We should see one important social function of practical ethicists as widening the Overton window and pushing the public and political debate towards reasoned deliberation and respectful disagreement. In the mid-1990s, Joseph Overton, a researcher at the US think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, proposed the idea of a ‘window’ of socially acceptable […]
Relational Properties in Objective Science
the concept of “relational properties” (properties that exist due to a relationship between something and something else), to distinguish them from properties of a thing. A remarkable insight in the study of complex systems is the importance of thinking in terms of dependencies or relationships. This is a key difference from reductionist approaches. Here I […]
Return of the city-state
Email exchange started by Nicole Morgan with additions from Ruben Nelson and Steven Kurtz all CACOR members. Nation-states came late to history, and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest they won’t make it to the end of the century. Original Article… Trump’s tweet was set against the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s offer, one year earlier, […]
CAN CITIZENS BE CLIENTS?
By Nicole Morgan, CACOR member. As my title suggests, I have some doubts about a current doctrinal theme, which governments in desperate financial straits are applying in the hope of pulling themselves back from incipient chaos. The notion that citizens be regarded and treated as clients or customers of government agencies may not be a panacea. […]