This essay discusses the nature of collective responsibility and explores various controversies associated with its possibility and normative value.

This book has three goals. The first is to demonstrate that the modern, distinctly Kantian, notion of moral responsibility is incoherent by virtue of the way it fuses free will and blameworthiness. The second is to develop an alternative notion of moral responsibility that separates causal responsibility from blameworthiness and views both as relative to the boundaries of our moral community. The third is to establish a framework for arguing openly about our moral responsibility for particular kinds of harm.

How can we make sense of future-looking collective responsibility? What is its moral basis and how -- under what conditions -- can we ascribe it to particular groups? I address these questions below and, in doing so, argue that in ascribing future-looking collective responsibility we need to bring claims of backward-looking (causal) responsibility together with judgments of fairness, practicality, and group identity.

The question of responsibility plays a critical role not only in our attempts to resolve social and political problems, but in our very conceptions of what those problems are. Who, for example, is to blame for apartheid in South Africa? Is the South African government responsible? What about multinational corporations that do business there? Will uncovering the "true facts of the matter" lead us to the right answer? In an argument both compelling and provocative, Marion Smiley demonstrates how (...) attributions of blame—far from being based on an objective process of factual discovery—are instead judgments that we ourselves make on the basis of our own political and social points of view. She argues that our conception of responsibility is a singularly modern one that locates the source of blameworthiness in an individual's free will. After exploring the flaws inherent in this conception, she shows how our judgments of blame evolve out of our configuration of social roles, our conception of communal boundaries, and the distribution of power upon which both are based. The great strength of Smiley's study lies in the way in which it brings together both rigorous philosophical analysis and an appreciation of the dynamics of social and political practice. By developing a pragmatic conception of moral responsibility, this work illustrates both how moral philosophy can enhance our understanding of social and political practices and why reflection on these practices is necessary to the reconstruction of our moral concepts. (shrink)

This essay argues that while the notion of collective responsibiility is incoherent if it is taken to be an application of the Kantian model of moral responsibility to groups, it is coherent -- and important -- if formulated in terms of the moral reactions that we can have to groups that cause harm in the world. I formulate collective responsibility as such and in doing so refocus attention from intentionality to the production of harm.

This essay defends a pragmatic approach to transitional justice by arguing that it provides a convincing view of the relationships between theory and practice and is true to the nature of democratic justice itself.

This essay argues that the concept of dependence now invoked in noramtive discussions of the welfare state is both incoherent and biased as a result of its conflation of four distinctly different notions of dependence, ranging from the purely causal to that associated with lower class identities.

This essay articulates a series of questions that can be used to explore the gendered nature of any work of philosophy and then answers these questions in the context of John Rawls' moral and political thought. The author finds that while Rawls' social contract assumes a patriarchal family, it can be revised for the purpose of securing gender equality in both theory and practice.

This article reflects upon what can go wrong when feminist philosophers begin with a universal identity, rather than with the needs of particular individuals, and argues that we can group individuals together without such a universal identity if we develop a practice of social generalization that places shared needs, rather than identities, at the center of attention.

This essay argues that corporatism in not only inadequate as a social and political philosophy but anti-egalitarian and hierarchical by nature.

This essay argues against conventional approaches to applied ethics on the grounds that they embrace a mistaken view of the relationship between theory and practice; it then goes on to develop a pragmatic alternative with reference to a series of arguments about moral responsibility for external harm.

This article underscores how analytic philosophy can help develop, as well as distort, Marxism and then provides criteria for avoiding the latter.

This article has three parts. The first argues that excuses such as "I didn't know" and "I couldn't help myself" are not, as we are frequently led to believe, vehicles for discovering whether or not an individual's will was free. Instead, they are self-narratives that we produce for the purpose of avoiding blame. The second part explores the particular notion of non-responsibility that governs these self-narratives. The third articulates the role that our judgments of fairness play in decisions to accept (...) or reject pleas of ignorance and mental incompetence in particular cases. (shrink)

This essay argues that Dworkin, Feinberg and others who claim exceptions against the principle of paternalism for the sake of preventing seroius physical harm are forced to treat mature adults as mental incompetents and that they are forced to do so by the prevailing concept of paternalism itself. The essay then shows how we can get around this dilemma by re-thinking paternalism as part of distinctly paternal relationships of domination and inequality.

This article reconstructs John Dewey's philosophy of the public by replacing its emphasis on scientific truth with an interpretive model of inquiry; it then shows how we can use this interpretive model of inquiry both to prevent collective harms and to expand the boundaries of our moral community.

