Government refusals to apologise for past wrongful practices such as slavery or the removal of indigenous children from their parents seem evidently unjust. It is surprising, then, that some ethical considerations appear to support such stances. Jacques Derrida's account of forgiveness as entirely independent of apology appears to preclude the need for official apologies. I contend that governments are obligated to apologize for past injustices because they are responsible for them and that official apologies should not involve a corresponding expectation (...) for forgiveness. My argument is that an apology and forgiveness are asymmetrical because an apology is based on respect, a perfect duty, and can be a public act, whereas forgiveness is based on love, is an imperfect duty, and is a personal undertaking. It follows from this asymmetry that an apology is a prerequisite for reconciliation, but forgiveness is discretionary. Refusals to apologize tend to impede the reconciliation process and make the possibility of forgiveness remote. The concept of reconciliation has also been criticized on the grounds that reconciliation implies a former harmony that should be restored and fault on both sides. However, I argue it should be understood as a willingness to work together without a presumption of having overcome the past. (shrink)

This is a review of Margaret Simons's book, Beauvoir and the Second Sex: Feminism, Race, and the Origins of Existentialism.

This book examines the centrality of integrity in relation to a variety of philosophical and psychological concerns that impinge upon the ethical life.

A literary tour de force that analyzes and refutes the hypothesis that Jesus was a Cynic Was Jesus really a Cynic? This book examines the arguments submitted by some New Testament scholars who believe that Jesus and his disciples were influenced by the ethics and social behaviors of Cynic preachers in Galilee. In examining the "Cynic Jesus hypothesis," Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé offers a reliable, accessible, and fully documented summary of Cynicism and its ideas, from Diogenes to the Imperial Period, and she (...) investigates the extent and nature of contact between Cynics and Jewish people, especially in the first century BCE and CE. While recognizing similarities between the ideas and morals of ancient Cynicism and those evident in early Christian movements, Goulet-Cazé identifies more significant, fundamental differences between them in terms of culture, theology, and worldview. (shrink)

English summary: Marie-Odile Goulet-Caze examines the thesis of some Theologians following Q, that Jesus and his disciples where highly influence by cynic preachers in Galilee. Translated into German by Lena Seehausen. German description: Mit seiner Kritik an der Zivilisation, seiner Infragestellung von sozialen Hierarchien, seiner Verachtung von Reichtumern und seiner radikalen Askese bot der Kynismus dem fruhen Christentum der ersten Jahrhunderte diverse Beruhrungspunkte. Unter den Exegeten und Theologen des Neuen Testaments findet man sogar jene, namlich die Anhanger und Befurworter der (...) Cynic hypothesis, die glauben, dass Jesus selbst und seine Wegbegleiter Kyniker in Galilaa hatten kennen konnen, und dass sie folglich ganz entscheidend von der Moral und dem Verhalten dieser Wanderprediger hatten beeinflusst werden konnen. Ein kynischer Charakter der ursprunglichen Lehre Jesu sei besonders in der sogenannten Quelle "Q" der synoptischen Evangelien ersichtlich, sofern man sie im Lichte der griechischen, ja sogar kynischen, Chrien und durch das Raster der Moral des Diogenes liest. Das vorliegende Werk pruft die Gultigkeit der These. In den darauffolgenden Jahrhunderten ubernahmen die Christen, hin- und hergerissen zwischen der Bewunderung fur die Askese der ersten Kyniker und ihrer Abneigung gegenuber der Schamlosigkeit und dem Atheismus der Hunde ihrer Epoche, vielfaltige und manchmal gegensatzliche Haltungen; mal appellierten sie an das Beispiel der Kyniker, mal beschimpften und verleumdeten sie diese von eitlem Ruhm besessenen Menschen, die in ihren Augen die Affirmation eines menschlichen Willen reprasentierten, der im Gegensatz zur religiosen Unterwerfung des christlichen Glaubens stand. Die Herausforderung dieser Studie besteht darin, die Verbindungen zwischen Kynismus und Christentum zu untersuchen, ohne die Texte zu forcieren und ohne sich irgendeiner Ideologie zu unterwerfen. (shrink)

This cross-disciplinary collection explores Vladimir Jankélévitch’s thought on love, forgiveness, humility, virtue, bad conscience, remorse, death, reconciliation, music, and religion. It examines his relations with philosophers such as Henri Bergson and Plotinus. The chapters are linked by the theme of intangibility, or what cannot be touched.

