Category: Politics & Society

History of Political Thought:

• Beginner's Locke - Overview of Locke's famous Letter Concerning Toleration.


• Did Machiavelli's "Prince" live in the Hobbesian State of Nature? - Machiavelli might have been a multi-lateralist after all.


• Rousseau and the "General Will" - Overview of Rousseau's political philosophy in The Social Contract.


• Collective Intelligence and Rousseau - Comparing new ideas in social science to those Rousseau had centuries earlier.


• Political Fictions - Bentham and Hume versus 'Natural Rights' and 'Social Contracts'


• On Liberty - Examining J.S. Mill's famous arguments for freedom of speech and action.

Freedom:

• Substantive Freedom - the only sort worth having, and how mere non-interference is insufficient to provide it. See also Enabling Humanity.


• Freedom and Markets - What is the relation between the two?


• Liberty & Independence - or 'why I am not a libertarian', based on an odd mix of Mill and Rousseau.


• The New Freedom - relates metaphysical 'free will' to political freedom, and argues that liberalism is better (for freedom) than libertarianism.


• Freedom and Constraint - Argues for a more expansive understanding of 'freedom', by also considering internal and negative constraints.


• Freedom and Autonomy - How 'positive liberty' fits into the picture.


• General Freedom - Some freedoms are more important than others, but how are we to go about weighing them? Could we use such a measure to inform our account of 'general' or 'on balance' freedom?


• Illiberal Democracy - The problem with American 'democracy'.


• Civil Freedom vs. Political Power - Sometimes being anti-democratic is the liberal thing to do.


• Advertising and the Mental Environment - Does the constant barrage of commercial advertising threaten our autonomy?


• Rousseau and Freedom (essay)


• Libertarians for State Intervention! - how property rights restrict freedom. See also Poverty as Unfreedom and A Reasonable Resolution.


• Blogging Freedom - external links to my comments on other blogs.


• More on libertarianism - an overview of my anti-libertarian arguments, and a response to a response.

Justice, Equality, and Desert:

• "Libertarian vs. Utilitarian Justice" essay (+ outline)


• Group Welfare - Do groups matter more than the individuals they comprise? If not, do we have any intrinsic reason to care about (e.g. racial) group inequalities?


• Utility, Equality and Priority - Does relative equality have any intrinsic value, or is it just people's absolute level of well-being that matters? See also Against Egalitarianism.


• Equal Concern - What does it mean for government to show "equal concern" for the interests of all citizens? See also The Veil of Ignorance and The Best Distribution.


• Is Justice Created or Discovered?


• Talent, Effort, and Desert - Do we only deserve reward for effort? Must we default to equal outcomes when people are equally deserving? See also Entitlement and Desert.


• Past-Blind Justice - see also Utility and Just Deserts.


• Is Justice Created or Discovered?


• Historical Justice - introduction to libertarian 'entitlement theory'.


• Voluntary Exchange, Just Transfer, and Inequality, Freedom & Power.


• Ongoing Needs and Future-Blind Justice - see also Justice for the Generations.


• Self-Ownership - see also Libertarians for Infanticide!


• Initial Acquisition - see also Libertarians for Confiscation of Property!, Left-Libertarianism, and Original Appropriation.


• Why Taxation Is Not Theft - see also Forced Labour

General Political Philosophy:

• Law and Morality - What, exactly, is the connection between the two?


• Tradition - Do appeals to tradition have any rational force?


• Analyzing Political Correctness - I argue that political correctness is essentially a matter of inappropriate or excessive concern to avoid causing offense.


• The Politics of Individualism - What substantive political conclusions follow from the philosophical claim that "the individual is the locus of value"?


• Respect, Tolerance & War - On the difference between tolerance and approval, and why we shouldn't tolerate the intolerant.


• The Prostitution of Labour - Are workers being exploited?


• Universal Basic Income - why it's a better idea than traditional (targetted) welfare benefits. See also Basic Income for the Economy's Sake, and UBI, Freedom, and Reciprocity.

Education and Civics:

• Education - What should schools be teaching? I argue that a greater emphasis on skills and understanding over mere facts/information would be preferable.


• The Role of Schools - Seems to be both to educate and socialize. Would we do better to separate these two goals? Could homeschooling achieve this?


• Education and Civic Engagement - Researching "engaged universities", and looking at whether students should be encouraged to get more involved in their communities.


• Opposing ID - Should "Intelligent Design" Creationism be taught in schools?

