The text discusses the importance of religion as a symbolic construct which derives from fundamental human needs. At the same time, religious symbolism can function as an explanation for the major crises existent in the lives of individuals or their communities, even if they live in a democratic or a totalitarian system. Its presence is facilitated by the assumption of the biographical element existent in the philosophical and theological reflection and its extrapolation in a biography which concerns the communities and (...) its governmental resorts. It is in this context that we discuss the way in which the myth concerning the death of God can influence the formation of political ethics relevant for the contemporary man. From the analysis of the signification of the death of God in the contemporary Judaic theology and philosophy emerges a series of important elements for the creation of a political ethics situated between biblical morals and the extermination of the innocents in the 20th century. (shrink)

En el marco del debate humanista del siglo XX, el pensamiento político de Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) se constituye como una de las voces críticas y testimoniales que buscaron reflexionar sobre lo acontecido en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. A partir de su propia experiencia como judía en la Alemania de las primeras décadas de su siglo y como intelectual exiliada, concentró sus esfuerzos en comprender el significado filosófico y político de lo ocurrido. Sin pretender afirmar o definir la naturaleza humana sin (...) más, de forma deshistorizada y significada desde una filosofía omnisciente de la historia, orientó su responsabilidad a soportar la carga del siglo, enfrentar los hechos y habilitar otros vínculos con el pasado, con la herencia, con las tradiciones, con lo aún no del futuro y los múltiples modos de proyectarlo en espacios políticos (nacionales e internacionales) cruzados por conflictos y contradicciones. En la lucha entre la omnipotencia y la impotencia humanas como experiencias vitales, la acción aparece como constitutiva de la condición humana y se inscribe en el tiempo como iniciativa, como posibilidad de un futuro diferente. El trabajo explora dimensiones éticas, políticas e históricas de un humanismo que pretende dialogar con su presente. In the debate of the twentieth century humanist, the political thought of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was established as one of the critics and testimony that sought to reflect on what happened in the Second World War. From his own experience as a Jew in Germany in the early decades of the century and as an intellectual in exile, she concentrated his efforts on understanding the philosophical and political significance of what happened. Without attempting to confirm and to define the human nature without so dehistoricized and meaning from an omniscient philosophy of history, turned her responsibility to bear the burden of the century, face the facts and enable other links with the past, the inheritance, traditions, yet with the future and project it into multiple modes of political space (national and international) crossed by conflicts and contradictions. In the struggle between the omnipotence and the human powerlessness and life experiences, the action appears to constitute the human condition and fits the time and initiative, as the possibility of a different future. The paper explores ethical, political and historical humanism that seeks dialogue with its present. (shrink)

Is the dream of EU endangered? This book reviews classic and modern values and virtues, and uses them in order to rethink Europe's present politics and its future. The idea of the Republic was born with the political ethics of ancient Greece. The current international crisis obliges Europe to face the mirror of truth: What has become of the European Idea and how fares the European Constitution? It has been a long road from the Greek Politeia to the (...) present lack of values and financial monomania in Europe, who seems to have lost any harmony between the spirit, the soul and the body of her Constitution: the will and values of the people (material constitution), the text of the Lisbon Treaty (formal constitution) and its current political interpretation and action (real constitution), making Europe a two-tier or three-tier club, far from the dream of the founding fathers. Without republican values and virtues, and failing to uphold the European social model, the European Union would devolve into moral, social and democratic bankruptcy. (shrink)

Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations constitutes an important source and subject for Michel Foucault’s 1981 lectures at the Collège de France, translated into English as Hermeneutics of the Subject. One recurring theme in these lectures is the deployment by Hellenistic/Roman philosophers such as Aurelius of the practice and figure of dance. Inspired by this discussion, the present essay offers a close reading of dance in the Meditations, followed by a survey of the secondary literature on this subject. Overall, I will attempt to (...) show that, despite Aurelius’s self-consciously critical comportment toward dance, dance nevertheless performs a critical function in the construction of what I will term his “political ethics.” This political ethics, I will argue, is composed of an ethics of patient tolerance funded by the generosity that flows from the micro-political power generated by cultivating the god that Aurelius identifies within each of us. (shrink)

