Morality is traditionally understood as comprised of two components: justice and mercy. The first component, justice, the universal component of the form, is frequently seen as foundational for any moral system – which poses a challenge of explaining the second component, mercy, the particular component of content. Kantian ethics provides an example of this approach. After formulating his universalist theory of ethics in the Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals and further developing it in the Critique of practical reason, he (...) attempts to use it in order to establish the morality of mercy in the Metaphysics of morals. Yet can universal morality of justice necessitate particular ethics of mercy? Using the example of competitive games, the relations between the ethics of justice and that of mercy are demonstrated, and it is shown that the former does not lead to the latter. Moreover, the universality of the rules of moral behavior can serve as a form for blatant brutality. Analyzing the characteristics of particular morality, we can conclude that physical humanity of the moral object, perceived as such by the subject, is a required condition for mercy. Removal of object's humanity is a necessary step toward an ethical system that allows cruelty – a system that can still be based on universal moral rules. Bhagavad Gītā, on the other hand, can be seen as an example of combining nīṣkāmakarma, the formal, universal ethics of desireless action, with a variety of particular motivations originating in the nature and social context of the moral agent. (shrink)

This is the first of lessons on the Bhagavad Gītā. The Bhagavad Gītā is a small section of the Mahābhārata, which is a dialectical experiment in moral theory. Here the characters not only assume the role of prominent ethical theories, but must also work through the ethical challenge as a matter of practice. In this module I explicate the main arguments of the Gītā, which lead us from teleological accounts of ethics (Virtue Ethics, Consequentialism) to procedural accounts (Deontology (...) and Bhakti). Bhakti is the most radically procedural of the four theories, and provides an account of right action independent of the good. To access article: (a) choose "Ethics 1" from the first drop down menu, and (b) the title of the paper in the second drop down menu---after clicking on the link (the title of this article above, or the link below). (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen, among other things, discusses certain qualities any adequate theory of justice ought to incorporate. Two important qualities a theory of justice should account for are impartiality/objectivity and sensitivity to consequences. In order to motivate his discussion of sensitivity to consequences, Sen discusses the debate between Krishna and Arjuna from the religio-philosophical Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita. According to Sen, Arjuna represents a sensitivity to consequences while Krishna is an archetypal deontologist. In (...) this paper it will be argued that Sen's interpretation of the Gita is inaccurate. Further, a more adequate interpretation will be presented. What will be of significance is that the more adequate interpretation actually demonstrates the importance of an impartial spectator in moral reasoning. Finally, there will be a discussion of some lessons that can be taken from the Gita regarding justice generally. (shrink)

Religious violence is a function of deep philosophical and psychological belief-behavior. This article explores the issue in light of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and Psychology of evil.

This is an essay I entered in a competition about the Bhagavad Gita. Probably written about 2,000 years ago; this writing is perhaps the greatest philosophical expression of Hinduism. I was attracted to the contest because the website included a very favourable comment about the Bhagavad Gita by Albert Einstein (see below). For a while, I actually considered it possible that I’d win the contest. But that time has passed. The winner has been announced and I (...) can now see my entry for what it is – a naïve attempt to preach science to the religionists, as well as a naïve attempt to preach religion to the scientists. -/- There’s a statement in the essay which I’m wondering about. I said, “However, the concept of possessing a soul is not automatically supported. The idea of having a reincarnating soul would be an easy way of explaining immortality thousands of years ago when people were completely unfamiliar with the scientific facts of an eternal universe, Einstein’s Unified Field, and fractal geometry.” I still think this might be correct. But “might” is the word. I’m wondering about something I later wrote – could the ghostly immaterial body described below be what we call the soul? If such a body is developed in the future to overcome present limitations, could it be referred to as a soul if it travels into the past and is absorbed into a physical body? (It might be what the Bhagavad Gita refers to as the Supersoul, and might be quantum entangled with all space and all time. And if the physical brain is receptive to this so-called entangled soul’s knowledge of everything in space and time, the presently accepted limits to acquiring knowledge would, to use the below quote of Einstein’s, be “superfluous”). The preceding agrees with Zen Buddhism's idea of intuitively getting in touch with your inner self. -/- From “Physics and Philosophy Beyond the Standard Model” (http://vixra.org/abs/1411.0585) – “In 1925, the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli discovered the exclusion principle. This says two similar particles cannot have both the same position and velocity. If two electrons could have identical positions and velocities, they could all collapse into a roughly uniform, dense “soup”. Protons and neutrons would do the same, and there would be no well-defined atoms. So we need the exclusion principle. Force-carrying particles like photons and gravitons do not obey the exclusion principle so we might assume the immaterial body wouldn’t be well-defined and would collapse into a ghostly soup. But perhaps a well-defined structure can be built if the photons are first stopped. The potential for photons to possess mass by having their digital sequence altered and being converted to other particles – or the potential for programming the photons - may make this definition possible. A chrononaut whose body is defined by mass would still have a gravitational effect, and be dark matter. But if she or he would rather not be a lump of dark matter, her or his body might be defined by programming photons and gravitons; creating a body of “light matter”. The beginnings of this technology may be in [43] which speaks of one photon being “stuck” to another.” . (shrink)

