Book reviewed in this article: Having Children: Philosophical and Legal Reflections on Parenthood. Edited by Onora O'Neill and William Ruddick.

This essay discusses engineering ethics in Puerto Rico by examining the impact of the Colegio de Ingenieros y Agrimensores de Puerto Rico (CIAPR) and by outlining the constellation of problems and issues identified in workshops and retreats held with Puerto Rican engineers. Three cases developed and discussed in these workshops will help outline movements in engineering ethics beyond the compliance perspective of the CIAPR. These include the Town Z case, Copper Mining in Puerto Rico, and a hypothetical case researched by (...) UPRM students on laptop disposal. The last section outlines four future challenges in engineering ethics pertinent to the Puerto Rican situation. (shrink)

In this book, William O'Neill, S.J., offers an interpretation of the nature and scope of practical reasoning in light of postmodern philosophical criticism.

An overview of the significant ideological options in American educational philosophy focusing mainly on contemporary public education in the United States. Part I presents the Educational Ideologies Inventory, a diagnostic test derived from the conceptual model of six basic educational ideologies, defines key terms and discusses the relationship between philosophy and education. Part II identifies and defines the three conservative ideologies: educational fundamentalism, intellectualism and conservatism. Part III examines the three liberal ideologies: educational liberalism, liberationism and anarchism. Part IV provides (...) a comparative review of the six ideologies. Includes an appendix on Judaism and Jewish education. (shrink)

Examines the nature, meaning, and impact of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. Bibliogs.

William L. O'Neill's lively history of American women's struggle for equality is written with style and a keen sense for the variety of possible interpretations of 150 years of the feminist movement, from its earliest stirring in the 1830's to the latest developments in the 1980s. O'Neill's most controversial thesis is that the feminist movements of the past have largely failed, and for reasons that remains of deep concern; the movements have never come to grips with the fact that (...) marriage and the family are the chief obstacles to women's emancipation. O'Neill also holds that the sexual revolution of the 1920s, far from liberating women, actually undermined their role in American life. O'Neill treats seriously the ideas of the great feminist leaders and their organizations. His was the first book to deal directly with the failure of feminism as a social force in American society; to tie together the scattered people and events in the history of American women; and to examine seriously feminist experience in the twentieth century. Since the women's agenda is hardly complete, the women's movement remains active, often militantly so. In this new revised edition, O'Neill interprets and illumines not only the history of feminism, but aspects of feminism that still trouble us today. O'Neill's book was widely heralded upon its initial publication. Elizabeth Janeway, writing for Saturday Review, calls it "a truly intelligent discussion...an extraordinary perceptive analysis." Carl Degler, in the Magazine of History calls A History of American Feminism "the most challenging and exciting book on the subject of women to appear in years." And Lionel Tiger, writing for the NewRepublic, says that "O'Neill has turned his mastery of a wide range of historical sources into a lively, engaging, and almost faultlessly sensible book.". (shrink)

TRAGICALLY, ETHNIC CONFLICTS HAVE BECOME ONE OF THE HALLMARKS of the post-Cold War era. In response to this, two distinct traditions appear to be emerging.The first continues the classical just war tradition while the second represents a new "reconciliation tradition," built largely around questions of restorative justice in areas of social division. Our goal in this essay is to begin a rapprochement of these divergent traditions by asking the question, what does a restorative justice perspective offer to the just war (...) tradition? We proceed in three stages: first, we survey the current state of the just war tradition; second, we introduce the reconciliation tradition, drawing on both reconciliation thinkers and the practical experience of experiments in social reconciliation in South Africa and Rwanda; and third, we draw these two traditions together with a series of constructive proposals for how the reconciliation tradition can enrich the just war tradition. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider the rival liberal and communitarian accounts of justice emerging in complex, pluralist societies. I argue that we err in posing the question of human rights as a Hobson's choice between a formal, universal metanarrative, as envisioned in philosophical liberalism, or as a merely local, ethnocentric narrative of the western bourgeoisie, as in the communitarian critique. For human rights are best viewed rhetorically, as establishing the possibility of rationally persuasive argument across our varied narrative traditions. The (...) essay concludes by attending to the role of religious belief in the public reason of a postmodern society. (shrink)

In the wake of uncivil strife—of genocide, "ethnic cleansing," apartheid— the prospect of forgiveness seems as elusive as the notion itself. In this paper, I seek to assess the complex factors that render forgiveness or social reconciliation such vexed concepts. For Desmond Tutu's pleas for "confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the lives of nations" meet with his fellow Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka's objection that justice is ill "served by discharging the guilty without evidence of mitigation—or remorse." One may, of course, (...) speak of unspeakable suffering; yet tragedy is never given simply. How we remember the Rwandan genocide, the legacy of apartheid, or the Shoah—whether as morally tragic or merely an unimportant political failure—depends upon how we "see" or imagine evil. To remember such suffering, we must first evoke what is effaced, bring to word the transgressed command. Only then can we speak of social reconciliation, forgiveness, or the fitting measures of retribution and reparation. Imagining, remembering, redressing evil—these, I will argue, comprise distinct, yet finally inseparable elements of social reconciliation, each admitting of no less distinct orders of legal-political, ethical, and religious interpretation. (shrink)

