In an article published last year, I tried to show that our moral judgement is heavily biased when it comes to migration. For instance, an action that we regard as a minimum moral obligation towards compatriots becomes, towards migrants or foreigners, non-obligatory and even forbidden. I tried to show that even ethicists well disposed towards […]
Academia
Like most academics these days, I spend a lot of time filling in online forms. Mostly, this is just an annoyance but occasionally I get something out of it. A recent survey in which the higher-ups tried to get an idea of how the workforce was feeling, asked the question “Do you think of the […]
In response to my previous post on the imminent threat to Dutch universities to have their budgets cut with up to 1 billion euros a year, I received a few emails from (mainly younger) staff to ask how they could contribute to the protests. I will respond specifically for the current Dutch case, but I […]
On Monday, the first day of our academic year, I went to a demonstration. The reason for the demonstration are the announced budget cuts for higher education, which our new right/extreme-right government wants to implement. The figures aren’t set in stone yet, but the financial appendix that was presented when the new government took office […]
This study showing that US academic faculty members are 25 times more likely than Americans in general to have a parent with a PhD or Masters degree has attracted a lot of attention, and comments suggesting that this is unusual and unsatisfactory. But is it? For various reasons, I’ve interacted quite a bit with farmers, […]
I am very pleased that our very own Chris Bertram has responded to Joseph Heath’s very entertaining and polemical “John Rawls and the death of Western Marxism,” a widely shared Substack post [HT: Dailynous]. Chris has made some important corrections to the public record, and the comments on his post are extending that. As it happens, I […]
There has been much attention online to a piece by Joseph Heath arguing that analytical Marxism disappeared because the analytical Marxists all turned into Rawlsian liberals. At a certain level of resolution (blurred, zoomed out) the argument has something going for it. But at that level, all it amounts to is the claim that this […]
Harris’ nomination locks in another Boomer presidency. This single generation — those born in the nineteen years between 1946 and 1964 — is guaranteed another presidency. 36 consecutive years, not counting the Biden Interregnum (he’s technically too old). Despite being a Boomer, you may have noticed that she’s the young, exciting candidate. Yes, the generational […]