Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

It is the essence of every physical object to be able to move and actually to move, because for every object there exists another object somewhere in the universe, relative to which it is moving. But if something is moving relative to something else, then it has relative to that object kinetic energy. So, every [...]

I tell you, Aquinas is a gift that keeps on giving. Here I was thinking it it was a nice insight to write in my notes something like this, verbatim:
shame vs. guilt:
shame if your ideal is low or bad. e.g., if you felt that wallowing in filth like a pig (or drinking yourself into stupor) [...]

I wish I knew where I read this, but a long time ago there was a web page which posed to the readers a puzzle, something along the following lines. Imagine that a doctor suddenly received an apparently divine gift of healing, such that simply by touching another person, he would cure him of any [...]

As a Johnny-come-lately to Avatar, I must say that of course I was amazed by the effects and 3D and all that. But it was interesting to think of the problem posed in the movie, namely, whether a peaceful solution to the problems of both the humans and the Na’vi could be found. At first [...]

Regarding the kalam argument. Craig has build a huge case for the existence of God based on it. The argument is:
(1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause for its coming into being.
(2) The universe began to exist.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause for its coming into being.
Craig needs to shore up the minor. [...]

The American right defines itself entirely in opposition to the left. They have no ideas of their own except protecting the status quo and the politically powerful and, of course, war. They merely hate the left. But being against something is not a positive program. Brown’s victory is a reaction to Obama’s policies, a good [...]

In the first philosophy book I ever read, Philosophy for Dummies by Thomas Morris (which is a brilliant introduction to numerous philosophical ideas), Morris articulates the “principle of belief conservation.” First he argues that some of our beliefs are rational, or else the term “rational belief” would have neither referent nor meaning. The usefulness of [...]

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 and [...]

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 time [...]

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 a [...]

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: any machine [...]

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 benevolent than [...]

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 of the [...]