Philosophy of science and the sciences are related in an arbitrary and noncommital way. This has problematic consequences in terms of the disciplinary autonomy of the sciences, as shown in the example of the science of education. A new determination and definition of the relation between science and the philosophy of science demands, on the one hand, a greater willingness towards metatheoretical reflection and critique of the part of the individual sciences and, on the other hand, a reorientation within the (...) philosophy of science towards performing „service functions“ with regard to the metatheoretical selfdefinitions of the sciences. This can be achieved by a constructivist, pragmatic and historical theory of knowledge and science. A central factor in a changed relationship between science and the philosophy of science is the scientific discipline's determination of its field of enquiry. This is seen to be an integral part of the process of establishing a discipline as a science. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationships that Derrida establishes between three analytic discussions and three autoimmunities. The analytic discussions are (1) the antinomy of hospitality, related to what happens when the subject faces demands from strangers; (2) the antinomy of the death penalty, related to the meeting between the right to life and the right to end the life of another; (3) the antinomy of animality related to laws and what lies beyond them. The autoimmunities are (1) the autoimmunity of (...) inclusion: democracy is open only to its sovereign citizens while it claims to welcome all who are excluded; (2) the autoimmunity of rights and liberties: in liberal democracy, rights and liberties are meant to challenge sovereignty’s absolutism, but any attack on sovereignty is an attack on rights and liberties; (3) the autoimmunity of globalization: for democracy to work it requires protection provided by a supersovereignty, which limits the sovereignty of states, and hence, democracy. The paper follows Derrida’s connections between the questions of hospitality, the death penalty, and animality on the one hand, and the autoimmune aspects of democratic politics on the other, to argue that his deconstruction of democracy is an ethicization of democracy activated by the concept of sovereignty, and a deconstruction of sovereignty via ethics. (shrink)

This book is about the postructural Franco-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. This book covers Jewish ethics in the twentieth century and also cultural philosophy.

Infamously, Rawls assumed a democratic society to be “a complete and closed social system,” in that “entry into it is only by birth and exit from it is only by death.” Since the beginning of the present millennium, however, debates about the ethical issues related to immigration have been prominent. In this context, these methodological departure points seem long outdated, if not simply biased. This paper will rework Rawls’s theory of migration for application to the case of provisional immigrants by (...) reworking its theoretical underpinnings. I will argue that once his assumptions are adjusted, Rawlsian notions of ‘stability’ in conjunction with his idea of a ‘society understood as a fair system of cooperation’ justify inclusive membership regimes. In other words, Rawlsian domestic justice requires inclusive membership regimes for provisional immigrants. (shrink)

_Contemporary discussions of self and consciousness have for some time incorporated Hindu-Buddhist dialogue on the existence and nature of self (Ram-Prasad 2012). The ideal of responsibly_ _incorporating this dialogue raises an interpretive dilemma: on the one hand, we should eschew the simplistic picture of a “sterile contest” in which all Hindu schools are committed to the doctrine of the self (ātmavāda) and all Buddhists are invariantly committed to denying its existence (2012: 3). To treat Hindu ātmavādins as monolithically opposed to (...) Buddhist no-self theorists without attending to disagreements within the two camps would be to woefully underrepresent the complexity of the terrain at hand. Yet, we should not forget that what we are dealing with is still a structured debate of some sort. I propose that two Jaina “disambiguation strategies” (Balcerowicz 2017)—the theory of viewpoints (naya-vāda) and the theory of sevenfold predication (syād-vāda), also called the sevenfold formula (__sapta-bha__ṅ__g__ī__)—can together facilitate a re-imaginative reconstruction of Hindu-Buddhist dialogue on the self as something other than a two-sided battle or an arbitrary cluster of views. Following superimposition of the __sapta-bha__ṅ__g__ī__ onto what I temporarily term “the debate,” wherein each figure (bha__ṅ__ga)__ is understood as indexed in part by a specific viewpoint (naya) or a set thereof, we find a dynamic description of an indeterminate phenomenon, embracing affirmation and negation of the “self” (ātman) without antecedent commitment to the substantive existence of the referent of the term. This exercise in working with Jaina tools has implications for broader methodological concerns facing cross-cultural philosophical projects, and bears on how we might fruitfully re-imagine otherwise stymied contemporary debates. _. (shrink)

