I am pleased to introduce this Symposium Edition of The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, which covers a wide variety of issues central to transgender health equity, including Dr. Jamison Green’s recent history of the impact of health policy on transgender communities, Dr. M. Killian Kinney, Ms. Taylor Pearson, and Prof. Julie Ralston Aoki’s transgender equity tool for legal policy analysis, and Prof. Elizabeth Kukura’s analysis of issues facing transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive people during pregnancy and childbirth.

In Other Logics: Alternatives to Formal Logic in the History of Thought and Contemporary Philosophy , edited by Admir Skodo, an array of historical and philosophical chapters decenter the idea of formal logic as the most accurate, timeless, and abstract description of all thought and reasoning.

This article argues that the relationship between analytical philosophy and the philosophy of intellectual history is conceptually uneasy and even antagonistic once the general philosophical viewpoints, and some particular topics, of the two perspectives are drawn out and compared. The article critically compares the philosophies of Quentin Skinner and Mark Bevir with the philosophies of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, W.V.O. Quine and Donald Davidson. Section I compares the way in which these two perspectives view the task of philosophy. Section II (...) points to a critical difficulty in Bevir and Skinner’s use of analytical philosophy in their discussions on objectivity. In section III, another such critical juncture is identified in the topic of explanation. Finally, section IV suggests an interpretation for the character of the comparison. (shrink)

This article interrogates how rituals and myths may reshape Pentecostal ideology and practice in ways that resonate with the practical concerns of born-again congregants in an exclusive foreign labour market. It draws on a series of field observations conducted in Johannesburg, at two congregations of the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God Africa – a born-again movement with roots in Zimbabwe – between 2009 and 2016. The authors critically examine the shifting architecture of the ritual of Working Talents and its contradictory use (...) of myths. The authors consider the intended consequences of both the ritual of Working Talents and often contradictory myths used to bolster it, for the transnational growth of the church and its involvement in the development of the nation. A phenomenological observation qualitative research was utilised to establish the experiences, feelings and behaviours of the ZAOGA congregants regarding the gospel of Working Talents at two of their assemblies in Johannesburg. A key finding was that Working Talents contains ethical action and empowerment narratives, and it aspires to create Pentecostal congregants with collective cultural identities, disposed to give money to support the causes of the church. In doing so, myths and rituals have reshaped the ZAOGA Pentecostal ideology into a nuanced version of the Prosperity Gospel, one that emphasises notions of indigenisation, empowerment and self-propagation. (shrink)

"Charles "Teenie" Harris photographed the events and daily life of African Americans for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential Black newspapers. From the 1930s to 1970s, Harris created a richly detailed record of public personalities, historic events, and the lives of average people. In 2001, Carnegie Museum of Art purchased Harris's archive of nearly 80,000 photographic negatives, few of which are titled and dated; the archive is considered one of the most important documentations of 20th?century African American (...) life. The book will serve as the definitive publication on the life and work of Teenie Harris, consisting of three significant essays: Cheryl Finley, assistant professor in the history of art at Cornell University, offers the first thorough analysis of Harris as an artist, situating him within the history of 20th?century African American art as well as American documentary and vernacular photography; Larry Glasco, associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, draws on new research to present a detailed biography of the photographer; and Joe Trotter, professor of history and social justice at Carnegie Mellon University, explores the social and historical context of Harris's photographs. The book will also include a foreword by Deborah Willis, professor at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. In addition to comparative illustrations within the essays, the book includes 100 plates of Harris's signature work and a complete bibliography and chronology"--. (shrink)

