Mindfulness has gained increasing popularity across Western societies over the past couple of decades, although mainly in forms that have been stripped of all religious content. During this period, the practice has also attracted the interest of mainstream Christian churches, which has precipitated the development of distinctively ‘Christian’ forms of mindfulness. Based on a critical discussion of the concept of appropriation in the sphere of religion, this article explores the particular logic whereby mindfulness has been appropriated within the particular ecclesiastical (...) context of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (ELCF) in light of debates in church-connected media and the content of two Finnish BA theses on pastoral care that argue for the adoption of the practice. In light of this data, the article illustrates how ELCF discourse on mindfulness has been marked by four closely interlinked requirements for the appropriation of the practice: 1. that the practice has already been thoroughly stripped of any overt religious content; 2. that it has become sufficiently scientifically validated; 3. that there is wider social and cultural interest in the practice; 4. and that the practice does not stand in opposition to the teachings of the church. (shrink)

Why do American ghettos persist? Decades after Moynihan’s report on the black family and the Kerner Commission’s investigations of urban disorders, deeply disadvantaged black communities remain a disturbing reality. Scholars and commentators today often identify some factor―such as single motherhood, joblessness, or violent street crime―as the key to solving the problem and recommend policies accordingly. But, Tommie Shelby argues, these attempts to “fix” ghettos or “help” their poor inhabitants ignore fundamental questions of justice and fail to see the urban poor (...) as moral agents responding to injustice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Royce, Racism, and the Colonial IdealWhite Supremacy and the Illusion of Civilization in Josiah Royce's Account of the White Man's Burden1Tommy J. CurryNo colony can be made by a theory of Imperialism, it can only be made by people who want to colonize and are capable of maintaining themselves as colonists.—Sir Sydney OlivierIntroductionAs with most historic white figures in philosophy, their repopularization and reintroduction into contemporary circles commits their (...) work, regardless of its initial silence, to speak to the problem of anti-Black racism in America. Josiah Royce is no different in this regard. In recent years, white scholars like Jacquelyn Kegley and Shannon Sullivan have introduced revisions to Royce's thought that make it appear multicultural and antiracist, despite the anachronism of such a contention. According to Kegley, "Royce believes, as others in the contemporary scene, that 'race' as a concept cannot be eliminated, [because] it plays too crucial a role, both positive and negative, in self- and social identification" (216). While Kegley is correct that contemporary scholars like Lucius Outlaw and Cornel West have adamantly defended the importance of race as a social and cultural entity, her claim is in stark contradiction to the racial eliminativism of other scholars like Anthony Appiah and Alain Locke, whom she also contends that Royce agrees with simultaneously.2 While it makes perfect sense for Kegley to try to put Royce in conversation with contemporary Black thinkers in race theory, her work is indicative of a trend aiming to gain currency for historic white thinkers in current race debates at the expense of historical accuracy. Black scholars who studied under Royce and applied his theories to the race problem from the mid-1900s onward, like William H. Ferris3 and William T. Fontaine,4 are ignored by white scholars because the first application of Roycean philosophy supported assimilationism. It is only today with the political and ideological [End Page 10] ethicizations of racial diversity and multiculturalism that Royce's work is interpreted as critically conserving race.5In contrast to contemporary works on Royce and race, this article seeks to evaluate the current claims for the relevance of Royce's views in contemporary debates on race. I maintain that only by taking Royce out of his historical context (late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century thought) do his ideas on race acquire a level of importance that cannot be supported by the actual evidence he himself advances. Conversely, by actually placing Royce in his historical context, this article will demonstrate that Royce's 1905 article entitled "Race Questions" (later published as "Race Questions and Prejudices" in 1906) is an unapologetic extension of his 1900 article entitled "Characteristic Tendencies of American Civilization," where Royce adamantly champions British colonialism and assimilation as the remedy to the burgeoning race problem both at home and abroad. I begin with a critical analysis that places Josiah Royce's attitudes firmly within the boundaries of his times. In what follows, I will attempt to contextualize Royce's seemingly progressive stance on Japan as part of a more general reaction whites had during the early 1900s to Russia's defeat by the Japanese. Instead of reading Royce's stance on Japan as a moment of exceptionalism, I contend that Royce's attitude was in fact a popular disposition that signaled the inevitable shift of race science away from biological determinism toward more environmentalist explanations. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I will show that Royce's disposition toward Blacks was firmly rooted in a colonial and assimilationist logic that ultimately sought the cultural destruction of African-descended people. A closer look at Royce's prefatory remarks on British colonialism from 1900 and his valorization of English colonial administration in Jamaica actually reveals an insidious racial dynamic in Royce's thought that is anything but antiracist. Finally, having established Royce's philosophical stake in American assimilation and Western domination, I argue that the "provincial revision" currently in vogue amongst American philosophers working with Royce is simply not enough to overturn Royce's clearly racist investments in dealing with the race question.If I Can Think It... Then I Can Do It—Reading Royce... (shrink)

