One of the most well known American legal traditions is state's rights. State's rights is essentially the idea that each individual state should retain its sovereignty or independance from the federal government. The idea is that each state may have its own varying laws and precedents that the...
This is part one in a three part series: democracy is slavery, democracy is impossible and democracy is liberty. Democracy Is Slavery By the phrase "democracy is slavery", I refer to the tyranny that inevitably arises from the principles of majoritarianism and communalism. One standard definition...
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Sun, Mar 16 2008
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Filed under: Ethics, Universality, Consistancy, Utilitarianism, Collectivism, Majoritarianism, Democracy, Individual Sovereignty, Consent, Slavery
I believe in objective secular morality, founded on reason and universalism. I think a common mistake is the idea that if we ditch religion, we must fall back on moral relativity. Then the religious people feed on this and get to accuse secular people of being nihilists or hedonists. But I think that...
The idea of positive rights is that people have a "right" to be given particular benefits, material resources or services by others. They represent claims of a right to recieve positive benefits from other people, in the abscence of any actual "debt" incurred. They require people...
Defining Rational Egoism Wikipedia defines rational egoism as follows: "Rational egoism is the pursuit of one's own, accurately perceived, self-interest. The term may refer either to the philosophical view that it is always in accordance with reason to pursue self-interest (a view closely related...
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Fri, Dec 7 2007
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Filed under: Objectivism, Non-Aggression Axoim, Ethics, Universality, Self-interest, Rational Egoism, Altruism, War, Philosophy, Individual Sovereignt
The arguements given by people to justify unethical acts are usually utilitarian, which is to say that a given act is defended on the grounds that it is beneficial to someone. This is commonly manifested in the arguements given in defense of the alleged "need" for a whole host of economic policies...
The basic idea of minarchism is that the government should be expressly small and limited to the defense of person and property of those within the territorial dominion of the government. This generally implies that the government's services be limited to the provision of police, courts and defense...