This chapter contains sections titled: Metaethics: The Foundations of Moral Values and Norms Normative Principles: Human Rights and Democracy Applications: Bioethics and Multiculturalism Conclusion References.

This up-to-date introductory social and political philosophy text provides a survey of the major social and political ideals of our time and discusses the practical requirements of each of these ideals. It argues for the controversial thesis that all contemporary social and political ideals can be reconciled in practice-a challenging idea for students to discuss and evaluate.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 119-121 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Ethics and Political Philosophy The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen, and Matthew Kempshall, editors. Ethics and Political Philosophy. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 664. Cloth, (...) $85.00. Paper, $29.95. M. S. Kempshall. The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 401. Cloth, $95.00. With the exception of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, late medieval political and ethical philosophy has been neglected. Two recent books attempt to rectify this neglect. One is the second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. A translator of this volume, Matthew Kempshall, has also recently written a thorough analysis of the common good as it is discussed in late thirteenth-century scholasticism. Many of the texts discussed in this second book are translated by Kempshall in the first book.The new volume of translations now makes it possible for the reader unfamiliar with Latin to have some exposure to the medieval reception of Aristotle's ethical and political thought. The selections are deliberately taken from lesser-known figures who are not often translated, such as Albert the Great, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Augustine of Ancona. The selections are carefully chosen to represent a wide variety of literary genres. For example, the selection from Albert is part of his commentary of Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, [End Page 119] whereas the selection from Godfrey is a Quodlibetal Question, and that from Augustine of Ancona is part of a treatise. Moreover, there are some selections that show developments within a particular genre. For example, a translation from Buridan's commentary on Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics contrasts nicely with that of Albert. The selection from Albert focuses mostly on pleasure, the relationship between the active and the contemplative lives, and the connection between ethics and politics. His discussion of pleasure is philosophically important in light of twentieth-century discussions about reasons for actions. Moreover, these issues are all discussed in at least one of the other selections. Interestingly, Buridan's commentary on the same Book focuses instead on human freedom. Buridan makes fine distinctions that are relevant to contemporary debates about free will. Selections from Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and James of Viterbo all address the topic of the relationship between self-love and the virtuous life. These passages are relevant to the question of whether there is egoism in ancient and medieval ethical thought.The volume is a companion to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy and suffers from one of its weaknesses, which is that the selections can seem arbitrary. For example, the passage from Albert takes up nearly one quarter of the volume. Furthermore, sometimes the representation of an author by only one genre is misleading. For example, although Giles of Rome wrote a Quodlibetal Question (Quod 2, q. 20) that is directly attacked in a translation from James of Viterbo, Giles is represented only by a passage from his treatise De regimine principum. Moreover, the moral psychology of the late thirteenth century is not well-covered, which is odd considering the importance of Bonnie Kent's work in this area.One additional problem is that there are few notes to aid the reader. Sometimes the translations can be confusing. For example, in one passage "the Commentator" should be identified, since the name can apply to at least three individuals (262-3). More seriously, readers with little background in medieval thought might confuse the medieval referents signified in the translation by the words "state" or "love" with contemporary referents. The translations themselves are clear and the different translators follow a consistent set of guidelines. Anyone who tries to translate some of these passages for herself will understand that some... (shrink)

