From the monthly archives:

May 2004

Klebold, Free-Will, and Responsibility

May 20, 2004

– In his column on the Klebolds, parents of Columbine killer Dylan, David Brooks writes:
My instinct is that Dylan Klebold was a self-initiating moral agent who made his choices and should be condemned for them. Neither his school nor his parents determined his behavior.
Brian Leiter rather uncharitably decides to read Brooks’s comment as either an [...]

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Consent & Legitimacy

May 12, 2004

– Very interesting post by Chris Bertam on the problem of intergenerational sovereignty. I agree with Jacob Levy in the comments that the problem basically tells us to pick only one: consent theory or the possibility of state legitimacy. (Not to say we HAVE to pick either.) I also agree that tacit consent is not [...]

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Comments

May 11, 2004

OK. So, I’m having trouble with the Blogger comments. The old system is back in its place of prominence.

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Ayn Rand and Nation-Building

May 11, 2004

Check out this this fascinating post by Chris Sciabarra over at Liberty and Power.

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Scanlon on Objectivity

May 11, 2004

In “Contractualism and Utilitarianism,” and then again in What we Owe to Each Other, T. M. Scanlon compares the alleged objectivity of morality with that of mathematics. In fact, her writes:
In moral judgments, as in mathematical ones, we have a set of putatively objective beliefs in which we are inclined to invest a certain degree [...]

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New Blogger

May 10, 2004

– The new edition of Blogger looks great. They now have a comment system!, which I am implementing. (Try it out! Needs some formatting…) The puzzle is how to keep my old comments in the archives. For now, I’ll just have them both. The isolated number, like this [n], is the link to the old [...]

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Oh, God!

May 4, 2004

– From Brio Magazine, it’s Ask Suzie! …
Dear Susie:
Brio gives me comfort and conviction in my relationship with Christ, and I’m so grateful for that! However there’s one element that’s bothering me. I have many non-Christian friends, and it frustrates me that you say they’re sinners. Does that mean there will be billions of [...]

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Pancake Mountain!

May 4, 2004

– How is it possible that I was unaware of Pancake Mountain, a prototype of a surreal children’s show featuring Ian MacKaye, Bob Mould, Thievery, Uncalled4 (a swell go go band, for you people who live in an actual state) and other “famous for DC” types? Do check out MacKaye’s new endeavor, the Evens, performing [...]

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More Human Bondage for the Public Benefit

May 4, 2004

– For a sec I though Matt was being facetious, until I got to the middle:
And of course one should be honest. A big part of the notion here is a nefarious leftwing scheme that hopes to use mandatory service as a mechanism for producing social interaction across class, regional, and ethnic lines so as [...]

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Capitalism, Fascism, and Democracy

May 3, 2004

– In this review essay on a book about fascism, Terry Eagleton concludes:
The assumption that the free market and political democracy go naturally together was always pretty dubious, and fascism is one dramatic refutation of it. But we might now be moving deeper into a world where the two go together like a horse and [...]

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