Political Community Workshop, Aberdeen

9 06 2013

communityOn 25-26 June 2013, the Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law at the University of Aberdeen will host a workshop on Political Community, featuring the McDonald Centre’s John Perry.

Other speakers include Hanna Lerner (Politics, Tel Aviv), Sian Lazar (Anthropology, Cambridge), Ajay Gudavarthy (Politics, Nehru University), Nigel Dower (Philosophy, Aberdeen), and Tamas Gyorfi (Law, Aberdeen).

Notions of political community are implicit in many or most contemporary debates – academic and public – of citizenship, civil society and rule of law, as well as of democracy, multiculturalism and human rights. But they are seldom made explicit and subject to analysis and reflection. Having debated and discussed aspects of citizenship, civil society and rule of law in a series of events since our founding in 2009, we have identified political community as a topic that crosscuts the three but which we have yet to comprehend fully.

The workshop is free to attend, including food. View the programme for full details, including registration instructions. The event is coordinated by Dr Trevor Stack.





Sermon: The Thin Red Line

4 06 2013

trlposterTerrence Malik’s 1998 film, The Thin Red Line, is considered one of the greatest contemporary war films, and is at once deeply moving and deeply theological. In this recent sermon delivered to the Oriel College Chapel, Nigel Biggar reflects on some of the film’s theological questions.


The Horror or the Glory? Malik’s The Thin Red Line





Journal of Medical Ethics on Infanticide, Abortion

21 05 2013

coverIn January 2012, the Journal of Medical Ethics published a controversial article suggesting that the reasons that support legalized abortion should also be invoked to permit infanticide, something the authors refer to as after-birth abortion. More recently, an American physician was convicted of murder, and now faces the death penalty, for infanticides that he defended as abortions.

The original Journal of Medical Ethics article generated an outcry of opposition from physicians, philosophers, and even on the floor of the United States Congress. The journal’s editor, Julian Savulescu, issued a statement defending the article’s publication, while also affirming his own opposition to infanticide. Now, the journal has released a special edition on the debate, which includes both pro-choice and pro-life responses. For the next month, access to the special edition is free.

Also available is a brief but engaging interview with Nigel Biggar on the topic, conducted by the BBC’s David Edmunds. Download directly from the JME or listen here:


Finally, the issue includes an exchange between Charles Camosy, former McDonald Visiting Fellow, and Princeton’s Robert George—both of whom oppose abortion under any circumstances, but who disagree about how best to engage those who differ. The question of how best to make the public case for or against abortion was previously addressed on this site by the McDonald Centre’s John Perry.





Upcoming Book Launches: June 4 & 13

14 05 2013

Please join us for two exciting book launches in Oxford this June.

Hordern Cover

Political Affections: Civic Participation & Moral Theology

by Joshua Hordern

June 4, 1.15pm, Philosophy Room, Radcliffe Humanities Building

Free lunch provided; RSVP politicalaffections@gmail.com

View launch invitation or book flyer offering a 20% discount


Clarke CoverReligion, Intolerance, and Conflict

with a critical commentary by John Perry & Nigel Biggar

June 13, 6.45pm, New Ryle Room, Radcliffe Humanities Bldg

Wine and refreshments; remarks by Nigel Biggar

RSVP rachel.gaminiratne@philosophy.ox.ac.uk





Lectures on Love, Forgiveness in USA

24 04 2013

040913BIGGARNoel-294x300Earlier this month, Nigel Biggar delivered two lectures to Davidson College in North Carolina, USA, hosted by the Vann Center for Ethics. The lectures were entitled:

  • Christian Love and Forgiveness in the Context of Human Conflict
  • The Role of Religious Ethics in Contemporary Liberal Society

The event was covered in local press, including the Charlotte Observer and Davidson News. Videos of the lectures are available below.

 





Does Morality Need Religion?

17 03 2013

Registration is now open closed for the conference, Does Morality Need Religion?

  • 16-17 May 2013 at the University of Oxford
  • View or print the poster to help us spread the word
  • Email us with a question

moralityneedicon

For centuries, atheism was suppressed because of its supposed amorality. Now, New Atheists such as A.C. Grayling and Sam Harris argue that decent, liberal morality is perfectly possible without religious belief—indeed, that it is only possible without it. Others, such as Jürgen Habermas, acknowledge that Christianity has had a peculiar capacity to articulate humanist values and norms, but that these can be extracted without loss from their theological roots. This May, the McDonald Centre, together with the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter, gather ten philosophers and theologians—both believers and unbelievers—from the UK, the USA, and New Zealand to address questions such as these:

  • Even if morality in general does not need religion, might specific moralities nonetheless need it?
  • Might morality be better off without religion? Is it better off without any religion or only certain kinds?
  • When notions of human dignity or rights are extracted from theological language, is anything important lost in translation? Are such notions really sustainable apart from a theological worldview?
  • Are religious believers more, or less, moral than others? Or are such questions philosophically irrelevant?

Speakers include: David Baggett (Liberty), Julian Baggini (The Philosophers’ Magazine), Nigel Biggar (Oxford), John Cottingham (Reading), John Hare (Yale), Terence Irwin (Oxford), Michael Hauskeller (Exeter), Tim Mulgan (Auckland), Keith Ward (Oxford), Mark Wynn (Leeds).





What’s the Good of the Union?

11 03 2013

flagIn recent years the rise of the Scottish National Party has called into question the 300 year-old Union of England and Scotland. Nationalists argue that the Scots would be better off with an independent state, and that the Anglo-Scottish Union has had its day. This might be true: after all, nation-states wax and wane, and none is the Kingdom of God—neither the USSR, nor the USA or UK.

In order to test the truth of the SNP’s claim, the McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life held a colloquium at Christ Church on 26 February, in which interested parties from north and south, Left and Right, gathered to consider answers to the question, “What’s the Good of the Union?” Participants included the theologians Nigel Biggar and Iain Torrance, the historians Alvin Jackson and Chris Whatley, the journalists Martin Kettle and John Lloyd, and others. View the complete programme and list of speakers.








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