The term ‘communitarianism’ is often identified with ‘altruism’: an individual is taken to be communitarian-minded if he or she is concerned with the well-being of others, and not only with his or her own well-being. While communitarianism may embrace altruism, it is most appositely viewed as having a broader connotation. Consider, for example, the puzzle of voting behaviour, discussed by Amitai Etzioni and many others ). Casting one's vote entails a cost, albeit usually a small one: however, if there are (...) large numbers voting, then one's own vote has a negligible effect on the outcome. An altruist might therefore rationally refrain from voting, since he incurs a cost, and neither he nor anybody else receives a benefit. And yet, millions of people the world over regularly vote in elections. Other examples could also be given. ‘Group-oriented’ behaviour has been the focus of a number of recent studies. C. Clague, for example, examines the roles of guilt and shame in discouraging tax evasion, and informally discusses how social influences may affect the strength of these sentiments. R. Naylor and M. Cripps examine the influence of social custom on individuals' propensity to join trade unions, while P. Nelson argues that in choosing which party to vote for people assign some weight to the preferences of persons they associate with. (shrink)

I take friendship to be a practical and emotional relationship marked by mutual and (more-or-less) equal goodwill, liking, and pleasure. Friendship can exist between siblings, lovers, parent and adult child, as well as between otherwise unrelated people. Some friendships are valued chiefly for their usefulness. Such friendships are instrumental or means friendships. Other friendships are valued chiefly for their own sakes. Such friendships are noninstrumental or end friendships. In this paper I am concerned only with end friendships, and the challenge (...) they pose to consequentialism. In an end friendship, one loves the friend as an essential part of one's system of ends, and not solely, or even primarily, as a means to an independent end - career advancement, amusement, philosophical illumination, or greater happiness in the universe. In such love, one loves the friend for the person she is, i.e., for her essential rather than incidental features. These include both her character traits - the fundamental intellectual, psychological, moral, and aesthetic qualities that constitute an individual's personality - and her unique perspective on herself and others: her view of the important and unimportant, her interest in herself and others. Thus in end friendship the friend cannot be replaced by another, for no other can have her essential features. Nor can she be replaced by a more efficient means to one's ends, or abandoned on their achievement, for it is not as a means that one 2 loves her. It is this necessary irreplaceability that most obviously marks off end friendship from means or instrumental friendship, in which the friend is replaceable.i Hence to love a friend as an end is to place a special value on her - to believe that her value is not outweighed, say, simply by the greater needs of others - or the needs of a greater number of others ("Sorry dear, there are more drowning on this end").ii End friendship (hereafter simply "friendship") is a cardinal human value.. (shrink)

In the moral philosophy of the last two centuries, altruism of one kind or another has typically been regarded as identical with moral concern. When self-regarding duties have been recognized, motivation by duty has been sharply distinguished from motivation by self-interest . Accordingly, from Kant, Mill, and Sidgwick to Rawls, Nagel, and Gauthier, concern for our own interests, whether long-term or short-term, has typically been regarded as intrinsically nonmoral. So, for example, although Thomas Nagel regards both prudence and altruism as (...) structural features of practical reason, he identifies only the latter as a moral capacity, prudence being merely rational, long-term egoism. Similarly, John Ravvls and David Gauthier contrast self-interest and other nontuistic interests—interests that are independent of others' interests—with moral interest. We are morally permitted , no doubt, to act out of self-interest within certain constraints, but such acts can have no intrinsic moral worth. Pursuit of our own interests out of duty does have intrinsic moral worth, but such pursuit, by hypothesis, cannot be motivated by self-interest. Self-interested pursuit of our own interests as such, no matter how realistic, farsighted, temperate, honest, or courageous, cannot be intrinsically moral. And this remains the case even if self-interest motivates us to perform other-regarding acts: only those other-regarding acts that are motivated by others' interests count as moral, because only such acts are altruistic. (shrink)

This essay asks if a cosmopolitan—who we take to be generally supportive of freer international migration—should worry about the adverse effects on those remaining behind in poor countries.

Articles on Sikh ethos, history, and philosophy.

