In western philosophy today, the three leading approaches to normative ethics are those of Kantian ethics, virtue ethics and utilitarianism. In recent years the debate between Kantian ethicists and virtue ethicists has assumed an especially prominent position. The twelve newly commissioned essays in this volume, by leading scholars in both traditions, explore key aspects of each approach as related to the debate, and identify new common ground but also real and lasting differences between these approaches. The volume provides a rich (...) overview of the continuing debate between two powerful forms of enquiry, and will be valuable for a wide range of students and scholars working in these fields. (shrink)

Scholars of ideology in social-scientific disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and political science, stand to benefit from taking seriously the philosophical contributions of Professor Peter Railton. This is because Railton provides much-needed conceptual precision—and a rare sense of epistemological and moral clarity—to a topic that is notoriously slippery and prone to relativistic musing and the drawing of false equivalences. In an essay entitled “Morality, Ideology, and Reflection: Or, the Duck Sits Yet,” Railton (2000/2003) aptly identified the purpose of ideological analysis as (...) the unmasking of “nonepistemic” interests—that is, interests other than truth-seeking, accuracy, or warrant —that contribute to the development, adoption, and dissemination of political and religious belief systems. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book initiates a dialogue among scholars in rhetoric and hermeneutics in many areas of the humanities. Twenty leading thinkers explore the ways these two powerful disciplines inform each other and influence a wide variety of intellectual fields. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde organize pivotal topics in rhetoric and hermeneutics with originality and coherence, dividing their book into four sections: Locating the Disciplines; Inventions and Applications; Arguments and Narratives; and Civic Discourse and Critical Theory. Contributors to this (...) volume include Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Gerald L. Bruns, Charles Altieri, Richard E. Palmer, Calvin O. Schrag,.Victoria Kahn, Eugene Garver, Michael Leff, Nancy S. Streuver, Wendy Olmsted, David Tracy, Donald G. Marshall, Allen Scult, Rita Copeland, William Rehg, and Steven Mailloux. For readers across the humanities, the book demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical and hermeneutic approaches in literary, philosophical, legal, religious, and political thinking. With its stimulating new perspectives on the revival and interrelation of both rhetoric and hermeneutics, this collection is sure to serve as a benchmark for years to come. (shrink)

This book initiates a discussion among scholars in rhetoric and hermeneutics in many areas of the humanities. Twenty leading thinkers explore the ways these two powerful disciplines inform each other and influence a wide variety of intellectual fields. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde organize pivotal topics in rhetoric and hermeneutics with originality and coherence, dividing their book into four sections: Locating the Disciplines; Inventions and Applications; Arguments and Narratives; and Civic Discourse and Critical Theory. For readers across the (...) humanities, the book demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical and hermeneutic approaches in literary, philosophical, legal, religious, and political thinking. (shrink)

We have just completed an exhausting nine‐month debate on the future of the Affordable Care Act. I see this debate as having ended—as of this writing—in a draw. After months of repeal efforts, Republicans in the House barely passed in early May, with a 217‐to‐213 margin, the American Health Care Act, which would have significantly amended the ACA. Republicans in the Senate spent the summer trying to arrive at amendments to the AHCA that could attract fifty of their fifty‐two votes, (...) but in the end, the clock ran out on their opportunity to enact an amendment without Democratic input. With this legislative failure, we appear to be in a stalemate. The Affordable Care Act remains in place as the law of the land, but the Trump administration seems committed to at best condemning the ACA to malign neglect and at worst actively undermining it at every opportunity. Given the political stalemate, the time is right to reassess the deeper issues at stake and ponder the prospects for a considered compromise on health reform. (shrink)

