On Obligations was written by Cicero in late 44 BC after the assassination of Julius Caesar to provide principles of behaviour for aspiring politicians. It explores the apparent tensions between honourable conduct and expediency in public life, and the right and wrong ways of attaining political leadership. The principles of honourable behaviour are based on the Stoic virtues of wisdom, justice, magnanimity, and propriety; in Cicero's view the intrinsically useful is always identical with the honourable. Cicero's (...) famous treatise has played a seminal role in the formation of ethical values in western Christendom. Adopted by the fourth-century Christian humanists, it beame transmuted into the moral code of the high Middle Ages. Thereafter, in the Renaissance from the time of Petrarch, and in the Age of Enlightenment that followed, it was given central prominence in discussion of the government of states. Today, when corruption and conflict in political life are the focus of so much public attention, On Obligations is still the foremost guide to good conduct. (shrink)

A splendid new translation of one of the greatest books on friendship ever written In a world where social media, online relationships, and relentless self-absorption threaten the very idea of deep and lasting friendships, the search for true friends is more important than ever. In this short book, which is one of the greatest ever written on the subject, the famous Roman politician and philosopher Cicero offers a compelling guide to finding, keeping, and appreciating friends. With wit and wisdom, (...) Cicero shows us not only how to build friendships but also why they must be a key part of our lives. For, as Cicero says, life without friends is not worth living. Filled with timeless advice and insights, Cicero’s heartfelt and moving classic—written in 44 BC and originally titled De Amicitia—has inspired readers for more than two thousand years, from St. Augustine and Dante to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Presented here in a lively new translation with the original Latin on facing pages and an inviting introduction, How to Be a Friend explores how to choose the right friends, how to avoid the pitfalls of friendship, and how to live with friends in good times and bad. Cicero also praises what he sees as the deepest kind of friendship—one in which two people find in each other “another self” or a kindred soul. An honest and eloquent guide to finding and treasuring true friends, How to Be a Friend speaks as powerfully today as when it was first written. (shrink)

