Fall 2008, POLI 232: Modern Political Thought
This is nearly final. NB: The wait-list for the course is growing rapidly, but experience teaches me that a significant number of enrolled students will drop the course as a result of the reading load. If you're seeking admission to the course, assume you'll get it. If you're enrolled and are going to be frightened off by the reading load, it would be courteous to un-enroll sooner rather than later.
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This course provides an introduction to some of the key questions in modern (since 1500, i.e. not ancient or medieval) political thought, with occasional reference to older works when they are helpful for discussing modern questions. Attention will center on the ethics of political life:
1) Whether, when, and why a person should obey the law
2) What means may be used by rulers; whether, when, and why rulers are ethically entitled to use violence, coercion, manipulation, and deception
3) How states can gain the knowledge that is necessary to rule their societies, and what the limits of their knowledge are.
In short, the course will be about political ethics, and about the relationship between morality and politics. It will not be about questions of who decides in politics (e.g. democratic theory and its challenges) or about questions of what ought to be done in politics (whether governments should pursue liberal, conservative, socialist, etc. policies), though some of the texts we read also have important things to say on those questions and we will touch on them as they arise. These topics are addressed in other political theory courses for which this course will provide preparation. Special attention will be given to two of the major kinds of distinctively modern theories about ethics and politics (and objections to them): social contract theories and utilitarianism.
1.September 3: Introduction
Part I. The ethics of obeying and ruling
2. September 5:
Aristotle, The Politics, Everson ed., Cambridge University Press, pp. 65-8 and 170-1
Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” [appearing under the modern title “Civil Disobedience”]
Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” excerpt
3. September 8:
Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1958 [1919] pp. 77-128
A. Obedience
4. September 10:
Sophocles, Antigone, excerpts TBA
5. September 12:
Plato, “The Apology” and “Crito,” from The Trial and Death of Socrates
6. September 15:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Hackett Publishing, chs. 13, 17-18, 26; pp. 74-8, pp. 106-118, 172-89
7. September 17-19:
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, Cambridge University Press, chs. 2-3, 7, pp. 269-82, 318-53
8. September 22
Locke, Second Treatise, chs. 18-19, pp. 398-428
Declaration of American Independence
9. September 24-26
David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Liberty Fund, pp. 465-88
Hume, Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 51-73 [Treatise of Human Nature III.8-10]
10. September 29
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Gourevitch,ed., The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, pp. 49-54, 59-64, 121-2 (I.6-8, II.3-4, IV.1)
Rousseau, Discourse Concerning the Origins of Inequality, in Gourevitch, ed., The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, pp. 161-88
11. October 1-3
Robert Nozick, “The Tale of the Slave,” from Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-2.
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, University of California Press, 1970, pp. 3-19
B. Ruling
12. October 6
Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 8-10, 15-19
13. October 8-10
The Prince, complete
14. October 15-17
Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Winter, 1973), pp. 160-180.
15. October 20
Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chs. 1-2, 4, pp. 1-24, 29-32
16. October 22-24
John Stuart Mill, “Utilitarianism,” Williams ed., London: J.M. Dent/ Everyman, chs 2, 5, pp.6-27, 43-67
17. October 27
Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Smart & Williams, Utilitarianism, for and against, Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-118.
Robert Goodin, Utilitarianism as a Public Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 4-12, 28-41
18. October 29-31
Thomas Nagel, “Ruthlessness in Public Life,” in Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality, Cambridge University Press, pp. 75-91
Williams, “Politics and Moral Character,” in Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56-73
19. November 3:
Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, New York: Vintage, 1989, pp. 18-56
20. November 5-7:
Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Vintage, pp. 1-19
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 22-33
21. November 10:
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, New York: Basic Books, 1977, pp. 127-59, 225-32, 255-68
22. November 12:
In-class exam
Part III. Knowledge and governance
23. November 17:
F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Sep., 1945), pp. 519-530.
John Dewey, The Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 158-60, 169-72
24. November 19-21:
Michael Oakeshott, “Rationalism in Politics,” in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Liberty Fund, pp. 5-43
Jeremy Bentham, Bentham’s Handbook of Anarchical Fallacies, pp. 43-51, 131-5, 193-205
25. November 24:
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, Sheridan trans., New York: Pantheon Books, 1977, pp. 135-39, 149-153, 168-69, 177-92
26. November 26-28
Foucault, 195-228
27. November 26-28.
James C. Scott, Seeing Like A State, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 11-15, 18-24, 33-73,
29. December 1:
Scott, pp. 76-83, 87-102
30. December 2:
Conclusion
Friday, August 08, 2008
In the news
I'm quoted in today's Journal de Montreal as one of several experts approving of the Montreal YMCA's decision to allow a Muslim lifeguard to wear a "burkini," a swimsuit that leaves only her face, hands, and feet exposed.
Interestingly and importantly, the woman is a native-born Quebecoise who converted to Islam, not an immigrant or from an immigrant family. It's worthwhile to emphasize that "reasonable accommodations" help protect the religious liberty of everyone in a jurisdiction, not only immigrants. Because of the possibility of conversion, there's no neat way to divide up religious freedom between Them and Us.
I'm quoted in today's Journal de Montreal as one of several experts approving of the Montreal YMCA's decision to allow a Muslim lifeguard to wear a "burkini," a swimsuit that leaves only her face, hands, and feet exposed.
Interestingly and importantly, the woman is a native-born Quebecoise who converted to Islam, not an immigrant or from an immigrant family. It's worthwhile to emphasize that "reasonable accommodations" help protect the religious liberty of everyone in a jurisdiction, not only immigrants. Because of the possibility of conversion, there's no neat way to divide up religious freedom between Them and Us.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Now online
The special issue of Hypatia "In Honor of Iris Marion Young: Theorist and Practitioner of Justice."
The special issue of Hypatia "In Honor of Iris Marion Young: Theorist and Practitioner of Justice."
