Abstract: After surveying the strengths and weaknesses of several well-known approaches to wisdom, I argue for a new theory of wisdom that focuses on being epistemically, practically, and morally rational. My theory of wisdom, The Deep Rationality Theory of Wisdom, claims that a wise person is a person who is rational and who is deeply committed to increasing his or her level of rationality. This theory is a departure from theories of wisdom that demand practical and/or theoretical knowledge. The Deep Rationality Theory salvages all that is attractive, and avoids all that is problematic, about theories of wisdom that require wise people to be knowledgeable.
Contracts and Choices: Does Rawls Have a Social Contract Theory?
Introduction: In A Theory of Justice John Rawls tells us he is presenting a social contract theory: “My aim,” he writes, “is to present a conception of justice which generalizes and carries to a higher level of abstraction the familiar theory of the social contract as found in say, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant”. And indeed his many and various critics have generally assumed he has a contractarian position and have criticized him on that basis. However, it will be my contention in this paper that a contractual agreement on the two principles not only does not but ought not to occur in the original position, and that, although Rawls uses contract language in his book, there is another procedure outlined in Part One of A Theory of Justice through which the two principles are selected.
Rescuing Luck Egalitarianism
Introduction: There was once a luck egalitarian school of thought, according to which disadvantage arising due to bad luck was unjust—at the bar of egalitarian justice—while disadvantage arising due to choice was just, at least if the choice was exercised against the background of equal options. “Choice” in this context needed to be “genuine choice”—which, for some, meant “voluntary,” and for others, also “freely willed”—but if it was genuine, then it did not matter whether it was a silly mistake or a considered course of action: if it led to disadvantage, its presence was deemed sufficient to justify leaving the agent to bear the disadvantage. Let’s call the view that choice leading to disadvantage is sufficient to justify the disadvantage, at least if choice was exercised against the background of equal options, the inflated view of choice. […] The inflated view was so crude that in the face of criticism pointing out its crudeness, its supporters have adopted more sophisticated views, and no recent luck egalitarian has defended the crude version. These more sophisticated views recognize that the mere fact that an outcome has been chosen does not make the outcome just—not even by the standards of egalitarian justice alone.
In what follows, I will argue that this dominant reading of early luck egalitarianism as committed to the inflated view is, at best, a one-sided interpretation of the iconic writings of the luck egalitarian literature advanced by its most famous proponents, namely Arneson, Cohen, and Dworkin. Their writings did not unambiguously point toward the inflated view; if the early texts were interpreted more charitably, we could have, perhaps, avoided associating luck egalitarianism with the inflated view, arriving immediately at the sophisticated versions of luck egalitarianism dominating the field today.
What’s Ideal about Ideal Theory?
Introduction: One of the main tasks that occupies political theorists, and arouses intense debate among them, is the construction of theories—so-called ideal theories—that share a common characteristic: much of what they say offers no immediate or workable solutions to any of the problems our societies face. This feature is not one that theorists strive to achieve but nor can it be described as an accidental one: these theories are constructed in the full knowledge that, whatever else they may offer, much of what they say will not be immediately applicable to the urgent problems of policy and institutional design. Since this may seem puzzling, and has been subjected to severe criticism, the main task of this paper is to ask what is the point of ideal theory and to show the nature of its value. I will also argue that, while the debate over the point of ideal theory can be productive, it will only be so if we avoid treating ideal and nonideal theories as rival approaches to political theory.
Freedom, Force and Choice: Against the Rights-Based Definition of Voluntariness
Introduction: This paper argues that a moralised definition of voluntariness, alongside the more familiar moralised definition of freedom, underlies libertarian justifications of the unbridled market. Through an analysis of Nozick’s account of voluntary choice, I intend to reveal some fatal mistakes, and to put forward some suggestions regarding what a satisfactory account of voluntary choice requires.
The Moral Magic of Consent
Abstract: We regularly wield powers that, upon close scrutiny, appear remarkably magical. By sheer exercise of will, we bring into existence things that have never existed before. With but a nod, we effect the disappearance of things that have long served as barriers to the actions of others. And, by mere resolve, we generate things that pose significant obstacles to others’ exercise of liberty. What is the nature of these things that we create and destroy by our mere decision to do so? The answer: the rights and obligations of others. And by what seemingly magical means do we alter these rights and obligations? By making promises and issuing or revoking consent When we make promises, we generate obligations for ourselves, and when we give consent, we create rights for others. Since the rights and obligations that are affected by means of promising and consenting largely define the boundaries of permissible action, our exercise of these seemingly magical powers can significantly affect the lives and liberties of others
Obligation and Consent – II
Introduction: [The doctrine of “hypothetical consent”] teaches that your obligation depends not on any actual act of consenting, past or present, by yourself or your fellow-citizens, but on the character of the government. If it is a good, just government doing what a government should, then you must obey it; if it is a tyrannical, unjust government trying to do what no government may, then you have no such obligation. Or to put it another way, your obligation depends not on whether you have consented but on whether the government is such that you ought to consent to it, whether its actions are in accord with the authority a hypothetical group of rational men in a hypothetical state of nature would have (had) to give to any government they were founding. Having shown how this formulation emerges from Locke’s and Tussman’s ideas, I want now to defend it as a valid response to what troubles us about political obligation, and as a response more consonant than most with the moral realities of human decisions about obedience and resistance. At the same time the discussion should also demonstrate how many different or even conflicting things that one might want to call “consent” continue to be relevant – a fact which may help to explain the tenacity of traditional consent theory in the face of its manifest difficulties. Such a defense and demonstration, with detailed attention to such decisions, are difficult; the discussion from here on will be more speculative, and will raise more questions than it answers.
Obligation and Consent – I
Introduction: One might suppose that if political theorists are by now clear about anything at all, they should be clear about the problem of political obligation and the solution to it most commonly offered, the doctrine of consent. The greatest modern political theorists took up this problem and formulated this answer. The resulting theories are deeply imbedded in our American political tradition; as a consequence we are al- ready taught a sort of rudimentary consent theory in high school. And yet I want to suggest that we are not even now clear on what “the problem of political obligation” is, what sorts of “answers” are appropriate to it, what the con- sent answer really says, or whether it is a satis- factory answer. This essay is designed to point up the extent of our confusion, to explore some of the ground anew as best it can, and to invite further effort by others. That such effort is worthwhile, that such political theory is still worth considering and that it can be made genuinely relevant to our world, are the assump- tions on which this essay rests and the larger message it is meant to convey
Children as Public Goods?
Content: Olsaretti is interested in the question of whether nonparents in a just society have a duty to share some of the costs of raising children with those people who choose to be parents. She considers the main argument in favour of that claim, that children are public goods. Although she sees some merit in the public goods approach, she develops an alternative socialised goods argument, which she holds to be ultimately stronger.
Fundamental Properties and the Laws of Nature
Abstract: Fundamental properties and the laws of nature go hand in hand: mass and gravitation, charge and electromagnetism, spin and quantum mechanics. So, it is unsurprising that one’s account of fundamental properties affects one’s view of the laws of nature and vice versa. In this essay,the author surveys a variety of recent attempts to provide a joint account of the fundamental properties and the laws of nature. Many of these accounts are new and unexplored. Some of them posit surprising entities, such as counterfacts. Other accounts posit surprising laws of nature, such as instantaneous laws that constrain the initial configuration of particles. These exciting developments challenge our assumptions about our basic ontology and provide fertile ground for further exploration.