Newly posted on SSRN

"The Right to be Dignified, or the Dignity of Liberty," forthcoming Arizona State Law Journal in a symposium on Jeremy Waldron's Schoen Lecture.

Other platform alert

I've been tweeting about the McGill protest and police response.

I'm puzzled.

I'm also unsympathetic, but I mean to keep that separate from this puzzle.

Some Arts undergraduates are "striking" tomorrow to demand the abolition of tuition.

They are also mass-emailing professors asking the professors to cancel classes in support of the strike.

But if the professors cancel classes, in what way are the students on strike? The professors are then on strike for a day. Students-- if we continue to use the labor law language that doesn't really make sense in this context anyways-- are then being subjected to a lockout. But their refusal to show up becomes irrelevant, because there's nothing to show up to.

Conceptually, wouldn't faculty compliance with this request abolish the student strike and just turn it into a faculty strike?

Political philosophy rankings

The top 20 programs in political philosophy, from the new round of Leiter's Philosophical Gourmet Report

Group 1 (1): rounded mean of 4.5 (median, mode)
University of Arizona (4.5, 4.5)

Group 2 (2-9): rounded mean of 4.0 (median, mode)
Brown University (4, 4)
Duke University (4, 4)
Harvard University (4.25, 5)
New York University (4.5, 4.5)
Oxford University (4, 5)
Princeton University (4, 4)
Stanford University (4, 4)
Yale University (4, 4)

Group 3 (10-20): rounded mean of 3.5 (median, mode)
Australian National University (3.5, 4)
Queen’s University (Canada) (3.5, 4)
Rutgers University, New Brunswick (3.5, 3.75)
University College London (3.5, 3.5)
University of California, San Diego (4, 4)
University of Chicago (3.5, 3.5)
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (4, 4)
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (4, 4)
University of Pennsylvania (3.5, 3.5)
University of Toronto (3.5, 4)
University of Virginia (4, 4)

JTL: I have friends and colleagues who've been involved in the serious pushes and investments Arizona, Brown, and Duke in particular have made in political philosophy in the past several years, and am very pleased to see their excellence and progress recognized.

Reading list

Two former McGill theory faculty and one recent McGill theory visitor with new or forthcoming APSR pieces.

Alan Patten, Rethinking Culture: The Social Lineage Account.

James Booth, "'From This Far Place': Social Justice and Absence.

Andrew Rehfeld, "The Concepts of Representation

Federalism and freedom

Quebec rejects and refuses to pay for a draconian [and dumb] new federal crime bill.

TERRITORIALITÉ, IDENTITÉ NATIONALE ET JUSTICE MONDIALE

3-4 November, 2001

Colloque jeunes chercheurs organisé par le Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité au Québec (CRIDAQ).

Salle D-R 200 (pavillon Athanase-David)
Université du Québec à Montréal

PROGRAMME
JEUDI 3 NOVEMBRE
8h45 : Mot de bienvenue

Première séance : Territorialité, identité, justice mondiale : perspectives théoriques
9h00 à 10h00
Quel territoire en partage? L’étude de la territorialité à l’heure de la mondialisation
Alexandre Germain, doctorant en science politique, Université du Québec à Montréal

Commentaire : Jean-François Thibault, science politique, Université de Moncton


Pause
10h15 à 11h15

Violence de masse et sécession : le cas du Kosovo
Philippe Roseberry, Doctorant, Université Queen’s

Commentaire : Frédérick-Guillaume Dufour, sociologie, Université du Québec à Montréal


Pause
11h30 à 12h30

Immigration, Territoriality, Societal Cultures and the Conceptual Limits of Liberal Multiculturalism
Arjun Tremblay, doctorant en science politique, University of Toronto

Commentaire : Christine Straehle, philosophie, Université d’Ottawa


Deuxième séance : Territoire et identités nationales
14h00 à 15h00
De sub-nationalisme à nationalisme : le nationalisme insulaire expliqué et appliqué au cas de Terre-Neuve
Valérie Vézina, doctorante en science politique, Université du Québec à Montréal

Commentaire : Daniel Kofman, philosophie, Université d’Ottawa

Pause

15h15 à 16h15
Les diasporas contigües et le multiculturalisme libéral
Jean-François Caron, postdoctorant en sciences politiques, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Commentaire : Stéphane Courtois, philosophie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières


Pause
16h30 à 17h30


Grande conférence
Margaret Moore, science politique, Queen’s University
Commentaire : Arash Azibadeh, science politique, McGill University

17h30
Cocktail
19h30 Banquet


VENDREDI 4 NOVEMBRE

Troisième séance : Territorialité et nations autochtones
10h00 à 11h00

La collectivisation des droits des peuples autochtones et tribaux sur le territoire et les ressources naturelles : regard croisé des juges régionaux de protection des droits humains
Doris Farget, postdoctorante, section de droit civil, Faculté de droit, Université d’Ottawa

Commentaire : Ingride Roy, Université de Montréal.

