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Public Discourse

A Tale of Two Fathers: Silas Marner on the True Meaning of Fatherhood

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At a time when many children grow up without the love of their biological father, the sacrificial love of the men who willingly fill that void demands recognition.
Public Discourse

The Illusion of Neutrality

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The secular state cannot be neutral in matters of religion.
Public Discourse

Hooking Up, Shacking Up, and Saying “I Do”

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Despite the lack of cultural support for positive practices that help couples toward healthy marriage relationships, the good news is that individuals have control over their relationship choices.
Public Discourse

Sexual Assault and College Practices

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To effect a real change in behavior, colleges must not only change the messages they send—they must establish new patterns for college life.
Public Discourse

Naked Consent: Why Personal Speech Codes Won’t Curb a Social Problem Like Sexual Assault

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Speech codes won’t fix what ails a relationship marketplace that aggravates—rather than relieves—the risk of sexual violence. California’s proposed law will simply multiply accusations, legal proceedings, and judicial headaches.
Public Discourse

Prudence and Moral Absolutes

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Refusing to make exceptions to absolute moral norms is not unrealistic, imprudent, or inhumane. The purpose of norms is to promote human flourishing and protect what is good
Public Discourse

The Global Citizen without a Country?

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Today’s global citizenship movement emphasizes human rights disconnected from the history of any particular nation and without a clear conception of human nature.
Public Discourse

The Renaissance of Hope: Dissidence, the Polish Church, and the End of Communism

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The totalitarian temptation can never be entirely overcome, and there is always a possibility that barbarism will return. Thus, we must ceaselessly strive to pursue love, dignity, and freedom.
Public Discourse

Support the Work of Public Discourse

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A note from the editor.
Public Discourse

What Reason Can Know and What Government Should Legislate: A Rejoinder to Arkes

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The existence of objective moral truth that is knowable by reason does not imply that people generally, much less particular public officials, will in fact know and embrace that truth. Very often, they won’t, and that is why systematic limits on government power, such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, are good laws.
Public Discourse

Judging Beliefs and Shaping Laws: A Reply to Robert Miller

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Legislators and judges not only can but must gauge the moral justification of every law.
Public Discourse

Driving to Nebraska: Cinema, Human Dignity, and the Elderly

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At times, cinema succeeds where philosophy fails. Films like Nebraska show us the importance of honoring our elderly parents and remind us of the unique dignity of every human person.
Public Discourse

Professor Arkes and the Law

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When the law limits the courts’ power to inquire into the truth or reasonableness of religious views, this is not because the law is assuming that religious beliefs lack rational foundation. Rather, it’s because allowing courts to exercise this power on a large scale would be too dangerous.
Public Discourse

Journey to Baby Gammy: How We Justify a Market in Children

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Materialism, relativism, and consequentialism are at the heart of the arguments in favor of third-party reproduction.
Public Discourse

Scholastic Metaphysics: Edward Feser’s Introduction

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Edward Feser’s latest book gives readers who are familiar with analytic philosophy an excellent overview of scholastic metaphysics in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas.
Public Discourse

Traditional Religion in Space

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Traditional religion, with its reliance on an authoritarian God, its understanding of humans as sinners, and its grounding in particular times and places, provides the only stable foundation for affirming the sanctity of human life and enabling human flourishing in new cosmic situations.
Public Discourse

The Pleasures of Prudence: How Over-Regulation Hurts Doctors, Teachers, and All Workers

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Workers must have the freedom to develop real expertise and to exercise this rational mastery in pursuit of good ends. Only in the pleasures of prudence can we truly realize those excellences of which human beings are capable.
Public Discourse

Obamacare: Text and Intention

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Confronted with its legislative weaknesses, defenders of Obamacare are appealing to the law’s intent instead of its text. This is a dangerous approach that the founders clearly rejected.
Public Discourse

Tracking Christian Sexual Morality in a Same-Sex Marriage Future

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Churchgoing Christians who support same-sex marriage are more likely to think pornography, cohabitation, hook-ups, adultery, polyamory, and abortion are acceptable. And it’s reasonable to expect continued change in more permissive directions.
Public Discourse

The Santa Barbara Killings: When Envy Becomes the Deadliest Sin

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The writings and videos of mass murderer Eliot Rodger reveal a young man eaten up by envy and demonstrate the reality of evil.
Public Discourse

Law and Morality in Public Discourse: How Christians Can Rebuild Our Culture

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It’s in seeking Jesus Christ with all our hearts that culture is built and society is renewed. It’s in prayer, the sacraments, changing diapers, balancing budgets, preaching homilies, loving a spouse, forgiving and seeking forgiveness—all in the spirit of charity—that, brick by brick, we bring about the kingdom of God. Adapted from an address delivered August 6th at the Archdiocese of Toronto’s “Faith in the Public Square” symposium.
Public Discourse

A Time for Heroism

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If we hope to protect the unborn, promote sexual integrity, preserve the truth about marriage, and defend the freedom of religious conscience in our country, we cannot simply live good lives—we must live heroic ones.
Public Discourse

A Caution against Compatibility: On Natural Rights and Natural Law

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While Adam Seagrave offers a provocative and original reading of Locke, his assumptions about the self and ownership are deeply problematic.
Public Discourse

Who Deserves Respect?

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Civility is due not to a person’s opinions, but to the person himself.