The Bhagavad Gītā has inspired more interpretive controversy than any other religious scripture in India’s history. The Gītā, a philosophical and spiritual poem of approximately seven hundred verses, is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata. In the Gītā, the Lord Kṛṣṇa, who appears in the form of a charioteer, imparts spiritual teachings to the warrior Arjuna and convinces him to fight in a just war that entails the slaughter of many of Arjuna’s own relatives and loved ones. (...) Śaṅkara, the great eighth-century champion of the Advaita school of philosophy, wrote the first extant commentary on the Gītā. In this commentary, Śaṅkara interpreted the Gītā strictly in accordance with Advaita.. (shrink)

In the previous module we examined the dialectic that Krishna initiates in the Bhagavad Gītā. Arjuna’s despondency and worry about the war he must fight is captured in his own words by teleological concerns – consequentialism and virtue theoretic considerations. In the face of a challenge, a teleological approach results in the paradox of teleology---namely, the more we are motivated by exceptional and unusual ends, the less likely we are to pursue our ends given a low expected utility. Krishna's (...) solution is to switch to a procedural ethics. To this extent, Krishna identifies three ethical theories. Two were discussed extensively in the earlier chapter on the Gītā. The first is basic deontology, called karma yoga. This states that we should choose to do our duty without appealing to the outcome as a justification. The duties in question are definable by good outcomes, but the outcomes do not constitute the reason for embracing duty. The second, spoken about at length, is bhakti yoga. According to this, the right thing to do is to worship the ideal by our actions. This practice results in us improving our skill and practice such that we come to liberate ourselves from fault and instantiate the ideal itself. The third is the Gītā’s metaethical theory—conceptual account of the right and the good. This is called “jñāna yoga.” This module focuses on the metaethical dimensions of the Gītā. (shrink)

In this paper, I delve into the methodologies employed by scholars such as Otto Schrader, Krishna Belvalkar, Franklin Edgerton, and Vishwa Adluri to substantiate the potential existence of a Kashmiri recension of the Bhagavad Gita through the application of the lectio principle. The lectio difficilior, or "harder reading," posits that a more complex and challenging reading in a text is likely to be the older and superior one, as scribes tend to simplify intricate passages into more straightforward forms, (...) known as the lectio facilior, in later versions of a text. The lectio principle prominently shapes the discourse of these scholars regarding the plausibility of a Kashmiri recension of the Bhagavad Gita. (shrink)

This open access book presents a comparative study of two classics of world literature, offering the first sustained study of what unites and divides the Nicomachean Ethics and the Bhagavad Gita. -/- Asking what the texts think is the nature of moral action and how it relates to the highest good, Roopen Majithia shows how the Gita stresses the objectivity of knowledge and freedom from being a subject, while the Ethics emphasizes the knower, working out Aristotle’s central (...) commitment to the idea of substance as the primary building block of the world. Yet both the Gita and the Ethics explain variety in human behaviour in terms of three driving forces. Both agree moral agency is a construct that is a function of background, education and habit, presupposing a cultural, political and economic infrastructure. -/- What distinguishes the texts is how the content of right action is generated. Reading them together, alert to their individual accounts of how the practical relates to the reflective dimensions of life, Majithaia enriches our understanding of two cornerstone texts in the Greek and Indian philosophical traditions. -/- The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollectionsdotcom. Open access was funded by The Marjorie Young Bell Faculty Fund and The Hart Almerrin Massey Endowment. (shrink)

The paper argues that there is a unique from of free will in the Gita based on the universal presence of the ultimate reality.

The philosophy of ‘karma’ is a doctrine to consider being the foundation stone of the entire Indian Philosophical outlook. The Bhagavad Gita is most beloved scripture of Indian thought and one of the prime chapters of this scripture is the ‘law of karma’. According to it, every man profit from what he does and suffers from what he does. Karmayoga is mainly based on niskam-karma but not the mere renunciation of Karma. We have to give up the attachment (...) and the fruit regarding the action. So, the action is our Svadharma, fruit or result is not our concern. The Gita said that the nature of Karma was natural, inherent in man’s existence and everybody has to work. Hence an attempt is made here to discuss the law of karma as considered by the Bhagavad Gita. (shrink)