This article addresses the possibility of developing a critical feminist philosophy outside the bounds of foundational thinking.

This article reflects upon what can go wrong when we merge causal responsibility for past harms with a duty-based responsibility for remedying these harms and/or preventing them in the future.

“I didn’t know what I was doing”. “I was totally out of control.” Since we accept and reject such excuses all the time in practice—and frequently do so with great confidence—we might be expected to have grasped what it means for a volitional excuse to be valid in general and to have developed a well thought out set of criteria for judging the validity of such excuses in practice. But, as it turns out, we have not done either of these (...) things. Hence, we are not now able to argue openly about the validity of particular pleas of ignorance and mental incompetence in practice. I set out to remedy this situation below by articulating the nature of volitional excuses in general and by underscoring the role that our moral expectations play in the validation process.I begin in Part One by exploring the nature of volitional excuses themselves. I argue that volitional excuses are not, as we sometimes assume, heuristic devices for discovering that an individual freely willed her bad actions in some. (shrink)

The question of responsibility plays a critical role not only in our attempts to resolve social and political problems, but in our very conceptions of what those problems are. Who, for example, is to blame for apartheid in South Africa? Is the South African government responsible? What about multinational corporations that do business there? Will uncovering the "true facts of the matter" lead us to the right answer? In an argument both compelling and provocative, Marion Smiley demonstrates how (...) attributions of blame—far from being based on an objective process of factual discovery—are instead judgments that we ourselves make on the basis of our own political and social points of view. She argues that our conception of responsibility is a singularly modern one that locates the source of blameworthiness in an individual's free will. After exploring the flaws inherent in this conception, she shows how our judgments of blame evolve out of our configuration of social roles, our conception of communal boundaries, and the distribution of power upon which both are based. The great strength of Smiley's study lies in the way in which it brings together both rigorous philosophical analysis and an appreciation of the dynamics of social and political practice. By developing a pragmatic conception of moral responsibility, this work illustrates both how moral philosophy can enhance our understanding of social and political practices and why reflection on these practices is necessary to the reconstruction of our moral concepts. (shrink)

Thus far, discarding such manuscripts as are copies of printed editions, we have arrived at the following grouping: 1. The group x, in which K is a copy of A, and B of C, while A and C are brothers, the former being only slightly superior to the latter. 2. SQq. Here Q is a copy of S, whose borrowings from Politian it incorporated. Q added some readings from C or K, and scholia and other readings from a manuscript of (...) the Ee stock; and after Q had received these additions, q was in turn copied from Q. 3. IID. Mr. Allen thinks it possible that, for the Homeric Hymns, these two are not direct copies of the same manuscript; and his conclusions may be accepted as indicating their mutual kinship in regard to Callimachus also. D's lost Callimachean portion gave some readings to Politian's text of Hymn V., and is in part represented by J. Lascaris' editio princeps of all six Hymns. 4.Ee, found to be brothers. 5. The group z. Here At appears to be a brother of F; and F stands apart from the z2 section, being nearer than they to xSTLDEe. Among the z2 manuscripts, Br is a copy of I, which is itself separated from GHA; this trio seem, on the imperfect evidence at hand, to be brothers. (shrink)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) gilt weithin als Autor des literarischen Sturm und Drang bzw. der philosophischen und theologischen Spataufklarung. Dass er jedoch auf vielen Gebieten die Klassische Deutsche Philosophie massgeblich beeinflusste, wird eher selten in den Blick genommen. Der Band untersucht dieses sowohl kritische als auch affirmative Rezeptionsverhaltnis Kants, Schellings, Schlegels, Humboldts oder Hegels zu Herder auf den Gebieten der Geschichtsphilosophie, der Metaphysik, der Ethik und Politik sowie der Asthetik und Anthropologie. - Mit Beitragen von Andreas Arndt, Manfred Baum, Christoph (...) Binkelmann, Martin Bondeli, Nigel De Souza, Stefan Greif, Andree Hahmann, Cornelia Klinger, Christian Krijnen, Stephan Nachtsheim, Angelica Nuzzo, Ludger Roth, Gideon Stiening, Violetta Stolz und Gunter Zoller. (shrink)

A timely new work by one of France’s premier philosophers, A Brief Apology for a Catholic Moment offers insight into what “catholic” truly means. In this short, accessible book, Jean-Luc Marion braids the sense of catholic as all-embracing and universal into conversation about what it is to be Catholic in the present moment. A Brief Apology for a Catholic Moment tackles complex issues surrounding church-state separation and addresses a larger Catholic audience that transcends national boundaries, social identities, and linguistic (...) differences. Marion insists that Catholic universalism, with its core of communion and community, is not an outmoded worldview, but rather an outlook that has the potential to counter the positivist rationality and nihilism at the core of our current political moment, and can help us address questions surrounding liberalism and religion and what is often presented as tension between “Islam and the West.” As an inviting and sophisticated Catholic take on current political and social realities—realities that are not confined to France alone—A Brief Apology for a Catholic Moment is a valuable contribution to a larger conversation. (shrink)

