Somali pirates have taken to hijacking and ransoming commercial shipping while dozens of warships patrol the Gulf of Aden to repress their activities. Why do navies not just blow piracy suspects out of the water? Why are suspect pirates sometimes released? Who can put pirates on trial and why are...

Can moral and political philosophy be used to help solve problems in public life? How? Some philosophers attempt to derive theories to be applied in practice. This, it will be argued, is not a practical or desirable approach. Rather the philosopher should try to understand the values underlying...

For Liverpool and Bristol much work has been done in tracing the role of the slave-trade and slavery in shaping the cities' histories, but the scale and complexity of London's growth in the 18th and 19th centuries has obscured the contribution of slavery to the formation of the modern capital....