"Measuring to the mean puts downward pressure on the mean"

Strange to assume that academics should make up their minds on #Brexit mainly by reference to its consequences for academic research. 1/2

— John Tasioulas (@JTasioulas) May 31, 2016

As if academics were not also citizens who have a responsibility to safeguard democracy or address youth unemployment & other problems. 2/2

— John Tasioulas (@JTasioulas) May 31, 2016

And now, reinventing the fucking wheel

In his provocative new book, The Tyranny of the Ideal, Gerald Gaus lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. Gaus shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. He argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change.

Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, Gaus points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. Gaus defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be.

Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, The Tyranny of the Ideal rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

Predicting the future since 1979, maybe earlier.

All of is all the result of a focus on individualism and the need to regulate it from above, and not within. All of it begins with modern liberalism. It literally denies the role of virtue, even as an ideal. The goal is to create a system of rules that allow mediocre people to thrive according to their mediocre interests. I’ll quote Lefebvre again . “The great majority of nobles either did not know how, or did not wish, to get rich.” You could say the same thing about school teachers, but political philosophers aren’t allowed to generalize based on moral priors. You can’t begin with a desire, only with a fact, or rather with the fact of one desire as the lowest common denominator of all desires: self-interest. Saying that the state or society should educate and inculcate is a scientific and moral error, even if by refusing to teach, inculcate, indoctrinate, you are in fact doing just that. The one requirement of a philosopher or political scientist is an ethos of profound moral passivity.

five days later, more of the same
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updating. back and forth.

When academics veer towards activism, perhaps in quest of bureaucratically mandated 'impact', there's often a rise in hyperbole and a corresponding decline in credibility. One of the reasons I find John Curtice so admirable, I have no clue which way he votes.

— John Tasioulas (@JTasioulas) August 29, 2019