Blogs
Psychopathy Conference
Those of you who are or will be in the UK in a few weeks may be interested in this conference on psychopathy and amorality to be held in Swansea, March 26-27.
David Shoemaker
Categories: External Blogs
Details re: Northwestern-Notre Dame Grad Conference in Epistemology
The schedule for the first annual Northwestern-Notre Dame Graduate Student Conference in Epistemology, to take place at Northwestern on Friday and Saturday, April 16-17, can be found here. Hilary Kornblith will be the keynote speaker. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Categories: External Blogs
Medieval Philosophy Scholar Accused of Plagiarism
Story here.
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
Tenure-Track and Postdoc Hiring by Philosophy Departments, 2009-2010
This post will be moved to the top periodically. PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE IN THE RULES ABOUT WHO CAN POST. It's that time of year again...I am opening comments on this thread for people to post news about junior, tenure-track...
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
What's the point of having a philosophy department?
Harry Brighouse (Wisconsin) comments.
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
Guess which hero of the "Tea Bag" movement used to cross the border to use Canada's health care system?
Details here.
Categories: External Blogs
"The Radicalism of Legal Positivism"
This is the penultimate version of an essay that will appear in the special 'legal theory' issue of the National Lawyers Guild's Guild Practitioner. It is written with a non-specialist audience in mind, so may be of interest to some...
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
David Milliband on the Iraq War
The BBC report is here. An excerpt:
"[. . .] "successive failures" of the United Nations to follow through threats to Saddam Hussein weakened it ahead of the Iraq war, David Miliband has said.
The UK foreign secretary said scope for action against him had become "severely limited" by "feeble follow-through".
Mr Miliband told the Iraq inquiry that international agencies thought Saddam posed "the material to be a danger".
But he said he disagreed with former US Vice-President Dick Cheney that Iraq was an "epicentre of terrorism". [. . .]"
This is a very strange view. So the UK was right to join the US in an invasion of Iraq because the UN appeared too weak?
In some sense, Milliband is correct. The UN weapons inspectors performed a brilliant job: they were right to say there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found. This ill-advised war seems to have one effect of showing the UN ain't so bad after all.
Of course, if the UK was so keen to help the UN, then why didn't Milliband support a Security Council resolution explicitly authorizing war . . . ?
"[. . .] "successive failures" of the United Nations to follow through threats to Saddam Hussein weakened it ahead of the Iraq war, David Miliband has said.
The UK foreign secretary said scope for action against him had become "severely limited" by "feeble follow-through".
Mr Miliband told the Iraq inquiry that international agencies thought Saddam posed "the material to be a danger".
But he said he disagreed with former US Vice-President Dick Cheney that Iraq was an "epicentre of terrorism". [. . .]"
This is a very strange view. So the UK was right to join the US in an invasion of Iraq because the UN appeared too weak?
In some sense, Milliband is correct. The UN weapons inspectors performed a brilliant job: they were right to say there were no weapons of mass destruction to be found. This ill-advised war seems to have one effect of showing the UN ain't so bad after all.
Of course, if the UK was so keen to help the UN, then why didn't Milliband support a Security Council resolution explicitly authorizing war . . . ?
Categories: External Blogs
Anthony Grafton on British universities
. . . from the New York Review of Books here.
Categories: External Blogs
Bhikhu Parekh on International Women's Day
. . . from his speech in the House of Lords here:
"[. . .] My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, on securing this debate. When a similar debate took place about six or eight months ago, there were 12 speakers and only one of them a man: that was me, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. Today, we have 26 speakers and five of them are men, so we have certainly made some progress, but it also goes to show how far we have to go before there can be a genuine balance of representation along gender lines.
