Författare: Jesper Ahlin Marceta

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I first read about de Soto’s research in a 2017 column by Andreas Bergh (in Swedish). In the column, Bergh writes about formal rules that are unaligned with social norms and the possible negative consequences for society of such discrepancies. Later that year I interviewed Åsa Burman for the Swedish Journal of Political Philosophy (Tidskrift för politisk filosofi). In the interview, Burman mentioned de Soto’s research as one example of empirical investigations building from a philosophical analysis of institutional facts. I just had to read The Mystery of Capital. And I am glad that I did. The central finding reported in the book…

Det talas en del om intellektuell hederlighet. Man ska vara ärlig i framställningar av sin egen sak och välvillig i sin tolkning av andras. I ett politiskt sammanhang är intellektuell hederlighet en berömvärd dygd. Mindre talas det om någonting som jag kallar för intellektuellt samvete. Detta samvete är en drivkraft bakom hederligheten, ett skäl att vilja vara ärlig och välvillig. Jag skulle vilja lyfta begreppet och föra det till agendan. Att ha ett samvete är att ha en känsla för vad som är rätt och fel i det egna beteendet. Det är samvetet som hindrar en från att fuska även…

Podcasten Aning

On August 14 I published a blog post titled, “Is gender studies a legitimate field of intellectual inquiry?” It has received some attention both from critics and from supporters; I am happy that it seems to have made a difference in how some people think about this particular issue. In this text, I respond to some of the criticism I have seen. This should also clarify some possible confusions and shed further light on my intentions with the project. I argued in the first post that intellectual fields are legitimate to the extent that they are characterized by reliable institutional practices. In…

Liberals in particular should read it, as it shows how some of our most important political opponents think. Why Liberalism Failed furthers an understanding not of the ”failure of liberalism,” but of the rise of 21th century conservatism.

I do not like moralizations. For instance, I believe that we humans must make dramatic changes to our way of life to stop climate change. Among other things, we are morally obliged to release less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet, I consider it wrong to blame a friend or co-worker for flying to Paris for the weekend; we should not moralize. How do I reconcile these seemingly conflicting views? The answer is that there is no conflict. My views about moral wrongness belong to one category of thought and my views about moral blameworthiness to another. They are separate.…

Update 2018-10-05: Also see the blog post titled, “The intellectual legitimacy of gender studies: Responding to criticism” Gender studies, an academic field devoted to issues related to gender identity and representation, is currently targeted by social conservatives questioning whether it is a legitimate field of intellectual inquiry. In this text, I elaborate on the conservative argument. I argue that it ignores or obscures some relevant complexities. Taking a different approach to intellectual legitimacy, I argue in support of gender studies as a field of inquiry. Yesterday, The Telegraph reported that the Hungarian government moves to ban gender studies at universities in…

Bloggen

In this essay, I discuss “the human” in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Richard Cumberland (1631–1718).1 By “the human,” I intend two senses. First, Hobbes and Cumberland adhere to some social ontology, by which I mean that they commit to some philosophical ideas of the nature of human beings. Second, they have moral understandings of human beings, such as their rights and value. The philosophers’ ontologies are connected to their ethics, so that the two dimensions are mutually influential. I explicate Hobbes’s and Cumberland’s views of “the human” in these senses and contrast them with each other. This…