“The Avoidance of Love” is Cavell’s magic looking glass onto Shakespeare, where the idea of missing something, not getting what is obvious, is, on Cavell’s reading, very close to a philosophical obsession. Shakespeare here means—besides Lear—Othello, Coriolanus, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale, and Antony and Cleopatra, and what Cavell finds in these plays is an attempt to think through what elsewhere, in the formation of the modern philosophical tradition, was getting formulated as the problem of skepticism, or not being able to (...) know that we know . It is not easy to say what this means. As if executing a skeptical decorum, Cavell’s writing does not try for transparency, nor does it always coincide with itself, and anyhow Shakespeare is not so much an object as a region of Cavell’s thinking, so everyday readers are apt to find themselves a bit at sea with him. Without claiming to match Cavell’s views point for point, I would like to give something like a para-Cavellian commentary that tries to say what his thinking, with respect to Shakespeare, seems to be getting at, and also where it leaves us.Gerald L. Bruns is William and Hazel White Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Notre Dame. His most recent book is Heidegger’s Estrangements: Language, Truth, and Poetry in the Later Writings. (shrink)

In this long-awaited book, Antony Duff offers a new perspective on the structures of criminal law and criminal liability. His starting point is a distinction between responsibility (understood as answerability) and liability, and a conception of responsibility as relational and practice-based. This focus on responsibility, as a matter of being answerable to those who have the standing to call one to account, throws new light on a range of questions in criminal law theory: on the question of criminalisation, which can (...) now be cast as the question of what we should have to answer for, and to whom, under the threat of criminal conviction and punishment; on questions about the criminal trial, as a process through which defendants are called to answer, and about the conditions (bars to trial) given which a trial would be illegitimate; on questions about the structure of offences, the distinction between offences and defences, and the phenomena of strict liability and strict responsibility; and on questions about the structures of criminal defences. The net result is not a theory of criminal law; but it is an account of the structure of criminal law as an institution through which a liberal polity defines a realm of public wrongdoing, and calls those who perpetrate (or are accused of perpetrating) such wrongs to account. (shrink)

How does one arrive at a life in politics and policy? What happens to one's ideals when confronted with the reality that the only way to get things done in Washington is compromise? Who are the men and women who help shape our national agenda, and what drives their work? Dispatches From the Eastern Front provides fascinating, intensely personal, yet universal answers to these central questions. Recounting four decades inside Washington politics, Gerald Felix Warburg brings remarkable candor to a most (...) unusual memoir. An idealistic California baby boomer transported to the intimidating world of Capitol Hill policymaking at a young age, Warburg finds himself working to reform nuclear energy, strategic arms control, and foreign policy. As his access and power grow, greater challenges loom: how to maintain principles while cutting deals, and how to balance public purpose with private interests. An eclectic career reveals the slow and often painful development of emotional intelligence for work at the highest reaches of the public arena. (shrink)

Shaʻar rishon. Hagut hilkhatit u-midrashit be-sifrut Ḥazal -- Shaʻar sheni. Haguto ha-hilkhatit shel ha-Rambam -- Shaʻar shelishi. Hagut ṿa-halakhah bi-yeme ha-benayim -- Shaʻar reviʻi. Hagut rabanit ba-ʻet ha-ḥadashah.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Concept of Neutrality Liberal Moral Neutrality Liberal Political Neutrality The Implications of Liberal Political Neutrality Notes.

In order to understand what we are talking about when we talk about joint attention, I will scrutinize how the mainstream view that builds on representational and intentionalist theories of mind is constituted. My aim is to show that much of the theory of joint attention is quite narrowly constructed and comes with tacit disciplinary biases that exclude much of what is existentially important in our practices of sharing our perceptions and guiding others to attend to the world in novel (...) ways. By using the frameworks of classical phenomenology and enactivist theories of mind, I aim to show how we, in our interactions, share our perceptions even with beings that are distinctly different from us. And, that this _difference_ in our personal worldview, our cognitive capacities, and our sensory modalities should be seen as a constitutive aspect of our practices of shared attention. I will articulate attention as a revelatory practice that aids us in discovering a shared world through the plurality, rather than similarity, of our perceptual actions. Attention is, in this sense, not solely driven by subjective intentions; it is also formed and co-constituted by my being addressed by the other. (shrink)