What does Le Premier Homme bring specifically to our understanding of Camus’s view of love? The novel allows us to understand love as love of specific human individuals, as well as love of life and the world, and a sense of the frailties of love. While many commentaries have touched on the idea of the importance of love in this work, they have tended to focus more on the disguised autobiographical elements concerning the people in Camus’s life. They have also (...) centred on the descriptive aspects of the work. What I would like to do is look at how love is presented in more depth, and show how specific kinds of love are valorized, and how these different kinds of love are all connected. (shrink)

In this chapter, I interpret Vladimir Jankélévitch’s work on the bad conscience and on forgiveness in relation to the film Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan, 2016). This film is a striking meditation on remorse and the difficulty of self-forgiveness for Lee Chandler, a man who lives a monastic life as a janitor in Boston after the tragic death of his three children in a house fire. Many discussions of the film so far have focused on its depictions of despair (...) and grief (with brief references to guilt), aspects of it that are certainly important. (Lane, 2016; Scott, 2016; Fleming, 2017) However, a focus on grief neglects the ethical dimensions of the film that Jankélévitch’s intense articulations of the solitary character of remorse and what a genuine offering of forgiveness really concerns can illuminate and engage with. His accounts demonstrate the immense complexity of remorse, self-forgiveness and the difficulty of accepting the generous forgiveness of others, even in situations where the calamity that has occurred is not a result of a deliberate, intentional action. Lee’s remorse dwells in the irreversibility of time and the irrevocability of our acts that Jankélévitch explains, and goes further in being a remorse that cannot be overcome. The film also enables us to question features of Jankélévitch’s view: that we can undo the consequences of our act or deed, in contrast to the action, and that self-forgiveness is a conceptual impossibility, because forgiveness must be a relation to another, rather than sometimes an existential one. (shrink)

Envy and resentment are generally thought to be unpleasant and unethical emotions which ought to be condemned. I argue that both envy and resentment, in some important forms, are moral emotions connected with concern for justice, understood in terms of desert and entitlement. They enable us to recognise injustice, work as a spur to acting against it and connect us to others. Thus, we should accept these emotions as part of the ethical life.

Le cynisme, en raison peut-etre de son mepris pour la speculation theorique et de la rarete des textes de contenu doctrinal qui en a resulte, reste le parent pauvre de la philosophie antique. Le present ouvrage fut l'un des premiers a lui etre exclusivement consacre. Pour rendre compte d'un passage doxographique, transmis par Diogene Laerce, sur l'ascese selon Diogene le Cynique, il tente de retrouver, a travers l'analyse d'un riche corpus d'anecdotes et de dits diogeniens, l'inspiration fondamentale qui oriente tout (...) le projet philosophique du cynisme ancien. C'est dans le concept d'ascese, c'est-a-dire d'un entrainement capable d'assurer le bonheur de l'homme en proie aux vicissitudes de l'existence, que s'exprime cette inspiration initiale. La comparaison du projet cynique avec le socratisme et le stoicisme revele l'originalite de la demarche proposee par Diogene. Au terme, cette elucidation de la conception cynique de l'ascese autorise une interpretation nouvelle du passage doxographique laertien et une verification de son authenticite. La voie diogenienne, raccourci vers la vertu, a ete empruntee jusqu'a la fin de l'antiquite par maints adeptes, comme l'atteste le Repertoire, publie en appendice, de tous les Cyniques qu'un inventaire minutieux a permis de decouvrir. (shrink)

This collection of essays—the first of its kind in English—brings together the work of an international group of scholars examining the entire tradition associated with the ancient Cynics. The essays give a history of the movement as well as a state-of-the-art account of the literary, philosophical and cultural significance of Cynicism from antiquity to the present. Arguably the most original and influential branch of the Socratic tradition, Cynicism has become the focus of renewed scholarly interest in recent years, thanks to (...) the work of Sloterdijk, Foucault, and Bakhtin, among others. The contributors to this volume—classicists, comparatists, and philosophers—draw on a variety of methodologies to explore the ethical, social and cultural practices inspired by the Cynics. The volume also includes an introduction, appendices, and an annotated bibliography, making it a valuable resource for a broad audience. (shrink)

