Ethics education is an important goal in higher education overall. It is not clear how well psychology programs are meeting this goal. The American Psychology Association’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (APA 2013) were created to support high-quality education in psychology. The Guidelines focus on five goals including Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World. This study is a review of ethics information available online from Franciscan Colleges and Universities. We accessed 24 Franciscan institutions and reviewed the available (...) information provided by 22 of them. We asked several questions: Whether the psychology department provided a mission statement and was ethics addressed in it? What courses focused on ethics or mentioned ethics in their description? Were there other institutional ethics courses required for psychology majors? Was ethics mentioned in the institution mission? The results of this study indicate a need for more intentional inclusion of ethics in university and program mission statements as well as specific courses for the undergraduate psychology major. (shrink)

Recently, amid growing awareness that computer algorithms are not neutral tools but can cause harm by reproducing and amplifying bias, attempts to detect and prevent such biases have intensified. An approach that has received considerable attention in this regard is the Value Sensitive Design (VSD) methodology, which aims to contribute to both the critical analysis of (dis)values in existing technologies and the construction of novel technologies that account for specific desired values. This article provides a brief overview of the key (...) features of the Value Sensitive Design approach, examines its contributions to understanding and addressing issues around bias in computer systems, outlines the current debates on algorithmic bias and fairness in machine learning, and discusses how such debates could profit from VSD-derived insights and recommendations. Relating these debates on values in design and algorithmic bias to research on cognitive biases, we conclude by stressing our collective duty to not only detect and counter biases in software systems, but to also address and remedy their societal origins. (shrink)

Profondeur et temps chez Merleau-Ponty et DeleuzeDans une note en bas de page de son second livre sur le cinéma, L’imagetemps, Deleuze admet que sa compréhension de la profondeur – qui est l’une desnotions centrales du livre et donc de sa théorie du temps et de sa présentation au cinéma – remonte à Bergson et à Merleau-Ponty. La référence à Bergson n’est pas surprenante étant donné sa dette à son égard, mais celle à Merleau-Ponty mérite une attention particulière car, comme (...) on le sait, les références de Deleuze à Merleau-Ponty sont plutôt rares et généralement négatives.Dans cet article, j’examine la portée de cette référence de Deleuze à Merleau-Ponty. Comment les deux auteurs comprennent-ils la nature temporelle de la profondeur? Dans le cas de Merleau-Ponty, je tente de répondre à cette question en lisant, dans la Phénoménologie de la perception, les passages qui concernent la vision de la profondeur et ceux qui se rapportent au rappel d’un souvenir. La « théorie » deleuzienne de la profondeur, quant à elle, peut être trouvée dans son analyse de la technique cinématographique de la profondeur de champ, présente notamment dans les films d’Orson Welles. J’examine quels caractères de la profondeur de champ en font une “image-temps” et j’analyse sous cet angle Citizen Kane de Welles et Muriel ou le temps d’un retour de Resnais. Les distinctions faites entre ces deux films aident à comprendre les différences qui existent entre les conceptions de la profondeur de Merleau-Ponty etde Deleuze.Profondità e tempo in Merleau-Ponty e DeleuzeIn una nota del suo secondo libro sul cinema, L’immagine-tempo, Deleuze riconosce che la sua comprensione del fenomeno della profondità – una delle nozioni centrali del libro, dunque della sua intera teoria del tempo e della sua presenza nel cinema – può esser fatta risalire a Bergson e Merleau-Ponty. Il primo di questi riferimenti non può sorprendere, dato il debito profondo che Deleuze contrae col pensiero bergsoniano. Il secondo riferimento, quello a Merleau-Ponty, merita particolare attenzione proprio perché, com’è noto, i riferimenti di Deleuze a questo filosofo sono rari e in gran parte critici. In questo articolo mi propongo quindi di esaminare la portata di questo secondo riferimento. In che modo Deleuze e Merleau-Ponty comprendono la natura temporale della profondità? Per quanto riguarda Merleau-Ponty, cercherò di rispondere a questa domanda esaminando tutti quei passaggi di Fenomenologia della percezione in cui è questione della visione in profondità e dello sforzo necessario a richiamare alla memoria un ricordo. La “teoria” deleuziana della profondità può invece essererintracciata nell’analisi che Deleuze propone della profondità di campo nel cinema, in particolare nel cinema di Orson Welles. Cercherò di mostrare come proprio certi caratteri della profondità, facciano sì che immagini di questo genere possano essere definite immagini-tempo; e in questa prospettiva analizzerò Citizen Kane di Welles, e Muriel ou le temps d’un retour di Alain Resnais. Le differenze che sussistono tra i due film potranno d’altra parte contribuire a mettere a fuoco le differenze tra le due maniere in cui Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze rendono conto dei problemi della profondità e del tempo. (shrink)

