In this essay, I respond to Carrie Nolan and Sarah M. Stitzlein’s article “Meaningful Hope for Teachers in a Time of High Anxiety and Low Morale” and support their argument for meaningful hope grounded in pragmatist philosophy. I agree that while hope is routinely called for in the educational literature, it is often done so in superficial and vacuous ways. Moreover, hope is often conflated with wishful thinking or naive optimism. A pragmatist vision of hope is different. It is a (...) hope that compels us to act thoughtfully and creatively in the present so as to open up yet unimagined possibilities for the future—a hope that is generative, resourceful, engaged, and communal. To complement Nolan and Stitzlein’s vision, I argue that pragmatist hope also requires of us habits of community building and social and political activism to challenge unjust systems. Only when we act on both individual and systemic levels can we sustain the kind of pragmatist hope that is so necessary in schools. (shrink)

Many teachers struggle to maintain or build hope among themselves and their students in today’s climate of high anxiety and low morale. This article describes and responds to those challenging conditions. It offers teachers and scholars of education a philosophically sophisticated and feasible understanding of hope. This notion of hope is grounded in pragmatism and grows out of the pragmatist commitment to meliorism. Hope is described as a way of living tied to specific contexts that brings together reflection and intelligent (...) action alongside imagination and gratitude. Such hope is realistic and generative, rendering it well suited for teachers struggling in schools today. The article does account for some school conditions, including fatalism, passivity, and lack of persistent motivation, that pose obstacles for achieving pragmatist hope. The article closes by describing specific actions teachers can take to build and sustain hope in their schools, including developing supportive communities of inquiry, cultivating habits of hope among students, and practicing confirmation. (shrink)

The paper discusses Dr. Floris Tomasini's paper “What Is Bioethics: Notes toward a New Approach?”. Based on Tomasini's account of methodological and ethical pluralism, the paper explores the demarcation problem of bioethics and suggests a full methodological laissez-faire.

In this paper I will pursue a reflection on the question of the conflicts of laws between religious and civil law in France. After having introduced and criticized the process of normative decline of Jewish law – the Halakha – I will propose therapies for such a process, both from a normative and non-normative perspective. My inspiration derives from the Talmudic idea of separation between truth and normativity. Indeed, Hillel often prevailed when he and Shammaï would disagree on the meaning (...) of the Torah but both their interpretations were nonetheless "the words of the living God" says the Talmud. A normative therapy: to defend a casuistic approach to resolve conflicts of laws between religious and civil law rather than the systematic approach set up by the 2004 statute. A non-normative therapy: to promote an epistemological understanding of the confluence between Halakha and French law through the theme of codification. A comparison between Maimonides' Mishne Torah and the Napoleonic Civil Code reveals several converging features such as the incapacity of the codes to put an end to controversy. Such commonality could help Jews exiled in France to overcome conflicts of laws between French and Jewish laws and to live an appeased conflict. Because the experience of Galut (exile) is too complex to be reduced to the sole words of the judge, it appears sound to separate the true from the normative. Only on the basis of this predicate, will Jews exiled in France be able to avoid a hierarchization of Jewish and French law in case of conflict and the resulting ontological conflicts between their inner selves. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the virtue ethics tradition can enhance the moral discourse on the ethics of prenatal genetic enhancements in distinctive and valuable ways. Virtue ethics prescribes we adopt a much more provisional stance on the issue of the moral permissibility of prenatal genetic enhancements. A stance that places great care on differentiating between the different stakes involved with developing different phenotypes in our children and the different possible means (environmental vs. genetic manipulation) available to parents for (...) pursuing legitimate concerns of parental love and virtue. Key components of the virtue ethics account of morality, such as the Aristotelian account of happiness, love and the doctrine of the mean, provide an adequate basis for rejecting the claim that it is morally impermissible for parents to pursue (safe and effective) prenatal enhancements. Furthermore, there is good reason to believe that a virtue ethics account of morality could actually support the stronger claim that utilising such interventions can (in certain contexts) be morally required. (shrink)

The debate about evolution continues as another category of critics seeks to challenge its merits. These critics put forward intelligent design as a scientific rival to evolution. For those familiar with the relevant history, this occurrence resurrects a cycle of debate about evolution that never seems to end. The purpose of this article is to identify key reasons why debate about evolution remains with us.

The most contentious and critical questions of contemporary times relate to the nature, scope, impact and conceptualization of globalization. The intensified impact of globalization and the acceptance that it is a contemporary social reality has manifested itself noticeably in a variety of disciplines. However, the inherently multidimensional processes of globalization demand new insights. The resultant rise of a Global Studies approach is expected to be unencumbered by dominant perspectives and existing academic loyalties by placing global theorizing and issues first. In (...) light of this context, the paper raises several epistemological and ontological questions while outlining the broad contours of this emerging field. The analysis is based on academic literature as well as the examination of a selection of global studies programs in academic institutions to ascertain the contemporary application and perceptions of what constitutes global studies. The ensuing discussion explains why global studies is regarded as an overwhelmingly North American phenomenon. Finally, the paper suggests ways of broadening the disciplinary lens, which may also help global studies to overcome the wide regional divide. (shrink)

When evaluating the rationality of a player in a game one has to examine counterfactuals such as "what would happen if the player were to do what he does not do?" In this paper I develop a model of a normal form game where counterfactuals of this sort are evaluated as in the philosophical literature (cf. Lewis, 1973; Stalnaker, 1968). According to this method one evaluates a statement like ``what would the player believe if he were to do what he (...) does not do'' at the world that is closest to the actual world where the hypothetical deviation occurs. I show that in this model common knowledge of rationality need not lead to rationalizability. I also present assumptions that allow rationalizability to follow from common knowledge of rationality. These assumptions suggest that rationalizability may not rely on weaker assumptions about belief consistency than Nash equilibrium. (shrink)

This article explores the kind of detachment needed to conduct comparative law scholarship and teaching, as well as implement its application to practical problems. The full and fair comparison of the law requires a cosmopolitan view which embodies some degree of detachment from adherence to the laws of one's ``home". The Enlightenment efforts to build a science of comparative law to achieve this detachment failed. Modern inheritors of the Enlightenment approach have similarly failed. In a series of articles, I argue (...) that we must return to the ancient effort to achieve a new ``objectivity" through Hellenic deliberation, Hellenistic detachment, Roman rhetoric, Christian dialectic and the canonics of the empire's codification process. This article focuses upon the Hellenistic contributions to achievement of cosmopolitan detachment. The Cynic, Skeptic Stoic and Epicurean doctrines and ethical education offer an alternative route to the detachment necessary for a comparative law. (shrink)

In A Philosophy of Evidence Law, Ho Hock Lai squarely confronts questions about the justification for the Anglo-American approach to the law of evidence, with all of its technicality and painstaking distinctions. Ho attempts to understand the justification for the rules of evidence from the viewpoint of a fact-finder – one who is morally responsible for the decision made in an individual case. This is a scholarly, well-researched and thought provoking work, providing an excellent introduction to the theoretical underpinnings of (...) evidence law. The strength of Ho's approach is that issues of fairness must be addressed first, before issues of social policy come into play. The result otherwise would be a criminal justice system that fails to meet the test of moral justification. (shrink)