by Helen
If you haven't read Crispin Sartwell's defense of the "Chair of Conservative Studies," make a little time right now (director's cut here):
So as my liberal old professor Richard Rorty said, referring to Allan Bloom, conservative Platonist: "Let a thousand Blooms flower." And if they take root in endowed chairs of conservative thought and policy, that's at least pretty funny.
If you're curious what Sartwell's own politics are, check out Extreme Virtue:
For Aristotle, the goal in question is human happiness over a lifetime; for Mill, who believes an account of virtue can be compatible with his utilitarianism, the goal is the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people and, for MacIntyre, goals are more local and time bound, articulated within social practices... [M]y view divorces virtues from goals altogether. Virtues may in a given situation be destructive of one's happiness and the happiness of others, and they may contribute to the destruction of the very social practices in which they arise and are expressed.
If this is where Sartwell is coming from, I can see how his response to the Designated Burkean would be "Bring it on."
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