Podcasts about lockean

Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of capital, coming from Lockean homesteading principles, and not from state coercion and force.Original article: What “Capitalism” Really Means

Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of capital, coming from Lockean homesteading principles, and not from state coercion and force.Original article: Nine Months of Javier Milei as President of Argentina: A Critical Assessment

Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of capital, coming from Lockean homesteading principles, and not from state coercion and force.Original article: Nine Months of Javier Milei as President of Argentina: A Critical Assessment

Capitalism is characterized by the private ownership of capital, coming from Lockean homesteading principles, and not from state coercion and force.Original article: What “Capitalism” Really Means

Legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron in his book The Rule of Law and the Measure of Property challenges the Lockean view of legitimate property ownership. David Gordon sheds light on Waldron's confusing positions.Original article: Whose Property Is It?

Legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron in his book The Rule of Law and the Measure of Property challenges the Lockean view of legitimate property ownership. David Gordon sheds light on Waldron's confusing positions.Original article: Whose Property Is It?

Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture. Sponsored by Shone and Brae Sadler.Recorded at the Austrian Economics Research Conference, 22 March 2024, in Auburn, Alabama. Includes an introduction by Joseph T. Salerno.Lecture Text: Thank you, Joseph, for your kind introduction and thank you, Shone and Brae Sadler, for your generous sponsorship in making this event possible. It is a pleasure and personal honor to be invited to deliver this Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture titled “Ayn Rand and the Austrian Economists” at the Mises Institute's Austrian Economics Research Conference.Henry Hazlitt is one of my favorite writers on economics and ethics. His thoughtful, incisive, and influential writings are marked by his clarity of style and logical analysis. Both Henry Hazlitt and Ayn Rand could really write. Hazlitt's non-fiction books, Economics in One Lesson and Foundations of Morality, along with his novel, Time Will Run Back, complement Ayn Rand's ideas in her books such as The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, and Atlas Shrugged. In their philosophical, political, and economic views, Hazlitt and Rand largely agree, as they make the same points in different ways with respect to the virtue of the free market as the path to prosperity and happiness. Also, they were friends in their personal lives. In addition, Henry Hazlitt and I had a great friend in common in the late, well-respected and greatly-loved Austrian economist, Bill Peterson.I am excited to be here to give this talk on Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and Murray Rothbard and how their ideas may be complementary to the essential ideas of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. Perhaps I will be able to provide some new insights to you. We'll see!Like my recently deceased friend, Sam Bostaph, I have great admiration for the ideas of Carl Menger. I will begin by discussing some of Menger's key ideas and comparing them with those of Ayn Rand. I will then repeat this process with the fundamental ideas of Mises and Rothbard. I will conclude with an overall assessment with respect to the potential compatibility of Austrian economics and Objectivism.Carl Menger (1840-1921) began the modern period of economic thought and provided the foundation for the Austrian School of Economics in his two books, Principles of Economics (1871) and Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences with Special Reference to Economics (1883). In these books Menger destroyed the existing structure of economic science, including its theory and methodology, and put it on totally new foundations.Menger was a realist who said that we could know the world through both common sense and scientific method. Menger was committed to finding exact laws of economics based on the direct analysis of concrete phenomena that can be observed and characterized with precision. He sought to find the necessary characteristics of economic phenomena and their relationships. He also heralded the advantages of verbal language over mathematical language in that the former can express the essences of economic phenomena, which is something that mathematical language cannot do.Menger viewed exchange as the embodiment of the essential desire and search to satisfy individual human needs. It follows that the intersection between human needs and the availability of goods capable of satisfying those needs is at the root of economic activity. Emphasizing human uncertainty, error, and the time-consuming nature of economic processes, Menger was concerned with the information content of economic choices and the process of acquiring information in order to increase the well-being of economic actors.As this talk will demonstrate, Carl Menger's writings are the closest to Randian doctrines that have ever emanated from any economist. It will follow that we should read and reread his great books and share them with our friends and students.Aristotelian philosophy was at the root of Menger's framework. His biologistic language goes well with his Aristotelian foundations in his philosophy of science and economics. Menger illustrated how Aristotelian induction could be used in economics and he based his epistemology on Aristotelian induction. Menger's Aristotelian inclinations can be observed in his desire to uncover the essence of economic phenomena. He viewed the constituent elements of economic phenomena as immanently ordered and emphasized the primacy of exactitude and universality as preferable epistemological characteristics of theory.Menger's desire was to uncover the real nature or essence of economic phenomena. As an immanent realist, he was interested in essences and laws as manifested in the world. His general and abstract economic theory attempted to unify all true fragments of economic knowledge.Holding that causality underpins economic laws, Menger taught that theoretical science provides the tools for studying phenomena that exhibit regularities. He distinguished between exact types and laws that deal with strictly typical phenomena and empirical-realistic types and laws that deal with truth within a particular spatio-temporal domain. Empirical laws are found by observation and exact laws are found by conceptualization. Menger's exact approach involves deductive-universalistic theory that looks for regularities in the coexistence and succession of phenomena that admits no exceptions and that are strictly ordered. His theoretical economics is concerned with exact laws based on the assumptions of self-interest, full-knowledge, and freedom. Menger's exact theoretical approach involves both isolation and abstraction from disturbing factors.Menger developed a number of fundamental Austrian doctrines such as the causal-genetic approach, methodological individualism, and the connection between time and error. He incorporated purposeful action, uncertainty, the occurrence of errors, the information acquisition process, learning, and time into his economic analysis. As an Aristotelian essentialist and immanent realist, he considered a priori essences as existing in reality. His goal was to discover invariant principles or laws governing economic phenomena and to elaborate exact universal laws. To find strictly ordered exact laws he said that we had to omit principles of individuation such as time and space. This entails isolation of the economic aspect of phenomena and abstraction from disturbing factors such as error, ignorance, and external compulsion. Menger thus argued for an exact orientation of theoretical research whose validity is totally independent of any empirical tests.Both Aristotle and Menger viewed essences, universals, or concepts as metaphysical and had no compelling explanations of the method to be employed in order to abstract the essence from the particulars in which it is indivisibly wedded. For Rand, essences are epistemological and contextual, rather than metaphysical. For her, concepts are the products of a cognitive method whose processes are performed by a human being but whose content is determined by reality.Menger's theory of needs and wants is the link between the natural sciences (particularly biology) and the human sciences. He established this link by describing the final cause of human economic enterprise as an aspect of human nature biologically understood. He analyzed economic activity based on a theory of human action. His theory emphasized individual perception, valuation, deliberation, choice, and action.The foundation of Menger's value theory is a theory of human action that involves a theory of knowledge. He believed that men can understand the workings of the economy. Menger's goal was to establish economic theory on a solid foundation by grounding it on a sound value theory. To do this, he consistently incorporated his methodological individualism into his theory of value.Menger understood that values can be subjective (i.e., personally estimated), but that men should rationally seek objective life-affirming values. He explained that real wants correspond with the objective state of affairs. Menger distinguished between real and imaginary wants and goods depending upon whether or not a person correctly understands a good's objective ability to satisfy a want. Individuals can be wrong about their judgment of value. Menger's emphasis on objective values is consistent with philosophical realism and with a correspondence theory of truth.Menger does trace market exchange back to a man's personal valuations of various economic goods and observes that scales of value are variable from person to person and are subject to change over time. There are certainly “subjectivist” features in Menger's economic analysis that are founded on his methodological individualism which implies that people differ and have a variety of goals, purposes, and tastes. Personal evaluation is therefore inherent in a principled and consistent understanding of methodological individualism.As a supreme advocate of individualist methodology, Menger recognized the primacy of active individual agents who generate all of the phenomena of the social sciences. His methodological individualism is a doctrine that reflects the real structure of society and economy and the centrality of the human agent.Menger's theory of value essentially states that life is the ultimate standard of value. According to Menger, human life is a process in which a person, given his needs and the command of the means to satisfy them, is himself the specific point where human economic life both originates and ends. Menger thus introduced life, value, individual preferences that motivate people, and individual choices into economics. He thus essentially agreed on the same standard of life as the much later Ayn Rand. Value is a contextual judgment made by economizing men. Value is related to the existential state of the individual and the ability of the good in question to change that state in a manner desired by the person.Although Menger speaks of economic value while Rand is concerned with moral value, their ideas are much the same. Both view human life as the ultimate value. The difference is that Menger was concerned with economic values that satisfy a man's needs for food, shelter, healthcare, wealth, production, and so forth. From Rand's perspective, every human value (including economic value) is potentially a moral value that may be important to the ethical standard of a man's life qua man. Their shared biocentric concept of value holds that objective values support a man's life and originate in a relationship between a man and his survival requirements.Both Rand and Menger espouse a kind of contextually-relational objectivism in their theories of value. Value is seen as a relational quality dependent on the subject, the object, and the context or situation involved.Not many Objectivists, or others for that matter, know much about Menger's Austrian Aristotelianism and his commonsense and scientific realism. This is unfortunate. His writings have the potential to provide essential building blocks for a realist construction of economics. Ultimately, they may provide the vehicle for the harmonization and integration of Austrian economics with Objectivism.As we know, the preeminent theory within Austrian economics is the Misesian subjectivist school. Mises maintained that it is by means of its subjectivism that praxeological economics develops into objective science. The praxeologist takes individual values as given and assumes that individuals have different motivations and prefer different things. The same economic phenomena mean different things to different people. In fact, buying and selling take place because people value things differently. The importance of goods is derived from the importance of the values they are intended to achieve. When a person values an object, this simply means that he imputes enough importance to it to be willing to start a chain of causation to change or maintain it, thus making it a thing of value. Misesian economics does not study what is in an object, as does the natural scientist, but rather, studies what is in the subject.Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), the Austrian philosophical economist, is one of our most passionate, consistent, and intransigent defenders of capitalism. Mises defends the free society and private ownership on the grounds that they are desirable from the perspective of human happiness, freedom, peace, and productivity. He constructed a monumental, overarching, systematic, and comprehensive conceptual framework that elucidated the timeless, immutable laws that guide human behavior. Mises integrated his profound theories of methodology, economics, political science, history, and the social sciences in his 1949 magnum opus, Human Action.There is an important dissemblance within Austrian value theory between Menger and Mises. However, it is possible for Menger's more objective-value-oriented theory to coexist and complement Mises's pure subjectivism which is based on the inscrutability of individual values and preferences. Although Menger agrees with Mises that an individual's chosen values are personal and, therefore subjective and unknowable to the economist, he also contended that a person ought to be rationally pursuing his objective life-affirming values. Menger thus can be viewed as a key link-pin figure between Misesian praxeology and Objectivist ethics.According to Mises, economics is a value-free science of means, rather than of ends, that describes but does not prescribe. However, although the world of praxeological economics, as a science, may be value-free the human world is not value-free. Economics is the science of human action and human actions are inextricably connected with values and ethics. It follows that praxeological economics needs to be situated within the context of a normative framework. Praxeological economics does not conflict with a normative perspective on human life. Economics needs to be connected with a discipline that is concerned with ends such as the end of human flourishing. Praxeological economics can stay value-free if it is recognized that it is morally proper for people to take part in market and other voluntary transactions. Such a value-free science must be combined with an appropriate end.Economics, for Mises, is a value-free tool for objective and critical appraisal. Economic science differentiates between the objective, interpersonally valid conclusions of economic praxeology and the personal value judgments of the economist. Critical appraisal can be objective, value-free, and untainted by bias. It is important for economic science to be value-free and not to be distorted by the value judgments or personal preferences of the economist. The credibility of economic science depends upon an impartial and dispassionate concern for truth. Value-freedom is a methodological device designed to separate and isolate an economist's scientific work from the personal preferences of the given economic researcher. His goal is to maintain neutrality and objectivity with respect to the subjective values of others.Misesian economics focuses on the descriptive aspects of human action by offering reasoning about means and ends. The province of praxeological economics is the logical analysis of the success or failure of selected means to attain chosen ends. Means only have value because, and to the degree that, their ends are valued.The reasons why an individual values what he values and the determination of whether or not his choices and actions are morally good or bad are certainly significant concerns but they are not in the realm of the praxeological economist. The content of moral or ultimate ends is not the domain of the economist qua economist. There is another level of values that value in terms of right preferences. This more objectivist sphere of value defines value in terms of what an individual ought to value.Mises grounds economics upon the action axiom which is the fundamental and universal truth that individual men exist and act by making purposive choices among alternatives. Upon this axiom, Mises deduces the entire systematic structure of economic theory. Mises's advocacy of free markets and his opposition to statism stem from his analysis of the nature and consequences of freely acting individuals compared to the nature of government and the consequences brought about by government intervention.For Mises, economic behavior is a special case of human action. He contends that it is through the analysis of the idea of action that the principles of economics can be deduced. Economic theorems are seen as connected to the foundation of real human purposes. Economics is based on true and evident axioms, arrived at by introspection into the essence of human action. From these axioms, Mises derives the logical implications or truths of economics.Through the use of abstract economic theorizing, Mises recognizes the nature and operation of human purposefulness and entrepreneurial resourcefulness and identifies the systematic tendencies which influence the market process. Mises's insight was that economic reasoning has its basis in the understanding of the action axiom. He says that sound deductions from a priori axioms are apodictically true and cannot be empirically tested. Mises developed, through deductive reasoning, the chains of economic theory based on introspective understanding of what it means to be a rational, purposeful, and acting human being. The method of economics is deductive and its starting point is the concept of action.According to Mises, all of the categories, theorems, or laws of economics are implied in the action axiom. These include, but are not limited to: subjective value, causality, ends, means, preference, cost, profit and loss, opportunities, scarcity, marginal utility, marginal costs, opportunity cost, time preference, originary interest, association, and so on.As an adherent of Kantian epistemology, Mises states that the concept of action is a priori to all experience. Thinking is a mental action. For Mises, a priori means independent of any particular time or place. Denying the possibility of arriving at laws via induction, Mises argues that evidence for the a priori is based on reflective universal inner experience.However, Misesian praxeology could operate within a Randian philosophical structure. The concept of action could be formally and inductively derived from perceptual data. Actions would be seen as performed by entities who act in accordance with their nature. Man's distinctive mode of action involves rationality and free will. Men are thus rational beings with free wills who have the ability to form their own purposes and aims. Human action also assumes an uncoerced human will and limited knowledge. All of the above can be seen as consistent with Misesian praxeology. Once we arrive at the concept of human action, Mises's deductive logical derivations can come into play.Knowledge gained from praxeological economics is both value-free (i.e., value-neutral) and value relevant. Value-free knowledge supplied by economic science is value-relevant when it supplies information for rational discussions, deliberations, and determinations of the morally good. Economics is reconnected with philosophy, especially the branches of metaphysics and ethics, when the discussion is shifted to another sphere. It is fair to say that economic science exists because men have concluded that the objective knowledge provided by praxeological economics is valuable for the pursuit of both a person's subjective and ultimate ends.Advocating the idea of “man's survival qua man” or of a good or flourishing life involves value judgments. To make value judgments, one must accept the existence of a comprehensive natural order and the existence of fundamental absolute principles in the universe. This acceptance in no way conflicts with the Misesian concept of subjective economic value. Natural laws ae discovered, are not arbitrary relationships, but instead are relationships that are already true. A man's human nature, including his attributes of individuality, reason, and free will, is the ultimate source of moral reasoning. Value is meaningless outside the context of man.Praxeological economics and the philosophy of human flourishing are complementary and compatible disciplines. Economics teaches us that social cooperation through the private property system and division of labor enables most individuals to prosper and to pursue their flourishing and happiness. In turn, the worldview of human flourishing informs men how to act. In making their life-affirming ethical and value-based judgments, men can refer to and employ the data of economic science.Mises and Rand were passionate critics of collectivism. Whereas Mises criticized the economic and political functioning of collectivism, Rand attacked the morality of collectivism. They agree that collectivism in the form of people, races, or nations does not exist independently from the individuals who comprise them. In addition, they both dismissed positivism's rejection of the human mind as real and as the tool of knowledge about the world, man, and his actions. They also believed that free-market capitalism is the best possible arrangement for society. Their promotion of rationality, free choice, and subjective (i.e., personally estimated) and objective values (in their respective contexts) make their worldviews compatible. Mises's arguments for capitalism in terms of its utility can be interpreted to be in harmony with Rand's criterion of man's life as the standard of value. There is a great deal in Mises's science of human action that is consistent with Objectivist principles. As stated by Walter Block, on the majority of issues Rand and Mises “are as alike as two peas in a pod”.Murray Rothbard (1926-1995) was a grand system builder. In his monumental Man, Economy, and State (1962), Rothbard continued, embodied, and extended Mises's methodological approach of praxeology to economics. His magnum opus was modeled after Mises's Human Action and, for the most part, was a massive restatement, defense, and development of the Misesian praxeological tradition. Rothbard followed up and complemented Man, Economy, and State with his brilliant The Ethics of Liberty (1982) in which he provided the foundation for his metanormative ethical theory. Exhibiting an architectonic character, these two works form an integrated system of philosophical economics.In a 1971 article in Modern Age Rothbard declares that Mises's work provides us with an economic paradigm grounded in the nature of man and in individual choice. He explains that Mises's paradigm furnishes economics in a systematic, integrated form that can serve as a correct alternative to the crisis situation that modern economics has engendered. According to Rothbard, it is time for us to adopt this paradigm in all of its facets.Rothbard defended Mises's methodology, but went on to construct his own edifice of Austrian economic theory. Although he embraced nearly all of Mises's economics, Rothbard could not accept Mises's Kantian extreme aprioristic position in epistemology. Mises held that the axiom of human action was true a priori to human experience and was, in fact, a synthetic a priori category. Mises considered the action axiom to be a law of thought and thus a categorical truth prior to all human experience.Rothbard agreed that the action axiom is universally true and self-evident, but argued that a person becomes aware of that axiom and its subsidiary axioms through experience in the world. A person begins with concrete human experience and then moves toward reflection. Once a person forms the basic axioms and concepts from his experiences and from his reflections upon those experiences, he does not need to resort to external experience to validate an economic hypothesis. Instead, deductive reasoning from sound basics will validate it.In a 1957 article in the Southern Economic Journal, Rothbard states that it is a waste of time to argue or try to determine how the truth of the action axiom is obtained. He explains that the all-important fact is that the axiom is self-evidently true for all people, at all places, at all times, and that it could not even conceivably be violated. Whether it was a law of thought as Mises maintained, or a law of reality as Rothbard himself contended, the axiom would be no less certain because the axiom need only be stated to become at once self-evident.Both Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand were concerned with the nature of man and the world, natural law, natural rights, and a rational ethics based on man's nature and discovered through reason. They also agreed that the purpose of political philosophy and ethics is the promotion of productive human life on earth. In addition, both adopted, to a great extent, Lockean natural rights perspectives and arguments that legitimize private property. Additionally, they both disagreed with Mises's epistemological foundations, and on similar grounds.Both Rothbard and Rand endeavored to determine the proper rules for a rational society by using reason to examine the nature of human life and the world by employing logical deductions to ascertain what these natures suggest. They agreed with respect to the volitional nature of rational human consciousness, a man's innate right of self-ownership, and the metanormative necessity of noncoercive mutual consent. Both thus subscribed to the nonaggression principle and to the right of self-defense.Rothbard and Rand did not agree, however, on the nature of (or need for) government. They disagreed with respect to the practical applications of their similar philosophies. Rejecting Rand's idea of a constitutionally-limited representative government, Rothbard believed that their shared doctrines entailed a zero-government or anarcho-capitalist framework based on voluntarism, free exchange, and peace.Rothbard and Rand subscribed to different forms of metanormative libertarian politics—Rothbard to anarcho-capitalism and Rand to a minimal state. Unlike Rand, Rothbard ended his ethics at the metanormative level. Rand, on the other hand, advocated a minimal state form of libertarian politics based on the fuller foundation of Objectivism through which she attempted to supply an objective basis for values and virtues in human existence. Of course, Rothbard did discuss the separate importance of a rational personal morality, stated that he agreed essentially with most of Rand's philosophy, and suggested his inclination toward a Randian ethical framework. The writings of Rothbard, much like those of Menger, have done a great deal toward building a bridge between Austrian economics and Objectivism.Although Misesian economists hold that values are subjective, and Objectivists argue that values are objective, these claims are not incompatible because they are not really claims about the same things. They exist at different levels or spheres of analysis. The methodological value-subjectivity of the Austrians complements the Randian sense of value objectivity. The level of objective values dealing with personal flourishing transcends the level of subjective value preferences. The value-freedom (or value-neutrality) and value-subjectivity of the Austrians have a different function or purpose than does Objectivism's emphasis on objective values. On the one hand, the Austrian emphasis is on the value-neutrality of the economist as a scientific observer of a person acting to obtain his “subjective” (i.e., personally-estimated) values. On the other hand, the philosophy of Objectivism is concerned with values for the acting individual moral agent, himself. There is a distinction between methodological subjectivism and philosophical subjectivism. Whereas Austrians are methodological subjectivists in their economics, this does not imply that they are moral relativists as individuals.Austrian economics is thus an excellent way of looking at “social science methodology” with respect to the appraisal of means but not of ends. Misesian praxeology therefore must be augmented. Its value-free economics is not sufficient to establish a total case for liberty. A systematic, reality-based ethical system must be discovered to firmly establish a total case for liberty. Natural law provides the groundwork for such a theory, and both Objectivism and the Aristotelian idea of human flourishing are based on natural law ideas.Austrian economics and Objectivism agree on the significance of the ideas of human actions and values. The Austrians explain that a person acts when he prefers the way he thinks things will be if he acts compared to the way he thinks things will be if he fails to act. Austrian economics is descriptive and deals with the logical analysis of the ability of selected actions (i.e., means) to achieve certain ends. Whether these ends are truly objectively valuable is not the concern of the praxeological economist when he is acting in his capacity as an economist. There is another realm of values that views value in terms of objective values and correct preferences and actions. Objectivism is concerned with this other sphere and thus studies what human beings ought to value and act to attain.When thinkers from the Austrian school speak of subjective knowledge they simply mean that each person has his own specific and finite context of knowledge that directs his action. In this context, “subjective” merely means “subject-dependent”. Subjectivism for the Austrians does not mean the rejection of reality—it only focuses on the view that consumer tastes are personal.Austrian economists contend that values are subjective and Objectivists maintain that values are objective. These claims can be seen as compatible because they are not claims about the same phenomena. These two senses of value are complementary. The Austrian economist, as a neutral examiner, does not force his own value judgments on the personal values and actions of the human beings that he is studying. Operating from a different perspective, Objectivists maintain that there are objective values that stem from a man's relationship to other existents in the world.At a descriptive level, the economist's idea of demonstrated preferences agrees with Rand's account of value as something that a person acts to gain and/or keep. Of course, Rand moves from an initial descriptive notion of value to a normative perspective on value that includes the idea that a legitimate or objective value serves one's life. The second view of value provides a standard to evaluate the use of one's free will.Praxeological economics and Objectivism are complementary and compatible disciplines. Economics teaches us that social cooperation through the private property system and division of labor enables most individuals to prosper and to pursue their flourishing and happiness. In turn, Objectivism informs men how to act. In making their life-affirming ethical and value-based judgments, men can refer to and employ economic science.Objectivism's Aristotelian perspective on the nature of man and the world and on the need to exercise one's virtues can be viewed as synergic with the economic coordination and praxeology of Austrian economics. Placing the economic realm within the general process of human action, which itself is part of human nature, enables theoretical progress in our search for truth and in the construction of a systematic, logical, and consistent conceptual framework. The Objectivist worldview can provide a context to the economic insights of the Austrian economists.In conclusion, there is much common ground between Rand and the Austrians and much to be gained through the intellectual exchange between Objectivism and Austrian economics. Objectivism can be viewed as an ethical and logical augmentation of Austrian economics and Austrian praxeology can be seen as the ideal means for Objectivists when addressing economic issues. Economics would focus on attempting to discover economic principles but would leave ethical issues to philosophy.

