This essay theorizes how the enforcement of universal norms contributes to the solidification of sovereign rule. It does so by analyzing John Locke’s argument for the founding of the commonwealth as it emerges from his notion of universal crime in the Second Treatise of Government. Previous studies of punishment in the state of nature have not accounted for Locke’s notion of universal crime which pivots on the role of mankind as the subject of natural law. I argue that the dilemmas (...) specific to enforcing the natural law against “trespasses against the whole species” drive the founding of sovereign government. Reconstructing Locke’s argument on private property in light of universal criminality, the essay shows how the introduction of money in the state of nature destabilizes the normative relationship between the self and humanity. Accordingly, the failures of enforcing the natural law require the partitioning of mankind into separate peoples under distinct sovereign governments. This analysis theorizes the creation of sovereign rule as part of the political productivity of Locke’s notion of universal crime and reflects on an explicitly political, rather than normative, theory of “humanity.”. (shrink)

Both in scholarship on the Weimar Republic and in historical research in general, many conceptions of ‘crisis’ tend to remain vague and difficult to operationalize. These operational defects of the concept of crisis arise inevitably, we argue, from the concept’s constitutive link to human perception on the one hand and from its subsumption of complex interconnections of historical processes within different subsystems on the other. Frequently today, in both ordinary and historiographical usage, this basic openness of the concept of crisis (...) is foreclosed when it is deployed with a solely negative connotation of ‘downfall’ and ‘decline’, or of something being thrown into question or jeopardy. Such uses obscure a way in which a crisis can evoke not only the pessimistic sense of a threat to the old order but also the optimistic scenario of a chance for renewal. A one-sidedly negative understanding of crisis as prelude to calamity, we argue here, is problematic for historical research for two reasons. Firstly, it obscures comprehension of the consciousness of actors in the relevant period who at any particular moment can have had no prior knowledge of the crisis’s outcome. Secondly, it tends to reify the relevant crisis and to occlude its basic character as something narratively constructed in the accounts of both contemporaries and subsequent historiography. (shrink)

Die Evolutionstheorie hat sich in den letzten 150 Jahren von einer speziellen naturwissenschaftlichen zur universellen wissenschaftlichen Theorie entwickelt.

In kritischer Distanz zu etablierten religiosen Institutionen suchen sie auf ihre spezifische Weise Lebenssinn zu generieren. Insoweit sind sie selbst zentrale Akteure der modernen Religionsgeschichte.

This book addresses the endangerment of children’s bodies in affluent societies. Bodily integrity is an important part of a child’s physical and mental well-being, but it can also be violated through various threats during childhood; not only affecting physical health but also causing mental damage and leading to distortions in the development of the self. The authors give an account of three areas, which present different serious dangers: (1) body and eating, (2) body and sexuality, and (3) body and violence. (...) Through an in-depth examination of the available theoretical and empirical knowledge, as well as a thorough ethical analysis, the central injustices in the mentioned areas are identified and the agents with responsibilities towards children displayed. The authors conclude by providing invaluable insight into the necessity of an ethical basis for policies to safeguard children and their bodies. (shrink)

Insight problems are difficult because the initially activated knowledge hinders successful solving. The crucial information needed for a solution is often so far removed that gaining access to it through restructuring leads to the subjective experience of “Aha!”. Although this assumption is shared by most insight theories, there is little empirical evidence for the connection between the necessity of restructuring an incorrect problem representation and the Aha! experience. Here, we demonstrate a rare case where previous knowledge facilitates the solving of (...) insight problems but reduces the accompanying Aha! experience. Chess players were more successful than non‐chess players at solving the mutilated checkerboard insight problem, which requires retrieval of chess‐related information about the color of the squares. Their success came at a price, since they reported a diminished Aha! experience compared to controls. Chess players’ problem‐solving ability was confined to that particular problem, since they struggled to a similar degree to non‐chess players to solve another insight problem (the eight‐coin problem), which does not require chess‐related information for a solution. Here, chess players and non‐chess players experienced the same degree of insight. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag hinterfragt das weitläufige Verständnis von Polyamorie als eine Form der Liebe beziehungsweise Beziehungsform, die (1) notwendigerweise romantische Liebesbeziehungen in einem engen Verständnis beinhaltet, das heißt einschließlich Sex, und (2) Freundschaft ausschließt. Über eine Untersuchung und Zurückweisung der These, dass romantische Liebesbeziehungen ohne Sex nicht denkbar sind, kommt der Beitrag zu einer Analyse von romantischen Liebesbeziehungen und Freundschaften. Anhand einer vergleichenden Analyse der in romantischen Liebesbeziehungen wie auch in engen Freundschaften realisierten Beziehungsgüter kann gezeigt werden, dass sich diese kaum (...) in einem normativ relevanten Sinne unterscheiden. Letztendlich kann Polyamorie damit plausiblerweise nur auf einem weiten Verständnis romantischer Liebesbeziehungen aufbauen, was das Konzept inklusiver gestaltet und in polyamoren Beziehungskonstellationen Raum für Freundschaften und nicht-sexuelle romantische Beziehungen bietet. Dieser Artikel leistet damit nicht nur einen explikativen und präzisierenden Beitrag zur philosophischen Debatte rund um Polyamorie, sondern möchte den Begriff neu prägen. (shrink)

