Alfie Meadows in Court

It's sometime now since I mentioned the case of Alfie Meadows, the student who was struck down by police during the protests following the UK Coalition government's decision to make university funding dependent directly upon student revenue alone in many subjects. Subsequently to sustaining his injuries, Alfie Meadows was charged by the police for offences allegedly committed by him during the course of the demonstration and his case has now come to court. There is a specific blog that has been established to report on this case and it can be found here.

The London School of Philosophy

As is unsurprising in view of the way that present UK government policy has led to a serious assault on the humanities many philosophers, myself included, have looked to establish a new life for philosophy outside established university structures. Along these lines I have discovered the existence of the London School of Philosophy, an initiative launched by seven people who were formerly employed by Birkbeck College and have determined to offer independent non-government-funded education for the people of London. This initiative is fully deserving of wider support and certainly is something that more people need to know about. The curriculum on offer is very moderately priced and will be delivered at Conway Hall. Anyone in London who wishes to undertake short courses that will give them a grounding in a wide range of philosophical matters should certainly look at their offer and consider enrolling. All power to such a venture, may it survive and prosper!

Thoughts on the New College of the Humanities

The latest news in terms of UK higher education is that there is to be a "New College of the Humanities" established in London, something that has caught the news very quickly. The New College is a private institution that is apparently for-profit but has established also a trust that has charitable status and a fifth of the places at the College will be assisted, which does not mean they will all be free. The basic fee will be £18,000 per annum which is twice the highest fee allowed in the standard state sector and some of the assisted places will have a fee cap of £7, 200 per annum whilst others will not have to pay fees. The College degrees will be treated as external awards of the University of London which will enable the students of it to borrow up to £6,000 a year in loans from the state to part-pay their fees.


A number of philosophers are involved in this initiative including the head of the College, Professor Anthony Grayling.  As Mary Beard points out many of the lead names involved with the College are getting on in years and there appears to be no initial plans for post-graduate provision though this may simply be an effect of the initial statement of the College outline. As Beard adds, the College, whilst presented as an alternative to Oxbridge also has a narrower range of subjects offered than traditional public universities and is more akin to a US liberal arts college. 


Put in the US context it is true, as Brian Leiter writes, that the fees of the new College are not high though they certainly are by UK standards. Meanwhile, others are involved in trying to organise against the College on the grounds that it effectively helps to entrench unequal access to higher education and is part of a general agenda that began with the Browne report into higher education.


The College includes an impressive roster of names though the mechanics of how they will interact with the student body is something that remains to be seen. There is no doubt that the launching of the College is part of the general move away from government underpinning of the education system though in principle its institution is not distinct from that of other universities in the country since no university is an official "state" entity here in the UK (given their autonomous status). It is distinct in being founded on the basis of private money and also in being focused so specifically on the humanities, including philosophy though this latter part is unusual in a way that I (unlike Mary Beard) don't see as bad.


The changes in the UK university system as a whole are what is most important since the undermining of research and the pressure on humanities in many universities (particularly those founded since 1992) are long-term trends that are pernicious in their effects. These trends ensure that there will be a narrower social base that engages with philosophy and humanities on the one hand and that less new work will be carried out in universities of many kinds on the other. The long-term effect of the establishment of this College, on the other hand, is hard to see as being as significant in its impact as these trends are. The College is a simple institution of privilege in the sense that the majority of its students will be there because they can pay. 


Private education is not in itself a new phenomena in Britain given the presence of so many schools here that charge fees. What we have is an extension into the university sector of a model that has had a very long life in the "Public Schools" and which replicates models of education that are far from uncommon outside the UK. This point shows the reason why the establishment of NCH is unlikely to be widely met with a fierce response (though there are sure to be protests against it) but its arrival does illustrate further the rapid fading in the UK of a university model that was, for a brief moment, open to all.

Related articles

• New university to rival Oxbridge will charge £18,000 a year (telegraph.co.uk)
• Professors Take On Oxbridge With New Uni (news.sky.com)
• An even more elitist higher education model (feministphilosophers.wordpress.com)
• Noted professors launch new college (mirror.co.uk)
• Leading academics launch college (bbc.co.uk)
• Top UK academics form new university (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

The Monarchy and the "Left" Blogs

For those of any kind of republican disposition, whether mild or fierce, the last few days in the UK have been depressing. Not only has the Royal Wedding of William and Catherine (or "WC" to their friends) been so widely and comprehensively played and replayed across the air-waves and all attempts at dissent resolutely and comprehensively crushed but there has been a parallel corralling of even normally dissident media to adopt the same view. All the three major apparently "Left" blog sites have published responses to the events that have been broadly pro-monarchy.


Over at Liberal Conspiracy Chris Dillow has argued that monarchy is "great" and his reasons for thinking so are revealing. Tackling the case head-on he lists the qualities that might be thought to count against it - namely, that it is, in his words "irrational, out-of-date and absurd" - as qualities in its favour. The fact that it is these things shows not that monarchy is problematic but, apparently, that it is false to judge institutions by a criteria of rationality. This is hardly an argument, as is perhaps not to be expected by someone who has such a light opinion of rationality, as a suggestion that we look for other supports for institutions than reason alone. As such, it will be addressed in more detail below but, as a first thrust it is hardly successful alone without more detail. The second point made by Dillow is that Scandinavian societies,  Japan and the Netherlands are all generally better at producing more egalitarian outcomes and are all monarchies. This "correlation" hardly shows a causative connection but is instead again purely a suggestion, one whose real force is revealed in Dillow's point that monarchy shows that "luck" is as much a factor in life as "merit" and, in any case, that meritocracy alone has inherent flaws. To point to the potential flaws in meritocracy is one thing however, to use this to support a regime of inherited privilege is surely quite another. Dillow's third and final argument is that replacing the monarchy would lead to a head of state who would be chosen for individual qualities which would, apparently, be a bad thing as it would reinforce our "culture of ego" whereas, it appears, foisting upon us a family who exist in their role for no particular individual reasons but as simply as incarnations of it, is, apparently, better. This argument is bizarre on a number of levels. There is no reason why a president or elected head of state would have to be regarded in the way Dillow suggests. Has this happened for example in the Republic of Ireland, a case quite close to hand? Has it happened in Germany? Or in Italy? All examples of republics. The examples of France and the US are implied in Dillow's argument but not directly referred to but there is no reason at all why an elected head of state has to have anything like the positions in these cases. Further, to argue that it is better to have people fill a key role who have to have no discernible individual qualities is a completely strange argument. Perhaps we could extend this argument and replace all prominent positions with people who weren't chosen by such "modern" methods and have all the key roles filled by inheritance? Why not try feudalism in other words??


