A Philosopher’s Point of View

Thinking Philosophically about Life, the Universe and Everything

Who I am.

I am a husband, a father, a friend, a brother. I am also a philosopher. Many might think that sounds odd – the pursuit of truth, beauty, and wisdom an anachronism in an age of social media and artificial intelligence. Perhaps even worse, a naive pursuit of the facile in a time of need for practical and prudential people. I am committed to the philosophic project, but my work in normative and applied ethics and political philosophy makes what I do particularly relevant at the moment.

What this is about.

Simply put, this blog is a philosophical perspective on everything from politics to foreign policy to law to the genius of Terry Pratchett. We find ourselves in a moment where the political and material motives of those with power are served by manipulating us. By dividing us. By exploiting everything they come to know about us.

A philosophic perspective requires that one think critically about matters, both abstract and practical. It is a great salve, a prophylactic against such manipulation and exploitation. It is a discipline that focuses on ideas and arguments, reasons and justifications. In so doing, it enables us to talk critically but constructively across our ideological divides – though I doubt that anyone could question the genius of Terry Pratchett. I hope I find interlocutors of great passion and good will.

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”I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” attributed to Voltaire.

This may be apocryphal, but it captures what it means to have a right to freedom of expression. It does not require you to lionize the speaker. It doesn’t even require that you remain indifferent to what others have to say. It implicitly recognizes that you might find what others have to say is offensive to you or perhaps even simply wrong.

In the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk and the effort to silence Jimmy Kimmel, it is important for us all to understand what it means for each of us to have rights in a community of rights-holders. As to the latter first, being a rights-holder in a community of rights-holders, has its own internal logic. Since each right gives rise to correlative normative burdens, the rights you claim for yourself are not only rights held by the other members of the community, they serve as a limitation on your rights. The correlative burdens implicit in each rights-holder’s rights limit the rights of others.

But, more to the point, what does it mean to have a right to free speech? To understand any right, we must understand the right’s constitutive elements. Less technically speaking, what is it a right to, what implications does it have for others, and whose relationships are defined by the right? To have a right to free speech and expression, is to have a claim to think for oneself, to speak one’s mind regardless of what others think without interference from others. It is not about agreement, approval, or endorsement of the views pressed.

Implicit in this understanding of the content of the right to free speech – what it is a right to – is a limitation. In a community of right-holders, one is also obligated not to interfere with the right to free speech held by others. This has implications beyond mere coercion and physical force. We ought not use our speech to cause harm to others. Speech that directs actions or “incites” violence breaches that limitation. What counts as an incitement to violence is ambiguous at the edges, but it is not meant as a back door to limiting offensive speech. Neither Kirk’s nor Kimmel’s speech came close to that line.

Perhaps most important for our understanding of the role rights play in our public and political lives, is that rights include a zone of discretion that permits individuals to act in ways or to say things that are offensive to others, but not to harm. What this also means is that we can (and should) separate our judgment of the moral character of an individual or their actions from the right they have to speak their mind. One need not lionize Kirk or celebrate Kimmel to defend the right we all have to think and speak freely.

Political Virtues: A little humility goes a long way

At the beginning of every semester I ask my students what they want to get out of class … besides a good grade, or to complete some general education humanities requirement. The most common answer to that question is some version of “I want to know what others think.” Or, “I want to learn from others.”

After we go through our introductions, I return to that question and their answers. Before we even have our first discussion about justice, truth, beauty and wisdom, we spend a little time on what is required of them if they are going to learn something from those around them, and I stress two epistemic – and what I will argue are political – humility and charity. I want to discuss the former her, and I will discuss the latter in another post.

One might wonder why a philosophy class and the virtues appropriate to discussions there, is a good model for the application and development of political virtues. There are few other disciplines as steeped in – and comfortable with – conflict and disagreement than philosophy. Philosophic inquiry is dedicated to critical dialogue and rational argument in response to questions that admit of a range of reasonable (and often conflicting) answers.

To think philosophically, to seek out truth and wisdom, given the disagreement and discord that permeates philosophy, one must be willing to engage in discussions across various ideological and theoretical divides. In that context, to learn from others is to recognize that there is something to learn. In the midst of such conflict, there is little to learn from those you already agree with, though, even there, you are likely to find someone with an argument or idea that had not occurred to you before.

In either case, to learn you must be willing to recognize your own limitations. You must be humble. The most important implication of this commitment to humility is that when discussing and arguing over matters that admit of a variety of reasonable answers, that you should recognize that you might be wrong.

As to why you might be wrong, you are likely to have a variety of prejudices; and, just like all humans, you are saddled with a less than perfect cognitive system. As Christopher Cherniak (1945-2025) says in his seminal work Minimal Rationality, we are “minimally rational.” We are finite and limited creatures that are epistemically and cognitively flawed.

Whether it is cognitive dissonance or confirmation bias, we are neither complete, nor perfect, rational thinkers. This same thing is true of others, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with them. Given these facts about us, if we are to learn anything we need to do it together.

Being humble, however, does not mean that you should embrace a sort of subservient false humility, an attitude of conciliation or surrender at every moment of conflict. We need everyone to bring their best version of themselves into the space of public deliberation. We need them to argue rigorously and think critically, but we also need everyone to recognize their own limitations – to be humble. To follow the better argument, rather than retreat to the safe and comfortable spaces where everyone tells everyone how right they are.

So, how do the epistemic virtues necessary for philosophy have anything to do with politics; I would imagine that the connection is implicit, if not obvious. Nonetheless, it bears stating explicitly. One of the failings of our politics at the moment is a belief in (the righteousness of) our own press. This certainty is, however, in the face of questions that admit of a range of reasonable answers.

Given our cognitive and epistemic limitations, we don’t have good reason to be so certain. Further, given our shared limitations, if we want to get closer to the right answers, or if we just want to learn from others, we need to recognize that we might have something to learn.

A democratic republic requires that we do the hard, and at times uncomfortable, work that is demanded by the responsibility of governing ourselves. This burden also presents us with an opportunity. If we engage one another – especially across the various ideological divides that define the map of our political system – with humility and a desire to learn, our politics would not only be less partisan and more functional, it would likely produce outcomes that are more conducive to the common good, more closely aligned with the truth.

At present, however, our politics is undermined by partisanship and the active effort by many to keep us mired in our information bubbles and echo chambers. This only redounds to their, not our, benefit. To escape, we must first be humble..

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