fbpx
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube Rss
Search
Close this search box.
Search Results For:

Search Results for: law – Page 13

Machiavelli

The Master of Machiavelli

By
Mansfield’s Machiavelli’s primary goal is to subvert and overturn Christianity. It is important to note, as Professor Mansfield does himself, that this reading of a secular, indeed anti-Christian, Machiavelli is not the only reading of the Italian philosopher.
The intellectual life

The Intellectual Life: Hope for the Rest of Us

By
Welcoming human imperfection in its manifold expressions is a boon for those of us who lack the privilege of full-time scholarship. It is not in spite of, but thanks to, the inherent inefficiencies of our rich and often chaotic lives that so many of us can enjoy the pursuit of intellectual enrichment.
Public Discourse reading list

C. S. Lewis and the Populists: A Birthday Appreciation

By
At a moment when the values Lewis cherished often seem endangered as much by their supposed friends as by their proclaimed enemies, we would do well to remember his prescriptions.
United Nations

How the United Nations Declaration Failed

By
The primordial failing of the UN Declaration’s proponents was that they drank too deeply from the well of postwar optimism. While they were rightly horrified by the brutality of the Second World War, they rebuilt neither with a tragic sense nor with due attentiveness to human limitations. Instead, they rebuilt with comic ambitions.
November newsletter

From the Editor’s Desk: Public Discourse’s Monthly Roundup, November 2023

By
Tension is something we at Public Discourse strive to handle well. Ours is a voice of reason, moderation, and calm even as storms swirl around us. The kind and thoughtful operation of reason always leaves peace, not awkwardness, not lingering tension, in its wake. 
working moms

Flourishing in Work and Family Life: Considerations for Young Women 

By , , , , , and
Six panelists share how they structure their lives in a way that allows them to pursue creative, intellectually inspiring work, while remaining open to life and faithful to the good work of the home.
On Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving

By
Again we keep Thanksgiving Day; again we have the chance to become grateful, and not just for this single day. Again we are able to hold those we love, to feast in body and soul, and to become attuned to the freshness deep down in all things.
unborn baby

When It Comes to Abortion, Voters May Get More Than They Bargained For 

By
To be sure, there remains an enormous cultural task to soften the hearts and minds of voters about the dignity of unborn human life and the need to accompany pregnant women in distress. But voters, especially those that consider themselves moderate on abortion, should acknowledge the full implications of the bargain they have struck. 
Collège de France

Raymond Aron: Political Philosopher 

By
Aron is one of a few who never let the ideologies and catastrophic events of the twentieth century get the better of him. Ready to face those critiques and recognize their share of truth, he always refrained from taking the practical conclusions that so many cravenly or imprudently derived from them.
Thanksgiving table

The Bookshelf: November Is for Gratitude

By
November is a month for looking back in gratitude at where we have been, where we come from, who has trod the boards of our stage before us. Gratitude is the proper spirit to lift us up during these shorter, colder days (at least in these latitudes), while the seasonal life of nature turns with the leaves and falls with them to the ground.
War in Ukraine

War in Ukraine and “Reasonable Hope for Success”

By
The war in Ukraine is tragically costly to the Ukrainian nation. And success has not been, and will not be, within easy reach for Kyiv. But there is no reason to think that this defensive war does not satisfy the principles of just war tradition, and, in particular, the complicated principle of reasonable success.
Ideas vs. people

Ideas vs. People?

By
I am not sure a commitment to ideas or “ideologies” as such is at the root of our problem. If anything, public debate today has little patience with ideas, directed instead toward the very motives and character of the people one likes or dislikes.
Wheelchair

The Curious Rise in Disability: How Changing Language Alters the Nature of Reality

By
By using such a broad understanding of disability, and therefore limiting conversation about other social, environmental, or economic factors, the state can both absolve itself of needing to provide real policy solutions and proclaim itself the protector of a victimized class.
Critical race theory

Critical Race Theory for the Rest of Us

By
In his book All One in Christ, Edward Feser provides a succinct but comprehensive treatment of Critical Race Theory, its logical flaws and lack of basis in social science, and the Catholic Church’s alternative solution to racism: love for each person as made in God’s image and purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.
Presidential debate

I, Thou, and We: Learning from Martin Buber 100 Years Later

By
Without supposing that politics will (or should) become a philosophy seminar, we can do better than this. And if our candidates wanted to think about how they might make a better impression this evening, or later in the general election campaign, they might consider turning to a small philosophical classic that is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. 
relationships

A Requiem for Relationships

By
Our culture’s sexual lens distorts the raison d’etre of society, leading teenagers to believe that the body and mind have no tie. 
faith and fiction

Jon Fosse’s Septology and Faith in Fiction

By
The phenomenon now arising around Fosse’s work, crowned by his widely honored and beloved Septology, supports the thought that the novelistic tradition’s centuries of exploring this tension have not yet come to an end. Fictionists of faith in the twenty-first century—far from being marginalized, suppressed, or silenced—face a wider horizon for hope and for endeavor than many may have ever dreamed of seeing. What remains to be seen is what writers will choose to do with such a vista of freedom.
written and unwritten constitutions

Written and Unwritten Constitutions

By
The analogy between individual and political constitutions illustrates the fact that no legal order can be fully encompassed by written instruments, and so it must be elaborated by reference to its underlying historical and philosophic dimensions.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

How We Got “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”

By
Moore’s book reveals the precarious slope on which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness rest: there needs to be a firm belief that a better life tomorrow is within our reach. If we lack that belief, the backsliding into mundane conformity and the demand for a government of autocratic direction can easily undo all that the past few centuries have bequeathed us.
Speaker Weatherill, House of Commons

A Covenant Torn Asunder

By
All hyperbole aside, the underlying ethic is clear: a leader of men, a representative of our ethical ideals, must dress according to the dignity of his office. Anyone—officeholder, leader, and layman alike—must dress with great dignity when executing actions of moral importance.
Catholic Church in Nicaragua

Ortega and the Church: A Cautionary Tale

By
The revolutionary priests bear more responsibility for the Church’s present hardship. They did not merely violate canon law; they did so for the sake of revolution. Now the Church is suffering under a dictator that that revolution produced. This should serve as a cautionary tale to would-be revolutionaries of all political stripes. To make revolution is to set in motion unpredictable and destructive forces from which one may not escape.
newsletter

From the Editor’s Desk: Public Discourse’s Monthly Roundup, October 2023

By
Such technocratic management, incapable of moral action, is, I suggest, what Magerman notes at Penn. But, alas, it is true of far too many of our institutions and those who manage them. Not so at Public Discourse, however, and not so for those educated in older, richer, wiser traditions of moral reflection and judgment—and thus of action. Our essays this past month are full of such riches.
Alexandra Hudson, The Soul of Civility

Discovering the Soul of Civility: An Interview with Alexandra Hudson

By and
Politeness is manners, it’s technique, it’s etiquette, it’s behavior, it’s at the superficial, external level alone. But civility is a disposition of the heart. It’s a way of seeing others as our moral equals and treating them with the respect that they’re owed and deserve.
hostages

Hostages, Deterrence, and Israeli Strategy

By
Israel’s obligations to its citizens still at liberty broaden its military options, because failure to strike militants holding hostages in Gaza means endangering civilians in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The judgments to be made here are vague and imperfect, but so long as the IDF doesn’t know hostages are going to die in a strike, a strike will often be the best way for Israel to execute its obligations to all Israelis.
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube Rss
Public Discourse © 2024 | All Rights Reserved