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The United States has more guns than people and more gun violence than any Western democracy. Scholars in diverse fields interrogate why 21st century Americans support gun ownership and valorize vigilantism even as they fear gun violence. Many question how the NRA – National Rifle Association – has successfully lobbied for radical gun laws that most Americans don't support.  In Race, Rights, and Rifles: The Origins of the NRA and Contemporary Gun Culture (U Chicago Press, 2023), Dr. Alexandra Filindra highlights political culture. She argues that the NRA depends upon political narratives that can be traced back to the American Revolution. Rather than focus on the constitution, Lockean liberalism, rule of law, or individual rights, she argues that the American Revolution depended upon classical republican ideals – especially the martial virtue of the citizen-soldier – that became foundational to American democracy. American gun culture fuses the republican citizen-soldier with White male supremacy to create what Filindra calls ascriptive martial republicanism. Her book demonstrates how the militarized understandings of political membership prominent in NRA narratives and embraced by many White Americans fit within this broader revolutionary ideology. Even as contemporary NRA narratives embrace 18th and 19th century versions of ascriptive martial republicanism, the NRA radically decouples political virtue and military service by associating virtue with the consumer act of purchasing a firearm. Rather than emphasizing military service or preparedness, consumer choice defines the politically virtuous citizen. White Amerians embrace this combination of civic republicanism and White male supremacy but Filindra's research shows that they also hold a competing form of republicanism (inclusive republicanism) that includes a commitment to peaceful political engagement, civic forms of voluntarism and participation, and a strong belief in multiculturalism. In the podcast, Susan mentions previous podcasts on Katherine Franke's Repair: Redeeming the Promise of Abolition and Drew McKevitt's Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America. Dr. Alexandra Filindra is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. George Lobis served as the editorial assistant for this podcast. Susan Liebell is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

A name almost totally forgotten today, John Dickinson was famous - known as “The Penman of the American Revolution.” A true Lockean in support of liberty, life and property - he helped lead the opposition to the Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act, the Townshend Acts - and much more. The post John Dickinson: A “Great Worthy of the Revolution” first appeared on Tenth Amendment Center.

Everyone supports civility, in theory, when the “other side” is behaving themselves.  But what is the role of civility in an era of growing political division?  Is civility a weakness that can be exploited by our political opponents?  Is it simply being well-mannered and exceedingly nice, or is there more to it?   Those are the very questions Alexandra Hudson set out to answer in her new book, The Soul of Civility.  Alexandra joins Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis to unpackage how civility holds the timeless answers for humanity's timeless struggle with living alongside the “other side”.   About Alexandra Hudson From Alexandra's website: Alexandra Hudson is a writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth. She was named the 2020 Novak Journalism Fellow, and contributes to Fox News, CBS News, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME Magazine, POLITICO Magazine, and Newsweek. She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition.  She lives in Indianapolis, IN with her husband and children.   But wait, there's more… During the conversation Josh and Alexandra briefly discuss Edmund Burke's take on social contract theory.  This is a complex issue and there simply wasn't adequate time to explore it fully.  So, after the conversation with Alexandra, Josh shares his thoughts on how Burke's understanding of social contract theory might rescue Lockean liberalism from being merely a tool of the Left to something conservatives can embrace themselves.  

Today, we discuss the idea that understanding a concept is not a matter of knowing a definition. As philosopher Michael Huemer argues, our main access to a concept comes “not through directly reflecting on the concept, but through activating the dispositions that constitute our understanding.”  The Wittgensteinian view of concepts explains how it's possible that we know how to competently use terms even though it is so hard to successfully analyze them. I can't provide a perfect conceptual analysis of knowledge (no one can), and yet I have no issue using the term and understanding what it means. Not only can I competently use words that I can't analyze, I can reject proposed analyses as insufficient, like the justified true belief analysis. That's because I understand the meaning of the concept, despite the fact that I can't define it.  “Indefinability of words is perfectly normal," Huemer argues, "since understanding is not constituted by knowledge of definitions. The best way to convey a word's meaning is through examples.”  Language & Meaning: Crash Course Philosophy Understanding Knowledge - Michael Huemer Linktree One note from Huemer on the Wittgensteinian view of concepts and the contrasting Lockean view: "I think what I have to say about concepts is like some stuff that Wittgenstein said, but I don't actually care how well it matches Wittgenstein's views. I also don't care, by the way, whether the 'Lockean theory' matches Locke's views. You have to add in caveats like this whenever you mention a major philosophical figure, because there are always people who have devoted their lives to studying that figure and who, if you let them, will give you all sorts of arguments that the famous philosopher has been completely misunderstood and never really said the things they're famous for saying." 

Introduction: Caleb O. BrownFriedman Prize keynote address by William McGurn or the acceptance speech by Sebastian Lai.Senator Pat Toomey on inflation and mismanagement of monetary policy.Eric R. Claeys on Lockean approach to property.Exclusive: Jennifer Huddleston on internet safety legislation and freedom of speech encroachment Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us for a discussion of Eric Claeys's forthcoming book, Natural Property Rights (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press). The book introduces and defends a theory of property relying on labor, natural rights, and traditional principles of natural law. Justified on those grounds, property rights protect individual freedom, but they also help government officials resolve the basic resource conflicts that arise in property law. Natural Property Rights illustrates this with examples from real estate, oil and gas, tangible personal property, water rights, government regulatory and taking powers (and constitutional limits on those). Claeys's work in this area was recently the focus of a symposium hosted by Texas A&M University's Journal of Property Law.Matthew Cavedon will respond by commenting on the historical context for John Locke's work, on which Claeys relies. Cavedon will argue that Spanish Renaissance scholar Francisco Suárez offers nuances regarding the relationship between natural law and property rights that correct for deficiencies in Lockean theory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During the enlightenment there are profound differences of opinion.  But there is a sense that human progress and social progress for the vast majority was both possible and desirable.There is the Baconian program with many scientists working in its name.  There is the Lockean idea that wealth is the product of human creativity and that therefore, it is in principle unlimited, i.e. poverty can be eliminated.   Many were inspired by this idea.By the end of the 18th century we see Montesquieu cited as the Francis Bacon of the study of man and society, while Adam Smith was the Newton.This is an episode where we trace out many of the channels that connected Enlightenment ideals to the people in the Industrial Revolution, who did all the things.

