Imagine being young and having to do up to seven years of unpaid work experience before you could get gainful employment. This is not a doom-laden prediction for the future but a factual description of a lot of apprentices from the middle ages to the industrial revolution
ReadThe old saw that when it comes to news, misery sells, has never looked so dubious. Happiness is hitting the headlines everywhere. But every time, it seems the story is different…
ReadSandel has raised a much-needed alarm, and even if how we respond to it may not be clear, respond we must. To do so, Sandel argues we need a serious public debate about what values we want our politics to build and defend. That means dropping the illusion that politics is about no more than efficient management of the economy: it’s about nothing less than competing visions of the good society.
ReadRidicule and misrepresentation are in some sense an occupational hazard for the philosopher. “The best philosophers are always walking a tightrope where one misstep either side is just nonsense,” he says. “That’s why caricatures are too easy to be worth doing. You can make any philosopher – any, Aristotle, Kant, you name it – look like a complete flaming idiot with just a slightest little tweak.”
ReadAdrian Raine is surely right that we cannot ignore the evidence that points to the importance of neurological factors in violent crime. If he shouts a little too loudly about the brain’s role, it is because that voice needs to be heard. In The Anatomy of Violence, it comes across clearly, powerfully and often persuasively.
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