"... some very serious critiques of French existential phenomenology and post-structuralism... the contributors offer some refreshingly new insights into some tried and 'true' philosophical texts and more recent works of literary theory." -- Philosophy and Literature "By bridging the gap between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, the authors of The Thinking Muse: Feminism and the Modern French Philosophy largely overcome the cultural polarity between 'male thinker' and 'female muse'." -- Ethics "These engaging essays by American Feminists bring toether feminist philosophy, existential (...) phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. The editors provide an excellent introductory overview, making this an ideal book for courses in feminist theory and philosophy and modern French thought." -- Philosopher's Index "The concerns raised in this volume are substantial.... a solid addition to the canon of American feminist philosophy." -- Philosophy and Literature "... a forum for feminist appropriations of existential and post-structuralist philosophy." -- Canadian Philosophical Reviews Marking a radical shift in the traditional philosophical separation between muse (female) and thinker (male), The Thinking Muse revises the scope and methods of philosophical reflection. These engaging essays by American feminists bring together feminist philosophy, existential phenomenology, and recent currents in French poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

Recent methodological debates regarding the place of feasibility considerations in normative political theory are hindered for want of a rigorous model of the feasibility frontier. To address this shortfall, I present an analysis of feasibility that generalizes the economic concept of a production possibility frontier and then develop a rigorous model of the feasibility frontier using the familiar possible worlds technology. I then show that this model has significant methodological implications for political philosophy. On the Target View, a (...) political ideal presents a long-term goal for morally progressive reform efforts and, thus, serves as an important reference point for our specification of normative political principles. I use the model to show that we can- not reasonably expect that adopting political ideals as long-term reform objectives will guide us toward the realization of morally optimal feasible states of affairs. I conclude by proposing that political philosophers turn their attention to the analysis of actual social failures rather than political ideals. (shrink)

Political ideals -- Capitalism and the wage system -- Pitfalls in socialism -- Individual liberty and public control -- National independence and internationalism.

This edition of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's Politische Ideale reveals the historical significance of Chamberlain in German conservative political philosophy. Contrasting the vital nationalistic state with the sterile commercialism of liberal democracies, moral freedom with the unruly selfishness of democratic parties, and the decaying culture of the Anglo-Saxon peoples with the relatively pure Teutonic, Chamberlain evokes in this work the principal elements of a genuinely conservative state.

John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, and Bruce Ackerman have identified legitimate political arrangements with those to which speakers in an idealized discourse could agree. Michael Walzer, Tim Heysse, and others have raised questions regarding this appeal to ideal speech situations, arguing that we ought to ground our political decisions in real, rather than ideal conversations. This paper responds to some of these criticisms by examining the value of agreement.

This edition of Houston Stewart Chamberlain's Politische Ideale reveals the historical significance of Chamberlain in German conservative political philosophy. Contrasting the vital nationalistic state with the sterile commercialism of liberal democracies, moral freedom with the unruly selfishness of democratic parties, and the decaying culture of the Anglo-Saxon peoples with the relatively pure Teutonic, Chamberlain evokes in this work the principal elements of a genuinely conservative state.

Originally published during the early part of the twentieth century, the Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature were designed to provide concise introductions to a broad range of topics. They were written by experts for the general reader and combined a comprehensive approach to knowledge with an emphasis on accessibility. Plato: Moral and Political Ideals by Adela Marion Adam, first printed in 1913, deals with the main substance of Plato's philosophy of ethics and politics, set within the context (...) of his intellectual debt to Socrates. (shrink)

The Buddhist cumulative tradition is enormously complex and variegated, having been a part of the human record for over two thousand years, and having contributed massively to the shaping of a variety of cultures in South, South‐East, sand East Asia. More recently many in Europe and the Americas are responding to the teachings offered by one or another of the continuing strands of this cumulative tradition. Attempting both to communicate and to interpret in any degree of detail the positions this (...) great tradition has developed about what constitutes the ideal in human relationships and polity, in an ever changing process over these many centuries and in the remarkable variety of these many contexts, would border on the bewildering. But the attempt might be instructive, since it could creatively place in juxtaposition an awareness that we human beings begin at different starting points in constructing our views of ourselves and the contexts in which we live out our lives. (shrink)