Now in paperback, Jean-Luc Marion's groundbreaking philosophy of human uncertainty. In Negative Certainties, renowned philosopher Jean-Luc Marion challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions we have developed about knowledge: that it is categorical, predicative, and positive. Following Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, he looks toward our finitude and the limits of our reason. He asks an astonishingly simple—but profoundly provocative—question in order to open up an entirely new way of thinking about knowledge: Isn’t our uncertainty, our finitude, and rational (...) limitations, one of the few things we can be certain about? Marion shows how the assumption of knowledge as positive demands a reductive epistemology that disregards immeasurable or disorderly phenomena. He shows that we have experiences every day that have no identifiable causes or predictable reasons and that these constitute a very real knowledge—a knowledge of the limits of what can be known. Establishing this “negative certainty,” Marion applies it to four aporias, or issues of certain uncertainty: the definition of man; the nature of God; the unconditionality of the gift; and the unpredictability of events. Translated for the first time into English, Negative Certainties is an invigorating work of epistemological inquiry that will take a central place in Marion’s oeuvre. (shrink)

This book opens up a new area of research by not only considering the rationality of such diverse phenomena as ordinary emotions, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, psychotic depression, major depressive disorder, and bipolar disorder, but also by evaluating the question whether the vagueness of these diverse disorders and emotions poses an obstacle to the rationality of these phenomena. As these emotional phenomena turn out to be vague on many different levels, an explanation is found for the millennia long dispute (...) of which kind of phenomena fall under the emotions and whether such diverse phenomena as hope and alexithymia fall under the emotions. Since vagueness can be most easily identified in mixed feelings, the rationality of mixed feelings will also be dealt with. (shrink)

Prologue -- Une enfance catholique -- Préparation -- Une initiation philosophique -- Dans le miroir des aînés -- En découvrant la théologie -- Les choix de Descartes -- Communion et communication -- Antitotalitaire -- Le tournant -- Premières percées -- Disputes -- Le cas Heidegger -- Augustin et Thomas -- Entre la Somme et la Réforme -- Dans l'ombre du cardinal -- Le vent de l'histoire -- Figures contemporaines -- Les mœurs et l'Église -- L'illusion des valeurs -- Eros -- (...) Les deux papes -- Les polémiques -- En Amérique -- À l'œuvre -- La France, toujours -- L'Europe malgré tout -- Des honneurs et de l'immortalité -- Nihil -- Tour du monde -- Épilogue. (shrink)

English has plural terms as well as singular terms. But our standard formal languages, e.g., the predicate calculus, feature only singular terms. How can the plural idiom be formalized?‘Changing the subject’ is by far the most common plurals strategy among both philosophers and linguists: a plural term is replaced by a singular term standing for some complex object that ‘contains’ the individuals to which the plural term alludes. For example, one might simply replace ‘A, B imply C’ with ‘{A, B} (...) implies [singular] C’. We uncover a surprising variety of ways to change the subject, of ever‐increasing complexity and ingenuity. Our question is whether any can made to work. (shrink)

Presque vingt ans après sa parution, Etant donné (Puf, 1997) a, au-delà des premiers débats, imposé la question du donné et de la donation. Etant donné. Reprise reprend et prolonge ces nouvelles interrogations. D'abord la question de la réduction : définit-elle vraiment le principe dernier de la phénoménologie? Si tel était le cas, la formule " autant de réduction, autant de donation " peut-elle se justifier (en discussion avec la critique de Michel Henry)? Ensuite, la reconnaissance du donné comme instance (...) première et dernière de la phénoménalité peut-elle encore faire droit à l'herméneutique (en discussion avec Hans-Georg Gadamer)? Dans ce cas, comment se déplie le pli de la donation avec la manifestation? Et encore, le monde peut-il se manifester comme l'un des phénomènes donnés, et même comme la totalité du donné? Ou ne faut-il pas lui reconnaître une donation par exception, celle de la possibilité de toute donation (sur la ligne de Jan Patocka)? Enfin, la reprise du phénomène à partir de la donation n'impose-t-elle pas de substituer décidément au modèle de l'objet, constitué à l'identique et pour lui, celui de l'événement, qui surgit à partir de soi seul, sans cause ni a priori (en faisant droit à Claude Romano)? (shrink)

