In this paper I engage with the notion that Covid-19 can be seen as the ‘great equalizer’, in virtue of the widespread sense of uncertainty it has caused and the fact that it has forced us to recognize our shared human fragility. Against the view that Covid-19 is the ‘great equalizer’, I argue that, on the contrary, the pandemic reflects existing vulnerabilities and, in many cases, exacerbates them. I do so by offering first a definition of both ontological and relational (...) vulnerability and discussing some important ethical and political dimensions of vulnerability in conditions of uncertainty. I then claim that understanding vulnerability in both ontological and relational terms allows us to see the differential impact of the pandemic on differently situated individuals. More specifically, I argue that vulnerability in conditions of uncertainty can threaten individuals’ sense of self, and thus their autonomy – both understood in relational terms. I consider what kind of response human vulnerability in times of crisis calls for. In particular, I maintain that a promising way to counteract uncertainty would be to adopt a solidaristic approach to public health, based on an understanding of solidarity as a relational concept. In other words, I argue that it is through solidarity that individuals’ vulnerabilities can be mitigated, and their autonomy promoted, even during the most uncertain times. I finally discuss two objections that could be raised against the solidaristic approach defended in my paper. First, the approach may fail to find the support of individuals who are unwilling to care for others when their own interests are under threat. Second, there might be those who deny that the virus constitutes a serious enough threat to warrant or justify the restrictions on individual freedoms imposed by governments in the name of solidarity. I conclude by arguing that while a commitment to solidarity can be easily undermined by scepticism towards political and other authorities, and by the failures of those authorities themselves, it is paramount that societies strive for it as the best means to preserve individuals’ health, autonomy, and well-being. (shrink)

Solidarity between more and less vulnerable groups is fundamental to an effective public health response to a global pandemic. Yet in the case of COVID-19, a focus on deciding who can and who cannot be protected from harm has shaped the pandemic experience and continues to determine the post-pandemic trajectory of life with SARS-CoV-2. In this paper I discuss how this has affected our understanding and acceptance of solidarity.

이 논문은 모든 인간이 상처 받을 수 있다는 보편적-존재론적 조건에 입각하여 연대의 개념을 재구성한다. 연대는 흔히 대칭성의 윤리인 정의와 동근원적인 것으로 간주된다. 합리적 합의와 공감적 연대는 대등한 존재들 사이의 상호작용을 통해 형성된 것이다. 정의와 연대는 그런 점에서 대칭성의 윤리와 정치에 속한다. 하지만, 합리적 정의와 달리 연대는 타자에 대한 공감을 중심에 두며, 공감이라는 감수성은 타자의 보편성에 대한 관심보다는 타자의 특수성에 더 관심을 둔다. 연대가 타자의 상처나 취약성에 우선적으로 관심이 있고, 이 우선성을 고려함으로써 그 상대편인 정의가 구체성을 담지한 보편성이 될 수 있다. (...) 그러나 연대와 정의는 그 자신의 대칭성으로 인하여 비대칭적 존재와 맺는 윤리적-정치적 관계에 맹목이다. 따라서 이 논문은 상처에 민감한 연대라는 개념이 자신의 민감성을 대칭성에 한정해서만은 안 되며, 최초의 연대를 수립했던 비대칭성이라는 근원의 흔적으로 소급할 수 있어야 한다고 주장한다. 그래야만 연대가 자신의 진정성을 재정립할 수 있다. 이제 연대는 비대칭적 외부로 개방될 수밖에 없다. 이를 해명하고자 이 논문은 ‘트라우마’의 개념과 역사를 살펴본다. 트라우마는 역사적 과정을 거치면서 비대칭적 존재의 취약성을 구체적으로 드러냈고, 이를 통해 기존의 연대를 쇄신하고 새로운 연대를 창출했다. 그런 점에서 트라우마는 기존 연대를 확장하라고 명하는 상처 받을 수 있는 존재의 권위다. 이전의 다른 연구에서 나는 비대칭적인 것의 권위가 기존의 대칭성의 장인 공공성(합리적 합의의 공공성과 공감적 연대의 공공성)에 가하는 공적 긴장을 임계적 공공성이라 규정한 바 있다. 이번 논문에서는 이러한 공공성에 대한 해명을 더 구체화하기 위해 임계적 긴장을 ‘비판’이라는 개념으로 해설했고, 아울러 기존의 비판 개념과 이를 차별화하기 위해 2단계 비판 개념을 제시했다. 즉 대등한 존재들 간의 반론과 거부감(반감)으로서의 비판(2차비판)과 대등하지 않은 존재가 제기하는 임계로서의 비판(1차 비판 또는 근원적 비판)이 그것이다. 이 1차 비판은 기존의 연대와 정의를 근본적으로 거부하는 비대칭성의 임계인데, 이 임계는 아직 소통과 공감의 가능성으로 들어오지 않았지만, 새로운 소통과 공감을 강제하는 힘이며, 이해와 공감의 근본적 불가능성을 가능성으로 변이시켜 등장한 힘이다. 번역과 이해 그리고 공감을 촉구하는 이 힘으로 인해 기존의 연대는 늘 외부로 열릴 수밖에 없다. 따라서 연대는 대등한 존재를 보호하면서 유지되지만, 새로운 존재를 환대함으로써 자기 존립의 정당성을 확보 받는다. 물론 연대와 동근원적인 정의 역시 이러한 과정 때문에 더 정의로울 수 있다. 따라서 환대가 없다면, 연대도 정의도 없다. (shrink)

Drawing on a conception of people as ‘ecological subjects’, creatures situated in specific social relations, locations, and material environments, I want to emphasize the importance of place and place‐making for basing, demonstrating, and forging future solidarity. Solidarity, as I will define it here, involves reaching out through moral imagination and responsive action across social and/or geographic distance and asymmetry to assist other people who are vulnerable, and to advance justice. Contained in the practice of solidarity are two (...) core ‘enacted commitments’, first, to engaging our moral imaginations and recognizing others in need and, second, to responsive action. Recognizing the suffering of displacement and responding through place‐making should follow from even the most simplistic understanding of people as ‘implaced’. Recognition, furthermore, that places are created and sustained, transformed, or neglected in ways that foster or perpetuate inequities, including health inequities, generates responsibilities concerning place‐making. Place‐based interventions, on either count, should be principal and, indeed, prioritized ways of showing solidarity for the vulnerable and promoting justice. Where solidaristic relations do not prevail, place‐making can catalyze and nurture them, and over time advance justice. On the moral landscapes of bioethics, the terrain where care and health are or should be at the center of attention, an ethic of place and place‐making for those who have been displaced – patients, the elderly, urban populations, and asylum‐seekers, for instance – expresses and has rich potential for nurturing bonds of solidarity. (shrink)

