In addition to the session on Ethics and the Financial Crisis, I am chairing a session on the theme of “Reason in Hayek and Rand” for the Association for Private Enterprise Education conference to be held April 11-13, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The rationale for the session: Two giants of twentieth-century thought — but […]
Hayek and Rand on reason — APEE panelists Read More »
At this year’s APEE conference, I am chairing a session on “Ethics and the Financial Crisis.” The rationale for the session: Many conferences and debates are focusing on the economics and politics of the crisis, but much less attention is being focused on the core ethics issues involved. Here are the participants and the titles
APEE panel on the ethics of the financial crisis Read More »
A formal publication of my “Defending Shylock: Productive Work in Financial Markets” is forthcoming this spring. For now, here is a draft version [pdf] of the sixteen-page essay. From the Introduction: “Ambivalent attitudes about financial markets are as old as financial markets themselves. Plato, in The Republic (555e), condemns moneylenders. Jesus threw the money lenders
My colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, Shawn Klein and Matthew Flamm, will be leading a reading group on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Adam Smith is best known as an economist and a critic of mercantilism and as an early advocate of market economies. Less well known is Smith the moral philosopher.
Reading group on Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments Read More »
I will be giving a talk next week to a graduate philosophy class at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. The theme of my talk is: What Philosophers Need to Know about Economics. Over the past generation BGSU has developed one of the country’s strongest programs in applied ethics and political philosophy, so it will
[This is Section 17 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 17. Economic controls Through education and censorship, the Nazis attempted to socialize the German mind. Through public health measures and eugenics, they attempted to socialize the German body. A natural extension of both policies was to socialize German economic production. As would be expected by the
Economic controls [Section 17 of Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
How much do the twelve days of Christmas cost this year?
The twelve days of Christmas: consumer price index Read More »
[This is Section 8 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 8. Economic socialism, not capitalism The second theme of the Program is a stress upon socialism and a strong rejection of capitalism. Numerically, socialism is the most emphasized theme in the Nazi Program, for over half of the Program’s twenty-five points—fourteen out of the twenty-five, to
Economic socialism, not capitalism [Section 8 of Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »