Martin McGrath
Welcome to my website. I intend to use this space to hold forth on things like politics, books, technology, films and anything else that interests or irritates me.
You can also use this site to see examples of some of the work I've done as journalist, writer and designer. I'm available for freelance work and my rates are competitive and negotiable for good causes.
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Tag Archives: philosophy
FRIDAY’S WORDS OF WISDOM: WHAT MONEY CAN’T BUY BY MICHAEL J SANDEL
Michael J Sandel opens What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012) with a list (3-5) of some novel items that can be bought: In California prisoners can pay $82 a night for better, … Continue reading
Posted in Friday Words of Wisdom
Tagged books, economics, friday wisdom, philosophy, Politics, review, reviews
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FRIDAY’S WORDS OF WISDOM: WHY SOME THINGS SHOULD NOT BE FOR SALE BY DEBRA SATZ
Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale by Debra Satz is a work of political philosophy that critiques the assumptions that underlie much modern economic theory and the implications of those assumptions in the application of markets to real … Continue reading
Posted in Blogging, Friday Words of Wisdom
Tagged books, economics, friday wisdom, philosophy, Politics
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FRIDAY’S WORDS OF WISDOM: FIGUEIRA AND SPARTAN WOMEN
This week I have been reading Sparta: The Body Politic (The Classical Press of Wales, 2010, editors Anton Powell and Stephen Hodkinson), which contains a number of interesting essays on ancient Sparta but the one that really got me thinking … Continue reading
Posted in Blogging, Friday Words of Wisdom
Tagged friday wisdom, Greece, history, philosophy, Politics, Sparta
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FRIDAY’S WORDS OF WISDOM: ESTLUND’S DEMOCRATIC AUTHORITY
I’m a bit late to getting around to David Estlund’s Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework (Princeton, 2008) but it’s a major work of political philosophy. It is very much in the American tradition of political philosophy strongly influenced by John … Continue reading
Posted in Blogging, Friday Words of Wisdom
Tagged books, friday wisdom, philosophy, Politics
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AGAINST UTOPIA: ARTHUR C CLARKE AND THE HETEROTOPIAN IMPULSE
ABSTRACT In this essay I briefly set out the Marxist theories of utopianism espoused by the influential German philosopher Ernst Bloch and contrast the closing down of future possibilities inherent in Bloch’s notion of a realisable “concrete utopia” with the … Continue reading
Posted in academic
Tagged essay, philosophy, sf, Utopia
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JOHN STUART MILL AND THE HORROR IN NORWAY
When faced with appalling events such as those that occured in Norway yesterday it can be difficult to respond rationally. The murder of so many young people who were guilty of nothing more than enthusiasm and idealism inspires pity, grief, … Continue reading