The theory of evolution: The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, by R. Scoon. Evolution in its relation to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of culture, by F.S.C. Northrop. The genetic nature of differences among men, by T. Dobzhansky. Evolutionary thought in America: Evolution and American sociology by R.E.L. Faris. The impact of the idea of evolution on the American political and constitutional tradition, by E.S. Corwin. Evolutionism in American economics, 1800-1946, by J.J. Spengler. The influence of evolutionary (...) theory upon American psychological thought, by E.G. Boring. Naturalism in American literature, by M. Cowley. The idea of organic expression and American architecture, by D.D. Egbert. Evolution and moral theory in America, W.F. Quillian, Jr. Evolution and theology in America, by S. Persons. (shrink)

One of the levels of analysis used in Political Science studies is the individual. Analyzes at the individual level are carried out based on the personality of the political decision-makers, and in this direction, the individual characteristics of the decision-makers are the main factor taken into account in interpreting the quality of politics. This is also valid in the political books that constitute the main source of Islamic political thought. There is a leader-centered political narrative in the policy (...) books written for state administrators. In these works, the issues of which personal characteristics a leader should have and which behaviors should be avoided are especially discussed. A vision is built around these personal characteristics, from the ideal leader to the ideal politics. In this context, the ruler who is the chief executive of politics is not only an actor to whom advice is given but also the main element in politics. Therefore, examining the emphasis on the personal characteristics of the ruler in Islamic political thought becomes important in interpreting the leader-centered political narrative. In this context, in this study, it is aimed to examine the leader-centered political conception in Islamic political thought within the framework of Ebü’n-Necîb Şeyzerî’s Nehcü’s-Sülûk fî Siyaseti’l-Mülûk. The method of discourse analysis was used in the study and it was concluded that the personality of the leader, who is accepted as the founding element of the state and politics in Islamic political thought, directs politics and that the way to reach the ideal politics is to build the ideal leader. (shrink)

This book provides a novel account of integrity and its relevance to both individual and collective conduct, and analyses a wide range of practical policy problems.

This book offers an opportunity for an anti deficit and positive examination of Black/Black-multiracial culture and its role in creating educational efficacy among academics of color. Through personal narrative, educational and learning theory, and creative writing/poetry, this hybrid text examines the cultural path to the doctorate.

Recognition plays a central role in international affairs and in moral and political theory. Hegel noted the connections between these two contexts, and this article explores Hegel's approach with reference to the work of two political philosophers (Honneth and Rawls) and debates in international law. The conclusion is that while recognition has a constitutive role in international affairs, it has a different role in moral and political theory: morality is the evaluative recognition of the significance of individual autonomy.

This collection of John Mackie's papers on personal identity and topics in moral and political philosophy, some of which have not previously been published, deal with such issues as: multiple personality; the transcendental "I"; responsibility and language; aesthetic judgements; Sidgwick's pessimism; act-utiliarianism; right-based moral theories; cooperation, competition, and moral philosophy; universalization; rights, utility, and external costs; norms and dilemmas; Parfit's population paradox; and the combination of partially-ordered preferences.

Fred Greenstein, an acknowledged authority in this field, lays out conceptual and methodological standards for carrying out personality-and politics inquiries, ranging from psychological case studies of single actors, through multi-case analyses of types of political actors, to aggregative analyses of the impact of individuals and types of individuals on political systems and processes. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton (...) University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Although it is widely accepted that personal values of Self-Transcendence are a positive predictor of environmentalism, and Self-Enhancement values are a negative one, these results are not conclusive for all cultural contexts. Regarding political ideologies, research concludes that liberals tend to be more concerned about the environment than conservatives. However, this two-dimensional take on political ideologies does not grasp the diversity of political views, which could be achieved by focusing on political values. In this research, we studied the role of (...) personal and political values in predicting environmental attitudes and behavior in Kazakhstan, a developing country in Central Asia. Using an online survey, we found that Security was a strong predictor of both environmental concern and New Environmental Paradigm, overshadowing the effect of traditionally accepted value dimensions of Self-Transcendence and Self-Enhancement. While Self-Direction positively predicted environmental concern, Universalism and Benevolence were positive predictors of NEP. Among political values, Civil Liberties predicted NEP positively, and had no significant effect on environmental concern, while Free Enterprise predicted environmental concern negatively, and had no significant effect on NEP. Environmental concern was a strong predictor of all pro-environmental behaviors included in the study, fully mediating the effect of NEP. Based on personal and political values, three profiles of Kazakhstanis who engaged differently in pro-environmental behavior were identified. (shrink)

