Friday Philosophy

David Edmonds has made Derek Parfit’s ideas accessible to a wide audience at last.

Aeon J. Skoble wrote that Nozick mistakenly believed that without at least a minimal state, we would have something out of Hobbes's nightmares. David Gordon takes another look.

Wendell Berry is hardly Rothbardian in his economic and social outlook. His new book, however, has its Murray Rothbard moments.

John McWhorter takes on the present infatuation with wokeness and shows the real harm it is doing to our social fabric.

Even if we accept the dubious claim that the supposed strength of the USSR justified nuclear brinkmanship, its absurd to make that same claim about modern Russia.

Patents lack a basis in natural rights; to the contrary, they may be a patent absurdity.

Gregory Salmieri, defending a minimal state, asserts that a free market anarchy would be characterized by "war and realpolitik." That sounds more like what we have under state rule today.

Robert Kagan agrees that the World War II American interventionists were imperialistic but maintains that a form of imperialism based on American values was the proper policy aim then and remains so today.

Egalitarian liberals think that basic liberties can be violated in the quest for equality and even that "the natural duty to promote justice straightforwardly implies a duty to establish states."

It is hard to explain through evolution how we know any necessary truths. Does this give us reason to abandon necessary truth? Nozick thinks so.

Is public choice a better defense of free-market libertarianism than natural rights? Michael Munger thinks so.

Santayana thinks the state can spiritually satisfy people even though it exploits them. The only problem is that states go to war. The solution? A world state.

As antigun studies surface left and right, it's worth remembering that the right to self-defense isn't merely about being safe. It's about having the choice to defend yourself.

Though Kuttner thinks the New Deal a great success, he himself lays out some of its many problems.

In his ambitious new book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, the distinguished Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony poses a sharp challenge to the view that freedom is the highest political value.

By asking people not to pursue market success, altruists are actually asking them not to help others.

Look closely and you'll notice that elite professors, doctors, economists, and other intellectuals use their social standing to justify the state's policies and maintain its image.

Perry Anderson twisted Mises's words into a defense of fascism. Here's what Mises really thought.