Intended to introduce novices to rational choice theory, this accessible, interdisciplinary book collects writings by leading researchers.

Moral emotions shape the effectiveness of culturally diverse teams. However, these emotions, which are integral to determining ethically responsive patient care and team relationships, typically go unrecognised. The contribution of emotions to moral deliberation is subjugated within the technorational environment of healthcare decision‐making. Contemporary healthcare organisations rely on a multicultural workforce charged with the ethical care of vulnerable people. Limited extant literature examines the role of moral emotions in ethical decision‐making among culturally diverse healthcare teams. Moral emotions are evident in (...) ethnocentric moral perspectives that construct some colleagues' practices as ‘other’. This article examines how moral emotions are evoked when cultural dissonance influences nurses' moral perceptions. We use a qualitative investigation of teamwork within culturally diverse healthcare organisations. We use Haidt's () account of moral emotions to examine practice‐based accounts of 36 internationally educated and 17 New Zealand educated nurses practising in New Zealand. The study provides evidence that moral emotions are frequently elicited by communication and care practices considered ‘foreign’. The main implication is that although safe practice in healthcare organisations is reliant on highly functioning teams, collaboration is challenged by interprofessional power relations of contested culturally shaped values. We address practice‐based strategies that enable engagement with moral emotions to enhance effective teamwork. (shrink)

A dearth of literature focuses on the relationship between acculturation, power distance and liminality for migrant nurses entering foreign workplaces. Expectations are for migrant nurses to be practice‐ready swiftly. However, this aspiration is naïve given the complex shifts that occur in deeply held cultural beliefs and practices and is dependent on an organisational climate of reciprocal willingness to adapt and learn. This exploratory study identified that although a plethora of literature addresses challenges migrant nurses face, there are limited data that (...) link these transitional processes to concepts that might usefully guide transitions. This study draws from the overarching concept of acculturation, together with Hofstede's (2011) notion of power distance and the theory of liminality to explore the experiences of eight migrant nurses. Data highlighted that adjusting to altered hierarchical relationships took many months because negotiating power distance challenged deeply held beliefs and assumptions about professional and organisational hierarchies. Migrant nurses’ accounts indicated a paucity of organisational processes to address these difficulties; therefore, they navigated this liminal space of adjustment to power distance differences in an ad hoc manner. Their acculturation experiences, arguably unnecessarily prolonged, indicate the value in workplace commitment to exploring a collaborative, critically reflective approach to optimise transitions. (shrink)

For the students, while the numbers are up,… the problem that minorities face – and it is persistent – is that there is still too much of a patronizing air in the professional schools. And there's still too much of the notion that if you're here it must be because someone gave you a break and you're different and you really don't belong here. And indeed when my son went off to school four years ago… I really wanted to warn (...) him about the atmosphere that you see on all too many campuses, diat if you're black and walking on campus, that all too many people look at you and say, “You must be an affirmative action product,” whatever that means to them. “You're here only at our good grace.” And no one's looking at the individual. Thinking about it in retrospect, I guess, in some ways I enjoyed an advantage in being [the only black in my law school class]. It was a terrible disadvantage in a lot of ways, but, because I was the only black, the one thing I never faced was anyone ever challenging my intellectual capability. The way they brought this off was to say, “Well, you're different. You're black but you're not really black.” I think it's a lot worse now…. Professional schools are hard enough as it is, and to constantly have the pressure of what others are thinking about you and wondering whether you really belong, that really is a difficult burden. (shrink)

This paper explores Augustine’s use of the twin images of Christ the physician and sin as sickness, especially in his sermons and Confessions. It shows how distinctive features of this image enable Augustine to illuminate a scriptural moral theology that is egalitarian and developmental. It is founded upon repentance, humility and a powerful awareness of dependence upon God’s grace, and demands communal responsibility for morality. Augustine’s moral theory fully integrates his personal and pastoral experience; the relevant similarities between his (...) own society and ours suggest that his theory, in its broad outlines, has not lost its validity. (shrink)