While the domestic effect of structural racism and other social vulnerabilities on Covid‐19 mortality in the United States has received some attention, there has been much less discussion (with some notable exceptions) of how structural global inequalities will further exacerbate Covid‐related health disparity across the world. This may be partially due to the delayed availability of accurate and comparable data from overwhelmed systems, particularly in low‐ and middle‐income countries. However, early methods to procure and develop treatments and vaccines by some (...) high‐income countries reflect ongoing protectionist and nationalistic attitudes that can systemically exclude access for people in regions with weaker health systems. What's needed is a global coordinated effort, based on the principle of solidarity, to foster equitable health care access. (shrink)

This article presents a critical analysis of the views of Michael Sandel on human enhancement in his book The Case Against Perfection (2007). Sandel argues that the use of biotechnologies for human enhancement is driven by a will to mastery or hybris, leading to an ‘explosion of responsibility’ and a disappearance of solidarity. I argue that Sandel is using a traditional concept of solidarity which leaves little room for individual differences and which is difficult to reconcile with the (...) modern trend towards individual autonomy and cultural heterogeneity. With reference to the sociology of Giddens, I argue that the ‘explosion of responsibility’ can be considered an expression of the insecurity in modern society and the need for reflexivity in personal and social life. I argue that the need for reflexivity is a driving social and cultural force behind the interest in human enhancement, and that this trend can go together with a commitment to take care of the needs of others. I agree with Sandel that there is a risk that human enhancement may develop into ‘hybris’, particularly when enhancement is driven by scientism and a naturalist reduction of human values to neurological processes. Enhancement based on scientism will threaten solidarity defined by Honneth as an interactive relationship aimed at the mutual recognition of individual identities in relation to a shared value horizon. I will call for a reflective approach in which human enhancement technologies are explored in the context of a ‘system of reference’. Such a reflective approach will help to protect against the hybris of scientism and to maintain solidarity with vulnerable groups. (shrink)

Over one-third of older adults in many countries have a companion animal, and pets may harbor health-promoting potential. Few studies have considered pet-ownership in relation to economic vulnerability, and pet-ownership has not been often considered within policy efforts to promote ageing-in-place. We conducted a mixed methods case study to understand perspectives of both community agencies that support ageing-in-place and older adults themselves. A shortage of affordable, appropriate pet-friendly housing emerged as a challenge, even when framed as a legitimate choice (...) and preference for many older adults. In this manuscript, we share the trajectories of three economically vulnerable older adults whose affordable housing needs became entangled with commitments to pets. Guided by dialogical narrative methodology, we offer each narrative as a short vignette to illustrate the extent to which older adults will practice ‘more-than-human solidarity’ for a pet, even when their own well-being is compromised as a result; and highlight incongruence between the underlying moral values that shape solidaristic practices of individuals versus solidaristic arrangements that shape affordable housing opportunities. We suggest that housing rules and legislation that disrupt, rather than confirm, more-than-human solidarity may render older adults susceptible to, rather than protected from, deteriorating physical, mental and social well-being. We propose that collective solidaristic practices must reflect and subsume the moral complexity of solidarity practiced by individuals, to enable fair and equitable ageing-in-place. (shrink)

What makes #BlackLivesMatter unique is the implication that it isn’t only some black lives that matter, that is, not only the most commonly referenced male lives. Rather, the hashtag suggests that all black lives matter, including queer, trans, disabled, and female. This movement includes all those black lives who have been marginalized within the black liberation tradition, as well as in greater society. The movement highlights the ways in which black people have been traditionally deprived of dignity and human rights. (...) State racism and state violence are sustained together. The law creates a “subrace” out of those whom white society fears and holds in contempt. This leaves not only black Americans but all citizens vulnerable. A way to fight this form of racism is not only to create a solidarity among the oppressed members of the subrace but to create a solidarity with all members, in “vulnerable solidarity.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Law’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society by Cathleen KavenyEric E. SchnitgerLaw’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society By Cathleen Kaveny WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012. 304 PP. $29.95In Law’s Virtue, Cathleen Kaveny calls those in Western liberal countries to rethink their fundamental framework of ethics and law through the guiding principles of autonomy and solidarity, understood through the Catholic (...) context of Thomistic virtue. The law operates not as the fence of individual isolation as it does in Enlightenment rights theory, whereby liberty is preserved through negative restraint, but as the teacher of a limited form of the virtues of prudence and justice (52). The law teaches this thin form of prudence through autonomy, which Kaveny takes from Joseph Raz as “the capacity to be the ‘part-author’ of one’s own life” (53). Solidarity, pulling from Pope John Paul II, correlates to a learned justice, in that it “attend[s] to the unseen members” of the community (54). It recognizes that the good of the community and the good of individual members are inexorably intertwined.The opening epigram of the preface, which sets the tone for the whole work, is a quotation from Isidore of Seville found in Aquinas: “Law shall be virtuous, just, possible to nature, according to the custom of the country, suitable to place and time, necessary, useful; clearly expressed, lest by its obscurity it lead to misunderstanding; framed for no private benefit, but for the common good” (xi). Kaveny argues that the phrases “possible to nature” and “custom of the country” need more attention in pluralist, democratic societies, because law is morally formed by its constituent community and there are deep disagreements within those communities. This gives a direction for how Catholics, and all citizens, should attempt to influence laws in these democracies. Because the law is a form of consensus over time, it should use severe sanctions such as criminal law only to reinforce the consensus that it represents. Tort and tax law are less severe tools that can encourage the moral direction of society, which, when used well, maintain the consensus of the law but still allow it to be a moral teacher.Kaveny’s practical thinking in this text does have some seeds of radical change. When she moves to the practicalities of life issues in the law—such as abortion, euthanasia, and genetics—she argues that the “entire fabric of the Anglo-American legal system” needs to add the concept of the “vulnerable” person to the “reasonable person” (79). In addition, her reframing of life issues contends that the Catholic view of issues like abortion is too different from [End Page 212] the “custom of the country” to make a change to the virtues and practices of other citizens. Instead, attention to the support necessary for families and social difficulties of economic poverty represents a way of using the law as a moral teacher while recognizing its limits (89, 156, 209). The book concludes with an incisive look at voting, in which Kaveny argues that the idea of issues-based voting is wrongheaded; instead, she urges voters to consider that they are voting for an individual who will take a broad moral stance and make a broad set of decisions (197 ff.).The quality of Kaveny’s clear thinking and moral consistency makes this book a pleasure to read—even for those who may disagree about the nature of the law or the virtues that Christians should bring to political, legislative, and judicial systems. This text, from its depth of legal and theological commitments, sets a high bar for further dialogue.Eric E. SchnitgerFuller Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In a series of reflections published in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, Giorgio Agamben expresses a number of concerns related to the way the pandemic has altered the very fabric of our societies, potentially changing it forever. While maintaining a certain scepticism towards the threat represented by the virus itself, Agamben claims that the response to the contagion shows how easy it is for authorities to limit individual freedoms in the name of public health, and how readily they are (...) willing to put such limitations in place. At the same time, the pandemic shows how easy it is for individuals to accept this situation as the new normal, and how readily they are willing to give up their freedoms and relationships. In this paper I offer a brief overview of Agamben’s worries, focussing on two issues in particular: the loss of individual freedom of movement and association, and the moral and political implications of social distancing. I then approach these issues from a different angle, making use of relational theory to propose an alternative framework which relies on the notion of vulnerability. While agreeing with Agamben that there is reason to worry about the state seizing the opportunity to exercise unchecked power over its citizens, I argue that we should pay attention to the ways in which social distancing measures can be grounded in solidarity and respect for the autonomy of vulnerable individuals. (shrink)