The question "What can justify criminal punishment ?" becomes especially insistent at times, like our own, of penal crisis, when serious doubts are raised not only about the justice or efficacy of particular modes of punishment, but about the very legitimacy of the whole penal system. Recent theorizing about punishment offers a variety of answers to that question-answers that try to make plausible sense of the idea that punishment is justified as being deserved for past crimes; answers that try to (...) identify some beneficial consequences in terms of which punishment might be justified; as well as abolitionist answers telling us that we should seek to abolish, rather than to justify, criminal punishment. This book begins with a critical survey of recent trends in penal theory, but goes on to develop an original account (based on Duff's earlier Trials and Punishments) of criminal punishment as a mode of moral communication, aimed at inducing repentance, reform, and reconciliation through reparation-an account that undercuts the traditional controversies between consequentialist and retributivist penal theories, and that shows how abolitionist concerns can properly be met by a system of communicative punishments. In developing this account, Duff articulates the "liberal communitarian" conception of political society (and of the role of the criminal law) on which it depends; he discusses the meaning and role of different modes of punishment, showing how they can constitute appropriate modes of moral communication between political community and its citizens; and he identifies the essential preconditions for the justice of punishment as thus conceived-preconditions whose non-satisfaction makes our own system of criminal punishment morally problematic. Punishment, Communication, and Community offers no easy answers, but provides a rich and ambitious ideal of what criminal punishment could be-an ideal of what criminal punishment cold be-and ideal that challenges existing penal theories as well as our existing penal theories as well as our existing penal practices. (shrink)

A Nobel Prize-winning scientist and a leading brain researcher show how the brain creates conscious experience.

The present article commences analyzing the origins and influences of the religious discourse on the configuration of the modern constitutional discourse and the contributions of the jus-positivism in the consolidation of this sacred-civil language. The second issue is the definition of the U.S. Constitution as a mixed and not as a democratic constitution, with regard to the influences of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero and Polybius to the Drafters of the first modern constitutional text; stability and equilibrium took preference over democracy in (...) a wide sense. I also analyze how the Drafter’s decision has conditioned the modern constitutional system up to the present. (shrink)

In this book G. A. Cohen examines the libertarian principle of self-ownership, which says that each person belongs to himself and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else. This principle is used to defend capitalist inequality, which is said to reflect each person's freedom to do as as he wishes with himself. The author argues that self-ownership cannot deliver the freedom it promises to secure, thereby undermining the idea that lovers of freedom should embrace capitalism and the inequality (...) that comes with it. He goes on to show that the standard Marxist condemnation of exploitation implies an endorsement of self-ownership, since, in the Marxist conception, the employer steals from the worker what should belong to her, because she produced it. Thereby a deeply inegalitarian notion has penetrated what is in aspiration an egalitarian theory. Purging that notion from socialist thought, he argues, enables construction of a more consistent egalitarianism. (shrink)

In this innovative and important work, Gerald Gaus advances a revised and more realistic account of public reason liberalism, showing how, in the midst of fundamental disagreement about values and moral beliefs, we can achieve a moral and political order that treats all as free and equal moral persons. The first part of this work analyzes social morality as a system of authoritative moral rules. Drawing on an earlier generation of moral philosophers such as Kurt Baier and Peter Strawson as (...) well as current work in the social sciences, Gaus argues that our social morality is an evolved social fact, which is the necessary foundation of a mutually beneficial social order. The second part considers how this system of social moral authority can be justified to all moral persons. Drawing on the tools of game theory, social choice theory, experimental psychology and evolutionary theory, Gaus shows how a free society can secure a moral equilibrium that is endorsed by all, and how a just state respects, and develops, such an equilibrium. (shrink)