We characterize rings over which every cotorsion module is pure injective in terms of certain descending chain conditions and the Ziegler spectrum, which renders the classes of von Neumann regular rings and of pure semisimple rings as two possible extremes. As preparation, descriptions of pure projective and Mittag–Leffler preenvelopes with respect to so-called definable subcategories and of pure generation for such are derived, which may be of interest on their own. Infinitary axiomatizations lead to coherence results previously known for the (...) special case of flat modules. Along with pseudoflat modules we introduce quasiflat modules, which arise naturally in the model-theoretic and the category-theoretic contexts. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 48 Heft: 1 Seiten: V-VIII.

Authors like Iris Young and Philip Pettit have come up with proposals for theorizing ‘structural injustice’ and social relations marred by ‘domination’. These authors provide conceptual tools for f...

The article reviews the recent debate about workplace democracy. It first presents and critically discusses arguments in favor of democratizing the firm that are based on the analogy with states, meaningful work, the avoidance of unjustified hierarchies, and beneficial effects on political democracy. The second part presents and critically discusses arguments against workplace democracy that are based on considerations of efficiency, the difficulties of a transition towards democratic firms, and liberal commitments such as the rights of employees and owners to (...) work for or invest in nondemocratic firms. The conclusion summarizes the debate and argues that experiments with democratic workplaces as what Erik Olin Wright calls “real utopias” could deliver new insights and thus move the discussion forward. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 38-58, Spring 2022.

The relevance of leader ethicality has moti- vated ethical leadership theory. In this paper, we emphasize the importance of moral identity for the concept of ethical leadership. We relate ethical leadership incorporating an internalized moral identity to productive deviant workplace behavior. Using qualitative empirical data we illustrate the relevance of critical situations, i.e., situations in which hypernorms and organizational norms diverge, for the distinction of ethical leaders with or without internalized moral identities. Our paper takes a multidisciplinary approach integrating insight (...) from management as well as humanities and social sciences toward a comprehensive sense of ethical leadership. (shrink)

In response to commentators, we argue that whether waiving patent rights will meaningfully improve access to COVID-19 vaccines for low income and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the short term, is an empirical matter. We also reject preferentially allocating vaccines to countries that hosted trials because doing so unethically favours those with research infrastructure, rather than those facing the worst burdens from COVID-19.

The world of wage labour seems to have become a soulless machine, an engine of social and environmental destruction. Employees seem to be nothing but 'cogs' in this system - but is this true? Located at the intersection of political theory, moral philosophy, and business ethics, this book questions the picture of the world of work as a 'system'. Hierarchical organizations, both in the public and in the private sphere, have specific features of their own. This does not mean, however, (...) that they cannot leave room for moral responsibility, and maybe even human flourishing. Drawing on detailed empirical case studies, Lisa Herzog analyses the nature of organizations from a normative perspective: their rule-bound character, the ways in which they deal with divided knowledge, and organizational cultures and their relation to morality. The volume examines how individual agency and organizational structures would have to mesh to avoid common moral pitfalls and develops the notion of 'transformational agency', which refers to a critical, creative way of engaging with one's organizational role while remaining committed to basic moral norms. The volume goes on to explore the political and institutional changes that would be required to re-embed organizations into a just society. Whether we submit to 'the system' or try to reclaim it, Herzog argues, is a question of eminent political importance in our globalized world. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that liberal-egalitarian theorists of justice should take power, especially economic power, seriously and make it explicit. We argue that many theories of justice have left power implicit, relying on what we call the “primacy of politics” model as a background assumption. However, this model does not suffice to capture the power relations of today’s globalized world, in which the power of nation states has been reduced and material inequality has sky-rocketed. We suggest replacing it by (...) a “political economy” model that emphasizes the possibility of self-reinforcing cycles. Doing so has direct implications for how to theorize justice, not only on the non-ideal, but also on the ideal level. (shrink)

Inventing the Market explores two paradigms of the market in the thought of Adam Smith and G.W.F. Hegel, bridging the gap between economics and philosophy, it shows that both disciplines can profit from a broader, more historically situated ...

