“Neurodiversity” is associated with the struggle for the civil rights of all those diagnosed with neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders. Two basic approaches in the struggle for what might be described as “neuro-equality” are taken up in the literature: There is a challenge to current nosology that pathologizes all of the phenotypes associated with neurological or neurodevelopmental disorders ); there is a challenge to those extant social institutions that either expressly or inadvertently model a social hierarchy where the interests or needs (...) of individuals are ranked relative to what is regarded as properly functioning cognitive capacities. In this paper, we explore some of the reasons justifying which make it an important tool for achieving greater neuro-equality, while still recognizing its limitations for achieving this goal. Particularly, we explore how an appeal to functionality and neurological diversity can support a re-seeing of at least certain forms of ASD. (shrink)

Existing accounts of the Rule of Law are inadequate and require fleshing out. The main value of the ideal of rule of law for liberal political theory lies in the notion of predictability, which is essential to individual autonomy. The author examines this connection and argues that conservative theories of rule of law claim too much. Liberal theory equates the rule of law with legality, which is only one of the elements necessary for a just social order.

Kant identifies the “highest moral-physical good” as that combination of “good living” and “true humanity” which best harmonises in a “good meal in good company”. Why does Kant privilege the dinner party in this way? By examining Kant’s accounts of enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, love and respect, and gratitude and friendship, the answer to this question becomes clear. Kant’s moral ideal is that of an enlightened and just cosmopolitan human being who feels and acts with respect and love for all persons and (...) such an ideal is temporarily manifested in the sort of social interaction achievable at a good dinner party. (shrink)

This paper challenges the foundational claim that the human family is no more than a social construction. It advances the position that the family is a central category of experience, being, and knowledge. Throughout, the analysis argues for the centrality of the family for human flourishing and, consequently, for the importance of sustaining family-oriented practices within social policy, such as more family-oriented approaches to consent to medical treatment. Where individually oriented approaches to medical decision-making accent an ethos of isolated personal (...) autonomy family-oriented approaches acknowledge the central social and moral reality of the family. I argue that the family ought to be appreciated as more than a mere network of personal relations and individual undertakings; the family possesses a being that is social and moral such that it realizes a particular structure of human good and sustains the necessary conditions for core areas of human flourishing. Moreover, since the family exists as a nexus of face-to-face relationships, the consent of persons, including adults, to be members of a particular family, subject to its own respective account of family sovereignty, is significantly more amply demonstrated than the consent of citizens to be under the authority of a particular state. As a result, in the face of a general Western bioethical affirmation of the autonomy of individuals, as if adults and children were morally and socially isolated agents, this paper argues that social space must nevertheless be made for families to choose on behalf of their own members. (shrink)

The overall aim of the article is to analyse how the universal right to education have been built, legitimized and used. And more specifically ask who is addressed by the universal right to education, and who is given access to rights and to education. The first part of the article focus on the history of declarations, the notion of the universal right to education, emphasizing differences in matters of detail—for example, the meaning of ‘compulsory’, ‘children’s rights’ or ‘parents’ rights’—and critically (...) examining the right of the child and the right of the parent in terms of tensions between ‘social rights’ and ‘private autonomy rights’. Despite differences in detail, the iterations of the universal right to education do share to the full in the idea of education as such. In the second part the attempt to scrutinize the underlying assumptions legitimizing the consensus on education, focusing again on the notion of the child. In conclusion I argue that a certain notion of what it is to be a human being is inscribed within the circle of access to rights and education. These notions of what it means to be a child, a parent, a citizen or a member of the ‘human family’ are notions of enlightenment and humanity and, to my understanding, aspects of how democracy is configured around freedom, equality and fraternity. (shrink)

Sigmund Freud famously described three existential insults to humanity stemming from heliocentrism, evolution, and psychoanalysis. In recent years we are, perhaps, beginning to see the emergence of a fourth: interdependency. Over the last several centuries, Anglo-American culture has modelled itself on a vision of the independent individual – strong, autonomous, and self-sufficient. Yet from feminist theory, communitarianism, disability theory, institutionalist economics, and elsewhere, the evidence mounts that independence is, in most contexts, a myth. We are, in fact, fundamentally social beings: (...) fragile, vulnerable, variously disabled, and intrinsically dependent. In their time, each of the existential insults had profound effects; they forced a re-examination of the self, which rippled throughout the culture and uprooted old practices. This article argues that taking interdependency seriously would similarly lead to profound changes in our culture, our central political concepts, and even our major institutions. (shrink)

