Believe me, praise like that does not come easily from me. Everyone interested in Smith scholarship should read the book.
09 July 2009
This Just In: An Excellent New Book on Adam Smith
Believe me, praise like that does not come easily from me. Everyone interested in Smith scholarship should read the book.
07 July 2009
This Just In: Climate Change
06 July 2009
Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee
02 July 2009
Free Bernie Madoff?
01 July 2009
An Opt-Out Option?
30 June 2009
Obama on Public vs. Private Health Care
23 June 2009
This Just In: Pseudonymous Posting
18 June 2009
What I Am Reading
I am also reviewing two books:
1. Alexander Broadie's new A History of Scottish Philosophy
2. Tony Aspromourgos's The Science of Wealth: Adam Smith and the Framing of Political Economy
As always, I welcome suggestions for things I should read. Either post them as comments or send them to me at jimotteson (at) gmail (dot) com.
17 June 2009
Worth a Look: My Next Book
Wise Words: Smith on Judging One's Own Character
09 June 2009
Update on USC
Is the NCAA a Cartel?
03 June 2009
Some Quick Hits
2. Was it not even six months ago when we heard over and over again that GM was "too big to fail"? So the federal government gave it $30 billion in taxpayer money, with most estimating that it will be much more before all is said and done. And yet now it is being allowed to fail?
3. I heard economist Stephen Moore on the news say that by his estimate the federal government is paying $300,000 per job saved at GM. Is that worth it? Why can't we have a national discussion about whether making others bear that enormous cost is justified?
4. A recent Investor's Business Daily editorial claimed that at the end of 2008 every household in America had a debt, courtesy of the federal government, of $546,648. Half a million dollars! And that's not including the household's house, credit cards, cars, etc. The editorial also claims that in just the past year the federal government has saddled each household with an additional $55,000 in debt. In ten years, the federal government debt will be 82% of GDP. How can we continue to allow this massive debt to be heaped upon our children and grandchildren, all so that we can continue to live the good, gadget-filled life? I think it is tantamount to indentured servitude, and it is a moral crime of a high order.
Finally, on a totally different topic:
5. I am re-reading C. S. Lewis's excellent Mere Christianity,
28 May 2009
Wise Words: Mill's On Liberty
This year marks the 150th anniversary of John Stuart Mill's powerful essay On Liberty.Rereading the essay in preparation for a conference, I was struck by two things in particular: Mill's penetrating insights into human psychology, and a moral injunction the essay makes. I have resolved to write more extensively about both these aspects of the essay in another venue, but I thought I would post a few choice examples of each here.
First, what I call his "moral injunction," beginning in particular with the word "unless" in this passage:
The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase. (from chap. 1, "Introductory")In responding to the fourth objection (by my count) to his claim that there should be liberty of thought and discussion, Mill extends the injunction by arguing:
Our merely social intolerance kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain, or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and enlarge men’s minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned. (from chap. 2, "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"; italics supplied)My heart aches as I read that passage. There are several other passages that supply parts of the argument grounding a moral injunction, but here is one more that applies particularly, I believe, to members of the academy:
So essential is this discipline [of subjecting prevailing views to the criticism of those holding opposing views] to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them, and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skilful devil’s advocate can conjure up. (also from chap. 2)This is one important reason to ensure a wide range of thought within academia. But it is also a personal injunction: if you find yourself in a community of people who share a single view of "moral and human subjects," you do them--and yourself--a favor if you take up the cudgels of the opposite side and begin agitation. What you yourself believe is irrelevant. Mill argues, and I agree, that everyone is better off for the exercise, the more genuinely pursued the better. Applying this principle does not always win one friends, as I can personally attest; but, as Mill rightly claims, the price of an artificially pacific consensus is paid in human vigor and dignity and is thus too dear.
