The Tufts Daily

In “A Theory of Justice,” John Rawls discusses societal progress through collective creativity and labor. Rawls is correct that we gain strength and innovation by participating in the collective, but I would rather think of this idea as relevant to our lives and relationships on a smaller scale — reflected in 2020 Spotify Wrapped.

Friedrich Hayek wrote in The Road to Serfdom (1944) that “We are ready to accept almost any explanation of the present crisis of our civilization except one: that the present state of the world may be the result of genuine error on our own part." Perhaps he’s right.

Trump's base’s unwavering devotion more closely resembles the admiration of the British monarchy than any kind of thoughtful support for a democratic leader. 

In “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Adam Smith posits that there is a significant difference “between those qualities and actions which deserve to be admired and celebrated, and those which simply deserve to be approved of.”

I’m tired of being mad at the state of the world. But I am absolutely furious that I’m still being told that the only way to make progress is to replace anger with politeness and respect.

It is extremely easy to want to return to the worldview a lot of us had prior to Trump’s presidency, a time that we now call "normal." I want to caution against this wishful thinking. It does us no good to long for the way things felt before Trump moved our Earth.

Say you’re faced with making a choice between two alternatives, but both are immoral in their own right. Is it possible to make an objective calculation of which one causes the least total damage? Is it moral to do so? 

18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant didn’t give us much warning about what an internalized duty to know everything about every tragedy would mean for our mental states, but what he did offer was a distinct source of all good in the world: good intentions.

While we don’t want to be anyone’s enemy, we should always choose that path over one of servitude to a tyrant who conducts himself like an unruly toddler on national television.

This week’s question examines whether we should be here at all, “here” being Tufts campus and the communities of Medford, Somerville and Boston and “we” being those of us present in those communities.