My Recent Podcasts on Trust, Polarization, Liberalism, and Must Politics Be War?
In case you’re driving around and have a chance to listen to some podcasts, I recorded two in the last few weeks on The Philosophy Guy and The Curious Task. We talk about the book, but also a whole range of related issues, like the nature and sources of political polarization, the relationship between liberalism […]
Build Big Philosophical Theories and Study Those Who Did
Jason Brennan wrote a nice reply to my defense of the great historical philosophers against Mike Huemer’s critique of them. I think the best way to respond is to outline two different ways of thinking about how to make progress in philosophy that I think roughly parallel how Brennan and I approach our own work. […]
Great Philosophers as Architects: A Reply to Huemer
Philosopher Mike Huemer has recently blogged that most of the great philosophers make terrible arguments, and are great primarily because they turned out to be influential (this follows a previous post on history of philosophy, which I responded to as well). Mike received pushback, including a comment from Roderick Long, which I wanted to explore […]
What Are the Romulans Afraid Of? [Picard Spoilers]
One of the interesting new mysteries in Star Trek: Picard is why Romulan culture is hostile to artificial intelligence, so hostile that the secret society within the Tal Shiar, the Zhat Vash, have had a vendetta against artificial life for thousands of years. Why would this be? I’m not sure, but here are four possibilities: […]
Mitt Romney Mixed Faith and Politics. Good for Him.
In a remarkable interview, Mitt Romney explains his reasons for voting to convict Trump, probably to his grave political detriment. I can’t see any advantage to his vote, so I believe what he says about his reasoning. What I find especially fascinating about Romney’s decision is how he came to it. First, Romney tried to […]
The Best Version of Liberal Neutrality
Here I outline a version of liberal neutrality I find philosophically attractive. My approach begins by focusing on the moral considerations that lead us to care about neutrality, rather than analyzing the concept of neutrality as an ideal in itself. I then generate a principle of political justification that has those good-making features we want […]
Philosophy Makes Path-Dependent Progress
One of the most peculiar features of philosophy, much remarked upon, is that philosophy doesn’t seem to make progress. Not only that, we seem to return to the same views again and again. What explains this? Philosophers disagree (as usual!), but I’d like to offer a hypothesis with two parts. (1) Theory Space is Large. […]
Are Liberal Regimes as Coercive as Integralist Regimes?
A week or so ago, Dave Atenasio published a nice reply to my post arguing that integralist regimes will have a hard time generating requisite levels of stability without lots of coercion. The piece is well-done, so check it out, but I’d like to jump right to the heart of the matter. I concede freely […]
Are Some People Angry and Bitter by Nature?
One thing I’ve learned in observing failed attempts at reconciliation is that some people just don’t want to be reconciled with others. They would rather remain angry with them, or worse, to be bitter and contemptuous towards them. I find it easy to be angry and bitter with others; and I experience contempt regularly. But […]
Is Integralism Unreasonable? Yes. Should Integralists Care? Well …
Micah Schwartzman and Jocelyn Wilson’s recent article on the unreasonableness of integralism led to much integralist criticism on Twitter, and even criticism from non-integralist Catholic conservatives. It’s important to recognize that Schwartzman and Wilson expressly state that they’re not trying to engage integralists on their own terms, but to use integralism as the paradigmatic case […]