_Focused on existentialism, this issue explores current writers, thinkers, and texts affiliated with the movement_ In 1948, _Yale French Studies_ devoted its inaugural issue to existentialism. This anniversary issue responds seventy years later. In recent years, new critical and theoretical approaches have reconfigured existentialism and refreshed perspectives on the philosophical, literary, and stylistic movement. This special issue restores the writers, thinkers, and texts of the movement to their subversive strength. In so doing, it illustrates existentialism’s present relevance, revealing how the (...) concerns of the past urgently bristle into our own times. (shrink)

The development and use of large and dynamic health data repositories designed to support research pose challenges to traditional informed consent models. We used semi-structured interviewing to elicit diverse research stakeholders' views of a model of consent appropriate to participation in initiatives that entail collection, long-term storage, and undetermined future research use of multiple types of health data. We demonstrate that, when considering health data repositories, research stakeholders replace a concept of consent as informed with one in which consent is (...) engaged. In engaged consent, a participant's ongoing relationship with a repository serves as a substitute or adjunct to information exchange at enrollment. We detail research stakeholders' views of the risks of engaged consent and suggest questions for further study about engagement and consent procedures in initiatives that aim to store data for future unspecified research purposes. (shrink)

Virginia Held, best known for her landmark book Rights and Goods, has made an indelible mark on the fields of ethics, feminist philosophy, and social and political thought. Her impact on a generation of feminist thinkers is unrivaled and she has been at the forfront of discussions about the way in which an ethic of care can affect social and political matters. These new essays by leading contemporary philosophers range over all of these areas. While each stands alone, the essays (...) together demonstrate the lasting value of Held's work to the field. Includes an afterword by Held. (shrink)

Insight problems are likely to trigger an initial, inappropriate mental representation, which needs to be restructured in order to find the solution. Despite the widespread theoretical assumption t...

Health is certainly a valuable asset in the life of every human being and of particular relevance for a flourishing childhood. As empirical research concerning the social determinants of health shows, its distribution can, at least to a certain extent, be influenced by the way a society is arranged. Many philosophers now acknowledge that a fair distribution of health has to be a central part of a just society and they discuss to what extent a right to health can be (...) justified. However, they do not typically distinguish between physical and mental health and neglect the special problems arising from these distinct, though related, perspectives. In this paper, we argue in favour of such a distinction and ask whether a minimally just society ought to include mental health among the goods that are to be distributed in a fair way among its children. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between mental health and happiness and ask whether making mental health a subject of justice implies that children are entitled not only to a healthy but also to a happy childhood. Despite the positive impact of happiness on the lives of children, we conclude that happiness cannot be incorporated into a functional theory of justice, since it does not fully meet the criteria of objectivity, measurability and influenceability. (shrink)

Erstmals werden in einem deutschsprachigen Werk zentrale Theorien sowie theoretische Konzepte der Internationalen Politischen Ökonomie vorgestellt. Der Band gibt einen fundierten Überblick über verschiedene theoretische Perspektiven mit ihren jeweiligen Stärken und Schwächen und verortet diese in der internationalen Diskussion. Der Band ermöglicht es, sich in die Vielfalt der verschiedenen Theorien einzuarbeiten – von Rational Choice, Keynesianismus und Institutionalismus über feministische Theorie, Regulations- und Weltsystemtheorie bis hin zu konstruktivistischen und poststrukturalistischen Theorien. Weiterhin werden wichtige Konzepte wie Laissez-Faire-Liberalismus, Finanzialisierung, Macht und die (...) Veränderung von Staatlichkeit diskutiert. ​. (shrink)

