Raanan Gillon is a noted defender of the four principles approach to healthcare ethics. His general position has always been that these principles are to be considered to be both universal and prima facie in nature. In recent work, however, he has made two claims that seem to present difficulties for this view. His first claim is that one of these four principles, respect for autonomy, has a special position in relation to the others: he holds that it is first (...) among equals. We argue that this claim makes little sense if the principles are to retain their prima facie nature. His second claim is that cultural variation can play an independent normative role in the construction of our moral judgments. This, he argues, enables us to occupy a middle ground between what he sees as the twin pitfalls of moral relativism and moral imperialism. We argue that there is no such middle ground, and while Gillon ultimately seems committed to relativism, it is some form of moral imperialism that will provide the only satisfactory construal of the four principles as prima facie universal moral principles. (shrink)

One of the major concerns of advocates of common morality is that respect for cultural diversity may result in moral relativism. On their part, proponents of culturally responsive bioethics are concerned that common morality may result in moral imperialism because of the asymmetry of power in the world. It is in this context that critics argue that global bioethics is impossible because of the difficulties to address these two theoretical concerns. In this paper, I argue that global (...) bioethics is possible if we adopt a culturally responsive and self-critical attitude towards our moral values and those of others. I use the example of women’s reproductive autonomy in indigenous African culture to show that the difference between the leading Euro-American and indigenous African construal of autonomy is that the former ascribes greater weight on individual self-determination while the latter emphasizes responsibilities towards the community. One develops dignity in virtue of their capacity for communing with others. Hence, women have rights, but as members of the community, they also have obligations including the duty to procreate. The involvement of the family in reproductive decisions does not contravene women’s dignity and human rights. In applying the principle of autonomy in this communitarian context, one has to be sensitive to these ontological and moral specificities. The aim of global bioethics should not be to reach common grounds at all costs; any common norms should be the result of a negotiated democratic dialogue between cultures and not the result of imposition by the preponderant culture. (shrink)

The debate about the direction, coherence and possible imperialism of universal norms in global bioethics has been going on for years. Proponents of universal norms have fiercely stated their cases focusing on human rights, autonomy and/or further principles in bioethics. Equally forceful has been the opposition to such universal principles arguing mainly on grounds of cultural diversity. The alternative is commonly presented as one between moral relativism and moral imperialism; solutions that are equally unattractive. This paper (...) suggests a way forward for global bioethics by focusing on techniques of moral deliberation as well as on the specific social context from which moral dilemma arises. Such focus will show that the alternative between moral relativism and imperialism only arises when an unreflected notion of medical ethics is applied. The way forward for global bioethics is to acknowledge the way medical ethics is connected to a specific medical practice and to examine its cultural and conceptual foundation rather than insisting on context independent principles.If it is already doubtful whether bioethics exists, it is even more dubious for global bioethics. For almost two decades, discussion over such issue has been going on with hardly any progress. Some uphold the famous four principles as the universal standard; others would like to modify them while still hoping for universality; still others challenge the very notion of universality in the field of medical ethics. The discussion is trapped in a variety of antagonisms: between universalism and particularism, between liberalism and communitarism, between principalism and case-based-bioethics. This paper suggests a way forward beyond these antagonisms by asking about the very nature of medical ethics. First, however, we need to take a closer look on the issue at stake: the quest for a global bioethics and the debate over the identity of medical ethics. (shrink)

The new dilemmas and responsibilities which arise in bioethics both because of the unprecedented pace of scientific development and of growing moral pluralism are more and more difficult to grapple with. At the ‘global’ level, the call for the universal nature at least of some fundamental moral values and principles is often being contended as a testament of arrogance, if not directly as a new kind of subtler imperialism. The human rights framework itself, which provided the basis (...) for the most relevant international declarations and documents, is not exempt from the charge. However, the refusal of a top-down conception of the universal as a sort of product for exportation should not be confused with a relativistic landscape, where all the cows can be indifferently black or white. This contribution aims at outlining an approach, which reconciles universalism as enshrined in founding human rights declarations with respect for cultural diversity. In order to do so, two conceptual frameworks are discussed: the ‘tool-kit’ model and the morals/ethics difference. The example of the right to quality health care confirms the argument that striking a balance between cherishing pluralism and defending some fundamental rights and obligations does not amount to an assertion of moral imperialism. (shrink)

Current debates over so-called ‘scientific imperialism’, on one plausible reading, explore significant general issues about the proper boundaries between distinct disciplines. They raise questions about whether some forms of territorial expansion by scientific disciplines into other domains of inquiry are undesirable. Clearly there is a strong normative undercurrent here, as the use of the pejorative term ‘imperialism’ would indicate. However, we face a genuine puzzle here: why should we regard some forms of expansion as illegitimate? Why should any (...) particular boundaries between various disciplines be regarded as sacrosanct? In response we note that one striking feature of the examples upon which opponents of scientific imperialism focus (such as the use of economics for sociological explanations) is that that they involve cases where folk conceptions of morality and philosophical anthropology appear to be threatened. We suggest that rather than seeking a more general pluralist account of the proper boundaries between disciplines, we should consider the epistemic and normative implications of particular expansions. (shrink)

