Philosophy

Philosophy articles feature reflection and analysis about public life, values, ethics, and morals.

All philosophy articles at Brownstone Institute are translated into multiple languages.

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What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us

What Can the Stanford Prison Experiment Tell Us about Life in the Pandemic Era?

By / / , , , / 11 minute read / Articles
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Given the world in which we have been living for the past two years, despite the numerous flaws critics have found in both Zimbardo’s work, it would seem that both he and other members of social psychology’s golden age can still tell us a lot about how social roles, oppressive environments and powerful authorities can alter the psyches and actions of normal people in pathological ways.

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Time for Honesty about Diminishment and Death

Time for Honesty about Diminishment and Death 

By / / , / 7 minute read / Articles
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The elderly were once seen as a precious resource, providing us all with much-needed wisdom and emotional ballast as we navigated life difficulties. Now, however, we lock them and their encroaching decrepitude away so that they do not impinge upon our frenzied, self-directed pep talks about the importance of staying forever young and highly productive.

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Josh Stylman: Why I Decided to Leave the Brooklyn Brewery I Co-Founded

Why I Decided to Leave the Brooklyn Brewery I Co-Founded 

By / / , , / 7 minute read / Articles
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Leaving the company I’ve dedicated the past decade of my life to is not an easy decision for me, but I need to be able to speak my mind freely without fearing that my place of employment – and most importantly, the team of people who work there – will be held responsible for my personal views. We’ve seen that there are bad faith actors willing to mislead and misrepresent in order to do such harm.

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The Moral Cruelty of the Pandemic Response

By / / , , , , / 15 minute read / Articles
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Beyond empathy, to combat a psychic epidemic we need meaning in our lives. Not an ersatz top-down solidarity, dreamt up by technocratic communications experts, but genuine, socially meaningful relationships, purpose and values. Lockdowns and restrictions squashed exactly what we need to flourish as human beings in order to counteract a psychic epidemic. For the good of the collective, we must recapture meaning and values as individuals. 

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A New Age of Barbarism

By / / , , , / 6 minute read / Articles
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The last two years have revealed to us what we would rather not have discovered, namely that freedom and rights, along with enlightened ideals and good science, are extraordinarily fragile. They are only guaranteed by a public that believes in them and is willing to stand up for them. When the cultural consensus in favor of liberty decays, terrible beasts are unleashed on the world. 

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A Priori Science In the Service of Power

By / / , / 9 minute read / Articles
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It speaks to a leadership cadre that knows in its heart of hearts that it has absolutely nothing to offer us, and strongly suspects, moreover, that its present prominence and power are the product of a long-running bluff and that, like all bluffs theirs will collapse as soon as enough people of conscience and empirical rigor stop running from their own shadows.

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Intellectualism 2.0

The Responsibility of Intellectuals 2.0

By / / , / 10 minute read / Articles
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These are things to be feared and against which we should all fight, with intellectuals reversing course and leading the way out of the abyss. The rebuilding will also require what currently seems like the most implausible thing of all, a new generation of intellectuals who fall in love with freedom and then have the courage to defend it.

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Why it Is Ethical To Resist the Biosecurity Surveillance State

By / / , , / 9 minute read / Articles
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The hour is later than we think; twilight is near. Continued compliance with manifestly unjust and often absurd mandates will not return us to a normal functioning society. Every good-faith or selfless act of compliance on the part of citizens has only resulted in more illogical pandemic “countermeasures” that further erode our civil liberties, harm our overall health, and undermine human flourishing.

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