Ross Douthat on the Trouble with Experts
The Good Fight
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The Importance of Utilitarian Politics
i've been thinking a lot about the usefulness and limitations of utilitarian political thought. I think often it's very easy to lose out of sight the terrible consequences of various principles or laws. And i wonder whether this sort of geontological principle of don't do any harm first of all, of safety first, is sometimes in danger of losing out of sight. So i love to hear how you grapple with thatye, i mean, it's a very interesting question, and i guess a couple of different thoughts. One is that i am definitely not a hard utilitarian, in the sense of taking the greatest good for the greatest number as a fundamental trumping principle for ethics. At the same
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