By focusing upon three figures: a trade unionist, who can no longer understand or reconcile himself with his past misogynist behaviour; Spinoza’s Spanish poet, who loses his memory and can no longer write poetry or even recognise his earlier work; and Spinoza’s lost friend, Burgh, who became a devout Catholic, I draw out Spinoza’s description of radical change in beliefs. I explore how, for Spinoza, radical changes that involve an increase in our powers of acting are conceived differently from those (...) changes that reduce our power. These transitions—which can be viewed as both personal and political—are not symmetrical because of the way in which they can be understood in relation to selfhood. To highlight the originality of Spinoza’s argument on personal change, I then compare it with that of his contemporary John Locke, who in Chapter 27 of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding famously theorises the maintenance of personal identity. I draw out one common aspect of the work of Étienne Balibar and of Janet Coleman to compare the ways in which Spinoza and Locke produce different answers to the same questions: how do we conceptualise our encounters with bodies and with ideas? How do these encounters affect our identity over time? In the final section, I switch from analysing personal (but also political) change to consider political change itself, by juxtaposing Warren Montag’s Spinozist analysis of the will, with Carole Pateman’s feminist critique of contract and consent. (shrink)

This book presents a thorough and systematic integration of Aristotle's analysis of friendship with the main lines of the rest of his work in Politics and Nicomachean Ethics.

Courts are often criticised as undemocratic. The backlash against international courts in the last decade is also partly driven by this concern. Human rights courts’ legitimacy is particularly challenged because they aim to protect human rights against the very states that need to comply with and implement the courts’ judgements. Therefore, several international courts have developed mechanisms of deference to states. One especially interesting tool is the European Court of Human Rights’ margin of appreciation doctrine. This paper proposes that the (...) margin of appreciation can ensure the conditions of personal autonomy by protecting human rights while respecting the democratic decisions of states. Yet, states’ decisions should only be respected insofar as they realise political autonomy. Understanding the margin in this way allows us to critically evaluate arguments made under this label. The paper reviews developments in the ECtHR practice with regard to (a) different cases that use the margin of appreciation doctrine, (b) appeals to a European consensus, and (c) the procedural turn in its review and assesses whether and how they can be justified in the light of considerations about personal and political autonomy. (shrink)

Democracy is in crisis in the United States and in many countries around the world. Democracies are forged in the wake of oppression. At first there is trust among those with a common cause. But maintaining unity is a continual challenge. Many nations that started on a path to democracy in this century now are reverting to autocracy. Their elected leaders maintain support by pitting one part of the population against the other as they threaten those who challenge them. They (...) exert their authority by repeating mistruths and intimidating the press. Internal divisions in the United States now threaten that it will tread that path. In the US and other democracies equality and human dignity still have not fully been realized. In every generation we must renew our commitment to democratic principles and their meaning for our time. (shrink)

Part IV. Section 1. The Personal and the Political Value of Autonomy: Disparities in autonomy competency number among the many ways in which women and men in western societies are unequal. Meyers holds that although personal autonomy is not the sole or paramount value, medial autonomy is not only a personal good, but is also a political good.

What is the origin of individual differences in ideology and personality? According to the parasite stress hypothesis, the structure of a society and the values of individuals within it are both influenced by the prevalence of infectious disease within the society's geographical region. High levels of infection threat are associated with more ethnocentric and collectivist social structures and greater adherence to social norms, as well as with socially conservative political ideology and less open but more conscientious personalities. Here we (...) use an agent-based model to explore a specific opportunities-parasites trade-off hypothesis, according to which utility-maximizing agents place themselves at an optimal point on a trade-off between the gains that may be achieved through accessing the resources of geographically or socially distant out-group members through openness to out-group interaction, and the losses arising due to consequently increased risks of exotic infection to which immunity has not been developed. We examine the evolution of cooperation and the formation of social groups within social networks, and we show that the groups that spontaneously form exhibit greater local rather than global cooperative networks when levels of infection are high. It is suggested that the OPTO model offers a first step toward understanding the specific mechanisms through which environmental conditions may influence cognition, ideology, personality, and social organization. (shrink)