Pause
11h15 à 12h15

Les rapports entre les nations autochtones et la nation québécoise en vertu d’objectifs concurrents
Jean-Olivier Roy, doctorant en science politique, Université Laval

Commentaire : Pierre Trudel, Collège du Vieux-Montréal


13h30 à 14h30
Grande conférence
Dominique Leydet, philosophie, Université du Québec à Montréal

Commentaire : Christine Straehle, philosophie, Université d’Ottawa


Pause
14h45 à 17h00 Table ronde présidée par Michel Seymour, philosophie, Université de Montréal

THE ANNUAL MONTREAL POLITICAL THEORY MANUSCRIPT WORKSHOP AWARD

Call for applications: The Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), spanning the departments of political science and philosophy at McGill University, l'Université de Montréal, Concordia University, and l'Université du Québec à Montréal, invites applications for its 2012 manuscript workshop award. The recipient of the award will be invited to Montreal for a day-long workshop in April/May 2012 dedicated to his or her book manuscript. This "author meets critics" workshop will comprise four to five sessions dedicated to critical discussion of the manuscript; each session will begin with a critical commentary on a section of the manuscript by a political theorist or philosopher who is part of Montreal's GRIPP community. The format is designed to maximize feedback for a book-in-progress. The award covers the costs of travel, accommodation, and meals.

Eligibility:

A. Topic: The manuscript topic is open within political theory and political philosophy, but we are especially interested in manuscripts related to at least one of these GRIPP research themes: 1) the history of liberal and democratic thought, especially early modern thought; 2) moral psychology and political agency, or politics and affect or emotions or rhetoric; 3) democracy, diversity, and pluralism. 4) democracy, justice, and transnational institutions.

B. Manuscript: Book manuscripts in English or French, not yet in a version accepted for publication, by applicants with PhD in hand by 1 August 2011, are eligible. Applicants must have a complete or nearly complete draft (at least 4/5 of final draft) ready to present at the workshop. In the case of co-authored manuscripts, only one of the co-authors is eligible to apply. (Only works in progress by the workshop date are eligible; authors with a preliminary book contract are eligible only if no version has been already accepted for publication).

C. Application: Please submit the following materials electronically, compiled as a single PDF file: 1) a curriculum vitae; 2) a table of contents; 3) a short abstract of the book project, up to 200 words; 4) a longer book abstract up to 2500 words; and, in the case of applicants with previous book publication(s), (5) three reviews, from established journals in the field, of the applicant's most recently published monograph. Candidates are not required to, but may if they wish, submit two letters of recommendation speaking to the merits of the book project. Please do not send writing samples. Send materials by email, with the subject heading “2012 GRIPP Manuscript Workshop Award” to Arash Abizadeh . Review of applications begins 10 January 2012. Contact Arash Abizadeh with questions.

Previous GRIPP Manuscript Workshops:
May 2011: James Ingram (McMaster), Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism
April 2010: Hélène Landemore (Yale), Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many
April 2009: Alan Patten (Princeton), Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Cultural Rights
March 2009: Kinch Hoekstra (UC Berkeley), Thomas Hobbes and the Creation of Order

------------------------------------------------

LE PRIX ANNUEL DE L’ATELIER DE MANUSCRIT DE PHILOSOPHIE POLITIQUE DE MONTRÉAL

Appel à candidature: Le groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), qui réunit des chercheurs des départements de science politique et de philosophie de l’Université McGill, de l’Université de Montréal, de l’Université Concordia et de l’Université du Québec à Montréal, fait un appel à candidature pour son prix 2012 de l’atelier de manuscrit. Le lauréat sera invité à Montréal en avril ou mai 2012 pour un atelier d’une journée complète consacré au manuscrit de son livre. Cet atelier du type « l’auteur rencontre ses critiques » comprendra quatre ou cinq séances de discussions critiques sur le manuscrit ; pour chacune d’entre elles, un spécialiste de théorie politique ou un philosophe membre de la communauté montréalaise du GRIPP lancera la discussion par un commentaire critique d’une des sections du manuscrit. Ceci a pour but de faciliter les échanges sur un livre en chantier. Le prix couvre les dépenses de voyage, d’hébergement et de repas.

