This paper critically examines our relationship with justice in contemporary western liberal settings, with a particular focus on why our pursuit of justice is intimately entangled with punitive logics. It does so by defining this approach to justice as predominantly pathological, in the sense that it follows a logic that is akin to that displayed in our contemporary sensibilities regarding bodily pain. We deploy the concept of ‘dys-appearance’ used by Drew Leder in the context of his theory of embodiment to (...) discuss how, in western liberal societies, justice is primarily experienced and paid attention to when it appears negatively as a phenomenon; that is, we only become conscious of justice in our lived experiences through the painful and episodic experience of injustice. This phenomenological quality of justice, we argue, is intrinsically linked to how the pursuit of justice in these settings predominantly takes a hostile, punitive aspect. (shrink)

The tendency to denigrate consumerism derives from the widespread acceptance of sociological theories that represent consumers as prompted by such reprehensible motives as greed, pride, or envy. These theories are largely unsubstantiated and fail to address the distinctive features of modern consumption, such as the apparent insatiability of wants and the preference for the novel over the familiar. A more plausible view of consumerism regards it as an aspect of hedonism, and links consumption to the widespread practice of daydreaming. Seen (...) in this light, one can discern an idealistic dimension to modern consumption. (shrink)

Immanent critique has been a defining feature of the programme of critical social theory. It is a methodology that underpins theoretical diagnoses of contemporary society, based on its linking normative and empirical modes of analysis. Immanent critique distinctively seeks to discern emancipatory or democratizing tendencies. However, the viability of immanent critique is currently in question. Habermas argued that it was necessary to revise the normative foundations of critical social theory, late-capitalist developments tended to undermine immanent critique. Although there is a (...) need for critical social theory to incorporate aspects of alternative interpretations of the contemporary period, the logics of influential theoretical perspectives on the present, especially postmodernism, the risk society and globalization, will be shown to be inconsistent with some of immanent critique's presuppositions. The synthetic aspirations of critical social theory nevertheless persist in recent attempts to reconcile positive liberty and social justice. (shrink)

In accordance with the established view that the new social movements since the late 1960s have always pursued an agenda of comprehensive societal change, the new wave of movement activism since the late 1990s has widely been interpreted as evidence of the emergence of a new global movement for a radically different society. A critique of the one-sided reliance in social movement research on traditional actor-centred approaches leads to a systems-centred conceptualization of late-modern society, and via the diagnosis of its (...) particular dilemmas, to the interpretation of contemporary social movements as a vital resource for the stabilization of the socioeconomic order of democratic consumer capitalism. As an addition to the existing social movement theories, the suggested approach contributes to a more complex understanding of non-conventional forms of political articulation and participation. (shrink)

The UK's personal financial services sector has been the site of controversy over alleged professional malpractice. Financial advisers’ status as professionals is in question, and their claim to knowledge and expertise is apparently challenged by an extensive consumer literature on personal finance. This article analyses a corpus of seventeen consumer guides to personal finance and money management published in the UK, together with a range of financial material available on the internet. These guides urge readers to give high priority to (...) their finances, given the irreversible global retreat of the state from welfare provision. They argue that expert professional advice is indispensable. They prepare readers to play their part as clients in mutually profitable collaboration with professional advisers. They offer reassurance about the effectiveness of industry regulation and consumer protection. The guides are reflexively implicated in the promotional culture of personal financial services. They support financial advisers’ claim to professional standing, and contribute to the cultural work of creating a clientele for them. (shrink)

At a time when the formerly strictly separated roles of citizen and consumer are arguably blurry, and when once powerful social institutions increasingly must yield to new social forces based on heightened knowledgeability and historically unprecedented wealth, it is likely that the economy of modern society is also subject to implicit changes. In this article, we argue that traditional theories of the market are increasingly losing their basis for analysing economic relationships as purely rational acts of exchange and utility maximization. (...) Instead, what can be witnessed is an increase in the influence of values and norms on markets, guiding our attention to how deeply embedded economic action is in modern culture. We put forward the idea of a moralization of markets, which has begun to change our conceptions and theories regarding what is at stake in a modern economy fundamentally. We conclude that in the future, production processes and standards, codes of conduct and consumer reasoning will become all the more important for doing business in Western knowledge societies. (shrink)

Postmodernism is a variety of meanings and definitions, is used to refer to many aspects of social life from musical forms and styles, literature and fine art through to philosophy, history and especially the mass media and consumer culture. Post modernism is a slippery term that is used by writers to refer to several different things. Featherstone points out the term has been used to refer to new developments in intellectual and cultural theory. The suggestion that our subjective experience of (...) everyday life and our sense of identity has somehow changed significantly in recent years. The view that capitalist or industrial societies have reached new and important stages in their development, the shift from modernity to post-modernity. Consumer culture is also play a vital role in the society, consumer culture may be defined as a day to day change in the taste of consumer behaviour. The term “consumer culture” refers to cultures in which mass consumption and production both fuel the economy and shape perceptions, values, desires, and constructions of personal identity. Economic developments, demographic trends, and new technologies profoundly influence the scope and scale of consumer culture. Social class, gender, ethnicity, region, and age all affect definitions of consumer identity and attitudes about the legitimacy of consumer centred lifestyle. (shrink)

