Research Articles Thomas G. West, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

The value of the arts is often measured in terms of human creativity against instrumental rationality, while art for art's sake defends against a utility of art. Such critiques of the technical and formulaic are themselves formulaic, repeating the dualism of the head and the heart. How should we account for this formula? We should do so by investigating its determination within metaphysical and social relations, ancient and modern, and by comprehending the notion of freedom carried therein. This opens up (...) the value of the arts to a modern metaphysics and modern notion of freedom. This value, and this freedom, find currency in a notion of philosophical and political education, and especially in a modern conception of liberal arts education, where freedom is to learn. (shrink)

Historical progress has largely been described in terms of the power to order social and ecological realities according to the interests of a few. Their concepts, images, and metaphors have transmitted knowledge (both explicit and tacit) that has come to be regarded as received wisdom. This kind of power, which has shaped (as well as described) history, has belonged primarily to men; whereas women's nature and, accordingly, their power have been defined primarily in terms of sexuality. Men's control of women's (...) sexuality is therefore the source of the disqualification of women as free agents‐that is, as significant participants in, say, scientific and religious meaning‐giving processes. Thus morality requires reevaluation of our assumptions about human nature. Most importantly, it demands that female sexuality be considered within the context of rationality and spirituality. (shrink)

This article has an overall aim as follows: to develop an alternative understanding to a narrow view of education, and in particular teacher training—preparatory and continuing—in terms of economy, as well as the competencies needed for the teaching profession. It takes the view that such an alternative is or could be found in the ideas put forward by Paul Standish, where poetry, or a more poetic understanding of education, is necessary—particularly in regards to teacher training.

The book under review offers a novel approach to politicizing the "animal issue." Drawing on liberal citizenship theory, the authors argue that key concepts of international justice such as "citizen," "denizen," and "sovereignty" may be mapped onto human-animal relations in order to protect individual animal rights as well as ecosystem integrity. The ambition is also to overcome some well-known problems of traditional animal rights theory in relation to ecological concerns. Yet the argument that ecosystems, like human states, ought to be (...) seen as sovereign communities entails problematic concept-stretching that may undermine the individual rights it was meant to protect. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explain the differences between neo-Aristotelian virtue and positive organizational virtuousness from the virtue ethics perspective. Most studies use virtues and virtuousness interchangeably. A few others try to explain their differences from the positive organizational science perspective. Although closely related, we believe that these two notions are not identical. If we understand neo-Aristotelian virtue correctly, then it cannot be judged exclusively on what is externally verifiable, as is the case with virtuousness. For these reasons, (...) we attempt our own differentiation, highlighting the gains and losses realized in the migration from neo-Aristotelian virtue to positive organizational virtuousness, and establishing guideposts to meaningfully combine the strengths of both concepts. (shrink)

A wealth of research suggests the importance of classroom discussion of controversial issues for adequately preparing students for participation in democratic life. Teachers, and the larger public, however, still shy away from such discussion. Much of the current research seeking to remedy this state of affairs focuses exclusively on developing knowledge and skills. While important, this ignores significant ways in which students? beliefs about the concept or nature of controversy itself might affect such discussions and potentially, the sort of citizen (...) that educators are fostering. We argue that examining the concept of ?controversy? is central to conducting such discussions and propose a framework of four crucial virtues or habits of mind that can be developed through such an examination. We illustrate how these four habits of mind are essential for establishing classroom ?counterpublics? that aim to develop more justice-oriented democratic citizens. (shrink)

I feel deeply honored and privileged to have the opportunity of giving the first Baffi Lecture at the Bank of Italy. Paolo Baffi was not only a distinguished banker and financial expert, he was also a remarkable economist and a visionary social thinker. He had outstanding technical expertise in many different fields, but combined his intellectual eminence with a profound sense of values. As Governor Ciampi put it at the general meeting of the Bank of Italy last May, Paolo Baffi (...) represented “an extraordinary combination of penetrating logic, erudition and moral strength … [he was] not only a gifted student of economics, he had a deep-seated commitment to act for the common good.”1 In remembering Baffi today, we must keep in mind both his intellectual contributions and his general evaluative concerns. (shrink)

Research Articles Ronald J. Pestritto, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