Tommy J. Curry’s provocative book The Man-Not is a justification for Black Male Studies and won the 2018 American Book Award. He posits that we should conceptualize the Black male as a victim, oppressed by his sex. The Man-Not, therefore, is a corrective of sorts, offering a concept of Black males that could challenge the existing accounts of Black men and boys desiring the power of white men who oppress them that has been proliferated throughout academic research across disciplines. (...) -/- Curry argues that Black men struggle with death and suicide, as well as abuse and rape, and their genred existence deserves study and theorization. This book offers intellectual, historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism (including Black feminism) does not yet fully understand the role that homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability play in the deaths and lives of Black males. Curry challenges how we think of and perceive the conditions that actually affect all Black males. (shrink)

Any attempt to develop biosemiotics either towards a new biological ground theory or towards a metaphysics of living nature necessitates some kind of naturalization of its semiotic concepts. Instead of standard physicalistic naturalism, a certain kind of semiotic naturalism is pursued here. The naturalized concepts are defined as referring only to the objects of our external experience. When the semiotic concepts are applied to natural phenomena in biosemiotics, there is a risk of falling into anthropomorphic errors if the semiotic concepts (...) remain mentalistic. It is suggested that there really is an anthropomorphic error or “hidden prototype fallacy” arising from Peirce’s prototype for semiosis: the research process of an experimental scientist. The fallacy lies in the concept of the object of representation — it is questionable whether there are any objects of representation for bacteria and whether the DNA-signs have any objects. The conclusion is that Peircean semiotic concepts are naturalizable but only if they are based on some more primitive concept of representation. The causal origins of representations are not relevant, only their anticipative consequences (i.e. meaning). (shrink)

This article examines whether the voting age should be lowered to 16. The dominant view in the literature is that 16-year-olds in the United Kingdom are not politically mature enough to vote since they lack political knowledge, political interest and stable political preferences. I reject this conclusion and instead argue that the voting age should be lowered to 16. First, I look at Chan and Clayton’s empirical claims and show that these features of 16- and 17-year-olds are in fact created (...) by exclusionary social practices and therefore that these features cannot be used to justify their exclusion from the vote. Second, I evaluate preliminary evidence from Austria which suggests that 16- and 17-year-olds, when actually given the vote, are politically mature. Third, I show that, on a balance of harms, considering that some 16- and 17-year-olds are mature, we still should lower the voting age even if some 16- and 17-year-olds are not politically mature. I conclude that the voting age should be lowered to 16. (shrink)

This article analyses the concept of sufficiency in relation to sustainability and discusses ethical implications for sustainable organisation in time and place. We identify three foundational conceptualisations of sufficiency related to sustainability: (1) a limits model that starts with objective boundaries imposed by the biosphere and basic human needs; (2) a preference model that treats sufficiency as a subjective inclination for moderation defined situationally; and (3) a balancing model that seeks to integrate the objective limits and subjective preferences by focussing (...) on action embedded in the socio-ecological context. This includes balancing the needs of humans with those of non-humans. The limits model builds on universal duty, the preference model on preference utilitarianism and the balancing model on action-oriented virtue ethics. The balancing model of sufficiency is well suited to meeting the needs of present and future generations as well as delivering intra- and inter-generational justice not limited to humans. (shrink)

