Samuelson versus Schumpeter, and a few philosophical questions

SMBC reckons Samuelson got around.



They've forgotten about Joseph Schumpter:

Early in life I had three ambitions. I wanted to be the greatest economist in the world, the greatest horseman in Austria, and the best lover in Vienna. Well, I never became the greatest horseman in Austria.

John Maynard Keynes was also rather prolific.

Friedrich Hayek moved to Arkansas so he could divorce his wife and marry his second cousin.*

Economists are interesting people.

* Jokes about ACT being fans of Hayek would be cheap shots. Whyte answered the question as any philosophy lecturer should.

I, for one, wish we could have an all-candidates debate in which each party leader is required to give a straight answer to each of the following:

• You are standing at a railway switch. A runaway train is hurtling down the hill and will run over five people with certainty. If you throw the switch, it will divert to another track and will run over only one person. Do you throw the switch? Does your answer depend on whether the five people are wearing your party's or your opponent's t-shirt?
• If you agreed that we should throw the switch, would you also support compulsory vaccination? Why not? You know that you're doing exactly the same thing here as standing by the switch, watching the train hurtle towards the five people, right? Except that, given the safety of vaccinations, it's more like a thousand people killed for every adverse reaction to vaccination.
• If your answer, above, was that compulsory vaccination interferes with legitimate individual autonomy for too little public health gain, explain your stance on the regulation of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana and heroin. Does compulsory vaccination do more to violate individual autonomy than banning the private consumption of tobacco or marijuana, or than taxing the heck out of alcohol?
• A young person lives in Temuka and moves to Auckland in search of a better life. The young migrant finds a far better job than would have been available in Temuka and is much happier than otherwise. He outbids a native Aucklander for a house, but only slightly. A person who lives in Auckland also, as consequence, gets a slightly worse job than she otherwise would have gotten. Should the government ban migration from the South Island to Auckland? 
• Would your answer be different if the young person lived in East Timor instead? What moral theory allows you to distinguish between these two cases?
• A man cheats on his wife without her knowledge; she is never aware that it has happened. Has he done her harm? If so, should adultery be banned? Why not?
• A married couple fall in love with a third person. They live together as a family. They raise their children together. They wish their relationship to enjoy formal recognition to ensure easier survivorship rights in case of death and so that their children will be more comfortable in talking about their {Three Moms, Moms and Dad, Dads and Mom, Three Dads}. What harm would be done were they allowed formal legal recognition of their relationship? Why should polygamy be banned? What set of consistent moral principles leads to {allow adultery, ban polygamy}?

Feel free to propose other questions for the never-will-happen all-candidates' debate.

Dirty hands

I appreciated this bit in Art of Theory's interview with Michael Walzer (HT: Xavier Marquez):

Walzer: The argument of my piece on dirty hands, which is also the argument summed up in that phrase, is that sometimes it’s necessary in politics to do things that it’s wrong to do, which translates into the right thing to do being the wrong thing to do. That’s the incoherence.

What philosophers mostly believe is that the right thing to do is what, all things considered, is the right thing to do. The notion of getting your hands dirty implies that you’re doing something which is wrong and that’s what I was trying to get at in the article. You want political leaders who know that x is the wrong thing to do, because you want them to do it only in extremis. You want them to do it only at the last minute, when nothing else will work, and when there’s some looming disaster. It’s a kind of utilitarianism of the last moment.

You begin by rejecting the maxim “do justice even if the heavens fall,” and instead choose the maxim “do justice until the heavens are about to fall, and then do whatever you have to do to stop the heavens from falling.” You have to know that your actions at that last moment are something brutal, cruel, wrong. Otherwise you will do it too soon, and too often.

That's not far from what I think about voting: only do it if there's a lot at stake and if it's looking really close. And about a few other things too.

There should always be some utilitarian/consequentialist side constraint.