This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This memorandum was written at the request of Henry Hazlitt to provide Mises’s comments on and concerns about F.A. Hayek’s initial proposals for what became the Mont Pèlerin Society. Mises stresses that those who favor liberty and freedom and oppose totalitarianism must also oppose interventionism. The memo argues that those who fought and lost against the rising tide of totalitarianism at the turn of the 20th Century lost their battles because they settled for middle-of-the-road policies that conceded considerable ground (...) to the socialists. The weak point in Professor Hayek’s plan is that it relies upon the cooperation of many men who are today’s middle-of-the-roaders. As interventionists, they may not be the hoped-for intellectual pioneers to inspire people to build a freer world. (shrink)

John Hick offers a summary account of William James's ‘The Will to Believe’ which is typical of the way that this essay has been understood by many in the one hundred years since it was first published. According to Hick, James argues -/- that the existence or nonexistence of God, of which there can be no conclusive evidence either way, is a matter of such momentous importance that anyone who so desires has the right to stake one's life upon the (...) God hypothesis. (shrink)

Camus and James are not often thought to have much in common. But both agree that “Is life worth living?” is a fundamentalphilosophical question, and an examination of the views of each as to what constitutes a life that is worth living reveals strikingsimilarities. Although James freely uses the language of religion which Camus adamantly avoids, they agree that a life worth livingis marked by a sense of intimacy and communion with others and with the world itself—and by a resolve (...) to fight against the evilsthat threaten well-being. (shrink)

Camus and James are not often thought to have much in common. But both agree that “Is life worth living?” is a fundamentalphilosophical question, and an examination of the views of each as to what constitutes a life that is worth living reveals strikingsimilarities. Although James freely uses the language of religion which Camus adamantly avoids, they agree that a life worth livingis marked by a sense of intimacy and communion with others and with the world itself—and by a resolve (...) to fight against the evilsthat threaten well-being. (shrink)

In 'The Divided Self of William James', Richard Gale contends that throughout James's work there is a clash between his Promethean self (with its emphasis on pragmatic, morally strenuous, melioristic activity) and his mystical self (with its passive, quietest, I-Thou quest for intimacy). Part of the case that Gale develops rests on his analysis of what he identifies as "James's most distinctive and influential doctrine," the will to believe. I argue that Gale's interpretation of the "will to believe" is problematic (...) and that a more adequate account of this doctrine allows us to recognize that James's quest for intimacy and his emphasis on moral endeavor are complementary rather than in conflict. (shrink)

John F. Henry is an eminent economist who has made important contributions to heterodox economics drawing on Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, and John Maynard Keynes. His historical approach offers radical insights into the evolution of ideas (ideologies and theories) giving rise to and/or induced by the changes in capitalist society. Essays collected in this festschrift not only evaluate John Henry's contributions in connection to Marx's and Veblen's theories, but also apply them to the socio-economic issues in (...) the 21st century. In Part I leading heterodox economists in the traditions of Marxism, Post Keynesianism, and Institutionalism critically examine Marx's and Veblen's theoretical frameworks (and their connections to each other) that have become the foundations of heterodox economics. Chapters in Part II showcase alternative theoretical explanations inspired by Marx, Veblen, and Henry. Topics in this Part include financial crisis, financialization, capital accumulation, economics teaching, and the historical relationship between money and class society. Part III is devoted to John Henry's heterodox economics encapsulated in his "farewell" lecture, interview, and bibliography. Essays in this book, individually and collectively, make an important point that the history of economic thought (or historical analysis of economic theory and policy) is an integral part of developing heterodox economics as an alternative theoretical framework. Anyone who is troubled by the recurring failure of capitalism as well as mainstream economics will find this book well worth reading. (shrink)

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne …”.

This paper examines the importance of aspirations as reference points in a multi-period decision-making context. After stating their personal aspiration level, 172 individuals made six sequential decisions among risky prospects as part of a choice experiment. The results show that individuals make different risky-choices in a multi-period compared to a single-period setting. In particular, individuals’ aspiration level is their main reference point during the early stages of decision-making, while their starting status (wealth level at the start of the experiment) becomes (...) the central reference point during the later stages of their multi-period decision-making. (shrink)

We give a review of recent progress on the application of the relativistic chiral SU(3) Lagrangian to meson–baryon scattering. It is shown that a combined chiral and 1/Nc expansion of the Bethe–Salpeter interaction kernel leads to a good description of the kaon–nucleon, antikaon–nucleon and pion–nucleon scattering data typically up to laboratory momenta of p lab ≃500 MeV. We solve the covariant coupled channel Bethe–Salpeter equation with the interaction kernel truncated to chiral order Q 3 where we include only those terms (...) which are leading in the large Nc limit of QCD. (shrink)