Many mothers with intellectual disabilities lose their parental rights due to child welfare (CW) concerns. Despite the growing interdisciplinary scholarship on parenting with intellectual disabilities, there is scant research that has explored the discursive practices embedded within CW or family courts involving mothers with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study is to explore portrayals of mothering with intellectual disability in CW court reports filed in Québec, Canada. A three-level critical discourse analysis was performed, focusing on 10 reports that were (...) retrieved from a publicly available legal database, and their larger discursive societal context. Analysis highlighted unequal power relations as discursive practice underpinned by the following discursive patterns: (1) The ideal caregiver vs the unfit mother (2) Devalued voices of mothers with intellectual disability (3) Professionals as holding authoritative knowledge and (4) Decision-making based on the best interest of the child. Revealing the hidden ideological assumptions embedded in discourse can help to challenge and confront injustice faced by mothers with intellectual disability within the CW system. (shrink)

"The overall aim of this book is to understand the character of moral progress, so that making moral progress may become more systematic and secure, less chancy and less bloody. Drawing on three historical examples - the abolition of chattel slavery, the expansion of opportunities for women, and the increasing acceptance of same-sex love - it asks how those changes were brought about, and seeks a methodology for streamlining the kinds of developments that occurred. Moral progress is conceived as (...) pragmatic progress, progress from rather than progress to, achieved by overcoming the problems and limits of the current situation. Two kinds of problems are distinguished: problems of exclusion, found when the complaints of some people are ignored; and problems of false consciousness, present when the oppressed adopt judgments from the ambient society and do not protest their condition. The proposed methodology advocates procedures for listening to voiced complaints and for systematically reviewing the way in which particular self-conceptions, ideals and identities are taken to be appropriate for various groups of people. Through outlining a picture of moral practice, at both the individual and the societal levels, the book seeks to orient moral philosophy away from metaethical questions of realism and towards moral methodology"--. (shrink)

Heintz & Scott-Phillips propose that the partner choice ecology of our ancestors required Gricean cognitive pragmatics for reputation management, which caused a tendency toward showing and expecting prosociality that subsequently scaffolded language evolution. Here, we suggest a cognitively leaner explanation that is more consistent with comparative data and posits that prosociality and eventually language evolved along with cooperative breeding.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Joanne Cutting-Gray HANNAH ARENDT'S RAHEL VARNHAGEN Hannah Arendt fled Nazi Germany in 1933, a year she called the end of Jewish history. She was 27 years old at the time and carried with her a manuscript that was later to become the peculiar biography of an eighteenth-century German-Jewish "pariah," Rahel Varnhagen (1771-1833). The Life of a fewish Woman, subtitle of the biography by Arendt, distills the largely (...) unpublished Varnhagen correspondence and marks the impact of that life upon German-Jewish history.1 Published more than "half a lifetime" later in 1957, it assays the politics of form in a highly unusual manner. By expunging all detail in order to analyze Varnhagen's introspection, Arendt implicitly questions selfhood as the form for identity and as the appropriate form for biography. She reveals that seeking to preserve the self determines the blank dumbness of an unnarratable life. Rahel Levin (Antonie Friederike Robert) Varnhagen, or simply "Rahel " as Arendt calls her, lived a life as complicated as her many names. The tortured relation she had to her identity, her insatiable preoccupation with self, reflects an effort to eradicate herJewishness by baptism and marriage and becomes a paradigm of a story about a woman lost to a sense of others and herself. Neither rich, cultivated, nor beautiful, Rahel lived her unhappiness fervently, with an ecstasy that made her appear to others as startlingly original. This helps to explain how she came to preside over the most important intellectual salon in Germany during the late eighteenth century. Princes, intellectuals, and artists flocked to her attic apartment, attracted by the impenetrable spectacle of her despair. Rahel's intensity pulled others into her orbit—including, one-hundred years later, the intense and self-absorbed Arendt at the beginning Philosophy and Literature, © 1991, 15: 229-245 230Philosophy and Literature of her university education.2 Each woman suffered the private failure of a love affair complicated by the broader, historical issue of racial identity that connected their lives. Prewar Nazi Germany taught Arendt what Varnhagen learned during the period of German-Jewish assimilation in the nineteenth century—"one does not escape Jewishness."3 It is no wonder that, in analogous moments of personal and civic upheaval, Rahel Varnhagen and Hannah Arendt "corresponded," the one by writing letters about her life, the other by giving that life to a world. Like Arendt, Varnhagen was unclassifiably exotic, an unattached, Jewish female seemingly without a history, aligned with no one and nothing. If"Jewishness" meant letting life "rain upon" her, Rahel Varnhagen let it strike her "like a storm without an umbrella." And like Arendt, she refused to hide the traits and talents of her personality under cover of morality and convention. Her letters are not self-congratulatory, for she never wittingly chose notoriety. Indeed, she spent much of her life trying to escape the stigma ofJewishness that marked her destiny. Notwithstanding the milieu of nineteenth-century German romanticism that drew the biographer toward her subject, various events surrounding the text make more compelling narratives than Varnhagen 's life: how the manuscript survived World War II, Arendt's emigration to the United States, and, especially, the public and private influence of Martin Heidegger.4 At the age of 18 (1925), Arendt had discovered Varnhagen during her brief love-affair with the 35-year-old philosophy professor at the University of Marburg. Though Heidegger would later call Arendt the "passion of his life" and inspiration for his work—he was writing Being and Time during that period—his brush with Nazism precipitated their breach. Since the Heidegger-Arendt correspondence remains closed, much about their youthful relationship and life-long intellectual affair remains a mystery open only to speculation. From Arendt's biographer, Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, we know that Varnhagen's story became a consolation to her in her sorrow, a means ofgiving significance to the ambiguities of a private relationship as it was caught up in public history.5 Certainly Heidegger's retreat from political events for the sake of thinking was as strong an influence on Arendt's political development as was Varnhagen's retreat from her Jewish destiny. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to expect... (shrink)