Si le cynisme a toujours eu mauvaise presse sur la scene philosophique, c'est en partie a cause des traits scandaleux que l'Antiquite, s'appuyant sur la Politeia et les tragedies de Diogene, lui a pretes. Mais ces traits se retrouvent dans la Politeia de Zenon et chez des Stoiciens aussi importants que Cleanthe et Chrysippe. Comment expliquer que des philosophes dont la reputation de serieux est bien connue aient pu accepter et meme louer des principes aussi scandaleux que l'anthrophagie, la liberte (...) sexuelle totale, l'indifference a la sepulture, l'egalite hommes/femmes, la negation du sacre, la remise en cause de la cite et de ses lois? Un Appendice sur Apollodore de Seleucie (IIe s. av. J.-C.), entend rendre justice a ce philosophe au role meconnu. (Franz Steiner 2003). (shrink)

Eusebius of Cesarea, in his Praeparatio Evangelica, quotes a large piece of Plotinus’ writing to which Porphyry, in his edition of the Enneads, gave the title “On the Immortality of Soul”. Surprisingly, the piece quoted by Eusebius is absent from the Porphyrian edition. Some reasons for this absence have been adduced: some scholars think that the text quoted by Eusebius might be a trace of the edition of Plotinus’s writings made by Eustochius; others think that it might come from the (...) copies Amelius carried to Apameia. This paper will try to show that the opinion that the text quoted by Eusebius come from an edition other than that of Porphyry is hardly defendable, and that the absence of such piece from Porphyry’s edition can be explained by an accident on the direct tradition of the Enneads. (shrink)

Le cynisme ancien préconise un retour total à la nature et refuse de se soumettre aux interdits qui relèvent de l’arbitraire social. Pour un Cynique, le plaisir que procure la sexualité est un plaisir naturel, instinctif, qui ne diffère en rien de celui que connaissent les animaux. C’est pourquoi ces philosophes admettent, en matière de sexualité, des actes qui choquaient les contemporains, tels que la masturbation ou l’union en public, l’inceste, l’union libre ou encore la communauté des femmes et des (...) enfants. A l’arrière de ces prises de position, qu’avait exprimées Diogène dans sa République et que nous a transmises sous une forme polémique et partiale l’Épicurien Philodème (ier siècle ap. J.-C.), se profilent les valeurs qui sous-tendent la morale cynique, à savoir, avant toutes choses, la liberté de l’individu et sa totale indépendance. Les Cyniques ne voulaient pas choquer pour choquer : s’ils provoquaient, c’était par souci pédagogique afin de faire tomber les masques et de forcer les gens à se poser des questions sur les coutumes établies. (shrink)

Iris Marion Young argues we cannot understand others' experiences by imagining ourselves in their place or in terms of symmetrical reciprocity (1997a). For Young, reciprocity expresses moral respect and asymmetry arises from people's greatly varying life histories and social positions. La Caze argues there are problems with Young's articulation of asymmetrical reciprocity in terms of wonder and the gift. By discussing friendship and political representation, she shows how taking self-respect into account complicates asymmetrical reciprocity.

Proponents of Evidence-based medicine (EBM) do not provide a clear role for basic science in therapeutic decision making. Of what they do say about basic science, most of it is negative. Basic science resides on the lower tiers of EBM's hierarchy of evidence. Therapeutic decisions, according to proponents of EBM, should be informed by evidence from randomised studies (and systematic reviews of randomised studies) rather than basic science. A framework of models explicates the links between the mechanisms of basic science, (...) experimental inquiry, and observed data. Relying on the framework of models I show that basic science often plays a role not only in specifying experiments, but also analysing and interpreting the data that is provided. Further, and contradicting what is implied in EBM's hierarchy of evidence, appeals to basic science are often required to apply clinical research to therapeutic questions. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. (shrink)

