tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51869552009-12-30T10:21:26.529-05:00Political TheoryMicahnoreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-15359803865920512162007-02-15T17:27:00.000-05:002007-02-15T17:29:19.583-05:00Defunct: This blog remains defunct. After a leave of absence last year, I have decided not to resume blogging. As before, I have left the archives of old posts in place for whatever interest they might continue to have.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1130560509739184012005-10-29T00:28:00.000-04:002007-02-15T17:27:40.994-05:00Leave of absence: I have taken a leave of absence from blogging for 2005-06. This blog has been defunct for a long time, and I had been posting at Crooked Timber. I have not posted in awhile now and will remain away for the year. I considered dismantling this blog but have decided to leave it standing so that others can access old posts, for whatever they might be worth.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1070763170983198222003-12-06T21:07:00.000-05:002003-12-06T21:15:06.793-05:00Voter competence under compulsory voting: I posted what follows over at Crooked Timber, but it seems appropriate here, too. Dan Ortiz has an article called "The Paradox of Mass Democracy," printed in recent book called Rethinking the Vote (OUP) that raises some interesting questions about the relation between compusory voting and voter competence. Ortiz argues that democracies are supposed to Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1068230015195137502003-11-07T13:31:00.000-05:002003-11-07T13:33:55.046-05:00Rawls and the Law: Larry Solum has fabulous coverage of the Rawls conference at Fordham. Wish I could be there, but Solum's comments are the next best thing. Don't miss them--go here and scroll up.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1064587743622372772003-09-26T10:45:00.000-04:002003-09-26T10:50:57.630-04:00Women in the Judiciary: a group I work with at the University of Virginia law school is hosting a panel on "Women in the Judiciary" later today. Two federal appellate judges and a justice from the Virginia Supreme Court will take questions for about an hour and half. Dahlia Lithwick (to whom this slightly scary fan blog is devoted) kindly agreed to moderate.Preparing for the panel, I came acrossMicahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1063854523197494322003-09-17T23:06:00.000-04:002003-09-17T23:10:06.293-04:00What's the hurry? Bruce Ackerman has an op-ed piece in the New York Times today arguing that the Ninth Circuit should not delay the vote in California. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by Ackerman’s willingness to limit the possibilities raised by the equal protection claims upheld in Bush v. Gore. Here’s his argument:This time around, the candidates in California have already invested Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1062098802403421062003-08-28T15:26:00.001-04:002003-08-28T15:28:10.036-04:00Give Children the Right to Vote? I'm taking a course on election law, and the professor mentioned a proposal today that I hadn't heard about before. He said there's a movement in Germany to propose a constitutional amendment that would give children the right to vote from birth. I thought he was pulling our leg at first, but listen to this segment on NPR. The idea is that parents (or principal Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1062098625588754892003-08-28T15:23:00.000-04:002003-08-29T15:37:04.200-04:00Double posting: I'm not sure about this yet, but I thought I would start posting some of what I write over at Crooked Timber here as well. We'll see how it goes.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1058756028665509542003-07-20T22:53:00.000-04:002003-07-20T23:04:20.626-04:00Crooked Timber: I'll be blogging over at Crooked Timber for the foreseeable future. I've very much enjoyed writing this blog, but it's time to branch out, so to speak. Hope you'll keep reading at the new blog.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1057013175693280802003-06-30T18:46:00.000-04:002003-07-20T23:06:11.486-04:00More on Gadamer: Josh Cherniss has some thoughtful things to say about the question I posed below: was Gadamer a Nazi? Josh thinks thatone of Gadamer’s greatest personal virtues was also a part of his greatest moral failing, and that this same double-edged quality accounts for both an attractive strength, and a worrying weakness, in his work. Gadamer seems to have suffered from an excess of Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1056914458872852502003-06-29T15:20:00.000-04:002003-06-29T15:21:09.330-04:00Light blogging over the next couple of weeks. I'm trying to get an artice out, and then I'll be out of town for about a week. It's that time of the year when your friends get married!Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-1056654070232515942003-06-26T15:01:00.000-04:002003-06-26T15:01:10.226-04:00Lawrence: the Supreme Court surprised a lot of people today, I think, in using the privacy justification to strike down the Texas law against sodomy. Another decision for the casebooks. For the majority and dissenting decisions, as well as a map showing which states are affected by this decision, go here.Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-959631302003-06-23T20:11:00.000-04:002003-06-23T20:26:04.000-04:00Affirmative action: if you're looking for a good round-up of the day's commentary, Larry Solum has compiled an excellent set of resources.Given that so much has already been said, I've decided not to blog about the substance of the Grutter and Gratz decisions. But I will say that these are the first landmark cases to come down since I started law school. As the excitement passes, I'm looking Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-959441632003-06-23T09:15:00.000-04:002003-06-23T09:15:32.316-04:00Blogger fodder: in about an hour, the Supreme Court is supposed to release some major opinions on affirmative action, homosexuality, and free speech (to mention only the big three). That should keep the blogosphere going for a few days . . . Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-958092812003-06-18T20:19:00.000-04:002003-06-18T20:34:45.000-04:00Was Gadamer a Nazi? Richard Wolin seems to think he was, at least during the early years of WWII. Arts & Letters Daily is linking to a scathing review of a biography of Gadamer by Jean Grondin in which Wolin argues that Gadamer was actively complicit with the Nazi regime:Time and again, Gadamer's own ethical transgressions are compounded by Grondin's post hoc rationalizations. "It was certainly aMicahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-957312452003-06-16T17:59:00.000-04:002003-06-16T17:59:11.210-04:00Not Geniuses, but damn good web-designers. Ezra Klein, Joe Rospars, and Matt Singer have opened up shop together. The blog looks terrific. Go check them out. Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-956311122003-06-13T11:11:00.000-04:002003-06-13T13:18:48.000-04:00Weithman and public reason: Lucas Swaine (Dartmouth) reviews Paul Weithman's (Notre Dame) recently published Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. I haven't yet had the opportunity to read Weithman's book, but I'm very much looking forward to it. His other contributions to debates about public reason are careful and precise (two special virtues in an Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-955984992003-06-12T14:06:00.000-04:002003-06-13T11:39:56.000-04:00Bernard Williams has died. I haven't yet seen links for a memorial but will post them as soon as they are available. Here is a brief biography for Williams from the philosophy department at UC-Berkeley:Professor Williams received the M.A. degree from Oxford University. After serving in the Royal Air Force, he held a series of academic positions in England. In 1967 has was appointed Knightbridge Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-954540162003-06-09T02:14:00.000-04:002003-06-09T02:16:30.000-04:00The Strauss reading list: so it seems that the Strauss story isn't going away. Leo Strauss' daughter, Jenny Strauss Clay (a professor of classics at UVA) defends her father's legacy in the New York Times. Another tribute to Strauss--this one by Bret Stephens--appears in the Jerusalem Post. But the only recent contribution that I've found really valuable is today's post by Josh Cherniss, who I hadMicahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-953694032003-06-06T09:41:00.000-04:002003-06-06T09:41:44.000-04:00Anonymous: now who wrote those unclaimed Rawlsian pick-up lines in Chafetz's run down of the best (postable) entries? Only a Straussian could figure it out!Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-952372192003-06-03T10:18:00.000-04:002003-06-03T10:43:16.000-04:00Regards from Oxford: I've stopped in Oxford on the way back to the States. Not much to report, except that construction never ceases on Cornmarket Street. I've also managed to scrounge up a couple entries for OxBlog's "best political theory pick-up lines." Unfortuntely, I didn't manage to work in "colonization of the lifeworld." But, then again, we Rawlsians don't do that sort of thing . . .Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-950500942003-05-29T16:53:00.000-04:002003-05-30T04:18:02.000-04:00Regards from Israel: I'm traveling this week, so I won't have the chance to blog very much. On the drive from from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem this afternoon, we had the strangest weather I've ever seen. I've watched ominous, green and purple skies driving through Kansas, stopped for white-outs in Colorado, waded through floods in southern Virginia, and even bunkered down for a serious hurricane in Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-949052732003-05-26T14:26:00.000-04:002003-05-26T19:26:15.000-04:00Taking Strauss (less?) Seriously: I've been following the recent flare-up about Strauss from a distance. I thought I would cobble together the major posts for people who might be interested but haven't had the time or the patience (understandably) to look for this stuff. If you're new to this debate, the recent discussion was kicked off by a spate of articles about how neoconservatives in the Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-949008292003-05-26T12:10:00.000-04:002003-05-26T12:14:04.000-04:00Bloggered: it appears Blogger is migrating old blogs over to a new format. At the moment, I don't have access to my template to update my blogroll, etc. There are so many pages out there deserving of recognition . . . Micahnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5186955.post-948641642003-05-25T12:49:00.000-04:002003-05-26T20:28:55.000-04:00The good life: some folks in this town must be living it. I can't believe I spent four years in England and never went to Hay-on-Wye. Maybe it's because most of the bookstores there have put their inventories on-line. At any rate, I'm planning to correct my mistake next week. I'm hoping to be in Hay for the last day of its literature festival. The sheer amount of programming for the week-long Micahnoreply@blogger.com0