If Dillow's arguments were bad enough it is all the more depressing to find the position he articulated also followed in variant ways at the two other most prominent British "left" blogs. Over at Next Left Sunder Katwala, the current head of the Fabian Society, gives a biographical account of moving away from his youthful republican position. Katwala makes the general point that there appears to exist no democratic majority for a republican constitution in Britain. This is true enough if the evidence of polling is anything to go by but hardly gives a case for failing to campaign for such a change. Katwala then moves on to historical ground, claiming that no particular progressive change in Britain was prevented by the monarchy. Since it is, after all, a constitutional monarchy this is hardly surprising though it is does not detract from the point, grasped clearly enough by Dillow, that the institution does symbolize inequality in a direct way. Addressing the point that all the media apparently support monarchy so there is little chance of a republican case being put Katwala suggests this is purely a "commercial" decision which is odd since, by his own counting there are at least a substantial minority of republicans in the country so you'd think some budding media magnate might be interested in attracting their custom. Katwala also suggests that it is not irrational in itself to want to hold on to distinctive traditions, suggesting that he, unlike Dillow, doesn't lionise irrationality for its own sake. This appeal to tradition, like Dillow's appeal to other considerations than reason, deserves consideration at greater length. However, simply to cite it like this is, again, hardly more than to make a suggestive comment, not to make an argument. The core of Katwala's argument turns on an appeal to George Orwell who seemed to think that keeping monarchy wouldn't be such a bad thing. It is, however, true, as Katwala doesn't add, that Orwell was generally very conservative in quite a lot of his attitudes and if we adopted him as an overall guide we might find it necessary to follow examples that we would generally eschew.


Even Left Foot Forward which proudly declares its commitment to "evidence-based" politics has published a statement to the effect that there is no present mandate for a republic (as if that was news). To which it has added the claim that the battles that really matter should be fought, thus just leaving untouched the case that this is a battle that matters.


If all the three most prominent "left" blogs in the UK have published such pro-monarchy lines then it is clearly not a good or easy time to be a republican here. The arguments of Dillow and Katwala that really matter are those that appeal to sentiment and tradition. For here there really is a core argument. The basic point is that the institution of monarchy appeals to a sentimental view of politics in which some shining individuals can be lifted above the fray and still incarnate the essential qualities of the polity. That they do the latter is essential and was shown well in the ceremony, held in the state church and saluted by the Royal Air Force. Further, the basic refrain of the whole day concerned one of how good it is to be British! 


It is true that many people feel an emotional attachment to the Royal Family and that the continued existence of the monarchy depends on this attachment. However, there are equally strong feelings on the other side, some of us, for example, feel nothing but revulsion at the sight of the pompous display of these characters who truly are, as Dillow suggested, without individual qualities. What is there to celebrate about these non-entities who we are asked to admire and who reign over us with all the parade of power and the panoply of privilege? 


The tradition is the answer. Which tradition? The tradition of monarchical exclusivity? An exclusivity of birth that has nothing to support it other than its reference to its continuity. A continuity that is itself rather broken and fake as witness the arrival, rather recently in British history, of the current incumbent family, one of many to have held the role. The appeal to sentiment is at least respectable in the sense that anyone can feel moved by a wedding, a funeral or similar event. However, the ones held by these people are orchestrated displays of state power.


The Royal Family brings together in a unique way all the predominant prevailing tendencies of the society: Heterosexual Privilege (who is allowed to marry in any case?), the predominance of Family over all other personal ties, Religion, the Military, the Police, the Powers that Be, all brought together in a potent cocktail. And yet, somehow, the uncritical minds of the British left, the same people who present to us a campaign in favour of the Alternative Vote as a recipe for the increase of democracy, are unable to voice a protest against this vicious and potent presentation of institutional privilege. At the core of the family is the simple property of institutional inheritance taken to be a great and guiding principle, the very principle against which all who wish to define themselves as "progressive" should take to be the opposite of a desirable political principle. That the British left should have such leaders in this hour is a matter that is a disgrace and a cause for disgust.

The Case Against AV

Warning: posting possibly only of interest to UK readers!


There is coming up on the 5th May only the second referendum in recent times here. The last was held in 1975 on the issue of membership of the EU or "Common Market" as it was generally known then and, as in that case, so in the present one concerning the voting system for Westminster elections, the fact that there is a referendum at all is due to political circumstances of a peculiar sort. Back in the 1970s there was a lot of pressure for the referendum as it helped the governing Labour Party to face both ways on the issue at hand. Now the referendum on the voting system has come about as the price the Liberal Democrats extracted for forming a coalition with the Conservatives. In return the Liberals have "compromised" on a great deal as readers are doubtless aware.


In deciding on the way to vote in this ignobly produced referendum there are two major questions at stake. One concerns the effect of the result on the governing coalition and the other concerns the question of whether there is a genuine issue of principle at stake here that is worthy of a principled commitment. Some people, particularly those in the camp campaigning for a "yes" vote, have attempted to downplay the significance of the first question in order to concentrate on the second. This attempt is doomed to failure given the unpopularity of the coalition government. However, what divides opponents of the coalition when thinking about this question is what result would damage it more and this division is connected to how one understands the character of this government.


Essentially supporters of a "yes" vote have taken the view that the government is, in the terminology of the leadership of the Labour Party, a "Tory-led" government and that the main enemies are the Conservative Party, essentially leaving open possible future alliances with the Liberal Democrats. These considerations are assisted by a general agreement in principle on the part of the Labour leadership with the Liberal Democrats concerning the merits of changing the voting system. This is not a new kind of agreement either since the last Labour government had, as a major piece of its legislative programme, a commitment to constitutional reform that included the ending of hereditary peerages in the House of Lords, the creation of a new Supreme Court and devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales, all matters on which there was agreement with the Liberal Democrats. When Labour came to power in 1997 there was a substantial increase in the representation of Liberal Democrats as well and the two, even at this date, shared a commitment to electoral reform, culminating in the establishment of a commission chaired by Lord Jenkins on the question. Labour in government however never advanced the agenda of electoral reform for reasons to do with their own internal politics.


So the first question to be addressed is why it is that there is such a general agreement between the Labour and Liberal Democrat leadership on this issue and why it has extended to the AV referendum debate? The basic core of the agreement is a shared commitment to the view that reform of political processes and constitutional niceties will increase the potential for enhanced democratic engagement in the country. During the campaign thus far the "yes" team have stretched this further declaring that the introduction of AV will "end" safe seats and put greater pressure on members of parliament to be more responsive to their constituents. These are partly factual and partly evaluative claims.


As factual claims there is little to support them. The proportion of seats that will be deemed "safe" is not generally thought likely to change a great deal. The claim concerning the increased pressure that will be placed on members of parliament by the introduction of AV is more of an evaluative than factual claim since it is hardly capable of factual assessment. The evaluative claim is, however, bound up with two other views, one of which is factual and surely wrong. These two other views are: a) that AV will help to produce more proportional outcomes and b) that it will be "better" for politics if representatives of the parties have to speak to a broader segment of the population than their "core" voters.


Looking at these two claims, the first is a factual claim and is simply wrong. There is nothing inherently proportional about AV as a system. As Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party, put it during the coalition negotiations last year, AV is in many respects "less proportional" than the current voting system in the UK, a claim that is understood by those who point to the fact that in cases of large majorities produced by one party, AV would have the distorting effect of increasing these majorities. This much was admitted by Chris Huhne, currently a Cabinet minister in the coalition, prior to the last election. The negotiations that set up the coalition never involved the Conservatives or Labour offering a proportional system so the Liberal Democrats got, in return for jettisoning large parts of their election manifesto, a commitment for a referendum on a system that is effectively no more proportional in its results than the current voting system.


If the factual claim concerning the effect of AV on members of parliament is bogus then what of the evaluative one? The core of this concerns the fact that it will be of interest to politicians to reach out beyond their core vote and try to win over voters from beyond their base thus ensuring that politicians will, apparently, be more amenable to compromise and more careful solutions. This is effectively the basis of alliance that exists in terms of political reform between the Labour leadership and the Liberal Democrats. The Labour leadership remains embarrassed by the attitudes of many of its voters and, although in 1997 in particular it was able to reach out to a large enough part of the electorate to take power after winning a large majority, it soon enough angered sufficient of them to govern from 2001 to 2010 in such a way that it lost both total vote share and its proportion of the electorate in every election thereafter.


There is a single basic reason why Labour reached the situation it did of progressively losing its hold on the electorate and eventually losing power. This is that it does not stand for anything that is particularly distinctive. The policies it pursued during its years in office were, as is usually the case, a mixed bag. However, what consistently alienated sections of the voting public were its basic tone-deafness on civil liberties, its lack of responsiveness to democratic pressure (as was signally evident in the case of the second Gulf War), its basically technocratic approach to politics and its deregulatory policies with regard to the financial system that contributed in their own way to the melt-down that occurred in 2008.


The general basis of this failure could be said to be grounded in the inherent resistance of the Labour Party to democracy. It is far from alone in this. The Conservatives have no more interest in democracy than Labour though they also rarely pretend otherwise. The whole "Big Society" nonsense of the current leadership is a way of stating that state money will in future be shared between a wider range of providers who will be expected to offer comparative advantages for such largesse to be distributed. It is not, and is not intended to be, about increased participation in decisions or even wider consultation concerning them.


This leaves the position of the Liberal Democrats. Officially they were committed to a proportional system but have settled for this non-proportional one as an outcome that they argue will unsettle the other major parties. Any hope anyone had, prior to the last election, in the ability of the Liberal Democrats to unsettle the major parties and produce more democratic involvement in politics is now surely gone. Their shabby deals, betrayal of principles and casual dismissal of large parts of their own electorate indicates the kinds of "compromises" they think would be part of any real "new politics". It is as shabby and unrepresentative as what is on offer from the major parties.


Given this situation what the debate about AV masks is the real democratic challenge. This is how to ensure that parties come into existence that are not, more or less in advance, merely representatives of different wings of the current plutocracy. Change in the voting system will make no difference to this one way or the other and is purely a technocratic solution to a deep problem. The Labour leadership and the Liberal Democrats are united in their commitment to such a covering over of the real democratic problem whilst the Conservatives have no interest in even bothering with it.


