Using both Confucian texts and the work of American pragmatist John Dewey, this book offers a distinctly Confucian model of democracy.

Presents Li Zehou's culminating views on ethics in a series of works that highlight the importance of Confucian philosophy today.

Linguistic justice is about institutions distributing material and symbolic resources fairly when they are faced with linguistic diversity. However, no theory of linguistic justice has developed a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral dilemmas that take place in interpersonal linguistic relationships, in particular the power dynamics leading to (linguistic) domination. The aim of this article is to start building a general theory of linguistic domination, one that offers new conceptual tools for both empirical and normative analyses of linguistically diverse (...) societies. Using the republican tradition of thought, I argue that there is linguistic domination whenever someone is subject to the uncontrolled capacity for interference over their linguistic uses, ideology and acquisition by another agent. This article tests under what conditions this phenomenon takes place and the parties involved in it (both in terms of individuals and political institutions). (shrink)

Many commentators today lament the politicization of bioethics, but some suggest distinguishing among different kinds of politicization. This essay pursues that idea with reference to three traditions of political thought: liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism. After briefly discussing the concept of politicization itself, the essay examines how each of these political traditions manifests itself in recent bioethics scholarship, focusing on the implications of each tradition for the design of government bioethics councils. The liberal emphasis on the irreducible plurality of values and (...) interests in modern societies, and the communitarian concern with the social dimensions of biotechnology, offer important insights for bioethics councils. The essay finds the most promise in the republican tradition, however, which emphasizes institutional mechanisms that allow bioethics councils to enrich but not dominate public deliberation, while ensuring that government decisions on bioethical issues are publicly accountable and contestable. (shrink)

John Dewey was the foremost figure and public intellectual in early to mid-twentieth century American philosophy. He is the most academically cited Anglophone philosopher of the past century, and he is among the most cited Americans of any century. In this comprehensive volume spanning thirty-five chapters, leading scholars help researchers access particular aspects of Dewey’s thought, navigate the enormous and rapidly developing literature, and participate in current scholarship in light of prospects in key topical areas. Beginning with a framing essay (...) by Philip Kitcher calling for a transformation of philosophical research, contributors interpret, appraise, and critique Dewey’s philosophy under the following headings: Metaphysics; Epistemology, Science, Language, and Mind; Ethics, Law, and the Starting Point; Social and Political Philosophy, Race, and Feminist Philosophy; Philosophy of Education; Aesthetics; Instrumental Logic, Philosophy of Technology, and the Unfinished Project of Modernity; Dewey in Cross-Cultural Dialogue; The American Philosophical Tradition, the Social Sciences, and Religion; and Public Philosophy and Practical Ethics. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 5, Page 655-673, June 2022. The standard account of the relation between democracy and the rule of law focuses on law’s liberty-enhancing role in constraining official action. This is a faint echo of the complex, constitutive relation between the two. The Greeks used one word – isonomia – to describe both. If democracy is the system in which people have an equal say in determining the rules that govern social life, then the rule (...) of law is simultaneously before, after, concurrent and synonymous with democracy: It contributes to the formation of citizens with the capacity for self-governance, serves as the instrument through which democratic decisions are implemented, functions as one of the central social practices that constitute citizens as equals and addresses the question of how to ensure that government by the people operates for the people. The rule of law has many independently valuable qualities, including impartiality and predictability. But, to valorise the rule of law for its own sake is to fetishize authority. The fundamental values of the rule of law are as the instrument of democratic self-governance and the expression of the equal dignity of all persons. Democracy thus entails the rule of law, but both implicate the yet more comprehensive ideal of equality. Core rule-of-law values require political norms and conditions of equality, generality and comprehensiveness. In a modern, differentiated society, however, the constitutive relation between democracy and the rule of law is fractured and law becomes the agent of authority. Courts in the modern constitutional state have contributed to the decline of rule-of-law values, supporting role specialization through judge-made immunity doctrines that protect officials at all levels. The crisis of police violence against minorities is a symptom of this breakdown. Greater accountability can ameliorate the problem. But an effective solution requires the fair and equal distribution of political power. (shrink)

Popper's theory of the attraction of closed societies conflicts with his theory of research: the former sees rational thought as contrary to man's nature, whereas the latter sees it as an innate psychological process. This conflict arose because Popper developed a theory of the movement from the closed society—Heimat—to civilized society, which sees civilized society as a burden, before he adapted Selz's view of directed thought processes as problem solving, which sees rationality as natural. Rejecting the earlier view and retaining (...) the latter one opens up possibilities for better explanations of closed societies and better means of combating them. Key Words: closed society • Popper • Selz • problems • institutions. (shrink)

In various essays, Paul Churchland explores the relevance of studies in cognitive science to issues in ethics. What emerges is a kind of ethical naturalism that has two components. The first component is a descriptive‐genealogical one whose purpose is to explain how people come to have their ethical beliefs. The second component is a normative one whose purpose is to explain why some values are better than other values. Given this distinction, the problem of integrating ethics with beliefs about the (...) world is a consequence of the traditional view that it is possible to naturalize descriptive‐genealogical ethics but not normative ethics. With this distinction as background, I critically examine Churchland's exploration of cognitive science's contribution to our understanding of the values and purposes that should direct our lives. The conclusion is twofold. First, using concepts from the American pragmatists, I argue that, pace Churchland, it is possible to bridge the descriptive‐normative gap in order to articulate an ethical naturalism that addresses the so‐called naturalistic fallacy but is not committed to an unpalatable relativism. Second, I argue that the sort of ethical naturalism that emerges has affinities to the postmodern ethics of Jean‐François Lyotard. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes denied both that opinion provides access to truth and that it ought to be protected from political manipulation. Hobbes knew that his contempt for opinion put him at odds with the classical tradition of political philosophy. What he could not have known was that it also would put him at odds with modern, liberal democracy, which protects opinions—the opinions of the public—that it cannot invest with truth value.

History of education emerges during the course of the nineteenth century in Germany and is marked by four features. It is educational, and not scientific in nature, because it was written primarily for teacher education and training; it is national, or even nationalistic; it is oriented almost exclusively towards German philosophy; and it is indebted to Lutheran Protestantism. This model of pedagogical historiography leaves its mark on the historiographies that emerged later in England, France, and the United States. Taking the (...) example of Rousseau, this contribution makes it clear that these Lutheran and idealist premises lead to a one-sided historiography, so that the republican tradition in which Rousseau stood could be suppressed. On this basis, the paper points up the methodological necessity in historical research to examine contexts, giving up the idea of one history of education in favor of reconstruction of various traditions. The gain lies in making visible suppressed transnational languages that educational reflection made use of for centuries. In particular, a connection is revealed between the republican education of the eighteenth century in Europe and the concern with the issue of the “good citizen” that has preoccupied the American discussion from Jefferson to the Pragmatists to Diane Ravitch. (shrink)

Timur Kuran's Private Truths, Public Lies makes a compelling case that people often misrepresent their private preferences in response to real or imagined social pressures, that the relative power of competing interest groups to punish opinion deviance and reward conformity determines the patterns and pervasiveness of preference falsification, and that preference falsifi‐cation helps explain such diverse outcomes as the persistence and sudden collapse of communism and the precarious persistence of racial preferences in the United States and of the caste system (...) in India. Although preference falsification is important and raises questions about the legitimacy of the opinions expressed in opinion polls and elections, it does not seem widespread enough to warrant the conclusion that ordinary people lack the courage necessary to make democracy work. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of ‘community’ in the context of global bioethics. With the present globalization of bioethics, new and interesting references are made to this concept. Some are familiar, for example, community consent. This article argues that the principle of informed consent is too individual-oriented and that in other cultures, consent can be community-based. Other references to ‘community’ are related to the novel principle of benefit sharing in the context of bioprospecting. The application of this principle necessarily requires (...) the identification and construction of communities. On the global level there are also new uses of the concept of community as ‘global community.’ Three uses are distinguished: (1) a diachronic use, including past, present, and future generations, (2) a synchronic ecological use, including nonhuman species, and (3) a synchronic planetary use, including all human beings worldwide. Although there is a tension between the communitarian perspective and the idea of global community, this article argues that the third use can broaden communitarianism. The current development towards cosmopolitanism is creating a new global community that represents humanity as a whole, enabling identification of world citizens and evoking a sense of global solidarity and responsibility. The emergence of global bioethics today demonstrates this development. (shrink)

