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Reconsidering Locke and the Origins of Modernity

Public Discourse

In a new book, Steven Forde offers a compelling portrait of a “non-Lockean” Locke who is neither morally corrosive nor oblivious to the tension between individual rights and the common good and whose philosophy develops in response to the new empirical science that shattered the classical and medieval worldviews.

Teach Your Children: Assisted Suicide and My Family

No one wants pain. But the debate about assisted suicide is not just about those who are terminally ill and in pain. It is about all of us. By voting for assisted suicide, we are implicated in an intrinsically immoral act.

Stephen Colbert Meets His Maker

Public Discourse

The most prominent Catholic character on television consistently employed religious themes and theological motifs on his award-winning TV show—never more glaringly so than in the series’ grand finale

The Mission Creep of Dignity

Public Discourse

Dignity, rightly understood, has less to do with autonomy or independence than with intrinsic worth and the ability to flourish.

Charlie Hebdo and #MuslimApologies

In the wake of Islamist attacks, non-Muslims express concern and confusion not because they are indifferent, but because they are afraid. They want to understand. Muslims have an opportunity to embrace this opportunity for understanding.

Women, the Pill, and the Sexual Revolution

Jonathan Eig’s new book tells the story of the invention and popularization of the contraceptive pill. A pleasant, biographically-inflected history, the book repeats standard post-sexual revolution rhetoric, untroubled by too much complexity.

The Mario That Might Have Been

Public Discourse

With his intelligence and his oratorical gifts, Mario Cuomo could have been the true champion of the little guy—the littlest of all—if he had kept the Democratic Party from becoming captive to the abortion interest.

Flirting with Death

Did New Jersey’s Assembly approve an assisted suicide bill without understanding it? The bill is bad public policy, shot through with dangerous loopholes and contradictions that threaten to push many vulnerable citizens of New Jersey toward death.