Nigel Warburton

1 week ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

No one can justify starving a child. Ever. It’s not a legitimate response to the sadistic brutality of the attacks by Hamas on Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023. Yet images of emaciated Palestinian children and babies, victims of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, are now so common that we risk becoming immune to them, and to what it means morally for someone to have ordered actions with this predictable result. Some humanitarian aid is getting through now, but for thousands it will be too late.

2 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

John Locke declared the mind of a child to be a tabula rasa, a blank slate, on which experience and reflection write. There are no innate ideas. The senses provide everything we can ever know or understand. Locke’s empiricism lies behind the most famous experiment in home schooling in the history of philosophy. John Stuart Mill, born on May 20, 1806, was its product, achievement, or victim, depending on how you view it.

3 weeks ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

The war in Ukraine continues despite on-off peace talks. Nuclear powers India and Pakistan are currently in a stand-off that could reignite into conflict. And who knows what will happen in the Middle East, given Benjamin Netanyahu’s destruction of Gaza and his many probable war crimes, including using the starvation of Palestinian civilians as a weapon against Hamas.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

I’m a fan of clarity in philosophy. Philosophy progresses through discussion. In a conversation, it’s important to understand one another. John Searle once declared: “If you can’t say it clearly, you don’t understand it yourself.” My instinct is to cheer this sentiment, because obscurity is often a smokescreen for ignorance and an indicator of pretentiousness, but, on reflection, there are exceptions to Searle’s claim.

1 month ago | theneweuropean.co.uk | Nigel Warburton

On Wednesday, Salman Rushdie’s attacker Hadi Matar was to have been sentenced for attempted murder, but that has been adjourned to May 16. Hashem Abedi, who helped plan and prepare the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing in which 22 people were killed and 264 wounded, attacked three prison officers using hot oil and improvised knives at HMP Frankland a few weeks ago. Two officers are in hospital with severe stab wounds. Abedi, already serving a minimum of 55 years, is unlikely ever to be released.