the arguments in their favour are weak. Arguments based on reciprocity fail to explain why only means-tested public benefits should be subject to work requirements, and why unpaid dependant care work should not count as satisfying citizens’ obligations to reciprocate. Argu- ments based on promoting the work ethic misattribute recipients’ nonwork to deviant values, when their core problem is finding steady employment consistent with supporting a family and meeting dependant care responsibilities. Rigid work requirements impose unreasonable costs on some of (...) the poor. A welfare system based on a rebuttable presumption that recipients will work for pay, conjoined with more generous work supports, would promote justice better than either unconditional welfare or strict requirements [1]. (shrink)

J. S. Mill uvelike naglašava važnost pojma pojedinca kao progresivnog bića. Ideja da jastvo trebamo pojmiti kao objekt kultiviranja i usavršavanja provlači se Millovim spisima iz različitih područja te je odigrala stanovitu ulogu u novijim tumačenjima. U ovome članku predlažem specifično tumačenje Millova shvaćanjajastva. Predlažem da se Milla čita u skladu s onime što je Stanley Cavell prepoznao kao ‘perfekcionističku’ skrb oko jastva. Različiti tekstovi, od Logike do O slobodi, ukazuju na jedno razumijevanje jastva prema kojemu se i teretsko i (...) praktično područje prikazuje kao unutrašnje povezano s transformacijom jastva. Mill razrađuje kritiku pojma istine koji se može izraziti u o jastvu neovisnim učenjima,kao i pojam izbora koji nije izraz nečijeg unutrašnjeg jastva. Ovaj unutrašnji odnos istine i izbora prema jastvu stvara unutar jastva jednu posebnu dijalektiku koju Mill istražuje u drugom i trećem poglavlju djela O slobodi pomoću nekoliko opreka kao što su aktivna vs. pasivna spoznaja, živa vs. mrtva vjerovanja, biti svoj vs. sviđanje i biranje u mnoštvu.J. S. Mill lays great emphasis on the importance of the notion of theindividual as a progressive being. The idea that we need to conceive the self as an object of cultivation and perfection runs through Mill’s writings on various topics, and has played a certain role in recent interpretations. In this paper I propose a specific interpretation of Mill’s understanding of the self, along the lines of what Stanley Cavell identifies as a “perfectionist” concern for the self. Various texts by Mill, ranging from the Logic to On Liberty, show an understanding of the self in which both the theoretical and the practical domain are presented as being internally connected to the transformation of the self. Mill elaborates a criticism of a notion of truth articulated by doctrines having a life independent of the self, as well as a notion of choice which is not the expression of one’s inner self. This internal relation of truth and choice to the self generates a special dialectic within the self, which Mill explores in On Liberty’s second and third chapters by means of several contrasts, such as passive vs. active knowledge, living vs. dead beliefs, or being oneself vs. liking and choosing in crowds. (shrink)

The main emphasis of this new book from Luigino Bruni is a praise of heterogeneity, arguing that society works when different people are able to cooperate in many different ways. The author engages in a novel approach to reciprocity looking at its different forms in society, from cautious or contractual interactions, to the reciprocity of friendship to unconditional behaviour. Bruni'ss historical-methodological analysis of reciprocity is a way of examining the interface between political economy and the issue of sociality, generally characterized (...) by 'two hundred years of solitude' of the homo economicus. This historical analysis exposes an absence and this book looks at the reasons why among the many forms of reciprocity present in the civil life economics has chosen to deal just with the simplest ones. The second part of the book is an analysis of the interactions of the three forms of reciprocity faced with a forth strategy; the non-reciprocity. (shrink)