This paper considers the foundation of self-realization and the sense of morality that could justify Arne Naess’s claim ‘Self-realization is morally neutral,’ by focusing on the recent debate among deep ecologists. Self-realization, the ultimate norm of Naess’s ecosophy T, is the realization of the maxim ‘everything is interrelated.’ This norm seems to be based on two basic principles: the diminishing of narrow ego, and the integrity between the human and non-human worlds. The paper argues that the former is an extension (...) of Plato’s idea of self-development or self-mastery while the latter is implicit in Aristotle’s holism. It defends that Self-realization is morally neutral only if the term ‘moral’ is considered in the Kantian sense. However, Naess reluctantly distinguishes between ethics and morality, which makes his approach less credible. The paper concludes that Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia supports Self-realization to qualify as a virtue. (shrink)

At the law side of the creation, the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea distinguishes between natural laws, values and norms. Natural laws are coercive both for human beings and for any other subject or object. Like natural laws, values or normative principles belong to the creation, being universal and invariable. Both people and associations are subject to values, which they can obey or disobey. Values characterize the relation frames following the natural ones. Norms are man-made realizations of values, historically and (...) culturally different. Philosophical ethics investigates the normativity of human acts. This paper argues that ethics cannot be related to a single relation frame and that the designation ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ modal aspect is a misnomer. (shrink)

In answering the question, “Which moral identity has to be developed in a multicultural society?” we draw a distinction between public and non-public identities of persons. On our view, a liberal democracy is characterized by a specific conception of these two central components of moral identity. In section 2, we concentrate on the public identity, while, in section 3, the nonpublic identity is the centre of interest. In explaining these main components of moral identity, we will appeal to those aspects (...) of identity as set out by Rorty & Wong which are constitutive of moral identity. (shrink)

The paper attempts to situate Sennett philosophically by placing him in the tradition of ontological hermeneutics. This way of reading Sennett is justified not only by the core principles that govern Sennett's social anthropology, but is also useful for tracing the trajectory of Sennett's philosophically informed diagnoses of the times. These diagnoses focus on the role of work in shaping subjectivity. After reconstructing the basic conceptual shape of Sennett's diagnoses of the work-related maladies of the "old" and the "new" capitalism, (...) the paper presents some broader reflections on the philosophical presuppositions of social criticism that takes its departure from the centrality of work. (shrink)

This article examines Levinas as if he were a participant in what Habermas has called `the philosophical discourse of modernity'. It begins by comparing Levinas' and Habermas' articulations of the philosophical problems of modernity. It then turns to how certain key motifs in Levinas' later work give philosophical expression to the needs of the times as Levinas diagnoses them. In particular it examines how Levinas interweaves a modern, post-ontological conception of `the religious' or `the sacred' into his account of subjectivity. (...) Finally, the article looks at some problems that arise for Levinas once his position in the philosophical discourse on modernity is made explicit. Key Words: Jürgen Habermas • Emmanuel Levinas • modernity • ontology • otherness • religion • social relation. (shrink)

Alexander’s invitation to a sociology of evil begins from the premise that the social sciences have long neglected direct analyses of evil. They have focused instead on questions of the good and treated its other as an absence or residual category. His most direct foray into this field must be read against his strong program in cultural sociology and his more concrete analysis of the development of narratives of the Holocaust as a moral ‘trauma drama’. I argue that the analytic (...) frame Alexander constructs in ‘Towards a Sociology of Evil’ is too narrow to achieve the ambitions declared in ‘The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology’. A multi-dimensional social theoretical approach to evil must recognize that while its significations are clearly culturally variable, they also refer to something beyond the limits of discourse. (shrink)

We care for our own future experiences. Most of us, trivially, would rather have them pleasurable than painful. When we care for our own future experiences we do so in a way that is different from the way we care for those of others (which is not to say that we necessarily care more about our own experience). Prereflectively, one would think this is because these experiences will be ours and no one else's. But then, of course, we need to (...) explain what it means to say that a future experience will be mine and how knowledge of this fact renders it rational for me to care for this experience in a special way. Indeed most philosophers take this route. But in doing so, they quickly stumble on insuperable problems. I shall argue that the problem of egocentric care, as it is sometimes called, can be solved by turning things upside down: it is much more fruitful to think that the special kind of care we feel for some future experiences (and not others) is part of what makes them ours should they occur. This requires an explanation of egocentric care for future experiences that does not draw in a theory of personal identity, but rather contributes to one. I will attempt to provide this explanation by making use of the idea of a diachronic mental holism. (shrink)

