Articles

Welcome to the Summer 2023 issue of The Objective Standard. I hope you enjoy the issue—and that you’ll join the six hundred or so people coming to Phoenix for 2023’s most life-enhancing conference!

If we want to understand and protect the values on which human life and liberty depend, we need clear understandings of the terms we use in thinking about them. Toward this end, it is helpful to understand the fallacy that Rand called “package-dealing” and the nature of what she called “anti-concepts.”

Adam Smith and Ayn Rand are widely considered to offer merely different flavors of pro-capitalist thought. But their differences are greater—and far more consequential—than their similarities.

William Kingdon Clifford was a 19th-century English mathematician and philosopher. In this essay, “The Ethics of Belief,” originally published in 1877, he argues that “it is wrong always, everywhere and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

Living for Pleasure is a fun and much-needed introduction to the ideas of one of the world’s greatest philosophers. Epicurus’s teachings about reason, desire, and tranquility are as important now as they were twenty-three hundred years ago.

My debate with Stephen Hicks about whether Objectivism is a closed system or an open system has been posted on YouTube. Check it out—and if you find it clarifying, share it with people you think might appreciate it.

LevelUp 2023 is just three weeks away—and you don’t want to miss it. It’s a conference about philosophic ideas and practical tools for excelling in life and fighting for liberty.

If freedom-loving Brits are serious about the moral principles on which liberty depends, they must oppose the monarchy and advance a vision of a free British republic.

To miss this conference is to miss the opportunity of a lifetime. Join us in Phoenix for the most life-enhancing conference of the year—and possibly of your life.

Not only do many educators and parents fail to encourage and help children learn how to think and become efficacious, they also paint the whole of mankind as incompetent, or worse, self-destructive.

The Case for Nukes is a refreshingly rational overview, not just of the merits of nuclear power, but of the potentially wonderful future of the human race and the ideas we must embrace and reject if we want to create a better future for ourselves and our descendants.

After sharpening your mind and fueling your soul at LevelUp 2023, what better way to extend the fun than by joining Objective Standard Institute for a vacation in Sedona?

How to Read a Book was incredibly important and valuable when it was first published in 1940, and it remains so today. It’s so packed with clear, accessible, and oft-overlooked wisdom that even expert readers will find it an indispensable addition to their libraries.

LevelUp 2023 could be the highlight of your year—and the time to register is now! Early-bird pricing, which will save you 20–50% on registration, ends March 15. Here’s an indication of what past attendees say about the conference.

What’s Love Got to Do With It? is a well-written and refreshingly thoughtful film that shows the crucial importance of honesty and independent thinking in achieving happiness. It is a sensitive yet incisive study of the clash between Islamic and Western cultures—and between collectivism and individualism.