In biosemiotics, life and living phenomena are described by means of originally anthropomorphic semiotic concepts. This can be justified if we can show that living systems as self-maintaining far from equilibrium systems create and update some kind of representation about the conditions of their self-maintenance. The point of view is the one of semiotic realism where signs and representations are considered as real and objective natural phenomena without any reference to the specifically human interpreter. It is argued that the most (...) basic concept of representation must be forward looking and that both C. Peirce’s and J. v. Uexküll’s concepts of sign assume an unnecessarily complex semiotic agent. The simplest representative systems do not have phenomenal objects or Umwelten at all. Instead, the minimal concept of representation and the source of normativity that is needed in its interpretation can be based on M. Bickhard’s interactivism. The initial normativity or natural self-interest is based on the ‘utility-concept’ of function: anything that contributes to the maintenance of a far from equilibrium system is functional to that system — every self-maintaining far from equilibrium system has a minimal natural self-interest to serve that function, it is its existential precondition. Minimal interactive representation emerges when such systems become able to switch appropriately between two or more means ofmaintaining themselves. At the level of such representations, a potentiality to detect an error may develop although no objects of representation for the system are provided. Phenomenal objects emerge in systems that are more complex. If a system creates a set of ongoingly updated ’situation images’ and can detect temporal invariances in the updating process, these invariances constitute objects for the system itself. Within them, a representative system gets an Umwelt and becomes capable of experiencing triadic signs. The relation between representation and its object is either iconic or indexical at this level. Correspondingly as in Peirce’s semeiotic, symbolic signs appear as more developed — for the symbolic signs, a more complex system is needed. (shrink)

I reply to Mills's critique of my effort to show the relevance of Rawls's theory of justice for thinking about and responding to racial injustices. Contrary to Mills's claims, my suggestion that the fair equality of opportunity principle can remedy socioeconomic disadvantages caused by the legacy of racial oppression is compatible with Rawls's framework, does not conflate distributive justice with corrective justice, and does not confuse racial injustice with economic injustice. I also raise doubts about Mills's project to radically reconstruct (...) contractarian political philosophy. He seeks to displace ideal theory with nonideal theory by foregrounding the realities of past racial domination. Against this approach, I argue that an ideal theory that abstracts away from these realities is not inherently ideological, useless for corrective justice, or too ideal to guide social reform. And I defend the view that ideal theory is indispensible for nonideal theorizing about racial justice. (shrink)

An incisive and sympathetic examination of the case for ending the practice of imprisonment Despite its omnipresence and long history, imprisonment is a deeply troubling practice. In the United States and elsewhere, prison conditions are inhumane, prisoners are treated without dignity, and sentences are extremely harsh. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended (...) altogether? In The Idea of Prison Abolition, Tommie Shelby examines the abolitionist case against prisons and its formidable challenge to would-be prison reformers. Philosophers have long theorized punishment and its justifications, but they haven’t paid enough attention to incarceration or its related problems in societies structured by racial and economic injustice. Taking up this urgent topic, Shelby argues that prisons, once reformed and under the right circumstances, can be legitimate and effective tools of crime control. Yet he draws on insights from black radicals and leading prison abolitionists, especially Angela Davis, to argue that we should dramatically decrease imprisonment and think beyond bars when responding to the problem of crime. While a world without prisons might be utopian, The Idea of Prison Abolition makes the case that we can make meaningful progress toward this ideal by abolishing the structural injustices that too often lead to crime and its harmful consequences. (shrink)

