Hadley Arkes argues that it is necessary to move "beyond the Constitution", to the principles that stood antecedent to the text, if we are to understand the text and apply the Constitution to the cases that arise every day in our law.

An Inquiry into the first principles of morals and justice: This book restores to us an understanding that was once settled in the 'moral sciences': that there are propositions, in morals and law, which are not only true but which cannot be ...

For James Schall, revelation becomes open to us, on the most important questions that revelation can address, when it is opened by people who “study politics,” as Samuel Johnson had it. For Plato, the best city, the best political order, was spun out in the world of speech. It is not a place we expect to inhabit. But Plato had Socrates say at the end of the Republic that, whether this City exists anywhere or not, it is the only city (...) in which the thoughtful man would wish to take part. But even so, as Schall says, revelation alerts us to the possibility that our true home will really be elsewhere. (shrink)

The flaws in social psychological research pointed out by Cesario have societal costs. These include ignoring crucial base rates thereby degrading the effectiveness of policy decisions, generalizing the conclusions derived from experiments on non-professionals thereby distorting the public's view of professional law enforcement personnel, questionable accusations of racism, and mis-attributions of the causes of racial differences in behavior.

The city of Cincinnati, we know, can be an engaging place, but federal judge Arthur Spiegel also found, in the mid-'90s, that it could be quite a vexing place. The city council of Cincinnati had passed what was called the Human Rights Ordinance of 1992, which barred virtually all species of discriminationAppalachian origin.sexual orientation.minority status” in the law. The framers of the amendment objected to the tendency to treat gays and lesbians on the same plane as groups that have suffered (...) discrimination based on race, religion, or gender. The proposal, known as Issue 3, drew wide support and passed in a referendum in 1993. It was, of course, challenged in the courts, which is why it found its way into the hands of Judge Spiegel. (shrink)

According to a simple form of consequentialism, we should base decision on our judgments about their consequences for achieving out goals. Our goals give us reason to endorse consequentialism as a standard of decision making. Alternative standards invariably lead to consequences that are less good in this sense. Yet some people knowingly follow decision rules that violate consequentialism. For example, they prefer harmful omissions to less harmful acts, they favor the status quo over alternatives they would otherwise judge to be (...) better, they provide third-party compensation on the basis of the cause of an injury rather than the benefit from the compensation, they ignore deterrent effects in decisions about punishment, and they resist coercive reforms they judge to be beneficial. I suggest that nonconsequentialist principles arise from overgeneralizing rules that are consistent with consequentialism in a limited set of cases. Commitment to such rules is detached from their original purposes. The existence of such nonconsequentialist decision biases has implications for philosophical and experimental methodology, the relation between psychology and public policy, and education. (shrink)

Three indexes have been compiled: authors of main articles (including our special departments such as ‘Projects in progress’ and ‘Notes and discussions’); essay reviews; and book reviews. Co-author...

Seit ihrer Verurteilung vor allem im Deutschen Idealismus hatte die Popularphilosophie, in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine der einflussreichsten Stromungen, einen faden Beigeschmack. Dabei verstand sich die Diskussion uber eine Philosophie, die mehr Nahe zum Leben der Menschen suchte, als Teil der umfassenden Selbstverstandnisdebatte von Aufklarung insgesamt. Vor allem die Auseinandersetzung mit der kritischen Philosophie Kants zwang dazu, Anspruch, Grenzen und Moglichkeiten popularer Philosophie zu uberdenken. So wurde Popularitat zu Programm und Problem von Philosophie, damals wie heute. - (...) Der vorliegende Band zeichnet die Geschichte der Popularphilosophie nach: ihre Vorgeschichte, die Diskussion im 18. und ihre Nachklange im 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert bis hin zur gegenwartigen Auseinandersetzung. Since its condemnation, above all by German idealism, popular philosophy, which had been one of the most influential movements of the 18th century, had a negative connotation. The discussion about a philosophy which tried to get closer to peoples lives did however see itself as a part of the widespread debate on self-understanding of Enlightenment as a whole. It was mainly the study of Kant's critical philosophy which forced people to rethink the demands, limitations and possibilties of popular philosophy. Thus popularity became the agenda and the problem of philosophy, then as now. This volume traces the history of popular philosophy: its previous history, the discussion in the 18th century and its reverberations in the 19th and early 20th centuries up to the present time. (shrink)

"Dialogue" is one of American religion's shopworn terms. Although we hear much talk about dialogue, very little of it actually takes place. Religious discourse - especially about politics and public affairs - is increasingly polarized, involving much contestation but little conversation. If truth are to be tested, however, there is no substitute for dialogue.

After reestablishing the connection between morality and the law, the author develops a coherent position on many of the most controversial issues of urban life: the political uses of the streets; verbal assaults and the defamation of racial groups; the legitimate restriction of public speech; segregation, busing, and the use of racial quotas; education, housing, and the problem of the ghetto"; prostitution, gambling, and the "regulation of vices." Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology (...) to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In this article, we investigate the use of social media in contemporary family interaction from a linguistic ethnographic perspective. Inspired by Auer’s work on code-switching in conversation, we study how family members choose and sometimes alternate between digitally mediated and face-to-face modes of communication in various family settings. Based on ethnographic observations, the participants’ metapragmatic reflections, and their interactional orientations to mode choices, we show how such choices serve social and metapragmatic functions in the interaction between family members who are (...) present in the same house or even in the same room. Accordingly, we argue in favor of situating peoples’ polymedia repertoires in a broader framework of communicative repertoires. (shrink)