October 2015
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New books in October
Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month: The Right To Be Loved by S. Matthew Liao (Oxford University Press, 2015). Philosophy and Psychiatry: Problems, Intersections, and New Perspectives edited by Daniel D. Moseley & Gary J. Gala (Routledge, 2016). The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy edited by Richard C. Taylor &…
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The prophet of doom speaks, again
He is probably right, alas: In September the US Bureau of the Census released its report on US household income by quintile. Every quintile, as well as the top 5%, has experienced a decline in real household income since their peaks. The bottom quintile (lower 20 percent) has had a 17.1% decline in real income…
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Political philosophy double dactyls…
…courtesy of Oxford student Sam Bruce. Many are very amusing!
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LSAT takers up 7.4% in Sept/Oct compared to last year…
…the first increase in six years (link now fixed). (Recall that June also saw an increase.) While enrollments will not return to 2010 highs (a good thing!), it's clear that we are arriving at a "new normal" for enrollments. This is already being felt in the hiring market for new law teachers, which is much more…
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On the pursuit of “novelty” in jurisprudence and normative philosophy
Les Green (Oxford) comments: In my own fields, the pursuit of novelty has bad effects: one can be pretty sure that the next general theory of law will be more daft than the last one. And in moral and political philosophy writers continually ‘discover’ principles that no one in the history of humanity ever heard…
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More on the ethics of self-driving cars…
…from philosopher Jesse Kirkpatrick (George Mason).
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Philosophers: what are your favorite scary Halloween costumes?
Is it scarier to dress up as Ayn Rand or a "posturing, preening, wanker"? Rank order the costumes here.
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Brooklyn Dean Allard: Legal Profession Should Challenge Slanted, Inaccurate Press Coverage (Michael Simkovic)
Dean Nick Allard of Brooklyn Law School writes: [T]he New York Times editorial . . . “The Law School Debt Crisis,” . . . is symptomatic of . . . the continuing negative drum beat that is demeaning law schools, law students, and the entire profession. The time has come for the legal community –…
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A good piece in The Guardian on the Greer controversy
Here. The idea that anything Greer said is "hate speech" is preposterous, but also shows how dangerous that category can be in the hands of zealots. An excerpt: The response to Greer and her alleged transphobia is just one example of a creeping trend among social justice activists of an identitarian persuasion: a tendency towards…
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2015 APA Book Prize goes to Manuel Vargas (San Francisco)…
…with Honorable Mention to books by Adrienne Martin (Claremont-McKenna) and Michael Titelbaum (Wisconsin). Details here.
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For anyone following the NY Times’s increasingly unhinged coverage of law schools…
…you'll find this piece by my law co-blogger of interest.
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European Hobbes Society
The website, with links to recent articles and books, information on events, and other news. (Thanks to Adrian Blau for the pointer.)
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Guns on campus in Texas
A very nice piece by classicist Thomas Palaimia and philosopher A.P. Martinich, both at UT Austin.
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N.Y. Times is Mistaken: Law Student Loans are Safe and Profitable for the Government (Michael Simkovic)
This weekend, The New York Times Editorial Board published a sensationalist lead editorial, “The Law School Debt Crisis,” claiming that law student borrowing is harmful to taxpayers. The New York Times is mistaken. The Times cited Florida Coastal School of Law, a for-profit institution, as its prime example of law schools “vacuuming up hordes of…
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Moral philosophy coming to the high tech sector?
Given what often passes for moral philosophy, let us hope not!
This is a load of cobblers. Philosophers need to read more Searle & watch less 2001. Computers, however fancy, are…