Contrary to stereotypes about enlightenment texts, the Treatise of Human Nature is thoroughly inegalitarian. This inegalitarianism is descriptive, not normative: Hume builds a tendency to create inequities into his theory of human nature, and he describes humans as continually and inevitably ranking one another and themselves as superior or inferior. I begin by showing the pervasiveness of inegalitarianism in Book 2’s theory of the passions—in the analysis of pride and the influence of property on pride, in the way that human commonality intensifies power imbalances, and in the influence of comparison on our sympathy with those judged superior or inferior. I then explain how Book 3’s analyses of natural abilities and justice reinforce the inegalitarianism of our passions. In other writings, Hume seems more aware of and concerned with questions of equality, but the Treatise offers few resources for criticizing the inequality that seems to result from our nature.

Chapter 20 presents the way in which Proclus interpreted the figure of the tyrant in Plato’s dialogues. Tyranny is based on force, violates law, both cosmic and human, and is motivated by a misled desire for power, power divorced from goodness and knowledge. I argue that Proclus and other Platonists, Damascius and Simplicius, could use this interpretation of Plato to describe the political regimes of their period, in particular the rule of Emperor Justinian, as tyrannies. These tyrannies, in their metaphysical ignorance and moral turpitude, violated divine order and law in destroying pagan temples and statues. I consider finally the cases of two authors, John Lydus and Procopius of Caesarea, who describe Justinian’s rule in terms of kingship or tyranny.

“Manners” alternates between the portrayal of self-reliant “gentlemen” like Montaigne, Socrates, and El Cid, who are “original and commanding” and “fashion,” an imitative “hall of the Past” where “virtue [has] gone to seed.” But near the end of the essay he turns away from forms of aristocratic morality by introducing two new heroes: a woman, “the Persian Lilla,” who reconciles “all heterogeneous persons into one society”; and then “Osman,” a poor beggar at the gates of the Shah who is a “great heart … so sunny and hospitable in the centre of the country,” and whose wealth lies in his ability to “harbor” madness without sharing it. The introduction of Lilla and Osman late in “Manners” raises the question of how they align with its other heroes. Are they part of a turn or contrary tendency showing up late in the essay, or a deeper exploration of forms of virtue – especially love – already introduced?

Many cognitive experiments have shown that iconic dimensional conformations are prominent in implicit thought and perception of authority ranking relations. Cognitive experiments are designed to isolate the parameters of interest, or hold other parameters constant, so as to be able to make strong causal inferences. Schubert’s 2005 study showed pairs of role terms to German participants and told them to respond as quickly as possible to indicate with the UP or DOWN key to indicate whether the more powerful role terms was above or below the other role term. Participants responded significantly more slowly when the powerful role was displayed on the screen below the less powerful, compared to when the powerful role was displayed above the less powerful (Schubert 2005). Other researchers have replicated Schubert’s results, and extended them to surface area and to mass. Also, preverbal infants readily recognize that iconic dimensional conformations mean authority ranking relationships.

This chapter analyzes the controversy that arose after the assassination of Henry IV in 1610 between the Jesuits, especially Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and Jacques Davy du Peron, and Louis XIII and his royalist supporters in France. Peron claimed in print that the young Louis XIII was illegitimate becasue the pope had annulled the marriage of Henry IV to Marguerite de Valois.. He further claimed that the popes authority was superior to that of kings. This chapter demonstrates that the language used to denounce Bellarmine and Peron by Gallican supporters of the crown, especially at the Estates General of 1614, underscored the vocabulary of the royal state.

This chapter takes its departure from the views expressed by Newtonian humanism, post-Newtonianism, and para-humanism that shape different conceptualizations of power as an instrument of calculable control in small worlds and as a source of incalculable protean power in large ones (section 1). By way of summary, it shows how both kinds of power have operated in the domains of risk and uncertainty in finance, nuclear crisis, and global warming/AI discussed in chapters 4–6 (section 2) and in another ten cases. As the main source of the modern conception of control power Thomas Hobbes articulates a rigid, authoritarian theory of language that fits into a Newtonianism formalized about forty years after Hobbes had published Leviathan. Niels Bohr’s post-Newtonian perspective and its permissive core construct of complementarity differ profoundly from Hobbes’s insistence on the necessity of a sovereign’s total control of language. During the last half century updates of these two positions by social theorist Michel Foucault and physicist-feminist Karen Barad have clarified further the yawning gap that separates them (section 3). The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of Machiavelli’s understanding of fortuna and the potentialities of protean power (section 4).

Chapter 7 explains what chilling effects theory – based on the new theory advanced in this book – is “for,” that is, what aims or purposes the theory can be used to achieve. The author illustrates these useful functions and applications, including demonstrating how chilling effects are weaponized against disfavored groups or to support systems of power and control; correcting flawed popular assumptions about chilling effects; and improving our understanding of both law and privacy.

Clinical trials are a cornerstone of evaluating new interventions. Although there are similarities between clinical trials across medical specialties there are specific issues that need to be considered when designing, running and evaluating clinical trials in mental health. The purpose of this chapter is to present an overview of the common principles and methods of interventional clinical trials with illustrations drawn from general psychiatry. The chapter provides a guide to understanding clinical trials from design to analysis, drawing on recent work to illustrate fundamental concepts and covers novel factorial and platform designs. outlining advantages and disadvantages of each. This chapter summarises essential steps of interventional clinical trials in psychiatry describing the process from initial hypothesis generation, the role of patient and public involvement, steps to prepare a trial protocol, statistical considerations dissemination of results. The aim is to provide the reader with the tools to be able to understand different methodologies and in design of clinical trial in mental health.

