Raz on rights: human rights, fundamental rights and balancing

After clarifying the outlines of Raz’s interest theory of rights and its relationship to aspects of the principles theory of rights, I consider how his recent observations on human rights fit (or fail to fit) into the interest theory. I then address two questions. First, I elaborate on Raz’s definition of morally fundamental rights, arguing that he is right in claiming that there are no such rights. I then show that the interest theory accommodates the notion that rights may take qualitative precedence over conflicting considerations – a question that has become increasingly relevant in light of recent writing on rights.

No country for honest men: political philosophers and real politics

There are limits on the duty to tell the truth. Sometimes, because of the undesirable consequences of honesty, we are morally required not to reveal certain truths and can even be required to lie. In this article, we explore the implications of this uncontroversial claim for the practice of political philosophers. We argue that, given the consequences of misunderstandings and misrepresentations that might occur, political philosophers will sometimes be under a moral duty not to disseminate their research and, in highly exceptional cases, have a moral duty to lie outright.

The use of ICT by adults with learning disabilities in day and residential services

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by adults with learning disabilities has been positively promoted over the past decade. More recently, policy statements and guidance from the UK government have underlined the importance of ICT for adults with learning disabilities specifically, as well as for the population in general, through the potential it offers for social inclusion. The aim of the present study was to provide a picture of how ICT is currently being used within one organisation providing specialist services for adults with learning disabilities and more specifically to provide a picture of its use in promoting community participation. Nine day and 14 residential services were visited as part of a qualitative study to answer three main questions: What kinds of computer programs are being used? What are they being used for? Does this differ between day and residential services? Computers and digital cameras were used for a wide range of activities and ‘mainstream’ programs were used more widely than those developed for specific user groups. In day services, ICT was often embedded in wider projects and activities, whilst use in houses was based around leisure interests. In both contexts, ICT was being used to facilitate communication, although this was more linked to within-service activities, rather than those external to service provision.

Departmental differences in attitudes to special educational needs in the secondary school

As trends in favour of inclusion continue, questions arise concerning the extent to which teachers in mainstream schools feel prepared for the task of meeting pupils' special educational needs. Little previous research has considered how the subject taught impacts upon the attitudes of mainstream teachers towards pupils with special educational needs. In this article, Jean Ellins, research fellow at the University of Birmingham, and Jill Porter, senior lecturer at the University of Bath, report on their research into the attitudes of teachers in one mainstream secondary school. Building a detailed case study using documents, records of pupil progress, an interview and a questionnaire using a Likert-type attitude scale and open-ended questions, these researchers set out to explore distinctions between the attitudes of teachers working in different departments. Their findings suggest that the teachers of the core subjects, English, mathematics and science, had less positive attitudes than their colleagues. Further, pupils with special educational needs made least progress in science where teacher attitudes were the least positive. Jean Ellins and Jill Porter review the implications of these findings and make recommendations for future practice and further enquiry.

Procedural justice in procurement management and inclusive interorganizational relations: an institutional perspective

This paper applies the concept of procedural justice to one of the most important focal points of interorganizational relations: the purchaser–supplier relationship. The few extant studies of the concept in the purchaser–supplier domain have overlooked an important aspect of this key relationship: that is, inclusiveness in procurement. This is despite the fact that interest in the specific empirical context of supply chain links between large purchasing organizations (LPOs) and ethnic minority suppliers (EMSs) from disadvantaged communities proceeds apace on both sides of the Atlantic. Institutional theory is used to examine the form that procedural justice takes in eight case studies of LPOs from the private and public sectors, which actively engage with inclusive procurement management initiatives in England. The guiding question is twofold: ‘What may LPO approaches to installing procedural justice in procurement management entail?’ and ‘How are these approaches shaped?’ This paper identifies specific approaches to installing procedural justice for inclusive procurement and submits theoretical propositions about how these are shaped. The study contributes to a macro-level assessment of procedural justice, i.e. interorganizational procedural justice, as a significant aspect of inclusive interorganizational relationships, which is a domain in need of theoretical development.

How distinctive is philosophers’ intuition talk?

The word “intuition” is one frequently used in philosophy. It is often assumed that the way in which philosophers use the word, and others like it, is very distinctive. This claim has been subjected to little empirical scrutiny, however. This article presents the first steps in a qualitative analysis of the use of intuition talk in the academy. It presents the findings of two preliminary empirical studies. The first study examines the use of intuition talk in spoken academic English. The second examines the use of intuition talk in written academic English. It considers what these studies tell us about the distinctiveness of philosophical language and methods and considers some implications for evaluative and ameliorative methodology.