This book examines the conception of the person at work in John Rawls's writings from Theory of Justice to Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. The book aims to show that objections to Rawls's political conception of the person fail and that a Rawlsian conception of political identity is defensible. The book shows that the debate between liberals and communitarians is relevant to the current debate regarding perfectionism and neutrality in politics, and clarifies the debate between Rawls and communitarians in (...) a way that will promote fruitful discussion on the issue of political identity. It does this by providing a clearer account of a conception of personal identity according to which persons are socially constituted, including the intuitions and assumptions underlying the communitarians' conception of persons as "socially constituted." It examines the communitarian objections to liberal political theory and to the liberal conception of persons, the "unencumbered self." The book differentiates between two types of objection to the liberal conception of persons: the metaphysical and normative. It explains Rawls's political conception of persons, and the metaphysical and normative commitments Rawls incurs-and does not incur-in virtue of that conception. It shows that both kind of objection to Rawls's political conception of the person fail. Finally, modifying Rawls's political conception of the person, a Rawlsian conception of political identity is explained and defended. (shrink)

Explores some steps toward non-assimilative encounters in the "global village.".

This paper challenges the first Gettier counterexample to the tripartite account of knowledge. Noting that 'the man who will get the job' is a description and invoking Donnellan's distinction between their 'referential' and 'attributive' uses, I argue that Smith does not actually believe that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's ignorance about who will get the job shows that the belief cannot be understood referentially, his ignorance of the coins in his pocket (...) shows that it cannot be understood attributively. An explanation for why Smith appeared to have justified true belief is given by distinguishing between 'belief' and 'belief in truth'. Smith believes the sentence 'the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket' to be true (he mistakenly believes that Jones will get the job, of whom he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket) (hence his 'belief'), the sentence is true (hence 'truth'), and he has sufficient reason to assent to it (hence his 'justification'). But he does not believe the proposition expressed. Hence he does not know it either. (shrink)

At the center of this paper are three questions: in the absence of a religious worldview, can one gain access to the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, can reconciliation be achieved in the absence of forgiveness or does the former depend in some way upon the latter, and can we make sense of a restorative approach to justice in the absence of either forgiveness or reconciliation? To answer these questions, I look closely at the concept of forgiveness in the first (...) section of this article with the goals of disentangling it from its religious undertones and emphasizing its importance to the very concept of restorative justice. Drawing on both theoretical work and practical examples, I argue that forgiveness is not necessarily a religious concept ? contrary to common perception ? and that, contra Zehr, it is a foundational component of restorative justice. Having considered this first problem, I turn ? in the second section ? to a discussion of the concept of reconciliation, arguing that personal and political reconciliation must be separated from one another and from the concept of forgiveness. Ultimately, I conclude that forgiveness and reconciliation are quite different concepts, that the latter relies on the former, and that the latter is a goal rather than a necessary component of restorative justice. Drawing largely on the work of Hannah Arendt, Susan Dwyer, Trudy Govier, and Howard Zehr, as well as discussions with members of Murder Victims? Families for Reconciliation, I argue that political reconciliation between groups can be achieved in the absence of personal reconciliation between individual victims and perpetrators in those groups. Further, I demonstrate that restorative practices open up the possibility of both types of reconciliation, but that they are ultimately founded only on the principle of forgiveness. (shrink)

Person-centered Politics, in dialogue with some of major contemporary philosophers and thinkers, proposes a renewed vision of politics by presenting a renewal of the real social and transcendent dimensions of personal existence.

J. L. Austin was one of the more influential British philosophers of his time, due to his rigorous thought, extraordinary personality, and innovative philosophical method. According to John Searle, he was both passionately loved and hated by his contemporaries. Like Socrates, he seemed to destroy all philosophical orthodoxy without presenting an alternative, equally comforting, orthodoxy. -/- Austin is best known for two major contributions to contemporary philosophy: first, his ‘linguistic phenomenology’, a peculiar method of philosophical analysis of the concepts (...) and ways of expression of everyday language; and second, speech act theory, the idea that every use of language carries a performative dimension (in the well-known slogan, “to say something is to do something”). Speech act theory has had consequences and import in research fields as diverse as philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, linguistics, artificial intelligence and feminist philosophy. -/- This article describes Austin’s linguistic method and his speech act theory, and it describes the original contributions he made to epistemology and philosophy of action. It closes by focusing on two main developments of speech act theory─the dispute between conventionalism and intentionalism, and the debate on free speech, pornography, and censorship. (shrink)

