In “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) initiate needed discourse on environmental justice and the...

This article critically evaluates and contests the flagship benefit delivery system Universal Credit for lone mothers by focusing on some of the ethical challenges it poses, as well as some key implications it holds for social work with lone mothers and their children. Universal Credit was first introduced in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2008, and echoes conditionality-based welfare policies adopted by neoliberal governments internationally on the assumption that paid employment offers a route out of poverty for citizens. However, research (...) evidence suggests that the risks of conditionality polices for lone parents can often include increased poverty, a deterioration in mental health or even destitution posed by paternalistic sanctions or precarious low-paid employment, which can undermine parenting capacities and children’s well-being. The article also critically appraises and questions challenges posed by an increased reliance upon contractual ethics by governments, alongside the wider behaviour-modifying policies of the workfare-orientated state. This includes that working-class lone mothers can erroneously be stigmatised as representing a morally challenged dependent burden through activation policies and risk-averse social work practices. (shrink)

In previous Ethics briefings 1 we have highlighted the developments in the case of Bell & Another v the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The case concerned a judicial review of the practice of prescribing puberty blocking treatment to children and young people at the Gender Identity Development Service managed by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. The Court of Appeal in its judgement2 found the Trust’s practices to be lawful, and overturned previous guidance given by the (...) High Court which had contradicted the 'Gillick principle' regarding whether a child or young person could consent to medical treatment, without the consent of its parent. Despite this legal success, concerns over the GIDS continued. In September, NHS England commissioned an independent and wide-ranging review of gender identity services for children and young people led by Dr Hilary Cass, past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Dr Cass’s Interim review, published in March,3 has resulted in a decision by NHS England to close the GIDS at the Trust by Spring 2023, and replace it with regional centres at existing children’s hospitals offering more 'holistic care' with ’strong links to mental health services’. It is proposed that regional centres will be established at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. Dr Cass was critical of the clinic’s failure to collect sufficient data on the impact of puberty blockers in under-16s. …. (shrink)

Danielle Régnier-Bohler a dirigé une œuvre collective d’une grande originalité et d’une réelle importance en offrant au grand public comme aux médiévistes, pour la première fois, une anthologie de la littérature féminine du Moyen Âge fort ample et agrémentée d’études réalisées par les meilleurs spécialistes. Au-delà des genres littéraires, des frontières linguistiques et des siècles, comme son nom l’indique, cette belle œuvre a pour premier désir de rendre leur voix aux femmes ; ces femmes si...

Ce volume est issu d’une journée d’étude tenue en 2005 à l’initiative du groupe Questes qui à Paris IV coordonne les recherches de médiévistes littéraires. Après la belle introduction de Jean-Jacques Vincensini, qui reprend les conclusions des différentes contributions en les amplifiant et en les situant dans un cadre plus nettement anthropologique, l’ouvrage compte sept communications ; s’y ajoutent une substantielle conclusion de Paulette L’Hermite-Leclercq et une brève post-face d’Élisabet...

Should citizens have equal say regarding the running of society? Following the principles of democracy, and most of political philosophy: yes (at least at a fundamental level, thus allowing for representatives and the like). Indeed, comparing the main alternative seemingly supports this intuition. Epistocracy would instead give power just to the most epistemically competent. Yet testing citizens’ political and economic knowledge looks apt to disproportionately disempower marginalised groups, making the position seem like a nonstarter and democracy the clear winner. Nevertheless, (...) this paper argues against giving citizens equal say, or at least, it offers the strongest possible motivation for this position. In particular, I introduce the progressive case for epistocracy, and what I term standpoint epistocracy. This account refigures the relevant notion of political competence such that it is not the most privileged classes who would most likely constitute our epistocracy, but rather, the least. The resulting picture considerably improves on traditional versions of epistocracy and also democracy. (shrink)