The recent pop culture iconography of the Critical Race Theory (CRT) label has attracted more devoted (white) fans than a 90s boy band. In philosophy, this trend is evidenced by the growing number of white feminists who extend their work in gender analogically to questions of race and identity. The trend is further evidenced by the unchecked use of the CRT label to describe (1) any work dealing with postcolonial authors like W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon or (2) the (...) role postcolonial themes like power, discourse, and the unconscious play in the social constructionist era. While this misnomer may seem practically insignificant, the artifice formerly known as CRT in philosophy—more adequately labeled “critical theories of race”— has been axiomatically driven by the political ideals of integration and by a revisionist commentary that seeks to expand traditional philosophical ideas, such as reason, history, and humanity, which were previously closed off by racial borders, to people of color. This “revision in the name of inclusion,” however, is not without its consequences. In order to incorporate the experiences of those who suffer under the weight of modernity and are marred by the burdens of racism into the narration of Continental and American philosophy, the theoretical perspectives in Critical Race Theory that deny the legitimacy of philosophy’s diversity agenda must necessarily be excluded.In particular, this recent move to recognize the study of race as a category of philosophical relevance has resulted in the outright denial of the nationalist and revolutionary fervor contained in the intellectual history specific to the Critical Race Theory movement started by the works of Derrick Bell.2 Instead, this new movement favors narratives that inculcate the ideals of a post-racial humanity and racial amelioration between compassionate (Black and white) philosophical thinkers dedicated to solving America’s race problem. (shrink)

This reflection on the Medicalization of Poverty asks how healthcare itself plays a role in the development of poverty. Drawing on Governor Thompson's extensive work reforming the welfare system, the reflection first stresses the importance of involving the very people impacted by any reform — a conscious process Governor Thompson used when pioneering the W-2 program in Wisconsin and then extended to the overhaul of Medicare's prescription drug benefit. Second, it stresses the advantage of developing bipartisan solutions to solve hard (...) problems such as how best to provide affordable healthcare and reduce poverty in the lives of Americans. (shrink)

Part I Philosophic Traditions Introduction to Part I 3 1 Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience 7 CORNEL WEST 2 African-American Existential Philosophy 33 LEWIS R. GORDON 3 African-American Philosophy: A Caribbean Perspective 48 PAGET HENRY 4 Modernisms in Black 67 FRANK M. KIRKLAND 5 The Crisis of the Black Intellectual 87 HORTENSE J. SPILLERS Part II The Moral and Political Legacy of Slavery Introduction to Part II 107 6 Kant and Knowledge of Disappearing Expression 110 RONALD A. T. JUDY 7 (...) Social Contract Theory, Slavery, and the Antebellum Courts 125 ANITA L. ALLEN AND THADDEUS POPE 8 The Morality of Reparations II 134 BERNARD R. BOXILL Part III Africa and Diaspora Thought Introduction to Part III 151 9 “Afrocentricity‘: Critical Considerations 155 LUCIUS T. OUTLAW, JR. 10 African Retentions 168 TOMMY L. LOTT 11 African Philosophy at the Turn of the Century 190 ALBERT G. MOSLEY Part IV Gender, Race, and Racism Introduction to Part IV 199 12 Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought 205 PATRICIA HILL COLLINS 13 Radicalizing Feminisms from “The Movement Era‘ 230 JOY A. JAMES 14 Philosophy and Racial Paradigms 239 NAOMI ZACK 15 Racial Classification and Public Policy 255 DAVID THEO GOLDBERG 16 White Supremacy 269 CHARLES W. MILLS Part V Legal and Social Philosophy Introduction to Part V 285 17 Self-Respect, Fairness, and Living Morally 293 LAURENCE M. THOMAS 18 The Legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson 306 MICHELE MOODY-ADAMS 19 Some Reflections on the Brown Decision and Its Aftermath 313 HOWARD McGARY 20 Contesting the Ambivalence and Hostility to Affirmative Action within the Black Community 324 LUKE C. HARRIS 21 Subsistence Welfare Benefits as Property Interests: Legal Theories and Moral Considerations 333 RUDOLPH V. VANTERPOOL 22 Racism and Health Care: A Medical Ethics Issue 349 ANNETTE DULA 23 Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition 360 ANGELA Y. DAVIS Part VI Aesthetic and Cultural Values Introduction to Part VI 373 24 The Harlem Renaissance and Philosophy 381 LEONARD HARRIS 25 Critical Theory, Aesthetics, and Black Modernity 386 LORENZO C. SIMPSON 26 Black Cinema and Aesthetics 399 CLYDE R. TAYLOR 27 Thanatic Pornography, Interracial Rape, and the Ku Klux Klan 407 T. DENEAN SHARPLEY-WHITING 28 Lynching and Burning Rituals in African-American Literature 413 TRUDIER HARRIS-LOPEZ 29 Rap as Art and Philosophy 419 RICHARD SHUSTERMAN 30 Microphone Commandos: Rap Music and Political Ideology 429 BILL E. LAWSON 31 Sports, Political Philosophy, and the African American 436 GERALD EARLY. (shrink)

