The Importance of Utilitarian Politics

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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

Ross Douthat, a columnist for The New York Times, has long advocated for a brand of reform conservatism that stands in stark contrast to Trumpism. His latest book, The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery, chronicles his long struggle with Lyme disease.

In this week’s conversation, Ross Douthat and Yascha Mounk discuss why the expert consensus sometimes fails, when to listen to outsiders, and whether the failures of the establishment help to explain the rise of populism.

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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