Returning to the considerations with which I opened the posting: it should be apparent that there is little to support the view that there is a principled issue at stake in the AV referendum. Supporters of the switch try to dismiss this argument, suggesting that whilst AV is not the system they would have chosen that it is better than the present one but I see little by way of evidence for this claim if it is viewed as factual and plenty to stand against it if it is viewed as an evaluative claim. Given this situation the more short-term question of the effect of the outcome on the coalition government seems to me of some importance.


In regard to this effect the question becomes which wing of the coalition one takes to be more reprehensible. Traditional Labour supporters tend to unequivocally believe that this is the Tories and so hope that a "yes" vote will harm Cameron. Possibly such an outcome would hurt Cameron but it would strengthen Clegg and his Liberal Democrats. "Yes" supporters claim that Clegg and the Liberal Democrats are already discredited. However the mandate to change the voting system would give them a solid basis to believe they had brought about a serious change to the constitution. This would reinvigorate the party that brought us a tripling of tuition fees, the abolition of the teaching grant to arts, humanities and social sciences in the universities, the scrapping of the educational maintenance allowance and a program of cuts across the UK. Yes, it was the Liberal Democrats who brought us all this as none of it could have been achieved without them. Further, they betrayed the prospect for political renewal they appeared to represent at the last election. There is also nothing inherently conservative about the present government as has been recognised by most commentators. In fact there are grounds for claiming that, economically, it is "led" by the liberals in the Cabinet of both parties. These factors put together, alongside the flaws in the argument suggesting there is anything especially useful in moving to AV, suggest to me a basic case for a "no" vote on the 5th May.

Libya and R2P

The surprising result of debates at the UN has been the passing of a resolution that permits all "necessary action" to protect people who are being attacked by the Gaddaffi regime in Libya. This has followed a period of inaction which appeared likely to result in a victory for the regime over the uprising. Such a result would have ensured that a state that has become viewed as a clear "pariah" would not only have survived but done so on the backs of the slaughter of the population of Benghazi and others.


The policy of liberal intervention was discredited after the debacle in Iraq and may have been part of the reason why President Obama took sometime coming behind the view that was pushed by France and the UK. However, there are other parallels that need to be borne in mind and which show the correctness of the resolution reached. Firstly, the fact of the second Gulf War itself is based largely on the failure of the resolution of the first one. When President Bush senior failed to support the Kurdish and Marsh Arab uprisings in 1991 he not only ensured the continuance of Saddam Hussein's regime but did so on the basis of Hussein murdering his opponents. Similarly, irresolution in Bosnia in the 1990s created the basis for the Serbian slaughter of civilians in Srebnica, something prevented in Kosovo later as the lesson was learned of the need to intervene in the Balkans. Sierra Leone and Rwanda also point to reasons for thinking there remains a case for liberal intervention.


The defeat of Gaddaffi is something that should be taken to be a goal worth achieving. The UN has recognised in recent years the doctrine of a "responsibility to protect" (R2P) and this is the core of the resolution that was passed. Anyone who thinks war is a "good" thing is clearly crazy but in this situation the prima facie case is clearly for intervention as the failure to intervene would most assuredly have been tragic.

Related articles

• No-fly zone gets scant support at UN (theglobeandmail.com)
• The moral imperative of a no-fly zone | John Kerry (guardian.co.uk)
• Libya's Rebels Celebrate the U.N. Resolution (time.com)

UK REF Philosophy Panel

The ludicrously entitled Research Excellence Framework  is the exercise whereby research in academic disciplines in the UK is measured by panels who determine the level of "quality" of specific research submissions. It is not only the title of the exercise that is ludicrous since the means by which decisions are reached in regard to research submitted is also not apparent and the process by which panel members are selected is further not subject to anything other than a general consultation exercise with academic societies. The actual money available from the exercise can be altered also by arbitrary and late government decisions concerning where the cut-off point for funding should be. So all things considered it is not exactly an exercise that inspires hope for the flourishing of interesting and important work in UK universities. This is why, as reported in an earlier posting, there is a campaign amongst some to boycott the whole exercise. 


Nonetheless I am sure many academics in the UK will be interested to scrutinise the names of the latest panelists in their subject areas and I am listing below all the members of the philosophy panel with a brief mention of some of the notable contributions panel members have thus far made to philosophy:


The chair of the panel this time is Alexander Bird from the University of Bristol. Bird's last book was published in 2007 and is entitled Nature's Metaphysics: Laws and Properties and is a contribution to the philosophy of science. His most recent articles also indicate an interest in philosophy of science and analytic metaphysics.


The other panel members are, like Bird, with the exception of two people, Professors though why Professors should, simply by virtue of holding this status be thought better able to assess research "quality" than others is not clear. One of the two who is not a Professor is Julian Baggini who is best known as co-editor of The Philosopher's Magazine and who contributes a great deal to a wider public diffusion of philosophy as is evident in his philosophy monthly. Many of his books are on the same wave-length including the latest, Do They Think You're Stupid? which analyses and responds to "spin doctors". Baggini's inclusion on the panel appears to be part of a response to the "impact" agenda and a demonstration of the "relevance" of philosophy though presumably it is also thought that applied philosophical discussions generally will be ones he can assess. The fact that, in including him, we have someone from outside the university on the panel is an interesting development since, whilst it reflects a welcome understanding that not all philosophy is carried out in the university, it also raises interesting questions concerning why the panel is not therefore also assessing and potentially rewarding contributions that are not generated inside universities.


