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On Desert and the Glass Ceiling
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:03 PM

So I've been thinking a little about Hayek's point that there's nothing about an overall state of affairs which arises from the decentralized actions of individuals in a market economy which could coherently be an "injustice." As I had said, I agree with Hayek, and I've been accordingly trying to think of a way to understand the concept... Read More...

by Donny with an A | with no comments

Filed under: Justice, Equality, Opportunity

Away From Distributive Justice, Towards Collective Responsibility
Saturday, August 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

Filed under: Justice, Equality, Economics, Collective Duties

Respecting the Rich Victim: Boundary Crossings and Critical Opportunities
Friday, February 29, 2008 6:49 PM

[Cross-posted on the parent blog ] I wrote this paper last semester for my Political Philosophy class, and I figured I should probably post it here, since it's relevant to the kinds of things I talk about on this site. Without further ado: ---------------------------- Introduction In Anarchy, State, and Utopia , Robert Nozick sets out to build a framework... Read More...

by Donny with an A | with no comments

Filed under: Justice, Property Rights, Equality

Does the Fact that Individuals Discount Entail the Existence of a Social Discount Rate?
Friday, February 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 | 5 comment(s)

Filed under: Justice, Equality, Discounting, Climate Change, Economics

Cost-Benefit Analysis, Discounting, and Climate Change
Thursday, February 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)

Filed under: Justice, Equality, Discounting, Climate Change, Economics