In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Providing Care to a Potential Aggressor: An Ethical DilemmaHandreen Mohammed SaeedFollowing the abrupt fall of almost a third of its territory in 2014 to armed militias, Iraq fell into civil war turmoil. As a direct result of the armed conflicts, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were displaced or subjected to atrocious human rights violations with physical, sexual, and psychosocial abuse. While the scenes on the TV provided only a (...) glimpse of what was happening on the ground, the true stories circulating about people’s suffering left me personally in absolute shock. Among those who suffered the most from the offences were marginalized religious and ethnic minority groups, who were viewed and treated as infidels by the aggressor militants. Those marginalized communities not only endured displacement due to the armed conflicts but they were also mass-exterminated, sexually abused, and underwent massive destruction of their towns and villages.In 2016, I was working for Ministry of Health as a primary care physician in a small town in Iraqi Kurdistan, which hosted tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) from one of those marginalized minority communities. I had the opportunity to hear their tragic stories firsthand as they fled for their lives in 2014. Working in those communities as a primary care physician allowed me to truly understand their feelings and emotions and reflect on their experiences while providing healthcare services. This experience sparked an interest in humanitarian work, in which I could be close to areas of need and involved in providing physical health first-aid and also psychological and social first-aid; all crucial in addressing the future health consequences experienced by people going through humanitarian crises. In the same year, 2016, I joined an international medical organization and started working in remote and low-resource settings in northern Iraq as a humanitarian physician. Our projects included a variety of primary care, psychosocial, and urgent care services targeting refugees, IDPs, and vulnerable host communities in areas near conflict zones. The projects were designed and implemented with the hope that the most vulnerable populations have access to our services.In October 2016, the Iraqi authorities launched a massive military operation known as the “Battle of Mosul” to regain control of Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq. As an emergency medical humanitarian organization, we had to be near the battlefield and respond to the unfolding humanitarian crisis on a daily basis. As the official security forces backed by the international alliance started to advance, tens of thousands of people, including some militants and their families, fled Mosul and headed towards areas controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s forces in the north, where our organization was operational. Some of them sought refuge in one of our medical facilities in northern Iraq, which was operated by local staff, [End Page 172] including members from some of the minority communities that had suffered the most from the militants’ aggression in 2014. The patients entering our facilities were mainly older adults, women, and children, but we were also visited by a small group of potential militants who were either injured, malnourished, or just seeking help and refuge. As a neutral, impartial, independent, humanitarian organization compliant with medical ethics, we were committed to providing healthcare services to anybody in need without discrimination or judgment.As we responded to the humanitarian crisis unfolding before our eyes, some of our staff members came forward and raised valid questions about the ethics of treating patients potentially involved in serious human rights violations. With tears in her eyes, one nurse approached me and stated, “Seeing these people reminds me of all the girls and women who went missing from my village and are now being sold as sex slaves in Syria”. The staff expressed serious concerns about their ability to provide care to patients who may have been involved in mass killing, torture, and the destruction of their own towns, as well as sexual abuse against their family members, friends, and people in their communities. Due to the psychological and physical trauma caused by the militants’ conquest, the staff was reluctant to provide medical care to these patients, as seeing and hearing them brought back... (shrink)

Examines the ways in which people made sense of religious conversion during the 12th century, a critical point in the formation of Western moral values. The book also indicates that the understanding of conversions, rooted in medieval love of indirect and intricate allegorical symbolism, entered the permanent legacy of Western literature and art. The idea of conversion became a mythic strategy of survival in conflict against the world, the flesh and the devil. This book holds that the idea of conversion (...) was a study in aesthetics, specifically in a male aesthetic, combining the brotherhood that violence engendered among warriors with the inexplicable genius of the poet. It explores the ascetic discipline, social myth, and representational art as components in a vast, militantly aggressive education system that served as context defining in the conversion process. (shrink)

The article defines the nature of the Russian war against Ukraine in the context of social and state transformations of the 20th — 21st centuries. It is emphasized that this is a war of different worlds, mentalities, worldviews, ways of life, values, etc., which has been going on for many centuries in various forms (direct and mediated, open and veiled, hot and cold). The role of the religious-legal factor in the Russian war against Ukraine at various stages of Ukrainian state (...) formation (periods of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, Soviet, modern) is revealed. It is emphasized that it was during the time of the Ukrainian People’s Republic that the legal basis for the organization of the Ukrainian Local Orthodox Church, confessional differentiation and the establishment of freedom of conscience and interconfessional tolerance in Ukrainian society was created. Emphasized attention is paid to the fact that in the Soviet period, the Russian war against Ukraine continued in a new, veiled, hidden, invisible (at first glance) form with the active use of the religious factor. The results of this period have been determined, namely: rampant militant/ scientific atheism, radical extermination, Russification of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, liquidation of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, etc. Special attention is paid to the Soviet secular/political religion (Marxism-Leninism) as a key basis for the implementation of an aggressive policy regarding the historical memory and cultural identity of the Ukrainian people and a manipulative tool for the destruction of Ukrainian history, culture, worldview, nation, state and law in the information, hybrid, total, full-scale and other Russia’s wars against Ukraine. The article substantiates that improved legislation with an effective legal mechanism for its implementation, a strong civil society with developed institutions, including the institution of religion (church), adequate guarantees of religious rights and freedoms are important factors in ensuring state, national, religious security and victory of Ukraine (at the current stage) in the war waged against it by the Russian Federation. (shrink)

