| Another Modest Proposal: In Defence of the Prohibition against Torture (2008) | |||||||||||||||
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| Chapter 3 of "Fresh Perspectives on the ‘War on Terror’". François Marie Arouet was born in 1694 when the Ancien Régime — the iron fist of Louis XIV in the velvet glove of Versailles — seemed insouciant, eternal, and impervious to change. Yet by the time of Arouet’s death in 1778, the Enlightenment had wrought such a destabilising effect upon the old order that it was on the point of collapse. Arouet, writing under the nom de plume Voltaire, was a pivotal figure in the development of modern Western ideas about government and justice. Playwright, essayist, and critic, he was above all a relentless fighter against cruelty and superstition. I doubt many would disagree with me when I say that we still have need of such fighters. But sometimes we find the advocates of cruelty and superstition in surprising places. | |||||||||||||||
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