Anarchism is by far the least broadly understood ideology and the least studied academically. Though highly influential, both historically and in terms of recent social movements, anarchism is regularly dismissed. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach is a welcome addition to this growing field, which is widely debated but poorly understood. Occupying a distinctive position in the study of anarchist ideology, this volume, authored by a handpicked group of established and rising scholars, investigates how anarchists often seek to sharpen their message and (...) struggle to determine what ideas and actions are central to their identity. Moving beyond defining anarchism as simply an ideology or political theory, this book examines the meanings of its key concepts, which have been divided into three categories: Core, Adjacent, and Peripheral concepts. Each chapter focuses on one important concept, shows how anarchists have understood the concept, and highlights its relationships to other concepts. Although anarchism is often thought of as a political topic, the interdisciplinary nature of Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach makes it of interest to students and scholars across the social sciences, liberal arts, and the humanities. (shrink)

It has been argued that implicit biases are operative in philosophy and lead to significant epistemic costs in the field. Philosophers working on this issue have focussed mainly on implicit gender and race biases. They have overlooked ideological bias, which targets political orientations. Psychologists have found ideological bias in their field and have argued that it has negative epistemic effects on scientific research. I relate this debate to the field of philosophy and argue that if, as some studies suggest, the (...) same bias also exists in philosophy then it will lead to hitherto unrecognised epistemic hazards in the field. Furthermore, the bias is epistemically different from the more familiar biases in respects that are important for epistemology, ethics, and metaphilosophy. (shrink)

The broad aim of this thesis is to explore fruitful connections between ideology theory and the philosophy of possible worlds. Ideologies are full of modal concepts, such as possibility, potential, necessity, essence, contingency and accident. Typically, PWs are articulated for the analysis and illumination of modal concepts. That naturally suggests a method for theorising ideological modality, utilising PW theory. The specific conclusions of the thesis proffer a number of original contributions to knowledge: 1) PWs should only be used for explication (...) and not as evidence or criteria of assessment in ideology theory. The estimation of utopian possibilities, human essences and freedoms must be determined by extrinsic criteria. PWs can serve only as a window or means of expression but not as a set of evaluative premises. 2) For this purpose, a modified version of Lewisian genuine realism, with its device of counterpart theory, is the best approach; the alternative theories risk constricting possibilities or smuggling in assumptions that ought to be objects of analysis in ideology theory. This is instructive, since ideology theorists are prone to pick and choose favoured aspects of modal philosophy without further argument. 3) Conclusions and suggest the adoption of GR or fictionalist GR. Overall, the actualist options are less adequate. Fictionalism, by contrast, is a worthwhile contender, but it too presents comparative weaknesses which reinforce GR’s standing as a potent challenger to the modal metaphysician. Therefore, this thesis presents additional reasons to think GR true. The conclusions are not knockdown, and I draw out incentives and consequences for adopting alternative stances. The various chapters also provide specific details for comprehending and debating ideological modals. (shrink)

This article proposes an analysis of changes implemented during Malaysia's Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration (20032003), which displayed bias against changes and introduced schemes to justify the systems it upheld. Transmutations wrought during Abdullah's tenure may have been neither substantial nor totalizing, but within the conservative paradigm which had long gripped national politics, Abdullah's deviations were significant nevertheless.

The article scrutinises the complex relation between late twentieth century liberal and environmental thought. It concludes that if the key values of contemporary liberal and environmental thought are compared then the prognosis looks gloomy. There are implicit and deep tensions over most value questions. In order to provide a coherent focus for this analysis, the paper addresses the issue of liberal justice, namely, can liberal theories of justice be sensitively applied to environmental questions? The answer to this question is that (...) for much environmental thought, it is the very values and practices implicit within liberal justice theory which now constitute the key environmental danger. (shrink)

The article scrutinises the complex relation between late twentieth century liberal and environmental thought. It concludes that if the key values of contemporary liberal and environmental thought are compared then the prognosis looks gloomy. There are implicit and deep tensions over most value questions. In order to provide a coherent focus for this analysis, the paper addresses the issue of liberal justice, namely, can liberal theories of justice be sensitively applied to environmental questions? The answer to this question is that (...) for much environmental thought, it is the very values and practices implicit within liberal justice theory which now constitute the key environmental danger. (shrink)

In this article I will discuss the anarchist and non-anarchist interpretations of the Laozi and argue that the political philosophy of the Laozi does not completely conform to Western anarchism. Thus, firstly I will give a brief introduction to Western anarchism. Then I will present the strongest arguments of the anarchist interpretation and try to find their mistakes and refute them. Finally I will try to give an acceptable non-anarchist interpretation of the political philosophy of the Laozi. In doing steps (...) 2 and 3, I will base my arguments in a way that is consistent with the text of the Laozi itself. Thus, I hope that this article will bring a deeper understanding of the political philosophy of the Laozi and break with the widely spread opinion that the Laozi propounds an anarchist theory. (shrink)

No debate entre liberais e comunitaristas, colocam-se perspectivas distintas sobre temas políticos cruciais, à medida que se busca definir a relação mais apropriada entre o indivíduo e a coletividade, ora salientando-se o valor da autonomia pessoal, ora enfatizando-se a importância da inserção identitária dos sujeitos no contexto social. Embora os escritos de Rousseau precedam a discussão entre essas correntes de pensamento, eles abrangeram temas sobre os quais as duas se debruçam. O autor toma o indivíduo como base para a construção (...) do Estado, mas também mostra que essa unidade natural precisa ser transformada em uma parte de uma comunidade coesa e dotada de sua própria vontade geral. Assim, pretendo realizar um exercício interpretativo que, a partir de questões postas em relevo por aquele debate, analisará como Rousseau aliou seus princípios do direito político à preocupação com as particularidades de cada povo, o que faz suas teses transitarem entre as fronteiras do que, posteriormente, seriam os campos do liberalismo e do comunitarismo. (shrink)