Ainda assim, a docência... Experiências formativas e reafirmação da escolha pelo magistério Resumo: Este artigo relata os achados de uma pesquisa que buscou identificar e compreender quais experiências formativas vividas por estudantes bolsistas do Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação à Docência (Pibid) atua de forma a potencializar os processos de socialização profissional que ratificam a escolha inicial pela docência. O estudo é de caráter qualitativo e valeu-se do grupo focal como técnica de produção de dados. A pesquisa foi realizada (...) em 16 cursos de licenciatura, de cinco Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES) de Minas Gerais, e revelou que a metodologia de trabalho proporcionada pelo Pibid atua de forma decisiva no processo de descoberta da profissão, em especial as experiências de ensino na sala de aula e o trabalho coletivo em comunidades de práticas. Palavras-chave: Formação de professores; Formação inicial; Licenciatura; Pibid. Even so, teaching... Training experiences and reaffirmation of choice for teaching Abstract: His article reports the findings of a research that sought to identify and understand which training experiences undergone by scholarship students from the Institutional Scholarship Program (Pibid) works in a way that enhances professional socialization processes that ratify the initial choice of teaching. The study is qualitative in nature and used the focal group as a technique for producing data. The research was carried out in 16 undergraduate courses, from five Higher Education Institutions (IES) of Minas Gerais, and revealed that the work methodology provided by Pibid plays a decisive role in the process of discovering the profession, especially teaching experiences in the classroom and collective work in communities of practice. Keywords: Teacher training; Initial formation; Graduation; Pibid. Todavía, enseñando... Experiencias formativas y reafirmación de elección por el magisterium Resumen: Este artículo reporta los hallazgos de una investigación que buscó identificar y comprender qué experiencias formativas vividas por los becarios del Programa Institucional de Becas de Iniciación Docente (Pibid) actúan para potenciar los procesos de socialización profesional que ratifican la elección inicial de enseñando. El estudio es cualitativo y utilizó el grupo focal como técnica para la producción de datos. La investigación se realizó en 16 cursos de pregrado, de cinco Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES) en Minas Gerais, y reveló que la metodología de trabajo brindada por Pibid actúa de manera decisiva en el proceso de descubrimiento de la profesión, especialmente en las experiencias docentes. en el aula y trabajo colectivo en comunidades de práctica. Palabras clave: Formación docente; Formación inicial; Graduación; Pibid. Data de registro: 29/10/2020 Data de aceite: 22/09/2021. (shrink)

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

Admiration and adoration have been considered as emotions with the power to change people, yet our knowledge of the specific nature and function of these emotions is quite limited. From an interdisciplinary perspective, we present a prototype approach to admiration and what has variously been labelled adoration, worship, or reverence. Both admiration and adoration contribute to the formation of personal and collective ideals, values, and identities, but their workings differ. We offer a detailed theoretical account of commonalities and differences in (...) the appraisal patterns and action tendencies associated with the two emotions. This analysis reveals that admiration motivates the internalisation and emulation of ideals embodied by an outstanding role model. Adoration motivates adherence to the teachings and expectations of a meaning maker and benefactor perceived as superhuman or sacred. Thus, the primary function of admiration is to promote individual learning and change, whereas adoration primarily serves to bind communities together. (shrink)

The category of the admirable has received little attention in the history of philosophy, even among virtue ethicists. I don't think we can understand the admirable without investigating the emotion of admiration. I have argued that admiration is an emotion in which the object is ‘seen as admirable’, and which motivates us to emulate the admired person in the relevant respect. Our judgements of admirability can be distorted by the malfunction of our disposition to admiration. We all know many ways (...) in which admiration misfires when people admire someone who is not admirable. In this paper I focus on a different kind of mistake, one in which there is resistance to moving from admiring to emulating someone admirable. I think that Aristotle's zēlos is in between admiration and envy, and it points us to a predictable line of deviation from admiration to the path of envy, spite and ressentiment. I think these are mistakes to which people in the modern age are particularly prone. (shrink)

Fan culture has grown immensely over the past few years. People are constantly looking up to celebrities and personalities as role models for their fashion, identity, and success. During the stage of adolescence, it is normal for teenagers to admire well- known people and form fan attachments as part of their identity formation. However, this admiration of a specific media figure can be associated with one's personality, cognitive processes, and psychological well-being. Thus, the current study aims to investigate the (...) correlation between celebrity admiration and the self-esteem of 238 Filipino male teenagers. The research instruments, namely Celebrity Attitude Scale (CAS) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) were both utilized through google forms. Results have shown high scores on celebrity admiration and the normal range of self-esteem of the participants. Using Pearson’s r correlation coefficient, it was found that celebrity admiration and self-esteem of Filipino male teenagers have a significant relationship that exists in a negative direction. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that an aesthetics of exemplarity could be a useful component of projects of moral self-cultivation. Using some in Linda Zagzebski's exemplarism, I describe a distinctive, aesthetically-inflected mode of admiration called moral attraction whose object is the inner beauty of a persn - the expression of the 'inner' virtues or excellences of character of a person in 'outer' forms of bodily comportment that are experienced, by others, as beautiful. I then argue that certain (...) moral traditions deploy inner beauty within their practices of moral self-cultivation - a good example being Confucianism. Advocates of exemplarist moral education should therefore take seriously the ways that an aesthetics of exemplarity can play roles within projects of moral self-cultivation. (shrink)

