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Articles by Samuel Scheffler
Opinion | Is Economic Inequality Really a Problem?
Yes, but the answer is less obvious than you might think. By Samuel Scheffler Dr. Scheffler is a professor of philosophy. July 1, 2020, 5:12 a.m. ET It is impossible to ignore the stark disparities of income and wealth that prevail in this country, and a great many of us are troubled by this state of affairs. But is economic inequality really what bothers us? An influential essay published in 1987 by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt suggests that we have misidentified the problem.
What are children for?
To Be Continued I remember dancing to a Temptations song with my two-month-old son Julian in my arms, the late afternoon sun filling our living room, and thinking,…
A World Without Children
My wife and I never spent much time talking about whether we wanted to have children. It was clear to both of us that we did, and our only concern was that we might not be able to. Yet if you had asked me why I wanted to have children, I would not have had anything very articulate to say. Nor did that fact bother me. Having children just seemed like the natural next step, and I felt no need to have or give reasons. For increasing numbers of people in developed countries, things are not so simple.
What are children for?
Half a Person by Agnes Callard In December 2018, I found myself unexpectedly pregnant. I have three children, the oldest of whom is in high school, and I had not planned on negotiating the difficulties of pregnancy and early childhood… Read More Quiet Time by Jonny Thakkar For the first six hours of my daughter’s life, I felt no love for her.
A World Without Children
For much of human history, these charges and counter-charges would have seemed strange, if not unintelligible. Having children was an economic necessity. It was the predictable result of satisfying powerful biological urges. And it was justified and valorized by the prevailing religious and secular conceptions of sex and gender. Things have changed as a result of a number of factors. One is the ready availability of effective contraception, which has made sex without conception routine.
The Rawlsian Diagnosis of Donald Trump
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta These are difficult times for liberal theorists. Fewer than thirty years after the end of the Cold War ushered in a period of unprecedented liberal ascendancy, liberalism today is in retreat—or at least on the defensive—in many parts of the world. A new generation of authoritarian strongmen have come to power in a number of countries, riding waves of populist, nationalist, and anti-globalist sentiment, and other countries may well be headed in the same direction.
The Rawlsian Diagnosis of Donald Trump
Does Trump’s success vindicate or undermine liberal theory? Editors' Note: This essay is based on a talk given in January at a Harvard conference—Inequality, Religion, and Society: John Rawls and After—sponsored by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and the Sekyra Foundation. These are difficult times for liberal theorists.
Trump’s Foreign Policy Isn’t the Problem
It reflects, like a funhouse mirror, a twisted image of U.S. imperialism. This essay is featured in Boston Review’s Fall 2018 issue Evil Empire. Order your copy today! After two years of President Donald Trump, critics and commentators are still struggling to make sense of his foreign policy. Despite some hopes that he might mature into the role of commander in chief, he has continued to thumb his nose at most mainstream academic frameworks for analyzing and conducting foreign policy.
The Importance of the Afterlife. Seriously.
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless. I believe in life after death. No, I don’t think that I will live on as a conscious being after my earthly demise. I’m firmly convinced that death marks the unqualified and irreversible end of our lives. My belief in life after death is more mundane. What I believe is that other people will continue to live after I myself have died. You probably make the same assumption in your own case.
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