Post-truth is often viewed as a threat to public affairs such as vaccination policy, climate change denialism, or the erosion of public discourse. Yet combating post-truth is rarely viewed as a priority for policymakers, and the preferred ways of combating it usually take the form of localised epistemic interventions such as fact-checking websites or information campaigns.
This is a guest post by Hannah Carnegy-Arbuthnott (University of York).
We’ve all done things we regret. It used to be possible to comfort ourselves with the thought that our misadventures would soon be forgotten. In the digital age, however, not only is more of our personal information captured and recorded, search engines can also serve up previously long-forgotten information at the click of a button.
In this post, Travis Quigley (U. Arizona) discusses his article recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy about the issues at stake and justifications for and against restrictive zoning policies.
You might think that zoning policy should be politically boring. Instead, there is a high-stakes and high-intensity debate between defenders of restrictive zoning regulations, which currently set aside huge swaths of land for single-family houses, and those who wish to abolish most such restrictions. Defenders of restrictive zoning often are called NIMBYs, for Not In My Backyard; reformers are then called YIMBYs, for Yes In My Backyard. As such things go, each term can be an insult or a point of pride, depending on who’s speaking. In the housing context, the rationale of increasing supply to decrease prices is pitted against neighborhood preservation; the climate context pits ecological conservation against large-scale climate change mitigation projects. The two issues intersect: new, dense housing is far more energy efficient. I focus especially on residential zoning here.
This year I decided to put some Chinese philosophy on our curriculum, and I’ve been enjoying getting to know that tradition. But there’s something frustrating about classical Chinese political philosophy. It’s the same thing I find so irritating about Plato.
The wisest should rule. This is the core of Plato’s political philosophy. It’s an idea shared by Confucius and indeed most of the classical Chinese tradition. But I think it’s largely meaningless.
The ancient philosophical beard: who wore it better?
Plato presents rule by the wise as the answer to a question of constitutional theory. Who should rule? Ancient Greek thought gives a menu of options such as:
Recently, as I was discussing with a friend of mine, the conversation brought us to the issue of paternalism. Taking the bad habit of playing the philosopher’s role, I said something like “You know, paternalism is actually not always wrong.” My friend reacted very surprised – as if I had said “You know, patriarchy is actually not always wrong.” And as it happens, for her, “paternalism” and “patriarchy” were closely linked – which I had never considered before.
The latest report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that hundreds of billions of dollars will be required for climate mitigation and adaptation investments per year to avoid catastrophic global warming. Yet, some of our financial practices are not only slow to adapt to this requirement, but actually represent an obstacle in achieving the goal.
ESG investing – Adobe Stock
Each year when fall comes, I teach finance ethics to bright new postgraduate students in finance. After introducing ethical investing – i.e. the practice of integrating ethical criteria such as environmental, social, and governance performance (ESG) in investment decisions – I ask them a question: “Who believes that ESG investing generates higher financial returns?”
This guest post is written by Ben Sachs-Cobbe. Ben has recently published a book entitled Contractarianism, Role Obligations, and Political Morality exploring the connection between foundational questions in political philosophy and important issues in public policy, including the political and legal status of sentient animals.
Factory farms inflict suffering on the animals they produce. At a young age animals are torn away from their mothers and mutilated to prevent them hurting themselves and others; they’re then kept in squalid conditions with their movement and access to the outdoors restricted while they grow at a dangerously fast rate; before they’re finally killed by a machine after a mercifully brief life. Estimates of the number of farmed animals produced for food worldwide each year range from 50-70 billion (not including fish), with anything from two-thirds to 90% of those being factory farmed. This is misery on an almost incomprehensible scale.
While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2021-22 season.
A lot has been written about Covid-19 and Justice Everywhere has contributed to this on several fronts. Here are some links from the last year on philosophical issues raised by the pandemic that you may have missed or be interested to re-read:
Stay tuned for even more on this topic in our 2022-23 season!
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Justice Everywhere will return in full swing on 1st September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors (published on Mondays), in addition to our Journal of Applied Philosophy series (published on Thursdays). If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.
While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2021-22 season. This post focuses on our ongoing collaboration with the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
In 2019, Justice Everywhere began a collaboration with the Journal of Applied Philosophy. The journal is a unique forum that publishes philosophical analysis of problems of practical concern, and several of its authors post accessible summaries of their work on Justice Everywhere. These posts draw on diverse theoretical viewpoints and bring them to bear on a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from the environment and natural resources to freedom, empathy, and medical ethics.
For a full list of these posts, visit the JOAP page on Justice Everywhere. For a flavour of the range, you might read:
Stay tuned for even more from JOAP authors in our 2022-23 season!
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Justice Everywhere will return in full swing on 1st September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors (published on Mondays), in addition to our Journal of Applied Philosophy series (published on Thursdays). If you have a suggestion for a topic or would like to contribute a guest post on a topical subject in political philosophy (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.
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