| Type | Title | Author | Date |
| Article | Epistemology and Politics: Ayn Rand's Cultural Commentary | David Kelley | 12/1/2004 |
| Description: The events Rand wrote about are long past, the people long gone. Many of the issues and trends have disappeared off the rader screen. But her essays remain relevant today and her comments have staying power because she brought a philosophical perspective to bear. |
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| Article | Ayn Rand at 100 | Edward Hudgins | 12/1/2004 |
| Description: How do the most productive individuals, those who are responsible for a society’s prosperity, find themselves abused by politicians and dishonest businessmen and women? Ayn Rand sees the key in morality, and she coined the phrase that best describes the root of the problem: the sanction of the victim. |
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| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Liberty | | 10/1/2004 |
| Description: The Rule of Law in the Wake of Clinton, You Can't Say that, Cato Supreme Court Review, Restoring the Lost Constitution |
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| Article | The Freedom Olympics | Roger Donway | 10/1/2004 |
| Description: Americans typically measure their freedom by looking backward or forward--backward to the early republic or forward to their ideal republic. But another useful gauge can be obtained by looking outward--to the world's other republics, and to its non-republics as well. That is, we may wish to know, in the spirit of international sports competitions: How well does America do in its pursuit of freedom, when compared with other countries? |
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| Article | In Defense of Cowboy Capitalism | Roger Donway | 7/1/2004 |
| Description: Pro-capitalists need to offer a defense of big-business executives that is not undercut by libertinism, postmodern moral skepticism, religious morality, or utopian illusions. |
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| Op-ed | What Unites America? Unity in Individualism! | Edward Hudgins | 6/30/2004 |
| Description: On July 4th we celebrate the creation of the United States of America. But today Americans seem more divided than at any time in recent memory. In the Declaration of Independence we can rediscover the source of unity and freedom—the creed of individualism that defines this country. |
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| Letters | Letters: Art, Movies, Death (June, 2004) | | 6/1/2004 |
| Description: Art, artists, viewers, and value; The Virtues of Lost in Translation; Euthanasia |
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| Article | The Problem of Animal Rights | Shawn Klein | 6/1/2004 |
| Description: Americans overwhelmingly support some degree of legal protection for animals, and a quarter of those polled say that animals should have the same rights as humans. What arguments have philosophers made in favor of such legislation and how well do those arguments hold up? Could a philosophy of law that started from a valid of theory of rights justify extending some protection to animals? |
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| Op-ed | Are the People of the Middle East Fit for Freedom? | Edward Hudgins | 5/14/2004 |
| Description: Here's a twist on the Iraqi torture story. Our revulsion at the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and our system's ability to uncover and correct those abuses are signs of our moral and political health, based on universal principles of justice. But the lack of outrage in the ''Arab street'' to the mutilation of the burned bodies of dead allied soldiers or -- it seems -- the beheading of an American civilian raises the question, are the people of the Middle East fit for freedom? America's ability to transform dysfunctional societies is limited; citizens of those societies will need to reform their own countries for themselves. |
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| Center News | Las Vegas Conference on Values of Capitalism | | 5/1/2004 |
| Description: The Objectivist Center held its 2004 Spring Conference on April 17 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The theme was "Values of Capitalism." The scene was the sumptuous Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. |
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| Op-ed | A Flashback to ''Atlas Shrugged'' | Adam Reed | 4/28/2004 |
| Description: The recent train disaster in North Korea replays in reality a fictional crash from Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged." In this op-ed, Adam Reed observes that in both cases it was the hobbling of the human mind by repressive governments that turned technology from a live-giving force into a destroyer of lives. He concludes that man's right to live by the judgment of his own mind is a necessary precondition for human life. Where this right is denied, people die. |
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| Center News | The Best Moral Case for Capitalism | | 4/27/2004 |
| Description: In May 2002,Dinesh D'Souza and David Kelley debated "The Best Moral Case for Capitalism." The FreedomFest website now has available several portions of this debate. |
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| Perspectives | The Battle for Toleration--and Its Betrayal | Roger Donway | 11/1/2003 |
| Description: According to Alan Charles Kors, “Voltaire’s deepest influence on Western civilization is the enshrining of toleration as a virtue.” Yet today the concept of toleration he promoted has been thoroughly perverted. |
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| Article | Interpreting the Constitution Contextually | David Mayer | 10/1/2003 |
| Description: Debate over constitutional interpretation, and Supreme Court nominees, is often conducted in terms of strict construction versus loose construction and conservative versus liberal. The participants in these debates—like the six blind men with the elephant—have all got hold of a partial truth but have missed the big picture.
