Immanuel Kant

August 9, 2017|Humanitarianism, Immanuel Kant, Pierre Manent, Progressivism, The Resistance

Religion of Humanity

We can’t help it, we’re human, we necessarily have worldviews. Everybody does. The Resistance does too, rough hewn, in the aggregate, and tacit as it may be. Now it is time to take a look squarely at the Resistance’s main object of concern: Humanity itself. The Resistance declares itself “inclusive” and it hates “exclusion.” Its vision and its concern encompass all of humanity. But not all “humanisms” are created equal. But what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Who is to say that Resistance humanism is unquestionable?

August 3, 2017|communism, Descartes, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Martin Heidegger, Politics of the Person

The Personal Is Always Political: A Conversation with David Walsh

by David Walsh|4 Comments

Who is the human person and has modern philosophy given us a truncated understanding of the person? Those are some of the questions put to philosopher David Walsh as we discuss his latest book, Politics of the Person as the Politics of Being, in this edition of Liberty Law Talk.

April 11, 2016|Brian Tierney, Christian Wolff, Huguccio, Immanuel Kant, Natural Law, Samuel von Pufendorf, The Idea of Permissive Natural Law

The Permissive Natural Law

by James Bruce|Leave a Comment

Brian Tierney succeeds in his own aims for Liberty and Law: The Idea of Permissive Natural Law, 1100—1800. In his introduction, the noted Cornell medievalist openly admits that this book is “deliberately more descriptive than analytical” and says its chapters should not be read as “a continuous narrative” but as “a series of studies, focused on a common theme and intended, hopefully, to enhance our understanding of its scope and significance.” What Liberty and Law achieves is nothing short of remarkable: it follows the thread of permissive natural law through 700 years of intellectual history. Having written on Rights in the…

March 4, 2014|Edmund Burke, Hegel, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Military Intervention, Monroe Doctrine, Neoconservatism, Pierre Hassner, Truman Doctrine, Vattel, Woodrow Wilson

The Problem of Military Intervention

by Karl Walling|1 Comment

Much of American military and diplomatic history can be told in terms of military intervention and counter intervention, as well as debates about the justice and prudence of using force this way. One of the fundamental purposes of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 was to persuade third parties, like France, Spain, and the Netherlands, to intervene in the conflict against Great Britain. Since France supplied upwards of 90% of the arms and ammunition the Americans used and provided not only a navy but also an army larger than the force of Continental soldiers George Washington brought to the…