Moving from an historical analysis of the Catholic Church's gradual endorsement of liberal democracy to an explication of the ethical and political thought of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Persons and Liberal Democracy concisely explains the relatively recent shift in the Church's political theory and, in the process, defends what could be deemed a non-statist form of welfare liberalism. This book offers a systematic account of John Paul's philosophical and theological ethics and their relationship to the key elements of his political (...) thought and then brings this thought into conversation with some important strands of Christian and secular political theory deliberating the nature and legitimacy of liberalism. (shrink)

Recently, an article by Toshiko Tanaka, Takao Yamamoto, and Masahiko Haruno garnered a fair bit of media attention; in “Brain response patterns to economic inequity predict present and future depression indices”, they reported research that purported to show that “pro-social” individuals were more upset by unequal outcomes that didn’t directly disadvantage them than were “individualists.” Further, being pro-social was associated with a higher chance of developing depression. They linked this research with research showing that economic inequality is associated with poor (...) health outcomes, including higher rates of depression. (They cite the epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s 2006 work... (shrink)

This article concentrates on manifestations of medieval political philosophy in the Roman de la Rose. In particular, it focuses on two themes, which are crucial for understanding the very foundations of political and social life of human beings: (1) the origins of political community, private property and other social institutions; and (2) the relationship between love and justice, and the political relevance of these two concepts. -/- The first part of the article discusses Jean de Meun’s view concerning the origins (...) of social institutions, and relates it to Ciceronian and Augustinian traditions, which had a deep influence on medieval political philosophy. However, the main focus of the article is on the relation between Jean de Meun’s political ideas and medieval understanding of Aristotle’s political philosophy and moral psychology. Aristotelian influences are traced especially in relation to the second theme, which occupies the latter part of the article. It is argued that the political role of love and justice cannot be understood without taking medieval Aristotelian philosophy seriously. -/- Instead of trying to find historical and textual connections between individual medieval philosophers and Jean de Meun’s poem, the article embraces a different methodological approach: it aims to understand the philosophy behind the poem. This aim is achieved by providing a detailed reading of certain relevant passages, which are analysed against medieval adaptations of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. By such means, the article charts possible connections between scholasticism and La Rose and aims to show that they can—and indeed, should—be understood against thirteenth century Aristotelian philosophy. The result will be a philosophically informed understanding of the political dimensions of the poem. (shrink)

A central feature of the Covid-19 pandemic is state differences. Some state Governors closed all but essential businesses, others did not. In some states, most of the population wore face coverings when in public; in other states, <50% wore face coverings. According to journalists, these differences were symptomatic of a politically polarized America. The Big 5 personality factors also cluster at the state level. For example, residents of Utah score high on Conscientiousness and low on Neuroticism, whereas residents of (...) Massachusetts and Connecticut show the opposite pattern. In state-level regressions that controlled for partisan political allegiances, Conscientiousness was a significant predictor of the stringency of state Covid-19 restrictions, whereas Openness was a significant predictor of mask wearing. A number of the predictors were strongly correlated with each other. For example, the correlation coefficient linking Openness with the percentage of Democratic state legislators was r = 0.53. Commonality regression partitions the explained variance between the amount that is unique to each predictor and the amount that is shared among subsets of correlated predictors. This approach revealed that the common variance shared by Conscientiousness, Openness and partisan politics accounted for 34% of the state differences in Covid-19 policy and 35% of the state differences in mask wearing. The results reflect the importance of personality in how Americans have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

This is a book about freedom. Above all about the idea that there is often no greater obstacle to freedom than the assumption that it has already been attained. What prison, after all, could be more secure than that deemed to be "the world," where boundaries of action and thought are assumed to define not the limits of the permissible, but the limits of the possible. In the past we have been prisoners of tyrants and dictators, and consequently have needed (...) to win our freedom in very concrete, physical terms. We now need to free ourselves not from a slave ship or a concentration camp, but from many of the illusions fostered in our democratic society. "[A] wise and acute analysis of the way our minds are controlled, not in a totalitarian state, but in a 'democratic' one. Edwards also suggests how we can escape this control in a self-help book which, unlike other books of this genre, connects our inner world of alienation with the world outside."--Howard Zinn "[A] treatise on what freedom truly means.... Burning All Illusions is an important philosophical and psychology text that should be on every political science curriculum reading list!"--Wisconsin Book Watch. (shrink)