En este artículo defiendo que existe una «teleogología política» en Aristóteles que está estrechamente relacionada con su teleología natural. A través de la teleología natural el filósofo justifica un orden político de dominación y subyugacion, en el que la mayor parte de la población queda excluida de la ciudadanía debido a la falta de virtud. Las vidas de los trabajadores manuals, ya sean mujeres, esclavos o miembros masculinos de la población libres, carecen de validez de acuerdo a los criterios más (...) elevados que Aristóteles considera necesarios para la ciudadanía. El objetivo de la población trabajadora es servir a formas más elevadas de existencia, a la vida de la clase dirigente. (shrink)

“Resilience” is booming. No longer a mere metaphor or abstract reference to dispositional properties, the resilience of communities or social-ecological systems is increasingly grounded in specific first-order properties. Consequently, resilience now constitutes a contentful and achievable partial conception of a good society. Yet political philosophers have taken little notice. The current article first discerns within recent social-scientific literature a set of attainable and measurable first-order properties that constitute “community resilience” or “ecological resilience.” Then, specifying “resilience” as the resilience of (...) high-HDI democratic societies to environmental disasters, infrastructure failures, and economic collapse, the current article argues from within a liberal framework that both “classical” and “egalitarian” liberals must treat resilience so understood as a necessary condition of legitimacy and justice; and this conclusion forces an overhaul of these liber... (shrink)

This essay articulates the differences and suggests the similarities between the practices of Socratic political speaking and those of Platonic political writing. The essay delineates Socratic speaking and Platonic writing as both erotically oriented toward ideals capable of transforming the lives of individuals and their relationships with one another. Besides it shows that in the Protagoras the practices of Socratic political speaking are concerned less with Protagoras than with the individual young man, Hippocrates. In the Phaedo, (...) this ideal of a Socrates is amplified in such a way that Platonic writing itself emerges as capable of doing with readers what Socratic speaking did with those he encountered. Socrates is the Platonic political ideal. The result is a picture of the transformative political power of Socratic speaking and Platonic writing both. El ensayo articula diferencias y sugiere similitudes entre las prácticas del diálogo político de Sócrates y aquellas de la escritura política de Platón. Propone, además, que tanto el diálogo socrático como la escritura platónica se orientan eróticamente hacia ideales capaces de transformar las vidas de los individuos y sus relaciones. Demuestra que en el Protágoras las prácticas del diálogo socrático se ocupan menos de Protágoras que del joven Hipócrates. En el Fedón, este ideal de Sócrates se amplía de tal manera que la misma escritura platónica aparece como capaz de hacer con los lectores lo que el diálogo de Sócrates hacía con sus interlocutores. Sócrates es el ideal político platónico. El resultado es una visión del poder de transformación política tanto del diálogo socrático como de la escritura platónica. (shrink)

Should facts about motivation play a role in the justification of political ideals? Many theorists argue that political ideals should be tailored to the limitations of human nature—‘taking people as they are’—while others maintain that facts about motivation should be excluded. This article offers a critical intervention in this debate: the important question is not so much whether people can motivate themselves, or whether they are capable of being motivated, but what social mechanisms would be required (...) to motivate them, and whether these mechanisms are legitimate. Reframing the question of motivation as a political question of legitimacy, I argue that if people could only be motivated to act through illegitimate use of power, the ideal in question cannot be fully justified. (shrink)

I shall assume that a well-ordered state is one that promotes the freedom of its subjects. My question is what is the kind of freedom that the state ought to promote? This question is different from the question of what freedom is. It might be thought, for example, that freedom consists in the autonomous pursuit of valuable goals and projects, but that the state cannot directly promote this freedom. On this view, the state would not be able to make its (...) citizens free. However, it might be able to do things that make it easier or more likely for them to be free. The freedom that the state promotes might be merely an aspect of or a condition for the freedom that really matters. (shrink)

Tekst razmatra Rolsovu ideju javnog uma kao sredisnji deo njegove koncepcije politickog liberalizma. Ideja javnog uma je shvacena dvostruko, kao norma opravdanja i kao politicki ideal. U tekstu su takodje razmotrene neke kritike Rolsove koncepcije i naznaceni moguci nacini na koji se Rols moze odbraniti od njih. Osnovne teze u tekstu su da se Rolsova koncepcija javnog uma moze odbraniti od standardnih kritika, ali i da sama razotkriva ogranicenja politickog ideala liberalne demokratije. Dosledno shvacen, politicki ideal liberalne demokratije mora se (...) odreci pretenzija na moralnu superiornost i oslanjati se na moralni konsenzus koji moze biti potvrdjen javnim umom politickog drustva.. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or (...) in a much more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or (...) in a much more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