Proponents of evidence-based medicine (EBM) provide the “hierarchy of evidence” as a criterion for judging the reliability of therapeutic decisions. EBM's hierarchy places randomized interventional studies (and systematic reviews of such studies) higher in the hierarchy than observational studies, unsystematic clinical experience, and basic science. Recent philosophical work has questioned whether EBM's special emphasis on evidence from randomized interventional studies can be justified. Following the critical literature, and in particular the work of John Worrall, I agree that many of the (...) arguments put forward by advocates of EBM do not justify the ambitious claims that are often made on behalf of randomization. However, in contrast to the recent philosophical work, I argue that a justification for EBM's hierarchy of evidence can be provided. The hierarchy should be viewed as a hierarchy of comparative internal validity. Although this justification is defensible, the claims that EBM's hierarchy substantiates when viewed in this way are considerably more circumscribed than some claims found in the EBM literature. (shrink)

Evidence-based policy is gaining support in many areas of government and in public affairs more generally. In this paper we outline what evidence—based policy is then discuss its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, we argue that it faces a serious challenge to provide a plausible account of evidence. This account needs to be at least in the spirit of the hierarchy of evidence subscribed to by evidence-based medicine (from which evidence—based policy derives its name and inspiration). Yet evidence-based policy’s hierarchy (...) needs to be tailored to the kinds of evidence relevant and available to the policy arena. The evidence required for policy decisions does not easily lend itself to randomised controlled trials (the "gold standard" in evidence-based medicine), nor, for that matter, being listed in a single all—purpose hierarchy. (shrink)

The role of mechanistic evidence tends to be under-appreciated in current evidencebased medicine (EBM), which focusses on clinical studies, tending to restrict attention to randomized controlled studies (RCTs) when they are available. The EBM+ programme seeks to redress this imbalance, by suggesting methods for evaluating mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. Drug approval is a problematic case for the view that mechanistic evidence should be taken into account, because RCTs are almost always available. Nevertheless, we argue that mechanistic evidence is central (...) to all the key tasks in the drug approval process: in drug discovery and development; assessing pharmaceutical quality; devising dosage regimens; assessing efficacy, harms, external validity, and cost-effectiveness; evaluating adherence; and extending product licences. We recommend that, when preparing for meetings in which any aspect of drug approval is to be discussed, mechanistic evidence should be systematically analysed and presented to the committee members alongside analyses of clinical studies. (shrink)

lntroduction Imaginary and Images M philosophical imaginary refers to both the capacity to imagine and the stock of images philosophers use. ...

_A compelling understanding of equality and difference in public life._.

To elucidate the tensions in the relation between ethics and politics, I construct a dialogue between Kant, who argues that they can be made compatible, and Derrida, who claims to go beyond Kant and his idea of duty. For Derrida, ethics makes unconditional demands and politics guides our responses to possible effects of our decisions. Derrida argues that in politics there must be a negotiation of the non-negotiable call of ethical responsibility. I argue that Derrida's unconditional ethics cannot be read (...) in precisely Kantian terms because his 'impossible reals' can be destructive. Moreover, Derrida expands the reach of ethics beyond Kant by making all ethical demands unconditional or perfect, yet he does not articulate a politics that would enable us to respond to these demands. We need to take account of these difficulties in theorizing how ethics should constrain politics and how politics can provide the conditions for ethics. (shrink)

This edited collection enriches scholarship on Arendt by considering her contributions to and reflections on the history of thought. The chapters bring Arendt into new conversations with her contemporaries, as well as examining the themes of Arendt's writing in light of her engagement with philosophical and literary history.

Is love essential to ethical life, or merely a supplement? In Kant's view, respect and love, as duties, are in tension with each other because love involves drawing closer and respect involves drawing away. By contrast, Irigaray says that love and respect do not conflict because love as passion must also involve distancing and we have a responsibility to love. I argue that love, understood as passion and based on respect, is essential to ethics.

A number of arguments have shown that randomization is not essential in experimental design. Scientific conclusions can be drawn on data from experimental designs that do not involve randomization. John Worrall has recently taken proponents of randomized studies to task for suggesting otherwise. In doing so, however, Worrall makes an additional claim: randomized interventional studies are epistemologically equivalent to observational studies, providing the experimental groups are comparable according to background knowledge. I argue against this claim. In the context of testing (...) the efficacy of drug therapies, well-designed interventional studies are epistemologically superior to well-designed observational studies because they have the capacity to avoid a type of selection bias. Although arguments for interventional studies are present in the medical literature, these arguments are too often presented as an argument for randomization. Randomization in interventional studies is defended on Bayesian grounds. (shrink)

In a reading of René Descartes's The Passions of the Soul, Luce Irigaray explores the possibility that wonder, first of all passions, can provide the basis for an ethics of sexual difference because it is prior to judgment, and thus nonhierarchical. For Descartes, the passion of generosity gives the key to ethics. I argue that wonder should be extended to other differences and should be combined with generosity to form the basis of an ethics.