The European Universities Initiative (EUI), created by the European Commission in 2017, is a recent novel phenomenon within the European Union policy toolkit that explicitly targets the development of transnational cooperation in higher education (HE). To date, the EUI counts 44 European university alliances, involving around 340 HE institutions. In this paper, we argue that the EUI can be seen as a case of a transnational institution building process representing a potentially significant structural reform for European higher education. Anchored in (...) new institutionalism, we explore the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions of the EUI. Methodologically, this study analyzes the perspectives of European policy actors (n = 4), a set of policy documents (n = 13) and the mission statements of the EUI’s partnerships funded before 2022 (n = 41). The results show that the EUI emerges as the ‘next level of cooperation’ in European HE since it aims to transform European cooperation (regulative dimension), to create and diffuse a new model for European HE following a challenge-based approach (normative dimension), and to work as a way to reinforce and institutionalize European and global scripts for European HE (cultural-cognitive dimension). (shrink)

'A thorough examination of the nature and value of forgiveness....This book stays close to its subject matter and moves within a tight focus. It is well written and thoroughly researched.'.

The capability approach, which is closely connected to the works of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, is one possible theoretical framework that could be used to answer the question as to why poverty is a problem from a moral point of view. In this paper we will focus on the normative philosophical capability approach rather than the social scientific and descriptive perspective. We will show that the approach characterizes poverty mainly as a limitation of freedom and that it is precisely (...) this aspect, from its point of view, that makes poverty morally significant. This insight shifts the discussion away from questions regarding specific capabilities or lists of them-questions treated extensively in the literature-to the more general level of what constitutes the normative core of the capability approach. But as we will also discuss and argue, the role of freedom alone does not give us a complete picture of poverty but only presents us with one aspect relevant to evaluating it. A further aspect which we consider has not been adequately recognized and taken into account by most capability theorists is the experience of disrespect and humiliation, or to put it differently, a lack of recognition. (shrink)

This edition, which follows a paper on the relationship between Paul Tillich and Fritz Medicus, presents their till now largely unpublished correspondence. The letters are supplemented by other significant documents from the Andover-Harvard Theological Library, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, and the university archives of Jena and Halle.

This paper is concerned to take a closer look at the relations between Paul Tillich and Fritz Medicus, his philosophical teacher in Halle. The center of attention is on their orientation within neo-Kantianism and the Fichte and Schelling renaissance. A collection of letters and other documents reflects their involvement in events of contemporary history, their respective literary works, and an ongoing friendship.

Memory research distinguishes two components of episodes—the event or item and the spatial–temporal setting or context in which it occurred. The wordcontextis used either globally to denote the physical, social, or emotional environment at study and test or it is used locally to refer to another word or picture that was paired with a particular target. In this article, we report four experiments that investigated the influence of two different nonverbal local contexts on explicit word recognition and implicit word identification (...) test performance. In each experiment, university students studied words that were displayed against various extra-item local contexts, and the contexts were either the same or different at study and test. What differed across experiments was the nature of the contexts: for Experiments 1 and 2, it was a band of color that stretched across the computer screen, and for Experiments 3 and 4, the context was a colored line drawing. The combined findings from all experiments provide no evidence of memory context effects on priming. By contrast, recognition test performance showed reliable MCEs but only when the local context was a concrete drawing or when it was a color that was target-related or appropriate. The discussion compared these findings with those from previous studies that concerned the cueing effectiveness of verbal and nonverbal extra-item contexts. (shrink)

Respondents from Austria (N = 146) and the Czech Republic (N = 165) noted down their experiences with people from their neighbouring country and their attitudes to their own country and the neighbouring nation on feeling thermometers. The quantitative content analysis and qualitative critical discourse-inspired analysis of the open statements focused on the role of language in the construction of Czech-Austrian relations. Using qualitative analysis we enquired as to which themes were intertwined with the topic of language, and as to (...) the ways in which the participants perceived themselves, the Others, behind the border, and the relations between the two sides. We looked not only into what participants said but also how they said it. Using statistical analysis we tested the link between language-related topics in the descriptions of intergroup contact and the evaluation of the neighbouring nation as a whole. Throughout the article we compare the findings obtained by the two kinds of analysis and comment on (dis)agreement as well as on the (dis)advantages of both approaches. (shrink)

Child poverty is one of the biggest challenges of today, harming millions of children. In this book, it is investigated from a philosophical social justice perspective, primarily in the context of modern welfare states. Based on both normative theory (particularly the capability approach) and empirical evidence, the authors identify the injustices of child poverty, showing how it negatively affects the well-being of children as well as their whole life course. But child poverty is not 'given by nature'. It is avoidable (...) and there is certainly the moral duty to alleviate it. Therefore, Graf and Schweiger develop a normative theory of responsibilities, which clarifies the moral role of different agents in the poor child's environment: the family, the state and many others, that have so far been neglected in philosophical theories. They conclude their book by sketching how their theory can be extended to global child poverty and what it means to show equal respect and concern for every child - no matter where and in which context they were born. (shrink)