The need for explicit theoretical reflection on cross-cultural bioethics continues to grow as the spread of communication technologies and increased human migration has made interactions between medical professionals and patients from different cultural backgrounds much more common. I claim that this need presents us with the following dilemma. On the one hand, we do not want to operate according to an imperialist ethical framework that denies and silences the legitimacy of cultural values other than our own. On the other hand, (...) we do not want to backslide into a form of cultural relativism that is unable to critically appraise cultural practices that are harmful, unjust, or oppressive. I examine two prominent attempts – the principlism of Tom Beauchamp and James Childress and the Contractarianism of Robert Baker – to frame cross-cultural bioethics between these two extremes and argue that both approaches have significant flaws. The principlist approach fails to provide a non-question begging way to identify cross-cultural norms that does not already assume the universal legitimacy of moral principles dominant in North American society. Baker's contractarianism cannot grapple with the realities of political power imbalances that often characterize cross-cultural moral disputes. I suggest that a naturalized feminist framework, though not free of its own theoretical difficulties, provides the best alternative for approaching moral diversity respectfully and critically. (shrink)

Among his generation of intellectuals, the eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder is recognized both for his innovative philosophy of language and history and for his passionate criticism of racism, colonialism, and imperialism. A student of Immanuel Kant, Herder challenged the idea that anyone--even the philosophers of the Enlightenment--could have a monopoly on truth. In Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism, John K. Noyes plumbs the connections between Herder's anti-imperialism, often acknowledged but rarely explored in depth, and his epistemological (...) investigations. Noyes argues that Herder's anti-rationalist epistemology, his rejection of universal conceptions of truth, knowledge, and justice, constitutes the first attempt to establish not just a moral but an epistemological foundation for anti-imperialism. Engaging with the work of postcolonial theorists such Dipesh Chakrabarty and Gayatri Spivak, this book is a valuable reassessment of Enlightenment anti-imperialism that demonstrates Herder's continuing relevance to postcolonial studies today. (shrink)

Some critics of Mill understand him to advocate the forced assimilation of people he regards as uncivilized, and to defend toleration and the principle of liberty only for civilized people of the West. Examination of Mill’s social and political writings and practice while serving the British East India Company shows, instead, that Mill is a ‘tolerant imperialist’: Mill defends interference in India to promote the protection of legal rights, respect and toleration for conflicting viewpoints, and a commercial society that can (...) cope with natural threats. He does not think the principle of liberty is waived for the uncivilized, or that the West should forcibly reshape them in its own monistic image. Mill’s tolerant imperialism reflects a tension between liberty and moral development that surfaces also when Mill thinks about the scope of government in civilized societies. (shrink)

The standard view on economics imperialism is that it should be resisted when it is epistemically or morally harmful. I argue that the moral dimension of economics imperialism is in need of further analysis. In my view, economics imperialism is wrong when imperialists violate the epistemic responsibility they have towards scientists working in the discipline that is the target for imperialist explorations. By epistemic responsibility, I refer to a moral duty to justify one’s knowledge claims (...) to a particular audience so that the justification appeals to at least some of the standards of argumentation recognized by that audience. (shrink)

Virtue and deontological ethics are now commonly contrasted as rival approaches to moral inquiry. However, I argue that neither metaethical party should seek complete, solitary domination of the ethical domain. Reductive treatments of the right or the virtuous, as well as projects that abandon the former or latter, are bound to leave us with a sadly diminished map of the moral territories crucial to our lives. Thus, it is better for the two parties to seek a more cordial (...) and equal relationship, one that permits metaethical pluralism, and acknowledges mutual dependence. I do not seek to prescribe how that relationship should look: this essay offers less a positive metaethical position than a prolegomenon to such a position, one that attempts to head off harmful attempts to reduce the territory of the aretaic to that of the deontic, or that of the deontic to the aretaic. (shrink)

Imperialism, the key concept of modern politics and society, entered China via Japan in the late Qing Dynasty. This concept had been endowed with rich connotations before Lenin’s assertion that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism gained a dominant position in China. Liang Qichao influenced by the Waseda University of Politics, regarded “imperialism” as the result of “nationalism”. He advocated the cultivation of nationals to cope with international competition. At the same time, Kotoku Shusui being influenced (...) by the European and American socialist thoughts, regarded “imperialism” as the product of the politicians and capitalists’ seeking profit from the centralization of power. Mencius, a classic Confucian text, became the native resource for absorbing this proposition, attention to the universalist thought which is constructed by Confucian moral theory such as compassion. But for other East Asian countries such as China and Korea, the claim had received little response. (shrink)

As political instruments, human rights can be challenged in two important ways: first, by undermining the claim to universality by appealing to a kind of cultural relativism, and second, by accusing human rights of unjustifiably imposing values that are not genuinely universal (which I dub the problem of parochialism). The human right to health is no exception. If a human right to health is to be a useful instrument in mobilizing action for global health justice, then we need to take (...) seriously the ways that health intersects with culture. Universal applicability is essential to both the legitimacy and efficacy of human rights. But without cultural sensitivity, additional injustices and imperialistic harms may be perpetuated. There are two goals within this paper—(1) to show that cultural imperialism is a moral and practical hazard, both in general and for the human right to health in particular and (2) to articulate a way of thinking about the human right to health that can minimize these hazards and arm it with moral credibility and political weight. (shrink)