Hind Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi is arguably the greatest text to have emerged from the anti-colonial movement in India and the first to seriously challenge the cultural and civilizational premises of the colonizers' mentality. It is also the first text in India that falls within the broad tradition of modern political philosophy, advancing a complex cluster of theses with conceptual sensitivity, analytical precision, and sustained argument. This book critically engages with Hind Swaraj and explores the fascinating and subtle dialogue (...) set up by Gandhi between the characters of the reader and the editor. With essays from leading contemporary thinkers on Gandhi, the volume looks at themes such as Gandhi on epistemic servitude, decolonization and intercultural translation; his complex critique of modern civilization, his views on the empire; democracy, citizenship and violence; the normative structure of Gandhian thought; Gandhi and the political praxis of educational reconstruction and how to read this text. An important intervention in Gandhian studies, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of peace studies, political philosophy, Indian philosophy, Indian political thought, political sociology, and South Asian studies. (shrink)

In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. Yet a violent response to violence arguably makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity and political judgement that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff (...) argues that we must not shrink from the use of violence. But its use - in a liberal democracy - must be measured. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda. (shrink)

Introduction: Dead gods, divine kings, and deadly politicians -- The emergence of the lotus-self: personhood and identity -- Dead gods and people's revolts: political theory in religious acts -- The divine king and his five bodies: living history and the logic of interreligious dialogue -- Governance and deadly politicians: history as cultural criticism -- History without force: finding present space and place of time -- Constructing Nigeria's greatness: neglected paths of community, narratives, and care of the soul -- Mythos, (...) virtues, and national transformation: the search for a standard of citizenship moral behavior -- African traditional religion and critical theory: a framework for social ethics. (shrink)

The point of departure is the paradoxical finding that Spinoza is sometimes presented as the a-historical philosopher par excellence, while his Theological-Political Treatise is truly an historian’s work. The paper develops the hypothesis that historiography, as Spinoza himself practices, is a task of political ethics, analogous to the one to be found in the first section of the fifth part of the Ethics. Against interpretations developed by Vittorio Morfino, drawing on Althusser, historical knowledge is not a (...) knowledge of the third kind but of the second kind. (shrink)

Third-party certification is an increasingly prevalent tactic which agrifood activists use to “help” consumers shop ethically, and also to reorganize commodity markets. While consumers embrace the chance to “vote with their dollar,” academics question the potential for labels to foster widespread political, economic, and agroecological change. Yet, despite widespread critique, a mounting body of work appears resigned to accept that certification may be the only option available to activist groups in the context of neoliberal socio-economic orders. At the extreme, (...) Guthman (Antipode 39(3): 457, 2007) posits that “at this political juncture… ‘there is no alternative.” This paper offers a different assessment of third-party certification, and points to interventions that are potentially more influential that are currently available to activist groups. Exploring the evolution of the Non-GMO Project—a novel certification for foods that are reasonably free of genetically engineered (GE) material—I make two arguments. First, I echo the literature’s critical perspective by illustrating how certification projects become vulnerable to industry capture. Reviewing its history and current context, I suggest that the Non-GMO Project would be better suited to helping companies avoid mounting public criticism than to substantially reorient agrifood production. Second, I explore the “politics of the possible” in the current political economy and argue that while neoliberalization and organizers’ places within the food system initially oriented the group towards the private sector, the choice to pursue certification arose directly from two industry partnerships. Consequently, current trends might favor market mechanisms, but certification is only one possible intervention that has emerged as a result of particular, and perhaps avoidable, circumstances. The article offers tentative delineation of alternatives ways that activists might intervene in agrifood and political economic systems given present constraints. (shrink)

Scholars studying classic political texts face an important decision: Should these texts be read as artifacts of history or as sources for still-valid insights about politics today? Competing historical and “presentist” approaches to political thought do not have a methodological dispute—that is, a disagreement about the most effective scholarly means to an agreed-upon end. They instead have an ethical dispute about the respective value of competing activities that aim at different purposes. This article examines six ethical arguments, drawn (...) primarily from the work of Quentin Skinner, in favor of the historical approach. It concludes that while both intellectual history and presentist theory are ethically justifiable, the best justification of the former enterprise is that it can help us achieve the purposes of the latter. (shrink)

