The company has invested in a pounds 14m forging machine called the GFMSXP65 one of only two in the world

The company has invested in a pounds 14m forging machine called the GFMSXP65, one of only two in the world. The other is in the United States.In a recent interview, a company spokesman expressed interest in making a gun barrel of composite materials surrounded by an outer steel casing. But last night Tony Peck, a company spokesman, said that it had kept the Department of Trade and Industry fully informed about the components, which he believed were petrochemical pipes which they had been developing over the past 18 months. No arrests were made.Forgemasters said last night that its directors had been interviewed by Customs officers, but that the discussions had been "amicable". The containers, holding the supposed gun-barrel sections, were labelled "Republic of Iraq, Ministry for Industries and Minerals, Petrochemical project, Baghdad, Iraq".Other Customs Officers later searched and removed documents from the offices of two companies - one, at Halesowen, West Midlands, where the alleged barrel was thought to have been designed, and Sheffield Forgemasters, where it was believed to have been manufactured.

CUSTOMS AND Excise officers yesterday "detained" a consignment of cylinders which they believe to be sections of the world's largest gun, bound for Iraq. The barrel, which is said to be almost 40 metres long and capable of firing 1,000mm shells, was in sections when discovered by officers at Teesport, Middlesbrough, who had become suspicious of the export documentation before the packages were loaded on the ship. The consignment is due to be inspected by an arms expert today and may be "seized". I agree that the human universals which constitute the holy grail for traditional moral philosophers are to be found in our genes, but I think the phenomena that traditionalists discuss are almost entirely determined by social evolution. I do not believe the strategies we use in coordinating with other human beings are hard-wired - rather we learn them as we grow to maturity by imitating the behaviour of those higher in the pecking order.Ken Binmore is the author of `Game Theory and the Social Contract Vol 2: just playing' (MIT Press, pounds 29.95). But his relativism forces him to deny that his opinion on what is optimal is worth more than that of the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus.Part of the reason the reaction to sociobiology has been so vitriolic is that it has concentrated its attention in the past largely on biological or genetic evolution, as if we are pieces of robotic wetware like ants. He may think his expertise about the way societies work makes it likely that he know more than others about which reforms are feasible.

Moore's claim that evolutionary ethics necessarily maintains that "we ought to move in the direction of evolution simply because it is the direction of evolution". In self-defence they have taken to calling themselves behavioural ecologists or evolutionary psychologists. But whatever his name, no modern sociobiologist believes G.E. If we could liberate ourselves from all cultural prejudices, we would find that morality no longer had any meaning for us.Of course, as history shows only too well, no holds are barred when one cultural prejudice seeks to sustain itself against another. Sociobiologists are attacked as fascist dinosaurs still peddling the eugenicist filth of the Social Darwinists of Victorian times.

But those who wish to preach that one society is better than another are not entitled to appeal to naturalistic theories of ethics. Even the wishy-washy liberal doctrine that all societies are equally meritorious receives no support from naturalism. There is no culture- free Archimedian standpoint from which to apply a moral lever to the world. In ante-bellum Virginia, I would probably have been ready to keep slaves like Thomas Jefferson.Such frank relativism is too much for many to swallow. In ancient Athens, I would perhaps have chased after adolescent boys like Socrates.