Papal power and protection in the Shebet Yehudah

The sixteenth-century Shebet Yehudah is an account of the persecutions of Jews in various countries and epochs, including their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century. It is not a medieval text and was written long after many of the events it describes. Yet although it cannot give us a contemporary medieval standpoint, it provides important insights into how later Jewish writers perceived Jewish–papal relations in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Although the extent to which Jewish communities came into contact either with the papacy as an institution or the actions of individual popes varied immensely, it is through analysis of Hebrew works such as the Shebet Yehudah that we are able to piece together a certain understanding of Jewish ideas about the medieval papacy as an institution and the policies of individual popes. This article argues that Jews knew only too well that papal protection was not unlimited, but always carefully circumscribed in accordance with Christian theology. It is hoped that it will be a scholarly contribution to our growing understanding of Jewish ideas about the papacy's spiritual and temporal power and authority in the Later Middle Ages and how this impacted on Jewish communities throughout medieval Europe.

Exploring the impact of social axioms on firm reputation: a stakeholder perspective

This study proposes a model of how deeply held beliefs, known as ‘social axioms, moderate the interaction between reputation, its causes and consequences with stakeholders. It contributes to the stakeholder relational field of reputation theory by explaining why the same organizational stimuli lead to different individual stakeholder responses. The study provides a shift in reputation research from organizational-level stimuli as the root causes of stakeholder responses to exploring the interaction between individual beliefs and organizational stimuli in determining reputational consequences. Building on a conceptual model that incorporates product/service quality and social responsibility as key reputational dimensions, the authors test empirically for moderating influences, in the form of social axioms, between reputation-related antecedents and consequences, using component-based structural equation modelling (n = 204). In several model paths, significant differences are found between responses of individuals identified as either high or low on social cynicism, fate control and religiosity. The results suggest that stakeholder responses to reputation-related stimuli can be systematically predicted as a function of the interactions between the deeply held beliefs of individuals and these stimuli. The authors offer recommendations on how strategic reputation management can be approached within and across stakeholder groups at a time when firms grapple with effective management of diverse stakeholder expectations.

Word juncture characteristics in world Englishes: a research report

The subtle juncture cues in older varieties of English such as Received Pronunciation can be difficult for speakers of new English varieties to perceive. This study looks at the perception of word juncture characteristics in three varieties of English (British, Hong Kong and Singapore) among British, Hong Kong and Singaporean listeners in order to widen our understanding of English juncture characteristics in general. We find that, even though reaction time data indicates that listeners perform quickest in the variety they are most familiar with, not only are juncture differences in British English difficult for Hong Kong and Singaporean listeners to perceive, they are also the most difficult for British listeners. Juncture characteristics in Hong Kong English are the easiest to distinguish among the three varieties.

The Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition – 20 years of research 1995–2015

The Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition (HSUHN) at the University of Reading was founded in October 1995 with the appointment of Christine Williams OBE as the first Hugh Sinclair Chair in Human Nutrition. This was made possible by the competitively won funds from the estate and legacy of the late Professor Hugh Macdonald Sinclair (1910–1990). The vision for the newly established HSUHN was to ‘strengthen the evidence base for dietary recommendations for prevention of degenerative chronic diseases’. This has remained the research focus of the HSUHN under the leadership of Professors Christine Williams (1995–2005), Ian Rowland (2006–2013) and Julie Lovegrove (2014-present). Our mission is to improve population health and evaluate mechanisms of action for the effects of dietary components on health, which reflects Hugh Sinclair’s life ambition within nutritional science. Over the past 20 years, the HSUHN has developed an international reputation within the nutrition science community, and in recognition of the 20th anniversary, this paper highlights Hugh Sinclair’s contributions to the field of nutrition and key research achievements by members of the Unit.

Verbal hygiene in the Hong Kong gay community

This paper explores the status and function of English among gay men in Hong Kong through the analysis of postings about English on a popular gay internet forum. The forum, gayhk.com, while mainly featuring discussions about sex, fashion, entertainment and relationships, also contains a surprising amount of discussion about the English language, mostly taking the form of what Cameron refers to as ‘verbal hygiene’ – the enforcement of language ‘standards’ through the criticism of the language use of particular individuals or groups. The analysis of these postings sees them not just as evidence of language attitudes within the gay community, but also as tools with which Chinese gay men in postcolonial Hong Kong position themselves in relation to one another, in relation to ‘foreign’ gay men, and in relation to the wider population of Hong Kong.

Creativity and discourse

This paper will consider the relationship between discourse analysis and creativity and elucidate the ways in which a discourse analytical approach to creativity might be distinguished from the ‘language and creativity’ approaches which currently dominate applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. In the ‘discourse and creativity’ approach I will be describing, creativity is located not in language per se, but in the strategic ways people use language in concrete situations in order to stimulate social change. I will explore how aspects of this approach are reflected in work carried out within the paradigm of world Englishes.