As for insights into human psychology, consider these two passages:
The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale. (from chap. 1)And:
With regard to what is commonly meant by intemperate discussion, namely invective, sarcasm, personality, and the like, the denunciation of these weapons would deserve more sympathy if it were ever proposed to interdict them equally to both sides; but it is only desired to restrain the employment of them against the prevailing opinion: against the unprevailing they may not only be used without general disapproval, but will be likely to obtain for him who uses them the praise of honest zeal and righteous indignation. (from chap. 2)How many of us can attest to the truth of these observations from our own personal experience? Mill anticipated the objection that thought and discussion should be limited to what is "civil" and does not give offense, and his presentation of the objection as well as his response both could have been written today:
[I]f the test be offence to those whose opinion is attacked, I think experience testifies that this offence is given whenever the attack is telling and powerful, and that every opponent who pushes them hard, and whom they find it difficult to answer, appears to them, if he shows any strong feeling on the subject, an intemperate opponent.When you hear someone claiming that another person's position, argument, claim, or proposition is "offensive" and therefore should be punished or silenced, consider these passages.
If I were to draw up a list of, say, ten books that all undergraduate students--and faculty--should be required to read, On Liberty would certainly be among them. Today more than ever.
18 May 2009
It Was Only a Matter of Time
Worth a Look: Ferguson on the Financial Crisis
14 May 2009
Update on Atlas Foundation Talk
The Atlas Foundation has now put online the text, in addition to the audio, of the keynote talk I gave at its March meeting under its "Teach Freedom Initiative." The title of my talk was "The Spirit of American Liberty: Principles and Practice," available here. 13 May 2009
Worth a Look: Klein on Smith
A now long-standing discussion among Adam Smith scholars is the importance and significance of Smith's most famous phrase, "invisible hand."Emma Rothschild has called the phrase
I am of the school
Now economist (and, for full disclosure, friend of mine) Dan Klein has weighed into this conversation with an interesting piece in Econ Journal Watch. Klein is writing in response to Gavin Kennedy's provocative piece in the same journal. Kennedy (whom I have met but don't know well) is rather skeptical about the importance of the invisible hand metaphor, while Klein's position is closer to mine, though with his own twists. It is an interesting exchange, and well worth reading.
28 April 2009
Wise Words
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
--John Dryden, "Happy the Man" (1685)
[Hat tip: Arthur Brooks
23 April 2009
Looking for Suggestions
16 April 2009
Worth a Look
Worth a Look
Wise Words
Reading some of John Adams's work reminded me of this passage from John Locke's 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding: 15 April 2009
Obama and Socialism
President Obama spoke at Georgetown University yesterday, April 14th. I entered the lottery to get tickets, but unfortunately my number was not selected. Here is the full text of his speech. The Wall Street Journal has not been particularly happy with the President's speeches recently (here is yesterday's reaction, which includes the picture at left), but they've had nothing to say about this speech in particular.
In other news, because today is April 15th, tax day, the various "Tea Party" tax protests around the country are getting a lot of press. Here is one event not getting much press: This weekend the Party for Socialism and Liberation is holding a panel discussion at Georgetown under the title "Capitalism Is Organized Crime!" Here is a link to the event announcement (and the rather dramatic poster, pictured at right). I will not, again unfortunately, be able to attend this event. Whatever its faults or shortcomings, I do not think capitalism is organized crime; but it would have been interesting to hear what they had to say. 13 April 2009
Worth a Look
Updating a previous post, the Atlas Foundation has put up a page on its website for the keynote talk I gave at its conference in New Orleans, this past March 27th. The page hosts a podcast of my talk as well, including Atlas President Alex Chafuen's introduction of me. This link takes you to the site and the podcast.Note: The text of the talk is not yet available, but it will be shortly.
07 April 2009
What I Am Reading
I have completed reading Theodore Dalrymple's latest excellent collection of essays, Not with a Bang But a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline.
Dorron Katzin recommends Marci A. Hamilton's Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect its Children.
One of my best students, who hails from Italy, recommends Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System.
Several readers have recommended Amity Shlaes's The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.
I have received many more suggestions, too many to list; but I will give one more: Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel's Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations.
As always, I welcome other suggestions. Send them to me at jimotteson (at) gmail (dot) com.
This Just In
06 April 2009
Worth a Look
02 April 2009
This Just In
Wise Words
01 April 2009
How's That Again?
The realm of intelligence operations is of course a zone to which the ethical rules that we might hope to govern private conduct as individuals in society cannot fully apply. Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve breaking everyday moral rules. So public trust in the essential reasonableness of UK police, security and intelligence agency activity will continue to be essential. A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way, and one acceptable in a democratic and free society, including appropriate oversight and means of independent investigation and redress in cases of alleged abuse of power.
