This paper assesses Brian Barry's attempt in Why Social Justice Matters to argue the importance of social justice. Barry seeks to dismiss the ideological misunderstandings that have prevented recognition of the importance of social justice. He also suggests that a robust conception of social justice will be needed to guide policies that solve the problems of the modern world. I argue that the issue of social justice has suffered neglect because of the influence of different ideas of social justice than (...) Barry's rather than a misunderstanding among politicians and media pundits of generally shared intuitions of justice. These different ideas of justice must be shown to be wanting. In doing this, I argue that any adequate theory of social justice must address the issue of the fairness of starting points in peoples' lives. I point out that any such theory requires such revolutionary change that it contradicts the presuppositions of public policy and thus cannot serve to guide public policy solutions to the problems that Barry wants addressed. I argue that a 'non-ideal' theory of justice and principles for making unjust societies fairer, with more modest proposals for change, will better serve as a guide to public policy. (shrink)

How should we deal with apparent causation involving events that have not happened when omissions are cited as causes or when something is said to prevent some event? Phil Dowe claims that causal statements about preventions and omissions are ‘quasi-causal' claims about what would have been a cause, if the omitted event had happened or been caused if the prevention had not occurred. However, one important theory of the logic of causal statements – Donald Davidson's – allows us to take (...) causal statements about omissions and preventions as direct causal statements about events that are counterfactually described. This analysis provides a basis for solving a number of puzzles about ‘negative' events. Any ‘intuition' of difference between causal statements employing such descriptions and others employing positive descriptions of events is also explained. With omissions, where this intuition has some basis, it is shown that nevertheless omissions do really cause outcomes. (shrink)

Gerald Cohen's critique of John Rawls's theory of justice is that it is concerned only with the justice of social institutions, and must thus arbitrarily draw a line between those inequalities excluded and those allowed by the basic structure. Cohen claims that a proper concern with the interests of the least advantaged would rule out 'incentives' for 'talented' individuals. I argue that Rawls's assumption that the subject of justice is the basic structure of society does not arbitrarily restrict the concerns (...) of political justice, as Cohen claims. Further, I argue that it does not allow 'deep' inequalities within a just basic structure. When properly understood, Rawls's theory of justice is strongly egalitarian, taken as a theory of fairness in the way the burdens and benefits of social cooperation are distributed, even if it is not as egalitarian as Cohen wishes. (shrink)

Ian Carter argues against what he calls the ?specific freedom thesis?, which claims that in asking whether our society or any individual is free, all we need or can intelligibly concern ourselves with is their freedom to do this or that specific thing. Carter claims that issues of overall freedom are politically and morally important and that, in valuing freedom as such, liberals should be committed to a measure of freedom overall. This paper argues against Carter?s further claim that rejection (...) of the specific freedom thesis requires rejection of morally based determinations of degrees of overall freedom. Using a concept of freedom as a capacity to pursue one?s interests, it is argued that the value of freedom overall is not reducible to the value of specific freedoms, and that conditions of action can be determined as constraints only within the context of their impact on freedom overall. Taking the case of coercive proposals, it is argued that we must evaluate the morality of the circumstances in which conditional proposals are made if we are to weigh the opportunities and constraints contained in the proposal to determine whether its recipient suffers a loss of overall freedom. We must therefore appeal to values other than that of liberty itself to determine degrees of liberty overall, which we require in turn to determine whether threats or offers are coercive. (shrink)

Book Information Hegel's Idea of Freedom. Hegel's Idea of Freedom Alan Patten Oxford University Press 1999 xiii + 216 Hardback £30 By Alan Patten. Oxford University Press. Pp. xiii + 216. Hardback:£30.

Liberal Socialism exposes false ideas of justice behind neo-liberal capitalism and combines Rawls's ideas on justice and Marx's views on capitalism to make a plausible case for the alternative social ideal of liberal socialism. A fixed social structure gives equal weight to all competing claims for rights, liberties, and shares of the burdens and benefits of social cooperation, while allowing a democratic majority vote for liberal socialism.