A trenchant defense of hierarchy in different spheres of our lives, from the personal to the political All complex and large-scale societies are organized along certain hierarchies, but the concept of hierarchy has become almost taboo in the modern world. Just Hierarchy contends that this stigma is a mistake. In fact, as Daniel Bell and Wang Pei show, it is neither possible nor advisable to do away with social hierarchies. Drawing their arguments from Chinese thought and culture as well (...) as other philosophies and traditions, Bell and Wang ask which forms of hierarchy are justified and how these can serve morally desirable goals. They look at ways of promoting just forms of hierarchy while minimizing the influence of unjust ones, such as those based on race, sex, or caste. Which hierarchical relations are morally justified and why? Bell and Wang argue that it depends on the nature of the social relation and context. Different hierarchical principles ought to govern different kinds of social relations: what justifies hierarchy among intimates is different from what justifies hierarchy among citizens, countries, humans and animals, and humans and intelligent machines. Morally justified hierarchies can and should govern different spheres of our social lives, though these will be very different from the unjust hierarchies that have governed us in the past. A vigorous, systematic defense of hierarchy in the modern world, Just Hierarchy examines how hierarchical social relations can have a useful purpose, not only in personal domains but also in larger political realms. (shrink)

Le Poidevin has recently presented an argument that gives rise to a serious problem for relationist theories of space. It appeals to the simple geometrical fact that if A, B and C are three points lying in a straight line, then AB and BC together entail AC. He suggests that an ontological relationship of supervenience must be appealed to to explain this entailment. Given this thesis of supervenience, relationism is implausible. I argue that the problem that Le Poidevin raises for (...) relationism should be rejected, because the thesis of supervenience is false. The latter rests upon what Le Poidevin refers to as ‘The explanatory principle', a principle which he claims to be a natural extension of the truthmaker principle. Contrary to this, I argue that given any plausible theory of truthmaking, the explanatory principle is false. With the rejection of this principle, Le Poidevin's argument against relationism collapses. (shrink)

Early discussions of ?climate justice? have been dominated by economists rather than political philosophers. More recently, analytical liberal political philosophers have joined the debate. However, the philosophical discussion of climate justice remains in its early stages. This paper considers one promising approach based on human rights, which has been advocated recently by several theorists, including Simon Caney, Henry Shue and Tim Hayward. A basic argument supporting the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights is presented. Four objections to this (...) argument are examined: the ?future persons? objection; the ?risk? objection; the ?collective causation? objection; and the ?demandingness? objection. This critical examination leads to a more detailed specification and defence of the claim that anthropogenic climate change violates human rights. (shrink)

Many views rely on the idea that it can never be rational to have high confidence in something like, “P, but my evidence doesn’t support P.” Call this idea the “Non-Akrasia Constraint”. Just as an akratic agent acts in a way she believes she ought not act, an epistemically akratic agent believes something that she believes is unsupported by her evidence. The Non-Akrasia Constraint says that ideally rational agents will never be epistemically akratic. In a number of recent papers, the (...) Non-Akrasia Constraint has been called into question. The goal of this paper is to defend it... for the most part. (shrink)

The most widespread statement of political philosophy is presented here in the simplified and trivialised form of “man is X; he must become Y. ” Man must do so at the same time for himself, for his own survival, but also for the good of all, of the Community, of the City: the plurality must absolutely, in any way whatsoever, give way to unity, subject to [sous peine] and under threat of chaos. The essential question found confronting political doctrines, moreover (...) since the prominence of the idea of democracy is the following: how to bring about the existence of a united society across a heterogeneous social body? The response from philosophy articulates itself around three principle schemas: the theoretical construction of a unified community under the order of similar laws to those of nature (Platonic schema); the search for the best regime, which will have as its ultimate end the moderation and perpetual regulation of conflicts, by an optimal combination of freedom and stability (Aristotelian schema); and the theorisation of the “end of politics” by the locating of a “social wrong” inscribed in a structure doomed to collapse by the practical negation of its ideological foundations (Marxian schema and derivatives). The mode of thought which imposes itself here is decisional. Beyond the third schema which constitutes in some way a meta-political critique, and necessitates that it alone has a particular analysis, in the two preceding, man constitutes a kind of material – raw or primary, depending – that philosophy will work on, and sculpt to give it a form that harmonises fully with the Whole that it prescribes. In political philosophy, we always turn more or less around the “Let’s make man” of Hobbes, that is, around the technical transformation of a material given. Or to say it otherwise: the creation of an oeuvre from crude and imperfect elements, an oeuvre thought like a masterpiece – that is to say, one that contains within it an idea of perfection and permanence – but doomed here to serial reproduction. (shrink)