Worth a Look
See here for a recent summary of his work on seat-belt laws; see also his excellent book Risk;
26 March 2009
Worth a Look
I hope to read the book. If and when I do, I will post my thoughts.
25 March 2009
This Just In
24 March 2009
Wise Words
21 March 2009
Poverty and the Right Update
De Soto ends his book with these words: "I am not a die-hard capitalist. I do not view capitalism as a cred. Much more important to me are freedom, compassion for the poor, respect for the social contract, and equal opportunity. But for the moment, to achieve those goals, capitalism is the only game in town. It is the only system we know that provides us with the tools required to create massive surplus value" (p. 228).
I would also add that de Soto makes more sense out of the spirit of the Marxian critique of capitalism than many Marxists do.
17 March 2009
This Just In: Poverty and the Right
The classical source: Adam Smith in his 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
The contemporary source: Deirdre N. McCloskey's The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce.
16 March 2009
12 March 2009
This Just In
I fear that this is not the end of this saga, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.
This Just In
I have not read the new book yet, but I have read a lot of Singer's books and articles over the years. What frustrates me about the famine-relief argument he has been making since his famous 1971 article "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is that, in all that time, he has not given serious consideration to any of the following: (1) what the causes of wealth are, (2) what the causes of poverty are, and (3) what the consequences--both economic and moral--would be if the governments of wealthier nations worldwide actually acted on the recommendations he makes for the redistribution of wealth.
A further frustration is that he does not take seriously the careful and sustained criticisms of his argument that have appeared over the years. Many authors--including, for full disclosure, myself*--have reviewed his arguments, the empirical evidence that bears on the issues, and the economic, political, and moral implications of his position. Singer only occasionally mentions these criticisms, and when he does he typically dismisses them in few sentences or a brief paragraph.
Helping the poor rise out of poverty is a central concern of political and economic thinkers across the political spectrum; the disputes are not over whether it is good to help, but rather over what the best means to help are. It is unfair to consider only those people who end up agreeing with Singer as working in good faith, and it is unproductive to condemn those who disagree as holding a 'shameful' position. Other authors, like Garrett Cullity, do a much better job taking opposing positions seriously and reveiwing them charitably.
*My paper "Limits on Our Obligation to Give" appeared in Public Affairs Quarterly 14, 3 (July 2000): 183-203; the paper is reprinted in Justice: An Anthology
Worth a Look
03 March 2009
Sign of the Times
This Just In
02 March 2009
Worth a Look
Perhaps you would like to become one of its reviewers? If so, contact one of its founding editors, John Milliken.
01 March 2009
Sign of the Times
The article concludes with this comment from Wiesel: "It shows, again, a human being is capable of both very great, good things, and very horrible things." Is that true? Some human beings are certainly capable of very great good things, and some human beings are capable of very horrible things. I hope that it is not true, however, that each human being is capable of horrible things, even if every human being is, as I believe, fallen.
28 February 2009
Worth a Look
26 February 2009
This Just In
Wise Words
25 February 2009
22 February 2009
Worth a Look
Sign of the Times
Worth a Look
18 February 2009
What I Am Reading
Sign of the Times
11 February 2009
Wise Words
10 February 2009
Sign of the Times (Update)
Sign of the Times
Sign of the Times
If Ms. Schapiro seeks to learn from the SEC's recent history, she might start by considering the most basic lesson from the Madoff incident. Private market participants spotted the fraud, while SEC lawyers couldn't seem to grasp it. Rather than giving her staff lawyers still more autonomy, she should instead be supervising them more closely, while trying to harness the intelligence of the marketplace. Meantime, investors should remember that their own skepticism and diversified investing remain their best defenses against fraudsters.
Sign of the Times
09 February 2009
Wise Words
29 January 2009
Wise Words
Wise Words
27 January 2009
Worth a Look
26 January 2009
Wise Words
24 January 2009
This Just In
20 January 2009
Worth a Look
Worth a Look
(See also Fish's provocative but intriguing defense of the installation of Roland Burris as Illinois's new senator here. Fish marshals an Augustinian conception of the relation between individual human beings and the offices they occupy to counter the claim that Burris is "tainted" by Governor Blagojevich's alleged wrongdoings.)