Avec son livre La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen réalise, de façon magistrale, deux objectifs. D’abord, il met en lien la pensée de deux philosophes qui sont à première vue très éloignés l’un de l’autre. Il s’agit de Félix Guattari et de Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Traditionnellement, Merleau-Ponty est considéré comme le philosophe du corps, tandis que Guattari est connu comme le philosophe du corps sans organes. Merleau-Ponty est un phénoménologue, tandis que Guattari prétend abandonner le point de vue du sujet. Kristensen démontre (...) avec succès quel est le terrain commun des deux auteurs : la critique de la conception psychanalytique du sujet.Le deuxième objectif du livre découle directement du premier : présenter au lecteur une alternative à la conception intimiste de la subjectivité, soit comprendre la subjectivité comme fondamentalement parcourue par une altérité. Merleau-Ponty a été l’un des premiers, à l’instar de Paul Schilder, à mettre l’accent sur le caractère collectif et intersubjectif de cette altérité. Guattari a compris que cette altérité possède des sédiments politiques et historiques.With his book La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen accomplishes two goals in a masterly way. First, he links the works of two philosophers who are very different at first sight: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Félix Guattari. Traditionally, Merleau-Ponty is considered the philosopher of the body, whereas Guattari is known as the philosopher of the body without organs. Merleau-Ponty is a phenomenologist, whereas Guattari pretends to abandon the point of view of the subject. Kristensen identifies the common ground of the two authors: the criticism of the psychoanalytical conception of the subject.The second goal of the book derives directly from the first: present the reader with an alternative for the intimate conception of subjectivity, that is, present him or her with the idea that subjectivity is always characterized by an alterity. Merleau-Ponty, following the example of Paul Schilder, has been one of the first to stress the collective and intersubjective nature of this alterity. Guattari has understood that this alterity has political and historical sediments.Con il suo libro La machine sensible, Stefan Kristensen realizza magistralmente due obiettivi. Innanzitutto, egli mette in relazione il pensiero di due filosofi a prima vista molto distanti tra loro: Félix Guattari e Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Se tradizionalmente Merleau-Ponty è considerato il filosofo del corpo, Guattari è invece noto come il filosofo del corpo senza organi. Merleau-Ponty è un fenomenologo, mentre il pensiero di Guattari intende abbandonare il punto di vista del soggetto. Kristensen propone allora di leggere la critica della concezione psicoanalitica del soggetto come terreno comune tra i due autori. Il secondo obiettivo del libro discende direttamente dal primo: presentare al lettore un’alternativa alla concezione intimista della soggettività, ovvero concepire la soggettività come fondamentalmente percorsa da un’alterità. Merleau-Ponty è tra i primi, sulla scorta di Paul Schilder, a porre l’accento sul carattere collettivo e intersoggettivo di questa alterità. Dal canto suo, Guattari ha compreso che questa alterità possiede dei sedimenti politici e storici. (shrink)

