The End
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Matt Zwolinski
4y ago
Back in 2011, a group of academic philosophers started a blog called “Bleeding Heart Libertarians.” The idea behind that blog was simple, but also somewhat vague in terms of its specifics: that you could be a libertarian who favored free markets and limited governments, and still care about the kind of things people on the left refer to as “social justice” – relieving poverty, racial and sexual equality, immigrant rights, LBGTQ rights, and so on. Hence, the slogan of the blog, “free markets and social justice.” The vagueness of the guiding idea was in some ways intended, and in other ways not ..read more
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Anti-Competition as the Incel Mentality
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Observe: Incel: “Stacy choose Chad over me. I have the right to retaliate by killing Stacy and/or Chad.” Michael Fett, a guy on Facebook, justifying Guitar Center being looted: “Guitar Center put Mom and Pop guitar stores out of business. They deserve to be destroyed.” To be precise, though, Guitar Center didn’t put them out of business. We did by choosing to buy from GC rather than the mom and pop stores. GC didn’t show up and burn their stores. It offered a lower price, more convenience, bigger selection, and in some cases better quality. Consumers chose to buy from GC.  Now, perhap ..read more
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The AAAS Agrees with Magness and Me
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
New report on the state of the humanities: https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2020-05/hds3_the_state_of_the_humanities_in_colleges_and_universities.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0lCu4KOkSq62KnkXdaOOaQtMBkxJN6affH61kgOctQZks7GsEJqzulHow It concurs with what Phil and I say in Cracks and our other published work: 1. Adjuncts are not replacing full-time faculty. 2. Full-time humanities employment is in fact growing rather than shrinking. 3. Most humanities faculty are still tenure-track. Inside Higher Ed published a piece summarizing this, but the author immediately discounted the stuff ..read more
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An Excerpt from *When All Else Fails*
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Here are the concluding paragraphs of When All Else Fails. Over the past eight chapters, we’ve examined a wide range of arguments which attempted to show that government agents enjoy special immunity against civilians. Other arguments tried to show that some government agents at least enjoy special immunity against other government agents or would-be government agents. The arguments all failed. Until we get a successful argument to the contrary, we should conclude government wrongdoers are morally on par with civilian wrongdoers.  Many of us have seen videos showing the police choke Eric ..read more
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Is It Time for Private Punishment?
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
When All Else Fails is about defensive actions, not punishment. If someone had justly and rightly shot the cops who murdered George Floyd, they would be trying to stop them from killing Floyd, not trying to punish them for their wrongful actions. In the same way, if I stop a would-be mugger, I’m trying to protect myself, not reform or punish the mugger, and not trying to change the culture at large. I largely stay silent on the issue of whether citizens may privately punish state officials and officers. However, let’s take a quick stab at this issue. In Injustice for All (one of those books ..read more
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The Two Big News Cases and Philosophy
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Minneapolis police officers killed George Floyd by crushing his neck with a knee while he lay prostrate, helpless, and handcuffed. This is precisely the kind of case When All Else Fails is about. Every “hypothetical” example in the book is in fact a real case, but we had to say “based on” real cases for legal reasons. It would obviously be imprudent to attack the cops in this case, as they will likely shoot back and murder you. But would it be immoral–or instead justified–to do so? If you could have shot one from a window and escaped, would it be justified? (I argue yes.) Would it even be o ..read more
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How Government Leaders Violated Their Epistemic Duties During the SARS-CoV-2 Crisis
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Written with Eric Winsberg and Chris Surprenant, forthcoming in The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. Abstract: In spring 2020, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, world leaders imposed severe restrictions on citizens’ civil, political, and economic liberties. These restrictions went beyond less controversial and less demanding social distancing measures seen in past epidemics. Many states and countries imposed universal lockdowns. In this paper, we argue that these restrictions have not been accompanied by the epistemic practices morally required for their adoption or continuation. While ..read more
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What Is Public Choice?
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Here’s some silliness from Henry Farrell. Why is public choice specifically unhelpful here? Rather than starting from the many definitions of public choice offered by its enemies, I’ll begin with the definition provided by one of its major proponents. As described by the late Charles Rowley, longtime editor of the journal Public Choice, the public choice approach is a ““program of scientific endeavor that exposed government failure coupled to a programme of moral philosophy that supported constitutional reform designed to limit government.” In other words, it is not a neutral research program ..read more
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Likeville Podcast about the Quarantine
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Here. Eric Winsberg, Chris Surprenant, and I talk to John Faithful Hamer about the quarantine, precautionary principles, political incompetence, civil liberties, the problems with the data and models policy-makers relied upon, how lockdowns are a limited and vanishing resource, and the surprising fact that governments around the world have not yet done the kinds of studies we would need to know just how dangerous COVID-19 is and what we should actually do about it. The post Likeville Podcast about the Quarantine appeared first on Bleeding Heart Libertarians ..read more
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How Did the Great Recession Affect Academic Employment?
Bleeding Heart Libertarians Blog
by Jason Brennan
4y ago
Here are the total number of people employed as full-time assistant professors in the United States over the past 20 years, according to the US Department of Education. The figure below does not include part-time faculty, adjuncts, instructors, lecturers, post-docs, or other junior jobs. During the Great Recession, the total number of people working as assistant professors kept increasing. There wasn’t a dip until a few years after. This is surprising, because for those of us who lived through and went on the market during that time, the conventional wisdom was that all the job disappeared ..read more
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