Any plausible position in the ethics of war and political violence in general will include the requirement of protection of civilians (non-combatants, common citizens) against lethal violence. This requirement is particularly prominent, and particularly strong, in just war theory. Some adherents of the theory see civilian immunity as absolute, not to be overridden in any circumstances whatsoever. Others allow that it may be overridden, but only in extremis. The latter position has been advanced by Michael Walzer under the heading of (...) “supreme emergency.” In this paper, I look into some of the issues of interpretation and application of Walzer’s “supreme emergency” view and some of the criticisms that have been levelled against it. I argue that Walzer’s view is vague and unacceptable as it stands, but that the alternatives proposed by critics such as Brian Orend, C.A.J. Coady, and Stephen Nathanson are also unattractive. I go on to construct a position that is structurally similar to Walzer’s, but more specific and much less permissive, which I term the “moral disaster” view. According to this view, deliberate killing of civilians is almost absolutely wrong. (shrink)

Scholars in the humanities and social sciences are keenly aware of and often deeply engaged with more global or cosmopolitan approaches to their respective fields; nevertheless, theories of cosmopolitanism remain exceedingly controversial and arise exclusively from Western philosophical sources. Recently, Martha Nussbaum presented a contemporary Western liberal cosmopolitan theory and sought to integrate it with a call for multicultural education. In this essay, I describe, analyze, and criticize Nussbaum's conception of cosmopolitanism and argue that it does not sit comfortably with (...) her laudable advocacy of multicultural education. I then draw upon resources within the Confucian tradition to sketch two alternative conceptions of cosmopolitanism, which I argue are both more powerful than what Nussbaum proposes and better support the kind of multicultural education she so eloquently advocates. (shrink)

In this paper I shift the center of utopian debates away from questions of ideology towards the question of power. As a new point of departure, I analyze Foucault's notion of biopower as well as Hardt and Negri's theory of biopolitics. Arguing for a new hermeneutic of biopolitics in education, I then apply this lens to evaluate the educational philosophy of John Dewey. In conclusion, the paper suggests that while Hardt and Negri are missing an educational theory, John Dewey is (...) missing a concept of democracy adequate to the biopolitical struggles of the multitude. Thus, I call for a synthesis of Dewey and Hardt and Negri in order to generate a biopedagogical practice beyond both traditional models of education as well as current standardization. (shrink)

Through a re-reading of Antigone, I offer a critique of Hegel's use of the story to illustrate the unity which emerges from the representation of sexual difference in ethical life. Using Hegel's own account of habits, as the mechanism by which the body becomes a sign of the self, I argue that the pretense of social unity assumes the proper construction and representation of one body only. This critique is brought to bear upon contemporary moves towards a post-Hegelian ethics of (...) difference. (shrink)

Our stereotypes of maternity and paternity as manifest in the history of philosophy and psychoanalysis interfere with the ability to imagine loving relationships. The associations of maternity with antisocial nature and paternity with disembodied culture are inadequate to set up primary love relationships. Analyzing the conflicts in these associations, I reformulate the maternal body as social and lawful, and I reformulate the paternal function as embodied, which enables imagining our primary relationships as loving.

In this essay I argue that sports at their best qualify as final ends, that is, as ends whose value is such that they ground not only the practices whose ends they are, but everything else we do as human agents. The argument I provide to support my thesis is derived from Harry Frankfurt's provocative work on the importance of the things we care about, more specifically, on his claim that it is by virtue of caring about things and practices, (...) really caring about them ? even loving them ? we are able to regard and treat them as final ends. Sports, I claim, are paradigmatic examples of practices cared about and loved in these deep ways, and as such deserve to be considered, rather than dismissed because of their supposed triviality, as one of those ends around which a life most worth living can be legitimately forged. (shrink)