This paper will address Foucault’s analysis of the Hebrew and Christian pastor and argue that Foucault’s analysis of pastoral power in Security, Territory, Population neglects an important characteristic of the shepherd/pastor figure: violence. Despite Foucault’s close analysis of the early development of the Hebrew pastor, he overlooks the role of violence and instead focuses on sacrifice. However the sacrificial pastor does not figure in the Hebrew Scriptures. The Hebrew pastor is called to lead, feed and protect the flock, (...) not sacrifice for them. This is not to suggest that the theme of sacrifice is absent in the Hebrew Scriptures but that sacrifice is not a role attributed to the pastor until Jesus’ reinterpretation of the “good shepherd” in Chapter 10 of The Gospel of John.4 In distinguishing the Hebrew and Christian formulations of the pastor, the roles of violence and sacrifice in each can be understood more clearly. Beginning with the Hebrew Scriptures I will demonstrate the importance of violence in the figure of David as the first “shepherd of men”. I will argue that violence and the ability to protect the flock was a significant and determining characteristic of the Hebrew pastor. Contrary to Foucault’s assertion I will demonstrate that sacrifice was not a role attributed to the Hebrew pastor. While the words and life of Jesus provide a new sacrificial paradigm for understanding the “shepherd of men,” it is Paul who provides the foundation on which the practice of the Christian pastor is established in the Church. Therefore I will examine the writing of Paul to demonstrate the way violence operates in the Christian pastorate. I will argue that sacrifice does not replace violence but violence is subsumed in the sacrificial pastor and continues to operate. Finally I will suggest that the introduction of violence into Foucault’s analysis establishes a deeper connection between pastoral power and biopower. Thus, this connection engenders a richer understanding of the tension in Foucault’s work between care and violence in the poles of biopower: to make live and let die. (shrink)

I argue that silencing (the act of preventing someone from communicating, broadly construed) can be an act of both interpersonal and institutional violence. My argument has two main steps. First, I follow others in analyzing violence as violation of integrity and show that undermining someone’s capacities as a knower can be such a violation. Second, I argue that silencing someone can violate their epistemic capacities in that way. I conclude by exploring when silencing someone might be morally justifiable, (...) even if doing so is an act of violence. (shrink)

Environmental activism is expected to improve society’s well-being and environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, some inappropriate ways of activism, like road blockage, art vandalism, assaults, etc., have been recently conducted and risked causing adverse repercussions, including violence escalation. The current study aims to explore which types of environmental activism are more likely to escalate violence between activists, affected citizens, and police. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to analyze a dataset of 89 blockage, vandalism, and harassment cases in 13 (...) countries in this exploratory study. We discovered that rallies and demonstrations, marches, event disruption, and art vandalism were less likely to escalate violence between protestors, other citizens, and the police. In contrast, road blockades and assaults are more likely to lead to violence escalation. Apart from those, sabotage was found to have an ambiguous relationship with the violence escalation. Based on these results, we suggest that climate activists should be more selective in adopting activism approaches to raise public awareness and support and avoid using tactics that might be counterproductive and reduce public backing, such as road blockage and assaults. Despite the negative impact of art vandalism on violence escalation, we also discussed why art vandalism should not be used since it can curb the effectiveness of artivism, showing misuse of artworks (e.g., paintings, music, films) for environmental activism. (shrink)

Kazimir Malevich’s style of Suprematist painting represents the inauguration of nothing less than a new form of culture premised upon a demolition of the Western tradition’s reifying habits of objective thought. In ridding his canvases of all objects and mimetic conventions, Malevich sought to reconfigure human perception in such a way as to open consciousness to alternative modes of organization and signification. In this paper, I argue that Malevich’s revolutionary aesthetic strategy can be illuminated by a return to the very (...) basis of this tradition, namely by a reconsideration of Aristotle’s account in De Anima III.2 of the initial possibility of objective perception as such. (shrink)

What does it mean to take “one more step, a single step” … towards universality? What does it mean to be forced to think and what kind of thought would we need in order to make the logic of the world shift? For Badiou, philosophy must be reckless or it is simply nothing at all. Thought must force a shift in the laws of a world. This recklessness is the violence of thought; it is the unknown form of a (...) discipline, opening a new terrain to make that 'one more step' possible. It is the moment when we are pushed to think beyond our own desires; it comes in the form of militant participation and brutal contingency. Above all, it comes down to a single choice; one must 'become', a subject to truth, and stay loyal to the event. The following essay will investigate that “One more step” and its relationship to radical choice, the subject and truth and whether we need a violent thought to push us into committed action in order for there to be eternal truths. (shrink)