This chapter discusses LEGO set #21103, the DeLorean Time Machine. It also explains whether the original Cuusoo DeLorean is the same model as, or numerically identical to, set #21103, even if they are not qualitatively identical. If they are the same model, that would explain why Team BTTF deserves creative credit. The chapter considers the question of why a creator deserves credit, including public recognition and royalties. John Locke maintained that property rights are natural rights. Some have extended Locke's view (...) to include intellectual property, including industrial design. The creator of a new design mixes her labor with materials, therefore acquiring a right to what she is produced. By mixing their labor with 403 LEGO bricks, the original Cuusoo designers, Sakuretsu and Masashi Togami, would acquire property rights to what they produce. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Index to Volume Fifty-SixArticlesBernier, Bernard, National Communion: Watsuji Tetsurō's Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State, 1 : 84-105Between Principle and Situation: Contrasting Styles in the Japanese and Korean Traditions of Moral Culture, Chai-sik Chung, 2 : 253-280Buxton, Nicholas, The Crow and the Coconut: Accident, Coincidence, and Causation in the Yogavāiṣṭha, 3 : 392-408Chan, Sin Yee, The Confucian Notion of Jing (Respect), Sin Yee Chan, 2 : (...) 229-252Chong, Kim-chong, Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor, 3 : 370-391Chung, Chai-sik, Between Principle and Situation: Contrasting Styles in the Japanese and Korean Traditions of Moral Culture, 2 : 253-280The Confucian Ideal of Harmony, Chenyang Li, 4 : 583-603The Confucian Notion of Jing.(Respect), Sin Yee Chan, 2 : 229-252The Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: What's at Stake in a Tibetan Debate? Jay L. Garfield, 2 : 201-228The Crisis of Knowledge in Islam (I): The Case of al-'āmirī, Paul L. Heck, 1 : 106-135The Crow and the Coconut: Accident, Coincidence, and Causation in the Yogavāiṣṭha, Nicholas Buxton, 3 : 392-408De Reu, Wim, Right Words Seem Wrong: Neglected Paradoxes in Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, 2 : 281-300The Desire You Are Required to Get Rid of: A Functionalist Analysis of Desire in the Bhaga-vadgītā, Christopher Framarin, 4 : 604-617Framarin, Christopher, The Desire You Are Required to Get Rid of: A Functionalist Analysis of Desire in the Bhagavadgītā, 4 : 604-617Garfield, Jay L., The Conventional Status of Reflexive Awareness: What's at Stake in a Tibetan Debate? 2 : 201-228Heck, Paul L., The Crisis of Knowledge in Islam (I): The Case of al-'ā mirī, 1 : 106-135Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel, 4 : 519-566Ho, Chien-hsing, Saying the Unsayable, 3 : 409-427Kantor, Hans-Rudolf, Ontological Indeterminacy and Its Soteriological Relevance: An Assessment of Mou Zongsan's (1909-1995) Interpretation of Zhiyi's (538-597) Tiantai Buddhism, 1 : 16-68Lai, Karyn, Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility, 1 : 69-83Li, Chenyang, The Confucian Ideal of Harmony, 4 : 583-603Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility, Karyn Lai, 1 : 69-83Ma, Lin, and Jaap van Brakel, Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, 4 : 519-566National Communion: Watsuji Tetsurō's Conception of Ethics, Power, and the Japanese Imperial State, Bernard Bernier, 1 : 84-105Ontological Indeterminacy and Its Soteriological Relevance: An Assessment of Mou Zongsan's (1909-1995) Interpretation of Zhiyi's (538- 597) Tiantai Buddhism, Hans-Rudolf Kantor, 1 : 16-68Right Words Seem Wrong: Neglected Paradoxes in Early Chinese Philosophical Texts, Wim De Reu, 2 : 281-300The Role of Time in the Structure of Chinese Logic, Jinmei Yuan, 1 : 136-152Sakya Pandita and the Status of Concepts, Jonathan Stoltz, 4 : 567-582Saying the Unsayable, Chien-hsing Ho, 3 : 409-427Schiltz, Elizabeth, Two Chariots: The Justification of the Best Life in the Katha Upanishad and Plato's Phaedrus, 3 : 451-468Spackman, John, The Tiantai Roots of Dōgen's Philosophy of Language and Thought, 3 : 428-450Stevenson, Frank W., Zhuangzi's Dao as Background Noise, 2 : 301-331Stoltz, Jonathan, Sakya Pandita and the Status of Concepts, 4 : 567-582The Tiantai Roots of Dōgen's Philosophy of Language and Thought, John Spackman, 3 : 428-450 [End Page 709]Two Chariots: The Justification of the Best Life in the Katha Upanishad and Plato's Phaedrus, Elizabeth Schiltz, 3 : 451-468van Brakel, Jaap, and Lin Ma, Heidegger's Comportment toward East-West Dialogue, 4 : 519-566Yuan, Jinmei, The Role of Time in the Structure of Chinese Logic, 1 : 136-152Zhuangzi and the Nature of Metaphor, Kim-chong Chong, 3 : 370-391Zhuangzi's Dao as Background Noise, Frank W. Stevenson, 2 : 301-331Book NotesFenner, David E. W., Introducing Aesthetics (note by James McRae), 3 : 515-516Introducing Aesthetics, by David E. W. Fenner (note by James McRae), 3 : 515-516McRae, James, a book... (shrink)

Truth monism is the idea that only true beliefs are of fundamental epistemic value. The present paper considers three objections to truth monism, and argues that, while the truth monist has plausible responses to the first two objections, the third objection suggests that truth monism should be reformulated. On this reformulation, which we refer to as accuracy monism, the fundamental epistemic goal is accuracy, where accuracy is a matter of “getting it right.” The idea then developed is that accuracy (...) is a genus with several species. Believing truly is a prominent species, but it is not the only one. Finally, it is argued that accuracy monism is equally good or better than both traditional truth monism and its main dialectical rival, value pluralism, when it comes to satisfying three important axiological desiderata. (shrink)

Journalism and media ethics texts commonly invoke Aristotle's Golden Mean as a principal ethical theory that models such journalistic values as balance, fairness, and proportion. Working from Aristotle's text, this article argues that the Golden Mean model, as widely understood and applied to media ethics, seriously belies Aristotle's intent. It also shortchanges the reality of our moral agency and epistemic responsibility. A more authentic rendering of Aristotle's theory of acting rightly, moreover, has profound implications for communication ethicists and media practitioners.

