Category Archives: Liberty

Published on
10 June 2013

Innocence, Surveillance and Our Perennial Dilemma

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. […]

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Published on
13 May 2013

The Properties of Democracy

Posted in Culture, Human Rights, Liberty, Political Economy

In modern Britain the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association are rightly among those most treasured. Following on their heels is the right to property, although at times it seems a rather weaker cousin. Speaking and meeting with others come naturally, but owning property is a bit more involved. If, like most, […]

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Published on
22 November 2012

Religion, Secular Politics and Intelligible Values

Posted in Christianity, Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Human Rights, Liberty, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy, Religion, Social Commentary, Virtue

Religious experience is, for many sceptical or simply indifferent secularists, something unintelligible. The idea that there is a God who can become a man and forgive sins — even that there is such a thing as God or as sin — is for them unacceptable. Religious people must remember that this is no simple matter […]

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Published on
12 November 2012

We Need Saints in the Cabinet, not Vigilantes in the Newsroom

Posted in British Politics, Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Ethics in the Media, Liberty, Moral Philosophy

When Philip Schofield passed a list of alleged sexual abusers to David Cameron on camera it was clear the Prime Minister was not pleased. This was not a simple matter of the government or the Tory party facing charges of ‘honours for cash’ or of political ‘u-turns’. The possibility that senior members of the party […]

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Published on
3 February 2012

Democracy, Morality and the Common Good

Posted in Big Society, British Politics, Christianity, Civil Liberties, Conscience, Culture, Human Rights, Liberty, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy, Religion, Virtue

From a guest blogger: A position commonly held by ‘reformers’ in various religious traditions in this country may be summarised roughly in the following lines: If the central authority of a religion is at odds with beliefs held by the majority of that its adherents, the former is duty-bound to reconsider and even to change […]

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Published on
23 January 2012

Violations of Conscience in ‘The Land of the Free’

Posted in Abortion, Civil Liberties, Conscience, Human Life, Human Rights, Liberty, Moral Philosophy

From a guest blogger: Not for the first time has ‘the land of the free’ been a hopelessly wrongheaded epithet with which to label the United States of America. Many developed western nations find themselves embarrassed by histories of racial subjugation and segregation and they are rightly sorry about these records. But slavery is not […]

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