RESUMEN En este artículo se presenta una reflexión crítica de la propuesta ética liberal de Charles Taylor y su viabilidad en el contexto político de las sociedades liberales actuales. Una conformación social y política liberal se entiende como aquella donde se promueven y se defiende mayores libertades en esquemas de derechos individuales junto con la exigencia del respeto a esas garantías individuales. Sin embargo, el contexto político liberal, siendo el más idóneo en las sociedades actuales, presenta varios (...) problemas éticos que Taylor ya ha identificado como malestares de la modernidad, tales como el exceso de individualismo, la primacía de la razón instrumental y la fragmentación y polarización de la sociedad. Ante estos retos y conflictos que surgen por el propio liberalismo, la ética de Taylor es una alternativa posible para comprenderlos y gestionarlos desde un civismo ético y la promoción de metas comunes. ABSTRACT This article presents a critical reflection on the liberal ethical proposal of Charles Taylor and its viability in the political context of current liberal societies. A liberal social and political configuration is understood as one in which greater liberties are promoted and defended in individual rights schemes together with the requirement of respect for those individual guarantees. However, the liberal political context although the most suitable in current societies, presents several ethical problems that Taylor has already identified as the malaise of modernity: excess of individualism, primacy of instrumental reason and fragmentation and polarization of the society. Faced with these challenges and conflicts arising from the liberalism itself, Taylor's ethics is a possible alternative to understand and manage them from an ethical civility and the promotion of common goals. (shrink)

We analyse the liberal ethics of noninterference in social choice. A liberal principle, capturing noninterfering views of society and inspired by John Stuart Mill's conception of liberty, is examined. The principle expresses the idea that society should not penalise individuals after changes in their situation that do not affect others. An impossibility for liberal approaches is highlighted: every social decision rule that satisfies unanimity and a general principle of noninterference must be dictatorial. This raises some important (...) issues for liberal approaches in social choice and political philosophy. (shrink)

The disability rights movement (DRM) has often been closely associated with the liberal values of individual choice and independence, or the ‘ethics of agency’, where enhancing the capacity to make autonomous decisions in various policy and practice-based contexts is said to facilitate disabled people's well-being. Nevertheless, other liberal values are derived from what will be termed here the ‘ethics of self-acceptance’. The latter is more disguised in liberalism and the DRM, as rather than emphasising the capacity (...) to make autonomous decisions, self-acceptance focuses on the positive acceptance of individual limitations, but again to enhance well-being. The further argument is that while the ethics of agency and self-acceptance often logically cohere and overlap, through promoting the values of self-respect and relational autonomy, dilemmas arise from our asymmetrical, or uneven, dispositions towards time, and present and future lives and experiences. For example, positively accepting individual limitations allows for a present-oriented immersion in ‘the moment’, but which often requires some suspension of future-oriented goals and aspirations. Understanding some of the implications of this asymmetry, and the dilemmas arising from it, provide important insights concerning approaches to physical and intellectual impairments and the subsequent debates within the DRM, social policy and welfare practice. (shrink)

The claim that animals, as well as people, ‘have rights’ may often mean only that their interests ought to be given some moral weight: they should not be treated ‘cruelly’ or ‘inconsiderately’. The more demanding claim may also be made that animals should not be subjected to simple-mindedly utilitarian calculation: their choices, their liberty, should sometimes be respected even if this prevents the realization of some notionally ‘greater good’. Finally, talk of rights may have a clearly political context: if, and (...) only if, animals have rights, governments are entitled to legislate on how they should be treated. If they do not, then any laws on the subject are merely moralistic, and such as to be regretted by any sincere liberal. It is this last doctrine that I shall be investigating in this paper, with particular attention to the writings of Regan and McCloskey. Only in this context, so it seems to me, does much hang upon the question of whether animals ‘really’ have rights: for those outside the liberal, or libertarian, tradition it is enough to know that we ought not to disregard the suffering of our fellow-creatures, nor treat it merely ‘aggregatively’. (shrink)

This article merely refers to some fundamental theses developed by the author already in his book Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. The strategy of the argument takes the following path: First, it begins with some reflections by Paul Ricoeur about universal civilization and its particular cultures; second, it summarizes a non-eurocentric historical perspective that is pertinent to the Modern Globalizing System; third, it describes the asymmetrical location of the "participants" which resulted from the violent (...) process of inclusion in the World System; forth, it points out to certain aspects through which one can see ethical and critical demands within the horizon of globalization; fifth, in conclusion the author suggests some relevant topics for future discussions. (shrink)