In recent years there has been a major revival of interest in the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Thinkers have looked to Kant's theories about knowledge, history, the moral self and autonomy, and nature and aesthetics to seek the foundations of their own political philosophy. This volume, written by established authorities on Kant as well as by new scholars in the field, illuminates the ways in which contemporary thinkers differ regarding Kantian philosophy and Kant's (...) legacy to political and ethical theory. The book contains essays by Patrick Riley, Lewis White Beck, Mary Gregor, and Richard L. Velkley that place Kant in the tradition of political philosophy; chapters by Dieter Henrich, Susan Shell, Michael W. Doyle, and Joseph M. Knippenberg that examine Kantian perspectives on history and politics; contributions by William A. Galston, Bernard Yack, William James Booth, and Ronald Beiner that judge the Kantian legacy; and classic discussions by John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Hans-Georg Gadamer that present different perspectives on contemporary debates about Kant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 119-121 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Ethics and Political Philosophy The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen, and Matthew Kempshall, editors. Ethics and Political Philosophy. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 664. Cloth, (...) $85.00. Paper, $29.95. M. S. Kempshall. The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 401. Cloth, $95.00. With the exception of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, late medieval political and ethical philosophy has been neglected. Two recent books attempt to rectify this neglect. One is the second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. A translator of this volume, Matthew Kempshall, has also recently written a thorough analysis of the common good as it is discussed in late thirteenth-century scholasticism. Many of the texts discussed in this second book are translated by Kempshall in the first book.The new volume of translations now makes it possible for the reader unfamiliar with Latin to have some exposure to the medieval reception of Aristotle's ethical and political thought. The selections are deliberately taken from lesser-known figures who are not often translated, such as Albert the Great, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Augustine of Ancona. The selections are carefully chosen to represent a wide variety of literary genres. For example, the selection from Albert is part of his commentary of Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, [End Page 119] whereas the selection from Godfrey is a Quodlibetal Question, and that from Augustine of Ancona is part of a treatise. Moreover, there are some selections that show developments within a particular genre. For example, a translation from Buridan's commentary on Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics contrasts nicely with that of Albert. The selection from Albert focuses mostly on pleasure, the relationship between the active and the contemplative lives, and the connection between ethics and politics. His discussion of pleasure is philosophically important in light of twentieth-century discussions about reasons for actions. Moreover, these issues are all discussed in at least one of the other selections. Interestingly, Buridan's commentary on the same Book focuses instead on human freedom. Buridan makes fine distinctions that are relevant to contemporary debates about free will. Selections from Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and James of Viterbo all address the topic of the relationship between self-love and the virtuous life. These passages are relevant to the question of whether there is egoism in ancient and medieval ethical thought.The volume is a companion to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy and suffers from one of its weaknesses, which is that the selections can seem arbitrary. For example, the passage from Albert takes up nearly one quarter of the volume. Furthermore, sometimes the representation of an author by only one genre is misleading. For example, although Giles of Rome wrote a Quodlibetal Question (Quod 2, q. 20) that is directly attacked in a translation from James of Viterbo, Giles is represented only by a passage from his treatise De regimine principum. Moreover, the moral psychology of the late thirteenth century is not well-covered, which is odd considering the importance of Bonnie Kent's work in this area.One additional problem is that there are few notes to aid the reader. Sometimes the translations can be confusing. For example, in one passage "the Commentator" should be identified, since the name can apply to at least three individuals (262-3). More seriously, readers with little background in medieval thought might confuse the medieval referents signified in the translation by the words "state" or "love" with contemporary referents. The translations themselves are clear and the different translators follow a consistent set of guidelines. Anyone who tries to translate some of these passages for herself will understand that some... (shrink)

A detailed examination of post-Marxist political theory, focusing especially on the work of Laclau, Habermas, and Derrida. Devenney identifies common concerns between these theorists and demostrates how the respective strenghts of each compliment the weaknesses of the other.

_Social and Political Philosophy_ introduces some of the most important topics in contemporary political philosophy and questions whether these can be accommodated within the framework of liberal theory. It consists of specially written essays by prominent figures in social and political philosophy. Each essay carefully considers both the theoretical and practical problems of a major topic. Traditional perspectives are balanced with new challenges. Topics include: * Moral Methodology * Libertarianism * Socialism * Lesbian and (...) Gay Perspectives * Feminism * Racial and Multicultural Perspectives * Rationality * Welfare Liberalism * Environmentalism * Virtue Ethics and Community * Just War Theory and Pacifism * Civil Disobedience. (shrink)

This volume contains ten chapters, each of which takes up a different question in contemporary moral or political philosophy. The volume has three parts: meta-ethics, issues in freedom and autonomy, and contemporary political philosophy. In the meta-ethical section, the chapters address issues concerning acts and their value, the plausibility of aggregation and counting with respect to the value of human lives, and the role of moral character in causing and explaining moral behavior. In (...) the second section, the chapters take up questions about the connection between moral imagination and a plausible account of integrity, the connection between autonomy and rights to property, and the difficulties facing internalist accounts of autonomy. In the final section, the chapters address issues concerning feminist critiques of Rawlsian liberalism, the limits of liberalism and communitarianism, the importance of understanding Rawls's social contract as a contract for institutions, and the morality of nationalist movements. These chapters reflect a cross-section of the issues concerning value that are of contemporary scholarly interest in Canada and the United States. (shrink)

