Professor Martin Ashley
I retired from full-time academic work in 2013 and have finally, after thirteen years of hanging on, decided that it’s no longer appropriate to maintain the website of a working academic. I have long been an advocate of open access but without an institution to fund the article processing charge, peer review which remains the gold standard for publication has become an expensive business. I do still enjoy writing and had considered starting a blog but one thing I neither enjoy nor feel comfortable with is the self-promotion of social media and the continual need to work its wretched algorithms. So I have decided that the occasional “essay” is probably the best way to keep my interest in philosophy active I hope some of these will be of interest to those who discover them.
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Although my research outputs may appear somewhat eclectic, polymath even, you will find a coherent narrative derived from my 1998 thesis on value as a reason for action. My principal concern is with environmental sustainability and my contention is that it will never be achieved unless the environment and natural world are valued more highly. I realise now that I left the most fundamental question unanswered, and it’s a big philosophical one. Are intrinsic values real?
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For the last two or three years, I have been writing essays on the topic of early music, or more specifically the boy voice and historic pitch. Early music is something I value personally, so probably a diversionary indulgence but motivated by the work we did on Boys Keep Singing and the strange paradox that the voice of the boy meane is so little valued by the early music community.​​​
My research outputs between 1992 and 2026 are listed here and available to anyone who cares to seek them out via booksellers, the publishers’ websites or, in some cases, Researchgate and Academia. I plan to make as many of my peer reviewed papers as possible directly available via this site wherever it can be done without infringment of publishers' rights. You are always welcome to contact me directly for access to a text for your own research.
Predictions made in 1998 that were based on detailed analysis of the values of the “Millennium Children” (those born during the 1980s and at school during the 90s) have come to pass. The climate has warmed significantly and it is now looking probable that the Millennium Children and their descendants will witness irreversible tipping points. Why?
Value as a reason for action has motivated and sustained an approach to education in the Steiner Waldorf schools markedly different from that driven by the values of mainstream schooling. The work we were privileged to undertake in the Steiner schools has been the most widely read of all my publications - which can be seen as a measure of value in itself.
There is a difference between value and values. This is explained on the gender justice page. Gender justice is one of the values I apply to my work and life, as is spirituality in the non-confessional sense.
The amount of time and money I spend travelling to choirs is a measure of how much I value choral singing. The discovery that a small minority boys shared that value led to significant amounts of grant funding in the hope that in the interests of gender justice more boys might discover the same "spiritual" satisfaction.
Most significant work by royalty income.
The more copies of a text that are sold, the higher its rated value. Still a long way to go to equal J.K. Rowling, but valued more highly than books dealing only with boys' singing.