PaCD: Past Events

“The First Rule of Democracy”
with Alexandra Oprea (Buffalo) and Daniel Stephens (Buffalo)
Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 4:00 pm EST
This event will take place via Zoom. Email the working group to join:
Markets & Society Session: Morality, Ideology, and Political Economy
Date: October 22, 2023, 9:00 am
This event will take place at the Markets and Society Conference, October 20-23, 2023.
Speakers:
- “Soft Despotism and the Limits of Justificatory Liberalism: Towards a Libertarian Theory of Ideology,” Kaveh Pourvand
- “The Ambivalent Role of Moral Sentiments in the Economic Policy Discourse,” Johanna Jauernig
- “Curb Your Moral Enthusiasm!,” Stan Husi
Markets & Society Session: Liberalism, Libertarianism, & Moderatism
Date: October 23, 2023, 9:00 am
Speakers:
- “Is Libertarianism Centrist?” Andrew Cohen
- “Spontaneous order” idea: a comparison between Hayek and Sugden,” Giorgia Lucchini
- “Hayekian Liberalism as a Metaphysical Research Programme,” Jeremy Shearmur
These sessions took place at the Markets & Society Conference, October 20-23, 2023.


PPE Society Session: Chasing Comity: Theorizing (Ideal) Civic Relationships in a Hyper-partisan World
Date: November 3, 2023, 10:45 am
Speakers:
- “Civic friendship with immoral others,” Shanna Slank
- “Comity with refugees and impartiality in moral judgments,” Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Laura Soter
- “How to Engage in Civil Discourse,” Andrew Jason Cohen
PPE Society Session: Liberalism, Libertarianism, & Moderatism
Date: November 3, 2023, 3:45 pm
This event will take place at the Seventh Annual PPE Society Meeting.
Speakers:
- “Moderation in Democratic Party Politics: How Liberal Parties Should Compromise,” Fabian Wendt
- “Moderation and the Cartography of Justice,” Lauren Hall
- “Is Libertarianism Moderate?” Andrew Cohen
Moderator: TBA
These sessions took place at the Seventh Annual PPE Society Meeting., November 2-4, 2023.
Abstract: The idea that political thought and behavior can be usefully modeled on a uni-dimensional, “left-right” ideological spectrum is the “master theory” of the last 60 years of American political science research (Hacker and Pierson, 2014). In this talk, we argue that this “master theory” is inadequate because it is based on a myth. We cannot accurately or usefully talk about politics in terms of “left” and “right” because there is more than one issue in politics, but a uni-dimensional spectrum by definition can only measure one issue. Likewise, we cannot sensibly talk about an individual or a party “moving to the left” or “moving to the right” over time because the very meanings of “left” and “right” are constantly changing. The myth of “ideological polarization” in our society, and the monist illusion underlying it, is contributing to a reality of “affective polarization” between our two parties and undermining the pluralist understanding necessary for civil discourse.