Historically, republicans were of different minds about markets: some, such as Rousseau, reviled them, while others, like Adam Smith, praised them. The recent republican resurgence has revived this issue. Classical liberals such as Gerald Gaus contend that neo-republicanism is inherently hostile to markets, while neo-republicans like Richard Dagger and Philip Pettit reject this characterization—though with less enthusiasm than one might expect. I argue here that the right republican attitude toward competitive markets is celebratory rather than acquiescent and that republicanism demands (...) such markets for the same reason it requires the rule of law: because both are essential institutions for protecting individuals from arbitrary interference. I reveal how competition restrains—and in the limit, even eradicates—market power and thereby helps us realize “market freedom,” i.e., freedom as non-domination in the context of economic exchange. Finally, I show that such freedom necessitates “Anglo-Nordic” economic policies. (shrink)

In the 17th century, ‘reflexivity’ was coined as a new term for introspection and self-awareness. It thus was poised to serve the instrumental function of combating skepticism by asserting a knowing self. In this Cartesian paradigm, introspection ends in an entity of self-identity. An alternate interpretation recognized how an infinite regress of reflexivity would render ‘the self’ elusive, if not unknowable. Reflexivity in this latter mode was rediscovered by post-Kantian philosophers, most notably Hegel, who defined the self in its self-reflective (...) encounter with an other, and whose full articulation would occur at the final culmination of Reason's evolution. In the rising tide of 19th-century individualism, Emerson and Kierkegaard formulated constructions both in debt to, and in opposition against, Hegelian metaphysics. For each, although employing distinct strategies of self-consciousness, ‘the self’ reached its apogee through divine encounter. Characterized by personal responsibility and individual choice, their philosophies would later be subsumed by secular existentialists committed to defining moral individualism and asserting the possibilities for human freedom and selfauthentication. (shrink)

Rawls ‘s political liberalism abandons the traditional political‐theory objective of providing a philosophical account of liberal democracy. However, Rawls also aims for a liberal political order endorsed by citizens on grounds deeper than what he calls a “modus vivendi” compromise; he contends that a liberal political order based upon a modus vivendi is unstable. The aspiration for a pluralist and “freestanding” liberalism is at odds with the goal of a liberalism endorsed as something deeper than a modus vivendi compromise among (...) competing comprehensive doctrines. A liberalism that is supported “for its own sake” rather than as a compromise must necessarily be based on some conception of the good, of the sort that political liberalism eschews. (shrink)

In recent work, Cheryl Misak has developed a novel justification of deliberative democracy rooted in Peircean epistemology. In this article, the author expands Misak's arguments to show that not only does Peircean pragmatism provide a justification for deliberative democracy that is more compelling than the justifications offered by competing liberal and discursivist views, but also fixes a specific conception of deliberative politics that is perfectionist rather than neutralist. The article concludes with a discussion of whether the `epistemic perfectionism' implied by (...) the pragmatist argument could be endorsed by liberal democrats. Key Words: deliberative democracy • epistemology • liberalism • Cheryl Misak • Charles Peirce • perfectionism • pragmatism • truth. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Liberal theory has failed to provide theocrats who are aggrieved by the sinful practices widespread in liberal societies good reasons to tolerate these sins. Moreover, liberal theory has faltered in identifying grounds on which to impose regulations that violate theocrats? religious doctrines. These challenges must be met if liberalism is to temper religious discord and to maintain its own relevance in a world replete with theocratic conceptions of the good.

