Articles « McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics & Public Life

After Libya: A Responsibility to Protect?

13 02 2012

Last week, in an ongoing collaboration between Chatham House and the McDonald Centre, top scholars and other experts investigated the ethics of humanitarian intervention in a one-day colloquium entitled, After Libya: The Ethics of Military Intervention Revisited.

Because the event was held under the Chatham House Rule, the full list of participants is confidential, but one of the observers posted this account of the day. Much of the the discussion concerned a newly-emerging, but also controversial, norm in international relations called Responsibility to Protect (usually abbreviated R2P). This concept was compared to other approaches to military intervention, such as just war and human rights, especially in light of the recent conflict in Libya.

The programme for the event is available here.

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Tags: chatham house, just war, libya, r2p, responsibility to protect, Gaddafi, Qaddafi, intervention, rights
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Making Medical Killing Legal

16 01 2012

Earlier this month, Lord Falconer’s Commission for Assisted Dying released a 400-page report advocating the legalization of assisted suicide in a narrow range of situations. The report was commissioned by the campaign group Dignity in Dying. It describes the current law on assisted dying as “inadequate and incoherent” and offers a legal framework that would permit only those who had been diagnosed with less than a year to live to seek an assisted suicide, and then only if they met strict eligibility criteria. In the latest Parliamentary Brief, John Perry defends the law as it currently stands. He concludes:

The present system preserves both the integrity of the medical profession and the general prohibition of killing, but at the same time makes room for rare exceptions via the prosecutor’s discretion. That’s messy, imperfect—and probably just about right.

The Falconer Report was funded by the author Terry Pratchett. In the latest issue of Triple Helix, Dr Richard Hain offers this thoughtful review of Pratchett’s much-discussed BBC documentary, Choosing to Die.

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Tags: assisted dying, choosing to die, dignity in dying, euthanasia, john perry, lord falconer, medical killing, physician assisted suicide, richard hain, terry pratchett
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New Book: Perry’s Pretenses of Loyalty

6 10 2011

John Perry’s book, The Pretenses of Loyalty, was published this summer by Oxford University Press. It is now available from Amazon USA and Amazon UK.

The book was recently featured by the journal Political Theology.

Reviews

“This elegant and tightly-reasoned tract offers a striking new reading of John Locke’s theories of church and state, religion and politics, conscience and command. Though Locke is often seen solely as a secular prophet of modern liberalism, Perry shows that he is also a subtle political theologian who saw the need to harmonize our spiritual and temporal loyalties in public and private life. If Perry is right on Locke, our conventional constitutional histories and political theories will need ample revision, and Perry shows us the way.”—John Witte, Center for the Study of Law & Religion, Emory University

“Have you ever wondered whether it’s possible for a liberal democratic state to accommodate all the diverse loyalties of its citizens, especially all their diverse religious Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: culture wars, johannine, john locke, john perry, john rawls, liberalism, michael sandel, oxford university press, political theology, pretenses of loyalty, public, religion, stanley fish, stanley hauerwas, william galston
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Biggar & Singer Debate in Standpoint

7 07 2011

Following the recent conference, Standpoint magazine convened a dialogue between Peter Singer and Nigel Biggar. Hosted by Standpoint editor, Daniel Johnson, the conversation spans a variety of topics, including the value of human and animal life, the morality of killing, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and others.

Standpoint: We have just been attending a conference in Oxford entitled Christian Ethics Engages Peter Singer. Perhaps we should kick off with a question that you, Nigel, asked at the end of the conference. On what grounds, Peter, would you give greater weight to the interests, the preferences, theneeds of the Jewish victims in the Holocaust, rather than the Nazi perpetrators? … Read the debate in full.

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Tags: abortion, christian ethics, daniel johnson, euthanasia, infanticide, nazi, Nigel Biggar, peter singer, preferences, standpoint, theology, utilitarianism
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Mixing Religion & Politics

10 05 2011

In the new May issue of Parliamentary Brief, John Perry reflects on what’s right, and wrong, with the ‘secular agenda’. Perry describes the three most common objections to using religious arguments in public, and shows them to be misplaced. Read the full article.

Parliamentary Brief is a monthly magazine published chiefly for members of the House of Commons, House of Lords, senior civil servants, and political journalists. It provides in-depth analysis on a range of domestic and international issues.

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Tags: dishonest to god, foster parents, john perry, mary warnock, owen eunice johns, parliamentary brief, Polly Toynbee, religion in public, religious arguments, richard dawkins, secularism
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Can Britain Give Up God?

15 03 2011

Read Nigel Biggar’s recent article in Parliamentary Brief, “The ‘Secular Country’ that can’t give up God.” Parliamentary Brief is a monthly magazine published chiefly for members of the House of Commons, House of Lords, senior civil servants, and political journalists. It provides in-depth analysis on a range of domestic and international issues.

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Tags: God, government, parliamentary brief, secular, secularism
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What Makes Torture Wrong?

6 12 2010

The Financial Times magazine has recently been exploring the morality, and the alleged effectiveness, of torture in cases where it would seem to save lives. John Lloyd, a Financial Times editor who has worked with the McDonald Centre on ethics and the media, wrote the initial article. Nigel Biggar’s response is now generating comments in the magazine’s Letters to the Editor.

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Tags: biggar, financial times, interrogation, intrinsically evil, john lloyd, ticking bomb, torture, waterboarding
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