The separating and isolating tendencies of measuring practices can lead educators to lose sight of the aims and purposes of education. These end purposes can be used to guide and ensure that the activities of educators are educational, and therefore, Biesta recommends there is a need for educators to reconnect with them. This article. explores this notion of a ‘reconnection’ and argues that if educators are to challenge any potentially miseducative measuring practices, then this reconnection must require educators to value (...) and desire particular end purposes. Desires are recognised to be existential in character and are identified as being necessary for initiating actions. It is argued here that this aspect of desires is important for understanding the significance of a ‘reconnection’ because without it the purposes of education may remain only as abstract philosophical ideals. To make a difference and to challenge the isolating and miseducative tendencies of some measuring practices, educators must come to value particular purposes of education, and in addition, they must exercise the courage to enact them. This can be made possible because educators strongly care for and desire the actualisation of the purposes to which they are connected. (shrink)

This paper formulates the categories of "ethics," "self," and "subject" for an analysis of classical rabbinic ethics centered on the text, "The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan." Early rabbis were concerned with the realms of life that today's scholars describe as ethics and self-cultivation, yet they had no overarching concepts for either the self/person or for ethics. This analysis, then, cannot rely only upon native rabbinic terminology, but also requires a careful use of contemporary categories. This paper first sets out (...) basic features of "Rabbi Nathan" and presents appropriate formulations of the relevant scholarly terms. The latter sections address possibilities for employing and revising these categories in descriptive and comparative studies more broadly, first surveying relevant scholarship on Christian, Muslim, and Manichaean sources, and then turning to ancient East Asian sources with a particular focus upon passages in the "Zhuangzi". (shrink)

Transcendental idealism has been conceived of in philosophy as a position that aims to secure objectivity without traditional metaphysical underpinnings. This article contrasts two forms of transcendental idealism that have been identified: one in the work of Kant, the other in the later Wittgenstein. The distinction between these two positions is clarified by means of a distinction between transcendental constraints and transcendental features. It is argued that these conceptions provide the - fundamentally different - bases of the two positions under (...) discussion. With the core of the positions identified, it is then suggested that neither form of transcendental idealism - the Kantian or the Wittgensteinian - manages to combine the twin aims of safeguarding objectivity and maintaining metaphysical parsimony. The Kantian form appears to succeed on the first score at the cost of failing on the second, while the Wittgensteinian form succeeds on the second and fails on the first. (shrink)

The Dutch education system relies upon a large number of publicly-subsidized, denominational schools. The authors defend the importance of schools that educate children within a specific — including denominational — conception of the good by arguing for the importance of such a conception for the development of the child's identity. An essential component of this developmental process is critical reflection, conceived as crucial to the formation of moral autonomy.

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), ISBN-13:978-0674- 02676-6; 874pp. This review essay concentrates on Charles Taylor's image of modernity.

Recent writers in the libertarian tradition have suggested a natural affinity between hermeneutics and libertarian politics. This case is not persuasive. We look at two different ways the link has been attempted. In one, markets themselves are seen as constituting a hermeneutic conversation of sorts. A second approach uses hermeneutics to underpin the traditional liberal confinement of the state to setting the rules of the game—to matters of the right as opposed to the good. But the conception of the self (...) that emerges from hermeneutic thought leads to a communitarian rather than a liberal politics. (shrink)

Discussions of the Tylenol and Exxon Valdez cases found in textbooks, public relations scholarship, and news coverage are assessed to understand the meanings that practitioners, educators, critics, and journalists have attributed to those events. The essay objects to a central claim made by critics who say these cases set standards for ethical behavior in public relations. This claim, according to us, mistakes moral drama for ethical deliberation.

In her 2007 paper, “Argument Has No Function” Jean Goodwin takes exception with what she calls the “explicit function claims”, arguing that not only are function-based accounts of argumentation insufficiently motivated, but they fail to ground claims to normativity. In this paper I stake out the beginnings of a functionalist answer to Goodwin.

