April 05, 2012
Contract Liberalisms and Their Enemies
Over the last week, I’ve been mulling over our extended discussion of public reason liberalism. In response to Andrew’s post, I thought I’d try to distinguish between contract liberalisms (of…
Author: Kevin Vallier
March 23, 2012
Moral Fanaticism and the Hope of Public Reason: A Reply to Flanigan
My friend and co-blogger, Jessica Flanigan, threw down the gauntlet last week over the truth of public reason liberalism, the popular version of liberal political theory that I used to…
March 14, 2012
The Contraception Mandate Part II: Liberal vs. Libertarian Approaches
I was hoping to garner interest with my last post. I consider the contraception mandate an important issue not merely because it is in the news but because the controversy…
March 13, 2012
Why Liberals Must Oppose the Contraception Mandate
As many of you know, the Obama administration has decided to force religious organizations to finance health insurance policies which pay for contraception (and sterilization). The Roman Catholic Church (RCC)…
March 06, 2012
Sobel’s New Argument Against Self-Ownership
I thought BHL readers might be interested to learn about two cool new companion papers arguing against the Self-Ownership Thesis (SO) written by philosopher David Sobel. Sobel argues that SO…
February 27, 2012
Economists, Why So Consequentialist?
Economists are frequently (a) subjectivists about value and (b) consequentialists. (a) and (b) are in tension. Brief dialectical summary: Non-Consequentialist Philosopher: What should we do? Typical Economist: Maximize utility! Philosopher:…