Preface -- Introduction -- How to value democracy -- Paper stones, the ethics of participation -- Philosophers-citizens -- Superdeliberators -- What is it like to be a citizen? -- Democracy's ethics of belief -- The division of democratic labor -- Representing principles -- Democratic complicity -- Not in my name, macrodemocratic design.

This chapter examines the relation of the Human Development or Capability Approach to liberal political theory. If development is enhancement of capabilities, then this chapter adds that development is human and social: development includes (1) the creation of value as a social process that is (2) a dialectical product of people in their relations. Specifically: (1) The place of the individual within political theory must be revised if the political subject is, as Carol Gould argues, an “individual-in-relations” (...) rather than an autonomous individual agent. (2) New possibilities for valuation are also relational: value is created dialectically along with those possibilities through processes that may be modeled on Denis Goulet’s account of dialectical recognition. These axiological claims hold importance for the place of democratic participation in just politics and development. Building upon David Crocker’s work, this chapter argues that just politics may require a participative approach that is undercut by Martha Nussbaum’s suggestion that a list of central capabilities should guide the drafting of national constitutions. The assimilation of the indigenous concept sumak kawsay to the ideal of buen vivir within Ecuador’s constitution is illustrative, suggesting that prior specification (a list) may limit and distort the dialectical generation of new capabilities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Law’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society by Cathleen KavenyEric E. SchnitgerLaw’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society By Cathleen Kaveny WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012. 304 PP. $29.95In Law’s Virtue, Cathleen Kaveny calls those in Western liberal countries to rethink their fundamental framework of ethics and law through the guiding principles of autonomy and solidarity, understood through the Catholic context of (...) Thomistic virtue. The law operates not as the fence of individual isolation as it does in Enlightenment rights theory, whereby liberty is preserved through negative restraint, but as the teacher of a limited form of the virtues of prudence and justice (52). The law teaches this thin form of prudence through autonomy, which Kaveny takes from Joseph Raz as “the capacity to be the ‘part-author’ of one’s own life” (53). Solidarity, pulling from Pope John Paul II, correlates to a learned justice, in that it “attend[s] to the unseen members” of the community (54). It recognizes that the good of the community and the good of individual members are inexorably intertwined.The opening epigram of the preface, which sets the tone for the whole work, is a quotation from Isidore of Seville found in Aquinas: “Law shall be virtuous, just, possible to nature, according to the custom of the country, suitable to place and time, necessary, useful; clearly expressed, lest by its obscurity it lead to misunderstanding; framed for no private benefit, but for the common good” (xi). Kaveny argues that the phrases “possible to nature” and “custom of the country” need more attention in pluralist, democratic societies, because law is morally formed by its constituent community and there are deep disagreements within those communities. This gives a direction for how Catholics, and all citizens, should attempt to influence laws in these democracies. Because the law is a form of consensus over time, it should use severe sanctions such as criminal law only to reinforce the consensus that it represents. Tort and tax law are less severe tools that can encourage the moral direction of society, which, when used well, maintain the consensus of the law but still allow it to be a moral teacher.Kaveny’s practical thinking in this text does have some seeds of radical change. When she moves to the practicalities of life issues in the law—such as abortion, euthanasia, and genetics—she argues that the “entire fabric of the Anglo-American legal system” needs to add the concept of the “vulnerable” person to the “reasonable person” (79). In addition, her reframing of life issues contends that the Catholic view of issues like abortion is too different from [End Page 212] the “custom of the country” to make a change to the virtues and practices of other citizens. Instead, attention to the support necessary for families and social difficulties of economic poverty represents a way of using the law as a moral teacher while recognizing its limits (89, 156, 209). The book concludes with an incisive look at voting, in which Kaveny argues that the idea of issues-based voting is wrongheaded; instead, she urges voters to consider that they are voting for an individual who will take a broad moral stance and make a broad set of decisions (197 ff.).The quality of Kaveny’s clear thinking and moral consistency makes this book a pleasure to read—even for those who may disagree about the nature of the law or the virtues that Christians should bring to political, legislative, and judicial systems. This text, from its depth of legal and theological commitments, sets a high bar for further dialogue.Eric E. SchnitgerFuller Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Augustine—for all of his influence on Western culture and politics—was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine’s texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical (...) themes which have analogues in secular political theory: love—and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy—and sin—as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics. In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love’s relation to justice is prominent. _Politics and the Order of Love _will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society. (shrink)

