In debates over abortion, homosexual conduct, euthanasia, prostitution, drugs. Those who call themselves liberals often mount the same basic argument. A socially or morally permissive stance is necessitated towards such practices because people have a right to choose do what ever they like with their bodies. As Mill put it, The only part of the […]
Entries Tagged as 'Political Philosophy'
Kiwisaver or why I am not a centrist
July 9th, 2007 1 Comment
A little while ago a friend and I were discussing New Zealand politics with an American associate. My friend spoke of how he was an economic centrist and I informed him I was not. The topic got to kiwisaver, a policy with which he agreed. I thought his comments were interesting. Basically he cited anecdotal […]
Sanctions and Siege Warfare
December 14th, 2006 6 Comments
I believe that a state has the right to wage war only to defend those living with in its boarders from attack. A state’s authority to use coercion to uphold justice is limited to its borders. Just as a state has no right to prosecute a person for committing a crime committed outside NZ or to make laws regulating peoples behaviour beyond its shores, it has no duty to defend people in other countries.
Tags: Fiji · Helen Clark · Role of the State · War Ethics
Democracy and Legitimacy
December 5th, 2006 Comments Off on Democracy and Legitimacy
The founding statement of liberal political theory, John Locke’s Two Treaties of Civil Government, opens with the following statement: Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it […]
Tags: Declaration of Independence · Fiji · John Locke · Liberty · Role of the State · War Ethics
Real Charity is Voluntary
December 2nd, 2006 3 Comments
A friend recently e-mailed me a link to this article. It points out that religious conservatives give more money to charities that assist the poor than liberals do. If the data is correct, it highlights an issue I came to realise several years ago. Consider two situations (a) and (b). In (a) my neighbour is […]
Tags: Charity
In Remembrance of the Religious Right
November 29th, 2006 1 Comment
Many people gained their freedom because of the religious right and the determination of one man to impose his unpopular religious beliefs onto society through the state.
Tags: Religion in Public Life · Slavery · William Wilberforce
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