The concept of solidarity has recently come to prominence in the healthcare literature, addressing the motivation for taking seriously the shared vulnerabilities and medical needs of compatriots and for acting to help them meet these needs. In a recent book, Prainsack and Buyx take solidarity as a commitment to bear costs to assist others regarded as similar, with implications for governing health databases, personalized medicine, and organ donation. More broadly, solidarity has been understood normatively to call for (...) ‘standing with’ or assisting fellow community members and possibly also distant others in regard to their needs, whether for its own sake or in order to realize the demands of justice. I argue here that the understanding of solidarity in the existing bioethics literature is unduly restricted by not sufficiently theorizing the notion of structural (or systemic) injustice and its import for understanding solidarity. Extending traditional conceptions of labor and social movement solidarity, I contrast unitary solidarity within a given group with ‘networking solidarities’ across groups. I analyze the meaning of structural injustice and its significance for solidarity, including countering institutionally entrenched inequalities and economic exploitation. I then apply this broadened conception to healthcare, discussing structural problems with the U.S. insurance system and the solidarity movements addressing its deficiencies. I analyze some natural disasters and global health challenges that were aggravated by structural injustices, along with the solidarity movements they engendered. Finally, I revisit the questions of governing health databases and of personalized medicine with the enlarged conception of solidarity in view. (shrink)

Vulnerability and resistance have often been seen as opposites, with the assumption that vulnerability requires protection and the strengthening of paternalistic power at the expense of collective resistance. Focusing on political movements and cultural practices in different global locations, including Turkey, Palestine, France, and the former Yugoslavia, the contributors to Vulnerability in Resistance articulate an understanding of the role of vulnerability in practices of resistance. They consider how vulnerability is constructed, invoked, and mobilized within neoliberal (...) discourse, the politics of war, resistance to authoritarian and securitarian power, in LGBTQI struggles, and in the resistance to occupation and colonial violence. The essays offer a feminist account of political agency by exploring occupy movements and street politics, informal groups at checkpoints and barricades, practices of self-defense, hunger strikes, transgressive enactments of solidarity and mourning, infrastructural mobilizations, and aesthetic and erotic interventions into public space that mobilize memory and expose forms of power. Pointing to possible strategies for a feminist politics of transversal engagements and suggesting a politics of bodily resistance that does not disavow forms of vulnerability, the contributors develop a new conception of embodiment and sociality within fields of contemporary power. -/- Contributors. Meltem Ahiska, Athena Athanasiou, Sarah Bracke, Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Basak Ertür, Zeynep Gambetti, Rema Hammami, Marianne Hirsch, Elena Loizidou, Leticia Sabsay, Nükhet Sirman, Elena Tzelepis. (shrink)

Public health involves the use of power to change institutions and redistribute resources and deliberately to shape individual thought and behavior. This requires normative legitimation and demands ethical critique. This article explores concepts that are vital to public health ethics, but have been relatively neglected. These are membership, solidarity and the concept of place. The article argues that the practice of public health should recognize the equal rights of membership in communities of health justice. Public health should also rely (...) on a sense of obligation and mutual aid in a world of shared vulnerability and reciprocal recognition. Finally, public health achieves its goals not merely—and perhaps not most fundamentally—through information and altering the logical ratiocination of individuals or groups, but rather through the reformation of sense and sensibility. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted health care, economies and societies in ways that are still being measured across the world. To control the spread of the virus, governments continue to appeal to citizens to alter their behaviours and act in the interests of the collective public good so as to protect the vulnerable. Demonstrations of collective solidarity are being consistently sought to control the spread of the virus. Catchphrases, soundbites and hashtags such as ‘we’re all in this together’, ‘stronger (...) together’ and other messages of unity are employed, invoking the sense of a collective struggle. However, this approach is fundamentally challenged as collectivist attitudes run contrary to the individualism of neoliberal ideology, to which citizens have been subjected. This paper argues that attempting to employ the concept of solidarity is inherently challenged by the deep impact of neoliberalism in health policies and draws on the work of Durkheim to examine the concept in a context in which health care has become established as an individual responsibility. The paper will argue that a dominant private-responsibility model and an underfunded public system have eroded solidarity weakening its effectiveness in generating concerns for the collective. (shrink)

Although the world has experienced remarkable progress in health care since the last half of the 20th century, global health inequalities still persist. In some poor countries life expectancy is between 37-40 years lower than in rich countries; furthermore, maternal and infant mortality is high and there is lack of access to basic preventive and life-saving medicines, as well a high prevalence of neglected diseases, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Moreover, globalization has made the world more connected than before such that (...) health challenges today are no longer limited within national or regional boundaries, making all persons equally vulnerable. Because of this, diseases in the most affluent countries are closely connected with diseases in the poorest countries. In this paper, we argue that, because of global health inequalities, in a situation of equal vulnerability, there is need for global solidarity not only as a means of reducing health inequalities, but also as a way of putting up a united force against global health challenges. We argue for an African approach to solidarity in which the humanity of a person is not determined by his/her being human or rational capacity, but by his/her capacity to live a virtuous life. According to this view of solidarity, because no one is self-sufficient, no individual can survive alone. If we are to collectively flourish in a world where no individual, nation or region has all the health resources or protection needed for survival, we must engage in solidarity where we remain compassionate and available to one another at all times. (shrink)

