1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

This paper argues that a combination of increasing inequality, hypocrisy, population growth and adverse global environmental change imperils our civilisation. Selected examples of existing inequality and the immoral treatment of human beings are provided from countries of the Asia Pacific. There is also limited discussion of the global eco-social crisis, stressing the links between environmental scarcity and the human responses of resentment, conflict, terrorism and ill-governance. The essay contends that just as the lives of unborn humans similar to us are (...) of interest and value to bio-ethicists, so too should be the lives and descendants of people who are unlike us, even if such people are perceived to be substantially different to ourselves in terms of status, culture and spending power. It is argued that it is in the interests of ourselves, society, and global civilisation that the lives of such people are considered and where possible improved in order to foster the “sustainability transition” needed to secure our collective future. The essay concludes with a discussion of an important element for securing our future: the development and implementation of alternative economic systems which will provide more accurate indicators of global progress. (shrink)

This paper will proceed from the assumption of scholars like Anne Fernihough, Peter Fjagsund, Michael Black, and Michael Bell that there are sufficient connecting links between the literary oeuvre of D.H. Lawrence and the philosophizing of Martin Heidegger that they warrant consideration in each other's company. The paper will attempt to provide more evidence for what these scholars have been contending. It seeks to make the case that although D.H. Lawrence and Martin Heidegger start from very different beginning points, the (...) one literary, the other epistemological (so to speak), they arrive at surprisingly similar conclusions about the deficiencies in the specifically modern way of viewing human existence and the world. The paper isolates certain of Lawrence and Heidegger's key passages relevant to the themes of science, humanism, art and death and reveals them as looking at these fundamental issues from a remarkably similar standpoint. These two metaphysicians were groping for the right path forward from the intellectual and social crises of the twentieth century and the evidence suggests they saw it as lying in the same direction. (shrink)

This short essay attempts to bring D.H. Lawrence and Alexis de Tocqueville into the same field of vision via a comparative assessment of the former's 1922 novel entitled 'Kangaroo' and the latter's classic study of the politics of the New World, 'Democracy in America.' It argues that as 'Good Europeans' the two writers were seeking both to learn from, as well as to teach about the meaning of modern civilization's transition to Democracy via the example provided by a specific national (...) experiment 'in the field' - in Tocqueville's case as a result of his visit to America in the 1830's and in Lawrence's case as a result of his stay in Australia in the 1920's. The suggestion is that what Tocqueville's 'Democracy' is to America, so too Lawrence's 'Kangaroo'' is to Australia, which is to say that it is a book intended as a careful portrait of an 'actual democracy' (to use Lord Bryce's phrase) which is of universal significance in terms of the future of all societies moving in the direction of liberal freedom and democratic equality. In other words, the essay assumes that Lawrence's 'Kangaroo' may be taken as an 'update' of Tocqueville's classic study of democracy from almost a century before, even as Lord Bryce's 'The American Commonwealth' has always been so taken since its emergence about half way between the comparable studies of the 19th Century French 'sociologist' on the one hand and the 20th Century English novelist and the other. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the relationship between Richard Lovat Summers and Ben Cooley in D.H. Lawrence's 1922 novel "Kangaroo." It argues that the psychological dynamic of the relationship between the two men as presented by Lawrence reveals one of the deepest of human paradoxes - the simultaneous kinship and opposition at work in the bipolarity of philosophy and tyranny, individual independence and unconditional love, the quest for glory and for ultimate truth, and the demands of self-love and of love of mankind. (...) The claim here is that Lawrence's "Kangaroo" is a classic literary statement of the role and meaning of "eros" in human life as played out in its most characteristic human expressions - art and philosophy on the one hand and politics and tyranny on the other. (shrink)

This is a 3,000 word review of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese's monumental study of the intellectual life of the ante-bellum South entitled "The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview "(Cambridge University Press, 2005) While acknowledging the book as an outstanding achievement in terms of the sheer comprehensiveness of its scope and the breadth of its coverage of southern intellectual culture it concludes that the authors' pre-existing methodological assumptions imposed severe limitations on (...) how deeply they could penetrate into the philosophical spirit animating "The Mind of the South" prior to the onset of the Civil War. (shrink)

