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Is Welfare Compassionate?
Many of our current economic problems have their roots in the moral crisis of our day. In these times of moral turmoil many have mistakenly equivocated government sponsored welfare with the virtue of compassion. Compassion is an adjective frequently used to describe state supported social programs. The question needs to be raised: Is State welfare truly compassionate? Are we really serving the human needs of the people with state handouts?Economic Crime and the Necessity of Morality
At present an alarming crime wave is engulfing Russia and is threatening to spiral out of control. Professor Mikhail Gelvanovsky of Moscow’s Orthodox Charity Center of Social Protection reflects a widespread fear when he points out, “In the past we had the Iron Curtain; now people need iron doors to protect themselves against the growing number of thieves.” Three to five thousand gangs now control some 40,000 businesses.The Accumulation of Moral Capital
By now most readers of this journal are familiar with arguments that the charitable impulse is not well-served by institutions of the modern welfare state. Indeed, many are persuaded that the modern state feeds itself from the fount of charitable feelings that have been created by the Judeo-Christian tradition. The state, by exploiting this ethos, has created a situation in which people feel more like suckers than Samaritans.Single Mothers Deserve Better
In a peculiar ideological twist, some opponents of abortion are opposing cuts in aid to single mothers. Many prolifers including National Right to Life, fear that such reductions in benefits will lead to an increase in abortions. Even Henry Hyde has joined Patricia Shroeder in being skeptical of welfare reform. If this argument persuades, it could weaken ties between the Republican party and the anti-abortion movement.Morality as cooperation
Living a “moral” life is often contrasted with living a “prosperous” life. Major philosophers, ancient and modern, have tended to praise the virtuous life of personal sacrifice for the public good, while discounting the moral worth of the individual’s pursuit of individual happiness.
On Coercive Environmental Education
In The Religion of Environmentalism, John K. Williams wrote “Extreme environmentalism ... is a decidedly dangerous religion. Its vision of the world and of humanity's place in it reeks of superstition. The pattern of behavior it prescribes is morally grotesque....”The Ecological Gospel
David Brower is, by wide agreement, the most influential environmentalist of the past 50 years. In the 1950s and 1960s he pioneered many of the tactics later used by environmentalists to stop the construction of dams, roads, shopping centers, and all manner of projects all over the United States. He was the executive director of the Sierra Club for seventeen years, and later founded another environmental organization, Friends of the Earth.This Delicate Fruit, Liberty
We are everywhere reminded that liberty is the “delicate fruit of a mature civilization,” as Lord Acton wrote. Thus we find that freedom, responsibility, and even manners, seem to wax and wane together. The Founders, schooled in ancient and modern history, intended to keep the state in its proper sphere, to prevent it from invading domains suited to the church, family, and individual.Reflections on the Bell Curve
Publication of the controversial book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray has opened a much-needed discussion about what we should do about the increasing stratification of our society.The State that Justifies
Many thought that a clear lesson about the size and function of the state had been learned from twentieth-century history, particularly with the collapse of communism. Human well-being required a very limited state. The state itself had turned into man’s greatest enemy, so its purpose and centrality needed rethinking. Economic prosperity could be best achieved through the free operation of the market.On A New Women's Movement: Going Beyond 'Having It All'
…The starting point for most discussions of women’s issues is the observation that women earn less money than men, with income equality as the implicit touchstone for the desirability of policies, personal or public. But defining one’s well-being in terms of one’s income is not self-evidently correct. In fact, it is extremely problematic to argue that one’s income is an accurate measure of one’s wealth, even on strictly economic grounds.Justice, Mercy, and Economics
Justice and mercy. What are they? At one time or another, everyone has experienced feelings of anger and indignation when they were violated by others. Everyone has an inherent sense of what is just, and that sense is heightened when one is the victim of injustice. Likewise, it is perhaps safe to say that everyone has either been the recipient of someone else’s benevolence, personally extended benevolence to someone else, or has seen benevolence bestowed upon someone else.