Hamid Andishan tells us how Sartre, a philosopher of freedom, had problems with the politics of the land of liberté, and how this affected his view of human rights. Have you ever heard of someone loving and hating something at the same time? It can lead to madness, or at least, to profound anguish. The …
Ian Fishback argues that torture should never be allowed in practice. At one time international recognition of a right against torture was considered one of the best, if not the singularly best, triumphs of the human rights regime. However, since the US implemented its enhanced interrogation program in the wake of the terrorist attacks of …
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Vittorio Bufacchi & Xiao Ouyang discuss some philosophical & linguistic difficulties. China has long been a soft target for Western human rights activists. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1976, was attacked at the time and is still demonized today for the innumerable violations of fundamental human rights that then occurred. In 1989 the …
Ray Tallis peers into the future, without fear. “Tereza is staring at herself in the mirror. She wonders what would happen if her nose were to grow a millimetre longer each day. How much time would it take for her face to become unrecognizable? And if her face no longer looked like Tereza, would Tereza …
Dr E. R. Klein says we should reconsider the value of space exploration and start getting ready to leave the nest. Everyone is familiar with the giant stone heads of Easter Island, a tiny and remote island in the South Eastern Pacific, about 1800 miles off the coast of Chile. Nearly a thousand of these …
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Brenda Almond on why the gay adoption debate isn’t really about sexual morality. Politicians and others would reach sounder conclusions if they could bring themselves to see the current debate about gay adoption and discrimination as part of a broader debate about the family. This debate is as much philosophical and sociological as it is …
Brian D. Earp explains how chemical enhancement could save your marriage. What do you do when your marriage lasts less than two months? That was the predicament faced by Natasha Nelson, a thirty-five-year-old public relations executive, after she found out that her brand-new husband had been carrying on a relationship with his ex-girlfriend: throughout their …
Bennett Foddy proposes a strategy for extending our youthfulness. In England during the 1850s one in six people died before their first birthday, mostly from infectious diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis and diphtheria. The average life lasted only forty-two years – but if you made it to fifty you could reasonably expect to live another twenty …
Andrew Royle introduces Heidegger’s key ideas from his classic Being and Time, showing how they lead towards his concept of Being-towards-death. This article considers aspects of the philosophy of the German phenomenologist/existentialist Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), finally applying them in the context of bereavement. As Heidegger’s writings are filled with many highly technical terms, I’ll provide …
Bob James sees similarities in the two writers’ dark perceptions of industrialisation. In December 1941, William Faulkner mailed his New York publisher the fourth and final part of a forty-thousand-word short story from his home in Mississippi. In a separate note, Faulkner apologized to the publisher for being late with the manuscript, but said “there …