Friday, July 11, 2025

A second Honorius?

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Like his predecessor Honorius, Pope Francis failed clearly to uphold traditional teaching at a time the Church was sick from heresy.  So I a...
2 comments:
Thursday, July 10, 2025

Aquinas and prudential judgment

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In contemporary debates in Catholic moral theology, a distinction is often drawn between actions that are flatly ruled out in principle and ...
19 comments:
Monday, June 30, 2025

Talk it out

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Time again for an open thread.   Now’s your chance to get that off-topic comment off your chest.  The burning philosophical or theological q...
198 comments:
Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Solidarity

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The ideal to strive for in international relations is what in the natural law tradition and Catholic social teaching is called solidarity . ...
13 comments:
Monday, June 23, 2025

Preventive war and the U.S. attack on Iran

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Last week I argued that the U.S. should stay out of Israel’s war with Iran.  America has now entered the war by bombing three facilities as...
60 comments:
Saturday, June 21, 2025

Shields on Aquinas on the Unmoved Mover

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My review of Daniel Shields’ important recent book Nature and Nature’s God: A Philosophical and Scientific Defense of Aquinas’s Unmoved Mov...
2 comments:
Tuesday, June 17, 2025

The U.S. should stay out of Israel’s war with Iran (Updated)

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Let me say at the outset that I agree with the view that it would be bad for the Iranian regime to acquire a nuclear weapon.  How close it i...
86 comments:
Monday, June 16, 2025

Immortal Souls in Religion & Liberty

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In the Summer 2025 issue of the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty , David Weinberger kindly reviews my book Immortal Souls: A Treatis...
5 comments:
Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Riots should be suppressed swiftly and harshly

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In an article at Postliberal Order , I argue that the Trump administration has the right under natural law to intervene to suppress riots of...
129 comments:
Friday, June 6, 2025

MacIntyre on Hegel on human action

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Phrenology was the pseudoscience that aimed to link psychological traits to the morphology of the skull.  Physiognomy was the pseudoscience ...
23 comments:
Friday, May 30, 2025

Lamont on Trump, abortion, and Ukraine

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In an article at One Peter Five , philosopher John Lamont warns his fellow Catholics and traditionalists that on issues such as abortion and...
57 comments:

What is ideology?

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What does the pejorative use of “ideology” amount to, and what is it to be an “ideologue”?  I consider some common accounts before developin...
5 comments:
Thursday, May 22, 2025

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)

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Alasdair MacIntyre has died. His classic After Virtue had a tremendous effect on me when I was an undergrad and still in my atheist days, g...
9 comments:
Saturday, May 17, 2025

Pope Leo XIV on families and the family of nations

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Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV delivered an address to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican .   It was brief and very simple, but elegant and deep a...
82 comments:
Thursday, May 8, 2025

Greenland and the ethics of annexation

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President Trump has repeatedly called for U.S. acquisition of Greenland.  The motivations have to do with Greenland’s strategic location an...
76 comments:

Pope Leo XIV

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Let us pray for our new pope, Leo XIV.  His choices to take a traditional name and to appear in traditional papal garb (as Benedict XVI did ...
38 comments:
Monday, April 28, 2025

The ethics of wealth and poverty

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In my latest essay at Postliberal Order , I discuss what Christ, the Fathers of the Church, and Aristotle have to say about the moral hazard...
18 comments:
Sunday, April 27, 2025

Catholicism and immigration: Reply to Cory and Sweeney

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Recently, my article  “A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws”  appeared at  Public Discourse .  Both Therese Cory and Terence Sw...
7 comments:
Tuesday, April 22, 2025

The pope’s first duty

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Let us pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis.  We ought to pray no less fervently that God in His mercy will bless His Church with...
35 comments:
Thursday, April 17, 2025

The two thieves

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Christ was not crucified alone.  Of those who died with him, Luke’s Gospel tells us the following: There were also two others, criminals, ...
23 comments:
Tuesday, April 8, 2025