A number of Jewish women invented a singular way of entering into German culture; singular in that no tradition in Judaism or in Germany had shown them the way. Rahel Varnhagen, one of the first, is the subject of a biography by Hannah Arendt. Varnhagen never wrote a book, only letters and a diary, in which she unsystematically mixed narration and reflection, political and philosophical thoughts. Arendt's biography is true to heterogeneity of this kind: her biographical writing offers no (...) synthesis, jumping from systematic representations to individual experiences, and then to historical events or even social context. Arendt wrote to Jaspers that she had chosen the genre of biography precisely because she could not say what she wanted to in abstracto, meaning philosophic: more precisely, within the frames of Existenzphilosophie. Two things are noteworthy here: 1) the kind of biography that Arendt wrote; and 2) the very fact that she chose—despite Heidegger's well known contempt for it—the biographical genre. In order to give an account of those two things, one has to arrive at an understanding of what it is in the frames of Existenzphilosophie that prevents expression of the predicament of Rahel's existence and makes biography the more appropriate genre in her case. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer an interpretation of Arendt’s biography of the Jewish-German salonnière, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess. Treating the book as a work of political theory, I develop two arguments: First, I contend that Arendt’s study lays the grounds for a political epistemology of marginality and exclusion, making her a standpoint theorist avant la lettre. Second, I argue that Arendt’s book gives us an account of the process of ‘becoming political.’ This helps complement, and to (...) a degree counter, her insistence in more widely read books that political freedom is an exclusively plural experience in the public realm. This insistence sidelines the role played by individual political consciousness in the decision to engage in action, as well as the necessary interaction between the private and the public spheres in becoming a political subject. Arendt’s biography suggests that becoming political can be facilitated by a solidary, and private encounter with the excluded other. (shrink)

The Hegelian-Marxist idea of alienation fell out of favor during the post-metaphysical rejection of humanism and essentialist views of human nature. In this book Jaeggi draws on phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, along with recent work in the analytical tradition, to reconceive of alienation as the absence of a meaningful relationship to oneself and others, which manifests itself in feelings of helplessness and the despondent acceptance of ossified social roles and expectations. A revived approach to alienation helps (...) critical social theory engage with phenomena, such as meaninglessness, isolation, and indifference, which have broad implications for issues of justice. By severing alienation's link to a problematic conception of human essence while retaining its social-philosophical content, Jaeggi provides resources for a renewed critique of social pathologies, a much-neglected concern in contemporary liberal political philosophy. Her work revisits the arguments of Rousseau, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, placing them in dialogue with Thomas Nagel, Bernard Williams, and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