In this article, I distinguish personal autonomy from heteronomy, and consider whether autonomy provides a suitable basis for liberalism. I argue that liberal government should not promote autonomy in all its citizens, on the grounds that not all members of liberal democracies require autonomy for a good life. I then outline an alternative option that I call a liberalism of conscience, describing how it better respects heteronomous citizens. I subsequently clarify how a liberalism of conscience is different than, and superior (...) to, autonomy‐based versions of liberalism. (shrink)

Abstract If voters do not understand the programs of rival candidates or their likely consequences, they cannot rationally exercise control over government. An ignorant electorate cannot achieve true democratic control over public policy. The immense size and scope of modern government makes it virtually impossible for voters to acquire sufficient knowledge to exercise such control. The problem is exacerbated by voters? strong incentive to be ?rationally ignorant? of politics. This danger to democracy cannot readily be circumvented through ?shortcut? methods of (...) economizing on voter knowledge costs. A truly democratic government must, therefore, be strictly limited in scope. (shrink)

Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent traces America's woes to an erosion of community and a loss of a sense of collective self‐governance. He recommends a more communitarian, republican public philosophy as the cure. His book illuminates many important historical and contemporary issues, particularly the link between systems of political economy and visions of citizenship. His methods are, however, too impressionistic to support his empirical claims. He particularly neglects the role of civic republicanism in America's history of racial, gender, and religious discrimination. (...) Hence his call for Americans to minimize liberal doctrines of individual rights in favor of communally minded republicanism is not fully persuasive. (shrink)

The pressures of globalization have resulted in shrinking distances and increased contact among people, rendering state boundaries and jurisdiction insufficient to deal with claims of justice exclusively. This challenge requires that we move beyond the limits of statism in political theorizing and acquire a cosmopolitan approach. In this article, from a discourse theoretic perspective, I consider what cosmopolitan justice would entail for policy and law-making concerning immigration. It is argued that: (1) from a moral point of view we cannot consider (...) the problem of migration solely from the perspective of the people of affluent countries and have to take into account the perspective of the refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants; (2) the growing interdependency of global economies gives rise to a moral obligation to assist the immigrants with special duties devolving upon the First World as the result of the history of colonization; and (3) the immigration law ought to be integrated into higher, or constitutional, law-making. In doing so, the discourse theoretic approach decouples national sovereignty (territorial integrity) and democratic polity, overcoming the problem of prioritization of geography over claims of membership. (shrink)

Using relations of solidarity in global contexts, this article explores some of the debates about what constitutes solidarity. Three primary forms of solidarity are discussed, with particular attention to the different nature of the solidaristic relations and their moral obligations.

Max Weber is noted for his diagnosis of the rationalization of life under capitalism. But in his social thought he also developed a powerful theory of the process of 'sociation' and associational life. This paper investigates the latter aspect of his thought in the context of his and Marianne Weber's American journey. Their observations about the religious sects, the African-American community, educational insti tutions, and the position of women reveal an understanding of democ ratization as a process of voluntaristic sociation, (...) whose original model is the sect. In these institutional settings and through their interactions with figures like William James, W. E. B. Du Bois, and M. Carey Thomas, the Webers develop a view of American social life that empha sizes the contribution of associative activity to the moral and political education of individuals, and to the creation of a distinctively modern form of democratic culture. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the classical Confucian approach to sincerity (cheng 誠) as a political virtue of the governing and a civic virtue of the governed. For Confucian thinkers, sincerity thus understood shapes both the rulers and the ruled in terms of the common good, and guarantees the stability of a just political system. It is shown that for Confucius and the Zuo Commentary one of the key political and civic virtues was reliability (trustworthiness, xin), which later came to be viewed (...) as rooted in an inner virtue of sincerity, described by Mencius as natural, inherently moral, and social. The relation between moral and civic/political sincerity was then examined in the Great Learning and the philosophy of Xunzi. Their ideas were complemented in the later imperial period in the Essentials of Governance with a discussion of the connection between political sincerity and the virtue of loyalty (zhong). (shrink)