This paper lays out two recent accounts of Hegel’s practical philosophy in order to present a challenge. According to Robert Stern and Mark Alznauer, Hegel attempts to ground our ethical practices in ontological norms. I argue that we cannot ground our ethical practices in this way. However, I also contend that Stern’s and Alznauer’s conception of reality as both conceptual and normative can still play a useful role in practical philosophy, namely, to help defuse a sceptical worry about a threat (...) to ethics. (shrink)

Under the influence of groundbreaking work by John Meyer and Brian Rowen, as well as Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell, over the last 30 years research in the new sociological institutionalism has focused on processes of isomorphism. I argue that this is a one-sided focus that leaves out many insights from other institutional and macrosociological approaches and does not do justice to actual social change because it overlooks the role played by divergent institutional development. While the suggestion of divergent trends (...) is not new, there have been few attempts to integrate divergence into the theoretical premises of the new sociological institutionalism. Based on the typology proposed by DiMaggio and Powell, I show that the mechanisms identified by them as sources of isomorphic change can support processes of divergent change as well. The theoretical challenge is to identify conditions under which these mechanisms push institutional change toward homogenization or divergence. (shrink)

If there is one lesson that Hannah Arendt drew from her encounter with Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem it was that the moral and political dangers of thoughtlessness had been grossly underestimated. But while thoughtlessness clearly “has its perils”, (LMT 177) as the example of Eichmann illustrates, thoughtfulness has its own problems, as the example of Heidegger illustrates. In the course of her 1964 interview with Günter Gaus, Arendt recalls her distaste for “intellectual business” that arose from witnessing the widespread and (...) “relatively voluntary” Gleichshaltung (co-ordination) of German “intellectuals” with the Nazis in 1933 (EU: 10). This was the year that Heidegger, Arendt’s former teacher and friend, “entered the Nazi Party in a very sensational way” (EU: 187). But Heidegger is for Arendt also a paragon of thoughtfulness who exposes the “incomprehensible triviality” (or banality) of “the they” and their “mere talk” (MDT: ix). This raises the following question: how can thoughtfulness, in the guise of Heidegger, and thoughtlessness, in the guise of Eichmann, both (though to a very different extent) lead to ‘co-ordination’ with the Nazis? What does this tell us about the relation between thinking and evil? (shrink)

Despite the enormous growth in happiness research in recent decades, there remains a lack of consistency in the use of the terms happiness, satisfaction, contentment and well-being. In this article I argue for a sociologically grounded distinction between happiness and contentment that defines the former as positive affect and the latter as positive reflection. Contentment is therefore understood as a fulfilling relationship with the self and society and happiness involves pleasurable experiences. There is a history of similar distinctions in philosophy (...) and psychoanalysis, but much of the contemporary discourse fails to distinguish between individual and collective definitions of happiness. This article will argue that happiness and contentment ought not to be treated as competing approaches to the good life, but as complimentary forms of emotional experience. Further, I argue that the current interest in happiness can be linked to larger culture shifts involving neoliberalism and individualism. (shrink)

This paper may be read as a reclamation project. It argues, with Simone de Beauvoir, that patriarchal marriage is both a perversion of the meaning of the couple and an institution in transition. Parting from those who have given up on marriage, I identify marriage as existing at the intersection of the ethical and the political and argue that whether or not one chooses marriage, feminists ought not abandon marriage as an institution.

Unity, commonality, and agreement are generally understood to be the basis, or the aim, of community. This paper argues instead that disagreement and fracture are inherent to, and provide the expression of difference within, community. Drawing on the experience of race relations in Australia, this paper proposes that ongoing resistance and disagreement by Aboriginal groups against non-Aboriginal law and culture has enabled an unworking of homogenizing and totalizing forces which destroy alterity within community.

John Searle’s theory of social ontology posits that there are indispensable normative components in the linguistic apparatuses termed status functions, collective intentionality, and collective recognition, all of which, he argues, make the social world. In this paper, I argue that these building blocks of Searle’s theory are caught in a petitio of constitutive circularity. Moreover, I note how Searle fails to observe language in reciprocal relation to the institutions which not only are shaped by it but also shape language’s practical (...) applications. According to Searle, social theorists that tried to show a connection between society, culture, and language all failed to see the constitutive role of language in the making of social reality. Consequently, I believe that Searle is himself guilty of a certain kind of blind presumption, and argue that Hegel’s philosophy of culture, which Searle dismisses as implausible, offers a more cohesive account of the normative transactions between human beings and their social world. (shrink)