Profondeur et temps chez Merleau-Ponty et DeleuzeDans une note en bas de page de son second livre sur le cinéma, L’imagetemps, Deleuze admet que sa compréhension de la profondeur – qui est l’une desnotions centrales du livre et donc de sa théorie du temps et de sa présentation au cinéma – remonte à Bergson et à Merleau-Ponty. La référence à Bergson n’est pas surprenante étant donné sa dette à son égard, mais celle à Merleau-Ponty mérite une attention particulière car, comme (...) on le sait, les références de Deleuze à Merleau-Ponty sont plutôt rares et généralement négatives.Dans cet article, j’examine la portée de cette référence de Deleuze à Merleau-Ponty. Comment les deux auteurs comprennent-ils la nature temporelle de la profondeur? Dans le cas de Merleau-Ponty, je tente de répondre à cette question en lisant, dans la Phénoménologie de la perception, les passages qui concernent la vision de la profondeur et ceux qui se rapportent au rappel d’un souvenir. La « théorie » deleuzienne de la profondeur, quant à elle, peut être trouvée dans son analyse de la technique cinématographique de la profondeur de champ, présente notamment dans les films d’Orson Welles. J’examine quels caractères de la profondeur de champ en font une “image-temps” et j’analyse sous cet angle Citizen Kane de Welles et Muriel ou le temps d’un retour de Resnais. Les distinctions faites entre ces deux films aident à comprendre les différences qui existent entre les conceptions de la profondeur de Merleau-Ponty etde Deleuze.Profondità e tempo in Merleau-Ponty e DeleuzeIn una nota del suo secondo libro sul cinema, L’immagine-tempo, Deleuze riconosce che la sua comprensione del fenomeno della profondità – una delle nozioni centrali del libro, dunque della sua intera teoria del tempo e della sua presenza nel cinema – può esser fatta risalire a Bergson e Merleau-Ponty. Il primo di questi riferimenti non può sorprendere, dato il debito profondo che Deleuze contrae col pensiero bergsoniano. Il secondo riferimento, quello a Merleau-Ponty, merita particolare attenzione proprio perché, com’è noto, i riferimenti di Deleuze a questo filosofo sono rari e in gran parte critici. In questo articolo mi propongo quindi di esaminare la portata di questo secondo riferimento. In che modo Deleuze e Merleau-Ponty comprendono la natura temporale della profondità? Per quanto riguarda Merleau-Ponty, cercherò di rispondere a questa domanda esaminando tutti quei passaggi di Fenomenologia della percezione in cui è questione della visione in profondità e dello sforzo necessario a richiamare alla memoria un ricordo. La “teoria” deleuziana della profondità può invece essererintracciata nell’analisi che Deleuze propone della profondità di campo nel cinema, in particolare nel cinema di Orson Welles. Cercherò di mostrare come proprio certi caratteri della profondità, facciano sì che immagini di questo genere possano essere definite immagini-tempo; e in questa prospettiva analizzerò Citizen Kane di Welles, e Muriel ou le temps d’un retour di Alain Resnais. Le differenze che sussistono tra i due film potranno d’altra parte contribuire a mettere a fuoco le differenze tra le due maniere in cui Merleau-Ponty e Deleuze rendono conto dei problemi della profondità e del tempo. (shrink)