Augustine—for all of his influence on Western culture and politics—was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine’s texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical (...) themes which have analogues in secular political theory: love—and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy—and sin—as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics. In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love’s relation to justice is prominent. _Politics and the Order of Love _will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society. (shrink)

Felony disenfranchisement is best understood as a means of vote suppression. Quite apart from its significance as a form of criminal stigma, disenfranchisement is most properly characterized as one of the ways in which the American voting system reserves political participation for a privileged social and intellectual class. Thus understood, felony disenfranchisement reveals the theoretical underpinnings of an exclusionary version of American democracy in which more or less widespread disenfranchisement is an acceptable or necessary political tactic. Felony disenfranchisement (...) should not be characterized as a sanction for criminal conduct: It fits none of the usual justifications for punishment. Most commentators agree that felony disenfranchisement as a collateral sanction for criminal conduct stigmatizes alike a disparate collection of individuals convicted of crimes carrying a penalty of one year or more - everything from drug possession to murder - and extends, in many instances, long after former felons have completed their sentences. Justifications for refusing the vote to felons, and to former felons who are no longer incarcerated, are surprisingly weak and clearly related to larger issues of democratic participation. Accordingly, it is under the framework of democratic participation that the most persuasive justifications of disenfranchisement might be found. Under the framework of democratic participation, the disenfranchisement debate implicates competing theories of democracy, each of which has profound consequences for the constitution of the American polity. I contend that there are currently three models for the right to vote in American society: (1) a membership model premised upon popular participation in the democratic process as an expression of citizenship; (2) a deliberative model in which popular participation is conditioned upon the duty to be an informed and reflective citizen; and (3) an elite model entrenching political office in a political class that competes for votes among the electoral masses. The continuing vitality of these three models at the level of political debate and constitutional doctrine unsettles the dominant history of the franchise as one of progress from an exclusionary to an inclusionary extension of the mandate, and requires us to acknowledge felony disenfranchisement as part of a larger process of voter exclusion and suppression. (shrink)

