1. Now published in The European Journal of Political Theory, April 2020 issue: “Contra Politanism.”

Abstract

This article diagnoses and critiques pervasive forms of teleological thought about basic structures of political organization in modern and contemporary political thought: arguments that the sovereign state, the nation-state, or some variant of a cosmopolis both represents the unfolding of history’s moral logic and offers us full moral personhood, agency, and maturity. Despite the received wisdom that modern political thought broke with teleology, I argue that early modern social contract theory was deeply teleological. The emergence of the normatively self-contained sovereign state from the state of nature represented both decisive historical-moral progress from the medieval European non-state polities and the possibility of true moral personhood, thanks to the unity of will and judgment created by a unified authority structure. The article then argues that this overattachment to unity, both as an historical culmination and as a prerequisite to full personhood, was carried over into subsequent nationalist and cosmopolitan thought, where we see over-moralizations of historical processes, excessive claims for the teleological causal force of moral progress, and critiques of the immaturity of those persons who do not live in the recommended political form. The article closes with a sustained critique of both historical and individual-moral teleologies of these sorts.

2. Libertarianism.org “Pop & Locke” popular culture podcast about “The Good Place,” with Natalie Dowzicky, Paul Meany, and me.

3. Thursday 4-6 pm I’m doing a Reddit “Ask me anything” for students, hosted by the Institute for Liberal Studies at their r/LiberalStudies subreddit.

4. Last year’s special issue of The Independent Review on social justice is now online and ungated. BHL used to host a lot of the debates among libertarians about social justice. See Kevin on “Hayekian Social Justice” and me on “Social Injustice and Spontaneous Orders.”

5. Of BHL interest: a newly published book by Åsbjørn Melkevik, If You’re a Classical Liberal, How Come You’re Also an Egalitarian?: A Theory of Rule Egalitarianism, Palgrave 2020.