Some readers may have seen the re-runs, on BBC-TV recently, of the ‘Face to Face’ interviews done by John Freeman in the 1960s. One of these was with the singer Adam Faith, then a startlingly beautiful young man with the grace to be amazed at being chosen to be sandwiched between Martin Luther King and J. K. Galbraith. The re-runs were accompanied, where possible, with a further interview with the same person. What I found almost as startling as his (...) lost beauty was Faith's referring to himself-when-young in the third person. After watching the rerun interview, the now middle-aged man commented to Freeman, on several occasions, that ‘He said such-and-such’, ‘He told you so-and-so’, and the like. (shrink)

Some readers may have seen the re-runs, on BBC-TV recently, of the ‘Face to Face’ interviews done by John Freeman in the 1960s. One of these was with the singer Adam Faith, then a startlingly beautiful young man with the grace to be amazed at being chosen to be sandwiched between Martin Luther King and J. K. Galbraith. The re-runs were accompanied, where possible, with a further interview with the same person. What I found almost as startling as his (...) lost beauty was Faith's referring to himself-when-young in the third person. After watching the rerun interview, the now middle-aged man commented to Freeman, on several occasions, that ‘He said such-and-such’, ‘He told you so-and-so’, and the like. (shrink)

"Margaret L. King has put together a highly representative selection of readings from most of the more significant—but by no means the most obvious—texts by the authors who made up the movement we have come to call the 'Enlightenment.' They range across much of Europe and the Americas, and from the early seventeenth century until the end of the eighteenth. In the originality of the choice of texts, in its range and depth, this collection offers both wide coverage and (...) striking insights into the intellectual transformation which has done more than any other to shape the world in which we live today. It is _simply the best introduction to the subject now available_."_ —Anthony Pagden, UCLA, and author of _The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters_ Contents:_ Chronology, Introduction _Chapter One - Casting Out Idols: 1620–1697_ _Idols, or false notions: _Francis Bacon, _The New Instrument_ _I think, therefore I am: _René Descartes, Discourse on Method _God, or Nature: _Baruch Spinoza, _Ethics_ _The system of the world: _Isaac Newton, _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_ _He searched for truth throughout his life: _Pierre Bayle, _Historical and Critical Dictionary_ _Chapter Two - _The Learned Maid: 1638–1740 _A face raised toward heaven:_ Anna Maria van Schurman, _Whether the Study of Letters Befits a Christian Woman_ _The worlds I have made:_ Margaret Cavendish, _The Blazing World_ _A finer sort of cattle:_ Bathsua Makin, _An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen_ _I warn you of the world:_ Madame de Maintenon, _Letter: On the Education of the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr_, and _Instruction: On the World_ _The daybreak of your reason:_ Émilie Du Châtelet, _Fundamentals of Physics_ _Chapter Three - _A State of Perfect Freedom: 1689–1695 _The chief criterion of the True Church:_ John Locke, _Letter on Toleration_ _Freedom from any superior power on earth:_ John Locke, _Second Treatise on Civil Government_ _A white paper, with nothing written on it:_ John Locke, _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_ _Let your rules be as few as possible:_ John Locke, _Some Thoughts Concerning Education_ _From death, Jesus Christ restores all to life:_ John Locke, _The Reasonableness of Christianity, as Delivered in the Scriptures_ _Chapter Four - All Things Made New: 1725–1784_ _In the wilderness, they are reborn:_ Giambattista Vico, _The New Science_ _Without these Names, nothing can be known,_ Carl Linnaeus, _System of Nature_ _All the clouds at last are lifted:_ Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, _The Successive Advancement of the Human Mind_ _A genealogical or encyclopedic tree of knowledge:_ Jean le Rond d’Alembert, _Preliminary Discourse_ _Dare to know! :_ Immanuel Kant, _What Is Enlightenment?