Laws, Morals and Politics

Rebel with a cause: when morals, politics, and religion collide.

Between Laws and Models: Some Philosophical Morals of Lagrangian Mechanics

I extract some philosophical morals from some aspects of Lagrangian mechanics. (A companion paper will present similar morals from Hamiltonian mechanics and Hamilton-Jacobi theory.) One main moral concerns methodology: Lagrangian mechanics provides a level of description of phenomena which has been largely ignored by philosophers, since it falls between their accustomed levels—“laws of nature” ...

The Natural Logic of Morals and of Laws

The theme of this special issue is “Is Morality Universal, and Should the Law Care?” For me, this question provokes the further question of what morality and the law are. That is what most of this essay is about. The last two sections address the initial question, primarily dealing with laying out its multiple ambiguity. Few of its readings have easy answers; the best I can do in the present di...

Commentary: the cost of converting religious morals into politics.

Theologically informed positions are grounded in core beliefs and may be rationally discussed. We analyze Dr. Norko's suggestion on how, in the public square, to address moral disagreements. We point out the dangers of "deliberative democracy" as an approach to resolving conflicts over basic values. We suggest an alternative approach, better grounded in reason, as a way of bringing religious an...

Hate Crimes Laws: Progressive Politics or Balkanization?