Le blockbuster, c'est de l'explosif. A l'origine du mot, une bombe utilisée pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, capable de détruire tout un pâté de maisons. Et il n'y a sans doute pas d'image plus typique du blockbuster que celle d'une gigantesque explosion. Les déflagrations dont il s'agit dans ce livre ne sont pas uniquement celles que racontent les films. Produit grand public, confectionné grâce à d'immenses investissements financiers, le blockbuster s'apparente à une bombe à fragmentation, pulvérisant l'objet filmique dans des (...) contextes de consommation qui n'ont plus rien à voir avec le cinéma, se diffractant sur le marché mondial sous forme de produits dérivés, T-shirts, figurines et autres gadgets. Sept auteurs, philosophes et critiques, se sont penchés sur quelques blockbusters de leur choix. A chaque fois, les films dynamitent la pensée et l'entraînent dans des directions inattendues : les gremlins sabotent les écrans et contaminent les images, Godzilla et King Kong se font machines à échanger les regards, Batman devient le théâtre d'une déconstruction du politique, Alien met en scène les métamorphoses d'un récit qui ne change jamais, et Titanic coule comme cette industrie lourde qu'est le cinéma lui-même... (shrink)

In this article, Laura Quintana elaborates on a conceptual distinction between violence and rage. Along with this distinction, she recognises that while rage may possess a destructive potential, it can also be politicised in emancipatory practices that confront conditions of injustice and structural violence. Her analysis centers on contemporary political movements in Latin America, which she views as collective manifestations of rage. Within these movements, the manifestation of rage is intertwined with forms of care and communal labor. Quintana characterises (...) such movements as embodying a “dignified rage” (digna rabia) that calls for an emancipatory transformation of the status quo. She contends that these practices can be understood in terms of the notion of “anti-violence,” as it has been coined by Étienne Balibar. In this she diverges from Judith Butler, since, according to Quintana’s analysis, such practices challenge the demand for non-violence that has often served to neutralise the disruptive force of such manifestations and movements. (shrink)

Frank Jackson often writes as if his descriptivist account of public language meanings were just plain common sense. How else are we to explain how different speakers manage to communicate using a public language? And how else can we explain how individuals arrive at confident judgments about the reference of their words in hypothetical scenarios? Our aim in this paper is to show just how controversial the psychological assumptions behind in Jackson’s semantic theory really are. First, we explain how Jackson’s (...) theory goes well beyond the commonsense platitudes he cites in its defence. Second, we sketch an alternative explanation of those platitudes, the jazz model of meaning, which we argue is more psychologically realistic. We conclude that the psychological picture presupposed by Jackson’s semantic theory stands in need of a much more substantial defence than he has so far offered. (shrink)

In his recent bookThe Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen suggests that political philosophy should move beyond the dominant, Rawls-inspired, methodological paradigm – what Sen calls ‘transcendental institutionalism’ – towards a more practically oriented approach to justice: ‘realization-focused comparison’. In this article, I argue that Sen's call for a paradigm shift in thinking about justice is unwarranted. I show that his criticisms of the Rawlsian approach are either based on misunderstandings, or correct but of little consequence, and conclude that the Rawlsian (...) approach already delivers much of what Sen himself wants from a theory of justice. (shrink)

A globalized world, some argue, needs a global democracy. But there is considerable disagreement about whether global democracy is an ideal worth pursuing. One of the main grounds for scepticism is captured by the slogan: “No global demos, no global democracy.” The fact that a key precondition of democracy—a demos—is absent at the global level, some argue, speaks against the pursuit of global democracy. The paper discusses four interpretations of the skeptical slogan—each based on a specific account of the notion (...) of “the demos”—and concludes that none of them establishes that the global democratic ideal must be abandoned. In so doing, the paper (i) systematizes different types of objections against global democracy, thus bringing some clarity to an otherwise intricate debate and (ii) offers a robust but qualified defense of the global democratic ideal. (shrink)

In this article I argue that characterizations of anger as a hostile emotion may be mistaken. My project is empirically informed and is partly descriptive, partly diagnostic. It is descriptive in that I am concerned with what anger is, and how it tends to manifest, rather than with what anger should be or how moral anger is manifested. The orthodox view on anger takes it to be, descriptively, an emotion that aims for retribution. This view fits well with anger being (...) a hostile emotion, as retribution is punitive. I will argue that a different view of anger deserves our attention. On this alternative view, anger aims for recognition of harms done, rather than for the punishment of those who have committed them. I argue that we have reason to favour a strong view that excludes retribution from anger’s main aims. In addition, I offer a diagnosis of the reasons that led the retributive view of anger to become, and remain, orthodoxy. This diagnosis provides indirect reason to give my descriptive proposal serious consideration, for it highlights that the orthodox view has dominated folk and philosophical conceptions of anger for reasons that do not speak in favour of the view’s veracity. The view that anger is a hostile emotion will therefore emerge as in need of serious scrutiny. (shrink)

