John Locke and the Inadequacies of Social Contract Theory
John Locke is an illustration of how social contract theory distorts sound political reasoning.
One Man, One Woman, and the Common Good: Marriage’s Public Purpose
The state should uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, because the state’s interest in marriage is fundamentally about public, not private, purposes for marriage. Adapted from testimony delivered before the United States Senate.
Philosophy, Marriage, and Moral Grandstanding
In a discipline whose point is dispassionate reasoning and discourse, some would shut down debate and silence dissenters on a deep and complex moral-political issue. And the view they would anathematize, far from irrational, is more coherent and more compelling than their slippery and ill-defined ‘default’.
Contracepting Conscience
The new, pro-contraceptive recommendations by the Institute of Medicine endanger the health and well-being of women.
The Two-Biological-Parent Family and Economic Prosperity: Where to Go From Here
Five suggestions for how our nation can regain a healthy marriage culture and the economic prosperity and personal flourishing that comes with it. The second in a two-part series.
The Two-Biological-Parent Family and Economic Prosperity: What’s Gone Wrong
Research shows the positive economic effect of two-biological-parent families on our society. Single parenthood and other alternative family structures not only hurt our economy, they hurt our children, those who care for them, and those for whom our children will care later in life. The first in a two-part series.
The Vocation of a Doctor
Doctors are called to a life of compassionate service to human beings invested with intrinsic dignity. This essay is adapted from the Commencement Address Dr. Landry delivered at the St. Louis University School of Medicine.
Employment and Social Justice
When we debate problems of social justice, we must keep our shared principles separate from the means we advocate to recognize them. Failure to do so produces unfruitful discourse and misdirected charges.
A Realist Philosophical Case For Urbanism and Against Sprawl: Part Two
Arguments for traditional urbanism are de facto truth claims about nature and human nature, and point to and are supported by the natural law. Why we can and should think normatively about our building patterns. Part two of two.
A Realist Philosophical Case For Urbanism and Against Sprawl: Part One
Arguments for traditional urbanism are de facto truth claims about nature and human nature, and point to and are supported by the natural law. Why we can and should think normatively about our building patterns. Part one of two.
Is Sex Just Like Race?
Race and sex play qualitatively different roles in our interactions with each other, making sex rationally relevant to our social and political policies in a way that race is not.
Planned Parenthood’s Lawless Policies
Planned Parenthood must account for its disregard for the law if it wishes to retain state funding.
That’s Entertainment: Free Speech and the Moral Regulation of the Arts
A recent Supreme Court case reveals a division amongst conservatives over the moral foundations of the law.
Islam Will Find Its Own Way to Freedom
With extremism losing momentum, there is hope that the Muslim Middle East is beginning once again to embrace the liberalism of early 20th-century Islam.