CONTEMPORARY HUMANITARIAN CRISES UNDERSCORE WHAT HANNAH Arendt called the "perplexities" of human rights; the very category "refugee" attests the failure of the global rights regime. Indeed, the "abstract nakedness of being nothing but human" belies the "right to have rights." In light of this criticism, I offer a reconstructive, communitarian interpretation of the rights of the forcibly displaced. The grammar of rights, I argue, presumes the communicative virtues of respect and recognition of the "concrete other." I conclude by showing how (...) biblical narrative "re-inscribes" stateless persons/strangers precisely as neighbor in "anamnestic solidarity.". (shrink)

Theologians differ not merely as to whether, but as to how Christian morality might be distinctive. In this essay, I consider the differing senses of distinctiveness in Christian ethics, i.e., how the predicate “Christian” qualifies the justification of moral judgment; the form, extension, and modal force of moral rules; and the morally relevant description of action in the theological ethics of Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, and the “autonomy school” of Josef Fuchs and Bruno Schüller. The essay concludes (...) with an assessment of the distinctiveness of Christian ethics in Iight of the foregoing criticism. (shrink)

Ramon Lemos provides an enhancement of a traditional realistic metaphysics. This work is not a general metaphysics text, and, although the positions taken are consistent with much of Aristotelianism and medieval realism, the work is not a historically oriented treatise. This can be seen as defining the book's contribution to metaphysics: the development of certain metaphysical principles in light of modern, and especially twentieth-century, disputes about logical and linguistic issues. Berkeley, Chisholm, Descartes, Green, Hampshire, Hegel, Hume, Husserl, Kant, Leibniz, Lewis, (...) Locke, Peirce, and Strawson are discussed in the text and others, such as Sellars, occur unnamed, while evaluations are made of various views. (shrink)

Two articles by Lewis Feuer caught my attention in the '40s when 1 was wondering, asa student physicist, about the relations of physics to philosophy and to the world in turmoil. One was his essay on 'The Development of Logical Empiricism' (1941), and the other his critical review of Philipp Frank's biography of Einstein, 'Philosophy and the Theory of Relativity' (1947). How extraordinary it was to find so intelligent, independent, critical, and humane a mind; and furthermore he went further, as (...) I soon realized when I looked for his name on other publications. I recall arguing with myself over his exploration of 'Indeterminacy and Economic Development' (1948), and even more when I read his 'Dialectical Materialism and Soviet Science' (1949). More papers, and then the fascinating, sometimes irritating, always insightful, books. His monograph on Psychoanalysis and Ethics 1955, the beautiful sociological and humanist study of Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (1958), his essays on 'The Social Roots of Einstein's Theory of Relativity' (1971) together with the book on Einstein and the Genera tions of Science (1974), the splendid reader from the works of Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (1959) which was a major text of the '60s, the stimulating essays on the social formation which seems to have been required for a modern scientific movement to develop, set forth most convincingly in The Scientific Intellectual (1963). (shrink)

This article explores the role of nature in two strands of contemporary materialist philosophy: new materialism, and transcendental materialism. Through an analysis of these strands of materialism via the work of Jane Bennett, William E. Connolly, Catherine Malabou, and Adrian Johnston, the article attempts to delineate these perspectives into the opposed camps of monist and dialectical materialisms. The implications of these differing materialist ontologies are then discussed in terms of the theorization of nature as either a vital material force (...) or as a weakness characterizing matter itself. After outlining the importance of nature for these two opposed theories, the lack of serious engagement with the work of F.W.J. Schelling by either group is discussed as a potential middle ground between the Spinozism of the new materialism and the Hegelianism of transcendental materialism, due to its large-scale political analysis, less pessimistic perspective towards the possibility of a contemporary humanism, and embrace of recent advances in the empirical sciences. (shrink)

John O'Neill explores the human passions as both the object of psychoanalysis and the creative principle of Freud's own discovery and practice of psychoanalysis. Love, hate, anger, jealousy, envy, knowledge, and ignorance: the passions dominate infancy, adolescence, and adulthood, marking them with narcissism, murder, seduction, and self-destruction. They are both the soul's theater and the soul of theater, art, literature, and music. If fear, hate, envy, and jealousy rival love, beauty, and knowledge, or turn into one another, they just as (...) surely expand the human heart. The original essays in this volume analyze the human passions in Freud's metapsychology, from the case histories of Dora, Rat Man, and Schreber to his studies of Leonardo da Vinci, Gradiva, and the "Case of Homosexuality in a Woman." Other essays are devoted to Macbeth, the Judgment of Solomon, Virginia Woolf, and Freud's own adolescence. In constructing a genealogy of the passions from early to late modernity, these studies show the subtle interaction of psychic and social conflict, of ambivalence and disavowal in the workings of the human soul. Contributors are John O'Neill, William Kerrigan, Donald L. Carveth, Jerome Neu, Kathleen Woodward, Claire Kahane, Mary Jacobus, John Forrester, Ellie Ragland, Geoff Miles, and Laurence A. Rickels. (shrink)

