Did you end up not voting? Did you vote for a third party? Was that just a vote for Trump? Good question. It depends on how you normally vote.
Let’s say that, historically, you’ve voted for the democratic candidate. In that case when you voted third party or didn’t vote at all, you made Clinton Continue reading So you voted third party or didn’t vote at all. Did you help Trump win?
Did your candidate or party lose an election? That’s disheartening. It really is. But I hope you’ll eventually be turn your attention to deeper, more pressing problems . For instance, we are not reasoning well, we are doing a bad job of reassuring those who feel neglected, and we are letting our political parties determine what we care about. Continue reading 3 Post-Election Problems (and Solutions?)
The 2016 US election has many people thinking about third party candidates. Good news: philosophers and others have been sorting out the ethics and rationality of voting for awhile now. I talk about the philosophy of third party voting with Kurt Jaros below:
Continue reading Considering Third Party Candidates? A Podcast Discussion
Is a third-party vote a wasted vote? People frequently claim — implicitly or explicitly — that it is. I will argue that it isn’t (here and on this podcast). Actually, voting third-party might be a solution to a long-standing problem.
To begin, consider the two party system. Ask yourself, “Is this the best system for nominating the greatest quantity of competent and viable candidates?” Obviously not. After all, the two party system gives us only …well, two viable options! Think about it: the only system that can produce fewer viable candidates is a dictatorship. So any other (democratic) election system would be better than a two party system.
Let’s call this unfortunate situation the two party problem.Â
Obviously, a solution to the two party problem requires Continue reading Voting Third-Party: A Wasted Vote?
Marco Rubio recently suggested that we need fewer philosophers and more welders because welders make more money. See below:
In case it’s not obvious why this is a foolish suggestion, I’ll explain.
Here are a couple claims that are probably true:
Notice, however, that neither of the following follow from those probably true claims:
A. We need fewer philosophers.
B. On average, welders make more than philosophers.
So, insofar as Marco Rubio thinks that A and/or B follows from 1 and 2, Rubio is just wrong. And many people have pointed out that B is just false.† So insofar as Rubio thinks B is true, he is just wrong.
What can we learn from this?
And for those who still want to point out that we need more welders: fine! Having more welders and having more philosophers is not mutually exclusive! We can have both!†â€
Finally, there is the implicit suggestion that we should choose careers based on how much money the career offers. Sigh… Look, I get that we need a certain amount of money to flourish. But — contra Rubio’s short argument — surely there are other (more important?) variables involved in a career choice.
†“Marco Rubio said wrongly that welders make more money than philosophers” (Politifact). “Marco Rubio says welders make more money than philosophers do. He’s wrong” (Slate). “Philosophy majors actually earn a lot more than welders” (Vox).
††Thanks to John Ballenger, James Endicott, Andrew Chapman, Cameron Buckner, and Andrew Cullison for making these points (and other points that I haven’t even mentioned). Finally, thanks to my Facebook friends for humoring my Facebook rants about this.
Featured image:  “Gas metal arc welding” via Wikipedia, Public Domain
I have ventured beyond my areas of competence again: ethics. I find ethics to be massively complicated because so much of it seems to be bypassing unsettled empirical questions. Anyway, to try to avoid a misstep, I am reaching out to the wiser.
I have finally read some of Rawls’s A Theory of Justice—I am continually surprised at how many alleged “classics” I have yet to read. While I am sympathetic to most of it (and perhaps naively so), I am curious about how Rawls’s theory would apply to not just a single society, but a plurality of societies (like the plurality of nations on our planet). I have surveyed the first 3 chapters, paying special attention to section 58 (where he deals, briefly, with this very question). I have also skimmed Leif Wenar’s “Why Rawls is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian” [PDF] (2006).
The trouble I am having is the following. It seems that Rawls allows for redistribution within societies, but not between societies—that is, per his principle of self-determination in section 58.
Continue reading Rawls & Cosmopolitan Egalitarian Redistribution