Matt Zwolinski is professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego and the founder and director of USD's Center for Ethics, Economics, and Public Policy. Zwolinski is the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, and he is the co-author, with John Tomasi, of The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism (available April 4 and available for preorder).This is the Self in Society Podcast #30.This episode also is available via YouTube.TIME MARKERS00 Intro0:54 Murray Rothbard, paleo-libertarianism, the “Mises Caucus,” and the meaning of libertarianism4:06 The “family resemblance” among strains of libertarianism6:22 Would Mises be in the “Mises Caucus”? Mises's liberalism12:57 Baggage with the libertarian label16:46 Locke's views of property rights23:24 Henry George's objections to Locke26:23 Property rights as the central conundrum of libertarianism30:18 Limits to Georgism; resources and production38:45 More on resources and production44:29 House values, NIMBYism, and rent-seeking49:35 Strategies to solve “Lockean proviso” problems52:07 Existing property rights as historically problematic58:15 Addressing the U.S. Black/white wealth gap1:00:15 Property generally as making the world a better place1:05:01 Would reparations solve past injustices better than a basic income?1:10:00 Systemic racism: criminal justice and education1:13:49 Libertarian individualism and structural racism1:15:42 Housing policy and structural racism1:17:48 Methodological individualism and social justice1:25:20 Emergent racism1:28:27 The importance of more open immigration; implications for a basic income1:33:15 A basic income as better than the existing welfare state1:41:17 Matt's forthcoming books on the basic income and exploitation1:42:36 wrap-upZwolinski's professional page offers links to his various books, including The Individualists, which comes out April 4 (available for preorder).A couple of Zwolinski's essays on the basic income are available online: “A Moral Case for Universal Basic Income” and “Property Rights, Coercion,and the Welfare State.”The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism contains the essay mentioned by Zwolinski, “Self-Ownership,” by Daniel C. Russell.April 4 Update: I published my review of the book.Music by Jordan Smith. Get full access to Self in Society at selfinsociety.substack.com/subscribe

Jordan talks with Scott Williams about Conciliar Trinitarianism. They cover topics like what is conciliar trinitarianism? What is a Latin (or conciliar) social model of the Trinity? What accounts for the unity of action of the persons of the Trinity? Why do you suggest that a Lockean account of personhood is susceptible to trinitarian criticisms? What is Richard of St. Victors account of personhood and why is it superior? How can a Latin (or conciliar) model of the Trinity affirm usage of mental tokens like "I"? What is Hasker's multi-power view? Is this the standard social trinitarian account today? How does Hasker's view fit with the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils? How can he affirm one power and authority? And much more!Resources:1) Scott Williams Papers at Phil Papers2) Discovery of the Sixth Ecumenical Council's Trinitarian Theology: Historical, Ecclesial, and Theological Implications, Scott Williams3) In Defense of a Latin Social Trinity: A Response to William Hasker, Scott WilliamsSupport the show

https://youtu.be/zQiIPeHLQp4 “Unless it be to do justice on an offender,” Locke continued, no one may “take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.” Long traces out a key implication of this idea: “Lockean equality involves not merely equality before legislators, judges, and police, but, far more crucially, equality with legislators, judges, and police.” One moral standard for all, no exceptions, no privileges. That's a fitting summation of the libertarian philosophy. The good news is that most people are more than halfway there. - Sheldon Richman, The Voluntaryist Handbook, p. 8 This audio/video is an excerpt from The War on the West by Douglas Murray. BitChute Minds Archive Flote

For decades, the conservative position on abortion has been simple: Appoint justices who will overturn Roe V. Wade. That aspiration is now likely to become reality. The question of abortion rights will re-enter the realm of electoral politics in a way it hasn't for 50 years. And that means Republicans will need to develop a new politics of abortion — a politics that may appeal not only to their anti-abortion base but to some of the many Americans who believe Roe should stand.One place those Republicans may look for inspiration is to the work of the legal scholar Erika Bachiochi. She is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, director of the Wollstonecraft Project at the Abigail Adams Institute and the author of “The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision,” where she argues for a “dignitarian feminism.” Bachiochi embraces women's gains in professional and civic life but holds that techno-pharmacological birth control, the sexual revolution and the legalization of abortion have created a sexual and family culture that has ultimately been devastating to women's well-being.In hopes of improving that status quo, Bachiochi puts forward a policy agenda that could very well become the post-Roe playbook for some Republicans: tighter abortion restrictions combined with a robust slate of family policies — some of which would be even bolder than the Biden administration's proposals to date. Hers is not an argument I agree with, but it's one that I imagine will become increasingly salient in a post-Roe America.We discuss Bachiochi's views on why the “gender revolution” has stalled; her belief that market logic has come to dominate our understandings of family, parenting, sex and feminism; her critique of modern “hookup” culture; and her pro-family economic agenda. And we debate whether it's realistic to encourage the use of natural fertility regulation over hormonal contraception, how abortion relates to single motherhood and poverty, whether stricter abortion laws might benefit or hurt poor women, what role the law should play in teaching moral behavior, whether progressives have become too “Lockean” in their understanding of bodily autonomy, whether the sexual revolution gave people too much choice and more.Mentioned:Defenders of the Unborn by Daniel K. WilliamsGeneration Unbound by Isabel V. Sawhill“Equal Rights, Equal Wrongs” by Christopher KaczorBook recommendations:Rights Talk by Mary Ann GlendonFeminism Without Illusions by Elizabeth Fox-GenovesePublic Man, Private Woman by Jean Bethke ElshtainThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker and Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing and engineering by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.

We bring you this episode for the glory of our beloved company, in deference to Kier. We're back! With a breakdown of one of the year's most puzzling, thrilling, and mind-boggling new shows, Severance. This show has everything: Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare; Humorist drama inspired by Hippocratic medicine; late capitalism; academic buffoonery; wellness horror; and ritualistic workplace waffle parties. As we try to unravel the mysteries of Lumon, the controversial Severance procedure, and the rather hollow notion of “work life balance,” a couple of key themes necessitate further exploration. We'll look to philosopher John Locke for the emergence of modern conceptions of the self and human consciousness as they relate to memory. Plus, we'll jump in the time machine to explore a lesser-known moment in American history with strange parallels to the cult-like corporate labyrinth of Lumon: John Humphrey Noyes's 19th century free-love commune, the Oneida Community. — Support us at www.patreon.com/midnightmyth Check out our merch store for Midnight Myth, Boomerangerang, and Wheel of Ka tees and totes! Learn more, view sources and inspiration, and sign up for e-mail updates at www.midnightmyth.com Interested in starting your own podcast? Try using Anchor by clicking on this link to get started: anch.co/midnight Twitter Facebook Instagram If you enjoy the podcast, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/midnightmyth/support

Ideology was being dismissed for the acquisition of land. Unused land was a sin. The Indians would receive civilization from the American in return for the land. Kagan reveals some very interesting us foreign policy issues. US foreign policy was driven by "natural rights of men" derived from the declaration of independence, Lockean. The application of the doctrine allowed US foreign policy protected weaker nations from stronger nations. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/david-nishimoto/message

McConnell Center Director Dr. Gary Gregg and Dr. Susan Hanssen, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Dallas, explore the roots of church and state in American order. The two discuss the history of 17th century Britain and the English Civil War, Hobbesian and Lockean political theory, and more. https://mcconnellcenter.libsyn.com/58-the-roots-of-american-order-the-constitution-of-church-and-state-with-dr-susan-hanssen

McConnell Center Director Dr. Gary Gregg and Dr. Susan Hanssen, Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Dallas, explore the roots of church and state in American order. The two discuss the history of 17th century Britain and the English Civil War, Hobbesian and Lockean political theory, and more. Corresponding Reading  Chapter 8, pp. 259-300 of Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order Important Links  Download the corresponding reading guide to The Roots of American Order here Learn more about The Roots of American Order at https://louisville.edu/mcconnellcenter/programs-events/bic Martin J. Wiener, English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit, 1850-1980 Russell Kirk, America's British Culture David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America Subscribe to our newsletter and receive McConnell Center updates directly in your mailbox Please share any thoughts, questions, comments, or concerns with us via email at connor.tracy@louisville.edu. This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville. For more information, including upcoming events, please visit us online at mcconnellcenter.org or on social media at:  Facebook: @mcconnellcenter  Instagram: @ulmcenter  Twitter: @ULmCenter Contributors  Host: Dr. Gary L. Gregg II, McConnell Center Director Guest: Dr. Suan Hanssen, University of Dallas Producers and Editors: Connor Tracy, McConnell Center SBS Coordinator & Will Randolph, McConnell Scholar 

Conservatives are engaged in a war over the meaning of "American conservatism." Is it Lockean? Is it nationalist? And more importantly, are Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, John Adams, and Abraham Lincoln the standard for what it means to be an "American conservative", particularly in relation to the meaning and structure of the Constitution? If you think Lincoln was a "conservative", you aren't conserving anything. I discuss "common good originalism" on this episode of The Brion McClanahan Show. https://mcclanahanacademy.com https://brionmcclanahan.com/support http://learntruehistory.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brion-mcclanahan/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brion-mcclanahan/support

Yehuda HaKohen is joined by Doreinu NY leader Ari Osher to discuss recent revelations by journalist Barak Ravid that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had actually spent years protecting Israel from US President Donald Trump's two-state agenda. The two also talk about the broader decline of US global power and the deep divide between Jewish values and those of Lockean liberalism. Dedicated to the speedy recovery of Reine bat Baile.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 366. This is my appearance on the Repeal the 20th Century podcast (Youtube channel). We discussed my IP debate at the Soho Forum (see KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished and KOL369 | Soho Forum IP Debate Post-Mortem with Greg Morin), the basic case against IP (both natural rights/Lockean and utilitarian), problems with both, problems with Locke's proto-Marxian labor theory of property, patent, copyright, and trademark, defamation, plagiarism, attribution, fraud, property rights in "value," and "ownership" of NFTs and bitcoin. Youtube: https://youtu.be/vrJ-jQUrBjE Related links: KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019) KOL 037 | Locke's Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory KOL207 | Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Are Not About Plagiarism, Theft, Fraud, or Contract

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 366. This is my appearance on the Repeal the 20th Century podcast (Youtube channel). We discussed my IP debate at the Soho Forum, the basic case against IP (both natural rights/Lockean and utilitarian), problems with both, problems with Locke's proto-Marxian labor theory of property, patent, copyright, and trademark, defamation, plagiarism, attribution, fraud, property rights in "value," and "ownership" of NFTs and bitcoin. Youtube: https://youtu.be/vrJ-jQUrBjE Related links: KOL364 | Soho Forum Debate vs. Richard Epstein: Patent and Copyright Law Should Be Abolished KOL274 | Nobody Owns Bitcoin (PFS 2019) KOL 037 | Locke's Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory KOL207 | Patent, Copyright, and Trademark Are Not About Plagiarism, Theft, Fraud, or Contract

The Ransomware Minute is a rundown of the latest ransomware attacks & news, brought to you by CyberArk. Listen to the podcast weekly and read it daily at https://ransomwareminute.com • CyberArk is the global leader in Identity Security. Centered on privileged access management, CyberArk provides the most comprehensive security offering for any identity – human or machine. To learn more about our sponsor CyberArk, visit https://cyberark.com

Rerum NovarumFor those of you who are Catholics, I have bad news for you.  There was a time in the 1800s when your church went over the edge, in terms of what you value today.  It renounced reading of unapproved books, it renounced what you would think of as education, it renounced curiosity, and it even renounced the existence of Germany and Italy.  (The pope had a vested interest in the non-existence of Italy given that he was the ruler of his own state, which got absorbed into Italy.  Anyone who voted in an Italian election or served the Italian state in any way was excommunicated.  To be honest they made themselves irrelevant, so that large numbers of Italians marched away from the church.   This is called anti-clerical).  This 1891 encyclical, by Leo XIII, one of the great popes, reversed that disastrous tendency, and tried to drag the Church into the modern age. An encyclical is important not because it repeats what the Church has already said – the rich should give charity to the poor.  That's not new – but because it says something the Church has never said before.  These are called New Teachings.  This encyclical has three new teachings.  Those are identified along the way. An encyclical is an official teaching by the pope.  The word means Letter and borrows from the epistles (letters) of Paul in the New Testament.  Encyclicals have numbered paragraphs to make it easier to discuss.  The podcast makes reference to those numbers throughout. It is possible to listen to this podcast without the text in front of you, but this is a case where I would recommend that you download the encyclical and read along.  I will attach a link. This was a class lecture.  How would we classify this pope?  He is definitely a classical conservative in the sense of Disraeli.  He clearly has Lockean impulses.  He is a cultural conservative in the sense of gender issues.  He is NOT a Ronald Reagan conservative. (“The most frightening words in the English language are, I'm from the government and I'm here to help”).   He clearly wants to save the capitalist system and to reinforce the power structure and make it work more effectively.  He feels a bit of nostalgia for the past but is realistic that we cannot turn back history.  He wants the Church to play a role in the future in terms of creating and shaping parties and unions.  Would you call him a paternalistic Disraeli cautious reformer?  That is an awkward term but I can't think of any that is better. Note:  I think the Pope was answering the Communist Manifesto, even though he never mentions Marx.  See if you agree. http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html

In today's podcast we cover four crucial cyber and technology topics, including:  1. French CERT warns of actor using other ransomware services over 2 years   2. U.K Labour party warns of possible data leak via 3rd party  3. U.S. sanctions for companies for providing cyber tool to threat actors  4. U.S. looking to pass laws supporting cyber security for small businesses  I'd love feedback, feel free to send your comments and feedback to  | cyberandtechwithmike@gmail.com

Britain's Labour Party is affected by a ransomware incident a third-party provider sustained. ANSSI identifies a new ransomware affiliate gang, “Lockean.” Notes on how and why BlackMatter and REvil went on the lam. Russo-American talks discussed cybercrime and cybersecurity. Iran's gas stations are fully back in business, following the cyber sabotage they sustained. Kevin Magee from Microsoft has highlights from their 2021 Digital Defence Report. Our guest is Ofer Ben Noon of Talon Cyber Security addressing browser vulnerabilities. And DataTribe has announced the winners of its fourth annual Cybersecurity Start-up Challenge. For links to all of today's stories check out our CyberWire daily news briefing: https://www.thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/213

On this episode, Chris is joined by Fr. Justin Brophy, O.P., professor of political science at Providence College, Rhode Island. In a short diagnosis of our present moment as Americans, Fr. Brophy points to (among other points not discussed) a tension between Lockean individualism and a Puritan ethic, and a decline in our traditional institutions and trust in authority. A Christian response includes Fr. Brophy argues, is a focus on friendship (among other things), in which we deeply and truly care about the good of the other. In a post-Christendom age the extension of friendship entails risk, as it necessarily requires we be vulnerable and exposed to rejection. Such failure, though, ought not dissuade us from the endeavor -- as Christians, we can receive great joy from the constant nearness of Jesus, who never fails! Follow Fr. Brophy's work at https://www.cjbrophy.com (www.cjbrophy.com)

On this episode, Chris is joined by Fr. Justin Brophy, O.P., professor of political science at Providence College, Rhode Island. In a short diagnosis of our present moment as Americans, Fr. Brophy points to (among other points not discussed) a tension between Lockean individualism and a Puritan ethic, and a Read more…

Alex Aragona explores standard readings of Lockean property rights theories with Bas van der Vossen, and then explore Bas' idea on what might be missing from these traditional understandings and interpretations. 

