The following paper presents a proposal of a theoretical foundation for an application of distributed cognition in overcoming post-war traumas and related social conflicts. The distributed cognition theory states that the cognitive system is a structure distributed between internal-mental and external-objective social world representations across time and space. The basic issue of dialogue in distributed cognition is that distribution as information dissemination in each cognitive component functions in a systemic integrity. The presented perspective of overcoming traumas and war (...) conflicts through dialogue refers to the following aspects of human activity: 1 - the perception of an environment as a construct of own life path and self-image; 2 - active creation of a desired world, life space and desired self; 3 - agentic cognitive mapping of an environment as a real, virtual and potential life space; 4 - a way of elastic control over an environment through discovering objectively present environmental affordances; 5 - achieving agency through discovering possibilities for action rather than barriers; 6 - making the cognitive system more flexible through a change in style of thinking to a constant state of openness to new meanings and values. (shrink)

This essay investigates the thought of self-overcoming (Selbst-Überwindung, sich überwinden) in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and its relation to Nietzsche’s Emersonian perfectionism in Schopenhauer as Educator. It is a conceptual study focused on key passages on self-overcoming in Zarathustra and related problems – most notably how to combine the demand for boundless affirmation with the demand for total critique in Nietzsche’s project of critical transvaluation. The main thesis is that Zarathustra’s response depends on his addressees: with regard to the (...) mob, the rabble or Gesindel, he advocates a limit in negation under the sign of mildness (Milde); with regard to others engaged in self-overcoming, he advocates a limited negation in the form of love-hate. Connections with the perfectionism of Schopenhauer as Educator are made throughout the essay, which then draws them together in a comparative analysis of self-overcoming in Zarathustra and Nietzsche’s untimely perfectionism. The essay closes with some methodological reflections on the risks and benefits of its “prismatic” approach, focused on key passages in relation to other works in abstraction from the overall composition and narrative of the book. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The militarization of Alaska during and after World War II created an extraordinary set of new facilities. But it also reshaped the imaginative role of Alaska as a hostile environment, where an antagonistic form of nature could be defeated with the appropriate combination of technology and training. One of the crucial sites for this reformulation was the Arctic Aeromedical Laboratory, based at Ladd Air Force Base in Fairbanks. In the first two decades of the Cold War, its employees conducted (...) numerous experiments on acclimatization and survival. The laboratory is now best known for an infamous set of tests involving the application of radioactive tracers to indigenous Alaskans—experiments publicized by post–Cold War panels established to evaluate the tragic history of atomic-era human subject research. But little else has been written about the laboratory's relationship with the populations and landscapes that it targeted for study. This essay presents the laboratory as critical to Alaska's history and the history of the Cold War sciences. A consideration of the laboratory's various projects also reveals a consistent fascination with race. Alaskan Natives were enrolled in experiments because their bodies were understood to hold clues to the mysteries of northern nature. A scientific solution would aid American military campaigns not only in Alaska, but in cold climates everywhere. (shrink)

본고에서는 한강학파가 임진난이라는 현실적 고통에 어떠한 방식으로 직면해 있으며, 그들이 이를 대응하고 극복하기 위해 어떠한 노력을 해나갔는지에 대한 양상을 살펴보는 것을 목적으로 한다. 한강학파는 조선 중기 대구권에서 주로 활동한 한강 정구를 중심으로 형성된 학파를 말한 다. 정구는 경(敬)을 통한 마음 수양과 의(義)를 통한 사회실천의 전통을 모두 받아들이면서 자 신의 학문적 토대로 삼았다. 그는 학문적 회통성과 개방성뿐만 아니라 경의협지의 수양 정신을 사회적 실천으로 확장시켜 학문의 실천성까지 담보하고자 하였다. 그리고 이러한 특징은 특히 임진난이라는 위기 상황을 겪으면서 구체화된다. 이에 한강학파는 임진난 당시 국난을 (...) 극복하 기 위한 직간접적인 노력을 통해 영남지역을 주도하는 세력으로 그 위상이 급부상하게 된다. 따라서 본고에서는 임진난 전후로 정구와 그의 문인들이 임진난이라는 위기상황을 대응 하고 극복하는 양상을 통해 당시의 학계를 주도한 그들의 학문의 정체성과 연속성을 확인해 보고자 하였다. 이에 따라 세 가지의 카테고리를 통해 살펴보고자 한다. 먼저 한강학파의 성 장과 그들의 학문이 형성된 사상적 기반을 살펴본다. 한강학파는 정구의 사상적 흐름을 이 어 받고 있는데, 정구의 학문을 소개하면서 한강학파의 학문적 연원을 살펴본다. 그 다음으 로는 임진난 당시 의병활동의 전개 양상과 피난 생활 및 문학적 대응 양상을 살펴본다. 그들 의 처세 양상은 달랐지만 필자는 이들 모두 국난을 극복하기 위한 직간접적인 양상으로 보 았다. 임진난 이후 한강학파는 향촌사회 중심으로 사회재건활동에 진력하는데, 이 또한 그 들의 강한 사회적 실천성을 확인할 수 있는 하나의 자료가 될 것이다. (shrink)

The article is devoted to transformations and the crisis of values in a global world. The genealogy of values is traced as a way of existence and justification of normativity characteristic of modernity. In this context, value is compared with cost. Both the first and second are reductions inherent in the modern way of human existence. Value personifies the reduction of the complex, heterogeneous, qualitatively diverse world of external goods of pre-industrial society to a single denominator of abstract labor. Same, (...) the complexly structured and heterogeneous reality of due acquired the appearance of a single space of values. In this context, the theoretical limitations of the pan-production view of human historical development are analyzed. The current war, which in its impact on humanity has acquired a de facto global character, is considered as a defining symptom of the crisis of values in global reality. War as a feature of the modern world is significant not in itself, but as an expression of the growing role of violence in the life of global civilization. In turn, the increase in violence and coercion is a manifestation of an even deeper process — the depreciation of values. The depreciation of values does not mean the destruction of certain specific values, but in general the role of the due in human life. In this regard, a key question arises about the prospects for overcoming the process of depreciation of values. By analogy with the three recognized paradigms of philosophizing (being, consciousness/subject, language), three historical paradigms of normativity are distinguished: transpersonal indisputable prescriptions (“commandments”); mediated by personal reflection and recognition of binding significance (values); abstinences — negative normative presumptions aimed at ensuring peaceful productive interaction with guaranteed autonomy of participants in interactions. The development of the normative practice of such abstinences may be with a possible scenario for overcoming the depreciation of values in the global world. (shrink)