The Flesh as the Folding of the OutsideDeleuze’s Reading of the last Merleau-PontyBy describing the flesh in terms of a “torsion” of “an Outside more distant than any exterior,” Deleuze in his 1986 book on Foucault sketches an ambivalent reading of Merleau-Ponty’s final philosophy. Insofar as it grants to the Outside an ontological primacy, Deleuze’s definition seems to indicate that the Flesh is not an originary agency, but rather a derived state of a primordial folding. If the flesh is derived, (...) then the inconstituability of the carnal fold, which Merleau-Ponty defends, would be radically challenged. But at the same time, the difficulty that Merleau-Ponty encounters in his final writings – that of giving an account of the specificity of my Flesh in relation to the Flesh of the world – would in this way perhaps be overcome. We shall show in fact that the absence of a specific ontological difference between the Flesh of the body and the Flesh of the world in The Visible and the Invisible – an absence that Deleuze points out when he invokes an “ideal coincidence” between the two kinds of flesh, could be avoided by recourse to the living Flesh conceived as stemming from a torsion of aprimordial Outside. To what extent is Deleuze, in his metaphysical reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s project, still faithful to this primordial Outside? To what extent does he twist this speculative reformulation in the direction of his own conception of life? These are the questions which my article would like to disentangle.La carne come piega del FuoriDeleuze lettore dell’ultimo Merleau-PontyDescrivendo, in un passo del suo libro su Foucault, la carne come torsione di un “Fuori più lontano di ogni mondo esterno”, Deleuze abbozza una lettura ambigua della filosofi a dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty. In quanto concede al Fuori un primato ontologico, questa defi nizione deleuziana sembra costituire l’indice di una concezione secondo la quale la carne non sarebbe più un’istanza originaria, ma uno stato derivato da un piegarsi primordiale. Se così fosse, è l’incostituibilità della piega carnale, difesa da Merleau-Ponty, che verrebbe rimessa in questione. Al contempo, però, la difficoltà di rendere conto della specificità della mia carne rispetto alla carne del mondo verrebbe semplicemente aggirata. Come si tratterà di dimostrare, l’assenza di una differenza ontologica netta tra la carne del corpo e la carne del mondo ne Il visibile et l’invisibile, sottolineata da Deleuze nell’evocazione di una “coincidenza ideale” delle due carni,potrebbe venir risolta dal richiamo ad una carne ricavata dalla torsione di un Fuori primordiale. In che misura Deleuze, nella sua ricostruzione metafisica del progetto merleau-pontiano, si mantiene fedele ad esso? In che misura Deleuze inflette questa riformulazione speculativa in direzione della sua propria concezione della vita? Sono le questioni che il presente articolo si propone di affrontare. (shrink)

The Flesh as the Folding of the OutsideDeleuze’s Reading of the last Merleau-PontyBy describing the flesh in terms of a “torsion” of “an Outside more distant than any exterior,” Deleuze in his 1986 book on Foucault sketches an ambivalent reading of Merleau-Ponty’s final philosophy. Insofar as it grants to the Outside an ontological primacy, Deleuze’s definition seems to indicate that the Flesh is not an originary agency, but rather a derived state of a primordial folding. If the flesh is derived, (...) then the inconstituability of the carnal fold, which Merleau-Ponty defends, would be radically challenged. But at the same time, the difficulty that Merleau-Ponty encounters in his final writings – that of giving an account of the specificity of my Flesh in relation to the Flesh of the world – would in this way perhaps be overcome. We shall show in fact that the absence of a specific ontological difference between the Flesh of the body and the Flesh of the world in The Visible and the Invisible – an absence that Deleuze points out when he invokes an “ideal coincidence” between the two kinds of flesh, could be avoided by recourse to the living Flesh conceived as stemming from a torsion of aprimordial Outside. To what extent is Deleuze, in his metaphysical reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s project, still faithful to this primordial Outside? To what extent does he twist this speculative reformulation in the direction of his own conception of life? These are the questions which my article would like to disentangle.La carne come piega del FuoriDeleuze lettore dell’ultimo Merleau-PontyDescrivendo, in un passo del suo libro su Foucault, la carne come torsione di un “Fuori più lontano di ogni mondo esterno”, Deleuze abbozza una lettura ambigua della filosofi a dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty. In quanto concede al Fuori un primato ontologico, questa defi nizione deleuziana sembra costituire l’indice di una concezione secondo la quale la carne non sarebbe più un’istanza originaria, ma uno stato derivato da un piegarsi primordiale. Se così fosse, è l’incostituibilità della piega carnale, difesa da Merleau-Ponty, che verrebbe rimessa in questione. Al contempo, però, la difficoltà di rendere conto della specificità della mia carne rispetto alla carne del mondo verrebbe semplicemente aggirata. Come si tratterà di dimostrare, l’assenza di una differenza ontologica netta tra la carne del corpo e la carne del mondo ne Il visibile et l’invisibile, sottolineata da Deleuze nell’evocazione di una “coincidenza ideale” delle due carni,potrebbe venir risolta dal richiamo ad una carne ricavata dalla torsione di un Fuori primordiale. In che misura Deleuze, nella sua ricostruzione metafisica del progetto merleau-pontiano, si mantiene fedele ad esso? In che misura Deleuze inflette questa riformulazione speculativa in direzione della sua propria concezione della vita? Sono le questioni che il presente articolo si propone di affrontare. (shrink)