How do bioethics gatekeepers located in wealthy nations treat bioethics workers from developing countries? Can the policies of leading international bioethics journals—based on a concern for profit that effectively restricts access for most researchers from developing countries—be ethically justified? We examined these policies focusing on the way they influence the ability of researchers in resource-poor countries to participate in the development of the field of bioethics. Eight of the fourteen leading bioethics journals are published by three transnational publishing houses, all (...) of which are based in wealthy nations. None of these eight journals participates in the Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative of the World Health Organization, a program that provides free or very low-cost online access to the major journals by researchers in developing countries. Lack of access to these essential resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for bioethicists in developing countries to learn from, and engage in, the global bioethics dialogue. Thus, exclusionary practices of leading bioethics journals sustain the hegemony of Western bioethics, raising serious questions about professed aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. This phenomenon indicates lack of empathy and moral imagination of bioethicists in developed countries, raises serious questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need for creative solutions to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

It has become a truism in discussions of Imperialist literature to state that the British empire was, in a very significant way, a textual exercise. Empire was simultaneously created and perpetuated through a proliferation of texts driven significantly by a desire for what Thomas Richards describes as “one great system of knowledge.” The project of assembling this system assumed that all of the “alien” knowledges that it drew upon could be easily assimilated into existing, “universal” epistemological categories. This belief in (...) “one great system” assumed that knowledges from far-flung outposts of empire could, through careful categorization and control, be made to reinforce, rather than threaten, the authority of imperial epistemic rule. But this movement into “new” epistemic as well as physical spaces opened up the disruptive possibility for and encounter with Foucault’s “insurrection of subjugated knowledges.” In the Imperial Gothic stories discussed here, the space between “knowing all there is to know” and the inherent unknowability of the “Other” is played out through representations of failures of classification and anxieties about the limits of knowledge. These anxieties are articulated through what is arguably one of the most heavily regulated signifiers of scientific progress at the turn of the century: the body. In an age that was preoccupied with bodies as spectacles that signified everything from criminal behaviour, psychological disorder, moral standing and racial categorization, the mutable, unclassifiable body functions as a signifier that mediates between imperial fantasies of control and definition and fin-de-siècle anxieties of dissolution and degeneration. In Imperial Gothic fiction these fears appear as a series of complex explorations of the ways in which the gap between the known and the unknown can be charted on and through a monstrous body that moves outside of stable classification. (shrink)

Moral relativism attracts and repels. What is defensible in it and what is to be rejected? Do we as human beings have no shared standards by which we can understand one another? Can we abstain from judging one another's practices? Do we truly have divergent views about what constitutes good and evil, virtue and vice, harm and welfare, dignity and humiliation, or is there some underlying commonality that trumps it all? These questions turn up everywhere, from Montaigne's essay on (...) cannibals, to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, to the debate over female genital mutilation. They become ever more urgent with the growth of mass immigration, the rise of religious extremism, the challenges of Islamist terrorism, the rise of identity politics, and the resentment at colonialism and the massive disparities of wealth and power between North and South. Are human rights and humanitarian interventions just the latest form of cultural imperialism? By what right do we judge particular practices as barbaric? Who are the real barbarians? In this provocative new book, the distinguished social theorist Steven Lukes takes an incisive and enlightening look at these and other challenging questions and considers the very foundations of what we believe, why we believe it, and whether there is a profound discord between "us" and "them.". (shrink)

This article, which will appear in three parts over three issues of Historical Materialism, presents a broad analysis of the political economy and dynamics of social change during the first year of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia. It situates this analysis in the wider historical context of left-indigenous insurrection between 2000 and 2005, the class structure of the country, the changing character of contemporary capitalist imperialism, and the resurgence of anti-neoliberalism and anti-imperialism elsewhere in Latin America. It (...) considers, at a general level, the overarching dilemmas of revolution and reform. These considerations are then grounded in analyses of the 2000–5 revolutionary epoch, the 18 December 2005 elections, the social origins and trajectory of the Movimiento al Socialismo as a party, the complexities of the relationship between indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation, the process of the Constituent Assembly, the political economy of natural gas and oil, the rise of an autonomist right-wing movement, US imperialism, and Bolivia's relations with Venezuela and Cuba. The central argument is that the economic policies of the new government exhibit important continuities with the inherited neoliberal model and that advancing the project of indigenous liberation and socialist emancipation will require renewed self-activity, self-organisation and strategic mobilisation of popular left-indigenous forces autonomous from the MAS government. (shrink)

Most research on Ernesto “Che” Guevara has been concerned with emphasizing his ideological Marxist commitments and anti-imperial material objectives. These scholarly concerns usually constellate recycled subjective themes highlighting the revolutionary leader hating injustice, and loving justice, in tandem with the objective of eliminating imperialism and advancing a Third World project. In 2012, Che’s Apuntes filósoficos (Eng. Philosophical Notes) were published and highlighted that his exposure to philosophy regrettably occurred late in his life, and surprisingly, the difficulty he had in (...) reading Marx and Hegel. The objective, therefore, of this multidisciplinary research navigating law, theology, philosophy, and politics is threefold. First, it alludes to and critiques the familiar pedagogy of Guevara emphasizing the importance of developing a “theory in action”, “learning through action”, being a “humanist”, and “leading by example”. Secondly, it considers the consequences of Che reifying emotion (eros) over reason (logos) thereby providing a possible answer to his “failed revolutionary story” in the Congo and Bolivia with his pedagogy involving an unstable compound mixing the emotion of compassion with rage thus clouding his reason. Finally, the third section highlights that we should not relegate emotion away from the sphere of political discourse, but rather harmonize it with reason to avoid chaotic and unpredictable errors based on subjective truths. Emphasizing the former at the expense of the latter—as maintained by a realist approach to International Relations and positivist jurisprudence accenting International Law—risks undermining scholarship challenging the immoral consequences arising from a naturalized assumption separating reason and revelation thus decriminalizing colonial practices characterizing the North and South. (shrink)

