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On Inequality and Violence, and the Differences we make between them
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
Extract
Just about all political philosophy of the recommending kind is factless and presumptuous. That it has an honest intellectual use, which it does, and which of course is different from its use as reassurance and the like, is only to be explained by the want of something better.
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- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1974
References
1 Statistical Abstract of the United States 1973 (Washington, 1974), Table 78, p. 57.Google Scholar
2 In 1920 the gap between non-whites and whites was about 10 years, in 1930 about 13 years, in 1940 about 11 years, in 1950 about 8 years, in 1960 about 7 years, and in 1970 about 7 years. Op. cit., Table 78, p. 57.
3 Calculated from standard mortality indices in The Registrar General's Decennial Supplement, England and Wales, 1961: Occupational Mortality Tables (London, 1971).Google Scholar
4 The difference in life expectancies between the fifth and the first social class is insignificant at age 65, 2.1 years at 55, 3 years at 45, 3.3 years at 35, and 3.5 years at 25. (Calculated from standard mortality indices, op. cit.)
5 See, for example, Atkinson, A. B., Wealth, Income and Inequality (Harmondsworth, 1973).Google Scholar
6 Source: United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1972 (New York, 1973), Table 27, p. 600Google Scholar. Except for figures for America, which come from United Nations Demographic Yearbook, 1969 (New York, 1970), Table 46, p. 640Google Scholar. The figures in my table, like the figures in the source-tables, have to do with different recent years.
7 Kuznets, Simon, ‘The Gap: Concept, Measurement, Trends’, p. 34Google Scholar, in The Gap Between Rich and Poor Nations (London, 1972), edited by Ranis, Gustav.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8 Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1973, Table 78, p. 57.Google Scholar
9 McNamara, Robert, Address to the Board of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1970), p. 8Google Scholar. The situation, I think, remains unchanged.
10 Coles, Robert, Still Hungry in America (Cleveland, 1969), pp. 27–8.Google Scholar
11 See Shaffer, Jerome A. (ed.), Violence (New York, 1971)Google Scholar, which contains several essays on the definition of violence.
12 I have in mind such a procedure as the one made clear by Hare, R. M., Freedom and Reason (Oxford, 1963)Google Scholar. For an economical and acute account of reasonings found in the history of political theory, see Macfarlane, Leslie J., Political Disobedience (London, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Arendt, Hannah, in ‘On Violence’, an essay in Crises of the Republic (Harmondsworth, 1973)Google Scholar, discusses some of them enlighteningly.
13 By Leon Trotsky.
14 Herr Eugen Duhring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Duhring), trans. Burns, E. (New York), p. 109.Google Scholar
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17 Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism: For and Against (London, 1973). pp. 97–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Op. cit., pp. 116–17, pp. 103–4.
19 Op. cit., p. 94.
20 Op. cit., pp. 102–3.
21 Op. cit., p. 103.
22 Op. cit., pp. 88–9.
23 Williams considers this sort of suggestion – that consequentialist attitudes may be seen as supporting the chemist's decision. His remarks, I think, do not really undercut the suggestion.
24 Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (London, 1963), p. 355Google Scholar. My italics. For a related discussion of Popper, see Edgley, Roy, ‘Reason and Violence’, in Körner, S., ed., Practical Reason (Oxford, 1974).Google Scholar
25 Op. cit., p. 363. My italics.
26 Op. cit., p. 358.
27 Op. cit., p. 357.
28 Stuart Hampshire discusses and defends Bertrand Russell's relevant condemnation of governments in ‘Russell, Radicalism, and Reason’, in Philosophy and Political Action (London, 1972), edited by Held, Virginia, Nielsen, Kai and Parsons, Charles.Google Scholar
29 An extended attempt has been made by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (Oxford 1972).
30 The following recent writings, while of different kinds, qualities and sympathies, share at least the feature of overlooking what I call The Principle of Equality: Benn, S. I. and Peters, R. S., Social Principles and the Democratic State (London, 1959)Google Scholar, Chapter Five; Blackstone, W. T., ‘On the Meaning and Justification of the Equality Principle’, Ethics, 1967Google Scholar; Bowie, Norman E., ‘Equality and Distributive Justice’, Philosophy, 1970Google Scholar; Charvet, John, ‘The Idea of Equality as a Substantive Principle of Society’, Political Studies, 1969Google Scholar; Lucas, J. R., The Principles of Politics (Oxford, 1966), Section 56Google Scholar, and ‘Against Equality’, Philosophy, 1965Google Scholar; Oppenheim, Felix E., ‘Egalitarianism as a Descriptive Concept’, American Philosophy Quarterly, 1970Google Scholar; Raphael, D. D., Problems of Political Philosophy (London, 1970), pp. 183–94Google Scholar; Rees, John, Equality (London, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapters Seven and Eight; Rescher, Nicholas, Distributive Justice (Indianapolis, 1966)Google Scholar, Chapter Four; Williams, Bernard, ‘The Idea of Equality’, in Laslett, Peter and Runciman, W. G., editors, Philosophy, Politics and Society, Second Series (Oxford, 1962).Google Scholar