Center on Culture & Civil Society

The Center for Culture and Civil Society has been established to reaffirm the interdisciplinary roots of the natural and social sciences, as well as their primal concern for the moral nature of humanity. It seeks to foster a cultural renaissance through a bold redefinition and reorientation of public debate toward a new integration of knowledge that supports the foundations of free, moral and peaceful societies.

To recognize the value of human liberty, we need to understand humans correctly: as morally conscious, reasoning, goal-directed, and creative beings. Without the metaphysical capacity for choice, the legal capacity seems entirely beside the point.

The view of humans as purposeful decision-makers is under attack. Almost daily, media reports claim that scientists have “explained” away another enduring human characteristic in purely deterministic terms. Neuroscientists try to describe love and hate by looking at MRI scans while psychiatrists eliminate moral responsibility by claiming a strictly bio-psychological basis of criminal behavior.

The naturalist worldview, now dominant in the social sciences, treats people as passive objects pushed and pulled by their genes and environment. This reduces all human endeavor to the interplay of mechanistic and impersonal physical forces, strips the world of purpose and objective morality, and enables tyranny. Technocrats seek to rescue people from the forces that shape their lives while denying their capacity for choice. In the process, thinkers able to articulate humanity’s uniquely moral nature have been marginalized and ignored.

However, a growing number of scholars have questioned this strictly materialistic worldview. They have pointed out that reason and science require more than material facts, insisting that any analysis of the material world requires individuals whose views are not themselves determined by that world. By stressing the commonsense view of people as reasoning agents, these thinkers have revealed the importance of a non-materialistic culture for individual liberty, reason, and civic virtue.

The purpose of the Center on Culture and Civil Society is to bring together top scholars and sponsor research across the natural sciences, philosophy, economics, theology, history, law, sociology, and other fields in order to produce books and other publications, events, and media programs that bring this work to the attention of educators and students, policy makers, opinion leaders, and the general public.

Center on Culture & Civil Society Books

Center on Culture & Civil Society People

Personnel

Jonathan J. Bean
Professor of History, Southern Illinois University
Allan C. Carlson
President, Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society; Director, Family in America Studies Center
Charles Taliaferro
Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College
José Maria J. Yulo
Lecturer in Philosophy and Western Civilization, Academy of Art University

Senior Fellows

Research Fellows

Advisors

Arthur C. Brooks
Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
G. Marcus Cole
Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics, University of Virginia
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University
Stewart Goetz
Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Ursinus College
Peter J. Hill
George F. Bennett Professor Emeritus of Economics, Wheaton College
Laurence R. Iannaccone
Professor of Economics, George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University
Distinguished Professor of History and Co-Director of the Program on Historical Studies of Religion, Baylor University
Peter G. Klein
Professor of Entrepreneurship, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University
Professor of Philosophy, Boston College
John C. Lennox
Professor of Mathematics, University of Oxford; Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science, Green Templeton College
SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities and Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
Andrew P. Morriss
Dean and Anthony G. Buzbee Dean's Endowed Chairholder, Texas A&M University School of Law
Alvin C. Plantinga
Jellema Chair Emeritus in Philosophy at Calvin College; John O’Brien Chair Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame; Templeton Prize Laureate
Professor of Preventive Medicine and Director, Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, Stony Brook University
Nicholas Rescher
Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh
Daniel N. Robinson
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Georgetown University; Faculty Fellow, Linacre College, Oxford University
Edward P. Stringham
Davis Professor of Economic Organizations and Innovation, Trinity College
Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy, St. Louis University
Richard Swinburne
Emeritus Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion and Emeritus Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford
Charles Taliaferro
Professor of Philosophy, St. Olaf College
Professor of Philosophy, Asbury Theological Seminary
Robert M. Whaples
Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University; Managing Editor and Co-Editor, The Independent Review
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, University of Virginia; Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology Emeritus, Yale University

Adjunct Fellows

In Memoriam

Center on Culture & Civil Society Contact

Center on Culture and Civil Society
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428
510-632-1366 Phone
510-568-6040 Fax

 

Center on Culture and Civil Society The Independent Institute 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428 510-632-1366 Phone 510-568-6040 Fax Mary L. G. Theroux, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, the Independent Institute
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About the Independent Institute Centers

Each center is tasked with assessing, refining, and proposing innovative solutions to pressing social and economic challenges. Our programs focus on three core components: rigorous scholarly research, insightful publications, and the strategic dissemination of findings to opinion leaders and the public through conferences and media initiatives.

By fostering evidence-based solutions, our centers encourage informed discussions that can be scrutinized not just by experts, but also by media influencers, business leaders, religious organizations, engaged citizens, and policymakers. Our goal is to promote rational, objective dialogue that sheds light on key issues and shifts public discourse away from interest-group politics.