In the contemporary globalized economy, multinational companies have come to hold considerable power that may previously have rested with nation states. However, state structures remain relevant. With Brexit, the year 2016 featured an exemplary case in which the ongoing importance of nation states came to the fore. Preceding the British referendum to exit the European Union, discourses of national identity were deployed to promote a vote for the anti-globalization campaign. It is against this background that this research investigates how the (...) relationship between multinational corporations and nation states is constructed in news discourse. The underlying assumption is that news actively construct rather than merely reflects the nature of this relationship. Drawing on Social Actor Analysis and Transitivity as a theoretical framework, this study examines news coverage of the BP oil spill that occurred in the United States in 2010 but was caused by a multinational company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The main research question is ‘How does the media establish a link between multinational corporations and nation states?’. To address this central question, this study investigates how corporate responsibility is assigned, the role of the nation state is portrayed and victim status is allocated in the news. Findings show that the nature of the problem is constructed differently according to diverging national interests or priorities of the two nations represented by the media sources analyzed. The study indicates that the discourse around British nationality emphasized in the political struggle around Brexit was already mobilized extensively in the years leading up to the referendum. (shrink)

For many liberals, the question "Do others live rightly?" feels inappropriate. Liberalism seems to demand a follow-up question: "Who am I to judge?" Peaceful coexistence, in this view, is predicated on restraint from morally evaluating our peers. But Rahel Jaeggi sees the situation differently. Criticizing is not only valid but also useful, she argues. Moral judgment is no error; the error lies in how we go about judging. One way to judge is external, based on universal standards derived from (...) ideas about God or human nature. The other is internal, relying on standards peculiar to a given society. Both approaches have serious flaws and detractors. In On the Critique of Forms of Life, Jaeggi offers a third way, which she calls "immanent" critique. Inspired by Hegelian social philosophy and engaged with Anglo-American theorists such as John Dewey, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, immanent critique begins with the recognition that ways of life are inherently normative because they assert their own goodness and rightness. They also have a consistent purpose: to solve basic social problems and advance social goods, most of which are common across cultures. Jaeggi argues that we can judge the validity of a society's moral claims by evaluating how well the society adapts to crisis--whether it is able to overcome contradictions that arise from within and continue to fulfill its purpose. Jaeggi enlivens her ideas through concrete, contemporary examples. Against both relativistic and absolutist accounts, she shows that rational social critique is possible.--. (shrink)

For nursing, the idea of bearing witness is of utmost importance. Nurses are present with persons who experience changes in their health and quality of life and who live intense and profound moments of struggling, questioning, and finding meaning. Nurses are also with persons from moment to moment as their lives unfold, and when joy, serenity, contentment, vulnerability, sadness, fear, and suffering are experienced. In this paper, it is proposed that bearing witness is a moral way of engaging in the (...) nurse–person relationship. Based on Levinas’s ethics of the face, it is claimed that bearing witness is enacting one’s moral responsibility, which arises from the encounter with the other. Drawing on Parse’s human becoming theory, ways of witnessing and bearing witness are defined and discussed. It is suggested that bearing witness is a human‐to‐human way of being‐relating, a mode of human coexistence. Bearing witness is being present and attentive to the truth of another’s experiences. Moreover, in this paper, the ways nurses enact their moral agency and bear witness to others placed in their care, or turn away, are explored. Nurses’ moral agency is located in the constrained moral space of contemporary health care. Hence, the creation of a moral space, which allows nurses to enact their moral responsibility of bearing witness to other persons’ experiences of health and quality of life, is called for. In doing so, it is suggested that the act of bearing witness needs a specific nursing knowledge base and a recognition that being present and being with another is a valuable nursing practice that is utterly meaningful for persons who are living through difficult times. (shrink)

In this book Jaeggi draws on phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, along with recent work in the analytical tradition, to reconceive of alienation as the absence of a meaningful relationship to oneself and ...