In two studies, we used the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ) to investigate the relationship between individual differences in moral philosophy, involvement in the animal rights movement, and attitudes toward the treatment of animals. In the first, 600 animal rights activists attending a national demonstration and 266 nonactivist college students were given the EPQ. Analysis of the returns from 157 activists and 198 students indicated that the activists were more likely than the students to hold an "absolutist" moral orientation (high idealism, (...) low relativism). In the second study, 169 students were given the EPQ with a scale designed to measure attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Multiple regression showed that gender and the EPQ dimension of idealism were related to attitudes toward animal use. (shrink)

The paper develops a responsibility-based account of professional ethics in banking. From this perspective, bankers have duties not only toward clients—the traditional focus of professional ethics—but also regarding the prevention of systemic harms to whole societies. When trying to fulfill these duties, bankers have to meet three challenges: epistemic challenges, motivational challenges, and a coordination challenge. These challenges can best be met by a combination of regulation and ethics that aligns responsibilities, recognition, and incentives and creates what Parsons has called (...) “integrated situations”. Professional associations play an important role for this purpose, especially as spaces in which peer recognition is earned. But financial incentives equally need to be brought in line, for example, through deferred bonuses or claw backs. Such measures can create a new culture of accountability in banking. (shrink)

In many Western capitalist economies, private indebtedness is pervasive, but it has received little attention from political philosophers. Economic theory emphasizes the liberating potential of debt contracts, but its picture is based on assumptions that do not always hold, especially when there is a background of structural injustice. Private debt contracts are likely to miss their liberating potential if there is deception or lack of information, if there is insufficient access to (regular forms of) credit, or if credit is overly (...) expensive. Markets for private debt can be mechanisms of structural injustice: rather than playing a neutral role, they reinforce injustices, because the failures of debt to be liberating disproportionately hit individuals in disadvantaged positions. By individualizing what are in fact structural problems, private debt can contribute to stigmatization, social exclusion and oppression. What is at stake, from a perspective of structural justice, is not only the distribution of income, but also the distribution of risk. The problems of private debt markets therefore require political attention. In addition to fighting the structural injustices that form the background condititions of private debt, it is also worth addressing private debt markets themselves. (shrink)

Recent studies of Aristotle’s meteorology have often focused on questions of scientific methodology rather than on the empirical accuracy of the explanations. Here we wish to focus on Aristotle’s theory of storms, considering them in their historical context and in light of Aristotle’s theoretical commitments, but testing them in terms of their ability to explain the phenomena in question. Aristotle’s approach to storm events follows a general pattern of “outburst” theories proposed by Presocratic thinkers, in which wind, fire, and the (...) like burst out of clouds. Aristotle proposes a two-exhalation theory in which a dry and a moist gas arise by evaporation and can conflict with each other. In Meteorologica II.9 and III.1, he provides his own theory of storms. Modern accounts are hampered by a mistranslation of ‘eknephias’ as “hurricane.” We argue that an eknephias is never a hurricane, but in the first place a theoretical construct meant to account for three distinct phenomena: tuphōn, keraunos, and prēstēr, all of which need to be identified more clearly with actual meteorological phenomena than they have been. We identify appropriate phenomena and also propose a phenomenon corresponding to eknephias, which makes sense of Aristotle’s account. (shrink)

