Editors’ Picks
Being X-ray isn’t a choice. There’s no doubt that X-ray is something that’s part of who you are, not just a ‘power’ that you get in addition to everything else. My family loves that I’m X-ray, and they encourage me constantly to embrace the gifts that my vision brings with it.
Fortunately, Catholics at least do not have to remain entangled in the sorts of insoluble dilemmas created by the “conflict of rights” that ensues when we accept philosophical liberalism, simply because we don’t have to accept philosophical liberalism at all.
Throwing out “traditional” as a poor descriptor for “marriage” or “values” doesn’t necessarily mean that neither is accessible on natural grounds. The take-away is simply that “traditional marriage” gets us only part way to the thing we, as Christians, wish to defend.
Before we can reform the problematic modern nation-state, we have to consider whether and how it is an extension of the Aristotelian polis.
Crucial to an adequate—non-“Marxist”—understanding of Marx’s thought is to grasp the deep Aristotelian, rather than (merely) Hegelian, dimension to his work.
Joseph Bottum’s conclusions about marriage may not be sound, but he has done a valuable service in broaching a new channel of discussion—over prudence, the virtues, and where exactly we decide to ground our own sentiments and concerns.
We can do something about the prevalence of out-of-wedlock births, high divorce rates, and single parent households. In order to do so we must be prepared to pass through the dreaded electric fence: moralizing.
“If Modern Science deals only with strictly physical phenomena, then how can it rule out the existence of things that are not strictly physical?”
Pornography exploits human beings. Sure, no one is compelled into a photoshoot, but the freedom of engaging in smut does not somehow make it morally right. No one wants their daughter to be a porn star. And if you do, there is something wrong with you.
Britain’s “porn ban” has American conservatives in a fit. Yet personal immunity from social coercion is not a first-order concern for classical republicans (like the Founding Fathers), who emphasize freedom by means of the law rather than freedom from it.