_ _Chapter Five - Mind, Soul, and God: 1740–1779_ _The narrow limits of human understanding:_ David Hume, _Anof a Book Lately Published_ _The soul is but an empty word:_ Julien Offray de La Mettrie, _Man a Machine_ _All is reduced to sensation:_ Claude Adrien Helvétius, _On the Mind_ _An endless web of fantasies and falsehoods:_ Paul-Henri Thiry, baron d’Holbach, _Common Sense_ _Let each believe that his own ring is real:_ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, _Nathan the Wise_ _Chapter Six - Crush That Infamous Thing: 1733–1764_ _This is the country of sects:_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Letters_ _Disfigured by myth, until enlightenment comes:_ Voltaire, _The Culture and Spirit of Nations_ _The best of all possible worlds:_ Voltaire, _Candide_ _Are we not all children of the same God?:_ Voltaire, _Treatise on Tolerance_ _If a book displeases you, refute it! :_ Voltaire, _Philosophical Dictionary_ _Chapter Seven - Toward the Greater Good: 1748–1776_ _Things must be so ordered that power checks power,_ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, _The Spirit of the Laws_ _Complete freedom of trade must be ensured:_ François Quesnay, _General Maxims for the Economic Management of an Agricultural Kingdom_ _The nation's war against the citizen: Cesare_ Beccaria, _On Crimes and Punishments_ _There is no peace in the absence of justice:_ Adam Ferguson, _An Essay on the History of Civil Society_ _Led by an invisible hand:_ Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations_ _Chapter Eight - Encountering Others: 1688–1785_ _Thus died this great man:_ Aphra Behn, _Oroonoko: or The Royal Slave_ _Not one sins the less for not being Christian: _Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, _Embassy Letters_ _Do you not restore to them their liberty?:_ Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, _Philosophical and Political History of European Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies_ _Some things which are rather interesting:_ Captain James Cook, _Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World_ _The inner genius of my being:_ Johann Gottfried von Herder, _Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Humankind_ _Chapter - Nine Citizen of Geneva: 1755–1782_ _The most cunning project ever to enter the human mind: _Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Human Inequality_ _The supreme direction of the General Will:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract _Two lovers from a small town at the foot of the Alps,_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Julie, or the New Heloise_ _Build a fence around your child’s soul:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Emile, or On Education_ _This man will be myself:_ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, _Confessions_ _Chapter Ten - Vindications of Women: 1685–1792_ _No higher design than to get her a husband:_ Mary Astell, _Reflections on Marriage_ _The days of my bondage begin:_ Anna Stanisławska, _Orphan Girl_ _A dying victim dragged to the altar:_ Denis Diderot, _The Nun_ _Created to be the toy of man:_ Mary Wollstonecraft, _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ _Man, are you capable of being just?:_ Olympe de Gouges, _Declaration of the Rights of Woman as Citizen_ _Chapter Eleven - American Reverberations: 1771–1792_ _I took upon me to assert my freedom:_ Benjamin Franklin, _Autobiography_ _Freedom has been hunted round the globe:_ Thomas Paine, _Common Sense_ _Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights:_ Thomas Jefferson and Others, _Declaration of Independence_ _A safeguard against faction and insurrection:_ James Madison, _Federalist No. 10_ _An end to government by force and fraud:_ Thomas Paine, _The Rights of Man_ _Chapter Twelve - Enlightenment's End: 1790–1794_ _A partnership of the living, the dead, and those unborn:_ Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ _The future destiny of the human species:_ Nicolas de Condorcet, _A Sketch of a Historical Portrait of the Progress of the Human Mind_ Texts and Studies, Index. 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Next SectionIn just forty years, the United States has witnessed the transition in the understanding of the practice of elective abortion from that of a heinous act to that of the most common surgical procedure performed on young women. That transition was facilitated first by a set of ideas which became practices which became habitual and determinative of character and, when taken together, contributed to a tectonic shift in culture. The ideas are to be found in a set of claims—liberty (...) claims and equality claims—that elevate the will of the individual against the structures of the real world. The practices grew out of and were nourished in a matrix fashioned in the sexual revolution made effective by technological and medical advances. The practices, having been made habitual, altered the understanding of sexual activity and recast the understanding of marriage and its ends. This article delineates the defining elements that wrought such a transformation in culture. It will suggest that without a radical retransformation this culture, which has embraced the killing of the hidden vulnerable, carries the seeds of its own destruction. And it will present a response from the perspective of a woman who is by profession a philosopher and who is, by God’s grace, a Roman Catholic. (shrink)

