No matter how it is viewed, as a plausible version of anti-utilitarianism or of non-consequentialist, or even as a plausible version of deontology, the theory of prima facie duties certainly makes W. D. Ross one of the most important moral philosopher of the twentieth-century. By outlining his pluralistic deontology, this paper attempts to argue for a positive answer to the question of whether Ross’s theory can offer a solution to the issue of conflicting duties. If such a solution is convincing, (...) as I believe it is, it would indicate the possibility to justify within the deontological framework, i.e., without committing to the principle of good-maximizing, those “hard cases” where people should break a promise or other (prima facie) duty in order to prevent a disastrous outcome. The theory of prima facie duties might then suggest that deontology and utilitarianism would likely be reconcilable. (shrink)

The paper attempts to outline the actual academic debates around the concept of PR ethics. The first part aims to show the intimate link between professionalism and ethics as well as their bearing on the reputation of the PR field. Whether and how ethical public relations are possible is the main issue analyzed in the second part of the article. The two paradigms of public relations, “the attorney-adversary system” and “the two-way symmetrical model”, are put face to face in order (...) to better understand the arguments of their proponents as to the way of approaching to the ethical matters. A main concern of the third part is to answer the question if something is wrong with situational ethics. The problem is approached in the light of virtue ethics, which is itself situational in Aristotel’s sense of the term. In the final part, the paper suggests the possibility to use W. D. Ross’s pluralist deontology as a conceptual structure from which to build a practical model for the analysis of moral dilemmas in the PR practice. (shrink)

Rawls’ theory of justice has been exposed to several criticisms, most of them having been supported on some counter-intuitive results. The intent of this article is to show that these criticisms fail to affect the Rawlsian model, since, as a theoretical construction of the concept of justice, it is doomed to account for potential, rather than actual, empirical contents.

This paper aims at emphasizing the relevance of scrutinizing the link between Heidegger’s theory of Being and his Nazi commitment. Significant investigations of such a link, beginning with that of Victor Farias, have challenged the „official” view that Heidegger’s theory of Being is politically neutral. That this theory could not have been deprived of political intentions is proven by Heidegger’s own view on philosophy as a search that stems from life and ends in life, namely as a Dasein’s way of (...) life. Since fundamental ontology (theory) and existential analytic (practice) cannot be separated, exploring the relationship between them is even more necessary. (shrink)

This paper presents Walzer’s pluralist approach to justice as contrasted with standard egalitarian liberalist accounts such as Rawls’s. Walzer’s notion of “complex equality” is discussed in order to see whether by defending the sort of socialism attached to it, he can be still situated within the liberal tradition of thought, or the so-called “socialism of o liberal kind”, as he likes to term it, means a moving away from the basic liberal principles. In my view, since Walzer’s conventionalist and contextualist (...) account of justice is inextricably linked to some philosophical, metatheoretical suppositions, revealing them could be useful to illuminate such a problem. (shrink)

There is an obvious parallel between foundationalism, which ignores history in working out the conditions of knowledge, and radical relativism, which contends that by virtue of its own historical character there is no way to choose among different interpretations, all of which are “equally good.” Might it not be, rather, that the recent historicist attack on the very idea of rationality is as damaging as foundationalist objections against the plurality of conceptual schemes or frameworks? Can philosophy maintain the traditional distinction (...) between the form and content of knowledge, between rationality and historicity _ between doxa and episteme? (shrink)

Dedicated to Karl Popper’s memory, this essay aims at following the echo of his critical rationalism and how it has been received by Mario Bunge, one of the most prominent contemporary philosopher of science – an admirer, later a critic of Popper’s social and political philosophy. The main goal of such an endeavor is to find out where could have been Popper wrong – from Bunge’s view point – and take note of the arguments of both of them, thus hoping (...) to get closer to the truth, as Sir Karl said. (shrink)

This paper aims to draw attention to the importance of John Rawls’ effort to integrate pluralism in the core of the liberal conception of justice. Rawls’ attempt to construct a political concept of justice compatible with the plurality of the doctrines on «good» is presented in contrast to the communitarians’ mere plea for respect of this plurality.