Interpretations of the ethical significance of the Bhagavadgītā typically understand the debate between Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa in terms of a struggle between consequentialist and deontological doctrines. In this paper, I provide instead a reading of the Gītā which draws on a conception of moral thinking that can be understood to cut across those positions – that developed by Stanley Cavell, which he calls ‘Emersonian Moral Perfectionism’. In so doing, I emphasise how Kṛṣṇa’s consolation of Arjuna can centrally and fruitfully be (...) viewed as concerned with resuscitating the latter’s individuality, thereby allowing Arjuna to overcome an unthinking conformity to the current degenerate state of his society. This leads me to explore the relation between this perfectionist understanding of spiritual reorientation and the Gītā’s religious account of human redemption; and to conclude by suggesting how the text of the Gītā itself might have similar therapeutic designs upon its readers. (shrink)

Here we will go beyond the variety of violence to show its unity, common points and continuities. For although there are multiple forms of violence, they are interrelated: they define a continuum from trivial to extreme violence. Violence against oneself, things, living things such as plants and animals, other nations, the other, one’s fellow human beings, therefore the violence of society against its members, which returns to self-violence. Another continuum is its spiral development, with (...) violence generating violence and pushing it to grow. Violence can also be learned, we progress ever further in violence: in gangs, in armies, in society... Everyone is capable of violence, sometimes to a good advantage as in self-defence. Here it resides in necessity, that of survival, but in general it is impunity that allows and encourages it. In closed, totalitarian, universes: family, work, hospital, army, state... The proximity and distance between the perpetrator and the victim defines yet another continuity. We will discuss the various elements that contribute to its development. And paradoxically, to see that violence also serves to avoid violence. In this way, evacuating it, refusing it, is in fact feeding it, which makes today’s violence, which is an evolution of previous violence and which prepares and defines tomorrow’s violence. (shrink)

Abstract:- Literature forms the bedrock of a society and helps in the socio-cultural development of a nation. It would also help in the creation of a society with the values of love and peace, empowering the age-old traditional practices of war and deprivation. Saudi Arabia is a country that has rich cultural history and has since ages gained a prestigious place in the globe, as the birthplace of both, the Islam and the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad- peace and blessings of (...) Allah be upon Him. Donning the pluralism in the diversity of literature, Arabian Novel holds a significant importance in raising the socio-cultural aspects of Arabian life. The peninsula would be sincerely accorded with the coining of the word ‘Peace,’ as the main source that the region has drawn its inspiration from, is ‘Al-Quran,’ the religious book of Islam, which makes it a moral obligation of a person to do justice and live in accordance with peace with all, friends as well as foes. The Gandhian notion of non-violence and the one coined by the Saudi novelists lies on the same values, and has no overall religious interference in them, in particular. Keywords: Novel, non-violence, Peninsula, casteism, war. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to discredit the much used concept (often unstated) of virtuous violence. To begin with, it is a paradox hence in need of not easily achieved justification. Here author's critique focuses on the political myth of prophetic righteousness, the ethical myth of a common good, and the myth of the infinite, which is utilized all too often to bypass finite systems. (Article sharply criticized when first presented to a faculty group.).

The customary way of interpreting the dialogue between Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-Gita is to consider it merely as an expression of the fear of the diffident Arjuna, who is depicted by almost all the commentators as being scared of fighting the battle, and Kṛṣṇa’s ingenuous solution to it. This paper argues that this common way of looking at the conflict leaves the central theme of the debate unattained and unsolved. The debate can also be viewed as (...) a statement of the confrontation between two ethics and two notions of the self. The claim is not that the customary interpretation is false, or that the present one is the only possible interpretation. It rather makes a much moderate claim that it is possible to give the text an alternative reading, which sheds some light on the nature of Indian ethics as such. It is long debated as to whether India had ever had an ethics. This paper claims to give some insight into the debate. (shrink)

A famous Indian argument for jus ad bellum and jus in bello is presented in literary form in the Mahābhārata: it involves events and dynamics between moral conventionalists (who attempt to abide by ethical theories that give priority to the good) and moral parasites (who attempt to use moral convention as a weapon without any desire to conform to these expectations themselves). In this paper I follow the dialectic of this victimization of the conventionally moral by moral parasites to its (...) philosophical culmination in the fateful battle, which the Bhagavad Gītā precedes. Arjuna’s lament is an internalization of the logic of conventional moral expectations that allowed moral parasitism, and Krishna’s push for a purely procedural approach to moral reasoning (bhakti yoga) does away with the good as a primitive of explanation and provides the moral considerations that allow us to see that the jus ad bellum and jus in bello coincide: the just cause is the approximation to the procedural ideal (the Lord), which is also just conduct. Jeff McMahan is correct in claiming that it is wrong for the unjust to attack the just. But it is also not obviously correct that it is the same set of moral considerations in war and peace that mark out the sides, for peace is largely characterizable by conventional morality, which all are forced to abandon in war. Walzer is correct that there are different sets of standards at play at war and peace, and that getting hands dirty in immorality is a price worth paying in war, but Walzer is thereby incorrect for a subtle reason: conventional standards by way of which jus ad bellum and jus in bello appear corrupt are themselves actually corrupt when the need for a just war arises. It is because moral parasites use conventional morality as a means of hostility and not as a means of fair, inclusive social interaction that conventional morality is corrupted and turned into a tool of the unjust. It is hence unjust to employ these standards to judge those whose cause is just, though such a judgement is conventional. Those who fight for a just cause thereby justly get their hands dirty by departing from conventional moral standards. But this is to the disadvantage of parasites who can only function in a climate where the conventionally good are constrained by conventional morality. Just war so understood deprives parasites their weapon of choice. (shrink)

