Playing the game: sport and virtue
As I write this, England will or will not be on the way to the finals of the World Cup, and that matter, like the…
Articles by Don Trubshaw
Zeno and the philosophical conundrum of pure reasoning
It was the pre-Socratic thinker Parmenides who first mooted the idea (as far as we know) in a document, only fragments of which survive in…
Three views on privacy in the digital age, part 1: the value of the self
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the…
The Just Society: Equality or Freedom?
In A Theory of Justice John Rawls conducted a famous thought experiment. He asked, if we were to imagine, behind a ‘veil of ignorance’, being…
Respect, rights and freedoms in an era of identity activism
The British actor Ben Kingsley, probably most famous for his eponymous role in the film Ghandi, has, since being knighted in the 2001 honours list,…
The coming struggle: individualism versus the bureaucratic state
Introduction Modernity has been characterised not only by the great benefits brought by the increase in scientific knowledge and the technologies that have flowed…
National sovereignty considered as a rule-based game
The Cambridge dictionary defines sovereignty as “The power of a country to govern itself”. As opposed to what? the power of a country not…
The Korean Dilemma
Never formally concluded, the wound of the Korean war has been festering for over 60 years; but quietly sidelined by matters considered more geopolitically important,…
Universal Basic Income and the promises and perils of a leisured economy
‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’ (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program) Introduction Until recently few people…
Freedom and Belonging
The following article is extracted from a longer essay entitled “‘The Re-Enchantment of the World’ as Social Theory and Critique”, which readers who are interested…