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| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Constitutional Philosophy | | 10/1/2003 |
| Description: Locke in America: The Moral Philosophy of the Founding Era
By Jerome Huyler; Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution By Forrest McDonald; Taking the Constitution Seriously By Walter Berns; Cato Supreme Court Review: 2001–2002
Edited by James L. Swanson
|
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| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: The Red Death | | 9/1/2003 |
| Description: Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum; The Harvest of Sorrow By Robert Conquest; Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism By Joshua Muravchik; The Black Book of Communism By Stéphane Courtois et al. |
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| FrontReport | Report from the Front: Endangered Constitution | Edward Hudgins | 8/12/2003 |
| Description: Only when legislators and judges recognize that laws are meant to protect freedom and must be clear and objective will we begin to restore a semblance of a government that is our protector rather than our persecutor |
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| Commentary | Tax Codes Reflect Moral Codes | Edward Hudgins | 6/23/2003 |
| Description: Should we acquiesce when government takes our money in taxes? What is the basis for such levies? And on what basis should the impositions be distributed among the population? TOC's Washington director, Ed Hudgins, demonstrates that the various answers people give to these questions reflect their varying moral codes. |
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| Commentary | Weighing War: How to Think About Iraq and North Korea | William Thomas | 4/1/2003 |
| Description: When should a free country go to war? William Thomas lays out the essentials
of the Objectivist approach to foreign policy and war. Looking at the cases
of Iraq and North Korea, the article examines the considerations that should
go into a decision for war, and assesses the long term effects and
legitimacy of war in both cases. |
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| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Libertarianism | | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: David Boaz: Libertarianism; David Boaz: Toward Liberty; Charles Murrary: What It Means to Be a Libertarian; Leonard Reed: Anything That's Peaceful. |
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| Center News | Whither Libertarianism? | | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: The full text of David Kelley's letter to Wall Street Journal on Libertarianism. |
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| Perspectives | What Is the Objectivist View of Libertarianism? | David Kelley | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: William Thomas and David Kelley provide an answer to this frequently asked question in Navigator’s new feature: "The Essentials of Objectivism." |
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| Commentary | Free Minds and Free Militaries | William Thomas | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: A spate of proposals to revive the draft has recently emerged from the Left and the Right. William Thomas analyses these schemes as manifestations of the ongoing collectivist attempt to destroy America’s individualist society. |
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| Commentary | Democratic Tyranny | Patrick Stephens | 4/30/2002 |
| Description: Democracy is a valuable part of a free society, but, writes Patrick Stephens, TOC's manager of current affairs, democracy provides no guarantee of liberty. Indeed, in the Muslim world, democracy may lead to the imposition of Islamic law and a harsher tyranny than most dictators would dare to impose. |
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| Commentary | Robert Nozick and the Good Fight | David Kelley | 3/21/2002 |
| Description: Robert Nozick used the flawed methods of analytic philosophy to defend the classical-liberal state. But his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia is nonetheless a genuine classic in the literature of freedom. |
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| FAQ | FAQ: What is the Objectivist View of Law and Government (Politics)? | William Thomas | 3/15/2002 |
| Description: The Objectivist political theory has three main elements, all of which draw upon the classical liberal political tradition. First, the foundation of the political system should be the fundamental right to live free from physical force. Second, government has the strictly limited function of protecting rights. Third, government power should be exercised in accordance with objective laws. Capitalism is the politico-economic system implied by these principles. |
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| Op-ed | Animal Rights and the circus | Scott McPherson | 1/31/2002 |
| Description: Animals are property and giving rights to animals is too silly – even for a circus. |
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| Op-ed | The State of The Union and The Culture of Responsibility | David Kelley | 1/30/2002 |
| Description: In his powerful State of the Union address, President Bush gave voice to the two deepest truths of a free society: that the essential function of its government is to provide security, and that it depends on a culture of responsibility. |
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| FAQ | FAQ: Libertarianism and Objectivism | William Thomas | 1/11/2002 |
| Description: What are Objectivist views on Libertarianism, and what are the similarities and differences between the two? |
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| FAQ | FAQ: Animal Rights | Damian Moskovitz | 1/5/2002 |
| Description: Damian Moskovitz answers the frequently asked questions, Do animals have rights? What is the Objectivist position on animal cruelty? What is the Objectivist position on vegetarianism? |
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| FAQ | FAQ: Democracy | Damian Moskovitz | 1/5/2002 |
| Description: Damian Moskovitz and J. Raibley explain what the Objectivist view on democracy is. |
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| Op-ed | Human Cloning: When is a person a person? | Patrick Stephens | 12/4/2001 |
| Description: A detailed philosophical analysis of why an embryo is not a
person.
