Why should the sins of the guilty cause suffering to the guiltless? If God could prevent such suffering of the innocent victims of sin but refrains from doing so, isn’t he also to blame? Isn’t he in some way an accessory to the sin? In other words, how can a good God permit bad things [...]
If a reform produces unintended consequences of a troubling sort, succeeding generations of reformers will make use of those consequences not to undo the original reform, but rather to call for new action that requires an ever-larger federal government… All reforms are notorious for their unintended consequences; liberal reforms are noteworthy for something that is [...]
Russell Kirk thought that because justice is rooted in nature and because in its perfection transcends all time and space, one can innately observe virtue in the actions of wise women and men. Such observation of our heroes and those we admire might be the best teacher in our current day, serving as reminders of [...]
The completion of Plato lies in the resurrection, in the reality that sees not just the immortality of the soul but the acting person as the source of all reason. Is there any way to bring political philosophy and revelation, Athens and Jerusalem, into a coherent, non-contradictory relation to each other without undermining the integrity [...]
Whether or not Mary Surratt participated in the conspiracy to kill Abraham Lincoln will never be known with certainty. But we can judge definitively the manner in which federal authorities obtained her conviction, and ultimately her execution. “Passion governs, and she never governs wisely,” wrote Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway in 1775.[1] Wise words from [...]
What right do I have to be walking in His Love and not reaping the miserable harvest of the hateful seeds I had sown? I have no right. It’s not about rights, but about Love and the mercy which is its fruit… In C.S. Lewis’s magical tale, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the [...]
Natural law jurisprudence seems to be our only salvation—the only way to re-establish the proper hierarchy of laws, the only way to put the prudence back in American jurisprudence… The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, by Russell Hittinger (ISI Books, 2002) As a professor of political science, I am often [...]
To shun wickedness, to care for our souls, and to love one another without looking for rewards, if followed by all, would turn injustice, now a constant companion of human life, into a stranger. In his 2005 masterpiece, Match Point, Woody Allen explores moral failing in a universe governed by chance, or what the protagonist [...]
In the murder mystery, the portrayal of an apparent Eden is broken by the intrusion of crime, and the specific crime of murder, so that by the intervention of clever and wise persons the social world can be healed and order restored… There’s a wonderful moment in one of the old Inspector Morse shows—the one [...]
Calls for “social justice” have a bad habit of appearing in caricature: the throwback hippiedom of Occupy Wall Street, the race-baiting rallies of Al Sharpton and other hucksters, the abortion proponents who think the First Amendment was written to protect their “right” to dress up as genitalia. If ever “social justice” was a content-rich term, [...]
Is rhetoric simply a fight, or is it part of a feast that is for the good of both the individual and the polis—as a feast is for the sustenance of ourselves, but more importantly, for the communion of a Body, of a community? Callicles says, “‘Too late for a share in the fight,’ so [...]
In Plato’s Republic, we hear of the tale of Gyges’ ring. This famous tale has been adapted in equally famous ways: one need only think of The Lord of the Rings, or Wagner’s Ring Cycle, to realize its perennial influence. But what is the meaning of this tale in the original form in which the Republic [...]
A. 1-2. We come now to the arguments, the logoi, that form the broad middle ring encircling the center. Just as the question concerning the connection of justice to happiness is answered by bringing to light the human soul in its mythical shape, so the soul itself, that is, its formal “constitution,” is discovered by [...]
For much of my academic life, I considered the terms, “values,” “rights,” and “social justice,” to have equivocal meanings. When these terms were used without clarification, they disrupted any fair social order. Each of the phrases had two or more meanings that usually meant the direct opposite of each other. Conversations and legislation in which [...]