The Flesh as the Folding of the OutsideDeleuze’s Reading of the last Merleau-PontyBy describing the flesh in terms of a “torsion” of “an Outside more distant than any exterior,” Deleuze in his 1986 book on Foucault sketches an ambivalent reading of Merleau-Ponty’s final philosophy. Insofar as it grants to the Outside an ontological primacy, Deleuze’s definition seems to indicate that the Flesh is not an originary agency, but rather a derived state of a primordial folding. If the flesh is derived, (...) then the inconstituability of the carnal fold, which Merleau-Ponty defends, would be radically challenged. But at the same time, the difficulty that Merleau-Ponty encounters in his final writings – that of giving an account of the specificity of my Flesh in relation to the Flesh of the world – would in this way perhaps be overcome. We shall show in fact that the absence of a specific ontological difference between the Flesh of the body and the Flesh of the world in The Visible and the Invisible – an absence that Deleuze points out when he invokes an “ideal coincidence” between the two kinds of flesh, could be avoided by recourse to the living Flesh conceived as stemming from a torsion of aprimordial Outside. To what extent is Deleuze, in his metaphysical reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s project, still faithful to this primordial Outside? To what extent does he twist this speculative reformulation in the direction of his own conception of life? These are the questions which my article would like to disentangle.La carne come piega del FuoriDeleuze lettore dell’ultimo Merleau-PontyDescrivendo, in un passo del suo libro su Foucault, la carne come torsione di un “Fuori più lontano di ogni mondo esterno”, Deleuze abbozza una lettura ambigua della filosofi a dell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty. In quanto concede al Fuori un primato ontologico, questa defi nizione deleuziana sembra costituire l’indice di una concezione secondo la quale la carne non sarebbe più un’istanza originaria, ma uno stato derivato da un piegarsi primordiale. Se così fosse, è l’incostituibilità della piega carnale, difesa da Merleau-Ponty, che verrebbe rimessa in questione. Al contempo, però, la difficoltà di rendere conto della specificità della mia carne rispetto alla carne del mondo verrebbe semplicemente aggirata. Come si tratterà di dimostrare, l’assenza di una differenza ontologica netta tra la carne del corpo e la carne del mondo ne Il visibile et l’invisibile, sottolineata da Deleuze nell’evocazione di una “coincidenza ideale” delle due carni,potrebbe venir risolta dal richiamo ad una carne ricavata dalla torsione di un Fuori primordiale. In che misura Deleuze, nella sua ricostruzione metafisica del progetto merleau-pontiano, si mantiene fedele ad esso? In che misura Deleuze inflette questa riformulazione speculativa in direzione della sua propria concezione della vita? Sono le questioni che il presente articolo si propone di affrontare. (shrink)

[85] Les théories de la sexualité qui tendent à attribuer des fins naturelles au désir sexuel font très souvent partie d’un discours plus général sur les lieux légitimes du genre et du désir dans un contexte social donné2. Parler du désir naturel et corrélativement de la forme naturelle des relations sexuelles humaines revient à adopter un dis- cours invariablement normatif, puisque les formes du désir et de la sexualité qui tombent en dehors des paramètres du modèle naturel sont alors compri...

