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The Philosopher's Beard

philosophersbeard.org

Blog by academic philosopher on ethics, philosophy, politics, economics, theory, and current affairs

Society / politics / economyEssays / personal

’10’15’20’25
Posts
198 from 7 Jun 2009 to 4 Sep 2026
Posting
monthly (7 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://www.philosophersbeard.org/feeds/posts/default

2026 6

  1. Trump Is Definitely Considering Nuking Iran
  2. Everyone hates Neoliberalism – But We’ll Still Miss It When It’s Gone
  3. The Extinction of the Human Species Won't Matter
  4. The Post-Westphalian World: Reflections on Trump 2.0's Military Adventurism
  5. Eating The Rich Won’t Fix Climate Change
  6. Deepfake porn is not going away. Recognising that is the first step to dealing with it

2025 10

  1. Incentivising War Crimes: The High Cost of International Humanitarianism
  2. If Climate Change Is As Bad As Activists Say, Their Demand Should Be 'Geoengineering Now'!
  3. Israel’s Crimes Get Too Much Attention
  4. Inheritance Tax Is Largely Irrelevant to the Problem of Economic Inequality
  5. UPDATE: Now also on Substack
  6. Indigenous Knowledge Is Epistemically Inferior To Science
  7. Tiny Countries Should Not Exist
  8. Stop Occupying My University!
  9. Unconventional Ways To Contribute To Climate Care: World Peace, Ozempic, Economic Growth
  10. The Climate Change Policy Problem: Why Can’t The World Do The Right And Obvious Thing?

2024 11

  1. Billionaires Are Not As Rich As We And They Like To Pretend
  2. The Case Against Bottle Deposits
  3. Artificial Wombs: A Technological (Partial) Solution To Gender Injustice and Global Fertility Collapse?
  4. Why Is Trump's Administration So Packed With Losers? They Will Be Loyal
  5. Hard Drugs Have Become Too Dangerous Not To Legalise
  6. Conscript The Old!
  7. Israel Should Have Fought This War Very Differently, But Thousands Of Innocent Palestinian Civilians Were Always Going To Die
  8. Could The Threat of Information War Deter China From Attacking Taiwan?
  9. Political Correctness: How The Few Try To Rule Over The Many
  10. Israel's Crimes Do Not Deserve This Much Attention
  11. Americans Are Not As Poor As They Think They Are

2023 3

  1. The Problem With Stories
  2. Governments Don't Actually Prioritise Economic Growth - But They Should
  3. Strongman Leaders And The Infallibility Trap

2022 17

  1. Public Protest Is Not A Democratic Thing To Do
  2. How Many Children's Lives Is That Worth?
  3. On The Incoherence Of The Claim That 'Taxation Is Theft'
  4. Taking Decolonization Seriously Means Recognising the Moral Agency of Non-Western Political Actors
  5. To Solve The Global Food Crisis We Must First Stop Fixating On Putin
  6. We Should Fix Climate Change, But We Should Not Regret It
  7. Abortion Bans as Conscription
  8. Putting Women In Charge Is Not The Way To Make The World Better
  9. No, Poor Countries Shouldn't Try To Make Their Own Covid Vaccines
  10. Philosophy Belongs in the Sciences, Not the Humanities: A Rant
  11. Four Reasons Not To 'Trust The Experts'
  12. Just End Poverty Now: The Case for a Global Basic Income
  13. Why Governments Failed the Challenge of Covid and Capitalism Succeeded
  14. A Dead Man's Switch Method for Insuring Against Dementia
  15. There Is No Such Thing As Countries
  16. Invading Ukraine Can Only Be Bad For Russia
  17. Replace Waiters With QR Codes