If the current trend is any guide, it looks like we are heading towards a future in which relationships are determined and regulated by rights. In addition to the ?universal human rights? declared soon after the Second World War, other ?universal rights? have been declared and added to the list of rights, such as the rights of the child, the rights of indigenous peoples and so on. A question arises as to whether a world in which our relationships are governed (...) entirely on the basis of rights is an appealing one. I want to suggest that if our common future is regulated entirely by rights then we are moving in the wrong direction. By contrast, Tu Wei-ming believes that if Confucianism flourishes, we will move towards a society based on trust rather than rights, or what he calls a ?fiduciary society?. I will argue that while Tu's Confucian fiduciary society is perhaps an impractical ideal, a move towards it will provide a necessary counter-balance to the relentless march towards a rights-based society. (shrink)

This article treats the public display of emotion as social performance. The concept of "emotive performance" is developed to highlight the overlooked quality of performativity in the social use of emotion. We argue that emotive performance is reflexive, cultural, and communicative. As an active social act, emotive performance draws from the cultural repertoire of interpretative frameworks and dominant narratives. We illustrate the utility of the concept by analyzing two episodes of unrehearsed emotive performances by two well-known politicians, Bill Clinton and (...) Jiang Zemin. The two cases demonstrate how emotion can be analyzed as a domain in which culturally specific narratives and rhetorics are used to advance the situational agenda of actors. The concept opens up a more expansive research agenda for sociology. It pushes sociologists to pay greater attention to people's experiences, interpretations, and deployments of emotions in social life. (shrink)

Ever since Freud pioneered the “talking cure,” psychologists of various stripes have explored how autobiographical narrative bears on self-understanding and psychic wellbeing. Recently, there has been a wave of philosophical speculation as to whether autobiographical narrative plays an essential or important role in the constitution of agentic selves. However, embodiment has received little attention from philosophers who defend some version of the narrative self. Catriona Mackenzie is an important exception to this pattern of neglect, and this paper explores Mackenzie’s work (...) on embodiment and self-narrative with the aim of better understanding the adequacy of autobiographical narrative as an account of the agentic self. I argue that Mackenzie’s narrative account of embodied subjectivity and agency is incomplete, for it over-estimates the reach of narrative and underestimates the cognitive and agentic powers of the lived body. (shrink)

In what directions is the Australian `new' middle class developing as we move towards the `Asia-Pacific century'? This paper reviews the basic structural features of the group during most of the 20th century, and suggests that a number of the arrangements which had delivered high status, material privileges and security to the group are becoming increasingly problematic. It examines evidence of the growing importance of Asian opportunities to the Australian middle class, and indications of responses to these. Interpreted in the (...) context of contemporary accounts of transformations in identity formation processes, this evidence may signal the emergence of a significant new stratum within the Australian middle class. The paper concludes with some speculations about the significance of such a development. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The problem of identity is one of the milestones of philosophical thinking. It is a complex question, a prism with multiple vertices. In this paper I will focus on two key-concepts related to identity, namely, death and community. Death stands as end of life, but as a possibility of it. The ghost "appears", then, in a privileged position for the dialogue and the understanding of this phenomenon. Moreover, as social beings, neither individuals can be separated from the community in which (...) they are registered; nor it is possible to distance the ghosts and functions historically fulfilled in this respect. Throughout the text I will discuss the functions that have been and those that would be of ghosts; understanding ghosts as a referring dialogic and therapeutic constitution of identity. El problema de la identidad constituye uno de los hitos fundamentales de pensamiento filosófico. Es una cuestión compleja, un prisma con múltiples vértices. El presente artículo se centrará en dos hitos fundamentales relacionados con la identidad, a saber: muerte y comunidad. La muerte se sitúa como fin de la vida, pero como posibilidad de la misma. "Aparece", entonces, el fantasma en una posición privilegiada para el diálogo y la comprensión de este fenómeno. Además, en tanto seres sociales los individuos no pueden ser separados de la comunidad en la que se inscriben. Tampoco es posible distanciar a los fantasmas y las funciones cumplidas históricamente en este aspecto. A lo largo del texto se examinarán cuáles han sido y pueden ser estas funciones a cumplir por los fantasmas entendidos como referente dialógico y terapéutico de la constitución de la identidad. (shrink)

This essay discusses Hegel’s theory of “abstract” respect for “abstract” personhood and its relation to the fuller, concrete account of human personhood. Hegel defines (abstract) personhood as an abstract, formal category with the help of his account of free will. For Hegel, personhood is defined in terms of powers, relations to self and to others. After analyzing what according to the first part of Philosophy of Right it is to (abstractly) respect someone as a person, the essay discusses the implications (...) for private property and market. Then the paper turns to discuss pathologies of ideologies that stress these aspects only. Finally, the essay discusses the way inwhich Hegel’s full social theory aims to overcome such pathological tendencies; most notably in his theory of Family and the State. (shrink)