On sait peu de choses d’Edme Mariotte, membre de l’Académie royale des sciences de 1668 à 1684. Une analyse de son Essai de logique montre cependant que, pour défendre ses pratiques expérimentales, il s’appropria des bribes venues de différentes traditions intellectuelles. Ainsi, ce livre examine ce qu’on entendait par « méthode » à la fin du XVIIe siècle, les épistémologies de la physique qui s’affrontaient alors, quelques débats ouverts par la gestion de l’héritage cartésien. Mais l’essentiel sera peut-être la question (...) suivante : comment reconstituer les idées d’un savant ordinaire, qui n’a ni bouleversé l’ordre des sciences, ni montré une perspicacité épistémologique exceptionnelle ? (shrink)

In his profound and deeply personal new book, New York Times bestselling author Rob Bell explores the endless dynamic questions and connections that have shaped his life to provide powerful insight into understanding your purpose and place in the world. Our home is a universe of endless dynamic connections that never stop inviting us to participate in the great mysterious love at the heart of it all. Everything is Spiritual is a brief history of how these ideas about creation, (...) love, and connection shaped the author--and can shape every one of us. In this book, Rob Bell explores the concept that what people really want, more than anything, is to understand their purpose here--so much so that it gives them an abiding sense of awe and wonder. And when you embrace where and who you come from and your wounds and pains and regrets, you will discover that there's an invitation lurking there in the mess of life: an invitation to expand just like the universe has been doing for 13 billions years. There is a space beyond all the parts and divisions and differences and polarization where you see that it's all one connected whole and it's all rigged in favor of your growth, expansion, and joy. (shrink)

Believing rationally is epistemically valuable, or so we tend to think. It’s something we strive for in our own beliefs, and we criticize others for falling short of it. We theorize about rationality, in part, because we want to be rational. But why? I argue that how we answer this question depends on how permissive our theory of rationality is. Impermissive and extremely permissive views can give good answers; moderately permissive views cannot.

Ce texte a déjà paru dans la revue Sociologie, N° 4, vol. 4 | 2014. Nous remercions Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier et Marie Plessz de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : La théorie des pratiques est un courant d'analyse qui s'est développé en Grande-Bretagne et dans les pays scandinaves dans les années 2000. L'analyse de pratiques de consommation est l'un de ses domaines de prédilection. Se réclamant de Bourdieu et de Giddens, elle s'oppose à la fois aux analyses (...) de la consommation reposant sur (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Liberalism and ecologism are widely regarded as incompatible. Liberalism and (anthropocentric) environmentalism might be compatible but liberalism and (non-anthropocentric) ecologism are not. A liberal state cannot promote policies for ecological or ecocentric reasons. An individual cannot be both a liberal and a committed advocate of ecologism. This paper challenges these claims. It is argued that Rawls’s ‘political liberalism’ is compatible with ecologism and, in particular, the idea of ‘ecological justice’. A Rawlsian state can promote ecological justice. A committed political liberal (...) can also be a committed advocate of ecological justice. The argument is developed through a close textual examination of Rawls’s brief discussion of our duties to ‘animals and the rest of nature’. Rawls leaves far more scope for liberal ecologism than his critics have suggested. The proposed version of liberal ecologism is defended against charges of substantive and procedural bias toward humans and against nonhuman nature. Liberal ecologism may not be enough for some ecologists-especially ‘ecological constitutionalists’ seeking constitutional protection for nonhuman nature-but it is a serious and defensible political and moral theory. (shrink)