This essay surveys the theme of solidarity in the respective works of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hannah Arendt. Recent discourses in continental political philosophy have arrived at an impasse regarding solidarity. On the one hand, solidarities are important for galvanizing historically oppressed peoples against dominant discourses. On the other hand, solidarities that impose similarities in advance run the risk of absorbing difference and becoming exclusionary. Gadamer and Arendt, each in different manners, promise a distinctive approach to discourses on (...) class='Hi'>solidarity through their emphasis on the existential concern for human finitude. Both suggest that insofar as we are finite, we are bound together not by familiarity and sameness but rather by shared vulnerability, finding help with this vulnerability by remaining open to the difference and otherness that is always at stake in communal life. In this, Gadamer and Arendt open new paths to theorizing collectives in ways that embrace and defend difference rather than rejecting it. Moreover, both remind us of the urgency of such a notion of solidarity for responding to what, in allusion to Arendt, we may be inclined to call the dark times in which we live. (shrink)

Initially portrayed as the “great equalizer,” the COVID-19 pandemic has proved anything but. This essay recounts the sobering social disparities and vulnerabilities that the pandemic has exposed, especially when it comes to the inequalities that are baked into existing membership regimes, before turning to narratives of hope and democratic renewal. My discussion shines a spotlight on the relationship between borders, (im)mobility, and struggles for recognition and inclusion that have long been central to the practice of citizenship. Focusing on pathways to (...) the acquisition of full membership status for those who are currently denied it, I will deploy logics and policies that have already begun to take shape in different parts of the world, with the goal of amplifying their effects and multiplying their scale. I identify three possible trajectories for postpandemic recovery, two of which offer ways to enhance equality of status and public standing by enlarging the circle of membership: first, through contribution (or what I will term “jus contribuere”), and second, by highlighting what we might call “solidarity in place.” The third reaction, which we might call the “stratification of membership,” pulls in the opposite direction by sharply redrawing the lines—legal, economic, social—that have distinguished insiders from outsiders, and exacerbated patterns of stratification and inequality of status and opportunity that predate the pandemic. (shrink)

Most accounts of why physicians have a duty to treat patients during a pandemic look to the special ethical standards of the medical profession. An adequate account must be deeper and broader: it must set the professional duty alongside other individual commitments and broader social values.

Solidarity is crucial for realizing justice, securing public goods, and reducing domination. Yet there have been few theoretical studies of its threats and vulnerabilities. In this paper I fill this lacuna, outlining four approaches to what undermines solidarity and considering their implications for contemporary political theory. I begin by reviewing the empirical literature on solidarity, noting that its focus on diversity and individuation has yielded inconclusive results. I then develop four alternative threats to solidarity by drawing (...) from the history of political thought, social theory, and religious studies: interpersonal dependence (Jean-Jacques Rousseau); radical evil (Immanuel Kant); self-dissolution (Émile Durkheim); and moral spectatorship (Emmanuel Levinas). Taking these threats into account, I conclude, should significantly impact our normative theorizing about solidarity. In particular, it should encourage a research agenda that attends to solidarity’s affective, esthetic, and non-rational sources. (shrink)

Advances in biotechnologies for human enhancement and designer babies appear to offer us new hope in medicine, but capitalism may incentivize the selection of traits for profit. Engineering Perfection: Solidarity, Disability, and Well-being offers an opposing Marxist view, one that embraces human vulnerability and embodied difference.

Recent work by emerging “vulnerability theorists” has imbued the concept of vulnerability with new meaning that promises novel theoretical and social insights; however, these insights remain threatened by the innate ambiguity of the notion of vulnerability. The negative connotation of this term, namely the propensity to experience wounding, pain and marginalization, coexists with its positive connotation of an openness to love, care and the creation of solidarity. In this paper, we argue that this ambiguity calls for (...) a clarification in order for the newly established positivity to be properly channeled to imagining new forms of inter-human relations. Specifically, we adopt the phenomenological lens of “exposedness,” drawn from Emmanuel Levinas, placing the notion of vulnerability at the horizon of the relatedness and dynamics among the triad of the “I,” the other, and the third. My vulnerability to the other as an exposedness to excessive responsibility is the pre-original signifyingness of inter-human relations, that is, as “for the other” before “for oneself.” The vulnerability of the other in the form of the relation of Eros will be differentiated from the vulnerability of the other as immediacy. The vulnerability of the third will be discussed from a socio-political perspective, where we will engage with Martha Fineman’s idea of universal vulnerability as a tool for social-political criticism, and further show how a Levinasian perspective on the third can address potential problems with Fineman’s proposals. (shrink)

In this text, the relationship between fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability is examined using Richard Rorty’s thinking as an example. First, some of Rorty’s central ideas are collected and commented on, especially the substitution of objectivity for solidarity, since it affects relevant issues of epistemology and of reflection on rationality. Next, the notions of fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability are examined, which will be connected to an existential dimension of vulnerability. Examples of all those things are also given (...) from Rorty’s thinking and it is highlighted that the author operates with both a negative and a positive sense of existential vulnerability. It is then stated that Rorty’s proposal implies pessimistic fallibilism and an excess of cognitive vulnerability. First, it is argued that the cause of this lies in the fact that his approach is imprisoned in what Richard Bernstein called Cartesian anxiety and secondly, this generates unwanted consequences for the Rortyan goals themselves to raise his ethnocentric proposal as a non-relativistic alternative to realism and authoritarianism. In this respect, it is maintained that the priority that Rorty attributes to solidarity is accompanied by the rejection of any notion of evidence. This produces a conceptual lacuna in the structure of his thought that makes it impossible to reflect philosophically on an epistemic activity (the activity of adducing or requesting evidence) that is a normal part of day-to-day conversational exchanges as important as controversies to determine the best option in each case. In response, we will argue that one can better work towards the achievement of Rortyan goals if we bear in mind that reasons based on solidarity do not replace and do not deactivate the value of epistemic reasons, although they do combine and reinforce each other. (shrink)