In ”Embodiment and Epistemology,” Louise Antony considers a kind of ”Cartesian epistemology” according to which, so far as knowing goes, knowers could be completely disembodied, that is, pure Cartesian egos. Antony examines a number of recent challenges to Cartesian epistemology, particularly challenges from feminist epistemology. She contends that we might have good reason to think that theorizing about knowledge can be influenced by features of our embodiment, even if we lack reason to suppose that knowing itself varies relative to such (...) features. She also argues that a masculinist bias can result in mishandling of cognitive differences in cases where they actually exist and she examines a number of the ways in which the maleness of philosophy has, according to feminists, distorted epistemology. Even if a Cartesian approach offers one indispensable part of a comprehensive epistemology, according to Antony, we still need an epistemology that answers questions raised by our everyday, embodied lives. (shrink)

This contemporary, comprehensive, and practical text helps you discover and determine your own guidelines for helping within the broad limits of professional codes of ethics and divergent theoretical positions. This text is the relied-upon, essential text for students in any helping field-the book many students return to well into their professional careers. The authors raise what they consider to be central issues, present a range of diverse views on the issues, discuss their position, and present opportunities for you to refine (...) your own thinking and actively develop your own informed position. Questions explored include: What role do the therapist's personal values play in the counseling relationship? What ethical responsibilities and rights do clients and therapists have? What considerations are involved in adapting counseling practice to diverse client populations? And more... (shrink)

A complete history of Islamic political thought from early Islam to the present Now in its 2nd edition, this textbook describes and interprets all schools of Islamic political thought, their origins, inter-connections and meaning. It examines the Qur'an, the early Caliphate, classical Islamic philosophy and the political culture of the Ottoman and other empires. It covers major thinkers such as Averroes and Ibn Taymiyya as well as a number of lesser authors, and Ibn Khaldun is presented as one of the (...) most original political theorists ever. It draws on a wide range of sources including writings on religion, law, philosophy and statecraft expressed in treatises, handbooks and political rhetoric. The new edition analyses the connections between religion and politics, covering the most recent developments in Islamic political thought and the most recent historical scholarship. It ends with a critical survey of reformism and Islamism from the late-19th century up to the present day. (shrink)

Is socialism desirable? Is it even possible? In this concise book, one of the world's leading political philosophers presents with clarity and wit a compelling moral case for socialism and argues that the obstacles in its way are exaggerated. There are times, G. A. Cohen notes, when we all behave like socialists. On a camping trip, for example, campers wouldn't dream of charging each other to use a soccer ball or for fish that they happened to catch. Campers do not (...) give merely to get, but relate to each other in a spirit of equality and community. Would such socialist norms be desirable across society as a whole? Why not? Whole societies may differ from camping trips, but it is still attractive when people treat each other with the equal regard that such trips exhibit. But, however desirable it may be, many claim that socialism is impossible. Cohen writes that the biggest obstacle to socialism isn't, as often argued, intractable human selfishness--it's rather the lack of obvious means to harness the human generosity that is there. Lacking those means, we rely on the market. But there are many ways of confining the sway of the market: there are desirable changes that can move us toward a socialist society in which, to quote Albert Einstein, humanity has "overcome and advanced beyond the predatory stage of human development.". (shrink)

Bruns lucidly depicts the distinctions and convergences between these two lines of thought by examining the works of Mallarme, Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett, and ...

Whether one's interests lie in psychological practice, counseling, research, or the classroom, psychologists today must deal with a broad range of ethical issues--from charging fees to maintaining a client's confidentiality, and from conducting research to respecting clients, colleagues, and students. Now in a new edition, Ethics in Psychology, the most widely read and cited ethics textbook in psychology, considers many of the ethical questions and dilemmas that psychologists encounter in their everyday practice, research, and teaching. The book has been completely (...) updated in response to evolving trends in psychological research and practice, as well as extensive changes in the American Psychological Association's ethics code. Taking a practical, common sense approach to ethics in modern-day psychological practice, this useful book offers constructive means for both preventing problems and resolving ethical predicaments. This new edition retains the key features which have contributed to its popularity, including extensive case studies that provide illustrative guidance on a wide variety of topics, such as fee setting, advertising for clients, research ethics, sexual attraction, classroom ethics, managed care issues, confidentiality, and much more. Highly readable, the book unites an accessible style with humorous anecdotes that highlight the human side of ethics and make the book a pleasure to read. Ethics in Psychology will be an indispensable guide to ethical decision-making for all psychologists and students in psychology. (shrink)

