In this stimulating work of political philosophy, acclaimed philosopher G. A. Cohen sets out to rescue the egalitarian thesis that in a society in which distributive justice prevails, peopleâes material prospects are roughly equal. Arguing against the Rawlsian version of a just society, Cohen demonstrates that distributive justice does not tolerate deep inequality. In the course of providing a deep and sophisticated critique of Rawlsâes theory of justice, Cohen demonstrates that questions of distributive justice arise not only for the state (...) but also for people in their daily lives. The right rules for the macro scale of public institutions and policies also apply, with suitable adjustments, to the micro level of individual decision-making. Cohen also charges Rawlsâes constructivism with systematically conflating the concept of justice with other concepts. Within the Rawlsian architectonic, justice is not distinguished either from other values or from optimal rules of social regulation. The elimination of those conflations brings justice closer to equality. (shrink)

After Marxism calls for a new radical coalition centered around morality and utopian sensibility. The book explores the kinds of commitments, values, and approaches to social realities that may still be described as radical today. These include the determination to end every form of oppression; a freedom to combine many different theories and kinds of analysis; an open and experimental attitude; an appreciation of modernity's great promise of being on our own; an understanding that radical social change encompasses attitudes and (...) behaviors, as well as structures and systems; and a commitment to uniting the various potential radical groups, strands, and energies into a new radical coalition, a heterogeneous "we" founded on a deep sense of solidarity. (shrink)

A genuine Copernican turn in Kantian and Marxist theory and practice.

Today democracy is both exalted as the "best means to realize human rights" and seen as weakened because of globalization and delegation of authority beyond the nation-state. In this provocative book, James Bohman argues that democracies face a period of renewal and transformation and that democracy itself needs redefinition according to a new transnational ideal. Democracy, he writes, should be rethought in the plural; it should no longer be understood as rule by the people, singular, with a specific territorial identification (...) and connotation, but as rule by peoples, across national boundaries. Bohman shows that this new conception of transnational democracy requires reexamination of such fundamental ideas as the people, the public, citizenship, human rights, and federalism, and he argues that it offers a feasible approach to realizing democracy in a globalized world.In his account, Bohman establishes the conceptual foundations of transnational democracy by examining in detail current theories of democracy beyond the nation-state and offers a deliberative alternative. He considers the importance of communicative freedom in the transnational public sphere, human rights as the normative basis of transnational democracy, and the European Union as a transnational polity. Finally, he examines the relationship between peace and democracy, concluding that peace requires democratization on interacting state and suprastate levels. (shrink)

This collection brings together the latest work of some of the world’s leading Marxist philosophers and new young researchers. Based upon work presented at meetings of the Marx and Philosophy Society, it offers a unique snapshot of the best current scholarship on the philosophical aspects and implications of Marx's thought.

This paper compares Marx's first conception of capital, in 1844, to his conception of the modern political state in 1843. It argues that in 1843 Marx conceives the modern democratic state as realising human 'species-being', that is, the universality and freedom inherent in human nature, but only in the form of 'abstract' universality and freedom, and therefore inadequately. In 1844 he conceives capital in the same way, as an abstract and therefore inadequate realisation of human species-being. Accordingly the transition from (...) capital to communism consists essentially in transforming the abstract universality and freedom realised in capital into a 'concrete' universality and freedom. The paper concludes by commenting on the implications of this early philosophical conception of capital for Marx's later writings. (shrink)

Three main theses are defended: Kant's ethics is a social ethics; his ethics leads to a socialist ethics; and this socialist ethics constitutes a suitable platform for criticizing Marx's view of morality and bringing it to a higher level. ;Kant holds that we have such social duties as seeking the republican state and international peace. These duties follow from the more comprehensive duty to promote the highest good or moral society of co-legislators. What grounds Kant's social ethics is that the (...) moral society is the end embedded in the different formulations of the categorical imperative. ;His theory of moral feeling offers a conceptual apparatus for examining four emotive components of the commitment to change society in light of the moral ideal: indignation about the present state of the world, enthusiasm engendered by progressive political events, solidarity with the victims of repression, and hope for progress. ;Kant's historical writings seek to support this hope. He proposes the regulative idea that the dialectic of self-interest pushes humanity toward the realization of the political ideals, setting the stage for the moral society. More promising is his argument that progressive events such as the French Revolution intimate that humanity is taking a moral interest in improving its condition. ;Kant maintains that the moral society cannot be expressed in an institutional form. The neo-Kantian socialist Cohen improves and expands his view in arguing that all our institutions must be modelled after the ideal of the community of co-legislators. This means that capitalist enterprise must be transformed into the cooperative. Cohen's cooperative socialism is compared to worker-control socialism. ;Kantian socialist ethics and Marx share a common evaluative perspective, but Marx denies that morality is important for action toward the socialist ideal. His denial is rooted in a dogmatic understanding of the idea of progress which contradicts his notion of the primary of praxis and lends itself to ideological abuses. Marx's idea of progress must be reinterpreted as a Kantian regulative idea, so that the repressed role of morality in his work can be explored and further developed. This Kantianization of Marx shows that Kantian socialist ethics offers a promising moral program for socialist theory and praxis. (shrink)

Contributors from several countries discuss the central moral issues arising in the emerging global order: the responsibilities of the strongest societies, moral priorities for the next decades, and the role of intellectuals in view of the huge gap between widely expressed moral ambitions and prevailing political and economic realities.