Abstract“Psychological essentialism” refers to our tendency to view the natural world as emerging from the result of deep, hidden, and internal forces called “essences.” People tend to believe that genes underlie a person’s identity. People encounter information about genetics on a regular basis, as through media such as a New York Times piece “Infidelity Lurks in Your Genes” or a 23andMe commercial showing people acquiring new ethnic identities as the result of their genotyping. How do people make sense of new (...) scientific findings that are inherently complex if they don’t have years of specialized training and education at their disposal? Given the substantial overlap between a lay understanding of genetics and lay intuitions about essences, we argue that, when most people are thinking about genes, they are not really thinking about genes in the complex ways that good scientists are. Combating people’s essentialist biases can be a formidable challenge. Although we have identified some promising results of trying to reduce people’s genetic essentialist tendencies, there is still much to learn about how these essentialist biases can be countered. It is important to help people understand genetic information so they are able make well‐informed decisions about their lives. (shrink)

Recent research observed a sensitive window, at about 14 years of age, in the acculturation rates of Chinese immigrants to Canada. Tapping an online sample ofusimmigrants, we tested these relationships in a broader population and explored connections with new potentially causally related variables: formal education, language ability and contact with heritage-culture and mainstream United States individuals, both now and at immigration. While we found that acculturation decreased with age at immigration and increased with years in theus, we did not observe (...) a similar sensitive window. We also present an exploratory path analysis, exposing the relationships in our sample between acculturation and the variables above. The novel relationships documented here can improve theorising about this rich and complex empirical phenomenon. (shrink)

The first philosophers of the Frankfurt School famously turned to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to supplement their Marxist analyses of ideological subjectification. Since the collapse of their proposed "marriage of Marx and Freud," psychology and social theory have grown apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic "foundation stone" of critical theory in an effort to once again think together the possibility of psychic and social transformation. Drawing on the (...) work of Hans Loewald and Jacques Lacan, Fong complicates the famous antagonism between Eros and the death drive in reference to a third term: the woefully undertheorized drive to mastery. Rejuvenating Freudian metapsychology through the lens of this pivotal concept, he then provides fresh perspective on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse's critiques of psychic life under the influence of modern cultural and technological change. The result is a novel vision of critical theory that rearticulates the nature of subjection in late capitalism and renews an old project of resistance. (shrink)

Ethics consultants and critical care clinicians reflect on Seattle’s early experience as the United States’ first epicenter of COVID-19. We discuss ethically salient issues confronted at UW Medicin...

Catastrophic climate change overshadows the present and the future. Wrenching economic transformations have devastated workers and hollowed out communities. However, those fighting for jobs and those fighting for the planet have often been at odds. Does the world face two separate crises, environmental and economic? The promise of the Green New Deal is to tackle the threat of climate change through the empowerment of working people and the strengthening of democracy. In this view, the crisis of nature and the crisis (...) of work must be addressed together-or they will not be addressed at all. This book brings together leading experts to explore the possibilities of the Green New Deal, emphasizing the future of work. Together, they examine transformations that are already underway and put forth bold new proposals that can provide jobs while reducing carbon consumption-building a world that is sustainable both economically and ecologically. Contributors also debate urgent questions: What is the value of a federal jobs program, or even a jobs guarantee? How do we alleviate the miseries and precarity of work? In key economic sectors, including energy, transportation, housing, agriculture, and care work, what kind of work is needed today? How does the New Deal provide guidance in addressing these questions, and how can a Green New Deal revive democracy? Above all, this book shows, the Green New Deal offers hope for a better tomorrow-but only if it accounts for work's past transformations and shapes its future. (shrink)

In this study, we attempt to explain the divergent results found in the relationships between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and employee work outcomes. Specifically, we propose that the relationships between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and participatory management, turnover intentions, and organizational commitment are mediated by job satisfaction. Based on the data collected from a sample of 196 employees of three local manufacturing firms in Zhejiang Province, China, we found that job satisfaction fully mediated the effects of supervisor–subordinate guanxi on participatory management and intentions to (...) leave, but partially mediated the relationship between supervisor–subordinate guanxi and organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper explores how consumers perceive retailer ethics. Based on a review of the marketing and consumer research literature, we conceptualize consumer perceptions of the ethics of retailers as a multidimensional construct and propose that its effects on consumer purchase behavior and word-of-mouth communication are more salient when consumers have strong rather than weak ethical beliefs. The model was validated using a random sample of 399 respondents in a collectivist society. The results of structural equation modeling confirmed that CPER is (...) a second-order construct comprising product fairness, price fairness, non-deception, fair trade, and green products. CPER positively predicted consumer purchase behavior and word-of-mouth communication. Moreover, ethical beliefs moderated the positive relationship between CPER and the word-of-mouth communication of consumers with strong ethical beliefs but did not moderate the relationship between CPER and purchase behavior. The implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