In this article, I explore select case studies of Parkinson patients treated with deep brain stimulation in light of the notions of alienation and authenticity. While the literature on DBS has so far neglected the issues of authenticity and alienation, I argue that interpreting these cases in terms of these concepts raises new issues for not only the philosophical discussion of neuro-ethics of DBS, but also for the psychological and medical approach to patients under DBS. In particular, I suggest that (...) the experience of alienation and authenticity varies from patient to patient with DBS. For some, alienation can be brought about by neurointerventions because patients no longer feel like themselves. But, on the other hand, it seems alienation can also be cured by DBS as other patients experience their state of mind as authentic under treatment and retrospectively regard their former lives without stimulation as alienated. I argue that we must do further research on the relevance of authenticity and alienation to patients treated with DBS in order to gain a deeper philosophical understanding, and to develop the best evaluative criterion for the behavior of DBS patients. (shrink)

Deanna Kuhn's theory of informal argumentation (1991) evaluates arguments according to a theory/evidence model where subjects first articulate a theory and then must provide critical testing of alternatives on the basis of evidence. Using this model, Kuhn reports that many subjects fail to supply adequate evidence for their 'theories' and are often unable or unwilling to generate alternatives. In this paper an account of practical reasoning is provided that suggests an alternate interpretation for Kuhn's subjects' poor perfonnance. It is argued (...) that treating practical arguments as failed theoretical justifications causes Kuhn to misrepresent the contribution of many of her subjects' arguments. (shrink)

The relationship between present-day philosophy and philosophy of the past is a fundamental issue for understanding today’s philosophical division between “analytical” and “continental” philosophy. However, the opposition doesn’t lie in the mere rejection or acceptation of philosophy’s history. In fact, both philosophical traditions conceive the possibility of a dialog with the great philosophers of the past. This paper first characterizes the relationships with past philosophy in both traditions and arguments in favor of the relevancy of philosophy’s history for philosophy.

The article argues that the structure of self-realisation is bipolar, and that genuine self-realisation should be conceptualised as a phenomenon of connectedness manifesting itself simultaneously in both a horizontal and a vertical dimension. As a relation between individual self-assertion and self-exposition on the one hand and ideals and values in relation to individually transcending horizons of meaning on the other hand, genuine self-realisation develops through different self-organisational levels, with the relational character of the self being transformed in ways corresponding to (...) the level of its self-organisation. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

This paper sees Charles Taylor's moral discourse as a version of liberal communitarianism, an attempt to reconcile liberalism and communitarianism, by examining his three transcendental arguments: the liberal transcendence from the parochial to the universal; the communi tarian transcendence from the instinctual to the ontological; and the theistic transcendence from the good to God. While this liberal communi tarianism absorbs some great insights from both liberalism and communi tarianism and overcomes some of their respective weaknesses, it fails to avoid their (...) common dichotomy of the good and the right because Taylor's fundamentally communitarian commitment leads him to believe that there must be a universal ontological (religious or metaphysical) idea of the good as the foundation for any needed universal social and political idea of the right. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophy is split between an inherently a-historical moral philosophy/theory on the one hand and a growing interest in moral history and the historicity of morality on the other. In between these, the very moments of moral change are often left insufficiently attended to and under-theorized. Yet moral change is, arguably, one of the defining features of present day moral frameworks, and thus one of the main things we need to make sense of in moral philosophy. In this paper, (...) I present an account of moral change through the use of three metaphors: the tipping point, the bargaining table and the strong rope. I suggest these as coordinates for the development of a full-blown, historically sensitive conception of morality. (shrink)

The idea of human rights either as a moral system or as a set of legal practices does not sit well with the concept of honor. This is true for both ontological reasons and because of some reprehensible misuses of the term in constructs such as “honor killings.” Yet the absence of honor as an argument for human rights comes with a high cost in the defense of human rights generally. As Hobbes made clear in his early theory, rights—and dignity—are (...) grounded in the human capacity to make promises and in the necessity of honoring them. In his view then, honor is an essential feature of human rights and one closely linked to the human capacity for dignity. In this article, I explore how environmental human rights place a renewed emphasis on honor as a requirement for the protection of the rights of future generations. In the process, I explore the general relationship between honor, dignity, and human rights. (shrink)

