Reason Versus Faith and Emotionalism by Aaron Smith
Recorded live at Ayn Rand Conference Europe 2020
reality
From Metaphysical Facts to Moral Guidance by Aaron Smith
This session—part lecture, part class discussion—explores the fact that, and the ways in which, the guidance offered by the Objectivist ethics flows from the recognition of certain universal facts about human nature and the nature of the world in which man lives. The purpose of the session is to highlight the connection between facts and values from a uniquely Objectivist perspective.
Recorded live at OCON on June 24, 2019
Free Speech, Free Minds, Free Markets by Tara Smith
Many people believe that while freedom of speech is a vital human liberty, economic freedom is entirely separate, merely a distant and inferior relation. This lecture exposes their error by examining the underappreciated implications of free speech on free markets. After isolating the First Amendment’s core concern as intellectual freedom, Smith demonstrates how the mind is the bridge between speech and property—between intellectual activity, on the other hand, and its manifold material rewards, on the other.
Recorded Live in Cleveland on Thursday June 27th, 2019.
Why Be Honest? by Ben Bayer
We live in an age in which fabricated stories pulse through social media, fashionable startup companies are founded on swindles and, of course, politicians of all stripes routinely lie. Whatever happened to the idea that honesty is the best policy? Most people would recognize honesty as an obvious example of a moral virtue, but the idea of being honest on principle strikes many people as a burdensome duty they owe to other people, which is sometimes too impractical to stick to consistently.
Is honesty really just a duty we owe to others? What does it mean to be honest and why should we bother being honest at all?
Join Ben Bayer to explore one of life’s big questions: Why be honest?
What Is Killing Western Civilization? with Douglas Murray, Claire Fox and Yaron Brook
Cultural observers have often noted that Europe — and, more broadly, Western civilization — despite historically unprecedented success, is in danger of losing itself. But what exactly is being lost, and why? And what can be done about it?
In a recent panel discussion entitled “What Is Killing Western Civilization?,” Yaron Brook (chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute) and Douglas Murray (author of The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam) met at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers lecture theatre in central London to discuss the future of Western civilization in the context of its own identity crisis and the growing trend of immigration to the West from those outside it — and, in some cases, hostile to it. The panel, moderated by Claire Fox (director and founder of Academy of Ideas), addressed such questions as:
- What is Western civilization?
- What is the nature of the crisis that the West faces?
- How should one think about immigration in today’s world?