by Thomas R. Wells Judicial punishment is the curious idea that individuals deserve to be punished by the state for breaking its laws. Intellectually this is rather counter-intuitive. If crime is so terrible because it is a social trauma then deliberately hurting more people would seem to amplify that trauma rather than treat it. There…

by Thomas R. Wells The persistence of monarchy in modern Europe, even in weakened form, is astonishing and disappointing. How can it be that in the 21st century Dutch, British, even Canadian citizens must still describe ourselves as mere subjects? What does that medieval term even mean anyway, and who gets to decide? When are…

by Thomas R. Wells Some countries are assholes. They trample on international norms about human rights, maritime boundaries, climate change conventions, and so on. They repeatedly make and break promises and then complain indignantly and even violently if they are challenged for it. They bully weaker countries shamelessly to get their way, all the while…

by Thomas Rodham Wells A strange idea has taken over the social conscience so entirely that it is a taboo even to say what it is. Children have come to be seen as more valuable than adults not despite but because of their psychological immaturity, the thing that makes persons objectively valuable. Consider the appearance…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Do you want to be a good person but find yourself always falling short? It may not be your fault. These days it is difficult to feel like good person. In fact the more you try, the more you may feel like a failure. Thanks to egalitarianism, globalisation, activist NGOs, the…

by Thomas Rodham Wells You may have heard of the gender income gap. It is one of the most obvious signs that despite being equal in theory, women still lack real equality. Some of it is still due to active discrimination by people who still haven't got the equal treatment message. But much more of…

by Thomas Rodham Wells ‘Libertarian paternalism' is how Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein characterise their big idea, redesigning how choices look so that we will be nudged to choose the option in our own best interests. Their proposal has come in for fierce and sustained academic criticism, from both left and right, and from both…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Governments should tax the production and consumption of junk entertainment like Angry Birds and The Bachelor to correct the market failures that encourage their overconsumption. As with tobacco and alcohol, the point of such sin taxes is not to prevent people from consuming things that are bad for them if they…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Enhancement is a hot topic in biomedical ethics, though the academic conversation is coloured by a surprisingly strong – even reactionary – conservatism. On the one hand it probably is a good thing to have some critical scrutiny of the techno utopians' claims. On the other hand, should we – can…

by Thomas Rodham Wells The contemporary animal rights movement owes a great intellectual debt to Peter Singer's pathbreaking book ‘Animal Liberation' (1975). In that book Singer made a break with the dominant moral argument for treating animals well, the Kantian line that mistreating animals is a bad – inhumane – thing for humans to do.…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.Epicurus Economists pay a lot of attention to productivity, the efficiency with which inputs are translated into outputs. This is quite reasonable since productivity is the source of the wealth of nations. But economists tend to focus on the supply side:…

by Thomas Rodham Wells The material prosperity that capitalism has wrought is the product of technology as well as markets (and social norms and state institutions). Markets enhance the efficiency of allocation of resources, such as human labour, between competing projects, while technological innovations enhance the productivity of our use of those resources, the ability…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Parenthood is coming under increasing criticism as a selfish lifestyle choice. Parents' private choices to procreate impose expensive obligations on the rest of us to ensure those children have a decent quality of life and come out as successful adults and citizens, and that means massive tax-subsidies for their health, education,…

by Thomas Rodham Wells Clio, the ancient Greek muse of history History too important to be left to national politicians and their ideological visions of national identity and social engineering projects. First, the principle. History should be truthful, relevant, and just. As an intellectual enterprise history is a matter of fact not opinion, the discovery…

by Thomas Wells The 'new atheist' movement associated with the 'four horsemen' (Hitchens, Dennett, Harris, Dawkins) doesn't speak for me. It combines uninformed foolishness with a quasi religious dogmatism of its own and tops it all with an illiberal political programme. As a non-believer I am as embarrassed by them as many Christians are embarrassed…