Christopher and guest co-host, Shiloh Logan, talk about the third Beatitude on meekness. When we read of Jesus’ temptations after 40 days of fasting and when Satan showed him the whole earth, our typical interpretation is that Jesus recognized and rejected the temptation–from a rather contemporary Lockean standpoint–because the world was already His (because He had already mixed his time and labor in creating the world). Why would Jesus worship Satan to receive something that was already His? Yet Jesus would soon explain that this was not the reason the world was His. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ taught us that the meek inherit the earth. The earth was His, not because He had mixed His time and labor with it, but because He was meek. That is the foundation for our possession and claim on the earth. But what does this mean? What is the connection between meekness and inheriting the earth? Satan’s temptation was to take power and control over the earth, but these are not God’s ways. God’s power and glory are found in His “grace, equity, and truth, full of patience, mercy, and long-suffering, quick to hear the cries of his people and to answer their prayers” (Alma 9:26). This power and glory are not found in control or coercive dominion, but they are found through meekness.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 324. I was on Aleks Svetski's show Wake Up, Ep. 37. Youtube: From his shownotes: Stephan Kinsella is a Patent Attorney in Texas, Austrian AnCap philosopher, writer & hands down one of the smarter & most well-read people I've ever spoken to. In this ep, we discuss: - SK's Journey on Why or how he become a libertarian - Where Austrian Econ fit in? - A little about Bitcoin coming on the radar, and "fixing this". We discuss consistency of thought, principles and ideas. A little on Patent Law & Private property, although we'll probably do an Ep 2 in this. We explore: - Rand's critique on Anarchy - Rand's support of IP The difference between ownership & possession - Is Ownership is that which you can protect? - How do you prove initial possession? - How do you enforce ownership? Are the rules & norms of a community or city a sort of constitution? How do these rules scale across populations? How do you synchronise those larger scale ideas with societies that have different values, ie; the Confucian east? War is expensive only with sound money (Bitcoin fixes this) We dig into a bit about private property rights from both the Lockean view & a more tangible viewpoint inspired by Hoppe. "The entire point of property rights is to solve conflict." And I ask the question: Why are Libertarians not as widely thrilled about Bitcoin as one might expect them to be? There was a series of books that Stephan also mentioned. I've listed them here for you: Walter Block: I chose liberty - Assortment of stories about how people became libertarians. Randy Barnett - The structure of Liberty Hoppe - A theory of Socialism & Capitalism - Economics & ethics of Private property Mises: - Ultimate foundation of economic science Rothbard: - The logic of action 1 & 2 - Economic controversies

Stephan Kinsella is a Patent Attorney in Texas, Austrian AnCap philosopher, writer & hands down one of the smarter & most well-read people I’ve ever spoken to. In this ep, we discuss: – SK’s Journey on Why or how he become a libertarian – Where Austrian Econ fit in? – A little about Bitcoin coming on the radar, and “fixing this”. We discuss consistency of thought, principles and ideas. A little on Patent Law & Private property, although we’ll probably do an Ep 2 in this. We explore: – Rand’s critique on Anarchy – Rand’s support of IP The difference between ownership & possession – Is Ownership is that which you can protect? – How do you prove initial possession? – How do you enforce ownership? Are the rules & norms of a community or city a sort of constitution? How do these rules scale across populations? How do you synchronise those larger scale ideas with societies that have different values, ie; the Confucian east? War is expensive only with sound money (Bitcoin fixes this) We dig into a bit about private property rights from both the Lockean view & a more tangible viewpoint inspired by Hoppe. “The entire point of property rights is to solve conflict.” And I ask the question: Why are Libertarians not as widely thrilled about Bitcoin as one might expect them to be? There was a series of books that Stephan also mentioned. I’ve listed them here for you: Walter Block: I chose liberty – Assortment of stories about how people became libertarians. Randy Barnett – The structure of Liberty Hoppe – A theory of Socialism & Capitalism – Economics & ethics of Private property Mises: – Ultimate foundation of economic science Rothbard: – The logic of action 1 & 2 – Economic controversies

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 324. I was on Aleks Svetski's show Wake Up, Ep. 37. Youtube: From his shownotes: Stephan Kinsella is a Patent Attorney in Texas, Austrian AnCap philosopher, writer & hands down one of the smarter & most well-read people I've ever spoken to. In this ep, we discuss: - SK's Journey on Why or how he become a libertarian - Where Austrian Econ fit in? - A little about Bitcoin coming on the radar, and "fixing this". We discuss consistency of thought, principles and ideas. A little on Patent Law & Private property, although we'll probably do an Ep 2 in this. We explore: - Rand's critique on Anarchy - Rand's support of IP The difference between ownership & possession - Is Ownership is that which you can protect? - How do you prove initial possession? - How do you enforce ownership? Are the rules & norms of a community or city a sort of constitution? How do these rules scale across populations? How do you synchronise those larger scale ideas with societies that have different values, ie; the Confucian east? War is expensive only with sound money (Bitcoin fixes this) We dig into a bit about private property rights from both the Lockean view & a more tangible viewpoint inspired by Hoppe. "The entire point of property rights is to solve conflict." And I ask the question: Why are Libertarians not as widely thrilled about Bitcoin as one might expect them to be? There was a series of books that Stephan also mentioned. I've listed them here for you: Walter Block: I chose liberty - Assortment of stories about how people became libertarians. Randy Barnett - The structure of Liberty Hoppe - A theory of Socialism & Capitalism - Economics & ethics of Private property Mises: - Ultimate foundation of economic science Rothbard: - The logic of action 1 & 2 - Economic controversies

Stephan Kinsella is a Patent Attorney in Texas, Austrian AnCap philosopher, writer & hands down one of the smarter & most well-read people I've ever spoken to. In this ep, we discuss: - SK's Journey on Why or how he become a libertarian - Where Austrian Econ fit in? - A little about Bitcoin coming on the radar, and "fixing this". We discuss consistency of thought, principles and ideas. A little on Patent Law & Private property, although we'll probably do an Ep 2 in this. We explore: - Rand's critique on Anarchy - Rand's support of IP The difference between ownership & possession - Is Ownership is that which you can protect? - How do you prove initial possession? - How do you enforce ownership? Are the rules & norms of a community or city a sort of constitution? How do these rules scale across populations? How do you synchronise those larger scale ideas with societies that have different values, ie; the Confucian east? War is expensive only with sound money (Bitcoin fixes this) We dig into a bit about private property rights from both the Lockean view & a more tangible viewpoint inspired by Hoppe. "The entire point of property rights is to solve conflict." And I ask the question: Why are Libertarians not as widely thrilled about Bitcoin as one might expect them to be? There was a series of books that Stephan also mentioned. I've listed them here for you: Walter Block: I chose liberty - Assortment of stories about how people became libertarians. Randy Barnett - The structure of Liberty Hoppe - A theory of Socialism & Capitalism - Economics & ethics of Private property Mises: - Ultimate foundation of economic science Rothbard: - The logic of action 1 & 2 - Economic controversies You can follow Stephan's work at: http://c4sif.org http://www.kinsellalaw.com https://www.stephankinsella.com And of course follow him twitter @NSKinsella ____________________________________ Thanks again for listening. Subscribe on YouTube, Anchor, Spotify: https://anchor.fm/wakeuppod https://www.youtube.com/c/WakeUpPod You can follow my work at: - Twitter & IG @AleksSvetski - Mastodon & Clubhouse @Svetski - Medium: https://svetski.medium.com More coming soon!

In this crossover episode friend of the podcast Justin Stapley invites Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis onto his show Self-Evident to discuss self-evident truths and what it means to hold truth in tension. The conversation includes thoughts on whether or not our inalienable rights are “self-evident”, the genius of American founders, Jeffersonian, Lockean liberalism vs. Hamiltonian, Burkean conservatism, why John Adams didn’t make a good president, whether the 1619 Project or 1776 Project is “right” or if the truth is somewhere in-between, whether America’s founding perfect or problematic, whether truth is to be found in reason or prescription, can Burkean conservatism be found in Burke alone or is he only the starting-point for conservative thought, the challenges conservative fusionism faces today, and a surprisingly lengthy and unexpected conversation about American slavery. This conversation was originally released on the Self-Evident show.  Self-Evident is a weekly newsletter and intermittent podcast where Justin Stapley discusses both timely political topics as well as the timeless values and first principles of limited government and free society.   Justin Stapley has been writing politically since 2016.  His writing has been featured by ALEC, The Federalist Coalition, and the personal blogs and platforms he has operated over the years, which include Never Tyranny, The Millennial Federalist, and The Liberty Hawk.   Justin considers himself a liberty-minded conservative with principles and beliefs grounded in the idea of ordered liberty as expressed in the traditions of classical liberalism, federalism, and modern conservatism.   Justin currently studies Political Science at Utah Valley University with an emphasis in Political Theory and Constitutional Studies.  He is a staunchly independent voice and is unafraid to call balls and strikes as he sees them.  His calm but pointed writing style is often flavored with humor as he analyzes and discusses both news cycle driven topics as well as deeper philosophical considerations.   Justin appeared previously on Saving Elephants on the following episodes:   Episode 30 - Fusionism with Justin Stapley   Episode 55 – The New Centrist with Justin Stapley   Bonus Episode – The 2020 Elections – Now What?   You can follow Justin on Twitter @JustinWStapley  