У статті здійснено аналіз особливостей періоду становлення тоталітарного режиму та ідеологічної диктатури в радянській Україні 1920–1930-х років. Однією з ключових характеристик цього етапу є постійно навʼязуваний наратив боротьби як із зовнішнім ворогом, так і на внутрішніх «фронтах». Цей наратив спрямовувався на підтримку «войовничого» запалу в суспільстві, що сприяло зміцненню основ тоталітаризму та поступовій радянізації освіти і науки. Агресивність режиму, яка досягла свого апогею у масових репресіях доби «Великого терору», утримувала і чітко фіксувала «єдино правильний» ідеологічний вектор розвитку будь-яких сфер життя, (...) зокрема й науки, освіти та культури. Термін «войовничість» щодо процесів, характерних для України 1920–1930-х років, відображає описаний ще Томасом Гоббсом стан «війни всіх проти всіх», де межа між «своїми» та «чужими» маніпулятивно затирається. Як показано у статті, насаджуваний радянською владою етос «войовничості» щодо уявних ворогів, колишніх колег, рідних і навіть самих себе був основою інтелектуального життя зазначеної доби. Особливості цього етосу проаналізовано в контексті політик «войовничого атеїзму» та «войовничого матеріалізму», процесу радянізації наукових і освітніх установ, масових «чисток» і репресій кінця 1930-х. Запропонований підхід до аналізу особливостей українського інтелектуального середовища 1920–1930-х років крізь призму наративу «войовничості» сприяє цілісному розумінню інтелектуальних, зокрема філософських, процесів радянської доби. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pluralism ConferenceJohn HickIn September 2003 a conference was held at Birmingham University, UK, of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs who all hold the "pluralist" view that no one religion is the one and only true or uniquely salvific faith, but that, in the words of the thirteenth-century Sufi thinker Rumi, "The lamps are different but the Light is the same: it comes from beyond." The conveners were (...) Professors Perry Schmidt-Leukel of Glasgow University, Paul Knitter of Xavier University (Cincinnati), Leonard Swidler of Temple University (Philadelphia), and John Hick of Birmingham University. My own account of the purpose of the conference is that we are academics who are committed and practicing believers within but not official representatives of (in rough order of origin) the Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian (both Catholic and Protestant), Muslim, and Sikh faiths.We are acutely aware that throughout history almost all human conflicts have been validated and intensified by a religious sanction. God has been claimed to be on both sides of every war. This has been possible because each of the great world faiths has either assumed or asserted its own unique superiority as the one and only true faith and path to the highest good—in familiar Christian terms, to salvation. These exclusive claims to absolute truth have exacerbated the division of the human community into rival groups, and have repeatedly been invoked in support of oppression, slavery, conquest, and exploitation.The second half of twentieth century saw both a worldwide development of interreligious dialogue, coinciding with considerable east-to-west migration, and also a strong contrary growth of aggressive fundamentalism in powerful elements within each tradition. But dialogue has led to a much greater mutual knowledge and appreciation between the world faiths, so that it is now possible for leaders of the religious institutions to meet in mutual amity and respect. However they still, for the most part, retain as their bottom line a conviction of the unique centrality and priority of their own tradition. Sharing in this way the same fundamental conviction as their militant fundamentalist elements, they lack any principled ground on which to oppose them.We offer for discussion, as the fruit of our deliberations, a step beyond this unstable situation. We note that the world religions share the basic belief in a higher reality, of limitless importance to us, that transcends the material universe and yet can [End Page 253] be encountered through the depth of our own being. They also share the basic belief that this present life is not the entirety of human existence but part of a much larger life. And they share the central values of love, compassion, and justice within the human community here on earth.We note that the deepest thinkers within each tradition express a profound sense of mystery, insisting that the ultimate reality to which their faith is oriented lies in its fullness beyond the range of our comprehension. We humans can describe it, not as it is in itself, but as great revelatory moments have caused it to be variously conceived and experienced within the different ways of being human that are the great cultures of the world. The religions, then, are different and unique totalities, each with its own founding events, paradigmatic figures, sacred writings, remembered history, spiritual practices, intellectual formulations, distinctive ethos, and institutional forms. We believe that they are different responses to the universal presence of the ineffable ultimate reality.Although individual conversions between the faiths have always occurred, in the vast majority of cases religious believers are born into and are formed by a particular tradition. It therefore fits them and they fit it, so that it is for them the right and true religion. We should therefore each normally stay within our inherited tradition, using its spiritual resources to the fullest. We must also, however, recognize that the same principle holds for the hundreds of millions who have been born into and formed by other traditions. We should see those religions as independently authentic and valid, of equal value with our own, welcoming mutual enrichment from one another's traditions and also allowing for the raising of critical questions about... (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse was concerned with many of the same issues that confront the Occupy Wall Street movement today. Change the militant “students” in the 1960s to the militant “occupiers” today, and his views on their philosophical bases and strategies for change remain similar. Militant protest is reacting to an aggressive, profit-driven system, reducing its subservient population to consumption-fixated one-dimensionality. The ideology-motivated militants cannot by themselves change things all at once, yet the ideological/psychological elements can lead the material (...) bases of the struggle to produce radical change in one area at a time, suggesting an agenda akin to the “long march through the institutions” of the 1960s. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:BoredomWalter E. BromanBoredom, by Patricia Meyer Spacks; xii & 289 pp. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, $24.95 paper.Scholars who have been immersed in the eighteenth century are often imbued with a penchant for common sense and develop a rich, lucid style. Professor Spacks exemplifies these qualities admirably. In spite of the sludgy title, this is a stimulating and rewarding book. Until now my only thinking about boredom (...) has happened while watching goldfish or cows and wondering if they were slowly perishing of boredom. Otherwise, boredom has been a gray experience accompanying committee meetings or reading insurance prose, but scarcely a matter for philosophy. Professor Spacks shows that there is much here for serious thought. She traces the history of boredom, mainly as manifested in novels. “This book’s project is to investigate boredom’s imaginative functions during the past two and a half centuries, mainly in England, where speakers first labeled the condition early in the second half of the eighteenth century” (p. 6). In this period the idea of boredom was still influenced by Christian thought. Thus, Johnson saw Boswell’s boredom in Scotland as a lapse in Christian morality, a lack of personal resources. Johnson felt the universal power of boredom; it invaded even “the Happy Valley of Rasselas,” but he insisted on the moral duty of opposing it with spirited effort. Women writers of the period are pictured as doing just that—heroically defeating a boredom imposed upon women by society through the vivacity and energy of language in their epistles and narration. Professor Spacks depicts the early nineteenth century as afflicting later decades with sensibility and didactic tedium and developing complex new aspects of boredom as a mode of aggression that could shrivel people, arts, and society. “To real aristocrats belongs the repudiation of feeling—passion and compassion—that constitutes boredom” (p. 201). In the twentieth century boredom becomes ubiquitous and has “enormous and essentially unalterable power” (p. ix). This century is like a fulfillment of Pope’s vision of universal dullness at the end of The Dunciad.During the course of this history we become almost convinced that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries women hunkered in a cotton-wrapped male-dominated world which went to great lengths to normalize female boredom. “Often tedium attends compliant virtue” (p. 78). This idea of [End Page 506] oppressed and suffering women is repeated in the text to the point of—well—boring the reader. From my reading in general and from this book I garnered the impression that eighteenth-century women were for the most part tough, alive, and intelligent masters of boredom. I can almost hear their spirits crying, “save the pity!”Professor Spacks fulfills the older mission of criticism to promote interest and attention, and provide insight. Like literature, this mission aims to defeat boredom. We are rewarded with a brilliant discussion of Sense and Sensibility, showing us how Austen’s subtle rhetoric guides the reader’s perception of what is interesting—to learn to find seemingly dull Elinor and Edward actually interesting, to thwart our shallower driftings. In a similar vein with moral bearings Professor Spacks manages to stir interest in a discussion of Wordsworth’s “The Idiot Boy.” We recall how Wordsworth militated against the human inclination to depend upon gross and violent stimulants. He proposed that we ought to be interested in what is moral and thereby genuinely interesting. In “The Idiot Boy” he aimed to enlarge our moral attention span to embrace the lowly and unlikely. I began to feel much less like a moral derelict when Professor Spacks admitted that she too finds “The Idiot Boy” boring.This is such a rewarding book that I feel uncomfortably churlish in pointing out that aspects of the book are irksome. In general, her sentences are beautiful, but in large tracts of the book we find an Emersonian discursiveness where the discussions are crumbly and anfractuous, tacking from this to that. We don’t get enough sustained driving down a clear track. She suggests in passing that Hannah More’s Coelebs is boring to the later nineteenth century when people become more concerned with inner conflicts and... (shrink)