Discussing the issues of “Asia,” Takeuchi Yoshimi’s discourse of “Overcoming Modernity” has received broad attention among the international community of scholars. Commentators try to identify the ideological elements of this discourse that, as they hope, could help to solve post-modern problems. After analysing Takeuchi’s understanding of the war and its context, this paper shows that his discourse of “overcoming modernity” has an anti-historical tendency, which stems from the ideological ambiguity of his attitude towards the question of who was (...) responsible for the war. (shrink)

This paper delves into the dispute surrounding “overcoming modernity” in Japanese philosophy, which arose before and during Japan’s Pacific War (the “Greater East Asia War”) in the late 1930s and its impact on the postwar period. Nishida Kitarō’s philosophy provided the foundation for “overcoming modernity,” and the “Oriental” logic of “nothing” emerged as a counterpoint to the rationalist spirit of the West. This logic has persisted from the postwar period to the present day via postmodernism. Takeuchi Yoshimi and (...) Hiromatsu Wataru, both discussed in this paper, played a crucial role in the discussions about this issue in the postwar era. Mainly, this paper focuses on the state of philosophy in Japan during the 1970 and 1980 s, highlighting the divergence in thinking about “nothing” by examining Nakamura Yūjirō and Karatani Kōjin. Focusing on these two thinkers shows that “nothing” transformed into a diverging movement in this period. Additionally, this paper explores the intellectual continuity between the 1930 and 1960 s that paved the way for this era. Through these historical reflections, the paper sheds light on the divergence between the ideas of “nothing” relating to capitalism and those relating to life systems, which occurred in the deeper layer of the intellectual culture of this period (1970-1980 s). This divergence is generally overlooked as a resistance of the “postmodernist” or “new academism” in Japan against the modernist intellectual tides. The purpose of this paper is to offer a fresh perspective on the historical evolution of Japanese philosophy in terms of “nothing”. (shrink)

"Nietzsche Trauma and Overcoming " shows that Nietzsche suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and most probably was a victim of childhood sex abuse. I bring convincing evidence from his texts to support these claims, along with a discussion of corroborating psychological findings on these issues. I show that he teaches coping with pain and suffering, based on his life experience, with lessons from the school of war, the wisdom of reinterpretation, and artistic activity. His three themes of the Superman, (...) Eternal Recurrence, and the Will to Power, the heart of his philosophy and psychology, are understood in a new light, in relation to his personal suffering and overcoming. The book criticizes the attempts to diagnose Nietzsche as suffering from various psychiatric disorders, psychoanalyze him as a fatherless child grown old, and outing him as a closet homosexual. These approaches lead to a dead-end. Firstly, it is impossible to prove that someone is a paragon of mental health, not a covert homosexual, and unmoved by a parent’s death. Secondly, these speculations explain only a small part of Nietzsche’s personal statements, found in his writings. Thirdly, and most importantly, they do not change our understanding of his ideas and how they were arrived at; they do not increase our appreciation of him; and do not leave us with any lessons for life (the goal of any good writing according to Nietzsche). (shrink)

Social scientists often lament the fact that philosophically trained ethicists pay limited attention to the insights they generate. This paper presents an overview of tendencies in sociological and anthropological studies of morality, ethics and bioethics, and suggests that a lack in philosophical interest might be related to a tendency among social scientists to employ either a deficit model (social science perspectives accommodate the sense of context that philosophical ethics lacks), a replacement model (social scientists have finally found the “right way” (...) of doing ethics), or a dismissal model (ethics should be abandoned all together as a misconstrued veil of power). Increased awareness of differences in styles of reasoning and objects of research interest might help to overcome the hostility, and an anthropological project is presented as an invitation to a dialogue informed by awareness of such differences. (shrink)

Research during war has many levels of complexities but presents researchers with valuable lessons into design, conduct and conclusions of research. The Arab region has endemic conflicts and recurring wars but there are limited reports of experiences of research conducted in the context of such conflicts and wars. This article summarizes the lessons learnt from an epidemiologic survey, concerned with assessing mental health of internally displaced persons (IDPs), conducted during the summer 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. Researchers reflect on issues (...) encountered and/or considered within three main directions: Practical, epidemiological and ethical considerations specific to wartime. Many identified issues bear similarities to challenges of research conducted in other emergency and war situations. This case study explores the challenges to internal and external validity of the results within a context of particular socio-political organization and reflects on additional ethical considerations regarding the particular living conditions imposed on IDPs. In addition, this article discusses ways that researchers used to overcome some of the constraints encountered. (shrink)

IN THIS ESSAY WE ARGUE FOR A RECONFIGURATION OF JUST WAR THEORY around the principle of just intention. A just intention—based just war theory can overcome problems inherent in two alternative "ideal-typical" accounts of just war theory. The "internationalist" account argues for the promotion of justice, by analogy to its pursuit in domestic politics. The "realist" account, on the other hand, favors the particular manifestations of justice within states. Taken together, these two accounts complement each other and emphasize genuine goods. (...) The possibility of taken them together, however, arises only out of consideration of just war theory as a peacemaking activity, ordered to the end, or intention, of this political act. If just war theory is not so understood, there is no possibility of drawing together these two complementary accounts. (shrink)

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I (...) consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self-defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth-century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the "just authority" of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near-unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions. (shrink)

In Morality and Ethics of War, which includes a foreword by Major General Susan Coyle, ethicist Deane-Peter Baker goes beyond existing treatments of military ethics to address a fundamental problem: the yawning gap that exists between the diverse moral frameworks defining personal identity in a multicultural society on the one hand, and the professional military ethic on the other. Baker argues that overcoming this chasm is essential to minimising the ethical risks that can lead to operational and strategic failure (...) for military forces engaged in today's complex conflict environment. He contends that spanning the gap is vital in preventing moral injury from befalling the nation's uniformed servants. Drawing on a revised account of what he calls 'the Just War Continuum', Baker develops a bridging framework that combines conceptual clarity and rigour with insights from cutting edge psychological research and creates a practical means for military leaders to negotiate the moral chasm in military affairs. (shrink)

Abstract: The symposium on overcoming modernity (kindai no chokoku) that took place in Tokyo in 1942 has been much commented upon, but later critics have tended to over-emphasize the wartime political context and the ideological connection to Japanese ultra-nationalism. Closer examination shows that the background and the actual content of the discussion were more complicated. The idea of overcoming modernity had already appeared in debates among Japanese intellectuals before the war, and was always open to different interpretations; it (...) could indicate Japanese ambitions to move beyond Western paradigms of modernity, but in other cases it referred to more radical visions of alternatives to modernity as such. Some versions linked up with Western critiques of existing modernity, including traditionalist as well as more future-oriented ones. These differentiations are evident in the symposium, and associated with diverse schools of thought. An important input came from representatives of the Kyoto school, the most distinctive current in twentieth-century Japanese philosophy. Despite the suppression of Marxist thought, the background influence of the unorthodox Marxist thinker Miki Kiyoshi was significant. Another major contribution came from the group known as the Japan Romantic School, active in literature and literary criticism. Other intellectuals of widely varying persuasions, from outspoken nationalists to Catholic theologians, also participated. The result was a rich but also thoroughly inconclusive discussion, from which no consensus on roads beyond modernity could emerge. -/- Keywords: Modernity; Westernization; nationalism; war; Kyoto School; Japanese Romanticism. (shrink)

This article focuses on the recent work of James Pattison, who raises questions about the ethical justification of using private military forces in waging war. Objectivists argue that the State has a legal monopoly over the use of force; they reject privatization of military force as leading to anarchism or crony capitalism. However, this essay argues that Objectivism should accept the privatization of the military business and that Objectivism can overcome the profitmotive and right intention objections that Pattison lays out. (...) Privatization entails neither anarchism nor crony capitalism. (shrink)

Over that last several decades the ethics of war has grown into a major subfield in philosophy at the same time as large literatures have developed on the relation between gender and war as well as feminist approaches to the ethics of war. This article aims to contribute to these literatures and to bring them into closer contact. It argues that canonical just war theorists such as Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel, and Walzer rely on appeals to masculinity to help ground the (...) obligations of soldiers to participate in war upon command. This appeal helps them overcome their otherwise weak arguments for the political subordination of soldiers, or what I call the Internal Problem of the soldier. It also helps explain a problem that has vexed contemporary ethics of war scholars, namely, the supposed equal right to kill combatants in war, or what I call the External Problem of the soldier. If this is true, then just war theorists should be much more concerned with the gender and war literature and find common ground with feminists who have treated the problem of the political standing of soldiers as a philosophical priority. (shrink)

Soldiers encounter extremely difficult ethical dilemmas during wars, as they must make decisions about how to follow the laws of war and their rules of engagement while still protecting themselves and accomplishing their missions. Scholarship on just war theory and military ethics generally describe soldiers' dilemmas as being ethical challenges that soldiers can overcome by using the correct ethical reasoning process. However, this essay argues that some of the apparent ethical dilemmas that soldiers confront are actually ethically insoluble dilemmas that (...) cannot be solved using ethical reasoning processes. Dilemmas are ethically insoluble when soldiers do not have sufficient knowledge of a situation or control over it to apply an ethical decision procedure. In these situations soldiers must guess at the right course of action and leave the outcome to luck. (shrink)

This uncollected Chesterton article was first published in the Bystander on March 4, 1904. It was written at the time of the war between Tzarist Russia and Japan. Chesterton criticised the alliance formed between Britain and Japan at the time of this war; but, in this article, he does present Japan in a sympathetic light. The article takes the form of a parable about a far-away nation of children whose love for the toys of industrialism has given them the impetus (...) to overcome a powerful empire that has become bored with its own mechanistic strength. Chesterton expressed similar ideas in his first novel. The Napoleon of Netting Hill also published in 1904. (shrink)

Military metaphors are pervasive in biomedicine, including HIV research. Rooted in the mind set that regards pathogens as enemies to be defeated, terms such as “shock and kill” have become widely accepted idioms within HIV cure research. Such language and symbolism must be critically examined as they may be especially problematic when used to express scientific ideas within emerging health-related fields. In this article, philosophical analysis and an interdisciplinary literature review utilizing key texts from sociology, anthropology, history, and Chinese and (...) African studies were conducted to investigate the current proliferation of military metaphors. We found the use of these metaphors to be ironic, unfortunate, and unnecessary. To overcome military metaphors we propose to give them less aggressive meanings, and/or replace them with more peaceful metaphors. Building on previous authors' work, we argue for the increased use of “journey” metaphors as meaningful, cross-culturally app... (shrink)

Most of us believe that partiality applies in a broad range of relationships. One relationship on which there is much disagreement is co-nationality. Some writers argue that co-national partiality is not justified in certain cases, like killing in war, since killing in defense of co-nationals is intuitively impermissible in other contexts. I argue that this approach overlooks an important structural feature of partiality—namely, that its scope is sometimes restricted. In this essay, I show how some relationships that generate reasons of (...) partiality are restricted in scope—that is, they generate reasons within particular contexts or with respect to particular goods. I then argue that co-national partiality is scope restricted. I then show how this fact helps proponents of co-national partiality overcome the aforementioned objection to its application in cases like war. (shrink)

Andrew Fiala's Against Religion, Wars, and States: The Case for Enlightenment Atheism, Just War Pacifism, and Liberal-Democratic Anarchism argues that we need to overcome the idea of the nation-state and look toward global justice, that we need to develop a more critical stance toward religion while embracing enlightened humanism and natural science, and that we need to look beyond violent solutions to social problems in order to build world peace.

Prophecies and fate are heavily thematized throughout the God of War video game series. In the original trilogy, prophecies are given to Kratos, Zeus, Kronos, and others by a range of beings with purported foreknowledge including the Fates and Oracles In the Norse duology, the Norns, Giants, and others also provide prophecies. In line with the common trope of Greek tragedies, Kratos, Zeus, and Kronos’ actions, in trying to avoid their fates, created the very conditions by which those fates came (...) to pass. In the duology set within Norse mythology, the themes of prophecy and fate are also thematized. However, in these games, it is shown that prophecy can be overcome, and that fate is flexible. This chapter considers some of the historical solutions to the problem of prophecy within classical theism and evaluates their applicability in the God of War series. It will also be argued that the two sets of God of War games present different accounts for the way in which prophecy operates. More specifically, it will be shown that the Greek Trilogy uses prophecy to maintain a deterministic understanding of the universe. In contrast, the Norse Duology uses prophecy to maintain an indeterministic account of the universe. (shrink)