Éligibilité :

A- Sujet : De façon générale, le manuscrit doit traiter de théorie politique ou de philosophie politique, mais nous sommes tout particulièrement intéressés aux manuscrits qui correspondent à l’une des thématiques de recherche du GRIPP : 1) l’histoire de la pensée libérale et démocratique, et notamment du début de la pensée moderne; 2) la psychologie morale du sujet (ou encore de l’agent) politique, ainsi que la politique et les affects, les émotions ou la rhétorique; 3) la démocratie, la diversité et le pluralisme; 4) la démocratie, la justice et les institutions transnationales.

B- Manuscrit : Sont éligibles tous les manuscrits de livres en français ou en anglais, non encore publiés et non en version acceptée par une maison de presses, et dont l’auteur a reçu un doctorat avant le 1er août 2011. Les candidats devront avoir une version complète, ou presque (au moins 4/5e de la version finale), à présenter à l’atelier. Pour ce qui concerne les manuscrits coécrits, seul l’un des coauteurs est éligible.

C- Soumission : Vous voudrez bien fournir les documents suivants, en format électronique, dans un seul fichier PDF : 1) un curriculum vitae; 2) une table des matières; 3) un court résumé du projet du livre de moins de 200 mots; 4) un résumé plus long, de moins de 2 500 mots; et, dans le cas de candidats ayant déjà publié, 5) trois recensions parues dans des revues spécialisées et reconnues dans le domaine de la plus récente monographie publiée. Les candidats peuvent, s’ils le souhaitent, joindre deux lettres de recommandation présentant l’intérêt de leur projet de livre. Nous vous prions de ne pas envoyer d’extraits de manuscrit. Envoyez ces documents par courriel, avec le sujet « 2012 GRIPP Manuscript Workshop Award » à Arash Abizadeh . L’examen des candidatures commencera le 10 janvier 2012. Pour toute information supplémentaire, veuillez contacter Dominique Leydet

Ateliers de manuscrit précédents:
Mai 2011: James Ingram (McMaster), Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism
Avril 2010: Hélène Landemore (Yale), Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many
Avril 2009: Alan Patten (Princeton), Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Cultural Rights
Mars 2009: Kinch Hoekstra (UC Berkeley), Thomas Hobbes and the Creation of Order

Egalitarianism workshop at McGill


Egalitarianism Workshop 2012
Call for Papers
Egalitarianisms: Current Debates on Equality and Priority in Health, Wealth, and Welfare

March 30th -31st, 2012

McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Confirmed Speakers

Nir Eyal (Harvard)
Iwao Hirose (McGill)
Nils Holtug (Copenhagen)
Dennis McKerlie (Calgary)
Shlomi Segall (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Workshop Description

Egalitarian theories of distributive justice have recently encountered fundamental challenges. Is egalitarianism susceptible to the leveling down objection? Is it less plausible than prioritarianism? Does it support reducing the inequalities resulting from brute luck, but not option luck? Does it aim to equalize the distribution of welfare at each time or over a lifetime? What does egalitarianism make of the strong correlation between inequalities in health and inequalities in socio-economic conditions? In this two-day workshop, we will discuss current theoretical issues and seek common and unified grounds for future research into egalitarian theories of distributive justice.

Call for Papers

We invite high quality papers on the recent philosophical challenges to egalitarian theories of distributive justice. We will include at least 5 submitted papers in the program. Papers should be suitable for blind-review and no longer than 6,000 words (must include a 200 word abstract in the first page). Please submit paper (Word or PDF file) through www.mcgill.ca/aggregation/submit We welcome submissions from graduate students. For accepted papers, the organizers will cover the cost of accommodation (up to 3 nights in downtown Montreal) and workshop banquet.