Discussing self-evident truths and the tension of views that often leads to them with Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis.Welcome to the sixth episode of Self-Evident, a podcast about first principles, hosted on Substack along with the Self-Evident Newsletter. In this episode, I was pleased to host my first guest on the podcast, Josh Lewis of Saving Elephants fame. You can listen to the episode by clicking the play button above or listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I have also included a transcript of the discussion below. You can also subscribe and get future episodes as well as the newsletter in your inbox:And, please, share this podcast episode, add any thoughts you might have in the comments section, and be sure to connect with me on Facebook and Twitter. Episode TranscriptMe: Hello folks, welcome to the Self-Evident podcast. Today's episode is going to be something a little different. For the first time ever, I'm going to have a guest on the podcast. My good friend Josh Lewis is here with us. He is the host of the Saving Elephants Podcast; he also writes on the Saving Elephants Blog, and he's also contributed to the Liberty Hawk from time to time. So, good to have you here, Josh. Josh Lewis: It's great to be here. Hey, I feel very honored. I'm the first-time guest on the podcast. Me: Well, you know I've been on your podcast what, three times? So, I felt like whenever I got around to deciding to have guests, you had to be the first guest. So, I'm pretty excited. Josh Lewis: We might call it two and a quarter since the third time you were on, you were on there with three others. Me: I guess that's true, that's true. I mean, if you want to bring it down to two and a quarter, then so be it. (laughter) Me: So, we're going to try something with my guests, and I'm going to use Josh as my Guinea pig here a little bit. My podcast's name is Self-Evident. Most people would recognize that as coming from the Declaration of Independence when it says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” So, even though I talk a lot about the news of the day, I talk a lot about, you know, the political issues in the headlines, this podcast is ultimately about trying to get back to first principles and discovering what is self-evidently true about limited government and about the entire experiment of American governance. So, to start out this conversation, Josh. When you think about what self-evident means or what could be considered self-evident truths or even just what first principles might be, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Josh Lewis: First thing that comes to mind is exactly what you read, 'cause it's the most famous phrase perhaps in all of American literature, if you will, as we hold these truths to be self-evident. Now, that being said, it being the first thing that comes to mind, I am a chronic overthinker, and sometimes you know I think through this is like well is that self-evident 'cause there's a whole heck of a lot of people it doesn't seem to be self-evident, you know, in their world. Let me start off by saying this: I believe the statement is true, right? I absolutely believe we are created equal that we are endowed with certain rights. I think that the big three, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, is a good way to summarize it. Is it self-evident? When I think of self-evident, I think of something like 2 + 2 = 4 or the famous “I think therefore I am.” You know, it's hard for me to doubt my own existence because there has to be a non-doubting that they exist. And again, maybe I'm overthinking this, and if I am, please let me know, but I guess that's where I'm trying to bridge the gap of how much of these truths that we hold as Americans are truly self-evident or what allows us to base our purpose as a nation on these truths. Me: You know, and it's something that I've always wrestled with as well, 'cause I mean, my first love is history and then I kind of branched out from there and even though, you know, I agree with you, I totally agree with Jefferson's statement, but for these things being self-evident, it's kind of interesting that in a lot of ways, that moment in time was a radical departure from the norm in history. The idea that people have rights and that, you know, the government isn't just there to allow those who are in power to rule, you know? So, how do we reconcile that reality? Can these truths be self-evident if they haven't been the norm in human society? Or, was Jefferson and the founding generation rediscovering something that had been lost along the way? Josh Lewis: I think the question you just asked is what I would call conservatism. And I have no succinct answer to it. I really don't. And Justin, I think I'm not telling you anything you don't know here. I think between the two of us, you would be more Jeffersonian than I am. I think he was an incredible thinker, eloquent writer. I think he hit on some very valuable truths that's worth debating [and] discussing today. How do you reconcile that is hard. And, it's hard because I think sometimes the temptation from a classical liberal, say, framework, and I support classical liberalism, but I think sometimes the temptation is to try to say, well, this is something that's formulaic, right? This is something that is not only discernible and understandable to all people at all times, and it's completely reasonable, but it's something that we can document in a manner that's just from A-Z. We understand this thing completely. And I tend to be way more skeptical of that. Somehow, in the United States, I wouldn't necessarily say just through accident, but probably through a combination of accident and providential grace, we stumbled upon what Jefferson refers to as self-evident truths. This idea of equality. I don't mean that as the Left means it, of equal outcomes. But the idea that there's something about human nature that we are no greater or less than one another just by the raw material of what we are as humans, that from that we can derive all sorts of notions of duties and rights. And what is the purpose and the justice of a just society, of civil society? This is in my mind quite a group effort that really stretches over thousands of years in Western civilization, and I'm uncomfortable saying there's any one thinker or any one document that had it all right, but it was a very laborious, difficult trial by error that, to be honest with you, we still don't have completely right. We're still trying to figure out how to do this, and I think part of the problem is here, and this is a matter I suppose we would agree, we are a fallen creature. We're imperfectible, and we're trying to figure out how to fit the square peg in a round hole of how do we establish, you know, perfect justice, perfect truth on this Earth, and I don't know that we'll ever get there, but I think the struggle in that direction is what allows for these truths to be born out. Me: Not to segue too quickly away from the topic that we started with, but you mentioned, you know, I'm definitely more Jeffersonian. You, not quite as much. Which of the founders would you say you associate with the most? My guess would be Adams or Hamilton? Josh Lewis: (laughter) Yeah, yeah, you picked the big two I think I would throw in, I'm probably a trifecta: Adams, Hamilton, and Madison. I love Hamilton. Of the three, to be completely honest with you, If I put it on my purist conservative lens, Hamilton is probably the odd fit there. But he's just sort of dark enough and realistic enough that it kind of fits my kind of pessimistic nature at times, like sometimes you kind of need, you know, the wise guys in charge, sort of running the show. But you're right. It's more Adams and the Madisonian model I would look to. Me: Yeah, the HBO miniseries John Adams is one of my favorites, not only because it really does a good job of showing who Adams really was, but they did such a good job of finding actors to represent all of the different Founding Fathers in ways that I really, really enjoy. Josh Lewis: Yeah, and Adams, I think, was a terrible president. Me: Yeah. Josh Lewis: He did some good things and was an amazing thinker, and I think I've read somewhere he wrote more than all of the other founders maybe combined, or at least pretty close to it. Me: Well, I think Adams' problem as a president was he thought his job was to govern in deference to so many other forces, especially Congress. Josh Lewis: Uh-huh. Me: I think, I mean, especially the Alien and Sedition Acts comes to mind because he wrote many, many times that he felt like they were wrong. But he felt like it wasn't his place as President to veto a bill that was so supported by a majority of Congress. So, I think, if anything, Adams was part of the Presidency finding its place. Josh Lewis: Yeah, and I would go one step further and, again, I'm a huge fan of Adams, [but] I don't think he had the temperament to be president. I, you know, if you look at Washington or Jefferson, they had a sort of stately mannerism about them, whereas Adams kept, I'm blanking on the name, the Hamilton book. It will come to me in a second. Ron Chernow. There we go. The historian Ron Chernow that wrote the definitive biography of Hamilton in a lot of ways, refers to Adams as a man who has an encyclopedic memory for slights. I thought that was just hilarious that he could not hardly forget when someone had wronged him or harmed him in some way. Me: Well, I think you could almost say that most everything that Adams accomplished that was very good, he had Franklin whispering in his ear at some point, tempering down his short man syndrome. Josh Lewis: Well, Franklin was known for his eccentricities also. Me: (laughter) Oh yeah, yeah, just different kinds of eccentricity. Well, I guess back to the original question. I think there today are a lot of conservatives that view the founding as a genesis, that the Constitution, the Declaration, that's where all of the things that we believe in begin. And then they kind of look at politics as a scramble to try to get back to that near-perfect moment. But then you have on the other side of the equation, people on the Left who look at it as, you know, this murky beginning, the first amphibian crawling from the muck, and we have to build on it but looking back to it doesn't really, it's not really beneficial a whole lot. I think you probably agree with me that neither of those ways of looking at the founding is probably correct or healthy. So, what's your view? Where is the cross-section between those views? Josh Lewis: Yeah, I often say that conservatism is, well, conservatism is a lot of things, but one of the things that it is is the ability to hold ideas In tension. Not contradiction but in tension. And, I think both of those two views certainly have truth to it. And, I think if you hold either of those two views, you can look at the historical record and find, you know, let's take the first one, for instance. Conservatives, I think, will rightly say we need more limited government if we could just get back on the path of how the Founders had originally set this up. In terms of statecraft, say, in terms of this sort of notion of a citizen legislature that we're getting back to first principles, that we really took a wrong turn, you know, we could pick any moment history, but oftentimes conservatives will pick FDR, or maybe the neocons will say LBJ, where the feds were getting a little too involved in our lives. And that has brought some good things with it, federal intervention, but it also brought a lot of problems and complexities to our society. And so too, I would also agree with the progressive view that you can trace a sort of a barbarism, if you will, from most of human history, on up through the enlightenment period, on up through the United States. And there's a sense of progress. There's a sense of industrialization. There's a sense of the civilization, in effect Western, what we think of today. And I really think the truth is somewhere in between those two. I don't think humans truly progress in the same [way], that we're not actually made out of better stuff than, say, our ancestors, but that civilization itself does have a progressing influence, say, maybe working within generations. I don't know if I'm answering your question or not. Am I getting a little far afield of it? Me: Oh no, I guess the best way to ask the question is, right now, we kind of have a 1776 versus 1619 moment where the founding is almost held up by some conservatives as this penultimate moment in human history. I'm not saying I necessarily disagree with that because I do believe that the founders were wise men. I believe they were raised up by God for the purpose that they accomplished. But a lot of people who call themselves conservative don't have an understanding of their philosophical heritage beyond the founding. Josh Lewis: Right. Me: You and I have talked before about how, you know, you kind of trace your roots to Burke. I kind of trace my roots to Locke, but we find agreement in the founding moment and what came out of it. And then we can even go further back. I mean, a lot [of what we're] even talking [about], we're approaching upon themes that go all the way back to Plato. You know, what is a just society? And a lot of people on the right, right now, don't have that sense. They don't. And they've gotten so lost in the weeds. They don't even really understand what the underlying principles of the founding were in some cases. And so, we have this 1776 project which I believe could have had a lot of beneficial things, but because it was built by all these different voices and forces that don't really have that intellectual grounding, Biden and others were able to dismiss it, fairly easily. But then on the other hand of the coin you have this 1619 project that is essentially arguing that the original founding was when slaves were first brought to the country and that the 1776 founding was not as pure as some people would consider it to be, because they neither lived up to those principles before, during, or afterwards. And so, I guess people like me and you that don't agree with either of these dueling arguments necessarily, where do we find ourselves within that dynamic? How do we project what we believe and how do we, you know, assert that there are self-evident truths, what those self-evident truths are, and how do we champion them? Josh Lewis: There's a lot there.  Me: I know, there is.  Josh Lewis: I think the 1776 project, and I agree with the premise, but I think it suffers from the same problem that almost everything on the Right today suffers from, which is much of it is just reactionary. Which, weirdly, is the problem, I think, much of the Left suffers from, other than I disagree with much of the Left, is that it's also reactionary against whatever the Right's doing. You know, occasionally you read a book like Frank Meyer, for instance, who you, Justin, pointed me to and thank you for that. Me: No worries. Josh Lewis: Or Russell Kirk where they'll try to distill down, well, what are these core principles that you will recognize? There's a lot within the conservative world, that there's a lot of disagreement or tension held in there, but what exactly is the common themes that keep us together? And it occurs to me, one of the things that show up often is sort of a revere of the Founding Era and the Founding Fathers in those ideas. Now that can take on a lot of different flavors, and you're absolutely right. I think there's something very problematic, not only wrong but something very dangerous or problematic where if what we're doing is sort of, what is the phrase of Parks and Rec Ron, oh, good grief, my mind is blanking on who is the main character from Parks and Rec Ron... Me: Oh, Ron Swanson. Josh Lewis: Thank you. Me: OK. Josh Lewis: I don't know why I'm blanking on that. Me: No worries. Josh Lewis: Where that phrase he says, and you'll see this sometimes on memes on Twitter, “History began in 1776, everything before that was a mistake.” I think that's sort of how oftentimes bumper sticker conservatism presents itself these days, [is] this is the golden era we start with, where in reality I think if we just reflect about it for a moment, something had to happen before 1776 to even get us to that point. I mean, if you know just anything about the Founders, they were drawing on a wealth of Western civilization literature to get there, and quite frankly, drawing from people like Rousseau and some other Enlightenment thinkers, I was like, well, they mostly got stuff wrong, but they were able to benefit from even some of those wrong teaching sometimes. So, I think, and maybe this is kind of repeating what I was saying earlier, I think it's necessary to hold thing's in tension. 1619 is truth. Or, at least there's elements of truth to it, and I think we're very wrong, or it's very problematic if we start our view that 1776 is all there is to say about America and that we deny the fact there was anything wrong. Or maybe better put, oftentimes what they'll do is, we'll say, 1776 was kind of, in some metaphysical sense, perfect. And then we acknowledge the problem of slavery, but with something that happens afterwards rather than these things existed simultaneously. Now what I would say as a conservative, I think we need to be careful of is, while there is room to critique the Founding and while there is room in a certain sense to say improve upon that model, in reality, what conservatives are trying to do is saying these are timeless principles the Founders were elevating to the conversation. This is not sort of the starting point, and that from here, we develop new principles, or we come up with new values or new virtues that were previously undiscovered. Now that's not the same as saying things like abolishing slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was a huge step forward for the country, but that wasn't a new principle. That was the application of an old principle that the Founders just failed to realize. And I think for me, oftentimes, that's what as a conservative it means to say the 1776 project is the more correct view, is that this is where we took a leap forward. This is where we happened upon, again, accidentally or providentially, possibly a combination of the two, what I would say are still today not only true principles, but are no less true today than they were in 1776, and they will be no less true hundreds of years from now. And that what we as Americans can do is to continue to try to build upon those principles. Me: OK, now, I'm going to ask a loaded question because I know you're more on one side of the coin, and I'm more than on the other. Are self-evident truths more to be found in prescription or reason? Josh Lewis: (laughs) Prescription, but again it's a tension, right? It has to be a little of each. You know, it's interesting these days because I think sometimes there's a certain quarter of the Right, the name that's coming to mind is Ben Shapiro. You know, he's famous for his catchphrase, “Facts don't care about your feelings.” And the Left does this too. I mean, they practically worship science sometimes, in the way they speak, but there's almost this competition between the Left and the Right that, “We have the facts, you guys are the ones who are mistaken, we're the reasonable people, right? We're the ones who lead by reason, by facts, by science. Not just a squishy sort of internal stick your finger in the wind. Here is where we want things to go.” Me: Uh-huh. Josh Lewis: What's weird is if you go back to the enlightenment period, it was really, you know, the old, the Burkean model, say, was not anti-reason. Now from a certain lens, I think you can read Burke as if he's almost anti-reason. He was certainly very skeptical of our ability to apply reason. What he was was very, I say, he was very cautious about how far does reason get us. And prescription, which is really a really hard concept for me to define. I've never found, like, a succinct way of saying this, but it's almost a more, say, evolutionary process. I don't mean that in the secular Darwinian sense necessarily, but sort of Burke wanted to craft a scenario where, via the stream of virtue, say, that we hold to these principles and that we allow for the trust that providentially we can stumble upon the truth. But that if we try to do it from a purely rational framework that it is, in a sense, denying our fallibility as humans. Now, neither of these are completely true, right? In a completely exhaustive sense, I would not say that reason has no place. It absolutely has a place. I mean, why would the good Lord endow us with reason if he doesn't intend for us to use it to, you know, to butcher a familiar quote. But I guess if I'm having to hold these things in tension, I would come out more on the side of prescription.  Me: Oh, and I, and even though we're on different sides of the coin, we're not very far from each other because we both agree on that principle of tension. Josh Lewis: We share the same coin. Some people want to throw the whole coin away. Me: Right, exactly. In fact, I've long talked about how one of the big differences between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was, even though the American founding created something new, they did so based on solid foundations found throughout history, from the Greeks from the Romans from all the different Enlightenment thinkers, and they actually built a lot on English common law, even though they were leaving England. Whereas the French Revolution, they kind of tried to do something entirely new without taking into consideration the realities of human nature, and it didn't turn out...as good as it could have, we'll say that much. Josh Lewis: I was gonna add to it, my hesitancy with, say, reason, with the other side of the coin, while I am very much pro-reason and I think that it's right, is sometimes the Left can take reason and run with it. Because the danger you can have with reason is you can assume that reason gets you as far as you need to, and therefore you can chuck everything behind that's come before you. In other words, you step outside this notion that we're fallible humans. Sometimes what the Left will do is they actually elevate those who are younger and less experienced because they're not tainted by the traditions of our broken, terrible, awful culture that we're just all trying to get out of. Now, I know you well enough just to know you don't subscribe to that idea at all. I'm not in any way accusing you of that. What I'm suggesting is that this is where I hold that kind of tension, as I recognize that while it is truthful that going too far down that road can play into sort of a Leftist framework. Me: Yeah, and we actually have talked about this before about how certain segments of libertarianism have so thoroughly abandoned the mooring notions of tradition that they've actually morphed to the Left, even though they might not realize it. Josh Lewis: Yeah. Me: And, I think that, you know, we've talked a lot about how one of the difficulties of the Republican Party, of the conservative movement, is that after the Soviet Union fell, anti-communism was no longer holding together these two notions in tension and that a lot of libertarians and a lot of more traditionalist type conservatives have gone their own separate ways. And now, they're no longer holding each other together in healthy ways. Josh Lewis: Yeah. Me: So, I think it's important for people like me, people like you to demonstrate, you know, hey, we might have different flavors to how we think, you might lean different ways, but we're in this project together, and it needs to be more that way. You know that I'm a huge advocate of fusionism, so... Josh Lewis: Yeah. Me: So, I guess going back to our discussion of, you know, self-evident truths [and] what they are, do you see Burke as kind of your genesis of political philosophy? Do you go beyond Burke, further back? Do you recognize that there's more there, but you just haven't delved into it? What's, kind of, your thoughts there? Josh Lewis: That one. (laughing) Yeah, I haven't exactly read everything Plato's written, hardly anything. I would, you know, I have strayed away from using the phrase, I used to say this all the time, that Burke was the “father of modern conservatism.”  Usually, when we say modern, we think of 1950s onward, I actually mean the last several centuries. Yuval Levin, he has more conservative intellectual know-how in his little finger than I do in my entire body. He straight up says that Burke is not the father of conservatism, that Burke would actually object to this phrase, and I think that it's probably a more healthy way to look at it, that this is something that these are truths that Burke did not develop. All he was doing was articulating something that was already there. Now, I personally often will call myself, say, a Burkean-Kirkian conservative. Russell Kirk, being because that's sort of the American variety, say of this. While I'll still acknowledge, I think that conservatism is incomplete with just those two individuals. What I often mean by that is that Edmund Burke, for me, articulated and wrote down these principles and pulled together these truths of the past in a way that, prior to [him], say, you couldn't get just in one individual. And I don't mean that the truth is contained within Burke, say, but he did so better than anyone else I know of who came before him. And so that's kind of what I mean by Burke would be my founder, in a sense. I certainly hope that the more I delve into this, the broader I can...I'm actually currently reading through a lot of Leo Strauss's works, though sometimes he was critical of Burke. It's difficult, Strauss was German, and Burke was English, so I kind of made a joke: It's like the difference between reading Dietrich Bonhoffer [and] CS Lewis. You know, Lewis, with Lewis and Burke, you feel like you're in a [room] smoking a cigar and in front of a warm fire in [the] English countryside. With Bon Hoffer and Strauss, it's very German. It's exhausting. It's very matter of fact. But in reading him and reading Strauss, it's like this is a, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to capture this or not, but this is a completely different stream of thought that in some way feeds into the same river that we're all kind of swimming in, and that's, and I'm not, I am a Burkean, you know, I'm not Straussian. But I hold my Straussian brothers, say, in very high regard. I, you know, when it's in a certain sense, I would say Lockean classical liberalism could be viewed as part of the same stream, and so, just, it's hard to describe these things 'cause they're in tension. And it is kind of our starting point where we put a stake in the ground, say, you know, I don't have the ability to comprehend all of reality, but here is something, some text, some individual, some founder that I can recognize that helps me navigate this thing so that I can swim in this greater ocean. Me: You know, I agree, actually. Right now, I am taking a political philosophy class, and I'm having to read through Plato's Republic. Very difficult considering it was translated from Greek and it's thousands of years old. And there's a lot of things within Plato's Republic that initially, I recoil at. I'm like, whoa, you know, some people even argue that Plato gave philosophical permission thousands of years later for totalitarianism, for even communism, and things like that, but my professor kind of said something that put things a little more in context for me. He, and it kind of is related to your idea of a river and things flowing into that river. He said, you know, if you look at history as a string movement, or, you know, as a symphony, and at different periods of history, there are going to be crescendos that help guide the movement. Because people are connected to their times, not everything that they say is going to be 100% of value, but they help nudge us in a better direction. And he said Plato was a good place to start because he was essentially the earliest political philosopher and his whole goal was to...how do we create a just society? What is justice? How do we find that? And then the people that followed him took up that question. And I guess as I look at all of this and as I've learned more about this, I'm growing concerned that there are certain efforts, temporary efforts that look back at these things that we might call crescendos, and instead of taking what is of value from those moments, they want to discredit those moments entirely because of the negative things that accompanied it. And I guess that's my big problem with the tension between the 1776 project and the 1619 project is, it takes this great injustice, slavery, something that has existed from the foundations of humanity, something that was written about in our earliest documents in history as, “well this is normal, this has been around for a while.” And then they try to discredit something that was new and tried to make things better and ultimately allowed for us to move beyond slavery, you know. And so, they're essentially saying, oh, slavery discredits the American Founding, 1619 is the real founding in these things. And to me, it's like, well, how do we proceed forward in trying to find justice, trying to find freedom, trying to find the best way to govern a society, if we can no longer look backwards and find what's good because it's all discredited by what we consider as discrediting and terrible and bad? Josh Lewis: Yeah, and so much of what you're saying, it touches on, say, I'll invoke his name again, a Burkean model, say, of change, right? It's, what is the value of the past? Is it something we build upon? Is it all wrong? Like, how do we progress as a species? And I think there's a certain faith, say, and I mean that in a very literal sense, a certain faith, on a progressive path or a Leftist notion of reality that humanity is always advancing, and that therefore we're actually furthering that process the more we can, even if it's in a civil sense, deconstruct what came before us. Whereas a conservative has a very, very different view of that. It's not whitewashing the past, it's not even, you know, I'll even go further than that [with the] 1619 project. Because, what you said is absolutely true, and it is a common critique, say of the Right toward the Left, in the United States anyways, to point out rightly that slavery existed, and every civilization that we know of and every period of time that we know of, really the only question was whether or not one civilization or nation or people were stronger than the other. And that, it's incomplete to just tell the story that this happens in the United States because the real story is it was Western civilization, largely the Anglophile, the English-speaking people that eliminated this horrible blight on humanity. And that is true. But there are also other things that are true about it, which is there are different versions and flavors and severity of slavery. I'm not saying that some slavery is OK and others [aren't], but I do think it's also incumbent upon us to recognize that sometimes things are more evil or barbaric, that in the United States, in particular, we have, more so than other parts of the world and other times, slavery can be a problem between races, right? White versus black to the point that in the South there was that slavery was equipped and fueled by this idea of racism, but there's actually something superior about those of us who are white versus those who are black. There's a difference in the sort of barbarism and tasks that come with slavery pre or post cotton gin. You know, or when slaves were allowed to be brought to the continent versus when the, fortunately, the founders at least had the foresight, say, well, let's at least stop any more from coming here and have the very wrong idea that eventually this will just go away, right? Eventually, we're going to kind of evolve our way out of this, and unfortunately [they] couldn't foresee inventions like Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, which just kept it going. Anyway, the point being, I think there's a temptation on both sides. One is to paint the picture as all dark, all black in the past, and that we're constantly progressing forward, but the other is too literally white-wash, and I realize I'm using terms like black and white-wash, I don't mean that in a racial sense, to make the past look better than it actually was, and to kind of swallow it up in this “all people have done wrong things at all times and hey, look at us. We actually got this one right.” And that is true and worth celebrating. But I think it's also true that there's a particular uniquely American ugliness to slavery that it's hard to see how we progress beyond this if we're unwilling to acknowledge that, and I think sometimes it's honestly a conversation the Right is very uncomfortable having. Me: Yeah. I mean, in fact, I've actually had interesting conversations in the past about whether eliminating the slave trade without eliminating slavery possibly compounded the problem because, now it made slaves a greater commodity, and the South had to create a rationalization for allowing generational slavery. And it allowed it to be more connected into race and a lower sense of humanity. You know, 'cause if you go before the Revolutionary War, you know, you go into the traditions of slavery in Roman and Greek society, and a slave was just a certain level of class that you could rise from. You know, and that is one of the problems in America is that we made it generational. We made it so that you cannot rise from this. And the effects of that have lingered to the present day. And, of course, you know, then there's the whole discussion of, OK, how do we bring things back into balance without pushing it out of balance further the other way? Josh Lewis: Well, and it's interesting you say that because I think, you and I, if we were setting in a, say, coffee shop in 1776, we're having this conversation, right, and we've just declared independence with Great Britain. Or, maybe afterwards, we've won the war. We're trying to figure [this] out. We don't hold any political power, but we're having this conversation [about] where should we go from here? And we both acknowledge that slavery is wrong. It would also seem like a radical opinion to suggest a course that we now know killed 600,000 Americans to eventually put this back together, and that is not in any way to say slavery was OK or that we ought not to with an equal breath of revering the Founders, hold some of those responsible who were unwilling to take a stronger stance in trying to abolish slavery. But I think that's part of the problem, is when you have a distorted view of history, either from making things look too good or too bad, it makes it difficult to truly appreciate what were the actual facts on the ground. What were they trying to do? Because I think you can see a lot of instances in which even the Founders that held slaves were trying to find ways to set it up so that eventually this could eventually just fade. They didn't want hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, which, sadly, is what it ultimately took. They just wanted this to sort of peaceably, eventually, kind of make its way out. And I'm sure there were some Founders that would have been fine it for the rest of their lives, you know, slavery existed just as it did. But I think that's kind of where it's a complicated story, and I think we try to simplify it to our peril. Me: Yeah, wrestling with difficult facts is difficult. Josh Lewis: Yeah. Me: I've often posed the question, and there's not an easy answer: Could the North have beat the South pre-Industrial Revolution? Josh Lewis: Well, that is interesting, 'cause in the election of 1800, there was actually some talk in the North of seceding from the Union, which is weirdly hilarious when you think about our history. It might have been an interesting question, could the South have kept the North in? ' Me: ‘Cause, I mean, you know, if more Founders had put their foot down on the slave issue and forced the conflict to a head. How could that have turned out? I mean, there's no easy [answer] to that, but it's an interesting thing to think about. In a lot of ways, by the time we got around to Abraham Lincoln, by the time we got to that point in American history, the North had progressed so much more than the South, and it allowed us to have that outcome, and who knows if that outcome would have been as beneficial moving forward if that conflict had begun at any point in history before that. I don't know.  Josh Lewis: It is an interesting question. I mean, the traditional response that's given as to why, say, the Constitution is written the way it is, why it contains some overt, very offensive racist ideas within it is because that is what was necessary, or at least believed to be necessary, in order to form the Union. Is that true? I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's enough constitutional historians out there who could probably definitively answer that question. But it's an interesting thought experiment. What would have transpired had the Union never formed? Would we have had two separate countries? And if so, does that mean slavery ultimately was never going to be abolished in the South? None of this, of course, answers the question [of] whether or not what those individuals did was right. It's just, it's interesting to think. It's amazing how difficult it actually was to rid the world of something that, in reality slavery still exists, just not like it once did, but to rid the world of something that today, it's just...you would be hard-pressed to find someone who thought that was OK, that there was a time we actually enslaved people in this country. That's just such a revolting, abhorrent thought to us. And yet, how much it cost in blood and treasure to get to the point we are today. Me: Yeah. So, I guess my final question that we can discuss a little bit before wrapping things up, going back to the tension between the 1776 and the 1619 ideas: [are] the truths, is the path forward to be found in finding the tension between 1776 and 1619 or is it to be found just in understanding 1776 as it actually happened? You know, for better or worse, the Founders had to choose their priorities, you know, and they don't come out and address it within the musical, Hamilton, but it's there because Hamilton is close friends with an avowed abolitionist, and he seems to be an ally of abolition for a good portion of the play, but then, the musical, sorry, gotta be correct, it's a musical, not a play, but then near the end, you know, I can't remember at what point off the top of my head, but someone tries to remind Hamilton of that, of his support of that abolitionist who died and wasn't able to see his vision [come true] and Hamilton kind of just brushes it aside and says, we have other things to focus on right now, you know? So, I guess that's my question is, is the path forward finding a place where both the 1619 project and the idea of the 1776 project should be allowed to, you know, go and then find the tension between those two different things, or is it just more about properly understanding what happened in 1776, what happened in 1787, you know, what happened in the founding period? Josh Lewis: Well, and again, I'd say it's maybe a little of both. You know what I was saying earlier is, as a conservative, I would say that 1776, the value of that is that is we stumbled upon or providentially were provided some principles that we can still uphold to this day. Principles that ultimately allowed us to, you know, got us to the point of the Emancipation Proclamation. I think the value of 1619 is more an awareness of the darkness of our past. I don't think that these things are held in tension in the sense that there, somehow in between them, is the correct course of action. And part of which, I'm being a little hesitant, because part of what you're getting at is, or at least what I'm hearing, is kind of this notion of prudence and trade-off. And, this is again, a conservative, not necessarily a progressive vision, and that, I think it was Thomas Sowell that said, “The Left looks for solutions, the Right looks for trade-offs.” Now from a certain perspective, neither of those are right or wrong positions. They're just different. But I think there is missing in this era this kind of, the wisdom and the courage that is necessary to understand the moment we're in and where to go from there. And in giving you such a highbrow answer, such a pie in the sky answer, I know that I'm not being very specific. Although granted, this question wasn't extremely specific either, but I think this is something that you know harkening back to Burke, and this isn't a direct quote, but just sort of a combination of some things that are written was kind of this notion that what was needed in their moment. You think about that Burke was around this era, right? Around the American Revolution, the French Revolution. In a certain degree, these were new revolutionary moments, and I think most statesmen recognized, here is something that has never happened before. And I think, and I'm not trying to elevate the moment we live in, but I think you'll know what I mean when I say there's a certain sense in the air that we're in this ground shifting moment. Not the same as the American Revolution, say, but the sort of post-World War Two, post-Cold War, maybe post-fusionism moment of where do we go from here. And history is extremely valuable, but unfortunately, it's also extremely limited because we're not going to be able to find in the pages of history the solution for our exact moment. We might get partway there. What's really needed is prudence and wisdom. And the unfortunate understanding that we're going to get this wrong. Not all the time, not exhaustively, but we're not going to have the correct answer all the time, just as those Founders didn't know how do we actually abolish slavery, those who wanted to. And I'm not saying Hamilton was justifiable, say, in sort of saying it's not that big a deal, but you have to pick your priorities, and you have to recognize that in so doing, there are tradeoffs, and they can be very painful sometimes. Me: Yeah. I would add that a big part of moving forward is having the difficult conversations, breaching the difficult topics the way that we have done today. And you're right. Sometimes these discussions can be painful. Both me and you look at the founding generation, you know, as great wise men, we have put them on the pedestal and arguably, you know, for good reason. But it's important to recognize their humanity, to grapple with their difficult decisions, and possibly to discuss when we might need to make small corrections. You know, you look at the founding generation. They were making corrections to the Constitution within 10 or 20 years because they were trying to improve upon what they had created. But I think it's important to do that within the vision of what the overall goal is. Did you have any final points or anything you'd like to talk about here at the end of this wonderful, wonderful episode? Josh Lewis: I have never known how to answer that question, to be honest. So not necessarily, not necessarily. I'll just say again, I am thrilled and very honored I would be your first guest on the show, and I hope it was a good experience for you such that you will have other guests on. Me: Perfect, well, hopefully, we'll have you again. You know, before too much longer because I've always really liked our conversations. I think that the tension of our viewpoints really leads to excellent places. Get full access to Self-Evident at selfevident.substack.com/subscribe

