The Difference Principle

Thanks to about 4 pages of Adam Swift's intro to political philosophy, I can now read and understand the debate on Rawls' difference principle (and Cohen's critique) discussed last week by Yglesias, Schwartzman, Solum, and Bertram (and probably others).

That doesn't mean I have anything interesting to add, I'm just excited to understand what they were talking about. Kudos to Swift. It really is a fantastic little book.

UPDATE: This sidenote in the discussion about communitarianism vs. liberalism is brilliant, and puts forth a principle I will try to keep in mind:

Especially where somebody disagrees with you, it is usually a good idea to see whether there is any way in which what, or some of what, they are saying could be true. It's likely to be more intellectually productive than the opposing strategy, which is exactly what politicians are trained to do: they deliberately avoid whatever is good in their opponents' arguments and hone in on - and rubbish - the bad bits.