Marx and Rawls seems to have a very different concept of justice. Marx argued that the concept of justice functions in the performance of the dominant ideological mode of production required for the conduct, as universally binding legal code. Rawls is argued that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, its law may be recognized by all such people: they are fair and reasonable to discuss the issue is how to equitably divide among themselves the burden of social cooperation (...) and interests. Although embodied in Marx and Rawls an important difference between the various positions still exist, but I believe that the concept of justice is obviously two different positions, is able to reconcile. Despite the different effects of Hegel and Kant, Marx and Rawls's view can still show the same place. In a clear political concept of justice, Rawls believes that acceptable principles of justice, must be in the social system can be implemented. This led to his "Kantian constructivism", close to Hegel's view, at this point, Marx laid him on the universal, social rejection of a priori principles of justice. I believe that both Marx and Rawls are asked, and what can be seen as a social system to achieve the principles of justice as fairness. However, during which there are two important differences. First, Marx's vision, seems to be a Hume and Rawls beyond the so-called "environmental justice" society, while Rawls , the social environment beyond the justice is utopian. Secondly, Marx believed that, as the social basis of market relations should be exceeded, because the relationship between these markets to include the producers of natural and social process of production of the products of labor and social alienation. Although environmental justice in the society beyond the market's demise may be, Rawls was declared to be a just solution in the competitive demands of any society, the demise of the market are not. I believe that, if Marx's rejection of the market, as a fundamental denial "commodity fetishism", then the position of Marx and Rawls will be able to reconcile. The author concludes that, in addition to Marx's concept of the future classless society with the ideal ingredients, capitalism and the market in the concept of justice, Marx and Rawls's position is very close. Man and Raids appear to have quite different views at justice. Marx claims that the concept of justice functions ideologically to represent conduct required by the prevailing mode of production as universally binding imperatives. Rawls claims that justice is the first virtue of society, whose principles may be agreed to by all persons who impartially and rationally deliberate on the issue of fairly dividing the burdens and benefits of social cooperation. I argue that these apparently different positions on justice can be reconciled, although important differences between the standpoints of Marx and Rawls remain. Despite the differing influences on them of Hegel and Kant, the views of Marx and Rawls can be shown to converge. In proposing an explicitly political conception of justice, Rawls argues that acceptable principles of justice must be realisable in social institutions. This brings his' Kantian constructivism 'closer to the Hegelian view, on which Marx bases his rejection of universal, socially transcendent principles of justice. I argue that both Marx and Rawls can be seen as asking what social institutions can realise principles of justice as fairness. Nevertheless, two important differences remain. Marx seems to envisage a society which transcends the 'circumstances of justice', as specified by Hume and Rawls, whereas Rawls a society beyond the circumstances of justice as utopian. Secondly, Marx claims that market relations should be transcended as the basis of society, since they inherently involve alienation of producers from the social process of production and from the product of their social labour. However, while elimination of markets might be possible in a society that transcends the circumstances of justice, Rawls claims that it is not possible in any society where a fair resolution of competing claims is necessary. I argue that the positions of Marx and Rawls can be reconciled if we take Marx's objection to markets as fundamentally an objection to the 'fetishism of commodities'. I conclude that, apart from the utopian element in Marx's conception of a future classless society, the positions of Marx and Rawls on the justice of capitalism and the market are quite close. (shrink)

Justifying involuntary psychiatric treatment on the basis of a judgment that a person lacks capacity is usually expressed in terms of a person’s ability to make a decision about his or her health and treatment. Typically, this relates to the ability to refuse treatment. Exactly what “capacity” means, however, and how one determines when another individual lacks capacity, or lacks sufficient capacity, in this context is particularly controversial, with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities insisting (...) that involuntary treatment be abandoned altogether and capacity tests avoided.Capacity is a concept that has multiple meanings and applications across different disciplines and... (shrink)

The pseudoscience of evolutionary psychology purports to explain human behaviors by reference to an ancestral environment (essentially, a hunting‐gathering way of life) in which we evolved. Contemporary human behaviors are allegedly governed directly by genes that reflect adaptation to this environment by natural selection. However, the evolutionary process is much more complex than this reductionist approach implies, and adaptation cannot involve the fine‐tuning of structures or behaviors within individuals or species: natural selection can only affect entire organisms, not their components. (...) Similarly, genetic processes are too complex to admit this simplistic view. Instead, our flexible, complex human behaviors probably represent an emergent acquisition. (shrink)

A central figure in Western history and American political thought, Thomas Paine continues to provoke debate among politicians, activists, and scholars. People of all ideological stripes are inspired by his trenchant defense of the rights and good sense of ordinary individuals, and his penetrating critiques of arbitrary power. This volume contains Paine’s explosive _Common Sense_ in its entirety, including the oft-ignored Appendix, as well as selections from his other major writings: _The American Crisis_, _Rights of Man,_ and _The Age of (...) Reason. _It also contains several of Paine’s shorter essays. All the documents have been transcribed directly from the originals, making this edition the most reliable one available. Essays by Ian Shapiro, Jonathan Clark, Jane Calvert, and Eileen Hunt Botting bring Paine into sharp focus, illuminating his place in the tumultuous decades surrounding the American and French Revolutions and his larger historical legacy. (shrink)

Among hunter-gatherers, the sharing of male and female foods is often assumed to result in virtually the same diet for males and females. Although food sharing is widespread among the hunting and gathering Hadza of Tanzania, women were observed eating significantly more tubers than men. This study investigates the relationship between patterns of dental wear, diet, and extramasticatory use of teeth among the Hadza. Casts of the upper dentitions were made from molds taken from 126 adults and scored according to (...) the Murphy dental attrition scoring system. Females had significantly greater anterior occlusal wear than males when we controlled for age. Males exhibited greater asymmetry in wear, with greater wear on the left side in canines, first premolars, and first molars. We suggest that these sex differences in wear patterns reflect the differences seen in the diet, as well as in the use of teeth as tools. (shrink)