Though the recent election of American President Barack Obama and his signing of the executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay signals a considerable shift away from the policies of the Bush era, the lessons to be learned from the war on terror will remain relevant and necessary for many years to come. In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States government approved interrogation tactics for enemy combatant detainees that could be defined as torture, which was outlawed in (...) Europe in the eighteenth century as well as prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In conjunction with these policies, the Bush administration vocally defended torture as a necessary tool in its war on terror. In _Torture and the War on Terror_,_ _Tzvetan_ _Todorov argues that the use of the terms “war” and “terror” dehumanize the enemy and permit treatment that would otherwise be impermissible. He examines the implications and corrupting impact of the attempt to impose “good” through violence and the attempt to spread democratic values by unethical means. Todorov asks: Can violence overcome violence? Does the need to protect one’s own country justify violating human rights? Invalidating one by one the political and ethical arguments in favor of torture, Todorov likens institutional torture to a cancer that is eroding our society and undermining the very fundamental democratic ideas of justice and right. __ _Torture and the War on Terror _is a significant work in ethics, human rights, and political and social history by one of the world’s leading intellectuals, and its arguments will be influential in shaping our policies to come. (shrink)

It is widely thought that stealing, trading and destroying cultural artifacts in time of war are inherently immoral actions, and that it is right that they be treated as war crimes, which, indeed, they currently are. But oppressive cultures have their heritage and cultural artifacts too, in the form of monuments, sites of worship, and so on; and for the oppressed, these things may be awful reminders of their subordination, and may even perpetuate it. This chapter suggests that, since cultural (...) objects can be both tools and symbols of unjust oppression, their theft and destruction ought to be seen as appropriate when this would be a means of overcoming oppression. Whatever current law may say, in these instances, it would be morally inappropriate to count such acts as war crimes. Furthermore, it is bizarre that theft and destruction of cultural property are counted as war crimes when soldiers killing each other is not (due to combatant immunity). Surely killing is worse than property destruction and theft. It is therefore argued that, where possible, it would be better for conflicts to be fought using the latter methods. Finally, the chapter responds to many objections to using theft and destruction of cultural property as a method of warfare. E.g. to the objection that such property has timeless, trans-cultural, aesthetic, historical and scientific value, it is replied that justice is a more important value; and to the objection that these practices amount to cultural genocide it is replied that unjust cultures have no right to exist unmodified. (This chapter was formerly entitled: "Culture Weaponized: A Contrarian Theory of the Sometime Appropriateness of the Destruction, Theft and Trade of Art and Cultural Artifacts in Armed Conflict." The PhilPapers archived version is a pre-penultimate version of the published version.). (shrink)

This article is concerned with a distinction Jeff McMahan draws between just and justified wars. It argues that this distinction does not accord with the content of McMahan’s conceptual distinction between just and justified threats; nor does it correspond with the way in which McMahan applies this distinction to the jus in bello tactical bomber scenario. McMahan claims that the tactical bomber’s conduct, assuming it foreseeably causes collateral damage, can only be justified, but not just, while war can be just (...) despite foreseeably resulting in the killing and maiming of innocent people. This claim is incoherent. The incoherence can be overcome, though, within McMahan’s own conceptual framework. For contingent reasons that have to do with the nature of at least modern warfare, justified wars are virtually always unjust. Since agents are generally morally required to prevent themselves from getting into situations in which they can (or must) perform morally justified acts that are unjust, distinguishing between these two types of war is not merely a matter of terminology. This article is a plea for the recognition of the tragedy of justified wars, a tragedy which is only authentic if it could not have been prevented by the agents who wage these wars. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kant’s Just War TheoryBrian OrendKant is often cited as one of the first truly international political philosophers. Unlike the vast majority of his predecessors, Kant views a purely domestic or national conception of justice as radically incomplete; we must, he insists, also turn our faculties of critical judgment towards the international plane. When he does so, what results is one of the most powerful and principled conceptions of international (...) justice ever constructed. Kant’s central concept, that it is a demand of our own practical reason that we forge a cosmopolitan federation of free republics, based on the rule of law, human rights, and cultural and commercial development, still resonates today as a plausible and hopeful prescription for humanity’s future.Much of Kant’s international theory has recently received searching analysis and evaluation. But the bulk of this consideration has focused on Kant’s descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive, claims. Lavish attention, for example, has been showered on his assertion that perpetual peace is inevitable—that our natural antagonism will irresistibly incline us, after many failures, to establish an international juridical condition. Comparatively little has been done on thoroughly evaluating Kant’s normative claims of international justice, particularly with regard to his ideal corpus of international law and his concrete recommendations for moving from a global state of nature to a cosmopolitan civil society.1In this paper, I would like to contribute to the latter task by focusing on the moral problem that war poses as, arguably, the most frequent and severe cause [End Page 323] of ruptures in the functioning of the international system.2 In particular, I would like to argue in favour of the controversial, and original, thesis that Kant has a just war theory.3 I would then like to develop that theory in some detail and to explain its strength and suggestiveness. The focus on war seems both helpful and timely. It is helpful in that it provides a specific, graphic example with which one can apprehend more clearly the abstract architecture of Kant’s international vision. It is timely in that, in the wake of the very recent conflicts in Bosnia and Rwanda, and in light of the subsequent formation of the International War Crimes Tribunals at The Hague, renewed attention has been paid to considering what, if anything, constitutes a just war and what is permitted, and what punishable, in terms of conduct in war. A rigorous consideration of what one of the true giants of moral philosophy thought about these issues can only serve to illuminate our understanding of these current events.1. THE TRADITIONAL READING OF KANT: NO JUST WARNearly every commentator on Kant’s international theory of justice who discusses the problem of war in any detail believes that Kant not only has no just war theory, but that he is, moreover, a vicious critic of the core propositions of classical just war theorists, such as Augustine, Aquinas, and Grotius. Howard Williams, for example, says that “Kant has no theory of just war … (j)ustice and war are in conflict with one another and it is our duty as human beings to try to overcome war.” Fernando Teson contends that “Kant dismisses the idea that there could be a just war” and Georg Geismann asserts that, for Kant, “there is no such thing as a just war.” Similarly, W. B. Gallie asserts that “Kant agreed … that nothing but confusion and harm resulted from regarding any wars as just … ” There is a bevy of quotes in the Kantian corpus to support this reading.4One prominent anti-just war quote occurs in Perpetual Peace, when Kant [End Page 324] reflects on the contributions of traditional just war theorists and arrives at the following judgment:It is therefore to be wondered at that the word right has not been completely banished from military politics as superfluous pedantry, and that no state has been bold enough to declare itself publicly in favour of doing so. For Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel and the rest (sorry comforters as they are) are still dutifully quoted in justification of military aggression, although their philosophically or diplomatically formulated codes do not and... (shrink)