High cultures and the inter-regional system: beyond Hellenocentrism -- The material moment of the ethics, practical truth -- Formal morality, intersubjective validity -- Ethical feasibility and the "goodness claim" -- The ethical critique of the prevailing system : from the perspective of the negativity of the victims -- The anti-hegemonic validity of the community of victims -- The liberation principle -- Appendix I. some theses in the order of their appearance in the text -- Appendix II. Sais: capital of (...) Egypt. (shrink)

This book re-assesses the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda from the vantage point of socially-engaged religion in a time of global dislocations and inequities. Due to the complexity of Vivekananda as a historical figure on the cusp of a new era, few works offer a nuanced, academic examination of his liberative vision and legacy.

The notion of the “manly Englishman” and the “effeminate Bengali” was a recurring theme in nineteenth-century colonial discourse, and has now become the subject of extensive scholarly discussion in various academic disciplines. Both the colonizer and the colonized produced varied, com plex and ambivalent images of each other and their religious traditions. This paper looks at how the colonized reacted to the colonizers’ versions of Hinduism, focusing particularly on how Swami Vivekananda, a nineteenth century Bengali Hindu saṃnyāsi, responded to colonial (...) and missionary representations of Hinduism as an effeminate religion. In doing so, the paper draws attention to how Vivekananda drew on resources from within and outside the tradition, in order to forge a distinctive style of Hinduism— “a man-making religion”—a robust kind of Vedantic spirituality that combined both physical and spiritual manliness. (shrink)

I begin by briefly tracing the history of the split between environmental ethics and animal liberation, go on to sketch a theory of value that I think is implicit in animal liberation, and explain how this theory is consistent with strong environmental commitments. I conclude with some observations about problems that remain.

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop normative standards that allow us to distinguish between more and less legitimate forms of populism. The point of this exercise is not to dismiss populism in toto; the article strives for a more subtle result, namely, to show that liberal democracy can accommodate populism provided that the (...) latter conforms to particular discursive norms. What the article calls a ‘liberal ethics of populism’ turns out to be closely bound up with a broader ethics of peoplehood, understood as a way of articulating who ‘the people’ are in a way that is compatible with liberal–democratic principles of political justification. Such an ethics, concludes the article, inevitably has a much wider audience than populist political actors: its addressees are all those who seek legitimately to exercise power in the name of the people. (shrink)

Asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries, raising a host of difficult ethical and political questions. What responsibilities do the world's richest countries have to refugees arriving at their borders? Are states justified in implementing measures to prevent the arrival of economic migrants if they also block entry for refugees? Is it legitimate to curtail the rights of asylum seekers to maximize the number of refugees receiving protection overall? This book draws upon political and ethical theory (...) and an examination of the experiences of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why asylum has emerged as such a key political issue in recent years, it provides a compelling account of how states could move towards implementing morally defensible responses to refugees. (shrink)

Many people think that animal liberation would require a fundamental transformation of basic beliefs. We would have to give up "speciesism" and start viewing animals as our equals, with rights and moral status. And we would have to apply these beliefs in an all-or-nothing way. But in Ethics and the Beast, Tzachi Zamir makes the radical argument that animal liberation doesn't require such radical arguments--and that liberation could be accomplished in a flexible and pragmatic way. By making a case (...) for liberation that is based primarily on common moral intuitions and beliefs, and that therefore could attract wide understanding and support, Zamir attempts to change the terms of the liberation debate. Without defending it, Ethics and the Beast claims that speciesism is fully compatible with liberation. Even if we believe that we should favor humans when there is a pressing human need at stake, Zamir argues, that does not mean that we should allow marginal human interests to trump the life-or-death interests of animals. As minimalist as it sounds, this position generates a robust liberation program, including commitments not to eat animals, subject them to factory farming, or use them in medical research. Zamir also applies his arguments to some questions that tend to be overlooked in the liberation debate, such as whether using animals can be distinguished from exploiting them, whether liberationists should be moral vegetarians or vegans, and whether using animals for therapeutic purposes is morally blameless. (shrink)