Whereas theories on health generally argue in favor of one specific concept, we argue that, given the variety of health practices, we need different concepts of health. We thus approach health concepts as a Wittgensteinian family of thick concepts. By discussing five concepts of health offered by theory, we argue that all capture something that seems relevant when we talk and think about health. Classifying these concepts reveals their family resemblances: each of these concepts differs from the others in at (...) least one respect and resembles the others in several respects. Moreover, our classification shows that “health” always both describes a condition and evaluates that condition at the same time. Having both descriptive and evaluative dimensions, we can see health concepts as “thick concepts.” It is because of this evaluative dimension that it is important to reflect on the question of what understanding of health guides specific practices. We show that the distinctions revealed by our classification can serve as a conceptual toolbox for reflection on the assumptions and purposes of particular health practices. Finally, we illustrate how such reflection could work out by briefly exploring three specific health practices. (shrink)

A weak and a strong version of discourse theory can be distinguished. In the strong version the only source of normative validity in the nonspecific sense is rational consensus, where all parties concerned accept a norm for the same reasons, which are rationally convincing in the same way for all. In the weak version both rational and overlapping consensus can be sources of validity in the nonspecific sense. It is argued that the weak version is the more adequate, since it (...) can accommodate cases which the strong version cannot, and which it is unreasonable to view as cases of compromise. Discourse theory needs a weaker general discourse principle and a more flexible notion of normative consensus than is found in Habermas's Between Facts and Norms. (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper I explore the topic of moral compromise in institutional settings and highlight how moral compromise may affirm, rather than undermine, personal integrity. Central to this relationship between moral compromise and integrity is a view of the self that is responsive to multiple commitments and grounded in an ethic of responsibility. I elaborate a number of virtues that are related to this notion of the self and highlight how these virtues may support the development of individuals who are (...) responsive and reasonable in moral discourse and discerning in establishing moral limits on compromise. I look at how moral regret is closely connected to moral compromise and emphasize its significance for reinforcing personal integrity. The paper closes with a discussion of the relevance of these topics to the field of business ethics. (shrink)

This article strives to make a critical assessment of the claim of discourse ethics, as articulated by Jürgen Habermas, to meet with the challenges of moral consciousness and communicative action today. The article locates Habermas' theory of discourse ethics in the contemporary movement to remoralize institutions and to build a post-conventional moral theory. It describes Habermas' agenda and looks into incoherences in his project in accordance with his own norms. Beginning with an internal critique of Habermas, the article, however, is (...) engaged in an interrogation of the Habermasian agenda from outside its own frame of reference precisely because the issues that the discovered tensions raise, cannot be resolved within the rationalist framework of Habermas. The article argues that in order to realize the lofty agenda of transformation that discourse ethics sets for itself, it must now make a dialogue with critical and practical spir ituality. It gives a brief sketch of the agenda of spiritual transformations that can help discourse ethics solve some of its own stated problems such as the problems of anthropocentrism and cognitive distantiation and be a transformative agent in thinking through the theory and practice of moral consciousness and communicative action today. (shrink)

The human brain is subjective and reflects the life of a being-in-the-world-with-others whose identity reflects that complex engaged reality. Human subjectivity is shaped and in-formed (formed by inner processes) that are adapted to the human life-world and embody meaning and the relatedness of a human being. Questions of identity relate to this complex and dynamic reality to reflect the fact that biology, human ecology, culture, and one's historic-political situation are inscribed in one's neural network and have configured its architecture so (...) that it is a unique and irreplaceable phenomenon. So much is a human individual a relational being whose own understanding and ownership of his or her life is both situated and distinctive that neurophilosophical conceptions of identity and human activity that neglect these features of our being are quite inadequate to ground a robust neuroethics. (shrink)

The concept of multiplicity describes the fluid nature of identity and experience in the wake of postmodernity. Yet the question of how we negotiate and maintain our identities, despite our multiplicities, requires phenomenological clarification. I suggest that recognition of multiplicity needs to be combined with an acknowledgement of continuity, however minimal. I maintain that this continuity is evidenced in our pre-reflective self-awareness, embodiment and habitual activities. Our authorship of life narratives and our ability to deliberate and shape our identities takes (...) place against the background of our lived, prereflective experience. I develop the notion of prereflective self-awareness using the work of Sartre, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. I suggest that prereflective self-awareness, embodiment and habitual activity are themselves shaped by our participation in sociocultural frameworks that give meaning to our lives. (shrink)

Deontological (as opposed to consequentialist) liberals treat freedom of action as an end in itself, not a means to other ends. Yet logically, when one makes a deliberate choice, one treats freedom of action as if it were not an end in itself, for one uses this freedom as a means to the ends one hopes to achieve through one's action. The tension between deontology and the logic of choice is reflected in the paradoxical nature of the ?right to do (...) wrong?; and in Rawls's unsuccessful attempts to justify to acting agents their interest in such a right, embodied in his conception of agents as ?self-validating sources of claims.? A self-validating source of claims is akin to God as envisioned by voluntarist theologians such as Ockham. Leibniz's critique of voluntarism, then, is applicable to the Rawlsian subject: like the voluntarist God, she would be unable to act if it were indeed the case that her action validated itself. (shrink)