The paper provides a deeper insight into institutionally given opportunities for and limitations to reflexive, dialogue-centered, and risk-sensitive knowledge exchange between scientific experts and agro-political decision makers, especially under the conditions of a significant degree of complexity, far-reaching uncertainties and potential impacts. It focuses on the practical orientations, guiding expectations and selection criteria shaping expertise in processes of science policy consulting. In doing so, two perspectives will be discussed: first the orientation of the knowledge production process by different concepts of (...) ‘‘usable knowledge.’’ Second, the influence of specific constellations on different stages of the political process, which shape the institutional conditions for the transfer and the use of scientific knowledge within the policy consulting process. Both perspectives help to come to a closer understanding of the demanding and very heterogeneous process of science policy consulting, which - if successful - leads to the interactive production of a very special form of ‘‘orientational knowledge.’’. (shrink)

Au cours du dernier siècle, l'investigation empirique a été bouleversée par le développement de nouveaux instruments et par la possibilité de traiter numériquement les données. Cet ouvrage entreprend d'adapter la notion classique d'observation scientifique à ces nouvelles pratiques.

Der Band untersucht das durch die Begriffe Musik, Kultur und Gedächtnis abgesteckte Feld in einer zweifachen Bewegung: Zum einen wird Musik als eine wichtige soziokulturelle Ausdrucksform quer durch alle Kulturen gefasst, ihre Bestimmung und Funktion ändern sich mit den jeweiligen soziokulturellen Kontexten und Praxen. Jedes Musikstück steht in spezifischen kulturell entwickelten Traditionen und Formen, die von ihm aktualisiert werden. Musik wirkt als "gemeinschaftsbildende Macht" (Adorno), als Ausdrucksmittel individueller oder kollektiver Identität. Zum anderen ist den vielfältigen Formen von Musik die mehrfache (...) Verbindung von Musik und Zeit gemeinsam: Die jeweilige musikalische Darbietung oder Reproduktion ist ein zeitlicher Ablauf und als solcher gedächtnishaft organisiert. Die ästhetische Erfahrung von Musik ist konstitutiv auf Gedächtnisleistungen angewiesen und Musik selbst eine temporale Kunstform. Neben dieser elementaren Zeitlichkeit zeigen sich in der Musik aber viele weitere Aspekte subjektiver und sozialer Zeit: die Geschichtlichkeit der einzelnen Stücke bzw. Werke selbst, die soziokulturelle zeitliche Lagerung von Ordnungsprinzipien wie Gattungen, Kunstformen, Stilen etc., der Wandel von basalen Formen des Musikmachens (etwa unter dem Einfluss von Medientechnologien). Der Band enthält auch die deutsche Erstveröffentlichung eines Artikels von Maurice Halbwachs zu diesem Themenfeld. Der Inhalt: Theoretische Überlegungen, "Analytische Betrachtungen. Die Herausgeber: PD Dr. Christofer Jost lehrt und arbeitet am Zentrum für Populäre Kultur und Musik der Universität Freiburg. PD Dr. Gerd Sebald ist am Institut für Soziologie der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg tätig. (shrink)

Though each of its four constituent essays has received scholarly attention in itself, Hume?s Four Dissertations (1757) has received virtually no consideration from scholars as a unified whole. This article offers such an assessment, and argues that two crucially Humean themes link the four texts. First, they show the applicability of Hume?s theory of the passions to a wide range of questions: to the philosophy of religion, to psychology, and to aesthetics. Second, they show Hume grappling with the tension between (...) his iconoclastic religious skepticism and his valorization of tolerant and sociable exchange between thinkers with differing views. (shrink)

