It appears that the Irish election will take place on “February 25”:http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0124/breaking8.html. It should be an interesting one. Some basic briefing notes below: commenters should feel free to add stuff/disagree as appropriate.
In the UK we are being treated to “a rich and enjoyable series of programmes on Justice featuring Michael Sandel”:http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/seasons/justiceseason/ . No doubt there will be quibblers, but I think he’s done a great job so far. Last night’s episode discussed Bentham, Kant and Aristotle and, for my money, both utilitarians (in the shape of Peter Singer) and various German Kant-fans came across as slightly unhinged. The moment that most summed this up, however, was discussion of the German Constitutional Court’s Kant-inspired dismissal of a law that would allow the federal authorities to shoot down a hijacked airliner destined to crash into a city with catastrophic loss of life. “Judgement here”:http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20060215_1bvr035705en.html . According to these Kantians, even if the passengers are doomed to die in the next few minutes and shooting-down the plane will save many lives on the ground, to attack the airliner would show a lack of respect for their human diginity, purposiveness, endiness etc. and so is forbidden. For me, that looks like a reductio.