1. cortex
  2. Words To Live By

Words To Live By

By cortex on February 2, 2008.

This is from Paul Bloom's review of Kwame Anthony Appiah's new book on the uses and abuses of experimental philosophy:

Near the end of the book, Appiah says that when he tells a stranger on a plane that he is a philosopher, he often gets the question, "So, what's your philosophy?" He answers, "My philosophy is that everything is more complicated than you thought."

Tags
Uncategorized

More like this

Experiments in Ethics
If the trolley problem is not known to you, I would recommend Kwame Anthony Appiah's Experiments in Ethics. It is one of those works which combines brevity with density, a feast of ideas laid out before you which is nevertheless consumable in a minimal span of time. And Appiah is an engaging…
X-phi in the NYT
Courtesy of Brian Leiter's blog comes a link to an article by Kwame Anthony Appiah in the New York Times about X-phi, or as it's better known, Experimental Philosophy. This is an approach to thought experiments that tries to find out what people actually think before launching into the sorts of…
Loss Aversion as applied Tax Ethics
Greg Mankiw linked to this article in the Washington Post by experimental philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah. Appiah points out that whether you think a tax system is equitable is determined partly by whether it is framed as a loss or a gain: In the 1970s, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas…
Thinking About Strauss
My many thanks to Jon Rowe and Timothy Sandefur for taking the time to answer my inquiry about Leo Strauss. After seeing multiple references to Leo Strauss, the late and famous political philosopher from UChicago, I became interested in his work and those he influenced. I knew that both of them had…

For some reason, this reminds me of a comment I heard today from Rush Limbaugh. He was excoriating John McCain and referencing Shwarzennager's (sp?) endorsement of him.

He refered to Arnold as a member of the "left wing" of the Republican party.

It reminded me of Limbaugh's antics during the Republican ousting of then California governor, Gray Davis 5-6 years ago. There was a very solid conservative candidate who I supported whose name is Tom McClintock. I truly believed that if the Republican Party and the likes of Limbaugh had supported McClintock, he could have won and by now the budget of the state would be in better shape than it currently is. But the Grand ol' Party and Limbaugh decided to back sure shot, Arnold and of course he won.

So Limbaugh is engaged, as everyone else in the world is, in situational ethics. It makes me wonder if true principles ever have a chance.

And it makes me laugh when Republican pundits pretend that they have principles beyond that of staying employed.