Lately I've been writing about the influences that can be discerned in the theories of John Rawls. Rawls was a "social contract theorist"; to what extent were his theories shaped and framed by his reading of the great contract theorists such as Locke, Rousseau, or Kant? He was also influenced by the history of economic …
Detroit: Taking charge of our story
New Detroit (link) and Wayne State University are putting on a major and significant conference on how the story of Detroit is being told today. Detroit is getting a lot of press these days --and it's mostly about crisis, decline, and despair. It is hard for a city to move forward in the context of …
Marx’s influence on Rawls
John Rawls and Karl Marx shared a number of core intellectual concerns. Both were interested in the question of what features a good and just society should have; both had theories about the good human life; and both understood that the benefits of modern life depend upon social cooperation. So it is interesting to ask …
The moral sentiments
One of Adam Smith's contributions to the study of philosophical ethics is his book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It is an interesting work, one part descriptive moral psychology, one part theory of the emotions. Here is the opening paragraph (link): How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his …
Rawls on Marx; December 1973
John Rawls taught a course on the history of political philosophy throughout much of his career at Harvard University. The course contained his description and analysis of the most important figures in modern political philosophy, including Mill, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Marx. The course evolved over time; the final version from 1994 is edited in …
Essentializing race?
PBS is running a program this month called "Faces of America" (link), hosted by distinguished African-American Studies professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The program focuses on a handful of celebrity guests, a genetic profile for each, and then a variety of "surprising" discoveries about the genealogies of various of the guests. What I found surprising and …
Appearance and reality in public life
So what kind of democracy do we have? Do our institutions do a great job of establishing the public interest over the medium term, or have our institutions been captured by private interests, leaving essentially no real power in the hands of citizens? The way it is supposed to work, according to Civics 101: Elected …
Democracy and agency in development ethics
Development ethics is an area of applied ethics that attempts to explore the moral issues involved in global social and economic transformation. Key to the urgency of the field is the fact of massive global poverty, hunger, and inequality. The current situation of the world's poor -- in Egypt, India, Mexico, Sudan, or Brazil, for …
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Rawls and decision theory
John Rawls's A Theory of Justice was a strikingly original contribution to political philosophy upon its appearance in 1971. Against the prevailing preference for "meta-ethics" in the field of philosophical ethics, Rawls made an effort to arrive at substantive, non-tautological principles that could be justified as a sort of "moral constitution" for a just society. The theory …
Business interests and democracy
The central ideal of democracy is the notion that citizens can express their political and policy preferences through political institutions, and that the policies selected will reflect those preferences. We also expect that elected officials will act ethically in support of the best interests of the public. This is their public trust. The anti-democratic possibility …
Understanding Society 