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By William Saletan, The New York Times An excerpt: In “The Righteous Mind,” Haidt seeks to enrich liberalism, and political discourse generally, with a deeper awareness of human nature. Like other psychologists who have ventured into political coaching, such as George Lakoff and Drew Westen, Haidt argues...
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By Jonathan Haidt, Reason Magazine From a rational perspective, joining a protest rally is like voting—a complete waste of time. The odds that your voice or your protest sign will make a difference are no better than the odds that your vote will change an election. And yet, people do join protests and...
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PBS By David E. Anderson An excerpt: In a provocative and contrarian new book, “The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History” (Harvard University Press, 2010), Columbia University professor Samuel Moyn outlines the moral and political dilemmas in which the movement currently finds itself, describing his...
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By Kwame Anthony Appiah, in The New York Times In 1929, the Church of Scotland Mission, which had a long and successful history of missionary work among the Kikuyu in colonial Kenya, began a campaign to eradicate the practice of female circumcision. The results were hardly what church members hoped for...
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By Kwame Anthony Appiah in The Washington Post. "Once, pretty much everywhere, beating your wife and children was regarded as a father's duty, homosexuality was a hanging offense, and waterboarding was approved -- in fact, invented -- by the Catholic Church. Through the middle of the 19th century...
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By Terry Newell from Huffington Post "On March 4, 1865, with the Civil War finally approaching a victorious conclusion, Abraham Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address. Rather than satisfy the audience's thirst for celebration and revenge, Lincoln gave a sermon on the meaning of the war...
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By Nick Wadhams from Time. "In the history of foreign aid, it looked pretty harmless: a young Florida businessman decided to collect a million shirts and send them to poor people in Africa. Jason Sadler just wanted to help. He thought he'd start with all the leftover T-shirts from his advertising...
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By Mark Lynas from New Statesman. "In my view, the historical responsibility question is an unassailable argument for adaptation financing. It is a clear legal principle that if you cause damage you must pay compensation. (Indeed, the $100bn in initial financing put on the table at Copenhagen was...
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By Julian Baggini from TPM: The Philosophes Magazine. "2009 was a breakthrough year for Michael Sandel. The Harvard political philosopher has been at the top of his profession ever since the publication of his ground-breaking Liberalism and the Limits of Justice in 1982. 27 years later, the public...
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Considering morality from viewpoints other than philosophy is becoming more and more common. This article from The Economist describes a panel discussion focusing on what biology has to offer in the debate about morality. Source: The Economist "Whence morality? That is a question which has troubled...
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By Martin Jay Review by Steven E. Levingston from The Washington Post When Michael Dukakis accused George H. W. Bush of being the “Joe Isuzu of American Politics” during the 1988 presidential campaign, he asserted in a particularly American tenor the near-ancient idea that lying and politics (and perhaps...
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Abstract: Elshtain presents a case for the primacy of politics if one would argue persuasively about international justice. Without political stability, all attempts to assist developing states, or to sustain persons caught in the chaos of "failed states," must fail. A concept of justice lies...
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At the center of this work is a passionate concern with the relationship between political rhetoric and political action. For Elshtain, politics is a sphere of concrete responsibility. Political speech should, therefore, approach the richness of actual lives and commitments rather than present impossible...
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After Virtue is an extended philosophical argument, informed by linguistic, historical, and sociological analyses, that seeks to explain the continuing irresolution of modern moral disputes; to critique the modern bureaucratic state and the claims of management science; and to provide an alternative...