Monthly Archives
The Boundaries of Justice
The overarching concern in the idea of justice is the need to have just relations with others—and even to have appropriate sentiments about others; and what motivates the search is the diagnosis of injustice in ongoing arrangements. In some cases, this might demand the need to change an existing boundary of sovereignty—a concern that motivated Hume’s staunchly anti-colonial position. (He once remarked, “Oh! How I long to see America and the East Indies revolted totally & finally.”) Or it might relate to the Humean recognition that as we expand trade and other relations with foreign countries, our sentiments as well as our reasoning have to take note of the recognition that “the boundaries of justice still grow larger,” without the necessity to place all the people involved in our conception of justice within the confines of one sovereign state.
Amartya Sen, in The National Review, “The Boundaries of Justice.”
Scalar Consequentialism and Constructed Permissibility
Is it plausible that some non-optimal level of good will is “adequate” to avoid blameworthiness? How might the details of this go — have theorists of blame said much about this?
Obama/Clinton?
Nobel Prize winner and former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, makes the case for the “natural” Obama/Clinton ticket in 2012:
Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.
Boredom? ADHD?
John Plotz in the New York Times: Their Noonday Demons, and Ours
These days, when we try to get a fix on our wasted time, we use labels that run from the psychological (distraction, “mind-wandering” or “top-down processing deficit”) to the medical (A.D.H.D., hypoglycemia) to the ethical (laziness, poor work habits). But perhaps “acedia” is the label we need. After all, it afflicted those whose pursuits prefigured the routines of many workers in the postindustrial economy. Acedia’s sufferers were engaged in solitary, sedentary, cerebral effort toward a clear final goal — but a goal that could be reached only by crossing an open, empty field with few signposts. The empty field is the monk’s day of spiritual contemplation in a cell besieged by the demon acedia — or your afternoon in a coffee shop with tiptop Wi-Fi.
Tie a Four-in-Hand Knot
Still have a teammate or your mom tying your ties before tournaments?
Alexander Olch — Knot Yourself from Alexander Olch on Vimeo.