The author presents a varied menu of ideas and experiences in many areas - in research, in diagnosis, and in psychotherapy, each using art media with patients of all ages. She integrates art, phenomenology and gestalt psychology, describing specific techniques and findings. Part I of the book lays out the theoretical foundations and the techniques; Part II addresses the formal components used in art therapy - line, shape and colour in their interrelated dynamics and discusses other aspects and modes of (...) symbolic expression found in clients' work. Part III looks at symbolic expression through the scribble, offering a system of classification, diagnostic possibilities and case studies of work with eating disorders. Part IV focuses on art expression for art therapy diagnostics, including a method for qualitative diagnostics, and a first full diagnostic battery for adolescents. Part V is devoted to Holocaust children's art expressions, highlighting the power of art expression in children under ultimate stress, the intensity of their inner experience, and its visualization in the structure of the pictures. The book is for art therapists and advanced students. It can be used as a textbook on phenomenological art therapy; for therapeutically-oriented art teachers, educators and social workers; and for practicing psychotherapists, to see that art is a source of expression demonstrating how a person is. (shrink)

When learning a new math concept, should learners be first taught the concept and its associated procedures and then solve problems, or solve problems first even if it leads to failure and then be taught the concept and the procedures? Two randomized-controlled studies found that both methods lead to high levels of procedural knowledge. However, students who engaged in problem solving before being taught demonstrated significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer to novel problems than those who were taught (...) first. The second study further showed that when given an opportunity to learn from the failed problem-solving attempts of their peers, students outperformed those who were taught first, but not those who engaged in problem solving first. Process findings showed that the number of student-generated solutions significantly predicted learning outcomes. These results challenge the conventional practice of direct instruction to teach new math concepts and procedures, and propose the possibility of learning from one's own failed problem-solving attempts or those of others before receiving instruction as alternatives for better math learning. (shrink)

This book offers a new argument for the ancient claim that well-being as the highest prudential good -- eudaimonia -- consists of happiness in a life according to virtue. Virtue is a source of happiness, but happiness also requires external goods.

Introduction: The Nature and Signif1cance of Friendship Neera Kapur Badhwar Philosophers have long recognized that friendship plays a central role in a ...

Lawrence Haworth's book, Autonomy, discusses “Autonomy as a Psychological Idea”, and “Autonomy as a Normative Idea”. Part 1 discusses autonomy in relation to rationality, agency, and responsibility, defends it against Skinnerian sceptics, and outlines a theory of autonomous decision-making and the autonomous task environment. Haworth's conception of autonomy integrates and builds on the concepts of S. I. Benn, G. Dworkin, H. Frankfurt, and R. W. White. Part 2 centres on social/political theory, and not, despite the book's subtitle, on ethics as (...) such. Haworth argues that only autonomy, and not liberty or happiness, is an intrinsic value, and fundamental right. His “autonomist” theory of liberty rights, a form of revisionary liberalism derived from the later idealists, is opposed to the classical liberal/libertarian theory. The arguments prompt a re-examination of the role of autonomy in the arguments for liberty, but do not, in my view, make a persuasive case for “autonomism” against classical liberalism. The book is chiefly noteworthy for its success in covering many important topics connected with autonomy, in an impressively short space, and in an always clear and often very insightful way. (shrink)

This essay explores the ways in which the definition of Indian culture has become a site of contest, and how this contest played out in the controversy that erupted over the release and screening of Deepa Mehta's diasporic film, Fire, in India. I locate this controversy within the broader controversies that are taking place over culture, particularly when issues of sex and sexuality are involved. The continuous targeting of representations of sex and sexuality, betrays an underlying fear that sex is (...) something that is threatening to Indian cultural values, to the Indian way of life, to the very existence of the Indian nation. I discuss the responses to the release of the film by the forces of the Hindu Right as well as feminist and lesbian groups and critique the uncomplicated understandings of culture that informed these positions. Contingent upon these responses rests the story in Fire and the way in which the lesbian subject, a sexual subaltern, is constructed in the cultural space represented in the film. I challenge the positions that suggest that the women are represented as victims in the film, and draw attention to the cultural, sexual and familial ruptures brought about by the main protagonists through their desire for one another. I explore the complicated understandings of agency and desire that are represented through the assertion of this relationship. (shrink)

