Michael Fuerstein

Saint Olaf College is making a tenure track hire in feminist philosophy. We have great students, a lively, collegial department, and are near the vibrant twin cities metro area. Great job! Drop me a line with any questions. philjobs.org/job/show/29582

Same-sex marriage: propelled by democracy despite public ignorance | Aeon Essays Same-sex marriage is an astonishing case of progress propelled by democracy, in the face of public spite and misinformation

Democracy does occasionally work! My take on how and why, via the fascinating case of same sex marriage: aeon.co/essays/same-...

Michael Fuerstein - Experiments in Living Together Podcast Episode · The Political Theory Review · 04/25/2025 · 1h 1m

Really nice conversation with Jeffrey Church about democracy and social progress on The Political Theory Review podcast. Thanks to Jeffrey for making it happen! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

13 Observations about France Reflections on an extended visit to Paris.

Some observations about France from Yascha Mounk

4/ By contrast, the norm of "remove unreliable and/or harmful speech" is constantly vulnerable to the charge that it is being unfairly enforced, because the concepts of "unreliable/harmful" are inherently tied to the very ideological claims being contested in the speech forum itself.

/end

3/ The most plausible value of a "no-gatekeepers" norm is not that a free marketplace of ideas is rational but, rather, that violations of the norm are relatively easy to define and identify in an objective way. "Do not interfere with speech at all" has a pretty clear, hard-to-contest meaning.

2/ So the more fundamental problem at present is the concentration of power over the public forum, which makes gatekeeping inherently unreliable - at least in the long run - as a practice which promotes truth.

A 🧵 Re Meta's elimination of fact-checkers:

1/ A strict "no-gatekeepers" norm is worse for truth, so long as the gatekeepers are trustworthy. But if the gatekeepers are appointed based on the financial interests/ideological whims of two oligarchs, the cost/benefit for society is unclear at best.

Michael Fuerstein, Podcast Episode · New Books in Philosophy · 01/01/2025 · 1h 10m

Had a delightful conversation with @roberttalisse.bsky.social on the New Books in Philosophy podcast. We talked about my *Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress (OUP 2024)*. Thank you, Robert!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...

left: Nicolas Cage with long black hair and a moustache in a black top right: Spinoza with long black hair and a moustache in a black top

a short thread of Nicolas Cage resembling various philosophers

1. Spinoza

Political theorists: What are your favorite (in the sense of most interesting to engage with) conservative and left/Marxist critiques of democracy? I'm looking for stuff I can assign to undergraduates. Refreshing my "Democracy: Rule of the Ignorant?" syllabus. Thanks!

Oh whoops - the AI has branded this as "adult content"! Partial upper body nudity on the cover image...

A Winged Victory for the Sullen A Winged Victory for the Sullen · Album · 2011 · 7 songs

My working music for the day: "A Winged Victory for the Sullen" (eponymous).

The best "ambient," between acoustic and electronic. Sustained strings, piano chords, ambiguous wind instruments, but also meticulously chosen synth sounds. Calming but not new-agey.

open.spotify.com/album/6vygse...

The idea that presidents would refrain from pardoning family members or political allies seem like a naive, nutty vestige of an era when the principle of "be ethical" was a plausible constraint on political actors.

3) Which is not to say that Biden is a bad guy for pardoning his son. I mean, maybe he is. But the problem is a system that creates the discretionary power to do this - and all of the Trumpian abuses of this power we are about to witness - in the first place.

2) There is no system that can completely avoid relying on the principle of "be ethical" (or at least "care about your ethical reputation") as a supplement to formal rules. But in this case the ratio of ethical expectations/formal procedural constraints seems badly calibrated to the times.

In all the post-election analysis, I feel like this is the picture that we most need to understand.

Rutgers political philosophy representing with two new OUP books, and two of the only Cuban-American political philosophers also representing with those same two books…

Check out Lottocracy and Boxed In!

I've started an American philosophy/pragmatism starter pack. Let me know if you want to be added, and spread the word!
go.bsky.app/5FHqkJM

Thanks for doing this. Please add me.

Thank you. And you as well!

Please add me if there is room. Thank you!

Social Epistemologists: I was trying to populate a starter pack for us manually but got lazy and thought it would be much more fun to turn this into a game!

Post a link to your favourite paper you wrote on the topic below with a post-length abstract and I’ll add you to it!

#PhilSky #SocEpis

Epistemic Trust and Liberal Justification* Click on the article title to read more.

Liberalism helps sustain epistemic trust by forcing people to articulate the reasons behind their beliefs, thereby enabling widespread credibility monitoring.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

OP 𓅛 mix 6 - Nicolas Jaar - (BBC Essential Mix 2012) Other People is a record label started in New York City in 2013 by Nicolás Jaar. In its 10 years of existence, it has featured the sonic work of over 70 music releases, highlights include Terepa (2015

My working music for today:

A seamless two-hour, genre-spanning, cross-fading narrative masterpiece of musical delights. No lyrics (except for a tiny bit of sampled talking at the outset). Mellow enough to simmer in the background, but will reward attention if given.

soundcloud.com/otherpeopler...

Please add me. Thanks for putting this together!

The victory march of democracy has ended

What can we as researchers do?

In the Scandinavian countries, a particular tool is available: Democracy & Power Studies.

The Danish government appointed me as director of such a study. We started our work this year.

A 🧵 on what we do & how we do it

1/8

Thank you!

One more add please, if there is still room. Thanks for putting this together.