This article develops a detailed, empirically driven analysis of the nature of the transition costs incurred in becoming disabled. Our analysis of the complex nature of these costs supports the claim that it can be wrong to cause disability, even if disability is just one way of being different. We also argue that close attention to the nature of transition costs gives us reason to doubt that well-being, including transitory impacts on well-being, is the only thing that should determine the (...) wrongness of causing or removing disability. Non-welfare considerations also defeat the claim that it is always wrong to cause disability. The upshot of these conclusions is that closer attention to the nature of transition costs supports disabled people who strenuously contest the assumption that their well-being is lower than nondisabled people. It also suggests that, in addition, disabled people should contest their opponents’ narrow account of how we should make ethical decisions regarding causing or failing to prevent disability. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend and develop a stakeholder pragmatism advanced in some of the work by Edward Freeman and colleagues. By positioning stakeholder pragmatism more in line with the democratic and ethical base in American pragmatism (as developed by William James, John Dewey and Richard Rorty), the article sets forth a fallibilistic stakeholder pragmatism that seeks to be more useful to companies by expanding the ways in which value is and can be created in a contingent world. A dialogue (...) between a defence company and peace and arbitration society is used to illustrate the main plot of this article. (shrink)

We argue that constructive approaches in epistemology and systems science, which are focused on normativity, knowledge, and communication of organisms and emphasize the primacy of activity, self-construction, and niche-construction in the cognitive agents, fit naturally to the both methodology and theory of biosemiotics. In particular, constructive view was already present in the works of the major precursors of biosemiotics: von Uexküll and Bateson, and to some extent Peirce. Biosemiotics has a chance to function as a mediating field in the theoretical (...) integration of semiotics with its construction-related sister disciplines (e.g., second order cybernetics, autopoiesis, constructivism, enactivism, and interactivism) because of its explicit assumption of the semiotic nature of life and agency and its objectified “first person” view to biosemiotic agents, the view that nevertheless avoids the agnostic attitude towards reality. (shrink)

African American history resounds with calls for black unity. From abolitionist times through the Black Power movement, it was widely seen as a means of securing a full share of America's promised freedom and equality. Yet today, many believe that black solidarity is unnecessary, irrational, rooted in the illusion of "racial" difference, at odds with the goal of integration, and incompatible with liberal ideals and American democracy. A response to such critics, We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical (...) defense of black political solidarity. Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. In developing his defense of black solidarity, he draws on the history of black political thought, focusing on the canonical figures of Martin R. Delany and W. E. B. Du Bois, and he urges us to rethink many traditional conceptions of what black unity should entail. In this way, he contributes significantly to the larger effort to re-envision black politics and to modernize the objectives and strategies of black freedom struggles for the post-civil rights era. His book articulates a new African American political philosophy--one that rests firmly on anti-essentialist foundations and, at the same time, urges a commitment to defeating racism, to eliminating racial inequality, and to improving the opportunities of those racialized as "black.". (shrink)