Chapter 4 elaborates a new theory of chilling effects – as conformity and compliance. The author argues that chilling effects are best understood as a more powerful form of conformity and compliance – just like conformity, chilling effects reflect a behavioral tendency to self-censor and conform in the face of threats like surveillance, uncertain laws, or personal threats. The chapter also elaborates what the author deems the four “chilling effect” factors: observation; uncertainty; personalization or personal threats; and power and authority, which help predict and explain chilling effects. The chapter explains not only why chilling effects are so powerful in their impact on our behavior, but also their additive effects – how each additional chilling effect “factor” amplifies or magnifies the impact and scope of a chilling effect.

This chapter has been written from the stance of a patient and public contributor to mental health research. It examines the role of patient and public involvement in mental health research which has evolved since the mid 1960s and continues to do so. Examining the people, roles and research and providing a definition for the different stages of Patient and Public Involvement, the chapter looks at how these roles interact, the ethics and rationale for involvement, the power relations between the various parties, whether involvement is moving the research agenda closer to preventative health care, and the subject of equality, diversity and inclusion. The difficulties of working with people with serious mental health issues are addressed. Case studies are given to illustrate various points. Subjects such as training and language are included. The complex subject of evaluation and impact and how they can be resolved are raised. Finally, the chapter concludes by inviting the reader to consider what ‘good PPI’ is, and how it is done.

This chapter explores a range of theoretical and conceptual resources for making sense of the state, with an accent on those most relevant to the role of the state in sustainability transitions. It looks at how the state has been addressed to date in literatures on socio-technical transitions, but also how conceptualisations in disciplines as diverse as politics and political theory, political economy and international relations, geography, sociology and development studies can be selectively combined to provide a more multifaceted, historical, global and political account of the state in all its dimensions as they relate to the challenge of sustainability transitions.

The first chapter of the book covers the context, aims and objectives of the book and situates these aims and the book’s approach in relation to both existing strands of academic scholarship and contemporary policy debates about the role of the state in sustainability transitions.

This chapter examines three reasons for discontent with law’s governance of technology. Reservations concern the exercise of legal powers, the convenience of legal regulations, and prestige. The analysis is supplemented with the impact that the pace of technological innovation has on legal systems and the distinction between internal and external problems of legal governance. The internal problems regard the efficacy, efficiency, and overall soundness of the normative acts; the external problems are related to the claims of further regulatory systems in society, such as the forces of the market, or of social customs. By following the recommendations of Leibniz in the sixth paragraph of his Discourse on Metaphysics, the overall idea is to discuss the simplest possible hypothesis to attain the richest world of phenomena. Discontent with law’s governance of technology is indeed a complex topic with manifold polymorphous ramifications.

By tracing the origin and evolution of the Safavid order, the book offers fresh insights into how religious and sociopolitical forces merged to create a powerful Shiʿi empire. Iran remains the only Shiʿi nation in the world today. Ideal for readers interested in Middle Eastern history, religious studies, and political thought, Mantle of the Sufi Kings is essential for anyone seeking to understand the complex roots of Iran’s identity.

The primary motivation of members of the ruling class is the quest for power. Power, which enables people to accomplish other goals, is also a desired end in itself. Those who have the greatest desire for power will self-select into activities that allow them to exercise power over others. Participants in the political marketplace will be most successful if they are open to negotiating any offer from other participants, which implies that principled politicians will be at a disadvantage to those who are less principled. In their quest for power, the ruling class seeks stability to prevent challengers from displacing them. Creative destruction, in markets for goods and services and in the political marketplace, works against the elite, so there is a tendency for the economic and political elite to work together to prevent that creative destruction. Unchecked, this tendency can displace progress with stagnation.

This chapter analyzes voluntary compliance in tax contexts, focusing on the importance of procedural justice and tax morale. It also explores conditions under which governments can achieve optimal revenue levels.

Nietzsche’s famous critique of morality is that it is a mere ideology that is rooted in unconscious psychological mechanisms of “ressentiment.” Those mechanisms lead a “priestly caste” and their “herd” of followers to fashion new ethical concepts – those of deontic morality – that project repressed anger and hatred rather than responding to anything true or really valuable. In these respects, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard seem light years apart. However, there are also significant affinities between these two otherwise opposed philosophers. One concerns the role of faith. Although Nietzsche is no friend of religious faith, he emphasizes that the “free spirit” of his favored “overmen” involves faith, but of a different kind. A second point of agreement between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard concerns the signal importance of the particular individual and the claim that authentic individuality can only be achieved outside and beyond morality. For Nietzsche, the “free spirit” of a “new philosophy” is only possible once the sociocultural consequences of deontic morality have been fully worked through in a way that enables individuals to become their own “sovereigns” and take responsibility for their own lives without the crutch of morality. Only then can there be “autonomous, supra-ethical individual[s].”

Constructivism emphasizes the role of ideas, identities, and norms in shaping state behavior and international politics, as well as the intersubjective and relational nature of these ideational factors. Social relations “make or construct people – ourselves – into the kinds of beings that we are. Conversely, we make the world what it is, by doing what we do with each other and saying what we say to each other” (Onuf, 1998, 59). Constructivism therefore highlights the intangible yet relational aspects of our reality: a world in which the meaning of objects and actions is not fixed but socially constructed through our interactions; states are held together by collective belief and actively participate in the social construction of anarchy. Norms play a significant role by defining appropriate behavior and enabling action by providing a framework for actors to understand and interact with the world.