This paper critically engages with Tom Shakespeare’s book Disability rights and wrongs. It concentrates on his attempt to demolish the social model of disability, as well as his sketch of an “alternative” approach to understanding “disability”. Shakespeare’s critique, it is argued, does British disability studies a “wrong” by presenting it as a meagre discipline that has not been able to engage with disability and impairment effects in an analytically sophisticated fashion. What was required was a measured presentation and evaluation of (...) the rich mix of theoretical and empirically based ideas to be found in the discipline, as the groundwork for forward thinking located within a social oppression paradigm. Shakespeare’s undermining of the discipline’s credibility in the eyes of outsiders and newcomers represents a diversionary missed opportunity by an influential writer and activist.Shakespeare’s book1 has certainly stirred up debate, and invited a flurry of angry reviews, in disability studies in the UK—the social science discipline that has been developing radical ideas about disability and disablism since the 1980s. Peopled by both disabled academics and like-minded non-disabled researchers and writers, the DS community recognises that Shakespeare’s book seeks to deliver a fatal wound to what he sees as its sacred cow: the British social model of disability.Shakespeare explains that what he calls the “strong” version of the social model of disability was formulated by Michael Oliver, a leading DS writer and disability activist, on the basis of the social and political ideas advanced in the 1970s by a group of disabled individuals fighting to free themselves from what they experienced as an oppressive care system that relegated and segregated people with serious impairments to residential institutions and to the category of the unemployable.2 3 In short, the social model asserts that “disability” is not caused …. (shrink)

Casual sexual relationships are frequent relationship experiences in young adulthood that provide opportunities for many to explore sexual relationships and to construct their sexual identity. Empirical research on casual sex is still lacking outside North-American countries, despite evidence pointing to the need to contextualize sexual interactions in their own sociocultural context. In order to better understand casual sexual relationships, these should be examined in with novel samples in other countries where a “hookup culture” as it is described in the North-American (...) university campus is apparently absent. Through a qualitative study, we explored what casual sexual relationships consist of according to the perceptions of Portuguese college students. The thematic analysis of eight focus group interviews resulted in the generation of six themes, three of which are presented here: What CSRs are, regarding features and types of CSRs, Why individuals engage in CSRs, focusing on positive and negative motivations, and What one gets from CSRs, focusing on positive and negative outcomes of CSRs. Our findings showed that Portuguese emerging adults are familiarized with CSRs, particularly with one-night stand, friends with benefits and “curte”/hookup. Sexual interactions associated with other CSRs, such as booty call or fuck buddies, were mentioned but rarely associated with a distinctive label and established characteristics. Participants described the CSRs in a partially overlapping manner presenting some areas of ambiguity, such as with regard to sexual exclusivity and still-unlabeled sexual interactions. CSRs are generally evaluated as positively motivated and mainly beneficial. This study adds to the literature around casual sexual relationships by exploring and describing CSRs in a different sociocultural context, as well as indicating directions for future research in order to better prepare and empower young adults in their sexual and relational trajectories. (shrink)

Harry G. Frankfurt begins his inquiry by asking, “What is it about human beings that makes it possible for us to take ourselves seriously?” Based on The Tanner Lectures in Moral Philosophy, Taking Ourselves Seriously and Getting It Right delves into this provocative and original question. The author maintains that taking ourselves seriously presupposes an inward-directed, reflexive oversight that enables us to focus our attention directly upon ourselves, and “[it] means that we are not prepared to accept ourselves just (...) as we come. We want our thoughts, our feelings, our choices, and our behavior to make sense. We are not satisfied to think that our ideas are formed haphazardly, or that our actions are driven by transient and opaque impulses or by mindless decisions. We need to direct ourselves—or at any rate to believe that we are directing ourselves—in thoughtful conformity to stable and appropriate norms. We want to get things right.” The essays delineate two features that have a critical role to play in this: our rationality, and our ability to love. Frankfurt incisively explores the roles of reason and of love in our active lives, and considers the relation between these two motivating forces of our actions. The argument is that the authority of practical reason is less fundamental than the authority of love. Love, as the author defines it, is a volitional matter, that is, it consists in what we are actually committed to caring about. Frankfurt adds that “The object of love can be almost anything—a life, a quality of experience, a person, a group, a moral ideal, a nonmoral ideal, a tradition, whatever.” However, these objects and ideals are difficult to comprehend and often in conflict with each other. Moral principles play an important supporting role in this process as they help us develop and elucidate a vision that inspires our love. The first section of the book consists of the two lectures, which are entitled “Taking Ourselves Seriously” and “Getting It Right.” The second section consists of comments in response by Christine M. Korsgaard, Michael E. Bratman, and Meir Dan-Cohen. The book includes a preface by Debra Satz. (shrink)

The timing of this special issue of AJOB probing whether public engagement (PE)1 might help achieve equity in genomics is no coincidence. While many issues discussed by the authors are not entirely...