How was violence justified in early Islam? What role did violent actions play in the formation and maintenance of the Muslim political order? How did Muslim thinkers view the origins and acceptability of violence? These questions are addressed by an international range of eminent authors through both general accounts of types of violence and detailed case studies of violent acts drawn from the early Islamic sources. Violence is understood, widely, to include jihad, state repressions and rebellions, and also more personally (...) directed violence against victims (women, animals, children, slaves) and criminals. By understanding the early development of Muslim thinking around violence, our comprehension of subsequent trends in Islamic thought, during the medieval period and up to the modern day, become clearer. (shrink)

The Linguistic Account of Thought holds that thought is the meaning of declarative sentences. According to Linguistic Internalism, two languages can share sentential meanings and hence express the same thought. According to Linguistic Particularism, thought content is relative to languages and is not shared. We can contrast these two accounts of thought with a third: the intension of a thought is a common disciplinary use of differing meaningful claims, and the extension of a thought is the collection of sentences or (...) symbols that share a disciplinary use---a view inspired by Patanjali's Yoga, Linguistic Externalism. Having noted that the Linguistic Account of Thought is the defining feature of the Western tradition, underwriting the European philosophical tradition and work in Indology, I consider whether the competing accounts of thought can be tested. I note that the Moral Twin Earth thought experiment by Horgan and Timmons, assumes Linguistic Internalism and attempts to test competing accounts of moral semantics for their capacity to facilitate cross cultural communication on morals across different languages. I propose testing competing accounts of thought to the same end on Planet Ethics: here the moral semantics of a language simply is its national moral theory. So the literal meaning of “good” for Nation Kant would be “a will determined by the categorical imperative,” but for Nation Expressivism Kant it would an internalist semantics that allows speakers to express their minds. Nation Plato is ruled by a philosopher king, and "good" there means "the form of the forms," and for Nation Positive Utilitarians it means "maximal happiness" while for the Negative Utilitarians it means "minimal suffering." The scenario also contains with in it the Thems: they have their own Them language tied to their own moral tradition, but they also participate in the linguistic culture of their adopted homes. Can the citizens of Planet Ethics have a conversation about morals, and can they avoid Anti Thematism? I note that the two Linguistic Accounts of Thought cannot explain how moral conversations occur across languages on Planet Ethics. Each culture will try to use its own language as a frame to understand others, who will be incomprehensible in so far as they depart from the assumed linguistic frame: each culture will view itself as having the moral frame work. Worse, the linguistic accounts of thought render right answers to moral questions analytically true, and criticisms of the dominant moral theory a contradiction in terms. A community who cannot get along with each other can separate and make separate moral communities, each with its own national ethos and corresponding moral semantics, but then they will not be able to conceptualize their prior disagreement especially if both new languages are departures from the earlier shared moral semantics. Also, the Thems will be viewed with suspicion for not wholly and univocally supporting the national ethos of their adopted homes. Linguistic externalism has no problem accounting for moral discourse here or in allowing for intra cultural moral criticism: the common philosophical use of the diverse philosophical sentences is the common proposition on which speakers of the various languages can agree or disagree to. On Planet Ethics it becomes clear there is "right" moral semantics: all will do as well as each other. Whereas the Linguistic Account of Thought leads to an inflationary approach to linguistic meaning, the linguistic externalist option is deflationary with respect to linguistic meaning. Finally I note that the linguistic approach to thought underwrites Indological investigations into Indian ethics and I consider two Davidson inspired tweaks to save the linguistic approach. The upshot is that Orthodox Indologists, in practice, adopt the procedure that Davidson recommends for understanding malopropers, such as Archie Bunker. In short, Orthodox Indologists, in being wedded to the linguistic approach to thought, treat Indian philosophers like malapropers who can't speak Sanskrit, like Bunker cannot speak English without erring. All can be avoided by Linguistic Externalism. This means that the conceptual content of moral vocabulary is not their linguistic meaning, but their philosophical purpose. (shrink)

Global and transnational feminist praxis has long faced a seemingly inexorable dilemma. Universalism is often charged with causing feminist complicity in imperialism. In spite of this, it seems clear that feminists should not embrace relativism; feminism is, after all, a view about how certain types of treatment based on gender are wrong. This article clears the path for an anti-imperialist feminist universalism by showing how feminist complicity in imperialism is not caused by the fact of having universalist normative (...) commitments. What I call “missionary feminism” stems more from ethnocentrism, justice monism, and idealizing and moralizing ways of seeing that associate Western culture with morality than from universalism about the value of gender justice. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that artificial moral agents are a fitting subject of intercultural information ethics because of the impact they may have on the relationship between information rich and information poor countries. I will give a limiting definition of AMAs first, and discuss two different types of AMAs with different implications from an intercultural perspective. While AMAs following preset rules might raise con-cerns about digital imperialism, AMAs being able to adjust to their user‘s behavior will (...) lead us to the question what makes an AMA ―moral‖? I will argue that this question does present a good starting point for an inter-cultural dialogue which might be helpful to overcome the notion of Africa as a mere victim. (shrink)