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Incipient immortality, part of a continuing series
Via faithful reader and sometime co-consumer Professor J, the New York Times provides this round-up of all the most important recent health news. It's Science, so it must be true.
Via faithful reader and sometime co-consumer Professor J, the New York Times provides this round-up of all the most important recent health news. It's Science, so it must be true.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Available for pre-order...
in time for fall semester courses.
The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought: The Twentieth Century and Beyond , eds. Andrew Bailey, Samantha Brennan, Will Kymlicka, Jacob Levy, Alex Sager, Clark Wolf.
Description:
See the table of contents.
Already available: volume 1: From Plato to Nietzsche.
in time for fall semester courses.
The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought: The Twentieth Century and Beyond , eds. Andrew Bailey, Samantha Brennan, Will Kymlicka, Jacob Levy, Alex Sager, Clark Wolf.
Description:
The second volume of this comprehensive anthology covers the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The anthology is broad ranging both in its selection of material by figures traditionally acknowledged as being of central importance, and in the material it presents by a range of other figures. The material in this volume is presented in three sections. The first, "Power and the State," includes selections by such figures as Goldman, Lenin, Weber, Schmitt, and Hayek. Among those included in the "Race, Gender, and Colonialism" section are de Beauvoir, Gandhi, Fanon, and Young. The third and by far the longest section, "Rights-Based Liberalism and its Critics," focuses on the many interrelated directions that social and political philosophy has taken since the publication of John Rawls's ground-breaking A Theory of Justice in 1971.
See the table of contents.
Already available: volume 1: From Plato to Nietzsche.
Onto the reading list
Malcolm M. Feeley and Edward Rubin, Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromise
I'm worried by the apparent nationalist teleology. A multiethnic state may not be a nation in potentia that just happens not to have yet been realized, and it's dangerous to view it that way. There is no law of nature or moral demand that "the people within its borders gradually abandon their local identities and come to view themselves as citizens of the nation." But still, I think Feeley and Rubin are approaching federalism with the right questions in mind, and I've expressed my own related worries about federalism's obsolescence in the U.S. for related reasons.
I read 40 pages or so of this book in proofs form standing in the book room at Law and Society, and recommend it very highly. It's a major and important work.
Malcolm M. Feeley and Edward Rubin, Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromise
Federalism refers to a system in which a centralized national government shares power with member states. Beyond this most basic definition, however, scholars debate the applications and implications of the term. Joining the concept of identity from political science with legal principle, Malcolm M. Feeley and Edward Rubin propose a theory of federalism and test the relevance of federalism for the United States today.
Essentially, federalism represents a compromise among groups who refuse to yield autonomy yet acknowledge the benefits of forming a nation. As in the African and Asian nations forged from former colonies, federalism allows the member states---often dominated by ethnic minorities---to remain largely self-governing. In this way, a young nation can avoid secession and civil war while the people within its borders gradually abandon their local identities and come to view themselves as citizens of the nation.
The United States, Feeley and Rubin remind us, faced a similar situation in the eighteenth century as thirteen regionally distinct, ethnically diverse, and highly independent British colonies came together to found a nation. Despite the Civil War and the upheaval of the Civil Rights Movement, the federalist strategy ultimately succeeded. For the United States in the early twenty-first century, thanks to the rise of a strong national identity and a ubiquitous bureaucracy, federalism has become obsolete. This bold argument is certain to provoke controversy.
I'm worried by the apparent nationalist teleology. A multiethnic state may not be a nation in potentia that just happens not to have yet been realized, and it's dangerous to view it that way. There is no law of nature or moral demand that "the people within its borders gradually abandon their local identities and come to view themselves as citizens of the nation." But still, I think Feeley and Rubin are approaching federalism with the right questions in mind, and I've expressed my own related worries about federalism's obsolescence in the U.S. for related reasons.
I read 40 pages or so of this book in proofs form standing in the book room at Law and Society, and recommend it very highly. It's a major and important work.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
Has anyone...
ever written on the recurrent phrasing of "the pure theory of" in social science and social thought?
It's often used to indicate that a theory is being built up neoclassical economic premises in an ostensibly purely-deductive fashion; but the earliest prominent use of it, Kelsen's "pure theory of law," has no particular relationship to the purity of economics.
Since I would imagine that anyone writing a general account would be unable to resist the title "the pure theory of pure theories," but that phrase generates no hits on google, I'm going to guess that no one's done it. I hereby offer that title up gratis (though an acknowledgment would be nice!) to anyone who can do something clever with it.
ever written on the recurrent phrasing of "the pure theory of" in social science and social thought?
It's often used to indicate that a theory is being built up neoclassical economic premises in an ostensibly purely-deductive fashion; but the earliest prominent use of it, Kelsen's "pure theory of law," has no particular relationship to the purity of economics.
Since I would imagine that anyone writing a general account would be unable to resist the title "the pure theory of pure theories," but that phrase generates no hits on google, I'm going to guess that no one's done it. I hereby offer that title up gratis (though an acknowledgment would be nice!) to anyone who can do something clever with it.
Liberal Beginnings
Onto the purchase list and then onto the reading list with this one:
Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic For the Moderns. by Ira Katznelson and Andreas Kalyvas; 2008, Cambridge University Press.
Onto the purchase list and then onto the reading list with this one:
Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic For the Moderns. by Ira Katznelson and Andreas Kalyvas; 2008, Cambridge University Press.
The book examines the origins and development of the modern liberal tradition and explores the relationship between republicanism and liberalism between 1750 and 1830. The authors consider the diverse settings of Scotland, the American colonies, the new United States, and France and examine the writings of six leading thinkers of this period: Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Germaine de Staël, and Benjamin Constant. The book traces the process by which these thinkers transformed and advanced the republican project, both from within and by introducing new elements from without. Without compromising civic principles or abandoning republican language, they came to see that unrevised, the republican tradition could not grapple successfully with the political problems of their time. By investing new meanings, arguments, and justifications into existing republican ideas and political forms, these innovators fashioned a doctrine for a modern republic, the core of which was surprisingly liberal.
Congratulations...
to Leigh Jenco, whose (absolutely first-rate) dissertation "Individuals, Institutions, and Political Change: The Political Theory of Zhang Shizhao" has been awarded APSA's 2008 Leo Strauss prize for the best dissertation in political theory. Jenco has recently taken up a post as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore.
to Leigh Jenco, whose (absolutely first-rate) dissertation "Individuals, Institutions, and Political Change: The Political Theory of Zhang Shizhao" has been awarded APSA's 2008 Leo Strauss prize for the best dissertation in political theory. Jenco has recently taken up a post as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
San Diego Comic Con
My old friend Ali Kokmen, in San Diego for Comic Con, offered up this rousing rally to soldier on through the end of the convention. Go check it out-- really.
My old friend Ali Kokmen, in San Diego for Comic Con, offered up this rousing rally to soldier on through the end of the convention. Go check it out-- really.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Professor Obama
There's been some understandable surprise in the blogosphere at the account in today's NYT of Barack Obama's career at the University of Chicago Law School, which reports that after his loss to Bobby Rush in the 2000 Congressional primary, the Law School was prepared to offer him a tenured professorship despite his lack of scholarly publications. Assuming that the Times has this right, it's at least quite startling. (The position Obama ended up accepting, Senior Lecturer, was one shared by full-time federal judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook who also teach and research at the Law School; it's a different kind of position, and one that's appropriate to offer to a practitioner interested in teaching.)
One thing to note, though, is that earlier, as Jason Zengerle reported,
In other words, the Law School had in some sense already endorsed Dreams of My Father as a substitute for a scholarly book on voting rights. It may be that that assessment carried over to the willingness to consider a tenured position later on. It was a book the school had supported the writing of in the first place, which would make it odd for the school to later take the position that Obama had no publications.
This is probably a bit beside the point; the underlying rationale was surely something more like "you do whatever it takes to get this brilliant charismatic clearly-destined-for-greatness guy on your faculty for the rest of his life." But I do think that the institutional endorsement of the book is relevant.
[Disclaimer: Despite my own time at the Law School and the fact that I know lots of the people quoted, I have no inside knowledge about any of this.]
Update: Not terribly surprisingly, it appears that the NYT got this wrong.
There's been some understandable surprise in the blogosphere at the account in today's NYT of Barack Obama's career at the University of Chicago Law School, which reports that after his loss to Bobby Rush in the 2000 Congressional primary, the Law School was prepared to offer him a tenured professorship despite his lack of scholarly publications. Assuming that the Times has this right, it's at least quite startling. (The position Obama ended up accepting, Senior Lecturer, was one shared by full-time federal judges Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook who also teach and research at the Law School; it's a different kind of position, and one that's appropriate to offer to a practitioner interested in teaching.)
One thing to note, though, is that earlier, as Jason Zengerle reported,
[Then-Appointments Chair Douglas] Baird approached Obama about a teaching job at Chicago during his third and final year as a student at Harvard. "You look at his background--Harvard Law Review president, magna cum laude, and he's African American," Baird says. "This is a no-brainer hiring decision at the entry level of any law school in the country." But Obama wasn't interested. Obama did, however, mention that he was writing a book on voting rights, so Baird arranged for him to become a Law and Government Fellow at the school--a position that provided Obama with an office and a modest stipend he could use in the course of his writing. When Obama came to Baird in the middle of his fellowship to report that his book on voting rights had morphed into the memoir that would become Dreams From My Father, Baird told him not to worry.
In other words, the Law School had in some sense already endorsed Dreams of My Father as a substitute for a scholarly book on voting rights. It may be that that assessment carried over to the willingness to consider a tenured position later on. It was a book the school had supported the writing of in the first place, which would make it odd for the school to later take the position that Obama had no publications.
This is probably a bit beside the point; the underlying rationale was surely something more like "you do whatever it takes to get this brilliant charismatic clearly-destined-for-greatness guy on your faculty for the rest of his life." But I do think that the institutional endorsement of the book is relevant.
[Disclaimer: Despite my own time at the Law School and the fact that I know lots of the people quoted, I have no inside knowledge about any of this.]
Update: Not terribly surprisingly, it appears that the NYT got this wrong.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Onto the reading list
Social Philosophy and Policy special issue on freedom of association, including:
THE PRIVATE SOCIETY AND THE LIBERAL PUBLIC GOOD IN JOHN LOCKE'S THOUGHT
Eric R. Claeys
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 201-234
THE MADISONIAN PARADOX OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Richard Boyd
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 235-262
FROM THE SOCIAL CONTRACT TO THE ART OF ASSOCIATION: A TOCQUEVILLIAN PERSPECTIVE
Aurelian Craiutu
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 263-287
and a good deal else besides...
Social Philosophy and Policy special issue on freedom of association, including:
THE PRIVATE SOCIETY AND THE LIBERAL PUBLIC GOOD IN JOHN LOCKE'S THOUGHT
Eric R. Claeys
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 201-234
THE MADISONIAN PARADOX OF FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION
Richard Boyd
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 235-262
FROM THE SOCIAL CONTRACT TO THE ART OF ASSOCIATION: A TOCQUEVILLIAN PERSPECTIVE
Aurelian Craiutu
Social Philosophy and Policy, Volume 25, Issue 02, July 2008, pp 263-287
and a good deal else besides...
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sylabussing
I've never before taught the same class in the spring of one academic year and in the fall of the immediately following year. Add in the fact that I was doing strike-disrupted grading until June, and it feels much too soon to be thinking about this course again. But September 3 isn't so terribly far away.
Hm. What to cut, and how to reconfigure?