This book investigates how citizens who have differences and disagreements ought to relate to one another in a liberal democracy. Specifically, this book advances a metaphor of citizenship that I call 'role-based constitutional fellowship.' Role-based constitutional fellowship, I argue, is a desirable way for citizens to relate to one another in conditions of modern pluralism, where multiple races, ethnicities, religions, and economic statuses exist ('difference') and where citizens adhere to and pursue competing political interests, creeds, and objectives ('disagreement'). Under (...) role-based constitutional fellowship, citizens share a sense that they are united in a common aim and that they are largely committed to doing what is necessary to pursue that aim - that they are fellows. I describe this sense of fellowship as constitutional and role-based. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Daoism, Practice, and Politics:From Nourishing Life to Ecological PraxisEric S. Nelson (bio)I. Daoism's Multiple ModelsManhua Li, Yumi Suzuki, and Lisa Indraccola have offered evocative insights, questions, and alternatives in their contributions concerning the arguments of Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life (Nelson 2021). The present brief response and sketch of the book will not address every point in their essays, but I will strive to reply, directly and indirectly, (...) to their primary concerns.First, it should be noted that I take a pluralistic conception of 'Daoisms' as my point of departure. This is necessary since Daoist studies have been hampered by overly ahistorical and one-sided definitions that prioritize one philosophical or religious moment (such as skepticism or mysticism) in historically complex and varied transmissions that encompass a multiplicity of texts and perspectives. Due to the fact of the plurality of incompatible kinds of Daoism in Chinese antiquity and in subsequent history, my text considers a range of early Daoist and Daoist-related perspectives in the context of their potential consequences for environmental philosophy, ethics, and politics. Consequently, my approach is primarily philosophical without limiting any text to being exclusively philosophical, religious, or rigidly committed to one perspective, which would be untrue to the sources themselves.Second, examining distinctive tendencies (modifying Graham 1989 and Liu 1994) in the Daodejing 道德經, the Zhuangzi 莊子, and related texts enables us to articulate distinctive and conflicting ecological, ethical, and political paradigms. In place of constructing a mythologizing ideological construction of 'Chinese culture' and Daoism as intrinsically 'Green', a familiar essentializing tendency that has provoked skepticism regarding the very possibility of Daoist environmental philosophy, my book provides a different 'critical Daoist' strategy. This alternative entails that Daoist exemplars can be deployed as therapeutic models in the present, while at [End Page 792] the same time confronting their ideological codifications and uses. Early Daoist sources have roamed on long intercultural journeys. The Daodejing and the Zhuangzi have provided elements for European thinking about civilization, technology, and nature from Martin Buber and Martin Heidegger (Nelson 2017) to Peter Sloterdijk's 'Euro-Taoism' (Sloterdijk 1989) to contemporary progressive Green movements (Joshi 2022) and even ecofascism (Lubarda 2020). Similarly, in the current Chinese context, Green Daoism has both critical and authoritarian ideological functions in visions of 'ecological civilization' (shengtai wenming 生態文明) (Schönfeld and Chen 2019) and fears of a 'green leviathan'. Accordingly, it is not accidental that my anarchistic and participatory democratic interpretation of one key thread, which I call 'ziranist' and clarify below, in early Daoist and Wei-Jin mysterious-learning (xuanxue 玄學) discourses, has led to the most intense discussions and controversies about this book. These include the contributions by Li, Suzuki, and Indraccola that propose questions and alternative possibilities concerning agency and responsiveness, authority and self-determination, freedom and fate, and adaptation and intervention, as well as purposive techniques and anti-purposive uselessness.Third, this hermeneutical strategy points toward the tertiary aspect of our preliminary definition of Daoism. It does not primarily name a philosophical theory or a religious worldview. It concerns shifting, overlapping, and diverging ensembles of discourse and practice. This is not the vague ahistorical idea of 'a way of life' but rather refers to how philosophy is enacted through a specific configuration of—to adopt early Greek expressions—logos as dis-course (e.g., argumentation, hermeneutics, logic, rhetoric), ethos (e.g., comportment, orientation, a way of dwelling), and praxis (practices of the self, with others, and with things and nature). Thus, the Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi collections can be analyzed textually and conceptually as having multiple threads (drawing on a variety of authors and sources) that form constellations in the received texts with better and worse historical, practical, and conceptual readings. My interpretive strategy in this discussion, which does not exclude other approaches, is that these texts express forms of practical instead of merely speculative philosophy. They are suggestive of an ethos of relational freedom, irreducible to rules and techniques, which dismantles hypostatized experiential and linguistic fixations, including moralistic fixations, in order to freely encounter the myriad things and enact and practice the dao in one's own singular way.'Critical Daoism', therefore, serves as a pluralistic, diagnostic, and practical designation... (shrink)

I present a persistent religious moral theory, known as divine command theory, which conflicts with liberal political thought. John Rawls's notion of public reason offers a framework for thinking about this conflict, but it has been criticized for demanding great restrictions on religious considerations in public deliberation. I argue that although Paul Kurtz is critical of organized religion, his epistemological suggestions and ethical theory offer a feasible way to build common moral ground between atheists, secularists, and theists, so long (...) as each maintains the important democratic value of toleration in the form of either fallibilism or skepticism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay calls attention to two blind spots in Power Without Knowledge. First, the book has little to say about the role that political institutions can play in promoting effective democratic governance. Drawing on the “mixed government” tradition, I argue that properly designed institutions can correct for the epistemic deficits that Friedman describes by creating what I call the “pressure to conflict.” Second and more importantly, the book has nothing to say about the role of responsible leadership (...) in a democratic technocracy. Drawing on Max Weber’s analysis of the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of conviction, I argue that responsible leadership can promote judicious technocracy in a dynamic that I call the “spiral of responsibility.” The responsible leader recognizes that to recuse oneself from the exercise of technocratic power is to empower the unscrupulous and irresponsible. According to Weber, any theory of politics that fails to embrace the ethics of responsibility will therefore occupy an uneasy middle ground between quietism and enthusiasm. This, I fear, is where Power Without Knowledge may leave us. (shrink)

