This article advocates a naturalist and realist ethics of solidarity. Specifically, it argues that human needs should be met; and that they should be met in harmony with the environment. Realism should include respect for existing cultures and the morals presently being practiced – with reasonable exceptions. Dignity must come in a form understood and appreciated by the person whose dignity is being respected. It is also argued that naturalist ethics are needed to combat liberal ethics, not least because the (...) latter supports today’s inflexible and dysfunctional institutions. In arguing for these positions, reference is made to the naturalist realist ethics of Georges Canguilhem, C.H. Waddington, John Dewey and David Sloan Wilson, all of whom embed the social order in the natural order. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper strengthens Bhaskar’s case for the possibility of naturalism. Building on Bhaskar’s A Realist Theory of Science and The Possibility of Naturalism, and on more recent contributions by Douglas Porpora, it traces the evolution of Bhaskar’s concept of 'intransitive' and follows his suggestion to treat social structure as an intransitive generative mechanism analogous to the generative mechanisms of the natural sciences. It is suggested, building on Porpora, that the constitutive rules of the market are usefully regarded as generating an (...) intransitive 'basic social structure.' That this same intransitive object is reasonably regarded as continuing to exist and act under different descriptions is illustrated by citing how different scholars have approached it with different concepts and vocabularies. It expands on Bhaskar’s first example of an intransitive object of social science, the mass unemployment that provided a ‘motor’ for Keynes, and on Porpora’s examples of the causal powers of social structures. (shrink)

This essay can be called, if you will, an exercise in choosing which words to use when in our contemporary context. I hope to add something useful to the work being done by Pierre Macherey (Machere...

Volume 18, Issue 1, February 2019, Page 94-97.

There is also a section on Marx's hints concerning what a just distribution of property would be, in which a method is suggested for combining consumer choice in selecting what to produce with the use of a labor theory in planning production. ;The analysis of the labor theory is embedded in the context of the justifications commonly given for existing capitalist distributions of property. Part of this context is a critique of the argument from freedom, i.e. of positions which justify (...) entitlements by citing free agreements and freely given gifts. Part of the context is a critique of the anti-ideology argument, i.e. of positions which justify institutional arrangements on the ground that they function to encourage investment and production. ;This dissertation uses Aristotle's conception of distributive justice as a framework for analyzing Karl Marx's labor theory of value. The appeal to traditional principles of justice is found to be implicit in Marx's scientific arguments. Marxist texts, mainly Capital, are found to contain five kinds of arguments in favor of the labor theory of value. That the only attribute all commodities have in common is that they are products of labor. That labor determines price. That labor determines natural prices. That from a social point of view the value of a commodity ought to be considered equal to the portion of society's effort than went into it. That the concept of labor-value makes it possible to construct a theory which explains a wide range of economic phenomena. (shrink)

v. 1. Philosophy for peace and justice -- v. 2. Methods for transforming the structures of the modern world.

Andrew Sayer and Dave Elder-Vass are both advocates of ‘moral economy’. To this end, Elder-Vass offers a theory of appropriative practices that enables us to evaluate the enormous variety of forms...