We propose a ‘Moral Imagination’ methodology to facilitate a culture of responsible innovation for engineering and product teams in technology companies. Our approach has been operationalized over the past two years at Google, where we have conducted over 50 workshops with teams from across the organization. We argue that our approach is a crucial complement to existing formal and informal initiatives for fostering a culture of ethical awareness, deliberation, and decision-making in technology design such as company principles, ethics and privacy (...) review procedures, and compliance controls. We characterize some distinctive benefits of our methodology for the technology sector in particular. (shrink)

Some time ago, Joel Katzav and Brian Ellis debated the compatibility of dispositional essentialism with the principle of least action. Surprisingly, very little has been said on the matter since, even by the most naturalistically inclined metaphysicians. Here, we revisit the Katzav–Ellis arguments of 2004–05. We outline the two problems for the dispositionalist identified Katzav in his 2004 , and claim they are not as problematic for the dispositional essentialist at it first seems – but not for the reasons espoused (...) by Ellis. (shrink)

The eleventh-century Indian Buddhist master Ratnākaraśānti presents a unique Yogācāra interpretation of tantric _maṇḍala_ visualisation in the _*Guhyasamājamaṇḍalavidhiṭīkā_. In this text, he employs the neither-one-nor-many argument to assert that the qualities of the mind represented by the deities in the _maṇḍala_ are neither the same nor different from the mind itself. He also provides five scenarios of meditation to explain the necessity of practising both the perfection method (_pāramitānaya_) and the mantra method (_mantranaya_) together in Mahāyāna. Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation exerts a (...) significant influence on the works of later Buddhist masters in India and Tibet, with parts of it being reused in the _*Śrīherukopadeśanāmasvādhiṣṭhānakrama_ by Śūnyasamādhivajra (c. the eleventh century), the eighteenth chapter of the _Āmnāyamañjarī_ by Abhayākaragupta (from the late eleventh to the twelfth century) and the tantric compendium _sNgags rim chen mo_ by the Tibetan master Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419). This paper explores how Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation has been reused and modified in these subsequent works. While Śūnyasamādhivajra faithfully reproduced Ratnākaraśānti’s Yogācāra explanation, Abhayākaragupta modified it to align with his Madhyamaka view. Abhayākaragupta in turn influenced Tsong kha pa, who accepted Abhayākaragupta’s Madhyamaka modification in his works. This paper also engages with current scholarly discussions on textual reuse and the underlying reasons behind it. While Śūnyasamādhivajra and Abhayākaragupta assimilated Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation without acknowledgement, Tsong kha pa quoted the text by name and acknowledged Abhayākaragupta’s reuse of Ratnākaraśānti’s explanation. This paper concludes by discussing the factors that determine whether the reused text is acknowledged or not, and the possible reasons behind textual reuse. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDepression is associated with increased emotional response to stress. This is especially the case during the developmental period of adolescence. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy that has been shown to reduce the impact of emotional response on psychopathology. However, less is known about whether cognitive reappraisal impacts the relationship between depressive symptoms and emotional responses, and whether its effects are specific to emotional reactivity or emotional recovery. The current study examined whether cognitive reappraisal moderated the relationship between (...) depressive symptoms and trait or state measures of emotional reactivity and recovery. A community sample of 127 adolescents, at an age of risk for depression, completed self-report measures of trait emotional responding and depressive symptoms. In addition, they completed an in vivo social stress task and were assessed on state emotional reactivity and recove... (shrink)

Grounded in Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory, this study examined the relation between dispositional mindfulness and life satisfaction through mediating mechanisms including savoring positive experiences and gratitude. A total of 133 Chinese mindfulness practitioners at 20–72 years old were recruited from a 3-day transnational meditation event in Hong Kong. Findings based on structural equation modeling indicated that controlling for sex, age, education, family income, number of hours of mindfulness practice per week, and type of administration, dispositional mindfulness was associated with satisfaction with life (...) through savoring positive experiences and gratitude as mediators. The findings provided initial evidence for these processes between mindfulness and life satisfaction in the Chinese context. To promote life satisfaction, researchers and mental health practitioners should recognize the chain of mechanisms related to mindfulness. (shrink)