Great historical crises oblige us to choose not between violence and nonviolence, but between two different forms of violence. Nonviolent movements are no exception to this rule. In the US, with the outbreak of the War of Secession, the Christian-nonviolent movement was obliged to choose between the violence of the Union-army and the violence of slavery. With the outbreak of World-War One, Lenin chose revolution, while, in India, Gandhi became the ‘recruiting agent-in-chief’ for the British army. At that moment, he (...) struggled not for the general emancipation of colonial peoples, but only for the co-optation of the Indian people under the ruling races, and this co-optation was to be gained on the battlefield. While in the past, in spite of their mistakes and oscillations, the protagonists of nonviolence were an integral part of the anticolonialist movement, today nonviolence is the watchword of imperialism, which tries to discredit as violent its enemies and challengers. (shrink)

Is globalization a product or a process? This paper is given a foundation by a worry and a fillip by a desire. The worry is the obvious unphilosophical grasp of the phenomenon of globalization that led to it being engaged in political and moral terms. The desire is to release globalization from its conception as a product, packaged and exported by some people or some cultures in order to continue an agenda of domination. The paper argues that globalization is (...) a process brought about by inevitable interaction and that blaming or praising any person for being part of it, is sheer misunderstanding. That the process of globalization generates certain states within our world does not justify the conclusion by some analysts that these are created into finished, exportable products. It further posits that we need to literally and literarily depersonalize globalization if we will not continue to dissipate energy in an attempt to pull the rug that we not only laid and are standing on, but one we cannot but stand on. The paper equally debunks the link of slavery, colonialism and imperialism with globalization especially within the African context; and concludes by arguing that the reason for the politicization and ideologization of the concept of globalization is because of weakness and fear that their maladministration will continually be exposed to the global community. Keywords: Globalization, Morality, Political, Africa, Process. (shrink)

The utterance of morals or morality within a communist space is one that may, in the best of cases, raise a few eyebrows or, in the worst of cases, summon calls for condemnation or accusations of being unscientific. The subject of communist morality is one that is often ignored within the broader revolutionary left, while at the same time—especially within our current insurrectionary moment—beckons to be engaged with. As the hydra of neoliberalism begins its inevitable collapse, throwing capitalism once more (...) into a global crisis—and thusly its imperialist head begins to twist fascistically from the periphery back inward toward the United States and Europe—these categories that before seemed abstract and idealistic suddenly become vivid and tangible. Evil is how these injustices are described—in a non-hyperbolic fashion—by those engaged in the frontlines of revolutionary activity. So why is morality eschewed and denounced in left academic discourse? Are morals solely the provenance of the reactionary right or the dreamy idealist? (shrink)

While it forms the framework for most analytical political philosophy, liberalism is widely attacked and even ridiculed outside that small world. It is, according to one widely accepted line of thinking, tainted by the color and sex of its most prominent formulators, its use in defense of the morally indefensible behavior of imperialist states and their agents, and its presumption that the rights it prescribes are applicable to all people in all places at all times.

Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways. While this new scientific concept clarifies causal relationships between previously unrelated events, structures, perceptions, and actions, it also illuminates a neglected domain of social responsibility and political action. By constructing cultural traumas, social groups, national societies, and sometimes even entire civilizations, not (...) only cognitively identify the existence and source of human suffering, but may also take on board some significant moral responsibility for it. Insofar as they identify the cause of trauma in a manner that assumes such moral responsibility, members of collectivities define their solidary relationships that allow them to share the suffering of others. Is the suffering of others also our own? In thinking that it might in fact be, societies expand the circle of the ‘we’ and create the possibility for repairing societies to prevent the trauma from happening again. By the same token, social groups can, and often do, refuse to recognize the existence of others’ suffering, or place the responsibility for it on people other than themselves. Empirically, this article extensively considers trauma construction in the case of the Holocaust – the mass murder of Jews by the German Nazis – but also examines trauma processes in relation to African-Americans, indigenous peoples, colonial victims of Western and Japanese imperialism, the Nanjing Massacre, and victims of the early communist regimes in Soviet Russia and Maoist China. (shrink)

Heroism and Wisdom is an interdisciplinary work dissecting the lives, philosophies, and works of fourteen historically significant Italian figures to examine the topics of Italian history, culture, and moral psychology of notions such as practical wisdom, heroism, authenticity, honor, will to power, and leading a meaningful human life.

