In his landmark monograph, "The Politics of Jesus", John Howard Yoder challenged mainstream Christian social ethics by arguing that the New Testament account of Jesus's founding of a messianic community entails a normative politics, not only for early Christianity but for the contemporary church. This challenge is further elaborated in several important posthumous publications, especially "Preface to Theology", in which Yoder examines the development of early Christology with attention to its political and ethical implications, and "The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited", Yoder's (...) proposal for a renewed Jewish-Christian dialogue around the moral meaning of messianism. This article interprets these writings with reference to a range of critical scholarship on and about Yoder, Yoder and Augustine, and Jewish and Christian messianism, paying particular attention to questions of political ethics. (shrink)

Using Alastair MacIntyre's work as a methodological guide for doing ethics in the Christian tradition, the contributors to this work offer essays on three subjects: description of MacIntyre's approach; reflections on moral issues; and selected essays on family, abortion, feminism and more.

These photographs, essays, drawings, and original texts document the rich agit-art legacy of the Situationist International, a group of European artists and writers who emerged from such avant-garde movements as COBRA, Lettrisme, and the Imaginary Bauhaus and from the breakup of surrealism to launch a strategy of art as cultural critique.

Trust makes cooperation possible. It enables us to learn from others and at a distance. It makes democratic deliberation possible. But it also makes us vulnerable: when we place our trust in another’s word, we are liable to be deceived—sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Our evolved mechanisms for deciding whom to trust and whom to distrust mostly rely on face-to-face interactions with people whose reputation we can both access and influence. Online, these mechanisms are largely useless, and the institutions that might (...) supplant them need to have their own trustworthiness verified. Currently, those institutions are mostly corporations such as Facebook and Twitter, which have checkered track records at best. To make matters worse, the social media sector is a natural monopoly, and companies like Facebook have shown that they are willing to use their market power unscrupulously. For these reasons, we argue that social media should be treated like other natural monopolies: it should either be nationalized, highly regulated, or broken up through antitrust legal actions. (shrink)

Future population growth is uncertain and matters for climate policy: higher growth entails more emissions and means more people will be vulnerable to climate-related impacts. We show that how future population is valued importantly determines mitigation decisions. Using the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, we explore two approaches to valuing population: a discounted version of total utilitarianism (TU), which considers total wellbeing and is standard in social cost of carbon dioxide (SCC) models, and of average utilitarianism (AU), which ignores population size (...) and sums only each time period’s discounted average wellbeing. Under both approaches, as population increases the SCC increases, but optimal peak temperature decreases. The effect is larger under TU, because it responds to the fact that a larger population means climate change hurts more people: for example, in 2025, assuming the United Nations (UN)-high rather than UN-low population scenario entails an increase in the SCC of 85% under TU vs. 5% under AU. The difference in the SCC between the two population scenarios under TU is comparable to commonly debated decisions regarding time discounting. Additionally, we estimate the avoided mitigation costs implied by plausible reductions in population growth, finding that large near-term savings ($billions annually) occur under TU; savings under AU emerge in the more distant future. These savings are larger than spending shortfalls for human development policies that may lower fertility. Finally, we show that whether lowering population growth entails overall improvements in wellbeing—rather than merely cost savings—again depends on the ethical approach to valuing population. (shrink)

The classic national history narrates the formation and progress of a nation-state as a reflection of principles such as a national character, liberty, progress, and statehood. Today there appears to be a growing nostalgia for them, and with it for the role that history once played in the life of the nation. This paper argues that such nostalgia is justified insofar as it expresses skepticism about the philosophical assumptions of much social science history. In doing so, it defends (...) the use of concepts such as narrative and tradition. Yet this paper argues that such nostalgia is not justified insofar as it sides with an analysis of these concepts in terms of given principles of nationhood and statehood. Rather, the paper argues for a shift from developmental historicism to radical historicism. Radical historicism would treat traditions as pragmatically constructed and narratives as contingent. It would thus lead to denaturalizing accounts of the nations as dispersed, discontinuous, and disrupted, and arguably to histories of networks of peoples rather than nations. (shrink)