In what follows I shall reflect on some of the things Professor Lewis has said in various contexts on the theme of inter-religious understanding, but taking a cue mainly from remarks made in his recent book Jesus in the Faith of Christians . Our sights will be set on the extent to which understanding is possible and, going on from there, the extent to which a sharing of insights is possible. The theme suggests a certain progression within experience. There is (...) by now a considerable literature on the subject. Some of it gives the impression of what, with due respect to one of the greatest poets of all time, might be called a kind of Rabbie Burns Prinzip in reverse. Would that we could understand the ‘other’ as we understand ourselves. This Prinzip runs into a problem right away, for how far does our self-understanding reach? Those familiar with the psycho-analyst's couch or even those unfamiliar with this particular discipline, for discipline it is, find it to be an endless process. How far, moreover, does our ‘understanding’ of our own faith and tradition extend? Is ‘understanding’ the right word anyway? To speak of entering more deeply into the Divine mystery, as the man of faith well may, is, ipso facto , to witness to the inadequacy and even irrelevancy of all categorial nets. The prayer to ‘Lighten our darkness’ is less a philosopher's plea for intelligibility than a cry for succour, that the clouds of doubt and unbelief may be, through Divine grace, in some way which we cannot understand, penetrated and dispelled. (shrink)

Philosophers often mention Friedrich Schiller as the author of a famous epigram taking aim at Kant’s account of moral motivation: Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. To this, the answer is given: Surely, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, And then with aversion do what your duty enjoins. These joking lines capture a natural objection to Kant’s rationalist (...) picture of moral motivation, especially as it appears in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Schiller himself, however, intended his poem as a caricature of Kant’s view, reserving his considered critique of Kant’s practical philosophy for his extended treatise ‘On Grace and Dignity’. It is in this major work that Schiller begins his debate with Kant about the aesthetic aspect of morality, sets out a systematic account of his own ethics, and argues for an account of character according to which the virtuous person is inclined to do her duty and takes pleasure in moral action. This essay aims to highlight the importance of Schiller’s ‘On Grace and Dignity’, which is a valuable resource in relation to contemporary debates about Kant’s moral psychology. Section 1 outlines the main features of Schiller’s concerns with Kantian rationalism. Section 2 surveys a number of recent critical discussions of Schiller’s interpretation of Kant. Finally, Section 3 concludes with some observations about the historical and broader philosophical significance of ‘On Grace and Dignity’. (shrink)

This chapter is Grace Andrus de Laguna's discussion of Margaret Floy Washburn’s The Animal Mind.

In his extended essay "On Grace and Dignity," Friedrich Schiller sets out an important challenge to Kant when he argues that sensibility must play a constitutive role in the ethical life. This paper argues that there is much we can learn from Schiller's "corrective" to Kant's moral theory and Kant's reply to this critique, for what is at stake in their debate are rival conceptions of the proper state of moral health for us as finite rational beings and competing (...) political notions concerning the ideal form of self-governance that we ought to strive to attain. (shrink)

Focusing on the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason, historical and contemporary critics of Kant's rationalist ethical theory accuse him of holding an impoverished moral psychology and an inadequate account of character and virtue. Kant's sharp contrast between duty and inclination and his claim that only action from duty possesses moral worth appear to imply that pro-moral inclination is unnecessary for, if perhaps compatible with, a good will. On traditional accounts of virtue, however, having a good will and possessing (...) virtue require pro-moral emotions and inclinations. Thus, Kant's moral psychology seems at odds with the common view that emotions and appetites are constituent elements within virtue. Kant's defenders have argued that an adequate assessment of these charges must address his theory of virtue, as it is set out in The Doctrine of Virtue, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, and the Lectures on Ethics. Yet the prospect for reconstructing a plausible Kantian account of virtue from these tests may appear bleak when we see that Kant conceives of virtue as moral strength of will over recalcitrant inclinations, and characterizes virtue in terms of the autocracy of pure practical reason. For autocracy may seem to require the extirpation or suppression of feelings and inclinations. Indeed, it might seem difficult to distinguish the autocratic agent from the agent who, in Aristotle's terms, is merely continent, or who, in Schiller's terms, possesses dignity, but not grace. But these objections misunderstand autocracy. In the thesis, I argue that the self-mastery constitutive of Kantian virtue involves the cultivation of sensibility according to reason and that emotions and appetites modified and regulated by a proper conception of the moral law play a constructive role within Kantian virtue. (shrink)

