The nineteenth century saw frequent appeals to the idea of a redeemer personality, a heroic leader – musings which culminated in the cults devoted to Hitler and Stalin. This article shows that the self-assertion of leaders can stimulate the self-abasement of the followers on whom they depend (and vice versa), and discusses in what circumstances such an interplay becomes dominant in a society, and with what advantages and disadvantages for it.

Reginald Williams in ‘The Case Against Theism’ (Think Autumn 2011) argued that the ‘empirically verifiable’ psychological need ‘to believe that good things exist when in fact they don't’ offers ‘the best reason anyone should expect’ for endorsing atheism over theism. My article outlines six objections to his thesis, questioning how empirically verifiable the evidence he adduces is, and pointing out various logical fallacies such as illicit use of generalizations and begging the question. It concludes that atheism needs defending on stronger grounds.

People often say that humans are omnivores in order to justify eating meat as normal and veganism as abnormal. The ‘Omnivore's Argument’ is one of the arguments that vegetarians and vegans encounter when meat-eaters try to defend the moral acceptability of body parts on their plate. When responding to this argument, the position of the vegan is similar to the atheist who time and again is confronted with the same fallacious arguments in support of the existence of god(s). Veganism and atheism are both ethical default positions. Similarly, not killing other people is also a default position.

It's nearly 10:00 AM on a Thursday morning and the courtroom is filled with more than 100 members of the jury pool. Court officials, state police officers, and defendants line the halls waiting to be called for pre-trial conferences and for jury selection to begin, then the fire alarm sounds. There is no obvious evidence of fire, no smoke, no shouts, and no other warnings. At the same time, no one announces that there is a fire drill in progress, that the alarm is merely being tested, or that the alarm was pulled by accident. Sitting in the court room, what would you do? And, more importantly, why would you do it? What goes through your head when you hear the alarm?

There is an unusual region in Singapore called Hougang, whose residents have collectively rejected lavish, State-funded, urban renewal offers. As they have been doing so for more than two decades, Hougang stands out for its aged flats and amenities in one of the richest countries in the world. This curious situation arose from the Singapore Government's stance that urban renewal of electoral constituencies should depend on political affiliation. This essay looks at the ethics of the situation.

Security cameras have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life in most major cities, yet each new camera seems to come with cries of foul play by defenders of privacy rights. Our long history with these cameras and CCTV networks does not seem to have alleviated our concerns with being watched, and as we feel ourselves losing privacy in other areas the worry generated by security cameras has remained. Our feelings of disquiet, however, are unnecessary as they stem from an erroneous view of the self. The following argues that this view of an autonomous and atomistic self is both detrimental and inaccurate.

This essay takes a hard look at the current state of much academic (mainly analytic) philosophy and sets out to diagnose where things have gone wrong. It offers a sharply critical assessment of the prevailing narrowness, cliquishness, linguistic inertness, like-mindedness, intellectual caution, misplaced scientism, over-specialisation, guild mentality, lack of creative or inventive flair, and above all the self-perpetuating structures of privilege and patronage that have worked to produce this depressing situation. On the constructive side I suggest how a belated encounter with developments beyond its cultural-professional horizons – including certain aspects of ‘continental’ philosophy – might bring large (and reciprocal) benefits. I also offer some tentative ideas as to what ‘creativity’ could or should mean as applied to philosophical thinking and writing.

In this paper it is argued that we should not give money to beggars. Rather than spending our welfare budget on the people whom we happen to pass by on the street, we should spend it on those who are genuinely poor and who can be helped the most with each pound that we give. A pound given to a beggar in a Western country, it is argued, is a pound spent on someone who – in a global perspective – is relatively well off. That pound, if spent better, could have rescued the life of a starving child in another part of the world.

A traditional defense of God in the face of pain and suffering is that humans learn from encounters with suffering – learn something wonderfully valuable that could not be learned in any other way. God is a teacher, and we humans are the students. This article examines the Problem of Evil through this paradigm. It argues that any God-as-teacher defense of evil fails on its face because God does not meet even the most lax standard for teacher behavior and action.

I point out that, though animal bodies and their parts are not sufficiently similar to the products of conscious design to warrant an inference to a supernatural designer of the former things, the proponent of the design argument would be on firmer ground were he to base his inference on the more specific resemblance of well-functioning human eyes and brains to well-functioning cameras and computers. Though I argue that Darwin has not refuted the design argument, I conclude that the design arguer needs to show that there is a first cause in the enormously lengthy causal sequences which have culminated in human eyes and brains.

In so far as philosophers can agree about anything, a majority would agree that the two most influential philosophers of the twentieth century were Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger. Both possessed unmatched philosophical profundity, both challenged and overturned fundamental areas of philosophical discourse and both changed philosophy forever. Both were charismatic teachers who generated and inspired a legion of followers and both spawned trajectories of philosophical research which remain vital to this day. And one of them – Martin Heidegger – supported the most evil regime in history.