Principled discussions of civil rights became inherently less likely as a direct result of the observation by Earl Warren, in Brown v. Board of Education, that, respecting freedmen, “Education of Negroes was almost non-existent, and practically all of the race were illiterate,” and in proportion as that observation increasingly became the foundation of common opinion on the subject. Warren's observation was not true in any meaningful or non-trivial sense. Nevertheless, it served to perpetuate the myth of a backward people needing (...) help to catch up instead of the truth of a people being held back. That is the perspective – the disadvantaged group perspective – that ultimately infected all discussion of civil rights, even after the designation of so-called “disadvantaged groups” had been extended beyond American blacks. To define civil rights, we may well begin with what all mankind would likely recognize. Thus the dictionary definition of “civil rights” stands: “the rights that belong to all individuals in a nation or community touching property, marriage, and the like.” In that definition the term “rights” may be further expanded to mean “legitimate claims,” following the definition of right as law – as “a claim or title or interest in anything whatever that is enforceable by law.” This definition applies with minimal distinction of regimes intruding and, therefore, without the host of recent complications in the United States that create the impression that civil rights have something to do with pluralism. Previously, the generic definition was thought to exhaust the meaning of the term in the United States. (shrink)

In the conclusion to this multi-part article I first review the discussions carried out around the six essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis – the position taken by Allen Frances on each question, the commentaries on the respective question along with Frances’ responses to the commentaries, and my own view of the multiple discussions. In this review I emphasize that the core question is the first – what is the nature of psychiatric illness – and that in some manner all (...) further questions follow from the first. Following this review I attempt to move the discussion forward, addressing the first question from the perspectives of natural kind analysis and complexity analysis. This reflection leads toward a view of psychiatric disorders – and future nosologies – as far more complex and uncertain than we have imagined. (shrink)

As recently highlighted, despite a burgeoning field of sensory ethnography, the practices, production, and accountability of the senses in specific social interactional contexts remain sociologically under-explored. To contribute original insights to a literature on the sensuous body in physical–cultural contexts, here we adopt an ethnomethodologically sensitive perspective to focus on the accomplishment, social organization, and accountability of sensoriality in interaction. Exploring instances of the senses at work in social interaction, we utilize data from two ethnographic research projects to investigate the (...) production of running-together and swimming-together by skilled, experienced practitioners. We focus on two interlinked sensory modalities: auditory attunement, and vision and intercorporeality, identified as key dimensions of sensory embodiment and “togethering” in these particular domains. (shrink)

The Rev’d Roland Allen’s grandson ventures to speculate on the attitudes his grandfather might be expected to have adopted regarding several of today’s controversial issues. After rehearsing briefly Roland’s published and unpublished work, Hubert Allen reviews, both on the basis of Roland’s expressed opinions and by inference from remarks made by him or by members of his immediate family, how he believes his grandfather would have reacted to six matters of current or recent controversy, namely: Modern Translations of (...) the Bible, The Role of Women in the Church, Homosexuality, Ecumenism, Inter-Faith Dialogue, and the proposed Anglican Covenant. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the impact of individualism and collectivism on three basic aspects of ethical decision making - the perception of moral problems, moral reasoning, and behavior. We argue that the inclusion of business practices within the moral domain by the individual depends partly upon individualism and collectivism. We also propose a pluralistic approach to post-conventional moral judgment that includes developmental paths appropriate for individualist and collectivist cultures. Finally, we argue that the link between moral judgment and behavior (...) is related to individualism and collectivism. (shrink)

In face of the multiple controversies surrounding the DSM process in general and the development of DSM-5 in particular, we have organized a discussion around what we consider six essential questions in further work on the DSM. The six questions involve: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) the issue of whether, in the current state of psychiatric science, DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role (...) of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM - whether DSM-III and IV have been designed more for clinicians or researchers, and how this conflict should be dealt with in the new manual; and 6) the possibility and advisability, given all the problems with DSM-III and IV, of designing a different diagnostic system. Part I of this article will take up the first two questions. With the first question, invited commentators express a range of opinion regarding the nature of psychiatric disorders, loosely divided into a realist position that the diagnostic categories represent real diseases that we can accurately name and know with our perceptual abilities, a middle, nominalist position that psychiatric disorders do exist in the real world but that our diagnostic categories are constructs that may or may not accurately represent the disorders out there, and finally a purely constructivist position that the diagnostic categories are simply constructs with no evidence of psychiatric disorders in the real world. The second question again offers a range of opinion as to how we should define a mental or psychiatric disorder, including the possibility that we should not try to formulate a definition. The general introduction, as well as the introductions and conclusions for the specific questions, are written by James Phillips, and the responses to commentaries are written by Allen Frances. (shrink)