The article is aimed at a philosophical study of the foundations/causes of war. Its background is a definition of the Russian-Ukrainian full-scale warfare as an irreconcilable existential conflict of the "Russian world" between the "Russian world" and the national world of Ukraine. Methodological specific of the article is reliance on the everydayness of a boundary situation of war to define the cultural world, as well as cultural identity as concepts that get existential meaning. Philosophy potential is used to clarify the (...) key question for today's war discourse about why the parties to the conflict are determined to take military actions, but not to resolve the conflict through peace negotiations. The answer is sought by comparing two ontologies of the world that there are in Habermas' communicative theory of action and Heidegger's fundamental ontology. Each of them provides an alternative concept of understanding and, accordingly, different foundations for its truth theory. This also provides a perspective, firstly, to distinguish two alternative positions of participants in the discourse of war – "internal" one as "being in a culture at war" and another of an "external" observer. Secondly, this distinction helps to explain why war as a conflict of cultural worlds could be considered from different philosophical points of view, namely from the position of the philosophy of communicative action, as well as in the context of existential analysis of being. Examination of the explanatory potential of both approaches is carried out on the basis of a comparison of different concepts of the world, fundamental to each of philosophers. It is done by clarifications of basics of two ontologies of understanding and, accordingly, of their theories of truth. The article indicates that the theory of truth in communicative philosophy is based on the regulative idea of the unity of the objective world. Instead, with reference to examples from Charles Taylor and Jean-Luc Nancy, the author claims that the fundamental ontology can be reinterpreted in terms of the plurality of being-in-common of people in sovereign cultural worlds. Accordingly, the interaction of representatives of different cultural identities under certain political conditions, i.e., official propaganda can turn into a radical disagreement of different existential understandings of the meaning of being, into a war of cultural worlds that cannot be overcome by just negotiations at the level of competent communication. The article ends with an open question about searching for ways to unify the mentioned ontological approaches. (shrink)

The review of activity of local governments of Leningrad on the solution of social problems is presented in article in the period of the Great Patriotic War and restoration of municipal economy during the post-war period. The considerable attention is paid to questions of ensuring activity of the population and the main directions of social policy. Consequences of the public regress caused by war, which detained for many decades development of the social sphere in the country, are not studied yet. (...) In this regard, the judgment of process of overcoming of these consequences, research of the principles of work, methods and forms of administrative activities for the organization of full-fledged life of citizens during the recovery post-war period and in the next decades is of special interest. Completion of World War II entailed changes in a control system of the country - as it is known, extraordinary bodies of authority and management of a wartime in the capital and on places were abolished. Management of restoration and maintenance of full functioning life support system of the cities and areas transferred to local governments of the Soviet power - to city and regional councils of deputies and their constantly operating executive committees. The role of the social sphere in modern conditions more and more increases in improvement of economy, development of democratic processes. The scientific analysis of activity of the central and local authorities for protection and providing the population in years of war and the post-war period gives more deep understanding of role and importance of social questions in life of society. It reveals historical experience of creation, development and implementation of effective mechanism of such activity, that experience is useful for modern management practice of state and local authorities. The considerable case of sources, among which analytical and research works of applied and theoretical character is analyzed. (shrink)

The concept of Umwertung, central to Ecce Homo, is marked by discrepancies and incongruities that seem to defy philosophical comprehension. This paper focuses on the problem of Yes-saying and No-saying at the core of Umwertung. How can total affirmation be combined with radical critique, as Nietzsche claims? Nietzsche's favoured idiom of warfare exhibits the incommensurability of these positions, but it also points to a deeper problem: in waging war against idealism, Nietzsche risks repeating idealism, conceived as a war to the (...) death against other forms of life and thought. In §2 idealist warfare is analysed more closely, and in §3 it is contrasted with Nietzschean warfare, cinceived as an agonal form of oppositional thinking that avoids repeating idealism. This model of warfare is, however, undermined by the affirmative and destructive excesses of Nietzsche's text, and §4 proposes a different approach to the problem of Yes- and No-saying. On this approach, the affirmation of reality as war or conflictual multiplicity demands 1. the adoption of antagonistic positions with destructive intent against life-negating positions , but also 2. the overcoming of every antagonistic position in favour of an 'impossible' or fictional standpoint in the relation between antagonists; this alone allows all antagonistic positions to be affirmed. This approach is proposed as a general way to make sense of the fictional qualities of Ecce homo, its excesses and incongruities, and in §5 it is applied as a corrective to the account of Umwertung as a comparative practice proposed by Gerd Schank. (shrink)

The article examines the “philosophy of anxiety” of early Heidegger. The influence of Niet­zsche on the young philosopher is noted, as well as the traumatic experience of World War I, which very strongly influenced the worldview of the author of Being and Time, making him reconsider, among other things, his attitude to the “system of Catholicism”. The article examines Heidegger’s description of the situation where one is seized by anxiety, where one would not expect it at all, where one normally (...) feels at home. Normally, being fallen, that is, being in the world and bustling with daily chores, one feels secure in the midst of beings, at home. However, something happens to him that robs him of his tranquility. This occurs because the existent (Dasein) is disturbed im Grunde seines Seins, at the core of his being; one is aware of his own mortality and the finitude of being, which constitutes a threat, opening the possibility of anxiety (immortal beings, such as angels, treat being dif­ferently, for them the analysis of Dasein is irrelevant). Fear belongs to the ontic, it relates to the fallen state. When one ascends to the Nothingness, which is revealed as Being, that is, when one rises above being in some respect, one surpasses fear as well. In the course of the article, the question of translating some of Heidegger’s concepts into Russian is dis­cussed, which is an urgent task for the Heideggerian studies. (shrink)

This essay addresses one of the central questions in the ongoing debate about just war theory: are soldiers morally responsible for serving in unjust wars? Francisco de Vitoria addressed this question in the sixteenth century using the concepts of invincible and vincible ignorance. He excused soldiers serving in unjust wars, if they did not know the war was unjust and if they did not have the means to overcome their ignorance; if they had the means, they were morally culpable. In (...) modern just war theory, ignorance is still used both to blame and excuse military service in unjust wars. This essay identifies ten different ways that scholars have used ignorance to argue about the moral responsibilities of soldiers. It then applies the different meanings of ignorance to soldiers serving in Western nations and, using Vitoria’s means tests, evaluates if modern soldiers do indeed have the means to overcome their ignorance. Since many soldiers do have the means, invincible ignorance should no longer be used as an excuse for their service in unjust wars; furthermore, soldiers may, in fact, be morally culpable for serving in them. (shrink)