In the contemporary era, we identify ourselves based on what we consume or what we possess. Besides, various advertisements, celebrities, and other influential personalities encourage and make us believe that we can make a new identity by consuming a specific brand, or relating to a particular institution or connecting with an extraordinary group, etc. Hence, we tend to identify ourselves with consumer goods. In such conditions, Srimad Bhagwat Gita becomes significantly relevant to look for alternative way of life. This (...) paper attempts to explore the concept of Self in Gita as a model for realizing environmental consciousness. Largely, it will analyse the concepts of Nishkama Karma (Detached Action) and the Self to see what it may contribute in developing an apt environmental consciousness. With the analysis of these concepts the paper tries to probe for an epistemological and metaphysical alternative to the Ecology understanding. (shrink)

The issue of political violence is mostly absent from current debates about power. Many conceptions of power treat violence as wholly distinct from or even antithetical to power, or see it as a mere instrument whose effects are obvious and not in need of political analysis. In this paper, I explore what kind of ontology of power is necessary to properly take account of the various roles that violence can play in creating and maintaining power structures. I (...) pursue this question by contrasting the views of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. For Arendt, power is generated and maintained by communicative practices. She argues that power and violence are ‘opposites’ because violence can only destroy but not create these practices. In contrast, Foucault’s conception explicitly allows violence to play a constitutive role in generating power. I argue that while Arendt is right to insist that power and violence are not identical, it does not follow that violence cannot play any role in constituting power. Guided by Foucault’s approach, I formulate a non-dualist account of the relationship between power and violence that takes seriously the role that bodies, material things, and built infrastructures play in making social relations ‘more durable’ and constituting power. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century a significant tradition in French thought promoted a highly dramatized reading of the Hegelian struggle for recognition. In this tradition a violent struggle was regarded as an indispensable means to the realization of both individual and social ideals. The following article considers Claire Denis's film I Can't Sleep as an oblique challenge to this tradition. I Can't Sleep performs a careful dedramatization of an extremely violent story and thereby points to the possibility of an alternative form (...) of co-existence outside a logic of conflict. (shrink)

Although there is such a thing as Indian thought, it seems to play no role in the way social sciences and philosophy are practiced in India or elsewhere. The problem is not only that we no longer employ terms such as atman, avidya, dharma to reflect on our experience; the terms that we do indeed use—sovereignty, secularism, rights, civil society and political society, corruption—seem to insulate our experience from our reflection. This paper will outline Gandhi’s framing of our predicament in (...) Hind Swaraj. It will then discuss three very different examples taken from our peculiar life with concepts that will also serve to clarify and illustrate the framework I am outlining. It will then very briefly discuss how Gandhi saw the Gita as showing him a way out of the predicament. (shrink)

This paper discusses two thinkers who locate the possibility of revolutionary historical change in political projects oriented toward the formation of subjects and cultivation of sensibility. I begin by considering the relationship between historical violence and education in the works of Walter Benjamin. After introducing the provocative association of education with divine violence found in “Toward the Critique of Violence,” I expand on Benjamin’s conception of pedagogical force. Highlighting the centrality of education in Benjamin’s early work, I (...) argue that his account of learning does not depend on the mastery of students by teachers, nor more generally on the mastery of objective reality by a sovereign subject, but on the mastery of the educational relationship by tradition. Drawing on W.E.B. Du Bois’ discussion of the abolition of slavery, I close by describing the revolutionary cultivation of sensibility as a dynamic and collectively achieved mode of historical learning. (shrink)

This work establishes that the primary justification for the state is its role as the guarantor of last resort of the personal safety, liberty and property of the citizens. The essay upholds that the state exists fundamentally for the protection of life and property and ensuring the wellbeing of the citizens and unless it performs this basic function it has no reason to exist. The essay equally establishes that no other time since the civil war era has Nigeria's state been (...) seriously engulfed in perennial security challenges than now. It is the stand of this essay that the current trend of violence imprints on the psyche of Nigerians that the government security apparatus is incapable of guaranteeing the security, safety and wellbeing of the people. It is the candid opinion of this essay that the paradox of Nigeria's state security is that instead of the state being a framework of lawful order and the highest source of authority, it now constitutes the greatest threat to itself. The essay submits that peaceful protest is against the ruling elite that has exploited and appropriated the collective patrimony to itself. It substantiates the legality of EndSARS Protest necessitated by the improprieties of the unit of Nigeria Police Force – Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) against human rights violation, extortion, torture brutality and extra-judicial killings by SARS due to sustained years of leadership deficit in Nigeria. The protest though hijacked by hoodlums is a wake-up call for articulation of good leadership and governance in Nigeria. The Essay adopts an expository and critical evaluation method to drive home its aims and objectives. It relies on se. (shrink)

