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March 19, 2020|Bear Braumoeller, Liberal World Order, peace, Steven Pinker, War

Have We Seen the End of War?

by Andrew A. Szarejko|

The guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) transits the Arabian Gulf, Feb. 22, 2020 (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Griffin Kersting/Released).
Braumoeller dispatches the unconvincing argument that, as Pinker claims, the spread of “Renaissance humanism and empathy” is driving a decline in war.

September 23, 2015|Federalist Society, Heterodox Academy, ideological diversity, Jonanthan Haidt, Liberty Fund, Steven Pinker, University of California

Advancing Heterodoxy

by John O. McGinnis|

It is hard to exaggerate how homogeneous are political views in the academic world. Law professors are the most liberal category among all lawyers who are themselves quite liberal. Many precincts within the university are even further left than the legal academy. But this nation is founded on the premise that the clash of views leads to better ideas and better policy. The ideologically monochromatic cast of our academic world should thus be of concern to many, regardless of their political perspective. That is why I am so pleased that a new organization, The Heterodox Academy, has been established to try to bring in a fuller representation of a wider range of views.

As Jonathan Haidt, one of the leading professors of social psychology, said in his welcoming post:

At HeterodoxAcademy, our contributors have documented the near absence of political diversity in many fields, and we have demonstrated the damaging effects that this homogeneity has on scholarship in those fields. We are not the first to do so. Scholars have been calling to this problem for decades… and nothing has been done.

This time will be different. We have come together to pool resources, analyze current trends in the academy, discuss possible solutions, and advocate for policies and systemic changes that will increase viewpoint diversity in the academy and therefore improve the quality of work that the academy makes available to the public, and to policymakers.

Members of this venture include well-known academics, like Professor Haidt and Steven Pinker as well as more obscure ones like this writer.

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February 1, 2015|Christianity, Materialism, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker

A Paradoxical Ascent

by Todd Zywicki|

Christian apologetics—and, one suspects, arguments generally—can take two basic forms: they can be directed toward trying to persuade others of the truth of one’s position or they can be self-reflective, focusing on arguments that one finds personally persuasive and to explain one’s personal conviction as to why one argument is more persuasive than another. In True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of our Complex World, David Skeel, the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at Pennsylvania Law School, has written a book that is an exemplar of the latter. Rather than seeking directly to persuade the reader of the truth of Christianity, Skeel's apologia instead reads…

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October 8, 2012|Evolutionary Psychology, Group Selection, Steven Pinker

Individual versus Group Selection

by Mike Rappaport|

One of the most interesting fields for understanding human behavior is evolutionary psychology (the successor to sociobiology).  Despite appearances to the contrary, this field includes both conservatives and liberals.  It continues to provoke, however, tremendous debates on both political and theoretical issues.

One of these debates involves the level at which natural selection occurs.  One way of framing this issue is whether natural selection operates only at the level of the gene or also at other levels, including the group.  People who believe that group selection occurs often describe themselves as favoring multilevel selection, since they believe selection occurs at multiple levels.  (I should note that advocates of multilevel selection might not agree with the way that this paragraph defines the debate.)

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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