Archive for James R. Otteson

Choice Is Bad for Us?

One of the often-unperceived consequences of an expanding welfare state is the gradual atrophy of independent judgment. Judgment is a skill, and, like other skills, it must be exercised to be vigorous and dependable. The fewer opportunities people have to exercise their judgment and the more that others make decisions for them, the weaker this [...]

1Jun2004 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | Continued

Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment

There is a burgeoning movement afoot to redefine Adam Smith as a “liberal” of the contemporary, progressive sort, rather than as the icon of classical liberalism he is standardly taken to be. It has never been a secret that Smith was no anarchist, nor even, probably, a “minarchist.” He argued that the government should undertake [...]

11Feb2003 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | Continued

The World Is Dying, So Tax the Rich?

In a September 2, 2002, op-ed in the Washington Post, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sets out what he believes should be the world’s agenda for the next century. He says we face “the twin challenges of poverty and pollution,” and that if we are to end the “wanton acts of destruction and the blithe [...]

1Jan2003 | James R. Otteson | 1 comment | Continued

This Is America?

I have long had an uneasy relationship with airport security. Before September 11, I resisted the demand that I produce a government-issued ID, believing that it smacked too much of the “Papers, please” of the former Soviet Union that Hollywood movies used to mock and we free Americans used to laugh at. I also used [...]

1Jul2002 | James R. Otteson | 12 comments | Continued

Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism by Chris Matthew Sciabarra

Penn State Press · 2000 · 496 pages · $65.00 cloth; $24.00 paperback Reviewed by James Otteson This book is the third in a trilogy from Chris Matthew Sciabarra. The other two were his Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (SUNY, 1995) and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (Penn State, 1995). The project of Total Freedom is [...]

1Oct2001 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | Continued

Adam Smith: Moral Philosopher

James Otteson is a professor of philosophy at the University of Alabama. Adam Smith was not solely an economist, though that is almost exclusively how he is known today. His Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) is one of the most important books in the Western tradition. Aside from [...]

1Nov2000 | James R. Otteson | 0 comments | Continued

Academic Freedom on Religious Campuses

James Otteson teaches in the department of philosophy at the University of Alabama. In a free society adults should be able to associate, establish institutions, and order their lives without interference, provided that in doing so they initiate no violence against others. That indeed is the definition of an open, peaceful society. One thing in [...]

1Aug1999 | James R. Otteson | 1 comment | Continued

Philosophy 1 On 1

James Otteson teaches in the department of philosophy at the University of Alabama. It is no secret that classical liberalism receives little attention in American academic philosophy, and then generally only as a historical artifact. What one hears is something like this: “No serious philosopher today believes that people can get on without substantial, organized [...]

1Mar1999 | James R. Otteson | 2 comments | Continued

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