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On the evening of 11/10, we’re discussing John Rawls. What is justice? Rawls interpreted this question as asking what basic social rules and structures would result in a society that we’d consider fair. Justice is fairness, on a social level.

Fairness, of course, is an intuitive notion, and begs for a philosophical definition, but instead of doing some sort of old fashioned search for a definition (as in Plato’s Republic) which we can then use to deductively ground this general social framework, he wants to translate our intuitions straight into these social rules. Rawls came up the the name “reflective equilibrium” to talk about the considered opinion we reach on something when we carefully evaluate and make consistent our current set of beliefs.

This is an important element of modern philosophical method to understand, way beyond the context of Rawls: it signals an abandonment of any pretense at a foundationalist picture of knowledge, where a la Descartes we we’re supposed to start with unassailable foundations and build on them. Instead, acknowledging that there are no such foundations, you start where you are, with the complex network of beliefs that you’ve inherited from history, and tweak those only insofar as you need to to make them consistent (so it’s also called “methodological conservatism”). If you find that one of your theories implies something deeply intuitively unacceptable like that murder is great, you modify that theory.

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Precognition of Episode 85: John Rawl's Theory of Justice - Partially Examined Life

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Welcome to Burn Your Draft, a new podcast about the Reed College senior thesis experience. Each episode features an interview with a student or alum about their thesis experience. The first episodes launch on August 31st, 2020, and new episodes will release every other Monday.

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In this special episode we hear from Seth Paskin '90, Reed alumnus and co-founder of Burn Your Draft, on the motivation behind the podcast. We’ll also hear about his own experience as a co-founder and co-host of the podcast, The Partially Examined Life, and his time thesising at Reed as a philosophy major.
This live interview was recorded during the 2020 Paideia week on January 25th in the living room of Prexy, a building on the Reed College campus that housed presidents of the college in the early days of Reed. It’s now the home of the Center for Life Beyond Reed and Alumni Programs.

#0: Burn Your Draft Live Debut Event with Seth Paskin '90, Philosophy

You don’t have to look beyond Portland to see the topic of this thesis. Today we will be hearing from Economics/Mathematics Reed graduate, Ryan Kobler '20, about her thesis on land pricing in Portland.

Reed community members can read Ryan's thesis online in the Electronic Theses Archive: https://rdc.reed.edu/i/5cf0fb28-87b4-42e6-86dc-0493bbae04d5

#1: Land Pricing in Portland with Ryan Kobler '20, Econ/Math

I’m sure you've read joke books, but have you read ancient joke books? Let’s go back to our comedic roots with Jake Buck and his translation of one of the oldest Chinese joke books.

#2: Translating Ancient Chinese Jokes with Jake Buck '20, Chinese

Make sure to grab your tin foil hats for this episode of Burn Your Draft and get ready to hear from Molly Johnson on the sociological aspects of UFO subculture. Seth Paskin '90 hosts this episode.

#3: UFOs and the People Who Love Them with Molly Johnson '19, Sociology

Is history repeating itself? Today we will hear from Soha on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (which is often described as the 21st century silk road), and its effect on foreign investment in sub-saharan Africa.

Reed community members can read Soha's thesis online in the Electronic Theses Archive: https://rdc.reed.edu/c/etheses/s/r?_pp=20&query=soha%20ahmed&s=cba1d9f104c81a09b4c2739df6299fa52165a034&p=1&pp=1

#4: China's New Silk Road with Soha Ahmed '20, Economics

Quarantine has created an atmosphere for a lot of difficult conversations with friends and especially families. Today we will hear from Jade about her research study on gender and pronouns amongst Reed students.

Reed community members can read Jade's thesis online in the Electronic Theses Archive: https://rdc.reed.edu/i/d704b617-47e4-4300-bb0b-cf209765f3b3

#5: Gender Pronoun Use at Reed with Jade Fung '20, Psychology

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don't have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we're talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion.

Precognition of Episode 85: John Rawl's Theory of Justice - Partially Examined Life

Partially Examined Life

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