Public Discourse

The Gosnell case shows us that a society’s laws teach, and if they teach a lesson of injustice they will corrupt its people over time. Indeed, contemporary abortion jurisprudence undermines the very notion of natural rights and constitutional government.

Is religious belief wrong, and are religious believers morally culpable for their false beliefs?

Richard Mourdock’s comment didn’t imply that God wills rape; instead, it reminds us that God wills a great good in the coming-to-be of any human life, regardless of the evil circumstances surrounding its conception.

Lying is always wrong because it always compromises the love of truth that we need to know and love God better.

Insofar as our lives are governed by reason, we cannot live without truth and a love for it.

In his new book "Where the Conflict Really Lies," Alvin Plantinga levels a devastating critique against the “new atheism” espoused by thinkers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

Were the central task of government to be seen as that of aiding citizens in their own self-constitution, oriented towards real human goods including the good of religion, the HHS mandate would be seen for the unjust imposition it is.

The precepts of the natural law are obligatory not because they are commanded, but because they are necessary for our well-being. God’s revelation of these precepts is better understood as a divine reminding and authoritative inviting.

The absolute prohibition of intrinsically evil acts is the limit on one’s positive obligations.

The tradition of common morality does not permit us to excuse the atomic bomb as a “necessary” evil.

Moral absolutes are not “mere” restrictions on our actions. Nor should they be suspended even when upholding them might bring about grave consequences. They are essential for protecting human wellbeing.

The presumptive starting point in the natural law and, more specifically, Christian tradition is one of absolute opposition to intentional killing of beings created in the image of God, for which exceptions must be earned; but the traditional justifications for such exceptions fail.

Nothing that a man does can change his nature as man, and so, considered in himself, it will always remain wrong to kill him. This should be the final judgment of practical reason when brought to bear on the question of capital punishment.

Intentional killing is always wrong, and support of capital punishment often stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of human dignity.

Contraception does not respond to an authentic healthcare need, and the state acts untruthfully and beyond its legitimate authority when it mandates contraception coverage.

Those who care for the severely disabled and dependent testify to our sense that they are part of the human community.

The requirements of natural reason in the pursuit of goods provide a more adequate starting point for moral reflection than the theological considerations in which moral reflection should come to its fruition.

A person bears moral responsibility for the foreseeable side effects of his reckless actions.

The Live Action case is very different from the Nazis-at-the-door problem, but lying is justified in neither situation.

Lying, even for laudable reasons, is wrong.

The pro-life cause must be advanced by truth and by love, and it must be willing to engage in self-criticism when it fails to meet its own exacting standards.

Accepting the “liberal” definition on pregnancy can actually help clarify the morality of contraception, abortion, and embryo adoption.

Americans must still wrestle with what it means to take the lives of innocent civilians intentionally.

Under the new health-care law, pro-lifers may have to accept inferior health plans, rather than wrongly pay into abortion providing ones.

Three issues—the right to secure borders, the moral costs of illegal immigration, and the virtues of generous neighborliness and forgiveness—must be clarified in order to address the problems of immigration reform.

Sometimes a defense of shared liberal values can become the partisan promotion of one of liberalism's strands.

Both Marc Thiessen and his critics have misunderstood an important moral distinction on the question of torture.

Critics of home-schooling need to be tutored about the nature of education and the family.

Having spent 20 years wrongly diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state, Rom Houben reminds us that disabled persons are capable of many more substantive opportunities for human fulfillment than we are initially inclined to believe. But is bodily life just as such worth preserving? Can care-givers rightly remove hydration and nutrition?

Sugar, spice, and everything nice or snaps, snails, and puppy-dog tails? A controversy over a South African runner makes us ask what boys and girls are made of.

If citizens and politicians believe that victory is to the loudest, or to the most dramatic, then loud and dramatic they will be. The process of public discourse, by contrast, is often deliberative, difficult, and slow. Its participants must, on occasion, “dare to be boring.”

Pragmatic and moral considerations should not be allowed to distort science, nor should they distract philosophy from its pursuit of truth.

Those who favor providing health care to all shouldn’t necessarily oppose the “public option,” but they will be unable to support a bill if it endorses and entrenches the taking of innocent human life through abortion.

As recent polls and recent events show, Americans remain morally opposed to sexual infidelity in marriage. At the same time, Americans show broad acceptance of premarital sex. But an examination of the reasons why infidelity within marriage is detrimental to human flourishing reveals sexual infidelity prior to marriage to be just as harmful.

Revelations about the infidelities of prominent social conservatives like South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign have led many to mock advocates of public virtue who nonetheless succumb to personal vice. But what’s so bad about hypocrisy?

If religious traditions, belief systems, and moral frameworks are the result of a genuine commitment to and search for the truth, then disagreement of truth claims among adherents must be taken as a sign that some, or even all, of the searches have failed. How can this be a good state of affairs?

The recent publication of the Torture Memos and of the International Red Cross report on the treatment of high-level detainees in the aftermath of 9/11 has returned to national prominence the discussion of the morality of torture and “enhanced interrogation” techniques. It is important to be clear, as a moral matter, on what boundaries should be accepted in interrogation of human beings; a responsible and non-politicized discussion is essential on this difficult issue.

The state is required to protect persons not just from physical harm but from being forced to violate their limited but definite freedom of conscience.

Religious liberty and religious authority are frequently seen in tension, but they need not conflict. In fact, a proper understanding of both shows that they are equally necessary for full human flourishing.

Freedom of conscience is an important, though limited, right. In some cases a state may prevent someone from acting on her conscientious judgments. But in other cases—such as those in which a pro-life doctor is required to perform an abortion—the violation of conscience is intrinsically unjust.

While abortion opponents decry the deliberate destruction of human embryos, as many as half of all embryos are lost naturally. How should pro-life advocates address this problem?

Welfare rights really do exist, and are usually best provided for by voluntary associations. Still, even if states aren’t always the best solution, they do have a role to play.