By spelling out the affective dimension of admiration, this paper challenges the view of admiration as a trustworthy means of detecting morally desirable qualities in exemplars. Such a view of admiration, foundational for the current debate on exemplars in moral education, holds that admiration is a self-motivating emotion essentially oriented toward the good and the excellent. I demonstrate that this view ignores the affective aspects of admiration explored widely in the history of philosophy on which the debate on moral exemplars (...) substantially draws. Focusing on Spinoza, Smith, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, I bring to light their largely skeptical views of the moral value of admiration. These thinkers indicate that admiration can be influenced by, and is often conflated with, other emotions, and can arise in us through behavioral mimicry; moreover, admiration is often oriented toward the mediocre and corrupt, is contagious, self-referential, collective, and has limited motivational power. Their remarks on the affective dimension of admiration call into question admiration’s applicability and usefulness in moral exemplarity. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the diachronic fittingness conditions of admiration – that is, what it takes for a person to continue or cease to be admirable over time. We present a series of cases that elicit judgements that suggest different understandings of admiration over time. In some cases, admirability seems to last forever. In other cases, it seems that it can cease within a person’s lifetime if she changes sufficiently. Taken together, these cases highlight what we call the puzzle (...) of admiration over time. We then present a potential solution to this puzzle. (shrink)

Admiration is thought to have essential functions for social interaction: it inspires us to learn from excellent models, to become better people, and to praise others and create social bonds. In intergroup relations, admiration for other groups leads to greater intergroup contact, cooperation, and help. Given these implications, it is surprising that admiration has only been researched by a handful of authors. In this article we review the literature, focusing on the definition of admiration, links to related emotions, measurement, antecedents, (...) and associated behaviors. We propose a conceptual model of admiration that highlights admiration’s function for approaching and emulating successful models, thus contributing to social learning at the interpersonal level and to cultural transmission at the group and societal level. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists have recently been focusing on the important question of how positive character traits are developed. Within philosophy, these positive character traits are referred to as virtues. In this chapter, I examine one intuitively appealing proposal concerning virtue development - the idea that the path to moral virtue can begin with the experience of admiration for a moral exemplar. My aim is to provide a model of how this process might work by identifying the different stages it would (...) involve. I then highlight three ways in which admiration might nevertheless fail to result in the development of moral virtue. It is hoped that providing this model, and identifying the potential problems, will be helpful for those interested in virtue education. (shrink)

