June 15, 2011
Reason as Weapon?
Interesting article in the NY Times about the so-called “argumentative theory of reasoning.” The claim, in a nutshell, seems to be that reason developed evolutionarily in order to allow us…
Author: Andrew Cohen
June 14, 2011
The Kochs, Again
I think James did an excellent job here dealing with controversy about the Koch’s and have little to add. But today I saw this on Huffington Post, of all places. It…
June 08, 2011
Judging States
One way to define liberalism, as I have previously indicated here is by reference to the normative principles of toleration it is committed to (as I suggested in that previous…
June 05, 2011
Couldn’t Resist
This was emailed to me recently. I thought our readers would enjoy it. One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about…
May 20, 2011
Taxation and Slavery/Theft
In recent posts, Matt and Fernando talked about whether taxation was analogous to slavery. I thought I’d briefly say a little about this (now that I have returned from a…
April 27, 2011
Needs
Many people think justice requires that the needs–or, perhaps, basic needs–of individuals be met. Some think this requires direct government provision; others think government must merely make it possible for…