Focusing on early Chinese ethical and political thought across multiple schools and thinkers, this book presents a comprehensive overview of the research being done in Chinese comparative ethics and political philosophy. In addition to chapters on Chinese comparative and interpretative thought, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy brings early Chinese ethics and political philosophy into conversation with Western and Indian Philosophy, as well as Western (...) Theology. Contributors discuss numerous texts and schools in Pre-Qin and Han Philosophy, including Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, the Xunzi, the Liyun, and the Zhuangzi. The volume also shows how early Chinese ethical and political theories can be used to contextualise contemporary philosophical issues, such as metaethics, human rights, emotions, and the connection between ethics and metaphysics. The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy is an ideal resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students encountering early Chinese ethics and political philosophy for the first time. (shrink)

This article attempts to challenge those contemporary philosophical approaches to justice (and this is the majority of them) which ascribe to the notion of justice a dominant role within ethics and political philosophy. In the first section, this overestimation of justice is traced back to J.S. Mill (and to John Rawls). After having pointed out some of the essential features of the Millian (and Rawlsian) concept, I show how far these attributes are away from what we (...) (in our everyday language) mean by the word ‚justice’. Finally, I try to spell out what might be more plausibly seen as the focus of our shared moral intuition, and to highlight to which extent there is an overlap with our common idea of justice. (shrink)

This article attempts to challenge those contemporary philosophical approaches to justice (and this is the majority of them) which ascribe to the notion of justice a dominant role within ethics and political philosophy. In the first section, this overestimation of justice is traced back to J.S. Mill (and to John Rawls). After having pointed out some of the essential features of the Millian (and Rawlsian) concept, I show how far these attributes are away from what we (...) (in our everyday language) mean by the word ‚justice’. Finally, I try to spell out what might be more plausibly seen as the focus of our shared moral intuition, and to highlight to which extent there is an overlap with our common idea of justice. (shrink)

This essay discusses the challenges that the problem of environmental destruction represents for both ethics and political philosophy. It defends universalism as the only ethical theory capable of dealing adequately with the issue, but recognizes three limitations of it: First, its strong anthropocentrism (as in Kant); second, the meta-ethics of rational egoism (Spinoza and Hobbes); and, third, the reduction of ethics to symmetric relations in the mores of modernity. With regard to political philosophy, (...) universalism rejects the idea that consensus is a necessary and sufficient condition for morality; it points out that democratic rule is rule by majority, only rarely by unanimous consensus, and insists on the fact that even a unanimous consensus does not guarantee justice if the people affected by a decision are not identical with those entitled to make it. The latter is the case in issues of intergenerational justice. The essay ends by opposing a formalist and proceduralist concept of democracy with one that understands democracy as one reasonable tool for achieving a substantive concept of justice. (shrink)

In this article, Badiou analyzes and rejects a classical model of politics based on state representation. He envisions a new model of politics without representation and claims that this new model is more closely tied to the ethical.

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute. This volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianism to examine the Aristotelian tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising (...) the different readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, while Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics. Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics. (shrink)

