Category: The Atlasphere

Writing for the ARI MediaLink, Thomas Bowden has published an op-ed titled “Assisted Suicide: A Moral Right” that cuts to the heart of the assisted-suicide debate:

When religious conservatives like Ashcroft use secular laws to enforce their belief in God’s will, they threaten the central principle on which America was founded. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed, for the first time in the history of nations, that each person exists as an end in himself. This basic truth?which finds political expression in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?means, in practical terms, that you need no one’s permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct your efforts to achieve your own personal happiness.
But what if happiness becomes impossible to attain? What if a dread disease, or some other calamity, drains all joy from life, leaving only misery and suffering? The right to life includes and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise?to declare that society must give you permission to kill yourself?is to contradict the right to life at its root. If you have a duty to go on living, despite your better judgment, then your life does not belong to you, and you exist by permission, not by right.
For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is willing to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient’s mental and physical state, and on objective evidence of his patient’s consent, the law should not stand in his way.

Read the full article.

The latest issue of The Objectivist Center‘s monthly journal Navigator is out.
In “What Hath Man Wrought!“, William Thomas reviews Charles Murray’s new book Human Accomplishment. Thomas writes:

Murray’s new book, Human Accomplishment, is a study of the known history of such remarkable leaps. It covers the 2,750 years from 800 B.C. to 1950, employing both anecdote and argument to awaken “a sense of wonder” at the greatest feats of human accomplishment in art and science.

Along with the review, David Kelley interviews Charles Murray about the work’s philosophical premises and arguments.
In her short commentary “Honoring the Choice to Die,” Michelle Marder Kamhi confronts the question of how to die with with dignity and humanity.
See the full issue of Navigator for these and other articles.

Atlasphere member Ed Younkins has published an excellent article titled “Atlas Shrugged in the Business School.”
In the article, Younkins makes some great points about the instructional utility of fiction, Atlas Shrugged‘s unique value in this regard, and the many formats in which the novel is already being taught in business school and business ethics programs around the country.
From the introduction:

Novels, as well as plays and films, are excellent teaching tools for communicating ideas to students. A well-constructed and compelling story can engage students and make a subject more vital to them.
Fiction provides students with interesting material that does not seem like hard work. The result is that novels tend to have greater teaching power and more appeal to students than articles, textbooks, or case studies.
Because students are apt to enjoy reading fiction, it is likely that they may grasp ideas quicker and better than when more conventional teaching methods are used. For many people, pure theory is not as exciting as a good story.

The full article is well worth reading in its entirity.