-/- Winner of the 2020 Josiah Royce Prize in American Idealist Thought, presented by the Josiah Royce Society, for demonstrating the extent to which Josiah Royce’s ideas about race were motivated explicitly in terms of imperial conquest. -/- Another white Man’s Burden performs a case study of Josiah Royce’s philosophy of racial difference. In an effort to lay bare the ethnological racial heritage of American philosophy, Tommy J. Curry challenges the common notion that the cultural racism of the twentieth (...) century was more progressive and less racist than the biological determinism of the 1800s. Like many white thinkers of his time, Royce believed in the superiority of the white races. Unlike today, however, whiteness did not represent only one racial designation but many. Contrary to the view of the British-born Germanophile philosopher Houston S. Chamberlain, for example, who insisted upon the superiority of the Teutonic races, Royce believed it was the Anglo-Saxon lineage that possessed the key to Western civilization. It was the birthright of white America, he believed, to join the imperial ventures of Britain—to take up the white man’s burden. To this end he advocated the domestic colonization of Blacks in the American South, suggested that America’s xenophobia was natural and necessary to protecting the culture of white America, and demanded the assimilation and elimination of cultural difference for the stability of America’s communities. Another white Man’s Burden reminds philosophers that racism has been part of the building blocks of American thought for centuries, and that this must be recognized and addressed in order for its proclamations of democracy, community, and social problems to have real meaning. (shrink)

Winner of the 2020 Josiah Royce Prize in American Idealist Thought presented by the Josiah Royce Society Another white Man’s Burden performs a case study of Josiah Royce’s philosophy of racial difference. In an effort to lay bare the ethnological racial heritage of American philosophy, Tommy J. Curry challenges the common notion that the cultural racism of the twentieth century was more progressive and less racist than the biological determinism of the 1800s. Like many white thinkers of his time, (...) Royce believed in the superiority of the white races. Unlike today however, whiteness did not represent only one racial designation but many. Contrary to the view of the British-born Germanophile philosopher Houston S. Chamberlain, for example, who insisted upon the superiority of the Teutonic races, Royce believed it was the Anglo-Saxon lineage that possessed the key to Western civilization. It was the birthright of white America, he believed, to join the imperial ventures of Britain—to take up the white man’s burden. To this end he advocated the domestic colonization of Blacks in the American South, suggested that America’s xenophobia was natural and necessary to protecting the culture of white America, and demanded the assimilation and elimination of cultural difference for the stability of America’s communities. Another white Man’s Burden reminds philosophers that racism has been part of the building blocks of American thought for centuries, and that this must be recognized and addressed in order for its proclamations of democracy, community, and social problems to have real meaning. (shrink)

American feminism’s anti-Black racism is often presented as a failure of white feminists to integrate Black women into their movement. This historiographic approach presumes that feminism was a progressive movement that merely suffered from blind spots in its approach to women’s rights due to the biases of some white women. Unlike previous research which has pointed out the individual racism of suffragettes and mid-twentieth-century feminists, this chapter argues for an understanding of the theories created and endorsed by feminists from 1860 (...) to 1980 as the consequence of feminism’s dependence on racist theories predicated on research from ethnologists and evolutionary theorists in the nineteenth and criminologists in the twentieth centuries. By looking at the primary racial target of feminist thought and activism over the centuries, the Black male, I argue scholars can more accurately trace the theories feminists used to derail Black American’s struggle for civil rights. (shrink)

Here, a distinguished group of international contributors examines what we know about, feel, and hope to accomplish in real-world environments.

Existentialism is a philosophy that flourishes in extreme situations. Identified with the period of the French Resistance when Frenchmen were held as political prisoners by the Germans, existentialism, with its call for an uncompromised allegiance to a leftist system of values, served to boost the sagging morale of French political prisoners who had witnessed during the Occupation the subversion of their nation's democratic principles by German totalitarianism.

Microgames are rapidly gaining increased attention and are highly being considered because of the technology-based media that enhances students’ learning interests and educational activities. Therefore, this study aims to develop a new construct through confirmatory factor analysis, to comprehensively understand the factors influencing the use of microgames in mathematics class. Participants of the study were the secondary school teachers in West Java, Indonesia, which had a 1-year training in microgames development. We applied a quantitative approach to collect the data via (...) online questionnaires through google form. Structural Equation Modelling with AMOS software was used to analyze the proposed model. Empirical results confirmed the perceived easy to use and subjective norm influence relationship with teachers’ microgame usage behaviors and intentions. In this condition, SN was found to have the initial significant influence on behavioral intention, as attitude, BI, and facilitating conditions also correlated with the actual use of microgames. Furthermore, the largest influential factor was BI, with the results subsequently showing that TPACK had no significant influence on the actual use of microgames. This report is expected to help bridge the gap across several previous studies, as well as contribute to the explanation and prediction of the factors influencing the teachers’ mathematical utilization of the study’s program. Besides this, it also helps to increase the use of microgames in teaching and learning activities. (shrink)

