Public Discourse

Public Discourse is the digital journal associated with the Witherspoon Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Princeton, New Jersey. Our mission is to improve public awareness of the ethical principles that support free societies by sharing the research and insights of our scholars with a wider audience.

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The Dynamics of Exemption and Establishment

1 week ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Marc O. DeGirolami

Editors’ Note: In recognition of the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, this article is published as the third in a three-part series on religious freedom. What can the minority in a democracy reasonably expect from the majority?
The Radical Deficiency of Elon Musk’s Pronatalism

2 weeks ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Xavier Symons

Elon Musk’s family life and views on procreation are making the news, including in a recent exposé in the Wall Street Journal interviewing several women who have borne his children. The picture that has emerged is ugly, messy, and weird. This is not just a story about a talented but morally flawed Silicon Valley visionary. Musk’s is an attitude of detached posthuman nihilism that enables him to evade the norms of familial relationships in the pursuit of creating more and better babies.
The Trump Coalition and Its Discontents

1 month ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Patrick Brown

What did y’all think a working-class realignment meant? Vibes, papers, essays? The conventional wisdom heading into 2024 was that the race between sitting Vice President Kamala Harris and the once and future President Donald Trump was going to be close. Instead, it was a clean sweep for the Trump-Vance campaign—every battleground state swung red, and Republicans even held onto a majority, albeit a historically narrow one, in the House.
The Problem of Patriarchy

1 month ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | John Doherty

Not long ago, Marxists and feminists called conservativism “patriarchy” as a slander. Now many conservatives embrace the label. The author of Rules for Retrogrades proposes returning to “familial patriarchy” to save civilization.
Catholicism and Immigration: A Rejoinder to Cory and Sweeney - Public Discourse

1 month ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Edward Feser

Nowhere do I say, nor would I say, that differing prudential judgments about immigration should be “shielded from objective moral scrutiny.” In no way would I place this area of public policy “outside the realm of things one can objectively morally evaluate.”
Being There: Pope Francis’s Death and the Future of the Catholic Church - Public Discourse

1 month ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Jeffrey Pojanowski

Believing in something like the Catholic Church and her deposit of faith presupposes a non-contestable core that is insoluble to the political waters that seem to suffuse everything these days. And that, it seems, is sufficient unto the day.
The Dark Night of Disenchantment

2 months ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | John Doherty

Charles Taylor has said (following Max Weber) that a defining feature of our “secular age” is its “disenchantment.” In past ages of faith, religion suffused public culture, so that belief in the supernatural—an “enchanted” realm beyond everyday, sensible reality—was as easy as breathing. Roadside shrines, processions through towns and fields, and bells calling the faithful to prayer made God’s presence evident to everyone. But those days are long gone.
Just Statecraft and the Problem of “Peace”: A Response

2 months ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | J. Brian Charles |Alan W. Dowd

Some Christian thinkers are seizing on the Trump administration’s efforts to force an end to the war in Ukraine as evidence of just war theory in action. For instance, noting that the just war tradition “requires us to determine just cause, but it also asks us to ponder the probability of success,” R. R.
Fighting Anti-Semitism Shouldn’t Harm Jewish Students: A Reflection on the Limits of Blunt Force in Academia

2 months ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Daniel Ross Goodman

The recent turmoil at Columbia University offers a stark lesson in the complexities of combating anti-Semitism in academia. On March 7, 2025, the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal grants to the university, citing its failure to curb rampant harassment of Jewish students—a move that underscored a genuine crisis but quickly spiraled into a broader controversy.
Public Reason and the Cultural Moment

2 months ago | thepublicdiscourse.com | Matthew Wilson

Movement progressivism has arrived at a critical juncture. “Latinx” is out, pronouns are being removed from social media accounts, and dissent from what was once an untouchable progressive dogma—the full and equal participation of transgender-identifying athletes in women’s sports—is on the rise.