Deadline for submission: November 20, 2011 (Notification of acceptance by December 20, 2011)

Click here to submit your paper

Indians in Madison's Constitutional Order

This paper is now online. One of the two epigraphs is one of my favorite Madison quotes:

‘‘What’’—they [the Indians] may say—‘‘have we to do with the Federal Constitution, or the relations formed by it between the Union and its members? We were no parties to the compact and cannot be affected by it.’’ And as to a charter of the King of England—is it not as much a mockery to them, as the bull of a Pope dividing a world of discovery between the Spaniards and Portuguese, was held to be by the nations who disowned and disdained his authority?

The Political Safeguards of Federalism: Dead or Alive?


The Center for the Study of Federalism at the Meyner Center invites paper proposals for the 2012 APSA Annual Conference

The Political Safeguards of Federalism: Dead or Alive?

Submission deadline: December 15.

The Center for the Study of Federalism at the Meyner Center invites papers on the vitality of the “political and institutional safeguards of federalism” conceived broadly. Consistent with the conference theme of Representation and Renewal, we invite papers that especially examine the extent to which the interests of state and local governments continue to be represented in and protected by the political safeguards of federalism, such as representation in the U.S. Senate, the electoral college, and Senate confirmation of judicial appointments. In its 1985 Garcia decision, the U.S. Supreme Court opined that states should rely on such political safeguards rather than on the Court to protect their powers. We invite a range of papers, from normative and philosophical to historical and empirical, that examine the effectiveness of these safeguards generally and across different branches of government and different policies. Possible questions to consider include: Are the political safeguards of federalism fundamental to the American federal system or has the United States evolved beyond them? How do federalism's political and/or institutional safeguards affect citizen representation? How have the political safeguards fared under united and divided government of the last two decades? Do the political safeguards protect states from unwelcome federal intrusions? Finally, given that 2012 will be the tenth anniversary of the demise of the Supreme Court’s so-called federalism revolution, one can ask what happened to that revolution and are there any signs of a federalism revival from the Roberts’ Court? Papers on other federalism topics will be considered as well, depending on CSF’s panel allocation.

Submit your proposals to: Troy Smith at troy.smith@byuh.edu

The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunities for 2012-2013

For 2012-2013, we seek up to four new postdoctoral fellows. We welcome candidates with substantial normative research interests from diverse backgrounds including philosophy, the social sciences, and professional schools. We are especially interested in candidates with research interests in inequality, human rights, immigration, and environmental justice, but we welcome all applicants with strong normative interests that have some practical implications. Fellows will teach one class, participate in a Political Theory Workshop, interact with undergraduates in the Ethics in Society Honors Program and help in developing an inter-disciplinary ethics community across the campus.

The appointment term is September 1, 2012 - August 31, 2013; however, the initial term may be renewed for an additional year. Applicants must have completed all requirements for their PhD by June 30, 2012. Candidates must also be no more than 3 years from the awarding of their degree (i.e., September 2009).

Stanford University is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty. It welcomes applications from women and members of minority groups, as well as others who would bring additional dimensions to the university's research and teaching missions. Salary is competitive.

The application deadline is January 11, 2012 (5:00pm Pacific Standard Time).

To access the online application system, click here.

For more information on the Center and our fellowship program, click here.

For inquiries, please contact Joan Berry: joanberry@stanford.edu

The virtues and the economist

A series of exchanges on facebook about this comic with people trained in economics who seemed to me to miss the point of it entirely made me remember running across the abstract for this article, which I then dug back out and read and appreciated, and which I now recommend.

Lisa Herzog, "Higher and lower virtues in commercial society: Adam Smith and motivation crowding out," forthcoming, Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.

Abstract:

Motivation crowding out can lead to a reduction of ‘higher’ virtues, such as altruism or public spirit, in market contexts. This article discusses the role of virtue in the moral and economic theory of Adam Smith. It argues that because Smith’s account of commercial society is based on ‘lower’ virtue, ‘higher’ virtue has a precarious place in it; this phenomenon is structurally similar to motivation crowding out. The article analyzes and systematizes the ways in which Smith builds on ‘contrivances of nature’ in order to solve the problems of limited self-command and limited knowledge. As recent research has shown, a clear separation of different social spheres can help to reduce the risk of motivation crowding out and preserve a place for ‘higher virtue’ in commercial society. The conclusion reflects on the performative power of economics, arguing that the one-sided focus on models of ‘economic man’ should be embedded in a larger context.