Purpose. The main purpose of this paper is to consider the methodological peculiarities in the formation and interpretation of war and peace, in the context of the spiritual rethinking by humanity and the nature of social phenomena, among which a special place is occupied by the political and legal phenomena of the modern world. This involves solving the following tasks: firstly, to reveal the meaning of modern approaches in understanding the features of religious fundamentalism, and, secondly, to reconstruct the dynamics (...) of transformations in representations of war and peace, in the context of the spiritual practices of the present. Theoretical basis. The author's analysis is based on the systematic reconstruction of modern theoretical models of understanding religious fundamentalism and its connection with the subject of modern anthropological research. The resulted fact that the taxonomy of different types of religious fundamentalism includes more political, legal and economic markers does not provide an answer to the question of what the qualitative influence of the fundamentalist ideas is on the spiritual component of a person's life. Appealing to the problem of religious fundamentalism, in the context of rethinking the phenomena of war and peace, is associated with the actualization of these phenomena in the communicational, media and ideological spheres. That is why, in the context of this analysis, we take into account the main modern approaches in the provisions of religious traditions. These articulate the problems of threat to the global world in the context of actualization and return of the religious factor into the everyday life of a person, including through politics. Originality. The author proves that when analyzing the religious aspect in the reinterpretation of ideas about war and peace, it is necessary to consider, as a doctrinal component, certain types of religious belief doctrines, as well as the individual psychological peculiarities of man. These peculiarities, which are manifested in different types of beliefs, can be verified by the clues in the analysis of religious practices, which represent the meaningful components of the religious doctrine. Conclusions. The reasons for forming ideas about war and peace in theistic religions are a number of provisions related to the nature of the world and of man. They are the result of the manifestation of the act of the Supernatural Essence. In the tradition of rethinking the vocation of man in the context of fundamentalist discourse, these ideas acquire the status of spiritually determined and politically achievable goals. These are conceived in connection with the establishment of the Divine Plan, and they overcome the gap between the material world and the ideal world order. (shrink)

'We will overcome it [and] I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, and those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any' Her Majesty The Queen The Coronavirus pandemic forced the great British people to dig to the very depths of their resolve. It was during this crisis, the gravest crisis the country has faced since the Second World (...) War, that members of the Greatest Generation - Tom Moore, Dame Vera Lynn, the Queen - proved vital reminders of the self-effacing stoicism required in times of emergency; to summon our 'Blitz spirit' and to 'Keep Calm and Carry On'. Taking twelve qualities of the wartime generation, including fellowship, courage and integrity, and drawing on personal interviews with over two hundred Second World War veterans - from SAS officers to London firewomen to Dame Vera herself - Guidance from the Greatest shows us how we can improve our individual character and our collective approach to life. Guidance from the Greatest reminds us of all that is great about Britain and shows how we can build upon that greatness for the future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ōmori Shōzō and Kotodama Theory: How Can We Overcome the Need for Bodily Encounters?Maki SatoIntroductionŌmori Shōzō is known for his theory of tachi-araware monism. Tachiaraware monism is his attempted counter-argument to the Cartesian dualism of the object–subject divide, or in his words, a divide between physical (butsuri, mono, science, object) and non-physical consciousness (ishiki, koto, perception, incident), perception (chikaku, 知覚) and conception (shikō, 思考). His concept of Kasane-egaki is (...) also often cited as a core concept of his theory of time.1 The main aim of this paper is to first overview the works of Ōmori since there is only a limited amount of his translated work so far.2 Consecutively, the paper focuses on Ōmori’s theory of kotodama and its related arguments with an intention to expand his concept of Kowaburi into the ethics of online encounters during the pandemic.The world in 2020 was suddenly forced to face the pandemic caused by COVID-19. What COVID-19 alerted us to is tremendous, and there are countless problems that the invisible virus has revealed. Among those are the hidden problems of contemporary society, not limited to the discrimination among races, gender, and jobs (white-collars versus essential workers), the problem of zoonosis, and the related environmental problems (climate change and intrusion into wild nature) caused by over-exploitation of nature. In developed countries, most students and those serving as intellectual workers face their daily lives being overly occupied with online lectures and meetings. COVID-19 worked to normalize remote work, which further normalized and forced our everyday life to shift to cyberspace. [End Page 101]In introducing and overviewing Ōmori’s philosophy, this paper attempts to see the current situation through Ōmori’s philosophy to draw out some ethical implications related to non-physical online encounters and how we can perceive human interactions and relationships under such conditions. Under the constraints caused by COVID-19, humans’ limitless desires to interact with others are expanding more so to the sphere of cyberspace, leading to technological development, such as VR. In short, first, the paper overviews Ōmori’s philosophy. Second, through the overview of Ōmori’s philosophy, the paper seeks adaptable philosophy of his that may work as soft binding grounding ethics for cyberspace encounters where substantial bodily encounters are void. In doing so, the paper intends to draw out weak binding ethics implied in Ōmori’s philosophy that may work to empathetically engage with others in cyberspace where embodied encounters with others are dissolved.Ōmori Shōzō and His Philosophy: A Short Introduction and OverviewIn his short essay introducing the Japanese philosophy of the 1970s, Yasuo Kobayashi coined the term “Komaba quartet” by selecting four active eminent philosophers based on the Komaba campus at the University of Tokyo.3 Among them is Ōmori Shōzō (1921–97), aligning with Hiromatsu Wataru (1933–94), Sakabe Megumi (1936–2009), and Inoue Tadashi (1926–2014). Ōmori is the oldest of the Komaba quartet and received higher education before World War II. He served at the Naval Technology Institute Mitaka Laboratory during the war with his physics degree from the Tokyo Imperial University.4 After the war, he studied philosophy at the University of Tokyo with an interest in phenomenology, leading him to study at Harvard and Stanford in the United States.During his professorship at the University of Tokyo, he inspired countless students who are now leading the philosophy academy in Japan, such as Noe Keiichi (1949–) and Noya Shigeki (1954–). In the round-table discussion titled “Explanatory Round-Table on the Charm of Ōmori’s Philosophy,” four of his former students—Iida Takashi and Tanji Nobuharu, in addition to Noe and Noya—worked on selecting his works. It is impressive to read that all four [End Page 102] of them recall how exciting and inspiring it was to take his classes.5 Iida recalls that Ōmori’s classes were exceptional since philosophy courses were all about reading, with might and main, the texts written in a language other than Japanese at the University of Tokyo. However, Ōmori, with his postwar American education, welcomed discussion with the students and was keen on questioning... (shrink)

Can just war theory and pacifism be substantially reconciled in theory and practice? In this paper I argue that James Sterba is mistaken in thinking that they can. There is no such thing as just war pacifism. However, this does not mean that just war theorists and pacifists cannot have a reasonable conversation about the justifiability of war. They can have such a conversation if they overcome their exclusive concern with the question of action-guidingness, that is, the binary question of (...) whether or not war can be morally justified. Justified wars are tragic. (shrink)

