This book offers a stimulating new approach to studying social and political theory. It combines specially selected extracts from the political classics with original and insightful essays offering a commentary upon them. The reader is drawn into a dialogue with the Western political tradition’s principal thinkers, whose ideas provide a common currency in which to debate the problems facing modern societies. Each of the twelve chapters combines extracts from two (or in one case three) political philosophers on a key political (...) concept with a commentary essay. Each chapter does more than just introduce the reader to the classics; it also explains, via the commentary essay, the key concepts of political debate, and the historical contexts which led the thinkers to their different understandings of the nature of society. (shrink)

The relationship between Marxism and ecology has been sullied by Martinez-Alier's influential interpretation of Engels's reaction to the agricultural energetics of Sergei Podolinsky. This introduction to the first English translation of Podolinsky's 1883 Die Neue Zeit piece evaluates Martinez-Alier's interpretation in light of the four distinct but closely related articles Podolinsky published over the years 1880–3. This evaluation also emphasises the important but previously underrated role of energy analysis in Marx's Capital. Engels's criticisms of Podolinsky are found to be quite (...) justified from both political-economy and ecological perspectives. From the standpoint of Marx and Engels's metabolic and class-relational approach to production, Podolinsky's attempt to reduce use-value to energy is fraught with problems. Podolinsky's energy reductionism does not even come close to representing an alternative value analysis – let alone a groundbreaking perspective on ecological history – as was suggested by Martinez-Alier. Far from Marx and Engels's vision of communism as an ecologically sustainable and coevolutionary human development, Podolinsky's conception of human labor as an energy accumulation machine seems to uncritically mimic the standpoint of the capitalist interested in using nature only to extract as much energy throughput as possible from the labour-power of the worker. (shrink)

Theorists about love typically downplay the scale of persistent and possibly intractable disagreement about love. Where they have considered such disagreements at all, they have tended to treat them as an example of the lack of clarity surrounding the concept of love, a problem which can be resolved by philosophical analysis. In doing so, they invariably slip into prescriptive mode and offer moral injunctions in the guise of conceptual analyses.This article argues for philosophical modesty. I propose that the starting point (...) of any coherent philosophical investigation of love must be a willingness to take our disagreements seriously. These disagreements stem from profound moral differences: we disagree about love inasmuch as we disagree about how we should properly treat one another.With a series of examples drawn from philosophy, literature and real life I attempt to illustrate some of the disagreements that arise in relation to erotic love. Drawing upon the work of Wittgenstein, Friedrich Waissman and W.B. Gallie, I suggest that any robust theory of love needs to take account of its contestable nature and the integral role it plays in our moral life. (shrink)

Die aus dem Alltag bekannte Charaktereigenschaft stellt die Handlungstheorie und Moralphilosophie seit der Antike an vor zahlreiche Rätsel. Von verschiedener Seite wurde bezweifelt, dass eine kohärente Konzeption von Willensschwäche, die sowohl dem alltäglichen Begriff als auch reflektierten handlungstheoretischen wie moralphilosophischen Grundsätzen gerecht wird, überhaupt möglich ist. Dabei taucht das Phänomen in unterschiedlicher Gestalt in verschiedenen Wissenschaften auf: als Problem irrationaler Weisen der Diskontierung (Ökonomie), als mangelnde motivationale Kraft (Psychologie) und schließlich in seiner Reinform als Handeln wider das eigene, bessere Urteil (...) (Philosophie). Hauptsächliches Ziel dieser systematischen Untersuchung ist daher die Entwicklung einer solchen kohärenten Konzeption von Willensschwäche sowie ein besseres Verständnis derselben hinsichtlich grundlegender Theorien des Handelns und Urteilens von Personen. (shrink)

Contributing to the naturalistic virtue ethics tradition, Natural Citizens applies recent work in the life sciences to develop a form of ethical naturalism that aspires to be non-reductive yet empirically responsible.

Shame is a ubiquitous and highly intriguing feature of human experience. It can motivate but it can also paralyse. It is something which one can legitimately demand of another, but is not usually experienced as a choice. Perpetrators of atrocities can remain defiantly immune to shame while their victims are racked by it. It would be hard to understand any society or culture without understanding the characteristic occasions upon which shame is expected and where it is mitigated. Yet, one can (...) survey much of the literature in social and political theory over the last century and find barely a footnote to this omnipresent emotional experience. The two books under review aim to rectify this lacuna. (shrink)

Written across the disciplines of art history, literature, philosophy, sociology, and theology, the ten essays comprising the collection all insist on multidimensional definitions of evil. Taking its title from a moment in Shakespeare's Tempest when Prospero acknowledges his responsibility for Caliban, this collection explores the necessarily ambivalent relationship between humanity and evil. To what extent are a given society's definitions of evil self-serving? Which figures are marginalized in the process of identifying evil? How is humanity itself implicated in the production (...) of evil? Is evil itself something fundamentally human? These questions, indicative of the kinds of issues raised in this collection, seem all the more pressing in light of recent world events. The ten essays were originally presented at the First Global Conference on Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness, held in March 2000 in Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Of Jerks and “Nice” Guys Gurus of The Game Aristotle: My Wingman After The Game.

