Comments on: Minding the Philosophy Gap

By: dick mulliken

dick mulliken — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 10:39:00 +0000

I’m not aware that either liberals or conservatives have produced much in the way of politcal philosphy in recent times – though I would agree that conservatives on the whole are more appreciative of philosophy.
The great challenge for liberals is to find an integration of their traditional roots in liberty and freedom with 20th century state liberalism. (In this sense I’m a Cato Institute liberal).
Conservatives on the other hand have to deal with the contradiction of a traditional conservatism which champions an ordered, stable social organization while holding the viper of free enterprise to its breast. Anent Adam Smith, (and Schumpeter) free enterprise is -to its glory- the very opposite of stability and lasting social order.
Please, don’t anyone tell me to read Rawls again. I learned a lot doing it once, but once is it, Charlie.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 07:01:00 +0000

The nice thing about coherent ideologies is that you can test them against reality. Then if they fail you can modify them. But trying to be without a coherent ideology is like trying to do science without theories; You’re just a kid randomly mixing things from your chemistry set, and even if you hit on a success, you won’t know how to replicate it.

By: azad

azad — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 05:19:00 +0000

One thing I’ve been thinking about, is how coherent philosophies or worldviews (as expressed to me first by John Tomassi) are very useful not as governing rationales, but as principles to rally people. coherent philosophies translate pretty easily to ideologies (and what are ideologies but as Michael Freeden says the “ideational systems that enable us to choose to become what we want to become.” )

Sounds like a pretty darn good way to organize politically (or er religious) likeminded masses, because hey once you have some pretty good approximation of the truth (semi-capital T) it’s pretty easily exportable and well, votable…

Then again you run into those oh so untidy problems of bad consequences from your seemingly coherent first principles.

of course the argument can be made that egalitarian liberalism is failing now because it doesn’t offer a coherent philosophy, or one that doesn’t resonate to a majority of the people (what’s 49% anyways). But at one point it did.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:27:00 +0000

Monkyboy liberalism: You’ve come this far already; why not go the extra 8% and make it a cool 100?

Surely Democrats will regain power with that invigorating clarion call.

By: Mace

Mace — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:03:00 +0000

“Sweden is a huge triumph of civilization”

This is sarcasm, right??

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 02:02:00 +0000

“Sweden is a huge triumph of civilization”

This is sarcasm, right?

By: monkyboy

monkyboy — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:43:00 +0000

I wouldn’t worry about it, mdf. The rich and powerful of this generation are just passing on their debt to the rich and powerful of the next generation.

Once the Democrats are back in power, estate taxes and income taxes and capital gains taxes will be raised. When I started working, the maximum income tax rate was 92%, I expect we’ll see it get back up there in the future.

By: mdf

mdf — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 01:06:00 +0000

I’m a duck soup marxist.

If the rich and powerful keep ratcheting down on everybody else and the philosophisers and pundits say “well, that’s just the way it is” – where are we headed?

By: Tom Hanna

Tom Hanna — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:31:00 +0000

Liberalism’s coherent governing philosophy is that governing is a good in itself. If there’s a reason that their strategy is all about getting elected, it’s because their philosophy is all about centralizing power and if you’re centralizing power you sure don’t want the other guy to get elected.

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 00:04:00 +0000

A pretty good description of its opposite. Sounds a lot like the Public Choice (and Marxist) critique of the state.