Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemFactual Divergence and Risk Perceptions(University of Warwick, )The communication of information (‘facts’) by experts to the general public becomes challenging if there is an absence of trust in experts, and in the institutions they represent. There has been a perceived sense of a decline of public trust in expertise and science, an issue of concern highlighted by political leaders such as MP Michael Gove and Former US President Donald Trump. This paper presents a synthesis of differing fields of study to reflect upon the dynamic between expertise, risk and public response in democratic practice. It incorporates studies and theories from the fields of psychology, risk analysis, communication, epistemology and political studies to answer questions such as: what evidence is there that public antipathy toward experts exists? Is a war being waged between laypeople and experts, and what does this mean for public policy? How can risk perception research effectively contribute to the debate on trust in expertise? The role of heuristics and psychology in decision-making is explored (as well as a brief sojourn into the sociology of risk) with regard to how risk perceptions are formed, and the role that experts play in this dynamic. In this article, I argue that the reports of a decline in trust in expertise are not based in evidence; in fact, experts and scientists are generally trusted by the public at large. However, this trust cannot be taken for granted as it continues to represent an increasingly critical element in communicating risk and upholding democratic principles in governance.
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ItemPolice Corruption(Sage, 2014)
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ItemLiability, War, and Peace(Wiley, 2015-01-27)
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ItemNo Preview AvailablePrivate military and security companies and the 'civilianization' of war(Routledge, 2016-10-19)The term ‘the ethics of war’ applies to two different kinds of enterprises. What might be called the positive ethics of war is a descriptive enterprise, aiming to provide an account of the body of broadly accepted and implemented rules governing the reasons for and means by which wars may be fought; normative ethics of war, on the other hand, aims to assess the moral status of those rules and, if necessary, suggest revisions to them. From the perspective of positive ethics the twinned principles of combatant liability to, and civilian immunity from, attack during war are central to the ethics of war. These principles are affirmed by international law and popular opinion and paid at least lip service by political and military leaders.
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ItemPacifism: Designing a Moral Defence Force(Cambridge University Press, 2017)The legitimacy of a state rests in part on its capacity to provide the conditions for its citizens to lead good lives, through ensuring that they have access to the basic goods such as education, adequate housing, and the like which allow them to develop and pursue their own conception of the good, and by protecting them from the violation of important rights, such as the right to bodily integrity, to free association and the like. Given increasing global inter-dependence, both the provision of basic goods and protection against violation of rights require states to participate in the construction and maintenance of an orderly international system. Among the central elements of that system are the arrangements for preventing and resolving violent conflict between states. Since the end of the Second World War, at least, there has been broad agreement about the principles which should govern those arrangements. Each state has sovereign authority within its own territory, and must acknowledge that all other states possess the same right. In particular, they must not use force, or the threat of force, to violate another state’s territorial integrity, though they may be justified in using force to respond to such violation. There is of course an elaborate structure of norms and organizations dedicated to instantiating those principles, what might be called the institution of war. That institution has a long history, but the acceptance of the prohibition of aggressive war has fundamentally changed its raison d’être, which is now (perhaps paradoxically) the preservation and restoration of peace. The primary purpose of national armies, the main purveyors of inter-state violence, is to deter attacks on the state and if deterrence fails, to resist such attacks. Understood in the way sketched above, the institution of war is animated by a fundamentally moral purpose, and needs to be designed and evaluated in the light of that purpose. Many of the particular developments in the laws of war, such as the prohibitions on ‘weapons of mass destruction’, and on targeting civilians and non-military targets, can be rationalized as attempts to limit the damage that war-fighting can do to the pre-conditions for a good life in peace-time. And there is a huge literature discussing the ways in which the institution of war should evolve in the face of changing contingencies in such things as weapons systems and socio-political forces.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableVirtue-Led social work practice(Springer Science+Business Media, 2017)The ten biographies presented in this book offer an important opportunity for social work/social welfare/community and social development/human services students, practitioners and educators, and any general reader to look at these professionals’ life stories and some of the virtues we have identified and interpreted from those stories. What is the significance of these biographies? What virtues are demonstrated in their practices? What might we learn from them? Do they have any potential to influence ourselves and our practice? They may or may not be exemplary and we are hesitant to call them so, and we leave it to readers to see what they think. However, the subjects’ lifelong practice stories speak of their practical wisdom, at least to some extent in some respects. While reflecting on these biographies and their virtues, we must pose a crucial question: So what? In this concluding chapter we try to address this question by looking at the possibilities and consequences of virtue-led social work practice, some of the common or core virtues identified in the ten biographies, and the potential for virtue-led social work practice in the future.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSearching for virtue ethics: A survey of social work ethics curriculum and educators(Oxford University Press (OUP), 2019)This article discusses whether, and to what extent, virtue ethics is covered in the social work ethics curriculum and views of social work ethics educators in Australia. Drawing on a survey of social work ethics curriculum and education, it presents the nature and scope of social work ethics subjects in terms of learning outcomes; overall curriculum content; textbooks used; teaching approaches, challenges and strategies for teaching; and social work ethics educators’ views about teaching virtue ethics. It argues that attention to virtues is largely absent in terms of consciously developing certain qualities and character. The findings, conclusions and implications of the study will be useful to social work researchers, educators and practitioners alike.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableThe Government Should Never Wage War(Bloomsbury, 2020)
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ItemEmpower People to Take Control of Their Own Lives - Tom Calma, AO(Springer, 2017)Professor Tom Calma, AO, is an elder from the Kungarakan and Iwaidja tribal groups from the south-west Darwin region and the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory. Tom served about 45 years in the Australian public sector with a difference. Some of the notable positions he held in his service were the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner and Race Discrimination Commissioner and he served as a senior Australian diplomat in India and Vietnam. Tom has dedicated his life to the cause of human rights and social justice, and empowerment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Analysis of his life and practice shows inspirational contributions and qualities.
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ItemIntroduction - The Role of Virtues in Social Work Practice(Springer Science+Business Media, 2017)