Here is an example of a phenomenon that has long puzzled me: Nasty in-group fighting. In The Rise of Neo-Kantianism, Klaus Christian Köhnke asks: What can “explain one of the most distressing features of the neo-Kantians: the fierceness and bitterness of their polemics, the nastiness of their ad hominem arguments, which destroyed personal friendships and […]
Movement in-fighting and schisms — psychology Read More »
To be fully human is to make one’s own decisions and initiate one’s own actions in life. In this essay at The Creativity Post, physician Alan Lickerman writes: “restrictions on our autonomy may lie at the heart of a great deal of our unhappiness. Studies show, for example, that one of the greatest sources of
Autonomy as a human need Read More »
Tim Black, a senior writer at spiked, has a good review discussion of “Why they’re really scared of Heidegger.” The “they’re” refers to many contemporary academics, and Black’s review is of Emmanuel Faye’s wave-making Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy in Light of the Unpublished Seminars of 1933-1935 (Yale, 2009). Some key quotations from
Heidegger’s anti-humanism and the Left Read More »
One of my professors in graduate school argued that St. Augustine is the most influential philosopher in history. I’m not convinced, though a good case can be made. I recently re-opened Confessions and came across Augustine’s strong version of original sin. As he exclaims to his God, “no one is free from sin in your
St. Augustine on why babies are evil Read More »
In 2006, Professor Smith published Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist (Cambridge University Press). In 2007, I reviewed it for the journal Philosophy in Review. Here is an audio version in MP3 format or at YouTube. Eight minutes: And here is a PDF version. Related: My review of David Kelley’s The Evidence of the
Review of Tara Smith’s *Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics* — audio version Read More »
How well do entrepreneurial success traits (creative rationality, initiative, courage, perseverance, and so on) map onto virtue ethics? An audio edition [mp3] of my 2009 essay “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [pdf], first published in Journal of Private Enterprise. Or at YouTube: Abstract: Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic
Audio edition: What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship Read More »
Mao Zedong on the ethical requirements of communism: “A Communist should have largeness of mind and he should be staunch and active, looking upon the interests of the revolution as his very life and subordinating his personal interests to those of the revolution; always and everywhere he should adhere to principle and wage a tireless
Mao on selflessness, altruism, and collectivism Read More »
The ethics of altruism [from the Latin, alter-ism or other-ism] holds that others are the standard of value. One is good to the extent one puts the interests of others first, acts to achieve their interests, and, when necessary, sacrifices one’s interests for their sake. In The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey is the major strategist of
Toohey’s five strategies of altruism Read More »