sharon street, objectivity and truth: you'd better rethink it 

(1) practical standpoint vs. theoretical standpoint

(2) normative realism (some normative facts/truths that hold independent of our evaluative attitutudes) vs. normative antirealism (reasons to act are not objective, but particular to agent)

(3) Kantian anti-realism (you begin from individual judgement, but this entails burdens that rule out a whole host of acts) vs .Humean anti-realism (strong substantive conclusions do not follow from particular points of view)

(5-6) naturaist realists (normative facts exist as natural facts) vs. non-natural realists (Dworkin, Scanlon, etc.)

(10) the puzzle is to make sense of this coincidence--that what I belive also happens to be what's objectively true

(11) constructivism is a response--moral reason are internal to individuals

(12) Dworkin's response, of course, is that if it's a coincidence, so be it

(18) the 'normative lottery'--just like it should be crazy to think you won the lottery, so it should be crazy to accept Dworkin's coincidence

(18-21)

richard feldman, epistemological puzzles about disagreement

(crux) we're not often honest with ourselves. if we actually agree that a capable person is disagreeing with us, and they're reasonably doing so, and they have exposure to the same facts as us, then we ought to suspend belief

(421) much rides on the definition of what makes somebody reasonable, when they disagree

(421) effects of intuition might make possession of 'same evidence' a real-world impossibility (but then we're not operating in situations of 'full discolsure'; and tolerance can't be said to be in good faith, here)

shelby, justice, deviance, and the dark ghetto (2007)

(127) if overall social arrangements are unjust, then one has to think about the obligations of the poor quite differently than if the society were just. we distinguish between civic duties that they have as citizens (which clearly they can't be said to have), and natural duties that they have as moral agents (which they can't escape)

(144) in effect, what gives us the right to demand that someone play fair in a game that is unfair

(151) duties to each other without their being duties to society (not to be cruel, to help the needy, not cause unnecessary suffering, etc.)

(152-153) there is also the duty of justice -- obligation to help bring just institutions into existence (applies to both the wealthy, and the poor provided that it doesn't impose particularly onerous burdens on the latter)

(in sum) criticism of the ghetto poor is legitimate--but hardly ever of the traditional sort (deviance in an unjust society can be justified). instead, criticism has to be founded on progressive grounds--the basic, natural duties remain important, and we should also be working for a better world

jeremy waldron, homelessness and the issue of freedom (1981)

(309) homelessness as troubling on liberal grounds

(313) homeless forever at the mercy of others, regarding where they can be

(315) "[Homelessness] is one of the most callous an tyrannical exercises of power in modern times by a (comparatively) rich and complacent majority against a minority of their less fortunate fellow human beings" [let's not hold all the non-homeless reponsible, but ok]

(316) [Take-away is that everyone needs certain prerequisites in order to make use of freedom--one of which is a place to be, but others can be freedom from want, etc., etc.]

(317) In other words, it's absurd to speak of freedom separate of 'needs'--denial of basic needs is emphatically a denial of freedom

(318): the point about homelessness can be made in terms of 'negative freed' -- this is not about enabling people, but ensuring that they're not banned  [of course, this speaks to the ambivalence of the positive vs. negative distinction]

(321) to justify a property system that condemns some to unfreedom, you need to summon other values. not freedom.

(329-330) you don't need individual intention for unfreedom to be of concern. [the 'invisible hand' can intend it, that's enough]

nozick (excerpt: 'how liberty upsets patterns')

(163) why 'forbid' capitalist acts between consenting adults'? in other words, maintenance of a given distribution requires continuous intervention (Wilt Chamberlain, etc., etc.)

[but, it should be clear that Wilt is a terrible analogy for social institutions, and the 'choice' that people make. if we could agree that people voluntarily opt for work in which they consistently lose 25 cents to their boss, then this has some merit. but that's just a terribly impoverished conception of what makes an act voluntary.

in response, Nozick's analogy--that the condition of the low-wage worker is like the condition of a man stuck with an unattractive bride--is idiotic, for three reasons. first, he takes it to suggest that unfreedom can only be the product of deliberate human intervention, which is simply untrue. second, our intuitions from one don't travel to another, because the stakes of the two realms are different. third, it depends on our assuming a limited supply of good jobs, which is not at all a natural fact in the same way that the distribution of attractiveness/unattractiveness is.]

thomas nagel, moral conflict and political legitimacy (1987)

(219) convergence (Hobbes--right because it's rationally accepted) vs. common standpoint theories (rationally accepted because it's right)

(220) liberalism as a mixture of the two, because it involves 'a form of reasoning that includes moral concerns'. more than Hobbesian convergence

(222) Is liberalism more than just another sectarian doctrine? Why should antagonists abandon their conception of the good and accept impartiality?

(223-228) this depends on interpreting impartiality in a particular way, that depends on 'loose epistemological preferences'. not asserting oneself against others who believe differently, but also not ceding to their beliefs everywhere [epistemelogically. politically, no limit on the latter save for the harm principle]

(229-230) Nagel calls this 'epistemological restraint,' not skepticism. 'liberalism should provide the devout with a reason for tolerance' (i.e., even when you're convinced in the correctness of a position, you cede). this is because our beliefs should be regarded as just that (our beliefs), unless they can reasonably be defended from an entirely impersonal standpoint. no society should legislate on the assumption that they're truth.

scanlon, tanner lectures

(151, 166) contractualism/system of co-deliberation--"an act is right if it would be required or allowed by principles which no one, suitably motivated, could reasonably reject as a basis for informed, unforced general agreement" [a good starting point, certainly, but the devil is in the details of 'suitably motivated' and 'reasonable rejection,' it seems to me]

(152) the Causlal Thesis (i.e., according to which morality is bunkum if every act can be explained]

(168) praise and dispraise to replace praise and blame]

(174) "the most general moral demand is that we exercise our capacity for self-governance in ways that others could reasonably be expected to authorize"

(184) "in my view, to show that a social institution is legitimate one must show that it can be justified to each person affected by it on grounds which that person could not reasonably reject"

(184-185): it's the obligation of SI to offer agents 'reasonably favourable conditions' under which to make choices [and then, of course, we can hold them responsible. similar to Shelby's argument about the ghetto]

(189) [This then becomes a principle on the basis of which institutional arrangements are erected -- i.e., they should safeguard the value of choice]

(192-193): the 'forfeiture view' -- if alternative routes exist [depending, of course, on their quality or quantitiy] people cannot complain

(198) objective (primary goods) vs. subjective (preferences) measures of well-being [the question of responsibility for preferences arises here, to which GA Cohen has a response to Dworkin. 'expensive tastes' can not be punished if agent isn't responsible for them]


(203) the intentional infliction of harm (punishment) carries a heavy burden of justification [extraordinarily radical implications, I should think]

(208) Frankfurt's two drug addicts (one who has a second-order desire to resist his desire, one who doesn't), only the first is 'unfree' [unhelpful, but interesting]

(212) "to feel onself subject to moral blame is to be aware of a gap between the way one in fact decided what to do and the form of decision which others could reasonably demand'

(216) "Moral indignation towards lawbreakers is entirely in order, and the sufferings we inflict upon them may be justified. But in justifying these sufferings, and inflicting them, we have to say not 'You asked for this' but 'There for the grace of god go I.'