19 January 2009
The Dark Side of the Internet
As a college football fan and Notre Dame graduate, I read this interview with the new athletic director at Notre Dame, Jack Swarbrick, with interest. Given Notre Dame's recent football woes, he has significant challenges ahead. What struck me in particular, however, was his comments about the damage that anonymous postings on internet sites can do. Here is the relevant exchange:
Q: Coverage of your athletic programs have changed drastically in the past few years, with cutbacks in the newspaper industry, the growth of non-traditional media, blogs, instant messaging, message boards, etc. In terms of your job, does it change the way you have to approach things?
A: "Yes, it's been so dramatic. It's so pervasive, you almost don't think of it as an isolated event. When we talk at our student-athlete advisory council meetings here, that issue is huge with the kids, because there are elements of the Internet that are so grossly unfair to these young student-athletes.
"An enormous problem is anonymous postings, which are often just flat-out lies. Because the student-athletes have the public profiles at the university, they tend to become victims of it much more than anyone else. So you have that dynamic. You also deal with your student-athletes about Facebook and MySpace — how to caution them about those, how to manage that.
"I was not surprised about the level of interest in what we do, and kind of the passion that surrounds it. But I was very surprised as sort of the tone and the degree of misinformation. It's stunningly specific.
"Somebody will report that I was in a hotel in Florida at 2:30 in the afternoon, talking to Urban Meyer. It's just nonsense, but because it is so specific, because that complete fabrication carries that detail, it becomes credible.
"It's very frustrating to have somebody write about some element of our business, saying that the information came from 'a highly placed source in the athletic department.' It'll be a topic that I know only three of us discussed, so it didn't come from us. It's not possible to have come from us, but people sort of cloak themselves in descriptions like that. It's just part of the deal.
"You'd like everyone externally — all the people who care about our program — to be a little more skeptical about the quality of what they're reading. And I don't mean the traditional media. I think more in terms of things that have an online origin."
I fear this is becoming a widespread, even pervasive, problem. Now almost every website, blog, news story--everything--on the internet allows for anonymous commenting and posting. Most of it is innocent enough, and there is nothing wrong with wanting to protect one's identity for personal, professional, or artistic reasons. Indeed, I believe there is an important place for anonymous or pseudonymous writing, as everyone from "Publius" to Kierkegaard to Mark Twain to George Eliot to C. S. Lewis can attest. (See the incomplete lists of famous anonymous or pseudonymous authors and works here, here, here, and here, for example.)
The problem comes because some people use the cloak of anonymity to provide cover to say (write) false, malicious, and mean-spirited things. And, as Aristotle would have predicted, engaging in vicious activity like that becomes easier, and feels more comfortable, each time one does it. So we have seen a rapid escalation of instances of people saying the most outrageous, filthy, profane, and destructive things, all apparently with no sense of guilt or shame, simply because they can.
An example is the scurrilous site called "Juicy Campus" (to whose site I will not link--a small thing, I realize, but still), which invites college students to post anonymous "juicy" gossip about their fellow students and faculty, all with guaranteed impunity. The results are shocking. Predictable, perhaps, but still shocking.
I wonder whether what we are seeing develop before our eyes is an answer to the Ring of Gyges problem posed to Socrates in Book II of Plato's Republic. The question was whether a person who had perfect assurance of never being discovered or caught would therefore break through all the rules of morality and engage in conduct even he would otherwise acknowledge is immoral and wrong. Socrates answered in the negative, but I wonder whether Glaucon's answer might not be right after all.
It is hard to know what to do about this phenomenon, how to combat the practice, or how to undo the damage that can come from a person making a malicious statement even just once. Another feature of our new digital age, remember, is that once something appears it exists forever. Hence even if the anonymous poster wrote something injudicious in a fit of anger or spite, only to regret it later, it is too late. Though it might be retracted, it cannot be expunged.
Our species developed in conditions very different from this, conditions in which it was possible to start anew and to have one's past mistakes forgotten, conditions in which it was far more difficult for a person to spread false rumors or malicious lies, especially anonymously. But now people's lives can be devastated and their careers can be destroyed, and, for the moment at least, there is precious little one can do about it. That is a frightening prospect--not only because any one of us might just as easily be the next victim, but also because of what it reveals about human nature.
It may be some time before mores and norms develop that can help us navigate these treacherous social and moral waters. In the meantime, I suppose all one can do is state publicly that slander is wrong and that one should take what one reads on the internet with a large dose of skepticism; and one should frequently remind oneself how pervasively the dark side of humanity is on display on the internet.
What I'm Reading
2. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, by Ludwig von Mises (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007 [1949]). I had read this on my own as a graduate student, but I am now re-reading it in preparation for a conference I am attending in February. A beautifully constructed argument, although I am less convinced than I once was that a purely "deductive" argument for the free market can be successful.
3. Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius, trans. Gregory Hays (New York: Modern Library, 2002). If you have not read Meditations, you should. I like this translation, but there are many others. Read it slowly, to think about each passage, not just to finish the book. I have read it many times, each time with profit and each time learning and discovering something new. That is the mark of an enduring work--not to mention an enduring mind in the remarkable Marcus Aurelius. Meditations is, as a friend of mine recently reminded me, a work that can calm the soul in troubled times.
On my list:
1. Economic Facts and Fallacies, by Thomas Sowell (New York: Basic Books, 2008). I have read numerous other books by Sowell, beginning with his Inside American Education (rev. ed., New York: Free Press, 2003), and including the important Conflict of Visions (rev. ed., New York: Basic Books, 2007), which I frequently use in class.
2. When I can find the time, there are several other books by Ludwig von Mises I would like to read (or re-read, as the case may be), including Socialism, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, and Bureaucracy. All of these are now handsomely, and inexpensively, available from Liberty Fund in its ongoing publication of the works of Mises.
08 January 2009
Wise Words
22 December 2008
Just Arrived
The latest edition of The Independent Review (vol. 13, no. 13, Winter 2009) is also just out. My paper "Kantian Individualism and Political Libertarianism" is included (the webpage includes a summary of my paper). TIR is a journal that I find myself reading from cover to cover whenever it comes out--a high compliment, I can assure you. So I am happy to have some of my work appear in it.
09 December 2008
Submissions Welcome
08 December 2008
And in Sports . . .
Barack Obama is right: College football needs a playoff. It is the only major sport, at either the professional or collegiate level, that has no playoff tournament, and every year that fact gives rise to needless arguing about who should be included in the single, subjectively-determined national championship game and, thus, who is truly the best team.
Now that this year's BCS bowl games, including the national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma, have been set, the predictable and perfectly reasonable arguing have begun. Why not Texas? Why not USC? On any given day, any of those teams, along with the other BCS teams--Alabama, Utah, Penn State, Cincinnati, Virginia Tech, and Ohio State--might be the best team in the country. And let's not forget undefeated Utah and Boise State, along with one-loss Ball State. Why not give them a chance to prove on the field just how good they are?
Here is an easy solution (the one that Obama suggested as well): take the top eight teams and have a single-elimination, three-weekend tournament. Piece of cake. The locations of the seven games could be selected from standard bowl locations, with the championship game rotating through the current BCS locations. The final game could be on January 1, the traditional day of the most important bowl games. Other teams with six or more wins could go to other standard bowls.
Why eight teams? There is nothing special about the number eight. It seems reasonable, however, to think that the best team in the country will be among the top eight at the end of the season; two or four seem too few, and more than eight seems needless. Moreover, an eight-team playoff is easy to administrate.
The fans and coaches have long been in support of this, and now the President-elect is as well. This is a change that we can all believe in.
07 December 2008
This Just In
Ayaan Hirsan Ali's latest book Infidel is now available. She is the inspiring Somali-Dutch writer, activist, scholar, and politician who has criticized Islam especially for its treatment of women and has shown astonishing courage in the face of threats of reprisals. Her defenses of the dignity of womanhood have been compelling and inspirational. Infidel has been published at the same time (this past April) as her book The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam, another work well worth reading.
What an amazing person.
Coming Soon
It should appear soon--keep an eye out for it!
This Just In
03 December 2008
Wise Words
Wise Words
02 December 2008
Wise Words
What I'm Reading
11 November 2008
What I'm Reading
10 November 2008
Wise Words
04 November 2008
Wise Words
--Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), II.ii.3.8.
31 October 2008
In the Movies
28 October 2008
Wise Words
"In actual history, it is a notorious fact that conquest, enslavement, robbery, murder, in short, force, play the greatest part." --Karl Marx, Das Kapital, vol. 1 (1867)
20 October 2008
Wise Words
(Sounds very like the thesis of E. O. Wilson's 1999 book, Consilience.)