L’admiration comme principe phénoménologique de la subjectivité humaine Résumé: Le texte est une tentative d'analyse phénoménologique (principalement inspiré de Ricœur) du thème de l'admiration, que Descartes dans les Passions de l’âme décrit comme passion première et principale. Envisagé comme principe de la subjectivité, cette passion expliquerait l'accès non théorique au monde et à soi-même, et permet de comprendre la constitution du sujet passionnel. En analysant ce sujet, appelé par Descartes l'union de l'âme et du corps, les catégories traditionnelles d'attention, d'imagination (...) et enfin de volonté et de temporalité se trouvent profondément reformulées. Dans le mode admiratif spécifique d’un tel sujet, qui se caractérise par interaction dynamique de l'âme et du corps, on peut parler des étapes successives de la vie passionnée, au sein de laquelle émergent les autres passions “principales” (l'amour, la haine, le désir, la joie et la tristesse), pour trouver enfin son accomplissement dans une expérience éthique de la générosité. Mots-clés: Passion; Admiration; Union de l’âme et du corps; Descartes; Ricoeur. A admiração como princípio fenomenológico da subjetividade Resumo: O texto é uma tentativa de análise fenomenológica (principalmente inspirada por Ricoeur) do tema da admiração, que Descartes n’As paixões da alma descreve como paixão primeira e principal. Considerado como princípio da subjetividade, essa paixão explicaria o acesso não teórico ao mundo e a si mesmo, e permite compreender a constituição do sujeito passional. Analisando esse sujeito, chamado por Descartes a união da alma e do corpo, as categorias tradicionais de atenção, imaginação e, enfim, de vontade e temporalidade se encontram profundamente reformuladas. No modo admirativo específico de um tal sujeito, que se caracteriza pela interação dinâmica da alma e do corpo, podemos falar das etapas sucessivas da vida apaixonada, ao seio da qual emergem as outras paixões « principais » (o amor, o ódio, o desejo, a alegriae a tristeza), para encontrar, enfim, sua realização numa experiência ética da generosidadade. Palavras-chave : Paixão; Admiração; União da alma e do corpo; Descartes; Ricoeur. Admiration as a phenomenological principle of human subjectivity Abstract: The text is a phenomenological analysis (mainly inspired by Ricœur) of the theme of admiration, which Descartes in the Passions of the Soul describes as a first and main passion. Considered as a principle of subjectivity, this passion would explain the non-theoretical access to the world and to oneself, and allows us to understand the constitution of such passionate subject. Analyzing this subject, called by Descartes the union of the soul and the body, the traditional categories of attention, imagination and finally, those of will and temporality are deeply reformulated. In the specific admiring mode of the subject, which is characterized by dynamic interaction of the soul and body, we can speak of the successive stages of passionate life, in which emerge the other “principal passions" (love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness), to finally find its culmination in an ethical experience of generosity. Key words: Passion; Admiration; Union of the soul and body; Descartes; Ricoeur. (shrink)

What is the motivational profile of admiration? In this article, I will investigate what form of connection between admiration and motivation there may be good reason to accept. A number of philosophers have advocated a connection between admiration and motivation to emulate. I will start by examining this view and will then present objections to it. I will then suggest an expanded account of the connection between admiration and motivation, according to which, admiration involves motivation to promote the value that (...) is judged to be present in the object of admiration. Finally, I will examine the implications of this account for the use of admiration in education. (shrink)

Is it appropriate to honour and admire people who have created great works of art, made important intellectual contributions, performed great sporting feats or shaped the history of a nation if those people have also acted immorally? This book provides a philosophical investigation of this important and timely question. -/- The authors draw on the latest research from ethics, value theory, philosophy of emotion, social philosophy and social psychology to develop and substantiate arguments that have been made in the (...) public debates about this issue. They offer a detailed analysis of the nature and ethics of honour and admiration, and present reasons both in favor and against honouring and admiring the immoral. They also take on the important matter of whether we can separate the achievements of public figures from their immoral behavior. Ultimately, the authors reject a "one-size-fits-all" approach and argue that we must weigh up the reasons for and against honouring and admiring in each particular case. -/- Honouring and Admiring the Immoral is written in an accessible style that shows how philosophy can engage with public debates about important ethical issues. It will be of interest to scholars and students working in moral philosophy, philosophy of emotion, and social philosophy. (shrink)

What is aesthetic appreciation? In this paper, I approach this question in an indirection fashion. First, I introduce the Kantian notion of moral worthy action and an influential analysis of it. Next, I generalise that analysis from the moral to the aesthetic domain, and from actions to affects. Aesthetic appreciation, I suggest, consists in an aesthetically worthy affective response. After unpacking the proposal, I show that it has non-trivial implications while cohering with a number of existing insights concerning the nature (...) of appreciation and the constraints to which it is subject. In closing, I note some limitations on the analogy between aesthetic appreciation and morally worthy action. (shrink)

How can we ground the moral status of animals, or help to guide moral interactions with them? One strategy is to appeal to empathy, which has enjoyed a central place in animal ethics and is often cited as a useful alternative or supplement to rights theories. Empathy is thought to provide the means by which we perceive animals’ moral status (via their capacity for suffering) and the motivational profile that can prompt appropriate action. However, relying on empathy has also come (...) under criticism. In light of this criticism, both Prinz and Kasperbauer advise turning to other emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration to ground moral judgment. In this paper, I take up this advice and explore the potential for admiration to ground the moral status of animals and to promote their ethical treatment. In particular, I explore the potential of Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory (2006, 2017) to ground the moral status of admirable animals, and Alfred Archer’s Value Promotion Account of admiration’s motivational profile to support the moral treatment of animals.. I argue that Zagzebski’s view does offer important resources for grounding ethical concern for animals (though this result does not imply replacing the role of empathy). In exploring this potential, I will also raise some issues concerning our understanding of admiration and suggest a modification to Archer’s Value Promotion Account. (shrink)