Normal 0 0 1 91 520 .. 4 1 638 11.1280 0 14 0 0 Moving among historical material and contemporary debates on xenophobia and war, this paper is an exploration of the self-representation “ Italiani Brava Gente ”, an image claiming the intrinsic goodness of the Italian people. Originated during the first Italian colonial enterprises, it has been used also for overcoming the horrors of Fascism and is evoked in contemporary Italy too for justifying traumatic and violent events. (...) Functioning as an ideological laundry for reformulating and then setting aside disquieting moments of national shame, “ Italiani Brava Gente ” is central to the construction of a modern Italian identity. (shrink)

As a singular witness and actor of the tumultuous 20th century, Ernst Jünger remains a controversial and enigmatic figure known above all for his vivid autobiographical accounts of experience in the trenches of the First World War. This article will argue that throughout his entire oeuvre, from personal diaries to novels and essays, he never ceased to grapple with what he viewed as the central question of the age, namely that of the problem of nihilism and the means to overcome (...) it. Inherited from Nietzsche’s diagnosis of Western civilization in the late 19th century, to which he added an acute observation of the particular role of technology within it, Jünger would employ this lens to make sense of the seemingly absurd industrial slaughter of modern war and herald the advent of a new voluntarist and bellicist order that was to imminently sweep away timorous and decadent bourgeois societies obsessed with security and self-preservation. Jünger would ultimately see his expectations dashed, including by the forms of rule that National Socialism would take, and eventually retreated into a reclusive quietism. Yet he never abandoned his central problematique of nihilism, developing it further in exchanges with Martin Heidegger after the Second World War. And for all the ways in which he may have erred, his life-long struggle with meaning in the age of technique and its implications for war and security continues to make Jünger a valuable interlocutor of the present. (shrink)

Social scientists often lament the fact that philosophically trained ethicists pay limited attention to the insights they generate. This paper presents an overview of tendencies in sociological and anthropological studies of morality, ethics and bioethics, and suggests that a lack in philosophical interest might be related to a tendency among social scientists to employ either a deficit model (social science perspectives accommodate the sense of context that philosophical ethics lacks), a replacement model (social scientists have finally found the “right way” (...) of doing ethics), or a dismissal model (ethics should be abandoned all together as a misconstrued veil of power). Increased awareness of differences in styles of reasoning and objects of research interest might help to overcome the hostility, and an anthropological project is presented as an invitation to a dialogue informed by awareness of such differences. (shrink)

The trauma of the October 7 massacre for Israelis and the catastrophe that Gazans have experienced in the subsequent war mark a new stage in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. While October 7 and indeed the Israeli response are exceptional, we cannot overcome their consequences without addressing the root of the conflict. Calls for an immediate ceasefire are understandable but fall into the trap of seeing the solution as being a military decision. This echoes to the attitude of the current Israeli government (...) which poses the response to October 7 as a military one. A new international political initiative is required to change the atmosphere by setting the goal of resolving the conflict on the basis of self-determination for both Israelis and Palestinians. That needs to inform the approach we adopt to ending the current conflict by replacing Hamas and Israel in Gaza with an international security mechanism. (shrink)

In order to move past the kind of thinking the author calls “post-War,” it is necessary to reassess the causes of the FirstWorld War. This chapter argues that German post-war cultural pessimism can only be understood adequately if we understand the justified anger and scorn for liberalism and modernity Germans felt at being assigned exclusive guilt for the Great War. He argues that this cultural pessimism can only be overcome if, on the basis of this understanding, we reassess the Western (...) cultural legacy, holding it divided, not broken or wholly irredeemable, and containing within it resources capable of reorienting the struggles of today against the politics of despair or rage. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the dynamics of education in the interplay of power and seduction as creatively displayed in Takarazuka Revue's performances re-enacting the major players of the Cold War: USA and Russia (rather than former Soviet Union). Oceans 11 (cosmos troupe, 2019) and Once Upon a Time in America (snow troupe, 2020), on the one hand, and Land of Gods (cosmos troupe, 2017) and Anastasia (cosmos troupe, 2020), on the other hand, lavishly display subtle interactions of longing and belonging, (...) ecstasy and rage, love and betrayal, envy, hatred and passion, while painstakingly building up irresistible tensions between the instances involved in the performative process: actresses, administrators, audiences. The theoretical support is delivered by Robert Greene’s pragmatic elaborations in his seminal works The 48 Laws of Power (1998) and The Art of Seduction (2001): education is never a linear process between a ‘master’ and a ‘disciple’, but an interactive game, governed by the pursuit of joy in overcoming challenges and finding ingenious solutions. (shrink)

This article studies the fundamental shift between Paul Ramsey’s and Oliver O’Donovan’s ethics of war and so reintroduces Hegel into the debate on political ethics. The topic is approached through the notion of divine-human and political mediation, whereby Hegel’s early movement from Christology to dialectics provides the analytical framework. The article first studies the theo-logic of Paul Ramsey’s early agapist notions of war up to his transformist period. It then traces how O’Donovan fundamentally transforms Ramsey’s dialectical framework within that of (...) narrated Christology. O’Donovan’s focus culminates in the unified reign of Christ and the overcoming of Hegel’s dialectics. But it is argued that the transition to Hegel’s and Ramsey’s perspectives is constantly required in order to prevent Christian ethics from becoming ossified. The article thus hopes to initiate a comprehensive, because logical-systematic discussion of contemporary wars and war machines, especially in critical conversation with philosophers and military practitioners. (shrink)

Through this contribution I aim to show how the role of language and metaphors is fundamental to our understanding of reality, affecting the way we ordinarily act and live, and particularly important in facing fears and anguish. This is more evident in these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, where our experiences of language and of the world seem to be characterised mainly by war terminology. Politicians declare themselves at war fighting an invisible enemy and health care workers, who are in (...) direct contact with COVID-19 positive patients, are said to be “fighting” on the “frontlines”. Starting from a philosophical account of the relationship between language, fear and anguish, I aim to show how this narrative is unhelpful, both for society at large and especially for patients and health care workers. While war narratives instil fear, it seems to me that new forms of solidarity and new models of coexistence are required. Since language shapes the way in which we think, live and act, it is important to choose words that encourage people to act responsibly, to cooperate and to overcome the hardships of the COVID19 pandemic together. (shrink)

