Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere

Do philosophers have a responsibility to their society that is distinct from their responsibility to it as citizens? This edited volume explores both what type of contribution philosophy can make and what type of reasoning is appropriate when addressing public matters now. These questions are posed by leading international scholars working in the fields of moral and political philosophy. Each contribution also investigates the central issue of how to combine critical, rational analysis with a commitment to politically relevant public engagement. The contributions to this volume analyse issues raised in practical ethics, including abortion, embryology, and assisted suicide. They consider the role of ethical commitment in the philosophical analysis of contemporary political issues, and engage with matters of public policy such as poverty, the arts, meaningful work, as well as the evidence base for policy. They also examine the normative legitimacy of power, including the use of violence.

Select Document: Sir George Radcliffe’s “Original of Government” (1639) and Absolutist Political Theory in Stuart Ireland

A seventeenth-century manuscript miscellany, which once belonged to Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh, contains a short treatise on the origins of government by Sir George Radcliffe. Radcliffe was legal assistant to Sir Thomas Wentworth, lord deputy of Ireland (from January 1640 earl of Strafford and lord lieutenant). The treatise insisted on the divine origin of all human political power and implied that the best form of government was absolute monarchy, in which the monarch was free of all human law and subject to divine restraint alone. It will be suggested below that the composition of this treatise can be dated to the summer of 1639. This introduction will offer an outline of Radcliffe’s education and political career, explain the genesis of his treatise on government, point out some pertinent aspects of its argument, and finally assess the document’s significance.

Hate crime legislation and violence against sex workers in Ireland: Lessons in Policy and Practice

Drawing on data from UglyMugs.ie (a reporting mechanism for sex workers) this paper considers whether crimes against sex workers should be considered as hate crimes. In many ways, the debates around hate crime in the UK are more developed than in Ireland. As yet the Irish State has yet to criminalise the ‘hate’ element of crime and has been severely criticised for its relatively lacklustre approach to recording incidents of bias or hate crimes against certain social groups. The paper adopts the structural understanding of hate crime espoused by Barbara Perry (2001) who frames the dynamics of hate crime within a complex interplay of political, social and cultural factors. In our analysis we consider what is termed ‘whorephobia’ through the ambit of criminalisation and stigmatisation, gender and heteronormativity in Irish society, and the gendered nature of policing in both parts of Ireland.

The African National Congress and its Critics: 'Predatory Liberalism', Black Empowerment and Intra-Alliance Tensions in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Post-apartheid South Africa is characterized by centralized, neo-liberal policymaking that perpetuates, and in some cases exaggerates, socio-economic inequalities inherited from the apartheid era. The African National Congress (ANC) leadership’s alignment with powerful international and domestic market actors produces tensions within the Tripartite Alliance and between government and civil society. Consequently, several characteristics of ‘predatory liberalism’ are evident in contemporary South Africa: neo-liberal restructuring of the economy is combined with an increasing willingness by government to assert its authority, to marginalize and delegitimize those critical of its abandonment of inclusive governance. A new form of oligarch power, combining entrenched economic interests with those of a new ‘black bourgeoisie’ promoted by narrowly implemented Black Economic Empowerment policies, diminishes prospects for broad-based socio-economic transformation. Because the new policy environment is failing to resolve tensions between global market demands for increasing market liberalization and domestic popular demands for poverty-alleviation and socio-economic transformation, the ANC leadership is forced increasingly to confront ‘ultra-leftists’ who are challenging its credentials as defender of the National Democratic Revolution which was the cornerstone in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Abstract Hatred: Yeats and the Counter-Revolutionary Paradigm

This article examines W.B. Yeats's affiliation to a counter-revolutionary tradition that had its origins in the works of Edmund Burke and incorporated a range of later writers from Alexis de Tocqueville to Hippolyte Taine. This tradition possesses significant internal differences and contradictions, but it derives its general structure and coherence from a shared distrust of particular kinds of theoretical abstraction. Placed against this background, Yeats's extravagant campaign against the abstract develops political substance and form. The article demonstrates how Yeats's general denunciation of abstraction in politics drives his attacks on both nationalism and democracy in Ireland.

Cross-Border Environmental Governance and EC Law

This article examines the nature and scope of emerging cross-border participatory rights under European Community environmental law. It reviews the legal and political forces that have stimulated the development of such rights and also the specific nature of the rights conferred by three major legislative initiatives: the Community Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment, Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, and the Water Framework Directive. The article concludes with a case study on Ireland which assesses the likely significance of these cross-border participatory rights for transboundary environmental governance in Ireland.

Secular Trends in Substance Use: The Conflict and Young People in Northern Ireland

The resolution of political conflict has led some to suggest that Northern Ireland will now face a range of social problems that have been ignored or suppressed by the Troubles. One such area is adolescent drug use. In this article, a review of a range of data sources shows that drug use, with few exceptions, has increased since the emergence of the ongoing peace process. Social and political changes and enhanced paramilitary involvement in the drugs trade appear to have somehow created an environment where drug use has flourished. In reviewing current drug policy and practice, the article highlights the lack of prevention, treatment, and harm reduction services established in Northern Ireland as a cause for concern.

The Equalization of Effective Communicative Freedom: Democratic Justice in the Constitutional State and Beyond

Jurgen Habermas takes the realization of rights through the democratic self-organization of legal communities to be the normative core of emancipatory politics. In this article I explore the implications of this claim in relation to the requirements of justice. I argue that Habermas's discourse theory of democratic legitimacy presupposes a substantive principle of justice that demands the equalization of effective communicative freedom for all structurally constituted social groups in any constitutional state. This involves the elimination of a range of structural injustices rooted in the complex interrelationships between political, economic and cultural orders. In the final section I sketch briefly the implications of this analysis in the context of ongoing globalization processes. It is suggested that the most effective way to establish a just system of global governance is to equalize effective communicative freedom among nation-states.