May 2008

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On the charge “That is Utopian”

Friday, 30 May 2008 in Posts, Problems by Matthew Smith | 12 comments

Greetings Public Reasoners, Nicole’s post has gotten me thinking (okay, it’s gotten me to post; I’ve been thinking about this for a while) about the significance of data to political theory. In particular, it’s gotten me thinking about people charging that some political theory is too utopian.

For example, suppose I propose that we eliminate the system of nation-states and replace it with some other system (take your pick). One might reject that proposal out of hand simply because it is too utopian. But to what does this claim amount? Is it a sort of “Can’t get there from here” sort of claim? I.e., does it amount to saying something like, “That would be great, but we could never achieve that state of affairs given present, although contingently existing, constraints”? Or, is it something more – a claim about nomological necessity? But, what laws of nature would the realization of such a proposal (whatever it is) violate?

I ask this question partially because it seems to me that the question of empirical research in political philosophy is largely used in order to make arguments that, while they do not have the form of the utopia-charge above, nonetheless suggest one of the readings of the utopia-charge. The arguments run as follows:

1. Political theory P runs afoul of empirical evidence X and Y.

2. Political theories must not run afoul of empirical evidence of Type A, of which X and Y are tokens.

3. So, P should be rejected.

The major premise is (2), but why accept ANY premise like (2)? I presume any answer would appeal to something about the *aims* of political theory and then claim that anything with aims of that sort (i.e., the sort of aims that political theory has) must be regulated by certain norms, N1, N2, etc. And, among these norms is N*, which is Premise (2) above.

Now, that is not a simple argument to flesh out. It certainly isn’t something at which we can merely wave our hands. A lot more needs to be said, and a lot of it will be thickly normative in character.

Anyway, I am working on a paper on this, but I would really enjoy reading people’s comments about this. I know that what I have written is pretty jumbled and inchoate, but hey, such is my life. In general. Like, I live a jumbled, inchoate life.

Too early for bourbon, Matt

Experimental Political Philosophy

Friday, 23 May 2008 in Posts, Problems by Nicole Hassoun | 9 comments

Some people might be interested in an experiment that will be appearing in Utilitas on how people think about meeting needs. I should mention that the experiment plays a rather minor role in the paper which argues for a new principle for meeting needs and critiques several of the alternatives (including the principle David Miller advocates in Principles of Social Justice). It will appear on my website shortly. I should also mention that the experiment was conducted with Yali Corea-Levy at the University of Arizona.

experiment

Thanks! -Nicole

Why Libertarians Should Be Welfare Liberals

Friday, 23 May 2008 in Posts, Problems, Working Papers by Nicole Hassoun | 12 comments

I came across a nice paper by John Simmons a while back on why libertarians should be actual consent theorists and decided that I could combine his argument with something derived from an argument I’ve got coming out in the American Philosophical Quarterly to show that libertarians (who accept the following assumptions) should be welfare liberals. I’ve got the link to a draft of the paper on my website (http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/papers.php) but thought I’d post the argument here, just to see if any one has any thoughts on it. The assumptions that follow block some obvious objections.

1. Assumption: Libertarians agree that any existing states must be legitimate and some states should exist.
2. Assumption: Libertarians hold that for any existing states to be legitimate they must only exercise coercive force over (rights respecting) individuals to protect these individuals’ liberty.
3. From Simmons’ argument in “Consent theory for libertarians”: Libertarians should agree that for state to be legitimate, they must secure their subjects’ autonomous consent.
4. For states to secure their subjects autonomous consent, they must do what they can to enable their subjects to secure sufficient autonomy to autonomously consent to its rules.
5. To secure this autonomy most people (in all states) must be able to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
6. So, states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
7. Implicit premise: If libertarians must agree that states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter, they must be (some kind of) welfare liberals.
8. So libertarians should be (some kind of) welfare liberals.

Thoughts?

Thanks, -Nicole

Why not hybrid embryos?

Thursday, 22 May 2008 in Posts, Problems by Thom Brooks | 4 comments

Recently, British MP’s voted to allow the creation of hybrid embryos for medical research. These embryos would be 99.9% “human” but 0.1% “cow” or “rabbit” — the animal element is simply the use of animal eggs, from which animal DNA is extracted, human DNA implanted, the “hybrid” embryo is then given an electric shock, and then stem cells harvested for use in research. All matter must be destroyed within 14 days. (Q&A on hybrid embryos can be found here.)

This move has been highly controversial for several reasons. Some of these reasons include the following:

1. It is morally wrong to mix human and animal DNA in this way.

This first reason is perhaps the primary reason behind opposition to this legislation. There are several problems with this argument.

First, what do we mean by “morally wrong”? It is easy to claim a position is “morally wrong”; it is difficult to prove a position is morally wrong in a compelling way. That is, deontologists and consequentialists can agree on many ethical issues, but they will not agree on all ethical issues. Who then decides? We would have to see the best arguments on both sides in order to see which view should prevail. It is no use to say that x is “morally wrong” without a full account of morality, not least as there are many different camps and what is wrong (and right) is not self evident.

