Observers express surprise but Singer has always balanced harms and benefits.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Pamela Bone: It Is Women Who Will Reform Islam
‘Change must come from within, say the good liberals. No one said that about apartheid.’
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Historical Research as Precondition of Dialogue
‘We remain hostage to our sense of grievances. Our narratives have become our prison, paralyzing discourse and hindering understanding.’
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Religious Bullies Emboldened by Successes
‘It would seem that the homosexual person’s rights trump the religious person’s rights.’
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India Has Highest Number of Aids Infections
At 5.7 million. More than 40 million people worldwide infected with HIV/Aids, UN says.
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Mo Says a Prayer
Oh ye of little faith.
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Simon Blackburn on Harry Frankfurt on Truth
Utility sits uneasily with truth; we need an explanation of how the virtue of truth can stand opposed to pragmatism.
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Surprise at Muslim Scholars’ Rejection of FGM
‘I thought Islam told us to do so,’ said Samar.
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World Aids Day
More than 36 million people of working age have the virus.
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Nigel Warburton Interviews Stephen Law
Consider the relationship between sentimentality and Christmas.
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Scott McLemee on the Yale Book of Quotations
Billie Holliday and Bob Dylan, worth the space, but ‘Plop plop fizz fizz’?
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How to Train a Computer to Think Like a Person
Intelligence Augmentation uses human beings as part of computer programs.
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Ronald Dworkin Reviews Peter Kramer’s Freud
‘Freudian analysis is not science; it is fashion, totally dependent on public acclaim.’
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Why Arendt Matters
Arendt blurred categories; a philosopher who offered notes on the very latest world affairs.
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Michael Walzer on the Utilitarianism of Extremity
When our deepest values are radically at risk, the constraints lose their grip.
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Oral History Bumps into Regulation
With colleges wary of potential lawsuits, oral historians find their work caught up in regulatory reviews.
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Nigel Warburton Interviews Richard Norman
‘The success of scientific explanations of the natural world makes religious explanations redundant.’
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Taliban Tear Teacher to Pieces; He Taught Girls
He was part-disembowelled and then torn apart with his arms and legs tied to motorbikes.
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Misery of Women in Afghanistan
‘We were very happy. Rawa came and talked about how they could help us. But that has stopped now.’
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Oxfam Says Most Afghan Children Not in School
Girls are particularly losing out: 1 in 5 girls in primary, 1 in 20 in secondary school.