This Article examines how the legal subjectivity of the migrant subject is intimately connected to the construction of the citizenship subject and how both have been products of the colonial encounter. Deploying the lens of postcolonialism, I argue that the migrant is addressed through a spectrum of legal rules based on normative criteria reminiscent of the colonial encounter. These criteria reinscribe citizenship within dominant racial, sexual, and cultural norms as well as claims of civilizational superiority. That which does not fall (...) within the boundaries of citizenship is regarded as outcast, an "Other," and subject to restraint, persecution, censorship, social stigma, incarceration, and even annihilation. The discussion draws examples from recent judicial decisions in the context of postcolonial India, dealing with migrant bar dancers and migrant Muslims, highlighting the deep and lasting impact of the colonial encounter and the imperial imagination on understandings and constructions of citizenship in the contemporary period. The cases further illustrate how notions of "global" or "world" citizen, unbound by territory or the nation-state, are unable to account for the complex and contradictory understandings of citizenship that have emerged from within a postcolonial context. The arguments force us to inquire into the role of citizenship, its relevance or meaninglessness in the lives of the migrant once its exclusionary potential has been exposed. (shrink)

"Reason and the Sacred" alludes to the relation between Philosophy and Sacred Doctrine, or between reason and faith, considering both as necessary and indispensable faculties of the human psyche, one not negating the other vis-a-vis the immanent reaches of the psyche as to its purpose, but one enhancing the other in the perfection of each's domain. Faith is thus not antithetical to reason except if one is employed on the domain of the other so as to attain certainty and experience (...) truth. The latter part of this compilation, namely Book III, includes "Ancient Ethiopia: Gold beneath Wax," an essay on the history of conceivably the oldest civilization, following a meditative writing on faith, contemplation and mystic spirituality, and a religio-anthropological and historical essay about the ancient Church of Abyssinia.". (shrink)

At the height of the Nazi Holocaust in 1942, children in an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto performed Rabindranath Tagore’s 1912 play Dak Ghar (The Post Office). They were in the care of Janusz Korczak, a socialist, pedia­trician, and one of the world’s first child rights advocates. The play centers on a young boy, Amal, who is confined in quarantine and on his death bed. This article attempts to understand why Korczak may have chosen Dak Ghar and how this play (...) may have resonated in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he confronts two painful questions: is there anything worse than death? And, how to prepare children for death? This essay draws on Walter Benjamin’s concept of play, Han Jonas’s concept of eternity, Tagore’s expansive sense of humanity, and Korczak’s philosophy of child rights to argue the following: that in choosing a play from another time and place, Korczak empowers the children of the Warsaw orphanage to experience the radical unity of all humanity as inhabitants of this earth—and our arts as a way to transcend the boundaries of space and time. In consequence, the children may have tasted eternity through a play and memorialized in community that which would be denied by the Nazis—their deaths and, thus, their existence. (shrink)

The SlutWalk campaigns around the world have triggered a furious debate on whether they advance or limit feminist legal politics. This article examines the location of campaigns such as the SlutWalk marches in the context of feminist legal advocacy in postcolonial India, and discusses whether their emergence signifies the demise of feminism or its incarnation in a different guise. The author argues that the SlutWalks, much like the Pink Chaddi (panty) campaign in India, provide an important normative and discursive challenge (...) to a specific strand of feminism based on male domination and female subordination in the area of sexuality and also speaks to the emergence of consumer agency in the very heart of pleasure in the neo-liberal moment. It serves as a space clearing gesture, a form of feminism ‘lite’, rather than offering a transformative or revolutionary politics, and thus enables the possibility of feminist theoretical positions in a postcolonial context that have hitherto been marginalised or ignored in feminist legal advocacy in India to emerge. (shrink)

In the moral philosophy of the last two centuries, altruism of one kind or another has typically been regarded as identical with moral concern. When self-regarding duties have been recognized, motivation by duty has been sharply distinguished from motivation by self-interest. I think this view is wrong: self-interest can be the motive of a moral act. My chief concern is to argue that self-interested action -- i.e., action motivated by rational self-interest -- can be moral, but the data I use (...) to argue for this also provide compelling empirical evidence that all human motives do not reduce to self-interest, that altruism is possible. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research is currently published by International Phenomenological Society.