One source of tension within and between modern nation states derives from conflict between individual and cultural rights. Modern democracies have been built on ideas of individual liberty whose extensions to the rights of culturally distinctive groups to survival and acceptance can create normative and political conflict. Such tensions raise questions about the role of the state, the underlying theory legitimising liberal states, and the social aims of education. Philosophical aspects of such conflicts are explored in Kevin McDonough and (...) Walter Feinberg’s excellent volume, Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities. The philosophical issues hinge on how individuals and groups are conceived, as well as how liberty and loyalty are understood. Most of the essays address these concepts in pragmatic rather than essentialist ways, suggesting that how these issues are conceived is itself an important part of the problem, or its resolution. I conclude by suggesting that all of these doctrines are faiths, the problem being to create conditions so that they, or their elements, can be accepted or rejected reasonably in the light of their social consequences. (shrink)

One source of tension within and between modern nation states derives from conflict between individual and cultural rights. Modern democracies have been built on ideas of individual liberty whose extensions to the rights of culturally distinctive groups to survival and acceptance can create normative and political conflict. Such tensions raise questions about the role of the state, the underlying theory legitimising liberal states, and the social aims of education. Philosophical aspects of such conflicts are explored in Kevin McDonough and (...) Walter Feinberg’s excellent volume, Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities. The philosophical issues hinge on how individuals and groups are conceived, as well as how liberty and loyalty are understood. Most of the essays address these concepts in pragmatic rather than essentialist ways, suggesting that how these issues are conceived is itself an important part of the problem, or its resolution. I conclude by suggesting that all of these doctrines are faiths, the problem being to create conditions so that they, or their elements, can be accepted or rejected reasonably in the light of their social consequences. (shrink)

How should the ‘liberal democratic mainstream’ be fortified (or recovered) so that its members can consolidate to defeat anti-democrats? I argue for a value-pluralistic orientation to liberal democratic politics that accomodates not just the good of conflict (championed by ‘democratic agonists’), but also the good of unity. This approach, I show, accommodates various forms of contestation, but also recognizes the need to purposefully cultivate unity, and thus can be said to balance a ‘tragic ethos’ with a ‘progressive (...) patriotic ethos’: the former encourages citizens to become more vigilant in the struggle against oppression, and the latter, to share in a sense of unity and to honour liberal democracy’s vital role in preventing tyranny. Such an approach would surely not be free of tension. However, I argue that it can help liberal democrats indeed consolidate and practice ‘fugitive antagonism’ against the enemies of liberal democracy when necessary. I advance my thesis by engaging in a critical conversation with the democratic agonistic tradition, paying special attention to Chantal Mouffe, William Connolly, and Steven Johnston’s visions of democratic politics. _Contemporary Political Theory_ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41296-022-00604-2. (shrink)

Since field experiments in democratic politics influence citizens and the relationships among citizens, they are freighted with normative significance. Yet the distinctively democratic concerns that bear upon such field experiments have not yet been systematically examined. In this paper, we taxonomize such democratic concerns. Our goal is not to justify any of them, but rather to reveal their basic structure, so that they can be scrutinized at further length. We argue that field experiments could be democratically objectionable (...) even if they are not decisive – even if they do not swing the results of elections or other political decisions. Rather, if a class of campaign experiments is objectionable, one reason for this is that they undermine citizens’ equal standing. The ideal of equal standing affords nuanced judgments about the permissibility of field experiments in democratic politics. (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to contemporary political ethics What is the relationship between politics and morality? May politicians bend moral constraints in the name of political necessity? Is it always wrong for leaders to lie? How much political compromise is too much? In Political Ethics, some of the world’s leading thinkers in politics, philosophy, and related fields offer a comprehensive and accessible introduction to key issues in this rapidly growing area of political theory. In (...) a series of original essays, the contributors examine a range of urgent political problems: lies and deception, compromise and refusal to compromise, the meaning and limits of political integrity, representation and failures of representation, good and bad democratic leadership, the virtues and excesses of partisanship, administrative ethics, political corruption, whistleblowing, legitimate and illegitimate claims of political emergency, and lobbying. What emerges are realistic but demanding ethical standards—and a clear-eyed understanding of the ethical challenges of political life in the twenty-first century. With contributions by Richard Bellamy, Alin Fumurescu, Edward Hall, Suzanne Dovi and Jesse McCain, Eric Beerbohm, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum, Joseph Heath, Elizabeth David-Barrett and Mark Philp, Michele Bocchiola and Emanuela Ceva, Nomi Lazar, Phil Parvin, and Andrew Sabl. (shrink)