This paper discusses Rudyard Kipling's famous story 'The Man Who Would Be King' in terms of the leitmotif of Machiavellian political philosophy that is to be discerned in the unfolding of the story. Kipling introduces us to the twin founders of the new order in Kafiristan in the same way that Machiavelli dedicates his 'Discourses' to two young nobles. He then proceeds to describe how they acquired their new kingdom and then how they lost it. On closer examination it becomes (...) apparent that the initial success of the two English adventurers in the Hindu Kush was attributable to their following Machiavellian principles while their ultimate demise was rooted in their failure to to adhere to them once they had secured their new state and all the benefits which accompany princely rule over a subject population. (shrink)

This short essay enters in the "Objectivism/Relativism" debate via the opposed vantage points of C.S. Lewis and Friedrich Nietzsche respectively. It highlights this opposition in terms of Lewis's identification of relativism with democracy and Nietzsche's association of it with aristocracy. Lewis connects the intellectual tendencies of democracy with hostility to tradition and virtue, both western and non-western, and therewith to the idea that moral values are "relative" and are ultimately rooted in individual and cultural preferences. Nietzsche on the other hand (...) associates democracy with "objectivism" and the idea that there is a "one size fits all" truth with a capital "T." For Lewis successful societies need a grounding in "absolute" moral truth and so relativism will ultimately mean the demise of democracy and civilization. For Nietzsche on the other hand the capacity for "spiritual" relativism is the highest virtue and any society which fails to appreciate this fact will lack the most enlightened kind of leadership and as a result will never attain to its most laudable goals. (shrink)

This article attempts to assess the claim that the unum necessarium in our time is the general dissemination of scientific knowledge because liberal civilization or the “good society” cannot be had in the presence of traditional religion and “metaphysics.” The paper attempts to place this claim in the context of continuing globalization and related questions such as 9/11, Fundamentalist Islam, Sino-Western relations, “pop” atheism and the prospect of a “post-human” future. The paper describes the continuance of pre-Enlightenment traditions and beliefs (...) even as constant globalizing influences with their attendant secularism, atheism and technologism make their presence felt. The paper canvasses the views of Chet Raymo, C.S. Lewis, Bryan Appleyard, Werner Heisenberg, Stanley Rosen, Henry Adams, Friedrich Nietzsche Martin Heidegger and Francis Fukuyama as a means of assessing the claim that an education rooted in a simple commitment to scientific progressivism will be inadequate to the demands of the 21 st Century. (shrink)

This essay provides an interpretation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story 'My Kinsman, Major Molineux.' It argues that in this story Hawthorne is presenting a tale of social transformation from the pre-modern to the modern society in the form of the protagonist Robin's experiences on coming from the backwoods to the city. Here Robin sees things he has never seen before and is transformed in terms of his religious attitudes as well as in terms of his simple individual,rural independence. Robin ends (...) up joining the urban mob in its humiliation of the gentleman figure of Major Molineux. The new urban world of the 19th Century is sympathetic neither to rural simplicty nor to gentlemanly dignity. (shrink)

In an address entitled "Democracy and Liberal Education" delivered in 1887, Edward Everett Hale attacked the then President of Princeton University, the distinguished Scottish philosopher James McCosh for his remarks in a lecture to the Exeter Academy. Hale argued, in effect, that McCosh was ultimately "un-American" in his pedagogical purposes. The issues which Hale goes on to address, and the arguments to which he gives vent, show clearly the battle lines as far as liberal education in America was concerned. Hale (...) says that McCosh "encourages the students...to supply our lack of a political body of noblemen by an aristocracy founded on letters and learning." In doing so, Hale explains, McCosh is drawing on analogies "as old as Plato." "They are analogies which come most naturally to a man trained among well-defined classes in social order. But they ought not to be long sustained among people who have been trained in the social order of a democratic republic." For Hale the idea liberal education has no "elitist" or exclusivist overtones. Liberal education does not seek "to make any class of scholars." Indeed, "a true republic expects, in the end, to give a liberal education to all its people...the republic regards a liberal education not as the good fortune of a governing class, but as the privilege, if you please, the necessity of all." When we turn to the man who was the springboard of some of Hale's remarks on education we see that McCosh's concern is whether "America has arrived at a stage at which there is a body of men and women who have leisure and taste to cultivate the liberal arts and advance the higher forms of civilization." But it should be observed that, despite their basic differences of concern and approach, both Hale and McCosh believed that there was such a thing as the truth, that God or the Divine was the ultimate phenomenon for human beings, and that belief in these things helped sustain the good that was liberal society. By recalling the arguments of such men we are provided with a picture which contrasts with the debate between "town and gown" in our own day. If there is still some of Hale's moral seriousness about citizenship in "town" it seems hard to allow there is much of McCosh's moral seriousness about the task of philosophy in the realm of the "gown." To say the least, both civic and intellectual seriousness has declined since Hale and McCosh's time. That is why the kind of discussion in which they engaged should be interesting to us today. It allows us to track both the origins of our condition and the path we have come. The study of American educators such as these can be great value as we face the crisis of education and liberal society of our time. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the correspondence between George Frederick Holmes and William Gilmore Simms. These two outstanding individuals had one of the more memorable friendships and collaborations in the intellectual history of the South. Holmes was a literary journalist, critic, essayist, commentator, appraiser, analyst, moralist and reviewer whose output in these forms over a long career was prodigious. He was as an outstanding contributor to various journals and periodicals, some of which were edited by Simms and within which (...) the southern intellectual discussion was to a large measure carried on. In 1844 Holmes submitted a series of letters to Simms who at the time was the editor of the "Southern Literary Messenger." Holmes wished to use his old friend's magazine in order to excoriate his age for its devotion to magazines and periodicals and to discourse at length on how these journals have a corruptive effect on literary standards and taste. In his guise as a literary critic Holmes is writing to an editor who is a great writer in his own right in order to stress upon their readership the importance of adhering to the highest standards of the literary tradition in the face of the rise and growth of popular literature. (shrink)