Since its origins, cinema makes an irruption into the world bringing a new reality that inserts itself into a changing social and cultural environment. Raising as an “art of the time” it contributes to the generation of a new perception development and a new aesthetic that brings a “state of encounter” that disrupts the usual relationship between the spectator and the visible while it emerges with a temporary space that interacts among the time experience. The present becomes a contracted past (...) and the memory can be visualized. Cinema becomes an event with a revealing function that will always question its definition and concept. (shrink)

A partir del análisis crítico que Martha Nussbaum realizara sobre la obra de Judith Butler, proponemos examinar el vínculo entre la reflexión filosófica y la práctica política en el marco del feminismo. Para ello analizaremos el modo en que cada una de estas autoras reflexiona en torno al lenguaje, las identidades, el poder, la dominación y las formas de subvertirla.

Judith Jarvis Thomson has recently proposed a new argument for the thesis that killing the one in the Trolley Problem is not permissible. Her argument relies on the introduction of a new scenario, in which the bystander may also sacrifice herself to save the five. Thomson argues that those not willing to sacrifice themselves if they could may not kill the one to save the five. Bryce Huebner and Marc Hauser have recently put Thomson's argument to empirical test by (...) asking people what they should do in the new trilemma case, in which they may also sacrifice themselves. They found that the majority judge that they should either kill the one or sacrifice themselves; Huebner and Hauser argue that those numbers speak against Thomson's argument. But Thomson's argument was about the dialectical effect of the new trilemma on the traditional dilemma, rather than about the trilemma itself. Here I present the results of a study in which I asked subjects first what they should do in the trilemma and then what they should do in the traditional Trolley Problem. I found that, if asked first about the trilemma, subjects then have the intuition that killing the one in the traditional Bystander at the Switch is not permissible?exactly what Thomson's argument had predicted. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 29.3 (1999) 81-101 [Access article in PDF] Sex without Sex, Queering the Market, the Collapse of the Political, the Death of Difference, and AIDS: Hailing Judith Butler Brett Levinson It is interesting to note that in Judith Butler's study of the social construction of sex, Gender Trouble (as well as in the sequel, Bodies That Matter), one finds barely a trace of sex. Or to put (...) matters more bluntly: in Butler's study of gender critiques that avoid or dismiss the matters of hetero- and homosexuality, in her examination of the relationship of gayness and lesbianism to feminism, and in her exposition of a politics of queerness--as to fucking, not a word. This omission is not tangential to Gender Trouble. It determines Butler's entire undertaking. 1. The (In)difference of Performance By illustrating that sex, like gender, is a social construction, Butler strives to tear not sex but both sex and gender from biological essentialism. For as Butler insists, as soon as we imagine sex (woman/man) as naturally given, and gender (feminine/masculine) as a product of social forces, we fall into the very gender essentialism that we seemingly called into question. This is because the sex/gender binary makes sex the ground of gender: a woman may be masculine or feminine, and she may subvert the social norms that demand that women act in a certain manner. But throughout all of these gender reversals, she remains a woman. Her behavior, therefore, is either far from her sex (if she is subversive) or close to it (if she conforms). But in either case, it is measured in terms of that sex, which stands as the essence or foundation of the conduct. Hence, within such a discourse, gender stereotypes do not actually emerge as social (thereby deconstructible) constructs since the substructure (sex) of their edifice is given prior to production.This thesis, which ultimately reveals that the sex/gender split reproduces the woman/man binary--the foundation of sexism--opens the way for one of Butler's most renowned interventions: her theory of performativity. Butlerian performance traces the intersection of Derrida's concept of mimesis and Foucault's understanding of power. Derrida argues that if a mark (in writing) or a sound (in speech) is to form part of a language, it must be iterable. Language hinges on social conventions, and social conventions on repetition, ritual. Repetition, therefore, does not follow (from) a pregiven [End Page 81] [Begin Page 83] sign but is a condition of its possibility: a sign must be repeatable before it is a sign. 1Derrida often translates these ideas into an analysis of "the citation," a fact Butler fully exploits. An articulation, Derrida argues, must be a priori citable (again, iterable) if it is to function as an articulation, as a "speech act." This means that deviance, miscitation, recontextualization, and the possible transformation or loss of an enunciation--any or all of which could occur via a citation--belong essentially to that enunciation. The repetitions that yield rituals, habits, and then norms are the same iterations that undermine those norms. But this is true not only for speech. It holds as well for the law: the citing, execution, reading, writing, and acknowledgment of the law, hence the possibility of the law's shift and even disappearance, pertain to the law's groundwork.Gender Trouble posits patriarchy and compulsive heterosexuality as two such citable laws. And as laws, they are powerful but not inevitable. Indeed, because the law of normalcy harbors its own deviance as a condition of its public emergence or deployment, this normalcy opens the way for its own transgression. One is indeed subject to the law of the norm. But this subjection cannot not grant the very alternative agency/subjectivity it strives to suppress.Hence for Butler, queer types such as the "femme" or the "butch," as they perhaps flaunt (through dress, bodily image, or public demonstration) the constructed character of their own sexual identities, recite and dis-cover the constructed, artificial... (shrink)

