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Away From Distributive Justice, Towards Collective Responsibility
Sat, Aug 30 2008 2:52 AM
Here's another cool Hayek quote, from chapter 5 of his New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas , entitled "The Atavism of Social Justice": "...there can be no distributive justice where no one distributes. Justice has meaning only as a rule of human conduct, and no conceivable rules for the conduct of individuals... Read More...
by Donny with an A | with no comments
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Law and the Knowledge Problem, a First Glance
Thu, Aug 28 2008 10:05 PM
Update at the bottom of the post Here's an interesting quote from Hayek's essay, "The Results of Human Action but not of Human Design," from his book, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics : "...the natural law concept against which modern jurisprudence reacted was the perverted rationalist conception which interpreted the law of... Read More...
by Donny with an A | with no comments
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On Subjective Valuation and Intrinsic Value
Sun, Aug 10 2008 1:00 PM
Some more on this never-ending debate... In ascribing value to certain things, we acknowledge that they matter to us -- they have weight in our calculations about what we should do. But it seems to me that there are two (not mutually exclusive) ways in which we do this. The first is the way that we mean when we talk about matters of "taste." When we... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 3 comment(s)
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The Pitch (a First Draft...)
Thu, Jul 31 2008 1:08 AM
On a fundamental level, political philosophy exists to pursue a better understanding of how society ought to be organized. So it is rather unsurprising that students of the subject tend to view themselves as proponents of a certain kind of social order: socialists, social democrats, minarchists, anarcho-capitalists, etc. And to some degree, within communities... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 1 comment(s)
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On the Use of the Term "Self-Interest" in Economics
Thu, Jun 26 2008 1:12 AM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] I've been repeatedly embroiled in an argument for the last few weeks over the term "self-interest" as it is used in economic discussion, and I wanted to hammer out my position once and for all so that I don't have to keep trying to start from the beginning. Here's the deal. I am told that within the discipline... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 3 comment(s)
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Cap and Trade vs. the Carbon Tax
Fri, Jun 13 2008 5:09 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] So I've been addressing the issue of anthropogenic climate change for some time now, and I haven't said much in the way of addressing specific policy proposals. But I was just given a delightful present by one of my fellow FEE associates: a copy of the American Institute for Economic Research's latest Economic Education... Read More...
by Donny with an A | with no comments
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Can the Free Market Solve the Problems Posed by Climate Change?
Thu, Mar 20 2008 5:22 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] When confronted by the possibility of climate change, many libertarians default to the position that the free market, with its ability to mobilize the ingenuity of the economy for the satisfaction of the desires of the people, will provide the solutions we desire. I want to discuss this view, because I think it is the result... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 103 comment(s)
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Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility
Tue, Mar 18 2008 5:21 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] So as I said earlier , I've been getting involved in a whole bunch of debates involving value theory, and I wanted to sketch out a few of my views in order to have a starting point for discussion, so I don't have to keep explaining myself over and over again. In this post, I want to address the idea that because there... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 1 comment(s)
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The Subjectivity of Value
Fri, Mar 14 2008 4:47 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] For some reason, the past few weeks have found me embroiled in more debates about value theory than I can remember in the past year. Accordingly, I figured I'd post something on the subject as a starting point for those debates, so that I don't have to repeat my entire view in every conversation. The problems people... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 2 comment(s)
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Asymmetry Between Positive and Negative Externalities
Tue, Mar 11 2008 4:27 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] I want to discuss an asymmetry between positive and negative externalities which I think might be important when thinking about how to use the enforcement of justice to determine which actions should be permitted. Sometimes, we let individuals impose costs on others, provided compensation is payed, because their actions produce... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 12 comment(s)
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Monetary Compensation for Future Generations
Tue, Mar 11 2008 2:03 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] I've been talking a lot about whether or not we could have obligations to future people, and it occurred to me that I should say something about what it would mean for us to have those obligations, if we did have them. For example, let's say (as I discussed here ) that it is wrong to act in such a way that a person comes... Read More...
by Donny with an A | with no comments
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Cost-Benefit Analysis in Light of the Non-Identity Problem
Tue, Feb 19 2008 11:48 AM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] So earlier I wrote about the role played by discounting in doing cost-benefit analyses on the impacts of climate change. I concluded that discounting of future damage is unethical because it treats future people as if their interests matter less than present people's. But recently, I've also been discussing the implications... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 5 comment(s)
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Does the Fact that Individuals Discount Entail the Existence of a Social Discount Rate?
Fri, Feb 15 2008 4:09 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] In my last post , I discussed the idea of discounting as it relates to cost-benefit analysis. I reached the conclusion that discounting treats future people's interests as if they were less significant than our own, and that if cost-benefit analysis aims to make people the best off, then this seems like a bad practice. I... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 6 comment(s)
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Cost-Benefit Analysis, Discounting, and Climate Change
Thu, Feb 14 2008 10:29 PM
[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] I wrote a paper last semester on the notion of discounting future damage (I'll explain what this means below), and I wanted to revisit the issue now that I've done a little more research, to see if I still agree with what I wrote then. Basically, my paper examined how our views of the proper role of discounting are dependent... Read More...
by Donny with an A | 1 comment(s)
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