Nancy Cartwright from the London School of Economics is the next panel member and her last book, published in 2007, was Hunting Causes and Using Them: Approaches in Philosophy and Economics. Her general specialisation, as with Bird, is the philosophy of science though she also is concerned with the notion of "evidence" in "evidence-based policy", something that many a government seems to disregard. 


Gregory Currie from the University of Nottingham published in 2010 the work Narratives and Narrators: A Philosophy of Stories and appears to have a major interest in the notion of the imagination and so is likely to be called on to evaluate material in the area of aesthetics.


Nicholas Davey from the University of Dundee is the current President of the British Society for Phenomenology and his last book, published in 2006, was Unquiet Understanding: Gadamer's Philosophical Understanding which is a contribution to hermeneutics. Davey is one of the panel members who is evidently intended to respond to European philosophy specifically. 


Katherine Hawley from the University of St. Andrews works mainly in analytical metaphysics and epistemology but also publishes in the area of philosophy of science.  Whilst she does not appear to have published a book for sometime she is very active in journal publication.


Cynthia Macdonald from Queen's University Belfast works primarily in philosophy of mind on which she has published a number of book chapters but not, since 2005, any monographs.


Michael Martin from University College London is apparently completing a book on philosophy of perception but is also interested in David Hume. 


Catherine Osborne from the University of East Anglia is a specialist in ancient philosophy having published in 2009 two books on the area, one a specialist text on an ancient commentary on Aristotle's physics and the other Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature.


Thomas Pink from Kings College London works on free will and moral normativity and has forthcoming a work on moral action. He is also interested in the work of Thomas Hobbes and is editing an edition of the Hobbes-Bramall exchange on free will.


Robert Stern from the University of Sheffield is the editor of the European Journal of Philosophy and current President of the Hegel Society of Great Britain. His most recent book, published in 2009, is Hegelian Metaphysics.


Alison Stone, from Lancaster University, is the second non-Professor on the panel. She is currently working on a book on feminism and psychoanalysis and her last book, published in 2006, was Luce Irigaray and the Philosophy of Sexual Difference.


Raymond Tallis from the University of Manchester is not based in a department of philosophy as his original specialism is medicine and his latest book is Michelangelo's Finger: An Exploration of Everyday Transcendence.


Heather Widdows from the University of Birmingham who works in the general area of global ethics and is editor of the Journal of Global Ethics. She has an introduction to global ethics forthcoming.


Some reflections on the composition of the panel in terms of how it relates to philosophy in general and the academic divisions in the UK are surely in order. Firstly, and most strikingly, there is not a single representative from any of the so-called "new universities" that in 1992 were renamed as such in the wake of the abolition of the previous divide between universities and polytechnics. Given the breadth of the panel in terms of general philosophical interests it is striking that it was not thought to be worth including a single person from this sector of the academy.


Secondly, the gender balance is almost equal with 8 men and 6 women so there was evidently an intention to think in a structural way about the representation of women in philosophy. It is, though, true that only one representative on the panel is a specialist in feminist philosophy and there is no one who appears to have specific interest in any other aspect of gender questions on the panel.


Thirdly, there are interesting imbalances in terms of the specialisms within philosophy. Of the 14 members of the panel only 1 has a specialist background in aesthetics. Not all areas of the history of philosophy are represented and there appears to be no specific attention to history of philosophy in terms of the panel's composition.


There is clear attention to "applied" philosophy and some specialists in the areas of ethics but no one with a specialist background in political philosophy is represented, an odd omission. There are 3 people out of the total 14 who can respond to European philosophy which is a small number. By contrast, philosophy of science, metaphysics and philosophy of mind appear to be areas rather well represented which indicates definite views about which areas of philosophy are expected to be fertile in work of "excellent" quality. It is something of a mystery, at least to me, why it is that there are 2 representatives of what we might term "popular" philosophy on the panel. It is not that this is not a reasonable area of philosophy. Rather, it renders unclear what the panel is assessing as this should broaden the remit outside the university and into other areas in which philosophical activity might be thought to be occurring and from sources who may themselves be outside the university but I have little idea as to how the panel might be able to accomplish this. 


Given the general cuts to higher education in the wake of the Browne report it is highly likely, whatever the work of panel members, that the result of the exercise will be much more concentration of research monies into fewer hands.


According to a new report in the Times Higher the weighting of "impact" factors in the exercise will be less than previously thought but will still be assessed in a uniform way across very different disciplines after a pilot exercise was undertaken. The pilot exercise did not include philosophy as a discipline and it remains unclear how it would be assessed in philosophy in general and certain specific areas in particular. 


Finally, the destructive work carried out by the Browne report continues to reverberate as reported over at the Brooks Blog where the postponement of the projected White Paper meant to emerge from government concerning implementation of its response to Browne is analysed. Generally the "impact" of Browne itself continues to be one that will merit study concerning the destructive response of the UK political class towards higher education in general and philosophy in particular.

Second Day of Protests Against UK Education Cuts

There was a general day of action responding to the UK government's proposals to cut the teaching grant for most academic subjects and charge the full cost of delivery of these entirely to students yesterday. In addition, the government has proposed ending the Education Maintenance Allowance, a small sum of money that is paid to students who are studying for qualifications that are necessary to enter university. The day of action led to demonstrations across the country from London and Manchester to Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield and Lancaster to such unusual hot-beds of activism as Bury! 


In addition to this a number of universities are currently undergoing occupations. The usual demands include a statement from the vice-chancellors of their opposition to the government proposals and an opening of the books of the institutions, two very good demands. One of the latest to go into occupation is Roehampton University though it is has to be said that the situation is currently very mutable with occupations spreading by the day and it being virtually impossible to entirely keep up with the news. In the demonstration in London 10,000 people took part which, on a day when activities were happening across the rest of the country, is no mean number and led the police to adopt "kettling" techniques which mean enforced ways of "containing" protestors by not allowing them to leave narrowly defined areas, often for hours at a time. This practice was condemned just last year by one of the parties now in government as a gross infringement of human rights. 