In this paper, I consider and question an influential position in Anglo-American philosophy of action which suggests that reasons for action must be internal, in other words that statements about reasons for actions must make reference to some fact or set of facts about the agent and her desires. I do so by asking whether legal requirements could be considered as reasons for actions and if in so considering them one must translate statements about legal requirements into statements about the (...) psychological state of the agent fulfilling those requirements. Since such a process of translation seems neither necessary nor desirable, I suggest that the crudest forms of the internalist position are found wanting. I discuss a more sophisticated form of internalism put forward by Bernard Williams and criticised by John McDowell. I extend McDowells argument to cover legal reasons and suggest that Williams argument fails to recognise that reasons for action entail standards of correctness that are irreducible to facts about individual character and motivation. I conclude with a brief description of the justificatory status of legal requirements. (shrink)

In Liberalism and Pluralism, Richard Bellamy explores the challenges posed by conflicting values, interests and identities to liberal democracy. Conventional liberal thought is no longer suited to the complex, plural societies of today. By analyzing the three major strands of liberal thought as represented by Hayek, Rawls and Walzer, the author reveals how standard liberalism has tried to circumvent unstable settlements. This book establishes a more satisfactory alternative: namely, negotiated compromise.

The debate on the nature of the European Union hasbecome a test case of the kind of political andinstitutional arrangements appropriate in an age ofglobalization. This paper explores three views of theEU. The two main positions that have hithertoconfronted each other appeal to either cosmopolitan orcommunitarian values. Advocates of the former arguefor some form of federal structure in Europe and areconvinced that the sovereignty of the nation statebelongs to the past. Proponents of the latter make acase on both socio-political and (...) normative grounds fora Europe of nations. However a third position,favoured by the authors, is gaining ground. This viewcombines cosmopolitan and communitarian conceptions.It emphasises the mixed nature of the European polityand conceives the constitutionalization process asopen-ended. The paper concludes that from this perspectivea bricoleur's Europe of ‘bits and pieces’may not necessarily lack justification and legitimacy. (shrink)

Judicial review by constitutional courts is often presented as a necessary supplement to democracy. This book questions its effectiveness and legitimacy. Drawing on the republican tradition, Richard Bellamy argues that the democratic mechanisms of open elections between competing parties and decision-making by majority rule offer superior and sufficient methods for upholding rights and the rule of law. The absence of popular accountability renders judicial review a form of arbitrary rule which lacks the incentive structure democracy provides to ensure (...) rulers treat the ruled with equal concern and respect. Rights based judicial review undermines the constitutionality of democracy. Its counter-majoritarian bias promotes privileged against unprivileged minorities, while its legalism and focus on individual cases distort public debate. Rather than constraining democracy with written constitutions and greater judicial oversight, attention should be paid to improving democratic processes through such measures as reformed electoral systems and enhanced parliamentary scrutiny. (shrink)

In recent years there has been substantial support for heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) as a treatment for a variety of disorders and for performance enhancement ( Gevirtz, 2013 ). Since conditions as widely varied as asthma and depression seem to respond to this form of cardiorespiratory feedback training, the issue of possible mechanisms becomes more salient. The most supported possible mechanism is the strengthening of homeostasis in the baroreceptor ( Vaschillo et al., 2002 ; Lehrer et al., 2003 ). (...) Recently, the effect on the vagal afferent pathway to the frontal cortical areas has been proposed. In this article, we review these and other possible mechanisms that might explain the positive effects of HRVB. (shrink)

This article explores the different moral and legal arguments used by protagonists in the debate about whether or not to conduct a humanitarian intervention in Darfur. The first section briefly outlines four moral and legal positions on whether there is (and should be) a right and/or duty of humanitarian intervention: communitarianism, restrictionist and counter-restrictionist legal positivism and liberal cosmopolitanism. The second section then provides an overview of the Security Council's debate about responding to Darfur's crisis, showing how its policy was (...) influenced by both normative concerns and hard-nosed political calculations. The article concludes by asking what Darfur's case reveals about the legitimacy and likelihood of humanitarian intervention in such catastrophes and the role of the UN Security Council as the primary authorising body for the use of international force. The authors argue that this case demonstrates that for the cosmopolitan/counter-restrictionist case to prevail pivotal states need to put humanitarian emergencies on the global agenda and express a willingness to act without Council authorisation, though the question of how to proceed in cases where the Council is deadlocked remains vexed. (shrink)

The editors of this unique volume have brought together 24 leading emotion theorists with a wide variety of perspectives to address 12 fundamental questions about the subject.