Suivant le fil directeur du temps, cet ouvrage met au jour la manière dont l'admiration est devenue un problème philosophique central à l'âge classique et examine les différentes conceptions dont elle fait l'objet chez les principaux penseurs de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle.

How should academics respond to the work of immoral intellectuals? This question appears to be one that is of increasing concern in academic circles but has received little attention in the academic literature. In this paper, we will investigate what our response to immoral intellectuals should be. We begin by outlining the cases of three intellectuals who have behaved immorally or at least have been accused of doing so. We then investigate whether it is appropriate to admire an immoral (...) person for their intellectual contributions. We will argue that such admiration can be a fitting response to the intellectual achievements of an immoral person but only if the person has indeed done something important. However, we then identify two moral reasons against openly admiring immoral intellectuals. First, that such admiration may give the appearance of condoning the immoral acts of the intellectual. Second, that such admiration may lead to emulation of the intellectual’s problematic ideals. This may be enough to persuade us of the moral reasons to avoid engaging with the work of unimportant and easily replaceable intellectuals in our research and our teaching. However, for more important intellectual figures we have weighty educational reasons to cite them and include them in our courses. This leads to a tension, which we attempt to resolve by proposing ways to accommodate the moral reasons against admiring immoral intellectuals and the intellectual reasons to include them in our courses, though we conclude on the pessimistic note that this tension may not be entirely resolvable. (shrink)

Is torturing innocent people ever morally required? I rebut responses to the ticking-bomb dilemma by Slote, Williams, Walzer, and others. I argue that torturing is morally required and should be performed when it is the only way to avert disasters. In such situations, torturers act with dirty hands because torture, though required, is vicious. Conversely, refusers act wrongly, yet virtuously, thus displaying admirable immorality. Vicious, morally required acts and virtuous, morally wrong acts are odd, yet necessary to preserve the ticking-bomb (...) dilemma’s phenomenology, the role of habituation in moral development, the virtue/continence distinction, and morality’s overridingness, consistency, and plausibility. (shrink)

The experience of admiration has become the focus of renewed philosophical attention in recent times, singled out by many as an emotion with an important role to play in the moral life. Taken as it stands, this is a claim that invites distinctions, given the complex ways in which this emotion concept features in our ordinary experience and expressive habits. We speak of admiring a person’s integrity and selflessness, but we also speak of admiring her wit or sense of humor, (...) her fine figure, or taste in furnishing. We pause to admire paintings, and we watch admiringly as athletes pull off extraordinary performances. Sometimes we let ourselves be coaxed into declaring the person we admire most—often (though not in... (shrink)

Souvent ramenée aux écrits de Kant et Baumgarten, la question esthétique a rarement été abordée dans l’oeuvre de Descartes, ce que se propose pourtant d’examiner le présent ouvrage. Interrogeant le rapport de l’esprit à la sensibilité, mais aussi au plaisir (delectatio), il cherche à déterminer aussi bien la présence de conditions de possibilité d’une esthétique au sein des écrits cartésiens que la singularité de celle-ci. Confrontant les textes de Descartes avec ceux de Poussin et de Le Brun, ce livre rencontre (...) les débats classiques autour de la détermination objective du beau et conclut au refus cartésien d’établir une norme universelle de la beauté comme si cette dernière demeurait étrangère à toute approche rationnelle. Pour autant, l’ouvrage conclut sur l’étude d’une passion singulière, celle de l’admiration, par laquelle se révèle la possibilité d’une approche du beau qui fut à la fois universelle et rationnelle. Ce sont donc bien deux façons non concurrentes d’envisager la question du beau que cet ouvrage se propose de mettre à jour dans l’ensemble des écrits cartésiens. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the role played by the emotion of admiration in formulating moral judgments. First, I discuss whether and when admiration is a reliable source of moral knowledge, or, on the contrary, it misleads the subject, leaving her prey to forms of uncritical devotion to unworthy objects of admiration. To do so, I try to elucidate which underlying theory of emotions best allows one to characterize admiration as a reliable source of moral knowledge. Second, I introduce the (...) notion of transformative moral experience, understood as a subclass of transformative experiences, and I argue that it is precisely admiration that ensures the rationality of the choices made in such experiences. Finally, in light of this analysis, I show how admiration—together with the constellation of positive and negative emotions connected to the perception of moral exemplarity—acts as a central element for the maintenance of moral integrity. I defend, in particular, the idea that integrity should not be understood as mere coherence, nor as a static maintenance of the moral status quo, but as being firmly rooted in one’s own identity yet open to novelty and especially to the novelty represented by transformative moral experiences. (shrink)

