This book offers the first full-length treatment in English of Hegel's idea of freedom - his theory of what it is to be free and his account of the social and political contexts in which this freedom is developed, realized, and sustained. Freedom is the value that Hegel most greatly admired and the central organizing concept of his social philosophy.

According to what Patten calls the "need-based" view, "we have a very strong and extensive set of duties to come to the assistance of the global poor: duties that are grounded in the neediness of the poor.".

According to John Tomasi's Free Market Fairness, there are serious constraints on what a liberal state may do to promote economic justice. Tomasi defends this claim by arguing that important economic liberties ought to be regarded as “basic” and given special priority over other liberal concerns, including those of economic justice. I argue that Tomasi's defense of this claim is unsuccessful. One problem takes the form of a dilemma: depending on how the claim is formulated more precisely, Tomasi's argument seems (...) either to be compatible with standard (e.g., Rawlsian) liberalism or to tell against even the minimal taxation that would be necessary to support the social safety net he supports. Second, granting “basic” status to economic liberties would in many cases defeat the goal, self-authorship, that Tomasi sees himself as sharing with other liberals. Third, contrary to Tomasi's suggestions, no inconsistency arises when liberals (such as Rawls) refuse to recognize the economic liberties as basic. Fourth and finally, the special significance that Tomasi attaches to agency does not provide any additional reason for accepting Tomasi's conclusions. (shrink)

This volume provides an up-to-date overview of the emerging debates over the role of language rights and linguistic diversity within political theory. Thirteen chapters, written by many of the leading theorists in the field, identify the challenges and opportunities that linguistic diversity raises for contemporary societies.

Theories of multiculturalism explore whether minority cultural groups have rights and claims that limit the nation-building aims of the modern state and that protect a space in which minorities can...

The paper offers a critical engagement with Cécile Laborde’s book, Liberalism’s Religion. It elaborates several objections to Laborde’s account of religious accommodations, and sketches an alternative approach.

Alan Patten | : Equal Recognition seeks to restate the case in favour of liberal multiculturalism in a manner that is responsive to major objections that have been advanced by critics in recent years. The book engages, among other questions, with two central unresolved problems. First, how should ideas of culture and cultural preservation be understood, given widespread suspicion that these ideas rely on an unavowed, but objectionable, form of essentialism? And, second, what exactly is the normative basis (...) of cultural rights claims, and what are the limits on those claims? My four commentators advance a variety of different criticisms of the book’s answers to these questions. I offer replies to each of their main challenges. | : Equal Recognition réaffirme l’argument en faveur du multiculturalisme libéral de façon à répondre aux objections majeures qui lui ont été adressées ces dernières années. Le livre se penche, entre autres, sur deux problèmes centraux, non résolus. Premièrement, comment les idées de culture et de préservation culturelle devraient être comprises, étant donné la suspicion répandue selon laquelle ces idées se fondent sur une forme d’essentialisme aussi inavoué que répréhensible? Deuxièmement, quelle est exactement la base normative des requêtes de droits culturels, et quelles sont les limites à ces requêtes? Mes quatre commentateurs avancent une variété de critiques différentes quant aux réponses que ce livre apporte à ces questions. Je réponds ici à chacune d’elles. (shrink)

Liberal egalitarians agree that the state should protect and promote the freedom of the individual and strive to establish equality of opportunity and resources. They tend to disagree, however, about what these principles entail concerning the state's attitude to the success or failure of the different national cultures which co-exist in many modern political communities. To some it seems obvious that, given the profound importance of culture in shaping a person's identity and outlook, treating people in accordance with liberal egalitarian (...) principles means ensuring the equal survival and success of the cultures to which they belong. Actual practice seems to accord with this conviction to at least some degree in many places in the world: in countries like Canada, Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom, to mention just a few, minority cultures are provided with at least some of the political and financial resources needed to ensure their own survival and flourishing. (shrink)

ABSTRACT All of the major German Idealists perceived a gap between ideals and social reality. Kant sought to bridge this gap through an institutional design that forced self-interest to track the public good. Fichte embraced cultural nationalism, according to which, to overcome the gap between ideals and reality, a nation must revive and strengthen its original culture. Hegel’s solution, in contrast, rests on the idea of ethical habituation. For Hegel, the institutions of a well-designed social order encourage the habits and (...) virtues needed for the successful reproduction of that order. The article reflects on the implications of these contrasts for the prospects of liberal democracy. (shrink)

The paper argues that modern 'linguistic nationalism' has intellectual roots in Renaissance humanist thought. In their study of classical antiquity, the humanists found a powerful model of the relationship between language and politics, one which had eloquence as its central concept and theorized language as a source of social and political power and as a vehicle for glorifying the deeds of statesmen. This model was originally revived by the humanists in the context of their belief that the Latin language had (...) been badly degraded and corrupted since the fall of Rome. Emphasizing the power and glory that would accompany a return to Latin eloquence, they advocated a programme of Latin revival. By the sixteenth century, poets and intellectuals who were immersed in Renaissance humanism, and who were oriented to the political problems of emerging European nation-states, began applying this model to the vernacular. The view eloborated here suggests a factor that is ignored by both modernist accounts of nationalism and their critics: the importance at the threshold of modernity of a specific pre-modern conception of language and politics that had been retrieved and adapted to contemporary circumstances by Renaissance humanists. (shrink)