An individual is in the lowest phase of moral development if he thinks only of his own personal interest and has only his own selfish agenda in his mind as he encounters other humans. This lowest phase corresponds well with sixteenth century British moral egoism which reflects the rise of the new economic order. Adam Smith (1723–1790) wanted to defend this new economic order which is based on economic exchange between egoistic individuals. Nevertheless, he surely did not want to support (...) the moral theory of British egoism. His book The Wealth of Nations suits well into the world view of British moral egoism, but in the book The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he presents a moral theory which is the total opposite of moral egoism. Contemporary German intellectuals saw contradiction in Adam Smith’s moral (social) philosophy which they called as Das Adam - Smith - Problem . Smith himself didn’t think that there is any contradiction in a situation where in economic sphere (civil society) individual act egoistically and in ethical sphere (encounter with the imagined Other) he feels humanity and compassion toward his fellow men. Hegel was a passionate reader of Adam Smith and he acknowledged Das Adam - Smith - Problem . He set the task of his social philosophy to overcome this paradox. He wanted to create a theory of a social totality where economic egoism and feelings of humanity are not in contradiction. In the same time Hegel wanted to create a theory on Bildung process where human spirit develops from moral un-freedom (heteronomy) to moral freedom and maturity (autonomy) taking care both aspect of love and reason. In certain Hegel’s texts notion of recognition plays crucial role. That is why modern Hegelians Ludwig Siep, Axel Honneth and Robert Williams consider the notion of recognition to be elementary in Hegel’s threefold theory of developing human spirit from family via civil society to sittliche state . For Hegel family is a sphere where people love their “concrete other” and where feeling surpasses reason. Civil Society is a sphere of private contracts and economic exchanges where cold egoistic and calculative reason surpasses feelings. In the sphere of State the contradiction between family and Civil Society ( Das Adam - Smith - Problem ) is solved by “rational feeling”. According to Hegel State should protect citizens from alienating effect of egoistic reason of Civil Society and cultivate “family-feelings” to rational feelings which integrate citizen into “sittliche community” through reciprocal process of recognition. In this article I want to consider Hegelians Honneth’s and Williams’s relevance to the theory of moral development. (shrink)

ABSTRACTContemporary theology appears to be in a transitional phase that brings with it a search for forms of thought that can support theology’s ongoing work. As a result in part of the institutio...

This paper offers a genealogy of anti-polygamy sentiment in North America, elucidating certain racist and nationalist formations that are implicit in the historical valorization and enforcement of heterosexual monogamy. It tracks the white supremacist and heteronormative logic that conditions the widespread disdain toward polygamy, and that renders it fundamentally different from familial configurations that are associated with national identity. Relating political and philosophical doctrines to the archival documentation and insights of contemporary legal and cultural historians of anti-polygamy sentiment, it elucidates (...) the racial Anglo-Saxonism of Hegel's ruminations on marriage and on the state, and highlights its reverberation within the political philosophy that justified the criminalization of polygamy and its supporting institutions in the nineteenth century and in contemporary immigration policy and same-sex marriage advocacy in Canada and the United States. (shrink)

Reading Hegel's 1827 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion alongside his Phenomenology of Spirit, I argue that his vision for becoming a self-conscious subject-or seeing (oneself as) "spirit"-requires taking responsibility for the insight that every act of reason expresses an experience of sexual difference. It entails working to bring into being communities whose conceptions of gender and the absolute realize this idea.

This article forms part of a tribute to Anita L. Allen by the APA newletter on Philosophy and Law. It celebrates Allen's work, but also explains why her conception of privacy is philosophically inadequate. It then uses basic democratic principles and the example of the secret ballot to suggest how we might develop a more philosophically persuasive version of Allen's ideas.