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) puts forward a hierarchy of evidence for informing therapeutic decisions. An unambiguous interpretation of how to apply EBM's hierarchy has not been provided in the clinical literature. However, as much as an interpretation is provided proponents suggest a categorical interpretation. The categorical interpretation holds that all the results of randomised trials always trump evidence from lower down the hierarchy when it comes to informing therapeutic decisions. Most of the critical replies to EBM react to this interpretation. While (...) proponents of EBM can avoid some of the problems raised by critics by suitably limited the claims made on behalf of the hierarchy, further problems arise. If EBM is to inform therapeutic decisions then a considerably more restricted, and context dependent interpretation of EBM's hierarchy is needed. (shrink)

Evidence-based policy has support in many areas of government and in public affairs more generally. In this paper we outline what evidence-based policy is, then we discuss its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, we argue that it faces a serious challenge to provide a plausible, over-arching account of evidence. We contrast evidence-based policy with evidence-based medicine, especially the role of evidence in assessing the effectiveness of medicines. The evidence required for policy decisions does not easily lend itself to randomized controlled (...) trials, nor, for that matter, being listed in a single all-purpose hierarchy. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 6, September 2019, Page 668-670.

In her recent book, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, Ann Murphy suggests that the philosophical imaginary, in particular that of contemporary continental philosophy, is imbued with images of violence. The concept of the philosophical imaginary is drawn from the work of Michèle Le Dœuff to explore the role of images of violence in philosophy. Murphy sets the language of violence, reflexivity, and critique against that of vulnerability, ambiguity and responsibility. Her concern is that images of violence have become and may (...) become more ‘neutralised, domesticated or eroticised’ in objectionable ways. There is no doubt Murphy has isolated and highlighted a striking feature of the continental imaginary in a clear and thoughtful way. My paper takes Murphy’s argument further by elaborating a Le Dœuffian argument that theorises the reversal of priority from violent language to the violence of language. I take Murphy’s injunction for attention and sensitivity seriously by examining the language of violence and exposing that which is unfamiliar, what has become incorporated and what is revealed by the language that is used. The language of the third Reich and the language of the Rwandan genocide will be briefly compared to demonstrate these points. Our responsibility is to recognise the use of euphemism and metaphor to sometimes cover and sometimes blatantly advertise the horrifying truth. The focus on violence in philosophical language can lead us away from the violence of genocidal language and other violent language that philosophers, like all responsible people, are called to witness. (shrink)

Recent philosophers, political scientists and cultural theorists have suggested that the concept of cosmopolitanism is useful to theorize an ideal relationship between different nations, and to confront the problems faced by asylum-seekers and refugees. Here, La Caze discusses Immanuel Kant's view of cosmopolitanism which occurs in the context of his teleological philosophy of history and his views on politics.

A consideration of what are sometimes known as the reactive attitudes is useful to outline more positive conditions of ethical restoration. This paper focuses on the ways in which perceptions and experiences of guilt and shame are shaped by political conceptions of who belongs to the more guilty and shameful parties. I use the debate between Karl Jaspers and Arendt over guilt and responsibility, as well as Jean-Paul Sartre’s and Giorgio Agamben’s work on shame, to develop an account of the (...) political aspects of perceived and felt guilt and shame in people who are oppressed. I discuss how some philosophers, for example Cheshire Calhoun, have argued that the oppressed should accept the burdens of guilt and shame expected of them because of the social nature of our ethical experience; and then show how that view can be questioned. However, I argue that the view that members of oppressed groups should experience the guilt and shame expected of them by dominant groups ought to be challenged. In this paper, I demonstrate that the debate concerning shame and guilt has obscured emotions that are responses to the actions of others, such as humiliating treatment, thus leading to an inappropriate focus in philosophical discourses on the victims of wrongdoing rather than the perpetrators. This focus implicitly supports the dynamics of humiliation, as I will show. (shrink)