Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Here is this beautiful article. “Universities, like cathedrals, were sanctuaries from wars, political machinations, revolutions, and kingly belligerence… ‘even under the Russian czars the police were forbidden to enter the university’.”

Mises believed that private property is useful only insofar as it serves human ends: Private property is a human device. It is not sacred. It came into existence in early ages of history, when people with their own power and by their own authority appropriated to themselves what had previously not been anybody’s property. Again [...]

Rothbard posed the question: who are the greater villains with respect to liberty, the unwashed masses or the power elite? His answer was: First, even granting for a moment that the masses are the worst possible, that they are perpetually Hell-bent on lynching anyone down the block, the mass of people simply don’t have the [...]

In “The Outsider Test for Faith” John Loftus exhorts us to step outside our faith and examine it with the skeptical eyes of a foreigner. His argument is that an average person’s coming to have the particular faith that they have does not depend on the virtues of the faith itself but on factors that [...]

Suppose that a robber in a restaurant yells at the customers: “I am not going to argue with you; just give me all your money. Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!” Hoppe’s argument fails to convict the robber of irrationality. Similarly, suppose that in some bar [...]

Material cause: stinkiness is caused by the predominance of certain molecules in the air, and it “participates” in maximal stinkiness which is a gas or even a solid packed with stinky molecules. Formal cause: the bust of Mises is an imperfect version of the real Mises who is the archetype for the bust. Efficient cause: [...]

This is a remarkable article by Philippa Foot, stunning us with countless examples of how the word “good” is used. But, unbeknownst to her, all of these uses come under one of three categories: physical, moral, or metaphysical. Foot objects against the argument that reduces goodness to “that which is chosen.” And she is right: [...]

Here’s Ron Paul on earmarks. And here’s Mises, discussing the same issue 60 years ago: Those advocation a restriction of the parliament’s prerogatives in budgeting and taxation issues or even a complete substitution of authoritarian government for representative government are blinded by the chimerical image of a perfect chief of state. This man, no less [...]

One version of emotivism claims that moral statements are “action-guiding” commands: “X is good” means “Do X!” The trouble with that is that a command can be obeyed or disobeyed, and one needs a reason to obey it. I mean, who are you to tell me what to do? The obvious rejoinder to “Do X!” [...]

Modern civilization is a product of the philosophy of laissez faire. It cannot be preserved under the ideology of government omnipotence. Statolatry owes much to the doctrines of Hegel. However, one may pass over many of Hegel’s inexcusable faults, for Hegel also coined the phrase “the futility of victory.” To defeat the aggressors is not [...]

Intellectual property issues are hot among libertarians now, spurred by Jeffrey Tucker’s live blogging of Against Intellectual Monopoly and renewed interest in Stephan Kinsella’s “Against Intellectual Property.” Below I attempt to sketch a theory of copyrights and trade secrets. The crucial term relevant to IP is “information” whose nature it is to reside in minds [...]

The original one.

Consider some examples: (1) A runaway trolley driver can steer it on track A, killing 5, or on track B, killing 1. (2) In order to survive, person Q needs the entire dose of the drug available at the hospital; but persons P1, …, P5 at the same hospital can be saved with just 1/5 [...]

Mises writes on this very topic that “soldiery virtues” are not good in themselves; and, in fact, whoever thinks that “must, to be consistent, likewise acknowledge as noble virtues the daring, intrepidity, and contempt for death of the robber.” (Liberalism, 24) So, can courage be a vice? Is it better to be an insane vampire [...]

Yes, insofar as they find fulfillment in 2nd-order desires to correct or counteract 1st-order desires. Without temptations there would be no need for virtues: human powers would on their own incline to good only. Now is that man virtuous who adheres to virtue with great difficulty and inner struggle or one who adheres to it [...]

What’s the difference between an art or skill and a virtue? The obvious one that comes to mind is that virtues are essential to human survival, and, while so is some art, if its possessor is to participate in social cooperation, no particular art is essential. On the other hand, each virtue, by quickening its [...]

“What is history, but a disgusting and painful detail of the butcheries of conquerors, and the woeful calamities of the conquered?” – Anti-Federalist #3.

Friendship imposes on one greater duties than social cooperation in general. It is the essence of friendship that friends ought to treat each other with more care than strangers ought to. But becoming friends with someone is not going above and beyond the call of duty impressed upon one by the larger society. This is [...]

I don’t understand why I have to leaf through The Oxford Book of American Poetry in search of poems that actually rhyme. But here are a couple of delightful ones: Dawn An angel, robed in spotless white, Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night. Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone. Men saw the [...]

1. Mitchell Jones writes: “Being alive surely presupposes access to food; but, just as surely, it does not presuppose that you have a right to access to food, or even that the particular food to which you have access is yours by right. (Consuming stolen food can sustain life and the ability to argue.)” This [...]