Social Issues / Applied Ethics:

• Abortion's Common Ground - what everyone should agree on.


• Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies - is it better to focus on education and contraception, or wishful thinking about 'sexual purity'?


• Infanticide & Abortion - Is there a difference? Perhaps newborns aren't really 'persons' yet, and so aren't intrinsically valuable after all?


• Universal Voluntary Euthanasia - Does acceptance of medical euthanasia commit us to a much more expansive societal acceptance of suicide? If so, is that a bad thing?


• Smoking Bans - Are they justified?


• Sex Differences vs. Gender Bias - What should be uncontroversial about the "Summers controversy".


• Minimum Wage - doesn't cause unemployment after all


• Institutional Evil


• Suicide and Traffic Jams - which is more important?


• Animal Ethics - Is meat-eating immoral?


• Charity - some thoughts on direct vs. indirect (activity-sponsorship) methods of charitable donation, and the relative benefits of private charity vs. government aid.


• What can little New Zealand do? - On the moral significance of indiscernible contributions, and how this impacts upon contemporary debates about the Kyoto Protocol and about military spending.


• Respect vs. Popularity - which is more important?

Race & Ethnicity:

• Race, Generalisatons, and Profiling - some difficult questions. See also The Ethics of Generalization.


• Some Just Can't Take a Joke - The PC Police crack down on New Zealand public servants


• Affirmative Aristocracy - Objections to the 'argument from superiority' for affirmative action, and also the argument from inferiority


• Affirmative Market Action - Presents my 'argument from market forces' defence of (limited) discrimination in the workplace


• All New Zealanders - Rejects both extremes of assimilation vs biculturalism, in favour of reciprocal integration.


• New Zealand Day - Should we replace 'Waitangi Day' with something less divisive?


• Culturally "Offensive" Playdough - Respect for other cultures does not mean letting them impose their taboos on others.


• Multiculturalism vs. Individual Rights - Outlining an objective method for determining whether an individual would be better off if given rights which contradict their cultural values.


• Multicultural Conservatism - Why do radical leftists support conservatives so long as they're from non-Western cultures?


• Parableman on Affirmative Action - Quick link to a great series of posts by Jeremy Pierce.

Family Values:

• Pseudo-Philosophy - Exposing a fallacious 'argument' against gay marriage


• Fafblog! - Hilarity involving homophobia and Iraq


• Gay Marriage Analogies - Why it's silly to compare gay marriage with "voting dogs".


• Gay Marriage Arguments - Are there any reasonable arguments against gay marriage? This post discusses the most common ones.


• Marriage and Childrearing - Even if childrearing were the sole purpose of marriage, that still wouldn't excuse banning gay marriage.


• Pornography and Censorship (essay)


• Sexist Rape Laws - men can be victims too.

Law and Crime:

• Brash on Crime - what role should prisons play in society?


• The Death Penalty - Is it a big deal?


• In Defence of Assassination - Why not attack those who are really responsible for war?


• Restorative Justice - Does it work?


• The Ethics of Spam - Might those who respond to spam be almost as blameworthy as those who send it?


• Drug Legalisation - Poking some holes in an argument that attempts to show that legalisation would increase drug usage.


• Clean Slate - Should the government encourage ex-criminals to lie about their past?


• Laws should serve us - a couple of examples that don't.


• Unenforced Laws - a bad idea?


• Jury Service - Describes my experience as a juror.


• What a mug - Describes my experience of getting mugged.

Politics:

• The Left/Right Divide - What's the essential difference between these rival ideologies? See also Left-Wing Ideology.


• Political Survey - They say I'm a left-wing pragmatist. (Left-libertarian according to the political compass.) See also New Political Survey, Political Brew, and Times.


• Successful Politics: Facts or Values? - Have facts become redundant? See also Get Out The Facts


• The Wellbeing Manifesto - Some good ideas.


• Culture Wars - how should middle class liberals relate to a conservative working class?


• Morality vs. Sexual Morality - How conservatives hijack moral language.


• The "Morally Superior" - A new framing strategy to highlight the right-wing analogue of 'political correctness'.


• Israeli spies - New Zealand vs Israel. And a good time was had by all.


• The Palestine-Israel Conflict (essay)


• Election Reflection - The implications of four more years for Bush.


• Outsourcing Torture - Republicans try to legalize sending terrorist suspects overseas to be tortured. See also Please Fix America.