Male aggression against females in primates, including humans, often functions to control female sexuality to the male’s reproductive advantage. A comparative, evolutionary perspective is used to generate several hypotheses to help to explain cross-cultural variation in the frequency of male aggression against women. Variables considered include protection of women by kin, male-male alliances and male strategies for guarding mates and obtaining adulterous matings, and male resource control. The relationships between male aggression against women and gender ideologies, male (...) domination of women, and female sexuality are also considered. (shrink)

Militant modern atheism, whose most eloquent champion is Richard Dawkins, provides an effective and necessary critique of fundamentalist forms of religion and their role in political life, both within states and across national boundaries. Because it is also presented as a more general attack on religion (tout court), it has provoked a severe reaction from scholars who regard its conception of religion as shallow and narrow. My aim is to examine this debate, identifying insights and oversights on both sides.Two (...) distinct conceptions of religion are in play. For Dawkins and his allies (most notably Dan Dennett) religions are grounded in doctrines, propositions about supernatural entities, events and processes which the devout believe. Their beliefs prompt them to actions, which they support or rationalize by reference to the doctrines. Dawkins and Dennett view the acceptance of the doctrines as resting on cognitive misfiring — these are delusions to be outgrown or spells to be broken.By contrast, the religious scholars who criticize the militant atheists often view religion as centered in social practices that inform and enrich human lives. To the extent that there are doctrines that atheists might subject to epistemic evaluation, these are to be viewed as pieces of scaffolding, that are, in principle, dispensable.I argue that militant modern atheism is incomplete (and likely counter-productive) so long as it fails to attend systematically to the roles religion fulfills in human lives. Yet it is important to achieve public clarity about the literal falsehood of the doctrines on which fundamentalists rely. The challenge is to develop a well-articulated and convincing version of secular humanism. Meeting that challenge is, I claim, one of the central problems of philosophy today. (shrink)

In their efforts to prevent democratic backsliding, militant democrats have traditionally been sympathetic to technocratic arrangements. Does this sympathy imply a logical congruence? Comparing theories of militant democracy and epistemic technocracy (aka epistocracy), I discover a common approach to basic aspects of representative democracy. Both theories see voters as fallible or ignorant instead of capable political agents; and they both understand political parties to be channels of state rule rather than democratic expression. This shared suspicion of grassroots political (...) agency explains why they employ non-democratic means to pursue their goals. But the two theories appear to be also analytically co-extensive. Like militant democrats, epistemic technocrats polemicize antidemocrats inasmuch as the latter are proxies for epistemically foul decision-making. Conversely, militant democrats try to block ‘incorrect’ decisions as long as these lead to democratic subversion, thereby producing a distinct type of militant technocracy. The article ends by drawing the implications of this symbiosis of epistemic and militant democratic ideas for contemporary democratic theory. (shrink)

