Craig Biddle to Speak at Rice

Craig Biddle will speak at Rice University on October 23. The title of his talk is The Source and Nature of Rights. This talk will take place on Thursday, Oct. 23rd at Rice University. It will be given at 7:30 p.m. in Herring Hall, Room 100.

Rights are the foundation of civilized society, but they are misunderstood by most people today; thus we hear incessantly of states’ rights, gay rights, the rights of the unborn, the rights of the poor, the right to housing and medical care and education, “stakeholder” rights, civilian rights, the right to privacy, animal rights, the rights of the brain-dead, and so on. The widespread confusion about what rights are and where they come from—along with the various pseudo rights arising from that confusion—is the cause of much political chaos and uncertainty. This talk elucidates the philosophical foundation of genuine rights, identifies their precise nature, differentiates them from pseudo rights, and surveys the broad political implications of these crucial truths.

Craig Biddle is the editor and publisher of The Objective Standard and the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It. He is currently writing a book on the principles of rational thinking and the fallacies that are violations of those principles. In addition to writing, he lectures and teaches workshops on ethical and epistemological issues from an Objectivist perspective.