On Reasons and Persons (1984), ch. 10-13. What makes a person persist over time? After using various sci-fi examples to test the Lockean (personhood=psychological continuity), physicalist (same brain=same person), and Cartesian (same soul=same person) theories, Parfit concludes that the whole notion is incoherent and isn't actually what we care about when wondering "will I die?" Part two of this episode is only going to be available to you if you sign up at partiallyexaminedlife.com/support. Get it now or listen to a preview. Sponsors: Visit TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/PEL for a free trial and $30 off an annual plan of The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service. Organize your Inbox: Get a free trial and save $25 at sanebox.com/pel. See headspace.com/PEL for a free month of guided meditations. Start a new monthly donation and have your first matched up to $250 at givewell.org/PEL (choose podcast and partially examined life at checkout). Learn about St. John's College at SJC.edu.

Welcome back to Episode 3! This week we dive into the stigma of doing activities alone. Why even though society is obsessed with being different as individuals, it still feels strange sometimes to be doing certain things alone. Join us as we break it down through discussion of individualistic vs. collectivist cultures, Neitzsche, the Lockean political theory, and plenty of hilarious anecdotes to tie it all together!

Please distribute widely. Introduction. Our podcast today is titled, The Moral Justification for the Second American Revolution. I am Laurie Thomas Vass, and this is the Citizens Liberty Party News Network podcast for November 17, 2020. We begin our argument for the moral justification of a second American revolution in agreement with a passage from Gordon Wood’s book, The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Wood wrote,           “To be an American could not be a matter of blood; it had to be a           matter of common belief and behavior. And the source of that    common belief and behavior was the American Revolution: it was the      revolution and only the Revolution that made them one people.” The point Wood is making is that the first American Revolution forged a common set of national cultural and social values that bound all citizens together into a shared national mission of liberty. A second American Revolution is justified to restore the moral philosophy of the shared national mission of liberty, obtained in the first revolution. Bradley Thompson, in his book, America’s Revolutionary Mind, describes the constellation of common beliefs of the Revolution, as the “American Moral Philosophy,” and cites Locke’s admonition that citizens who adhere to the American civic virtue do not undermine the liberty of other citizens.   Thompson wrote,           “Locke's fundamental law of nature (i.e., to follow right reason) issues           two commands: first, each and, every man should pursue his rational,           long-term self-interest; and, second, "No one ought to harm another in           his life, health, liberty, or possessions." No common set of cultural or social values currently bind the socialists into a common mission of liberty. The nation is evenly divided between citizens who desire socialism and citizens who desire freedom, and those two conceptions of America are incompatible and irreconcilable. In the election of 2020, in order to impose socialism, the socialists transgressed Locke’s second law of nature in the code of American Civic Virtue by taking away citizen’s rights to vote, and the socialists, have, therefore, abrogated their claim of American citizenship. Jefferson sought to keep a moral society separate and apart from government power. In subverting the election laws, the socialists seek to subordinate all of society under the jurisdiction of  a totalitarian government. Socialists seek to replace an independent moral society with the arbitrary power of government, that they alone control, through the agencies of their vanguard socialist party. The socialists knew, in advance, the damage their transgression would cause to the Trump voters, and proceeded anyways, to inflict that damage. The socialists did not limit their attack to subverting the American idea of individual rights, but, in evading the election laws, they also subverted the collective American right of self-determination and self-government. The socialists have claimed an illegitimate authority to govern, not derived from the consent of the governed. Having engaged in an immoral act to gain political power, the Democrats, will never return to the original contract, or voluntarily adhere to America’s civic virtue. Democrat socialists seek to elevate the attainment of raw political power of government over the natural rights of citizens. The socialists deny the claim of individual moral responsibility and seek to replace it with the principle that only socialist elites can judge morally correct behavior. Locke sees individual citizens as owners of their own labor. Socialists see citizens as property of the Socialist State. Locke sees each individual as a moral agent, able to reason, and entitled to freedom. Locke states that the moral system is based upon individualism. Daniel Webster stated, “Our system begins with the individual man. The public happiness is to be the aggregate of the happiness of individuals.”  Socialists seek to substitute Marxist ideology of class conflict for Locke’s reason and replace individual reason with a totalitarian obedience to the Socialist State, where citizens have no capacity for individual reason. Locke wrote that the single most important duty of government is to protect the God-given natural rights of their citizens. Locke stated that citizens possess a moral right to revolt when government violates those natural rights for the protection of which it was created. In return for security, Locke expected those citizens to follow the legal laws enacted by the government to translate the consent of the governed into elected representatives. Trump voters expected socialists to follow the legal laws of the code of American civic virtue of playing by the rules, established by common moral understanding of American values, and the socialists failed to follow the laws. This article does not seek to persuade the revolutionary leaders of the second revolution of the validity and morality of America’s common mission of liberty. This article is aimed at persuading those Trump voters who must make a personal, moral decision, that a second revolution is justified, and to persuade them to join the revolution to restore American civic virtue. A second revolution is morally justified to restore the original national social contract that established liberty and self-government. When the Democrats failed to follow the laws on election, they broke the original social contract of Jefferson’s Declaration. Trump voters now have a moral right to abolish and replace that illegitimate government. We explain that the purpose of Jefferson’s law of nature, translated into civil law, is to secure the natural rights of individuals. The moral justification of the first American Revolution was the belief that the British authorities intended to enslave the colonists. As early as 1765, John Adams raised the alarm in his 'Dissertation on the Feudal Law," in response to the Stamp Art. (C. Bradley Thompson, America’s Revolutionary Mind). Adams wrote,           "Nothing less than this seems to have been meditated for us, by           somebody in Great Britain. There seems to be direct and   formal           design on foot, to enslave all America."' In 1767, in response to the Townshend Acts, John Dickinson of Pennsylvania pursued the revolutionary logic in his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. He wrote,           “Some person may think this act of no consequence, because the           duties are so small. A fatal error. That is the very circumstance most           alarming to me. For I am convinced, that the authors of this law would           never have obtained an act to raise so trifling a sum.... In short, if they           have a right to levy a tax of one penny upon us, then they have a right to levy a million upon us.” Jefferson wrote in 1774,           "Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a           day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished  period, and           pursued, unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly           prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery.” Patrick Henry wrote,           “There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are           forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war           is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come… Is life so           dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and           slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may           take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” The socialists now seek to enslave Trump voters in a socialist tyranny. The avoidance of socialist slavery, imposed upon Trump voters by an illegitimate authority, justifies revolution today, just as it did in 1775. It is not the goal of this second revolution to impose individualist Lockean principles of government upon the socialists in order to force them to return to the original social contract. It is not the goal of this revolution to take control over the socialist national territory. It is not the goal of this revolution to employ lethal force against the socialists to eradicate them from the territory of the new nation. The goal of this revolution is a peaceful, civil dissolution of a currently irreconcilably divided nation into two new nations, one that restores the principles of liberty stated by Jefferson in the Declaration, and the other that seeks to subordinate the free will of citizens to the socialist will of the State. This podcast is the audio introduction of a much longer article, available for free at clpnewsnetwork.com. The other sections of the longer podcast are Section 1. The Moral Philosophy of Revolution. Section 2. The Restoration of American Moral Philosophy. Section 3. The Restoration of Jefferson’s American Mind. Section 4. Correcting Madison’s Constitutional Flaws. Section 5. The Indictment of the Democrat Party’s Crime to Destroy Liberty. Conclusion:  Is Life So Dear, or Peace So Sweet, As To Be Purchased At The Price of Chains and Socialist Slavery? I am Laurie Thomas Vass. This is the CLP News Network podcast for November 17, 2020. Please distribute widely.