Hiding behind the anodyne title of this book is a work of large scope and considerable interest for the Hegelian reader. Its main purpose is to vindicate a dialectical interpretation of Marxism in the context of recent analytical Marxism. The book falls into two parts. The first contains a detailed account of the dialectical philosophy implicit in Marx's work, and of its background in the philosophies of Kant and Hegel. The second shows how this account of Marx's approach can be (...) used to resolve some of the major issues in Marxist philosophy and to illuminate some of the central topics in Marxist social, political and economic thought. (shrink)

Tradition has it that, although we experience darkness, we can neither hear nor hallucinate silence. At most, we hear that it is silent, in virtue of lacking auditory experience. This cognitive view is at odds with our ordinary thought and talk. Yet it is not easy to vouchsafe the perception of silence: Sorensen‘s recent account entails the implausible claim that the permanently and profoundly deaf are perpetually hallucinating silence. To better defend the view that we can genuinely hear and hallucinate (...) silence, we must reject the austere picture of conscious experience which underpins the cognitive theory. According to that picture, conscious experience is a simple relation between subjects and objects. In the absence of an object, there is no relation, and so no experience. By enriching this picture, room can be found for the experience of silence. I explore this idea in two phases. First, I defend the thought that we can hear and hallucinate certain forms of silence, such as pauses, in virtue of experiencing contrastive sounds. Second, I draw on Moore‘s analysis of sensation to suggest that simply experiencing silence is a special form of objectless consciousness. I offer two ways of fleshing out this idea. According to the first, auditory experience possesses a temporal field within which the absence of sounds can be perceived. According to the second, purely Moorean account, it is our capacity to listen in the absence of sounds that underlies the phenomenon of experiencing silence. (shrink)

Plato of Athens, who laid the foundations of the Western philosophical tradition and in range and depth ranks among its greatest practitioners, was born to a prosperous and politically active family circa 427 BC. In early life an admirer of Socrates, Plato later founded the first institution of higher learning in the West, the Academy, among whose many notable alumni was Aristotle. Traditionally ascribed to Plato are thirty-five dialogues developing Socrates' dialectic method and composed with great stylistic virtuosity, together with (...) the Apology and thirteen letters. The four works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. In Euthyphro, set in the weeks before the trial, Socrates and Euthyphro attempt to define holiness. In Apology, Socrates answers his accusers at trial and unapologetically defends his philosophical career. In Crito, a discussion of justice and injustice explains Socrates' refusal of Crito's offer to finance his escape from prison. And in Phaedo, Socrates discusses the concept of an afterlife and offers arguments for the immortality of the soul. This edition, which replaces the original Loeb edition by Harold North Fowler, offers text, translation, and annotation that are fully current with modern scholarship." -- Publisher's description. (shrink)

The paper offers an account of luck, fate, and fortune. It begins by showing that extant accounts of luck are deficient because they do not identify the genus of which luck is a species. That genus of properties, the tychic, alert an agent to occasions on which the external world cooperates with or frustrates their goal-achievement. An agent’s sphere of competence is the set of goals that it is possible for them to reliably achieve. Luck concerns occasions on which there (...) is a mismatch between attempt and result; in bad luck the external world thwarts goal-achievement within the agent’s sphere of competence, in good luck the external world assists goal-achievement beyond the agent’s sphere of competence. Fateful events are those where, more passively, the agent finds the external world achieving or frustrating their goals. Fortune concerns the contraction and expansion of the agent’s sphere of competence. Eight reasons are given for accepting the account; its theoretical virtues and various things it explains. Lastly, three objections are answered; that the tychic properties relate to well-being rather than agency, that there are alternative theories of fortune available in the contemporary literature, that the account draws arbitrary distinctions between synonyms. (shrink)

I offer an account of the virtue of intellectual humility, construed as a pair of dispositions enabling proper management of one's intellectual confidence. I then show its integral role in a range of familiar educational practices and concerns, and finally describe how certain entrenched educational attitudes and conceptions marginalise or militate against the cultivation and exercise of this virtue.

I examine how co-parents should handle differing commitments about how to raise their child. Via thought experiment and the examination of our practices and affective reactions, I argue for a thesis about the locus of parental authority: that parental authority is invested in full in each individual parent, meaning that that the command of one parent is sufficient to bind the child to act in obedience. If this full-authority thesis is true, then for co-parents to command different things would be (...) for them to contest one another’s authority. The only course that respects the authority of both parents is for co-parents to agree to command the same thing. Further, what is commanded must not result from a ‘capitulation’ by one co-parent, rather, it should result from a compromise. Parental authority involves a duty to deliberate about which commands it is best to give the child. If a command results from a capitulation, one parent will rightly think of themselves as not having fulfilled their parental duty. Parental compromises are not best understood as bargains or conflicts, but by the metaphor of gifts given by each parent out of respect for the other’s authority. (shrink)