Historians are now generally agreed that the Darwinian recognition and institutionalization of the polygenist position was more than merely nominal.194 Wallace, Vogt, and Huxley had led the way, and we may add Galton (1869) to the list of those leading Darwinians who incorporated a good deal of polygenist thinking into their interpretions of human history and racial differences.195 Eventually “Mr. Darwin himself,” as Hunt had suggested he might, consolidated the Darwinian endorsement of many features of polygenism. Darwin's Descent of Man (...) was published in the same year that the Anthropological Institute was founded, and it was no coincidence that it was broadly congruent with Knoxian/ Anthropological race science. Recent scholarship has stressed the derivative character of the Descent, and Darwin's views on race were clearly influenced by the earlier interpretations of the abovecited Darwinians.196However, although the Descent was written in the light of the anthropological struggles of the 1860s, it is essential to acknowledge its origins in Darwin's notebooks of the late 1830s and early 1840s. A good deal of the congruence between Darwinian and Knoxian conceptions of race may be traced back to these early notebook constructions. As these document, Darwin, like Knox, brought to his very earliest conceptions of human evolution a “commitment to the idea of human races as discrete biological units with distinct moral and mental traits.”197 The young Darwin had been concerned with the same sorts of questions on racial biological and cultural differences that preoccupied Knox around the same time, and he was committed to as ruthless a naturalism. Apart from their individual and independent debts to Quetelet's “moral statistics,” both Darwin and Knox drew heavily on the general themes of struggle and adaptation in the contemporary “common context” of biological and social thought.198 Given their common context, the broad general similarities between the Knoxian laws of race antagonism and subordination and the Darwinian struggle for existence between races need occasion no strained historical explanation of direct influence.199Nevertheless, in more explicit ways, the Descent does show the conflation of Knoxian/Anthropological and Darwinian racial views, and Darwin located his discussion of these issues squarely within the dispute “of late years” between polygenists and monogenists.200 His mature views on race were shaped by the contemporaneous confrontations and negotiations between the Darwinians and the Anthropologicals. It is within this context that the minor historical puzzle of Darwin's failure to acknowledge Knox's “generic descent” may be explained. Apart from the difficulties of integration and interpretation of his scattered theoretical writings, Knox, through his adoption by Hunt and the Anthropologicals, became identified with anti-Darwinism and therefore with antievolutionism.201 Moreover, Knox, the disreputable and marginal “savage radical” and lately resurrected and equally unsavory “Anthropological,” was hardly an acceptable “precursor.” Yet, paradoxically, it was via the antithetical medium of the Anthropological platform that Knox's race science made an indirect and unacknowledged, but lasting, impact on the Darwinian anthropological model.In the Descent, Darwin argued that racial traits arose very early in the prehistory of man, were not biologically adaptive, and were therefore relatively fixed in character. By viewing race formation as a distant and closed episode of human history, Darwin endorsed the Knoxian categories of race as fixed and unalterable types. Although he thought it irrelevant whether human races were called species or subspecies, he conceded more to the Knoxian view than Huxley by granting that a naturalist confronted for the first time by specimens of Negro and European man “might feel himself fully justified in ranking the races of man as distinct species.”202 Consistent with the Knoxian interpretation, struggle, competition, and survival occurred between racial units rather than between individuals and, in Darwin's view, accounted for the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon and the inevitable triumph of the more intellectual and moral races over the lower and more degraded ones.Darwin was as insistent as Knox on the biological basis of intellectual and moral differences, and, through his tendency to reduce social and cultural differences to biology, he maintained the essential Knoxian/Anthropological link between race and culture.203 For above all, the Descent did much more than offer a naturalistic explanation of human evolution: it proffered social interpretation, justification, and prescription, and its timely appearance gave a powerful boost to the “moralizing naturalism” of Huxley and Galton, and to Spencer's “Social Darwinism.”204 We may draw a straight line from Knox's “moral anatomy,” through Hunt's “anthropology,” and on to “Social Darwinism” and the “social surgeons” of the eugenics movement.The Darwinians did not, of course, we their tendency to naturalize existing economic and social relations to Knox or Hunt and the Anthropologicals—they were simply reflecting the same general intellectual trend that had affected Knox and the Anthropologicals as well. And in the larger context, the forces that had created a climate receptive to Knox's racism had intensified: in the seventies, the need to justify white imperialism and class and racial inequalities was greater than ever. Scientific racism no longer appeared an aberration but the very essence of the scientific study of man, taking on a newfound respectability in the “new” evolutionary anthropology. But in more specific ways, through the struggle between the Darwinians and Anthropologicals for scientific and ideological hegemony, Knox's “moral anatomy” was institutionalized and perpetuated in late Victorian scientific racism. In the process, the delicate balance that Knox had maintained between his radicalism and his racism was outweighed by conservative institutional and social needs, and his “moral anatomy” was retooled — first by Hunt, and then by the Darwinians — to fit those needs. (shrink)

Morality, as a distinctive reflection of the needs, interests, and tasks of real groups and classes, changes with the change in their historical status and functions. Such change is also characteristic of the morality of the working class, which passes through a number of stages in its development: proletarian morality under capitalism, socialist morality in socialist society, and communist morality of the developed, communist social relationships of the future. Within these three major periods it is possible to identify different phases (...) corresponding to changing conditions, concrete tasks, and needs. Thus elements of proletarian morality, which took shape in the period of free capitalist competition, undergo a definite transformation in the epoch of imperialism and also change in a period of revolutionary enthusiasm. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

Following in the footsteps of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the tenor of the postcolonial African culture has been justifiably anti-imperialist. In the 21st century, however, there has been a gradual but certain shift away from the “write-back” discourse paradigm, towards more integrative, globally inflected cultural interpretive models in Africa. This book celebrates the emergence of new interpretive paradigms such as in African philosophy, gender studies and literature.