Epistemologists often assume that rationality bears an important connection to the truth. In this paper I examine the implications of this commitment for permissivism: if rationality is a guide to the truth, can it also allow some leeway in how we should respond to our evidence? I first discuss a particular strategy for connecting permissive rationality and the truth, developed in a recent paper by Miriam Schoenfield. I argue that this limited truth-connection is unsatisfying, and the version of permissivism that (...) supports it faces serious challenges; so, for mainstream permissivism, the truth problem is still unsolved. I then discuss a strategy available to impermissivists, according to which rationality bears a quite strong connection to truth. I argue that this second strategy is successful. (shrink)

Introduction -- 1. Problem of the New -- 2. Problem of Relations -- 3. Problem of Emergence -- 4. Problem of One and Many -- 5. Plato and the Third Man Argument -- 6. Bradley and the Problem of Relations -- 7. Moore, Russell and the Birth of Analytic Philosophy -- 8. Russell and Deleuze on Leibniz -- 9. On Problematic Fields -- 10. Kant and Problematic Ideas -- 11. Armstrong and Lewis on the Problem of One and Many -- (...) 12. Determinables and Determinates -- 13. The Limits of Representational Thought -- 14. Learning from a Cup of Coffee -- 15. Carnap and the Fate of Metaphysics -- 16. Truth and Relevance -- Conclusion. (shrink)

The conventional view of Hobbes’s commonwealth is that it was inspired by contemporary theories of tyranny. This article explores the idea that a paradigm for Hobbes’s state could in fact be found in early modern readings of Aristotle on democracy, as found in Book Three of the Politics. It argues that by the late sixteenth century, these meditations on the democratic body politic had developed claims about unity, mythology, and personation that would become central to Hobbes’s own theory of the (...) commonwealth. Tracing the history of commentary on the relevant passages in Aristotle reveals new perspectives not only on the political theories of both Aristotle and Hobbes but also introduces modern readers to the richness of early modern commentaries on classical political texts. The article ends with some thoughts on why attention to traditions of commentary might be valuable for political theorists today. (shrink)

Credences, unlike full beliefs, can’t be true or false. So what makes credences more or less accurate? This chapter offers a new answer to this question: credences are accurate insofar as they license true educated guesses, and less accurate insofar as they license false educated guesses. This account is compatible with immodesty; : a rational agent will regard her own credences to be best for the purposes of making true educated guesses. The guessing account can also be used to justify (...) certain coherence constraints on rational credence, such as probabilism. The chapter concludes by discussing some advantages of the guessing account over rival accounts of accuracy. (shrink)

This issue of Philosophical Papers assembles eight essays that are part of the larger conversation on African philosophy and the analytic tradition. Several leading philosophers have contributed to this issue with provocative remarks, beginning with a three-way debate on the nature of philosophy itself as understood and practiced in the African context. It continues with essays on consensual democracy, authoritarianism, race and cultural identity, the cosmopolitan ideal, and belief and witchcraft.

UK higher education reform (BIS, 2011) has been presented as a common‐sense movement towards efficiency. This article will argue that, in reality, the marketisation of higher education is a movement towards negative freedom, defined after Berlin (2007) as unrestricted choice. Using Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra as a means to explore the relationship between rationality and sensibility, it considers how negative freedom may undermine human connectivity and debase our relationships. In so doing, this article challenges the idea that importing the market (...) system into education will enhance the ‘student experience’. (shrink)

The Routledge Handbook of Emergence is an outstanding reference source and exploration of the concept of emergence, and is the first collection of its kind.