Much contemporary political philosophy claims to be Kant-inspired, but its aims and method differ from Kant's own. In his recent book, Force and Freedom, Arthur Ripstein advocates a more orthodox Kantian outlook, presenting it as superior to dominant (Kant-inspired) views. The most striking feature of this outlook is its attempt to ground the whole of political morality in one right: the right to freedom, understood as the right to be independent of others’ choices. Is Ripstein's Kantian project successful? In this (...) research note I argue that it is not. First, I suggest that Ripstein's notion of freedom is viciously circular. It is meant to ground all rights, but in fact it presupposes an account of those rights. Second, I show that—independently of its inability to ground a whole political morality—such a moralized understanding of freedom is normatively unappealing. (shrink)

Reference to the state is ubiquitous in debates about global justice. Some authors see the state as central to the justification of principles of justice, and thereby reject their extension to the international realm. Others emphasize its role in the implementation of those principles. This chapter scrutinizes the variety of ways in which the state figures in the global-justice debate. Our discussion suggests that, although the state should have a prominent role in theorizing about global justice, contrary to what is (...) commonly thought, acknowledging this role does not lead to anti-cosmopolitan conclusions, but to the defense of an “intermediate” position about global justice. From a justificatory perspective, we argue, the state remains a key locus for the application of egalitarian principles of justice, but is not the only one. From the perspective of implementation, we suggest that state institutions are increasingly fragile in a heavily interdependent world, and need to be supplemented—though not supplanted—with supranational authorities. (shrink)

A life without liberty and material resources is not a good life. Equally, a life devoid of meaningful social relationships—such as friendships, family attachments, and romances—is not a good life. From this it is tempting to conclude that just as individuals have rights to liberty and material resources, they also have rights to access meaningful social relationships. I argue that this conclusion can be defended only in a narrow set of cases. ‘Pure’ social relationship deprivation—that is, deprivation that is not (...) caused, or accompanied, by deficits in liberties and material resources— mostly generates demands of private beneficence. I suggest that social relationship deprivation is unjust, hence a rights violation, only when it is due to factors—such as one’s race—that are irrelevant to one’s being a good participant in social relationships. I thus conclude that access to meaningful social relationships is not a fundamental concern for theories of justice. (shrink)

This article discusses the concept of ἰδιώτης, often translated as ‘layman’, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ critical essays, where he places particular emphasis on validating the judgement of the ἰδιώτης in aesthetic evaluation. Dionysius’ focus on the impact and reception of art enables him to lay the groundwork for shifting the semantic meaning of ἰδιώτης from being in strict opposition to the artist/critic to a more fluid category, ranging from ‘unskilled’ listener and layman to a relatively experienced ‘amateur’. By conceiving the (...) change from ἰδιώτης to τεχνίτης in criticism as a more gradual process (rather than one of irreconcilable division), Dionysius shows the discipline of rhetoric and literary criticism to be a particularly relevant form of learning that speaks to the sensibilities of Imperial Rome. (shrink)

Various philosophers authors have argued—on the basis of powerful examples—that we can have compelling moral or practical reasons to believe, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. This paper explores an alternative story, which still aims to respect widely shared intuitions about the motivating examples. Specifically, the paper proposes that what is at stake in these cases is not belief, but rather acceptance—an attitude classically characterized as taking a proposition as a premise in practical deliberation and action. I suggest that acceptance’s (...) theoretical usefulness in the ethics of belief has been hidden by its psychological obscurity. I thus aim to develop an empirically adequate and mechanistically specific psychological profile of acceptance. I characterize acceptance as centrally involving a cognitive gating function, in which we prevent a target belief state from having its characteristic downstream effects on reasoning, cognition, and action, and restructure those downstream processes. I then argue that there is substantial empirical support for the existence of the cognitive mechanisms needed to instantiate this view, coming from the science of emotion regulation. I argue that acceptance involves deploying the same mechanisms used in emotional response modulation to belief states: acceptance is doxastic response modulation. I then propose that having a better understanding of the psychological profile of acceptance leaves us better positioned to appreciate its potential usefulness for making progress on various puzzles within the ethics of belief. (shrink)

