Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

“Morality without God?” discussion

Two student groups at Rockford College are producing a discussing of a perennially important topic:

Morality without God?

* Is life purposeless or meaningless without belief in a particular God or religion?
* Without God, does that mean “anything goes”?
* Does belief in a particular God or religion incline one to morality? Does it matter which religion or God?

Campus Intervarsity and the Secular Student Alliance are the co-sponsoring groups. In the symposium, they will present different perspectives on this question.

Time: Tuesday, November 30th, 4-5:30 p.m.
Place: Peterson Auditorium, Starr Science Building, Rockford College

The event is free and open to the public.

Talk for Entrepreneurship Week in Paducah, Kentucky

I’ll be making a trip to Kentucky, the beautiful neighboring state across the Ohio River, to give a talk on “Ethical Entrepreneurship - How to Make Tough Decisions in a Tough World.”

My talk is sponsored by Entre Paducah as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010.

Time: Monday, November 18, 7 a.m.
Place: Carson Center (Ingram Room), 100 Kentucky Avenue, Paducah, KY 42003
Details here.

Philosophy courses for the Spring 2011 semester

Here is the line-up of the ten different courses [pdf], including those of my Rockford College Philosophy Department colleagues, Matt Flamm and Shawn Klein, and a cross-listed course by Professor Krazek of the French Department.

Worth special mention is a new course from Professor Klein on Symbolic Logic [pdf].

Kindle edition of Nietzsche and the Nazis

The Kindle edition of my Nietzsche and the Nazis is now available. My first ever Kindle publication. Very cool.

The hardcover will be released mid-August.

Here also is a copy of the brochure for the book [pdf], which includes the Table of Contents and more information about availability of the book and documentary.

Keynote lecture in Argentina

I will be giving a keynote lecture in Argentina at the invitation of the Bases Foundation and the School of Economics of the Catholic University in Rosario. The event is the Third International Conference on “The Austrian School of Economics in the 21st Century,” which will be held August 5-7, 2010.

The title of my lecture is: “Austrians, Objectivists, and the Unrequited Love of Philosophy for Economics.” Here is the abstract:

The Austrian school of economics and the Objectivist school of philosophy have both been essential to the liberal/libertarian movement. Mises and Hayek did much work in political economy and explored relevant philosophical issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and values. Rand did much work in philosophy, which she then applied in fictional portrayals of mixed political economies in decline. Yet while there is mutual respect between Austrianism and Objectivism, there are also points of tension. My purpose in this talk is to discuss the key commonalities and differences. Much specialized work in economics and philosophy must be done, so there is a natural and important division of labor. But that work must also be coordinated in making a full and compelling case for the free society.

Thanks for the invitation to Federico Fernandez, the Bases Foundation, and the School of Economics at Catholic University of Rosario.

The Bases Foundation takes its inspiration from Juan Bautista Alberdi, one of the great nineteenth-century Argentine Enlightenment liberal political theorists.

Business Ethics (Management 441) syllabus

The Syllabus and Schedule [pdf] for the MBA Business Ethics course I’ll be teaching this summer at Loyola University Chicago is now available in the Courses section of my site.

Great Connections, Chicago 2010

I will be giving a talk at the Great Connections Summer Seminar in Chicago this summer. The seminar for high school and college students is put on by the College of the United States.

My session will be on the fascinating, complicated, and often weird world of 20th-century art. My title is: “But is it Art? The Modern and Postmodern Movements.” The material comes from a book and documentary project I’m working on and builds upon two shorter pieces I’ve published, “Why Art became Ugly” and “Post-postmodern Art.”

Other speakers at the week-long seminar include Marsha Enright, Joseph Bast, William Dale, Jonathan Hoenig, Milo Schield, Karen Brienzo, and Andrew Humphries. An excellent line-up of speakers, and for any student a week in downtown Chicago in the summer is a great cultural experience.

Douglas Rasmussen to speak at Rockford College

On Friday, April 23 and Monday, April 26, philosopher Douglas Rasmussen will speak at Rockford College on Aristotle, ethics, and philosophy. Dr. Rasmussen is Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University in New York. He received his Ph.D. from Marquette University and is the co-author of Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics, Liberalism Defended: The Challenge of Post-Modernity, and many other works.

For venue details, please contact CEE [at] Rockford [dot] edu.

The image above links to a jpeg version of the flyer for all of this semester’s guest speakers. For the pdf, click here. Dr. Rasmussen’s talk is sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.