The emotional state of war-affected populations has become a central concern for international policy-makers in the last decade. Growing interest in war trauma is influenced by contemporary Anglo-American emotionology, or emotional norms, which tends to pathologize ordinary responses to distress, including anger related to survival strategies. The article critically analyses the ascendancy of a therapeutic security paradigm in international politics, which seeks to explain the prevailing political, economic and social conditions in terms of cycles of emotional dysfunctionalism. The article contends (...) that international therapeutic governance pathologizes waraffected populations as emotionally dysfunctional and problematizes their right to self-government, leading to extensive external intervention. However, international therapeutic governance may be detrimental to postwar recovery as well legitimizing a denial of self-government. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to introduce a model of value-based leadership. The model is based on tensions among values, interests, and power ; and tensions that take place within and among citizens, workers, and leaders. The VIP-CWL model describes the forces at play in the promotion of value-based practice and formulates recommendations for value-based leadership. The ability to enact certain values is conditioned by power and personal interests of communities, workers, and leaders of organizations. People experience internal conflicts (...) related to VIP as well as external conflicts related to disagreements with the CWL. Value-based practice is predicated on the ability to alleviate these tensions. Leaders have 4 main roles in promoting value-based practice: clarify values, promote personal harmony among VIP, enhance congruence of VIP among CWL, and confront people and groups subverting values or abusing power to promote personal interests. (shrink)

The notion of the common good has been cited as a key constituent of citizenship education in England, within which the development of a concern for the common good represents a key disposition. The term has, however, received little critical attention to date within the discourse of the subject, either in terms of its theoretical basis or its educational function and form. For this reason to develop the common good represents an ill‐defined aim of the citizenship education in schools. This (...) article seeks to redress this by critically engaging with different formulations of the common good within recent civic republican political theory. More specifically, it attempts to delineate between notions of the common good that are essentially moral and notions that emphasise political understandings of the term, and which, in so doing, minimise the moral. On the basis of this exploration a number of issues are raised for citizenship education in England and it is suggested that to fail to view the common good as a moral enterprise is inherently problematic. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to consider the ways in which civic republican theory can provide a meaningful and useful account of social justice, one that is which holds resonance for educational debates. Recognising the need for educationalists interested in civic republicanism to pay greater attention to ideas of justice—and in particular social justice as it concerns relationships between citizens —it is argued that a form of civic republicanism committed to freedom as non-domination is capable of providing a substantive (...) model for analysing social justice within educational arenas. After positioning the contribution offered here within existing educational literature on civic republicanism, salient elements of social justice as freedom as non-domination are identified. On this basis, debates concerning the existence and potential expansion of state grammar schools in England are considered in relation to the account of republican social justice as non-domination. It is argued that from this republican position grammar schools represent an arbitrary domination of the interests of those less well off by those with greater material and cultural capital and in doing so lead to advantages for some at the expense of others. Though the focus of the paper is on grammar schools in England, it is suggested that republican justice may be a useful frame for considering similar educational cases in England and elsewhere. (shrink)