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute. Clearly divided into three parts and featuring a contribution from Alasdair MacIntyre, this volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas' Aristotelianism to examine (...) the Aristotelian tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising the different readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, assessing MacIntyre's development of Aristotelian themes and revealing their conflict with modernity. Firmly establishing the relevance of Aristotle's thought today, Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics. Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics and Politics in Tagore, Coetzee, and Certain Scenes of TeachingGayatri Chakravorty Spivak (bio)It is practically persuasive that the eruption of the ethical interrupts and postpones the epistemological—the undertaking to construct the other as object of knowledge, an undertaking never to be given up. Lévinas is the generic name associated with such a position. A beautiful passage from Otherwise than Being lays it out, although neither interruption nor (...) postponement is mentioned. That connection is made by Derrida [Adieu 51-59].Here, then, is Lévinas, for whom Kant's critical perspectivization of the subject and the rigorous limits of pure theoretical reason seem to have been displaced by the structuralist hermeneutics of suspicion. For Lévinas, structuralism did not attend to what in Kant was the mechanism that interrupted the constrained and rigorous workings of pure reason: "The interests that Kant discovered in theoretical reason itself, he subordinated to practical reason, become mere reason. It is just these interests that are contested by structuralism, which is perhaps to be defined by the primacy of theoretical reason" [Otherwise than Being 58; trans. modified].The relationship between the postponement of the epistemological in Lévinas and the subordination of pure reason in Kant is a rich theme, beyond the scope of this essay. Let us return to what Lévinas will perceive as a general contemporary hermeneutics of suspicion, related to the primacy of theoretical reason: "The suspicions engendered by psychoanalysis, sociology and politics weigh on human identity such that we never know to whom we are speaking and what we are dealing with when we build our ideas on the basis of the human fact."1 The political calculus thematizes this suspicion into an entire code of strategy defined as varieties of game theory and rational choice. This can be verified across cultural difference, backwards through history, and in today's global academic discourse. Over against this Lévinas posits the ethical with astonishing humility: "but we do not need this knowledge in the relationship in which the other is the one next to me [le prochain]" [Otherwise 59].Kant thought that the ethical commonality of being (gemeines Wesen—repeatedly mistranslated as "the ethical state") cannot form the basis of a state. Surprisingly, there is a clear line from the face-to-face of the ethical to the state in Lévinas.2 It has long [End Page 17] been my habit to scavenge and tinker in the field of practical philosophy. I will conserve from Kant the discontinuity between the ethical and the political, from Lévinas the discontinuity between the ethical and the epistemological. I will suggest that the discontinuities between the ethical and the epistemological and political fields are tamed in the nestling of logic and rhetoric in fiction.3Enabled by such a suggestion, I can move to another bit of prose on that page in Lévinas: "for reasons not at all transcendental but purely logical, the object-man must figure at the beginning of all knowing."The figure of the "I" as object: this representation of the holy man in Lévinas does not match our colloquial and literal expectations. My general suggestion, that the protocol of fiction gives us a practical simulacrum of the graver discontinuities inhabiting (and operating?) the ethico-epistemic and the ethico-political, can, however, take such a figure on board. I will continue to want to say that fiction offers us an experience of the discontinuities that remain in place "in real life." That would be a description of fiction as an event—an indeterminate "sharing" between writer and reader, where the effort of reading is to taste the impossible status of being figured as object in the web of the other. Reading, in this special sense, is sacred.In this essay I consider not only fiction as event but also fiction as task. I locate in Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and J. M. Coetzee (1940-) representations of what may be read as versions of the "I" figured as object and weave the representations together as a warning text for postcolonial political ambitions.4 I am obviously using "text" as "web," coming from Latin texere—"to... (shrink)

Is it possible to build an authentically democratic system in politics without concrete ethical foundations? Addressing this question in the wake of the contemporary crisis in democracy worldwide, the volume re-evaluates Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s key thoughts. It foregrounds their relevance to the ongoing struggles that attempt to reconcile the apparently dissimilar orientations of politics and ethics. Collecting fresh interdisciplinary researches, the book provides insights into Gandhi’s complex — and occasionally turbulent — intellectual and political relationships with influential (...) figures of Indian society and politics, whether critics such as B. R. Ambedkar and friends like Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru. It also presents an informed political biography of Gandhi, encapsulating the salient details of his long trajectory as a unique mass mobilizer, socio-political activist and ideologue — from his days in South Africa to his death in independent India. This book will immensely interest scholars and students of political theory, philosophy, ethics, history, and Gandhian studies. (shrink)