05 October 2008
What I'm Reading
Up next on my list:
Language Evolution: Contact, Competition and Change, by Salikoko S. Mufwene. I met Professor Mufwene briefly when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago and he was chairman of its linguistics department. He is a very impressive person. I look forward to reading his book, especially since "invisible hand" is one of its central organizing concepts, and appears already on p. 2 and throughout the book.
02 October 2008
What I'm Reading
A remarkable passage from the book:
". . . much of modern quantitative economic history has been a search for empirical confirmation of his [Adam Smith's] vision of growth. These empirical studies of past societies, however, rather than confirming Smith's hypothesis, systematically find that many early societies had all the prerequisites for economic growth, but no technological advance and hence no growth. [. . .]
"Economic historians thus inhabit a strange netherworld. Their days are devoted to proving a vision of progress that all serious empirical studies in the field contradict." (pp. 146-7)
And later:
"Indeed, based on the Smithian conception, it is not clear why economic activity has not completely ground to a halt [in today's many countries with "high taxes on economic activity, combined with generous provision of income and services independent of effort"]." (p. 150)
01 October 2008
Blogging
23 September 2008
Wise Words
“A man should never be ashamed to own that he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” --Alexander Pope (1688-1744).
19 September 2008
A Personal Matter
This has been a painful years-long ordeal. My step-sisters have been heroic in their diligence and vigilance, making sure that justice was done. Perhaps we can now all begin to mourn Jack properly.
May God rest your soul, Jack.
14 September 2008
What I'm Reading
Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson, by Bradley J. Birzer. A fascinating biography of a thinker whose work was enormously influential on Catholicism in the first half of the twentieth century. A worthy successor to Birzer's previous book, J. R. R. Tolkein's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle Earth.
In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology, by Eric Cohen. An extended argument laying out the limitations of modern science and technology, while remaining cognizant--and appreciative--of their obvious promise and benefits.
The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy, by Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox. The authors argue that Wal-Mart unquestionably benefits everyone, and they review and address many objections to their claims and many criticisms raised against Wal-Mart.
Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life, edited by Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr. An extensive, wide-ranging, and challenging set of essays laying out the claims and evidence that experimental economists, evolutionary psychologists, primatologists, and others have presented attempting to give various forms of naturalistic explanations for human morality.
08 September 2008
My Scholarship: Books
In 2002, my book Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life

Here is a review of the book by Blain Neufeld, and here is a review by David Gordon. Actual Ethics won the Templeton Foundation's 2007 Culture of Enterprise Award, first place, which carries with it a cash award bigger than that of the National Book Award or the Pulitzer Prize! Here is a news story about the award, and here and here are two press releases about it.06 September 2008
Brief Academic Biography
I received a BA magna cum laude from the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 1990. My senior essay, entitled "The Therapeutic Philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein," won PLS's Otto A. Bird Award for best senior essay. I spent my sophomore year abroad, studying at the Universitaet Innsbruck, in Innsbruck, Austria.
From there I went to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, from which I received an MA in philosophy in 1992. My paper "A Problem in Wittgeinstein's Philosophy of Language" won the department's 1991 Richard M. Peltz Memorial Award for Excellence in Philosophy. My master's thesis, "Locke's Arguments for the Existence of Natural Law," was directed by William Wainwright.
I then joined the philosophy department at the University of Chicago, from which I received a PhD in 1997. My dissertation was entitled "The Unintended Order of Morality: Adam Smith and David Hume on the Origins of Morality." It was directed by Daniel Garber (now at Princeton University), with readers Ted Cohen and Ian Mueller; Knud Haakonssen was an outside reader (then at Boston University; now at Sussex University).
Upon graduating from the University of Chicago, I took a position in the philosophy department at the University of Alabama in 1997. I was first an assistant professor, then promoted early to associate professor with tenure in 2002, then promoted to full professor in 2006. I was chairman of the deparment from 2005 until I resigned in 2007.
In the Fall of 2007, I accepted a position as Director of the Schottenstein Honors Program in Yeshiva College, Yeshiva University; I was also made professor of philosophy and economics. In 2008 I resigned from the directorship of the Honors Program, though I retain my position as professor of philosophy and economics.
I am currently on leave from Yeshiva, and I am a visitor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University for the 2008-09 academic year.
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