What should we do if climate change or global injustice require radical policy changes not supported by the majority of citizens? And what if science shows that the lacking support is largely due to shortcomings in citizens’ individual psychology such as cognitive biases that lead to temporal and geographical parochialism? Could then a plausible case for enhancing the morality of the electorate—even against their will –be made? But can a democratic government manipulate the will of the people without losing democratic (...) legitimacy? This paper explores the problems that governmental manipulation of voters pose for democratic legitimacy and the tensions between non-manipulated input and morally acceptable output. These venerable issues of political theory resurface in light of recent suggestions to tackle today’s global mega-problems by Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu. They suggest that to avert the looming catastrophe, governments should alter psychological traits of the citizenry through biomedical means, from pharmaceuticals to genetics. However, we argue that a government cannot rule with democratic legitimacy if elected by a will of the people it manipulated before. Normatively, conferring power from the governed onto governors is a one-directional relation that is incompatible with manipulation. But while it is tempting to rebut suggestions to morally enhance the people as antithetical to essential ideas of democracy, swift rebuttals tend to overlook the deeper challenge: Majoritarian decision-making may lead to inacceptable outcomes. The dilemma between input and output runs through major works in political theory. Rather than wishfully ignoring the dangers of democracy, democratic theory has to provide answers. (shrink)

In 20th century's European theory of education there was little interest in philosophy of democracy. John Dewey's Democracy and Education was translated in nearly everyEuropean language but did not become the center of discussion.Even ``radical education'' was much more child-centered thanopen to radical questions of political democracy. This articlediscusses the problem in two respects, first the tension betweenneo-liberalism's concept of individuality and public education,and second the future problems of a theory of ``democraticeducation'' after Dewey. The aim is to overcome traditionalEuropean (...) dualisms like that of ``citizen'' or ``man''i.e. to pave the way for a post-Rousseauian theory of education. (shrink)

Criticisms of the liberal-individualist idea of the “unencumbered self” are not just a staple of communitarian thought. Some modern Confucian thinkers are now seeking to develop an ethically particular understanding of social roles in the family that is sensitive to gender-justice issues, and that provides an alternative to liberal-individualist conceptions of the “unencumbered self” in relation to family roles. The character of Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House seemingly exemplifies such conceptions of the unencumbered self in her rejection of (...) her housewife role for a more authentic selfhood. Drawing upon the capabilities approach to justice, and positive early Japanese bluestockings’ responses to Ibsen's play, I argue that Nora's character is better understood as exemplifying an ethically compelling disencumbered self in potentially cross-cultural circumstances: a self criticizing and rejecting social roles that are found to be unjust according to universal, as opposed to particularist, “Confucian” ethical standards. (shrink)

This article addresses the recent call in business ethics literature for a better understanding of corporations as political actors or entities. It first gives an overview of recent attempts to examine classical issues in business ethics through a political lens. It examines different ways in which theorists with an interest in the normative analysis of business practices and institutions could find it desirable and fruitful to use a political lens. This article presents a distinction among four views of the relations (...) between corporations and politics: corporations as distributive agents, corporations as political communities, corporate practices and policies as citizenship issues, and corporations as active participants in the political process. This article finishes with an examination of three challenges that need to be overcome by the theory of the firm as a political actor. (shrink)

: This project draws on scholarship of feminist and womanist scholars, and on results of interviews with scientists currently involved in molecular genetics. With reference to Margaret Urban Walker's "practices of moral responsibility," the social practices of molecular geneticists are explored, and strategies identified through which scientists negotiate their moral responsibilities. The implications of this work for scientists and for feminists are discussed.

This project draws on scholarship of feminist and womanist scholars, and on results of interviews with scientists currently involved in molecular genetics. With reference to Margaret Urban Walker's “practices of moral responsibility,” the social practices of molecular geneticists are exphred, and strategies identified through which scientists negotiate their moral responsibilities. The implications of this work for scientists and for feminists are discussed.