A review of Butler's first book. An English version has been posted.

This essay focuses on the approach to the study of political and legal phenomena that can be defined “critical realism” and with its apparent paradox. By “critical realism” I understand a way of looking at political and legal phenomena that combines a blunt analysis of social reality with a transformative, non-resigned critical attitude towards the status quo. I argue that this is the approach that inspired Danilo Zolo’s lifelong reflections on politics and law. The same approach, moreover, is in my (...) opinion shared by authors such as Raymond Geuss and Bernard Williams, who, since the beginning of the new millennium, have contributed to re-shape the international debate on the methods of political philosophy. Inherent in this approach is a paradox that can be encapsulated in the following two questions. First, if the theoretical analysis should not start from ideals and principles, but must instead take as point of departure the social and political situation in which we are inescapably entangled (both central assumptions of the critical realism), how is it possible to gain the distance necessary for criticisms? Second, if we cannot transcend our societal reality and cannot therefore rely on external and objective values, on which basis is it possible to suggest “better” alternatives to the status quo? The mentioned authors could not explain convincingly, in my opinion, how these two questions can be answered. However, and this is the central claim of the article, the paradox is not unresolvable. The two questions mentioned above can be answered, so my argument, by recurring, respectively, to the negativism characteristic of Judith Shklar’s approach to political and legal theory and to the concept of “immanent critique” as understood by Rahel Jaeggi. Shklar convincingly shows that the critique of the status quo can be made not notwithstanding the blunt analysis of social reality, but exactly in reason of it. In order to recognise abuses of power and injustices, so her argument, we do not need an ideal theory of justice or of the perfect state. On the contrary, nothing better than history and the analysis of contemporary social reality can show us that injustices and abuses of power are a recurring and ever possible characteristics of politics. Jaeggi’s concept on immanent critique, moreover, indicates how it is possible to build an alternative to the criticized situation that is not anchored on transcendent principles and yet can plausibly explain why the suggested alternative is “better” than the status quo. Finally, I argue that both Shklars’ negativism and Jaeggi’s concept of immanent critique operate implicitly in Zolo’s approach, but that they, having not being made explicit, could not develop their whole potential. (shrink)

Bolzaneto, Abu Grahib, Guantanamo: luoghi in cui la tortura è riemersa nel “civile”occidente contemporaneo. A perpetrarla sono i rappresentanti di uno Stato che si definisce “di diritto”: uno Stato la cui giustificazione ultima è la difesa e la protezione dei diritti inviolabili degli individui. La tortura, lungi dall’essere scomparsa, dunque permane come tecnica di potere nei moderni stati democratici. Essa non solo persiste come dato di fatto. Al contrario, negli ultimi decenni sono riemerse giustificazioni della tortura come pratica legale e (...) legittima per garantire la sicurezza dello Stato. Di fronte a queste nuove giustificazioni della tortura è oggi più che mai importante lasciarsi guidare dall’esperienza storica piuttosto che da ipotetici scenari futuri e, seguendo l'amonimento della studiosa statunitense Judith Shklar, fondare la difesa dei diritti sull’assunto, “ampiamente giustificato da ogni pagina di storia politica, che alcuni rappresentanti del potere statale si comporteranno regolarmente, su piccola o grande scala, in modo illegale e brutale, a meno che non venga loro impedito di farlo”. (shrink)

In The Realm of Rights Judith Thomson provides a full-scale, systematic theory of human and social rights, bringing out what in general makes an attribution of ...

