Texts on tyranny from the tradition

“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots…and to make his implements of war…He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants…He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1 Samuel 8:11-18)

The epistemology of microphysics

On March 21, I delivered a lecture on “The Epistemology of Microphysics” at the 49^th Annual Meeting of the American Maritain Association at Loyola Marymount University.  You can read the lecture here.  The AMA also kindly presented me with its Scholarly Excellence Award for 2026.  Many thanks to the AMA and all who participated.

Just war doctrine and the duties of soldiers

The main point of just war doctrine is to guide public authorities in determining whether a military action they are considering is morally defensible.  In a democratic society, it also assists citizens in carrying out their own duties as voters, opinion makers, and so on.  But what of the servicemen who have to fight in the wars their governments decide to wage?  Do they have an obligation to make a moral judgement about these wars in light of just war criteria?  Must they refuse to fight in an unjust war?

Naturally, the just war tradition has addressed these questions.  What follows is an explanation of the basic principles.  The first thing to say is that the tradition draws a distinction between two main sets of questions: jus ad bellum questions, which have to do with the conditions under which a war may justly be entered into; and jus in bello questions, which have to do with how a war is to be conducted once it has started.

Harrington on “Thomophobia”

Earlier this month, British author Mary Harrington delivered a First Things Lecture titled “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” in Washington, D.C.  You can now watch the lecture at YouTube.  Just past the eleven minute mark, Harrington makes some very kind remarks about my book Scholastic Metaphysics, about which she says: “I don’t think Professor Feser intended it as a page turner, but I tore through it like it was an airport novel.”  As she explains in her lucid and important talk, she finds in Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics the vocabulary needed properly to understand today’s deepest moral and political controversies.  Especially important, as she says, are the distinctions between (a) act and potency, (b) substance, accident, and substantial form, and (c) the four causes.  She notes that it was the moderns’ attack on and burial of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Scholasticism that would pave the way for developments such as feminism, contraception, and the trans phenomenon.  And she says that these are held in place by a “Thomophobia” (great coinage!) that dismisses traditional metaphysics a priori as a tool of oppression.  Give her lecture a listen.

Thomism Revisited

Thomism Revisited, a new anthology edited by Gaven Kerr, is out this month from Cambridge University Press.  It includes my essay “The Thomistic Critique of Neo-Classical Theism.”  (I have defended Thomism from neo-classical objections in earlier work. This new essay goes on offense.)  The table of contents and further information about the volume are available here.

America’s conflict in Iran is not a just war

In a new article at Public Discourse, I argue that it is even more obvious now than it was at the start that the Iran war does not meet the conditions for a just war.

Dissent and double standards at Where Peter Is

Mike Lewis, editor of Where Peter Is, is well known for freely accusing fellow Catholics of “dissent” from the teaching of the Church.  Yet he recently published an article at the website dissenting from the Church’s declaration that its teaching that the sacrament of Holy Orders is reserved to men is “infallible” and that assent to it must be “irrevocable.” I discuss this development in an article at The Catholic Herald.

The New Neo-Scholasticism

For those with access to the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, my forthcoming article “The New Neo-Scholasticism” is available in an online first version.