Stephen Hicks, Ph.D. – Page 20

The death penalty in fifteenth-century Europe

“By the mid-fifteenth century crimes subject to the death penalty … included the following: rebellion, fraud, bigamy, incest, arson, theft, adultery, carrying off a woman against her will, blasphemy, moving signs of property boundaries, attacking someone, high treason, child murder, using dishonest weights and measures, murder, counterfeiting, rape, attempted suicide, striking someone to death, converting […]

The death penalty in fifteenth-century Europe Read More »

“What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” — text and audio versions

6 Comments / Business Ethics, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Ethics / Stephen Hicks

My short essay on “What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” [pdf] was published in the Journal of Private Enterprise in 2009, just when entrepreneurism was beginning to get attention in the business ethics literature. The abstract: “Entrepreneurship is increasingly studied as a fundamental and foundational economic phenomenon. It has, however, received less attention as

“What Business Ethics Can Learn from Entrepreneurship” — text and audio versions Read More »

Humor: Herbert von Karajan and God

2 Comments / Humor, Music / Stephen Hicks

Reprising this amusing jibe at the great conductor Herbert von Karajan, whose perfectionism and sometimes-authoritarian leadership style could cause enmity. “St. Peter calls upon Freud and tells him that God is evidently in need of psychiatric help. ‘I should be glad to help, but tell me, what seem to be His symptoms?’ asked Freud. ‘God

Humor: Herbert von Karajan and God Read More »

Two portraits of Charles

Women’s and men’s college graduation rates

1 Comment / Education / Stephen Hicks

Anecdote: I gave an extra-credit assignment in one of my courses. The course had twenty students, eleven men and nine women. Six students chose to do the assignment — and then I noticed something in my grade book: all of them were women. Getting all statistic-y about it: 66.7% of the females were willing to

Women’s and men’s college graduation rates Read More »

Empires of conquest and empires of commerce

1 Comment / Economics, History, Politics / Stephen Hicks

Reposting this question: In this post-colonial era, what explains the dramatically different levels of prosperity in nations after they become independent of their colonizing powers? Why, for example, has the prosperity of North America been consistently higher than that of Central and South America? Both are rich in natural resources, both involve nations started from scratch,

Empires of conquest and empires of commerce Read More »

Dueling billboards, Oklahoma style

2 Comments / Ethics, Humor, Religion / Stephen Hicks

Reposting this from a trip that took me to Texas and Oklahoma. I saw this sign along a highway a little across the OK border. “Steve,” the sign seemed to say to me, “you’re not in Illinois anymore.” So I took a tourist memento picture. It turns out that they are not worried about what weirdos

Dueling billboards, Oklahoma style Read More »

Artistic representation: Picasso versus Matisse

2 Comments / Art, Epistemology, Painting / Stephen Hicks

From Jack D. Flam’s Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship (2003): ‘Picasso characterized the arbitrariness of representation in his Cubist paintings as resulting from his desire for “a greater plasticity.” Rendering an object as a square or a cube, he said, was not a negation, for “reality was no longer in

Artistic representation: Picasso versus Matisse Read More »