Using firsthand accounts gleaned from notebooks, interviews, and correspondence of such twentieth-century scientists as Einstein, Fermi, and Millikan, Holton shows how the idea of the scientific imagination has practical implications for the history and philosophy of science and the larger understanding of the place of science in our culture.

Emotion regulation choices are known to be profoundly consequential across affective, cognitive, and social domains. Prior studies have identified two important external factors of emotion regulati...

Psychologists today must deal with a broad range of ethical issues--from charging fees to maintaining a client's confidentiality, and from conducting research to respecting clients, colleagues, and students. As the field of psychology has grown in size and scope, the role of ethics has become more important and complex whether the psychologist is involved in teaching, counseling, research, or practice. Now this most widely read and cited ethics text in psychology has been revised to reflect the ethics questions and dilemmas (...) that psychologists encounter in their everyday work. Ethics in Psychology has been completely updated in response to evolving trends in psychological research and practice, as well as extensive changes in the American Psychological Association's ethics code. Gerald P. Koocher and Patricia Keith-Spiegel take a practical, commonsense approach to ethics in modern-day psychological practice, and offer constructive suggestions for both preventing problems and resolving ethical predicaments. In this book, their main intent is to present the full range of contemporary ethical issues in psychology as not only relevant and intriguing, but also as integral and unavoidable aspects of the profession. The authors make extensive use of actual case studies in order to illustrate how the APA guidelines apply to specific situations, such as fee setting, advertising for clients, research ethics, sexual attraction, classroom ethics, managed care issues, confidentiality, and much more. The most recent ethics code of the American Psychological Association (1992) is used here only as a starting point. The authors go well beyond the APA code and incorporate the input of many experts. In addition to the analysis of a wide variety of general situations, new problematic areas are identified and explored. The book includes two appendixes - Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, adopted by American Psychological Association, Rules and Procedures of the Ethics Committee of the American Psychological Association - both in an easy-to-use format. In addition, each chapter lists summary guidelines along with current and valuable references. Highly readable, the book unites a straightforward, lively writing style with humorous anecdotes that highlight the human side of ethics and make the book a pleasure to read. Ethics in Psychology will be an indispensable guide to ethical decision-making for all psychologists and students in psychology. (shrink)

What kind of thing is a reason for action? Are reasons for action subjective states of the agent, such as desires and/or beliefs? Or are they, rather, objective features of situations that favor certain actions? The suggestion offered in this article is that neither strategy satisfies. What is needed is a third category for classifying reasons which makes them out to be neither purely subjective nor purely objective. In brief: a reason for action is a feature of the situation that (...) matters to the agent. On this proposal, subjective states of the agent are indeed indispensable in characterizing reasons for action. Precisely which set of situational features matter to an agent—precisely what shape the agent experiences the situation as having—depends on the agent's psychological makeup. Those features themselves are not psychological states, however, and it is precisely those features that constitute the agent's reasons for action. (shrink)

Gender dysphoria is a persistent distress about one’s assigned gender. Referrals regarding gender dysphoria have recently greatly increased, often of a form that is rapid in onset. The sex ratio ha...