This essay analyses discussions of national versus international or transnational science, with an emphasis on the journal Osiris from 1986 to 2009, including the concepts of national science, national styles and characters in science, scientific internationalism, transfer of science and scientists from one nation to another, and comparison of different national examples. The author argues that perceiving science as a ‘national’ activity has not only been persistent, it is also perhaps inevitable. This special issue on transnational histories of science (...) raises the question of what is gained and lost by such an approach. First of all, what is the distinction between ‘transnational’ and ‘international’? The dictionary defines the latter as something existing, occurring, or carried on between two nations, while the former extends or operates across national boundaries. Thus ‘international’ implies some sort of commerce. In contrast, transnational is a loosely defined term. (shrink)

Mark S. Cladis pinpoints the origins of contemporary notions of the public and private and their relationship to religion in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His thesis cuts across many fields and issues-philosophy of religion, women's studies, democratic theory, modern European history, American culture, social justice, privacy laws, and notions of solitude and community-and wholly reconsiders the political, cultural, and legal nature of modernity in relation to religion. Turning to Rousseau's Garden, its inhabitants, the Solitaires, and the question of (...) restoration and redemption that preoccupied much of Rousseau's thought, Cladis examines how Rousseau addressed the tension between the joys and moral obligations of social engagement and the desire for solitude. He was caught between two possibilities: active involvement in the creation of an enlightened and humane society or extrication from social entanglements in favor of cultivating a spiritual interior life. Yet Rousseau did not view this conflict as a desperate division. Rather, for him it was a moral struggle to be endured by those who had fallen from the Garden. For this edition Cladis has added a substantive introduction that discusses the role of religion in contemporary democratic societies, particularly in American public life. Cladis proposes four models of thinking about religion in public and champions what he calls spiritual democracy-a dynamic, culturally specific, and progressive democracy. Cladis argues that spiritual democracy refers not only to a society's legal codes and principles but also to its democratic culture and symbols and its daily practices and institutions. It encompasses the nation's character, diverse identities, and a distinctivel exchange between the nation's public vision and citizens' complex, private lives. (shrink)

Tools are needed to benchmark carbon emissions and pledges against criteria of equity and fairness. However, standard economic approaches, which use a transparent optimization framework, ignore equity. Models that do include equity benchmarks exist, but often use opaque methodologies. Here we propose a utilitarian benchmark computed in a transparent optimization framework, which could usefully inform the equity benchmark debate. Implementing the utilitarian benchmark, which we see as ethically minimal and conceptually parsimonious, in two leading climate–economy models allows for calculation of (...) the optimal allocation of future emissions. We compare this optimum with historical emissions and initial nationally determined contributions. Compared with cost minimization, utilitarian optimization features better outcomes for human development, equity and the climate. Peak temperature is lower under utilitarianism because it reduces the human development cost of global mitigation. Utilitarianism therefore is a promising inclusion to a set of benchmarks for future explorations of climate equity. (shrink)

For a long time, economic growth has been seen as the most promising source of funds to use toward reducing economic inequality, as well as a necessity if we are aiming at achieving full employment. But one of the most troubling aspects of the recent exponential rise in economic inequality is that this rise has occurred despite continued economic growth. Increases in national income have gone almost exclusively to the super-rich, while real wages for almost everybody else have stagnated or (...) even declined. And while the unemployment rate dropped significantly before the coronavirus pandemic hit, good, permanent, high-wage jobs with benefits had by then often been replaced by temporary, part-time, low-wage jobs without benefits, leaving even the employed feeling economically insecure. And now, of course, unemployment is again skyrocketing, and it is unclear how long it might take to come down. As a result, we have now arrived at a point of reckoning: can we continue to believe that liberal capitalism is the most promising combination of economic and political ideologies for securing a prosperous and just future? If not, what might replace it? Is the problem capitalism, or is it liberalism? Are we up against economic forces that we cannot influence or control, or is it our political will and the liberal values we endorse that are being tested? This paper looks at all these questions, and suggests how we might think about the prospects for a liberal future. (shrink)

