According to a familiar and entrenched philosophical paradigm, poor self-control amounts to diminished control by the self. While some cases of poor self-control may fit this paradigm, many paradigmatic cases of poor self-control, including cases involving individually trivial effects, do not; they are better understood as cases in which the self controls behavior, but does so poorly. As such, philosophical research on poor self-control needs to go beyond research aimed at locating and empowering the self, and into research on what (...) it takes for selves that are already in control to qualify as managerial successes rather than managerial failures. This article focuses on certain pitfalls associated with micromanagement and on the paradoxical connection between micromanagement and poor self-control in cases involving individually trivial effects. The article ends by advancing an approach to managerial success that provides a promising route to avoiding micromanagerial pitfalls while also promoting responsible resilient agency. (shrink)

This note reproduces a brief article by Thomas Nixon Carver, a leading Progressive Era American economist on what was then called the ‘Negro Question’. This virtually unknown piece represents a striking in-stance of blaming the victim for her/his condition which is to be found in the economic literature of the period.

The standard strategy involves evaluating whether economic classifications meet criteria derived from a general theory of natural kinds. The first objective of this article is to show the implementation of this strategy by various relevant authors. We argue that the standard strategy has failed due to its lack of a greater sensitivity to the role played by human interests in the design of different types of natural kinds. The second objective is to outline a new strategy for investigating economic classifications. (...) Our departure from the standard strategy can be described as a shift from assessing economic classifications based on general theories of natural kinds to examining specific cases with the aim of theorizing about their design and application. The cases of the cost-of-living index and race are used to succinctly discuss the objectivity of economic classifications and implications for the relationship between science and democracy. (shrink)

The Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics(EJPE) interviewed Adler about his formative years (section I); his work on the theoretical foundations of public policy, zooming in onwelfare-consequentialism and social welfare functions(section II), welfarism and interpersonal comparisons(section III), the ethical deliberator and the role of the philosopher (section IV); and, finally,his views and visions for interdisciplinary work in law, economics, and philosophy,as well as his advice for graduate students in the field (section V).

Heath’s paper on privatization defends a broadly welfarist-economic approach in thinking about the legitimacy of privatizations. This approach is ‘instrumentalist’ (in contrast to deontological approaches). In this response, I accept the value of an instrumentalist approach to privatization, but argue against Heath’s welfarist version of it, and argue in favor an alternative. First, the ends we seek when thinking about socially vital goods (our theory of public interests) should go beyond Pareto-efficiency. Second, as to the means we employ to realize (...) these ends, we need a view of markets which takes into account not just their competitiveness, but also the distribution of power. This means we need to differentiate market types. Third, we need to differentiate ownership types beyond the standard shareholder-owned company. Alternative ownership structures may be able to realize public interests more easily and hence make privatization less problematic. On these three issues, the picture Heath sketches leaves out too many of the variables that, in the end, may be decisive in whether or not a privatization is acceptable. (shrink)

If we hope to see values of equality and democracy embodied in our societies’ institutions, then we have a range of good reasons to favor expansive public provision of goods and services, and to oppose many forms of privatization. While Joseph Heath is right to argue that there are at least some forms of ‘anodyne privatization’, and while he is also right to argue for a more nuanced philosophical debate about the different dimensions of choice between forms of public and (...) private provision, Heath fails to register various regards in which private provision can undermine these central public values. We often have strong egalitarian and democratic reasons to protect zones of decommodification; to resist the imposition of user-charges; and to favor insourcing and direct public procurement over various forms of outsourcing of public services. Public libraries provide a totemic illustration of some of the deep virtues of collective public provision in democratic societies. Overall, our reasons to reject privatization are stronger and more diverse than theorists such as Heath might have supposed. (shrink)