Many researchers believe the tremendous industrial development over the past two centuries is unsustainable because it has led to unintended ecological deterioration. Despite the ever-growing attention sustainable supply-chain management has received, most SSCM research and models look at the consequences, rather than the antecedents or motives of such responsible practices. The few studies that explore corporate motives have remained largely qualitative, and large-scale empirical analyses are scarce. Drawing on multiple theories and combining supply-chain and business ethics literature, we purport that (...) instrumental, relational, and moral motives are behind a firm’s engagement in SSCM practices. Specifically, we examine the links between corporate motives, SSCM practices, and firm performance. Using a sample of 259 supply-chain firms in Germany, we empirically test five hypothesized relationships. Our results reveal that relational and moral motives are key drivers, and that firms exhibiting high levels of moral obligations tend to outperform those primarily driven by amoral considerations. Findings of this study contribute to multiple literatures espousing sustainability management and can help policy makers, stakeholder groups, and scholars develop more robust strategies for encouraging firms to practice SSCM. (shrink)

This study proposes that Neoplatonism, while not a modern philosophy, is philosophy in the modern sense. Lloyd analyzes the key structures that underlie the dogmas of the Neoplatonic world picture, including the concept of emanation, the return of the soul to the One, the place of mystical knowledge, epistemology, and Porphyry's theory of predication, and shows that they rest on original but intelligible concepts and arguments.

The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy is a comprehensive, definitive reference work, providing an up-to-date survey of the field, charting its history and key figures and movements, and addressing enduring questions as ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response 2: “Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will”Antonis BalasopoulosLet me begin with a few words on my title, which was chosen as reflecting the nature of the orientation of my work in the field of utopian studies and therefore also of my orientation toward the theme of this roundtable. As Francesca Antonini puts it in a recent essay, the phrase, which became associated with the work of (...) Antonio Gramsci though it originates in Romain Rolland, describes “the (seemingly contradictory) coexistence of a realistic description of the status quo, on the one hand, and a genuine commitment to the possibility of transforming reality, on the other.”1Anyone who has read Thomas More’s Utopia knows that Rolland’s and Gramsci’s formula very much describes that book’s bifurcation between a voice of relentless critique of what exists in Europe—and particularly in England—in More’s time (in Book 1) and a voice preoccupied with the description of an alternative, and arguably better, world (in Book 2). This bifurcation, it is equally well known, is part of the genetic material More’s book bequeathed to its successors, so that one calls a “utopia” a (mostly, though not always) literary text, where the “realistic description of the status quo” coexists with a vision arising out of a “commitment to the possibility of transforming reality”—admittedly in different admixtures and proportions of [End Page 544] the critical or negative and the anticipatory, projective or prefigurative elements. Though Ernst Bloch’s distinction between “cold” and warm” streams within Marxism is not identical to this first binary, it is certainly related to it, so that the “cold” stream is one that privileges the rational and analytical element (usually, I would propose, in relation to the part of the Marxist tradition we know as “critique of political economy”), while the “warm stream” is one that rather foregrounds that which relates to affect, to desire, hope, or fidelity to the transformative project (these are frequently correlated to those elements of Marxism that correspond to its also being a political and philosophically imbued creed).2 What follows here, then, explores the implications of the dialectical interplay between these two sets of oppositions—and hopefully justifies such insistence on dialectic itself.3To the extent that I can see, the basic themes and areas of concentration in my colleagues’ essays involve decolonizing utopian studies as a project; addressing, in that connection, the heterogeneity of utopianisms that emerge out of a number of marginalized subjectivities; the provenance of the questions of ecology, sustainability, animal life for the present and future of utopian studies (and to some degree, for utopianism’s past); and finally, the question of utopian forms of social activism and therefore also the search for spaces beyond the walls of academic insularity. These are important and largely interconnected questions, but I am afraid I will only have the space to touch on them briefly and sketchily here.In her cogent and multifaceted intervention, Caroline Edwards begins her reflections on the task of decolonizing utopian studies by noting the high investment of fin-de-siècle utopian fiction in notions of industrial progress, noting that such notions have involved “lasting damage” for “Black writers, artists, and thinkers.” Within this framework, she evokes Joseph R. Winters’s argument that “modern notions of progress and freedom are inherently flawed,” since they are founded on the oppressive traditions of capitalism and colonialism. In turn, this leads to an argument against the teleological futurism of most nineteenth-century utopias and in support of the deconstruction of “the idea of historical progress unfolding in Hegelian dialectical stages.” What is to replace this is a hauntological (after Derrida) conception of the relation between the present and the past, for which “the present is always a site of potential breaks and ruptures that can signify both dislocation and pain as well as novelty and possibility.” In a similar vein, Heather Alberro questions the teleological futurism of an earlier tradition of utopia, evoking Laurence Davis’s observation on the importance of [End Page 545] “neglected or suppressed possibilities for qualitatively better forms of life” within the “Now.” The desideratum is, again... (shrink)

