Below is MacIntyre’s description of the Aristotelian model of morality. He believes this model began to break down during the Enlightenment, leaving us with the… Read More »Ends and Meanings: Alisdair MacIntyre on the three-legged stool of Aristotelian ethics
Why does there seem to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture? Why do competing moral claims (for example between the… Read More »A disordered language of morality: Alasdair MacIntyre’s disquieting suggestion
This may seem obvious, but it’s important. Jane and Frank work weekdays at a restaurant. One day, their boss offers them both an extra shift… Read More »Thought experiment: Infinite inequality without injustice (1)
A pole of inaccessibility with respect to a geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that… Read More »Poles of Inaccessibility; or, Point Nemo
This is a really interesting and well produced article (as are other pages on The Pudding), and I highly recommend it. There’s a version you… Read More »Recommendation: The Pudding on the Yard-Sale Model and Wealth Tax
A small stone-age tribe lives undetected in a remote forest in your country. They live sustainably off the land by hunting and foraging. The forest… Read More »Thought experiment: poverty and inequality without injustice
I recommend Tyler Cowen’s recent interview with Katherine Rundell. Here’s a highlight: It would be really important to me [when identifying a writing talent] that… Read More »Katherine Rundell on the aesthetics of language: form and substance
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a… Read More »At the Mountains of Madness: Edwardian* Science; Lovecraftian Cosmology
*(With apologies to readers in Britain for that horrifying z) Only when the last crocodile has been skinned will you realise that you are being… Read More »Moneyfesto; or, the Monetization* of DriverlessCrocodile
In a quiet moment I watched my youngest son playing chess on my phone. He cut a swathe through the opposition pieces with a couple… Read More »Tactics and Strategy