Order in disorder: Revolution against the state becomes but a page in its history

Dossier: On the 1917 commemorations

It would seem that the centenary of the Russian Revolution could not have come at a more inopportune moment for Russia. The colossal scale and universalist ambitions of that event are at odds with the apathetic state of Russian society today. Indeed, efforts to dispense with this inconvenient ghost appear to provide the sole point […]

Studying Child Sexual Abuse: Morality or Science?

Studying Child Sexual Abuse: Morality or Science? Sue Clegg Child abuse has become a major topic of public polemic and academic research. I Modem feminists, like their nineteenthcentury sisters, have singled out sexual abuse for special attention. 2 After decades in which sexual abuse was the concern of a limited number of professionals who dealt […]

A Just War? The Left and the Moral Gulf

A Just War? The Left and the Moral Gulf Gregory Elliott A striking incidental feature of the Gulf War was the philosophical conflict attending the military hostilities. Norberto Bobbio or Jiirgen Habermas, Noam Chomsky or Ted Honderich, to name only a few of the participants, felt compelled, in their contrasting ways, to adopt and seek […]

Feminism and Pragmatism

Feminism and Pragmatism Richard Rorty When two women ascended to the Supreme Court of Minnesota, Catherine MacKinnon asked: ‘Will they use the tools of law as women, for all women?’ She continued as follows: I think that the real feminist issue is not whether biological males or biological females hold positions of power, although it […]

Ecosocialism: Utopian and Scientific

Ecosocial ismUtopian and Scientific Tim Hayward One of the most urgent intellectual tasks of our time is to understand the implications of ecology for social and political theory. Given that environmental degradation is increasingly undermining the biological (and in some ways the psychological) basis of human social life, it is evident that no social theory […]

Nietzsche: The Subject of Morality

Nietzsche: The Subject of Morality Ross Poole It is to be inferred that there exist countless dark bodies close to the sun – such as we shall never see. This is, between ourselves, a parable; and a moral psychologist reads the whole starry script only as a parable and signlanguage by means of which many […]

Searching for Ancestors

Searching for Ancestors Timothy O’Hagan In Rome [in the fourth century AD] senatorial families sought out an exemplum, an exemplary character in the distant past, from whom to claim descent. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippol With hindsight the transformation of Alasdair MacIntyre from gadfly into guru looks inevitable, though few members of his audience in […]

Morality, Masculinity and the Market

Morality, Masculinity and the Market Ross Poo/e ~ I Interests and Duties Two conceptions of morality dominate contemporary discussion: utilitarianism, which specifies the content of morality in terms of the maximisation of total happiness or want satisfaction, and Kantianism, which defines morality in terms of formal principles of consistency. One purpose of this paper is […]

Feminism: History and Morality

Feminism: History and Morality Jean Grimshaw Janet Radcliffe Richards’ book The Sceptical Feminist (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980, £12 hb) is an attempt to extricate feminism from what she sees as ideological commitments that are not essential to it, and serve merely to confuse feminists themselves, and alienate potential supporters. The image of the feminist […]

Scientific Socialism: A Positivist Delusion?

SCIENTifiC SOCIALISM, Jl POSITIVIST DELUSION? Russell Reat In Radical Philosophy 21, Roy Edgley replied to some criticisms I made, in RP16, of his article on ‘Science, Social Science, and Socialist Science’ in RP15. I don’t finj his comments at all convincing, and I will try to say why. At the end, I will briefly indicate […]

Anti-Moralism

Anll·MoJlallsm Peter Binns Marx, Tony Skillen correctly tells us, spoke with contempt of morality while at the same time condemning capitalism as an utterly evil system. ‘Why is this attack on capitalism reconcilable with the rejection of “the moral point of view”?’ Tony asks. His answer is: ‘Because morality is one of the (real) evils […]

The production of moral ideology

The pl’oducl.ion of mOl’al ideology Andrew Collier Vly aim in this paner is to throw some light on the nature of moral i~eology hv examining its origin and function in terms of nsvchoanalytical theory, as well as of ‘1″rxi sm, ‘Iv assumntions at the outset are that anv moral irteologv serves a socially renressive function, […]

Marxism and Morality

Ma..xism and mo..alily Tony Skillen You just about need a pass to piss. Tha t a.in’ t no joke. You raise your little hand i f you want to go wee-wee. Then wait maybe half an hour ’till they find a relief-man. And they write it down every time too – cause you’re supposed to […]

Putting Morality in its Place

tions and then hacking away at the rest of the paper to fit it to the procrustean bed thus constructed has not unnaturally led him astray. Incidentally, I don’t think Sayers’ distinction between ‘ordinary language philosophy’ and ‘theory’ is really of much use as a touchstone for diagnosing what is reactionary about English-speakin~ philosophy at […]

Moral Philosophy Without Morality?

Mo..al might be or are applied. To investigate the latter is to raise political or moral or religious, but not philosophical, problems or questions. 2 philosophy wilhoul ..o ..alily? Richard Norman I Of the traditional areas of philosophy, moral philosophy is one in which the inadequacy of recent work has been most obvious. The writings […]

Social and Philosophical Understanding – An Example

–: I Social and Philosophical Understanding – an example John Paley it is genetically unsound? Meanwhile, belief in the moral reprehensibility of masturbation continues, despite the fact that we have so far been unable to provide a replacement for the view that it causes insanity. Research, however, continues. Warnock’s “The Object of Morality” As far […]