While acknowledging a certain affinity between his own thought and the Vedanta concept of a world-soul or universal spirit, Josiah Royce nevertheless locates this concept primarily in what he terms the Second Conception of Being—Mysticism. In his early magnum opus, The World and the Individual, Royce utilizes aspects of the Upanishads in order to flesh out his picture of the mystical understanding of and relationship to being. My primary concern in the present investigation is to introduce some nuance into Royce’s (...) conception of Indian thought, which may then serve to suggest similar possibilities for nuance for Royce’s conception of the Absolute. I will attempt to do in two primary ways: first, I will consider Royce’s use of Indian thought via the Upanishads in explicating his second historical conception of Being. I will then turn briefly to Emerson’s poem ‘Brahma’ and the Bhagavad Gita to see if a certain reversal that occurs in both places problematizes Royce’s depiction of the universal spirit in Indian thought as well as opens up new possibilities for Royce’s own Absolute. (shrink)

This article interrogates a certain philosophical scene – one which constitutes itself through the position of what Jacques Derrida calls “the ethical instance of violence.” This scene supposes a certain “style” of writing or doing philosophy, and perhaps even a certain philosophical “genre” or “subgenre”: the philosophical discourse on violence. In the course of the essay, I analyze this quasi-juridical scene through readings of Aristotle, Walter Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, Werner Hamacher, Rodolphe Gasché, and Martin (...) Hägglund among others. The scene, built on texts on texts on violence, demands a logic of purity; it is wary of contaminations and equivocations. And yet it thrives on them. In analyzing the implications of text, writing, and trace for the philosophical discourse on violence, I follow Derrida “just to see” what could make the scene tremble. (shrink)

In this paper, I reference a Paradigm Case Core Conception of Violence, which each individual has, and can share with others to various degrees. This is shown to imply that because we cannot get at violence itself, and can only interpret violence in relationships that involve humans, we cannot avoid politicizing our conceptions of violence in our empathic, intersubjective relationships. This is demonstrated by outlining various claims concerning violence, and by utilizing Edith Stein's phenomenological account (...) on empathy and intersubjectivity, and Alfred Schütz’s characterizations of commonsense constructs and typicalities, as well as theorists who define violence in reductive and non-reductive ways. (shrink)

Ecofeminist philosophy is a development of feminist philosophy that addresses the intersection of sexism and environmental issues. Coined by Francoise d’Eaubonne, the term “ecofeminism” refers to a diverse collection of feminist thought that shares the conviction that the present environmental crisis is due not solely to the anthropomorphic nature of dominant conceptualisations of human-nature relations, with their emphasis on notion of mastery and control, but also to their androcentric nature. Technology features frequently in ecofeminist writings, in analyses of technocracy (Birkeland (...) 1993), Nuclear Power (Caputi 1993), reproductive technologies (Diamond 1990), or the production of computer interfaces (Romberger 2011), to give but a few examples. Despite being a recurrent theme, technology itself as a phenomenon is rarely directly considered. For many ecofeminists technology seems to operate as an umbrella term for a collection of artefacts whose positive or negative characteristics are ultimately contingent upon the manner in which they are employed. The individual technologies appear as value neutral. There are of course exceptions to this piecemeal approach to technological artefacts, and in this chapter I shall focus upon two ecofeminist philosophers whose consideration of technology moves from the individual instance towards a more general account of the nature of technology. The first, Karen Warren, gives technology a central place in her philosophical analysis. However, I shall suggest, her commitment to an instrumental understanding of technology renders her approach problematic. I will then consider the work of Vandana Shiva. Standard analyses of Shiva’s work tend to overlook the philosophical dimensions of her thought, in particular the continuous emphasis on science and technology. I argue that Shiva puts forward a sophisticated technological determinist philosophy of that emphasises the role of political and patriarchal interests in technological development and subsequent social and environmental interventions. (shrink)

The Walking Dead is a popular TV series depicting a catastrophic and violent world. After a pandemic that turns humans into zombies, we witness the collapse of civilization with all its institutions, the depletion of the resources, and the struggle to build a new world in the middle of the wars between surviving groups. It illustrates a world of literal and metaphorical homo homini lupus. Some people choose sheer survival, and others try to build a moral, civil world. In this (...) article, I propose a reading of this series from a Kantian perspective by employing his interrelated ideas on history, ethics, and politics. I claim that The Walking Dead represents the state of nature and the violence it contains, and illustrates the course of history toward a civil society as defined by Kant. (shrink)