Since the publication of J. A. Hobson’s (1858–1940) Imperialism: A Study in 1902, the text has been studied—even celebrated—as a liberal or proto-Marxist critique of modern empires. This reputation stands in some tension with the text itself, which defends various forms of imperial domination. While scholars have addressed this tension, they remain divided over how best to understand Hobson’s imperial commitments. Offering a new response to this debate, I argue that a key dimension of Imperialism has been overlooked—namely, Hobson’s conception (...) of humanity as stratified into a hierarchy of racial “souls.” This deeply committed view of human difference undergirded Hobson’s arguments about the moral and practical limits of Western imperial power. This article shows how Hobson articulated imperialism as the “parasitic” rule of whites over the nonwhite world—the solution to which was not the rejection of empire but the reform of white imperial power in accordance with his normative vision of global racial hierarchy. This recovery reveals the redemptive critique at the core of Imperialism and enables us to more readily grasp the text as a form of imperial apologetics. The article concludes with the suggestion that Hobson is better understood not as a liberal- or socialist-imperialist but as a proponent of racial capitalism on a global scale. (shrink)

L. T. Hobhouse (1864–1929) is most familiar today as a leading theorist of British new liberalism. This article recovers and examines his overlooked commentary on the concept and rhetoric of race, which constituted part of his better-known project of advancing an authoritative account of liberal doctrine. His writings during and after the South African War, I argue, represent a prominent effort to cast liberalism as compatible with both imperial rule and what he called ‘the idea of racial equality’. A properly (...) liberal empire, he asserted, would dissolve the colour line. This article traces the arguments Hobhouse advanced to make this claim, and explores his motivations for doing so. I contend that Hobhouse drew on the idiom of race as a form of exclusionary rhetoric, to delegitimise rival accounts of liberal empire and to cast his own as properly cosmopolitan. This recovery, I suggest, offers payoffs for our understanding of both Hobhouse's political thought and, more broadly, the uses of ‘race’ in twentieth-century liberalism. (shrink)

Introduction: Probationers, offenders with less serious and non-violent offences, and under statutory supervision, have low levels of self-esteem and physical health, and high level of family conflict, and poorer quality of family relationships. This study examined the effectiveness of the existing probation service and the additional use of a positive family holistic health intervention to enhance physical, psychological, and family well-being in probationers and relationships with probation officers.Methods: Probationers under the care of the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department were randomized (...) into a care-as-usual control group, a brief intervention group receiving two 1-h individual sessions [of a brief theory-based positive family holistic health intervention integrating Zero-time Exercise and positive psychology themes of “Praise and Gratitude” in the existing probation service], or a combined intervention group receiving BI and a 1-day group activity with family members. The outcomes were physical activity, fitness performance, self-esteem, happiness, anxiety and depression symptoms, life satisfaction, quality of life, family communication and well-being, and relationships with probation officers. Self-administered questionnaires and simple fitness tests were used at baseline, 1-month and 3-month follow-up. Linear mixed model analysis was used to compare difference in the changes of outcome variables among groups, adjusted of sex, age, and baseline values. Focus group interviews were conducted. Thematic content analysis was used.Results: 318 probationers were randomized into CAU, BI, or CI group. CAU showed enhanced physical activity, fitness performance and psychological health, and family communication with small effect sizes. BI and CI showed further improved physical activity, family communication and family well-being. Additionally, CI reported greater improvements in the relationships with probation officers than CAU with a small effect size. CI also reported greater increases in physical activity and family communication than BI with small to moderate effect sizes. Qualitative feedbacks corroborated the quantitative findings.Conclusion: Our trial provided the first evidence of the effectiveness of probation service and the additional use of an innovative, relatively low-cost, theory-based brief positive family holistic health intervention. This intervention may offer a new model for enhancing probation service.Trial Registration: The research protocol was registered at the National Institutes of Health. (shrink)

In recent years, the science and the philosophy of consciousness has seen growing interest in structural questions about consciousness. This is the Editorial Introduction for a special volume for Philosophy and the Mind Sciences on “Structuralism in Consciousness Studies.”.