Doron Navot | : According to recent conceptual proposals, institutional corruption should be understood within the boundaries of the institution and its purpose. Political corruption in democracies, prominent scholars suggest, is characterized by the violation of institutional ideals or behaviors that tend to harm democratic processes and institutions. This paper rejects the idea that compromises, preferences, political agreements, or consent can be the baseline of conceptualization of political corruption. In order to improve the identification of abuse (...) of power, the concept of political corruption should not be related directly to democratic institutions and processes; rather, it should be related to ideals whose content is independent of citizens’ preferences, institutions and processes. More specifically, I articulate the relations between political corruption and the notion of subjection, and include powerful citizens in the category of political corruption. Yet, I also suggest redefining under what conditions agents are culpable for their motivations in promoting private gain. By doing this, we better realize how democratic institutions can be the source of corruption and not just its victims. Such a redefinition, I propose finally, is the basis for the distinction between individual and institutional corruption. | : Selon les propositions conceptuelles récentes, la corruption institutionnelle doit être comprise dans les limites de l’institution et de ses objectifs. D’éminents spécialistes suggèrent que la corruption politique dans les démocraties est caractérisée par la violation des idéaux ou comportements institutionnels, ce qui tend à nuire aux processus et institutions démocratiques. Cet article rejette l’idée que les compromis, les préférences, les ententes politiques ou le consentement peuvent constituer le fondement de la conceptualisation de la corruption politique. Afin d’améliorer l’identification des abus de pouvoir, le concept de corruption politique ne doit pas être relié directement aux institutions et processus démocratiques; il doit plutôt être rattaché aux idéaux dont le contenu est indépendant des préférences des citoyens ainsi que des institutions et des processus. Plus précisément, j’exprime clairement les relations qui existent entre la corruption politique et la notion d’assujettissement et inclus les citoyens puissants dans la catégorie de la corruption politique. Cependant, je suggère également de redéfinir les conditions dans lesquelles les agents peuvent être reconnus coupables pour leur motivation à favoriser le gain privé. Ce faisant, nous réalisons mieux de quelle manière les institutions démocratiques peuvent être la source de la corruption et pas seulement ses victimes. En terminant, je propose qu’une telle redéfinition constitue le fondement de la distinction entre la corruption individuelle et institutionnelle. (shrink)

"Thirty-five years ago few could have predicted that The New Science of Politics would be a best-seller by political theory standards. Compressed within the Draconian economy of the six Walgreen lectures is a complete theory of man, society, and history, presented at the most profound and intellectual level. . . . Voegelin's [work] stands out in bold relief from much of what has passed under the name of political science in recent decades. . . . The New Science (...) is aptly titled, for Voegelin makes clear at the outset that a 'return to the specific content' of premodern political theory is out of the question. . . . The subtitle of the book, An Introduction, clearly indicates that The New Science of Politics is an invitation to join the search for the recovery of our full humanity."--From the new Foreword by Dante Germino "This book must be considered one of the most enlightening essays on the character of European politics that has appeared in half a century. . . . This is a book powerful and vivid enough to make agreement or disagreement with even its main thesis relatively unimportant."-- Times Literary Supplement "Voegelin . . . is one of the most distinguished interpreters to Americans of the non-liberal streams of European thought. . . . He brings a remarkable breadth of knowledge, and a historical imagination that ranges frequently into brilliant insights and generalizations."--Francis G. Wilson, American Political Science Review "This book is beautifully constructed . . . his erudition constantly brings a startling illumination."--Martin Wright, International Affairs "A ledestar to thinking men who seek a restoration of political science on the classic and Christian basis . . . a significant accomplishment in the retheorization of our age."--Anthony Harrigan, Christian Century. (shrink)

We naturally tend to think of our own opinions as akin to the coins we carry around in our pockets, transferable and yet inalienable. We may share or alter them, yet in form they remain fundamentally our own, sacrosanct as registers of our very sense of self. Hegel was aware of this relationship between opinion and subjectivity, and regarded such a bond as one of the great accomplishments of modernity itself. Yet for Hegel, excessive estimation of inwardness comes at a (...) dangerous price. Truth reducible to subjective and arbitrary will, to caprice and without philosophical reflection, sets, in his view, a corrosive standard for ethics, politics and thinking itself. This essay will excavate from Hegel's corpus the conceptual groundwork for a critical theory of opinion relevant for the twenty-first century. The overall aim is to offer a holistic reading of Hegel's critique of opinion by drawing on both his early and late writings, tracking its appearance as an initial critique of subjectivism but subsequently developed in his political philosophy. We begin with Hegel's polemics during the Jena years and unearth opinion as an index for self-certitude. Second, we proceed to a focused analysis of Elements of the Philosophy of Right, paying particular attention to what Hegel describes as the contradiction of public opinion. Thirdly, Hegel's epistemological critique of opinion will be synthesized with his political critique of public opinion by returning to the category of certainty, not as a certainty found in an individual opinion, but a certainty in one's own subjective standpoint, while employing elements from Adorno's critique of epistemology. We will conclude by examining the contradiction of public opinion specifically in accordance with the historical conditions of civil society and therewith begin to situate the socio-epistemological problem of opinion as historically specific to capitalist society. (shrink)