This article advances a critical analysis of John Rawls’s justification of liberal democratic nuclear deterrence in the post-Cold War era as found in The Law of Peoples. Rawls’s justification overlooked how nuclear-armed liberal democracies are ensnared in two intransigent ethical dilemmas: one in which the mandate to secure liberal constitutionalism requires both the preservation and violation of important constitutional provisions in domestic affairs, and the other in which this same mandate requires both the preservation and violation of (...) the liberal commitment to international legal arrangements and to the rule of law generally. On this view, the choice to violate constitutional provisions and international legal arrangements is evidence of nuclear despotism. Moreover, this choice does not imply that the ethical foreign policy dilemmas were resolved. Instead, it implies that the dilemmas force liberal democratic governments into implementing ethically paradoxical policy outcomes. (shrink)

Ethics is often viewed as the elaboration of and compliance to norms, a.k.a. as the deductive model of ethics. This is well illustrated by the mainstream development of codes of ethics and ethics committees in the healthcare setting and beyond. Drawing upon a recent synthesis of pragmatist insights on the nature of ethics as well as contemporary scholarship on human flourishing, I explain how ethics is not primarily about the compliance of experience and agency (...) to preset norms but about liberation and empowerment within a process of existential meaning-making. This point is made in the context of two important tasks of ethics: (1) understanding moral problems and (2) providing guidance for solving such problems. (shrink)

_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

Response to Dale Jamieson's article 'Animal Liberation is an Environmental Ethic' in Environmental Values Vol. 7, No. 1.

_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

Standard medical ethical analyses typically focus on the physician/patient relationship, patient autonomy, and the clinical encounter. For Liberation Theology this amounts to neglecting the larger context of social injustice. Medicine is a social institution. Any medical ethics which purports to provide an ethics of medicine and medical practice must necessarily address the larger social issues of class structure, poverty and access to adequate health care. Liberation Theology provides a very specific perspective that draws on the needs of the (...) poverty stricken, assesses the relationship among social classes, and focuses on societal conditions. Given such an analysis, medical ethics is reconfigured as concerned not only with clinical encounters but also with background cultural conditions and social justice. (shrink)

_Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ explores the foundations of early utilitarianism and, at the same time, the theoretical bases of social ethics and policy in modern Western welfare states. Matti Hayry sees the main reason for utilitarianism's growing disrepute among moral philosophers is that its principles cannot legitimately be extended to situations where the basic needs of the individuals involved are in conflict. He is able to formulate a solution to this fundamental problem by arguing convincingly that by combining (...) a limited version of liberal utilitarianism and the methods of applied ethics, we are able to define our moral duties and rights. _Liberal Utilitarianism and Applied Ethics_ will appeal to students and teachers of philosophy who are interested in the doctrine of utilitarianism or in ethical decison-making. (shrink)

The essence of Dussel's thought is presented through the concept of "ethical hermeneutics" which seeks to interpret reality from the viewpoint of what Emmanuel Levinas presents as the "other" - those who are vanquished, forgotten, or excluded from existent socio-political or cultural systems. Barber traces Dussel's development toward Levinas' philosophy through his discussion of the Hegelian dialectic and through the stages of Dussel's own ethical theory.

Populism is widely thought to be in tension with liberal democracy. This article clarifies what exactly is problematic about populism from a liberal–democratic point of view and goes on to develop...

This article considers two questions: Do democratic states have the right to deport non-citizens present or residing on their territory? And, if so, what principles should guide deportation in democratic states? The overall objective is to offer an account of what deportation should look like in a liberal democratic state. I begin by situating the practice of deportation in larger discussions of the extent of state discretion in controlling both borders and membership; here, I will argue that potential deportees (...) occupy an awkward middle space, i.e. it is not clear whether they should be treated according to the principles that regulate discretion at the border or discretion in admitting migrants to membership. I then consider more deeply whether deportation can be rendered non-arbitrary, or whether it is bound to remain unjustly applied; where it cannot be rendered non-arbitrary, it must be rejected, or so I shall argue. To be non-arbitrary, the practice of deportation must meet three criteria: a publicity criterion, a justification criterion, and a collective interest criterion. In the final section of the article, I disentangle deportation into its component parts – I distinguish just cause for deportation from just action in deportation – and consider how the criteria that stem from a commitment to non-arbitrariness constrain its application to non-citizen residents. The consequence of requiring deportation to be applied, if at all, in a non-arbitrary way is that there will certainly be cases where liberal democracies find themselves unable to deport those who might otherwise be thought eligible for deportation. Ultimately, I conclude that deportation from liberal democratic states can be fair only in a small number of cases. (shrink)