In a critical scene deeply troubled by questions of justice and responsibility, and beset by political and moral scandals, no issue in recent years has been more urgent or more unsettled than the question of ethics. Geoffrey Galt Harpham, whose previous book, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism, was one of the first to announce the critical renewal of ethics, attempts in this new book to explain why ethical questions resist settlement. He urges a new account of ethics not (...) as a stable set of principles, values, or prescriptions, but as a variable factor of "imperativity" immanent in language, analysis, narrative, and creation. (shrink)

In addition to noting significant differences of interpretation between me and Kristopher Norris on understanding classic just war thought and judging its importance, this Comment flags errors of fact and faulty logic in the Norris essay.

Mendeleev’s successful predictions were the fruit of his insight into the structure of the periodic system. His failures were the result of pursuing the pattern he had perceived beyond the limits of its applicability. These two things are not equivalent.

Mendeleev’s successful predictions were the fruit of his insight into the structure of the periodic system. His failures were the result of pursuing the pattern he had perceived beyond the limits of its applicability. These two things are not equivalent.

This article seeks to show one way in which moral philosophy, considered by the authors to be essential to the nursing and midwifery curricula, can be presented to achieve an optimal learning experience for nurses and midwives. It demonstrates that what might be considered a standard approach, that is, one that begins with ethical principles concerned with rights and duties and then often follows a linear pattern of teaching, may be in danger of promoting a focus on standardized outcomes. Such (...) use of philosophy could therefore actually detract from the process of care. Moral philosophy underpinning health care ethics is commonly misperceived as a method of problem solving when there is an obvious dilemma regarding appropriate care and/or treatment. However, it is readily recognized that key principles within philosophy, for example, deontology and utilitarianism, despite their approach to a standard or criterion of right action, are both deficient in terms of providing ready-made right decisions. This is because their main virtue is to expose the difficulty rather than to solve the problem. Given these difficulties, any subsequent principles such as respect, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice, incur the same deficiencies a fortiori. It can be argued that the complexity of the environment in which nurses and midwives now practice requires them to develop a capability that begins with the philosophical construction of an issue. This can subsequently enable a recognition of the essential nature of their own involvement as a nurse or midwife. By so doing, nurses and midwives can then bring issues into a nursing or midwifery paradigm and ensure that this perspective informs debate. Ultimately the focus is on the process by which care decisions are made. The intent therefore, is not simply for nurses or midwives to learn moral philosophy or to copy what is considered by others to be right action, but to recognize that a number of right actions are possible and, in so doing, develop their ability either to choose or influence a final action through a valid process. This article proposes and demonstrates by case example that what is often considered as a chance effect for nurses and midwives learning moral philosophy should be seen as the main effect and intended outcome. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn “The Politics of Getting It Right,” Russell Muirhead has contended in this journal that democracy is valuable because of its procedural legitimacy rather than because of the epistemic values of “getting things right.” However, pure procedural theories of legitimacy fail. Thus, if democracy is legitimate, it will have to be due partly to its epistemic advantages. There are two ways of thinking about these advantages. One approach, associated most prominently with David Estlund and Hélène Landemore, equates the (...) epistemic advantages of democracy with its ability to approximate a procedure-independent standard of correctness. The other, associated with Fabienne Peter, explicitly rejects that standard. Peter’s view, however, is incapable of answering challenges against pure procedural theories of legitimacy. (shrink)