This paper undertakes to give a reading of Mary Johnston's 1908 historical novel entitled Lewis Rand. The novel tells the story of a young Virginia man who receives a Jeffersonian education - literally - Lewis Rand is educated by Thomas Jefferson "in person." The young man later breaks with the great man over the character of his own political ambition and the limits which would be put upon this ambition if he were to continue in his adherence to Jeffersonian principles. (...) These principles had undergirded his climb from poverty and obscurity to the position of "rising star" in Virginia politics. But when forced to choose between these principles and the future prospect of joining the ranks of the great emperors and conquerors of history, Lewis Rand opts for the latter, which meant in his case to opt for ambition over his personal intimacy with Jefferson (although at the last moment he pulls back at the brink of political action). Lewis's story is thus one concerning the limits of liberal democratic politics and the perennial dialectic between the politics of reason and the politics of tyranny. (shrink)

This short essay connects President Rutherford B. Hayes (1822 - 1893) with the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882). It shows that President Hayes was an avid reader of Emerson and that he thought in Emersonian terms when he considered political questions. In private letters Hayes was wont to describe himself with the unusual term 'nihilist.' His use of this appellation has to be understood in the context of the times. What he meant was that he had been (...) called a 'nihilist' by devotees of the principle of 'laissez-faire' for his preference for policies which saw the state in a 'proactive' role in terms of economic regulation and so on. Hayes was proud to be a 'nihilist' understood in this sense because he believed state activity for the sake of social improvement is in fact the legacy of the Declaration of Independence and the Sermon on the Mount. Hayes' religious views were very 'liberal' but he was a long way from what the term 'nihilist' subsequently came to mean in later generations. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to establish the priority of Aristotle in the thought of George Frederick Holmes (1820-1897), the South's leading philosopher of the nineteenth century. Accompanying this aim is the possibility of an improved understanding of the historical "Mind of the South" and its particular orientation to the ongoing rise of modern civilization. Holmes copiously presented a firmly articulated "metaphysics" in a myriad of articles over a period stretching from the early 1840's until the end of the (...) 1870's. Holmes spent much of his philosophical energy struggling with such then influential moderns as Comte, Spencer and Darwin. But for all that the basis of his thought remained Aristotelian in nature. If it be allowed that Aristotle can make a "comeback" under today's conditions perhaps George Frederick Holmes is also entitled to be viewed once again as a "live option" given the fundamentally Aristotelian nature of his thought. (shrink)

Henry Lord Brougham (1778-1868) belongs with Thomas Jefferson and Horace Mann in the United States and Egerton Ryerson in Canada as one of the great promoters and founders of public education in the English-speaking world. His most famous phrase is The schoolmaster is abroad and this quote symbolizes his belief that the fate of the modern, liberal society depends on free access to education for the population at large. It is not that Brougham any more than Jefferson failed to draw (...) a distinction between the education that was fitted for the gifted few and that suited to the general public whose lives would lack the leisure for intellectual pursuits of the highest difficulty and training. Rather it is that Brougham adheres to a philosophy of enlightenment which sees the interests of science and society as ultimately indistinguishable and which insists that the spread of knowledge about both the natural and social worlds carries with it no price in terms of individual or social morality. This paper gives an overview of Brougham's philosophy of public enlightenment including his views on the example of Benjamin Franklin. It then reviews the attacks on this philosophy from the Anglican point of view in the form of the Reverend E.W. Grinfield's A Reply to Mr. Brougham's Practical Observations upon the Education of the People and from the Roman Catholic point of view in Cardinal Newman's famous Tamworth Reading Room and Discourse on University Education. (shrink)