Michael Walzer presents the theory of the just war that he develops in Just and Unjust Wars as a set of principles governing the initiation and conduct of war that are entailed by respect for the moral rights of individuals. I argue in this essay that some of the principles he defends do not and cannot derive from the basic moral rights of individuals and indeed, in some cases, explicitly permit the violation of those rights. I argue, further, that it (...) does not follow, at least in some cases, that the principles are false. Even if some of the principles are not adaptations of a theory of rights to the problems of war, they may still be rational, pragmatic accommodations to epistemic and institutional constraints under which we must now act. Yet I also argue that respect for the rights that Walzer claims that individuals have requires us to try to overcome the epistemic and institutional impediments that restrict us at present. As those impediments are removed, the reasons for acknowledging and following some of the central principles Walzer espouses will diminish and, perhaps, disappear. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 450-451 [Access article in PDF] Simon May. Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on 'Morality.' New York: Oxford University, The Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. xi + 212. Cloth, $45.00. When Friedrich Nietzsche reviewed his career during his final year of intellectual activity, he wrote in Ecce Homo (1888) that his "campaign against morality" began with the publication of Daybreak (1880) eight years (...) earlier. With this autobiographical remark in mind, Simon May appropriately develops his study of Nietzsche's ethics, Nietzsche's Ethics and His War on "Morality," by attending to Nietzsche's writings of the 1880's, using the relatively late On the Genealogy of Morals (1887) as his textual keystone.For the sake of his English-speaking readers' convenience, May reiterates Walter Kaufmann's familiar translations of Nietzsche's works in all of his book's citations, and keeps a relatively tight leash on his references to Nietzsche's pre-1880 works and unpublished notebooks. Historical guideposts to authors within Nietzsche's surrounding cultural context are also limited, and the book unfolds around May's reflections on Nietzsche's publications, supplemented by contemporary references to the works of Bernard Williams in matters concerning ethics, and by references to a substantial number of English-speaking Nietzsche scholars in matters concerning Nietzsche's valuation of truth. Such are the book's methodological contours, which are defensible, but which will probably disappoint those who have philosophical sensibilities that are more philologically and historically pronounced.May divides his book in half, the first segment of which reviews a series of familiar Nietzschean thematics, Nietzsche's conception of values, his distinction between master and slave moralities, his analysis of guilt and bad conscience, his conception of life enhancement, and his conception of the ascetic ideal, all with the prospect of suggesting that Nietzsche's ethical ideal is best encapsulated by the phrase, "become what one is." This ideal, as May understands it, is to develop oneself maximally in a life-enhancing way, given the parameters of one's natural capacities. Although one would expect May to associate this prescription with Nietzsche's conception of the "superhuman" (Übermensch), he thought-provokingly sets the ideal of "becoming what one is" directly against Nietzsche's Übermensch, arguing that the latter is, in fact, "unattainable and undesirable." According to May, Nietzsche's discussion of the superhuman type is distractingly unrealistic, chiefly because a perfectly sovereign individual, unlike us, would be an infallible "man-god" (117) and would have nothing left to overcome.The second half of May's study concentrates on Nietzsche's crucial revaluation of the value of truth. May argues that although Nietzsche rejects an unconditional value for truth and its associated ascetic ideal, it is nonetheless consistent to "passionately" value truth and remain a Nietzschean life-enhancer. May respects Nietzsche's perspectivism, but his interpretation clearly runs against the grain of the more extremely relativistic, "anti-truth," readings of Nietzsche.May's short volume contains plenty of food for disagreement. To cite one notable example, May maintains that "with Nietzsche there is not even an attempt to produce a systematic safety net against cruelty... and, to this extent, his philosophy licenses the atrocities of a Hitler" (132). May's fundamental reason is that since unfettered cruelty is consistent with what he understands to be Nietzsche's radically individualist [End Page 450] principle of life-enhancement, the Nietzschean conception of life-enhancement is ethically deficient. Some of Nietzsche's remarks do provoke May's criticism, but common knowledge also tells us that unfettered cruelty often backfires into either physical or spiritual self-destruction. So a wise Nietzschean would not "license" brutality. Neither, however, would such a Nietzschean seek to erect an absolute barrier against unfettered brutality, but would more discriminatingly consider what wisdom dictates in each circumstance, given the interests of life.May's study intends to exclude from the philosophically best interpretation of Nietzsche, what are recognized by most people as ethically undesirable qualities. His study also renders Nietzsche's key ideas workable, accessible, and palatable... (shrink)

How Do I Save My Honor? is a powerful exploration of individual moral responsibility in a time of war. When individuals conclude that their leaders have violated fundamental ethical principles, what are they to do? Through the compelling personal stories of those in the U.S. and British government and military who struggled with these thorny issues during the war in Iraq, William F. Felice analyzes the degrees of moral responsibility that public officials, soldiers, and private citizens bear for the actions (...) of their governments. Examining the struggles of these contemporary men and women, as well as of historical figures facing similar dilemmas, the author weighs the profound difficulties of overcoming the intense pressures of misguided loyalty, patriotism, and groupthink that predominate during war. (shrink)

Human rights law does not appear to enjoy as high a level of compliance as the laws of war, yet is institutionalized to a greater degree. This Article argues that the reason for this difference is related to the strategic structure of international law. The laws of war are governed by a regime of reciprocity, which can produce selfenforcing patterns of behavior, whereas the human rights regime attempts to produce public goods and is thus subject to collective action problems. The (...) more elaborate human rights institutions are designed to overcome these problems but fall prey to second-order collective action problems. The simple laws of war institutions have been successful because they can exploit the logic of reciprocity. The Article also suggests that limits on military reprisals are in tension with self-enforcement of the laws of war. The U.S. conflict with Al Qaeda is discussed. (shrink)

The first, Ali Elovic, fought on several fronts in World War II and was forced to endure the horrors of Nazi and Communist prisons, but still maintained his thirst for life, emerging as a successful businessman. The second, Nobel Prize-winning virologist Carleton Gajdusek, used his extraordinary scientific talent to escape conventional life and to provide a home and education to more than thirty youths from "primitive" cultures in New Zealand, Australia, and other places.

The central place accorded the notion of ‘sustainable development' among those attempting to overcome ecological problems could be one of the main reasons for their failure. ‘Ecological civilization' is proposed and defended as an alternative. ‘Ecological civilization' has behind it a significant proportion of the leadership of China who would be empowered if this notion were taken up in the West. It carries with it the potential to fundamentally rethink the basic goals of life and to provide an alternative image (...) of the future. It could both inspire people and provide the cultural foundations for the cultural, social and economic transformations necessary to create a new world order, a world order in which humans augment rather than undermine the ecosystems of which they are part. This paper explicates these implications. (shrink)