosophical justification is not just about the empirical origins of an institution.
On “Rawlsekianism Reloaded: Normative justification”
I suspect that this is where the “overlapping consensus” of PL is doing much of the work. That is, the facts that make it in would probably have to be part of the latent principles that are shared by all of the world views within the population. Admittedly, it’s a lot of work to do, but this has always been the first criticism of the original position, even before it was refined in PL. It’s why much of the Western left may be comprised of loose Rawlsians, but very few of them get there through any consideration of the original position as Rawls envisions it, but instead use it, or a naïve version of it, as a loose heuristic.
On “Nozick and Process-Defective Fundamental Explanations”
I was just amused by the idea of a really rich pick pocket who was trained as a neurosurgeon. Presumably neurosurgeons have good hands, so it seems at least remotely plausible.
"
The origin of the state is an open, and hotly debated question in anthropology. Olson’s work is interesting, and represents one of the main types of theories of the origin of the state, but it’s not the only theory, and there doesn’t seem to be a real consensus, though it’s been about 10 years since I read anything on the subject. However, its origin almost certainly looked nothing like Nozick’s version. In fact, one of the other common theories is that it arose because of the development of class strata, which led to the need for the privileged class(es) to maintain their advantages through coercion. That’s not going to lead to a state like Nozick’s, that’s for sure.
Two things not really related to your central point:
Have you read Ortega’s essay titled “The sporting origin of the state”? If not, I recommend it. In fact, I recommend the entire collection found under the title History as a System. Anyway, in that essay, Ortega posits an origin of the state that is similar to Olson’s and Hume’s, but much more scandalous (and somewhat more disturbing). It looks like the essay is available in its entirety in Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=att5WcMlI-cC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
Second, a neurosurgeon pick pocket who manages to pick pocket as much money as he would have made being a neurosurgeon is one seriously good pick pocket.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
Jay, that's partially what I was getting at in that second paragraph: the analogy wouldn't be that apt if it weren't for the fact that those who oppose gay marriage sound an awful lot like those who opposed interracial marriage.
"
Blaise, that was wonderful. Were you replying to something I said?
On “Rawlsekianism Reloaded: Normative justification”
I wonder which "discourse surrounding" the veil of ignorance you mean. That found in blog comments? I wonder because it seems strange to criticize the veil of ignorance because people use a version of it that has nothing to do with the one put forward by Rawls. I mean, behind the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, one wouldn't know one's natural abilities, so the sorts of questions you raise are precisely the ones that are supposed to be raised. Perhaps you need to hang out with people who've actually read Rawls.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
I miss ~Blaise already. Dude, that’s a piss poor explanation. Black people and Hispanics don’t oppose (some) gay rights in large numbers because they want to haze gay people, or anything like it. It’s largely a matter of religion and the social conservatism it’s created among two populations that are relatively more religious than white people. What’s more, black people tended to be socially conservative in the same ways before the civil rights movement, and for the same reason.
I think, by the way, that the SSM-interracial marriage analogy is, on the surface, pretty poor, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that anti-gay bigotry ain’t racism. Gay people can be openly gay and go to just about any school (though they might not fit in too well at Olivet or Trevecca), they can eat at just about any restaurant they want, they can sit anywhere on the bus (behind the yellow line, at least), use any water fountain, swim in any public pool, and they can vote. However, since the arguments used against gay marriage are often quite similar to the arguments used against interracial marriage, the analogy is forced upon us in some ways. In particular, if the arguments were bad then, then we have good reason to think they’re bad now in this new context. That may not always turn out to be the case, but it’s a pretty safe starting assumption, particularly given how irrational those arguments were the first time they were used.
On “Video Games are Protected Speech”
Tom, your point, as best I can tell, is the same one you've been making as long as you and I have been commenting in the same place, namely that the practical effect, if not the intended one, of secularism on the left is the abolishment of morality through law (or reinterpretation of the Constitution, or both), or to make it dependent on the findings of the social sciences. Neither of those things are true, but your failure to see that, or to even be capable of seeing that, is simply due to the fact that you can’t see other values/ethics/morals (even when they differ only slightly from yours) as values/ethics/morals: it is either your way, or no way. I call it grumpy-old-fart silliness because this is precisely what grumpy-old-farts say when they are no longer a part of the defining generation of a culture, and start to feel like their values are being undermined by the generation currently shaping things.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
Apparently you're not aware of what "ad hominem" is. Did I mischaracterize your position? You would deny objectively better conditions, and significantly better at that, to black people if white people aren't ready for it. That, in essence, is your position, is it not? It would have been better to wait for white people to be ready enough to make it politically feasible for legislatures to vote for desegregation, for example, than to do it through the courts. If I've mischaracterized your position, feel free to point out where. Even if I have, however, "ad hominem" is not appropriate in this context.
"
yeah, I failed on calling the fail. I didn't see the second it's, only the first. I think the second part of my comment was more important, though.
"
Haha... I love grammar nazi fails. Nice work, DensityD.
Anyway, it's true that they don't have equal access to the best public schools, but they have access to some public schools that aren't just afterthought schools for second-class citizens. And your argument is that they should have waited for even that, because some white people weren't ready for it (this, coincidentally, was an argument against abolishing slavery as well). I like it when people put that in public; better to know there are people like you than to have to wonder and suspect.
On “Video Games are Protected Speech”
I love that you start by saying that someone else's restatement of Thomas' opinion is uncharitable, and then procede to give the most uncharitable description of the opposition as possible. It's perfect grumpy-old-fart silliness.
On “Same-Sex Marriage in New York”
Hay-Oh!
"
It took a while because black people could still vote. Once the southern states had effectively disenfranchised most if not all black voters, there was no stopping their creation of an apartheid state. In a sense, the laws didn’t need to influence public opinion: those who agreed with them enacted and maintained the laws, and at the same time made sure that those who didn’t agree with them couldn’t do anything about it.
On “Immigration, Inequality and Pie”
Except the consensus is that immigration lowers wages for native workers, particularly low wage workers with low education levels.
"
There's been a trend away from “multiculturalism, and towards integration, in The Netherlands since the early to mid-90s. The multiculturalist views and policies of the 80s have long since been either been watered down or replaced by integrationist policies. The current right-wing government has, to be sure, been actively trying to get rid of the last vestiges of the 80s “multiculturalism,” but this is hardly a new position, or the work of kooks. These are the high ups in the cabinet we’re talking about.
"
ken, you have to understand that Tom is a frequent critic of social science research as a whole when it is presented as evidence against his positions, but will occasionally find one study that supports his views and throw it out as though it were the only study that could possibly matter. So yeah, the venom is necessary.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.