Scientists have recently discovered a new law of nature. Its footprints are virtually everywhere - in the spread of forest fires, mass extinctions, traffic jams, earthquakes, stock-market fluctuations, the rise and fall of nations, and even trends in fashion, music and art. Wherever we look, the world is modelled on a simple template: like a steep pile of sand, it is poised on the brink of instability, with avalanches - in events, ideas or whatever - following a universal pattern of (...) change. This remarkable discovery heralds what Mark Buchanan calls the new science of 'ubiquity', a science whose secret lies in the stuff of the everyday world. Combining literary flair with scientific rigour, this enthralling book documents the coming revolution by telling the story of the researchers' exploration of the law, their ingenious work and unexpected insights. Mark Buchanan reveals how the principle of ubiquity will help us to manage, control and predict the future. More controversially, he claims that it may well contain the beginnings of a mathematics of cultural and historical change. Every decade sees a major scientific breakthrough that has implications that go way beyond science. 'Ubiquity' is one of them. This book, the world's first on the topic, will change how we think about the world and our place in it. Chaos Disorder from order. Complexity Complexity from simplicity. UBIQUITY World has a natural 'rhythm': there is a mysterious archetypal organisation that works in the world at all levels and which gives rise to a universal pattern of change - in groups of people, things or ideas. (shrink)

No doubt the Western conceptualization of the East generally served to subjugate the Indians to their colonial rulers, but it also provided a set of beliefs to which disgruntled Western occultists and radicals, and also Western-educated Indians, could appeal in order to defend the dignity and worth of Indian religion and society. No doubt the founding theosophists had no intention of promoting political radicalism on the subcontinent, but the discourse they helped to establish provided others with an instrument they could (...) use for political ends. Indeed, the formation of the Indian National Congress shows how Western-educated Indians were able to join with Hume to promote their political ends using the particular advantages that involvement in the Theosophical Society had given them. The founders of the Indian National Congress relied on the contacts and commitments generated within the Society; they relied on a capacity for, and a belief in, cooperation, both at an all-India level and also between Indian nationalists and liberal Britons; and they relied on a background discourse that emphasized the strength and claims of India, its heritage and religion.Although we have focused on the origins of the Indian National Congress, the process we have uncovered continued to operate for much of the nationalist era. Annie Besant, like Hume and Sinnett, used theosophy to resolve the Victorian crisis of faith after she had spent some time investigating spiritualist phenomena, and her theosophy combined with her radicalism to take her into the nationalist movement, where she became the only Western woman ever to be elected as president of the Indian National Congress (Taylor 1992). Gandhi (1948), like Malabari, Rao, and Sen, used theosophy to help restore his pride in his native culture to support his vision of ancient India as a vital, rational, and moral society. British occultists such as Besant and Western-educated Indians such as Gandhi turned to theosophy for different reasons, but once they had done so, they shared practices and intellectual commitments that helped sustain the nationalist movement. (shrink)

Mark Sagoff draws on the last twenty years of debate over the foundations of environmentalism in this comprehensive revision of The Economy of the Earth. Posing questions pertinent to consumption, cost-benefit analysis, the normative implications of neo-Darwinism, the role of the natural in national history, and the centrality of the concept of place in environmental ethics, he analyses social policy in relation to the environment, pollution, the workplace, and public safely and health. Sagoff distinguishes ethical from economic questions and (...) explains which kinds of concepts, arguments, and processes are appropriate to each. He offers a critique 'preference' and 'willingness to pay' as measures of value in environmental economics and defends political, cultural, aesthetic, and ethical reasons to protect the natural environment. (shrink)

The National Center for Biomedical Ontology is now in its seventh year. The goals of this National Center for Biomedical Computing are to: create and maintain a repository of biomedical ontologies and terminologies; build tools and web services to enable the use of ontologies and terminologies in clinical and translational research; educate their trainees and the scientific community broadly about biomedical ontology and ontology-based technology and best practices; and collaborate with a variety of groups who develop and use ontologies and (...) terminologies in biomedicine. The centerpiece of the National Center for Biomedical Ontology is a web-based resource known as BioPortal. BioPortal makes available for research in computationally useful forms more than 270 of the world's biomedical ontologies and terminologies, and supports a wide range of web services that enable investigators to use the ontologies to annotate and retrieve data, to generate value sets and special-purpose lexicons, and to perform advanced analytics on a wide range of biomedical data. (shrink)