Since the establishment of the Human Genome Project and the identification of genes in human DNA that play a role in human diseases and disorders, a long, moral and political, battle has began over the extension of IPRs to information contained in human genetic material. According to the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, over the past 20 years, large numbers of human genes have been the subject of thousands of patent applications. This paper examines whether human gene patents can be justified (...) in terms of liberal theories of morality such as natural law, personality development, just reward and social utility. It is argued that human gene patents are in conflict with fundamental principles of liberal morality and justice because they result in "genetic information feudalism". (shrink)

This study analyzes the at-will employment doctrine using a tool that encompasses the complementarity of results-based utilitarian ethics, rule-based duty ethics, and virtue-based character ethics. The paper begins with a discussion of the importance of the problem followed by its evolution and current status. After describing the method of analysis, the central section evaluates the employment at-will doctrine, and is informed by Lord Acton's dictum, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The conclusion explores the implications of the (...) findings. (shrink)

This article examines the continuing use of problematic sexual stereotypes at appellate level in the English and Welsh legal system. Using five cases as illustrations, it argues that, notwithstanding professional training and guidance on sexual equality matters, certain senior judges in this jurisdiction still at least sometimes openly employ crude and problematic sexual stereotypes in their judgments or fail to deal appropriately with the use of these stereotypes by trial judges. The central point is that there is still a significant (...) problem with the open use of crude sexual stereotypes in legal reasoning at a senior level in this jurisdiction, despite the pressure on all members of the legal system to appear to be ‘politically correct’. (shrink)

This article proposes that the foundations of Hegel’s contribution to social criticism are compatible with, and enriched by, his meta-theology. His social critique is grounded in his belief that normative ideas – and especially the idea of freedom – are necessarily experiential and historical. Often regarded as a recipe for an authoritarian reconciliation with the status quo, Hegel’s philosophy has been dismissed by some unsympathetic commentators from the left as inimical to the task of social criticism. Much of the reason (...) for this has been the opinion that his systematic approach to philosophy is one underpinned by either a highly unorthodox theism or, more commonly, pantheism. Even scholars who wish to defend Hegel as a social critic have tended to abandon or at least massively downplay his meta-theology. In this article, I argue that it is precisely the emphasis on his original theo-metaphysics that offers a powerful and relevant contribution to social criticism. Hegel then becomes an important contributor, from the tradition of social criticism, to the growing trend in academia and wider society of rethinking the relationship between the religious and the secular, known as post-secularism. The proposition at the centre of his system – that human history and society are necessary moments in the process of divine self-understanding – is not new. But the specifics of Hegel’s concept of God that I am proposing – and, moreover, their implications for his political thought – are new. I propose that Hegel was neither a theist nor a pantheist but, rather, a dialectical panentheist. According to panentheism, God is neither straightforwardly transcendent to nature and history nor immanently identifiable with nature and history, but rather is dynamically and dialectically immanent in the ongoing processes of self-transcendence that are nature and history. If such an interpretation of Hegel’s system is valid then the proposition that his political thought is an exercise in dialectical panentheistic theology is one that is worth making and defending because it has important things to say about his social critique. (shrink)

This article presents Irigaray as a philosopher committed to sociopolitical change by discussing her political thought and her engagement with the European Parliament. It traces her recent work with the ex-Communist Party in Italy back to her early critique of Marx and her subsequent attraction to Hegel's civil definition of the person. The failure of her European Parliament initiative suggests that her thinking is in advance of its possible realization.

Kierkegaard recognized that the changes ushered in by the revolutions of 1848 would profoundly affect human existence in both its political and personal dimensions. At the political level he was concerned that the new forms of government would not be able to govern any more effectively than the previous forms. Loquacity would be substituted for policy. Then, too, the new forms of government encouraged confusion about the actual locus of power; the appearances and the reality of power did not conform. (...) Also, the actual state represents ?interests?, and as a result, justice is jeopardized. To be sure, compromise will be evident in such an actual state, but is governing possible in and through such conflictual arrangements? What is the relation of the press (media) to the public, and these in turn to politics? (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer viewed mythical thinking as a first step in our mental representation of the real world, but only a first step. What myth leaves out are the differentiations that lead eventually to science. To the primitive, mythically inclined mind, the world is an undifferentiated whole, the elements of which—including the mind itself—are thought to be concrete and interconnected. This means that there is no distinction between observer and observed, and that the observer sees the representations with which she constructs (...) her picture of reality as direct apprehensions of reality, untnediated by any sensory or cognitive categories. Far as that way of thinking may seem from the modern mindset, we have only to examine commonplace political ideas to find evidence of the implicit assumption of an unmediated connection between the wishes of poltical agents and the results they intend to achieve. (shrink)

My main aim in this paper is to arrive at a defensible form of Marxian or socialist political universalism through a critical examination of Marx's own political universalism. In the next section, I will outline several moral errors that Walzer ascribes to political universalism, including Marx's, and show that Walzer largely misdirects his criticisms because what primarily accounts for Marx committing the errors is his Hegelian metaphysical conception of history, not his political universalism as such.

