Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Here is that Zeynep Tufecki piece again for better visibility. There are days when I think that Zeynep Tufecki is the only person left in public health with any degree of common sense: I had an argument on LinkedIn a few months ago with someone whose …

In reply to djr. I didn’t think of Aristotle’s doctrine of focal meaning as competing with, or standing in contrast to, the task of offering a univocal definition of the key analysandum. It can, I suppose, but need not. You can have a univo…

In a postscript to your story, the WHO issued a moratorium on booster doses today through September. The rationale given for the decision is that vaccine supplies need to be shunted to poorer countries where vaccination rates are low and death rates ar…

In reply to mlyoung57. One more thought regarding the being-murderous game (the issue that made me think of this case originally): you win because you murder the most people (the reliable but imperfect measure here for being murderous), but I’m w…

In reply to djr. David, with regard to the concern you voice here, the last section of Feldman and Skow’s SEP entry on Desert — Desertist Theories of Justice — seems pretty relevant. That section of the entry is clear and pretty good….

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. Some brief thoughts on the promising/desert case (Irfan) and on the relation between desert and obligations to others (David). (1) Plausibly, the promising/desert case is a case of contrasting institutional entitlement and de…

In reply to djr. I agree with that. At least some of these cases appear to be cases of non-moral desert, I think Sher thinks of them this way, and so the book is about generic desert, not moral desert. LikeLike

In reply to djr. The “focal meaning” model for analyzing super-general terms used in a variety of contexts (desert, reason, rationality, justification, etc.) strikes me as likely right. The essential point here is one about whether Sher is,…

In reply to Irfan Khawaja. ASMR > TIAA-Cref > Ambien LikeLike