Why can't our opponents be reasonable? In his new book, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of morality in our rapid and automatic moral intuitions.

Harvey C. Mansfield of Harvard University and AEI delivered the third of the 2008-2009 Bradley Lectures on November 3.

“Rational control” is the subjection of society to reason as opposed to superstition, prejudice, or tradition, with the aim of getting us to behave better. Alexis de Tocqueville says this idea or practice began with the French monarchy; a more recent example is Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and...

Our national energy tax policy is misguided in at least three ways.

In Rational Exuberance: Silencing the Enemies of Growth and Why the Future Is Better Than You Think (HarperBusiness, 2004), Michael J. Mandel argues that the U.S. economy will not create enough jobs or wealth in the future unless breakthrough innovations--on the order of the Internet--take place. It is...

Exuberant growth is stigmatized as immoral by some and bad public policy by others, and economists, surprisingly enough, are the biggest enemies of innovative, transformative growth.

The Kyoto Protocol may come into force without U.S. participation, but its effects on climate change will be trivial.