Access to legal information is fundamental to access to justice. Yet accessibility refers not only to making legal documents available to the public, but also rendering legal information comprehensible to them. A vexing problem in bringing legal information to the public is how to turn formal legal documents such as legislation and judgments, which are often highly technical, to easily navigable and comprehensible knowledge to those without legal education. In this study, we formulate a three-step approach for bringing legal knowledge (...) to laypersons, tackling the issues of navigability and comprehensibility. First, we translate selected sections of the law into snippets (called CLIC-pages), each being a small piece of article that focuses on explaining certain technical legal concept in layperson’s terms. Second, we construct a Legal Question Bank, which is a collection of legal questions whose answers can be found in the CLIC-pages. Third, we design an interactive CLIC Recommender. Given a user’s verbal description of a legal situation that requires a legal solution, CRec interprets the user’s input and shortlists questions from the question bank that are most likely relevant to the given legal situation and recommends their corresponding CLIC pages where relevant legal knowledge can be found. In this paper we focus on the technical aspects of creating an LQB. We show how large-scale pre-trained language models, such as GPT-3, can be used to generate legal questions. We compare machine-generated questions against human-composed questions and find that MGQs are more scalable, cost-effective, and more diversified, while HCQs are more precise. We also show a prototype of CRec and illustrate through an example how our 3-step approach effectively brings relevant legal knowledge to the public. (shrink)

BackgroundFamily presence during adult cardiopulmonary resuscitation is still not widely implemented. Based on empirical evidence, various national and international professional organizations recommend allowing relatives to be present during resuscitation. However, healthcare providers worldwide are still reluctant to make it standard care.PurposeThis paper is a part of an ongoing cross-cultural study that aims to solicit attitudes of healthcare providers working in emergency departments towards family presence during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This paper reports the qualitative data from surveying healthcare providers working in an (...) emergency department at a university-affiliated hospital in Singapore.MethodHealthcare workers were asked to fill out an online survey, including both quantitative and qualitative questions. Their attitudes were critically analyzed and compared with existing empirical data.ResultsMajority of healthcare workers believed that relatives should not be present during c... (shrink)

Introducción a los estudios de Derecho y Cine, tradicionales en el ámbito anglosajón, pero asi desconocidos en España, que versan sobre las relaciones entre el fenómeno jurídico y el fenómeno cinematográfico. Así, se plantea la posible existencia del género del cine jurídico, así como las relaciones entre la temática jurídica y los diversos géneros cinematográficos, especialmente en el caso del cine negro, del western y del cine político, géneros en los que el dato jurídico está casi necesariamente presente. En el (...) supuesto de que no se reconozca la existencia del cine jurídico, al menos ha de admitirse que muchos argumentos jurídicos han sido típicamente cinematográficos, con lo que no es extraño encontrar en el cine normas, instituciones y desarrollos propios del Derecho Procesal, Penal, Penitenciario, Laboral, Constitucional, Internacional, así como del Derecho Privado, destacando en este caso los asuntos propios del Derecho de familia, y de la filosofía del Derecho. Pero las relaciones entre el Derecho y el cine incluyen también el estudio de las diversas teorías del cine y las repercusiones que éstas tienen en el ámbito jurídico, político y moral. Por último, se apunta la cuestión de la utilidad de los estudios de Derecho y Cine, sobre todo para la didáctica jurídica, que se vería beneficiada por su incorporación al estudio del Derecho. (shrink)

Does y obtain under the counterfactual supposition that x? The answer to this question is famously thought to depend on whether y obtains in the most similar world in which x obtains. What this notion of ‘similarity’ consists in is controversial, but in recent years, graphical causal models have proved incredibly useful in getting a handle on considerations of similarity between worlds. One limitation of the resulting conception of similarity is that it says nothing about what would obtain were the (...) causal structure to be different from what it actually is, or from what we believe it to be. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using graphical causal models to resolve counterfactual queries about causal structure by introducing a notion of similarity between causal graphs. Since there are multiple principled senses in which a graph G* can be more similar to a graph G than a graph G**, we introduce multiple similarity metrics, as well as multiple ways to prioritize the various metrics when settling counterfactual queries about causal structure. (shrink)

Si las diferencias se rehúsan a cruzarse o contaminarse entre ellas, el mestizaje o hibridación termina siendo reemplazado por la lógica del desarrollo separado que es característica del apartheid. Con ello el mundo múltiple deviene un mosaico de fragmentos aislados y autoreferenciales. En el límite..

The article is an investigation of a certain form of argument that refers to Leibniz’s Law as its inference ticket (where Leibniz’s Law is understood as the thesis that if x=y.