When it comes to using patient data from the National Health Service for research, we are often told that it is a matter of trust: we need to trust, we need to build trust, we need to restore trust. Various policy papers and reports articulate and develop these ideas and make very important contributions to public dialogue on the trustworthiness of our research institutions. But these documents and policies are apparently constructed with little sustained reflection on the nature of trust (...) and trustworthiness, and therefore are missing important features that matter for how we manage concerns related to trust. We suggest that what we mean by ‘trust’ and ‘trustworthiness’ matters and should affect the policies and guidance that govern data sharing in the NHS. We offer a number of initial, general reflections on the way in which some of these features might affect our approach to principles, policies and strategies that are related to sharing patient data for research. This paper is the outcome of a ‘public ethics’ coproduction activity which involved members of the public and two academic ethicists. Our task was to consider collectively the accounts of trust developed by philosophers as they applied in the context of the NHS and to coproduce an argumentative position relevant to this context. (shrink)

This article questions whether past experience with nationalisms rooted in history, language, custom and religion will be much of a guide to pseudo-nationalisms that arise in a globalized age with increasingly ‘liquid’ societies.

ABSTRACT Following recent scholarship, this article investigates the relationship among Adam Smith's lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres, his Wealth of Nations, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and his lectures on jurisprudence. According to Smith, the rhetorical theory regarding genre and style improves practical judgment that is central to both economic and legal affairs. Though Smith's lectures on rhetoric feature no overt mention of these legal or commercial applications, when we read these lectures alongside his lectures and writings on jurisprudence (...) and economics, we see that Smith had developed numerous applications for the practical judgment that he taught his students when, under his guidance, they analyzed literary texts. Noting the interrelation among Smith's work on rhetoric, law, and economics allows us to see that others in the Scottish Enlightenment, such as Hugh Blair and Henry Home Lord Kames, similarly found connections among jurisprudence, political economy, and rhetorical theory. (shrink)

Rousseau, Burke, and Revolution in France, 1791 plunges students into the intellectual political and ideological currents that surged through revolutionary Paris in the summer of 1791. Part of the “Reacting to the Past” series, this text consists of elaborate games in which students are assigned roles, informed by classic texts, set in particular moments of intellectual and social ferment. Students are leaders of major factions within the National Assembly (and in the streets outside) as it struggles to create a constitution (...) amidst internal chaos and threats of foreign invasion. (shrink)

Regional Perspectives in Bioethics" illustrates the ways in which the national and international political landscape encompasses persons from diverse and often fragmented moral communities with widely varying moral intuitions, premises, evaluations and commitments.

Regional Perspectives in Bioethics" illustrates the ways in which the national and international political landscape encompasses persons from diverse and often fragmented moral communities with widely varying moral intuitions, premises, evaluations and commitments.