“六经”是中国传统文化和中华民族优秀的思想文化遗产，也是推动当代社会文化不断前进发展的动力资源之一，所以值得深入研究。本书选取《穀梁》中有关中国传统政治伦理的几个核心问题，如死义、复仇、慎让等，通过经 典诠释的方法，以文本的深入解读，不同文本的对比和义理的细致阐发，对中国传统政治伦理意识的相关内容的形成和历史演变、基本内涵、主要特征，及其价值取向等，作了较为系统、深入的论述，并能提出自己的许多独立见 解。在一些文本解读和义理阐发上发人之所未发，取得了一些突破性的进展。.

This article discusses the current ‘popularity’ of trauma research in the Humanities and examines the ethics and politics of trauma theory, as exemplified in the writings of Caruth and Felman and Laub.Written from a position informed by Laplanchian and object relations psychoanalytic theory, it begins by examining and offering a critique of trauma theory's model of subjectivity, and its relations with theories of referentiality and representation, history and testimony. Next, it proposes that although trauma theory's subject matter—the sufferings of (...) others—makes critique difficult, the theory's politics, its exclusions and inclusions, and its unconscious drives and desires are as deserving of attention as those of any other theory. Arguing that the political and cultural contexts within which this theory has risen to prominence have remained largely unexamined, the article concludes by proposing that trauma theory needs to act as a brake against rather than as a vehicle for cultural and political Manicheanism. (shrink)

Is it possible to build an authentically democratic system in politics without concrete ethical foundations? Addressing this question in the wake of the contemporary crisis in democracy worldwide, the volume re-evaluates Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s key thoughts. It foregrounds their relevance to the ongoing struggles that attempt to reconcile the apparently dissimilar orientations of politics and ethics. Collecting fresh interdisciplinary researches, the book provides insights into Gandhi’s complex — and occasionally turbulent — intellectual and political relationships with influential figures (...) of Indian society and politics, whether critics such as B. R. Ambedkar and friends like Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru. It also presents an informed political biography of Gandhi, encapsulating the salient details of his long trajectory as a unique mass mobilizer, socio-political activist and ideologue — from his days in South Africa to his death in independent India. This book will immensely interest scholars and students of political theory, philosophy, ethics, history, and Gandhian studies. (shrink)

Ethics 101 offers an exciting look into the history of moral principles that dictate human behavior. This easy-to-read guide presents the key concepts of ethics in fun, straightforward lessons and exercises featuring only the most important facts, theories, and ideas. Ethics 101 includes unique, accessible elements such as explanations of the major moral philosophies, including utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and eastern philosophers including Avicenna, Buddha, and Confucius; and unique profiles of the greatest characters in moral philosophy.

Ethical Politics and Modern Society introduces and critically examines British idealist philosopher, Thomas Hill Green, his practical philosophy and its reception in China between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. As a response to the modernity issue in Great Britain, Green's philosophy, in particular his ethical politics, anticipated a practical solution to the individual alienation issue in modern society. Witnessing the resemblance between Green's ethical politics and classical Chinese ethical and political thought, some Chinese scholars became (...) inclined to take Green's thought as an intellectual approach to assimilate Western modernity. While Green and the Chinese scholars both intended to articulate an ethical conception of modern politics in response to the issue of modernity, their results were very different. In this book, James Jia-Hau Liu analyses why modern Chinese scholars introduced Green's philosophy to China and why the studies of Green's philosophy in China have since faded away. Modern Chinese scholars, such as Gao Yi-Han, Chin Yueh-Lin, Tang Jun-Yi, Chang Fo-Chuan and Yin Hai-Guang, are explored in greater detail. The contradictory standings towards modernity between Green and Chinese scholars illustrate how to understand the difference forms of modernity that can be embodied therein. Ethical Politics and Modern Society is a valuable resource to scholars of political philosophy, political theory, history of social and political thought, British Idealism and the work of Thomas Hill Green. (shrink)

In this book on Marxist ethics, Norman Fischer applies abstract political philosophy and intellectual history to rarely discussed texts in terms of Marxist ethics. These include Marx's never translated German notes on Machiavelli, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, as well as Lewis Henry Morgan's' Ancient Society. Fischer's philosophical analysis of these texts demonstrates that there is a strain of Marxist ethics that is only understandable in the context of the great works of Western political theory and philosophy, (...) particularly those that emphasize the republican value of public spiritedness, the communitarian value of solidarity and the liberal values of liberty and equality. (shrink)

Understanding the ethics and politics of environmentalism, as well as predator biology, means thinking in new ways about objectivity. The history of predator biology shows how scientists order nature as they interact with non-humans. If science ultimately orders nature as its comprehends it, the implications for environmental ethics and politics, which continue to call on the authority of objective science, loom large.