While the immediate aim of Walter Benjamin’s famous essay, “Critique of Violence,” is to provide a critique of legal violence, commentators typically interpret it as providing a further critique of state violence. However, this interpretation often receives no further argument, and it remains unclear whether Benjamin’s essay may prove analytically relevant for a critique of state violence today. This paper argues that the “Critique” proves thusly relevant, but only on condition that it is developed in two (...) directions. The first direction is conceptual, and consists in an explanation of the necessary relationship between states and violence. This explanation is found by appealing to a concept not cited in Benjamin’s text, but which, I argue, remains its implicit basis: sovereignty. According to this conceptual development, state violence is the necessary result of the state's attempt to maintain its sovereign law at the expense of emancipatory struggles to generate non-sovereign law. The second direction is genealogical, and consists in destabilizing the modern belief that justice is best served through the judicial channels of a sovereign state. Here I employ Michel Foucault’s genealogical research to demonstrate the historical contingency of state justice and, by extension, the possibility of a justice beyond the state. (shrink)

A book review of Steve Clark's The Justification of Religious Violence.

Bok defines lying in the same way as Augustine and Kant. But she wants to oppose their position that one cannot lie to save an innocent life. This position was successfully and consistently opposed by Constant and Grotius who did so by redefining lying so that the untruth one tells to save an innocent life does not count as a lie since it does not violate a right. Bok refuses to use this way. She instead uses her analogy of deception (...) and violence. But this analogy is not, as she believes it is, intuitively clear or a good a fortiori argument. Still, if one pays attention to the ordinary sense of the words Bok uses in her confused analogy, deception and lying, force and violence, one realizes that Bok's analogy has some persuasive power, not because violence and lying are right means to save a life, but because force and deception, or force or deception are. And to see why this is so requires that Constant and Grotius's way of opposing Kant, and their definition of lying, must be adopted. Bok's apparent success with her analogy of force and lying is due to the fact that it is a shadow of the more genuine success of the analogy of force and violence and deception and lying which requires Constant and Grotius's definition of deception and lying. Thus her way of opposing Augustine and Kant is weak in trying to do it in a new approach and demonstrates the advantages of Constant and Grotius's approach. (shrink)

This paper explores the difference it makes to incorporate the multi-focal conception of violence that has emerged in peace studies over recent decades into the discourse of non-violent direct action (Galtung 1969, 1990; Uvin 2003; Springs 2015b). I argue that non-violent action can and should incorporate and deploy the distinctions between direct, cultural, and structural forms of violence. On one hand, these analytical distinctions can facilitate forms of self-reflexive critical analysis that guard against certain violent conceptual and practical (...) implications of non-violence, however inadvertent those may be. At the same time, these lenses help reconceptualise non-violent action in ways that open up an array of strategies and tools not previously prevalent among activists committed to non-violence. Non-violent action may itself be either complicit in, or might be enabled to illuminate and cut against, forms of violence that infuse social, political, and economic structures (i.e. structural violence). Appeals to non-violence and the actions with which they interweave may be complicit in, or might be enabled to illuminate and cut against, religious, ideological, aesthetic, and even scientific understandings and conceptual frames that underpin and support structural violence (i.e. cultural violence). In each case, non- violence must be critically examined with all these possibilities in mind. I first define and contextualize a multidimensional account of violence in terms of direct, structural, and cultural violence. I then consider two examples of how it challenges thinking about non-violence. (shrink)

This research employs the Bayesian network modeling approach, and the Markov chain Monte Carlo technique, to learn about the role of lies and violence in teachings of major religions, using a unique dataset extracted from long-standing Vietnamese folktales. The results indicate that, although lying and violent acts augur negative consequences for those who commit them, their associations with core religious values diverge in the outcome for the folktale characters. Lying that serves a religious mission of either Confucianism or Taoism (...) (but not Buddhism) brings a positive outcome to a character. A violent act committed to serving Buddhist mission results in a happy ending for the committer. (shrink)

In this chapter, Ricardo Silvestre and Alan Herbert offer a reconstruction of the Gītā’s concept of God with a focus on the relationship between God and the world. They try to explain the claim that the Gītā is panentheistic. This is done with the help of some key notions of contemporary metaphysics (such as ontological dependence and fundamentality) along with the Indic notion of prakṛti, considered as a metaphysical primitive denoting the intimate relationship that exists between matter and conscious living (...) beings on the one hand, and God on the other. (shrink)

