-
The Teleological Paradox in Utilitarianism and Education
In my brief response to Community College Dean a few weeks back, I said something that I think is pretty obvious, but that is often ignored: humanities advocates spend so much time fighting the instrumental approach to education [because] you’ve got to pretend like time doesn’t matter, or else the education won’t work. Consider the classic…
-
Season of Political Irrelevance Update
The Obama administration brews its own beer Weigel takes a stab at serious policy Weigel has predicated a lot on the conditional statement: “If you look at it right, then you’ll see serious policy.” But we don’t have any evidence for the antecedent, that the public or the media *will* “look at it right.” More to…
-
The Season of Political Irrelevance
It is my considered opinion that the next three months will involve no serious deliberations regarding substantive public policy. Though readership and viewership for such matters will be at its highest, none of the things discussed will be discussed in a way that comports with public reason or with anything like the goal of exchanging…
-
Another Badly-Aimed Attack on the Basic Income Guarantee from Crooked Timber
John Quiggin has been taking up the case against the basic income guarantee at Crooked Timber recently. See here and here. Unfortunately, he is attacking a weak man version of the policy. It doesn’t look like he actually opposes the BIG, in theory, but his objections all appear to demonstrate that a Basic Income is…
-
The Fallacy Fallacy [sic] of Mood Affiliation (Workplace Domination Part Two)
In his initial response to the the Crooked Timber bloggers, Cowen also suggests that he doesn’t like the “mood affiliation” of the CT bloggers: I am not comfortable with the mood affiliation of the piece. How about a simple mention of the massive magnitude of employee theft in the United States, perhaps in the context…