Hospitals are places where patients are unwell, where patients and their families may be upset, confused, frustrated, in pain, and vulnerable. The likelihood of these experiences and emotions manifesting in anger and aggressive behaviour is high. In this paper, we describe the involvement of a clinical ethics service responding to a request to discuss family aggression within a rehabilitation department in a large paediatric hospital in Australia. We suggest two key advantages of involving a clinical ethics service in discussions (...) about how to respond to family aggression. First, the process of ethics deliberation provides an opportunity for clinicians to be involved in the solution by articulating their perspectives, tolerance levels, and general concerns about the effects of family aggression towards staff. Second, supporting clinicians to articulate and identify the impact of parental aggression directly counters the disadvantages of the more blunt zero-tolerance policy response, which is necessarily imposed from the top down. (shrink)

Militant modern atheism, whose most eloquent champion is Richard Dawkins, provides an effective and necessary critique of fundamentalist forms of religion and their role in political life, both within states and across national boundaries. Because it is also presented as a more general attack on religion tout court, it has provoked a severe reaction from scholars who regard its conception of religion as shallow and narrow. My aim is to examine this debate, identifying insights and oversights on both sides. (...) Two distinct conceptions of religion are in play. For Dawkins and his allies (most notably Dan Dennett), religions are grounded in doctrines, propositions about supernatural entities, events, and processes. The devout believe in these doctrines and so forth, and their beliefs prompt them to actions, which they support or rationalize by reference to the doctrines. Dawkins and Dennett view the acceptance of the doctrines as resting on cognitive misfiring – as delusions to be outgrown or spells to be broken. By contrast, the religious scholars who criticize the militant atheists often view religion as centered in social practices that inform and enrich human lives. To the extent that there are doctrines that atheists might subject to epistemic evaluation, these are to be viewed as pieces of scaffolding: they are, in principle, dispensable. I argue that militant modern atheism is incomplete (and likely counterproductive) so long as it fails to attend systematically to the roles religion fulfills in human lives. Yet it is important to achieve public clarity about the literal falsehood of the doctrines on which fundamentalists rely. The challenge is to develop a well‐articulated and convincing version of secular humanism. Meeting that challenge is, I claim, one of the central problems of philosophy today. (shrink)

Aggressive techniques within casual sex encounters, such as taking sexual liberties without permission or ignoring rejection, can, perhaps unintentionally, complicate consent. Passive recipients may acquiesce out of fear, which aggressors may not realize. Some philosophers argue that social norms are sufficiently well known to make this misunderstanding unlikely. However, the chance of aggression leading to non-consensual sex, even if not great, is high enough that aggressors should work diligently to avoid this potentially grave result. I consider how this problem (...) plays out in the common mating ritual of hooking up. I argue that aggressive hook ups can only be permissible if they are modeled on BDSM encounters: the participants must obtain prior consent and prepare safe words for voiding that consent during the hook up. While this solution removes the spontaneity of aggressive sex, I argue that spontaneously aggressive hook ups with strangers cannot be permissible. (shrink)

The Militant Intellect reconceptualizes critical theory as a field tasked with cultivating the analytical skills of the general intellect to work towards the intersectional and structural death of the colonist and the materialization of that feminist decolonial communist queer marronage world that constitutes its horizon.

Sex differences in physical and indirect aggression have been found in many societies but, to our knowledge, have not been studied in a population of hunter-gatherers. Among Aka foragers of the Central African Republic we tested whether males physically aggressed more than females, and whether females indirectly aggressed more than males, as has been seen in other societies. We also tested predictions of an evolutionary theory of physical strength, anger, and physical aggression. We found a large male bias (...) in physical aggression. Controlling for anger, we found an adult female bias in indirect aggression. Physical strength predicted anger, which predicted hitting, although results were sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of traditional healers, who were physically and emotionally distinct from other Aka. With some important caveats, our results generally support the predicted sex differences in physical aggression and indirect aggression, and the predicted relationships among anger, strength, and aggression. (shrink)

This book traces the emergence of a modern culture of exploration, as reflected in the role of institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society and the ...

This article critically reconstructs militant democracy’s ‘institutional conservatism’, a theoretical preference for institutions that restrain transformation. It offers two arguments, one historical and one normative. Firstly, it traces a historical development from a substantive to a procedural version of institutional conservatism from the traditional militant democratic thought of Schmitt, Loewenstein and Popper to the contemporary militant democratic theories of Kirshner and Rijpkema. Substantive institutional conservatisms theorize institutions that hinder transformation of the existing order; procedural conservatisms encourage transformation (...) but contain and limit it within the boundaries of existing institutions. Secondly, the article uses resources internal to this historical reconstruction to make the normative case that even the procedural version of institutional conservatism, which characterizes contemporary theories of militant democracy, is problematic from a democratic perspective. The reason for this is that it unjustifiably restricts fundamental democratic change to existing institutions. In conclusion, the article calls for further engagement with modes of democratic defence that do not limit the possibility of radical democratic change but nevertheless enable the protection of democratic institutions against authoritarian regression. (shrink)