2021 15

  1. Moral Status Should Not Depend On Social Status
  2. If We Could All Be Good For Just One Day….It Wouldn’t Make Much Difference
  3. The Political Economy of Tourism
  4. If our governments won’t help refugees, they should let us sponsor them ourselves
  5. The Moral Case for Guest Worker Programmes
  6. Privacy Is The Right To Be Mysterious. Democracy Depends On It
  7. Vaccination Need Not Be Compulsory To Be Universal
  8. Don't Pity the People of the Future
  9. Effective Altruism Is Not Effective
  10. Why Are Moral Philosophers So Bad At Global Justice?
  11. The Abject Intellectual Failure of Libertarianism
  12. Ideas Are Too Exciting; Arguments Are Too Hard
  13. How Is It No One's Job To Defend Democracy?
  14. Politics Would Be Less Crazy If Voting Were Compulsory
  15. Racism Is Global and Local - But Not Especially American

2020 12

  1. Transform Selfishness into a Public Benefit: Sell Some of the Covid Vaccine to the Highest Bidders
  2. Fantasy Politics
  3. Two Failures Of Covid Science - And How To Do Better Next Time
  4. Boris Johnson's Peculiar Game of Kamikaze Chicken is About to End
  5. The Political Economy Of Risk: Covid Edition
  6. What Good are Nuclear Weapons to North Korea? Analysing Kim Jong-un
  7. Challenging Lincoln's Greatness
  8. Diversity Has No Intrinsic Value: A World With Fewer Species or Languages Would Not Necessarily Be A Worse One
  9. All Deaths Matter: The Case for Extending Some Covid-19 Restrictions Indefinitely
  10. If The Louvre Was On Fire, Should We Rescue The Art First Or The People?
  11. The Feminist Case For Men’s Rights
  12. The Statues Were Always A Grab For Power: It Is Good That They Are Coming Down

2019 7

  1. Only Human Rights Are Worth Killing For
  2. Mass Shootings Are A Poor Justification For Gun Control
  3. The Political Philosophy of America's Guns
  4. The Duty To Forgive Murderers
  5. For The Sake Of Science - Let The Anti-Vaxxers Have Their Way
  6. What Kind of Jobs Will the Robots Leave Us?
  7. Academics Should Not Be Activists

2018 8

  1. Peer Reviewers Should Be Paid
  2. Can Corporations Be ‘Good Citizens’?
  3. No One Actually Believes Fake News. So What's The Problem?
  4. Invisible Hand Ethics
  5. Tyrants Aren’t Smarter Than Democrats. Just More Evil
  6. Can Free Speech Survive the Internet?
  7. Productivity is the Wrong Argument for Diversity
  8. Crime Hurts. Justice Should Heal

2017 4

  1. The Revolt Against Liberalism: Diagnosing and Defeating Populism
  2. Welcome to Philosophy! Make the most of your time here
  3. Almost No Disasters Are Natural
  4. The Case for Subsidising Art (and Taxing Junk Entertainment)

2016 7

  1. A Team Approach to Intergenerational Justice
  2. Too Much Competition is Ruining Sport
  3. Liberalism Insists on the Freedom to Insult Religion
  4. What Terrorists Want - and How to Stop Them Getting It
  5. The Concept of White Privilege Does More Harm Than Good
  6. Saving The Planet: Why Cap-and-Trade Is Not Fit For Purpose
  7. The Brain Gain: Why Smart People Should be Encouraged to Leave Developing Countries

2015 15

  1. This Christmas, give the gift of a blameless life to someone you love
  2. Is Home Schooling Morally Defensible?
  3. Rich countries are not to blame for global warming but they should still pay more to stop it
  4. What does it take to be a good economist?
  5. The Human Rights Case for Migration
  6. The Joy of Reading
  7. Privatise the Monarchy!
  8. Why Not Polygamy Too?
  9. Advertisers Should Pay You
  10. Marriage Equality Is Not Enough
  11. Will We Be Able To Justify The International Birthright Lottery To Our Grandchildren?
  12. The Asshole Theory of International Relations: Why some countries are so ghastly and what to do about them
  13. Children are special, but not particularly important
  14. Bullshit vs Truthiness
  15. Je ne suis pas Charlie Hebdo: Assholes can't be Heroes

