Volume 30

Number 2

Fall

2025

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The Samaritan with the Guillotine

By Christopher J. Coyne, Abigail R. Hall

Isabel Paterson’s “The Humanitarian with the Guillotine” sought to understand how the desire to engage in charity could do harm, noting that the embrace of the humanitarian impulse could undermine individual freedom and result in tyranny. The connections between her paper and James Buchanan’s “The Samaritan’s Dilemma” are carefully identified in this essay.

  • is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, and Co-Editor of The Independent Review.

  • is a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, and Professor of Economics at the University of Tampa.

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