Some people report that they argue for play. We question whether and how often such arguments are mutually entertaining for both participants. Play is a frame for arguing, and the framing may not always be successful in laminating the eristic nature of interpersonal argumentation. Previous research and theory suggest that playfulness may be associated with aggression. Respondents supplied self - report data on their arguing behaviors and orientations. We found support for the hypothesis that self - reported playfulness and (...) aggression are directly associated. We found less evidence for our hypothesized inverse association between self - reported playfulness and indices of cooperation and avoidance. Self - reports of playfulness are not significantly associated with expert coders ’ ratings of either playfulness or aggressiveness. The claim that an argument is playful should be met with skepticism, although playful arguments are possible. (shrink)

Looking at Paul B. Preciado’s relationship to psychoanalysis across texts, but especially the recent book Can the Monster Speak?: A Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts, I seek to disentangle a possible vision for a new psychoanalysis from Preciado’s concerns, ambivalence and disgust with the professional field. I call this a somato-militant psychoanalysis that leans on Freud’s notion of conversion as the creation of a parasitic traumatic kernel that insists on the side of the body and shows a potential (...) for mutuation, transference, amplified potentia gaudendi, surgical intervention and a radical exteriorization of the subject through access to desire. This somatic archival work runs against an idea of psychoanalysis as merely a privatization and interiorization of the subject, a site for upholding the colonial-patriarchal regime of gender norms and an attempt at therapeutic re-territorialization. In the end, the meeting between Preciado and psychoanalysis is given a name: terminal, meaning both at the very limit, the end point, and incurable. (shrink)

This book explores cosmopolitanism's radical dynamic as expressed in the struggles from below, all over the world, against exclusion and domination, pointing to the horizon of another world that appears possible. It shows that cosmopolitanism emerges negatively through disaffiliation from the given forms of belonging and by questioning of the existing meanings and unjust practices. Through a radical critique, cosmopolitanism goes to the roots of the existing world order based on the nation-state, exposes its exclusionary structure, and brings instead the (...) idea of a World Republic where No One Is Illegal and where all are equal citizens of the world. Caraus captures this radical dynamic in a cluster of novel concepts, such as 'cosmopolitanism of dissent', 'post-foundational cosmopolitanism', 'cosmopolitan ontology', 'institution of critique', 'radical cosmopolitical love', all integrated into an approach of a militant and radical cosmopolitics that reclaims the legacy of the first cosmopolitan stance of the Ancient Cynics. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Out of Order The Axiom of Equality Ignorant Schoolmasters Political Aesthetics Democratic Education References.

This paper addresses recent examples of militant atheism. It considers the theistic reply that describes atheism as deriving from a “God-shaped hole” in the human soul. The paper will argue that American pragmatism offers a middle path that avoids militant atheism without suffering from this problem. The paper describes this middle path and considers the problem that is seen in Rorty’s recent work: how the pragmatist can remain critical of religious fundamentalism without succumbing to a militant version (...) of atheism. The solution proposed is tolerant acceptance of religion along with melioristic criticism developed within shared norms of inquiry. (shrink)

Hugely controversial on publication, this is an insightful and characteristically entertaining survey of animal behaviour and the evolution of aggression throughout the animal world.

This book explores the role of aggression in primate social systems and its implications for human behavior.

This is the conundrum that gives rise to the issue of tax avoidance: Although governments always seem to lack sufficient funds to support the needs of society, tax codes are often written that offer “a way out” of paying taxes for some but not all constituents. The ways out are referred to as loopholes that allow taxpayers to avoid taxes. This paper first defines the basic terms of tax avoidance and tax evasion and then offers an ethical review of the (...) morality of aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance is then addressed in relationship a corporate entity’s tone at the top. The conclusion is drawn that use of the letter of the law to avoid payment of taxes sorely needed by governments for the good faith provision of public goods and services is ethically unacceptable. Several suggestions for change are provided, including a new financial statement disclosure and the possibility of a published corporate ethics report. (shrink)

Aggressive behavior is instinctively driven behavior that helps animals to survive and reproduce and is closely related to multiple behavioral and physiological processes. The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is an evolutionarily conserved midbrain structure that regulates aggressive behavior by integrating diverse brain inputs. The DRN consists predominantly of serotonergic (5‐HT:5‐hydroxytryptamine) neurons and decreased 5‐HT activity was classically thought to increase aggression. However, recent studies challenge this 5‐HT deficiency model, revealing a more complex role for the DRN 5‐HT system in (...) aggression. Furthermore, emerging evidence has shown that non‐5‐HT populations in the DRN and specific neural circuits contribute to the escalation of aggressive behavior. This review argues that the DRN serves as a multifaceted modulator of aggression, acting not only via 5‐HT but also via other neurotransmitters and neural pathways, as well as different subsets of 5‐HT neurons. In addition, we discuss the contribution of DRN neurons in the behavioral and physiological aspects implicated in aggressive behavior, such as arousal, reward, and impulsivity, to further our understanding of DRN‐mediated aggression modulation. (shrink)

