People from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures differ vastly in psychology from people from non-WEIRD cultures. Thanks to the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage and family, WEIRD psychology eventually gave rise to free markets, inalienable rights, and democracy.
Whatever your raw intelligence, whatever your background, what you have control over, and therefore what you should focus on, is your actions. The cure for impostor syndrome is to do what intellectuals do, and you’ll become an intellectual.
Researchers find an absence of regret in 97.5 percent of participants who continue a pregnancy in which the baby is “doomed to die.” With emphatic certainty, women report enhanced relationship with the baby, with themselves, and with family despite giving birth after lethal fetal diagnosis. Abortion does not have similar results.
The empirical evidence suggests that coitus is associated with significant psychological and physical benefits and that noncoital sexual activity is associated with significant psychological and physical harms.
Spurred by social comparison, Cain and Abel represent rival responses to the suffering inherent in the human condition following the rise of self-consciousness. Abel’s suffering leads to his self-development as a warrior. Cain’s suffering leads to envy, malevolence, and murder. This essay explicates and develops Peterson’s interpretation of the story.
In his biblical interpretation, Jordan Peterson re-presents in powerful and fresh ways the stories that have animated Western culture. Christians have much to learn from him, even as his own engagement with the Bible could be enriched by the Christian tradition.
These abortion advocates stick their heads in the sand and demonstrate their ignorance of even the most basic facts of the pro-life position.
Despite the example set by the Biblical patriarchs, Western societies have traditionally outlawed polygamy, for reasons both religious and secular. In his recent book, John Witte Jr. gives a history of the arguments for and against polygamy, making a compelling case that polygamy should not be recognized today.
Defending the position that human beings have a special dignity because of their rational nature does not in any way imply that non-rational animals are not also deserving of a certain respect and appropriate treatment. While racism and sexism are moral evils, so-called “speciesism” is not morally wrong and cannot be compared to them.
A superb collection of essays engages, challenges, and praises the work of the formidable John Finnis. Always acute in mental power, Finnis is also at turns witty and profound.
A new book powerfully examines the most important questions surrounding lying and argues that to assert falsely is to commit an act of self-induced practical schizophrenia.
A new book clearly examines and answers the most important questions surrounding medical law and ethics, especially in the realm of end-of-life issues.
One Body, by Alexander Pruss, melds rigorous philosophical analysis and insightful moral theology to advance a clearly-articulated system of sexual ethics based on the call to love.
Recent empirical research suggests that, in virtually every respect, polygamy is socially detrimental—to society in general, to men, to women, and to children.
From its ancient Stoic origins to its modern Kantian formulations, human dignity is an important concept for sound ethical thinking. We must distinguish dignity as attributed, dignity as intrinsic worth, and dignity as flourishing.
Fetal killing imposes a serious bodily harm on an innocent human being. The law should prohibit abortion just as it does other serious harms to the well-being of persons, such as assault, rape, kidnapping, and theft.
Not only those with a “future-like-ours,” but all human beings possess equal basic rights.
A new, supposedly objective book on the abortion debate relentlessly tips the scale against life.
Suggestions to end conscience protection ignore the importance of conscience and rely on a circular—and baseless—understanding of a woman’s “right” to abortion. Following such suggestions would be detrimental to the entire health care system.