Philosophy

Facing today’s opponents of liberty without arming oneself with sound answers to their deep, philosophic arguments is like showing up with a knife to a nuclear war.

Today, Thomas Paine is widely celebrated for spearheading the cause of American independence with Common Sense, but that barely scratches the surface of his contribution.

Though little known today, Robert Ingersoll (1833–1899) was the post-Civil War era’s most potent orator and intellectual defender of reason and freedom.

I was delighted to see that Alex O’Connor recently debated Sam Harris about whether ethics is objective and, if so, on what grounds.

The success of many of today's popular musical artists evinces a broad cultural trend: the triumph of defeat—that is, the near-universal acceptance that we are but confused and helpless creatures.

The task of justifying a life aimed at self-improvement, flourishing, or ataraxia is a substantial one for writers on ethics. Unfortunately, Tosi and Warmke barely try.

Many literary works depict individualist heroes struggling against collectivist societies, but three brilliant examples are Charlotte Brönte’s classic Jane Eyre, Lois Lowry’s award-winning young-adult novel The Giver, and Ayn Rand’s dystopian novella Anthem.

In 1882, when Helen Keller was nineteen months old, an illness left her blind, deaf, and consequently dumb. But she would go on to live a life of success and happiness. How?

George Lucas says that selfishness puts one on the dark side, but it’s really the other way around. Selfishness, properly understood, is the rational concern for one’s own interests. It is the light.

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.”