F is Milan, Ambrosianus 120 ;. foll. III. + 227 ; cmm. 25, 1 × 17, 8, with thirty lines to the page; cent. early XV. Contents: ff. 1v–125v, Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, with marginal and interlinear scholia; followed by his Life. 127, Batrachomyomachia. 132v, Pseudo-Herodotus, Life of Homer. 142v Maximus of Tyre, πς τις λνπος η. 145, Orpheus, Argonautica. 168v, πκοοι κα πρòς ρπετ, i.e. Orpheus, Lithica, Il. 91–110, 115–140, 145–171, 176–202, 207–233, 238–266, 271–300, 305–332, 337–364, 369–398, 467–498, 500–531, 533–564, (...) 566–774. 178v–209r, Homeric Hymns III.–XXXIII. 209r, ‘Homeric’ epigram ες ξένους. 209r–227v, Callimachus, Hymns, with marginal and interlinear scholia. 227V, four lines. The manuscript is bound in leather. Marks of gatherings are lacking from the Callimachean portion. All the writing is in the same small and very neat hand. Ligatures abound. In the text, final letters are frequently written above those which precede them; in the same position, but in the middle of a word, α and abbreviated εν appear frequently; αι, ε, σ or ς, and abbreviated ον and ας, rarely. Iota subscr. is not regularly employed. Horizontal supralinear strokes are used 38 times to indicate names of persons. The scribe was a careful copyist. His major errors, not found in the common stock either of the manuscripts in general or of the z group, nor shared with G and H, number only 25 ; his minor, 43. (shrink)

There are many shortcomings in Otto Schneider'sapparatus criticusto Callimachus'Hymns. Some of these appear on a perusal of thePraefatio. For it claims a thorough collation for only ten MSS. (ABCdEFGHIM); scantier citations are given from seven others (fKLQRST), from theeditio princeps(called by Schneider D), and from the MSS. used respectively by Politian forHymnV., and by Robortelli and H. Stephanus for all sixHymns. And, besides the unusedcodex Ambrosianus A63sup.. there is on pp. xxxix–xl a list of MSS., with the places where they (...) have been reported to exist, only one of which (F) is represented in Schneider's collation. (shrink)

S is Madrid, Biblioteca Nacionale, gr. 24; foll. 136 ; size folio, with thirty-two lines usually to the page; dated 1464. Contents: f. 2, a Life of Musaeus, followed by' AντƖπάpou σƖδωτíον ĺς ƿ καĺ λέαծpoδ and Musaeus, Hero and Leander. 7v, two poems by Marcus Musurus, viz. a version of Musaeus' poem in ten hexameter lines and four elegiac couplets ĺς μονοαîo. 8r, three epigrams on Orpheus, written as one. 8v, Constantine Lascaris ĺς Ƭձ πpoλƳòμα ƬoȖ σoοȖ òpέως 10v, (...) πpìπolŋroÛ on the life and writings of Orpheus. 11r, úπóƟσς ƬoȖ πλoȖ Ƭ pƳoα Ƭlκѵ. 11v, úπóƟσς ƬoȖ ծέpoς 12, Orpheus, Argonautica, with frequent marginal notes, and corrections in red ink, in Lascaris' hand. 35, Orpheus, Hymns, prefaced by the invocation to Musaeus, 'Opùς πρòς μoσαîo ùƬνXς Xp έƬαîρ ; of the Hymns are given II.; VI.; VIII.; XXXII.; XL. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion has long endeavored to broaden our view of truth. In this illuminating new book--his deepest engagement with theology to date--Marion proposes a rigorous new understanding of human and divine revelation in a deeply phenomenological key. Although today considered the central theme of theology, the concept of Revelation was almost entirely unknown to the first millennium of Christian thought. In a penetrating historical deconstruction Marion traces the development of this term to the rise of metaphysics from (...) Aquinas through Descartes, Suárez, and Kant; formalized into an epistemological framework, this understanding of Revelation has restricted philosophical and theological thinking ever since. To break free from these limits, Marion takes hints from theologians including Balthasar and Barth while mobilizing the phenomenology of givenness to provide a rigorous new understanding of revelation as a mode of uncovering. His extensive study of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures unfolds a logic of Trinitarian phenomenality, worked out in conversation with Augustine, Basil, Hegel, Schelling, and others, that ultimately transforms our very notions of being and time. The result is precisely what we have come to expect from this acclaimed philosopher: masterful historical scholarship working in tandem with daring originality. (shrink)