"Why to obey" and "how to rule" should be disentangled in Part I of the syllabus. Social contract theory should be moved out of the liberalism-conservatism-socialism part of the course and back to the "why to obey" section.
On the one hand, maybe all the ancient material should be dropped; it's an intro to "modern political thought," after all. On the other hand, maybe what should be dropped is most of Parts II and III, with Part I plus social contract theory plus some case studies, stretched out over the semester.
Possibly add some Foucault, Discipline, alongside Hayek and Dewey on governance and knowledge.
More Bentham. But possibly drop Mill altogether? That would be strange, but it may be the right answer.
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The idea that books need to be ordered soon is most distressing.
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Political Science 232: Modern Political Thought, Fall 2008, PRELIMINARY DRAFT syllabus.
1.September 3: Introduction
Part I. Ethics and Politics
2. September 5:
Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” [appearing under the modern title “Civil Disobedience”]
Excerpt from Martin Luther King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
3. September 8:
CP: Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1958 [1919] pp. 77-128
4. September 10:
Sophocles, Antigone, entire
5. September 12:
Plato, “Crito” and “The Apology”
6. September 15-17
Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 8-26
September 17-19: Conferences begin
7. September 22:
CP: Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Winter, 1973), pp. 160-180.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-3915%28197324%292%3A2%3C160%3APATPOD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7
8. September 24-26:
CP: Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Smart & Williams, Utilitarianism, for and against, Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-118.
Williams, “Politics and Moral Character,” and Thomas Nagel, “Ruthlessness in Public Life,” in Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56-73 and 75-91
9. September 29:
CP: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 19-38
Thucydides, “The Melian Dialogue,” from History of the Peloponnesian War
10. October 1-3:
CP: Robert Nozick, “The Tale of the Slave,” from Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-2.
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, University of California Press, 1970, pp. 3-19
Aristotle, The Politics, Everson ed., Cambridge University Press, pp. 65-8 and 170-1
11. October 6:
CP: F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Sep., 1945), pp. 519-530.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28194509%2935%3A4%3C519%3ATUOKIS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
John Dewey, The Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 158-60, 169-72
12. October 8-10:
CP: Michael Oakeshott, “Rationalism in Politics,” in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Liberty Fund, pp. 5-43
Jeremy Bentham, Bentham’s Handbook of Anarchical Fallacies, pp. 43-51, 131-5, 193-205
Part II. Liberty
October 13: NO CLASS
13. October 15-17.
CP: Plato, The Republic, Allan Bloom trans., pp. 235-242 (557a-564a), 251-60 (571a-579e)
14. October 20.
CP: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Gourevitch,ed., The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, pp. 49-54, 59-64, 121-2 (I.6-8, II.3-4, IV.1)
Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns,” in Biancamaria Fontana, ed., Constant: Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, pp. 309-28
15. October 22-24.
CP: Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, pp. 119-54
16. October 27.
CP: Berlin, “Two Concepts,” pp. 154-72.
Charles Taylor, “What’s Wrong With Negative Liberty,” in Philosophical Papers vol 2: Philosophy and the Human Sciences, pp. 211-29
Part III. Ideas, ideals, and ideologies: what shall we do?
19. October 29-31:
CP: John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Cambridge University Press, pp. 269-78, 330-63, ch. 2, 8-11
Declaration of American Independence
MARCH 4: SECOND PAPER DUE
21. November 3:
CP: David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Liberty Fund, pp. 465-88
Hume, Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 51-73 [Treatise of Human Nature III.8-10]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Conservative,” in Essays & Lectures, Library of America, pp. 173-89
22. November 5-7:
CP: Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” in Rationalism in Politics, pp. 407-37
23. November 10:
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ch. 1-2
24. November 12-14:
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ch. 3-5
25. November 17:
CP: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 3-33 and 54-65
26. November 19:
IN-CLASS EXAM
No conferences the week of November 17.
27. November 26.
CP: Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 26-52
“The Communist Manifesto,” sections 1 and 2, pp. 469-91
28. November 28-30.
CP: Publius, The Federalist Papers, Rossiter ed., Signet, pp. 66-79, 297-322 (#s 9-10, 47-51
And review: Rousseau reading from February 14-16
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
29. December 1:
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, ch. 16, “Of Nationality.”
30. December 2:
CP: Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Vintage, pp. 1-19
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” in The Orwell Reader, Harvest, pp. 355-66
I've never before taught the same class in the spring of one academic year and in the fall of the immediately following year. Add in the fact that I was doing strike-disrupted grading until June, and it feels much too soon to be thinking about this course again. But September 3 isn't so terribly far away.
Hm. What to cut, and how to reconfigure?
"Why to obey" and "how to rule" should be disentangled in Part I of the syllabus. Social contract theory should be moved out of the liberalism-conservatism-socialism part of the course and back to the "why to obey" section.
On the one hand, maybe all the ancient material should be dropped; it's an intro to "modern political thought," after all. On the other hand, maybe what should be dropped is most of Parts II and III, with Part I plus social contract theory plus some case studies, stretched out over the semester.
Possibly add some Foucault, Discipline, alongside Hayek and Dewey on governance and knowledge.
More Bentham. But possibly drop Mill altogether? That would be strange, but it may be the right answer.
-------------
The idea that books need to be ordered soon is most distressing.
-------------
Political Science 232: Modern Political Thought, Fall 2008, PRELIMINARY DRAFT syllabus.
1.September 3: Introduction
Part I. Ethics and Politics
2. September 5:
Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” [appearing under the modern title “Civil Disobedience”]
Excerpt from Martin Luther King, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
3. September 8:
CP: Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Oxford University Press, 1958 [1919] pp. 77-128
4. September 10:
Sophocles, Antigone, entire
5. September 12:
Plato, “Crito” and “The Apology”
6. September 15-17
Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 8-26
September 17-19: Conferences begin
7. September 22:
CP: Michael Walzer, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 2. (Winter, 1973), pp. 160-180.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0048-3915%28197324%292%3A2%3C160%3APATPOD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7
8. September 24-26:
CP: Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in Smart & Williams, Utilitarianism, for and against, Cambridge University Press, pp. 93-118.
