Opposite Day
I really like Tyler’s Tyrone posts, and so in the spirit of unoriginality, I propose to do a few in the same vein. My friend Liam will happily defend any (non-offensive) position that I am known to reject. The first subject mentioned three times wins.
(By the way, if I recall, the literature does not show that defending the “opposite” position makes you more likely to think you could be wrong. What makes you second-guess yourself is when you have to point out and explain the weaknesses in the position you do hold. So if the game was “gore your own ox” then we would take time to carefully explain the holes in our favorite theories, which is different from defending the contrary.)
March 14th, 2006 10:44
Income inequality is bad.
March 14th, 2006 12:05
Utilitarianism! (You may choose between act and rule utilitarianism. Or go with some combination or third variation, if you want.)
March 14th, 2006 12:51
Moving towards privately owned retirement accounts is too risky.
March 14th, 2006 13:49
Negative internalities require societal restraints on individual action
March 14th, 2006 14:19
Jake, You’ll have to phrase that more narrowly, since I don’t disagree, unless you mean “all negative externalities…”
March 14th, 2006 15:56
I think he’s referring to “internalities,” as in, people should be saved from themselves. But you may not disagree with that either, in certain circumstances.
March 14th, 2006 16:57
Yes, I meant the specific issue of negative results imposed on a person’s “future self” by her voluntary decisions - I think this a harder sell than externalities, even post-Coase
March 14th, 2006 21:05
Property rights are very weak and originate from the state.
March 15th, 2006 04:24
Negative liberty (”right to be left alone”) is what’s really important; its value doesn’t come from its contribution to positive liberty.
March 15th, 2006 05:16
Equality of opportunity as the premier or central principle of distributive justice. And I mean equality of opportunity in the “fair” sense: everyone needs an equal starting chance, controlling for unequal social and natural endowments.
March 15th, 2006 05:58
The “controlling for” bit should read “leveling out initially unequal social and natural endowments”
March 15th, 2006 07:37
I’ll second Javier. Equality of opportunity is a/the central principle of distibutive justice.
March 15th, 2006 07:58
There are no objective moral truths.
March 15th, 2006 15:50
We’re getting close, folks. Do I hear a third for equality of opportunity?
March 15th, 2006 16:19
I’ll third the proposition, but I’m not sure that I entirely disagree with the premise. Execution can be a sticking point - maybe address that aspect.
March 16th, 2006 08:24
Humanists Have All the Fun…
I’ve seen the idea of an “Opposite Day” popping up lots of places in the political blogosphere (most recently from Big Media Matt and Will Wilkinson), and it sounds sort of cool. The idea is that you commit to writing……