Archive for the ‘ Happiness ’ Category
I’ve been slowly reading Samuel Fleischacker’s compact A Short History of Distributive Justice. In his section on utilitarianism, I came across this sentence: In its purest, Benthamite form, the form that most conduces to setting up a calculus that might settle all ethical questions, utilitarianism aims at pleasure and the avoidance of pain, where “pleasure” and [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes reports today on the stress and damage middle class families often experience when the breadwinners lose their jobs. Among other things, it can impact the children’s self-esteem and long-term earnings potential. This is certainly tragic, but compare this to those disadvantaged groups in our societies who have experienced this for generations. It suggests [ READ MORE ]
I’m going to ignore this battle between Koreans and Bangladeshis over cultural space in LA. Instead I want to briefly address David Harvey’s suggestion yesterday that NYC should be reindustrialized. I didn’t get a chance to ask why, but two possibilities seemed to emerge from his other comments and my suppositions. First, it could be [ READ MORE ]
[I may have missed a couple of days, but I'm back with a vengeance.] I saw a reference to Rat Park today in the NYTimes. It was used to suggest that perhaps New Yorkers have sufficient space to play and activities to pursue and are thus no longer drinking as much, but the implications are [ READ MORE ]