Arithmetic vs. Morality: Liberalism in Collective Choice

The author argues that collective choice theory relies on a number of background concepts that are not recognized in the formal delineations of the theory. Some of these background concepts describe a liberal community. These liberal premises conflict with the more explicit arithmetical languages of collective choice, and this conflict explains some of the rational breakdowns between one and all demonstrated in collective choice

Notes on the Concept of Politics: Weber, Easton, Strauss

It is normally conceded that the study of politics today aspires to value neutrality. Arnold Brecht has outlined a scenario for political scientists, taken largely from Max Weber, which excludes values from research and which has been widely accepted as the proper statement on research philosophy. Fundamental to this value-neutral view of political inquiry is the thought that politics can be conceptualized without an endorsement as neutral between claims for the good or just polity. But there are dissents both to the aspiration and the thought. A revival of naturalism in moral philosophy today has challenged the separation between ought and is which makes possible the value-neutral thesis, and a strong tradition in political theory has always maintained that any adequate conceptualization of politics requires some reference to the good or just polity

Sacred texts

It seems indisputable that the way we define and classify texts influences the way we read texts. My concern is to develop methods for reading and understanding texts that are influenced by distinctions between the secular and the sacred, and then draw out some preliminary implications of these methods and distinctions for relationships between church and state in liberal democracies. Distinctions between sacred and secular texts can be tracked with the conjecture that a full textual reading of a sacred text requires a kind of interior commitment. I develop the conjecture, and then argue that this requirement increases the distance between scepticism and religious belief. The upshot of such distinctions and implications is that we cannot read sacred texts as sacred while maintaining the secular consciousness that defines liberal democracies. Acknowledging these textual differences between religion and politics lays to rest, permanently, the popular creed of exceptionalism, the belief that secular patterns of thought, grounded in compromise and toleration, can scan and comprehend religious beliefs from some impartial perspective

Life Beyond Life

Brief reference to the two death scenes of “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” which suggest the spirit’s survival after death

The Structure of “Politics”

Taxonomic definitions of politics are chronically unable to extend class properties to the heterogeneous scope of political events, leading to the view that “politics” may be a standard cluster concept. Clusters of properties, however, may be arranged around core terms strongly retentive in ordinary uses of a concept. Some terms are even rigid designators, necessary and sufficient conditions for reference in all possible worlds. The concept of “politics” provides two core terms, “directiveness” and “aggregation,” though not rigid designators. Such a core structure concentrates the standard cluster-analysis of “politics” on extension, not carrying over to all aspects of sense, thus permitting a weak and revised case for taxonomy on nonidentifying core terms. The implications of core terms in the concept of “politics” include the restriction of research-utility as an adequacy criterion and the acceptance of conventional status for distinctions between political and nonpolitical events

Reasoning in Politics

If the way we talk is to be taken seriously, there is scarcely any doubt that some form of political reasoning exists. We often say—and hear it said—that so-and-so was thinking politically when he should have been thinking legally, or morally, or scientifically, or esthetically, or in some way that was not political. It is equally common to hear that a man is too political in his judgments, that officials or an institution “play” at politics when they should not, or that political considerations can sway a group from its course