ፍትህ ለሁሉም / Justice for All
Effective altruism is widely misunderstood, even among its supporters. A recent paper – The Definition of Effective Altruism by Will MacAskill – lists some of the most common misconceptions.1 It’s aimed at academic philosophers, but works as a general summary. In short, effective altruism is commonly viewed as being about the moral obligation to donate as much money …
Slavery is so vile and miserable an Estate of Man, and so directly opposite to the generous Temper and Courage of our Nation; that ‘tis hardly to be conceived, that an Englishman, much less a Gentleman, should plead for’t. So begins the first of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. But this Englishman, gentleman, and self-styled ‘lover of liberty’ was not himself …
Abraham Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem: It was sanctioned by the highest law in the land, the Constitution. The nation’s founding fathers, who also struggled with how to address slavery, did not explicitly write the word “slavery” in the Constitution, but they did include key clauses protecting the institution, including a …
Trace the history of slavery and abolition through the ages, from the days of ancient Egypt and Rome to the birth of the anti-slavery movement and the latest United Nations treaties. Read more
For many libertarians, “the road to serfdom” is not just the title of a great book but also the window through which they see the world. We’re losing our freedom, year after year, they think. They (we) quote Thomas Jefferson: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” We …
This article examines the relevance of Hegel’s philosophy and political thought, and especially his views on slavery, for contemporary identity politics. It offers an account of Hegel’s metaphysical beliefs and explores the relevance of those beliefs for our understanding of his views on ‘the self. It is suggested that for Hegel all individual selves are …
Kenneth Minogue’s The Liberal Mind first appeared in the 1960s, an era when “the young and the radical in the Western world were in a restive condition.” As Minogue correctly diagnosed, the restiveness had two sides, “one cynical, the other sentimental.” Six decades later, the modern liberals’ restiveness has become far more vexatious, and their cynicism and …
To explain one of the core classical liberal concepts, IHS offers a video exploring the theme of spontaneous order. The video features Bruce Caldwell, professor of economics at Duke University, describing the role of spontaneous order in society. “Spontaneous orders are often contrasted with constructed orders,” Caldwell says. “The idea that you can have something that …
This is a video by Thomas Sowell, an American economist, political commentator, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. It is mentioned in the video that academics, except those subject to testing such as science and mathematics, is not serving society well which I agree with. But unfortunately, Thomas talks only about the left …