My view about the cartoon itself, since Mike Munger misunderstood the punch line completely (hi, Mike!): The philosopher already knows the economist's arguments, having encountered them in week 2 of freshman intro moral philosophy under the names "Bentham" and "Sidgwick." That the economist is falsely assuming his ideas are new to the philosopher is made clear with the "fractions" joke.

The economist is violating lots of the official methodological pronouncements of economics, which is supposed to take preferences as exogenous and is not supposed to be a normative injunction to individual persons to maximize market value in all of their choices. It's supposed to be a way to model the decisions that are made among commensurable ends, whatever the decision process that goes into deciding what to value. So a good economist would have said, "ah, this is a question that comes before the questions I know how to answer; I need to put my toolkit away and see whether there's something interesting to learn here about how individuals do, or should, form priorities." And of course the economist is also violating the rule against engaging in interpersonal comparisons of utility; there's not even a pretense of showing Kaldor-Hicks efficiency (which itself is mighty dubious from the perspective of no-interpersonal-comparisons).

But the economist is talking like lots of people with some econ training talk, despite those methodological pronouncements. He's seeking aggregate welfare maximization, using only the welfare measures that are revealed in market prices. That this is a tail-swallowing rule for individuals to follow in making ethical choices was shown long ago by Bernard Williams. But it's also worth noting that it's Benthamite utilitarianism of just the sort that modern economics purports to have outgrown.

Hasana Sharp, Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization

Now in print.

There have been many Spinozas over the centuries: atheist, romantic pantheist, great thinker of the multitude, advocate of the liberated individual, and rigorous rationalist. The common thread connecting all of these clashing perspectives is Spinoza’s naturalism, the idea that humanity is part of nature, not above it.

In this sophisticated new interpretation of Spinoza’s iconoclastic philosophy, Hasana Sharp draws on his uncompromising naturalism to rethink human agency, ethics, and political practice. Sharp uses Spinoza to outline a practical wisdom of “renaturalization,” showing how ideas, actions, and institutions are never merely products of human intention or design, but outcomes of the complex relationships among natural forces beyond our control. This lack of a metaphysical or moral division between humanity and the rest of nature, Sharp contends, can provide the basis for an ethical and political practice free from the tendency to view ourselves as either gods or beasts.

Sharp’s groundbreaking argument critically engages with important contemporary thinkers—including deep ecologists, feminists, and race and critical theorists—making Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization vital for a wide range of scholars.

When last we looked in on biking at McGill

... just over a year ago, there was a big public forum at which sentiment was strongly (though not unanimously) against the environment-unfriendly categorical ban on bikes on McGill's downtown campus. Associate Vice-President Jim Nicell dismissed the forum as drawing an unbalanced crowd, though without saying what drove the selection process, and though for weeks beforehand the upcoming forum had been used to tell bikers that their concerns would get a public airing.

Further dialogue and consultation was promised.

Like I said: just over a year ago.

Hither and yon: University of Ottawa

October 5, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Fauteaux Hall room 147B, 4-5:30 with reception to follow.

John Hasnas (Georgetown University) - The depoliticization of law

Jacob T. Levy (McGill University) - Non-ideal constitutionalism

Scott Reid (Member of Parliament) - Examining of the roots of Canada's "Living Tree" doctrine

Pearson Chair at McGill University

The Katherine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy

Applications are currently invited for The Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy tenable jointly in the Faculty of Arts (www.mcgill.ca/arts) and in the Faculty of Law (www.mcgill.ca/law), McGill University. The appointment is expected to be at the rank of Full Professor. The Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy was created through a generous gift from the McConnell Foundation.

The Faculties of Arts and of Law seek applications from scholars of international renown with impeccable academic credentials in Arts and in Law, and demonstrated interdisciplinary expertise. The purpose of the Chair is to contribute to the teaching and supervision of undergraduate and graduate students in the two faculties. The holder of the Chair will also be expected to assume leadership within a new Civil Society Program at McGill University, develop new research directions in civil society and foster research grant applications to sustain the Program.

The Civil Society Program will rest on a broad meaning of civil society as an analytic term for the social sciences and humanities. Moving beyond the now-standard opposition of civil society to the State, the Program will explore both formal non-governmental structures and organizations (the “community sector”), and informal associations, practices, beliefs and values that mediate between the self and the State. The Program will study the role of individuals and non-governmental institutional forms, groups, communities and organizations in the development of legal and public policy. It will explore innovative, pluralistic and adaptive approaches to governance in meeting local and global challenges posed by health, environment, personal and economic well-being, social diversity and equity in a context of declining public resources.