This paper will consider the role of schools, as a particular moral habitat in the formation of moral virtues and how the inculcation of a comprehensive private moral system of beliefs, values and practices leads to public values in a multicultural, pluralist society. It is argued that the formation of good persons ensures the formation of good citizens and that governments should therefore support good moral education rather than seek to impose national public values or to concentrate on developing good (...) citizens only. The recognition that moral values are learnt within particular private moral systems of values, that it is these on which common public values rely for support and that there are a variety of such comprehensive private moral systems also means that a variety of schools need to be supported. One condition which such schools need to fulfil is that the comprehensive private moral system of beliefs which they inculcate in their students is based on a recognition of the universal applicability of the moral principles that they endorse. (shrink)

This article will derive a definition and account of the physically educated person, through an examination of the philosophy of Andrew Reid, Richard Peters and Aristotle. Initially, Reid’s interpretation of Peters’ views about the educational significance of practical knowledge (and physical education) will be considered. While it will be acknowledged that Peters was rather disparaging about the educational merit of some practical activities in Ethics and Education, it will be argued that he elsewhere suggests that such practical activities could be (...) educationally worthwhile in and of themselves. In Education and the educated man he specified that practical activities should be regarded as educationally important if they are either transformed by theoretical understanding and/or pursued to the point of excellence. In suggesting that education involves the cultivation of both theoretical and practical human excellences it is argued that Peters’ philosophy of education begins to take on a more Aristotelian bent. After exploring Aristotle’s notion of virtue (human excellence) and his discussion of physical training in The politics, it is claimed that physical education activities might be most worthwhile when they extend the moral habits and/or modes of thought of pupils, towards excellence. It is concluded that physically educated persons should be defined as those who have learned to arrange their lives in such a way that the physical activities they freely engage in make a distinctive contribution to their long-term flourishing. (shrink)

This article addresses two main questions: what is excellence and should epistemic excellence be the main purpose of education? Though references to excellence have become increasingly frequent in the UK education policy, these questions are perhaps especially important in Scotland where the curriculum is explicitly for excellence. Following Hirst and Peters, it is hypothesised that if the term ‘education’ implies possession of a certain breadth of general knowledge and understanding, then the term ‘excellence’ may imply a deep grasp of a (...) specific body of knowledge. However, after consideration of Dewey's suggestion that being present in the moment is an excellence of childhood, it is concluded that the development of epistemic excellence should be regarded as an educational purpose rather than the only educational purpose and pupil engagement with public traditions of knowledge provides necessary but not sufficient conditions for education. (shrink)

Does the concept of political friendship make sense, and does cultivating political friendship among peoples strengthen universal peace? This article provides an Aristotelian account of political friendship as distinct from but analogous to personal friendship. Political friendships, founded on mutual recognition and respect, are characterized by consensual agreement about the fundamental terms of cooperation. While promoting such political friendship at the global level would be a measure to strengthen universal peace, another form of friendship, politicized friendship, is to be avoided, (...) as it is driven by rivalrous rather than equitable self-interest, and breeds political enmity and strife. Taking Aristotle's insights about political friendship to the global arena, the article considers Rawlsian peoples to be suitable subjects for political friendship. The duty of assistance and the duty to oppose outlaw states illuminate demands of political friendship among Rawlsian peoples that entail equity, power sharing and even sacrifice. (shrink)

I develop two different epistemic roles for emotion and desire. Caring for moral ends and people plays a pivotal though contingent role in ensuring reliable awareness of morally salient details; possession of various emotions and motives is a necessary condition for autonomous understanding of moral concepts themselves. Those who believe such connections compromise the "objective" status of morality tend to assume rather than argue for the bifurcated conception of reason and affect this essay challenges.

Hannah Arendt's critique of education in 1950s USA provides an important way of understanding the development of citizenship education. Her theory on the nature of childhood and her concepts of natality and authority give insight into both the directions of current policies and practices, and the possible future states into which these elements may crystallise. It is argued that education for citizenship is an expression of the hope that children will ‘save’ us from ourselves and that there are two distinct (...) directions that this hope is taking, one representing an orientation to the past and the other to the future. Arendt's critique focuses on what she argues is the proper relationship to both past and future that the educator must maintain. The argument is contextualised through the Scottish approach to citizenship education. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore the parallel between the historical exclusions of rhetoric from philosophy and of women from fields of rational discourse. After considering the usefulness and limitations of deconstruction for exposing marginalization by hierarchical systems, I explore links between texts of the sophists and feminist proposals for rewriting/rereading history by Cixous, Spivak, and others. I conclude that sophistic rhetoric offers a flexible alternative to philosophy as an intellectual framework for mediating theoretical oppositions among contemporary feminisms.