This article draws attention to the transformation of the Swiss physician Johann Georg Zimmermann’s (1728–1795) work on national pride. First published as Von dem Nationalstolze in 1758, this work attracted trans-European interest and consequently appeared in substantially revised editions in 1760 and 1768. One notable addition in the new editions was a chapter on national pride felt by the subjects of monarchies, which could be taken as indicating a monarchist turn in Zimmermann’s thinking. However, as the article contends, Zimmermann’s work (...) can be read not only as a treatise making claims about the national pride of various countries but also as a text which, in so doing, attempted to encourage liberty and patriotic virtue in different societies. As such, it can be interpreted as representing a variation of republicanism that focussed solely on reforming the thinking of individuals. This argument is based on an analysis of the evolution of Zimmermann’s work, his correspondence, contemporary reviews, and a set of unpublished draft prefaces. As this evidence indicates, Zimmermann aspired to promote a republican attitude wherever his readers were situated. However, appreciating this ‘internalised republicanism’ requires that his writing is examined as a process involving the reactions of his expanding audience. (shrink)

When and why do socially constructed norms—including the laws of the land, norms of etiquette, and informal customs—generate moral obligations? I argue that the answer lies in the duty to respect others, specifically to give them what I call “agency respect.” This is the kind of respect that people are owed in light of how they exercise their agency. My central thesis is this: To the extent that (i) existing norms are underpinned by people’s commitments as agents and (ii) they (...) do not conflict with morality, they place moral demands on us on agency-respect grounds. This view of the moral force of socially constructed norms, I suggest, is superior to views that deny the moral force of such norms, and it elegantly explains certain instances of wrongdoing that would otherwise remain unaccounted for. (shrink)

Doxastic involuntarism—the thesis that we lack direct voluntary control (in response to non-evidential reasons) over our belief states—is often touted as philosophical orthodoxy. I here offer a novel defense of doxastic voluntarism, centered around three key moves. First, I point out that belief has two central functional roles, but that discussions of voluntarism have largely ignored questions of control over belief's guidance function. Second, I propose that we can learn much about doxastic control by looking to cognitive scientific research on (...) control over other relevantly similar mental states. I draw on a mechanistic account of control of the guidance function for “emotion-type states,” and argue that these same cognitive control mechanisms can used to block doxastic guidance. This gives us an account of “back-end” doxastic control which can be deployed for reasons which are not the right kinds of reasons to support “front-end” belief formation—i.e., non-evidential reasons. Third, I argue that comprehensive, self-directed exercises of this kind of control can amount to an underappreciated kind of voluntarism. This form of voluntarism is available to any account of belief that takes guidance-instantiation to be at least partly constitutive of believing. Finally, I discuss objections to, and upshots of, the view. (shrink)

The potential to collect brain data more directly, with higher resolution, and in greater amounts has heightened worries about mental and brain privacy. In order to manage the risks to individuals posed by these privacy challenges, some have suggested codifying new privacy rights, including a right to “mental privacy.” In this paper, we consider these arguments and conclude that while neurotechnologies do raise significant privacy concerns, such concerns are—at least for now—no different from those raised by other well-understood data collection (...) technologies, such as gene sequencing tools and online surveillance. To better understand the privacy stakes of brain data, we suggest the use of a conceptual framework from information ethics, Helen Nissenbaum’s “contextual integrity” theory. To illustrate the importance of context, we examine neurotechnologies and the information flows they produce in three familiar contexts—healthcare and medical research, criminal justice, and consumer marketing. We argue that by emphasizing what is distinct about brain privacy issues, rather than what they share with other data privacy concerns, risks weakening broader efforts to enact more robust privacy law and policy. (shrink)

Introducción al dosier “Pensar históricamente la democracia”.

A new assessment of baron d’Holbach (1723-1789), his works, his circle and his legacy, gathering together generations of d’Holbach scholars to analyse multiple aspects of his diverse intellectual commitment from fresh perspectives.

In this article, I develop a new account of the liberal view that principles of justice are meant to justify state coercion, and consider its implications for the question of global socioeconomic justice. Although contemporary proponents of this view deny that principles of socioeconomic justice apply globally, on my newly developed account this conclusion is mistaken. I distinguish between two types of coercion, systemic and interactional, and argue that a plausible theory of global justice should contain principles justifying both. The (...) justification of interactional coercion requires principles regulating interstate interference; that of systemic coercion requires principles of global socioeconomic justice. I argue that the proposed view not only helps us make progress in the debate on global justice, but also offers an independently compelling and systematic account of the function and conditions of applicability of justice. -/-. (shrink)