A vast historical, cultural and philosophical chasm separates the thought of the 10th century Islamic philosopher al-Farabi and Friedrich Nietzsche, the progenitor of postmodernity. However, despite their significant differences, they share one important commitment: an attempt to resuscitate and reappropriate the project of Platonic political philosophy, particularly through their conceptions of the “true philosopher” as prophet, leader, and lawgiver. This paper examines al-Farabi and Nietzsche’s respective conceptions of the philosopher as commander and legislator against the background of their Platonic source, (...) and reflects upon the human cost each thinker is willing to abide in order to establish a regime that would be conducive to the perfectibility and flourishing of the human being. (shrink)

Considering the existing definitions of violence one can point out a lack of terminological unity, which is associated with a lack of objective criteria. As a basis author uses own definition of violence as actions with property without the consent of the owner. Such a definition has an unambiguously defined criterion - the presence or absence of the owner's consent to actions with the object. On the basis of this definition, examples of existing violence from the side (...) of society towards its members are considered. These examples give an idea of what issues in social life are yet violent and how violence can be eliminated. Democracy, the main feature of which is the co-ownership of state property by citizens in equal shares, is considered as an institute that ensures overcoming violence in society. The necessary conditions for ensuring such co-ownership are given. As an example, a state structure is given that provides the necessary features of a democratic state, the main purpose of which is to protect citizens from any encroachment on their property, i.e. protection from violence. (shrink)

Contemporary Nigerian society is in its doldrums as regards the culture of violence and distrust among peoples from various ethnic groups that make-up this nation. To an extent, religio-political reasons are fueling this culture of violence and distrust. The thrust of this paper is that: Christian military chaplains are stakeholders as promoters of peace and mutual co-existence in Nigeria with regard to controlling the culture of violence and disunity. The core of this thesis remains Jesus’ convictions concerning (...) non-resistance to the evil one as documented in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5: 38-42, and His life as the Peace-Builder. Therefore, contemporary Nigerian context calls for Christian military chaplains to be more conscious that being messengers of peace and promoters of peaceful coexistence in our country, they have ethical responsibility to build bridges to harmony. Since Christ (God) is love, the chaplains should rediscover the poetics of testimony as a principle for building and reconstructing paths that lead to mutual co-existence in view of encouraging the reign of justice, unity, and peace in Nigeria. (shrink)

This article examines how Žižek’s analysis of “subjective” violence can be used to explore the ways in which media coverage of a terrorist attack is contoured and shaped by less noticeable forms of “objective” (symbolic and systemic) violence. Drawing upon newspaper coverage of the 2017 London Bridge attack, it is noted how examples of “subjective” violence were grounded in the externalization of a clearly identifiable “other”, which symbolically framed the terrorists and the attack as tied to and (...) representative of the UK Muslim community. Examples of “systematic” violence were most notable in the ideological edifice that underpinned this framing but also in the ways in which newspaper reports served to draw upon British values in the aftermath of the attack. This directed attention away from the contradictions within the UK, towards narratives that sought to “fix” these contradictions through eradicating the problem of “the other” and/or by violently protecting the British values “they” seek to undermine. As a consequence, newspaper coverage worked to uphold the illusion that “peace” could be achieved by eradicating terrorism through further forms of objective violence, including, internment without trial; the “ripping up” of human rights; and, closer surveillance of Muslim communities. Indeed, it was this unacknowledged violence that worked to maintain British values in the press’ coverage. (shrink)

Why and how do norms emerge? Which norms emerge and why these ones in particular? Such questions belong to the ‘problem of the emergence of norms’, which consists of an inquiry into the production of norms in social collectives. I address this question through the ethnographic study of the emergence of ‘norms against violence’ in the political collective Occupy Geneva. I do this, first, empirically, with the analysis of my field observations; and, second, theoretically, by discussing my findings. In (...) consequence of two episodes categorized as sexual assaults that occurred in their camp, the members of Occupy Geneva decided to tackle those issues in a general assembly. Their goal was to amend their first charter of good conduct in order to reform its norms and complete it with norms aiming to regulate ‘facts’ of ‘unjustified violence’. During a collective deliberation, new norms were devised, debated and consensually adopted. The writing of the new charter took place in a second general assembly during which the wording of the written norms was collectively decided. I show that indignation over the sexual assaults was the main motive that led to the collective deliberation, and that the entire process of the making of these norms was characterized by different collective emotions. Indeed, indignation, contempt and fear played major roles in the emergence of norms prohibiting violence, allowing punishment and exclusion of wrongdoers, and prescribing collective intervention against an aggressor to neutralize the threat represented. These findings prompt me to hypothesize that social norms emerge from emotions thanks to the latters’ internal structure; and that emotions provide causal and grounding explanations for this emergence. Thus, emotions allow us to answer the questions: ‘Why do norms emerge?’ and ‘Why do they have their specific forms?’ In short, I argue that social norms have emotional foundations. (shrink)