This is an excellent book but it lacks a detailed presentation and formulation of images of memory. Positron emission tomography (PET) findings sometimes raise more enigmatic questions than they answer, with differences between studies and differences with established lesion evidence. Perhaps the book could have been more critical in its analysis of these enigmas, covering more of the basic issues and assumptions underlying PET research.

Some of the assumptions underlying the arguments in Aggleton & Brown's target article are reviewed; discrepancies/predictions are pointed out in relation to human lesion studies. A&B's proposal is interesting, but it may require harder, confirmatory evidence before it can be considered to be all-encompassing.

Liberal political theory sees justice as the "first virtue" of a good society, the virtue that guides individuals' conceptions of their own good, and protects the equal liberty of all to pursue their ends, so long as these ends and pursuits are just. But ever since Marx's declaration that "liberty as a right of man is not founded upon the relations between man and man, but rather upon the separation of man from man...,"i liberal society has been frequently criticized for (...) falling seriously short of the conditions of a good society.ii A prominent recent criticism of this sort has been voiced by "communitarians," who charge that the primacy of rights in liberalism reveals a failure to appreciate the value of friendship and community, and tends to undermine their possibility.iii My aim in this paper is to defend liberal political theory, understood as the theory that justifies a polity of individual rights and justice, against this charge.iv My main argument will be directed at the assumption that there is an inherent tension between rights and justice on the one hand, and familial love and friendship on the other. According to the communitarian, two or more individuals constitute a community when they share a common conception of the good, and see this good as partly constitutive of their identities or selves.v Such "constitutive community," in Michael Sandel's words, may be a close friendship or family relationship, or an intermediate association such as a neighborhood organization, or a comprehensive political community. The communitarian charges that in making justice the first virtue of social institutions, liberalism undermines community at all levels, and this for two reasons. First, liberalism demands that we revise or surrender our conceptions of the good - including our attachments and commitments to family and friends - if they should turn out to be unjust. But this demand, the communitarian claims, requires attitudes 2 that are inconsistent with these attachments and commitments.. (shrink)

When teaching a novel mathematical concept, should we present learners with abstract or concrete examples? In this experiment, we conduct a critical replication and extension of a well‐known study that argued for the general advantage of abstract examples (Kaminski, Sloutsky, & Heckler, 2008a). We demonstrate that theoretically motivated yet minor modifications of the learning design put this argument in question. A key finding from this study is that participants who trained with improved concrete examples performed as well as, or better (...) than, participants who trained with abstract examples. We argue that the previously reported “advantage of abstract examples” manifested not because abstract examples are advantageous in general, but because the concrete condition employed suboptimal examples. (shrink)

Research using Controlled Human Infection Models is yet to be attempted in India. This study was conducted to understand the perceptions of the lay public and key opinion makers prior to the possible introduction of such studies in the country. 110 respondents from urban and rural Bangalore district were interviewed using qualitative research methods of Focus Group Discussions and In-depth Interviews. The data was analyzed using grounded theory. Safety was a key concern of the lay public, expressed in terms of (...) fear of death. The notion of infecting a healthy volunteer, the possibility of continued effects beyond the study duration and the likelihood of vulnerable populations volunteering solely for monetary benefit, were ethical concerns. Public good outcomes such as effective treatments, targeted vaccines and prevention of diseases was necessary justification for such studies. However, the comprehension of this benefit was not clear among non-medical, non-technical respondents and suggestions to seek alternatives to CHIMs repeatedly arose. There was a great deal of deflection—with each constituency feeling that people other than themselves may be ideally suited as participants. Risk takers, those without dependents, the more health and research literate, financially sound and those with an altruistic bent of mind emerged as possible CHIM volunteers. While widespread awareness and advocacy about CHIM is essential, listening to plural voices is the first step in public engagement in ethically contentious areas. Continued engagement and inclusive deliberative processes are required to redeem the mistrust of the public in research and rebuild faith in regulatory systems. (shrink)