David Tabachnick

We argue that for theorists with a post-institutional conception of property, e.g., Rawlsians, there is no principled reason to limit the domain of distributive justice to tax and transfer-both tax policy and the rules of the private law are constructed in service to distributive aims. Such theorists cannot maintain a commitment to a normative conception of private law independent of their overarching distributive principles. In contrast, theorists with a pre-institutional conception of property can derive the private law from sectors of morality independent of distributive justice. Nevertheless, we argue, this does not entail that the private law, for pre-institutional theorists, must be sanitized of equity-oriented values. Non-libertarian pre-institutional theorists holding principled commitments to equity-oriented values are free to invoke either tax and transfer or the rules of the private law to attain them. Footnotesa We are grateful to John G. Bennett, Harry Dolan, Edward McCaffery, and Ellen Frankel Paul for written comments on a previous draft and to Eric Mack, Fred Miller, Jeffrey Paul, A. John Simmons, and the other contributors to this volume for valuable discussions.

In this paper, I consider Heidegger's call for the recapturing of radical techne or "the original Greek essence of science" because, he argues, it reminds us of our tragic impotence in the face of nature—that humans are in the throws of a fate beyond their determination. For Heidegger, our thinking, our building, our politics, and our art must be episphalês (precarious and prone to fall)—that is, its aim must not be to protect against or hide from, but to stand firm against the collapse and confusion of Western thinking and civilization

In this paper, I consider Heidegger's call for the recapturing of radical techne or "the original Greek essence of science" because, he argues, it reminds us of our tragic impotence in the face of nature—that humans are in the throws of a fate beyond their determination. For Heidegger, our thinking, our building, our politics, and our art must be episphalês —that is, its aim must not be to protect against or hide from, but to stand firm against the collapse and confusion of Western thinking and civilization.

In this thesis, I examine the relationship between politics and technology, with an eye to exposing the weaknesses in both the philosophy of technology and the philosophical revival of phronesis. Part one considers the foundations of the relationship. First, through an exegetical analysis of ancient Greek texts from Sophocles, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, I show that techne or technical knowledge and phronesis or political judgement are basic elements of the polis. This analysis makes clear that only in a polis under a leadership practicing good political judgement are human beings able to understand what products they need to live full and happy lives. Second, I show how the modern political thought of Machiavelli and especially Hobbes discredits and replaces the role of political judgement. Third, I consider Heidegger's conclusion that phronesis was the way to an authentic existence for the ancient Greeks and that we are unable to follow the same path because technology now enframes the planet and everything on it. Part two reviews different responses to Heidegger, concerns about the dehumanizing influence of technology and the revival of phronesis. Chapter four focuses on the debate in the philosophy of technology between essentialism and constructivism. The essentialists argue that politics cannot guide technology because it is itself a product of technology. The constructivists argue that technology is a product of the reigning establishment and the only way to guide it toward egalitarian ends is through revolutionary or activist efforts. I offer a third way: rather than understanding politics as entirely the product of technology or technology entirely the product of politics, the essence of politics and technology are intertwined. In turn, rather than abandoning the Western tradition, it may be possible to recover or revive its lost or forgotten elements---namely, phronesis. But, I also show the problems with reviving phronesis in a liberal democratic context. Finally, I explain why and how we should practice a political judgement that guides technology to good ends and ensures that it contributes properly to human flourishing