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Justice, Culture and Tradition

Friday, 16 May 2008 in Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Institute for Advanced Study: 2-4 June 2008

Via Jacob T. Levy, a conference on Walzer at the IAS in Princeton:

To recognize Michael Walzer’s contributions to the ethical and political philosophy of the twentieth century, a conference titled Justice, Culture and Tradition will take place June 2-4, 2008 at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), Princeton, New Jersey.

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CFP: Harvard Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Friday, 16 May 2008 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Harvard: 31 October – 1 November 2008 | CFP: 1 August 2008

Via Jacob T. Levy:

The Department of Government (FAS) at Harvard University will host its second conference for graduate students in political theory and political philosophy from October 31 – November 1, 2008. Papers on any theme or topic within political theory—from the history of political thought to contemporary normative and conceptual theory—will be considered. Between seven and twelve papers will be accepted.

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CFP: Reason in Contemporary Public Space

Friday, 16 May 2008 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Bucharest: 14-15 November 2008 | CFP: 1 October 2008

The Philosophy Faculty at the University of Bucharest is hosting a conference on Reason in Contemporary Public Space on 14-15 November 2008. From their website:

Is there a place for reason in contemporary public space? Has the Kantian “public use of reason” lost its appeal for our societies, being demoted to the status of a mere philosophical abstraction? The ever-rising importance of marketing (both commercial and political) in setting the public agenda, the growing impact of new media and the increasing tendency of clustering in relatively isolated, and often virtual, communities, might be regarded as justifying the dramatic overtones of the questions above. If elections, customers, debates, fans or friends are to be won by appeal to rhetoric, imagery and emotions rather than argument, isn’t one of the most venerable philosophical traditions to be held guilty of over-rating a specific faculty which might be, after all, just a “slave of passions”?

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Useful Distractions: International Law Blog

Thursday, 15 May 2008 in Posts by David Lefkowitz | 1 comment

Procrastinating a bit this morning, I stumbled upon another blog that may be of interest to many readers of Public Reason.  The blog is called Opinio Juris, and it focuses on international law: the URL is www.opiniojuris.org.  I found a recent reading group on Peter Spiro’s new book Beyond Citizenship: American identity After Globalization quite thought-provoking.  This introduction from Spiro should be enough to whet your appetite:

“I thought I’d lead off with three developments each of which poses a serious challenge to American identity going forward.
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CFP: Public Reason Political Philosophy Podcast Symposium

Tuesday, 6 May 2008 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | 3 comments

Political Philosophy Podcast Symposium: Fall 2008 | CFP: 31 July 2008

I’d like to invite submissions for a semester-long online symposium of papers in political philosophy during Fall 2008 that I would like to host on the website. The idea is that each week a paper will be podcasted on the website by the author and receive comments in response. Symposium submissions will be subject to a process of blind review by a committee of members of the website. Papers in all areas of political philosophy and theory are welcome.

The aim of the symposium is to utilise the resources at our disposal to create a conference experience accessible to every academic in the world, both as a presenter and as a participant. Conference participation is an important part of our research activities as academics, but logistical difficulties and expenses can sometimes make conference travel impossible, especially at the international level. The function of the symposium is to create an online conference in a format designed to elicit as much feedback from fellow academics as possible whilst creating no significant financial or logistical difficulties for participants whatsoever. Those selected will be able to present their papers to an unlimited number of colleagues without having to leave their offices. The papers will be presented on a weekly basis to allow a reasonable time period for comments. The papers will be podcasted to make them as accessible as possible to a wide audience.

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Death: What It Is and Why It Matters

Monday, 5 May 2008 in Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | 1 comment

University of York: 17-18 July 2008

A two-day conference on the nature and significance of death, organised by the philosophy departments of the Open University and the University of York, is to be held on the Heslington campus of the latter on 17-18 July 2009.

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CFP: The Epistemological Significance of Disagreement

Monday, 5 May 2008 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Episteme: 26-27 June 2009 | CFP: 15 January 2009

Something that may be of interest to political philosophers working on the significance of disagreement:

Episteme will holds its sixth annual conference at Northwestern University on 26-27 June 2009. The 2009 meeting will focus on the epistemological significance of disagreement. Confirmed participants include Michael Bergman (Purdue), Stewart Cohen (Arizona State), Sherrilyn Roush (Berkeley) and Roger White (MIT).

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Torture, Law, and War

Monday, 5 May 2008 in Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Via the University of Chicago Law Faculty Blog:

The website for the UC Conference on Torture, Law, and War now has audio and video of conference presentations available. Participants include the philosophers Nancy Sherman, Marcia Baron, Claudia Card, David Sussman, Scott Anderson, and Jeff McMahan, amongst others. Albie Sachs (South African Constitutional Court) gave the keynote address, “Four Tales of Terrorism.”