According to influential arguments from several branches of philosophy, there exist some gradable natural language expressions that violate the following principle: if x and y are both F to some degree, then either x is at least as F as y or y is at least as F as x. Dorr, Nebel and Zuehl (2022) (DNZ), who refer to this principle as ‘Comparability’, respond to these arguments and offer a systematic case in support of Comparability. In this paper, I respond (...) to DNZ and develop an opposing case against Comparability that (i) buttresses previous criticisms of the principle, (ii) identifies two new arguments against the principle, and (iii) rebuts DNZ’s prospective arguments in favour of the principle. (shrink)

El presente artículo explora algunas afinidades filosóficas entre el confucianismo y el averroísmo. Se analizan ambas corrientes en su incompatibilidad con la antropología filosófica moderna y, más concretamente, con la noción cristiano–liberal de individuo. Dicha incompatibilidad se examina en tres dimensiones distintas, a saber: una dimensión historiográfica, una filosófica y una genealógica. Se concluye que ambas tradiciones intelectuales ofrecen herramientas conceptuales y hermenéuticas para pensar nuestro presente más allá de las categorías filosóficas modernas.

El presente artículo propone una nueva interpretación de la filosofía de Avicena y su problemática relación con la mística. En dos de sus enciclopedias filosóficas, Avicena introduce algunos problemas referidos a la verificabilidad de las afirmaciones empíricas y al conocimiento del Primer Principio. Teniendo en cuenta los límites del conocimiento especulativo tanto para el plano empírico como el metafísico, Avicena menciona diferentes modos de vida práctica para relacionarse con dicho Primer Principio: la profecía o legislación, la observancia religiosa de la (...) ley, el ascetismo y la filosofía. Veremos que una práctica filosófica superior diverge radicalmente de aquellos otros caminos prácticos y políticos para relacionarse con el Existente Necesario. (shrink)

What does it mean that some proposition follows from others? The standard way of spelling out the notion proceeds in modal terms: x follows from y iff necessarily, if y is true, so is x. But although this yields a useful and manageable account of consequence, it fails to capture certain aspects of our pre-theoretical understanding of consequence. In this paper, an alternative notion of logical consequence, based on the idea of grounding, is developed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:29. CONTRARIETY AND CAUSALITY IN HUME Hume's notion of contrariety ranks among the most obscure in his theory of relations. To make matters worse, the puzzling account of contrariety he offers can be shown inconsistent in the following way. The Treatise (T69-82) divides all relations into two disjoint classes - one class containing relations of knowledge (in the strict sense) ascertained by the mere comparison of ideas, the other (...) containing those of probability or 'uncertain knowledge' requiring 'experience' or empirical evidence. Causality is the paradigm of a probability relation - contrariety falls into the class of knowledge relations. Thus unlike causality the discovery of a contrary relation appears to require no experience. Yet in direct contradiction Hume claims that with the exception of existence and non-existence (which are singled out for special attention), all knowledge of contrary relations demands experience: no two ideas are in themselves contrary, except those of existence and non-existence.... All other objects, such as fire and water, heat, and cold, are only found to be contrary from experience, and from the contrariety of their 'causes ' or effects '. (T15) The charge of inconsistency appears inevitable. However, I shall argue that Hume escapes by implicitly operating with two distinct concepts of contrariety: one (which I shall term "logical contrariety") a relation of knowledge, the other (to be called "empirical contrariety") reducible to a peculiar type of causal relation, and therefore a probability relation. To adduce independent grounds for this claim I demonstrate that acceptance of these two concepts is essential if we are to explain why Hume finds 2 it important to place the following restriction on contra- 30. riety (hereafter, R): properly speaking no objects are contrary to each other, but existence an (y exists). And (4) can hardly be said to represent a form of contrariety between existent and non-existent objects. (Indeed paradox of material implication aside, (4) is an analysis of "x causes y".) Therefore to hold R and still maintain some sense of contrariety between existent and non-existent objects, Hume must restrict contrariety to logical contrariety. 32. Hume's own remarks bear out my claim. In the Treatise he recognizes that restricting contrariety to existence and non-existence means treating it as contradiction : the flattest of all contradictions... (is)... that 'tis possible for the same thing both to be and not to be. (T19, my emphasis.)... with contrariety... No one can once doubt but existence and non-existence destroy each other, and are perfectly incompatible and contrary. (T70) And in the Enquiries he interchanges the terms 'contrary' and 'negation' : The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible ; because it can never imply a contradiction... (EU25)... No negation of a fact can involve a contradiction. (EU164) This usage indicates that if? is (logically) contrary to q,? is -q, the negation of q. In this case the conjunction of? and q spells the contradiction (q & -q). The definition of logical contrariety we adopt is the same as the definition of contradiction specialized to existential sentences, so we need not state it. It is sufficient to give as a paradigm the following contradiction: (5)(Mars exists) & - (Mars exists). Here it is the existence of Mars that is logically contrary to the non-existence of Mars and therefore the contrariety restriction R is satisfied. Again it is only the existence and non-existence of the same object that is logically contrary. Empirical contrariety is most clearly defined in terms of the Lewis counterfactual G=>, where 1O' is a monadic predicate, 'e.' and 'e.' represent distinct arbitrary events, and "0(e)" means "event e occurs": 33. 5 Here it is not the existence and non-existence or occurrence (EC) e. is empirically contrary to e. iff 0(e.) D=> ~0(e.)." and non-occurrence of distinct events that gives rise to contrariety. Rather it is the existence or occurrence of one event that is empirically contrary to the existence or occurrence of another. To establish Hume's motivation for framing the condition R in such a way as to identify contrariety with contradiction, I now turn to examine the epistemological ground of the difference between empirical and logical contrariety. The ontological distinction between empirical... (shrink)