2014 15

  1. The Rights and Wrongs of Libertarian Paternalism
  2. Why Prison is Unfit for Civilised Society
  3. Reparations for Women
  4. Is Parenthood Morally Respectable?
  5. Scottish independence would have been good for Britain too
  6. If We're So Rich, Why Aren't We Happier?
  7. Does Peter Singer's 'Utilitarian' Argument for Vegetarianism Add Up?
  8. Michael Sandel on the commercialisation of private and civic life
  9. Free will in politics
  10. The Robot Economy and the Crisis of Capitalism: Why We Need Universal Basic Income
  11. Why I am not an atheist
  12. Internationalise History!
  13. Liberalism in spite of Christianity
  14. Just Give Money to the Poor: The case for a Global Basic Income
  15. Debating MOOCs

2013 12

  1. The Case for Ethical Warning Labels on Animal Products
  2. Love's Labours Lost: How Robots Will Transform Human Intimacy
  3. Truth vs Justice at the International Criminal Court
  4. Britain's Sudden and Bizarre Resentment of Migration
  5. The myth that rights come with duties
  6. Moral philosophy about global warming
  7. Why I do not wear a poppy
  8. The real Adam Smith problem: How to 'live well' in commercial society
  9. Holding tyrants personally accountable
  10. Seizing the Utopian Possibilities of our Robot Future
  11. How to justify a ban on the burqa (or anything else)
  12. Freedom of the press is not the same as freedom of speech

2012 10

  1. Human rights, the rule of law, and British parliamentary sovereignty: Prisoners' right to vote
  2. Debating climate change: The need for economic reasoning
  3. Politics Vs. Economics?
  4. If Obama is a socialist, so was Adam Smith
  5. Does moral theory create extremism?
  6. Exile The Rich!
  7. National Responsibility for Historic Crimes: It's a Matter of Honour
  8. Economists and the Crisis: a story of denial and opportunism
  9. Reading Jane Austen as a moral philosopher
  10. Recovering Adam Smith's ethical economics

2011 19

  1. Democracy is not a truth machine
  2. Criminal justice in the modern age
  3. The cult of victimhood
  4. Are children public goods?
  5. How religion became secular
  6. The art of business and the science of economics
  7. Ethics and Global Climate Change
  8. Economics for ethics
  9. How rich do you feel?
  10. Against lazy claims against democracy in development
  11. The Welfare State Requires Immigration Controls
  12. Truth in the news
  13. Bad Arguments from History: The Case Against Free Trade
  14. Academic ethics under competition
  15. Elections are about more than counting votes
  16. Philosophy and happiness?
  17. Human nature and the human condition
  18. Is America a civilised country? A view from Europe
  19. Criminals are Masters of Moral Anthropology

2010 20

  1. Morality vs Ethics: the problem with trolleys
  2. ‘I bring good news about our bourgeois lives’: Why business is good for your soul
  3. A Critique of the Modern University part II: Research
  4. A Critique of the Modern University part I: Education
  5. Why is Heterodox Economics a Joke?
  6. What has the EU done for You, lately?
  7. What's the point of diversity?
  8. Analytic Vs. Continental Philosophy
  9. What's really new about Behavioural Economics?
  10. Diagnosing and Refuting Conspiracy Thinking
  11. The philosopher Vs. management theory
  12. Who really owns cultural treasures?
  13. Four Ideas of Sustainability
  14. Martha Nussbaum lectures Europe on religious accommodation: The 2010 Unseld Lecture
  15. Wisdom is about How to work out Where to look to find out Who to ask about What you need to know
  16. Bullshit News: An anatomy
  17. Politics: Can't Someone Else Do It?
  18. Big Bad Sport
  19. What is Philosophy?
  20. The Decline of Common Sense and the Rise of Conspiracy and Foolishness

2009 7

  1. It's the Equality, Stupid!
  2. Against religion's freedom from criticism
  3. What's Wrong With Meritocracy?
  4. The humanities vs. mathandscience
  5. Debating Aid: Beyond Armchair Theorising
  6. Is Martha Nussbaum a liberal elitist?
  7. Gerd Gigerenzer on 'rules of thumb'