This article undertakes a comparative study of the conjectural histories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Ferguson, focusing on the convergences in the moral and political ideals expressed and grounded in these histories. In comparison with Scots like Adam Smith and John Millar, the conjectural histories of Ferguson and Rousseau follow a similar historical trajectory as regards the development and progress of commercial, political and cultural arts. However, their assessment of the moral progress of humanity does not, or (...) in a much more limited way than in Smith and Millar, correlate with this trajectory. Rousseau and Ferguson see a candour and vigour in savage and barbarian societies that is much less easily supported by the complex socio-economic framework of modern, commercial societies. It is argued that the convergences in their conjectural histories arise from a similar fusion of these histories with Stoic and republican perspectives. While Rousseau and Ferguson do not see history as cyclical, they think that the forces that push towards moral decline are strong and can, on the political level, only be countered by firm republican policies. Furthermore, their shared Stoic ideal of the life lived according to nature informs their solutions for modern societies. (shrink)

One of the basic ways of distinguishing the several “schools” of Chinese thought, especially during the classical period (sixth to third centuries bce), is by their differing views of the ideal state or society. No formidable cultural barriers need to be breached in order to understand these several views, but they do not have close Western philosophical analogues. They are put forth within a conception of the universe that is uniquely Chinese, and both the grammar and the style(s) of discourse (...) describing these views are similarly unique. Some preliminary comments are therefore in order. (shrink)

Counter to ‘political meritocracy’, the goal of this article is to present a different approach to incorporating the Confucian political ideal into an ethical modification of liberal democracy, nam...

This paper offers a brief account and defense of freely associated production as a political ideal. I discuss its conceptual structure, specifying what is meant by free association in terms of economic production, the sense in which it is a value for political order, and its approximate place in an historical lineage of reflection on freedom. Given that our economic arrangements are constitutively determined by law and public policy, and involve relations of governing power, the values that legal (...) authority must subserve bear directly on the productive sphere. One of those values – arguably the highest – is relational freedom. Reigning structures of production violate its demands. Without understanding the ways in which that violation occurs, we cannot effectively address some of our most urgent social crises. (shrink)

His authority is always grounded in the very authority he deposes, with the result that his voice is little more than a theatrical performance that unwittingly re-enacts the rhetorical maneuvers of deposed father figures.

In this paper, I take up Habermas’s recent writing on Rawls in Inclusion of the Other and focus on an example that Habermas discusses there, the Catholic stance on abortion. He brings in this example to question how such views could be rationally negotiated, under Rawls’s views of political liberalism, prior to arriving at an overlapping consensus. Habermas argues that Rawls must affirm the truth of moral constructivism in order to resolve the question of which conceptions of the good (...) make a valid claim on us. Though I have criticisms of how both Rawls and Habermas cast the issue of abortion, I argue that through properly understanding the role of the political ideal of citizenship in Rawls’s conception of political liberalism, we can find resources to contend with the problem Habermas finds here. I defend the capacity of political constructivism to resolve this issue without affirming the truth of moral constructivism. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up Habermas’s recent writing on Rawls in Inclusion of the Other and focus on an example that Habermas discusses there, the Catholic stance on abortion. He brings in this example to question how such views could be rationally negotiated, under Rawls’s views of political liberalism, prior to arriving at an overlapping consensus. Habermas argues that Rawls must affirm the truth of moral constructivism in order to resolve the question of which conceptions of the good (...) make a valid claim on us. Though I have criticisms of how both Rawls and Habermas cast the issue of abortion, I argue that through properly understanding the role of the political ideal of citizenship in Rawls’s conception of political liberalism, we can find resources to contend with the problem Habermas finds here. I defend the capacity of political constructivism to resolve this issue without affirming the truth of moral constructivism. (shrink)

