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In reply to Irfan Khawaja. The relevant Enlightenment ideal here is institutional, not abstract. And that ideal is explicitly racist even if the abstract ideal is not (due to scientific racism being an ancillary hypothesis or something like that). So w…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. I think we disagree on too many specifics to hash out how the general principle I’m trying to outline here applies to existing U.S. foreign policy (or even just to helping Ukraine as we are in present circumstances). We…

In reply to mlyoung57. “However, it is an interesting question what local optima were foregone in, say the American Revolution or French Revolution (or the pursuit of Enlightenment institutional ideals globally).” The local optimum foregone…

What does it mean to say that a certain institutional arrangement P in some society S ought (or is morally required) to be? Maybe that comes to this: S is required to come up with and implement a plan to achieve S. And perhaps that, in turn, comes to something like this: each individual and…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Most of this sounds right to me. I’d call this a hazard of placing too much priority on the pursuit of ideals that are too distant and uncertain. The bird in your hand gets away as you pursue the two in the bush. Partic…

In reply to butimbeautiful. The case we confront is one in which Russia has so far not been able to advance past eastern Ukraine, and also one in which the Ukrainian defense of eastern Ukraine has been spearheaded, in part, by neo-Nazis. So Russia&#82…

In reply to butimbeautiful. Europe (including Ukraine) is still trading with Russia despite the war. So even if we imagine a total Russian takeover of all of Europe (which is itself more fantasy than anything else), it’s a non-sequitur to imagine…