Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Mostly agreement. However: if one has done all that one is required to do to help address a collective problem, then morality (or justice or whatever) could not require or demand that one do more. If the collective problem is…

In reply to butimbeautiful. I’m assuming quite a lot of prior context and, yes, being pretty abstract — perhaps too much so for the purpose or context here (ideally, in a longer format, I’d at least put in lots of concrete examples). …

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. I’ll go with ‘amazing’. It is less about being puzzled (“how could this be?”) and more about seeking the right conceptual and metaphysical account of something when I don’t have one (&#8220…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. The general question is why any of us (or any nation) might be permitted or required to take this or that step (including coercive steps, including unilateral coercive steps) to help secure decent and just social conditions t…

In reply to butimbeautiful. I think Michael is pursuing the last of the three question you pose, but doing so given his own implicit answers to the first two questions. In other words, because society as such doesn’t exist, and doesn’t have…

In reply to mlyoung57. I think butimbeautiful (below) has a point: your formulations are too abstract to think about in this form. Each of the claims you make above can be interpreted so many different ways that it’s too hard to know what you hav…

In reply to butimbeautiful. Fair enough. But to be clear, I haven’t literally predicted that Russia will use nuclear weapons. I’ve suggested that escalation with them is not worth the risk. The risk is there whether they end up using them o…

In reply to mlyoung57. I guess my view is, once you grasp the particulars at issue, you lose the rationale for any general principle of the kind you’re pursuing. So I don’t think there is any such principle that needs explanation. What need…