Politics: Major Contentions   A guide to major assertions in this section

Needs and Rights    Do rights derive from constitutions, culture, or convention? Do they have limits or impose moral duties?

Where Do Rights Originate?     For a term used often and casually, the definition of rights seems impossible to define without rooting it in virtue ethics.

Natural and Political Rights  Government may only meet a few of our needs but is indispensable in that narrow role.

Two Senses of the Common Good  Whom should governments serve?

Foundations of the Law: An Appetizer  A simple review of the four justifications for law.

Preliminary Thoughts on Civil Disobedience: Natural Rights Issues    A review of the challenges and defenses of civil disobedience in each of the four justifications for law.

When Is Civil Disobedience Justified?     When is disobedience to the law a moral imperative?

The Riddle of Equality     Why the egalitarian effort must fail and why it also must continually be attempted with a necessary clarification that might ease the struggle.

Economic Justice     An introduction to the issue of distributive justice in terms of the necessary conflict between liberty  and equality.

Income Inequality     A closer examination of the messy allocation of economic goods in a capitalist system.

One-Armed Economics and Wealth Creationism     An application of a theory of economic rights to today’s political climate.

Prejudice and Privilege     An attempt to disentangle terms that we seem intent on viewing as synonymous.

Alienation of Civic Affection    What’s at the root of today’s widespread contempt for government?

Which Clash of Civilizations?   Is the fight against terrorism really what some are calling it, a clash of civilizations? Does calling it that change anything? It is and it does.

Belief in the Public Square  We live in an age that deeply values expressions of sincere belief in public life. Why that has proven a very bad idea.

Recent Authoritarianism   Personal authority has attempted to revive traditional authority’s success; its failures over the last hundred years have invariably resulted in totalitarianism. 

Toward a Public Morality   If private beliefs cannot sustain a public morality, what can? A preliminary effort to find common ground.

Justice is Almost Everything   To define justice accurately is to begin to deliver it.

Functional Natural Law and the Legality of Human Rights   A complete system of public morality requires a legal system that satisfies all of the requirements of justice.