This contribution is a critical and constructive engage ment with discourse ethics. First, it clarifies why discourse ethics has difficulties with the grounding and application of moral norms. Second, it turns to a positive appropriation of the formal and proce dural aspects of discourse ethics. The goal is the elaboration of an ethics that is able to incorporate the material aspects of goods and the formal dimension of ethical validity and consensuability. Every morality is the formal (...) application of some substantive good. Every ethical perspective demands its evaluation in terms of its uni versability. In order to achieve this mediation, it is suggested that we must incorporate not only the historical dimension of moral systems, but also the role of critical consciousness and the negativity embod ied by those who are victims of the existing consensus. The essay con cludes with six points that need to be considered when formulating a material ethics that is universalizable and, most importantly, that can address the massive poverty and dehumanization of those excluded from the present community of communication. Key Words: application • consensual • corporeality • discourse ethics • formal • grounding • intersubjective • Kantian • liberation • ethics • material • phronesis • procedural • validity. (shrink)

The issue of genetic inheritance, and particularly the contradictory rights of donors, recipients and donor offspring as to the disclosure of donor identities, is ethically complicated. Donors, donor offspring and parents of donor offspring may appeal to individual rights for confidentiality or disclosure within legal systems based on liberal rights discourse. This paper explores the ethical issues of non-disclosure of genetic inheritance by contrasting two principle models used to articulate the problem—liberal and communitarian ethical models. It argues that (...) whilst the latter provides a more constructive avenue to providing an ethics for donation than the competing and contradictory positions represented in a liberal rights approach, it raises issues of ethical judgement and authority that remain problematic. This ethical discussion is supported by a field study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, exploring the perceptions and experiences of recipients of donor sperm and their partners towards donor anonymity. The field study provides the empirical basis of an argument for making ethical judgements on the grounds of the community good rather than individual rights, that nevertheless recognises that both are inherently problematic. (shrink)

Liberal democracy has been experiencing a crisis of representation over the last decade, as a disconnect has emerged from some of the foundational principles of liberalism such as personal freedom and equality. In this article, I argue that in the third part of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason we can find resources to better understand and counteract this crisis of liberal democracy. Kant gives a powerful argument to include an invisible ethical community under a political (...) community, and this ethical community has to take the form of a church. Kant argues then that any political system, and so also liberal democracy, requires religion to ally citizens in a foundational way with the general principles of that system. This would commit liberal nations to having their foundational principles buoyed by religion. Towards the close of the essay, I attend to how this might impact on liberalism’s commitment to religious and ideological pluralism. (shrink)

What do we talk about when we talk about ethical diversity as a challenge to the normative justifiability of liberal democracy? Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently ‘inclusive’ towards diversity; others argue that, on the contrary, liberalism is desirable because it accommodates (some level of) diversity. Moreover, it has been argued that concern for diversity should lead us to favour (say) neutralistic over perfectionist, universalistic over particularistic, participative over (...) representative versions of liberal democracy. This paper provides a conceptual framework to situate those debates, and argues that there are two fundamental ways in which diversity constitutes a challenge to the justificatory status of liberal democracy: consistency (whereby diversity causes clashes between the prescriptions generated by normative political theories), and adequacy (whereby diversity generates a rift between our experience of what is considered valuable and what the theory treats as such). (shrink)

J. Baird Callicott misinterprets both the way in which pain seems important to animal liberationists and why it is thought important. Examination of Callicott’s account reveals its inadequacies and strengthens the animal liberationist’s position. It also indicates that resolution of the dispute between proponents of animal liberation and the land ethic demands consideration of the justifiability of “sentientism.”.

Sexual Ethics considers the traditional Western views, as well as Freudian explanations, of sexuality. Author Bruce E. Fleming proposes that sex operates in an intrinsically undefined area, one stranded between the two realms that otherwise define our public and private lives. The most heated debate regarding sexual matters is between liberal and conservatives. Whether or not these two groups can continue to co-exist under the umbrella of American democracy depends on their willingness to adhere to the basic principals (...) of democracy. (shrink)