A prominent concern in the literature on the ethics of human enhancement is that unequal access to future technology will exacerbate existing societal inequalities. The philosopher Daniel Wikler has argued that a futuristic cognitively enhanced majority would be justified in restricting the civil liberties of the unenhanced minority population for their own good in the same way that, mutatis mutandis, the cognitively normal majority are now justified in restricting the civil liberties of those deemed to be cognitively incompetent. Contrary to (...) this argument, the author of this manuscript presents and defends The Liberal Argument to Protect Cognitive ‘Normals’. According to this argument, while classical liberalism authorizes the cognitively competent to paternalistically restrict the civil liberties of the cognitively incompetent, classical liberalism does not authorize the cognitively enhanced to paternalistically restrict the civil liberties of the cognitively normal. Two additional arguments are developed in support of The Liberal Argument to Protect Cognitive ‘Normals’. The author of this manuscript concludes by suggesting that classical liberalism could be valuable for protecting the civil liberties of disenfranchised groups in a future in which enhancement technology could exacerbate existing societal inequalities. (shrink)

This paper offers the first philosophical analysis of a form of artificial intelligence (AI) which the author calls facial profiling technology (FPT). FPT is a type of facial analysis technology designed to predict criminal behavior based solely on facial structure. Marketed for use by law enforcement, face classifiers generated by the program can supposedly identify murderers, thieves, pedophiles, and terrorists prior to the commission of crimes. At the time of this writing, an FPT company has a contract with the United (...) States federal government. After recounting how FPT resurrects the same moral problems associated with the pseudoscience of physiognomy, the author of this manuscript develops and defends the ‘Liberal Argument Against Facial Discrimination’ (LAAFD), which concludes that government use of FPT poses a significant risk of violating the classical liberal value of equality before the law by committing unjust discrimination against groups of people whose faces happen to match FPT classifiers. A key move in the argument suggests how a future scenario that results in widespread discrimination based solely on facial structure could be as unjustified and harmful, mutatis mutandis, as similar discrimination based solely on racial background. In the final section, the author of this paper develops prima facie policy proposals designed to protect classical liberal values if FPT is to be utilized by governments in liberal democratic societies. (shrink)

This paper considers possible future legislation that requires the exclusive use of autonomous cars. The author develops and defends a ‘Liberal Argument Against Mandated Autonomous Cars’, which argues that such a law would be incompatible with classical liberalism, provided that the following condition holds: In the event where the car must ‘choose’ between running over a young person or an old person, or both, autonomous cars are programmed to respond by running over old people in order to save young people. (...) Such a law requiring the use of these cars, provided that these assumptions hold, would violate the important value in classical liberalism that all individuals ought to be treated equally before the law. The paper concludes by arguing that alternative ways of dealing with this problem come with their own set of unpalatable problems. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel philosophical analysis of the problem of law enforcement’s use of biased face recognition technology in liberal democracies. FRT programs used by law enforcement in identifying crime suspects are substantially more error-prone on facial images depicting darker skin tones and females as compared to facial images depicting Caucasian males. This bias can lead to citizens being wrongfully investigated by police along racial and gender lines. The author develops and defends “A Liberal Argument Against Biased FRT,” which (...) concludes that law enforcement use of biased FRT is inconsistent with the classical liberal requirement that government treat all citizens equally before the law. Two objections to this argument are considered and shown to be unsound. The author concludes by suggesting that equality before the law should be preserved while the problem of machine bias ought to be resolved before FRT and other types of artificial intelligence are deployed by governments in liberal democracies. (shrink)

In recent decades, many researchers set out to draw links between Western anarchism and ancient Chinese Daoism. The present work aims at adding to this ongoing debate by answering the question of whether the Guodian _Laozi_’s 郭店老子 sayings can be labelled as “anarchism.” It defends the claim that the text endorses a unique kind of anarchist theory based on a distinctive theory of political authority grounded in Daoist moral commitments. To do so, this essay first offers an overview of the (...) scholarly debate surrounding this topic. Second, it provides an account of the necessary and sufficient feature any theory must secure in order to be argued to be anarchist, as well as a framework that underlines potential differences between various anarchist theories. Third, a rigorous textual analysis of the Guodian Laozi is conducted to extrapolate its political advice, before analyzing it in light of the anarchist framework mentioned above. This essay concludes with an assessment of several objections that may be raised against its claims. (shrink)

In the last decades we can observe a large number of ideological changes and hybridizations. In the same time, it has also been developed a new academic field reserved for researching the political ideologies. Nevertheless, a large number of the papers, dedicated to this study, announce the theme of the end of the ideologies. Even if, in the monistic meaning of the term, the ideology lost its legitimacy and postmodernism has abandoned the hard thinking, political ideologies still remain an evident (...) presence. Political ideologies are characterized by continuous diversification and fragmentation produced by the late modernity. In this context, we cannot observe the end of ideologies, but rather a process of multiplying. This fact signifies the complication of the ideological sphere and difficulties in political orientation. In consequence, several roles of political ideologies cannot be performed anymore. According to these theoretical statements, a large number of political ideologies could negatively affect the system of beliefs and the mental short-cuts about social and political reality. A large number of political ideologies create superficial beliefs about social and political life. (shrink)