Published on
18 April 2016
In recent weeks, newspapers and media at large have been speaking about the biggest leak in contemporary history. The Panama Papers amount to 2.6 terabytes of information or 11.5 million documents on offshore tax havens. The records constitute the internal database of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm, and were published by the International Consortium […]
Published on
24 March 2014
We have argued previously on this blog against Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) (here and here). In both instances we sought to make a rational case against based on the premise that helping anyone to end his or her life is contrary to the value of liberty: with destruction of an individual’s life goes destruction of the […]
Published on
11 March 2014
Liberty is a premise upon which physician-assisted suicide is routinely advanced. Some of those suffering from serious and incurable illness or distress seek to argue the case that their suffering is a bondage from which only death can free them. Such suffering is, of course, naturally subjective in the sense that what one person might […]
Published on
18 November 2013
Posted in Conscience, Culture, Human Life, Human Rights, Legal Affairs, Moral Philosophy, Morality in Public, Virtue
‘In any legal system, whether a given norm is legally valid, and hence whether it forms part of the law of that system, depends on its sources, not its merits.’This working definition of ‘legal positivism’ has a certain notoriety, even while it provokes disagreement. This legal tradition is popularly understood, and with some rationale, to […]
Published on
28 October 2013
‘We don’t do God’ said Alastair Campbell. In an increasingly secularised world the idea that religion might play any constructive role in public life is ever more considered a relic of the past. Religious institutions are considered at best well-meaning repositories of old thoughts in beautiful buildings the like of which we shall simply not […]
Published on
1 October 2013
With publication of a series of YouGov polls the State’s funding of religious education is once again in the news. Secularists have renewed their assault on all things religious, and public and religious leaders have responded saying that State-backed faith schools are a ‘precious right’ and that it is wrong to drag children into an […]
Published on
1 July 2013
In order to maintain public order secularism in our time relies on well- established delineation of ‘public’ and ‘private’ realms. While attempting to play down divisions between social groups, secularism reinforces a distinction between public conduct and private life. In this way a moderate secularism can reduce public conflict by emphasising those aspects of public […]
Published on
10 June 2013
Posted in Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Legal Affairs, Liberty, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy, Public Policy, Religion
News that the United States government ordered the largest US communications company Verizon to hand over details of communications of all of its customers on a daily basis is as regrettable as it is shocking. That is to say, insofar as it is regrettable it is also shocking but it is not a complete surprise. […]