Human Rights: Fact or Fancy? by Henry B. Veatch LSU Press, 1985; xii + 258 pp. Henry Veatch was one of the foremost philosophers of the twentieth century, though sadly neglected by most contemporary analytic philosophers. He was a resolute defender of Aristotelian ethics against rival ethical systems, and in this week’s column, I’d like to look at
Economics in Action By Brian Balfour Thales Press, 2022; 306 pp. “Public” high schools are for the most part rotten to the core, and it is widely recognized, if not quite “a truth universally acknowledged,” that they need to be replaced. But what should students in private schools or homeschooling programs be taught? If we wish to rescue our young
I’ve often argued against John Rawls’s theory of justice, and readers who see my title might be thinking to themselves, “Not another post on Rawls!” These readers can rest easy; this is not another post attacking Rawls. (It isn’t, of course, a post that says Rawls was right.) Instead, I want to use an argument someone directed against Rawls to
Murray Rothbard was a polymath, and philosophy is one of the fields to which he made important contributions. When people think of him as a philosopher, though, they often have in mind only his work in ethics and political philosophy, found, for example, in The Ethics of Liberty . His work in this area is of great significance, but he wrote about
In my article last week, I talked about Michael Huemer’s notion of “false fallacies.” These are often listed in logic books as bad arguments, but some of them, Huemer suggests, are actually good arguments, at least if suitably modified. This week, I’d like to talk about another false fallacy, one that Huemer doesn’t include on his list. This is
Chandran Kukathas is one of the best contemporary political philosophers, and one of the few sympathetic to libertarian views. Unlike Murray Rothbard, he does not consider self-ownership fundamental but instead defends libertarianism from a different standpoint that is skeptical of principles considered apart from their expression in particular
Uskali Mäki is one of the leading philosophers of economics of the past half century; moreover, he is well versed in Austrian economics, though not an adherent of the school. In this week’s column, I’d like to consider some issues he raises in his paper “ Scientific Realism and Austrian Explanation ” ( Review of Political Economy , 1990). Mäki is
Critics of praxeology often claim that it is isn’t really one of the sciences. It isn’t about the empirical world but is mere idle play with words. In this week’s column, I’d like to look at some remarks that the philosopher and linguistics scholar Jerrold Katz makes about rationalism and empiricism in his important and controversial book Language
This book offers an account of Hegel that will surprise many readers—at least it surprised me. The political philosopher Leo Strauss often criticized “historicism,” the view that human beings do not have a fixed nature or essence. Instead, as José Ortega y Gasset put it, “Man, in a word, has no nature; what he has is—history.” G.W.F. Hegel was one
Most contemporary political philosophers view free market capitalism with suspicion, if not outright loathing, but one exception is Gerald Gaus, who taught for many years at the University of Arizona. Gaus was by no means a Rothbardian but rather worked within the framework of “public reason” set forward by John Rawls, though Gaus greatly modified
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.