Analyzing the constitutionality of a law is a process of constitutional interpretation which does not limit itself to comparing two texts in order to see whether they are concordant or not. The nature of constitutional interpretation is the subject of this article, a subject that is dealt with from the perspective of the dispute between originalism and non-originalism (interpretivism) prevalent within the contemporary philosophy of law, especially the American one. The article offers a synthetic view on some of the most (...) controversial issues pertaining to the theory and methodology of contemporary constitutional interpretation, such as: whether the interpretation of the Constitution is guided by the founders’intentions or by the text’s own words; whether the meaning of the Constitution is determined by the intentions, aims or values of the founders’ generation or by those of the contemporary generation? What are the grounds that justify the authority of the constitutional text, in other words, does this authority derive from its constraining capacityorfromitsabilitytobestowdemocraticlegitimacy?Constitutional interpretation must concentrate on the text or on the interpreter? Do the judges discover or build the constitutional meaning? In other words, is it the past or the present that guides the interpretation? Is the original interpretation the legitimate one or are legitimate the later interpretations of the constitutional text? (shrink)

The traditional split between rationality and historicity, concept and intuition, the form and content of knowledge has brought about an inappropriate approaching to humanities and social sciences. Presenting the main effects of such split, this paper aims at arguing the need to consider both the “empiric” and the “interpretive” as equally relevant for understanding our human world. It is eventually a meta-theoretical pleading for reconciling epistemology and ontology within a theory of humanities and social sciences able to avoid the two (...) kinds of reductionism, foundationalist and textualist, related to traditional (empiricist) epistemology and respectively, to postmodernist hermeneutics. (shrink)

This volume was initially conceived as a thematic issue of the Sfera Politicii journal and some of its chapters (written by Gabriela Tănăsescu, Henrieta A. Şerban, Lorena Stuparu and Cristian-Ion Popa) were published as such in the 9 (163), September 2011 issue under the title „Theory and Political Ideology”. To enlarge the discussion on the theme, new papers have been added to the previous ones for inclusion in this book. By choosing to title it „Political theories versus ideologies?” we wanted (...) to suggest from the beginning the difficulty of a consensus on such a disputable topic. As it has multiple facets, there are several possible ways to deal with it. Each contribution in this collection is an attempt to clarify a different aspect of the issue. So, a category of texts seeks to explore the nature of political theory, the value neutrality thesis concerning the social sciences, and the distinctions between theory and ideology. One of them is devoted to a trans-theoretical analysis of the naturalist and the interpretivist models of political theory; another one, by scrutinizing the original meaning of „philosophy”, aims at showing that, when philosophy neglects the ancient harmony between philo and sophia, by focusing only on the last one, it runs the risk of failing into ideology; the first efforts of some modern thinkers, (fascinating by mathesis universalis) to apply mathematics to politics, or Michael Oakeshott ‘s concept of ideology are also dealt with in other texts. By broadening the discussion on the neutrality thesis, one of the articles brings to light the philosophical prejudices underlying both „the constitutional” and „the welfare” models, i.e., a „rule ethics” and, respectively, a utilitarian one. Several papers investigate the status of the theories of international relations. Some of them address the peculiar question whether the so called theories of European integration satisfy the criteria of what political scientists mean by an empirical study of phenomena. To put it differently: Can we refer to such theories as a scientifically approaching to the unification European process, i.e., as being able to explaining and making predictions? A subsidiary question would be: are they ideologically neutral? The problem is explicitly put in another article, whose author, by suspecting such theories’ claim to neutrality, is asking if it is possible not a scientific approach to the European integration, but a normative one, namely, a philosophy of European unification „without ideology”. Some articles, pointing out the weakness and vulnerabilities of the traditional theories of international relations when confronted with new political realities, endorse a constructivist interpretation that is likely to offer a better account for actions such as humanitarian interventions. In a similar line of thinking, constructivism is seen by another contributor as a perspective in terms of which some traditional political concepts should be revised. An example is „the national interest”, a concept that can be explained in all its aspects neither by the realist nor by liberal theories. Subjects such as „the end of ideology”, or the ideological left-wing deviations of today liberalism for electoral reasons, or that of a likely „international solidarity” ideology are discussed in this volume too. If it is to draw a conclusion from most contributions, we would say that, irrespective of its versions, normative, or empirical (scientific), or analytical, political theory conceived of itself as being not only different from, but also opposed to ideology. And it still pretends to be so. Lots of the facets of the topic have remained, obviously, unexplored. Among them, the contemporary efforts to reconcile the normative and the empirical dimensions of political theory would have been worth of addressing – maybe, in a future enterprise. Engaging in the difficult endeavor of assembling and integrating individual texts into a coherent account, we hope to be successful in stimulating further debate on the theme, a debate in which the present volume is only a modest contribution. (shrink)