Successful people who earn their wealth through free and peaceful exchange may choose to give some of it away, but they'd be no less moral and no less debt-free if they gave away nothing. It cheapens the powerful charitable impulse that all but a few people possess to suggest that charity is equivalent to debt service or that it should be motivated by any degree of guilt or self-flagellation.
Readers of this journal will probably be most interested in Nozick’s views on ethics, especially as they relate to libertarianism, and it is on these that I propose to concentrate.
The events of September 11, and the response to them by the Bush administration, make Elizabeth Anscombe’s classic essays newly pertinent. Her essays present the most influential account
Athletics, like economics, is an endeavor of human action. While we can see scores and statistics, there is no true way to quantify how good or bad a team may be. Indeed, if the computer polls with their mathematical formulas were so accurate and useful, then one would hardly see the need for a championship game after all.
In the weeks immediately following the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters, commentators were quick to predict in apocalyptic terms that television and movies would never be the same again. It is still too early, however, to tell whether there really has been a sea-change in the American psyche. Paul Cantor explains.
Politics creates a setting where, in the words of Longfellow, "man must either be anvil or hammer." Thus, a vast array of political machinery is created to represent a wide variety of interests and to further those interests at the expense of the other groups.
Instead of incorporating the agenda of those who would malign free enterprise, business schools should do more to educate tomorrow's corporate executives about the myriad ways in which business advances social progress.
I am the first Englishman and the first professional philosopher to receive the Schlarbaum Prize. So it seems appropriate to begin by talking about the greatest English philosopher, John Locke.
Ten years ago, Pope John Paul II released Centesimus Annus, an encyclical, at once subtle and sweeping, that addressed the future of the post-communist countries of Europe and the general subject of freedom, society, and faith. Jeff Tucker recalls its meaning.
The pessimistic scenario is not only that American businessmen, students, and tourists will forever fear to travel in any nation with a Muslim community. It could also mean disinvestment overseas, the further impoverishment of the developing world, a lasting world depression, a world split into major warring blocks, and police-state policies at home.
