An Emergency Management Doctrine

Emergency Management has not developed in a cohesive or comprehensive manner. Differing terms are used to name identical concepts. A standard comprehensive doctrine for the important development of emergency management is needed. In this paper I explain a doctrinal framework for emergency management. The paper states a clear identification of the five dimensions, and each of their components, necessary to the informed practice of Emergency Management. Although emergencies vary in cause and severity, the process of Emergency Management necessary for optimal handling of these emergencies varies little. The “All Hazards Approach” to emergency management establishes and reinforces commonality in processes, procedures, planning templates and organizational structure. The three types of agencies associated with emergency management activities are discussed, including the subject matter agency, coordinating agency, and supporting agency. The four critical functions of emergency management are detailed, and include mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, often all carried out concurrently. The ten activities, and seven resources of emergency management are highlighted. There are many ways to represent the integration of these five dimensions, to ensure completeness, while ensuring clarity; the two most common are described. When experts in Emergency Management follow the doctrine, they can coordinate all those involved to be sure that all aspects of any hazard are considered, and that all organizations/agencies, functions, activities, and resources of Emergency Management are coordinated and optimally active. Following this process is the only way to ensure the best outcomes from any emergency.

The Doctrine of Virtue as a Doctrine of Ends

This chapter concerns the first three sections of Kant’s dedicated introduction to Part II of the Metaphysics of Morals—The Doctrine of Virtue. Section 1 of the chapter explains why, according to Kant, there must be a doctrine of virtue as a part of a more comprehensive doctrine of morals. Section 2 explains why ethics is both a doctrine of virtue and a doctrine of ends. Section 3 discusses the concept of an end that is also a duty and why such ends are fundamental in a doctrine of virtue. Section 4 considers Kant’s argument that there must be ends that are also duties, otherwise (so he argues) there can be no doctrine of morals. The chapter’s conclusion is summary.

Union and Unionisms in the United Kingdom

Unionism is a complex set of doctrines with various strands. There is assimilative unionism; patriot unionism, which accepts the multinational nature of the UK but insists on Westminster supremacy; contractual unionism, which insists on the historic rights of the nations; and a smaller devolutionary unionism. After 1999, unionists almost all accepted the new dispensation and regrouped against the renewed secessionist demands. This neo-unionism has sought a set of normative and constitutional principles to underpin it, but this has proved elusive. Historic unionism did not have such a comprehensive doctrine but combined the different strands according to time and place. Nor are neo-unionists agreed on the place of the UK within Europe. Neo-unionism is thus reduced to caricaturing its opponents as parochial and backward-looking at a time when peripheral nationalism, by and large, has accepted Europe and the pooling of sovereignty, and is mostly socially progressive.

An Emergency Management Doctrine

Emergency Management has not developed in a cohesive or comprehensive manner. Differing terms are used to name identical concepts. A standard comprehensive doctrine for the important development of emergency management is needed. In this paper I explain a doctrinal framework for emergency management. The paper states a clear identification of the five dimensions, and each of their components, necessary to the informed practice of Emergency Management. Although emergencies vary in cause and severity, the process of Emergency Management necessary for optimal handling of these emergencies varies little. The “All Hazards Approach” to emergency management establishes and reinforces commonality in processes, procedures, planning templates and organizational structure. The three types of agencies associated with emergency management activities are discussed, including the subject matter agency, coordinating agency, and supporting agency. The four critical functions of emergency management are detailed, and include mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery, often all carried out concurrently. The ten activities, and seven resources of emergency management are highlighted. There are many ways to represent the integration of these five dimensions, to ensure completeness, while ensuring clarity; the two most common are described. When experts in Emergency Management follow the doctrine, they can coordinate all those involved to be sure that all aspects of any hazard are considered, and that all organizations/agencies, functions, activities, and resources of Emergency Management are coordinated and optimally active. Following this process is the only way to ensure the best outcomes from any emergency.

Ethical Autonomy

This chapter expounds the idea of ethical autonomy. Ethical autonomy is personal autonomy modulated by moral character. It is different in kind from personal autonomy. Fusing personal autonomy with moral character alters the autonomous individual’s utilization of her rational and imaginative faculties, her will, her capabilities, and her options. Ethical autonomy is supportive of various kinds of social, political, and religious forms of difference. It is not a comprehensive doctrine. It is suitable for inclusion in educational spheres and it supports citizenship in free societies. Ethical autonomy strengthens reasonable pluralism and the cardinal principles of a liberalism of conscience. It holds special promise for liberalism and democratic life.

Gotta Serve Somebody? Religious Liberty, Freedom of Conscience, and Religion as Comprehensive Doctrine

This article critically assesses an account of religious liberty often associated with several legal and political philosophers: Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, and Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager. Calling it the Religion as Comprehensive Doctrine approach (RCD), the author contrasts it with an account often attributed to John Locke and the American Founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the Two Sovereigns approach (TS). He argues that the latter provides an important corrective to RCD’s chief weakness: RCD eliminates (or greatly diminishes) from our vision those aspects of religious belief and practice that most conventional religious believers would consider essential to their faith.

The limits of conjecture: Political liberalism, counter-radicalisation and unreasonable religious views

Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons’ opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls’s theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values.

What Parents May Teach Their Children

Many liberals assume that, while children should not be rigidly indoctrinated, parents may raise them according to their own comprehensive values. Matthew Clayton, however, argues that the reasons for embracing antiperfectionism in politics also apply to parental authority. In this paper, I defend the perfectionist conception of childrearing. I claim that we cannot realistically foster a child’s sense of justice without embedding it in a comprehensive doctrine. Furthermore, I argue that since parents cannot avoid bearing some responsibility for their children’s intial orientation to comprehensive doctrines, they are justified in parenting according to their own views of the valuable and true.

Religious Exemptions

This chapter considers whether political liberals can recognize exemptions from generally applicable laws when those laws substantially burden living in accordance with a religious comprehensive doctrine. It is argued that in some cases political liberals can recognize religious accommodations or exemptions. However, political liberals cannot single out religion, in particular, for special treatment; when other commitments function in the same way, those commitments should enjoy the same status as religious commitments. Nevertheless, it is claimed that political liberals cannot recognize exemptions or accommodations on any basis when a law is needed to secure and protect the equal standing of all persons as free and equal citizens.