This article analyzes the claim that “deliberate denial [of genocide] is a form of aggression that ought to be regarded as a contribution to genocidal violence in its own right.” Its objective is to demonstrate that the claim is substantially correct: there are instances of genocide negation that are genocidal acts. The article suggests that one such instance is contained in a letter sent to Professor Robert Jay Lifton by Turkey's ambassador to the United States. The article is divided into (...) three parts. In the first part, it delineates and discusses the unexpected contents of the letter to Lifton. In the second, it primarily deals with three topics: lying, genocide, and Austinian performatives. In the third part, it takes the points made in the second part and applies them to the contents of the letter to Lifton, and demonstrates that the letter is an instance of genocide negation that is genocidal. (shrink)

No debate entre liberais e comunitaristas, colocam-se perspectivas distintas sobre temas políticos cruciais, à medida que se busca definir a relação mais apropriada entre o indivíduo e a coletividade, ora salientando-se o valor da autonomia pessoal, ora enfatizando-se a importância da inserção identitária dos sujeitos no contexto social. Embora os escritos de Rousseau precedam a discussão entre essas correntes de pensamento, eles abrangeram temas sobre os quais as duas se debruçam. O autor toma o indivíduo como base para a construção (...) do Estado, mas também mostra que essa unidade natural precisa ser transformada em uma parte de uma comunidade coesa e dotada de sua própria vontade geral. Assim, pretendo realizar um exercício interpretativo que, a partir de questões postas em relevo por aquele debate, analisará como Rousseau aliou seus princípios do direito político à preocupação com as particularidades de cada povo, o que faz suas teses transitarem entre as fronteiras do que, posteriormente, seriam os campos do liberalismo e do comunitarismo. (shrink)

In this article, I address some central issues in journalism ethics from a fresh perspective, namely, one that is theoretical and informed by values salient in sub-Saharan Africa. Drawing on a foundational moral theory with an African pedigree, which is intended to rival Western theories such as Kantianism and utilitarianism, I provide a unified account of an array of duties of various agents with respect to the news/opinion media. I maintain that the ability of the African moral theory to plausibly (...) account for issues such as proper content, investigative ethics, and freedom of speech means that it should be taken seriously by media ethicists and merits being paired up against competing approaches in future work. (shrink)

Research in the cognitive sciences indicates that metaphors significantly shape perceptions and approaches to problem solving. With this in mind, this essay argues that it is problematic for ethicists that mainstream economics and other social scientific literature relies on naturalistic metaphors to describe markets. These imply an inaccurate picture of economic phenomena and rhetorically frame many solutions to problems such as inequality as interventionist. This essay proposes that religious ethicists may find resources for avoiding this conceptual hazard in emerging fields (...) of heterodox economics that are attentive to the role of culture and human agency in shaping markets. It introduces feminist, behavioral, institutional, and Austrian economics in particular and highlights some of the specific approaches to inequality adopted in these fields. It then suggests that engaging heterodox perspectives more generally may help ethicists keep in view the full complexity and social nature of the economic problems they analyze. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore the prospects for a virtue ethic approach to business. First, I delineate two fundamental criteria that I believe must be met for any such approach to be viable: viz., the virtues must be exercised for the sake of the good of one’s life as a unitary whole (contra role-morality approaches) and for the common good of the communities of which one is a part as well as the individual good of their members (contra egoist approaches). (...) Second, I argue that these two criteria can be met only if we are able to reconceive and transform the nature of work within contemporary business organizations. In particular, what is needed, I argue, is a retrieval of something like the older ideal of work as a “vocation”, or “calling”, whereby work can be viewed as a specific aspect of a more general calling to pursue, through the practice of the virtues, “the good life” both for ourselves and for others. Lastly, I consider some important challenges to this “vocational virtue ethic” approach to work within contemporary business organizations and offer a few suggestions for how they might be met. (shrink)