John Dewey’s theory of education, despite having become a reference point for the pedagogical sciences, has been subjected to much criticism. One of the most significant attacks came from Jerome Bruner, who questioned Dewey’s principles as set forth in his “My Pedagogic Creed”.1 Bruner chose that book for criticism because it foreshadowed much of the later writing on education by the American philosopher, and he assessed the five articles of faith contained therein against the background of the deep changes that (...) had occurred in conceptions of society, social institutions, and man. Then, paralleling Bruner, Kieran Egan stressed more recently the necessity to reconsider some of Dewey’s.. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHélène Landemore's Democratic Reason marks a crucial achievement in democratic theory, as it successfully shows that democracy is about more than procedural legitimacy—and that it should be. Nonetheless, the procedural argument remains at the heart of the case for democracy. For many democratic decisions, getting the right answer is not what we ask of political institutions. Politics is often about defining what counts as a problem, and no single definition counts as the right one. Furthermore, the epistemic claim (...) that democracy is likely to get moral questions right can obscure the difficulty of getting moral questions exactly “right.” The best political approach to controversial questions is often to strike a balance of competing claims, and every actual democracy does this in ways that leave many citizens dissatisfied. This is why many citizens participate in democratic politics as partisans: they put more trust in their party than in the democratic regime to get it right. Partisanship fuels the never-ending democratic contest over what it means to get it right in politics, but it is also appropriately epistemic, in that it is prompted by the never-ending possibility that even democracy will get things wrong. (shrink)

Most forms of virtue ethics are characterized by two attractive features. The first is that proponents of virtue ethics acknowledge the need to describe how moral agents acquire or develop the traits and abilities necessary to become morally able agents. The second attractive feature of most forms of virtue ethics is that they are forms of moral realism. The two features come together in the attempt to describe virtue as a personal ability to distinguish morally good reasons for action. It (...) follows from the general picture of virtue ethics presented here that we cannot evaluate ethical judgment independently of the viewpoint of the ideal of a virtuous person. We will examine how this ideal unfolds in the realistic form of virtue ethics advanced by John McDowell. McDowell offers a compelling description of virtue as a natural ability grounded in human nature, while at the same time insisting that we cannot understand the judgment resulting from virtue without drawing on that very perspective. However, McDowell’s focus on the passive taking in of reasons in ethical experience and his idea of the silencing of wrong reasons lead us to three related problems. The first is that he cannot account for certain features of the phenomenology of such experience; the second is that he cannot provide any relevant epistemological criteria for correct moral judgment; and the third is that he gives a morally objectionable characterization of the ideal of being a virtuous person. All of these problems arise because McDowell does not take into account the particular nature of ethical experience. If we try to resolve this problem by dropping McDowell’s idea of silencing, we then have to offer another substantial description of our ideal of a virtuous person that includes active and interpersonal ways of evaluating concrete judgments. Proponents of virtue ethics still have to lift this task and develop a position that does not limit ethical experience to the passive intake of reasons. (shrink)

To engage constructively with aspects of his writing sometimes given short shrift, in this paper I contend that Rorty can be fruitfully approached as a political theorist concerned with promulgating a new picture of the political world. Situating his recent thought as a political intervention aimed at revitalizing a moribund left allows us to take seriously his antirepresentationalist claims and evaluate his thought in terms of its political effects rather than accuracy of representation. By reading Rorty’s notion of ‘metaphorical redescription’ (...) through Sheldon Wolin’s conception of political theory as a kind of ‘vision’, I highlight the value of imaginatively constructing new perspectives on our world as a prelude to changing it. Yet even as it authorizes the creative power of imaginative language, Rorty’s antirepresentationalism limits the critical potential of his project by severing his redescriptions from political reality. Where Rorty seeks to alter our vocabularies, the great political theorists sought to alter the world. (shrink)

A well-publicized study entitled (Bartels and Pizarro, 2011) purportedly provides evidence that utilitarian solutions to a particular class of moral dilemmas are endorsed primarily by individuals with psychopathic traits. According to the authors, these findings give researchers reason to refrain from classifying utilitarian judgements as morally optimal. This article is a two-part response to the study. The first part comprises concerns about the methodology used and the adequacy of the data for supporting the authors’ conclusions. The second part seeks to (...) undermine the suggestion that if anti-social individuals are the ones most likely to endorse utilitarian solutions to the target dilemmas, we should be sceptical about those solutions. I argue that the character of individuals most likely to make a given moral judgement is an unreliable indicator of the quality of that judgement. (shrink)

