Cass R. Sunstein on the case for "coercive paternalism"

Charles Fried and Godfrey Hodgson on the legal theorist Ronald Dworkin, who died last Thursday at the age of eighty-one

Robert T. Miller on Dworkinand how hard it is to think and talk as one should about one's intellectual adversariesEd Smithon why Orwell was wrong about the moral virtue of plain language:

When politicians or corporate front men have to bridge a gap between what they are saying and what they know to be true, their preferred technique is to convey authenticity by speaking with misleading simplicity. The ubiquitous injunction Lets be clear, followed by a list of five bogus bullet-points, is a much more common refuge than the Latinate diction and Byzantine sentence structure that Orwell deplored.We live in a self-consciously plain-spoken political era. But Orwells advice, ironically, has not elevated the substance of debate; it has merely helped the political class to avoid the subject more skilfully. The art of spin is not (quite) supplanting truth with lies. It aspires to replace awkward complexities with catchy simplicity. Successful spin does not leave the effect of skilful persuasiveness; it creates the impression of unavoidable common sense. Hence the artifice becomes invisible just as a truly charming person is considered nice rather than charming.