John O'Neill explores the human passions as both the object of psychoanalysis and the creative principle of Freud's own discovery and practice of psychoanalysis. Love, hate, anger, jealousy, envy, knowledge, and ignorance: the passions dominate infancy, adolescence, and adulthood, marking them with narcissism, murder, seduction, and self-destruction. They are both the soul's theater and the soul of theater, art, literature, and music. If fear, hate, envy, and jealousy rival love, beauty, and knowledge, or turn into one another, they just as (...) surely expand the human heart. The original essays in this volume analyze the human passions in Freud's metapsychology, from the case histories of Dora, Rat Man, and Schreber to his studies of Leonardo da Vinci, Gradiva, and the "Case of Homosexuality in a Woman." Other essays are devoted to Macbeth, the Judgment of Solomon, Virginia Woolf, and Freud's own adolescence. In constructing a genealogy of the passions from early to late modernity, these studies show the subtle interaction of psychic and social conflict, of ambivalence and disavowal in the workings of the human soul. Contributors are John O'Neill, William Kerrigan, Donald L. Carveth, Jerome Neu, Kathleen Woodward, Claire Kahane, Mary Jacobus, John Forrester, Ellie Ragland, Geoff Miles, and Laurence A. Rickels. (shrink)

William James’s category of “first-hand religion” allows us to arrive at the religious from an internal and individual perspective, including in those activities and phenomena usually considered secular. B. B. King’s 1972 performance at Sing Sing Prison, documented by David Hoffman, brings both the prisoner audience and the performers to an “additional dimension” distinct from the hollowness of everyday (prison) life. In addition, the presence of this intense experience on the YouTube platform creates a fluid community of second-order observers, (...) bound not by any overarching belief but by observation of the experience itself. King’s performance is in the genre of blues music, which, in turn, has associations with African religious traditions. While the study of diverse religious traditions helps inform our understanding of the kinds of activities that might constitute the religious, this study takes individual experience as primary rather than as a manifestation of a particular tradition. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Rawls Against Capitalism Rawls's Critique of “Welfare State Capitalism” Rawls (and Meade) on the Aims and Features of “Property‐Owning Democracy” Putting the Democracy into Property‐Owning Democracy: POD and the Fair Value of the Political Liberties Power, Opportunity, and Control of Capital: POD and Fair Equality of Opportunity Power, Status, and Self‐Respect: POD, the Difference Principle, and the Value of Equality Welfare State Capitalism and Property‐Owning Democracy: Ideal Types, Public Policy, and Real Politics Conclusion ‐ (...) Liberty, Equality, and Property‐Owning Democracy References. (shrink)

This book discusses Thomistic commentary on the topics of physical premotion, grace, and the permission of sin, especially as these relate to the mysteries of predestination and reprobation. The author examines the fundamental tenets of the classical Thomistic account, and on this basis critiques the 20th century revisionist theories of Domingo Banez, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Francisco Marin-Sola, Jacques Maritain, Bernard Lonergan, and Jean-Herve Nicolas. In conclusion, the implications of the traditional view are considered in light of the spiritual life.

Edmund Burke, long considered modern conservatism's founding father, is also widely believed to be an opponent of empire. However, Daniel O'Neill turns that latter belief on its head. This fresh and innovative book shows that Burke was a passionate supporter and staunch defender of the British Empire in the eighteenth century, whether in the New World, India, or Ireland. Moreover--and against a growing body of contemporary scholarship that rejects the very notion that Burke was an exemplar of conservatism--O'Neill demonstrates that (...) Burke's defense of empire was in fact ideologically consistent with his conservative opposition to the French Revolution. Burke's logic of empire relied on two opposing but complementary theoretical strategies: Ornamentalism, which stressed cultural similarities between "civilized" societies, as he understood them, and Orientalism, which stressed the putative cultural differences distinguishing "savage" societies from their "civilized" counterparts. This incisive book also shows that Burke's argument had lasting implications, as his development of these two justifications for empire prefigured later intellectual defenses of British imperialism"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Justice as Fairness and Property‐Owning Democracy Part One: Property‐Owning Democracy: Theoretical Foundations Part Two: Interrogating Property‐Owning Democracy: Work, Gender, Political Economy Part Three: Toward a Practical Politics of Property‐Owning Democracy: Program and Politics References.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Hegel's Linguistic Inheritance Hegel's Early View of Language in the Jena Period (1804–1806) Language in the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) Language in Hegel's ‘Mature System’ ( The Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences ) (1818–1830) The Philosophy of Language: The Unwritten Volume.

Is logical empiricism incompatible with a critical social science? The longstanding assumption that it is incompatible has been prominent in recent debates about welfare economics. Sen’s development of a critical and descriptively rich welfare economics is taken by writers such as Putnam, Walsh and Sen to involve the excising of the influence of logical empiricism on neo-classical economics. However, this view stands in contrast to the descriptively rich contributions to political economy of members of the left Vienna Circle, such as (...) Otto Neurath. This paper considers the compatibility of the meta-theoretical commitments of Neurath and others in the logical empiricist tradition with this first-order critical political economy. (shrink)