When a circular coin is rotated in depth, is there any sense in which it comes to resemble an ellipse? While this question is at the center of a rich and divided philosophical tradition (with some scholars answering affirmatively and some negatively), Morales et al. (2020, 2021) took an empirical approach, reporting 10 experiments whose results favor such perspectival similarity. Recently, Burge and Burge (2022) offered a vigorous critique of this work, objecting to its approach and conclusions on both philosophical (...) and empirical grounds. Here, we answer these objections on both fronts. We show that Burge and Burge’s critique rests on misunderstandings of Morales et al.’s claims; of the relation between the data and conclusions; and of the philosophical context in which the work appears. Specifically, Burge and Burge attribute to us a much stronger (and stranger) view than we hold, involving the introduction of “a new entity” located “in some intermediate position(s) between the distal shape and the retinal image.” We do not hold this view. Indeed, once properly understood, most of Burge and Burge’s objections favor Morales et al.’s claims rather than oppose them. Finally, we discuss several questions that remain unanswered, and reflect on a productive path forward on these issues of foundational scientific and philosophical interest. (shrink)

Arguably the most foundational principle in perception research is that our experience of the world goes beyond the retinal image; we perceive the distal environment itself, not the proximal stimulation it causes. Shape may be the paradigm case of such “unconscious inference”: When a coin is rotated in depth, we infer the circular object it truly is, discarding the perspectival ellipse projected on our eyes. But is this really the fate of such perspectival shapes? Or does a tilted coin retain (...) an elliptical appearance even when we know it’s circular? This question has generated heated debate from Locke and Hume to the present; but whereas extant arguments rely primarily on introspection, this problem is also open to empirical test. If tilted coins bear a representational similarity to elliptical objects, then a circular coin should, when rotated, impair search for a distal ellipse. Here, nine experiments demonstrate that this is so, suggesting that perspectival shapes persist in the mind far longer than traditionally assumed. Subjects saw search arrays of three-dimensional “coins,” and simply had to locate a distally elliptical coin. Surprisingly, rotated circular coins slowed search for elliptical targets, even when subjects clearly knew the rotated coins were circular. This pattern arose with static and dynamic cues, couldn’t be explained by strategic responding or unfamiliarity, generalized across shape classes, and occurred even with sustained viewing. Finally, these effects extended beyond artificial displays to real-world objects viewed in naturalistic, full-cue conditions. We conclude that objects have a remarkably persistent dual character: their objective shape “out there,” and their perspectival shape “from here.”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Latina/o Social Ethics: Moving beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking, and: Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a PerspectiveKevin N. York-SimmonsLatina/o Social Ethics: Moving beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking Miguel A. de La Torre, Waco Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2010. 160 pp. $24.95.Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective Rubén Rosario Rodríguez New York: New York University Press, 2008. 320 pp. $24.00Although Latina/o theologians have contributed much to Christian moral discourse (...) in recent decades, the impact of these contributions has too often remained limited to other Latina/os and those with particular interests in liberation theologies. Miguel de La Torre and Rubén Rosario Rodríguez build on the contributions of theologians before them while challenging the broader theological community to take notice of these rich and provocative works.In four concise chapters, Miguel de La Torre’s Latina/o Social Ethics delivers a forceful criticism of prominent thinkers in the field of Christian ethics and offers a creative reconstruction of ethics from a Latina/o perspective. De La Torre offers a critique of “Euroamerican” Christian ethicists whose works have greatly influenced contemporary Christian moral discourse. He addresses the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, Anthony Campolo, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis. De La Torre faults these theologians for the ways in which their moral thinking participates in the oppression and marginalization of Latina/os, either through their silence or through their endorsement of specific polices. De La Torre concludes that the legacy of cultural and economic privilege and the oppression of Latinas/os are so [End Page 199] deeply embedded in the Eurocentric thinking that has dominated the field of Christian ethics that it cannot be the foundation for Latino social ethics.De La Torre’s aim is to “move beyond” Eurocentric modes of thinking rather than dwell on critique. This eagerness to move forward to the creative and constructive aspects of Latina/o ethics, however, limits the forcefulness of his critique of Euroamerican ethicists. De La Torre’s reading of Euroamerican ethics—and even the application of that term—is highly selective, both in terms of the thinkers chosen and the writings examined. While De La Torre’s criticisms of these thinkers are generally insightful and serve to illustrate his basic criticism of Eurocentric ethics, these criticisms are limited in their depth of analysis. De La Torre is less concerned with the broader historical and theological considerations at work in these Euroamerican ethicists than with their failures to adequately address issues of concern to Latinas/os.The second half of Latina/o Social Ethics moves to his constructive, or “reconstructive,” project. De La Torre reviews central concepts in the methodology of Latina/o social ethics, including lo cotidiano, nepantla, la lucha, en conjunto, and acompañamiento. De La Torre’s explanation of these terms is brief and accessible. Moving beyond these concepts, the fourth chapter of Latina/o Social Ethics offers a creative approach to a liberative ethics that draws on Christian tradition as well as broader Hispanic cultural resources, including folk characters and themes of the trickster found in Afro-Caribbean religious traditions. De La Torre addresses the concern for how to imagine a Christian ethics with a role for the trickster, including identifying trickster characters and themes in the Bible. His “disruptive ethics” challenges the preference for order over justice that has characterized Eurocentric ethics, for which he provides helpful examples. De La Torre is clearly concerned with imperialism, immigration, and free trade, yet it is unclear what justice means in those contexts. Perhaps due to the powerlessness of marginalized Latina/os, criticisms of injustice weigh far more heavily than visions of justice.The concise length of this book broadens its appeal. Academics unfamiliar with some of the concepts and methodologies of Latina/o theologians will find this short introduction a useful starting point. This provocative book would also be a welcome addition to the classroom, either in part or in its entirety.In contrast to De La Torre’s short work, Rubén Rosario Rodríguez sets a broader and more ambitious task in his Racism and God-Talk. His project... (shrink)