Abstract: In this essay a set of principles is defended that yields a determinate allocation of sovereign competences across a global system of territorially nested jurisdictions. All local sovereign competences are constrained by a universal, justiciable human rights regime that also incorporates a conception of cross-border distributive justice and regulates the competence to control immigration for a given territory. Subject to human rights constraints, sovereign competences are allocated according to a conception of global democracy. The proposed allocation scheme can accommodate (...) substantial local autonomy while at the same time ensuring that everyone has a voice in the political decisions that affect his or her interests. The relevant class of affected interests is fully specified. Relevant affects are of two kinds: those that impose norms of governance on individuals, and those that impose external costs on them. The favored sense of "an external cost" is developed and defended. (shrink)

Our modern-day word for sympathy is derived from the classical Greek word for fellow-feeling. Both in the vernacular as well as in the various specialist literatures within philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, economics, and history, "sympathy" and "empathy" are routinely conflated. In practice, they are also used to refer to a large variety of complex, all-too-familiar social phenomena: for example, simultaneous yawning or the giggles. Moreover, sympathy is invoked to address problems associated with social dislocation and political conflict. It is, then, (...) turned into a vehicle toward generating harmony among otherwise isolated individuals and a way for them to fit into a larger whole, be it society and the universe.This volume offers a historical overview of some of the most significant attempts to come to grips with sympathy in Western thought from Plato to experimental economics. The contributors are leading scholars in philosophy, classics, history, economics, comparative literature, and political science. Sympathy is originally developed in Stoic thought. It was also taken up by Plotinus and Galen. There are original contributed chapters on each of these historical moments. Use for the concept was re-discovered in the Renaissance. And the volume has original chapters not just on medical and philosophical Renaissance interest in sympathy, but also on the role of antipathy in Shakespeare and the significance of sympathy in music theory. Inspired by the influence of Spinoza, sympathy plays a central role in the great moral psychologies of, say, Anne Conway, Leibniz, Hume, Adam Smith, and Sophie De Grouchy during the eighteenth century. The volume should offers an introduction to key background concept that is often overlooked in many of the most important philosophies of the early modern period.About a century ago the idea of Einfühlung was developed in theoretical philosophy, then applied in practical philosophy and the newly emerging scientific disciplines of psychology. Moreover, recent economists have rediscovered sympathy in part experimentally and, in part by careful re-reading of the classics of the field. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that a particular war is just or unjust, that terrorism is always wrong, or that torture can sometimes be morally justified? What are the moral bases for the possession or use of nuclear weapons, intervening in other countries’ civil wars, or being a bystander to genocide? Such questions take us to the heart of what is morally right and wrong behaviour in our world. Global Violence: Ethical and Political Issues provides readers with the (...) analytical tools to better understand the suppositions that underlie the debates about such questions, as well as advances its own reasoned and informed ethical analyses of these topics. The book engages different normative approaches from the fields of ethics, political theory, and international relations and uses them to examine a set of case studies on the subjects of inter-state and civil war, nuclear weapons, terrorism, torture and genocide. (shrink)

According to the popular-choice theory of secession, the inhabitants of any territory, as a group, should have an internationally recognized right to secede from a sovereign state if their majority chooses by referendum to do so, and if they are capable of sustaining legitimate state institutions. Prior efforts to defend this group right on individualistic grounds—such as the individual right to associate freely or to participate as an equal in democratic decision-making—have failed. As a result, some recent defenders of (...) the choice theory have suggested that the group right the theory implies is “irreducibly collective.” I argue, to the contrary, that this group right can be grounded fully in the fundamental right of each individual to be treated as an equal by the political institutions to which he is subject. The territorial implications of the choice theory are, moreover, consistent with a plausible account of the territorial rights of states. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: 1. Elements of a Global Federative Model 2. Allocation of Sovereign Competences over Territorial Jurisdictions Conclusions Acknowledgments References.