This paper situates Bogdanov in the context of social theory generally and socialist theory in particular. It outlines briefly the principal characteristics of his mature system, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of his approach to the fundamental problems of social thought. The paper devotes particular attention to the problem of just how systems develop from less complex to more complex forms of organization, and evaluates Bogdanov's solution to this problem against the background of populist, social democratic, and Leninist alternatives.

The significance of German Romantic and Hegelian philosophy for educational practice is not attended to as much as it deserves to be, both as a matter of historical interest and of current importance. In particular, its role in shaping the thought of John Dewey, whose educational philosophy is of seminal importance for discussions on education for citizenship, is of considerable interest, as recent work by Jim Garrison (2006) and James Good (2006; 2007) has shown. This article focuses on the Hegelian (...) concepts of Bildung and Sittlichkeit in order to consider how they may illuminate the purpose and practice of education for citizenship through a conceptualisation of the relationship of individual to society, and, specifically, through the idea of cultural induction. The discussion takes as its principal reference point the Scottish policy context. (shrink)

The intent of this study is to examine the adaptive responses of Hong Kong transmigrants and their transnational and transcultural practices in terms of their consequent behavioral and emotional patterns. Their transnational practices and relative adaptability can be explained with Robert Merton's (1957) “strain theory.” More specifically, the study aims to identify, describe, and explain the variety of behavioral patterns and modes of emotional manifestations of adaptation of Hong Kong returnees, and to identify their individual and collective strategies of adaptation (...) to help them solve their adjustment and integration problems in their adopted countries. (shrink)

A themed issue on the work of Michael Oakeshott.

Mark J. Cherry; Searching for the Truly Human: Standing at the Precipice of a Post-Christian Age, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Moralit.

O tema deste artigo é o imperativo existencial de Kierkegaard, o existente pessoal que se impõe ao existente social. Este tema é transversal na obra deste autor e é pertinente, pois é sempre necessário e profícuo refletir sobre a condição humana e os estádios da existência atemporais que se tem de seguir. Qual é o cabimento dos três estádios da existência de Kierkegaard para a condição do indivíduo enquanto simples existente pessoal? A resposta a esta pergunta é o objetivo deste (...) artigo. O objetivo é compreender a posição de Kierkegaard sobre a importância da assunção de uma existência pessoal, numa perspetiva atemporal. Este artigo é uma abordagem eminentemente teórica e concetual. A estratégia adotada incide na bibliografia de e sobre Kierkegaard e centra-se numa dimensão religiosa, o que justifica a sua preocupação com o indivíduo e, em particular, com o seu problema mais importante: a sua salvação. O resultado deste artigo é a demonstração da inevitabilidade da imitação de um modelo de existência, uma forma de reencontrar a unidade e a esperança de salvação, conduzindo à unidade interior e à verdadeira unidade antropológica, apenas possível com a fé. Conclui-se, com este artigo, que todos os seres humanos seguem um percurso escolhido e relativo de vida que os define e determina o que podem usufruir de uma existência inalienável e irrepetível. (shrink)

Sami Pihlström argues in his “Ethical Unthinkabilities and Philosophical Seriousness” that there are some philosophical views that are so dangerous that we should not discuss them. He advances this argument with special reference to my (anti-natalist) view that being brought into existence is always a serious harm. In response I argue: (a) that there are major flaws in his argument for the conclusion that we should not think about (purportedly) unthinkable views; and (b) that my views about the harm of (...) coming into existence are in any event neither unthinkable nor dangerous. (shrink)