In this essay, I argue that contemporary democratic theory gives insufficient attention to the important contributions dissenting citizens make to democratic life. Guided by the dissident practices of activist women, I develop a more expansive conception of citizenship that recognizes dissent and an ethic of political courage as vital elements of democratic participation. I illustrate how this perspective on citizenship recasts and reclaims women's courageous dissidence by reconsidering the well-known story of Rosa Parks.

Pádraig Hogan; What Makes Practice Educational?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 15–26, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

The consideration of how societies hold together and function as one with the coexistence of potentially conflicting ideas and commitments remains a topic of crucial importance. This paper advocates a renewed interest in the subject of loyalty as one of the bonds tying us together in society. It acknowledges that the nature of loyalty has often been seen as problematic, particularly where ties to some affect our abilities to make moral judgements. It purports that the area of conflicting loyalties needs (...) greater philosophical attention within our understanding of the moral life. Using two literary exemplars, Antigone and Lord of the Flies, the paper explores how loyalties play a fundamental part in our psyche and our social lives. With this in mind, it suggests that greater consideration should be paid to how schools should support children in coping with competing loyalties and with making judgements required by loyalty claims. (shrink)

The core elements of modern democracy are citizens who share equally in mutually-compatible basic rights, serve as the final decision-makers on the community’s constitution, and choose whom to be entrusted with legislative and executive powers, while at the same time wielding final veto power over the present government. The rule of the majority in modern democracy is no longer a fundamental principle, but rather a derivative principle the validity of which is based on the above-mentioned core elements.

This article questions a number of widely held views of the role of values in psychotherapy. It begins with a discussion of the now largely discredited view that psychotherapy can be value free. It also broadens this challenge to question the popular idea that values form an inescapable part of the therapeutic encounter. While this view is correct in outline, it is necessary to reject the underlying conception of values as largely arbitrary preferences that the client and the therapist bring (...) to the encounter, as this fails to do justice to the inherently ethical nature of psychotherapy. It argues that we should recover the Greek notion of therapy as essentially concerned with the character of a person. In other words, the goal of therapy is virtue. (shrink)

As a pair of important categories in traditional Chinese culture, “ ming 命 (destiny or decrees)” and “ tian ming 天命 (heavenly ordinances)” mainly refer to the constraints placed on human beings. Both originated from “ ling 令 (decrees),” which evolved from “ wang ling 王令 (royal decrees)” into “ tian ling 天令 (heavenly decrees),” and then became “ ming ” from a throne because of the decisive role of “heavenly decrees” over a throne. “ Ming ” and “ tian (...) ming ” have different definitions: “ Ming ” represented the limits Heaven placed on the natural lives of human beings and was an objective force that men could not direct, but was embodied in human beings as their “destiny”; “ Tian ming ” reflected the moral ideals of human beings in their self-identification; It originated in man but had to be verified by Heaven, and it was therefore the true ordinance that Heaven placed on human beings. “ Ming ” and “ tian ming ” are two perspectives on the traditional relationship between Heaven and human beings, and at the same time Confucians and Daoists placed different emphasis on them. (shrink)

The potential use, relevance, and application of AI and other technologies in the democratic process may be obvious to some. However, technological innovation and, even, its consideration may face an intuitive push-back in the form of algorithm aversion (Dietvorst et al. J Exp Psychol 144(1):114–126, 2015). In this paper, I confront this intuition and suggest that a more ‘extreme’ form of technological change in the democratic process does not necessarily result in a worse outcome in terms of the fundamental concepts (...) of democracy and the Rule of Law. To provoke further consideration and illustrate that initial intuitions regarding democratic innovation may not always be accurate, I pose and explore four ways that AI and other forms of technology could be used to augment the representative democratic process. The augmentations range from voting online to the wholesale replacement of the legislature’s human representatives with algorithms. After first noting the intuition that less invasive forms of augmented democracy may be less objectionable than more extreme forms, I go on to critically assess whether the augmentation of existing systems satisfies or enhances ideas associated with democracy and the Rule of Law (provided by Dahl and Fuller). By imagining a (not too far-fetched) future in a (not too far-removed) democratic society, my conclusion is that, when it comes to democracy and the Rule of Law, intuitions regarding technology may lead us astray. (shrink)

Although Frederick Douglass disclaimed any patriotism or love of the United States in the years when he considered its constitution to be pro-slavery, I argue that he was in fact always a patriot and always a lover of his country. This conclusion leads me to argue further that patriotism is not as expressly political as many philosophers suppose. Patriots love their country despite its politics and often unreasonably, although in loving their country they are concerned with its politics. The greatest (...) among them freely dedicate themselves selflessly to the improvement of their country, partly because they love it, and partly because they are moved to take on great projects. (shrink)