This article focuses on the theory of solidarity presented by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society ([1893] 1969). Despite its popularity, the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity has received a lot of criticism. Durkheim allegedly was unable to demonstrate the superior integrating force of modern organic solidarity, while this was his central thesis at the time. A second critique challenges his macrostructural point of view. However, by confronting Durkheim’s classical theory with contemporary work, (...) notably Honneth’s theory of recognition, we can deduce a reformulated framework that is less vulnerable to the afore-mentioned critiques. On the one hand, we specify mechanical and organic solidarity as a dialectical synthesis of both internalized universalistic principles and particularistic emotional orientations. On the other, we incorporate the foregoing typology in a cyclical model that implies interacting processes of inclusion and individualization. (shrink)

The role and importance of solidarity for effective health provision is the subject of lengthy and heated debate which has been thrown into even sharper relief by the COVID-19 pandemic. In various ways, and by various authorities we have all been asked, even instructed, to engage in solidarity with one another in order to collectively respond to the current crisis. Under normal circumstances, individuals can engage in solidarity with their compatriots in the context of public health provision (...) in a number of ways, including paying taxes which fund welfare state initiatives, and avoiding others when ill. While there has been significant engagement in solidarity worldwide, there have also been high profile examples of refusals and failures to engage in solidarity, both by individual agents, and governments. In this paper I examine the consequence of these failures with reference to the actions of the current British government, which has failed to deliver an effective response to the crisis. This failure has effectively devolved responsibility for responding to the crisis to people who are simultaneously more vulnerable to infection, and less able to do anything about it. I argue that such responses represent mismanagement of a public health crisis, and a rejection of important democratic and egalitarian norms and values. (shrink)

In this paper, I interrogate an ethical obligation to participate in genomics research on the basis of solidarity. I explore two different ways in which solidarity is used to motivate participation in genomics research: as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it cultivates solidarity and as an appeal to participate in genomic research because it expresses solidarity. I critique those appeals and draw lessons from them for how we ought to understand solidarity. The (...) working definition of solidarity that I defend is that solidarity involves recognizing another creature, person, or persons as, like ourselves, vulnerable to injustice and entails acting in ways that contribute to creating, reforming, and participating in institutions that are aimed at enhancing their flourishing. I argue that participating in genomics research is not an expression of solidarity. Participation in research may be praiseworthy, a “good thing to do,” but actually cultivating and expressing solidarity requires much more of us. (shrink)

Abstract:ABSTRACTOn January 12, 2010, an earthquake in Haiti sent shockwaves across the world, triggering an unprecedented international response. In the months that followed, international news, legal, development, human rights, and solidarity agencies highlighted the issue of gender-based violence, which has by all accounts increased since the earthquake. Despite activists' nuanced understanding and efforts, official responses have been inadequate while reproducing troubling, albeit familiar, discourses that tend to trigger either denial or demonization. This article aims to address this situation by (...) offering necessary context, grounding violence in Haitian women's own analyses, before and after the earthquake. To understand the narratives and realities Haitian women face, it is critical to first understand structural violence, the long-term, often invisible system of inequality and poverty and how structural violence intersects with intersectionality, the multiple forms of oppression based on distinct but overlapping identities, such as of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and parental status. As in other contexts, these pre-existing gender inequalities rendered Haitian women more vulnerable to disasters. Through the testimonies and lived realities of Haitian women, this article highlights the continuities and argues for the need for intersectional interventions grounded in Haitian women's own lived experiences and priorities. (shrink)

This essay is informed by five different but interrelated conversations all focusing on the relationship between the city and the university. Suggesting the clown as metaphor, I explore the particular role of the activist scholar, and in particular the liberation theologian that is based at the public university, in his or her engagement with the city. Considering the shackles of the city of capital and its twin, the neoliberal university, on the one hand, and the city of vulnerability on (...) the other, I then propose three clown-like postures of solidarity, mutuality and prophecy to resist the shackles of culture and to imagine and embody daring alternatives. (shrink)

Richard B. Miller’s account of liberal social criticism strikingly finds in the prophetic voices of religious traditions moral resources for cultivating a community of political solidarity and for fostering resistance to political power embedded in just war morality. This chapter explores the interrelationship and tensions between liberal social criticism and prophetic moral criticism, assessing whether Miller’s observations about prophetic narratives and voices intimate that prophetic criticism contributes something to the ethics of solidarity and just war that otherwise is (...) neglected by secular or philosophical interpretations. I examine this issue initially by providing an exposition of the ethics of prophetic moral critique, incorporating exemplary narratives in the biblical literature, which focuses on a calling of a community to moral accountability. A prophetic ethics relies on a morally thick narrative of gift, empathy, memory, and community to move communities and social structures from oppression to social justice and care for the vulnerable that contrasts with the morally thin liberal critical narrative of rights and individualism. A prophetic moral voice may thereby provide different reasons or motivations for assuming similar ethical commitments of respect and equality advocated by liberal social criticism. (shrink)

The recent and ongoing refugee crisis in Europe highlights conflicting attitudes about the rights of migrants and refugees to health care in transition and destination countries. Some European and Scandinavian states, such as Germany and Sweden, have welcomed large numbers of migrants, while others, such as the U.K., have been significantly less open. In part, this is because of reluctance by certain national governments to incur what are seen as the high costs of delivering aid and care to migrants. In (...) response to these assumptions, some theorists have argued that the appropriate way to view the health needs of migrants is not in terms of rights, but in terms of the interests of destination and transition countries—and have argued that providing care to migrants and refugees will generate benefits for their host countries. However, self‐interest alone is less effective at motivating the provision of care for health deprivations that do not pose a threat to third parties, or to migrants and refugees in poor or distant countries. In this paper, I argue that while self‐interest is unlikely in itself to motivate the provision of all necessary health care to all migrants and refugees, and may risk stigmatizing already vulnerable persons, it can provide the foundation upon which such motivations can be built. My goal is therefore to show how and why a more just approach to the provision of health care to migrants can and should be derived from narrower, self‐interested commitments to preserving citizen health. (shrink)