African-American/Africana philosophy has made a name for itself as a critical perspective on the inadequacies of European philosophical thought. While this polemical mode has certainly contributed to the questioning of and debates over the universalism of white philosophy, it has nonetheless left Africana philosophy dependent on these criticisms to justify its existence as “philosophical.” This practice has the effect of not only distracting Black philosophers from understanding the thought of their ancestors, but formulates the practice of Africana philosophy as “racial (...) therapy” for whites. By making the goal of Africana philosophy the transformation of the white racist to the white non-racist, Africana philosophy takes up a decidedly political (integrationist) agenda. Making this agenda the guiding ethos of Africana philosophical praxis censors both the Africana thinkers available to study and the interpretation of the figures deemed “fit” for study. Thus I conclude a culturalogic approach is the best way to delineate between the political and methodological in Africana philosophy. (shrink)

Robert F. Williams, despite being a central historical figure and noted theorist of the Black radical tradition, is ignored as a subject of philosophical relevance and political theory. His challenges to the racist segregationist regime of the South influenced generations of thinkers and revolutionaries. However he is erased from the annals of thought for his use of armed resistance. This paper aims to introduce his life and work to philosophy as material for study and situate his program of pre-emptive self-defense (...) within the Black radical tradition. (shrink)

This article focuses on exerting influence in leadership, namely manipulation in storytelling. Manipulation is usually considered an unethical approach to leadership. We will argue that manipulation is a more complex phenomenon than just an unethical way of acting in leadership. We will demonstrate through an empirical qualitative study that there are various types of manipulation through storytelling. This article makes a contribution to the literature on manipulation through leadership storytelling, offering a more systematic empirical analysis and a more nuanced view (...) of the topic than previously existed by outlining how managers engage in manipulative storytelling and what kind of ethics they link to their manipulation in leadership. Four types of manipulation in storytelling are identified in the study: humorous, pseudo-participative, seductive and pseudo-empathetic. From an ethical perspective, we will show that manipulation is not always self-evidently reprehensible. We will conclude that the dominant ethical justification for manipulation stems from its consequences. (shrink)

Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

The unchanging realities of race relations in the United States, recently highlighted by the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, demonstrate that Black Americans are still not viewed, treated or protected as citizens in this country. The rates of poverty, disease and incarceration in Black communities have been recognized by some Critical Race Theorists as genocidal acts. Despite the appeal to the international community’s interpretation of human rights, Blacks are still the most impoverished and lethally targeted group in America. Given the “white (...) racial framing” that stems from “white habitus,” and enforced systemically, the situation of Black Americans is best described through a racial realist perspective, in which racial equality is merely an illusion. Under such dire colonial circumstances, I argue that there should be a renewed discussion on the role that violence and decolonization can play in the American context. (shrink)

Intertemporal choice is the study of how people make choices about what and how much to do at various points in time, when choices at one time influence the possibilities available at other points in time. These choices are influenced by the relative value people assign to two or more payoffs at different points in time. Most choices require decision-makers to trade off costs and benefits at different points in time. These decisions may be about savings, work effort, education, nutrition, (...) exercise, health care and so forth. Since early in the twentieth century, economists have analyzed intertemporal decisions using the discounted utility model, which assumes that people evaluate the pleasures and pains resulting from a decision in much the same way that financial markets evaluate losses and gains, exponentially 'discounting' the value of outcomes according to how delayed they are in time. Discounted utility has been used to describe how people actually make intertemporal choices and it has been used as a tool for public policy. Policy decisions about how much to spend on research and development, health and education all depend on the discount rate used to analyze the decision. (shrink)