The Civil Society Program will draw on McGill University’s identity as a socially important institution in public life in Canada and a respected voice internationally. McGill’s embrace of the advantages of study in Montreal – bilingualism, bicultural and bijural institutions, a cosmopolitan urban setting – are understood as central to the success of this venture. It will focus on Canada as a laboratory for study and public action, and recognize that Canada represents, at its best, a model setting for teaching, research and public outreach on matters relating to civil society in the international community.

Applicants shall provide a letter of intent, a summary of research interests (including proposed research program), complete curriculum vitae, copies of three representative publications, and the names of at least three references to the Staff Appointments Committee by October 15, 2011. However, applications will be accepted until an incumbent for the Chair is found. Email applications are preferred (linda.coughin@mcgill.ca) but hard copy applications can also be mailed to:

Staff Appointments Committee
c/o Dean’s Office
Faculty of Law
McGill University
3644 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 1W9

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. McGill University is committed to diversity and equity in employment. It welcomes applications from indigenous peoples, visible minorities, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, women, persons of minority sexual orientations and gender identities and others who may contribute to further diversification.

GRIPP: Bonnie Honig

Friday September 16, 2011:

First workshop of the year for the Groupe de Recherche Interuniversitaire en Philosophie Politique [GRIPP]. Paper by Bonnie Honig, Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation.

“’Antigone versus Oedipus?’ Feminist Theory and the Turn to Antigone."

Ferrier 456, McGill, 2-4 pm. Attendees are expected to read the paper in advance.

Followed by beginning of the year Research Group on Constitutional Studies/ GRIPP reception, 4 pm, Ferrier reading room (428B).

Sometime this week...

on the basis of the traffic I receive passively from google hits and blogrolls and old links and so on, this blog will get its 250,000th visit, very close to the ninth anniversary of my first substantive post. This post itself might trigger the 250,000th visitor just by RSS subscriptions. (In a meaningless coincidence of round numbers, I'm also nearing the 500 mark on followers on twitter. [Update: the 500 mark hasbeen hit.])

On the one hand, nine years is a pretty long time to hit the quarter-million mark; Mike Munger was crowing about his million after seven years this summer. On the other hand, this blog started out with an expression of ambivalence (within a day of the independently-written and now much more famous ambivalent first post from that other fellow down the hall), went more or less full-steam ahead for about four months, then went dormant when I migrated to the Volokh Conspiracy for most of three years, and then stayed almost-dormant for a long time while I blogged there and while I took a couple years off from blogging altogether except for occasional posts like my mostly-annual roundups of new books in political theory. Just when I was really getting going again, The New Republic launched Open University, which was a noble experiment with some interesting stuff (I greatly enjoyed reading Daniel Bell's, including this post about the launch of the Kindle. But in the end OU turned out kind of strange: academics engaged in parallel play, with Richard Stern writing as a diarist, Cass Sunstein promoting and defending Barack Obama's campaign, Sandy Levinson discussing the constitutional crisis of the Bush administration, and so on. My occasional attempts to engage in occasional intra-blog conversations were less than wholly successful. And OU petered out in 2008.

For a while now, what I've mostly blogged here have been political theory news (conference announcements, fellowship announcements, book lists, occasional book reviews), interspersed with bits of coffee-blogging and geek-culture blogging. My last real sustained use of the blog to develop and express my own views was during the Taylor-Bouchard commission hearings and report. I've had a few rounds of flamewars (e.g. with the odd law professor from Wisconsin who shall not be named lest she reappear) and have no appetite for them. And all those worries in that very first post still occur to me.

Overall, I think I've really blogged here intensively for the initial four months, and then in 2007-2009. I've never really committed to a view about this space. I try to do a lot of what Larry Solum does in terms of professional-service blogging. I worry about mixing that kind of space with a really active expression of views, as is done by the equivalent figure in philosophy; but then every so often I've got strong views about an obviously bloggable subject and go to it. When I have just a few substantive sentences to say about something these days, I put 'em on facebook.

The big spike in readership I get when I return to substantive blogging is nice-- but so are the expressions of appreciation I get from students and colleagues for the book recommendations and conference announcements and so on.