Communitarian thinkers have argued that liberalism devalues community in modern societies. This essay assesses the three main strands of the contemporary debate betweeen communitarianism and liberalism: (1) the communitarian critique of the liberal universalism, (2) the communitarian critique of liberal individualism, and (3) the communitarian critique of liberal politics. In each case, it is argued that the debate has moved from fairly abstract philosophical controversies to more concrete engagement with political disputes in Western as well as East Asian societies.

William James famously tells us that there are two main goals for rational believers: believing truth and avoiding error. I argues that epistemic consequentialism—in particular its embodiment in epistemic utility theory—seems to be well positioned to explain how epistemic agents might permissibly weight these goals differently and adopt different credences as a result. After all, practical versions of consequentialism render it permissible for agents with different goals to act differently in the same situation. -/- Nevertheless, I argue that epistemic consequentialism (...) doesn’t allow for this kind of permissivism and goes on to argue that this reveals a deep disanalogy between decision theory and the formally similar epistemic utility theory. This raises the question whether epistemic utility theory is a genuinely consequentialist theory at all. (shrink)

La philosophie doit-elle, aujourd'hui encore, quelque chose à la langue, à la culture et à la pensée grecques? Sophie Klimis, en s’entretenant avec Frank Pierobon, réfléchit sur ces manières de penser et ces nouvelles formes de vie, inventées en Grèce ancienne, conjointement à l’émergence du projet politique de la démocratie. Elle propose un voyage vers ces temps lointains et toujours inspirants, pour en percevoir les ressources, notamment en montrant comment des dispositifs institutionnels et symboliques – dont ceux du choeur (...) dans le théâtre – structurent la Cité et forment ses citoyens. (shrink)

This book develops a unique phenomenology of plurality by introducing Hannah Arendt’s work into current debates taking place in the phenomenological tradition. Loidolt offers a systematic treatment of plurality that unites the fields of phenomenology, political theory, social ontology, and Arendt studies to offer new perspectives on key concepts such as intersubjectivity, selfhood, personhood, sociality, community, and conceptions of the "we." _Phenomenology of Plurality_ is an in-depth, phenomenological analysis of Arendt that represents a viable third way between the "modernist" and (...) "postmodernist" camps in Arendt scholarship. It also introduces a number of political and ethical insights that can be drawn from a phenomenology of plurality. This book will appeal to scholars interested in the topics of plurality and intersubjectivity within phenomenology, existentialism, political philosophy, ethics, and feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Možemo se pitati postoji li nešto specifično za to kako je biti žensko ili muško (pitanje o spolu). I možemo se pitati postoji li nešto specifično za to kako je to biti ženstven ili muževan (pitanje o rodu). Mislim da je odgovor na oba pitanja "Očito da". Zašto da? I zašto očito? Svijest je rodno određena i očito rodno određena, jer su političke stvarnosti onoga kako je to biti muževan i kako je to biti ženstven, različite. Osim toga, svijest je (...) također seksualno određena i očito seksualno određena, jer su fizičke stvarnosti onoga kako je to biti muško i kako je to biti žensko, različite. I zato odgovor na naša dva pitanja nije samo "Da", već "Očito da". (shrink)

"Phenomenology has primarily been concerned with conceptual questions about knowledge and ontology. However, in recent years the rise of interest and research in applied phenomenology has seen the study of political phenomenology move to a central place in the study of phenomenology generally. The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology is the first major collection on this important topic. Comprising 35 chapters by an international team of expert contributors, the Handbook is organised into six clear parts, each with its own Introduction (...) by the editors: Founders of Phenomenology Existentialist Phenomenology Phenomenology of the Social and Political World Phenomenology of Alterity Phenomenology in Debate Contemporary Developments. Full attention is given to central figures in the phenomenological movement, including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Levinas as well as those whose contribution to political phenomenology is more distinctive, such as Arendt, De Beauvoir and Fanon. Also included are chapters on gender, race and intersectionality, disability, and technology. Ideal for those studying phenomenology, continental philosophy and political theory, The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology bridges an important gap between a major philosophical movement and contemporary political issues and concepts"--. (shrink)

