I was thinking this morning about the moral calculus that goes into discussions about climate change policy. It’s the case that for any even or action, there are an infinite number of causes (conditions that are necessary but not sufficient for the event to occur). But only a finite number of causes, perhaps in most cases a single cause, can have any moral relevance. For a cause to be a moral cause, it has to have be related to a...

Over at the Becker-Posner blog, the gentlemen consider the question, “Do National Security and Environmental Energy Policies Conflict?” (a topic also discussed here.) Becker predicts, “Driven by environmental and security concerns, more extensive government intervention in the supply and demand for energy are to be expected during the next few years in all economically important countries. Policies that meet both these concerns are feasible, and clearly would have greater political support than the many approaches that advance one of these...

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in post-apartheid South Africa has been hailed as the standard for working for restorative justice in the contemporary world. One of the misunderstandings surrounding the work of mission, however, involves the relationship between the forgiveness, reconciliation, and amnesty offered by mission in relation to the coercive power of the state. David Schmidtz, in his recent book Elements of Justice, writes, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission set out in 1995 to document human rights...

I like to think of J. Gresham Machen as the American Presbyterian Chesterton — though he is sometimes more explicit in his mentary than his British Catholic counterpart. In my Sunday reading, I ing across interesting lines from his selected shorter writings (edited by D.G. Hart) that call to mind current campaign rhetoric, especially from senators Obama and Clinton, about the need for expanded or universal preschool and state-subsidized education in general. Here are a few quotes from Machen’s 1933...