Year: 2013
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I have some questions about violence
It looks like I’ll be co-teaching a course on violence with Daniel Levine in the spring, and I have some questions: Is it just me, or do philosophers rarely talk about violence? We talk a lot about killing, and war, and punishment, and even torture. We talk about peace and non-violence. But “violence” doesn’t come…
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A Tuesday morning twelve years ago…
I generally hate the hyper-patriotic memorialization of this day, as I’d prefer to forget. But today saw many on social media sharing their stories, so I thought I’d share mine, too. I was in the subway, headed to work at the Civilian Complaint Review Board a couple blocks south of the towers, in the financial district.…
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Varieties of Inequality
I can think of at least six kinds of inequality: Inequality of income: different people receive different wages, either for different jobs or for the same job, as profits from capital investments, or as government subsidies, transfer payments, or private charity. Inequality of consumption: different people consume different products (i.e. the generic widget) in differing…
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Giving Well: Oxfam versus BRAC
Daniel Levine has an interesting discussion of giving and giving well up today on whyiamwrongabouteverything: When I got a “real” job at USIP, back in 2007, I resolved that I was going to donate 10 percent of the portion of my take-home pay that I kept for personal use (as opposed to what I contribute…
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Why Daniel Levine is Wrong About Everything
Well, he’s not. But that’s the title of his new blog. (Apparently he is challenging me for the title of “Most Contrite Fallibilist.” He’s even taken the nom de plume of “Wrongzo.” Bastard.) For his first substantive post, “What should we mock about when we mock about guns?” he parodies my attempts to articulate a…