The eighth of March marks International Women's Day. When we celebrate it, it is worth bearing in mind that it was initiated by the socialist movement, especially by the Socialist Party of the United States. That may surprise your Lordships, but it did exist in those days, and it took the initiative in sponsoring women's day. The day used to be 28 February and was transferred to 8 March in 1913. Next year, I am told, we mark the global centenary year of International Women's Day, when I am sure that we will conduct this debate even more vigorously than we have today.
During the past 100-odd years, much has been achieved and the position of women has changed considerably for the better. There is greater appreciation of women's rights; there is greater recognition of their needs; and there is increasing education of women at all levels. There is also greater awareness of, and resistance to, domestic and sexual violence, and to many other practices such as dowry, female genital mutilation, honour killing and female foeticide that obtain in many parts of the world.
However, in spite of those improvements, we still have a long way to go, in developing countries as well as in the West. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said, it is worth remembering why changes have taken place in some developing countries and not in others. Three factors in particular have played a very important part. One is education. It is striking that development in women's education is closely correlated with the human development index. One could contrast, for example, Sri Lanka, with 92 per cent female literacy, and Myanmar, with 32 per cent female literacy. In the country that I come from, India, one could contrast Kerala, with female literacy of 97 per cent and a very high human development index, with a state up in the north, Bihar, where female literacy is 38 per cent and the human development index is extremely low. Education therefore plays an extremely important part.
The second factor which has played a very important part is democracy, which gives women a sense of dignity and power, and a determination to take control of their own affairs. Democratic countries have by and large done much better than non-democratic countries where the human development index is concerned.
The third factor has to do with active civil society associations. When they take up women's causes and give support to women with problems, the literacy rate among women tends to be high, and many of the social practices which hold them back tend to be contested and fought.
I turn to Britain, which in some senses is the centre of our debate. We have made considerable progress under Labour during the past few years. In 1992, female representation in the Commons was 9 per cent. It began to go up in 1997 and, today, it is 19.5 per cent. Female representation in the Cabinet was 7 per cent; today, it is 17 per cent. On boards of public bodies, it was 25 per cent when Labour came to power; it is 33 per cent today. In senior grades of the Civil Service, it was 12 per cent in 1997; it is 29 per cent today. Among officers of the Royal Air Force, it was 8 per cent in 1997; it is 15.3 per cent today. Among university professors, the profession to which I belong, it used to be 8 per cent; today, it is 18 per cent. It is obvious that things have improved considerably, but there is still a long way to go. In the private sector, the picture is rather depressing. Just 11 per cent of FTSE 100 companies have women as directors; 22 per cent have no women directors. Of the banks, partly responsible for our chaos, only 8 per cent have female directors. If we had more, perhaps that chaos could have been avoided a long time ago.
We can learn much from Norway. In 1984, 83 per cent of companies there had women on their boards; today, it is 100 per cent. Five factors are responsible for things moving faster in Norway and Scandinavian countries, all of which we need to bear in mind in our struggle in our own country. First, government pressure is very important. Secondly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has a very important role to play. Thirdly, freedom of information is important in finding out how certain companies behave and how they promote. Fourthly, private and public pressure is necessary to change the organisational culture of those companies. And, finally and most importantly, where equality is equated with uniformity women make less progress because their differences are not taken into account. Therefore, we need to define equality in such a way that differences are fully taken into account and fully reflected in the policies and practices of the organisations involved. [. . .]"
"[. . .] My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Hendon, on securing this debate. When a similar debate took place about six or eight months ago, there were 12 speakers and only one of them a man: that was me, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. Today, we have 26 speakers and five of them are men, so we have certainly made some progress, but it also goes to show how far we have to go before there can be a genuine balance of representation along gender lines.
The eighth of March marks International Women's Day. When we celebrate it, it is worth bearing in mind that it was initiated by the socialist movement, especially by the Socialist Party of the United States. That may surprise your Lordships, but it did exist in those days, and it took the initiative in sponsoring women's day. The day used to be 28 February and was transferred to 8 March in 1913. Next year, I am told, we mark the global centenary year of International Women's Day, when I am sure that we will conduct this debate even more vigorously than we have today.