Accounts of natural law moral philosophy and theology sought principles and precepts for morality, law, and other forms of social authority, whose prescriptive force was not dependent for validity on human decision, social influence, past tradition, or cultural convention, but through natural reason itself. This volume critically explores and assesses our contemporary culture wars in terms of: the possibility of natural law moral philosophy and theology to provide a unique, content-full, canonical morality; the character and nature of moral pluralism; the (...) limits of justifiable national and international policy seeking to produce and preserve human happiness, social justice, and the common good; the ways in which morality, moral epistemology, and social political reform must be set within the broader context of an appropriately philosophically and theologically anchored anthropology. This work will be of interest to philosophers, theologians, bioethicists, ethicists and political scientists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Byrnes and FurtonMark T. Brown, Ph.D.In “Moral Complicity in Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Research” (MCIPS) (Brown 2009), I sketched the moral complicity implications of alternative national stem cell policies with respect to direct reprogramming techniques that appear to result in pluripotent stem cells derived from skin cells, hair cells, and possibly other somatic cells. This aspect of the stem cell debate was considered from the perspective of (...) those who are pro embryo life and who attribute to human embryos a complete set of basic human rights, including a stringent right to life; and from the perspective of advocates of embryonic stem cell research who do not recognize full moral equivalence between human embryos and human children and who do not ascribe to human embryos an inviolable right to life. The moral complicity concerns of embryonic stem cell research advocates focus upon the scope of medical beneficence with respect to patients whose quality of life and personal autonomy are negatively impacted by the interval between the time when they might have gotten effective medical treatment through unimpeded stem cell science and the time at which stem cell science constrained by pro embryo life moral complicity concerns arrives at a similar destination. The moral complicity concerns of embryo life proponents focus upon noncooperation in past and future destruction of human embryos in order to derive in vitro embryonic stem cell lines.Among the policy alternatives considered were proposals that would be responsive to the possibility that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) at some point may provide a source of stem cell lines that would substitute for human embryonic stem [End Page 206] cell (hESC) lines in cell replacement therapy. If functional equivalence between iPSC lines and hESC lines for cell replacement purposes were confirmed, a national stem cell research policy might be crafted that could accommodate the central moral complicity concerns both of persons who are embryo life advocates and of advocates of embryonic stem cell research. Policy alternatives considered in MCIPS included those based upon the assumption that currently existing embryonic stem cell lines are sufficient to conduct iPSC/hESC functional equivalence studies and policy options based upon the assumption that currently existing hESC lines fall short of what would be required for methodologically sound validation studies. The moral complicity implications for those who are embryo life advocates of both sets of policies were outlined, as were the moral complicity implications of alternative policies for embryonic stem cell research advocates. Since moral complicity concerns are one factor that those who formulate national stem cell policy should consider, MCIPS was an attempt to provide some guidance to policymakers with respect to how alternative policies accommodate or fail to accommodate the moral complicity concerns of various constituencies.In a 2008 article, Malcolm Byrnes (2008, p. 286) appears to consider both empirical assumptions regarding the sufficiency of existing stem cell lines for meaningful functional equivalence studies, and for that reason I drew upon his paper to frame the moral complicity implications for advocates of embryo life of national stem cell policy based upon either assumption. In his paper, Byrnes refers both to stem cell scientists who “suggest” that the hESC lines approved by President Bush in 2001 are sufficient and to stem cell scientists who believe that more hESC lines are needed. Based on my reading of his paper, I erroneously included Byrnes in the group who were willing to consider new hESC derivations in order to complete functional equivalence studies. However, my description of the moral complicity implications for advocates of embryo life of policies that enable new hESC derivations was an exercise in contingency planning, and certainly not intended as “a condemnation” of Byrnes (2009, p. 203). Similarly, what Byrnes (2009, p. 204) sees as “ironic” is simply a description later in my paper of policy options based upon an alternative factual assumption.Byrnes’s position seems to be that existing hESC lines are sufficient to conduct iPSC/hESC functional equivalence studies and that no additional hESC lines should be derived. Although it appears that I did mischaracterize Byrnes’s view of the permissibility of deriving additional hESC lines for equivalence studies, I think my interpretation was... (shrink)

The importance of financial advice for individuals is difficult to refute, however the degree to which the financial planning industry has been able to provide this to date is in debate. As a result, the industry, which is still in its infancy, has been subject to rapid growth, various controversies and regulatory intervention. The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has contributed to the pace of this change with increased client, regulatory and self scrutiny as a result of the heightened dissatisfaction with (...) advice outcomes. The coalescence of these factors has led to significant internal and external changes within the industry, resulting in the apparent commitment to becoming a profession. This paper will examine the implication of this agenda for tertiary education in relation to the role it could play to support the development of the financial planning profession. The paper achieves this by (1) reviewing the background to the financial planning industry and the move towards professionalism; (2) discussing current developments in the industry; (3) establishing the role of tertiary education and (4) assessing the role that tertiary education has played in supporting the financial planning sector. We argue that tertiary education has a critical role to play, however it is yet to achieve this. This study will be useful for those in both the managerial and operational/ academic elements of tertiary education in terms of providing considered avenues for engagement in this discipline. Indeed, if the paper provokes debate and discussion in tertiary education around the nation then we would consider our task complete. (shrink)