This paper brings together evidence and theories from a number of disciplines and thinkers that highlight multiple, sometimes conflicting understandings about well-being.We identify three broad strands or themes within the literature that frame both the nature of the problem and its potential solutions in different ways. The first strand can be categorised as the "hard" science of well-being and its stagnation or decline in modern western society. In a second strand, social and political theory suggests that conceptualisations of well-being are (...) shaped by aspects of western culture, often in line with the demands of a capitalist economic system.A third theme pursues the critique of consumer culture's influence on well-being but in the context of broader human problems.This approach draws on ecology, ethics, philosophy and much else to suggest that we urgently need to reconsider what it means to be human, if we are to survive and thrive. Although no uncontroversial solutions are found within any of these themes, all play a necessary part in contributing to knowledge of this complex territory, where assumptions about the nature of the human condition come into question. (shrink)

This thesis investigates the metaphysical nature of necessity. My study focuses primarily on the reduction of metaphysical necessity and the question of whether a necessary truth can be reductively defined. Theodore Sider develops a new reductive account of metaphysical necessity. Unfortunately, the multiple realizability problem posed by Jonathan Schaffer undermines the credibility of Sider’s account. This underlies my motivation to search for a revised Siderian account of necessity. On this basis, I propose a modified version of Sider’s account and argue (...) that analytic, natural-kind and micro-reduction truths are necessary truths if and only if they express the same states of affairs as logical truths. Since logical truths are necessary truths, analytic, natural-kind and micro-reduction truths are necessary truths as well. In this thesis, I will proceed as follows. Chapter 1 introduces Sider’s account of necessity. In particular, I focus on his analysis of the necessity of a micro-reduction truth. His analysis is largely constitutive of the notion of a metaphysical semantics and some associated notions. I reconstruct his analysis and articulate his metaphysical semantics and the associated notions. Chapter 2 presents and clarifies the multiple realizability problem of Schaffer. His critique shows that Sider’s metaphysical semantics cannot handle multiple realizability. Sider refutes this claim by arguing that the multiple realizability problem is a problem for his analysis of the necessity of a micro-reduction truth, not for his metaphysical semantics itself. This is a good starting point to propound a modified account of necessity. Chapter 3 proposes and articulates my modified analysis of the necessity of a micro-reduction, where I show that the necessity of a micro-reduction truth can be reductively defined without appeal to Sider’s metaphysical semantics. I argue that analytic, natural-kind and microreduction truths are necessary truths if and only if they express the same states of affairs as logical truths. Logical truths are necessary and so are they. After that, I consider a potential objection to my modified account and attempt to respond to it. (shrink)

Cheng Hao was a Confucian thinker during the Song dynasty. He strove to restore and reconstruct classical Confucianism. Although his theses were inherited from the Confucian classic, including the Anatects, Mencius, the Classic of Changes, and the Doctrine of the Mean, his interpretations offer learners new insight and perspective in understanding Confucianism. He and his younger brother, Cheng Yi, are commonly referred to as the “Two Chengs” for their parallel efforts in laying the groundwork of Neo-Confucianism.

It is a truism today that antiquities are valuable resource of symbolic capital of the modern nations. Therefore in many research fields a strong focus can be seen on the uses/abuses of the past in constructing national identity of the “imagined community” of the nation. I isolate the figure of Orpheus whose Thracian-ness fuelled “the grand national narrative” in Bulgaria, in the last few decades. It is studied in the context of the shared, connected, and entangled history of the Balkans (...) produced by Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek scholars. Their valuable reflexive and critical studies of the usable past are fruitful for the development of new perspectives in the academic space. The “eye of anthropology” gives priority to cultural phenomena and makes it possible to evaluate these imageries as cultural products in specific contexts. They are embedded through different media in everyday life which produce a number of representations – municipality emblems, narratives, films, monuments of the fabricated “national hero”. (shrink)

Reconstructing the content of Xunzi’s moral knowledge is the main goal of this thesis. A first main task of this reconstruction is to provide a clarification of the content and functions of li. A second primary goal of the reconstruction is to discuss the roles and functions of the moral sage or morally superior person, junzi, in Xunzi’s account of moral practice. The figure of the sage is important in explaining the rationale of li and exemplifying how to behave in (...) accordance with the rules of proper conduct in different situations. As truth is essential to knowledge, it is crucial to understand how moral belief can be truth-apt within Xunzian theory. To that end, the thesis reinterprets the doctrine in terms of Railton’s subjective naturalism. In the literature on Xunzi’s moral thought, the problem of the cognitive status of moral judgment has been neglected, and this thesis attempts to remedy this oversight. This thesis is divided into two parts. Part one mainly elucidates the content of Xunzi’s moral knowledge. It includes an exposition of the origin and several functions of li and the significance of the sage and his or her close relation with li. In part two, the argument focuses on whether Xunzi’s moral knowledge is truth-apt and reconstructs his position into terms of subjective naturalism. (shrink)