In the first instalment of a three-part blog series on the world of sport, I look at some of the issues surrounding the Olympic movement, and in particular the question of ‘performance enhancing drugs’. Continue reading
Category Archives: Comment
The biopolitics of warning signs
Every morning here at Lancaster I like to take a walk down to the lake to see the ducks.[1] I find it’s a great way to clear my head before I start my day of work.
But one morning last week my walk was disturbed by the appearance of a whole raft of new signs bolted on to the fences alongside the hockey pitches Continue reading
Dangerous dogs – animals condemned from birth
Following on from my last blog on humans, animals and the language of life and death, I thought I’d expand a little on the issues surrounding dangerous dogs, and that most outcast of all animals, the banned dangerous dog.
According to the UK government website, it is against the law to own certain types of dog. These are:
- Pit Bull Terrier
- Japanese Tosa
- Dogo Argentino
- Fila Brasiliero
It’s also against the law to:
- Sell a banned dog
- Abandon a banned dog
- Give away a banned dog
- Breed from a banned dog
If you are in possession of a banned dog, either knowingly or unknowingly, there is very little you can do. You cannot keep it, you cannot get rid of it – indeed the dog is condemned to death from its very birth. To explore the unique position held by the banned dangerous dog, we can conduct a simple thought experiment Continue reading
Humans, Animals, and the Language of Life and Death
The language with which we refer to ourselves as human beings, relative to our ‘animal’ cousins is something that’s always fascinated me. I have always been interested in nature, and my sister, Kate, is soon to graduate as a vet, making these issues resonate all the more as I compare my own studies in philosophy with the world of animal science. Continue reading
A sombre view of the modern world…
I despair at the modern world in which we live. It’s not so much the sensationalism, the terrorism, the rampant consumerism; it’s more the fact that people today simply do not think.
For all its boons, social media has done more to erode modern society than it has to enhance it. People think they can explain the world’s problems in a meme, or a few characters, without ever bothering to scratch below the surface or find out more. Worse still, the ease with which ‘information’ (very definitely with inverted commas) can be found these days means people just don’t know how to do proper research and think for themselves. Got a question? Google it. Google will tell you the truth… Continue reading