Thomas Wells teaches philosophy in the Netherlands and blogs about politics, philosophy and economics at The Philosopher's Beard. Email: philosophersbeard [at] gmail.com
Website: https://www.philosophersbeard.org/
by Thomas R. Wells At the heart of liberalism is the idea of personal sovereignty. There is some domain of thought and feeling that is essentially private, for which we are not answerable to others because it is no one else’s proper business. Privacy is the metaright that guarantees this right to think our way…
by Thomas R. Wells Tyrants like Vladamir Putin and Kim Jong Un seem to win a lot of their geopolitical contests against democratic governments. How do they do it? A common explanation is that these tyrants are better at playing the game. They are strategic geniuses leading governments with decades of experience in foreign affairs…
by Thomas R. Wells The statistics are shocking. A Russian troll farm created false anti-Clinton stories and distributed them on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. As many as 126 million Facebook users may have encountered at least one piece of Russian propaganda; Russian tweets received as many as 288 million views. The Russians, just like…
by Thomas R. Wells “[B]y directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention….By pursuing his…
by Thomas R. Wells Let us assume that the automation of our job tasks by algorithms and our physical displacement by robots proceeds at a rapid pace. What is the future of work? Will it be awful or will it be nice? Some people focus on the jobs that robots can’t do now, or not…
by Thomas R. Wells North Korea’s development of atomic fission bombs and ICBMs is very worrying. Unfortunately the analysis of it in the news media is woeful. Some commentators assume that North Korea works like a normal country (like their country); some clearly don’t understand how war works; some believe the regime’s propaganda; some seem…
by Thomas R. Wells A natural disaster is a disaster because it involves a lot of human suffering, not because the event itself is especially big or spectacular. The destruction of an uninhabited island by a volcano is not a natural disaster, because it doesn't really matter to humans. A landslide doesn't matter, however enormous,…
by Thomas R. Wells The politics of populist rage are on the ascendant in every democracy, even if thankfully not always triumphant. Authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, and cynics like John Gray, are relishing the collapse of the moral high ground and the return to good honest Machiavellianism. The old calumnies against democracy seem…
by Thomas R. Wells The left has been at war with neoliberalism since the 1980s. The result has been intellectual, political, and moral collapse. The first problem is that there is no such thing as neoliberalism. It exists entirely as a critique by the left. It thus mirrors the fantasy of political correctness that the…
by Thomas R. Wells The end of history will be a very sad time. The struggle for recognition, the willingness to risk one's life for a purely abstract goal, the worldwide ideological struggle that called forth daring, courage, imagination, and idealism, will be replaced by economic calculation, the endless solving of technical problems, environmental concerns,…
by Thomas R. Wells The relationship between our electoral institutions and our democratic ideals is surprisingly obscure. Many systems rely on counting votes, but only in such a way that each vote does not count equally towards the final outcome (as in America's electoral college or in parliamentary constituency systems such as Britain's). But even…
by Thomas R. Wells Collective action problems pit individual selfishness against the collective interest in areas as diverse as pollution, trade, peace, and public roads. The invisible hand of the market can't reach them. Instead we need politics. The European Union used to be good at this. But not any more. An example. Public goods…
by Thomas R Wells Liberalism is a centuries old political project of taming the power of the state so that it works for the ruled not the rulers. Can it survive the security state midwifed by global terrorism? Only if we take back responsibility for managing the dark political emotions of fear and anger that…
by Thomas R. Wells “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” John Kerry challenged Congress about the Vietnam war in 1971. There in a nutshell is the standard test by which democratic republics assess their military adventures: Is this cause worth dying for? The idea of…
by Thomas R. Wells Science is an essential part of modern civilisation. It has cast religious metaphysics out of the natural world. It has supported the development of technologies that allow more people to live better and longer lives than ever before. It provides the empirical foundation on which the ideal of democratic deliberation rests,…
by Thomas R. Wells Sports are mere games, “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” as Bernard Suits, the founder of the philosophy of games, puts it. So why do we care about them? The pleasure of sport has three distinct sources – competition, drama, and craft. Although each has their own logic and appeal,…
by Thomas R. Wells Are universities places for neoliberal human capital formation, or for the construction of a secular cathedral of human knowledge, or the development and promulgation of policies and technologies for the material benefit of society, or a finishing school to ensure the critical thinking skills and moral character of our future rulers?…
by Thomas R. Wells The current immigration crisis in Europe has, finally, generated much soul searching among European citizens, as well as a great deal of unfortunate political squabbling among European governments. Yet a great deal of the debate still assumes the centrality of national political concerns when this is, morally speaking, irrelevant. The right…
by Thomas R. Wells The internet has made it easier than ever to speak to others. It has empowered individuals, allowing us to publish our opinions without convincing a publishing company of their commercial value; to find and share others' views on matters we concern ourselves with without the fuss of photocopying and mailing newspaper…
by Thomas R. Wells Every week or so a literature professor publishes an eloquent essay about what literature is good for. Here's a nice example. The backdrop is the decades long decline of literature degree programmes in the Anglophone world. This is why you need us!, they argue, somewhat plaintively. These essays tend to circle…