A prominent view in contemporary political theory, the ‘associative view’, says that duties of justice are triggered by particular cooperative relations between morally significant agents, and that ‘therefore’ principles of justice apply only among fellow citizens. This view has been challenged by advocates of global justice, who point to the existence of a world-wide cooperative network to which principles of justice apply. Call this the challenge from geographical extension. In this paper, I pose a structurally similar challenge to the associative (...) view: the challenge from species extension. This says that the existing network of cooperation extends beyond the human species, to encompass some non-human animals, particularly domesticated dogs. In light of this, if one believes that (i) certain non-human animals are morally significant (i.e. objects of moral concern), and that (ii) justice applies to fellow cooperators, one should also hold that domesticated dogs are owed justice in much the same way our human fellow citizens are. I conclude by considering the implications of this argument for the associative view, and animal-rights theory. (shrink)

Feminists have disagreed about whether women can choose gendered subordination autonomously. Less attention has been paid, however, to the socio-ontological questions that underlie this debate. This article introduces novel cases of ‘thwarted autonomy,’ in which women pursue autonomy but in ways that reinforce gendered subordination, in order to challenge dominant proceduralist and substantivist views, as well as motivate an expressivist view of the social self as a promising foundation for an account of autonomy. On this view, which draws on the (...) Hegelian tradition, agents must embody their desires and values in the social world to achieve self-understanding. Social meanings and norms therefore mediate the form an agent’s expressive activity takes, and the sense of self she develops. An expressivist view, I argue, allows us to reinterpret women’s outward acquiescence to gendered subordination as an attempt to express autonomy in an oppressive social context. It also points towards a robustly social conception of autonomy to aid in the diagnosis and redress of patriarchal oppression. (shrink)

This book is derived from the author's Concise guide to ethics in mental health care, published in 2004. It has been revised, updated, and rewritten with new chapters, topics and data.

Principles of distributive justice bind macro-level institutional agents, like the state. But what does justice require in non-ideal circumstances, where institutional agents are unjust or do not e...

In his thought-provoking book, Why Law Matters, Alon Harel defends two key claims: one ontological, the other axiological. First, he argues that constitutions and judicial review are necessary constituents of a just society. Second, he suggests that these institutions are not only means to the realization of worthy ends, but also non-instrumentally valuable. I agree with Harel that constitutions and judicial review have more than instrumental value, but I am not persuaded by his arguments in support of this conclusion. I (...) argue that Harel’s ontological claim is unsustainable, and that his axiological claim needs revision. Regarding the former, I show that constitutions and judicial review are only contingent constituents of a just society. Regarding the latter, I contest Harel’s specific account of the value of constitutions and judicial review. Harel grounds the non-instrumental value of constitutions in freedom as non-domination but, upon scrutiny, it emerges that their non-instrumental value lies elsewhere. Further, Harel holds that the non-instrumental value of judicial review stems from its embodying a right to a fair hearing. I argue that this right has non-instrumental value only under a particular set of circumstances. I thus conclude, contrary to Harel, that the non-instrumental value of judicial review is contingent on those circumstances obtaining. (shrink)

That Schopenhauer’s view of Buddhism influenced Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism seems a commonplace among scholars. However, there seem to be no studies which actually demonstrated this, showing how Schopenhauer was their main source of Buddhism compared to the other Buddhist texts they read. In this article, I aim to fill this gap, analysing Wagner’s and Nietzsche’s Buddhism in the light of the sources of Buddhism they read. This will allow me to demonstrate how Schopenhauer was the main source of Buddhism (...) for both Wagner and Nietzsche, having a deep and long-lasting impact on their conceptions of Buddhism. (shrink)

Metaphors for describing the introduction, impacts, and management of non-native species are numerous and often quite outspoken. Policy-makers have adopted increasingly disputed metaphorical terms from scientific discourse. We performed a critical analysis of the use of strong metaphors in reporting scientific findings to policy-makers. Our analysis shows that perceptions of harm, invasiveness or nativeness are dynamic and inevitably display multiple narratives in science, policy or management. Improving our awareness of multiple expert and stakeholder narratives that exist in the context of (...) non-native species management, as well as metaphorical alternatives, is critical. (shrink)

While various definitions of moral distress have been proposed, some agreement exists that it results from illegitimate constraints in clinical practice affecting healthcare professionals’ moral agency. If we are to reduce moral distress, instruments measuring it should provide relevant information about such illegitimate constraints. Unfortunately, existing instruments fail to do so. We discuss here several shortcomings of major instruments in use: their inability to determine whether reports of moral distress involve an accurate assessment of the requisite clinical and logistical facts (...) in play, whether the distress in question is aptly characterized as moral, and whether the moral distress reported is an appropriate target of elimination. Such failures seriously limit the ability of empirical work on moral distress to foster appropriate change. (shrink)