{"id":5308,"date":"2007-10-02T07:27:32","date_gmt":"2007-10-02T07:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5308"},"modified":"2007-10-02T07:27:32","modified_gmt":"2007-10-02T07:27:32","slug":"tightening-the-nots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=5308","title":{"rendered":"tightening the “nots”"},"content":{"rendered":"

For what it’s worth, I have listed my fundamental commitments and beliefs here<\/a>. I can also define my own position by saying what kind of a scholar\/writer I am not<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Not a positivist, because I don’t believe that one can isolate facts from values, nor that one can live a good life without reasoning explicitly about right and wrong.<\/p>\n

Not a technocrat, because I don’t believe that any kind of technical expertise is sufficient to address serious public problems.<\/p>\n

Not a moral relativist, because the arguments for moral relativism are flawed, and the consequence of relativism is nihilism.<\/p>\n

Not a post-modernist of the type influence by Foucault (who is a major influence across the cultural disciplines), because I believe that deliberate human choices and actions matter and freedom is real.<\/p>\n

Not a social constructivist, because I believe we are responsible for understanding the way the world actually works.<\/p>\n

Not a utopian, because I believe that any persuasive theory of justice must incorporate a realistic path to reform. An ideal of justice that lacks a praxis<\/em> is meaningless, or worse.<\/p>\n

Not a utilitarian, because I don’t believe that any social welfare function can define a good society.<\/p>\n

Not a deontologist, because I doubt that any coherent list of principles can define a good society.<\/p>\n

Not a pure pragmatist, because we need criteria for assessing whether a social process for defining and addressing problems is fair and good. Such criteria are extrinsic to the process itself.<\/p>\n

Not a pluralist (in the political-science sense), because I believe there is a common good. But also not a deliberative democrat (in the Habermas version), because I believe that there are real conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For what it’s worth, I have listed my fundamental commitments and beliefs here. I can also define my own position by saying what kind of a scholar\/writer I am not: Not a positivist, because I don’t believe that one can isolate facts from values, nor that one can live a good life without reasoning explicitly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}