Williams, “Politics and Moral Character,” and Thomas Nagel, “Ruthlessness in Public Life,” in Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality, Cambridge University Press, pp. 56-73 and 75-91
9. September 29:
CP: Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, University of Chicago Press, 1996, pp. 19-38
Thucydides, “The Melian Dialogue,” from History of the Peloponnesian War
10. October 1-3:
CP: Robert Nozick, “The Tale of the Slave,” from Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 290-2.
Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, University of California Press, 1970, pp. 3-19
Aristotle, The Politics, Everson ed., Cambridge University Press, pp. 65-8 and 170-1
11. October 6:
CP: F. A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Sep., 1945), pp. 519-530.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28194509%2935%3A4%3C519%3ATUOKIS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1
John Dewey, The Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 158-60, 169-72
12. October 8-10:
CP: Michael Oakeshott, “Rationalism in Politics,” in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Liberty Fund, pp. 5-43
Jeremy Bentham, Bentham’s Handbook of Anarchical Fallacies, pp. 43-51, 131-5, 193-205
Part II. Liberty
October 13: NO CLASS
13. October 15-17.
CP: Plato, The Republic, Allan Bloom trans., pp. 235-242 (557a-564a), 251-60 (571a-579e)
14. October 20.
CP: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in Gourevitch,ed., The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, pp. 49-54, 59-64, 121-2 (I.6-8, II.3-4, IV.1)
Benjamin Constant, “The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns,” in Biancamaria Fontana, ed., Constant: Political Writings, Cambridge University Press, pp. 309-28
15. October 22-24.
CP: Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, pp. 119-54
16. October 27.
CP: Berlin, “Two Concepts,” pp. 154-72.
Charles Taylor, “What’s Wrong With Negative Liberty,” in Philosophical Papers vol 2: Philosophy and the Human Sciences, pp. 211-29
Part III. Ideas, ideals, and ideologies: what shall we do?
19. October 29-31:
CP: John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Cambridge University Press, pp. 269-78, 330-63, ch. 2, 8-11
Declaration of American Independence
MARCH 4: SECOND PAPER DUE
21. November 3:
CP: David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Liberty Fund, pp. 465-88
Hume, Political Writings, Hackett, pp. 51-73 [Treatise of Human Nature III.8-10]
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Conservative,” in Essays & Lectures, Library of America, pp. 173-89
22. November 5-7:
CP: Oakeshott, “On Being Conservative,” in Rationalism in Politics, pp. 407-37
23. November 10:
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ch. 1-2
24. November 12-14:
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ch. 3-5
25. November 17:
CP: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, 1971, pp. 3-33 and 54-65
26. November 19:
IN-CLASS EXAM
No conferences the week of November 17.
27. November 26.
CP: Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 26-52
“The Communist Manifesto,” sections 1 and 2, pp. 469-91
28. November 28-30.
CP: Publius, The Federalist Papers, Rossiter ed., Signet, pp. 66-79, 297-322 (#s 9-10, 47-51
And review: Rousseau reading from February 14-16
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
29. December 1:
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, ch. 16, “Of Nationality.”
30. December 2:
CP: Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity, Vintage, pp. 1-19
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” in The Orwell Reader, Harvest, pp. 355-66
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Best line of the day
re the X-Files:
re the X-Files:
Either way, with six years' distance, the whole syndicate concept seems hopelessly naive. The old white guys in the military-industrial complex can't handle state-building in Afghanistan—we're supposed to believe they can coordinate an alien invasion?
Friday, July 25, 2008
Now online
The final, published, version of Three Perversities of Indian Law, 12(2) Texas Review of Law and Politics 329-68 (2008).
The final, published, version of Three Perversities of Indian Law, 12(2) Texas Review of Law and Politics 329-68 (2008).
The end of the golden age
A. O. Scott writes (via Christopher Orr) that the super-hero movie may have peaked this summer. I'm inclined to agree, though not quite for Scott's reasons. I've said to several people over the past week that, not only does Dark Knight seem to leave the Batman franchise with nowhere to go but down, but it may also kill off the golden age of comic-book-adaptation movies we've been enjoying for the past several years (clunkers like Catwoman and LXG notwithstanding). With Iron Man, they seem to have just about figured out how to perfect the genre... and then along comes Dark Knight to move out of the genre, and make the prospect of seeing a movie about, say, Green Lantern seem dreary, no matter how well it's done. (Dark Knight busted out of its genre and became other things like "psychological thriller," with one of the best villains that genre's ever had. Green Lantern can only bust out by becoming space opera-- and moving under the shadow of Battlestar Galactica.)
I saw Hellboy II just a few days before DK, and it was great fun-- visually stunning, and a lot more entertaining than the first one. But if I'd seen it a few days after, I think I would have wondered, "what's the point?" And Hellboy's not even a superhero adaptation. For the costumed crowd, I think what we've just seen is as good as it gets.
A. O. Scott writes (via Christopher Orr) that the super-hero movie may have peaked this summer. I'm inclined to agree, though not quite for Scott's reasons. I've said to several people over the past week that, not only does Dark Knight seem to leave the Batman franchise with nowhere to go but down, but it may also kill off the golden age of comic-book-adaptation movies we've been enjoying for the past several years (clunkers like Catwoman and LXG notwithstanding). With Iron Man, they seem to have just about figured out how to perfect the genre... and then along comes Dark Knight to move out of the genre, and make the prospect of seeing a movie about, say, Green Lantern seem dreary, no matter how well it's done. (Dark Knight busted out of its genre and became other things like "psychological thriller," with one of the best villains that genre's ever had. Green Lantern can only bust out by becoming space opera-- and moving under the shadow of Battlestar Galactica.)
