This paper discusses the role of Law and Legal Thinking in Critical Theory with specific reference to the arguments that Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri offer in their book Commonwealth. The core idea is that Critical Theory is no less radical, but much more concrete, when it is performing not only an external, but also an internal critique of the Law. It shows that the role of the law in critical theory emerges as a problem when the latter claims that (...) ‘there is no outside’ and that ‘the legal base of the system structures our lives.’ It then discusses optimistic and pessimistic strategies to overcome the problem, and argue for a demanding strategy which consist in articulating the external and the internal critique of the law. To make this point, the paper goes back to the epistemic context in which critical attitudes are deployed (the ‘Conflict of the Faculties’), describes the four theoretical moves constitutive of the historical moment in which, at the end of the 18th Century, modern law as we know it was conceived of and founded; and sketches the key moments of the history of the internal critique of the law. It then illustrates the demanding strategy with examples taken from the field of Intellectual Property, and concludes that the Law is malleable and open enough to allow the thinking and practicing of radical alternatives from within the legal system and also that alternatives spoken in the language of the law are no less radical, but certainly, more concrete than others. (shrink)

This book is not only a major twentieth-century contribution to Dostoevsky’s studies, but also one of the most important theories of the novel produced in our century. As a modern reinterpretation of poetics, it bears comparison with Aristotle.“Bakhtin’s statement on the dialogical nature of artistic creation, and his differentiation of this from a history of monological commentary, is profoundly original and illuminating. This is a classic work on Dostoevsky and a statement of importance to critical theory.” Edward Wasiolek“Concentrating on the (...) particular features of ‘Dostoevskian discourse,’ how Dostoevsky structures a hero and a plot, and what it means to write dialogically, Bakhtin concludes with a major theoretical statement on dialogue as a category of language. One of the most important theories of the novel in this century.” The Bloomsbury Review. (shrink)

Is the science of moral cognition usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate 'moral grammar' that causes them to analyse human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyse human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his influential work on the linguistic analogy and its implications for (...) jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls' original ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgement. (shrink)

Scientists from various disciplines have begun to focus attention on the psychology and biology of human morality. One research program that has recently gained attention is universal moral grammar (UMG). UMG seeks to describe the nature and origin of moral knowledge by using concepts and models similar to those used in Chomsky's program in linguistics. This approach is thought to provide a fruitful perspective from which to investigate moral competence from computational, ontogenetic, behavioral, physiological and phylogenetic perspectives. In this article, (...) I outline a framework for UMG and describe some of the evidence that supports it. I also propose a novel computational analysis of moral intuitions and argue that future research on this topic should draw more directly on legal theory. (shrink)

The aim of the dissertation is to formulate a research program in moral cognition modeled on aspects of Universal Grammar and organized around three classic problems in moral epistemology: What constitutes moral knowledge? How is moral knowledge acquired? How is moral knowledge put to use? Drawing on the work of Rawls and Chomsky, a framework for investigating -- is proposed. The framework is defended against a range of philosophical objections and contrasted with the approach of developmentalists like Piaget and Kohlberg. (...) ;One chapter consists of an interpretation of the analogy Rawls draws in A Theory of Justice between moral theory and generative linguistics. A second chapter clarifies the empirical significance of Rawls' linguistic analogy by formulating a solution to the problem of descriptive adequacy with respect to a class of commonsense moral intuitions, including those discussed in the trolley problem literature originating in the work of Foot and Thomson. Three remaining chapters defend Rawls' linguistic analogy against some of its critics. In response to Hare's objection that Rawls' conception of moral theory is too empirical and insufficiently normative, it is argued that Hare fails to acknowledge both the centrality of the problem of empirical adequacy in the history of moral philosophy and the complexity of Rawls' approach to the problem of normative adequacy. In response to Nagel's claim that the analogy between moral theory and linguistics is false because whatever native speakers agree on is English, but whatever ordinary men agree in condemning is not necessarily wrong, it is argued that the criticism ignores both Rawls' use of the competence-performance distinction and the theory-dependence of the corresponding distinction in linguistics. In response to Dworkin's claim that Rawls' conception of moral theory is incompatible with naturalism and presupposes constructivism, it is argued that Dworkin's distinction between naturalism and constructivism represents a false antithesis; neither is an accurate interpretation of the model of moral theory Rawls describes in A Theory of Justice. The thesis concludes by situating Rawls' linguistic analogy within the context of broader debates in metaethics, democratic theory, natural law theory, and the theory of moral development. (shrink)