Why do we so often defend the very social systems that are responsible for injustice and exploitation? In A Theory of System Justification, John Jost argues that we are motivated to defend the status quo because doing so serves fundamental psychological needs for certainty, security, and social acceptance. We want to feel good not only about ourselves and the groups to which we belong, but also about the overarching social structure in which we live, even when it hurts others (...) and ourselves. Jost lays out the wide range of evidence for his groundbreaking theory and examines its implications for our communities and our democracy. Drawing on twenty-five years of research, he provides an accessible account of system justification theory and its insights. System justification helps to explain deep contradictions, including the feeling among some women that they don’t deserve the same salaries as men and the tendency of some poor people to vote for policies that increase economic inequality. The theory illuminates the most pressing social and political issues of our time—why has it been so hard to combat anthropogenic climate change?—as well as some of the most intimate—why do some black children prefer white dolls to black ones and why do some people stay in bad relationships? Jost’s theory has far-reaching implications, and he offers numerous insights that political activists and social justice advocates can use to promote change. (shrink)

This book brings together for the first time an updated, revised collection of influential essays and articles that capture some of the most exciting scientific and scholarly contributions to the topic of political ideology. John Jost tackles fundamental questions about how psychology, neuroscience, and societal factors impact political attitudes and group divisions. In what sense, if any, are ordinary citizens "ideological"? Is it useful to locate political attitudes on a single dimension of representation? Are there meaningful differences in the (...) beliefs, opinions, and values of leftists and rights-or liberals and conservatives? How are personality traits related to ideological preferences? What situational or contextual factors contribute to liberal and conservative shifts in the general population? What are the implications of ideological polarization for the future of democracy? Drawing on Max Weber's concept of elective affinities, one of the world's leading political psychologists discusses the myriad ways in people choose ideas and ideas choose people. (shrink)

In many scientific fields, today’s practices of empirical enquiry rely heavily on the production of images that display the investigated phenomena. And while scientific images of phenomena have been important for a long time, what is striking now is that scientists have found ways to visualize such widely different types of phenomena. In the past twenty or thirty years, we have become accustomed to seeing images of galaxies, of cells, of the human brain but also of blood flow or of (...) turbulent fluids. This success in making images relies first on the set of imaging devices that have flourished in the twentieth century, instruments such as radio-telescopes, electronic microscopes, MRI and many more. Without these... (shrink)

The connotations attached to the concept of 'risk' have changed over the last several decades. In particular, the image of risk, at least in the word's most economically advanced countries, has turned from predominantly positive to highly critical. A sociological look at this historic change reveals the emergence of a plurality of risk definitions that can be attributed to different risk cultures. We can distinguish risk cultures by their proximity to the dominant social practice of risk taking ; namely risk (...) cultures belong either to the centre or the periphery of society. Social movements that resist risky technologies are examples of a peripheral risk culture. Due to a certain concept of social community their perception of risk differs fundamentally from that of the centre. In addition, cultural variation across countries leads to different representations of risk-avoidance in social movements. This contribution illustrates these differences by comparing the American and German anti-nuclear movements. (shrink)

Basedon several official pronouncements of the leading organs of the German Evangelical Church in the past decade on the ethical and internationallegal implications of the use of force either as collective action under the authority ofthe United Nations or by individual states, the article critically reviews the positions taken by the Church with regard to their consistency over time. In the early 1990s the Council of the German Evangelical Church clearly stated that peaceful means of conflict resolution generally take priority (...) over forceful means. However, in particular circumstances the use of force as ultima ratio cannot be ruled out. Recently, under the impact of the Iraq crisis, the positions taken were less strict. Due to a lack of a clear distinction between unilateral uses of force and enforcement action by the United Nations it remains unclear whether the Church still unequivocally holds on to its earlier ultima ratio stance. The paper argues that in view of the new challenges posed by global terrorism all social and political forces, including the churches, have to support the United Nations as the central institution for the maintenance of international peace and security which- inter aliis- requires the acceptance of the UN's competence to use enforcement measures in cases of grave breaches of peace including massive human rights violations as ethically and legally legitimate, provided the UN itself stays within the Iimits of the law. (shrink)

