I NOTE that Professor Adam Tomkins, a constitutional lawyer at the University of Glasgow, claims in your article on the key referendum battleground of Glasgow ("Population melting pot in an area with a long tradition of protest votes", The Herald, September 18), to have heard that the University of Glasgow's entire Philosophy Department would be voting Yes, and that this would be "an act of extreme selfishness by ...
people with no sense of solidarity". This is not true. The Philosophy Department contains both Yes and No voters and I am confident that each of us - whether voting Yes or No - came to their decision not only out of self-concern but on account of careful consideration of what we think is best for all. United in this we stand.
The moral of the story is that one cannot tell what a person's motives are just by looking at their actions, but also that one must first find out what the actions are.
Professor Fiona Macpherson,
Head of Philosophy,
University of Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article