This article continues the themes developed in a previous paper looking at reparations for past wrongs in post-colonial Australia. It narrows the focus to examine the scope of the law of tort to provide reparations suffered as a result of colonisation and dispossession, with particular emphasis on the assimilation policies whose legacy is now known emphatically, although it ought not be exclusively, as the Stolen Generations. The search for more than just words is particularly topical in light of the Australian (...) Prime Minister's formal apology in early 2008. This highly symbolic step must not lose momentum. That momentum could be both political and legal. In the latter context, we explore here the concept of alien tort, in the light of current Australian tort jurisprudence, which has thus far proved inadequate to achieve compensation for the harms suffered. Taking a comparative approach, procedural and substantive developments are to better deliver justice consistent with community values. In particular, the greater acceptance of psychological harm as actionable tortious conduct in Canada and the United States is examined. The article further examines the scope for stolen children to bring suit under the US Alien Tort Claims Act 1789. While the Australian government enjoys sovereign immunity in the courts of the United States, non-state organisations such as churches that were complicit in the forcible removals may be subject to United States jurisdiction wherever they have a presence in that country. The procedural and substantive elements of such a claim are discussed. In particular, the relevant cause of action, the issue of forum non conveniens and the statute of limitations will be analysed to map out whether a claim could be developed and successfully prosecuted. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009. (shrink)

Theories of beauty are often divided into the objective and the subjective. I am doubtful whether a rigid distinction between the two can be maintained. It is difficult for an objective theory to assert that the impression of beauty is received quite passively, without any reaction or co-operation on the part of the subject, which is likely to be similar in the various cases.

The nature of tragedy has always been felt to be a problem, not only by the philosopher, but also, and perhaps even more, by the ordinary man. The question so often asked is: why, if there is so much suffering already in the world, do we want to go to a theatre or read a story describing more suffering? Why indeed should the spectacle of suffering ever be pleasing to us? Yet it is obvious that olarge numbers of ordinary people (...) do like reading or seeing tragedies; and that there are some tragedies which are generally judged to be the most valuable works of literary art ever produced. What then is the nature of the value which we extract from these works? That is the question to which I would like to address myself. (shrink)

In this commentary, we critique the appropriate behavioural features for evolutionary genetic analysis, the role of the environment, and the viability of a general evolutionary genetic model for all common mental disorders. In light of these issues, we suggest that the authors may have prematurely discounted the role of some of the mechanisms they review, particularly balancing selection. (Published Online November 9 2006).

R. G. Bury’s translations of Sextus Empiricus for the Loeb Library have served English language readers well, but new translations, taking account of advances in scholarship since Bury’s day, have long been needed. We now have two new English versions of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism. They take different and in some ways complementary approaches to the task.

Increasingly research in the field of business and society suggests that ethics and corporate social responsibility can be profitable. Yet this work raises a troubling question: Is it ethical to use ethics and social responsibility in a strategic way? Is it possible to be ethical or socially responsible for the wrong reason? In this article, we define a strategy concept in order to situate the different approaches to the strategic use of ethics and social responsibility found in the current literature. (...) We then analyze the ethics of such approaches using both utilitarianism and deontology and end by defining limits to the strategic use of ethics. (shrink)

Michael Allen's latest work on the profoundly influential Florentine thinker of the fifteenth century, Marsilio Ficino, will be welcomed by philosophers, literary scholars, and historians of the Renaissance, as well as by classicists. Ficino was responsible for inaugurating, shaping, and disseminating the wide-ranging philosophico-cultural movement known as Renaissance Platonism, and his views on the _Sophist_, which he saw as Plato's preeminent ontological dialogue, are of signal interest. This dialogue also served Ficino as a vehicle for exploring a number of (...) other humanist, philosophical, and magical preoccupations, including the theme of man the artist and creator. (shrink)

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was one of the luminaries of the Florentine Renaissance and the scholar responsible for the revival of Platonism. The translator and interpreter of the works of both Plato and Plotinus as well as of various Hermetic and Neoplatonic texts, Ficino was also a musician, priest, magus and psychotherapist, an original philosopher and the author of a vast and important correspondence with the intellectual figures of his day including Lorenzo the Magnificent. Professor Allen has become the foremost (...) interpreter of Ficino's metaphysics and mythology, and the ancient sources they draw upon; and this collection of essays assembles his work on Ficino's complex interrogation of Platonic 'theology' as not only a preparation for Christianity but as an enduring medium for intellectuals to explore and to express Christian truths. (shrink)

This volume consists of 21 essays on Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus-priest who was the architect of Renaissance Platonism.