In this ground-breaking work, Deborah Cowen makes the first book-length critical intervention into the field of business logistics. Tracing the social, spatial and political transformations wrought by the ‘logistics revolution’, Cowen argues that logistical systems have blurred the boundaries between production and circulation, civilian and military life, and geopolitics and geo-economics, constructing an architecture of the supply chain animated by both the art of war and the science of business. This review considers the political stakes of Cowen’s argument that logistics (...) has reconfigured capitalist social relations of production, especially in relation to the securitisation of spatial mobility and the restructuring of the labour process. In particular, Cowen’s wager that logistical supply-chains are characterised by their vulnerability – and that attendant possibilities for building solidarity emerge out of movements that disrupt such flows – is interrogated in order to question whether such interruptions effectively produce challenges to value-in-motion, or actually become integral to processes of value production. (shrink)

Solidarity within bioethics is increasingly being recognized as an important means of improving health for all. Its contribution seems particularly relevant when there are injustices or inequalities in health and different individuals or groups are disadvantaged. But the current context of ecological collapse, characterized mainly by a loss of biodiversity and ecosystem decline, affects global health in a different way to other factors. This scenario creates new challenges, risks and problems that require new insights from a bioethical perspective. I, (...) therefore, propose an argument in favor of ecological solidarity. The aim of this article is to re-define this concept, outlining which causes should incite action through ecological solidarity and who should be the main recipient of it. To this end, I discuss what the background for practicing ecological solidarity might be: an intrinsically altruistic motivation to attempt to be a better person or a forced response to a political obligation. Finally, by way of example, I argue for rewilding as an effective, practical strategy through which ecological solidarity can be applied in the belief that building ecological solidarity supports a number of key interdependencies and ensures ethical care for the health of the planet. (shrink)

This article defends ‘relational theorizing’ in bioethics and public health ethics and describes its importance. It then offers an interpretation of solidarity and care understood as normatively patterned and psychologically and socially structured modes of relationality; in a word, solidarity and care understood as ‘practices.’ Solidarity is characterized as affirming the moral standing of others and their membership in a community of equal dignity and respect. Care is characterized as paying attention to the moral being of others (...) and their needs, suffering, and vulnerability. The wager of relational theorizing in health care and public health is that substantive ethical visions of solidarity and care will provide support for more just and egalitarian health care and public health policies. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of solidarity and its proper position in the legal frames, with particular focus on health care. Solidarity is often identified with welfare arrangements and social guarantees. In this institutional version, it tends to humiliate citizens and restrict their entrepreneurship. Moreover, administrative solidarity is unable to recognize the actual needs of the most vulnerable members of society, which should be one of its primary concerns. Solidarity, in its (...) original meaning, understood as supportive cooperation of fellow citizens, links their rights and freedoms with mutual duties and responsibilities. Hence, an alternative framework for solidarity should be provided. This framework, committed to the idea of decency, introduces the distinction between the minimum and maximum content of solidarity enforceable by legal means, which should be translated into certain health care practices. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. Public discourse about ethics in the COVID-19 pandemic has tended to focus on scarcity of resources and the protection of civil liberties. We show how these preoccupations reflect an established disaster imaginary that orients the ethics of response. In this paper, we argue that pandemic ethics should instead be oriented through a relational account of persons as vulnerable vectors embedded in existing networks of care. We argue for the creation of a new disaster imaginary to shape our own understandings (...) of the interrelated social, political, and economic hardships under conditions of social distancing. We develop a pandemic ethics framework rooted in uBuntu and care ethics that makes visible the underlying multidimensional structural inequities of the pandemic, attending to the problems of resource scarcity and inequities in mortality while insisting on a response that surges existing and emergent forms of solidarity. (shrink)

I argue that the right to solidarity may be understood as the negative right not to be hindered by social vulnerabilities in the exercise of citizen rights. I define social vulnerabilities as those vulnerabilities that result from structures of society. As a negative right, the right to solidarity shifts attention away from what is necessary for basic flourishing, and toward what is social structures that hinder full participation in other civic or political obligations and rights.

Entangled in misrecognition, Middle Eastern and North African perceived people are socially and politically vulnerable throughout the colonized world. Anti-Colonial relational existence is possible through careful social labor, and cases of MENA communities prove that such normative praxis is not merely wishful thinking.

Over the past forty years, the administrations of American colleges and universities have developed and expanded the ranks of contingent faculty as an alternative to the tenure line. While acknowledging the gross inequities that divide these two tracks, this essay attempts to awaken tenure-line ethicists through the concept of recognition to the conditions of their colleagues and then argues through the concept of vulnerability that faculty are deeply and unavoidably related, and concludes that through solidarity ethicists from both (...) lines might work together toward the university becoming a more ethical workplace than it presently is. (shrink)

The concept of vulnerability has been renewed in meaning and importance over recent decades. Scholars such as Judith Butler, Martha Fineman and Pamela Sue Anderson have endeavored to redeem vulnerability from its traditional signification as a negative individual condition, and to reveal the positive meaning of vulnerability as a transformative call for solidarity, equality and love. In this paper we examine the newly constructed positive understanding of vulnerability, and argue that the current way of pursuing (...) this positive understanding affirms a merely functional positivity. In the recent accounts, vulnerability is still a status to avoid, yet functions positively as a corrective force to the environment that produces vulnerability. We will try to find an essential way of designating the positivity of vulnerability by revisiting the philosophical discussion on vulnerability in Emmanuel Levinas. We will argue that Levinas’s notion of vulnerability is positive in a sense which goes beyond the purely functional; it is seen as essential for his definition of humanity. Yet compared to the contemporary discussion, Levinas’s notion of vulnerability lacks a direct social political meaning. We will tentatively explore how the essential positivity drawn from Levinas can provide a new way to construct the political significance of vulnerability. (shrink)

For much of the 20th century, vulnerability to deprivations of health has often been defined by geographical and economic factors. Those in wealthy, usually ‘Northern’ and ‘Western’, parts of the world have benefited from infrastructures, and accidents of geography and climate, which insulate them from many serious threats to health. Conversely, poorer people are typically exposed to more threats to health, and have lesser access to the infrastructures needed to safeguard them against the worst consequences of such exposure. However, (...) in recent years the increasingly globalized nature of the world’s economy, society and culture, combined with anthropogenic climate change and the evolution of antibiotic resistance, has begun to shift the boundaries that previously defined the categories of person threatened by many exogenous threats to health. In doing so, these factors expose both new and forgotten similarities between persons, and highlight the need for global cooperative responses to the existential threats posed by climate change and the evolution of antimicrobial resistance. In this article, we argue that these emerging health threats, in demonstrating the similarities that exist between even distant persons, provides a catalyst for global solidarity, which justifies, and provides motivation for, the establishment of solidaristic, cooperative global health infrastructures. (shrink)

