<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4522.1800" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>> He's not insane, so he'd agree that these were bad things. He doesn't think > they are instrinsic to the system, but to the extent that they are, he thinks </DIV> <DIV>> that it's either the irresponsibility of the victims or their bad luck. And he </DIV> <DIV>> thinks we can't do better.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Right.  And this really isn't a very odd view.  One of the facets of politics that has interested of late is the fact that, although most people who are passionate about politics subscribe to numerous varieties of "common-sense morality" (and I suppose you can call it pragmatism if you wish) and profess to abhor consequentialism, nearly all of them argue for their positions on consequentialist grounds.  Furthermore, you'd be hard-pressed to get them to admit that any other political arrangement other than the one they favor would have potentially better consequences.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The libertarian mayoral candidate for mayor of Ann Arbor during the last election, who also happened</FONT> <FONT face=Arial size=2>to be a utilitarian (of the sort that is willing to go where his arguments take him, in contrast to the soft-utilitarianism endorsed by Posner), is unsurprisingly an even more ardent defender of the market than Posner.  Needless to say, I've had a few arguments with him over which socio/political/economic arrangements beget the best consequences.  But we get along famously when it comes to philosophy...</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- Luke</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>