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 8, Page 1123-1139, October 2022. Major debates on democratic renewal suggest two ways of eliciting social change: either by strengthening vertical practices of representation or by expanding horizontal forms of participation. The article develops an argument for why there is a need to rethink democratic resistance beyond the vertical–horizontal divide. If contemporary forms of resistance encompass a strategic interplay between vertical and horizontal practices, then an alternative framework is required to capture this logic. (...) Filling this gap, the article introduces the concept of ‘horizontal experimentalism’. Such an idea comprehends an understanding of political means and ends as a continuum and as adjusting each other in an ongoing process of experimental inquiry. (shrink)

Major debates on democratic renewal suggest two ways of eliciting social change: either by strengthening vertical practices of representation or by expanding horizontal forms of participation. The article develops an argument for why there is a need to rethink democratic resistance beyond the vertical–horizontal divide. If contemporary forms of resistance encompass a strategic interplay between vertical and horizontal practices, then an alternative framework is required to capture this logic. Filling this gap, the article introduces the concept of ‘horizontal experimentalism’. Such (...) an idea comprehends an understanding of political means and ends as a continuum and as adjusting each other in an ongoing process of experimental inquiry. (shrink)

What is the problem with capitalism? Is it wrong, unjust, irrational, or bad? Is it evil or dumb—or is it just not working? While critiques of capitalism have become commonplace—particularly since the most recent global economic crisis—it is often unclear what exactly is being condemned. Likewise, the normative presuppositions and criteria of such criticisms have been left unspecified. In this paper, I distinguish between three approaches to the critique of capitalism, distinguishing a functional, a moral, and an ethical argumentative strategy (...) and paying special attention to the distinctive types of argumentation they mobilize. First, I consider the “functional” critique, typically directed against capitalism's straightforward dysfunctions or crises. We will find, however, that this sort of criticism presupposes a normative criterion that is frequently unarticulated, namely: the implied “purpose” of a well‐functioning economic system. Second, I examine a common “moral” critique, that is, that capitalism is premised on exploitation. Yet, the concept of exploitation, too, introduces certain difficulties, since the kind of moral wrong associated with it—unequal exchange—is hardly obvious to everyday observation and must be derived systematically. Third, I introduce and address the “ethical” critique, broadly, that capitalism constitutes a bad form‐of‐life. However, while I object to some of the forms this criticism has taken—in particular, I argue that much “alienation” diagnosis is tainted by nostalgia and naiveté—I nonetheless recommend developing a critique of capitalism as a form‐of‐life that would include ethical and functional criteria. I conclude with some remarks in this direction. (shrink)

Books reviewed: Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000. By Geoff Eley.. Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity. By Robert Strozier.. Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. By Albert O. Hirschman. Twentieth‐anniversary edition, with a new foreword by Robert H. Frank.

The article discusses a notion of form as reflection in Benjamin and Adorno that can be traced back to early German Romanticism. A reading of Novalis’s Hymns to the Night exemplifies the notion and shows that form-as-reflection amounts to a mimetic relation between Dargestelltem and Darstellendem in a work of art. It is further argued that Husserl’s theory of the image, too, discusses this relation and allows to clarify the account of form in Benjamin and Adorno. The article thus reveals (...) a neglected development of a romantic paradigm of form in 20th century image theory and aesthetics. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 338-377.

In order to understand the economy in a wider sense we should conceive of the economy as a set of social practices. To conceive of a ‘practices-oriented’ foundation for our thinking about economy a...

Book reviewed in this article:Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and EconomicsMargaret Jane Radin, Contested Commodities.

This article reads Adornos's Minima Moralia as an ethical critique of capitalism as a form of life. Negativistic in his approach Adorno reflects, at the same time, on the difficulty of establishing a positive standard for this critique. Reading Minima Moralia through the lenses of the contemporary debate I hold that his approach undermines the alternative between liberal abstinence towards ethical questions and paternalistic theories of the good life in a fruitful way.

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 3 Seiten: 569-576.

Two paradoxes seem to characterise the method of the critique of ideology. The first has to do with the fact that ideologies are “both true and false” (Adorno). The second has to do with the fact that the critique of ideology seems to carry both a normative and a descriptive dimension. The article argues that these two paradoxes disappear when the critique of ideology is addressed by way of a Hegelian mode of immanent critique. Such an approach highlights both the (...) specific normative claim of the critique of ideology and the specific problematic which it exemplifies. (shrink)

A rejoinder to comments by Marco Solinas, Giorgio Fazio, Alessandro Pinzani, Italo Testa, Federica Gregoratto, Leonardo Marchettoni and Matteo Bianchin in this Special Issue of Critical Horizons.