The Spring 2025 Issue of TOS Is Published!

Welcome to the Spring 2025 issue of The Objective Standard, the rational alternative to regressivism and conservatism.

With this issue, we begin not only our twentieth year of publication but also our first year at our new digital home on Substack. We moved to Substack because of the incredible value it offers for managing the technical aspects of our online journal—and because Substack is a great place to share our ideas, essays, and commentary with tens of millions of readers worldwide. (If you’re new to TOS, I hope you’ll peruse our seventy-six-issue archive and more than two thousand articles elucidating and applying the principles of Objectivism and rational philosophy more broadly.)

Also with this issue, I am happy to announce that Thomas Walker-Werth has been promoted to managing editor of the journal. Thomas is stepping into this role as Jon Hersey is stepping out to pursue a master’s degree at Berklee College of Music. As you may have noticed through Jon’s “Noteworthy” articles and videos, music has long been one of his driving passions, and all of us at TOS wish him great success in his new ventures.

Thomas has been writing and editing for TOS since March 2020 and has been its associate editor since March 2022. He has published fifty-four excellent articles and edited hundreds more. In addition to writing and editing, Thomas lays out and publishes TOS Weekly and our quarterly journal, including the print edition of the quarterly, and he exceeds expectations with all of it. Thomas also teaches writing and editing at TOS’s educational nonprofit sister organization, Objective Standard Institute, where he works with a steady stream of rising intellectuals, helping them to think and write more clearly. (Indeed, two junior fellows at OSI who study with Thomas, Daria Topchii and Nadav Sternheim, have articles in this issue of TOS.)

Thomas has earned this promotion in myriad ways. I hope you will join me in celebrating it. Congratulations, Thomas—and thank you for your dedication to clarity, precision, and truth. I look forward to seeing how you shape the journal moving forward.

Now, to the contents of this seventy-seventh issue of The Objective Standard.

In “Free Will: Who Has It,” I address the core arguments against free will (including those of Sam Harris and Alex O’Connor), the conclusive evidence in support of it, and various errors and fallacies that cause confusion on this vital subject.

Next up, in “Trump’s Tariffs: Immoral, Indefensible, and Illiberal,” Nicholas Provenzo shows how the president’s tariffs violate Americans’ rights and spells out a moral—and thus practical—trade policy for protecting rights.

In “DOGE Should Protect Rights, Not ‘Democracy,’” Tom Malone highlights the vital need for an organization such as DOGE to cut government waste, the good the new department has done, flaws in its procedures and justifications, and the principles that should govern its operations.

In “Promoting Life, Reason, and Liberty—Even in a War Zone,” Thomas Walker-Werth reports on his recent trip to a philosophy conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he engaged with an inspiring group of new intellectuals and moral giants.

In “Giordano Bruno: Herald of the Enlightenment,” Tom Malone profiles the radical 16th-century Italian freethinker who challenged the dogma and oppression of the Catholic Church, suffered its faith-based brutality, and exposed the anti-reason, antilife nature of religion.

On the right side of reason and life, in “Charlie Munger’s Value Investing: A Philosophical Approach,” David Chávez Salazar examines the late financier’s reason-based approach to investing and how it can help you level up in other areas of life, as well.

In “Richard Trevithick: The Forgotten Hero of Steam,” Thomas Walker-Werth profiles this often-overlooked pivotal figure in the early development of the steam engine.

In “Lessons on Liberty and Self-Esteem from The Handmaid’s Tale,” Angelica Walker-Werth explores how the fictional Republic of Gilead undermines and destroys its citizens’ self-esteem and what Margaret Atwood’s book can teach us about achieving and maintaining this crucial value.

Reviewing The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, Nadav Sternheim highlights the mind- and life-focused brilliance of this pioneering detective novel.

In “Why Does Hollywood Have an Originality Problem?,” Angelica Walker-Werth addresses today’s abundance of movie sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations, zeroing in on the reasons for the lack of creativity.

In “New Who at Twenty: The Doctor Who Revival’s Best Episodes,” Thomas Walker-Werth looks back on nine of the best episodes of this reason-promoting show’s 2005 revival.

Daria Topchii reviews David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, examining the late director’s vision for this widely misunderstood series.

And, finally, in her review of It Ends with Us, directed by Justin Baldoni, Angelica Walker-Werth focuses on the differences between the film and the book it’s based on, asking whether either does justice to its subject matter.

That’s it for this issue. I hope you enjoy the articles and reviews. If so, be sure to recommend and share them with friends—especially on Substack. If you have a Substack publication of your own, please recommend The Objective Standard on your home page (see “recommendations” on your dashboard). And if you’ve not yet subscribed to the journal for people of reason, well, you know what to do:

Craig Biddle
Editor in Chief
The Objective Standard

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PS. EPUB and PDF versions of this issue will be posted on March 15; audio versions are available in the Substack app.