For all that he tried to extend the scope of human sympathy in his influential oeuvre, Professor Ronald Dworkin, who died last year at the age of 81, was a divisive figure. To his critics, the US philosopher and scholar of constitutional law was the theorist-in-chief of ‘rights culture’ and the poster boy for an... Continue Reading →
Moonlighting in Moccasins
In the political debates of the 1980s, one common (and very irritating) rhetorical manoeuvre was the Conservative Appeal to Human Nature. More conversation-stopper than debating point, this nifty ideological clincher was ever on the lips of smooth-talking Tories for whom politics was reducible to a question of self-interest aggravated by prejudice. Certainly the shtick wasn’t... Continue Reading →
The Age of Outrage
‘What’s worse,’ asked the comedian, ‘leaving a swearword on somebody’s answer-phone or tacitly supporting Adolph Hitler when he took charge of the Third Reich?’ Russell Brand was speaking on his radio show on 25 October 2008 – a week after he and Jonathan Ross had left a series of lewd messages on the answering machine... Continue Reading →
The Flame of Power
For Plato, the ideal city-state was one in which ‘philosopher-kings’ would take charge; ‘Unless philosophers bear kingly rule in cities,’ he has Socrates say in The Republic, ‘there will be no respite from evil.’ In reality, however, the history of intellectuals in power has not been a happy one; indeed, it seems that theoretical acumen... Continue Reading →
For the love of sharks
On the morning of 6 November 2000, Ken Crew was finishing his regular swim off the popular, and usually placid, beach of North Cottesloe, a 500-metre stretch of sand in a well-to-do western suburb of Perth. It was around 6.30, and the 49-year-old Crew, a businessman and father of three, was wading in waist-deep water,... Continue Reading →
Philip Dodd and I go head to head
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iT-pOJqh5rk
On Geoffrey Robertson and Michael Kirby
‘Although an expatriate, I am not an ex-patriot’, writes the human rights barrister Geoffrey Robertson in his introduction to Dreaming Too Loud, a collection of essays spanning thirty years and touching on subjects as diverse as drones, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Julian Assange. It’s a point on which he insists more than once, perhaps because,... Continue Reading →
A dangerous cynicism
It is now almost exactly a quarter of a century since history – or rather History – ended. The year was 1989. Amidst the collapsing scenery of the Soviet Union and its European satellites, a political scientist called Francis Fukuyama stepped forward to declare that liberal democracy was now the only game in town. His... Continue Reading →
Talking about offence with the ABC’s Richard Fidler
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/local/brisbane/conversations/201311/r1203534_15602380.mp3
Would You Kill the Fat Man?
Consider the following scenario. Terrorists have hijacked three passenger aeroplanes, two of which have just been flown into skyscrapers in the middle of a busy city. On its first run, the third plane missed its target, but it is now lining up for another attempt. In the meantime, you – the head of the Air... Continue Reading →