The “Cartesian” model of the rational subject is central to the political philosophy of Hobbes and Locke and is “transcendentally” affirmed in Kant's account of ethics and legality. An influential body of Hegelian inspired critique has suggested, however, that the dialectical deficiencies of the dominant models of Liberalism in late modernity inhere in this “atomistic” or “self-supporting” characterisation of the individual. The “atomistic” perspective appears as an obstacle not only to the coherent articulation of the compatibility of liberty and equality, (...) but also to the attempt to express the mutuality of recognition between agents that might offer a genuinely communal conception of constitution and subject. Employing as a frame of reference Alan Brudner's analysis of these issues in his comprehensive Constitutional Goods it is argued that legal and political theory might usefully adopt an understanding of Hegel's notion of “recognition” in this regard without drastic phenomenological reconstruction of the Cartesian or Kantian subject. (shrink)

This paper considers the conference themes of practice, knowledge and vision in process-relational terms. It emphasizes the need to apply these concepts to the activity of research adjudication as much as to the activity of research itself. In so doing, it questions a notion that underpins much of the debate concerning the legitimacy of research undertaken in the fields of art and design; namely that there is a stable conception of ‘research per- se’ which might serve as a ground for (...) judgment in cross- disciplinary comparisons. In contrast to this, the concept of ‘research’ is positioned as something that is transformative with respect to context and milieu. Accordingly, it is suggested that research adjudication should be considered a creative activity that is as much concerned with the transformation of law, as it is with law application. Thinking research activity and research adjudication in process-relational terms has important practical consequences. The idea that concepts of research are at once domain specific and changeable over time, serves to problematise the notion of generic research training. It is argued here that discipline specific methodologies are more appropriate to a situation in which a multiplicity of research practices coexist and in which each of these practices places a variable degree of emphasis upon notions of tradition, integration, difference and innovation. (shrink)

The perception of what is sexually perverted shifts dependent on who is talking about it. Even the term ‘perversion’ is controversial. Psychologists generally refer to non-traditional sexual behaviour as sexual deviation or, in cases where the specific object of arousal is unusual, as paraphilia. There are a number of clinically recognised disorders of sexual or paraphiliac function: fetishism and transvestic fetishism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, chronophilias, frotteurism, sadomasochism, and ‘others not otherwise specified’. However, interesting absences from this list are erotophonophilia, in which (...) sexual arousal can only be achieved by the act of murder as its corollary, autassassinophilia. This paper discusses the journey that our sexual attitudes have made through the history of religion and medicine, the laws surrounding sex and their development from religious and cultural taboos into prohibitions of illegal sexual behaviour, then draws on those arguments to make a comparison between ‘victim-less’ and ‘victim-rich’ sexual crimes. (shrink)