Consciousness and confidence seem intimately related. Accordingly, some researchers use confidence ratings as a measure of, or proxy for, consciousness. Rosenthal discusses the potential connections between the two, and rejects confidence as a valid measure of consciousness. He argues that there are better alternatives to get at conscious experiences such as direct subjective reports of awareness (i.e. subjects’ reports of perceiving something or of the degree of visibility of a stimulus). In this chapter, we offer a different perspective. Confidence ratings (...) in general, and metacognitive measures in particular, may offer important advantages over subjective ratings. The arguments we offer here are supported by empirical, practical and socio-strategic considerations. However, we do not suggest consciousness and confidence are interchangeable. We recognize the limitations of confidence ratings in some experimental designs and for some research questions. Nevertheless, we also address a potential conceptual link between consciousness and confidence that stems from Rosenthal’s very own work on mental quality space theory. (shrink)

Challenges to Legal Theory offers the reader a fascinating journey though a variety of multi-disciplinary topics, ranging from law and literature, and law and religion, to legal philosophy and constitutional law. The collection reflects some of the challenges that the field of legal theory currently faces. It is compiled by a selection of international and Spanish scholars, whose essays are made available in English translation for the first time. The volume is based on a collection of essays, published in Spanish, (...) in honour of Professor José Iturmendi Morales, of Complutense University, Madrid, and brings the rich scholarship of pre-eminent Spanish scholars of law and legal theory to an international audience. (shrink)

Linguistic justice is about institutions distributing material and symbolic resources fairly when they are faced with linguistic diversity. However, no theory of linguistic justice has developed a systematic and comprehensive account of the moral dilemmas that take place in interpersonal linguistic relationships, in particular the power dynamics leading to (linguistic) domination. The aim of this article is to start building a general theory of linguistic domination, one that offers new conceptual tools for both empirical and normative analyses of linguistically (...) diverse societies. Using the republican tradition of thought, I argue that there is linguistic domination whenever someone is subject to the uncontrolled capacity for interference over their linguistic uses, ideology and acquisition by another agent. This article tests under what conditions this phenomenon takes place and the parties involved in it (both in terms of individuals and political institutions). (shrink)

This edited volume presents a post-humanist reflection on education, mapping the complex transdisciplinary pedagogy and theoretical research while also addressing questions related to marginalised voices, colonial discourses, and the relationship between theory and practice. Exhibiting a re-imagination of education through themed relationalities that can transverse education, this cutting-edge book highlights the importance of matter in educational environments, enriching pedagogies, teacher-student relationships and curricular innovation. Chapters present contributions that explore education through various international contexts and educational sectors, unravelling educational implications with (...) reference to the climate change crisis, migrant children in education, post-pandemic education, feminist activisism and other emergent issues. The book examines the ongoing iterations of the entanglement of colonization, modernity, and humanity with education to propose a possibility of education capable of upholding heterogeneous worlds. Curated with a global perspective on transversal relationalities and offering a unique outlook on posthuman thoughts and actions related to education, this book will be an important reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of philosophy of education, sociology of education, post humanism and new materialism, curriculum studies, and educational research. (shrink)

In Harry Potter, Hagrid is written as the “animal lover” who appreciates all creatures. Analyzing Hagrid’s interactions with animals is a unique approach to theorizing animal ethics at Hogwarts. This article problematizes Hagrid’s characterization within the “animal lover” trope. Many of Hagrid’s actions are imperialist toward animals as collectible, exploitable, and only valuable insofar as they provide something for humans, which contradicts the definition of moral status. The potential for “animal lovers” to relate to Hagrid suggests a need to (...) more closely examine this trope in other works of fiction to avoid perpetuating unethical standards of animal care. (shrink)

From the National Revolution to the Victory of Evo Morales. A Review of a Half Century of Struggles in Popular Bolivia (1952-2007) The « Bolivian democratic and cultural revolution », often presented as a symbol of the leftward turn of Latin America, and which is led by Evo Morales, is without doubt part of the country’s nationalist and anti-oligarchic tradition, fruit of the revolution of 1952. The current revolutionary phase cannot however be entirely reduced to this tradition, insofar as it (...) illustrates the profound upheavals which the popular movement has undergone since the 1980s, during a period marked by the brutality of neo-liberal reforms and by the emergence of the “native American peasant” as the exemplary agent of “Insurgent Bolivia”. Bolstered by the support of a rural and plebeian base, the Morales “revolution” differs from previous revolutionary experiences by way of the resolutely anti-imperialist nature of its politics. The current nationalist cycle thus takes on an innovative, unprecedented perspective of social emancipation. (shrink)

A debate on the proper role of religion in politics as one about liberalism's failure to address the moral issues implicated in human suffering, subjugation and death as they emerge within political responses to antiblack racism, imperialism and sexism.