In this essay we provide (1) an argument for why ethics should be naturalized, (2) an analysis of why it is not yet naturalized, (3) a defense of ethical naturalism against two fallacies—Hume’s and Moore’s—that ethical naturalism allegedly commits, and (4) a proposal that normative ethics is best conceived as part of human ecology committed to pluralistic relativism. We explain why naturalizing ethics both entails relativism and also constrains it, and why nihilism about value is not an especially worrisome for (...) ethical naturalists. The substantive view we put forth constitutes the essence of Duke Naturalism. (NOTE: This is a slightly modified reprint of Flangan et al 2007 of the same title.). (shrink)

The paper deals with a perspective of Christian philosophy on artificial memory erasuse for psychotherapeutic purposes. Its central question is whether a safe and reliable technology of memory erasure, once it is available, would be acceptable from a Christian ethics point of view. The main facet of this question is related to the Christian ethics requirement of contrition for the past wrongs, which in the case of memory erasure of particulary troubling experiences and personal choices would not be possible. The (...) paper argues that there are limits to the ethical significance of contrition in the writings of the leading Christian fathers on the theme, where excessive suffering and inability to forgive oneself for one’s actions is an impediment to the achivement of tranquility of mind and spiritual redemption, rather than a prerequisite for it. The paper thus concludes that there is no hindrance in principle from the Christian ethics point of view to pursuing a voluntary and selective memory erasure as a psychotherapeutic technique once a fully adequate technology is available. (shrink)

The purpose here is to explore metaphorical conceptions of the self in a fourth century B.C.E. Chinese text, the Zhuangzi, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and the contemporary theory of metaphor. It is argued that the contemporary theory of metaphor provides scholars with an exciting new theoretical grounding for the study of comparative thought, as well as a concrete methodology for undertaking the comparative project. What is seen when the Zhuangzi is examined from the perspective of metaphor theory is (...) that conceptions of the self portrayed in this text are based on a relatively small set of interrelated conceptual metaphors, and that the metaphysics built into the Zhuangzi's classical Chinese metaphors resonates strongly with the (mostly unconscious) metaphysical assumptions built into the metaphors of modern American English. This should not be surprising, considering the claims of contemporary cognitive linguists that the metaphoric schemas making up the foundation of human abstract conceptual life are not arbitrarily created ex nihilo, but rather emerge from common embodied experience and are conceptual, rather than merely linguistic, in nature. (shrink)

This paper critically examines some assumptions involved in determining the nature of the relationships and work that constitute a school as a community dedicated to learning and knowledge. Rather than arguing from first principles, the paper assumes that respect for other people as ends is preferable to seeing individuals in terms of their function or status; and it argues, in particular, for the reinstatement of a sense of agency for teachers that seems to have been lost in recent education initiatives (...) in the UK. Following Heidegger's notion of authenticity and Gadamer's emphasis on the process of interpretation to precipitate understanding, the paper argues that professional knowledge and understanding is best generated in relation to others, and thus the ethical basis for schools as communities should focus less on individuals and more on the value of persons in relationships of a distinctive kind. (shrink)

David Denz; Bioethics and the Literature of Pluralism, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 7, Issue 3, 1 January 2001, Pages.

Over the last 30 years, the self-determination efforts and objectives of Indigenous peoples in Canada have increasingly been cast in the language of 'recognition' — recognition of cultural distinctiveness, recognition of an inherent right to self-government, recognition of state treaty obligations, and so on. In addition, the last 15 years have witnessed a proliferation of theoretical work aimed at fleshing out the ethical, legal and political significance of these types of claims. Subsequently, 'recognition' has now come to occupy a central (...) place in our efforts to comprehend what is at stake in contestations over identity and difference in colonial contexts more generally. In this paper, I employ Frantz Fanon's critique of Hegel's master–slave dialectic to challenge the now hegemonic assumption that the structure of domination that frames Indigenous–state relations in Canada can be undermined via a liberal politics of recognition. Against this assumption, I argue that instead of ushering in an era of peaceful coexistence grounded on the Hegelian ideal of reciprocity, the contemporary politics of recognition promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonial power that Indigenous demands for recognition have historically sought to transcend. (shrink)