1. Two IssuesIn recent years, a number of philosophers have discussed the possibility that the widely recognized right of self-defense includes another, more controversial right: a right to arms, where “arms” is understood to include guns. I will argue in what follows that the right of self-defense does indeed have this feature, and I will offer a new explanation of why it does so—an explanation that, despite its novelty is, I believe, deeply rooted in common sense.I n Section 2, I (...) will clarify the issue to be addressed and define a spectrum of possible solutions to it. Underlying the narrow issue of the relation between the right of self-defense and the putative right to arms is a broader issue of more general interest, between two classes of rights: what I will call option-rights and means-rights. My ultimate purpose will be to propose a solution to both issues. In Section 3, I attempt to show that the most extreme solutions to the issue of self-defense and arms are not very plausible. In Section 4, I will lay down some desiderata concerning some features that an ideally illuminating solution to these issues should have. These will serve as a rough guide as I attempt to discuss the more moderate solutions. In Section 5, I discuss one such potential solution—one grounded in the distinction between reasonable and unreasonable costs. I argue that, though it may be plausible enough as a guide to policy, it does not satisfy any of my desiderata, nor does it answer my original question, about what is included in the right of self–defense. In Sections 6 and 7, I propose my own solution to both the narrower and broader issues—one that is grounded in the nature of action itself. (shrink)

Lester Hunt argues that, despite its being too narrow in the topics it treats, Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi's What Art Is offers a fascinating account of Ayn Rand's views on art and, in addition, constitutes a major contribution to Objectivist aesthetics.

The phrase “gun control” has no very precise meaning. It typically refers either to prohibitions of or restrictions on gun ownership on the part of the civilian population. Such rules may apply either to guns in general or to some type of gun (such as handguns). More rarely, it can refer to legal restrictions, not on classes of weapons, but on classes of users, a sort of restriction that might be called “dangerous possessor gun control” (see Risk). In this case, (...) the state denies the right of gun ownership to some class of the population deemed – perhaps due to youth, mental infirmity, or prior criminal behavior – to be insufficiently trustworthy. Dangerous possessor rules seem to be per se uncontroversial: though there is disagreement about which users are sufficiently untrustworthy, no one seems to deny that there should be some restrictions on who may own these weapons. The philosophical literature that has developed in the past two decades is focused mainly on legal restrictions on guns, and not on users. (shrink)

I sometimes entertain my non-academic friends by telling them that, at the end of each course I teach, before I compute my students’ grades, I pause nervously while I wait to be graded by my students. This process can be described less paradoxically, but surely no more truthfully, as follows. In my department, and as far as I know all the departments at my university, each course ends with students anonymously filling out forms in which they evaluate the teacher and (...) the course. The form includes several questions in which the student is asked to rate the teacher in various respects (such as clarity and organization, availability outside the classroom, and so forth) along a numbered scale (in our case, from one to five); they are also asked one very general question in which they are told to rate the instructor’s overall effectiveness. They are also invited to write comments on these matters. Mean scores (in effect, grades) are calculated for each question and published by the university. In addition, these student evaluations of teaching (often called SETs for short) are used each year by the committee that decides merit pay increases for faculty. When the faculty member is being considered for advancement to tenure or promotion to the rank of Full Professor, these evaluation forms are supplemented by faculty evaluation of teaching, in which faculty members visit the candidate’s classes and report on her or his effectiveness as a teacher. Except for these two once-in-a-lifetime events, the student evaluation forms are the only way in which we judge the quality of teaching. In other words, teaching is for the most part evaluated by students and not by faculty. (shrink)

|The Wisconsin Center for the Study of Liberal | |Democracy is located on the University of | |Wisconsin-Madison campus. The missions of the Center| |are to promote critical understanding and | |appreciation of the cardinal principles and | |institutions of liberal democracy, and to advance | |intellectual diversity on campus by the presentation | |of all relevant viewpoints pertaining to liberal |.

If we examine Rand's relation to Nietzsche in terms of the number of issues on which the late Rand agreed with him, the connection between them looks extremely weak. On the other hand, if we look at the relation in terms of Rand's philosophical development, the connection is much more profound. Nietzsche is where Rand began as a thinker, and though she traveled far from this source, her thinking always bore important traces of her beginnings.

Aristos Michelle Kamhi and Louis Torres are working hard to bring attention to Ayn Rand's much neglected theory of art and literature. This is their web site. It was dormant while they wer finishing their book, but now they are adding new material again.

You can view some of my published rantings by clicking below. All of which, except for the first one, were published in student newspapers here at UW. There was also an op-ed piece in the Wisconsin State Journal , but I don't seem to have an electronic copy of it. (Note: Some of these were published under different titles than those used here.).

In Poetic Justice Martha Nussbaum undertakes to explain how “story-telling and literary imagining” can supply “essential ingredients in a rational argument” and thereby improve public discourse regarding important ethical, political, and legal issues.

If we examine Rand's relation to Nietzsche in terms of the number of issues on which the late Rand agreed with him, the connection between them looks extremely weak. On the other hand, if we look at the relation in terms of Rand's philosophical development, the connection is much more profound. Nietzsche is where Rand began as a thinker, and though she traveled far from this source, her thinking always bore important traces of her beginnings.

Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue : This book is a discussion of Nietzsche's ethical and political ideas. It is an attempt to be both scholarly and, in a sense, activist. The ultimate point is to see how believers in liberal democracy (like me and most of my readers) should respond to the challenge that Nietzsche represents. As with any profound challenge, one is never the same again after it is overcome. In particular, I suggest that liberals can learn something (...) very important from the ideas that grow out of Nietzsche's early discussion of Homer's notion of agon or Wettkampf (roughly, conflict or competition). (shrink)

Lester Hunt reviews Tara Smith's Viable Values: A Study of the Root and Reward of Morality. He finds it an excellent contribution to the ongoing discussion of Objectivist ethics. Especially noteworthy, he says, are Smith's treatment of the concept of intrinsic value, her use of the concept of flourishing, and her treatment of the relations between the interests of different people. Though the book provides no sustained discussion of casuistical applications, epistemological assumptions, or potentially interesting side-issues, it raises many provocative (...) questions that will fuel further debate. (shrink)

LESTER HUNT reviews Tara Smith's Viable Values: A Study of the Root and Reward of Morality. He finds it an excellent contribution to the ongoing discussion of Objectivist ethics. Especially noteworthy, he says, are Smith's treatment of the concept of intrinsic value, her use of the concept of flourishing, and her treatment of the relations between the interests of different people. Though the book provides no sustained discussion of casuistical applications, epistemological assumptions, or potentially interesting side-issues, it raises many provocative (...) questions that will fuel further debate. (shrink)