By era
Enlightenment
36 entries
Act Utilitarianism
The right act is whichever one, in this particular situation, produces the most overall good.
8 min
ThinkerAdam Smith
The moral philosopher who gave the modern world its first systematic account of how markets work, and why they can serve the common good without anyone intending it.
9 min
Mental modelBayesian Updating
A rule for changing your mind by the right amount: start with a prior belief, see the evidence, and revise in proportion to how strongly that evidence points.
8 min
ConceptChecks and Balances
Each branch of government holds specific powers to restrain the others, so that no single center of authority can dominate.
7 min
IdeologyClassical Liberalism
The doctrine that the individual is the basic moral unit, free by right, and that government exists only to secure that freedom under law, and no further.
12 min
IdeologyConservatism
Not a blueprint for the good society but a disposition to prefer the tried to the untried, and to reform inheritances rather than replace them.
12 min
ThinkerDavid Hume
The arch-empiricist who showed that our belief in cause, in the self, and in the future rests not on reason but on habit.
12 min
ConceptDemocratic Peace Theory
The most-tested regularity in international relations: liberal democracies almost never go to war with one another, though they fight non-democracies as readily as anyone.
10 min
ConceptDeontology
The view that some acts are right or wrong in themselves, by their conformity to duty, regardless of their consequences.
10 min
ThinkerEdmund Burke
The first great theorist of conservatism, who argued that inherited institutions embody a wisdom that abstract reason cannot replace.
8 min
ConceptEquality of Opportunity
The principle that a person's prospects should depend on their own choices and abilities, not on the circumstances of their birth.
7 min
ConceptEquality of Outcome
The principle that a just society should aim for roughly equal distribution of goods, wealth, or welfare among its members.
7 min
IdeologyFederalism
A single country in which sovereignty is divided by a written constitution between a central government and constituent units, each supreme within its own sphere.
11 min
ConceptHuman Rights
Moral claims that belong to every human being simply because they are human, prior to and independent of any government's grant.
7 min
ConceptHypothetical Imperatives
Commands that bind you only if you want something: if you want the end, take the means. Kant argues morality cannot be one of them.
8 min
ThinkerImmanuel Kant
The philosopher who argued that the mind actively shapes experience, and that morality is a law reason gives to itself.
12 min
ThinkerJean-Jacques Rousseau
The philosopher who argued that human beings are naturally good but corrupted by society, and that legitimate political authority rests on the collective self-rule of citizens through the general will.
9 min
ThinkerJeremy Bentham
The philosopher who made happiness measurable and insisted that law and morality serve nothing higher than human (and animal) well-being.
9 min
TraditionLiberalism in International Relations
The claim that anarchy among states can be tamed: trade, shared republican values, and international institutions make cooperation and even peace possible where realism sees only recurring conflict.
11 min
ThinkerMontesquieu
The thinker who argued that political liberty depends on the structural separation of governmental powers.
8 min
IdeologyNationalism
The claim that humanity is divided into nations, that the nation is the primary object of political loyalty, and that each nation should govern itself.
12 min
ConceptSelf-Determination
The claim that a people has the right to govern itself, free from external domination.
7 min
Mental modelSupply and Demand
Price is the point at which the quantity people want to buy equals the quantity people want to sell.
8 min
ConceptThe Categorical Imperative
The supreme rule of morality: act only on a principle you could will everyone to follow, and treat every person as an end, never merely as a means.
10 min
ConceptThe Division of Labor
Splitting work into specialized tasks multiplies productivity, but at costs Smith himself foresaw.
7 min
ConceptThe General Will
The general will is the collective interest of a political community, distinct from the mere sum of private desires, and the only legitimate basis of sovereign authority.
7 min
ConceptThe Invisible Hand
The idea that self-interested action, channeled through competitive markets, can generate social benefit without anyone planning it.
7 min
ConceptThe Is-Ought Problem
Hume's observation that no statement about what ought to be done follows logically from statements about what merely is.
8 min
ConceptThe Kingdom of Ends
Act as if you were both lawmaker and citizen in a community where every rational being is treated as an end and never merely as a means.
9 min
Mental modelThe Normal Distribution
The bell curve: a model of how quantities scatter when they are the sum of many small independent effects, reliable at the center and dangerous when its thin tails are trusted where they do not belong.
8 min
ConceptThe Problem of Induction
Every inference from what we have observed to what we have not observed rests on an assumption that cannot itself be justified without circularity.
9 min
ConceptThe Separation of Powers
Liberty is safeguarded by dividing the powers of government into distinct branches so that no single person or body holds them all.
7 min
ThinkerThomas Malthus
The clergyman-economist who argued that population, left unchecked, will always outrun the food supply, and that this tension is the permanent condition of human societies.
8 min
ThinkerThomas Paine
The corsetmaker turned revolutionary pamphleteer who told the American colonies to break with monarchy and told the world that government exists only to secure natural rights.
8 min
IdeologyTraditionalist Conservatism
Society is an inheritance to be tended, not a machine to be redesigned: reform slowly, distrust abstract blueprints, and keep faith with the dead and the unborn.
11 min
ConceptUtilitarianism
The right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number, counting everyone's happiness equally.
10 min