GOTTFRIED SCHWEIGER,GUNTER GRAF | : In this paper, we want to examine the particular vulnerability of children from an ethical perspective. We want to defend three claims: Firstly, we will argue that children’s vulnerability is best understood as a dynamic quality, meaning that as children progress through childhood, their vulnerability also undergoes particular changes. To capture this, we want to discriminate among physical, mental, social, and symbolic vulnerability, which vary according to certain features, such as age, maturity, gender, and (...) race. These different traits are furthermore important in order to understand what we owe children from an ethical perspective. In a nutshell, children have moral claims not to be harmed and to be protected against threats to their well-being and well-becoming, and these claims have to be explicated via the dynamic vulnerability of children. Finally, we will argue that one of the main issues is to balance the protection of children and their autonomy claims, which both enhance and diminish their vulnerability. | : Cet article examine la vulnérabilité particulière des enfants d’un point de vue éthique. Nous défendrons trois thèses. Premièrement, nous soutiendrons que la vulnérabilité des enfants est mieux comprise en tant que qualité dynamique, ce qui signifie que lorsque les enfants progressent durant l’enfance, leur vulnérabilité subit également des changements particuliers. Pour le mettre en relief, nous distinguerons la vulnérabilité physique, mentale, sociale et symbolique, qui varie en fonction de certaines caractéristiques telles que l’âge, la maturité, le sexe et la race. Ces différents traits sont en outre importants pour comprendre ce que nous devons aux enfants d’un point de vue éthique. En un mot, les enfants ont des exigences morales à ne pas être blessés et à être protégés contre les menaces à leur bien-être et à leur bien-devenir, et ces revendications doivent être expliquées par la vulnérabilité dynamique des enfants. Enfin, nous soutiendrons que l’un des principaux enjeux est d’équilibrer la protection des enfants et leurs revendications d’autonomie, qui à la fois renforcent et diminuent leur vulnérabilité. (shrink)

In diesem Beitrag wird das Verhalten des Papstes im europäischen Dialog der Religionen und Weltanschauungen kritisch erörtert. Am Anfang steht eine kurze Analyse der Sprache der Religionen bzw. Weltanschauungen, die in Anlehnung an Joseph Maria Bochenski durchgeführt ist. Es wird dabei die Auffassung vertreten, dass Religionen und manche Weltanschauungen Behauptungen über die Wirklichkeit aufstellen, Sprache in einer deskriptiv-kognitiven Funktion verwenden, dass ein solcher Sprachgebrauch eine epistemische Verpflichtung auf Bescheidenheit mit sich bringt und dass eine solche Verpflichtung wiederum eine Basis für (...) einen ernstgemeinten europäischen Dialog bieten könnte. Danach werden von einem theologischen Standpunkt ausgehend Bedingungen dafür untersucht, dass ein europäischer Dialog stattfinden kann. Anhand konkreter Beispiele, im Speziellen anhand der "Regensburger Rede" und der "Neuformulierung der Karfreitagsfürbitte für die Juden", wird gezeigt, wie sich der Papst im europäischen Dialog tatsächlich verhält und wie von Seiten der jeweiligen Religion auf dieses Verhalten eingegangen wird. Da er vor allem in der menschlichen Vernunft eine Brücke für einen europäischen Dialog sieht, wird anschließend auf seine Argumentation für eine Ausweitung der Vernunft und seinen Gebrauch der Wörter "Vernunft" und "Glauben" eingegangen. Dabei wird hauptsächlich auf Schriften, in denen der Papst seine Überzeugung ausdrückt, dass Religion und Vernunft sich gegenseitig korrigieren, begrenzen und unterstützen müssen, Bezug genommen. Abschließend wird ein bestimmtes Argument des Papstes für diese Überzeugung expliziert und bewertet. (shrink)

History of science's spatial turn has focused on the horizontal dimension, leaving the role of the vertical mostly unexplored as both a condition and object of scientific knowledge production. This special issue seeks to contribute to a burgeoning discussion on the role of verticality in modern sciences, building upon a wider interdisciplinary debate about the importance of the vertical and the volumetric in the making of modern lifeworlds. In this essay and in the contributions that follow, verticality appears as a (...) condition of knowledge production—a set of movements and mobilities, technical challenges, political negotiations, and bodily hardships—and an object of scientific inquiry, requiring new techniques of mapping and visualisation and generative of new insights into physical processes and temporal change. By foregrounding the vertical, historians of science can gain new insights and tell new stories about how science is done in the field, the observatory, and the laboratory, and about how those sciences have helped build a modern, three-dimensional world. (shrink)