…The starting point for most discussions of women’s issues is the observation that women earn less money than men, with e equality as the implicit touchstone for the desirability of policies, personal or public. But defining one’s well-being in terms of one’s e is not self-evidently correct. In fact, it is extremely problematic to argue that one’s e is an accurate measure of one’s wealth, even on strictly economic grounds. The overall claim is even more problematic if we...

Many thought that a clear lesson about the size and function of the state had been learned from twentieth-century history, particularly with the collapse munism. Human well-being required a very limited state. The state itself had turned into man’s greatest enemy, so its purpose and centrality needed rethinking. Economic prosperity could be best achieved through the free operation of the market. Most institutions of culture should be left in the hands of voluntary agencies. These organs of culture–museums, galleries,...

Publication of the controversial book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray has opened a much-needed discussion about what we should do about the increasing stratification of our society. Without trying to do violence to a thoughtful and detailed book by attempting a too-facile summary, I would outline the authors’ challenge as follows: It is clear that a “cognitive elite” and a permanent underclass exist at opposite ends of a...

Once upon a time, long ago, a few men laid stones down on the banks of the River Thames, building a fortress that would one day e the city of London. At just that time, not far from Jerusalem, lived a rabbi called Rabbah who conducted classes in law. He explained to the assembled rows of students that even though a judge may be confident of his ability to remain dispassionate and to judge justly, he should neither accept...

Moral relativism is at first glance the easiest of all philosophical positions to defend. The defense consists of a single tactic, remorselessly and impartially applied to any and all ethical precepts: deny their truth and insist that the proponent show the logical contradiction that arises from that denial. The consistent skeptic does not have the unpleasant obligation of showing how one moral precept ties into another; nor does he face the difficult task of squaring moral principles that seem...

Islam is the stereotype of the unknowable “Other” in the West today. Yet monality between Islam and Christianity is greater than the difference. The legacy of Crusades fought long ago lends itself to more recent political interests and ambitions that obscure monality. There is, no doubt, an important theological difference between Islam and Christianity: the belief held by Christians of the divinity of Christ is not held by Muslims. Yet, Muslims revere Jesus (peace be upon him) as an...

Multinational corporations (MNCs) engage in very useful and morally defensible activities in Third World countries for which they frequently have received little credit. Significant among these activities are their extension of opportunities for earning higher es as well as the consumption of improved quality goods and services to people in poorer regions of the world. Instead, these firms have been misrepresented by ugly or fearful images by Marxists and “dependency theory” advocates. Because many of these firms originate in...

The recent encyclical, Centesimus Annus, serves as a blueprint for a possible renaissance in economic thought. The encyclical blends philosophical traditions providing a new methodological approach for philosophy of economics. Using Centesimus Annus as a model, I set out to investigate new philosophical approaches to political economy. I investigated the inherent connections between ethics and economics through a presentation and augmentation of the value theory and ethics of the Austrian Economist, Ludwig von Mises. Mises’ Human Action pared with...

When a person gains power over other persons–political power to force other persons to do his bidding when they do not believe it right to do so–it seems inevitable that a moral weakness develops in the person who exercises that power. It may take time for this weakness to e visible. In fact, its full extent is frequently left to the historians to record, but we eventually learn of it. It was Lord Acton, the British historian, who said:...

An atheist is rarely asked to write an essay on “religion’s positive role in society,” but it is fitting that this request came from the Acton Institute. Lord Acton (1834-1902) was a Catholic, a classical liberal, and a great historian who devoted his life to the history of liberty. Acton always stressed this important truth: No one group or movement, religious or secular, deserves exclusive credit for the theory and evolution of free institutions. All historians should avoid the...

In the course of my travels the length and breadth of this land, often I am struck with the innocence of both Protestant and Catholic clergy in matters political and economic. For innocence, read–if you will–ignorance. The seminaries teach next to nothing in these disciplines, and candidates for Holy Orders–with some honorable exceptions–seem to have acquired but scanty information about the civil social order before they begin to proceed to a school of theology. I certainly do not desire...

All human activities can be located somewhere along a spectrum that is anchored at one end by spirituality, and at the other by physicality. Praying is near the spiritual end; reading and posing music and making tools are its neighbors. As the source of both great sensual pleasure and also of all new life, sex might be somewhere near mid-spectrum, while eating and all other bodily functions belong over toward the physical end. Where mercial transactions fit? When a...