My primary aims in this paper are to explain what exploitation is, when it’s wrong, and what makes it wrong. I argue that exploitation is not always wrong, but that it can be, and that its wrongness cannot be fully explained with familiar moral constraints such as those against harming people, coercing them, or using them as a means, or with familiar moral obligations such as an obligation to rescue those in distress or not to take advantage of people’s vulnerabilities. (...) Its deepest wrongness, I argue, lies in our moral obligation not to extract excessive benefits from people who cannot, or cannot reasonably, refuse our offers. (shrink)

When is it immoral to take advantage of another person for one's own benefit? For some, such as Ruth Sample, John Roemer, and Will Kymlicka, the answer at least partly depends on whether what one takes advantage of is the fact that this person is, or has been, the victim of injustice. I argue, however, that whether person A wrongly exploits person B is wholly unrelated to whether A takes advantage of the fact that B is, or was, the victim (...) of injustice. I also develop a positive account regarding which personal attributes one should not exploit for personal gain. (shrink)

The keynote idea of the theses is contained in the author’s assumption that modern philosophy doesn’t meet its claiming pretensions: to be universal form of knowledge. First of all philosophy is connected not with knowledge but with ideas and secondly being authentic it “exists only in everyday life”.1 In orderthat philosophy could realize its innate essence corresponding conditions of social being should exist but they are still absent and therefore philosophy is absent as well. Its place is occupied by metaphysics (...) which is free movement of thinking that has no definiteness as the condition of being of any form of thought. That iswhy we watch crisis state of “philosophy” which becomes apparent in vagueness of its subject: “philosophy is not only one, there are many of them”. The author supposes that philosophy as the highest relation of mankind to objective reality is the only one. Philosophy lowered down from the heaven (Platon, Ciceron) in the field of human being must raise people not only to purity of thought, but mainly to purity of their activity both with each other and with nature. Then real interaction of men and nature will take place. This will be the beginning of spiritualization of the Universe. It may exist only under the conditions of social uniformity as historical form of Weltanschauung (world outlook) that removes religious form. Realization of its being supposes fundamental change of social life. It is necessary that private property should be replaced with social property in the sphere of social production. Only under these conditions philosophy may appear and exist as historical form of Weltanschauung. (shrink)

In this paper, the predicate counterparts, defined both axiomatically and semantically by means of Kripke frames, of the modal propositional logics $\textbf {GL}$, $\textbf {Grz}$, $\textbf {wGrz}$ and their extensions are considered. It is proved that the set of semantical consequences on Kripke frames of every logic between $\textbf {QwGrz}$ and $\textbf {QGL.3}$ or between $\textbf {QwGrz}$ and $\textbf {QGrz.3}$ is $\Pi ^1_1$-hard even in languages with three (sometimes, two) individual variables, two (sometimes, one) unary predicate letters, and a single (...) proposition letter. As a corollary, it is proved that infinite families of modal predicate axiomatic systems, based on the classical first-order logic and the modal propositional logics $\textbf {GL}$, $\textbf {Grz}$, $\textbf {wGrz}$ are not Kripke complete. Both $\Pi ^1_1$-hardness and Kripke incompleteness results of the paper do not depend on whether the logics contain the Barcan formula. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This volume examines the elements of formalism and decisionism in Russian legal thinking and, also, the impact of conservatism on the interplay of these elements. This combination leads to internal contradictions in theorizing about law and rights in Russian legal culture.

By examining an exemplar sample of mental health nursing educational policies and related legislation, in this article, we trace the discursive production of madness as an “othered” identity category. We engage in a critical discourse analysis of mental health nursing education in Canada, drawing on provincial and federal policies and legislation as the main sources of data. Theoretically framed by critical posthumanism and mad studies, this article outlines how the mad subjectivity becomes decontextualized out of its identity‐based understanding and recontextualized (...) as an inferior category of “the human,” circulating within discourses of pedagogy, economics, law, and psychiatry. The article maps the intertextual nexus of the discourse of mental health nursing education, making visible the complex, the arbitrary, and the sometimes‐contradictory nature of the discipline's grappling with identity‐based mental health concepts. We close with several implications for nursing policy, education, and practice. (shrink)