Can liberal ideals clean up dirty politicians or politics? This article doubts they can. It disputes that a ‘clean’ liberal person might inhabit the dirty clothes of the real politician, or that a clean depoliticized liberal constitution can constrain real-world dirty politics. Nevertheless, the need for a democratic prince to wear clean liberal gloves offers a necessary and effective political restraint. It also means that citizens share the hypocrisy and dirt of those who serve them — for we legitimize the (...) dirtiness of politics by requiring politicians to seem cleaner than we know they ever can be in reality. (shrink)

This article defends state sovereignty as necessary for a form of popular sovereignty capable of realising the republican value of non-domination and argues it remains achievable and normatively warranted in an interconnected world. Many scholars, including certain republicans, contend that the external sovereignty of states can no longer be maintained or justified in such circumstances. Consequently, we must abandon the sovereignty of states and reconceive popular sovereignty on a different basis. Some argue sovereignty must be displaced upwards to a more (...) global state, while others advocate it be vertically and horizontally dispersed to units below, across and above the state. Each group offers a related vision of the European Union to illustrate their proposals. Both these arguments are criticised as more likely to produce than reduce domination because neither can sustain a form of popular sovereignty capable of instantiating relations of non-domination. This article proposes the alternative of a republican association of sovereign states that allows sovereign states and their peoples to mutually regulate their external sovereignty in non-dominating ways. This alternative proposal provides a more plausible and defensible means for sustaining the requisite kind of popular sovereignty in contemporary conditions and a more appropriate vision of the European Union. (shrink)

This chapter examines the role of law and rights for democracy in the context of republicanism. It considers the neo-republican defense of judicial review and its attempt to secure individual rights, along with the ‘adjudication’ of political and social conflicts in courts, civic equality and the political struggle among citizens as an essential component of republican democracy. It highlights the link between the very nature of a rights claim and a democratic process that ensures political equality and relates this democratic (...) argument for rights to the republican notion of liberty as nondomination. The chapter also discusses liberalism, rights and freedom as non-interference and concludes by arguing that the association of rights and democracy must be actualised within a real democratic process characterised by one person one vote, majority rule and regular elections between rival political parties. (shrink)

In this chapter, we analyze the relationships between the Internet and its users in terms of situated cognition theory. We first argue that the Internet is a new kind of cognitive ecology, providing almost constant access to a vast amount of digital information that is increasingly more integrated into our cognitive routines. We then briefly introduce situated cognition theory and its species of embedded, embodied, extended, distributed and collective cognition. Having thus set the stage, we begin by taking an embedded (...) cognition view and analyze how the Internet aids certain cognitive tasks. After that, we conceptualize how the Internet enables new kinds of embodied interaction, extends certain aspects of our embodiment, and examine how wearable technologies that monitor physiological, behavioral and contextual states transform the embodied self. On the basis of the degree of cognitive integration between a user and Internet resource, we then look at how and when the Internet extends our cognitive processes. We end this chapter with a discussion of distributed and collective cognition as facilitated by the Internet. (shrink)

Leader and Garzón Valdés are correct to link toleration to democracy rather than liberalism. However, it is the democratic character of society and the process of democratic decision‐making that give rise to a genuine practice of tolerance, not an abstract and regulative ideal of democracy, such as they appeal to. Whereas the latter approach collapses into the standard liberal accounts of toleration both rightly find wanting, the former fits with a republican notion of deliberative democracy. This perspective corresponds to the (...) circumstances of toleration and promotes tolerance as a virtue that is intrinsic both to the nature of democratic debate and to the securing of uncoerced agreement amongst people possessing different beliefs and values. As such, it proves more compatible with pluralism, and hence with toleration, than liberalism. (shrink)

This major work of academic reference provides a comprehensive overview of the development of political thought from the late nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century. Written by a distinguished team of international contributors, this Cambridge History, first published in 2003, covers the rise of the welfare state and subsequent reactions to it, the fascist and communist critiques of and attempted alternatives to liberal democracy, the novel forms of political organisation occasioned by the rise of a mass electorate and (...) new social movements, the various intellectual traditions from positivism to post-modernism that have shaped the study of politics, the interaction between western and non-western traditions of political thought, and the challenge posed to the state by globalisation. Every major theme in twentieth-century political thought is covered in a series of chapters at once scholarly and accessible, of interest and relevance to students and scholars of politics at all levels from beginning undergraduate upwards. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher of the later Renaissance whose writings encompassed the ongoing traditions, intentions, and achievements of his times and transmitted them into early modernity. Taking up the medieval practice of the art of memory and of formal logic, he focused on the creativity of the human mind. Bruno … Continue reading Giordano Bruno →.

Endurantists have recently faced a mereological puzzle in various forms. Here I argue that, instead of presenting a genuine worry, the puzzle actually reveals a common misunderstanding about the endurantist ontology. Furthermore, through this discussion of the alleged problem and the misunderstanding which motivates it, I reveal metaphysical commitments the endurantist has that may not be widely recognized. For instance, she is committed to interesting and perhaps controversial views about shape and location. I highlight these commitments and what they mean (...) for the endurantist. (shrink)