I saw Hellboy II just a few days before DK, and it was great fun-- visually stunning, and a lot more entertaining than the first one. But if I'd seen it a few days after, I think I would have wondered, "what's the point?" And Hellboy's not even a superhero adaptation. For the costumed crowd, I think what we've just seen is as good as it gets.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
CFP: International Theory
International Theory
A Journal of International Politics, Law and Philosophy
International Theory invites authors to submit original theoretically oriented articles on the positive, legal, and/or normative aspects of world politics. Because IT is multidisciplinary with a broad intended audience, contributions must be as accessible as possible to readers from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical traditions. Papers that are primarily empirical or policy oriented are not a good fit.
We will not review manuscripts that have already been published, are scheduled for publication elsewhere, or have been simultaneously submitted to another journal; this applies to both print and online formats. All articles will be peer-reviewed by anonymous referees drawn for our Editorial Board and, on their advice, from relevant scholars around the world. Referees for the previous calendar year will be acknowledged in the final issue of each volume.
IT will review articles up to 15,000 words (including notes and bibliography), although authors will be encouraged to trim their papers to fewer than 12,000 words before publication. Brevity is encouraged and shorter papers will be advantaged in acceptance decisions. Please include a word count with submission, along with an abstract of approximately 200 words which is not repeated from the paper itself.
References and citations should follow The Chicago Manual of Style. Citations in the text or footnotes should be limited to author’s family name and date, with complete bibliographic information appearing in a list of references at the end of the article. The one exception is for legal articles; while strongly encouraged to follow the author-date system, if that proves unworkable legal authors may substitute the European Journal of International Law guidelines (available at http://www.ejil.org/info/style-toc.html).
Either way, titles of journals should not be abbreviated in the list of references (author-date system) or in the footnotes (legal articles). Tables and figures should be placed on separate pages at the end of the article with their desired location indicated in the text. Authors should submit their manuscript in electronic form as a MS Word file in an email attachment to it.mershon@osu.edu. (Please do not submit the manuscript in PDF format). Authors should attach both a complete version of the manuscript as well as an anonymous version stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) that can be sent to reviewers.
If an electronic version is not available, one complete version of the paper and three copies of the anonymous version of the manuscript should be sent to:
International Theory
The Mershon Center
Department of Political Science
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210
USA
Manuscripts will not be returned to authors.
Any questions about these procedures may be directed to the Editors at the address or email above.
International Theory
A Journal of International Politics, Law and Philosophy
International Theory invites authors to submit original theoretically oriented articles on the positive, legal, and/or normative aspects of world politics. Because IT is multidisciplinary with a broad intended audience, contributions must be as accessible as possible to readers from a wide range of disciplines and theoretical traditions. Papers that are primarily empirical or policy oriented are not a good fit.
We will not review manuscripts that have already been published, are scheduled for publication elsewhere, or have been simultaneously submitted to another journal; this applies to both print and online formats. All articles will be peer-reviewed by anonymous referees drawn for our Editorial Board and, on their advice, from relevant scholars around the world. Referees for the previous calendar year will be acknowledged in the final issue of each volume.
IT will review articles up to 15,000 words (including notes and bibliography), although authors will be encouraged to trim their papers to fewer than 12,000 words before publication. Brevity is encouraged and shorter papers will be advantaged in acceptance decisions. Please include a word count with submission, along with an abstract of approximately 200 words which is not repeated from the paper itself.
References and citations should follow The Chicago Manual of Style. Citations in the text or footnotes should be limited to author’s family name and date, with complete bibliographic information appearing in a list of references at the end of the article. The one exception is for legal articles; while strongly encouraged to follow the author-date system, if that proves unworkable legal authors may substitute the European Journal of International Law guidelines (available at http://www.ejil.org/info/style-toc.html).
Either way, titles of journals should not be abbreviated in the list of references (author-date system) or in the footnotes (legal articles). Tables and figures should be placed on separate pages at the end of the article with their desired location indicated in the text. Authors should submit their manuscript in electronic form as a MS Word file in an email attachment to it.mershon@osu.edu. (Please do not submit the manuscript in PDF format). Authors should attach both a complete version of the manuscript as well as an anonymous version stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) that can be sent to reviewers.
If an electronic version is not available, one complete version of the paper and three copies of the anonymous version of the manuscript should be sent to:
International Theory
The Mershon Center
Department of Political Science
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210
USA
Manuscripts will not be returned to authors.
Any questions about these procedures may be directed to the Editors at the address or email above.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Elsewhere
Via M. LeBlanc, the Bechdel Rule, from Alison Bechdel, the creator of Fun Home.
I'd never heard this articulated in this way before, but LeBlanc is right-- it gets at something important, and remarkably few mainstream movies satisfy it. I can't offhand think of any recent genre film besides "Stardust" that qualifies-- not even any of the X-Men movies, even though they had a number of women and weren't romance-focused. (Most conversations in those movies were with Wolverine, Magneto, or to a lesser extent Xavier, weren't they?) I guess the Next Generation Star Trek movies probably did, since Beverly and Deanna had an established friendship, but I can't think of the scenes offhand. If little girls count, then "The Golden Compass" and the Narnia films qualify.
I'm not going to use the Bechdel rule as a way to judge whether to go to a movie, but I do find it (and LeBlanc's discussion of it) immediately helpful as a way to think about what's often missing from movies.
Via M. LeBlanc, the Bechdel Rule, from Alison Bechdel, the creator of Fun Home.
The rule is that movies should have 1) at least two women, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man.
I'd never heard this articulated in this way before, but LeBlanc is right-- it gets at something important, and remarkably few mainstream movies satisfy it. I can't offhand think of any recent genre film besides "Stardust" that qualifies-- not even any of the X-Men movies, even though they had a number of women and weren't romance-focused. (Most conversations in those movies were with Wolverine, Magneto, or to a lesser extent Xavier, weren't they?) I guess the Next Generation Star Trek movies probably did, since Beverly and Deanna had an established friendship, but I can't think of the scenes offhand. If little girls count, then "The Golden Compass" and the Narnia films qualify.