To engage constructively with aspects of his writing sometimes given short shrift, in this paper I contend that Rorty can be fruitfully approached as a political theorist concerned with promulgating a new picture of the political world. Situating his recent thought as a political intervention aimed at revitalizing a moribund left allows us to take seriously his antirepresentationalist claims and evaluate his thought in terms of its political effects rather than accuracy of representation. By reading Rorty’s notion of ‘metaphorical redescription’ (...) through Sheldon Wolin’s conception of political theory as a kind of ‘vision’, I highlight the value of imaginatively constructing new perspectives on our world as a prelude to changing it. Yet even as it authorizes the creative power of imaginative language, Rorty’s antirepresentationalism limits the critical potential of his project by severing his redescriptions from political reality. Where Rorty seeks to alter our vocabularies, the great political theorists sought to alter the world. Key Words: antirepresentationalism • Dewey • Habermas • imagination • Kuhn • redescription • Rorty • utopia • Wolin. (shrink)

Moral Aims brings together nine previously published essays that focus on the significance of the social practice of morality for what we say as moral theorists, the plurality of moral aims that agents are trying to realize and that sometimes come into tension, and the special difficulties that conventionalized wrongdoing poses.

Moral Aims brings together nine previously published essays that focus on the significance of the social practice of morality for what we say as moral theorists, the plurality of moral aims that agents are trying to realize and that sometimes come into tension, and the special difficulties that conventionalized wrongdoing poses.

This collection of previously published essays by Cheshire Calhoun, with an original introduction, supplies an absorbing assemblage of some well-known and some lesser-known essays that hang together remarkably well. The overall effect is that of a robust and provocative approach to ethical theory. Calhoun builds a persuasive case for morality as an enterprise constituted as much by social practices as by abstract theorizing. Calhoun's is not merely the position that moral theory has feasibility constraints when applied. On the contrary, she (...) offers these essays as multiple viewing angles on her position that, "absent a social practice, there is no morality, although there might be moral knowledge" (13). Conventionally, we conceive of morality as a correct action guide, a theory that aims for accuracy in an attempt to "get it right," which we then carry into application in the world. Calhoun argues that our critically reflective aim of theorizing toward accuracy supervenes on -- and often unwittingly presumes -- the backdrop of a social practice of morality (17). (shrink)

Seven problems that occur in attempts to measure complexity are pointed out as they occur in four proposed measurement techniques. Each example method is an improvement over the previous examples. It turns out, however, that none are up to the challenge of complexity. Apparently, there is no currently available method that truly gets the measure of complexity. There are two reasons. First, the most natural approach, quantitative analysis, is rendered inadequate by the very nature of complexity. Second, the intrinsic magnitude (...) of complexity is still holding at bay attempts to use both quantitative and qualitative methods combined. Further progress in complexity science and in systems science is required. Any method that simplifies will fail because it ignores what complexity is. Techniques of understanding that do not simplify, but rather provide ways for the mind to grasp and work with complexity are more effective in getting its measure. (shrink)

This paper explores the charge by Bruce Aune and Allen Wood that a gap exists in Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative. I show that properly understood, no such gap exists, and that the deduction of the Categorical Imperative is successful as it stands.

Entire moral philosophies have been rejected for ruling out the possibility of failure. This “fallibility constraint” (also sometimes called the “error constraint”) cannot be justified by appealing either to Wittgensteinian considerations about rules or to the moral importance of alternate possibilities. I propose instead that support for such a constraint in ethics can be found in the Strawsonian reactive attitudes. I then use the constraint to reveal hidden weaknesses in contemporary contstitutivist strategies to ground moral normativity such as Christine Korsgaard’s, (...) and also to reveal hidden strengths in historical accounts of morality such as Bishop Butler’s. We will have reason to reject any moral theory that makes constitutivism’s mistake, but only because we have reason not to reject the fallibility constraint itself. The way this ethical fallibility can be justified suggests a general principle that could be used to justify fallibility constraints in other normative domains such as practical reason, epistemology, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This article seeks to interrogate the moment of queer theory's ‘birth’ out of French influences, or what is designated by the umbrella term ‘French Theory’. It specifically points to the operations of transformation and dislocation, subversion and perversion of French theoretical influences at work in two distinctive ‘pairings’ of French ‘progenitor’ and American queer ‘offspring’: Jacques Derrida with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Jacques Lacan with Judith Butler.