Showing papers by "Nelson Lund published in 2021"
TL;DR: The Second Amendment also plays an important role in fostering the kind of civic virtue that resists the cowardly urge to trade liberty for an illusion of safety, which is ultimately indispensable for genuine self-government.
Abstract: The right to keep and bear arms is a vital element of the liberal order that our Founders handed down to us. They understood that those who hold political power will almost always strive to reduce the freedom of those they rule, and that many of the ruled will always be tempted to trade their liberty for empty promises of security. The causes of these political phenomena are sown in the nature of man. The U.S. Constitution, including the Second Amendment, is a device designed to frustrate the domineering tendencies of the politically ambitious. The Second Amendment also plays an important role in fostering the kind of civic virtue that resists the cowardly urge to trade liberty for an illusion of safety. Armed citizens take responsibility for their own security, thereby exhibiting and cultivating the self-reliance and vigorous spirit that is ultimately indispensable for genuine self-government. While much has changed since the eighteenth century, for better and for worse, human nature has not changed. The fundamental principles of our regime, and the understanding of human nature on which those principles are based, can still be grasped today. Once grasped, they can be defended. Such a defense demands an appreciation of the right to arms that goes beyond the legalistic and narrowly political considerations that drive contemporary gun control debates.
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TL;DR: The authors examines Smith's few explicit references to Rousseau, all of which denigrated Rousseau without coming to grips with his arguments, focusing on the only topic that elicited a specific substantive criticism of Rousseau: the origin of languages.
Abstract: Adam Smith’s major works are widely, though not universally, thought to constitute a powerful rebuttal to the critique of civilized life and commercial society in Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality. This article examines Smith’s few explicit references to Rousseau, all of which denigrated Rousseau without coming to grips with his arguments. The analysis focuses on the only topic that elicited a specific substantive criticism of Rousseau: the origin of languages. This topic, which was seriously pursued by both authors, has the advantage of being unburdened with the normative controversies generated today by their different assessments of commercial society. On this topic at least, Rousseau was more daring and ambitious, which suggests that Smith’s avoidance of a direct confrontation with the radical analysis of human nature and civilized life in the Discourse on Inequality may have been motivated in part by an aversion to Rousseau’s philosophic relentlessness.