Celebrated today for his groundbreaking work in logic and the foundations of mathematics, Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) was best known in his own time as a leader of the reform movement in his homeland (Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire). As professor of religious science at the Charles University in Prague from 1805 to 1819, Bolzano was a highly visible public intellectual, a courageous and determined critic of abuses in Church and State. Based in large part on a carefully argued (...) utilitarian practical philosophy, he developed a non-violent program for the reform of the authoritarian institutions of the Empire, which he himself set in motion through his teaching and other activities. Rarely has a philosopher had such a great impact on the political culture of his homeland. This volume contains a substantial collection of Bolzano's writings on ethics and politics, translated into English for the first time. It includes a complete translation of the treatise On the Best State, his principal writings on ethics, an essay on the contemporary situation in Ireland, and a selection of his Exhortations, dealing with such topics as enlightenment, civil disobedience, the status of women, anti-Semitism and Czech-German relations in Bohemia. It will be of particular interest to students of central European philosophy and history, and more generally to philosophers and historians of ideas. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre is one of the most creative and important philosophers working today. This volume presents a selection of his classic essays on ethics and politics collected together for the first time, focussing particularly on the themes of moral disagreement, moral dilemmas, and truthfulness and its importance. The essays range widely in scope, from Aristotle and Aquinas and what we need to learn from them, to our contemporary economic and social structures and the threat which they pose to (...) the realization of the forms of ethical life. They will appeal to a wide range of readers across philosophy and especially in moral philosophy, political philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

The revival of recognition theory has brought new energy to critical theory. In general terms, recognition theory aims to critically evaluate social structures against a standard of social freedom identified with norms of interaction which are freely recognized by all parties. Until now, attention has primarily focused on the categories and forms of recognition theory. However, the influence of contemporary French theory upon the development of theories of recognition has not yet received the consideration it merits. The book takes (...) up this task. With chapters by internationally recognized authors, the collection outlines the current state of recognition theory, studies the impact of French theory, and uses French thought to identity aspects of the recognitive process which are often overlooked. Exploring French accounts of agonistic identity construction, vulnerability, power, ethical obligation, and reflexive theory construction, this book supports the intentions of critical theory with heightened attentiveness to oppression in all of its forms. (shrink)

Since the early 20th century, two new disciplines emerged in the tradition of analytic philosophy: meta-ethics and political epistemology. Nevertheless, debates on such questions go back to the ancient Greeks and, in particular, to the debates between Plato and Protagoras. This article elucidates the controversy between Plato and the influential sophist Protagoras from the perspective of contemporary meta-ethics and political epistemology. It argues that the main motivation of Plato’s philosophical endeavors is to overcome Protagoras’s (...) skeptical claims that no moral facts and no moral knowledge applicable to political issues exist. The paper defends the thesis that there exists a deep disagreement between Protagoras and Plato on the existence of moral facts and moral knowledge. A deep disagreement is a disagreement that cannot be resolved through the use of reasons and arguments. Applying the foundationalist approach Robert J. Fogelin proposes in his seminal paper “The Logic of Deep Disagreements”, this article argues that the deep disagreement between Protagoras and Plato exists because their political thought is based on “underlying principles” that clash. While Plato’s political philosophy rests on his religious and theological convictions, the political thought of Protagoras is based on his skepticism, relativism, and agnosticism. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a growth of interest in the great English idealist thinker T. H. Green (1836-82) as philosophers have begun to overturn received opinions of his thought and to rediscover his original and important contributions to ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. This collection of essays by leading experts, all but one published here for the first time, introduces and critically examines his ideas both in their context and in their relevance to contemporary debates.

Recent years have seen a growth of interest in the great English idealist thinker T. H. Green (1836-82) as philosophers have begun to overturn received opinions of his thought and to rediscover his original and important contributions to ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. This collection of essays by leading experts, all but one published here for the first time, introduces and critically examines his ideas both in their context and in their relevance to contemporary debates.

Recent years have seen a growth of interest in the great English idealist thinker T. H. Green as philosophers have begun to overturn received opinions of his thought and to rediscover his original and important contributions to ethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy. This collection of essays by leading experts, all but one published here for the first time, introduces and critically examines his ideas both in their context and in their relevance to contemporary debates.