In other news another blog recording news and views against the government approach has emerged: it is called Storm Breaking Upon the University and is worth following.

Related articles

• Occupations by student protesters (bbc.co.uk)
• Student protests: in pictures (newstatesman.com)
• Student protests: pupil walkouts staged across Britain (guardian.co.uk)
• Students occupy Newcastle university block - BBC News (news.google.com)
• Live - Students protest in Manchester and Bury over tuition fees (menmedia.co.uk)
• Students slam cuts to education maintenance allowance (guardian.co.uk)

The Pope and Secularism

Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has been visiting the UK this week. Fortunately, by the time many of you will read this his visit will have ended and he will back in his pseudo-state of the Vatican. His visit to the UK prompted protests and much commentary and his own speeches whilst here are fascinating in their own way. 


In one of his most prominent speeches the Pope attacked "aggressive secularism" and suggested that Christianity was not receiving sufficient tolerance here. Both assertions are somewhat surprising. The previous Labour government was one of the most active in recent years in promoting Christian schools, otherwise known as "faith schools" and in placing emphasis on a "moralization" of society that drew explicitly, in Tony Blair's case, on Christianity. Blair was an odd case, it is true, since he also stated that his proudest moment was passing the Civil Partnership legislation that gave substantial marriage rights to gay couples. However, after he ceased being Prime Minister he converted to Catholicism.


The new government, whilst including an atheist as Deputy Prime Minister, has indicated every intention of following in Blair's footsteps with Baroness Warsi recently indicating that, on her view, the previous government insufficiently emphasized the role of "faith groups" in society. So it is somewhat surprising that the Pope chooses Britain, of all places, as a spot in which "aggressive secularism" reigns. Britain is also somewhat unusual in having a state church resided over by the sovereign of the country. We also reserve a place for religious leaders (particularly Christian ones) in the upper house of our legislature.


Given all this it seems lamentably clear that Britain is not, as one might hope it should be, a leader of "aggressive secularism". Secularism is a somewhat misused term since some assume it to be the same thing as atheism whilst others assume it is just a by-word for consumerism. Secularism can, however, be defined quite simply: it is the principle of the separation of church and state. It need not be the case that religion is thereby ordered out of the "public sphere" entirely but it is true that for religious leaders and groups to play any serious role in such a sphere they need to put their case in terms of principles that are capable of commanding general assent and do not rely on special pleading based on invidious interpretations of supposedly sacred texts. Such a principle is worth fighting for and even being "aggressive" about. Certainly a sense of adherence to it enables tolerance of minorities, including religious minorities. It should be celebrated and not condemned and Britain could do with rather more of it, sufficient, for example, to disestablish the Anglican Church and to remove all special place for religious leaders in our legislature. Oh, and to cease recognising the claim of state-hood made by the Vatican, a ridiculous and contemptible claim! 

The US Begins the End in Iraq

President Obama is due today to announce the beginning of the end of US troop involvement in Iraq with just 50,000 troops due to remain until the end of next year. In view of this drawdown it is perhaps time to reflect on the nature of the US and UK involvement in Iraq for the past seven years.


The invasion that took place in 2003 was controversial at the time and the consequences of it have been far-reaching. The effect on Iraq itself has been considerable. The toppling of Saddam Hussein, a seriously brutal dictator whose excesses against his own population are today largely forgotten, was something that was a direct product of the invasion, as it was intended to be. The arguments concerning the justification of the war against Hussein have been gone through endlessly with particular focus on the failure of the "weapons of mass destruction" to be found and the repeated charge of the "illegality" of the invasion. The charge of "illegality" had two prime sources. The first was in a highly charged normative theory of international law. This theory, perhaps elaborated most extensively by Jurgen Habermas, tended to collapse the aspiration for a world order in which normative considerations are paramount from the reality of the world order we are faced with. The second, less contentious, focused on narrower issues, to do with the alleged status of UN resolutions and with the "ban" on aggressive intent in war. The status of UN resolutions and, indeed, the status of the UN itself, are less settled than opponents of the Second Iraq War contended. The more important point was the settled consensus that there is no basis for aggressive war and, indeed, it was due to the understanding and acceptance of this view even within official circles in the US and the UK, that it was suggested that Iraq possessed the potential and the desire to attack the West or, at least, unsettle Western possessions or allies. That was the reason the discussion of the alleged weapons mattered.


Despite the failure to find any weapons it is worth remembering that there was little dispute in 2002-03 that Iraq possessed dangerous weapons. There was a general acceptance that this was very likely including in governments that led opposition to the war such as those of Russia, China, and France. This tends to be forgotten by those who would wish to re-write history. It also tends to be forgotten that there was a serious split within Europe concerning the invasion with the governments of Spain, Italy and Poland prominent amongst those willing to support the invasion, even leaving aside the complicated case of Britain.


The effects of the invasion, apart from the removal of the brutal dictatorship of Hussein, have been, to put it mildly, mixed. What became clear after the dictatorship's removal was the basis of its existence. This basis was that the dictatorship had been able, by use of its methods, to keep Iraq as a nation united and removal of the dictatorship opened the way for all the forces that could pull Iraq apart. The insurgency against the invasion was mainly based in the Sunni population who had been net beneficiaries of the rule of the dictator though Shiite factions also arose that were to dispute the rule of a central government. Further, the US/UK reliance on ill-informed outsiders was exposed early. The general failure to understand or plan for the aftermath of the invasion was surely criminally irresponsible and is the single biggest mark both against the invasion itself and the principal movers behind it, especially the second President Bush. 