In his well‐researched new book, Solidarity and Justice in Health and Social Care, Ruud ter Meulen traces the history of the concept of solidarity and describes the important role that it can play in health care. He contrasts solidarity with other normative concepts, such as autonomy and justice. According to ter Meulen, solidarity entails a commitment and willingness to help others who are “in need of it due to circumstances out of their control” (p. 170). Thus, (...) solidarity exists when people act for the sake of other people who are vulnerable in some way. Ter Meulen treats solidarity as a distinct normative concept and believes that it is critical for health care. No doubt insofar as social ties and cohesion are good for health, so is solidarity. (shrink)

The book explores the themes of a) “radical concepts” in politics (inspired by François Laruelle’s “non-Marxism” and “non-philosophy,” developed in accordance with Badiouan and Žižekian “realism”); b) politically relevant and applicable epistemologies of “Thought’s Correlating with the Real” (Laruelle), inspired by Laruelle, Badiou and Žižek and c) the possibility of hybridization of the epistemic stance of “radical concept” with the politics of grief and “identification with the suffering itself” proposed by Judith Butler. Radical concepts, the political vision and the theory (...) based on them, are always already succumbing to the “Lived” (Laruelle), to the singularity of the Event (Badiou), to the encounter with the “kernel of the Real” (Žižek) conditioning a political horizon and the grand and small political narratives taking place within it. The thesis of the book is that the instances of the “lived,” the “event” or the “Real” can be inherently inter-connected by virtue of the category of the “experience” which is an instance of the sheer lived, the bare being subjected to an occurrence which is always already an instance of trauma. The mere subjection to certain” taking place,” the passion (in the etymological sense derived from the Latin verb pati or in the Spinozian sense) which is category beyond the psychological notions of feeling, rational (or irrational) thought, i.e., an ontological category referring to our relation with the “Out-There” which always already happens to us, is that to which the radical (political) concept succumbs to as the ultimate authority rather than to a doctrine, a system of thought, to the “philosophy’s auto-mirroring” (Laruelle). Political revolt or the revolutionary stance stems from precisely this bare experiential, the sheer lived and thus, from the Real of the conatus of staying-in-life. Paradoxically the survivalist stance, the principle of self-preservation is also the revolutionary stance which is by definition destabilizing and destructive. Bodily resistance to subjection (i.e., to discipline) and the continuity of the Self in-the-Real is the source of resistance. The Real of grief and mourning, the identification with the purely experiential stance of the suffering itself is the foundation of a “radical concept” of political solidarity, which by virtue of its being grounded in the Real, i.e., in the Lived, provides the possibility of acting in a revolutionary way. But it is also a form of human universality or political universality, which yet again is not historic universality but rather purely categorical. Other concepts that can be called radical, concepts which are minimally transcendental (Laruelle) and are, therefore, of revolutionary potential are also violence, mourning, labor (work) and gender (the trauma introduced by the linguistic determination as a “he” or a “she”), life, death, animal. Yet, the main focus of the book is the exploration of the lived of vulnerability, trauma and the conatus of life as the determination in the last instance of the revolutionary (political) stance. Clearly, the revolutions and the revolutionary stance this book advocates, or rather, whose potentiality it explores, are not necessarily historical revolutions produced by the intentionality to create politico-historic change. They are not this necessarily. Yet again they are such possibly. Still all purely (on the formal level) revolutionary stance tends to introduce universal change, radically change the political horizon and to reverse the politically unthinkable into a thinkable by elevating it to the level of a universal political truth. (shrink)

The development of new effective but expensive medical treatments leads to discussions about whether and how such treatments should be funded in solidarity-based healthcare systems. Solidarity is often seen as an elusive concept; it appears to be used to refer to different sets of concerns, and its interrelations with the concept of justice are not well understood. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the concept of solidarity as it is used in discussions on the allocation of (...) healthcare resources and the funding of expensive treatments. It contributes to the clarification of the concept of solidarity by identifying in the literature and discussing four uses of the concept: (1) assisting patients in need, (2) upholding the solidarity-based healthcare system, (3) willingness to contribute and (4) promoting equality. It distinguishes normative and descriptive uses of the concept and outlines the overlap and differences between solidarity and justice. Our analysis shows that the various uses of the concept of solidarity point to different, even conflicting, ethical stances on whether and how access to effective, expensive treatments should be provided. We conclude that the concept of solidarity has a role to play in discussions on the accessibility and funding of newly approved medical treatments. It requires, for instance, that healthcare policies promote and maintain both societal willingness to contribute to the care of others and the value of providing care to vulnerable patients through public funding. (shrink)

The development of new effective but expensive medical treatments leads to discussions about whether and how such treatments should be funded in solidarity-based healthcare systems. Solidarity is often seen as an elusive concept; it appears to be used to refer to different sets of concerns, and its interrelations with the concept of justice are not well understood. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of the concept of solidarity as it is used in discussions on the allocation of (...) healthcare resources and the funding of expensive treatments. It contributes to the clarification of the concept of solidarity by identifying in the literature and discussing four uses of the concept: (1) assisting patients in need, (2) upholding the solidarity-based healthcare system, (3) willingness to contribute and (4) promoting equality. It distinguishes normative and descriptive uses of the concept and outlines the overlap and differences between solidarity and justice. Our analysis shows that the various uses of the concept of solidarity point to different, even conflicting, ethical stances on whether and how access to effective, expensive treatments should be provided. We conclude that the concept of solidarity has a role to play in discussions on the accessibility and funding of newly approved medical treatments. It requires, for instance, that healthcare policies promote and maintain both societal willingness to contribute to the care of others and the value of providing care to vulnerable patients through public funding. (shrink)