Every tenable ethical theory must have an account of moral virtue and vice. Julia Driver has performed a great service for utilitarians by developing a utilitarian account of moral virtue that complements a broader act-based utilitarian ethical theory. In her view, a moral virtue is a psychological disposition that systematically produces good states of affairs in a particular possible world. My goal is to construct a more plausible version of Driver’s account that nevertheless maintains its basic integrity. I aim to (...) accomplish this goal by developing four problems concerning admiration and luck for Driver’s account. Subsequently, I modify the account in a way that partially or entirely mitigates each difficulty. Finally, I attempt to undermine Driver’s rationale for rejecting the modification and explore how well the modified account of moral virtue fits with utilitarian accounts of right action. (shrink)

Using five different child–sacrifice cases, I argue that the relationship between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice is not that one is wholly right while the other is morally wrong or irrelevant, or that one somehow has priority over the other, or that one is supererogatory while the other is required, or that one is a role ethic while the other is a real ethic, or that they are equivalent. Instead, I propose that the ethics of justice (...) and care are simply descriptions of the virtues of justice and care, understood richly and broadly. Each prescribes perceptions, values, self–conceptions, etc. as well as actions and passions in every sphere of human life. Like other actual (rather than idealized) virtues, justice and care sometimes conflict with each other. They demand incompatible actions, passions, perceptions, etc. The available options in conflict situations feel both right and wrong because they are admirably immoral acts and/or dirty hands acts. I argue that these conflicts do not undermine the primacy, practicality or consistency of morality. (shrink)

In recent years, a new generation of activists has reinvigorated debate over the public commemorative landscape. While this debate is in no way limited to statues, it frequently crystallizes around public representations of historical figures who expressed support for the oppression of certain groups or contributed to their past or present oppression. In this paper, I consider what should be done about such representations. A number of philosophers have articulated arguments for modifying or removing public monuments. Joanna Burch-Brown (2017) grounds (...) her argument for removal in what I call the “honorific” function of such representations—the ways in which they express and tend to cultivate admiration for their subjects. In the first two sections of the paper, I develop a novel argument for modifying these representations based on this insight. I argue that leaving such representations unmodified in the public space tends to undermine the dignity of members of oppressed groups as well as their assurance that society and government are committed to their rights and constitutional entitlements. In the paper’s third section, I develop a “balancing test” for determining whether the relevant moral and pragmatic considerations favor making a particular representation inaccessible to the public, or recontextualizing it for public consumption. Unlike some of the existing philosophical treatments of honorific representations that focus on particular monuments, this balancing test is designed for general application to any honorific representation that satisfies the presumptive case for modification. To conclude, I offer some reasons why weak forms of recontextualization that do not involve altering institutional context may often be an insufficient remedy for the problems I describe. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous revisitons le premier site de la "Promenade Vernet" du "Salon de 1767" à l'aune de la théorie du modèle idéal exposée dans la "Lettre-préface" du même ouvrage. Si cette conception de l'idéalité constitue une charge contre la théorie de la "belle nature" de l'abbé Batteux, Diderot vise à travers elle toute une tradition esthétique qui confère à l'art la mission de faire voir la nature comme un ouvrage divin. Diderot, dans cette promenade, mobiliserait donc les paysages (...) de Vernet pour subvertir toutes les catégories de l'esthétique de ses prédécesseurs, et, par là même, pour donner son congé à toute forme de transcendance dans la nature. (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) never wrote any subtle disquisition on esteem (stima in Italian). Even so, this essay suggests that esteem played an important and hitherto largely unexplored role in Machiavelli’s political thought. Proceeding from an examination of Machiavelli’s use of the noun stima and the verb stimare in their literal and figurative senses, this article discusses Machiavelli’s ideas from three different perspectives. The first section discusses ways of attracting other people’s esteem through virtuous deeds. The second section, in turning to (...) Machiavelli’s notorious advice to princes, explores the ways in which stima may be generated by merely pretending to be virtuous. I argue that Machiavelli’s new prince exchanges the real esteem he must elicit from his subjects (if he wishes to stay in power) with a surrogate: in other words, a psychological economy of stima. It arrests, through a performative spectacle, the rational faculties of the prince’s subjects. The third section investigates Machiavelli’s ideas on esteem in relation to his own person. Even though Machiavelli never uses the phrase stima di se stesso (which would be a literal translation of self-esteem), some passages from his correspondence are highly pertinent to this topic. (shrink)