The Political Crisis and Christian Ethics addresses themes in political philosophy in the context of a crisis in democracy after the denial of the 2020 election by the Republican candidate for president. The refusal to accept the results of the election divided the electorate and drove the president's followers to fail in their attempted coup attempt in January of 2020. Democracy is defended in Reinhold Niebuhr's writing on politics and in Barack Obama's use of the theologian's thought. (...) It is developed further in the political theory of Paul Tillich. The themes of just peacemaking are reviewed in Paul Tillich's critique of John Foster Dulles' work and in the author's critique of just peacemaking in the work of Glen Stassen. Domestically the issues of race, inequality, ecology, and healthcare are addressed from the perspective of prophetic realism. The book concludes in terms of Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy of education and religion and a vision of the good president. In summary, The Political Crisis and Christian Ethics is a volume of American, Christian political theory in a period of overcoming the trauma of 2016 with Christian ethics and political philosophy. (shrink)

This book presents a contextual study of the life and work of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688). Focusing on the theological basis of Cudworth's ethical philosophy, this book unlocks the hitherto ignored political aspect to Cudworth's ethical philosophy. Through a detailed examination of Cudworth's published works - particularly his voluminous "True intellectual system of the Universe" -, his posthumously published writings, and his 'freewill' manuscripts Benjamin Carter argues that the ethical and political arguments in Cudworth's philosophy develop (...) out of Cudworth's Trinitarian theology. Carter traces the link between Cudworth's trinitarianism and his ethical and political ideas by placing Cudworth's work in the turbulent religious and intellectual context of seventeenth-century England, and the University of Cambridge in particular. (shrink)

Our century has witnessed violence on an unprecedented scale, in wars that have torn deep into the fabric of national and international life. And as we can see in the recent strife in Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, and the ongoing struggle to control nuclear weaponry, ancient enmities continue to threaten the lives of masses of human beings. As never before, the question is urgent and practical: How can nations--or ethnic groups, or races--after long, bitter struggles, learn to live side by (...) side in peace? In An Ethic for Enemies, Donald W. Shriver, Jr., President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary, argues that the solution lies in our capacity to forgive. Taking forgiveness out of its traditional exclusive association with personal religion and morality, Shriver urges us to recognize its importance in the secular political arena. The heart of the book examines three powerful and moving cases from recent American history--our postwar dealings with Germany, with Japan, and our continuing domestic problem with race relations--cases in which acts of forgiveness have had important political consequences. Shriver traces how postwar Germany, in its struggle to break with its political past, progressed from denial of a Nazi past, to a formal acknowledgement of the crimes of Nazi Germany, to providing material compensation for survivors of the Holocaust. He also examines the efforts of Japan and the United States, over time and across boundaries of race and culture, to forgive the wrongs committed by both peoples during the Pacific War. And finally he offers a fascinating discussion of the role of forgiveness in the American civil rights movement. He shows, for instance, that even Malcolm X recognized the need to move from contempt for the integrationist ideal to a more conciliatory, repentant stance toward Civil Rights leaders. Malcolm came to see that only through forgiveness could the separate voices of the African-American movement work together to achieve their goals. If mutual forgiveness was a radical thought in 1964, Shriver reminds us that it has yet to be realized in 1994. "We are a long way from ceasing to hold the sins of the ancestors against their living children," he writes. Yet in this poignant volume, we discover how, by forgiving, enemies can progress and have progressed toward peace. A timely antidote to today's political conflicts, An Ethic for Enemies challenges to us to confront the hatreds that cripple society and threaten to destroy the global village. (shrink)

