This weekend, I wandered into a local bookstore to browse a bit and ended up grabbing a copy of John Rawls’ posthumously-published Lectures in the History of Political Philosophy. (I note with some satisfaction that this volume boasts a nicely-designed cover, a feature normally reserved for trendy texts consumed by Comp Lit majors and ignored […]

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I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but this paper on how Rawls and Nozick’s inferences from the fact of the “separateness of persons” derive from differing conceptions of personhood. I’ll note in advance, though, that as a partisan of the later-Rawls’ program for a neutralist, political-not-metaphysical theory of justice, I would far […]

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I ponder McCain’s outreach to hostile conservatives over at The Guardian.

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Liz at Yellow is the Color opens an interesting discussion of emotion and politics with this vaguely What’s the Matter With Kansas-flavored anecdote: My professor told us this story (which I am now going to promptly butcher) about his time on the campaign trail. In 2004, he was going door-to-door campaigning deep in the backwoods […]

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A new book about Herbert Spencer apparently argues against the conventional wisdom that he preached “social Darwinism.” I think that’s right, and the association has lasted as long as it has just because it was useful to have an identifiable foil. I remember taking an intro-level ethics class in college where Spencer’s social Darwinist views […]

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I only just noticed that Richard Rorty died late last week. I can’t say I was hugely in sympathy with his general program, but Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity is highly accessible and well worth reading.

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The New York Times sums up some of the interesting work being done on the neurological bases of morality, in particular the finding that we seem to be hardwired to enjoy altruism. The piece is a little less precise than I might have liked: It should come as no surprise at all that there’s some […]

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Yet one more object lesson in the perils of science writers mucking about in philosophy is this bizarre, muddled article about studies identifying the “spark of free will” in… fruit flies. This seemed implausible for a variety of reasons, and no less so upon closer reading. Scientists wanted to see how flies would respond to […]

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Eugene Volokh is puzzled by pundit bristling at Rudy Giuliani’s “milking [his] 9/11 reputation for crass political gain.” And I guess I agree: If you were perceived as a strong leader during a time of national crisis, certainly there’s no reason not to advance this as a reason you’re qualified for higher office. But it […]

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Via A&L Daily, an article in the Times Literary Supplement digs into the scholarship behind Foucault’s breakthrough work Madness and Civilization. It’s not a pretty sight.

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