Cet article vise à réévaluer quelle peut être l’autorité de la science en société aujourd’hui. Partant de l’époque du positivisme, il retrace dans un premier temps l’évolution globale des positions académiques sur la science et son autorité pour identifier les principaux arguments qui, en philosophie, histoire et sociologie des sciences, ont contribué à affaiblir l’autorité de la science en société. Dans un second temps, il propose une approche inspirée de celle de Popper pour montrer que l’autorité de la science peut (...) se bâtir graduellement, en partant du niveau observationnel pour se transmettre aux autres strates de la connaissance scientifique. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science, it is a rather undisputed idea that our concepts, conceptions and theories are strongly constrained by what we observe. But the epistemic authority of observation is threatened by its widely acknowledged lack of autonomy: to have observation yield knowledge through observation reports, one has to already possess a conception of (some aspects of) the self and the world. My goal in this paper is to give a satisfying account of the concept of observation, one that (...) reconciles these two seemingly incompatible yet indisputable aspects of observation: its epistemic authority and its lack of autonomy. My main suggestion is that observation reports can be characterized by a form of uniqueness, namely, that no other judgment that would contradict an observation report could rationally be sustained. I will show that this claim is consistent with the two aforementioned features of observation by using Anil Gupta's innovative treatment of the contribution of experience to knowledge in his recent Empiricism and Experience (2006) based on the logic of interdependent definitions. (shrink)

En sciences biomédicales, diverses techniques d’imagerie permettent l’exploration d’organismes vivants, aussi bien pour le diagnostic que pour l’expérimentation. En se penchant sur l’une d’entre elles, la scintigraphie, on montre que l’utilisation d’un instrument complexe revêt toujours un caractère expérimental, même lorsque l’on entend l’utiliser à des fins d’observation diagnostique. La liste des tests qui sont à entreprendre sur la machine à diverses échelles de temps démontre que les chercheurs ne peuvent jamais l’utiliser en lui accordant leur confiance de manière inconditionnelle. (...) L’observation est encadrée par l’expérimentation, démontrant aussi l’actualité du cadre de Claude Bernard qui met en avant le raisonnement expérimental comme catégorie englobante, plutôt qu’une distinction qui demeure toujours floue entre observation et expérience. (shrink)

En sciences biomédicales, diverses techniques d’imagerie permettent l’exploration d’organismes vivants, aussi bien pour le diagnostic que pour l’expérimentation. En se penchant sur l’une d’entre elles, la scintigraphie, on montre que l’utilisation d’un instrument complexe revêt toujours un caractère expérimental, même lorsque l’on entend l’utiliser à des fins d’observation diagnostique. La liste des tests qui sont à entreprendre sur la machine à diverses échelles de temps (quotidienne à annuelle) démontre que les chercheurs ne peuvent jamais l’utiliser en lui accordant leur confiance (...) de manière inconditionnelle. L’observation est encadrée par l’expérimentation, démontrant aussi l’actualité du cadre de Claude Bernard qui met en avant le raisonnement expérimental comme catégorie englobante, plutôt qu’une distinction qui demeure toujours floue entre observation et expérience. (shrink)

En sciences biomédicales, diverses techniques d’imagerie permettent l’exploration d’organismes vivants, aussi bien pour le diagnostic que pour l’expérimentation. En se penchant sur l’une d’entre elles, la scintigraphie, on montre que l’utilisation d’un instrument complexe revêt toujours un caractère expérimental, même lorsque l’on entend l’utiliser à des fins d’observation diagnostique. La liste des tests qui sont à entreprendre sur la machine à diverses échelles de temps démontre que les chercheurs ne peuvent jamais l’utiliser en lui accordant leur confiance de manière inconditionnelle. (...) L’observation est encadrée par l’expérimentation, démontrant aussi l’actualité du cadre de Claude Bernard qui met en avant le raisonnement expérimental comme catégorie englobante, plutôt qu’une distinction qui demeure toujours floue entre observation et expérience. (shrink)

