Anti-Humeans take things to a new low...
30.01.2026 18:11
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The return to NYC.
Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations are devoted to ending two ‘particular usages’: slavery and the exposure of children (death of children from poverty)
He ended every edition of TMS up to 1790 b/c with these things as outstanding moral problems. WN is the sequel.
Neat parenting thing: kid sent home from school, vaguely sick.
Lesson: mom and I will always care for you when you’re sick.
Aha!
But that includes keeping you from going to your friend’s at night if the school said you were sick in the day. That’s how seriously we take your health.
Dental health is, to a greater degree than is commonly known, a matter of genetics not behaviour. When dental problems arise dentists yell that this is not genetics, but is due to this patient’s shameful divergence from the daily dental cream routine etc. (I’m a mad dad telling jokes)
I reviewed Thomas Holden’s excellent new book, _Hobbes’s Philosophy of Religion_, in NDPR.
TLDR;: theological expressivism yes, justified theism no, rational piety yes.
I was humiliated today when my five year old had the gall to suppose she had the right to cry at the needles. My daughter showed the opposite of awe at the dentist’s, nay, saint-cum-artist’s, dremmel multi-tool handiwork. Few have devised a greater, more seamless, racket than they.
Send me your best anti-dentist paper, maybe by an economist, touching on variation in treatment/beliefs by country. Natural experiments where flowers bloomed brighter and fuller after the dentists left.
McGill students with interests in the history of political thought/ intellectual history/ international law/ political philosophy. Don't miss this event on Thursday!
A student who registers here and attends will win a copy of Lee's book The Right of Sovereignty
www.facebook.com/events/25000...
Tip: dried fruit? Freeze it for smoothies.
Excellent, can’t wait to watch/listen. Obviously I recommend it to you all.
ICYMI
Consent meant ‘the end of haggling’ to Plato. It meant ‘binding agreement between strangers’ in Cicero and his commercial world. Then it meant ‘bond b/w this lord and that vassal.’ Then it meant ‘what you would agree to were you rational.’ Grotius lives in that space just before this last move.
It's not just people's imaginative need to have the world be stranger than it is. It's that people can't imagine themselves in particular (ordinary people driving cars) as the threat and want to imagine scary monster people.
‘need to imagine the world stranger than it is’. Golden.
Or like, ‘need to imagine other people as unlike oneself: tired (they’re not), mostly self-centred (they obsess about others), robustly non-ill-intentioned toward others (flip to pure malevolence easily), basically transparent (they hide)’
“Corn refers to all grains” and “Americans frequently forget that” are the two Corn Laws
One grain of grain is a grain. One grain of corn is a curn.
What would Trump’s retaliation ad (to Ontario) look like? Quote a PM (the Canadian Reagan?) loving tarriffs on US goods? Just be mean to Canada on Canadian Tv/hockey?
The energy we need is this suburban dad standing out in the street -- barefoot with Blackhawks pajama pants on -- screaming at the masked goons to get the fuck out of their neighborhood.
Together with this one on 'philosophical moves' philpapers.org/archive/KELP...
This is cool. A catalogue of 'philosophical moves.'
academic.oup.com/book/6463/ch...
Wow. It’s all set. The two year old and the five year old agreed. They’ll take care of a dog if we get one. Perfect.
If votes are determined by negative polarization someone should just start a party that only dumps on one of the two big parties and then just get all the votes from the party they don’t dump on.
It’s like, Trump dumping on elections, it was feared, would lower turnout b/c some would actually distrust democracy and not just pretend to.
It’s so complicated to say ‘they vote in dem elections b/c they distrust dem elections and they are voting for people they understand will end elections, though no one says any of this. Distrust of, say, FBI, or immigration, that’s actually distrust of democracy.’
Distrust of democracy. Afaik, voting participation hasn’t changed much. If you use something, you trust it. Yes, but they want to elect enders of democracy. Maybe, but they aren’t voting for ‘I’ll end democracy, plus tax cut.’ I think it’s ’down w/ liberalism,’ procedural (checks) and substance.
A school with vision. As a parent, I’m taking note.
Paper ideas 4 U
Complicity: what dirties hands?
Should we wash dirty hands?
Your hands are dirty
