on a previous version of my website, i described myself as a "kantian with rawlsian tendencies in the political sphere."
this page exists to elaborate on that self-description.
in general, i consider myself a holistic kantian. that means that i broadly accept the metaphysical and metaethical positions associated with either immanuel kant or others in the tradition that he began.
i don't generally accept kant's specific ethical prescriptions — there's probably an element of truth to nietzsche's quip about the secret joke of kant's soul.
conversely, i do generally accept the specific ethical prescriptions of john rawls: that we ought to approach the building of a just society through a process of reflective equilibrium, and that we ought to approach justice itself as a matter of fairness.
i think that these prescriptions are defensible and consistent even when rawls' metaethical views are swapped out for kant's. i interpret rawls as supporting further "left" positions than canonical interpretations do.
i find the economic georgism interesting, and have made some personal attempts to unify quine's mathematical ontology with kantian metaphysics. i liked many of aristotle's arguments at one point or another.
i think heidegger gets death right. one of my biggest regrets (thus far) is not reading more continental and critical philosophy. i've been working to fix that.
i have some book recommendations here.