This paper attempts to present a 'time line' of the increasing levels of doubt and anxiety about the path of 'Progressive Civilization' from the heyday of Victorian liberalism in the early 19th Century to the rise of postmodernism in our day. It does so by tracking a line of thought through John Stuart Mill, Lord Bryce, Matthew Arnold, Henry Adams, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger and Walter Lippmann. It uses the quip coined by the Yippie leader Abbie Hoffmann in the 1960's (...) as a symbolic phrase for the terminus to which the "Idea of Progess" has led us in the 21st Century. The argument is that over the time period covered the most serious observers became increasingly aware of the disappearance from modern society's horizon of any idea of a transcendent meaning within which it could explain and justify to itself its own deepest purposes. The necessity for a persuasive 'metaphysics' which could show why the modern western experiment is a good thing became increasingly evident in inverse proportion to its philosophical availability. Note: This paper was delivered at the University of Maine on April 27, 2009 under the auspices of the Program in Western Civilization and American Liberty directed by Michael J.Palmer the Abraham Lincoln Professor of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at the University of Maine. (shrink)

This short essay takes stock of H.L. Mencken's portrayal of Samuel Johnson as the "first Rotarian" and as nothing more than a mouthpiece for the prejudices and defender of the authorities of his time. I suggest by contrast that Johnson was fully appreciative of the need for the writer to be at a distance from the prejudices of his age and that rather than a mind blinkered by deep national prejudices Johnson was in fact a "Good European" as cosmopolitan in (...) spirit as he was English in his character. (shrink)

Steady direct current (dc) electric fields exist in many biological systems over many hours. At these times cells are dividing, differentiating, moving to final locations and extending motile processes. Each of these events may be influenced by physiological electric fields in tissue culture and when electric fields are disrupted in vivo, major developmental abnormalities arise. The likelihood of physiological electric fields playing a role in cell behaviours and some potential mechanisms are outlined.

This book review considers Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson's argument that there is less of an intrinsic tension between liberalism and republicanism than has been claimed by various students of the history of modern liberal thought. It fully endorses the authors' directing of our attention to the mode of thinking which is to be seen in their select group of subjects (Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, James Madison, Thomas Paine, Germaine de Stael and Benjamin Constant). But it balks at their claim (...) that their 'critical junctures' or 'heterogeneous and relational' interpretation of the rise of liberalism is superior to the 'linear' or 'trickle down' approach which sees this rise as a tale of the progressively strengthening influence of the 'giants' of political thought such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu et. al. over lesser thinkers who were more absorbed in 'practical affairs.' The suggestion is made that what the authors take to be 'negotiable' differences of emphasis between the classically liberal and classically republican traditions may in fact be 'existential' oppositions which no single political order could overcome. (shrink)

This article reviews the effects of malnutrition on early brain development using data generated from animal experiments and human clinical studies. Three related processes, each with their own functional consequences, are implicated in the alteration of brain development. (1) Maternal undernutrition at the start of pregnancy results in reduced transfer of nutrients across the placenta, allowing the conservation of effort for future reproductive episodes. (2) Differential allocation to growing organs by the fetus in response to nutritional stress spares the brain (...) to a large though still limited degree, reflecting the organ’s relative contribution to survival and reproductive success. (3) Prenatal malnutrition disrupts developing neurotransmitter systems, which results in the expression of specific cognitive and affective traits. It is argued that the increasing size and therefore cost of the brain, in conjunction with increasing ecological instability and marginality, reinforced selection for maternally controlled growth suppression of offspring, reallocation of organ growth rates by offspring, and behavioral changes related to development of neurotransmitter systems. (shrink)

Individual choice and freedom are repeatedly invoked in contemporary policy debates, including those with a focus on risk behaviors such as smoking and health insurance coverage. The idea of making the right choice with regard to health and well-being has been fortified by the neoliberal discourse of self-reliance, personal autonomy, and responsibility. This neoliberal view, stemming from the conceptualization of freedom of philosopher John Stuart Mill justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control, holds that success, (...) good health, and favorable educational outcomes are largely due to individual effort. Correspondingly, so too is failure, including failure of.. (shrink)