© Swanson 2017How Propaganda Works is a brilliant, rich, and wide-ranging exploration of the interactions between ideology, inequality, democracy and propaganda. Read as a piece of analytic political philosophy, it is radical, arguing for bold theses about democracy: legitimate democratic deliberation, Stanley contends, requires not only political equality but also substantive material equality. Read as a piece of analytic epistemology and philosophy of language, it is more modest, but nevertheless very compelling, extending well-established work in fascinating but (...) methodologically conservative ways. In particular, on Stanley’s view ‘the truth-conditional, cognitivist picture … gives us an elegant account of what happens when communication fails, due to propagandistic manipulation’. Stanley is thus not trying to think outside the box so much as trying to move or expand the box, using familiar, proven tools to make the job easier. The book generously rewards careful study and thought, and any short summary... (shrink)

The work of Hans Jonas’ has been largely overlooked by environmental philosophers. His Principle of Responsibility can help guide effective development of political institutions for environmental purposes. It is possible to use this principle to develop a deliberative and environmental conception of democracy. Some implications of the social contract framework of deliberative democracy show that Jonas’ conceptualization of responsibility leads to an environmental and deliberative conception of democracy by accommodating different citizens’ senses of the good in terms of an (...) environmentally conceived global governance. (shrink)

Robert Westbrook argues in Democratic Hope that for the pragmatist "all believers [must] be democrats simply by virtue of their desire to assert their beliefs as true," and that they must therefore "open their beliefs to the widest possible range of experience and inquiry." I argue against this view that doubt, not belief, lies at the center of the pragmatic theory of inquiry, and that our beliefs can be placed into doubt only by those whom we consider to be (...) epistemically reliable. It follows that any connection between pragmatism and democracy must be empirical and not conceptual in nature. (shrink)

In _Civilization and Its Discontents_, Freud made abundantly clear what he thought about the biblical injunction, first articulated in Leviticus 19:18 and then elaborated in Christian teachings, to love one's neighbor as oneself. "Let us adopt a naive attitude towards it," he proposed, "as though we were hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment." After the horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, Stalinism, and Yugoslavia, Leviticus 19:18 seems (...) even less conceivable—but all the more urgent now—than Freud imagined. In _The Neighbor_, three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought. A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and hate, self and other, personal and political, _The Neighbor_ will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial text for understanding the persistence of political theology in secular modernity. (shrink)

Resurgent nationalisms and disputes over educational curricula have brought to the fore an old debate between cosmopolitans and patriots. The cosmopolitans emphasize our moral obligations to all human beings, while the patriots argue that our greatest moral obligations lie closer to hand, within our political community. My dissertation concerns the roots of this debate by focusing on the first philosophers in the West to devise an ethical theory which is fully committed to the strictly cosmopolitan denial that we have (...) any obligations to fellow citizens qua fellow citizens, the Greek Stoics of the third century scBCE. I discuss the arguments they offer for their strict cosmopolitanism, and I demonstrate how they argue in favor of the locally engaged political life in spite of their strict cosmopolitanism. For perspective, my dissertation also includes a background chapter on Plato and Aristotle and a chapter on the development of Stoic cosmopolitanism in Cicero. ;An introductory chapter clarifies the conflict between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The first chapter concerns the Socrates of Plato's early dialogues, who seems to recognize obligations to all human beings, and the mature Plato and Aristotle, who do not develop the cosmopolitan implications of Socratic ethics. Chapter Two argues that the early Stoics ground their strict cosmopolitanism in certain assumptions about cosmic nature, and in Chapter Three, I reconstruct how Chrysippus' On Lives endorses the political life in spite of his strictly cosmopolitan commitments. The fourth chapter discusses the retreat in Cicero's De Officiis to a more limited Stoic cosmopolitanism which recognizes special obligations to fellow citizens. A brief concluding chapter relates the findings of the dissertation both to some broad historical questions about the origins and subsequent development of cosmopolitanism and to an argument for special obligations to fellow citizens which is prominent in the contemporary literature. (shrink)