I'm not going to use the Bechdel rule as a way to judge whether to go to a movie, but I do find it (and LeBlanc's discussion of it) immediately helpful as a way to think about what's often missing from movies.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Promoting equality of the sexes...
by excluding women from citizenship. Notice that her husband, who presumably shares her religious views, is already a citizen.
by excluding women from citizenship. Notice that her husband, who presumably shares her religious views, is already a citizen.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Friday fun links
1) "Why Batman could exist-- but not for long," at Scientific American (HT: Tyler.
2) I've been an absolutely resolute skeptic of the Watchmen movie. Yes, it's a masterpiece, but it's an incredibly formal (that is, form-al, of and within and about the form of the comic book) masterpiece. Frank Miller puts movies onto the comic book page, and when you put the comics onto the movie screen, it works great. (And indeed works better the more you just treat the comics as a shot-for-shot storyboard.) That's not what Alan Moore does, and is not what Watchmen is like, and I've said to all who asked that I thought this movie was a terrible mistake-- something like making a ballet of an e.e. cummings poem, or a comic book of the Ode To Joy.
But reliable geek-taste friend Aeon Skoble sends an e-mail that says, simply, This. Looks. Awesome. and... uh... he's right. Very right. Right enough that I'm officially shutting up in my skepticism for now. (Update: I see that Julian Sanchez, who knows a thing or two about Rorschach, had a similar reaction.)
3) As of yet, there is no... Act 3. But if you haven't caught up yet, now's the time.
1) "Why Batman could exist-- but not for long," at Scientific American (HT: Tyler.
2) I've been an absolutely resolute skeptic of the Watchmen movie. Yes, it's a masterpiece, but it's an incredibly formal (that is, form-al, of and within and about the form of the comic book) masterpiece. Frank Miller puts movies onto the comic book page, and when you put the comics onto the movie screen, it works great. (And indeed works better the more you just treat the comics as a shot-for-shot storyboard.) That's not what Alan Moore does, and is not what Watchmen is like, and I've said to all who asked that I thought this movie was a terrible mistake-- something like making a ballet of an e.e. cummings poem, or a comic book of the Ode To Joy.
But reliable geek-taste friend Aeon Skoble sends an e-mail that says, simply, This. Looks. Awesome. and... uh... he's right. Very right. Right enough that I'm officially shutting up in my skepticism for now. (Update: I see that Julian Sanchez, who knows a thing or two about Rorschach, had a similar reaction.)
3) As of yet, there is no... Act 3. But if you haven't caught up yet, now's the time.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
I think...
that I have to differ with Dan's widely praised account of recent events around Dan's and my old haunts.
Dan hypothesizes that "the opposition [of about 100 University of Chicago faculty members to the creation of the new Milton Friedman Institute] is grounded less on ideology and more on an effort to ensure these departments get a bigger slice of the pie." Dan and Jonathan Adler both see this as a Friedmanite explanation of the opposition: ordinary institutional material self-interest. Those who aren't gonna get, want.
But the thing is that that's silly.
I know a lot of the people who signed the letter-- some are friends, some are most decidedly not, some I respect, some not, but almost none are silly or prone to silly mistakes about self-interest. And in terms of absolute self-interest, rising university tides lift a lot of boats. The $200 million in donations the University is planning on for the Institute will include a lot of new money the university wouldn't otherwise get, from people who either want to honor Friedman, from people who are excited about the institutional mission of re-bridging the disparate economics programs at Chicago (where Nobel Laureates in Economics teach in three different divisions-- Social Sciences, Business, and Law), or from people who believe in the future importance of Chicago-style economics and want to invest in the intellectual mission. Those donors aren't likely donors to the Anthropology, Political Science, or English departments.
But if the Institute is created, then there's an inflow of money at one point in the university's budget that at least loosens constraints at other points. That's the way these things work. Some part of the economics department's existing expenses get shuffled over to the Institute. If, as seems likely, Econ physically relocates to the MFI, a whole lot of new office space gets created or opened in the middle of campus. A new group of visiting fellowships and positions mean increased possibilities for matched-spouse hiring and visitorships. Wherever you look, you see ancillary material benefits for departments in a university that gets a $200 million infusion, increased national and international prominence, new positions and buildings and so on and so forth. In the language of neoclassical economics, the creation of the MFI is a Pareto improvement from the university's perspective-- some departments gain a lot, some gain a little, but none will materially lose. It seems to me that a self-interest explanation for the opposition fails, unless the signatories really don't understand the positive-sum dynamic at work. That seems unlikely to me.
But, as has been discussed in this space before, liberal arts academics make very poor homo economici. We've survived several rounds of selection out-- if we were sound calculators of financial self-interest, we wouldn't have gotten PhDs in the first place, and once we had them we would have tried for private-sector employment rather than tenure-track placement, and in any event there ought to be a lot more of us getting science, engineering, and economics degrees and a lot fewer in English lit. And then we chose tenure-- which, on any reasonable bargaining model, means we chose to give up expected-value in dollar terms in exchange for stability. Either we're all very silly, or we optimize on other dimensions.
And a dimension on which we're notoriously strong optimizers is amour propre, status, relative advantage. It more or less has to be so, given the institutional structure. (As I said in the post linked-to above: if you're going to offer people lifetime employment and so make them relatively impervious to financial inducements, you'd better select for people who are so prone to status inducements, or so self-motivated as to believe that what they have to say and write is desperately important to be said and written, that they're going to keep working hard. And they do keep working hard-- fantastically hard, in many cases, and for decades after their jobs no longer depend on it.)