Chimpanzee and hunter-gatherer intergroup aggression differ in important ways, including humans having the ability to form peaceful relationships and alliances among groups. This paper nevertheless evaluates the hypothesis that intergroup aggression evolved according to the same functional principles in the two species—selection favoring a tendency to kill members of neighboring groups when killing could be carried out safely. According to this idea chimpanzees and humans are equally risk-averse when fighting. When self-sacrificial war practices are found in humans, therefore, (...) they result from cultural systems of reward, punishment, and coercion rather than evolved adaptations to greater risk-taking. To test this “chimpanzee model,” we review intergroup fighting in chimpanzees and nomadic hunter-gatherers living with other nomadic hunter-gatherers as neighbors. Whether humans have evolved specific psychological adaptations for war is unknown, but current evidence suggests that the chimpanzee model is an appropriate starting point for analyzing the biological and cultural evolution of warfare. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that a significant internal tension exists in John Rawls' political liberalism. He holds the following positions that might plausibly be considered incongruous: (1) a commitment to tolerating a broad right of freedom of political speech, including a right of subversive advocacy; (2) a commitment to restricting this broad right if it is intended to incite and likely to bring about imminent violence; and (3) a commitment to curbing this broad right only if there is (...) a constitutional crisis. By supporting a broad right of freedom of political speech in Political Liberalism, he allows militant intolerant people such as Jihadists, White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis to advocate publicly their dangerously intolerant beliefs. Public advocacy of dangerously intolerant beliefs can be construed as subversive advocacy. As demonstrated by the historical examples of the Weimar Republic and the Second Spanish Republic, militant intolerant groups could use a right of subversive advocacy to threaten the stability of liberal democracies. Hence, by allowing them to exercise a broad right of freedom of political speech, Rawls could jeopardize that which he intends to defend, namely the actual political stability of a liberal democratic order. Lastly, Rawls' conception of ideal constitutional interpretation, which privileges a broad right of freedom of political speech, might be insufficient to deal effectively with the threat posed by militant intolerant groups. Yet a tradition of American constitutional interpretation that balances freedom of speech with other important constitutional and/or political values has overcome a civil war, two world wars, the Cold War and the 9/11 terrorist attacks without abandoning democracy or permanently renouncing those values. Still, Rawls' ideal approach to constitutional interpretation might, in hindsight, help us to understand some of the excesses and deficiencies of American jurisprudence in times of emergency.<br><br><br><br>. (shrink)

The Militant Listener: Reading Mongane Wally Serote's Sikhahlel' u-OR alongside Walter Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History In Sikhahlel' u-OR: A Praise Poem for Oliver Tambo, Mongane Wally Serote presents an unflinching yet delicate meandering through the questions, reflections and provocations resistance history offers up through O. R. Tambo's life. As Ciraj Rassool points out, in this work Tambo appears not as an individual, but as an integral node in a web connecting various lives.1 This counter-neoliberal interpretation of (...) Tambo's life offers what Michael Löwy calls 'a heterodox form of the narrative of emancipation' rebuilding the struggle hero narrative along a decentred framework.2 By radically dislodging this narrative, Tambo is portrayed as the 'non-iconic icon' he was esteemed to embody, and in this move, the poem, notably, points to the dearth of dialectic politics, both in our quotidian praxis, and the commemoration of others.3 Aptly, Serote's work contributes to what Souleymane Bachir Diagne and Jean-Loup Amselle describe as a 'total decentring of all thought, one that rejects all "centrisms" and highlights instead branchings and connections, transfers, analogies and reciprocal influences between cultural places and intellectual fields that may be distant but are not distinct in space and time'.4 To this end, the poem presents us with a constellation of historical actors who flicker on the horizon, beckoning us to engage in the labour of freedom. (shrink)

In Lignes de fuite. Pour un autre monde de possibles, Guattari refers to an ‘analytico-militant programme’ that would position analysis across multiple social fields. What would this correspond to? Through an examination of Guattari’s theorisation of the question of the group in the framework of institutional psychotherapy, this article seeks to open ways to think the general meaning of analysis for social and political purposes and its practical form. The paper will explore what is at stake in the collectivisaton (...) of analysis beyond the group as a social-environmental process and according to a collective machinic perspective of enunciative processes. Analysis will be defined here as an everyday permanent process of creating conditions of autonomy, where self-management is key and alliances are unlocked through a work of analytical metabolism. (shrink)

For the last three decades or so, Pakistan has been a severe victim of sectarian violence. Although the roots of sectarian violence in the Pakistani society could be traced to various political developments in the country and the region, such as, Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization process, Iranian Revolution and the anti-Soviet Afghan war, during the late 1970s, the dangerous phase of sectarian menace began after the 9/11 incident when the domestic sectarian militant organizations established their links with international terrorist groups, e.g., (...) Al-Qaeda and then the self-styled Islamic State, and started playing the role of a facilitator as well as becoming the part of global Jihadism. Against this background, the paper analyzes the origins of sectarianism in Pakistan and threats which it poses to the integrity of the country. In the concluding analysis, the paper argues that the violent extremist ideology that creates ideologically-motivated committed terrorists may be countered if Pakistan reorients its strategic policies vis-à-vis its eastern and western neighbors – India and Afghanistan – by discouraging the use of proxies for pursuing its strategic interests in the region. (shrink)

This essay calls for consideration of a “new” professional journalistic virtue: militant tolerance. The historic and philosophical foundations of tolerance is reviewed, and the concept of militant tolerance linked to Gandhi’s construction of “truth force” as a form of political action. Journalistic militant tolerance suggests that virtuous journalists will be those who recognize hate and systemic discrimination, particularly at the institutional level, and who work to counteract it in a professional role. This understanding of role emphasizes not (...) just individual choice, but the stance that journalistic institutions (media corporations, professional groups) take to counteract intolerance reified in both individual and institutional acts. Philosophically, it places justice on a more equal footing with truth as a central professional value. The concept is examined through two case studies, one involving political rhetoric and the second journalistic use of whistleblowers. (shrink)