Goodness -- Goodness properties -- Expressivism -- Betterness relations -- Virtue/kind properties -- Correctness properties (acts) -- Correctness properties (mental states) -- Reasons-for (mental states) -- Reasons-for (acts) -- On some views about "ought" : relativism, dilemmas, means-ends -- On some views about "ought" : belief, outcomes, epistemic ought -- Directives -- Addendum 1: "Red" and "good" -- Addendum 2: Correctness -- Addendum 3: Reasons -- Addendum 4: Reasoning.

But what if in order to save 0nc’s life one has to ki]1 another person? In some cases that is obviously permissible. In a case I will call Villainous Aggrcssor, you are standing in :1 meadow, innocently minding your own business, and 21 truck suddenly heads toward you. You try to sidestep the truck, but it tums as you tum. Now you can sec the driver: he is a mam you know has long hated you. What to do? You cannot (...) outrun thc truck. Fortunately, this is not pure nightmare: you just happen to have em antitank gun with you, and can blow up the truck. Of course, if you do this you will kill thc driver, but that does not matter; it is morally permissible for you to blow up thc truck, driver and 211, in defense of your life. (shrink)

In my contribution to this volume, I (BHS) comment on on the stultifying rhetoric of contemporary analytic moral theory as illustrated in Judith Jarvis Thomson's Tanner Lectures, with particular reference to Thomson's anxieties about the moral relativism exhibited by college freshman and to her efforts--quite strained, in my view, and inevitably unsuccessful--to demonstrate the existence of objective judgments in matters of morality and taste .

Projective contents, which include presuppositional inferences and Potts's conventional implicatures, are contents that may project when a construction is embedded, as standardly identified by the FAMILY-OF-SENTENCES diagnostic. This article establishes distinctions among projective contents on the basis of a series of diagnostics, including a variant of the family-of-sentences diagnostic, that can be applied with linguistically untrained consultants in the field and the laboratory. These diagnostics are intended to serve as part of a toolkit for exploring projective contents across languages, thus (...) allowing generalizations to be examined and validated crosslinguistically. We apply the diagnostics in two languages, focusing on Paraguayan Guaraní, and comparing the results to those for English. Our study of Paraguayan Guaraní is the first systematic exploration of projective content in a language other than English. Based on the application of our diagnostics to a wide range of constructions, four subclasses of projective contents emerge. The resulting taxonomy of projective content has strong implications for contemporary theories of projection, which were developed for the projective properties of particular subclasses and fail to generalize to the full set of projective contents. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1976, given by Judith Jarvis Thomson, an American philosopher.

Harmonic Alignment was proposed by Prince and Smolensky (1993) as a mechanism to establish a correspondence between different harmony scales within the overall framework of Optimality Theory (“OT” henceforth). They specifically address the combination of the phonological sonority hierarchy with the hierarchy of syllable positions. In recent work, Judith Aissen has taken up this idea as a mean to formulate insights from the functionally oriented markedness theory in morphology and syntax within OT syntax (cf. Aissen 1999, 2000). Though based (...) on earlier work in typology like Silverstein (1981) , Aissen manages a formalization of a mechanism that promises an account of much that seems quaint and bizarre about natural languages when considered from the perspective of e.g. a designer of computer languages or logical formalisms. Suppose a linguistic item can be classified according to two features, A and B. Suppose furthermore that A has two possible values, A1 and A2, while B has n possible values, B1 . . . Bn, for some n ≥ 2. Finally, the values of each both features are ranked according to their prominence. Lets say that A1 is more prominent than A2, and Bi is more prominent than Bj iff i < j. Formally, we thus have the prominence scales.. (shrink)