William Reddinger speaks about strands of resistance theory in the American Revolution, considering Lockean, Continental, and Anglo interpretations of Romans 13. Dr. Reddinger has authored “The American Revolution, Romans 13, and the Anglo Tradition of Reformed Protestant Resistance Theory” in the Summer 2016 issue of American Political Thought. Some scholars argue that the theology of the American Revolution was fundamentally Lockean and largely incompatible with Christianity, a view that this article calls the Lockean view; more recently, others who advocate what this article calls the Lockean–Reformed view argue that the American Revolution was both Lockean and Reformed and that there is no incompatibility between these sources. This article critiques the Lockean–Reformed view and argues that there were two traditions of resistance theory in early Reformed Protestantism—the Continental tradition and the Anglo tradition. While these two traditions were not monolithic, the distinction is helpful in understanding how the theology of resistance during the American founding was different from the Continental tradition of resistance. It also allows one to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses both of the Lockean view and of the Lockean–Reformed view. Dr. Reddinger is Associate Professor of Government, History, and Criminal Justice at Regent University. Prior to coming to Regent, he taught political science at Wheaton College in Illinois and at South Texas College. He received his undergraduate degree from Grove City College in Pennsylvania before completing his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science at Northern Illinois University, where his studies focused on the history of political philosophy and American political thought. This is Christ the Center episode 651 (https://www.reformedforum.org/ctc651)

William Reddinger speaks about strands of resistance theory in the American Revolution, considering Lockean, Continental, and Anglo interpretations of Romans 13. Dr. Reddinger has authored “The American Revolution, Romans 13, and the Anglo Tradition of Reformed Protestant Resistance Theory” in the Summer 2016 issue of American Political Thought. Some scholars argue that the theology of […]

Metaphysical Theater Presents John Locke John Locke ; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. John Locke metaphysics miracle of awareness Portrait of Locke in 1697 by Godfrey Kneller, Locke was Born 29 August 1632 Wrington, Somerset, England Died 28 October 1704 (aged 72) High Laver, Essex, England Nationality English Alma mater Christ Church, Oxford Era 17th-century philosophy (Modern philosophy) Region Western philosophy School Empiricism Social contract Natural law Main interests Metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, education, economics Notable ideas Tabula rasa, primary/secondary quality distinction, social contract, consent of the governed, state of nature, Molyneux's problem. Lockean proviso, labor theory of property, law of opinion natural rights (rights of life, liberty and property) Influences Grotius, Descartes, Filmer, Pufendorf, Hobbes Influenced Hume, Kant, Berkeley, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shaftesbury, many subsequent political philosophers (including the Founding Fathers of the United States) Signature John Locke's kit-cat portrait by Godfrey Kneller, National Portrait Gallery, London baby does it make you Randy? Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in empiricism can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviours of one’s self. Life and work Locke's father, also called John, was a country lawyer and clerk to the Justices of the Peace in Chew Magna, who had served as a captain of cavalry for the Parliamentarian forces during the early part of the English Civil War. His mother was Agnes Keene. Both parents were Puritans. Locke was born on 29 August 1632, in a small thatched cottage by the church in Wrington, Somerset, about 12 miles from Bristol. He was baptised the same day. Soon after Locke's birth, the family moved to the market town of Pensford, about seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke grew up in a rural Tudor house in Belluton. In 1647, Locke was sent to the prestigious Westminster School in London under the sponsorship of Alexander Popham, a member of Parliament and his father's former commander. After completing studies there, he was admitted to Christ Church, Oxford, in the autumn of 1652 at the age of twenty. The dean of the college at the time was John Owen, vice-chancellor of the university. Although a capable student, Locke, John Metaphysical T

Welcome to Mutual Exchange Radio, a project of the Center for a Stateless Society. Joining me today is Will Gillis. Will is the director of the Center and is a second generation anarchist who’s worked as an activist in countless projects since getting involved in the lead-up to N30. He studies physics and writes regularly on the egalitarian potential of markets. His writing can be found on his website, humaniterations.net, as well as on C4SS.org. Today’s discussion centers around a technical topic in political philosophy that has utmost importance for real-world political movements and many ideological debates: the distinction between positive and negative liberty. Will positions himself as defending a universalist conception of positive liberty as primary and against particularly neo-Lockean libertarian views that place negative liberty as fundamental, but in many ways he comes at it from a different, more highly consequentialist perspective than most theorists. He also has some interesting theories for how a heavy priority on negative liberty has lead many American libertarians towards alt-right and fascist perspectives. This was a fun, philosophically exciting conversation and I hope it is as thought-provoking for you as it was for me. Be warned though, it is a long one which is necessary since we covered a lot of ground and Will takes a lot of great philosophical sophistication and thoughtfulness into his views, which I hope comes across here.

Today we will continue the series that will lead us to the philosophical background that drives our professorship today.  You'll recall in episode 65, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution to see the Lockean and Ruesauean forms of democracy in action.  This all started with podcast #61, so if you are just jumping in, you'll want to revisit those episodes as well.  Today, we will examine the emerging American literary landscape as well as the Victorian era in Europe and the industrial revolution For reference this will be from 1815 until about 1871.  Eventually this will help us decipher the background of the Crime of the Century.

Today we will continue the series that will lead us to the philosophical background that drives our professorship today.  You'll recall in episode 63, we reviewed the Lockean and Rousseauan political theories and today we'll see them in action.  Remember, this all started with the birth of natural science and the Thirty years war, so if you need to catch up, don't forget to watch episode 62 and 63.  Today we will explore the American Revolution, and the French Revolution to see the philosophes in action.  This will eventually help us decipher the background of the Crime of the Century.

Facebook cryptocurrency :: Libertarian Party goals :: Lockean proviso :: Libertarian migration to New Hampshire :: NH Liberty Alliance :: Facebook crypto PR stunt? :: Unbacked stablecoin :: Facebook payments :: Fear of central bankers toward Facebook crypto :: HOSTS - Ian, Rich P., Chris W.Commercial free broadcast from June 28, 2019 on the Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, online at heartlandnewsfeed.com, Spreaker and other platforms.Listen Live: https://www.heartlandnewsfeed.com/listenliveFollow us on social mediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/hlnfradionetworkTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/HLNF_BulletinInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heartlandnewsfeedMastadon: https://liberdon.com/@heartlandnewsfeedDiscord: https://discord.gg/6b6u6DTSupport us with your financial supportStreamlabs: https://streamlabs.com/heartlandmediaPayPal: https://www.paypal.me/heartlandmediaSquare Cash: https://cash.app/$heartlandnewsfeedPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/heartlandnewsfeedCrypto via 1UpCoin: https://1upcoin.com/donate/heartlandmediaBusiness contact: jake.leonard@heartlandnewsfeed.com

Hannes Leitgeb (MCMP/LMU) gives a talk at the MCMP Workshop on Bayesian Methods in Philosophy titled "The Lockean Thesis Revisited".

In this episode, Jeremy Sheff, Professor of Law and Director of the Intellectual Property Law Center at St. John's University School of Law, discusses his article "Jefferson's Taper." Sheff begins by describing Thomas Jefferson's "Parable of the Taper," found in a letter to Isaac McPherson, in which Jefferson argues that there is no natural right of property in inventions, which are a fire than can be spread from one person to another, without dimming the source. This parable has figured prominently in contemporary debates between utilitarian and Lockean theories of the justification for patents, with utilitarians seeking endorsement in the parable, and Lockeans rejecting it. Sheff argues that Jefferson was actually paraphrasing Cicero's iconic work "De Officiis," and drawing on a very different Classical tradition of natural law. Not only does this perspective help us better understand what Jefferson actually meant, but also it may a provide helpful new perspective on the contemporary debate. Sheff is on Twitter at @jnsheff. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Drive Thru Order AI Takes Over :: Banks and Technology :: Chik-fil-A :: Cigarette Restrictions :: Luddites :: Automat :: Agorism :: Lockean Proviso :: Oath of Office :: Tax Slavery :: So-Called Fair Tax :: Universal Basic Income :: Entitlement Mentality :: Anarchapulco Bonus Interview - Geoff McCabe :: HOSTS - Ian, Rich E., Rich P. Sky Pilot Radio http://skypilotradio.com/

Typically, people may describe a “wide-ranging” podcast conversation as covering topics from A to Z to あ. Maybe that's the case for those podcasts. Us dawdlers? Eh… Ryan thinks this episode is on the psychology of “over”-population and Malthusian growth dynamics. Harland thinks Ryan just doesn't like being one-of-many and is heavily invested in the narrative of Lockean individualism or something. Whatever the case may be, they cover a wide range of topics from—Hey, look! Sections! 00:04:45 – Thomas Malthus stuff 00:13:34 – Paul Ehrlich/Tragedy of the Commons 00:20:38 – Ryan's Lament/The Psychology of “Over”-population 00:35:28 – Harland's Reverse/Back to Ecology 00:58:26 – Human Exceptionalism/Growth Curbs (eh-heh-heh…) 01:02:39 – Back to Psychology 01:34:02 – What is a Population?/Shit Related to Offspring/Harland Being Radical

We enter the early modern age with an expert opinion featuring Teresa Bejan, associate professor at Oriel College, Oxford University and author of “Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration.” In this episode, Jacob and Teresa will discuss political thought on tolerance and the limits of religious speech in early modern England and colonial America. The episode investigates the writings of intellectual rock stars John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke and the less famous but hugely relevant Roger Williams.   Among the topics discussed are: Milton’s “Areopagitica” Early colonial religious “hate speech” laws Why Hobbes found “the mere fact of disagreement offensive”   The origin, development, and limits of Lockean tolerance Williams’s combination of fundamentalist evangelical intolerance and free speech fundamentalism Why political theory and practice of the 17th century is relevant to modern day controversies on free speech Bejan is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Oriel College. She is the author of Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on iTunes, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud. Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 248. TEMP: http://traffic.libsyn.com/livera/SLP15_-_Stephan_Kinsella.mp3 From my recent appearance on Stephan Livera's bitcoin-focused podcast. SLP15 – Intellectual Property, Bitcoin, and Internet Censorship, with Stephan Kinsella Stephan Kinsella, Intellectual Property lawyer, and libertarian advocate joins me in this episode to discuss: His story with bitcoin Money as Sui Generis Good The imprecise application of Lockean property theory Why you can't own bitcoin, but it probably doesn't make a big difference anyway The harmful effects of patents and copyright ‘Internet Censorship' as it relates to property rights and ownership of private social media platforms Stephan Kinsella links: Twitter: @nskinsella Stephan's website: StephanKinsella.com Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom Stephan Kinsella's podcast, Kinsella on Liberty Podcast links: Libsyn SLP15 Apple Stitcher Spotify I really enjoyed this conversation with Stephan Kinsella, and I hope you enjoy listening to it. If you get value out of this episode, please remember to share it on your social media as that really helps expand my reach. Thanks guys.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 248. TEMP: http://traffic.libsyn.com/livera/SLP15_-_Stephan_Kinsella.mp3 From my recent appearance on Stephan Livera's bitcoin-focused podcast. SLP15 – Intellectual Property, Bitcoin, and Internet Censorship, with Stephan Kinsella Stephan Kinsella, Intellectual Property lawyer, and libertarian advocate joins me in this episode to discuss: His story with bitcoin Money as Sui Generis Good The imprecise application of Lockean property theory Why you can’t own bitcoin, but it probably doesn’t make a big difference anyway The harmful effects of patents and copyright ‘Internet Censorship’ as it relates to property rights and ownership of private social media platforms Stephan Kinsella links: Twitter: @nskinsella Stephan’s website: StephanKinsella.com Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom Stephan Kinsella’s podcast, Kinsella on Liberty Podcast links: Libsyn SLP15 Apple Stitcher Spotify I really enjoyed this conversation with Stephan Kinsella, and I hope you enjoy listening to it. If you get value out of this episode, please remember to share it on your social media as that really helps expand my reach. Thanks guys.

Stephan Kinsella, Intellectual Property lawyer, and libertarian advocate joins me in this episode to discuss: His story with bitcoin Money as Sui Generis Good The imprecise application of Lockean property theory Why you can't own bitcoin, but it probably doesn't make a big difference anyway The harmful effects of patents and copyright 'Internet Censorship' as it relates to property rights and ownership of private social media platforms

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other,” wrote America's 2nd president, John Adams.  What exactly does it mean to be a moral and religious people?  Was Adams referring to Christian virtues or just those who are civic minded?  And was he right?  Can our country operate properly, if at all, if we cease to be the sort of people he had in mind?   Lockean liberalism--the belief that humans have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--is a secular enterprise.  Since all humans have spiritual yearnings, a purely liberal worldview is incomplete.  Therefore, those who live in a liberal society will always seek out some transcendental belief system, ideology, religion, or greater purpose.  For centuries the West has turned to the Judeo-Christian faith as the only belief system that doesn’t ultimately undermine society.  Yet today that the Judeo-Christian heritage is quickly becoming nothing more than a footnote in our history books.   Saving Elephants host Josh Lewis is joined again by Bob Burch to discuss what it means for the prospects of American democracy to continue into a post-Christian age.  In full disclosure, Josh and Bob are both professing protestant Christians whose views are biased but fair.  But whether you're a Christian or not, this series is an important discussion for anyone interested in liberal democracy and the long-term viability of our constitutional republic and the American experiment.

We hear life, liberty and property, the Lockean version, or life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which was something that the Founding Fathers of course used in the Declaration of Independence. It's really interesting and important that property was replaced with pursuit of happiness. In order to be able to pursue the American dream, something that people even today risk their lives coming from other countries to come to the United States to be free and to be able to pursue their right to earn an honest living, to earn food and shelter for their families and to create things. You need to have property rights. You need to have ownership. You need to know that the things that you own and the things that you create are yours.Music by Cellophane Sam. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority?  In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority? In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.  

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority? In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority? In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority? In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Political states claim the moral right to rule the persons living within their jurisdiction; they claim the authority to make and enforce laws, establish policies, and allocate benefits and burdens of various kinds. But states also claim rights over their territories. These include rights to establish and protect borders, to control airspace, extract and use natural resources on and beneath their geographical region. Philosophers have long wondered about the basis for states claims to authority over persons. But there are additional questions regarding the territorial authority claimed by states. How do states come to possess rights to the natural resources that lie beneath the ground? How might the moral character of the initial acquisition of land impact a states present claims to authority? In Boundaries of Authority (Oxford University Press, 2016) A. John Simmons (University of Virginia) argues that leading accounts of state authority are insufficient to address successfully the distinctive questions regarding state boundaries. Building on his own Lockean individualist account of authority, Simmons develops a philosophical conception of how the moral rights claimed by states could be justified.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Thoughts from Maharrey Head, I talk about the insidious nature of identity politics, and the Lockean conception of equality. Click here for the show notes page: http://bit.ly/2e8C6ls

I'm pleased to post show # 257, June 17, my interview with Prof. Neil Netanel of UCLA Law, author of From Maimonides to Microsoft: The Jewish Law of Copyright Since the Birth of Print. I've had occasion to discuss Jewish intellectual property law in the past, and always seize the opportunity when it arises. Neil offers such an opportunity, as he's written a thoroughly researched and annotated history of the Jewish copyright law and theory. As we discussed, this was a particular challenge since the word "copyright" is largely absent from Jewish writing. Drawing on extensive Jewish law and commentary over centuries, Neil articulates the many facets of Jewish copyright theory that capture elements of modern copyright theoretical bases like personhood and Lockean labor. By examining not just the theory but the types of disputes that arose in Rabbinical courts, as well as the relationship between Jewish jurists and their non-Jewish counterparts, we had a unique and fascinating discussion. Having a prolific and thoughtful scholar on the show is always an honor; thus, I hope that you enjoy this in-depth conversation with one of intellectual property law's scholarly giants! {Hearsay Culture is a talk show on KZSU-FM, Stanford, 90.1 FM, hosted by Center for Internet & Society Resident Fellow David S. Levine. The show includes guests and focuses on the intersection of technology and society. How is our world impacted by the great technological changes taking place? Each week, a different sphere is explored. For more information, please go to http://hearsayculture.com.}

The recent episodes of political violence, emanating from both sides of the ideological spectrum, shocked the nation. Rhetorically ratcheting up the tension, Donald Trump mused that there might be riots if he is denied the nomination, while a left leaning critic of Donald Trump characterized the billionaire-populist as an "existential threat" to America. In our most recent episode, "De- legitimization, Political Violence, and Lockean Revolution," we examine these events and words from the broader perspective of a Crisis of Legitimacy in American economic, social, and political processes and institutions. We conclude the episode by linking this Crisis of Legitimacy to Locke's account of Revolution. Enjoy.

