Summer Reading

I’m reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.  I had never read anything by her. The references I had were mixed: praise by some libertarians; condemnation by others; Nozick’s piece “On the…

Reason as Weapon?

Interesting article in the NY Times about the so-called “argumentative theory of reasoning.” The claim, in a nutshell, seems to be that reason developed evolutionarily in order to allow us…

The Kochs, Again

I think James did an excellent job here dealing with controversy about the Koch’s and have little to add.  But today I saw this on Huffington Post, of all places. It…

Prison Break

Fernando suggests (below) that rather than complaining that “the incarceration rate in America is too high,” we should complain instead that “America punishes innocent persons” (e.g. drug users). Certainly the…

Judging States

One way to define liberalism, as I have previously indicated here is by reference to the normative principles of toleration it is committed to (as I suggested in that previous…