Cultural influences are pervasive throughout human behaviour, and as human–robot interactions become more common, roboticists are increasingly focusing attention on how to build robots that are culturally competent and culturally sustainable. The current treatment of culture in robotics, however, is largely limited to the definition of culture as national culture. This is problematic for three reasons: it ignores subcultures, it loses specificity and hides the nuances in cultures, and it excludes refugees and stateless persons. We propose to shift the focus (...) of cultural robotics to redefine culture as an emergent phenomenon. We make use of three research programmes in the social and cognitive sciences to justify this definition. Consequently, cultural behaviour cannot be explicitly programmed into a robot, rather, a robot must be designed with the capability to participate in the interactions that lead to the arising of cultural behaviour. In the final part of the paper, we explore which capacities and abilities are the most salient for a robot to do this. (shrink)

End-of-life decision making constitutes a major challenge for bioethical deliberation and political governance in modern democracies: On the one hand, it touches upon fundamental convictions about life, death, and the human condition. On the other, it is deeply rooted in religious traditions and historical experiences and thus shows great socio-cultural diversity. The bioethical discussion of such cultural issues oscillates between liberal individualism and cultural stereotyping. Our paper confronts the bioethical expert discourse with public moral attitudes. The paper is based on (...) a qualitative study comprising 12 focus group discussions with religious and secular persons in the USA, Germany, and Israel. Considering the respective socio-political and legal frameworks, the thematic analysis focuses on moral attitudes towards end-of-life decision making and explores the complex interplay between individual preferences, culture, and religion. Our findings draw attention to the variety and complexity of cultural and religious aspects of end-of-life decision making. Although there is local consensus that goes beyond radical individualism, positions are not neatly matched with national cultures or religious denominations. Instead, the relevance of the specific situatedness of religious beliefs and cultural communities becomes visible: Their status and role in individual situations, for example, as consensual or conflicting on the level of personal perspectives, family relationships, or broader social contexts, e.g., as a majority or minority culture within a political system. As the group discussions indicate, there are no clear-cut positions anchored in “nationality,” “culture,” or “religion.” Instead, attitudes are personally decided on as part of a negotiated context representing the political, social and existential situatedness of the individual. Therefore, more complex theoretical and practical approaches to cultural diversity have to be developed. (shrink)

In 2016, the National Book Council, the ISBN agency for Malta, released its ISBN database online. A few months later, the ISBN database was enhanced with an open-data feature that enables users to download the search results in a single file with read and write access. The database includes all the ISBN data of Malta except for some records and data that were lost during the period before 2013 when paper data storage of ISBN records was the common practice. The (...) implementation of an ISBN electronic database now ensures that no data go missing and facilitates the preservation of metadata. As added value, the open-data system provides access to all of the ISBN records as listed in the database, which means that virtually all of the ISBN data elements can be downloaded from the database. Researchers, publishers, authors, and booksellers all stand to benefit from this open ISBN data system. (shrink)

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions has the 'co-benefit' of also reducing air pollution and associated impacts on human health. Here, we incorporate health co-benefits into estimates of the optimal climate policy for three different climate policy regimes. The first fully internalizes the climate externality at the global level via a uniform carbon price (the 'cooperative equilibrium'), thus minimizing total mitigation costs. The second connects to the concept of 'common but differentiated responsibilities' where nations coordinate their actions while accounting for different national (...) capabilities considering socioeconomic conditions. The third assumes nations act only in their own self-interest. We find that air quality co-benefits motivate substantially reduced emissions under all three policy regimes, but that some form of global cooperation is required to prevent runaway temperature rise. However, co-benefits do warrant high levels of mitigation in certain regions even in the self-interested case, suggesting that air quality impacts may expand the range of possible policy outcomes whereby global temperatures do not increase unabated. (shrink)

A national survey on researchers’ experiences with their institutional review boards (IRBs) is presented, focused exclusively on social and behavioral researchers. A wide range of experiences is apparent in the data, especially in terms of turnaround time for submitted protocols, incidence of data collection without prior IRB approval, and stated reasons for "going solo." Sixty-two percent felt that the turnaround time they typically experience is "reasonable," and 44% said they had not experienced long delays in obtaining approval. However, 48% of (...) respondents reported either conducting a project without IRB approval or modifying an existing project without IRB approval, with anticipated time for approval being the dominant reason offered for doing so. This adds a new dimension to the widely discussed "national IRB crisis" (e.g., Illinois White Paper, 2005). The article concludes with 2 preliminary recommendations for IRB reform. (shrink)

