| 2004 Summer Seminar |
—Edward Hudgins, Ph.D.
Course Description:
To speak of the values of a society is problematic: only individuals, strictly speaking, can have preferences, make choices and possess moral habits. In this talk, Edward Hudgins will analyze individual values as social infrastructure. Just as roads, electric grids, and phone lines facilitate our day-to-day lives and commerce, ethical infrastructure facilitates the kind of cultural and political regime that allows humans to live peacefully with others and to achieve their personal goals in life. And just as physical infrastructure for the most part should be left to the private sector rather than to governments, so ethical infrastructure should be left to individuals and private institutions, with governments limited to protecting individual rights. Hudgins will discuss the dynamics of the breakdown of the ethical infrastructure, which occurs when non-rational values dominate a society and governments interfere, and will show how these insights can help us strengthen the values appropriate to man qua man. Ed Hudgins is the Center’s Washington Director.
Schedule: Sunday, 11:30 - 12:45 PM
Track: Political/Cultural Commentary