The author studies the role of Christianity in two forms of 9th century political ethics in the history of Great Moravia, represented by the Great Moravian rulers Rastislav and Svatopluk. Rastislav’s conception predominantly uses the pre-Erasmian model of political ethics based on the pursuit of welfare for the country and its inhabitants by achieving the clerical-political independence of Great Moravia from the Frankish kingdom and, moreover, by utilising Christianity for the advancement of culture, education, literature, (...) law and legality, as well as by spreading Christian ethics and morality in the form of the Christian code of ethics expressed in ethicallegal documents. Svatopluk’s political conception was a prototype of Machiavellian political ethics, according to which one is, in the interest of the country and its power and fame, allowed to be a lion and/or a fox. Svatopluk abused Christianity in the name of achieving his power-oriented goals. Great Moravia outlived Rastislav; it did not, however, outlive Svatopluk, as, shortly after his death, it broke up and ceased to exist. The author came to the conclusion that Rastislav’s conception was more viable, as its cultural heritage lives on in the form of works by Constantine and Methodius. (shrink)

The essays in this volume offer an approach to the history of moral and political philosophy that takes its inspiration from John Rawls. All the contributors are philosophers who have studied with Rawls and they offer this collection in his honour. The distinctive feature of this approach is to address substantive normative questions in moral and political philosophy through an analysis of the texts and theories of major figures in the history of the subject: Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, (...) Kant and Marx. By reconstructing the core of these theories in a way that is informed by contemporary theoretical concerns, the contributors show how the history of the subject is a resource for understanding present and perennial problems in moral and political philosophy. This outstanding collection will be of particular interest to historians of moral and political philosophy, historians of ideas, and political scientists. (shrink)

However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures.

This book examines the complexities of the hipster through the lens of art history and cultural theory, from Charles Baudelaire's flan̂eur to the contemporary 'creative' borne from creative industries policies. It claims that the recent ubiquity of hipster culture has led many artists to confront their own significance, responding to the mass artification of contemporary life by de-emphasising the formal and textual deconstructions so central to the legacies of modern and postmodern art. In the era of creative digital technologies, long (...) held characteristics of art such as individual expression, innovation, and alternative lifestyle are now features of a flooded and fast-paced global marketplace. Against the idea that artists, like hipsters, are the 'foot soldiers of capitalism', the institutionalized networks that make up the contemporary art world are working to portray a view of art that is less a discerning exercise in innovative form-making than a social platform--a forum for populist aesthetic pleasures or socio-political causes. It is in this sense that the concept of the hipster is caught up in age-old debates about the relation between ethics and aesthetics, examined here in terms of the dynamics of global contemporary art."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In this major new work, Bernstein explores the ethical and political dimensions of the modernity/post-modernity debate. Bernstein argues that modernity / post-modernity should be understood as a kind of mood - one which is amorphous, shifting and protean but which exerts a powerful influence on our current thinking. Focusing on thinkers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas and Rorty, Bernstein probes the strengths and weaknesses of their work, and shows how they have contributed to the formation of a new (...) mood, a new and distinctive constellation of ideas. This new constellation has put ethical and political issues back on the philosophical agenda, forcing us to confront anew, the Socratic question 'How should I live?'. (shrink)

In this landmark volume, Samuel Hollander presents a fresh and compelling history of moral philosophy from Locke to John Stuart Mill, showing that a ‘moral sense’ can actually be considered compatible with utilitarianism. The book also explores the link between utilitarianism and distributive justice. Hollander engages in close textual exegesis of the works relating to individual authors, while never losing sight of the intellectual relationships between them. Tying together the greatest of the British moral philosophers, this volume reveals an unexpected (...) unity of eighteenth and nineteenth century ethical doctrine at both the individual and social level. Essential reading for advanced students and researchers of the history of economic thought, political economy, history of ethics, history of political thought and intellectual history. -/- Samuel Hollander is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada, and an Officer in the Order of Canada. (shrink)