In this groundbreaking new study, Ben Ware carries out a bold reassessment of the relationship between modernism and ethics, arguing that modernist literature and philosophy offer more than simply a snapshot of the moral conflicts of the past: they provide a crucial point of reference for today's emancipatory struggles. Modernism in this assessment is characterized not only by a concern with language and aesthetic creativity, but also by a preoccupation with the question of how to live. Investigating ethical (...) ideas in Wittgenstein, Beckett, Kierkegaard, Kant, Cavell, Marx, Henry James and Lacan, Ware demonstrates how these thinkers can bring us to a new understanding of a constellation of issues which contemporary radical thought must re-visit: utopia, repetition, perfectionism, subtraction, negativity, critique, absence, duty, revolution and political love. The result is a timely and provocative intervention, which re-draws the boundaries for future debates on the ethics and politics of modernism. (shrink)

This book offers a new phenomenological interpretation of T.H. Green's (1836-1882) philosophy and political theory. By analyzing his theory of human practice, the moral idea, the common good, freedom and human rights, the book demonstrates that Green joins the same tradition as Kantian and Husserlian transcendentalism. The book offers a reconstruction of Green's idealism and demonstrates its potential to address contemporary debates on the nature of moral agency, positive and negative freedom and on justifying human rights.

The theological turn in French phenomenology has been of great interest to scholars working in contemporary continental thought, but according to J. Aaron Simmons, not enough has been done to bring these debates into conversation with more mainstream philosophy. Building on the work of Kierkegaard, Levinas, Marion, and Derrida, among others, Simmons suggests how continental philosophy of religion can intersect with political philosophy, environmental philosophy, and theories of knowledge. By productively engaging philosophical "God-talk," Simmons (...) proposes a robust model of postmodern religious belief and ethical existence. (shrink)

José Jorge Mendoza argues that the difficulty with resolving the issue of immigration is primarily a conflict over competing moral and political principles and is, at its core, a problem of philosophy. This book brings into dialogue various contemporary philosophical texts that deal with immigration to provide some normative guidance to immigration policy and reform.

Modern democracy and human rights constitute an indissoluble unity. Liberalism and communitarianism open new discussions about the significance of justice in the current legal situation. State etatism is impossible to question. The question is to what extent it can be allowed in social and also economic spheres of everyday life. These very questions separate the politics, philosophy of justice and ethics of the 20th Century. Communitarianism judges and critically checks the fundamental ideas of liberalism. The dispute’s meaning between (...) liberals and communitarians is one of political and moral philosophy. Communitarians assume that strong individualism is an obstruction to effective operation of free society and accordingly also the legal state. Immoderate perception of the subject’s role signification, one’s own functioning in society and exaggerated effort of the realisation of one’s own rights obstruct liberals from constituting an effective and justly operated legal state. The topicality of human rights theory in the context of ongoing discussions in the area of moral philosophy can also enrich other themes and problems which are found in current ethical thinking. One of the recurring themes in present day moral philosophy concerns comprehension of the human person’s personhood. A more fundamental principle of individuation is my selection for the other and that is inherent to the ethical relationship to the other. The worth of my personhood is an important assumption for an authentic understanding of human rights. Personhood connected with freedom and the challenge to justice is that which express fundamental human rights. (shrink)

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)

In this important volume, the leading political theorist and philosopher Norberto Bobbio confronts some of the most enduring moral questions of our time. Written over the last two decades of the twentieth century, the essays in this volume develop some of the central themes in Bobbio's moral and political philosophy. They also reflect his longstanding civil commitment to liberty, democracy, peace and equality. The opening essay, 'In praise of meekness', analyses the virtue of meekness in its individual (...) and social aspects. It identifies the meek person with the nonviolent, and meekness with the refusal to exercise violence against anyone. Meekness, therefore, is a non-political virtue - it is the antithesis of politics. The volume also addresses the persistent classical problem of 'reason of state', as well as the more contemporary questions of tolerance and truth, racism, prejudice and ethics. The problem of evil in the modern world is also discussed. All the essays display the sensitivity and depth of understanding that characterize Bobbio's writings on current debates and historical controversies. The book will be invaluable reading for all students and scholars of politics, as well as those who are interested in the debates surrounding morals, ethics and law. (shrink)