The current legal status and medical ethics of routine or religious penile circumcision of minors is a matter of ongoing controversy in many countries. We focus on the United Kingdom as an illustrative example, giving a detailed analysis of the most recent British Medical Association guidance from 2019. We argue that the guidance paints a confused and conflicting portrait of the law and ethics of the procedure in the UK context, reflecting deeper, unresolved moral and legal tensions surrounding child genital (...) cutting practices more generally. Of particular note is a lack of clarity around how to apply the “best interests” standard—ordinarily associated with time-sensitive proxy decision making regarding therapeutic options for a medically unwell patient—to a parental request for a medically unnecessary surgery to be carried out on the genitalia of a healthy child. Challenges arise in measuring and assigning weights to intended sociocultural or religious/spiritual benefits, and even to health-related prophylactic benefits, and in balancing these against potential physical, functional, and psychosexual risks or harms. Also of concern are apparently inconsistent safeguarding standards being applied to children based on their birth sex categorization or gender of rearing. We identify and discuss recent trends in British and international medical ethics and law, finding gradual movement toward a more unified standard for evaluating the permissibility of surgically modifying healthy children's genitals before they can meaningfully participate in the decision. (shrink)

This paper defends an account of forgiveness that is sensitive to recent work on anger. Like others, we claim anger involves an appraisal, namely that someone has done something wrong. But, we add, anger has two further functions. First, anger communicates to the wrongdoer that her act has been appraised as wrong and demands she feel guilty. This function enables us to explain why apologies make it reasonable to forgo anger and forgive. Second, anger sanctions the wrongdoer for what she (...) has done. This function allows us to explore the moral status of forgiveness, including why forgiveness is typically elective. (shrink)

This paper states that modern education and utopian discourse share one common trait, that of being structurally founded on the promise of human betterment. The changing relations between concepts of education and utopianism will be developed through conceptual analysis of the dynamics of the promise in their interweaving process. This shall be discussed through three main topics. The first is the appropriation of space in early modern education, with particular emphasis on the influence of print technology on framing a new (...) conception of educational spaces and practices. Second, the promise of the idea of progress in the Enlightenment period, which will become the further technological promise of a society-to-come, no longer spatially but temporally presented. Finally, the promise of autonomy through and against the modern subject, in which such autonomy is presented like the end of the journey through education, supposed that there is an end to such a journey. The key f... (shrink)

This is the second of three volumes of posthumously collected writings of G. A. Cohen, who was one of the leading, and most progressive, figures in contemporary political philosophy. This volume brings together some of Cohen's most personal philosophical and nonphilosophical essays, many of them previously unpublished. Rich in first-person narration, insight, and humor, these pieces vividly demonstrate why Thomas Nagel described Cohen as a "wonderful raconteur." The nonphilosophical highlight of the book is Cohen's remarkable account of his first trip (...) to India, which includes unforgettable vignettes of encounters with strangers and reflections on poverty and begging. Other biographical pieces include his valedictory lecture at Oxford, in which he describes his philosophical development and offers his impressions of other philosophers, and "Isaiah's Marx, and Mine," a tribute to his mentor Isaiah Berlin. Other essays address such topics as the truth in "small-c conservatism," who can and can't condemn terrorists, and the essence of bullshit. A recurring theme is finding completion in relation to the world of other human beings. Engaging, perceptive, and empathetic, these writings reveal a more personal side of one of the most influential philosophers of our time. (shrink)