During the past 100-odd years, much has been achieved and the position of women has changed considerably for the better. There is greater appreciation of women's rights; there is greater recognition of their needs; and there is increasing education of women at all levels. There is also greater awareness of, and resistance to, domestic and sexual violence, and to many other practices such as dowry, female genital mutilation, honour killing and female foeticide that obtain in many parts of the world.
However, in spite of those improvements, we still have a long way to go, in developing countries as well as in the West. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, said, it is worth remembering why changes have taken place in some developing countries and not in others. Three factors in particular have played a very important part. One is education. It is striking that development in women's education is closely correlated with the human development index. One could contrast, for example, Sri Lanka, with 92 per cent female literacy, and Myanmar, with 32 per cent female literacy. In the country that I come from, India, one could contrast Kerala, with female literacy of 97 per cent and a very high human development index, with a state up in the north, Bihar, where female literacy is 38 per cent and the human development index is extremely low. Education therefore plays an extremely important part.
The second factor which has played a very important part is democracy, which gives women a sense of dignity and power, and a determination to take control of their own affairs. Democratic countries have by and large done much better than non-democratic countries where the human development index is concerned.
The third factor has to do with active civil society associations. When they take up women's causes and give support to women with problems, the literacy rate among women tends to be high, and many of the social practices which hold them back tend to be contested and fought.
I turn to Britain, which in some senses is the centre of our debate. We have made considerable progress under Labour during the past few years. In 1992, female representation in the Commons was 9 per cent. It began to go up in 1997 and, today, it is 19.5 per cent. Female representation in the Cabinet was 7 per cent; today, it is 17 per cent. On boards of public bodies, it was 25 per cent when Labour came to power; it is 33 per cent today. In senior grades of the Civil Service, it was 12 per cent in 1997; it is 29 per cent today. Among officers of the Royal Air Force, it was 8 per cent in 1997; it is 15.3 per cent today. Among university professors, the profession to which I belong, it used to be 8 per cent; today, it is 18 per cent. It is obvious that things have improved considerably, but there is still a long way to go. In the private sector, the picture is rather depressing. Just 11 per cent of FTSE 100 companies have women as directors; 22 per cent have no women directors. Of the banks, partly responsible for our chaos, only 8 per cent have female directors. If we had more, perhaps that chaos could have been avoided a long time ago.
We can learn much from Norway. In 1984, 83 per cent of companies there had women on their boards; today, it is 100 per cent. Five factors are responsible for things moving faster in Norway and Scandinavian countries, all of which we need to bear in mind in our struggle in our own country. First, government pressure is very important. Secondly, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has a very important role to play. Thirdly, freedom of information is important in finding out how certain companies behave and how they promote. Fourthly, private and public pressure is necessary to change the organisational culture of those companies. And, finally and most importantly, where equality is equated with uniformity women make less progress because their differences are not taken into account. Therefore, we need to define equality in such a way that differences are fully taken into account and fully reflected in the policies and practices of the organisations involved. [. . .]"
Categories: External Blogs
JOB: St Andrews
Professorial Fellowship
Moral Philosophy
School of Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies
University of St Andrews
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT773/
Moral Philosophy
School of Philosophical, Anthropological & Film Studies
University of St Andrews
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT773/
Categories: External Blogs
JOB: Stirling (2)
Lecturer in Epistemology or Philosophy of Mind
Department of Philosophy
University of Stirling
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT405/
Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Legal, Moral or Political Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
University of Stirling
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT406/
Department of Philosophy
University of Stirling
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT405/
Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in Legal, Moral or Political Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
University of Stirling
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT406/
Categories: External Blogs
JOB: Oxford
Fellowship by Examination (JRF)
Magdalen College, Oxford
University of Oxford
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT336/
Magdalen College, Oxford
University of Oxford
http://jobs.ac.uk/job/AAT336/
Categories: External Blogs
Anthony Grafton on the Self-Destruction of KCL and British Higher Education
Here. It's a brilliant exegesis of the toll short-term market thinking is taking on what used to be the greatest university system in the world. (Thanks to Chris Fraser for the pointer.) That universities at the level of King's College,...