Phenotypic plasticity is a crucial feature of aggressive cancer, providing the means for cancer progression. Stochastic changes in tumor cell transcriptional programs increase the chances of survival under any condition. I hypothesize that unstable chromatin permits stochastic transitions between transcriptional programs in aggressive cancers and supports non‐genetic heterogeneity of tumor cells as a basis for their adaptability. I present a mechanistic model for unstable chromatin which includes destabilized nucleosomes, mobile chromatin fibers and random enhancer‐promoter contacts, resulting in stochastic transcription. I (...) suggest potential markers for “unsettled” chromatin in tumors associated with poor prognosis. Although many of the characteristics of unstable chromatin have been described, they were mostly used to explain changes in the transcription of individual genes. I discuss approaches to evaluate the role of unstable chromatin in non‐genetic tumor cell heterogeneity and suggest using the degree of chromatin instability and transcriptional noise in tumor cells to predict cancer aggressiveness. (shrink)

In this volume, the third in his trilogy on the philosophical and legal aspects of war and conflict, Larry May locates a normative grounding for the crime of aggression - the only one of the three crimes charged at Nuremberg that is not currently being prosecuted - that is similar to that for crimes against humanity and war crimes. He considers cases from the Nuremberg trials, philosophical debates in the Just War tradition, and more recent debates about the International (...) Criminal Court, as well as the hard cases of humanitarian intervention and terrorist aggression. His thesis refutes the traditional understanding of aggression. At Nuremberg, crimes against humanity charges were only pursued if the defendant also engaged in the crime of aggression. May argues for a reversal of this position, contending that aggression charges should be pursued only if the defendant's acts involve serious human rights violations. (shrink)

_The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ highlights the eponymous subject’s conversion from aimless rage and criminality to a form of militant study while in prison, a conversion dedicated to understanding the societal foundations of power and racial inequality. Central to this understanding is the idea that new philosophical perspectives and ‘thought-patterns’ are necessary to reprogramme dominant or ‘brainwashed’ mindsets towards organising political resistance. In this article, I explore Malcolm X’s concepts of ‘conversion’ and ‘prison’, identifying them, not only as mere (...) spatiotemporal locations, but also as larger frames in which Malcolm conceives of domination and freedom. I identify Malcolm’s three-aspect account of domination through which radical education and mental liberation drive his project of Black nationalism. I then consider the significance of an unexpected ally invoked by Malcolm: the 17th century philosopher Benedict de Spinoza, described as a ‘Black Spanish Jew’ and presented as an oppositional figure to the western philosophical canon. While this alliance is partly rhetorical, if overlooked, both work through problems of ‘epistemic agency’ and ‘democratic civic agency’ as vital for ameliorating domination and enhancing freedom. Malcolm and Spinoza offer distinct but significant contributions to ideas of domination and freedom in terms of both an individual and a collective capacity to think and act. (shrink)

Managers of multinational companies often favour an aggressive tax avoidance strategy that pushes the legal limits onto the advantage of shareholders and the disadvantage of the spirit of democratically legitimized tax laws. The public and media debate whether such aggressive behaviour is immoral. Aggressive tax avoidance is a subset of the aggressive legal interpretations potentially observable in all fields which places little weight on the will of a democratically legitimized legislation. A thorough ethical analysis based on the deontological approach of (...) Kant demonstrates that aggressive tax avoidance as a special case of operating on the edge of legal boundaries is potentially immoral. Applying the Kantian “contradiction of conception or will” test shows that this maxim might not be conceived or willed as a general law of nature. If all natural or legal persons aggressively interpret laws on all subjects and in every imaginable situation, then central principles of the system of law we all rely upon would be severely compromised. Therefore, aggressive tax avoidance by managers of multinational companies may violate the managers’ moral duty to obey not only the letter but also the intention or spirit of the law. The validity of the argumentation depends critically on the formulation and interpretation of the respective maxims and on assumptions about the legal system. Preserving central elements of Kantian philosophy, the article demonstrates the complexity of a philosophical argumentation which tries to justify the moral intuitions that underpin the common negative evaluation of aggressive legal strategies in business. (shrink)

Managing aggression in mental health hospitals is an important and challenging task for clinical nursing staff. A majority of studies focus on the perspective of clinicians, and research mainly depicts aggression by referring to patient-related factors. This qualitative study investigates how aggression is communicated in forensic mental health nursing records. The aim of the study was to gain insight into the discursive practices used by forensic mental health nursing staff when they record observed aggressive incidents. Textual accounts (...) were extracted from the Staff Observation Aggression Scale-Revised (SOAS-R), and Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis was used to identify short narrative entries depicting patients and staffs in typical ways. The narratives contained descriptions of complex interactions between patient and staff that were linked to specific circumstances surrounding the patient. These antecedents, combined with the aggression incident itself, created stereotyping representations of forensic psychiatric patients as deviant, unpredictable and dangerous. Patient and staff identities were continually (re)produced by an automatic response from the staff that was solely focused on the patient’s behavior. Such response might impede implementation of new strategies for managing aggression. (shrink)

In this essay, I address some questions and challenges brought about by the contributors to this special issue on my book ‘Democracy without Shortcuts’. First, I clarify different aspects of my cri...