The book explores the themes of a) “radical concepts” in politics (inspired by François Laruelle’s “non-Marxism” and “non-philosophy,” developed in accordance with Badiouan and Žižekian “realism”); b) politically relevant and applicable epistemologies of “Thought’s Correlating with the Real” (Laruelle), inspired by Laruelle, Badiou and Žižek and c) the possibility of hybridization of the epistemic stance of “radical concept” with the politics of grief and “identification with the suffering itself” proposed by Judith Butler. Radical concepts, the political vision and the theory (...) based on them, are always already succumbing to the “Lived” (Laruelle), to the singularity of the Event (Badiou), to the encounter with the “kernel of the Real” (Žižek) conditioning a political horizon and the grand and small political narratives taking place within it. The thesis of the book is that the instances of the “lived,” the “event” or the “Real” can be inherently inter-connected by virtue of the category of the “experience” which is an instance of the sheer lived, the bare being subjected to an occurrence which is always already an instance of trauma. The mere subjection to certain” taking place,” the passion (in the etymological sense derived from the Latin verb pati or in the Spinozian sense) which is category beyond the psychological notions of feeling, rational (or irrational) thought, i.e., an ontological category referring to our relation with the “Out-There” which always already happens to us, is that to which the radical (political) concept succumbs to as the ultimate authority rather than to a doctrine, a system of thought, to the “philosophy’s auto-mirroring” (Laruelle). Political revolt or the revolutionary stance stems from precisely this bare experiential, the sheer lived and thus, from the Real of the conatus of staying-in-life. Paradoxically the survivalist stance, the principle of self-preservation is also the revolutionary stance which is by definition destabilizing and destructive. Bodily resistance to subjection (i.e., to discipline) and the continuity of the Self in-the-Real is the source of resistance. The Real of grief and mourning, the identification with the purely experiential stance of the suffering itself is the foundation of a “radical concept” of political solidarity, which by virtue of its being grounded in the Real, i.e., in the Lived, provides the possibility of acting in a revolutionary way. But it is also a form of human universality or political universality, which yet again is not historic universality but rather purely categorical. Other concepts that can be called radical, concepts which are minimally transcendental (Laruelle) and are, therefore, of revolutionary potential are also violence, mourning, labor (work) and gender (the trauma introduced by the linguistic determination as a “he” or a “she”), life, death, animal. Yet, the main focus of the book is the exploration of the lived of vulnerability, trauma and the conatus of life as the determination in the last instance of the revolutionary (political) stance. Clearly, the revolutions and the revolutionary stance this book advocates, or rather, whose potentiality it explores, are not necessarily historical revolutions produced by the intentionality to create politico-historic change. They are not this necessarily. Yet again they are such possibly. Still all purely (on the formal level) revolutionary stance tends to introduce universal change, radically change the political horizon and to reverse the politically unthinkable into a thinkable by elevating it to the level of a universal political truth. (shrink)

The first National Health Service (NHS) was introduced in the United Kingdom providing free universal health care (UHC) at the point of use. Within decades, increasing European countries adopted the same intervention to improve the health of citizens on the entire life span. Today, several reasons put at risk (1) empirically, the sustainability and fairness of these systems, (2) theoretically, the same consistency of solidarity, as vulnerable patients struggle most to receive essential care. Preserving solidarity from the pressure (...) of modern medicine and society needs to identify a fair and sustainable type of coverage at the same time. This paper aims (1) to describe the short circuit of solidarity in European NHSs; (2) to discuss alternative versions of UHC and support redistributive neo-universalism; (3) to promote the role of medical humanities in implementing this solution. (shrink)

This article presents various developments in Dutch health care policy toward a greater role for individual financial responsibility, such as cost-control measures, priority setting, rationing, and market reform. Instead of the collective responsibility that is characteristic of previous times, one can observe in government policies an increased emphasis on the need for individuals to take care of one’s own health and health care needs. Moreover, surveys point to decreasing levels of public support for “unlimited” solidarity and “irresponsible” health behavior. (...) This article attempts to answer the question of how these policies and public attitudes are limiting the ethical principles of solidarity and equal access to care that have long guided Dutch health care policy making. The authors argue that from a moral point of view, the increased emphasis on individual responsibility is acceptable as long as it does not affect solidarity with those weak and vulnerable groups who are not able to take individual responsibility, such as the demented and mentally handicapped. (shrink)

Constitutional patriotism has been criticized for providing too thin an identity as the ground for common citizenship. Answering this criticism, Habermas recently stressed the role of affective attachments in creating constitutional patriotic bonds. Still, an account of the type of imagination that could foster such post-national affective attachments is lacking. Drawing on Herder's conception of political culture, I argue that constitutional patriotism requires a modern form of mythology. This would include narratives that shape people's imaginative capacity to see their own (...) culture as a vulnerable and fallible part of a plural mankind and as a free and equal contributor to the global advancement toward humanity. In contrast to ideological mythology, an enlightened use of myth would engage the interactive and communicative potential of poetic images in ways that shape a common feeling of humanity. In short, Habermas’ constitutional patriotism requires supplementing the power of law to create bonds between people. This can be done through the cultivation of imaginative engagements with foreign others. Such imaginative engagements would shape good dispositions that are conducive to tolerance, peace and justice. This addition also allows Habermas’ argument for constitutional patriotism to better answer the communitarian accusation of supranationalism. (shrink)

Constitutional patriotism has been criticized for providing too thin an identity as the ground for common citizenship. Answering this criticism, Habermas recently stressed the role of affective attachments in creating constitutional patriotic bonds. Still, an account of the type of imagination that could foster such post-national affective attachments is lacking. Drawing on Herder's conception of political culture, I argue that constitutional patriotism requires a modern form of mythology. This would include narratives that shape people's imaginative capacity to see their own (...) culture as a vulnerable and fallible part of a plural mankind and as a free and equal contributor to the global advancement toward humanity. In contrast to ideological mythology, an enlightened use of myth would engage the interactive and communicative potential of poetic images in ways that shape a common feeling of humanity. In short, Habermas’ constitutional patriotism requires supplementing the power of law to create bonds between people. This can be done through the cultivation of imaginative engagements with foreign others. Such imaginative engagements would shape good dispositions that are conducive to tolerance, peace and justice. This addition also allows Habermas’ argument for constitutional patriotism to better answer the communitarian accusation of supranationalism. (shrink)

Political theorists have increasingly adopted the psychoanalytic language of ‘mourning’ to characterize experiences of loss and injury, and to legitimate these as claims about a past political or cultural order. Mourning would seek to work through these experiences while opening persons to their shared vulnerabilities. With this article, I return to Freud’s original distinction between mourning and melancholia, along with its development through the work of Donald Winnicott and the relational school of psychoanalysis. Although psychoanalytic mourning balances a coming-to-terms with (...) loss against investment in new social relations, when it is extrapolated to a broader community it risks over-determining the social field. The cost is a foreclosure of other modalities for articulating claims about injury and political order, and in particular those that might draw on anger as a resource for political action and solidarity. (shrink)