The regional effects of the invasion remain, somewhat surprisingly, unclear. There were initial encouraging effects when Libya, for example, hurried to become part of the fold of "accepted" nations. The failure to contain Syrian ambitions has revealed, however, how limited the regional effects of the invasion has been. The continuing conflict in Afghanistan, from which resources were drained by the invasion of Iraq, perhaps poses the more significant long-term questions.


US politics became drawn into long and bitter arguments that prompted, for a time, the most serious hostility to a sitting president in living memory. The continuing polarisation of US politics can be seen in the peculiar "Tea Party" phenomena. The Democratic Party was neither united in opposition to the war or capable of throwing up a leadership that could outline alternative views of America's place in the world as Obama's presidency continues to reveal.


In the UK the Iraq war eroded and eventually destroyed the premiership of Tony Blair, a consequence whose effects continued to be seen in the last election here this year. The corrosive consequences of this have been the return of traditional Tory isolationism combined with a general aversion for discussion of normative questions in international relations. These consequences are seriously regrettable and show that the long-term effects of the conflict reach far and wide.


The invasion may well have produced an international climate that is less favourable to serious normative consideration of international affairs generally despite the appeal to such considerations on the part of the war's critics. Alliance of such critics with governments of dubious standing and with those willing to make Islam a political movement also stained the credibility of such critics. There is little long-term to celebrate either concerning the war or its adversaries.

Philosophy, Politics and Political Philosophy

As it is the day before a general election here in the UK and as many of my recent postings have concerned this I thought it was probably time to write something, albeit brief, concerning the relationship between philosophy and politics. Philosophers are not interested in politics in exactly the same way as anyone else. Whilst a philosopher, like any citizen, does have to think through policies of political platforms and consider what appears, for various reasons, the best action to take in a given circumstance, there are also some overarching questions that need to be addressed.


The overarching questions include what the general justification is of government (assuming that one is not an anarchist), what basic size of government is justifiable and what the basic ground is of the contract that enables there to be government. So, in Kant's Doctrine of Right (which I intend to focus on in more detail) there is quite a bit that fits a social contract model but this has to be set against the apparent presence in his work of references to natural law as well. These elements arguably are in tension with the discussion of the social contract although without some sense of right that is not covered entirely in public right there is a definite tendency for social contract theory to justify any action by government (dangers apparent in the examples of both Hobbes and Rousseau). Similarly, the ends of government relate to a number of details that remain of central relevance, including questions about the nature and extent of justifiable punishment, the grounds on which redistribution can be justified and the basis of "right" itself.


Some of these questions have influenced comment I have made recently on contemporary matters, including the remarks of Lord Carey on "religious rights" and the general argument I have given for support for the Liberal Democrats in the present UK election. However, the specifics of given policies and the response to particular elections are matters of politics rather than political philosophy. What I hope to bring out in the blog in future is the relationship between politics and political philosophy by drawing out, in analysis of Kant's fundamental political principles and their relationship to contemporary political philosophy, some definite implications for day to day political response and decision. In doing this I will, at least initially, say less directly about specific politics but, in the process of drawing out these views, enable a greater degree of philosophical insight to inform the political positions advanced.

Progress, Reaction and Liberalism

The current general election in the United Kingdom has a number of peculiar features and, despite taking place against a background of serious economic news, has the potential to remake the image of what political engagement can mean. There is, however, some resistance to this view amongst a broad spectrum of people, not least those who might be thought naturally to be most clearly disposed to adopting such a view.


In the UK the natural home of "progressive" sentiments has, since the end of the First World War almost a century ago, been the Labour Party. This should no longer be the case, not least because of many problems with the record of the last government, problems which alone should give serious pause to anyone. Even more should they give pause to anyone interested in the view of promotion of a "progressive" view of politics.


What are the reasons why I make this claim? Well, prior to looking at the details of specific policies or thinking through recent British political history, the central reason concerns a need to look again at what it means to describe a political position as "progressive". When Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 he spoke of the need for a "progressive" view of politics and he, for at least a time, consolidated behind him a coalition of people who viewed him as embodying such a view. By the time of the last election in 2005 it was very difficult to see Blair in this way and, consequently, hard to view the party he led as the vehicle for progress.


But what went unasked in a general disillusionment that was illustrated in the fact that each of Blair's election victories produced a falling support in terms of percentage of electors, was the question of what was meant by the notion of "progressive politics". It is easiest perhaps to begin to define the notion by reference to what it opposes, the notion of "reactionary" politics. What is "reactionary" is not simply, as many dictionaries would suggest, resistance to change. Any political party or force wishes change. But there are different kinds of change. There are changes which reinforce injustice, deepen social divisions and entrench vested interests and there are changes which aim to reduce injustice, promote that which is just, reduce division and promote an enhanced view of the polity that is not at the service of a given interest. The former is a reactionary change, the latter a progressive change.


This general view of the division between progress and reaction does not emerge from nowhere in political history. It is grounded in divisions between groups that date back to the time of the Glorious Revolution in Britain. At that point monarchical power and vested privileges were broken in favour of a parliamentary system of representation. This victory was accomplished by a party of progressive change that defeated the Tory view, a view that can broadly be understood as legitimist and which took its last stand in 1745. The defeat of this view then produced a consolidated landed oligarchy that entrenched its own patterns of privileges that were challenged by a series of events in the 19th century including the Great Reform Act of 1832, Catholic and Jewish emancipation, the opening of the universities and the granting, after sustained agitation from the Manchester School of Liberalism, of manhood suffrage (albeit not a universal one).


