Philosopher's Grind My Gears

I usually think of my primary academic field as ethics. The questions I do research on and have interest in as questions I think have ethical significance. I've spent at least as much time thinking about ethical theory as economic theory.

But academic philosophers have a habit of ruining the fun in this enterprise. They tend to rehash the same arguments over and over with little intent to understand one another, and often write papers purposefully (it seems) misinterpreting what other people have to say. They also tend to comment on empirical issues without having a good background in psychology and economics. I summarized my opinion on applied ethics in this book review.

Richard Chappell of Philosophy, et cetera is among the more insightful philosophers I've read. He does dabble in abstruse topics of no consequence, but he's also made me stop and think a few times. He's also rather gracious in admitting when he makes mistakes.

Check out his post "In Defense of Free Riding." There is a subtle point that complicates things that I point out in the comments, but I generally agree. Another good one is Voting, Vegetarianism, and Other Chunky Impacts. I think this one simplifies the issues a lot. He's almost certainly wrong about voting (I'm working on a blog about this), and his argument about vegetarianism smooths over some technical (and questionable) assumptions about demand and derived demand decisions.