The most valuable political theoretical contribution made by Marx's idea of socialism is towards the resolution of the seeming opposition of mass democracy and rational government. Marx follows Hegel's redefinition of political rationalization as the actualization of the nascent self?consciousness of the existing ethical world when he uses socialism as a statement of those tendencies of bourgeois society that will create the perspectives of social awareness that allow mass democracy. This thesis is made against aspects of the interpretation of Marx's (...) relation to Hegel in Bolshevik political theory. I claim that the Bolshevik idea of socialism as the militant political intervention of the dictatorship of the proletariat develops, through Engels, a position taken with respect to Hegel's philosophy of right in Marx's Rhenish Journal articles. This idea is, however, pre?Hegelian in the sense that it is open to a democratic criticism based on the philosophy of right understood in an alternative fashion. In his writings after leaving the Rhenish Journal and up to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts Marx makes this alternative available, and the notion of socialism he arrives at here turns on an awareness of the contradictions which make the militant political imposition of freedom impossible. Whereas for Bolshevism socialism is to be imposed on existing society, for Marx it is more the development within that society that makes possible mass democratic freedom. (shrink)

Hallelujah! God Bless America! No one has these prices—Only Daniela High Fashion Dresses. High class merchandise at low low prices. 649 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Business card of a Manhattan dress shop. By associating welfare provisions and other (selected) government interventions with socialism/communism and conversely the free enterprise system with loyalty, patriotism, the American Dream, the American way of life, the propagandists are doing no more than manipulating the appropriate Satanic and Sacred symbols. A. Carey,Taking the Risk Out (...) of Democracy. (shrink)

If the legitimacy of international humanitarian and human rights law lies, in part at least, in its capacity to confront dehumanising actions in the modern world, we may speak of the limits of this achievement. It is well known that people who commit genocide or crimes against humanity typically dehumanise those against whom their crimes are committed and that the humanitarian and human rights dimensions of international law were developed in response to the radicalisation of this phenomenon. The expanded scope (...) of international criminal justice caught a cosmopolitan imagination because it seemed to restore an idea of humanity in the face of organised attempts to eradicate the very idea of universal humanity. It also caught a cosmopolitan imagination because it seemed to restore the humanity of the perpetrators as well. They were no longer to be treated as beasts liable to the 'punishment' of the victors but to be brought to trial, held accountable for their deeds and converted back into responsible human beings. Today, however, I suggest that we face a double temptation: in confronting those who commit crimes against humanity to represent them as inhuman monsters rather than responsible human beings; in our compassion for victims of crimes against humanity, it is to represent them merely as victims and not as moral and political subjects. In either case, there can arise a reversal of the problem we are trying to address. I do not suggest this tendency is inevitable but where it is present it indicates an insufficiently reflective relation to international law. I address the problem of reversal through a discussion of three authors (Rawls, Habermas and Arendt) and three issues ('pariah peoples', 'criminal states' and 'monstrous perpetrators'). (shrink)

Appeals to nationalism based on a common sociocultural, geographic, and linguistic heritage are reactions against expansions of trade, information, and power - and anomie and xenophobia can be countered by giving substatal ethnicities, minorities and political parties a voice and a vote.

The tension between liberalism and democracy is very likely to become one of the major confliction fields of the early twenty-first century. Those conflicts include the redefinition of the relationship between ethics, morality, and law—in all the three spheres of modernity: the intimate, the private and the public. It turns out that all three aspects of the relationship once described by Hegel (law, morality and Sittlichkeit) remain equally decisive to maintain or regain the balance of freedoms in the modern world. (...) There is no justice, nor is there equity—unless this balance is maintained. Law—in this context—is not just the defender of the “universal” aspect, but preferably also that of the balance of freedoms (both through interfering, and through the denial of interference in “ethical life”). (shrink)

Current social and political theory is sceptical of the future of welfare states in the face of global markets. Their moral claims, too, have been challenged by the neo-liberal association of market capitalism and individual freedom and by an implicit acceptance of that critique - of the welfare state as bureaucratic - by left-wing commentators. This article offers a defence of the national welfare state as the guarantor of `complex freedom'. This defence is derived from the theoretical contributions of Marshall, (...) Polanyi and Myrdal and offers a reconsideration of the debate immediately after the second world war over the welfare state and its relevance today. Marshall's concept of social rights has become a familiar part of our own debate, but it is argued that Polanyi provides the rigorous critique of market relationships which is missing, and Myrdal locates gender issues as central to the understanding of welfare state development and women's rights as integral to social rights. (shrink)