In 1941 Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish friar from Warsaw was arrested for publishing anti-Nazi pamphlets and sentenced to Auschwitz. There he was beaten, kicked by shiny leather boots, and whipped by his prison guards. After one prisoner successfully escaped, the prescribed punishment was to select ten other prisoners who were to die by starvation. As ten prisoners were pulled out of line one by one, Fr. Kolbe broke out from the ranks, pleading with he Commandant to be allowed to (...) take the place of one of the prisoners, a Polish worker with a wife and children dependent upon him. "I'm an old man, sir, and good for nothing. My life will serve no purpose," the 45 year old priest pleaded. He was taken, thrown down the stairs into a dank dark basement with the other nine prisoners and left to starve. Usually, prisoners punished like this spent their last days howling, attacking each other and clawing the walls in a frenzy of despair. (shrink)

Drawing on interviews, this article examines how the third wave of the straight edge hardcore music scene can promote a gender-progressive image in light of evidence that suggests men's continued advantage over women in the scene. The author argues that this discrepancy can be explained by straight edgers' use of going rate comparisons that highlight the scene's “doings” and “not-doings” in ways that portray sXe favorably. By insisting that gender is no longer relevant, straight edgers then set up a going (...) rate of authenticity that is purportedly attainable by men and women. This going rate, however, ultimately reinstates gender boundaries sXers claim to erase. The author concludes the article by discussing the larger implications of doings and not-doings in going rate constructions and the performance of gender. (shrink)

This essay examines the reception of Grotius’s pioneering Annotata ad Vetus Testamentum in the ‘Biblia Americana’, a scriptural commentary written by the New England theologian Cotton Mather. Mather engaged with Grotius on issues of translation, biblical authorship, inspiration, the canon, and the legitimate forms of interpreting the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture. While frequently relying on the Dutch Arminian humanist in discussing philological problems or contextual questions, Mather in many cases rejected, ignored, or significantly modified Grotius’s farther-reaching conclusions on dogmatically (...) sensitive topics. This strategy marks Mather’s ‘Biblia Americana’ as an exemple of a highly sophisticated but ultimately apologetic type of biblical criticism in the context of the early Enlightenment in British North America. (shrink)

I develop three arguments in support of my contention that we should favor achievements over agents as objects of fitting moral admiration. The first argument impugns the epistemic standing with which characterological admiration is standardly issued. The second argument alleges that there is likely to be a difference between widely held folk concepts of character and traits, on the one hand, and an empirically supported view of the reality of those things, on the other. The final argument concerns one way (...) in which characterological admiration renders some aspects of our practices of admiring subject to undesirable revision. In each case I use an analogy to athletic admiration to show how achievement admiration avoids the problems of characterological admiration. I then suggest an alternative role for characterological considerations in fitting admiration, as a loose constraint on what is appropriate to admire rather than as an object of admiration. The upshot of the article is theoretical, inasmuch as it develops a tension between the conditions governing fitting admiration and an empirically informed view of character. But there is also practical upshot, especially in the context of public practices of admiring, as when we build statues of heroes or name buildings after them. (shrink)