Introducing Chris Freiman

While I’m touring the Italian peninsula, philosopher Chris Freiman will be joining Bet On It as a guest blogger. If you’re unfamiliar with Freiman’s work, he’s one of the world’s most thoughtful, productive, and empirically-minded political philosophers. Based at the College of William and Mary, he is the author of Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics and Unequivocal Justice. He has also written many excellent articles; my favorites include “Can Socialism Allow Open Borders?” and “Why Paternalists Must Endorse Epistocracy.”

Officially, Freiman is an no-exceptions utilitarian. He even challenges the Forced Organ Donation Hypothetical in his “Self-Ownership and Disgust.” The last time I had dinner with him, however, I concluded that he makes massive exceptions after all. Too his credit, because no-exceptions utilitarianism is crazy.

Previously, Freiman has blogged for Bleeding-Heart Libertarians and 200-Proof Liberals. For my earlier commentary on his work, see here, here, here, here, here, and here. Freiman is one of the rare philosophers who really cares about empirical social science - and uses it to make political philosophy great again.

Despite his impressive scholarly output, Freiman is probably best-known for his firehose of Unreasonable Anti-Rawls Memes. Hilarious, at least to me. If you’re unfamiliar with the cult of Rawls, “unreasonable” is the adjective they reflexively apply to the rejection of any of their dogmatic core premises. All I can say about Freiman’s memes is: Collect them all.

Bottom line: Chris is great, so please welcome him during his visit to Bet On It.