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Martin Luther King, Jr. was a visiting professor at Morehouse College in the early 1960’s.* While there, he taught a senior seminar in social and political philosophy. What was on the syllabus? Here’s his outline for the first semester of the course, from the King Center: He includes material from Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Hobbes,  Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill. Here is an exam given in the course: Thanks to various readers and tweeters for bringing this to my attention. Readers may be interested in the forthcoming collection, To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, edited by Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry (Harvard). Shelby and Terry discussed the book and King’s political philosophy on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” yesterday. (*Morehouse says the course took place in 1960; the King Center says 1961-62. The exam’s date of January 25, 1962, suggests the course began in Fall 1961.) [This post was originally published in 2018.]

Consultant David Oliver analyses the claims about spending, waste and inefficiency in healthcare and proposes a ten point plan to restore services to their 2010 level

Thanks to systemic and deliberate underfunding, NHS Emergency departments are now a vision of hell. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11th January 2023 You have to see it to believe it. A few days after Christmas, I hit my head on a scaffolding bolt. There was lots of blood and pain down the […]

Conservative corporate lobbying groups are leaning on the government’s most minoritarian branch, the Supreme Court, to deal a massive blow to the working class and unions.

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I actually heard a woman with an Appalachian accent do this, but I was too nervous to ask for more information.

Today's News:

Up to two million people could be denied a vote unless they apply for ID – with public awareness about the new rules worryingly low, polling for Byline Times has found

‘What are you writing about me?’ and other questions Jo isn’t supposed to ask her therapist, but keeps trying anyway

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with. Here’s why

- by Arwen E Nicholson & Raphaëlle D Haywood

Read at Aeon

From shifty eyes to fidgeting fingers, there are many folk beliefs about the signs of lying – but what does the science say?

- by Tim Brennen & Svein Magnussen

Read at Psyche

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is extraordinary for the power it gives to the government to deny to workers what is universally regarded as a fundamental human right.    A remarkably short measure of only six pages, the Bill replaces the now redundant Transport (Minimum Service Levels) Bill introduced only three months ago. That, in […]

Why it’s vital to present a model before we vote Shorter JQ: Albanese should release draft legislation before the Voice referendum if it is to succeed. Not doing so is a recipe for failure based in part on a mistaken analysis of the 1990s Republic referendum, which I shared for a long time. Although polls […]

The Conservatives have abandoned their post-war commitment to any meaningful social contract, argues Chris Painter, and are reduced to discredited market dogmas and neo-imperial fantasies

Former Merkel adviser General Vad has criticized the Ukraine war. Yet it still seems that sympathetic Germans are afraid to speak up.

While drugs like Prozac are designed to change brain function, there are other, perhaps less obvious ways pollution can change behavior.

"Medicare Advantage is a money-making scam. I should know. I helped to sell it."

It’s not just Harry and Meghan, we are all paying the price for a dysfunctional, corrupted established media – opposition politicians must take action, writes Brian Cathcart