The President is above the law.
The police are above the law.
So what’s the point of having laws, again?
Tag Archives | Ethics
Post-Aynalytic Philosophy
Immediately after you finish David Gordon’s aforementioned online course on “Ayn Rand and Objectivism,” you can start his online course on “Libertarianism and Contemporary Philosophy.” (The poster says “Libertarianism and Modern Philosophers,” but since in academic parlance modernity begins with the Renaissance, and courses on “modern” political philosophy would generally be expected to focus on folks like Hobbes and Locke, I’m going with the title at the top of the course’s announcement page rather than the title on the poster.)
The course will deal with the arguments pro and con of inter alia John Rawls, Gerry Cohen, Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, and Jan Narveson – as well as, yes, the argumentation ethics of Hans-Hermann Hoppe. (That’s Rawls in the pic, not David, btw.)
Deadline Reminder
Reminder that the deadline for the Molinari Society’s call for papers is tomorrow.
You Wanna Bet?
Betting is the replacement for dueling.
It’s not a perfect replacement, of course. (Nothing is a perfect replacement for anything else.) It only applies in certain cases. But what it has in common with dueling is the challenge either to back up one’s opinion or retract it. In that sense, it serves a similar social function, and gives the challenger a similar feeling of satisfaction. And in addition to being (obviously) morally preferable to dueling, a challenge to wager also makes more sense epistemically. When a challenge is accepted, the outcome of the wager can show who’s right, whereas the outcome of a fight doesn’t (unless the wager is about relative fighting prowess, but in that case the duel just is a wager). And when a challenge is refused, well, fear of being refuted is an epistemically relevant reason to retract an opinion, while fear of being killed is not.
The Only and His Own?
Steven Horwitz argues that libertarians’ “leave us alone” rhetoric can be harmful. (CHT Charles.) Although Steve’s explicit focus is on how such rhetoric can mislead nonlibertarians, I think there’s also an implicit concern about the ways in which it can likewise distort our own self-understanding as libertarians.
Aynalytic Philosophy, Part 2
In yet further related news, my friend David Gordon is offering an online course on Ayn Rand through the Mises Academy. Sign up now!
I must chide David, however, for his claim that “few activities are as much fun as philosophical arguments.” A philosophical argument is not an activity; it is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition, and as such is an abstract structure, not a process in time.