Israel is often described as a Jewish state and as the locus of Jewish self-determination. How should these phrases be understood? How can they be squared with a commitment to equal citizenship for non-Jewish Israelis? This Article distinguishes between descriptive and normative answers to these questions. The descriptive answer interprets the phrases as referring to the fact that a majority of Israelis are Jewish. The normative answer reads into the phrases a special obligation to promote the common good of the (...) Jewish people. The Article argues that the phrases are unobjectionable when taken in the descriptive sense, but problematic when understood in the normative sense. A state that is guided by the normative answer would offer inadequate protection to key interests of minorities. The critique of the normative answer also points to the more positive conclusion that Israel should foster an Israeli civic identity amongst all its citizens. (shrink)

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In this introduction, we first give a brief overview of the debate over multiculturalism in political theory. We then situate Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition in that context by highlighting his major normative thesis, according to which there are reasons of principle, in a liberal democracy, to grant special forms of public recognition and accommodation to cultural minorities. Finally, we present a succinct summary of the nine articles that (...) follow this introduction and that critically engage with Patten’s arguments. (shrink)

Jonathan Quong | : Alan Patten presents his account of minority rights as broadly continuous with Ronald Dworkin’s theory of equality of resources. This paper challenges this claim. I argue that, contra Patten, Dworkin’s theory does not provide a basis to offer accommodations or minority rights, as a matter of justice, to some citizens who find themselves at a relative disadvantage in pursuing their plans of life after voluntarily changing their cultural or religious commitments. | : (...) class='Hi'>Alan Patten considère que sa théorie des droits des minorités s’inscrit en continuité avec celle de l’égalité des ressources chez Donald Dworkin. Cet article interroge cette affirmation. Je soutiens que, contrairement à ce que pense Patten, la théorie de Dworkin ne fournit pas de base en vue d’accommodations ou des droits de la minorité, en ce qui a trait à la justice, à des citoyens relativement désavantagés par la poursuite de leur plan de vie après avoir volontairement changé de culture ou d’engagements religieux. (shrink)

This is a reply to four critics of my book Liberalism’s Religion: Jonathan Quong, Alan Patten, David Miller and Jeremy Waldron, whose essays have been published in a Special Issue of Criminal Law and Philosophy.

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous, If the meaning of the words "machine" and "think" are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to (...) the question, "Can machines think?" is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll. But this is absurd. Instead of attempting such a definition I shall replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words. The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B. We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?". (shrink)

What is the basis for arguing that a volunteer army exploits citizens who lack civilian career opportunities? How do we determine that a doctor who has sex with his patients is exploiting them? In this book, Alan Wertheimer seeks to identify when a transaction or relationship can be properly regarded as exploitative--and not oppressive, manipulative, or morally deficient in some other way--and explores the moral weight of taking unfair advantage. Among the first political philosophers to examine this important topic (...) from a non-Marxist perspective, Wertheimer writes about ordinary experience in an accessible yet philosophically penetrating way. He considers whether it is seriously wrong for a party to exploit another if the transaction is consensual and mutually advantageous, whether society can justifiably prohibit people from entering into such a transaction, and whether it is wrong to allow oneself to be exploited. Wertheimer first considers several contexts commonly characterized as exploitive, including surrogate motherhood, unconscionable contracts, the exploitation of student athletes, and sexual exploitation in psychotherapy. In a section outlining his theory of exploitation, he sets forth the criteria for a fair transaction and the point at which we can properly say that a party has consented. Whereas many discussions of exploitation have dealt primarily with cases in which one party harms or coerces another, Wertheimer's book focuses on what makes a mutually advantageous and consensual transaction exploitive and analyzes the moral and legal implications of such exploitation. (shrink)

After more than a decade of reflection on obedience experiments based on a laboratory model of his own design, the social psychologist Stanley Milgram is clearly confident that the experimental results make a substantial and striking contribution towards understanding human nature:Something … dangerous is revealed: the capacity for man to abandon his humanity, indeed, the inevitability that he does so, as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures.

This chapter presents emotion as a function of brain‐body interaction, as a vital part of a multi‐tiered phylogenetic set of neural mechanisms, evoked by both instinctive processes and learned appraisal systems, and argues to establish the primacy of emotion in relation to cognition. Primarily based on Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, but also incorporating elements of Lazarus' appraisal theory, this paper presents a neuropedagogical model of emotion, the somatic appraisal model of affect (SAMA). SAMA identifies quintessential components, facets, and functions of (...) affect necessary to provide a new domain, namely educational neuroscience, with a basis on which to build a dynamic model of affect serving to critique traditional cognitivist‐oriented curricula and instruction, and to inform an alternative: neuropedagogy. (shrink)