Does government allow for the possession of liberty, or simply constrain it? This was a classic debate among enlightenment thinkers. In my book, Compact of the Republic, I explained the Lockean concept of natural rights and his view of when it was moral to alter or abolish one's government: amzn.to/2y2ad5X Best books on this topic: -John Locke, Two Treatises of Government: https://amzn.to/2ItoGNi -Murray Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty: https://amzn.to/2N35LJT -Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution: https://amzn.to/2xJ7D5A -Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists: https://amzn.to/2OhIiJC Website: www.davebenner.com Youtube: www.youtube.com/dbenner83

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke's psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson's influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies.

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke’s psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson’s influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke’s psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson’s influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 169. I was interviewed today by Daniel Rothschild for his "Live Free, Die Old" Youtube channel. We discussed primarily the fallacious argument that Lockean-libertarian-based property titles are flawed if they are based on conquest or cannot be traced back to the first homesteader. Background material: Rothbard on the “Original Sin” in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974 Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe on the “Original Sin” in the Distribution of Property Rights Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts… Property Title Records and Insurance in a Free Society  

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 169. I was interviewed today by Daniel Rothschild for his "Live Free, Die Old" Youtube channel. We discussed primarily the fallacious argument that Lockean-libertarian-based property titles are flawed if they are based on conquest or cannot be traced back to the first homesteader. Background material: Rothbard on the “Original Sin” in Land Titles: 1969 vs. 1974 Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe on the “Original Sin” in the Distribution of Property Rights Justice and Property Rights: Rothbard on Scarcity, Property, Contracts… Property Title Records and Insurance in a Free Society  

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 049. This is lecture 5 (of 6) of my 2011 Mises Academy course “Libertarian Controversies.”  This talk covered "Controversies and Conundrums," such as monarchy vs. democracy, discrimination and diversity, immigration, incitement and causation (cont.), property rights, legal and logical positivism, fraud, contracts and inalienability, self-ownership, creation and the source of rights, and common libertarian misconceptions and mistakes such as scarcity vs. nonrivalry, states' rights, loser-pays system, an educational voucher system, push the button hypos, rights as a subset of morals, spam as aggression, the danger of metaphors and equivocation, working for the state, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, and fine print in contracts, federalism, left vs. rights, activism, use of courts, forgiving crimes, abandoned property, fractional reserve banking, inalienability/voluntary slavery, mutualism, relevant technological unit, the Lockean proviso, the Blockean proviso, Rothbard on copyright, Constitutional sentimentalism, Georgism, strategy, thick vs. thin, and other issues. Slides for this lecture are appended below (also used for lecture 6). For background information, links to recommended reading, and audio and slides for all six lectures, see  KOL 045 | “Libertarian Controversies Lecture 1" (Mises Academy, 2011). The remaining lectures will be released here in the podcast feed in upcoming days. Update: See KOL395 | Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (PFS 2022). Update: The videos of all six lectures are now available here; the video for this particular lecture is embedded below.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 050. This is lecture 6 (of 6) of my 2011 Mises Academy course “Libertarian Controversies.”  This talk continued lecture 5, which covered "Controversies and Conundrums," such as monarchy vs. democracy, discrimination and diversity, immigration, incitement and causation (cont.), property rights, legal and logical positivism, fraud, contracts and inalienability, self-ownership, creation and the source of rights, and common libertarian misconceptions and mistakes such as scarcity vs. nonrivalry, states' rights, loser-pays system, an educational voucher system, push the button hypos, rights as a subset of morals, spam as aggression, the danger of metaphors and equivocation, working for the state, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, and fine print in contracts, federalism, left vs. rights, activism, use of courts, forgiving crimes, abandoned property, fractional reserve banking, inalienability/voluntary slavery, mutualism, relevant technological unit, the Lockean proviso, the Blockean proviso, Rothbard on copyright, Constitutional sentimentalism, Georgism, strategy, thick vs. thin, and other issues. Slides for this lecture are appended below (also used for lecture 5). For background information, links to recommended reading, and audio and slides for all six lectures, see  KOL 045 | “Libertarian Controversies Lecture 1" (Mises Academy, 2011). Update: The videos of all six lectures are now available here; the video for this particular lecture is embedded below.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 049. This is lecture 5 (of 6) of my 2011 Mises Academy course “Libertarian Controversies.”  This talk covered "Controversies and Conundrums," such as monarchy vs. democracy, discrimination and diversity, immigration, incitement and causation (cont.), property rights, legal and logical positivism, fraud, contracts and inalienability, self-ownership, creation and the source of rights, and common libertarian misconceptions and mistakes such as scarcity vs. nonrivalry, states' rights, loser-pays system, an educational voucher system, push the button hypos, rights as a subset of morals, spam as aggression, the danger of metaphors and equivocation, working for the state, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, and fine print in contracts, federalism, left vs. rights, activism, use of courts, forgiving crimes, abandoned property, fractional reserve banking, inalienability/voluntary slavery, mutualism, relevant technological unit, the Lockean proviso, the Blockean proviso, Rothbard on copyright, Constitutional sentimentalism, Georgism, strategy, thick vs. thin, and other issues. Slides for this lecture are appended below (also used for lecture 6). For background information, links to recommended reading, and audio and slides for all six lectures, see  KOL 045 | “Libertarian Controversies Lecture 1" (Mises Academy, 2011). The remaining lectures will be released here in the podcast feed in upcoming days. Update: The videos of all six lectures are now available here; the video for this particular lecture is embedded below.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 050. This is lecture 6 (of 6) of my 2011 Mises Academy course “Libertarian Controversies.”  This talk continued lecture 5, which covered "Controversies and Conundrums," such as monarchy vs. democracy, discrimination and diversity, immigration, incitement and causation (cont.), property rights, legal and logical positivism, fraud, contracts and inalienability, self-ownership, creation and the source of rights, and common libertarian misconceptions and mistakes such as scarcity vs. nonrivalry, states' rights, loser-pays system, an educational voucher system, push the button hypos, rights as a subset of morals, spam as aggression, the danger of metaphors and equivocation, working for the state, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, and fine print in contracts, federalism, left vs. rights, activism, use of courts, forgiving crimes, abandoned property, fractional reserve banking, inalienability/voluntary slavery, mutualism, relevant technological unit, the Lockean proviso, the Blockean proviso, Rothbard on copyright, Constitutional sentimentalism, Georgism, strategy, thick vs. thin, and other issues. Slides for this lecture are appended below (also used for lecture 5). For background information, links to recommended reading, and audio and slides for all six lectures, see  KOL 045 | “Libertarian Controversies Lecture 1" (Mises Academy, 2011). Update: The videos of all six lectures are now available here; the video for this particular lecture is embedded below.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 036. I was a last-minute guest last week for the Rothbardian Circle (substituting for Dan D'Amico), a Miami-based discussion group, for their event "Introduction to Free Markets/Libertarian Theory" (Mar. 20, 2013). We discussed a variety of issues, mostly in a Q&A format, including the essentials of libertarian property theory, Lockean homesteading, Rothbard's idea of the "relevant technological unit," the labor theory of property, intellectual property, and other issues. The event was reported in the article Republicans and Libertarians team up for the Rothbardian Circle.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 036. I was a last-minute guest last week for the Rothbardian Circle (substituting for Dan D'Amico), a Miami-based discussion group, for their event "Introduction to Free Markets/Libertarian Theory" (Mar. 20, 2013). We discussed a variety of issues, mostly in a Q&A format, including the essentials of libertarian property theory, Lockean homesteading, Rothbard's idea of the "relevant technological unit," the labor theory of property, intellectual property, and other issues. The event was reported in the article Republicans and Libertarians team up for the Rothbardian Circle.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 004. Update: See also Thoughts on Walter Block on Voluntary Slavery, Alienability vs. Inalienability, Property and Contract, Rothbard and Evers (Jan. 9, 2022); Batting about voluntary slavery (Oct. 5, 2011); Slavery, Inalienability, Economics, and Ethics See also Walter Block's response: Walter E. Block, Block, "Rejoinder to Kinsella on ownership and the voluntary slave contract,” Management Education Science Technology Journal (MESTE) 11, no. 1 (Jan. 2023): 1-8 [pdf] Update: See KOL395 | Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection (PFS 2022). . Transcript below. Walter and me at my dad's house in Prairieville, Louisiana, for a (Catholic) baptism party for my son, October 2003 My longtime friend Walter Block was recently in town (Houston) and stayed over at my house one night. While we visited we had several discussions on libertarian theory, as we usually do when we see each other. He agreed to let me record a discussion on one of the few issues we do not completely agree on: voluntary slavery; we recorded this last night (Jan. 26, 2013). Walter believes voluntary slavery contracts ought to be enforceable in a private law society, and in this I believe he is wrong and in the minority of libertarians (with Nozick, say). We touched on a variety of issues, including debtor's prison, how acquisition of body-rights differs from Lockean homesteading, and the like. Youtube: Some of my writing relevant to this topic and our discussion include: A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 11-37 Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith, Winter 1998-99, Journal of Libertarian Studies. How We Come To Own Ourselves, Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006) (Mises.org blog discussion; audio version) Causation and Aggression (co-authored with Patrick Tinsley), The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, vol. 7, no. 4 (winter 2004): 97-112 Walter's articles on this topic include: Toward a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Gordon, Smith, Kinsella and Epstein, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 39-85 “Alienability: Reply to Kuflik,” Humanomics. Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007, pp. 117-136 “Are Alienability and the Apriori of Argument Logically Incompatible?” Dialogue, Vol. 1, No. 1. 2004. Alienability, Inalienability, Paternalism and the Law: Reply to Kronman American Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 28, No. 3, Summer 2001, pp. 351-371 Market Inalienability Once Again: Reply to Radin Thomas Jefferson Law Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 1999, pp. 37-88 Alienability, Inalienability, Paternalism and the Law: Reply to Kronman   Update: see this Facebook post: Stephan Kinsella: I agree with David Gordon. I disagree with pro-voluntary slavery libertarians, like Walter Block (Thomas L. Knapp is another, though he pettifogs on the use of the term "voluntary slavery"). Jeremiah Dyke: I too think it's insane not to have the ability to contract any percentage of your labor for any duration of time. [Sarcasm] Stephan Kinsella: This is not an argument. Abilities don't come from opinions. Let's be clear: to justify voluntary slavery means you have to justify the use of force by a would-be "master" against a would-be "slave", if the slave tries to run away or changes his mind or disobeys an order. The libertarian thinks use of violence against another person's body is unjustified aggression, unless it is (a) consented to, or (b) in response to aggression.  But the slave has not committed aggression, so (b) is not a possible justification. Some alienabilists disingenuously argue that it IS "aggression" since the master owns the slave's body, so it's trespass (aggression) for the slave to use the master's property (the slave's body) in ways the owner (master) does no...

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode 004. Walter and me at my dad's house in Prairieville, Louisiana, for a (Catholic) baptism party for my son, October 2003 My longtime friend Walter Block was recently in town and stayed over at my house one night. While we visited had several discussions on libertarian theory, as we usually do when we see each other. He agreed to let me record a discussion on one of the few issues we do not completely agree on: voluntary slavery; we recorded this last night. Walter believes voluntary slavery contracts ought to be enforceable in a private law society, and in this I believe he is in the minority of libertarians (with Nozick, say). We touched on a variety of issues, including debtor's prison, how acquisition of body-rights differs from Lockean homesteading, and the like. Some of my writing relevant to this topic and our discussion include: A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability, Journal of Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (Spring 2003): 11-37 Inalienability and Punishment: A Reply to George Smith, Winter 1998-99, Journal of Libertarian Studies. How We Come To Own Ourselves, Mises Daily (Sep. 7, 2006) (Mises.org blog discussion; audio version) Causation and Aggression (co-authored with Patrick Tinsley), The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, vol. 7, no. 4 (winter 2004): 97-112 Walter's articles on this topic include: Toward a Libertarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard, Barnett, Gordon, Smith, Kinsella and Epstein, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 39-85 “Alienability: Reply to Kuflik,” Humanomics. Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007, pp. 117-136 “Are Alienability and the Apriori of Argument Logically Incompatible?” Dialogue, Vol. 1, No. 1. 2004. Alienability, Inalienability, Paternalism and the Law: Reply to Kronman American Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 28, No. 3, Summer 2001, pp. 351-371 Market Inalienability Once Again: Reply to Radin Thomas Jefferson Law Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 1999, pp. 37-88 Alienability, Inalienability, Paternalism and the Law: Reply to Kronman     Update: see this Facebook post: Stephan Kinsella: I agree with David Gordon. I disagree with pro-voluntary slavery libertarians, like Walter Block (Thomas L. Knapp is another, though he pettifogs on the use of the term "voluntary slavery"). Jeremiah Dyke: I too think it's insane not to have the ability to contract any percentage of your labor for any duration of time. [Sarcasm] Stephan Kinsella: This is not an argument. Abilities don't come from opinions. Let's be clear: to justify voluntary slavery means you have to justify the use of force by a would-be "master" against a would-be "slave", if the slave tries to run away or changes his mind or disobeys an order. The libertarian thinks use of violence against another person's body is unjustified aggression, unless it is (a) consented to, or (b) in response to aggression.  But the slave has not committed aggression, so (b) is not a possible justification. Some alienabilists disingenuously argue that it IS "aggression" since the master owns the slave's body, so it's trespass (aggression) for the slave to use the master's property (the slave's body) in ways the owner (master) does not consent to. This argument is disingenuous because it is question-begging; it presupposes the legitimacy of body-alienability, in order to prove it. So this does not fly. I will say that I get very tired of people who engage in question-begging arguments. They do this all the time in IP -- where they label an act of copying "stealing" in order to show that what was "stolen" must have been ownable property. Horrible reasoning. I hope you don't engage in this kind of dishonest trick.  As for (a); clearly the slave who tries to run away does NOT consent to the force the master wants to apply to him.

Ferris' book The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature is about the symbiotic relationship between science and liberalism. His liberalism was Lockean. One can do anything but bridge other's rights. Science can only thrive in a liberal environment. And, liberalism needs science for health, wealth and happiness.Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights posits that rights are self evident. Reason made this realization clear. But all of these ideas had to be learned. Novels allowed much of this learning to occur.

Recorded March 12, 2010, at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

Robert Nozick, 1938-2002, was a professor at Harvard whose best known book is Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) – a libertarian answer to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (1971). Most controversially, Nozick argued that a consistent upholding of the non-aggression principle would allow and regard as valid consensual or non-coercive enslavement contracts between adults. He rejected the notion of inalienable rights advanced by Locke and most contemporary capitalist-oriented libertarian academics, writing in Anarchy, State and Utopia that the typical notion of a "free system" would allow adults to voluntarily enter into non-coercive slave contracts.Murray Rothbard, 1926-1995, wrote The Ethics of Liberty as his main political philosophy work. He accepted the labor theory of property, arguing that mixing labor with unowned land made the land private property which could then trade hands by trade or gift. He rejected the Lockean proviso that individuals could only homestead land where “there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.”Rothbard was concerned with how we know what is right or good. His is Aristotle’s natural law reasoning. He rejected Mises conviction that ethical values remain subjective. Rothbard concludes that interventionist policies do benefit some people, including certain government employees and welfare beneficiaries.Lecture 10 of 10 from David Gordon's The History of Politcal Philosophy: From Plato to Rothbard.