Philosophy -- Ethics beyond existentialism and structuralism: Sartre's critique of dialectical reason and the debate with Levi-Strauss -- Foucault's ethics of the self -- Derrida in Heidelberg: the specter of Heidegger's Nazism and the question of ethics -- Richard Rorty's cultural politics: ironist philosophy and the ethics of reading -- History -- From metahistory to the practical past: Hayden White's existentialist philosophy of history -- Hayden White and the ethics of historiography literature -- The (...) class='Hi'>ethics of conversion: metaphysical desire in Ren, Girard, and Jean-Paul Sartre -- The ethics of realism: literary history and the sublime in Erich Auerbach's mimesis -- The ethics of philology: Erich Auerbach and the fate of humanism -- Edward Said, orientalism, and the political turn in literary and cultural studies. (shrink)

This volume examines continuities and change in the normative underpinnings of both ancient and modern practices of political governance, public duties, private virtues, and personal responsibilities. As such, it stands at the cross-disciplinary intersection between the practice of democratic citizenship and the exercise of political ethics. Contributors address law and morality in history, from Ancient Mesopotamia and Enlightenment Europe to modern America and the new millennium's scientific and technological transformations; the links among different systems of belief; and (...) complex ethical issues in domestic and international democratic governance in the context of today's globalized world. (shrink)

Readers of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism recognize that Weber attempts to provide an ideal account of development of modern rational capitalism. What readers apparently do not realize is that Weber believes that there is a political development that is parallel to this economic development. Weber believed that Luther’s passive theology and doctrine of two kingdoms lead to quiet resignation in earthly matters. Luther advises shunning politics and avoiding political confrontation. In contrast, Weber held that (...) Calvin’s theology of awe and his doctrine of predestination lead to active political stances and even imply a duty to resist tyranny. However, Weber rejects both Luther’s and Calvin’s political stances because both believed in a divinely ordered world and held that the consequences of their actions were ultimately left to God. Weber contends that only those people who have the proper understanding of the nature of power and have a real appreciation for the ‘diabolic’ nature of politics are suitable to be political actors. Thus, Weber insists that only those people who will take responsibility for their own political actions have the right to ‘stick their hands in the wheels of history’. (shrink)

This book offers a conceptual history of compromise that demonstrates the connection between different understandings of compromise and corresponding differences in understandings of political representation.

Our century has witnessed violence on an unprecedented scale, in wars that have torn deep into the fabric of national and international life. And as we can see in the recent strife in Bosnia, genocide in Rwanda, and the ongoing struggle to control nuclear weaponry, ancient enmities continue to threaten the lives of masses of human beings. As never before, the question is urgent and practical: How can nations--or ethnic groups, or races--after long, bitter struggles, learn to live side by (...) side in peace? In An Ethic for Enemies, Donald W. Shriver, Jr., President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary, argues that the solution lies in our capacity to forgive. Taking forgiveness out of its traditional exclusive association with personal religion and morality, Shriver urges us to recognize its importance in the secular political arena. The heart of the book examines three powerful and moving cases from recent American history--our postwar dealings with Germany, with Japan, and our continuing domestic problem with race relations--cases in which acts of forgiveness have had important political consequences. Shriver traces how postwar Germany, in its struggle to break with its political past, progressed from denial of a Nazi past, to a formal acknowledgement of the crimes of Nazi Germany, to providing material compensation for survivors of the Holocaust. He also examines the efforts of Japan and the United States, over time and across boundaries of race and culture, to forgive the wrongs committed by both peoples during the Pacific War. And finally he offers a fascinating discussion of the role of forgiveness in the American civil rights movement. He shows, for instance, that even Malcolm X recognized the need to move from contempt for the integrationist ideal to a more conciliatory, repentant stance toward Civil Rights leaders. Malcolm came to see that only through forgiveness could the separate voices of the African-American movement work together to achieve their goals. If mutual forgiveness was a radical thought in 1964, Shriver reminds us that it has yet to be realized in 1994. "We are a long way from ceasing to hold the sins of the ancestors against their living children," he writes. Yet in this poignant volume, we discover how, by forgiving, enemies can progress and have progressed toward peace. A timely antidote to today's political conflicts, An Ethic for Enemies challenges to us to confront the hatreds that cripple society and threaten to destroy the global village. (shrink)