In 1766 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in exile from France and Switzerland, came to England, where he made the acquaintance of Margaret Cavendish Harley Bentinck, Duchess of Portland. The two began to botanise together and to exchange letters about botany. These letters contain salient statements about Rousseau's views on natural theology, gardens, botanical texts and exotic botany. This exchange entailed not only discussions about plant identifications and other botanical matters, but most important, reciprocal gifts of books and specimens in the manner (...) of gentlemanly scientific correspondence of the period. Rousseau volunteered his services as the Duchess's ‘herborist’ or plant collector, and collected specimens and seeds in her behalf; these were destined for her own extensive herbaria and other natural history collections. Rousseau, who elsewhere denied female talent for science, admired the Duchess's knowledge of natural history, acknowledging his own as inferior. Their correspondence ended when the Duchess sent him the Herbarium amboinense of Georg Rumpf (Rumphius), an important work of exotic botany. Rousseau considered exotic botany to be the antithesis of the domination-free nature from which he derived solace and inspiration. (shrink)

This book is the first translation from Latin into English of the juridical writings of one of the greatest minds of the Enlightenment and one of the greatest figures in Italian philosophy. The complete text is fully annotated, supplied with an extensive introduction, completed by historical and biographical documents, and graced with evocative illustrations. Legal scholars, philosophers, historians, and political scientists throughout the world may now discover a classic by one of the world’s great jurists.

Marion J. Legge addresses theological ethics from the context of Canadian women -- especially the experience of marginalized women in Canada. Beginning with a critical reassessment of Canadian Radical Christianity, she argues that approches that center on question of economic justice have nevertheless overlooked the day-to-day economic realities of Canadian women. Legge develops a reformulated critical theory of culture that, though it emphasizes difference, avoids premature abstraction and misplaced generalizations. She seeks a voice to articulate the theological and ethical dimensions (...) of women's experience in the texts of three Canadian novels: In Search of April Raintree, by Beatrice Cullen; The Diviners, by Margaret Laurence; and Obasan, by Joy Kogawa. (shrink)

Explores the moral dimensions of the current global role of the U.S. military.

Following the traces of Margaret Mead’s statement that emphasized that the first photographic images of the Earth from space presented notions of fragility, the article contextualizes the recent critique of the dominant representation of the Earth as a globe that emerged in conjunction with the discourse on the Anthropocene. It analyses the globe as an image and the sentiments that accompanied it since the first photographs of our planet from space were published in 1968. The article outlines how the (...) cultural meaning of the whole Earth representation changed in parallel with the appropriation of the image by the large technological enterprises that emerged from America’s counterculture. It returns to the possibility of a coexistence of ‘views from within’ and ‘views from without’ following a detour with Gregory Bateson via Bali and proposes a Cybernetics of Grace as a practice of resistance against pure exteriority. The article concludes by linking the Cybernetics of Grace with the second-order conversations of Gordon Pask. (shrink)

Developing a boundary-crossing ethics by paying attention to our stories, myths, and moral intuition.

Michael Cook's classic study, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2001), reflected upon the Islamic injunction to forbid wrongdoing. This book is a short, accessible survey of the same material. Using Islamic history to illustrate his argument, Cook unravels the complexities of the subject by demonstrating how the past informs the present. At the book's core is an important message about the values of Islamic traditions and their relevance in the modern world.

