The Evidence for Virtue: Social Science, Natural Law, and Human Flourishing
Christians have nothing to fear and everything to gain from good social science. It provides a way to talk normatively about human flourishing in terms that are intelligible, legitimate, and persuasive to those outside the community of faith.
The Rich Get Married, the Poor Get Poorer
The Canadian dialogue on marriage and economic prosperity lags behind the American conversation, but a new report aims to change that.
The Limits of Life: Biology and the Philosophy of Nature
Biology continues to offer us new and exciting insights into the world. These insights need to be integrated into a philosophical perspective that is richer than the reductive materialism that is often linked with the empirical sciences. In this endeavor, biology needs the philosophy of nature.
Piety, Justice, and Animals: A Response to Charles Camosy
Both natural law thought and the Catechism agree: animals are not part of the same justice community as human beings, because they do not possess the dignity that comes from existing as a rational being.
What We Owe Animals: A Response to Christopher Tollefsen
Animals are not simply “a gift for human beings.” The needless cruelty inflicted on animals by factory farming not only violates a duty to provide them just treatment, but far outweighs the goods that humans gain by eating such meat.
Nameless Beauty: Conservatism’s Architecture Problem
The enduring values in which conservatives believe—beauty among them—are more multifaceted and surprising than we sometimes give them credit for. Beauty does not always follow rules, and it is often found in unexpected places and patterns.
The Rights of Children: Biology Matters
Every child has a right to be loved by his or her biological parents. Third-party reproduction violates this right by intentionally conceiving a child in a way that will alienate that child from at least one of her biological parents.
Time for a Return of Fusionism
Conservatives and libertarians must rediscover the things that bind them together. A return to Frank Meyer’s philosophy of “fusionism” could provide a roadmap to unity.
Governor Sandoval Takes A Dive In The Nevada Same-Sex Marriage Case
Nevada’s governor and attorney general have engaged in a cynical political ploy to undermine a decision by the people of Nevada to retain a sound understanding of marriage.
Politics, Art, and Love: A Lesson from Dante
Valentine’s Day is usually associated with romance, but love matters in politics, too. In working to change our culture, we must remember that our opponents, like our allies, are human beings whose individual conversions can only be wrought through a combination of love, truth, and free will.
Community, Contemplation, and Computers: The Role of Technology in Education
In order to lead students to wisdom, schools must be prepared to integrate technology in the classroom with moderation when it helps to facilitate real, authentic engagement, and they must be willing to set it aside when it pulls students away from such engagement.
Edmund Burke, Radical
Thomas Paine’s rationalistic emphasis on freedom, equality, and rights form the basis of our political discourse. Even so, Edmund Burke has something essential to teach us: the way we order our society will always be the consequence, first and foremost, of the way we love.
Why Easy Stem Cells Raise Hard Ethical Questions
A surprising new method for making stem cells offers scientists an easy alternative to destroying human embryos. But there is a disturbing possibility that the technique may create not stem cells but actual cloned embryos.
On Abortion Rates: Good News and Cause for Reflection
American abortion rates are falling significantly. Although the Guttmacher Institute tries to hide the chief causes of this trend, cutting through the spin reveals that pro-life laws and attitudes help reduce the abortion rate and the abortion ratio.
College Athletics and the Common Good
If we looked at actual young men and women, and not abstractions, we might begin to think of other things besides the ratio of members of each sex participating in this or that activity. We might think about love.
Why Fight For Marriage?
We are all called to defend marriage so that the truth can change hearts, minds, and lives. As the early pro-life activists did, we must invest the long-term political, legal, cultural, and spiritual capital to win down the line. The final installment in a three-part series.
Philosophy and a Life Well-Lived
The next generation of true culture-makers will be shaped purely by bad philosophy if its arguments go unanswered. As individuals and communities, we will be swayed by moral thought no matter what: the only question is whether it will be well thought out. The second in a three-part series.
Reason and Revelation: Why Christians Need Philosophy
Many Christians question the value of philosophical arguments for conjugal marriage, preferring to appeal to revelation. But our natural moral knowledge in some ways precedes revelation and helps us to understand it. The first of a three-part series.
Is “Sex Worker” a Legitimate Phrase?
Contrary to the rhetoric of sex-worker advocacy groups, the vast majority of women working as prostitutes did not freely choose to do so. Human trafficking is a serious problem, and those who attempt to downplay its prevalence often have ulterior motives.