Cet article dresse le bilan des recherches sur les sanctuaires depuis la parution de l’ouvrage Sanctuaires et cultes d’Arcadie publié par l’auteur en 1985. Sur le terrain, des sites anciennement repérés ou de nouveaux sites ont fait l’objet de fouilles. Des publications de monuments déjà connus ont apporté des précisions sur leur datation et leur histoire. L ’identification des sanctuaires laisse peu de place à Pausanias : plus d’une douzaine de temples ne sont pas identifiables à un site décrit par (...) le Périégète. La découverte la plus spectaculaire vient de la fouille de l’autel de Zeus sur le mont Lycée où on a pu mettre en lumière une continuité de culte sans interruption de l’époque mycénienne à la fin de l’époque classique. Ailleurs, l’étude de l’implantation des sanctuaires et de leur chronologie a progressé. (shrink)

The rich conceptual and experiential relays between music and philosophy—echoes of what Theodor W. Adorno once called _Klangfiguren_, or "sound figures"—resonate with heightened intensity during the period of modernity that extends from early German Idealism to the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. This volume traces the political, historical, and philosophical trajectories of a specifically German tradition in which thinkers take recourse to music, both as an aesthetic practice and as the object of their speculative work. The contributors examine the (...) texts of such highly influential writers and thinkers as Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bloch, Mann, Adorno, and Lukács in relation to individual composers including Beethoven, Wagner, Schönberg, and Eisler. Their explorations of the complexities that arise in conceptualizing music as a mode of representation and philosophy as a mode of aesthetic practice thematize the ways in which the fields of music and philosophy are altered when either attempts to express itself in terms defined by the other. Contributors: Albrecht Betz, Lydia Goehr, Beatrice Hanssen, Jost Hermand, David Farrell Krell, Ludger Lütkehaus, Margaret Moore, Rebekah Pryor Paré, Gerhard Richter, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Samuel Weber. (shrink)

Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

According to Silvan Tomkins polarity theory, ideological thought is universally structured by a clash between two opposing worldviews. On the left, a humanistic worldview seeks to uphold the intrinsic value of the person; on the right, a normative worldview holds that human worth is contingent upon conformity to rules. In this article, we situate humanism and normativism within the context of contemporary models of political ideology as a function of motivated social cognition, beliefs about the social world, and personality traits. (...) In four studies conducted in the U.S. and Sweden, normativism was robustly associated with rightist self-placement; conservative issue preferences; resistance to change and acceptance of inequality; right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation; system justification and its underlying epistemic and existential motives to reduce uncertainty and threat; and a lack of openness, emotionality, and honesty-humility. Humanism exhibited the opposite relations to most of these constructs, but it was largely unrelated to epistemic and existential needs. Humanism was strongly associated with preferences for equality, openness to change, and low levels of authoritarianism, social dominance, and general and economic system justification. We conclude that polarity theory possesses considerable potential to explain how conflicts between worldviews shape contemporary politics. (shrink)

Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

In this qualitative meta-analysis, I analyze corporate irresponsibility as an emergent organizational process. Organizations enacting irresponsible practices rely not only on a particular form of a process path, but on how this process path evolves within the organization. To achieve a better understanding of this process path, I conducted a qualitative meta-analysis drawn from 20 published cases of irresponsible organizations. I explore how and under which conditions irresponsible behavior of organizations arises, develops, and changes over time. The process path of (...) corporate irresponsibility relies on the interaction of multiple levels of analysis and its temporal occurrence, resulting in either path dependency or path creation. Based on the empirical findings of the evolving phenomena, this study focuses on three phases of corporate irresponsibility: institutionalization, problematization, and adaptation. The process of corporate irresponsibility can take two distinct paths, the reactive, and the proactive. This study contributes to the corporate irresponsibility literature by offering new insights into, first, a processual and more interactional approach to corporate irresponsibility that accounts for interdependencies on the different levels of each phase, and second, the self-reinforcing mechanisms and explanatory patterns of corporate irresponsibility leading to path dependency or path creation. (shrink)