Live with Jake Monaghan, author of Just Policing

That’s a wrap for this summer’s BIG iff TRUE interviews! Thanks to

Hannah Kim

,

Dean Spears

, and

Jake Monaghan

for their time—and for being so interesting.

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Here’s yesterday’s Substack Live with Prof. Jake Monaghan, author of Just Policing. The vibe is “TGIF hangout,” but we did manage to (i) cover a bunch of key ideas from the book, (ii) call back to some PPE classics (Wealth of Nations, Bks. I & V), and (iii) touch on some highlights from the policing literature, such as:

This is a genuinely classic paper

If you want to know my thoughts on Jake’s book, check out my review. After the review first came out in 2024, I got to hang out with Jake at some conferences. It turned out we had some mutual friends, and we ended up being groomsmen at our friend Nick’s wedding last January. Against the odds, the groomsmen have kept our group chat going ever since. (Hi Nick, Kirun, and Alec!)

So naturally I had to ask Jake—a political philosopher with a keen eye for social dynamics—what he thinks about one of my favorite topics: the loss of social capital in America. How do we get people to hang out more, if only in group chats? Jake’s answer, which comes towards the end of the conversation, was even better than I’d hoped for. So was:

JAKE’S PICK

• Samuel Scheffler, “Immigration and the Significance of Culture,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 35(2): 93-125.

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Would anyone like to hear me interview someone with a very different opinion from Jake’s—say, a police abolitionist? If so, let me know in the comments. I’m always up for getting a variety of conversations going.

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Thank you

Nick2759

,

Nathaniel Joseph

,

Meg Gilliland

,

Theophilus

, and others for tuning in to these Substack Lives and asking questions.

If you want to check out the other interviews, you can find them here!