Political Philosophy

Bob Goodin giving a presentation. He wears glasses and a grey jumper.

Talking Philosophy with Bob Goodin

The case against retweets, what’s wrong with the War on Terror, equality in light of difference, and more.

11 Jul 2024 · 8 min read

Liberalism and the West’s ‘Crisis of Meaning’

Many liberals are strangely eager to concede that liberal societies are morally and spiritually bankrupt without religion to give life meaning.

Matt Johnson

4 Jul 2024 · 25 min read

Raymond Aron and the Art of Politics

For Aron, politics is the art of living together, the art of the possible, and requires an “acute awareness” of the limitations of our power to influence reality.

Alan S. Rome

8 Mar 2024 · 13 min read

Meritocracy and Its Discontents

Meritocratic reformers claimed that they wanted equality. But instead they sought to replace the aristocracy of birth with an aristocracy of ability.

J. Michael Yarros

8 Feb 2024 · 13 min read

The Seven Laws of Pessimism

If life is better than ever before, why does the world seem so depressing?

Maarten Boudry

26 Jan 2024 · 16 min read

The Rise of Post-Liberal Man

This kind of regime-analysis disappeared with the rise of classical liberalism, which supplied an altogether different language of politics.

Mathis Bitton

22 Jul 2021 · 8 min read

Dumbing Fascism Down, Then And Now

Stalin publicly misused the term so often, in fact, that Princeton history professor Stephen Kotkin has suggested he lacked a fundamental understanding of the word’s meaning.

Bradford H.B.

22 May 2020 · 8 min read

COVID-19 Is Not the End of 'The End of History'

As COVID-19 suffocates the global economy, borders remain closed, and tensions mount between EU countries, the US and China, etc., Fukuyama’s critics are taking the opportunity to dismiss the “The End of History?” while ignoring its basic premises.

Matt Johnson

24 Apr 2020 · 13 min read

My Former Life as a Radical

They believe in the perfectibility of man in their own image: a combination of unscrupulous optimism and narcissism.

Gerfried Ambrosch

11 Feb 2020 · 11 min read

Is Democracy Compatible with Extreme Inequality?

Material benefits can always be translated into political power because the political world has always been interwoven with the cultural world.

Chang Che

8 Feb 2020 · 8 min read

The Futility of Guilt-Based Advocacy

Your accountability is just your portion of the mob’s.

Steven D. Hales

23 Nov 2019 · 10 min read

The Argument for Equality and Fairness

Some progressives may indeed be primarily motivated by resentment, but that does not in itself invalidate the argument to pursue greater equality.

Matt McManus

14 Aug 2019 · 11 min read

Marx Deserves Better Critics

In his opening statement in the debate with Žižek, Peterson said that Marx’s solution to the ills of capitalism was “bloody violent revolution.” That’s not quite right.

Ben Burgis

24 Apr 2019 · 8 min read

Why Everyone Values Freedom

If a pregnant woman has the legal option to abort but is unable to raise a child in her financial circumstances, she has fewer meaningful choices than a woman who lives in a society with legal abortion and generously state-subsidized childcare.

Ben Burgis and Matt McManus

17 Apr 2019 · 10 min read

Anatomist of Racial Inequality: An Interview with Glenn Loury

Loury has taught at Brown University for over a decade, an institution where pleas for American patriotism are likely to be summarily dismissed. So why does he insist on making them?

Christian Alejandro Gonzalez

22 Jan 2019 · 14 min read