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
Fellowship in Honor of Philip Quinn Established at National Humanities Center
Details here.
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
Punishment and Justice conference
Workshop: Punishment and Justice
Friday May 21st
Cardiff University
Speakers:
Professor Matt Matravers (York): Communicating with Hard Treatment?
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/staff/profiles/mm.htm
Dr Kimberley Brownlee (Manchester) Title TBC http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/about/staff/brownlee/
Dr Thom Brooks (Newcastle) Retribution and Capital Punishment http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/t.brooks/
The aim of the workshop is to scrutinise accounts of the justification of punishment, taking into consideration non-ideal circumstances. Must the state ensure a certain level of social justice if it is to justly punish?
Can the state justly punish if disadvantage persists? What political obligations are presupposed by justifications of punishment?
Welcome & registration (Cathleen Edie Room, Abedare Hall): 13.45 First paper: 14.15 Dinner (not included in registration costs): 19.30
Saturday morning: walk in the Welsh countryside (optional)
Attendance is £15 (waged) £5 (student/unwaged).
To register for the workshop, please send cheques, made payable to Cardiff University, to:
Dr Jules Holroyd
ENCAP (Philosophy section)
Cardiff University
Humanities Building
Colum Drive,
Cardiff CF10 3EU
For further enquiries, please contact HolroydJ[at]Cardiff.ac.uk
Friday May 21st
Cardiff University
Speakers:
Professor Matt Matravers (York): Communicating with Hard Treatment?
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/poli/staff/profiles/mm.htm
Dr Kimberley Brownlee (Manchester) Title TBC http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/disciplines/politics/about/staff/brownlee/
Dr Thom Brooks (Newcastle) Retribution and Capital Punishment http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/t.brooks/
The aim of the workshop is to scrutinise accounts of the justification of punishment, taking into consideration non-ideal circumstances. Must the state ensure a certain level of social justice if it is to justly punish?
Can the state justly punish if disadvantage persists? What political obligations are presupposed by justifications of punishment?
Welcome & registration (Cathleen Edie Room, Abedare Hall): 13.45 First paper: 14.15 Dinner (not included in registration costs): 19.30
Saturday morning: walk in the Welsh countryside (optional)
Attendance is £15 (waged) £5 (student/unwaged).
To register for the workshop, please send cheques, made payable to Cardiff University, to:
Dr Jules Holroyd
ENCAP (Philosophy section)
Cardiff University
Humanities Building
Colum Drive,
Cardiff CF10 3EU
For further enquiries, please contact HolroydJ[at]Cardiff.ac.uk
Categories: External Blogs
Conference on Varieties of Ethical Skepticism
The Department of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research is pleased to announce a conference on varieties of ethical skepticism, to be held this April 16th and 17th in New York City. The speakers are Michael Gill, Peter...
Douglas Portmore
Categories: External Blogs
Survey: Teaching Contemporary Moral Issues and Problems
Nathan Nobis writes: I have created a survey to try to identify which topics are most commonly addressed in introductory ethics courses that have a contemporary moral issues or problems component. If (and only if) you teach a course that...
Dan Boisvert
Categories: External Blogs
Free E-Book from U of Chicago Press
Ted Cohen's Jokes. (Thanks to Varol Akman for the pointer.)
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
More on the Implosion of King's College, London
Here, and certainly worth reading. The author notes, ever so discreetly, a fact that had escaped my notice so far, namely, the rather disproportionate number of Israelis who are being targetted for the purge from the faculty. Hmm.
Brian Leiter
Categories: External Blogs