Toute phénoménologie, par définition, part de et en reste au monde tel qu'il s'offre à la conscience. Une "phénoménologie de la transcendance" semble donc une entreprise impossible, puisqu'il s'agirait de chercher dans l'expérience du monde "quelque chose" qui ne puisse en aucune manière que ce soit être rapporté au monde. L'expression de "phénoménologie de la transcendance" est ainsi formellement contradictoire: car si la transcendance était "phénomène", et pouvait faire l'objet d'une "-logie", d'une saisie par le logos, elle serait précisément de (...) l'ordre de ce qui peut être mis sous la proposition "il y a quelque chose plutôt que rien". Pour le dire autrement, si la transcendance était objet d'expérience possible, alors justement elle ne serait plus transcendance. Par principe, une "phénoménologie de la transcendance" ne cherchera donc pas positivement "quelque chose" de transcendant dans le monde. Il ne pourra s'agir que d'une phénoménologie de la trace: phénoménologie de ce qui est au monde sur le mode de la non-présence et de la non-présentabilité, phénoménologie de ce qui "brille par son absence" (p. 14-15). (shrink)

This article takes as its starting point the central place given to contradiction by Hermann Goldschmidt in his book Contradiction Set Free, and it compares his approach with that of the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch. At the same time as Goldschmidt, Jankélévitch also assigned a central role to contradiction in thought, so much so that he often referred to his own philosophical method as “paradoxology.” For him, as for Goldschmidt, paradox is the driving force behind thought that is always on the (...) move. This article presents the main features of Jankélévitch’s paradoxology and illustrates it with two themes: forgiveness and Jewish identity. By highlighting this proximity between Goldschmidt’s approach and that of Jankélévitch, I suggest that they are both part of a more general movement in continental philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century, one of whose main challenges was to rethink philosophical rationality in depth. (shrink)

The actions of able agents are often reliably successful. I argue that their success may be modally robust along two dimensions. The first dimension helps distinguish the exercise of abilities, which requires local control, from lucky success. The second concerns the global availability of acts: agents with the ability to φ can φ across a variety of circumstances. I introduce a framework that captures the two dimensions and their interaction, and show how it bears on a disagreement about the modal (...) force the robustness of ability requires: while local control involves a kind of local necessity, global availability does not. (shrink)

According to a rights forfeiture theory of punishment, liability to punishment hinges upon the notion that criminals forfeit their rights against hard treatment. In this paper, I assume the success of rights forfeiture theory in establishing the permissibility of punishment but aim to develop the view by considering how forfeited rights might be reclaimed. Built into the very notion of proportionate punishment is the idea that forfeited rights can be recovered. The interesting question is whether punishment is the sole means (...) for reclaiming forfeited rights. I argue for a pluralistic theory of rights reclamation, according to which, there are multiple ways by which a wrongdoer can recapture her forfeited rights. In particular, I argue that offering remorseful compensation is a valid means by which a wrongdoer might partially, or fully, reclaim her right against punishment. (shrink)

What determines qualitative sameness and difference? This book explores four principal accounts of the ontological basis of properties, including universals, trope theory, resemblance nominalism, and class nominalism, considering the assumptions and ontolological commitments which are required to make each into a plausible account of properties. -/- The latter half of the book investigates the applications of property theory and the different conceptions of properties which might be adopted with these in mind: first, the possibility and desirability of individuating properties, and (...) the distinction between sparse and abundant conceptions of properties; second, the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties; third, the relationship between properties and their causal powers, and whether this is necessary or contingent; fourth, the relationship between properties and causation, modality, and laws of nature; finally, whether properties exist objectively, and if they do, what our epistemic position is with respect to such entities. (shrink)