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the Peruvian Andes ranked as a key international destination for those afflicted with one of the world’s most deadly diseases, tuberculosis. Physicians, scientists, policy makers, and patients believed that high-elevation mountain climates worldwide would help cure the disease. Historical processes driving the creation of Andean health resorts, which are understudied in the historiography, uncover an important story in the history of tuberculosis, and also reveal how global health initiatives and disease treatment played (...) out within the global South, where national forces and local environmental conditions influenced the trajectory of science and medicine. Jauja, Peru, became an internationally recognized health resort for tuberculosis treatment not only through science and medicine but also through national political integration campaigns, transportation initiatives, economic development agendas, social relations, cultural perspectives of the Andean landscape, and the impact of the physical environment. This historical case about the evolution of Jauja reveals how science and medicine are shaped by distinct spatial forces that illuminate a geography of science in the postcolonial setting, as well as the ways in which climate is culturally constructed in specific sites, by different peoples, and at distinct points in time. (shrink)

This paper contrasts the London Olympics of 2012 with the St Louis Games of 1904 in the context of their cultural and historical context, especially the World’s Fair. What I suggest is that the 1904 World’s Fair, with its supporting academic congress at which Adolf von Harnack and Ernst Troeltsch lectured, played a modest part in the early phases of the deabsolutization of western culture, together with the Christianity upon which it was constructed. Despite the widespread patronizing and racialist atti­tudes (...) in St Louis, the sheer variety and breadth of cultures seen by millions demonstrated a cultural relativism that was emerging as a serious approach to anthropology and other branches of knowledge, including theology. The fruits of such a deabsolutization can perhaps be glimpsed in the gradual transformation of the absolutes of western religion through the twentieth century into the new universals of nationhood and sport, both of which clearly coalesce in the contemporary version of the Olympic Games. I conclude by suggesting that sport and national myths may be the only universals that will have the strength to survive into the future. Of the two, the modern Olympic ideal seems better suited to promoting harmony between peoples than most national myths. This article is based on a lecture given at the Catholic University of Leuven in December 2012. I would like to thank Professor Lieven Boeve and Johan Leemans for the invitation to speak. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new way of measuring progress in international politics, an approach that focuses on the symbolic and ideological work of international organizations. Although such a strategy is not entirely new to the study of International Relations, it has not been a common, accessible way of assessing how well international organizations work to effect change. The more famous methods have been legalistic—investigations of how international organizations have created new international law in the issue-areas under investigation1—and bureaucratic—studies of how (...) international organizations create machinery to deal with the problems2. But in a world where domestic and international discourse is more mediated than ever before by television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, and other means of mass communication, the argument here is that propaganda is a third arena that must be taken into account when exploring the work of international organizations. The international organization in question here is the United Nations, and the issue-area examined is gender equality, a topic that is also variously described as “women's rights,” “women's issues”, or the “women's movement”. The paper explains first why the topic of the UN and women's rights is important, I then examine the propaganda role of the UN in the struggle for gender equality, and the paper concludes with a critical analysis of the UN's propaganda work in relation to this issue. (shrink)

Pluralism is among the most vital intellectual movements of the modern era. Liberal pluralism helped reinforce and promote greater separation of political and religious spheres. Socialist pluralism promoted the political role of trade unions and the rise of corporatism. Empirical pluralism helped legitimate the role of interest groups in democratic government. Today pluralism inspires thinking about key issues such as multiculturalism and network governance. However, despite pluralism's importance, there are no histories of twentieth-century pluralist thinking. Modern Pluralism fills this gap. (...) It explores liberal, socialist, and empirical ideas about diversity in Britain and the United States. It shows how pluralists challenged homogenous nations and sovereign states, often promoting sub-national groups as potential sites of self-government. In it, intellectual historians, political theorists, and social scientists collectively explore the historical background to present institutions and debates. The book serves to enrich our understanding of the history of pluralism and its continuing relevance. (shrink)

There are approximately 60 codes of ethics developed by national and regional psychological associations around the world, and there is wide variability in their structures, formats, lengths, and d...