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If I'm allowed to post the link William, Richard Dawkins is apparently suing his webmaster:

It's not exactly Richard Dawkins, it's the Richard Dawkins Foundation, and it's less a conventional case of x sues y, but more a decision on who owns the intellectual property.

Made me smile though.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

What? The blog gets taken over by squabbling eight year olds and I get modded?

My heart goes out to all victims of paedophile priests and monks who must fight and fight for justice. There are those in the Roman Catholic Church seem incapable of admitting the truth and seem determined to prolong the suffering of these 142 survivors.

I'm sure that when money from the school was flowing into the coffers of the Church the question of school ownership was not raised!

/go/blogs/ni/2010/10/religion_and_ethics_in_the_new_10.html/ext/_auto/-/https://www.practicalethicsnews.com/practicalethics/2010/10/anti-addict-mummy-money.html

If people want to be sterilised and want the money they should be allowed to take the money. On the radio programme tonight evidence was cited that showed that drug addicts who were offered a cash incentive were 50 per cent more likely to act responsibly.

The Government should be funding this voluntary sterilisation programme.

Will,

I learn something new everyday :-D

Thank you for the clarification.

At first glance it looks like a straightforward case of an employee fiddling his employers books for self gain. Sad but very common. Still I'm sure it could never happen at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳.

The article in Prospect- Alasdair MacIntyre on Money, was an interesting read. His views encompass Catholic beliefs, Greek philosophy and Marxism, which is an interesting combination.His principle interest in catholicism seems to be Aquinas' Thomism philosophy , in this case, elements which married Greek philosophy from Aristotle and Catholic beliefs on usury.

He makes alot of good points on how to marry economics and ethics but tags it under the title of an "Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition" which he encapsulates as recognising the vices, as equally as the benefits, of our current economic system.

He believes in risk-taking responsability, where those who inflict economic damage,whose risk-taking goes wrong in financial markets, should bear as much pain as the worst affected victims of its repurcussions- which he argues doesn't happen at the moment & those who set these chain of events into motion are usually insulated from them.

He also says individuals in financial markets should issue public statements in advance of the risks they are distributing

And he advocates caps on the amount of debt burdens individuals and families should carry, such as interest rate caps in Germany.

To me , this all seems like common sense , rather than some ornate sounding philosphy. He also states there is a rift between economics and ethics and to get back to a point pre-dating this, but I don't think that ever existed. The money and control of it is just in another sector of societies hands. Pre- industrial revolution it was in the hands of the Nobility, Merchants and Royalty. Pre dissolution, it was in the hands of the Church, Nobility and Royalty. There is no magical perfect world to hark back to.

It requires those in positions of power and in charge of money risk to have a social conscience and responsabilty. Maybe those who enter these *trades* need to take compulsory courses in ethics and philosophy.

This sort of ties in with the Guardian article Do Human rights exist. I don't normally read articles that make me annoyed, but this did! One reader comment aptly described it as a Troll rather than a piece of Journalism, which I would agree.
His argument that Human Rights don't exist clearly comes from someone who's human rights have never been challenged. In the same way that a middle class family in 1950's California or Ohio would have no need to think how human rights impacted in their lives. Freedom to go anywhere,do anything- to follow the American Dream. Not quite the same scenario for a working class black family in Alabama.

Human rights are only the rights & treatment we expect for ourselves and to have the emotional intelligence to realise these should be Universal to everyone. We learn them in the same way we learn to speak, read and write

The articles tie in for me becuase they demonstrate the haves don't necessarily have the emotional skills or empathy to care about the have-nots - to treat everyone with the same rights, care and attention they bestow on themselves

This sort of ties in with the Guardian article Do Human rights exist. I don't normally read articles that make me annoyed, but this did! One reader comment aptly described it as a Troll rather than a piece of Journalism, which I would agree.

Trolling above the line is par for the course for Andrew Brown and he is regularly spanked for it by his commenters. To no avail in this case, since he has followed it up with even more ham fisted attempts at satire.

William, there's so much reference to the RC Church on this blog I wondering if you're moving over to Rome !

LSV - do you listen to "Thinking Allowed"? There is an interview with Ian Angell on his new book (with Demetis), "Science's First Mistake: delusions in pursuit of theory", which might interest you. I am going to buy a copy myself but anyone who can tolerate extended screen-reading can also download a free PDF version from the LSE website. Comments might be interesting.

@ Parrhasios

Sounds like it's right up LSV's street. As for me, I don't know if the extended screen reading or the extended po-mo wibbling will get me first.

Parrhasios

This was a good interview. Ian Angell attacks "scientism" but could not the criticisms he makes equally be applied to "religionism"?

I must admit that the idea that no reputable physicist today would say gravity is a force goes against what I was taught at school! Good science need not be perfect science, but as time passes problems get solved and our understanding improves. I particularly enjoyed the discussion on causality.

Here is the link. The interview starts in the 18th minute. There is also an interesting interview on the subject of marriage before this.

/programmes/b00vhhjm

It was good to hear Barbara Harris of Project Prevention speak about the good work that her organisation does to reduce the number of children born to drug-addicted parents. For the sake of £200 a drug addict might be persuaded to act responsibly and ensure that he/she does not bring a child into this world damaged at birth because of drug addiction.

It's a no brainer!