A Commentary on the Passing Scene by Robert Paul Wolff rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
INTO EACH LIFE ...
I shall be AWOL from this blog for a few days. Today my final papers come in from the Marx course, and UNC requires that they all be read and the grades submitted in 72 hours. As an anarchist, I shall of course obey their rules, so I shall be hidden behind a stack of twenty-page papers for several days. The entrance of Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson into the race for the Republican presidential nomination cries out for commentary, but you shall have to seek your amusement elsewhere. By the time I have raised my head from the pile, the always satirizable Mike Huckabee may have joined them. I am actually old enough to have gone to a circus that featured a clown car. The rest of you must make do with the Republicans.
Good luck professor! And Godspeed.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the grading. I'm "looking forward" to grading about 140 5 page essays from my business ethics students soon. The worst part, I fear, will be seeing how little I managed to teach some of them.
ReplyDeleteI'd meant to mention, in a thread now off the "front page", that the political theorist Michael Sandel has a sometimes interesting discussion of the ethics of hiring "line standers" in his book _Why Some Things Should Not be For Sale_. I had my students in my business ethics class read it, which is why I know about it. I think he doesn't draw fine enough distinctions, and over-simplifies quite a bit, but it's perhaps still worth something, if you're interested. Reading his work, it's easy to see why his "Justice" class is one of the most popular ones at Harvard for undergrads, but also why he's not had nearly as much impact on professional philosophers.
Yikes! 140? My heart goes out.
ReplyDeleteI am making good progress with my group of twenty pagers. Five to go. Not bad. Some of them have been rather good. I will see whether I can hunt up the Sandel.
Why some things should not be for sale isn't by Sandel. Do you mean, What money can't buy?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Chris. I'd taught Satz's WSTSNBFS last fall, and Sandel's WMCB this spring, which is why I had the titles confused. (I'll say that Satz's book is more philosophically interesting, but the Sandel book was easier to use with smart but not philosophically sophisticated undergrads.)
ReplyDeleteI'm teaching ethics in the fall, so I may use WMCB per this: "Sandel's book was easier to use with smart but not philosophically sophisticated undergrads"
ReplyDeletethanks!