[Propelloni]

To summarize: the author struggles with the question why they should care (mostly about society and social contracts). The author references Plato's Republic, Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and one of Wolff's blog postings and quotes the bible on stuff. To me there is no clear line of argument visible. I presume the author thinks they are some kind of a Christian punk. Fine by me.

The author seems to be blissfully unaware of existentialism, French or otherwise, which could have either saved the author 12 years of anguish (OTOH, a very existentialist thing to have) or made the article more interesting. Maybe both. This way I'd say, needs work.

[magicalhippo]

I struggled as well to find a solid thread or argument.

It seemed to all boil down to trying to justify why it's not wrong of him to cheat on his taxes and play loud music in the park at night:

We don’t have to think about what is good for the “society” or for people at large, We only have to care for people that are around us.

[smitty1e]

The article was something of a tribute to the author of => https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-completion-...

[Propelloni]

Sure, the author says as much and linked to the article you also linked. Wolff makes the better read and shows philosophical rigor in his working, for example, extracting and spelling out concise premises and conclusions. Now I have a hunch that the author is not an native English speaker, which certainly could explain some less convincing sentences.

But unlike Wolff, the author covers too much ground. Wolff limits his scope to Kant's works and esp. Kant's theory of justice, and excludes the seminal works on social contracts by other authors (which would IMO have impact on Wolff's conclusions) and acknowledges that fact, e.g. immediately in the title of his essay. The author does no such thing.

I respect the author, I myself had an infatuation with Illich and Mühsam in my punk years, but I still think that if you want to make broad claims, you have to have broad knowledge. The exclusion of, e.g. existentialist or other political and moral philosophers, makes the purview too narrow for such a broad conclusion. Aother viable approach -- working from first principles -- is also nowhere in sight. It's like saying "I don't like ice cream" after having only tasted Smurf and Big Red flavor.