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suppose an ER doctor has to perform an operation on a person who murdered his wife (an assassination, say), otherwise the person dies.i submit that the doctor is not guilty of murder if he lets the person die, and he is morally innocent (no matter at what distance in time the 2 events occur). i … Continue reading untitled →

A Rationality Pill?

Suppose that you are a person who suffers from what an economist would call a "high discount rate." You tend to attach very little importance to the long-term consequences of your actions. As a result, you smoke and drink a lot, eat a lot of bacon, are massively in debt, and so on. Then, someone … Continue reading A Rationality Pill? →

How medicare sets hospital prices

The great Uwe Reinhardt presents a useful primer to the discussion of health care reform that should interest OPers (mindful as they are of the importance of primary social goods). I supervised a remarkably thoughtful (and empirically informed) thesis on Health Care Justice last semester, which brought into sharp relief the ridiculousness of the public … Continue reading How medicare sets hospital prices →

An Interesting Asymmetry in Common-Sense Morality

I was driving Dave Schaffer to the bus station this past week--Dave's a member of this blog, but has never contributed and, possibly, never visited, a speculation this very comment should confirm or disconfirm--and he pointed out an interesting asymmetry in common-sense morality. I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Suppose there is an action, A, … Continue reading An Interesting Asymmetry in Common-Sense Morality →

More on Living within our Means

Here.

The Media, Pennant-Racing, and Living Within Our Means

A popular narrative of the recent election is that Americans are fed up with the federal government’s inability to “live within its means.” Real American people have to; state governments have to (more or less); the federal government should as well. I could write for days about the ways in which the analogy from personal … Continue reading The Media, Pennant-Racing, and Living Within Our Means →

The New World

This year and last, I showed this 2005 film to my AP Language and Composition class, I suppose for two reasons. First (the less noble reason) - this time of year is extremely busy because of the Debate team travel schedule, and the movie itself takes almost 5 full class periods to show. Second (hopefully … Continue reading The New World →

top 5 rock & roll songs of all time

this top is absolutely objective.any objections to it are bound to be ureasonable: 1.metallica-for whom the bell tolls 2.led zeppelin-when the levee breaks 3.pantera-walk 4.slayer-seasons in the abyss 5.the rolling stones-sittin on a fence

A totally absurd generalization I’d like to discuss

I was listening to the two guys from Sound Opinions talking about their new book, which is apparently a book-length conversation between the two of them about the relative merits of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. While listening to them talk about this for a little bit (it was during the recent WBEZ pledge … Continue reading A totally absurd generalization I’d like to discuss →

A Gauntlet

Anyone (I'm looking at you, Nates) care to defend Kant against these charges: http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2010/03/kant-on-killing-bastards-on.html I must confess that it's hard to square conventional wisdom that Kant is one of if not the greatest moral philosopher ever with moral beliefs like the ones expressed in these passages.