So: a quarter-million visitors in about three and a half years of real blogging spread over nine years, plus a few more years here and there of... whatever it is I do here most of the time. That's not bad. More importantly, I seem to mostly have the readers I want to have. I appreciate the readers who've stuck with me through my wanderings and ambivalences and passing fancies about what to do here, as well as those who happen by for one reason or another; and I appreciate most (though not quite all) of my various blogospheric interlocutors over that time. Thanks!

Hither and yon, youtube edition

My talk at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney on "Rationalism, Pluralism, and Hayek's history of liberal thought" has been captured for the ages.

What I bought at APSA

Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy, George Klosko ed., OUP

Flanagan, Alcantra, and Le Dressay, Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights, MQUP

Jonathan Quong, Liberalism Without Perfection, OUP

Avigail Eisenberg, Reasons of Identity, OUP (new in paperback)

Margaret Kohn and Keally McBride, Political Theories of Decolonization:
Postcolonialism and the Problem of Foundations, OUP

Farah Godrej, Cosmopolitan Political Thought, OUP

Catherine Zuckert. Political Philosophy in the 20th Century, CUP

Gregory Claeys, Imperial Sceptics, CUP

Gerald Gaus, The Order of Public Reason CUP

Stedman-Jones ed, Cambridge History of 19th century political thought, CUP

Floyd and Stears, Political Philosophy vs History?, CUP

Andrei Marmor, Philosophy of Law, PUP

Annabel Brett, Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law, PUP

Isaac Nakhimovsky, The Closed Commercial State: Perpetual Peace and Commercial Society from Rousseau to Fichte, PUP

Duncan Kelly, The Propriety of Liberty, PUP

Jeremy Jennings, Revolution and thre Republic, OUP

Chad Rector, Federations, Cornell UP

(OUP= Oxford, CUP=Cambridge, PUP=Princeton)

ASPLP at APSA: Nomos: Federalism and Subsidiarity

2011 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
“Federalism and Subsidiarity”
American Political Science Association
Saturday-Sunday, September 3-4, 2011, Seattle




Saturday, September 3
pre-8:00 am: Coffee

8:00 – 9:45 AM Panel I: The City and Federalism
The Conference Center LL1

Principal Paper: “Cities, Subsidiarity, and Federalism”, Daniel
Weinstock, Philosophy, University of Montreal

Commentator: Loren King, Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University
Commentator: Judith Resnik, Law, Yale University
Chair: Nancy Rosenblum, Political Science, Harvard University


1:45 PM: ASPLP Business Meeting
The Conference Center LL4


2:00-3:45 PM: Panel II: The Constitution and Federalism
The Conference Center LL4

Principal Paper: “Federalism and Subsidiarity, Perspectives from Law”,
Steven Calabresi, Law, Northwestern University

Commentator: Jenna Bednar, Political Science, University of Michigan
Commentator: Andreas Follesdal, Philosophy, University of Oslo
Chair: James E. Fleming, Law, Boston University

7:30-9:00 PM: Annual Reception
Washington State Convention Center 306


Sunday, September 4
pre-8:00 am: coffee

8:00-9:45 AM: Panel III: Against Dual Federalism.
Washington State Convention Center 618

Principal Paper: “Defending Dual Federalism: A self-defeating
enterprise”, Sotirios A. Barber, Political Science, Notre Dame.

Commentator: Ernest Young, Law, Duke University
Commentator: Michael Blake, Philosophy, University of Washington
Chair: Jacob T. Levy, Political Science, McGill University

Hither and yon, down under

Rationalism, Pluralism, and Hayek's History of Liberal Thought, The Centre for Independent Studies, Level 4, 38 Oxley St, St Leonards, Sydney 2065, 17 August 2011, 6:00 pm - 7:15 pm

Conference, Between Indigenous and Settler Governance, University of Western Sydney, 18-20 August 2011. Paper: "Indigenous Rights, Modern Political Concepts, and the State."

Visiting Fulbright Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism, McGill University, 2012-13

Application deadline: August 1
Stipend: $25,000 for one-semester or yearlong visitorship
Eligibility and how to apply
Call for applications

Associational freedom

H/T Eugene Volokh: Apilado v. North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance holds that a gay softball league has the First Amendment right to limit the number of straight players per team.