Will Wilkinson has posted a dialogue about libertarianism, ideal theory, and feasibility here.

The other day a student came to my office hours asking for help on a paper. Here’s our dialogue:

Brennan: “I recommend re-writing the intro to get the point faster. Make your thesis explicit. Part 2 is really good. Part 3 is a tangent; you could drop it. The last section needs to answer a few objections…”

Student: “That’s not feasible. You should give me realistic advice.”

Brennan: “What do you mean, it’s not feasible?”

Student: “You see, I don’t want to do any of that stuff. I could do it, but I don’t want to. So, do you have any advice for what I should do that’s feasible, or are you only going to recommend pie-in-the-sky nonsense?”

Brennan: “But surely the fact that you don’t want to do it doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Student: “How can you be so sure that it’s right? Have you ever seen a version of this paper that does what you suggest it do?”

Brennan: “No, frankly I haven’t.”

Student: “I guess you’re not taking Hayek seriously.”

Brennan: “Hmmm.”

Student: “Actually, I’m being too charitable. You see, you’re making some possibly mistaken assumptions about my writing abilities. It’s not clear to me I could take your advice even if I wanted to do so. I might simply lack the talent to do so. Perhaps I’m just not that good at writing papers. You say I ought to make those chances, but don’t you agree that ought implies can? Or perhaps I lack the drive! Maybe I don’t have complete free will, and so I literally cannot just choose to follow your advice. In this case, perhaps ‘I don’t want to’ means ‘I can’t’. So how can you say that I should improve the paper when you’re just demanding the infeasible?”

Brennan: “What grade do you think this paper deserves then?”

Student: “An A, obviously.”

Brennan: “Okay, you win.”