This struggle continued in terms of movement to universal manhood suffrage and the final universal granting of suffrage to women also, something initially championed by John Stuart Mill. The universal opening of representation formulated the uniquely modern political system we term "democracy" and its advent was the result of sustained and continued struggle between those who advocated it and those who opposed it. The former were the "progressives" and the latter the "reactionaries". 


The twentieth century produced, however, new political forces that created confusion and articulated positions that did not easily fit this classical pattern. These forces included the labour movement and socialist and communist parties. This is the origin of the contemporary confusion that obfuscates the clarity required to recognise that the contemporary Liberal Democratic Party in the UK is the natural home of "progressive" sentiment. The view became consolidated in the 1930's and 1940's that labour movements were the ground of "progressive" demands and that liberalism had been left behind. 


There were, nonetheless, many peculiar elements to this view. One was that the economic doctrine that won most adherents in this period was not, despite much pressure to the contrary, a Marxist one. There were many reasons for this, not least that Marxism provides no positive economic model. Marxists are extremely good at providing critical attacks on economic models and economic systems but, in practice, have produced no sustainable economic model for governing a society other than totalitarian coercion, better known as the "command economy". Such a position has consistently failed to secure sufficient adherents in advanced Western countries to be adopted and this is certainly to the good. Some time ago Ludwig Von Mises exposed in detail the difficulties of such a view in his classic work Socialism.


Von Mises' own positive economic position was, however, not one that was adopted during the crisis years of the middle of the 20th century. Rather, at that time, it was the works of John Maynard Keynes that were turned to. Keynes' economic arguments provided the basis of much of what became orthodoxy in politics after the Second World War especially when combined with the welfare state proposals of William Beveridge. Despite being implemented by the Labour Party both these men and their ideas emerged from the Liberal political tradition.


The elements that were added to the positions of Keynes and Beveridge that came directly from within the labour movement were emphasis on sustained state intervention into running the economy, that is, nationalisation. The model of such nationalisation was what became seriously challenged in the advent of the newly globalising world of the 1970s. As economies became more inter-dependent so the insular models of labourism that supported the implementation of trade barriers of all sorts and underpinned unsustainable protectionist views of labour became undermined. 


This was the beginning of the end for the traditional Labour Party which, during the years of Conservative hegemony, was gradually destroyed such that Tony Blair could eventually emerge as the leader of a quite different force in the 1990's. The remaking of Labour was sometimes presented, by Blair himself amongst others, as a revival of "progressive" politics and that good things were done in many directions by Blair's government is clear enough. So civil partnerships were recognised, an equal age of consent for gay people was won and invidious forms of discrimination were removed. Similarly, the Blair government formulated and defended a view of the public services that enabled their expansion including an expanded higher education sector.


Blair, however, had no feel for much that is central to a serious "progressive" view of politics. Under his leadership there was little confrontation with inequality and, under Labour, inequality has increased such that their rule has led to a redistribution of wealth towards the very wealthiest. Similarly, deregulation of the finance sector of the economy gathered apace such that the unstable credit boom of the first decade of this century was allowed to emerge. In such respects, as in others, Blair's government moved in lock-step with the Bush regime in the US. 


Confrontation with finance, expansion of the productive base of the economy and concern with redistribution of wealth towards the poorest, did not feature in Blair's view. Similarly, Blair paradoxically also articulated a shift towards defence of religious privilege, as in his endorsement of faith schools and a privatised model of education that even allowed creationist academies to be given state funding. In these respects the Blair project represented something reactionary. Similarly, civil liberties were never related to by Blair's governments as anything other than a nuisance in a foreign policy that resolutely presented the fight against terrorism as the number one agenda. The hopes for an ethical foreign policy at the origin of the Blair government were lost.


It is time to realise that the Labour Party has no natural claim to represent "progressive" opinion and that what was most creative in its responses to the political crises of the last century in fact came from Liberal thinking. Once this is recognised it also becomes clear that liberalism is the philosophy that is progressive, not socialism. Liberalism has been re-born as something that incorporates the gains of social democracy but which also rests on a stronger connection to civil liberties and to an emphasis on individual freedom that socialists have always been loath to acknowledge.


The socialist force, such as is left, is itself now reactionary. It stands for out-dated positions, recognising sectional interests that cannot promote the renewal of politics. Further, in the context of economic crisis it suggests dangerous illusions concerning the nature of the state and its relationship to the economy. Conservatives, by contrast, have, unashamedly, revealed themselves once again to stand in the long tradition of basic reaction, standing only for vested interests of the super-rich that recognise little in the broader society. The leader article in The Guardian articulates this well.


Given these parameters it is the case that the moment has come to once again recognise that the basic force that represents the possibilities for progressive reform that exist are liberal (and Liberal). This is not a notion that many find easy to see but no other force can bring change that will respect the imperatives of social justice. If social justice is the guideline for what is progressive then it should include such matters as support for free education, emphasis on the need to re-build the economy by rebalancing it, increased and focused regulation of banking and finance, a proportional voting system that ends the shame of governments being formed that have no real majority and a serious commitment to the safeguarding of civil liberties. It should and must also relate to foreign policy through engagement with Europe and the US based on the pursuit of liberal ideals and internationalism. There is much that is problematic in the current Liberal Democrat platform, as I have stated in previous postings. It is, however, the case that only this party and only the general position of liberalism can represent the cause of progress. Given this situation it becomes a clear duty to support the Liberal Democrats and to engage with them in order to further the cause of democracy and to deepen the roots of liberalism. As Obama's struggles in the US have shown it is possible for progressive agendas to be presented successfully and for them to secure victories in the struggle with reaction. Such a struggle is a philosophically deep one and it is one to which this generation, like others before it, is called to engage with.