Lessons from the Course

PHIL 458

Rambling thoughts.

1. Where do rights come from? When God is dead, surely it must come from some kind of social arrangement. Maybe the state, maybe not.
2. A distinction between obligations from humanity and obligations from justice. Is there a difference? Supposedly so…
3. What is the metaphysical basis of justice?
4. The focus on political arrangmeents in political philosophy is historical, emerging from warring conflict. But we need to consider the social and economic relationships which structure our current historical moment.
5. Maybe, though, we must think more closely about what the state is – because many people think that there is something more totalizing and special about it than what I see in it.
6. Liberals cannot justify the moral status of existing borders as such. Arguments for nationalism are not convincing.
7. We should be mindful of fetishisms.
8. Are we even agents capable of doing justice or are we always only ever carriers of justice (or injustice)?
9. Are Marx’s metaphysical claims instrumental to his political claims?

In progress.