Human rights are one of the great tasks of our civilisation. This article discusses the importance of this task along with our personal responsibility to be involved.
When I was writing the introduction to Human Rights, there were a number of things I wanted to discuss which would have made it too long to be an introduction. Some of these thoughts are fleshed out here, such as the idea of speciesism, states and other structural issues.
Reflections and discussion about the invasion of Iraq by the coalition of the willing in 2003, and the propaganda of war.
The massacres in Rwanda were an event that touched me deeply, and taught me much about the world. Here are a couple of good summary articles about why the west should also learn from them.
No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee
A Moral History of the Twentieth Century
Whilst working at the University of Queensland, I would wander through the Co-operative bookshop and this book would always call to me. I picked it up a number of times, but always the word "moral" in the subtitle put me off. Anyway finally I did pick it up, and I've...