Tag: Articles
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Correcting Inaccuracies: Ethics and Empire
On 26 September 2018 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an article by Paul Ostwald, “Wie günstig! Da kommen plötzlich drei Kriege mehr aus”, which was highly critical of the “Ethics and Empire” project, which Nigel Biggar runs in the McDonald Centre. You can find the article here. Mr Ostwald’s article contained a series of inaccuracies. Professor Biggar therefore wrote a…
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Censorship and the Complexities of Empire
Last year (2017) several scholars denounced the McDonald Centre’s Ethics and Empire project and called for its termination. Recently, referring to such actions, David Sanderson of The Times newspaper quoted Trevor Phillips, former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who observed a trend to reduce acceptable scholarship in the Academy to a narrow range of focal themes and…
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The Obsession with Gender Identity
In an opinion article published in The Times last week, Nigel Biggar argues that public debate over the social recognition of different identities, and of gender identity in particular, has gone too far.
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Civility in Academia
The Times published an op-ed essay by Nigel Biggar arguing that free academic inquiry is undermined by a lack of civility in public debates between university scholars and urging a recovery of ‘habits of self-restraint’ for the sake of both the universities and democratic society more widely. The article prompted a response from Kim Wagner and James McDougall in The Times Higher Education Supplement,…
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Further Developments on ‘Ethics and Empire’
Following Nigel Biggar’s extended response in The Times to the Open Letter criticising the “Ethics and Empire” project, a number of influential figures have emerged to express their support for his proposed reappraisal of Britain’s colonial legacy. On 27 December, the former chair of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Trevor Phillips, wrote a letter to The Times sharply criticising the claim that Prof. Biggar was asking ‘the…
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Patriotism as a Limited Loyalty
In a recently published essay on patriotism and loyality for the recently launched project “These Islands”, Nigel Biggar discusses the differences between Protestant and Catholic stances towards nationhood in European countries.
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‘Ethics and Empire’ and Freedom of Speech
In an article for the first issue in 2018 of the Oxford Magazine, Nigel Biggar takes stock of the controversy surrounding the McDonald Centre’s “Ethics and Empire” project and considers in particular its implications for the academic freedom of students as well as professors. The Oxford Magazine is not an official publication of the University of Oxford, but an independent…
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Responding to Critics of ‘Ethics and Empire’
The 30 November publication of Prof Nigel Biggar’s essay on Britain’s colonial past in The Times, together with the announcement on this website of the McDonald Centre’s “Ethics and Empire” project, has provoked strong reactions from a number of students and academics in Oxford. Common Ground Oxford, a group of undergraduates protesting the ‘structures of racism, classism and colonialism’ that purportedly…
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The Ethics of Colonial History
In a recent issue of the prestigious Third World Quarterly , the political scientist Bruce Gilley published an article exploring the positive case for colonialism. The article provoked an intense backlash from several quarters and forced Gilley to withdraw it. In a recent op-ed essay for The Times , Nigel Biggar defended Gilley’s approach by noting that dispassionate scrutiny of the historical record uncovers many positive aspects…