All Posts Tagged With: "ethics"

Capital Letters — Does Utilitarianism Deserve Bashing?

In an otherwise meritorious article (“The ‘Risk’ of Liberty: Criminal Law in the Welfare State,” September 2008), Michael N. Giuliano parrots the tiresome old bashing of utilitarian ethics. (He sometimes says “consequentialism,” but since versions of utilitarianism make up almost the entire set of consequentialist doctrines, the distinction is unnecessary here.) “The main component of [...]

27Apr2009 | mnolan | 0 comments | Continued

Ought Implies Can

Too often ethical pronouncements have an air of hubris about them, as the pronouncer simply assumes we can do what he says we ought to do. By contrast, economics demands some humility. We always have to ask whether it’s humanly possible to do what the ethicists say we ought. To say we ought to do something we cannot do, in the sense that it won’t achieve our end, is to engage in a pointless exercise. If we cannot do it, to say that we ought to is to command the impossible.

24Apr2009 | Steven Horwitz | 4 comments | Continued

Book Reviews – 2007/9

  • The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements

    by Lynne Viola Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  • In our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State
    by Charles Murray Reviewed by Michael Tanner
  • Actual Ethics
    by James R. Otteson Reviewed by Tibor Machan
  • Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History
    by Paul Moreno Reviewed by George C. Leef
    • 1Sep2007 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | Continued

Visible and Invisible Hands

Douglas Den Uyl is vice president of educational programs for Liberty Fund. Douglas Rasmussen is a professor of philosophy at St. John’s University . They co-wrote Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics (Pennsylvania State University Press).
It has often been said that markets are led “as if by an invisible hand” to bring [...]

1Apr2007 | Douglas Den Uyl Douglas Rasm | 0 comments | Continued

Vices and Crimes

Susan Lee, of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, accuses libertarians of an “annoying optimism,” but her article “Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll” (February 12) is enough to make even the most sanguine libertarian glum. It’s a little discouraging at this late date to see libertarianism yet again described as a brand of moral [...]

1May2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | Continued