The arguments against managed care can be divided into two general clusters. One cluster concerns the way managed care undermines the ethical ideals of medical professionalism. Since those ideals largely focus on the physician-patient relation, the first cluster comes under the rubric of micro-ethics; namely, the ethics of individual-individual relations. The second cluster of criticisms focuses on macro-ethical issues, primarily on issues of justice and policy. By reviewing these arguments, it becomes clear that managed care does not easily (...) fit within traditional modes of ethical analysis. It poses a radical challenge to current medical and socio-political norms, and even resists the distinction between micro- and macro-ethical domains, a distinction that reflects the private/public distinction. Managed care organizations call for a third way, an inter-ethic for middle level organizations. The essays in this Journal provide a first step in this radical reassessment, laying the foundation for an organizational ethic that is responsive to the realities and promise of managed care. (shrink)

아리스토텔레스의 민주주의 이론을 세가지 원리의 측면에서 고찰하였다. 그것의 기본원리에서는 먼저 민주정에서의 권력주체인 ‘民’이 누구인지 고찰해 보았다. 아테네의 정치현실을 고려하던 그는 민주정의 주체는 가난한 다수라고 하였다. 이에 아리스토텔레스에게서의 민주정이란 본래 신분적으로 경제적으로 소외된 다수에 의한 정치요, 그러한 소외를 극복하려는 정치적 행위로 간주될 수 있는 여지가 있다. 말하자면 그에게서 민주정이란 빈자의, 빈자에 의한, 빈자를 위한 정치인 셈이다(of the poor, by the poor, and for the poor). 이러한 민주정에 대한 그의 이념은 후대에 마르크스주의자들에 의해 주목을 받았다. 민주정의 구현원리에서는 아리스토텔레스는 민주정에서 평등(ἰσότητα)의 원리가 중요하다고 (...) 보았는데, 그의 기본적인 생각은 이러한 평등의 구현은 다른 중요원리인 정의(正義)와 합치되어야 한다는 것이다. 평등과 정의의 문제에 있어 사람의 수로 접근하는 것이 아니라, 재산의 양으로 접근하고 있는 그는 부자들의 책임을 강조하므로 균형을 잡고 중용을 이루려는 노력을 한다. 민주정의 이상원리에서는 이상적인 국가는 구성원 상호간에 좋은 교제와 우애가 있어야 하므로 가능한 동등하거나 유사한 사람들로 이뤄지는 것이 좋다고 보고 이런 집단은 부자층과 빈곤층의 중간층으로 이들이야말로 절제와 중용의 덕목을 따르는 최선의 국가구성원이라고 할 수 있다. 따라서 아리스토텔레스에게서는 주로 중산층(中産層)으로 이뤄진 나라가 현실적으로 이상적인 국가라고 보는데, 이는 오늘날의 일반적인 국가이상과 유사한 점이라고 할 수 있다. 빈자층이 많으면 민주주의가, 부유층이 많으면 과두정치로 기울기 쉬운데, 중산층이 많으면 민주정과 과두정이 혼합된 혼합정이 들어설 수 있다는 것이다. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is (...) empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) – a famous Rawlsian assumption about the intellectual demographics of liberal democracies – is not as self-evident as is sometimes thought. The problem with the FRP is that in Political Liberalism Rawls is treating the freedoms and burdens story as being sufficient – in itself – to explain the demographics of reasonable pluralism. The inadequacy of the freedoms and burdens story is an indication that the FRP is (...) empirically underdetermined as a way of glossing the belief demographics of liberal democracies. And it is a reason to wonder whether pluralism is as permanent as Rawls thinks. But worldview disagreements are not necessarily so incorrigible. In response to the FRP, it can be asserted that there is nothing that is inherent in the idea of a liberal democracy to preclude the choice by the citizens of a common worldview. (shrink)

Deliberative democrats conceive of the democratic process as a transformative process, one that requires citizens to participate in authentic deliberation with others rather than engaging in the strategic behaviour characteristic of existing democratic practices. Current practices often pit factions of society against one another in a struggle to win or retain political power. The moralized conception of democracy defended by deliberative democrats is one that emphasizes the importance of being open-minded, reasonable and accommodating. These civic virtues are necessary if (...) we are to treat others as equals when decisions are made concerning the use of political power, power that will influence the life prospects of everyone. Deliberative democrats are thus concerned with the normative legitimacy of a democratic decision; this legitimacy depends ‘on the degree to which those affected by it have been included in the decision-making processes and have had the opportunity to influence the outcomes’. (shrink)