Climate change is a key challenge in the contemporary world. This volume studies climate change through many lenses: politics, law, ethics, philosophy, religion, and contemporary art and culture. The essays explore alternatives for sustainable development and highlight oft-overlooked issues, such as climate change refugees and food justice. Designed as four parts, the volume: first, offers an astute diagnosis of the political and moral intricacies of climate change; second, deals specifically with topics in the political (...) theory of climate change governance; third, focuses on the moral theory of climate change; and, finally, analyzes the specific ramifications of the climate change problem. With contributions from experts across the world, this will be especially useful to scholars and students of climate change studies, development studies, environmental studies, politics, and ethics and philosophy. It will also interest policy-makers, social activists, governmental and non-governmental agencies, and those in media and journalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Antigone and AbjectionThe Ethics and Politics of RestlessnessRachel JonesOne can trace, throughout Sarah Kofman’s body of work, a thread of continuity, a question about the unsayable, an enigma, a caesura, a riddle, a disruption, an aporia, the impossibility of saying that which nonetheless, according to an ethical exigency, demands to be said.—Tina Chanter, “Playing with Fire: Kofman and Freud on Being Feminine, Jewish and Homosexual”These are the opening (...) lines of Tina Chanter’s essay on Sarah Kofman. To some extent, they could also be applied to Chanter’s own considerable body of work. Here, too, there is a thread of continuity that concerns “a question of the unsayable” and the ethical exigency of attending to that question. At the same time, these lines do not quite apply to Chanter’s own work, in ways that illuminate the distinctiveness of her approach and her contribution to contemporary philosophical thinking. For if her work foregrounds [End Page 129] the necessity with which representation depends on a constitutive relation to the unrepresentable, it also insists on the contingency of what and who are made unrepresentable, on “the unstable content of excluded yet constitutive others” (Chanter 2011, 58; hereafter, WA). If the question of the unsayable concerns the impossibility of saying that which nonetheless demands to be said, Chanter’s work shows that what it is impossible to say is always made so by a particular order of representation. Thus, part of what demands to be said is this: That what is unethical is not simply failing to attend to the unsayable, but failing to attend to the ways in which that which is unsayable and unrepresentable within a particular order of representation becomes conflated with the unsayable and unrepresentable as such, and thus condemned, like Antigone, to a living death.Chanter’s work parses the unrepresentable, while carefully avoiding two potential risks of critiquing the logic of representation. The first such risk is that of homogenizing all that is “other” to the subject within a single figure of excess: the unrepresentable or the unsayable. The second is of exposing the logic that identifies one specific mode of being as other—say, for example, the feminine—while not only failing to interrogate the production of other “others”—say, racialized others—but remaining implicitly dependent on their continued exclusion. In response, Chanter’s work patiently exposes the ways in which an exclusionary logic tends to silently reinstate itself in the very theories that seek to contest the logic of exclusion. This is not because we have not yet found the right solution, the ideal counter-theory to avoid once and for all the oppressive effects of the logic of the same. Rather, the logic of exclusion reasserts itself precisely to the extent that we continue to invest in finding a conceptual or theoretical resting place, rather than being willing to remain in the double bind of attesting to hitherto oppressed and marginalized differences, while asking which differences are occluded, silenced, or marginalized by our own attestations, by the contingent but unavoidably specific forms that such attestations take. Rather than appealing to either the unrepresentable as such, or to a privileged register of difference, Chanter asks us instead to take up the restless project of exposing the different logics of othering on which different subjects and orders of representation depend, and by which different—contingent yet constitutive—others are produced.In what follows, I trace a line across several of Chanter’s key texts to explore the ways in which what I am calling an ethics of restlessness unfolds in her work. In so doing, I risk falling into the very trap that Chanter persistently exposes, for by tracing this particular trajectory, I inevitably occlude many other valuable insights she has to offer. Nonetheless, I am going to take this risk and commit—for now—to this reading, to try to articulate what it is that I have most learned from engaging with her work, knowing that our very [End Page 130] exchange is likely to transform my understanding of and relation to that work, generating different interpretative commitments in the future.Ethics and Alterity... (shrink)

"Using cutting-edge philosophical analyses, this book highlights Nigerian literature's contributions to moral imagination, ethical discourse, postcolonial studies, and emancipatory politics"--.