The ability to learn the direction of causal relations is critical for understanding and acting in the world. We investigated how children learn causal directionality in situations in which the states of variables are temporally dependent (i.e., autocorrelated). In Experiment 1, children learned about causal direction by comparing the states of one variable before versus after an intervention on another variable. In Experiment 2, children reliably inferred causal directionality merely from observing how two variables change over time; they interpreted Y (...) changing without a change in X as evidence that Y does not influence X. Both of these strategies make sense if one believes the variables to be temporally dependent. We discuss the implications of these results for interpreting previous findings. More broadly, given that many real-world environments are characterized by temporal dependency, these results suggest strategies that children may use to learn the causal structure of their environments. (shrink)

English deictic and existential there-constructions have been analyzed as constituting a single radial category of form—meaning pairings, related through motivated links, such as metaphor (Lakoff 1987). By comparison, existentials and deictic demonstratives in French make use of two distinct radial categories. The current study analyzes the varied senses of French deictic demonstratives (voilà ‘there is’ and voici ‘here is’) and the existential (il y a ‘there is’). We argue that the syntactic behavior of each of their senses is best explained (...) by the semantic and pragmatic function of that sense, in combination with constraints imposed by its relation to other senses. A cross-linguistic comparison of the deictic demonstrative and existential constructions in French and English supports this claim: despite the different historical origins of these forms in the two languages, they display a strikingly similar array of uses and formal constraints. The parallel evolution of deictics and existentials in these two languages is interpreted as a case of convergent evolution of linguistic items, much like convergent evolution in biological species. (shrink)

Peut-on penser l’accueil des migrants, le droit d’asile ou plus généralement l’immigration comme un devoir ou un droit d’hospitalité ? On comprend intuitivement qu’il y a un lien, mais on peine à voir pourquoi mobiliser une idée aussi datée et à la connotation plus religieuse que politique pourrait nous être utile. Cet article vise à comprendre le sens du retour manifeste à ce vocabulaire. Retour certes modeste, mais, nous le verrons, significatif. Car les apparitions historiques du concept d’hospitalité dans la (...) sphère publique ne sont jamais anodines. Puiser ainsi dans l’imaginaire moral de l’humanité, c’est chercher à résoudre un problème suffisamment grave pour que les concepts classiques de la politique nous semblent insuffisants. Ce problème, pour le dire brièvement, c’est celui d’une triple tension : tension entre l’ouverture et la fermeture des frontières, tension entre l’éthique et la politique de l’immigration, tension enfin entre l’accueil et l’intégration des étrangers. Or l’hospitalité a historiquement permis une articulation de ces tensions : elle offre une position relativement cohérente, où l’on rend possible l’ouverture contrôlée des frontières (par exemple, sous la forme de droit de passage), permise au nom d’une morale, généralement issue du droit naturel, mais limitée au seul accueil des étrangers – sous-entendu accueil temporaire, sans garantie de pouvoir rester, sauf à satisfaire aux critères potentiellement toujours plus exigeants de l’hôte, autrement dit un accueil sous forme d’une domination. Cette articulation ne va donc pas sans poser problème aujourd’hui. Il est alors important de comprendre comment l’hospitalité s’est constituée comme grammaire critique des lois répressives contre les migrants, tout en pointant les difficultés à raviver ses caractéristiques anti-modernes. (shrink)