Although the residues of official segregation are widespread, affirmative action continues to meet resistance in both official and everyday life, even in such recent Supreme Court decisions as Grutter v Bollinger (539 U.S. 306). This is due in part to a governing ontology that draws the line between individual and collective. But there are other possibilities for conceiving the social, and I offer one here in a theory of affirmative action that is developed through close examination of sharing and promising (...) as elemental qualities of equitable communal life. The nature and value of these actions are demonstrated in narrative formulations of fairness as exemplified in triage and the situation at the end of slavery; of the difference between equality and equity and how justice depends on their conjunction; and finally of theorizing how these may come together in the permutable, opaque, yet resilient interdependence of person and community that represents most deeply the Greek idea of two in one, that is, of one two, not two ones. In these respects the paper is successful insofar as it discloses the kinds of reasoning that underlie both resistance and commitment to affirmative action. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that businesses bear a pro tanto, negative, moral obligation to refuse to engage in economic relationships with representatives of intolerable ideologies. For example, restaurants should refuse to serve those displaying Nazi symbols. The crux of this argument is the claim that normal economic activity is not a morally neutral activity but rather an exercise of political power. When a business refuses to engage with someone because of their membership in some group, e.g., Black Americans, this (...) is a use of political power to signal that Black Americans are other. Conversely, when businesses engage with someone who is clearly representing an intolerable ideology, this is a use of political power that signals the acceptability of that ideology. Businesses should not do this. (shrink)

This article explores the tensions between different conceptions of “citizenship.” On the one hand, we point out the virtues and limitations of cosmopolitan citizenship in the terms in which Seyla Benhabib understands it in The Right of Others…; on the other hand, we delve into another notion of citizenship, namely, the localist, in a version that could be at odds with some cosmopolitan values, that is, localism as understood by some Mexican autonomous communities, particularly the Zapatistas. Although Benhabib’s cosmopolitan federalism (...) is inclusive in spirit, it is conceived within a preponderantly global perspective and ends up being asymmetrical. While her proposal has some positive aspects, it faces some difficulties in the case of Mexican autonomous communities. In this article, we shall introduce the notion of democratic confederalism as a form of sociopolitical organization that seeks to strengthen the self-organization of social actors and to recognize the practice of citizenship in the terms in which autonomous communities exercise it. We propose that democratic confederalism could be an alternative for decreasing tensions between global citizenship and the idea of citizenship within autonomous communities. (shrink)

This contribution seeks a nuanced democratic view on the position of religious and ideologically inspired views and argumentations on the political forum. We reject the liberal standard vision that rules out every reference to comprehensive doctrines. Political decisions should be neutral in their formulation of a proposition, but this does not exclude that there is some room for pluralism in the debate that precedes those decisions. From a democratic point of view there is no objection to religious and ideological views (...) and argumentations in the political debate on condition that citizens adopt a democratic attitude with regard to their own comprehensive views. (shrink)

Certain philosophers have argued in favour of recognising a right to freedom of conscience that includes a defeasible right of individuals to live in accordance with their perceived moral duties. This right requires the government to exempt people from general laws or regulations that prevent them from acting consistently with their perceived moral duties. The importance of protecting individuals’ integrity is sometimes invoked in favour of accommodating conscience. I argue that personal integrity is valuable since autonomy, identity and self-respect are (...) all dependent on the preservation of personal integrity. I respond to two objections, one pressed by Andrew Koppelman and the other by Richard Arneson, to the claim that personal integrity is valuable, and to a further argument by Arneson to the effect that it is unfair to others claiming accommodations to exempt those with conscience-based claims. (shrink)

This article examines Montesquieu's concept of natural law and treatment of legal customs in conjunction with his theory of moral psychology. It explores his effort to entwine the rational procedural quality of laws with the substantive principles that sustain them. Montesquieu grounds natural law in the desires of the human being as ‘a feeling creature’, thus establishing the normative force of desire and making right action attractive by engaging the passions rather than subordinating them to reason. As a result, natural (...) law generates both political norms and the motivations that drive political actions. It provides a standard for assessing the ostensibly jumbled multiplicity of legal customs in human societies. And it reminds us that there is more to political theory than the rational justifi-cation of norms, that central to any account of liberal constitutionalism must be an effort to show the attractions – and not only the justice or the rationality – of right action. Key Words: law • Montesquieu • moral psychology • motivation • natural • law • norm justification • passions. (shrink)