Kantian political philosophy is a rich mine, and one which is hardly played out after two centuries. This substantial collection of essays validates both of those claims. Although Kant's moral philosophy has understandably received the lion's share of attention from contemporary philosophers, Beiner and Booth, both political scientists, have gathered essays which nicely illuminate the historical and political facets of Kantian practical philosophy. Anyone interested in Kantian ethics would benefit from a look (...) at most of the essays included. (shrink)

The inclusion of ethics and politics into artistic creation process is for many contemporary creators/artists an essential motivation while they consciously act in an aesthetic space polluted with the realities of a world in crisis. Art, which produces visible and sensible forms, can reveal aesthetic ideas and fundaments through aesthetic objects: drawing, video-installing or poem/poetry. And artists can make someone feel with their creations—whether these are beautiful, sublime, tragic, or ironic—ethical contentions violated by human action or the exertion/exercise (...) of political power. Works of art that are not only guided by the categories signed by beauty, because in artistic languages, violence and suffering also make/create form. And times of crisis are the ideal sphere/dimension for an art that gives a vivid way of seeing/watching the uncertainty, the perversion, the terrible. In bringing these philosophical—ethical, aesthetic and political—topics, I do it from an approach that departs form artistic creations and curatorial research. I try to penetrate the narrow thread between an ethical topic and the plastic form in which it incarnates/embodies itself, or between a political action and the aesthetic structure of language as a creative, expressive consequence. (shrink)

Morality and Moral Controversies, 10th Edition challenges students to critically assess today's leading moral, social, and political issues. And as a comprehensive anthology, it provides students with the tools they need to understand philosophical ideas that are currently shaping our world. The 10thEditionincludes classic and contemporary readings in moral theory, the most current topics in applied ethics, and updated debates in social and political philosophy. As in the previous nine editions, the materials were selected for (...) balance, timeliness, and accessibility after reviewing a vast range of possible articles from leading scholarly journals, mainstream periodicals, online posts, and book chapters. Hallmarks include carefully edited and philosophically relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions, compelling readings, and contrasting points of view that reflect a broad ethical and political spectrum. Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Understand philosophical ideas that are shaping the world today. Apply various philosophical ideas to politics, religion, ethics, economics, personal relationships, medicine, the environment and climate change, warfare, and other areas. Appreciate how to construct, apply, and evaluate basic philosophical arguments. Key updates to the 10th Edition include: Publishing all material in the actual book (in contrast to placing sections online behind a paywall, as was the case in earlier editions with a different publisher). New readings on: autonomous warfare self-driving cars the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. ethical and political spectrum. Upon completing this book, readers will be able to: Understand philosophical ideas that are shaping the world today. Apply various philosophical ideas to politics, religion, ethics, economics, personal relationships, medicine, the environment and climate change, warfare, and other areas. Appreciate how to construct, apply, and evaluate basic philosophical arguments. Key updates to the 10th Edition include: Publishing all material in the actual book (in contrast to placing sections online behind a paywall, as was the case in earlier editions with a different publisher). New readings on: autonomous warfare self-driving cars the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. >the right to health care technology and privacy the value of democracy racial equality immigration. (shrink)

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic's problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary (...) approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata. (shrink)

Do philosophers have a responsibility to their society that is distinct from their responsibility to it as citizens? This edited volume explores both what type of contribution philosophy can make and what type of reasoning is appropriate when addressing public matters now. These questions are posed by leading international scholars working in the fields of moral and political philosophy. Each contribution also investigates the central issue of how to combine critical, rational analysis with a commitment to politically (...) relevant public engagement. The contributions to this volume analyse issues raised in practical ethics, including abortion, embryology, and assisted suicide. They consider the role of ethical commitment in the philosophical analysis of contemporary political issues, and engage with matters of public policy such as poverty, the arts, meaningful work, as well as the evidence base for policy. They also examine the normative legitimacy of power, including the use of violence. (shrink)