This week I will be in Mexico to give five lectures at the new Universidad de la Libertad. I’m honored to be invited. My titles are: “The Morality of Money and Capitalism” “American vs. French Revolutions—and Why They Matter for Latin America Today” Why Property Rights? “The Morality of Free Trade” “On Being the Entrepreneur […]
Five lectures at Universidad de la Libertad, Mexico City Read More »
On Friday, October 4, I’m giving an invited talk at UFM in Guatemala City. My topic is: “On Being the Entrepreneur of your Life.” Thanks to the UFM Department of Psychology and Ayn Rand Center Latin America for inviting me. Related: My article in The Wall Street Journal on “What Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About
An Urdu translation of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault will be published in Pakistan in late 2024 or early 2025. An Urdu edition, translated by Dr. Nazir Azad, was published in India in 2023. Urdu is the first or second language of 230 million people in Pakistan and India, so
Pakistani edition of *Explaining Postmodernism* forthcoming Read More »
The ethics of altruism [from the Latin, alter-ism or other-ism] holds that others are the standard of value. One is good to the extent one puts the interests of others first, acts to achieve their interests, and, when necessary, sacrifices one’s interests for their sake. In The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey is the major strategist of
Toohey’s five strategies of altruism Read More »
A good example of how political philosophy is driven by ethics. Here is Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator in writing The Communist Manifesto and other works, criticizing liberals — despite nineteenth-century liberalism’s great accomplishment in reducing war and promoting peace between nations: You have brought about the fraternisation of the peoples – but the fraternity is
Friedrich Engels against liberal peace Read More »
Judith Shklar (1928-1992) was Professor of Government at Harvard University, the first woman to receive tenure in that department. Her perfect zinger capturing the essence and the appeal of Rousseau: My discussion of Rousseau is in “The Climate of Collectivism,” which is Chapter Four of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.
Rousseau: “the Homer of the losers” Read More »
[I use Ayn Rand’s classic The Fountainhead in my Introduction to Philosophy course, analyzing the five major characters as moral-philosophical types. Here is a digest of the novel’s brilliant-manipulator villain, Ellsworth Toohey.] The ethics of altruism holds that others are the standard of value. One is good to the extent one puts the interests of
Ellsworth Toohey’s five strategies of altruism [repost] Read More »
James Orr is professor at Cambridge University, England. In conservative philosophical lineage, Orr is very much in the tradition of Edmund Burke and Roger Scruton. Prof. Orr and I did a one-hour oral debate in London last year, and a more detailed three-round written debate between us has been submitted for formal publication. Here is
James Orr and J.D. Vance Read More »