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| Miscellaneous | Suggested Readings: Totalitarianism | | 12/1/2001 |
| Description: Suggested Readings on Totalitarianism to go with Brink Lindsey's article: The New Totalitarians. |
|
| Article | The New Totalitarians | Brink Lindsey | 12/1/2001 |
| Description: The United States is not just at war with terrorists; it is at war with a new form of totalitarianism, according to the Cato Institute's Brink Lindsey. |
|
| Commentary | Civil Society Is Not Civil Defense | Roger Donway | 11/19/2001 |
| Description: The one thing government absolutely must not do is meddle with civil society, through groups like Americorps and Seniorcorps. Government must simply get out of the way of civil society, lift its regulations on private institutions, and cut taxes enough that people may support such organizations. |
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| Commentary | The Justice of War | Patrick Stephens | 11/16/2001 |
| Description: Just War Theory. The aggressor -- in this case al-Qaedi and the Taliban -- is responsible for the loss of innocent life in a just war. |
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| Op-ed | Against Pacifism | Damon Root | 11/7/2001 |
| Description: Pacifists are actually pro-war.
|
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| Commentary | Community and American Individualism | Shawn E. Klein | 10/17/2001 |
| Description: TOC Website Manager, Shawn E. Klein explores the relationship between individualism and community, and explains why individuals can be united and still be individuals. |
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| Commentary | Security and Liberty | William Thomas | 10/12/2001 |
| Description: Willam Thomas discusses the role of government in providing security and protecting our liberties in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks |
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| Article | Blind Injustice | Eric Mack | 7/1/2001 |
| Description: Thirty years after its original publication, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice still has a great deal of influence, according to Eric Mack. |
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| Commentary | The Corruption of Democracy | David Kelley | 4/1/2001 |
| Description: It is not money that is corrupting American democracy, says TOC’s executive director, David Kelley. It is the collectivist philosophy underlying many contemporary views of democracy. |
|
| Review | The Morality of Capitalism | Patrick Stephens | 3/1/2001 |
| Description: The newest critique of capitalism does not challenge its effectiveness, says TOC's manager of current affairs. It acknowledges that capitalism is better than any other system at creating wealth, eradicating poverty, and developing technology. But, the new critique asks, is wealth, mass affluence, and technology really such good things? |
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| Commentary | Support the Media's Right To be Disgusting | Roger Donway | 2/1/2001 |
| Description: Many recent Hollywood productions have little or no redeeming value, observes Navigator editor Roger Donway. Nevertheless, the media's right to produce and distribute violent and vulgar films must be defended uncompromisingly. |
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| Article | Ideological Differences and Political Evolution | David Kelley | 1/1/2001 |
| Description: With both presidential candidates advocating education plans, health-care plans, and tax-cut plans, and parading their religiosity, voters might be excused for believing that Election 2000 presented an arbitrary choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In these two articles, however, David Kelley and Patrick Stephens argue that an important difference did exist between the philosophies of the two main candidates, while Roger Donway contends that a country seeking ordered liberty should not want transcendent leaps in its politics. |
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| Review | Property, Liberty, Prosperity | Roger Donway | 6/1/1999 |
| Description: A review-essay of four recent works on property elucidate the place that property has held in the fields of philosophy, politics, and economics. |
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| Review | Of Water Buffaloes and Kangaroo Courts | Christian Robey | 6/1/1999 |
| Description: A review of Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate |
|
| Interview | How Lockean Was the American Revolution? | | 5/1/1999 |
| Description: In this interview Huyler explains the coherence of John Locke's philosophy and how this philosophy influenced America's Founding Fathers. |
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| Review | What Works against the Welfare State? | James Payne | 3/1/1999 |
| Description: A review of A Life of One's Own: Individual Rights and the Welfare State by David Kelley. |
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| Article | Debate: Abortion | William Thomas | 3/1/1999 |
| Description: William Thomas initiates a debate on the subject of abortion by distinguishing intrinsic views of rights from objective views of rights, and the rights of a potential versus the rights of an actual. |
|
| Article | Debating the Nature of Fraud | Roger Donway | 2/1/1999 |
| Description: Ayn Rand held that only force could violate rights. Fraud, she said, is "indirect force" and therefore does not constitute an exception to this principle. In the November Navigator, Roger Donway set forth the case for Rand's position, providing a definition of the concept "fraud" along the way. In the February issue, three members challenge his argument and his definition. |
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| Review | Must Politics Rest on Morality? | Eyal Mozes | 12/1/1998 |
| Description: A review of The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law by Randy E. Barnett |
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| Article | Libertarian Answers to Conservative Challenges | Tibor Machan | 12/1/1998 |
