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Nick Geiser
Nick Geiser

24 Followers

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Jul 20, 2022

Bentham and Utilitarianism: An Appreciation

In a recent series of articles on this website, Russ Roberts develops a “critique of utilitarianism” as a theory of individual decision. The thees of Roberts’ argument are familiar to long-time listeners of his podcast, Econtalk — the complexity of the social world, the limits of human reasoning, the challenge…

Philosophy

12 min read

Philosophy

12 min read


Feb 8, 2021

More on the Purported Moral Right to own IP

The most important defense of the idea that IP protections respect pre-existing moral rights is Robert Merges’ 2011 book Justifying Intellectual Property. Merges doesn’t argue that moral rights are foundational to IP law, but he does argue that what he calls the “dignity principle” is one part of the foundation…

Intellectual Property

3 min read

Intellectual Property

3 min read


Feb 8, 2021

There is no Moral Right to Intellectual Property

Vaccine development has been one of the few bright spots in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it also brings renewed attention to the political economy and justification of intellectual property (IP). Some companies like Moderna and Gilead have publicly committed not to enforce or license patents on their…

Covid 19

5 min read

Covid 19

5 min read


Feb 5, 2021

Why care about consistency?

The expression, “I just care about consistency,” sometimes comes up in political arguments. It is interesting because it suggests a potential warrant for arguments that would otherwise be simple cases of “whataboutism.” …

Politics

5 min read

Politics

5 min read


Dec 1, 2020

Two Cheers for Mutual Advantage

In this post I want to explore a dimension of politics that seems to have been wrongly marginalized in discussions of political conflict and polarization. This is the seemingly simple, innocent idea of cooperation for mutual advantage. No plausible moral or political theory rejects the idea of mutual advantage entirely…

Politics

9 min read

Two Cheers for Mutual Advantage
Two Cheers for Mutual Advantage
Politics

9 min read


Nov 8, 2020

No, We are Not Living Through a “Coup Attempt”

One consequence of social polarization in American politics has been an increase in public accusations of “coups” and “treason.” This trend is not exclusive to the Right .“Social polarization” a concept coined by the political scientist Lilliana Mason, involves increasing animosity toward the opposing party and its supporters as well…

2020 Presidential Race

4 min read

2020 Presidential Race

4 min read


Oct 2, 2020

What Netflix’s New Documentary Misses About the Challenger Disaster

Netflix has a new four-part documentary out called Challenger: The Final Flight on the January 1986 space shuttle disaster. As other reviewers have written, the documentary does an excellent job telling the stories of the ordinary people, engineers, NASA employees, journalists, astronauts, and families affected by the explosion. The use…

Risk

4 min read

What Netflix’s New Documentary Misses About the Challenger Disaster
What Netflix’s New Documentary Misses About the Challenger Disaster
Risk

4 min read


Aug 2, 2020

When should we replace public monuments?

One problems with the debate over renaming institutions and removing statues is the absence of a coherent set of principles for deciding these cases. Fortunately, there have been some efforts in this direction, and in this post I will discuss and offer some criticisms of one well-developed proposal. Several years…

Black Lives Matter

5 min read

Black Lives Matter

5 min read


Jul 22, 2020

When does the charge of “undermining agency” rest on a mistake?

There is a familiar dialectic in debates over “individual responsibility” in politics, and which has become salient in the recent debate about racial inequality in America. This dialectic goes something like this. Someone asserts that members of some social group should take responsibility for their situation. In response, someone objects…

4 min read

4 min read


May 31, 2020

Police Misconduct and Collective Responsibility

A natural response among police officers to the apparent murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin is defensiveness and to distance themselves from Chauvin’s actions. A friend shared this Facebook post from Yolanda Lewis, a police officer in Opelousas, LA: Yolanda Lewis Yes I am a Police Officer. But i need you all to stop putting me in the same boat as those other Police Officers. We…www.facebook.com

Black Lives Matter

4 min read

Police Misconduct and Collective Responsibility
Police Misconduct and Collective Responsibility
Black Lives Matter

4 min read

Nick Geiser

Nick Geiser

24 Followers

Political theory PhD. I write about politics and (social) science.

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