Now, if you model academic behavior as rational, mutually-distinterested self-interest, you find that everyone should welcome an inflow of $200 million into another part of their university. You predict that there will be no opposition.
If, however, you model academic behavior as a status game, more concerned with relative position than with absolute position, and you find that your university is going to take the fields that are already very high-status in the world and relatively even higher status within your institution, and symbolically endow them with even greater status by making them more central to the institution's name and identity and campus and budget, then things look very different. The promise of getting the econ department's leftover offices and the spilloff from the interest on the new endowment pale in comparison to what will be lost. You predict that there will, in fact, be opposition.
It has always been a serious obstacle to economic analyses that persons are not mutually disinterested, that they do care about relative and not merely absolute advantage, that they are willing to suffer material loss so that someone else does not make a positional gain. The models rest on the hope that what Hirschman famously described as the contest between the passions and the interests-- the normative project of trying to persuade people to be self-interested, instead of passionately prideful and vengeful and envious-- has been, to a first approximation, won by the interests. The harmony of interests implied by invisible-hand liberalism is a harmony of absolute interests. There can never be a spontaneous harmony of relative interests-- the prideful and the vainglorious are always engaged in zero-sum games at best, as Hobbes and his successors understood well.
It seems to me that Dan and Jonathan Adler are wrong-- that what we have here is not confirmation of the economist's hope, but its opposite. It's not behavior that fits neatly into any of Milton Friedman's schema; it's behavior that undermines them.
that I have to differ with Dan's widely praised account of recent events around Dan's and my old haunts.
Dan hypothesizes that "the opposition [of about 100 University of Chicago faculty members to the creation of the new Milton Friedman Institute] is grounded less on ideology and more on an effort to ensure these departments get a bigger slice of the pie." Dan and Jonathan Adler both see this as a Friedmanite explanation of the opposition: ordinary institutional material self-interest. Those who aren't gonna get, want.
But the thing is that that's silly.
I know a lot of the people who signed the letter-- some are friends, some are most decidedly not, some I respect, some not, but almost none are silly or prone to silly mistakes about self-interest. And in terms of absolute self-interest, rising university tides lift a lot of boats. The $200 million in donations the University is planning on for the Institute will include a lot of new money the university wouldn't otherwise get, from people who either want to honor Friedman, from people who are excited about the institutional mission of re-bridging the disparate economics programs at Chicago (where Nobel Laureates in Economics teach in three different divisions-- Social Sciences, Business, and Law), or from people who believe in the future importance of Chicago-style economics and want to invest in the intellectual mission. Those donors aren't likely donors to the Anthropology, Political Science, or English departments.
But if the Institute is created, then there's an inflow of money at one point in the university's budget that at least loosens constraints at other points. That's the way these things work. Some part of the economics department's existing expenses get shuffled over to the Institute. If, as seems likely, Econ physically relocates to the MFI, a whole lot of new office space gets created or opened in the middle of campus. A new group of visiting fellowships and positions mean increased possibilities for matched-spouse hiring and visitorships. Wherever you look, you see ancillary material benefits for departments in a university that gets a $200 million infusion, increased national and international prominence, new positions and buildings and so on and so forth. In the language of neoclassical economics, the creation of the MFI is a Pareto improvement from the university's perspective-- some departments gain a lot, some gain a little, but none will materially lose. It seems to me that a self-interest explanation for the opposition fails, unless the signatories really don't understand the positive-sum dynamic at work. That seems unlikely to me.
But, as has been discussed in this space before, liberal arts academics make very poor homo economici. We've survived several rounds of selection out-- if we were sound calculators of financial self-interest, we wouldn't have gotten PhDs in the first place, and once we had them we would have tried for private-sector employment rather than tenure-track placement, and in any event there ought to be a lot more of us getting science, engineering, and economics degrees and a lot fewer in English lit. And then we chose tenure-- which, on any reasonable bargaining model, means we chose to give up expected-value in dollar terms in exchange for stability. Either we're all very silly, or we optimize on other dimensions.
And a dimension on which we're notoriously strong optimizers is amour propre, status, relative advantage. It more or less has to be so, given the institutional structure. (As I said in the post linked-to above: if you're going to offer people lifetime employment and so make them relatively impervious to financial inducements, you'd better select for people who are so prone to status inducements, or so self-motivated as to believe that what they have to say and write is desperately important to be said and written, that they're going to keep working hard. And they do keep working hard-- fantastically hard, in many cases, and for decades after their jobs no longer depend on it.)
Now, if you model academic behavior as rational, mutually-distinterested self-interest, you find that everyone should welcome an inflow of $200 million into another part of their university. You predict that there will be no opposition.
If, however, you model academic behavior as a status game, more concerned with relative position than with absolute position, and you find that your university is going to take the fields that are already very high-status in the world and relatively even higher status within your institution, and symbolically endow them with even greater status by making them more central to the institution's name and identity and campus and budget, then things look very different. The promise of getting the econ department's leftover offices and the spilloff from the interest on the new endowment pale in comparison to what will be lost. You predict that there will, in fact, be opposition.
It has always been a serious obstacle to economic analyses that persons are not mutually disinterested, that they do care about relative and not merely absolute advantage, that they are willing to suffer material loss so that someone else does not make a positional gain. The models rest on the hope that what Hirschman famously described as the contest between the passions and the interests-- the normative project of trying to persuade people to be self-interested, instead of passionately prideful and vengeful and envious-- has been, to a first approximation, won by the interests. The harmony of interests implied by invisible-hand liberalism is a harmony of absolute interests. There can never be a spontaneous harmony of relative interests-- the prideful and the vainglorious are always engaged in zero-sum games at best, as Hobbes and his successors understood well.
It seems to me that Dan and Jonathan Adler are wrong-- that what we have here is not confirmation of the economist's hope, but its opposite. It's not behavior that fits neatly into any of Milton Friedman's schema; it's behavior that undermines them.
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