This article expands Kandiyoti's concept of patriarchal bargaining to include men's negotiations. It analyzes how marginalized groups within a dominant sociocultural knowledge regime strategize to advance change while trying to maximize security and optimize their life options. The case study analyzes primaries held within kin-based groupings— hamulas among Palestinian Arabs in Israel—to determine the candidates for municipal elections. Based on interviews and analysis of newspaper articles, the authors claim that the turn to primaries by hamulas was an attempt to resolve (...) disputes that were undermining the patriarchal system. The primaries provided entry to those of lower ranking in the hierarchy of hamula political leadership, while retaining the exclusion of women from the political sphere. Thus, while bargaining with patriarchy, gender identities and hierarchies are contested, re/produced, and negotiated as both a political means and an anchor for social identities. (shrink)

In Cold War Freud Dagmar Herzog uncovers the astonishing array of concepts of human selfhood which circulated across the globe in the aftermath of World War II. Against the backdrop of Nazism and the Holocaust, the sexual revolution, feminism, gay rights, and anticolonial and antiwar activism, she charts the heated battles which raged over Freud's legacy. From the postwar US to Europe and Latin America, she reveals how competing theories of desire, anxiety, aggression, guilt, trauma and pleasure emerged and (...) were then transformed to serve both conservative and subversive ends in a fundamental rethinking of the very nature of the human self and its motivations. Her findings shed new light on psychoanalysis' enduring contribution to the enigma of the relationship between nature and culture, and the ways in which social contexts enter into and shape the innermost recesses of individual psyches. (shrink)

This article analyses a hitherto neglected problem at the transition from ideal to non‐ideal theory: the problem of knowledge. Ideal theories often make idealising assumptions about the availability of knowledge, for example knowledge of social scientific facts. This can lead to problems when this knowledge turns out not to be available at the non‐ideal level. Knowledge can be unavailable in a number of ways: in principle, for practical reasons, or because there are normative reasons not to use it. This can (...) make it necessary to revise ideal theories, because the principle of ‘ought implies can’ rules out certain theories, at least insofar as they are understood as action‐guiding. I discuss a number of examples and argue that there are two tendencies that will increase the relevance of this problem in the future: the availability of large amounts of sensitive data whose use is problematic from a normative point of view, and the increasing complexity of an interrelated world that makes it harder to predict the effects of institutional changes. To address these issues, philosophers need to cooperate with social scientists and philosophers of the social sciences. Normative theorising can then be understood as one step in a long process that includes thinkers from different disciplines. Ideal theory can respond to many of the charges raised against it if it is understood along these lines and if it takes the problem of knowledge and its implications seriously. (shrink)

This paper discusses global reserve currencies from the perspective of structural global justice. Drawing on notions of structural justice and background justice, it suggests that the structures of global finance, by creating positions of privilege and disadvantage, can lead to injustices both with regard to distributive outcomes and with regard to domination. While the role of the dollar and Euro as global reserve currencies are not the only factors that contribute to these structural injustices, they need to be taken into (...) account to fully grasp the dynamics of global finance. They also have an impact on other mechanisms, such as sovereign debt, capital flows, and the governance of international financial institutions. The paper’s arguments support the claim that one cannot conceptualize global justice as justice between independent states. Rather, the global monetary regime constitutes a case of “background injustice” (Ronzoni 2009). (shrink)

This volume brings together leading scholars from political theory, law, and economics in order to discuss the relationship between financial markets and justice, and invites us to rethink the place and role of financial markets in our societies.

Democratic societies need media that uphold journalistic standards of truthfulness and objectivity. But sensationalism has always been a temptation for journalists, and given the intense competition between news outlets, especially in the online world, there is pressure on them to ‘chase the clicks’. The article analyzes the incentive structures for journalists – focusing on the harmfulness of sensationalist framing as an example – and the challenges of establishing shared standards in a highly competitive online environment. Drawing on concepts and arguments (...) from business ethics, it argues that the structure of this problem points to the need for an ‘ethics of sportsmanship’ that upholds journalistic standards despite competitive pressures. But the specific role and nature of the media imply that there can be no once‐and‐for‐all solution. Instead, there is a need for reflexivity, that is, for an ongoing dialogue about journalistic standards and the role of media in democratic societies. (shrink)