I develop and defend the view that subjects are necessarily psychologically able to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Specifically, subjects can revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence, given their current psychological mechanisms and skills. If a subject lacks this ability, then the mental state in question is not a belief, though it may be some other kind of cognitive attitude, such as a supposition, an entertained thought, or a pretense. The result is a moderately revisionary (...) view of belief: while most mental states we thought were beliefs are beliefs, some mental states which we thought were beliefs are not beliefs. The argument for this view draws on two key claims: First, subjects are rationally obligated to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Second, if some subject is rationally obligated to revise one of her mental states, then that subject can revise that mental state, given her current psychological mechanisms and skills. Along the way to defending these claims, I argue that rational obligations can govern activities which reflect on one’s rational character, whether or not those activities are under one’s voluntary control. I also show how the relevant version of epistemic ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ survives an objection which plagues other variants of the principle. (shrink)

Through the use of particular pedagogies and the adoption of new modes of thinking, physical literacy promises more realistic models of physical competence and ...

In this wide-ranging interview Professor Margaret Archer discusses a variety of aspects of her work, academic career and influences, beginning with the role the study of education systems played in...

Humanity and the very notion of the human subject are under threat from postmodernist thinking which has declared not only the 'Death of God' but also the 'Death of Man'. This book is a revindication of the concept of humanity, rejecting contemporary social theory that seeks to diminish human properties and powers. Archer argues that being human depends on an interaction with the real world in which practice takes primacy over language in the emergence of human self-consciousness, thought, emotionality and (...) personal identity - all of which are prior to, and more basic than, our acquisition of a social identity. This original and provocative new book from leading social theorist Margaret S. Archer builds on the themes explored in her previous books Culture and Agency (CUP 1988) and Realist Social Theory (CUP 1995). It will be required reading for academics and students of social theory, cultural theory, political theory, philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Newcomers and more experienced feminist theorists will welcome this even-handed survey of the care/justice debate within feminist ethics. Grace Clement clarifies the key terms, examines the arguments and assumptions of all sides to the debate, and explores the broader implications for both practical and applied ethics. Readers will appreciate her generous treatment of the feminine, feminist, and justice-based perspectives that have dominated the debate.Clement also goes well beyond description and criticism, advancing the discussion through the incorporation of a broad (...) range of insights into a new integration of the values of care and justice. Care, Autonomy, and Justice marks a major step forward in our understanding of feminist ethics. It is both direct and helpful enough to work as an introduction for students and insightful and original enough to make it necessary reading for scholars. (shrink)

Hospital ethics committees have evolved as a response to complicated legal, ethical, and social dilemmas that accompany modern medicine. In the United States, their growth has been augmented by Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards and the Patient Self-Determination Act. There appears to be an implicit presumption that all clinical ethics consultation practices are relatively similar. Finally, there is heightened awareness of the needs for quality standards and assessment of the outcomes of ethics consultations.

How is it possible to think new thoughts? What is creativity and can science explain it? And just how did Coleridge dream up the creatures of The Ancient Mariner? When The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms was first published, Margaret A. Boden's bold and provocative exploration of creativity broke new ground. Boden uses examples such as jazz improvisation, chess, story writing, physics, and the music of Mozart, together with computing models from the field of artificial intelligence to uncover the (...) nature of human creativity in the arts. The second edition of The Creative Mind has been updated to include recent developments in artificial intelligence, with a new preface, introduction and conclusion by the author. It is an essential work for anyone interested in the creativity of the human mind. (shrink)

The central problem of social theory is 'structure and agency'. How do the objective features of society influence human agents? Determinism is not the answer, nor is conditioning as currently conceptualised. It accentuates the way structure and culture shape the social context in which individuals operate, but it neglects our personal capacity to define what we care about most and to establish a modus vivendi expressive of our concerns. Through inner dialogue, 'the internal conversation', individuals reflect upon their social situation (...) in the light of current concerns and projects. On the basis of a series of unique, in-depth interviews, Archer identifies three distinctive forms of internal conversation. These govern agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change. Thus the internal conversation is seen as being the missing link between society and the individual, structure and agency. (shrink)

History is useful when it is used properly: to understand why we and those we must deal with think and react in certain ways. It can offer examples to inform our decisions and guesses about the consequences of our actions. But we should be wary of looking to history for dogmatic lessons.We should distrust those who abuse history when they call on it to justify unreasonable claims to land, for example, or restitution. MacMillan illustrates how dangerous history can be in (...) the hands of nationalistic or religious or ethnic leaders who use it to foster a sense of grievance and a desire for revenge. (shrink)