Can exposure to media portrayals of human violence impact an individual’s ethical decision making at work? Ethical business failures can result in enormous financial losses to individuals, businesses, and society. We study how exposure to human violence—especially through media—can cause individuals to make less ethical decisions. We present three experiments, each showing a causal link between exposure to human violence and unethical business behavior, and show this relationship is mediated by an increase in individual hostility levels as a result of (...) exposure to violence. Using observational data, we then provide evidence suggesting that this relationship extends beyond the context of our experiments, showing that companies headquartered in locations marked by greater human violence are more likely to fraudulently misstate their financial statements and exhibit more aggressive financial reporting. Combined, our results suggest that exposure to human violence has significant and real effects on an individual’s ethical decision making. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to try to identify the specificity and frequency of cyber-agression as a form of problem behaviour characteristic for the contemporary youth known as Generation Y. Analysis of the results of research conducted among schoolchildren aged 15–16 indicates that cyber-agression is a common phenomenon in the group. It raises the need for reconstruction and re-evaluation of practices and standards developed to date and implemented to address the problematic behaviour of young people through the global network. (...) In the paper, proposals for solutions in this area are presented, which can be used to create future prevention programs aimed at constructive online behaviour and foster rational choice-making regarding the use of the Internet and modern media. (shrink)

Predmet ovog rada su eticki aspekti agresije NATO na SRJ, odnosno Srbiju, sprovodjene od marta do juna 1999. godine. Rad je koncipiran kao svojevrstan kriticki dijalog sa J. Habermasom, odnosno njegovim stavovima iznesenim u tekstu?Bestijalnost i humanost - rat na granici prava i morala?. Nakon kraceg prikaza Habermasovog stanovista, u uvodnom delu rada autorka razmatra moralne implikacije njegovog stava o hirurskoj preciznosti bombardovanja i principu postede civilnog stanovnistva kao karakteristikama ove agresije od, kako tvrdi ovaj autor, visokog legitimirajuceg znacaja. Potom (...) se usredsredjuje na kljucni, deklarativno moralni argument kojim se agresija opravdavala - zastita ugrozenih ljudskih prava kosmetskih Albanaca i sprecavanje humanitarne katastrofe kojoj su, kako se tvrdilo, bili izlozeni. Temeljnom analizom ovog argumenta, koju autorka sprovodi u nekoliko koraka, ona zakljucuje da agresija nije bila, kako je Habermas tvrdio, rat na granici prava i morala, vec s onu stranu i prava i morala, situirana duboko u domen interesno motivisanih oruzanih akata americke spoljne politike. PR Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 43007. (shrink)

BRISKIN L. Nursing Inquiry 2012; 19: 285–296 Resistance, mobilization and militancy: nurses on strikeDrawing on nurses’ strikes in many countries, this paper explores nurse militancy with reference to professionalism and the commitment to service; patriarchal practices and gendered subordination; and proletarianization and the confrontation with healthcare restructuring. These deeply entangled trajectories have had a significant impact on the work, consciousness and militancy of nurses and have shaped occupation‐specific forms of resistance. They have produced a pattern of overlapping solidarities – occupational (...) solidarity, gendered alliances and coalitions around healthcare restructuring – which have supported, indeed promoted, militancy among nurses, despite the multiple forces arrayed against them. The professional commitments of nurses to the provision of care have confronted healthcare restructuring, nursing shortages, intensification of work, precarious employment and gendered hierarchies with a militant discourse around the public interest, and a reconstitution and reclamation of ‘caring’, what I call the politicisation of caring. In fact, nurses’ dedication to caring work in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries may encourage rather than dissuade them from going on strike. This paper uses a trans‐disciplinary methodology, qualitative material in the form of strike narratives constructed from newspaper archives, and references to the popular and scholarly literature on nursing militancy. (shrink)

No Aggression, Only Teasing: The Pragmatics of Teasing and Banter A bone of contention among researchers is whether the primary function of humour is the expression of aggression against the hearer or the promotion of solidarity between the interlocutors. It is commonly averred that teasing boasts a dichotomous nature, i.e. malignant and benevolent. The former coincides with the potential for criticising, mocking and ostracising the interlocutor, whereas the latter accounts for playfulness and bonding capacity.The overriding goal of the (...) paper is to expound the rapport-building function, which is here postulated to be inherent to teasing. First and foremost, I will determine the scope of interest differentiating between putdown humour and teases, which may assume the form of retorts and develop into multi-turn teases, i.e. banter. Subtypes of teasing will be discussed with a view to proving that it is inherently devoid of genuine aggressiveness. The underlying premise is that teases, even if ostensibly aggressive, i.e. face-threatening, are geared towards solidarity, in conformity with the framework of politeness, including mock impoliteness, holding between intimates. Also, teases fulfil a few subordinate functions such as defunctionalisation or mitigation of face-threatening messages they may carry. (shrink)

In the 1970s the Federal Republic of Germany found itself locked in a battle with leftwing extremism, when groups of self-styled urban guerrillas attempted to press through a radical agenda using methods that included bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. This essay examines the counterterrorist initiatives of West Germany’s ruling social-liberal coalition as anti-state violence forced officials to reconsider the principles of democracy and state power. With the collapse of the Weimar Republic casting an ominous shadow, political leaders gradually forged a consensus (...) around the concept of “militant democracy.” In practice, this meant a more centralized state, prepared to forcefully defend the lives and property of its citizens against terrorist attacks. Although the country embraced a new image of German militarism in the form of counterterrorist commandos, citizens expressed a growing concern over computerized crime fighting as an intrusive surveillance of their private lives. (shrink)

This volume offers an up-to-date overview of the much-debated issue of how a democracy may defend itself against those who want to subvert it. The justifications, effectiveness and legal implications of militant democracy are discussed by addressing questions as: How can militant democracy measures such as party bans be justified? Why is it that some democracies ban antidemocratic parties? Does militant democracy succeed in combatting right-wing extremism? And is militant democracy evolving into an internationalized legal and (...) political concept? Bringing together experts and perspectives from political science, law and philosophy, this volume advances our understanding of the current threats to democracy, a political system once thought almost invincible. It is especially timely in the light of the rise of illiberal democracy in the EU, the increasingly authoritarian rule in Turkey, the steady shift to autocracy in Russia and the remarkable election of Trump in the US. (shrink)