This article discusses the establishment of a governance framework for biomedical research in Singapore. It focuses on the work of the Bioethics Advisory Committee , which has been instrumental in institutionalizing a governance framework, through the provision of recommendations to the government, and through the coordination of efforts among government agencies. However, developing capabilities in biomedical sciences presents challenges that are qualitatively different from those of past technologies. The state has a greater role to play in balancing conflicting and potentially (...) irreconcilable economic, social, and political goals. This article analyzes the various ways by which the BAC has facilitated this. (shrink)

The demise of behaviorism has made ethologists more willing to ascribe mental states to animals. However, a methodology that can avoid the charge of excessive anthropomorphism is needed. We describe a series of experiments that could help determine whether the behavior of nonhuman animals towards dead conspecifics is concept mediated. These experiments form the basis of a general point. The behavior of some animals is clearly guided by complex mental processes. The techniques developed by comparative psychologists and behavioral ecologists are (...) able to provide us with the tools to critically evaluate hypotheses concerning the continuity between human minds and animal minds. (shrink)

Originally published in 1987, Colin Campbell’s classic treatise on the sociology of consumption has become one of the most widely cited texts in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and the history of ideas. In the thirty years since its publication, The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism has lost none of its impact. If anything, the growing commodification of society, the increased attention to consumer studies and marketing, and the ever-proliferating range of purchasable goods and services have (...) made Campbell’s rereading of Weber more urgent still. As Campbell uncovers how and why a consumer-oriented society emerged from a Europe that once embodied Weber’s Protestant ethic, he delivers a rich theorization of the modern logics and values structuring consumer behavior. This new edition, featuring an extended Introduction from the author and an Afterword from researcher Karin M. Ekström, makes clear how this foundational work aligns with contemporary theory in cultural sociology, while also serving as major influence on consumer studies. (shrink)

The concept of agency, although central to many sociological debates, has remained frustratingly elusive to pin down. This article is an attempt to open up what has been called the "black box" of personal agency by distinguishing clearly between two contrasting conceptions of the phenomenon. These two conceptions are very apparent in the manner in which the concept is defined in sociological reference works, resembling as it does a similar contrast in the treatment of the concept of power. The two (...) are referred to as type 1 and type 2 or the power of agency as compared with agentic power, the essential contrast being that the first refers to an actor's ability to initiate and maintain a program of action while the second refers to an actor's ability to act independently of the constraining power of social structure. The nature of these two forms of personal agency is then illustrated by referring to material taken from Weber's essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, this essay itself being understood as an argument that focuses on the crucial role played by an increase in the power of agency in ushering in the modern world. Finally, it is argued that these two conceptions of agency possess no given logical relationship with each other, it being perfectly possible for individuals to be possessed of considerable power of agency while lacking agentic power, and vice versa. It is therefore concluded that it is important, in all discussions of human agency, to distinguish clearly between these two forms. (shrink)

Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption, although widely known and commonly invoked, has rarely been examined critically; the associated "theory" has never been tested. It is suggested that the reason for this lies in the difficulty of determining the criterion that defines the phenomenon, a difficulty that derives from Veblen's failure to integrate two contrasting conceptual formulations. These are, first, an interpretive or subjective version that conceives of conspicuous consumption as action marked by the presence of certain intentions, purposes, or motives, (...) and second, a functionalist formulation in which conspicuous consumption is viewed as a form of behavior characterized by particular end results or outcomes. Consideration of each of these strands reveals major difficulties that prevent the construction of an operational definition of conspicuous consumption and hence the extraction of a workable theory from Veblen's discussion. (shrink)

This handbook offers a deep analysis of the main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation from both a logical-philosophical and legal perspective. These forms are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and the handbook accordingly divides in three parts: the first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the main general forms of reasoning and argumentation relevant for legal discourse. The third one looks at their application in law as well as at (...) the different areas of legal reasoning. The handbook’s division in three parts reflects its conceptual architecture, since legal reasoning and argumentation are considered in relation to the more general types of reasoning. (shrink)

The tendency to denigrate consumerism derives from the widespread acceptance of sociological theories that represent consumers as prompted by such reprehensible motives as greed, pride, or envy. These theories are largely unsubstantiated and fail to address the distinctive features of modern consumption, such as the apparent insatiability of wants and the preference for the novel over the familiar. A more plausible view of consumerism regards it as an aspect of hedonism, and links consumption to the widespread practice of daydreaming. Seen (...) in this light, one can discern an idealistic dimension to modern consumption. (shrink)