John Locke

March 22, 2019|alienable, Declaration of Independence, inalienable, John Locke, primogeniture, rights, Robert Nozick

What Use Is an “Inalienable” Right?

Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA (Sean Pavone/Shutterstock.com).

If the right to liberty is alienable, whether despotic rule is just or unjust depends on the actual set of agreements between the people and their ruler.

February 14, 2019|Adam Smith, covetousness, Equality, inequality, John Locke, status offenses

Covetousness and Inequality

by James R. Rogers|39 Comments

Image: Frankie's/Shutterstock.com

Once we indulge the taste to take away simply because others have, there is no end but desolation.

November 20, 2018|David Hume, despotism, James Wilson, John Locke, Natural Law, Republicanism, Thomas Hobbes

Natural Law and Democracy: The Philosophy of James Wilson

by Roberta Bayer|13 Comments

Engraving by J.B. Longacre after "miniature in possession of Mrs. Hollingsworth." Published in John Sanderson, Biog. of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, 1823. (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com)

Thoroughgoing philosophical skepticism undermines liberty by denying that law can be reasonable, and that justice can be known.

October 24, 2018|Aristotle, Harry M. Clor, John Locke

An Aristotelian in Lockeland: Harry Clor

by Lauren Weiner|4 Comments

Political philosopher Harry M. Clor

Harry M. Clor (1929-2018) was a humble political philosopher and a great teacher.

August 28, 2018|civility, Desiderius Erasmus, John Locke, Roger Williams, speech codes, Teresa Bejan, Thomas Hobbes, Toleration

“All Must Be Tolerated”: Teresa Bejan’s Mere Civility, Part II

by M. Anthony Mills|8 Comments

Statue of Roger Williams in Prospect Terrace Park, Providence, Rhode Island (Richard Cavallieri/Shutterstock.com).

Modern calls for civility often hearken to a golden age of liberal free speech, but this is a mistake.

August 27, 2018|civility, Desiderius Erasmus, John Locke, Roger Williams, speech codes, Teresa Bejan, Thomas Hobbes, Toleration

“All Must Be Tolerated”: Teresa Bejan’s Mere Civility, Part I

by M. Anthony Mills|8 Comments

Statue of Roger Williams in Prospect Terrace Park, Providence, Rhode Island (Richard Cavallieri/Shutterstock.com).

Hobbes and Locke offer echoes of standard liberal approaches to civility, but Roger Williams may offer a better sort of civility.

June 5, 2018|D.C. Schindler, John Locke, Leo Strauss, Liberty, metaphysics

Metaphysics as Politics?: D.C. Schindler on Locke and Liberalism

by Paul Seaton|4 Comments

D.C. Schindler's Freedom from Reality makes the startling claim that John Locke and his modern inheritors offer a us demonic kind of liberty.

May 24, 2018|Catholic Social Thought, Economic growth, Equality, John Locke, Oeconomicae et pecuniariae quaestiones, Pope Francis, Poverty

Equality versus Feeding the Hungry

by James R. Rogers|17 Comments

People walking along an open sewer in an unidentified African town (John Wollworth/Shutterstock.com).

It is simply too pat to point to bare economic inequality and decry it as necessarily unjust: pursuing equality can often harm growth.

May 10, 2018|American Founding, Declaration of Independence, Donald Trump, Economic growth, Enlightenment, John Locke, Liberalism, Rousseau, Suicide of the West

Jonah Goldberg’s Soulless Case for Liberty

by Richard M. Reinsch II|26 Comments

PlusOne/Shutterstock.com

Jonah Goldberg’s Suicide of the West introduces us to a (mostly) soulless rhetoric of liberty.

April 17, 2018|Free Speech, John Locke, Mere Civility, Political Correctness, Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes

The Solid Ground of Mere Civility: A Conversation with Teresa Bejan

by Teresa M. Bejan|4 Comments

A painting by Alonzo Chappel, shows a group of Native Americans (possibly the Narragansett) as they offer the pipe of peace to Roger Williams, the future founder of Rhode Island.

Teresa Bejan discusses with us how early modern debates over religious toleration are an example of how we can disagree well.

What Does the Word “Liberal” Mean?

by Nathan W. Schlueter

Helena Rosenblatt presents a Continentalized (which is to say incomplete) definition of liberalism.

Structural Realism Has No Clothes

by Paul D. Miller

What is remarkable is that, despite decades of scholarship and change, today’s structural realists have revised or changed almost none of their views.

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