It is clear that environmentalist are failing in their efforts to avert a global ecological catastrophe. It is argued here that Aldo Leopold had provided the foundations for an effective environmental movement, but to develop his land ethic, it is necessary first to interpret and advance it by seeing it as a form of communitarianism, and link it to communitarian ethical and political philosophy. This synthesis can then be further developed by incorporating advanced ideas in ecology and human ecology. Overcoming (...) the division between the sciences and humanities and granting a place to narratives as a highly developed form of eco-semiosis, these provide the foundation for a new grand narrative committed to creating an ecological civilization, a civilization organized to augment the life of ecosystems, including human ecosystems, by augmenting the conditions for its members to flourish and develop their full potential to augment life. (shrink)

The relationship between community and individual is the key issue in contemporary political philosophy and ethics. The concept of self seems very important for individualism, communitarianism and feminism when they respond to relationships, particularly when we have to situate selfhood in the conditions of modernity. Consequently, this paper can be divided into seven parts. First it introduces the debate about the concept of the self between individualism and communitarianism. Second, it discusses the feminist critique of this issue and analyses the (...) feminist concept of self, and then addresses modernity as the condition of women. Next it attempts to analyze how women situate themselves in the conditions of modernity. Then it discusses how Chinese women are reshaping their selfhood under the conditions of modernity, and finally draws some brief conclusions claiming that neither communitarian nor individualist self is adequate in contemporary society. Chinese women, it is argued, are expected to reshape their own selfhood resting on the positive side of Confucian ethics and a feminist concept of self. (shrink)

O caráter comunitário da filosofia de Aristóteles resulta das diversas formas de análise da política que o filósofo apresenta na articulação dos seguintes aspectos: a tese de que o ser humano é um animal político; o modo como esta é realizada na comunidade política, na qual o logos se manifesta como atividade discursiva compartilhada; o cultivo de determinadas virtudes ético-políticas presentes na convivência humana, sobretudo, a amizade; a autossuficiência do cidadão e o seu vínculo com a autarquia da comunidade política. (...) A retomada de um moderno conceito de comunidade, na tentativa de reatualizar os princípios gerais do comunitarismo aristotélico, pode ser compatível com determinadas teses liberais, sobretudo a questão da liberdade (autonomia) individual e o fato do pluralismo ético e político nas sociedades modernas. The communal nature of Aristotle's philosophy results from the various forms of analysis of the politics the philosopher shows in the articulation of the following features: the thesis that man is a political animal; the way the political community is accomplished through this thesis, in which the logos itself manifests as a shared discoursive activity; the cultivation of certain ethical and political virtues present in the human companionship, above all, friendship; citizen self-sufficiency and its relationship with the autarchy of the political community. In an attempt to bring up to date the general principles of Aristotelian communitarianism, the resumption of a modern concept of community can be compatible with certain liberal theses, especially the issue of individual freedom (autonomy) and the fact of the ethical and political pluralism in the modern societies. (shrink)

The behavior of individuals currently living will generally have long-term consequences that affect the well-being of those who will come to live in the future. Intergenerational interdependencies of this nature raise difficult moral issues because only the current generation is in a position to decide on actions that will determine the nature of the world in which future generations will live. Although most are willing to attach some weight to the interests of future generations, many would argue that it is (...) not necessary to treat these interests as equivalent to those of the current generation. A common approach in this context is to use a system of discounting to evaluate future benefits and harms. This paper assesses the logic of discounting drawing on the writings of economists and philosophers. Much of the economic literature concerns the choice of an appropriate social discount rate. The social discount rate can be taken to reflect beliefs about the rights of future generations, a subject that has been extensively debated in the phioosophic literature. The writings of both economists and philosophers concerned with the weight to attach to the interests of future generations are reviewed and evaluated in this paper and the implications for environmental policy are discussed. (shrink)

Social marketing has been established with the purpose of effecting change or maintaining people’s behaviour for the welfare of individuals and society, which is also what differentiates it from other types of marketing. However, social marketing scholars have struggled with guiding social marketers in conceptualising the social good and with defining who decides what is socially beneficial in different contexts. In this paper, we suggest that many dilemmas in identifying the social good in social marketing could be addressed by turning (...) to human rights principles, and, in particular, by following a human rights-based approach. We examine a number of cross-cutting human rights principles—namely, transparency and accountability, equality and non-discrimination, and participation and inclusion—that are capable, in a practical way, of guiding the work of social marketers. Through an illustrative case study of the anti-obesity discourse, we present how these principles might help to address some of the challenges facing social marketing, both as a theory and practice, in meeting its definitional characteristic. (shrink)

The debate between Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls concerns the question of how to do political philosophy under conditions of cultural pluralism, if the aim of political philosophy is to uncover the normative foundation of a modern liberal democracy. Rawls’s political liberalism tries to bypass the problem of pluralism, using the intellectual device of the veil of ignorance, and yet paradoxically at the same time it treats it as something given and as an arbiter of justification within the political conception (...) of justice. Habermas argues that Rawls not only incorrectly operationalizes the moral point of view from which we discern what is just but also fails to capture the specificity of democracy which is given by internal relations between politics and law. This deprives Rawls’s political philosophy of the conceptual tools needed to articulate the normative foundation of democracy. (shrink)