My concern in this paper is how to reconcile a central tension in Hannah Arendt’s thinking, one that – if left unresolved – may make us reluctant to endorse her political theory. Arendt was profoundly and painfully aware of the horrors of political evil; in fact, she is almost unparalleled in 20 th century thought in her concern for the consequences of mass political violence, the victims of political atrocities, and the most vulnerable in political (...) society – the stateless, the pariahs, the outcasts. At least, this is the case in her discussions of concrete, historical political situations. Yet in her philosophical writings, she continues to argue that the political realm ultimately redeems human existence, and furthermore, that politics should remain distinct and autonomous from moral evaluation. Political action must be evaluated according to “greatness,” not goodness or any other explicitly moral or even ethical standard. She goes so far as to suggest that politics and morality may be deeply hostile to one another, and can only be reconciled in situations of extreme emergency. This can leave many feeling both perplexed and deeply uncomfortable with the theory of human action that Arendt proposes. Drawing on her notions of political conscience, judgment and - in particular - her account of forgiveness, in this paper I argue that Arendt offers an ethics of plurality, in which what is good is developed from what is most politically important: amor mundi, or love of our shared political world. (shrink)

This book proposes a new Ethics of Political Commemoration adapted from the Just War tradition, reflecting that remembrance is often conducted with political – and even coercive – intent. With its Ius ad Memoriam (what to commemorate) and Ius in Memoria (how to commemorate) criteria, the framework looks to guide debates that are currently inchoate so that remembrance of the past can transform relationships in the present and build a shared future. Offering a moral argument with memorable (...) illustrations, Gutbrod and Wood draw on experiences from Armenia, Georgia, Ireland, Lebanon, and Libya, while connecting to mainstream debates in Western Europe and the United States. Bringing together an ethical tradition with the practice of conflict transformation, the framework fuses two perspectives that enrich each other. The book, in providing a first systematic presentation of the ethics, seeks to engage citizens and scholars, and help those who work to transform conflicts. (shrink)

The 'ethical commonwealth', the central social element in Kant's account of religion, provides the church, as 'the moral people of God', with a role in establishing a cosmopolitan order of peace. This role functions within an interpretive realignment of Kant's critical project that articulates its central concern as anthropological: critically disciplined reason enables humanity to enact peacemaking as its moral vocation in history. Within this context, politics and religion are not peripheral elements in the critical project. They are, instead, complementary (...) social modalities in which humanity enacts its moral vocation to bring lasting peace among all peoples. (shrink)

When Istvan Hont died in 2013, the world lost a giant of intellectual history. A leader of the Cambridge School of Political Thought, Hont argued passionately for a global-historical approach to political ideas. To better understand the development of liberalism, he looked not only to the works of great thinkers but also to their reception and use amid revolution and interstate competition. His innovative program of study culminated in the landmark 2005 book Jealousy of Trade, which explores the (...) birth of economic nationalism and other social effects of expanding eighteenth-century markets. Markets, Morals, and Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont's contemporaries to assess his influence, ideas and methods. Richard Tuck, John Pocock, John Dunn, Raymond Geuss, Gareth Stedman Jones, Michael Sonenscher, John Robertson, Keith Tribe, Pasquale Pasquino, and Peter N. Miller contribute original essays on themes Hont treated with penetrating insight. (shrink)

In this lively and entertaining book, Terence Ball maintains that 'classic' works in political theory continue to speak to us only if they are periodically re-read and reinterpreted from alternative perspectives. That, the author contends, is how these works became classics, and why they are regarded as such. Ball suggests a way of reading that is both 'pluralist' and 'problem-driven'--pluralist in that there is no one right way to read a text, and problem-driven in that the reinterpretation is motivated (...) by problems that emerge while reading these texts. In addition, the subsequent readings and interpretations become more and more suffused with the interpretations of others. This tour de force, always entertaining and eclectic, focuses on the core problems surrounding many of the major thinkers. Was Machiavelli really amoral? Why did language matter so much to Hobbes--and why should it matter to us? Are the roots of the totalitarian state to be found in Rousseau? Were the utilitarians sexist in their view of the franchise? The author's aim is to show how a pluralist and problem-centered approach can shed new light on old and recent works in political theory, and on the controversies that continue over their meaning and significance. Written in a lively and accessible style, the book will provoke debate among students and scholars alike. (shrink)