| Description: A response from Tibor Machan to three common attacks on free-market ideas from conservatives and neo-conservatives. |
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| Review | Libertarianism and Punishment | Eyal Mozes | 12/1/1998 |
| Description: Outtakes from the review of The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law by Randy E. Barnett. In this outake, Mozes focus on Libertarianism and Punishment. |
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| Article | Force and Fraud | Roger Donway | 11/1/1998 |
| Description: Roger Donway sets forth what the standard account of force and fraud are and how it might be justified. What is fraud? What is "indirect force"? And how are we to explain the manner in which this "economic crime" violates rights? |
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| Center News | A Life of One's Own Is Published ''Officially'' | | 11/1/1998 |
| Description: The Cato Institute published David Kelley's ''A Life of One's Own'' which concludes that the concept of welfare rights is invalid. |
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| Center News | Living Together--Independently | | 7/1/1998 |
| Description: Cato publishes David Kelley's A Life of One's Own: a defense of the ideal of a society in which men live together cooperatively, but independently. It is also an attack on the groundings of the Welfare State. |
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| Interview | Fulfilling the Enlightenment | | 4/1/1998 |
| Description: An interview with David N. Mayer, a professor of both law and history at Capital University, in which he fields questions on the moral basis of the ideals of the Founding Fathers, which authors they relied on when seeking guidance on fundamental political issues, and many more. |
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| Letters | Letters: Libertarianism and Abelard and Heloise (October 1997) | | 10/1/1997 |
| Description: Libertarianism and Nathaniel Branden recommends the play, Abelard and Heloise, which he calls the most magnificent written in this century. |
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| Article | The Culture Contemplates Freedom | Roger Donway | 10/1/1997 |
| Description: An analysis of the misinterpretations and distortions of the reviews of What It Means To Be a Libertarian by Charles Murray and Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz. |
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| Review | The Wrong Way to Rights | William Thomas | 8/1/1997 |
| Description: A review of Moral Rights and Political Freedom by Tara Smith |
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| Review | Making Known the Capitalist Ideal | David Henderson | 6/1/1997 |
| Description: A review of Capitalism by George Reisman |
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| Article | The Forgotten Essentials of Jefferson's Philosophy | David Mayer | 4/1/1997 |
| Description: An article by David Mayer of Capital University on Thomas Jefferson's political philosophy |
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| Review | David and Leviathan | Robert James Bidinotto | 4/1/1997 |
| Description: A review of Libertarianism: A Primer by David Boaz |
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| Article | Altruism and Capitalism | David Kelley | 1/1/1994 |
| Description: An article on altruism and capitalism by David Kelley of the Objectivist Center. |
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| Audio | Equality: Recapturing an Individualist Principle | Clint Bolick | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Clint Bolick examines competing conceptions of equality, the legal underpinnings of equality in the American system, and the real-world campaign to capture the banner of equality.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
|
| Article | Is There a Right to Health Care? | David Kelley | |
| Description: An article on health care, rights, and welfare |
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| Audio | The Welfare State vs. The Constitution | David Mayer | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Dr. Mayer shows how the Supreme Court has virtually "eviscerated" the Constitution as a protection against abuses of governmental power and "welfare state" legislation.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
|
| Audio | Origins of the Constitution and Bill of Rights | David Mayer | |
Description: Audio Excerpt.Dr. Mayer discusses the origins of the Constitution and Bill of Rights—placing the philosophical foundations of America's founding documents in historical context and showing how they are still important means for limiting the power of government and preserving individual liberty.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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| Audio | New Patterns of Force: Modern Threats to Freedom | Edward Hudgins | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Today the most serious threats to freedom come not from tyrannical dictators but from the web of commonplace government regulations that enmesh our lives.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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| Audio | The Declaration of Independence as a Literary and Philosophical Work | David Mayer | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Citing Jefferson's "Summary View of the Rights of British America," Dr. Mayer shows how the American philosophy of government is one premised on individual rights.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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| Audio | Antitrust vs. Capitalism | David Mayer | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. This lecture traces the premises of antitrust law to principles that are feudal, monarchical, and paternalistic—and inapplicable to American society.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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| Study Guide | Foundations Study Guide: Political Philosophy | Fred Miller | |
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