On the tariff crisis

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Like many others across the political spectrum, I’ve been alarmed at the extreme tariff policy President Trump announced last week, which wa...
97 comments:
Sunday, April 6, 2025

On pride and vainglory

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Pride, as Aquinas defines it in De Malo , is “the inordinate desire for pre-eminence” (Question 8, Article 2). With Augustine and the Christ...
33 comments:
Friday, April 4, 2025

Scholastic regress arguments

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Many are familiar with arguments to the effect that an infinite regress of causes is impossible, as Aquinas holds in several of his Five Way...
33 comments:
Saturday, March 29, 2025

Immortal Souls on the Classical Theism Podcast

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Recently I was interviewed at some length by John DeRosa for the Classical Theism Podcast , about my book Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Huma...
10 comments:
Sunday, March 23, 2025

Catholicism and immigration

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My article “A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws” appears at Public Discourse .
16 comments:
Friday, March 21, 2025

Liberalism’s catastrophic spider

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In my latest essay at Postliberal Order , I argue that, whatever Kant’s own intentions, the Kantian rhetoric of autonomy and respect for per...
51 comments:
Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Life, Reproduction, and the Paradox of Evolution

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My article “Life, Reproduction, and the Paradox of Evolution” appears in a special issue of the journal BioCosmos devoted to exploring th...
52 comments:
Friday, February 28, 2025

Mackie on Pascal’s Wager

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I’ve never been a fan of Pascal’s Wager.  But there’s a bit more that one might say for it than is often supposed.  For example, the objecti...
31 comments:
Thursday, February 20, 2025

What proceeds from Hart (Updated)

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Epilogue 2/22: As those who have read the updates to this post will have learned, David Bentley Hart has apologized for the offending remark...
84 comments:
Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Immigration and academia on The Tom Woods Show

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This week I appear on The Tom Woods Show to discuss the immigration debate, the state of academic philosophy, and other matters.
105 comments:
Friday, February 7, 2025

Trump’s Gaza proposal is gravely immoral

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Today my critique of Trump’s Gaza proposal appears at the National Catholic Register .  Friends, whether you agree or disagree, I urge you ...
148 comments:
Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Just war principles and the Mexican drug cartels

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In my latest article at Postliberal Order , I argue that under certain conditions, U.S. military intervention in Mexico against the drug ca...
25 comments:
Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Catholics and immigration on No Spin News (Updated)

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Those who follow me on Twitter/X will know that I posted there heavily last week about the controversy over Catholicism and immigration.  T...
27 comments:
Thursday, January 30, 2025

More on Immortal Souls

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The latest feedback on Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature .  At Twitter/X, theologian Ulrich Lehner writes : “A wonderful book. Shar...
15 comments:
Thursday, January 23, 2025

The ethics of invective

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It’s often said that while sticks and stones can break our bones, words can never hurt us.  But it isn’t true.  Were we mere animals it woul...
43 comments:
Tuesday, January 14, 2025

A report from the Great Los Angeles Fire

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On the extent, causes, and lessons of the disaster, in my latest article at Postliberal Order.
10 comments:
Tuesday, December 31, 2024

The thread you’ve been waiting for

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Let’s close out 2024 and begin 2025 with a long overdue open thread.  Now’s your chance to get that otherwise off-topic comment posted at la...
230 comments:
Saturday, December 28, 2024

Boczar on Immortal Souls

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At The Review of Metaphysics , philosopher Jack Boczar kindly reviews my book Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature .  From the review...
18 comments:
Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Gilson on philosophy and its history

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You might suppose from the title of Etienne Gilson’s The Unity of Philosophical Experience that it is a book about philosophy in general.  ...
27 comments:
Monday, December 16, 2024

Nicholson on Immortal Souls

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At Catholic World Report , philosopher Sam Nicholson kindly reviews my book Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature .  From the review: ...
21 comments: