Bioethics is taking an institutional turn, where organizations are being taken seriously as moral agents. Within US healthcare, this is difficult to do without confronting “the market” as a highly influential context for organizational behavior. In the 1990s, pioneering thinkers such as David Mechanic,1 Brad Gray, and Mark Schlesinger2 undertook a first round of organizational ethics scholarship focused on how market forces influence health insurer behavior — motivated by a particular concern for health maintenance organizations (HMOs).3 And more recently, owing (...) partly to a transfer of financial risk4 to healthcare delivery organizations,5 rapid consolidation within health system markets,6 and the pronounced uptick in physician employment,7 the behavior of healthcare delivery organizations is also being assessed in relation to market forces. (shrink)

This article conducts a philosophical analysis of the legitimacy of political power in Tanzania using John Locke’s political theory as a framework. It evolved from researcher’s observation and empirical studies that concerned political legitimacy in Tanzania. The lack of philosophical approach opened away for philosophical investigations and the necessity of involving philosophical views like that of the John Locke, in addressing of the shaking political legitimacy in Tanzania. The factors such as; allegations of corruption, restricted (...) freedom of expression and limited access to justice, stimulated the author into philosophical inquiring, in accordance to John Locke’s political philosophy on the theory of legitimacy of political power. The Article examines how Locke’s principles of consent, protection of individual rights, and limited government apply within Tanzania’s socio-political context. The study highlights significant challenges to political legitimacy, including allegations of electoral manipulation, constraints on political freedoms, and governance issues such as corruption and lack of transparency. Recommendations are proposed to enhance democratic governance and accountability in Tanzania, emphasizing the critical need to strengthen electoral integrity, protect fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and assembly, and bolster institutional frameworks for transparency and judicial independence. By applying Locke’s principles, this analysis aims to contribute insights into the dynamics of political authority in Tanzania and suggest pathways for fostering a more inclusive, accountable, and legitimate governance framework aligned with the aspirations of its citizens. (shrink)

Volume 16, Issue 1, April 2020, Page 99-104.

: The increasing reliance upon, and perhaps the growing public and professional skepticism about, the special expertise of bioethicists suggests the need to consider the limits of moral expertise. For all the talk about method in bioethics, we, bioethicists, are still rather far off the mark in understanding what we are doing, even when we may be going about what we are doing fairly well. Quite often, what is most fundamentally at stake, but equally often insufficiently acknowledged, are inherently (...) class='Hi'>political, essentially contested visions of the most compelling and attractive forms of life for individuals and social organization. The current situation in bioethics parallels similar debates in eighteenth-century jurisprudence, especially Jeremy Bentham's withering critique of the prevalent forms of judicial argument and his own, equally unsuccessful, attempt to develop a decision-making procedure in ethics that would operate on a plane above politics. The risk, both then and now, is that we will fail to appreciate the wide range of reasonable disagreement that will remain past the point of extended reflection and discussion. (shrink)

Authority is a normative power to create duties in others. The most plausible accounts of this general power relate it to existing reasons the subjects of authority have with which authoritative directives can help them comply. Such accounts lead some theorists to ascribe a morally ambitious function to political institutions. This article argues against such theories. It defends political authority as a modest normative power, constrained by the type of reasons with which it can help (...) its subjects comply. This modest account differs from other liberal views in the limits it imposes on the exercise of political authority. It casts doubt on familiar limits that protect an individual private sphere. Instead, it imposes a condition of moderation. It suggests that legitimate exercises of political authority should leave space for individuals to be motivated by reasons that political institutions do not and should not mediate for them. (shrink)

Joseph Ratzinger has never produced one theological opus that would encompass his whole theological vision and its corollaries in particular matters. However, despite this, during his long and prolific theological career, in his many publications and interventions he has touched upon nearly every conceivable theological topic. Although these topics are often very diverse, they are also interrelated by the general intellectual framework on which Ratzinger operates. By analysing his insights about particular issues that, at first glance, may appear to have (...) little relationship with each other, it is possible to find some interesting connections that point to the existence of a greater vision. This article will examine the questions of power, authority and truth in Ratzinger's theology and will link the notions of politics and liturgy to demonstrate the existence of such a single, holistic approach. Questions that will be asked in this short study include: How does Ratzinger understand authority and power in general? What are some limits of power that, according to him, both secular and ecclesiastical authorities must recognise and respect? What are some threats to the correct understanding of legitimate authority in the church and in politics today? How do all these issues relate to the main principles of his theology as a whole? (shrink)

In dialogue with Hannah Arendt’s commitment to politics as the exercise of freedom, this article seeks to identify legitimate as opposed to illegitimate leadership while embracing Arendt’s account of plurality. In The Human Condition and elsewhere, Arendt is critical of the separation of ruling and acting in a way that eschews all instantiated hierarchies, even impermanent ones. In what follows, I will try to show how Arendt’s analysis of power and of politics as freedom can be consistent with a (...) model of legitimate leadership. In this model, human beings pursuing projects fulfill one or more of three roles: rectors; actors; and others. Following Isaac Ariail Reed we can define rectors as persons who not only have a project, but also the wherewithal to induce or constrain actors to subordinate their project to the rector’s project, or even to abdicate their independent projects for the sake of those for which a rector commissions them; while actors are those persons who thus perform and complete the projects rectors have commissioned, and/or act on behalf of or in the name of such projects. The relationship between actors and rectors is thus an agency relationship in the sense of Julia Adams, who makes clear how and why agents find and partially place themselves in these inferior positions in order to advance their own individual gains. Others, finally, are all those who are outside the intersubjectivity of the articulation of a project, and who may be obstacles to it. Legitimate leadership, within this model of agency relations, would occur whenever there are projects guided by rectors who successfully recruit actors for the purpose of completing the project on the basis of a partially mutual understanding both of the project and the roles to be played by both rector and actors in the completion of the project. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a new interpretation of Marx’s essay On the Jewish Question which re-states its key ideas but removes unnecessary debates that are not relevant to current political and legal problems. Because OJQ is a demonstration of critique it does not offer positive proscriptions or suggestions for change. Its utility, I argue, lies in the way it can help us think about the limits of resolving deeply entrenched power-relations without a thoroughgoing engaging of how those (...) powers are created and enacted in civil society. With this in mind I read OJQ alongside the recent campaign to legislate for marriage equality in Australia and the movement to recognise environmental human rights. While both movements might ameliorate instances of discrimination and harm, I argue that they cannot resolve those powers that limit certain kinds of access or render people and things subordinate to other interests. (shrink)

This article argues that Frank B. Wilderson's political ontology can be read as both a critique and a radicalization of Giorgio Agamben's formal political-ontological framework constructed around the two extreme poles of sovereignty and bare life. Wilderson critiques and expands Agamben's framework by locating the zero point of political abjection not within bare life, which is still implicated within the ontological zone of Human being by way of an included exclusion, but within Black social death, which is (...) cut off absolutely from Human being. While such a political ontological framework provides an extremely powerful optic for the absolute ontological abjection of Black existence in relation to all other racial positions in the modern West, its absolute prioritization limits the scope of an analysis of power relations that might offer an account of racial positioning that is both broader than and resistant to the political ontology of Western race relations. In conclusion, turning to Fred Moten's Black optimism and Deleuze's and Guattari's account of micropolitics and lines of flight, the article argues for a pragmatics of resistance that finds its practical condition of possibility within the micropolitical field of power relations that marks an excess to the anti-Black macropolitics of political ontology. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, written in reaction to those who argued that the African National Congress (ANC) had no alternative but to implement neoliberal economic policies in the context of the 'Washington Consensus', I discussed the strategic choices and ideological pitfalls of the 'political class' who took over state power in South Africa after the end of apartheid and implemented its own homegrown structural adjustment programme (Gibson 2001). Much of this transition has been scripted by political science (...) 'transition literature' and much of it is proactive, mapping out what should be done to establish a 'pacted', 'elite' democracy overseeing neoliberal economic policies (O'Donnell, Schmitter & Whitehead 1986). From another vantage point, I argued that Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is perhaps one of the most perceptive critiques of the transition literature available. This article continues the discussion. (shrink)

Following a comparative study of canonical liberal philosophers Hayek and Rawls, Juliet Williams reveals a new direction for conceptualizing limited government in the twenty-first century, highlighting the central role that democratic politics--rather than philosophical principles--should play in determining the uses and limits of state power in a liberal regime. Williams draws on recent scholarship in the field of democratic theory and cultural studies in arguing for a shift in the ways liberals approach the study of politics.

Although the French Doctrinaires built up one of the most important political theories of the 19th century and had a decisive influence on Tocqueville, Marx, and J. S. Mill, they have remained largely unknown in the English-speaking world. This article examines the Doctrinaires’ theory of political power by concentrating on François Guizot’s Des moyens de gouvernement et d’opposition dans l’état actuel de la France(On the Means of Government and Opposition in the Current State of France) and Prosper (...) de Barante’s Des communes et de l’aristocratie(On the Communes and the Aristocracy), both published in 1821. Special attention is paid to Guizot’s rejection of laissez-faire and his critique of Rousseau. I then present Guizot’s theory of the ‘new means of government’ that stressed the importance of communication between government and society. Guizot predicted that the growth of liberty would be accompanied by a simultaneous extension of state power and understood that the development of representative government would inevitably lead to a considerable extension of state power over society, made possible by a social demand unseen before. In the final section, I seek to nuance the conventional image of the Doctrinaires as rigid defenders of centralization and critically discuss the virtues and limitations of their elitist liberalism. After commenting on the specificity of French political tradition, I point out a few lessons for contemporary political theorists interested in issues such as political power and the mutual empowerment of state and society. (shrink)

Linguist, psychoanalyst, and cultural theorist, Julia Kristeva is one of the most influential and prolific thinkers of our time. Her writings have broken new ground in the study of the self, the mind, and the ways in which we communicate through language. Her work is unique in that it skillfully brings together psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice, literature, linguistics, and philosophy. In her latest book on the powers and limits of psychoanalysis, Kristeva focuses on an intriguing new dilemma. Freud and (...) psychoanalysis taught us that rebellion is what guarantees our independence and our creative abilities. But in our contemporary "entertainment" culture, is rebellion still a viable option? Is it still possible to build and embrace a counterculture? For whom--and against what--and under what forms? Kristeva illustrates the advances and impasses of rebel culture through the experiences of three twentieth-century writers: the existentialist John Paul Sartre, the surrealist Louis Aragon, and the theorist Roland Barthes. For Kristeva the rebellions championed by these figures--especially the political and seemingly dogmatic political commitments of Aragon and Sartre--strike the post-Cold War reader with a mixture of fascination and rejection. These theorists, according to Kristeva, are involved in a revolution against accepted notions of identity--of one's relation to others. Kristeva places their accomplishments in the context of other revolutionary movements in art, literature, and politics. The book also offers an illuminating discussion of Freud's groundbreaking work on rebellion, focusing on the symbolic function of patricide in his _Totem and Taboo_ and discussing his often neglected vision of language, and underscoring its complex connection to the revolutionary drive. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 (2002) 551-552 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism Petr Lom. The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 138. Cloth, $49.50. Paper, $16.95. Since the appearance in 1960 of Richard Popkin's The History of (...) Skepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (later extended to Spinoza and, in a forthcoming edition, to Bayle) skepticism has been acknowledged as a powerful intellectual force in modern philosophy. Lom's The Limits of Doubt corroborates this view by showing the relevance of this ancient tradition in the political and moral thought of a number of major modern philosophers.The major thesis of the book is that skepticism in itself, that is, conceived as the epistemological position of raising doubts about any knowledge claim, has no moral or political implications. According to Lom, the moral and political positions that have been associated with skepticism (either tyranny and other forms of political oppression or toleration and liberalism in general) derive not from skepticism itself but from what he calls "the limits of doubt": beliefs left untouched by skeptical doubt. To establish this thesis Lom examines the moral and political aspects of skepticism in Nietzsche (chapter 1), Sextus Empiricus (chapter 2), Hobbes (chapter 3), Diderot (chapter 4), and Montaigne (chapter 5), showing in each case the (value) beliefs responsible for the different moral and political positions held.Lom's analysis of these thinkers' relation to skepticism is comprehensive, detailed, and engaged with an extended secondary literature. I can here just briefly indicate some results of Lom's investigation. He shows Nietzsche's esteem for the ancient skeptics in whom alone Nietzsche saw a plain exhibition of intellectual integrity or honesty. This integrity implies, according to Lom, a demand for justice often unnoticed by superficial readings of Nietzsche. The illiberal aspects of Nietzsche's political philosophy, related to his doctrine of the will to power, derive, according to Lom, not from Nietzsche's skepticism but from the limits of his doubt, namely, his dogmatic nihilism (belief that there is no value, a position that Lom carefully distinguishes from skepticism). Lom also finds limits in Sextus Empiricus's skepticism. He follows Martha Nussbaum ("Skeptic Purgatives...," Journal of the History of Philosophy 29 [1991], 1-33) in claiming that Sextus's skepticism does not extend to the principle of non-contradiction and to the end of tranquility (ataraxia). The [End Page 551] latter is mainly responsible for what Lom considers the ancient Pyrrhonians' political indifference. This indifference, coupled with the Pyrrhonians' attempt to destroy reason (a polemical interpretation of ancient Pyrrhonism) "may also allow political nightmares to breed in the night" (45). In Hobbes, Lom identifies a kind of methodical doubt whose aim is not that of Descartes's of finding certain truth but to combat the pride of men. This pride leads to different and conflicting views of the summum bonum that disturb the civil order. Its destruction through skepticism facilitates the acceptance of the sovereign's decisions and thus the attainment of peace. Lom notes the similarity of Hobbes's position on doubt with Sextus's (the subordination of the skepsis to the goal of tranquility) and points out a number of interesting and still little explored parallels between Hobbes and Montaigne, whose skeptical and moral views are examined in chapter 5. According to Lom, Montaigne, like Sextus, is little interested in politics and his attack on cruelty and defense of toleration do not issue from his skepticism but from moral values that remain outside the scope of doubt, notably Montaigne's desire for peace. Lom's analysis of Diderot is interesting and original. He places the French philosophe in the tradition of "constructive skepticism" (expression labeled by Popkin to characterize the skepticism of Gassendi and Mersenne about knowledge of essences but opened to a hypothetical science of phenomena). Lom focuses on Diderot's Rameau Nephew, where he... (shrink)

Vulnerability is one of the least examined concepts in research ethics. Vulnerability was linked in the Belmont Report to questions of justice in the selection of subjects. Regulations and policy documents regarding the ethical conduct of research have focused on vulnerability in terms of limitations of the capacity to provide informed consent. Other interpretations of vulnerability have emphasized unequal power relationships between politically and economically disadvantaged groups and investigators or sponsors. So many groups are now considered to be vulnerable (...) in the context of research, particularly international research, that the concept has lost force. In addition, classifying groups as vulnerable not only stereotypes them, but also may not reliably protect many individuals from harm. Certain individuals require ongoing protections of the kind already established in law and regulation, but attention must also be focused on characteristics of the research protocol and environment that present ethical challenges. (shrink)

In this article, I question the use of the notion of ‘constituent power’ as a tool for the democratization of the European Union (EU). Rather than seeing the absence of a transnational constituent power as a cause of the EU’s ‘democratic deficit’, I identify it as an _opportunity_ for unfettered democratic participation. Against the reification of power-in-action into a power-constituted-in-law, I argue that the democratization of the EU can only be achieved through the multiplication of ‘constituent (...) moments’. I begin by deconstructing the normative justifications surrounding the concept of constituent power. Here I analyze the structural aporia of constituent power and question the autonomous and emancipatory dimension of this notion. I then test the theoretical hypothesis of this structural aporia of the popular constituent power by comparing it with the historical experiments of a European popular constituent power. Finally, based on these theoretical and empirical observations, I propose to replace the ambivalence of the concept of popular constituent power with a more cautious approach to the bottom-up democratization of European integration: that of a multiplication of transnational constituent moments. (shrink)

Extant literature on Political CSR and the role of governments in the governance of business conduct tends to neglect key implications of the political-institutional macro-context for public deliberation. Contextual assumptions often remain rather implicit, leading to the need for a more nuanced, explicit and context-sensitive exploration of the theoretical and practical boundary conditions of Political CSR. In non-democratic political-institutional contexts, political pluralism and participation are limited, and governmental agencies continue to play the most central role (...) in regulation and its enforcement. Drawing on a qualitative case study on a nuclear energy project in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, we show how both governments and MNCs co-create a context hostile to socially responsible business conduct in the sense of Political CSR. Utilizing rich qualitative data derived from interviews, public documents, and participant observation between 2008 and 2018, we specifically illuminate how—through which interactions and strategies—the multiple governmental and corporate actors involved counter civil society demands for public deliberation, indicating the limitations of Political CSR in non-democratic political-institutional contexts. We particularly contribute to the development of Political CSR by analysing the role of coercive and discursive forms of power. We thus offer a more nuanced perspective on the role of governments in constraining the room for public deliberation in the sense of Political CSR. (shrink)

Jose Raimundo Maia Neto - The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 551-552 Book Review The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism Petr Lom. The Limits of Doubt: The Moral and Political Implications of Skepticism. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. xiv + 138. Cloth, $49.50. Paper, $16.95. Since the appearance (...) in 1960 of Richard Popkin's The History of Skepticism from Erasmus to Descartes skepticism has been acknowledged as a powerful intellectual force in modern philosophy. Lom's The Limits of Doubt corroborates this view by showing the relevance of this ancient tradition in the political and moral thought of a number of major modern.. (shrink)

Brazil has occupied a central role in the access to medicines movement, especially with respect to drugs used to treat those with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes the acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Contrary to previous literature centered on the role of the domestic pharmaceutical industry, politicians seeking electoral gains, and civil society activists, I argue that the state, especially the National AIDS Program, led the struggle in contesting a corporate-driven international intellectual property regime. After reviewing the origins of Brazil’s (...) treatment policies and patent reforms, I trace the actions and relationships between the state, civil society, transnational corporations, and local industry in three instances when Brazilian officials used compulsory licenses to reduce the price of medicines. Coalition-building and “naming and shaming” tactics contributed to Brazil’s success, while changing pharmaceutical capabilities limited more aggressive actions. (shrink)

In Chinese history the periods known as Spring and Autumn (770-476 BC) and the Warring States (475-221 BC) were times of conflict and political instability caused by the increasing power of centralized and competing states. During this time of crisis many schools of thought appeared to offer different philosophical doctrines. This paper describes and studies ideas about the limitation of power defended by these different schools of ancient Chinese thought, and suggests some reasons why they failed (...) to prevent the emergence of an authoritarian imperial government in early China. (shrink)

Political theorists frequently utilize the ‘firm–state analogy’ (FSA) to support the arguments for democratic governance in firms. This article presents the FSA as an analogy with both justificatory and epistemic functions. Its justificatory function provides valid justificatory strategies for workplace democracy, while its epistemic function offers models that shape the understanding of corporate power. In this article, four limitations of the justificatory function of the FSA are identified: (i) the problem of ambiguity, (ii) the boundary problem, (iii) the (...) issue of normative redundancy, and (iv) the universality problem. Furthermore, the article argues that the epistemic function of the FSA fails to adequately address some of the most concerning forms of corporate power wielded by large, particularly multinational, corporations in the realm of international trade. As a result, the FSA misses crucial reasons for the normative desirability of democracy in corporate governance. (shrink)

According to instrumental proceduralism, political power is justified when it is the output of a reliable procedure. In this paper, I examine how procedures are supposed to confer normative properties. Based on this assessment, I conclude that many proceduralists set the reliability bar too low. Next, I motivate two additional requirements for instrumental procedures. I introduce the notion of “predictable” procedural failure and argue that in order for a procedure to confer legitimacy or other normative properties on its (...) output, it must not have failed predictably. Finally, I argue that even when procedures are highly reliable, it must not be the case that their failures fall disproportionately on certain people. The goal is to develop an instrumental proceduralism that is more sensitive to the failures of real institutions. (shrink)

Writing about the history and politics of epidemics and pandemics requires stepping into a historiography that is expansive, transnational, and slotted into specific historical periods. This essay considers the main debates in this expansive historiography and highlights the strengths and limitations of dominant historiographical approaches to the study of epidemics and pandemics. This essay also interrogates the framing of three thematic periods, or categories, commonly identified by historians and social scientists in analyses of epidemics and pandemics: categories of “colonial health,” (...) “international health,” and “global health.” As this essay underscores, scholarship often analyzes epidemics and pandemics through overlapping and complex historical temporalities involving colonization, decolonization, and globalization. However, this approach is often constrained by the limitations of existing archives and the overwhelming focus of published scholarship on dominant institutions, scientific and political figures, and specific disease outbreaks that are commonly associated with categories of “colonial health,” “international health,” and “global health” from the late nineteenth to the present. As a result, scholarship may include linear narratives that flatten or generalize the legacies of epidemics and pandemics. The links between pathogens and pathologies are not linear, however, and colonial structures of power, disease tropes, and surveillance doctrines often persist across time and space. This essay ultimately seeks to challenge and complicate these dominant framings and categories from within. This approach highlights the connectedness—and complex continuities and discontinuities—in the political, economic, social, and scientific perceptions of and approaches to epidemic and pandemic risks. (shrink)

Myth presents us with two major problems: definition and usage. In this paper I focus on the latter problem and argue in defense of Spinoza’s theory of political myth as opposed to the dichotomy of “myth as progress” and “myth as regression.” Spinoza’s theory is preferable because it allows for a full-bodied understanding of myth, its legitimate uses and its dangers for slipping into superstition. Because myth plays on the imagination, the basest form of knowledge available to all people (...) and only source of error in knowledge, we must be careful not to take myth as truth. To do so is to regress into superstition. When used legitimately, myth is a powerful tool that can unite a people toward progress and change, and can be a useful force in the uncertain political times we have been facing. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva, herself a product of the famous May '68 Paris student uprising, has long been fascinated by the concept of rebellion and revolution. Psychoanalysts believe that rebellion guarantees our independence and creative capacities, but is revolution still possible? Confronted with the culture of entertainment, can we build and nurture a culture of revolt, in the etymological and Proustian sense of the word: an unveiling, a return, a displacement, a reconstruction of the past, of memory, of meaning? In the first (...) part of the book, Kristeva examines the manner in which three of the most unsettling modern writers--Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes--affirm their personal rebellion. In the second part of the book, Kristeva ponders the future of rebellion. She maintains that the "new world order" is not favorable to revolt. "What can we revolt against if power is vacant and values corrupt?" she asks. Not only is political revolt mired in compromise among parties whose differences are less and less obvious, but an essential component of European culture--a culture of doubt and criticism--is losing its moral and aesthetic impact. (shrink)

Technological augmentation in the field of communication is a new way of controlling and manipulating the interface between current political communications and information. This is because, within the new paradigms of power, political communication is under the influence of netocracy, a new and mythical form of cybertechnological superpanopticism. The general objective of this paper is to analyze the phenomenon of cybertechnological globalization where, according to Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist, this new form of political and communicative (...) superpanopticism is the result of netocracy. This is related not just to the undermining of capitalism, but also to the myth of internet transparency as the site for communicational freedom. In theoretical terms, this paper seeks to deconstruct this hypothesis based on Slavoj Žižek’s position on netocracy. He claims this phenomenon is little more than a new and perverse form of capitalism which engages new methods of manipulating political communication. The methodology used in this paper draws on Bard and Söderqvist’s arguments, Žižek’s critique and Gilles Deleuze’s deconstruction. (shrink)

Both decentralization of state law and cultural relativism have been fundamentally embedded in legal pluralism. As a scholarly trend in law and society, it has insightfully challenged the underpinnings of analytical positivist jurisprudence. Nevertheless, a theoretical concept of political power has significantly been missing in research on the plurality of legal practices in various jurisdictions. This Article aims to critically offer a theoretical concept of political power that takes legal decentralization and cultural relativism seriously and yet (...) points to how and where we should look into political power, assuming that legal pluralism itself may be a strategy of elites and nation-states amid globalization. First, the Article explores the contributions of legal pluralism, and its limits, in intellectually revolting against analytical positivist jurisprudence. Second, it explicates why a concept of political power has been missing, and why such a concept is required for better comprehension of legal pluralism. Third, it calls for a look into three sites of political power in the praxis of legal pluralism: politics of identities, non-ruling communities, and neo-liberal globalization. Last, the Article constructs a concept of political-legal transformations that enables us to unveil political power in the context of de-centralized legal pluralities. Power is produced in, resides in and is generated in the dynamic interactions between nation-states, localities and global agents. Transformative relations along these dimensions allow the nation-state to forfeit some elements of power, both in economics and in law, but they also enable it to maintain some essential ingredients of political power that are often veiled in the rhetoric of globalized pluralism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT For several decades now, a steady flow of scholarly contributions from both intellectual history and political theory has been reasserting Benjamin Constant as a theorist of liberal democracy. Constant’s visionary understanding of liberal democracy is usually conflated with his understanding of limited popular sovereignty. In this article, I reconstruct Constant’s positive conception of popular sovereignty, i.e. his conception of what popular sovereignty means within its limits and take it as the starting point of an analysis of Constant’s understanding (...) of democracy. I argue that Constant’s understanding of popular sovereignty as ‘the assent of all’ leads to a distinction between ‘governmental authority’ and ‘sovereign power’. The latter is exercised by the individual members of the political community and has features that align with contemporary aggregative and contestatory approaches to democracy. Even though according to this analysis, Constant’s conception of democracy allows for both pluralism and dynamism, those are operative against the background of a more fundamental conservatism: Constant’s understanding of sovereign power is predicated on an institutional status quo. (shrink)

One objection to the principle of public reason is that since there is room for reasonable disagreement about distributive justice as well as about human flourishing, the requirement of reasonable acceptability rules out redistribution as well as perfectionism. In response, some justificatory liberals have invoked the argument from higher-order unanimity, or nested inclusiveness. If it is not reasonable to reject having some system of property rights, and if redistribution is just the enforcement of a different set of property rights, redistribution (...) is legitimate if chosen democratically. This article explores two problems with this response. First, there are different ways to describe the set of possible policies, and so different ways to specify the noncoercive default that obtains in the absence of conclusive justification. Second, if the coercive exercise of political power must be conclusively justified, policies that are more coercive ought to require conclusive justification as against policies that are less coercive. These problems about the baseline with respect to which we require public justification raise the question of how we measure coercion, and whether or in what sense there is a presumption against coercion. The article distinguishes and argues against three such presumptions. (shrink)

Perfected science is but an idealization that provides a useful contrast to highlight the limited character of what we do and can attain. This lies at the core of various debates in the philosophy of science and Rescher’s discussion focuses on the question: how far could science go in principle—what are the theoretical limits on science? He concentrates on what science can discover, not what it should discover. He explores in detail the existence of limits or limitations on scientific inquiry, (...) especially those that, in principle, preclude the full realization of the aims of science, as opposed to those that relate to economic obstacles to scientific progress. Rescher also places his argument within the politics of the day, where "strident calls of ideological extremes surround us," ranging from the exaggeration that "science can do anything"—to the antiscientism that views science as a costly diversion we would be well advised to abandon. Rescher offers a middle path between these two extremes and provides an appreciation of the actual powers and limitations of science, not only to philosophers of science but also to a larger, less specialized audience. (shrink)

Usually viewed as the premier apologist for laissez-faire capitalism, Smith is seen in this new interpretation within the context of an earlier tradition that condemned the British aristocracy for relinquishing its moral obligation to promote the public good in favor of an unceasing pursuit of private gain. Through separate chapters on Mandeville, Bolingbroke, and Hume, Gallagher shows that Smith echoed civic humanist sermons against the avaricious inclinations of the nobles who profited most from commercial expansion. Unlike earlier critics, however, Smith (...) concluded that the most prudent response to aristocratic corruption was not to hold ministers, kings, and social notables to higher standards but to limit their access to political power. _The Rule of the Rich?_ accordingly shows that the case for limited government made in _The Wealth of Nations_ was not a defense of individual liberty so much as a concession to the apparent incompetence of the British upper class. (shrink)

This article explores the interrelations among religious, moral and political power in an analogy to the Christian concept of ‘perichoresis’ of the Trinity. Starting with beliefs about power, the endoxa, the article explores, first, moments in Western thought to show how power has been grounded in God or gods and in the vitalities of nature. In each case, ultimately speaking, ‘might makes right’. Within this history the article also charts the ‘axial breakthrough’ in Christianity that places (...) ‘ethical’ limits on religious and political power. In a second step, the works of Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas are explored in order to show that current Christian ethics is caught in an aporia: it asserts the reality of power in history and the ‘world’, but also the ultimate claim of Christian love. The article concludes that Christian ethics needs a differentiated conception of power and a renewed conception of ‘conscience’ as the mode of moral being within complex social systems. (shrink)

Visions and imaginaries have been longstanding research topics in Science and Technology Studies. Visions of sociotechnical change often ascribe responsibility for achieving the desired change to specific actors. However, there is little research on how visions create, change, and preserve responsibilities in the present. Drawing on Vision Assessment, we present a case-study on visions of neuromorphic computing in NeuroSys, a research and innovation cluster located in the Aachen region in Germany, which develops brain-inspired computing technology, also known as neuromorphic computing. (...) Based on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, we identify a core vision, which imagines the region as a prominent center of neuromorphic computing, and three satellite visions, focusing on, respectively, entrepreneurship, science, and society. We analyze all visions through the lens of “responsibility boundary-work” operating in the dimensions of time, space, and actor constellation. This concept captures the selective conferral and deferral of responsibilities through visions, highlighting how normative boundaries are drawn in local practices. We further shed light on the larger institutional conditions shaping responsibility boundary-work by attending to the “politics of visions.” Power struggles are enacted through the ways in which visions confer and defer responsibilities. Tensions between these practices reflect conflicts over desirable social orders and power distributions within them, revealing the socio-political nature of visions. We discuss the implications of these findings for governance approaches that pursue responsible research and technology development, and we conclude that responsibility boundary-work may limit the potential of governance to conceive of and work toward responsible futures. (shrink)

The international rule of law is often seen as a centerpiece of the modern international order. It is routinely reaffirmed by governments, international organizations, scholars, and activists, who credit it with reducing the recourse to war, preserving human rights, and constraining the pursuit of state self-interests. It is commonly seen as supplanting coercion and power politics with a framework of mutual interests that is cemented by state consent.

The alterity of children seems to raise some peculiar problems for empathy: the child is an _alter ego_ whose difference is often regarded as abnormality or deficiency, and whose relation to adults is ineluctably asymmetric. Accordingly, two related threats endanger the respect and the acknowledgment of the child’s particular otherness: the denial of her subjectivity, as well as domination and violence. The paroxystic expression of these interconnected threats can be found in child abuse situations, which deserve special consideration from the (...) standpoint of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity, embodiment and intercorporeality. At the same time, questions can be raised not only about the child abuse perpetrator’s lack of empathy for the child victim, but also about his or her own call for empathy. Combining a phenomenological approach inspired mostly by Husserl and a feminist approach that makes use of Foucault, the paper first attempts to show that the specific alterity of children and their subjectivity can and must be acknowledged in spite of the variations in embodiment between adults and children. The second moment of the inquiry defines the response of adults to the children’s peculiar otherness in terms of responsibility and care, and analyzes the potentialities for domination and abuse implied by the power of adults over children. Finally, the third and last part of the paper deals with the limits of empathy in front of the moral alterity of child abuse perpetrators, relying on Neige Sinno’s reflexive endeavor in _Triste Tigre_. (shrink)

History casts a spell on our minds more powerful than science or religion. It does not root us in the past at all. It rather flatters us with the belief in our ability to recreate the world in our image. It is a form of self-assertion that brooks no opposition or dissent and shelters us from the experience of time. So argues Constantin Fasolt in _The Limits of History_, an ambitious and pathbreaking study that conquers history's power by carrying (...) the fight into the center of its domain. Fasolt considers the work of Hermann Conring and Bartolus of Sassoferrato, two antipodes in early modern battles over the principles of European thought and action that ended with the triumph of historical consciousness. Proceeding according to the rules of normal historical analysis—gathering evidence, putting it in context, and analyzing its meaning—Fasolt uncovers limits that no kind of history can cross. He concludes that history is a ritual designed to maintain the modern faith in the autonomy of states and individuals. God wants it, the old crusaders would have said. The truth, Fasolt insists, only begins where that illusion ends. With its probing look at the ideological underpinnings of historical practice, _The Limits of History_ demonstrates that history presupposes highly political assumptions about free will, responsibility, and the relationship between the past and the present. A work of both intellectual history and historiography, it will prove invaluable to students of historical method, philosophy, political theory, and early modern European culture. (shrink)

This is the editors' preface to a special issue of Philosophia on 'Religion and Limits of Liberalism'. It begins by noting the challenges which the 'return' of religions to liberal democracies poses to the liberal commitment to respect citizens’ freedom and equality. Then, with particular reference to Rawls' theory of liberal politics, it situates the papers in relation to three different senses of liberal ‘respect’ that are challenged by contemporary religions – one understood in terms of the justification of (...) class='Hi'>political power, another as tolerance of diversity, and the third in terms of freedom from interference. (shrink)

The consent theory of power, whereby ruling elites depend ultimately on the submission, cooperation and obedience of the governed as their source of power, is often linked to debates about the effectiveness of non-violent political action. According to this theory, ruling elites depend ultimately on the submission, cooperation and obedience of the governed as their source of power. If this cooperation is with-drawn, then this power is undermined. Iain Atack outlines this theory and examines its (...) strengths and weaknesses. Atack argues that incorporating the insights of other theories of power, such as Gramsci's theory of hegemony and Foucault's views on 'micro-power', can provide us with a more sophisticated understanding of both the effectiveness and the limits of nonviolent political action than the consent theory of power. Gramsci's contribution deepens the analysis in terms of our understanding of the origins of individual consent in the context of larger economic and political structures, while Foucault adds a different dimension, in that his micro-approach emphasizes the ubiquity and plurality of power, rather than its embodiment or reification in large-scale structures. (shrink)

According to postmodern scholars, subjects are defined only through their relationship to power. However, if we are only political subjects insofar as we are subjected to existing power relations, there is little hope of political transformation. To instigate change, we need to draw on collective power, but appealing to a particular type of subject, whether "working class," "black," or "women," will always be exclusionary. Recent work in political and feminist thought has suggested that we (...) can get around these paradoxes by eliminating the idea of political subjects entirely or else thinking of political identities as constantly shifting. In this book, I argue that these are both failed ideas. Instead, I suggest a novel idea of a subject in outline as the agent of socio-political change. This subject moves within the tension of coherence necessary for an agency (the subject) and permanent openness necessary to counter the exclusionary character of a political collectivity based on identity (the outline). I also develop the idea of the moment of the limit, which refers to those moments when power structures fail to subject us, and transformative agency becomes a possibility. While I reject the idea of political autonomy, I show that there is always a moment in which subjects can contest the power relations that define them. Throughout the book, I ground these concepts in work by Adorno, Lacan, and Marx - the very theorists who are often seen as denying the subject's agency. (shrink)

Julia Kristeva, herself a product of the famous May '68 Paris student uprising, has long been fascinated by the concept of rebellion and revolution. Psychoanalysts believe that rebellion guarantees our independence and creative capacities, but is revolution still possible? Confronted with the culture of entertainment, can we build and nurture a culture of revolt, in the etymological and Proustian sense of the word: an unveiling, a return, a displacement, a reconstruction of the past, of memory, of meaning? In the first (...) part of the book, Kristeva examines the manner in which three of the most unsettling modern writers -- Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes -- affirm their personal rebellion. In the second part of the book, Kristeva ponders the future of rebellion. She maintains that the "new world order" is not favorable to revolt. "What can we revolt against if power is vacant and values corrupt?" she asks. Not only is political revolt mired in compromise among parties whose differences are less and less obvious, but an essential component of European culture -- a culture of doubt and criticism -- is losing its moral and aesthetic impact. (shrink)

In this paper I reflect critically on the concept of pragmatism as it is used in Ottoman historiography. Pragmatism has gained increasing currency over the last ten to fifteen years as one of the defining features of the Ottoman polity. I argue that unless it is properly defined from a theoretical-philosophical perspective, and carefully contextualized from a historical perspective, pragmatism cannot be used as an explanatory or comparative category. When used as a framework of explanation for historical change, pragmatism blurs (...) more than it clarifies an essential aspect of the Ottoman polity that it seeks to define, namely, the political. It is essential to reflect on the difference between the political and politics because whereas the political refers to the configuration of the power relations that organize a society as a legitimate entity, politics refers to the strategies, practices, institutions, or discourses whose purpose is to construct and retain hegemony within a polity. Through an analysis of the concept of pragmatism in Ottoman historiography, I show that for most proponents of Ottoman pragmatism, pragmatism pertains to politics rather than to the political. From a perspective rigorously confined to political theory, I argue that much like the discourse of modern tolerance, pragmatism in Ottoman historiography posits a problematic periodization, relegates the political to the background, and depoliticizes essential power relations. (shrink)

This paper examines one strand of the ‘turn to ethics’ in recent political theory by engaging with Michel Foucault's late work on ‘the care of the self.’ For contemporary thinkers interested in how democratic politics might be guided, informed, or vivified by particular ethical orientations, Foucault's inquiry into ancient ethics has proved intriguing. Might concentrated ‘work on the self’ contribute to efforts to resist and remake present-day power relations? This paper endeavors to raise doubts about the Foucauldian inspired (...) view, which regards a reflexive relation of the self to itself as a privileged site for critically engaging with existing configurations of power. To do so, I offer a close reading of Foucault's scholarship that examines his work on ethics together with his well-known theory of power. I demonstrate that Foucault's distinctive theory of power, if read carefully, alerts us to the limits of the care of the self as a strategy for making power relations more equitable, open, and responsive to democratic constituencies. As I show, disciplinary power and biopower target collectivities by ‘individualizing’ and ‘massifying,’ respectively, and thereby diminishing the potential ‘counter-power’ generated by pluralistic association. If this dimension of Foucault's thought is appreciated, the ‘care of the self’ appears as a very limited resource for challenging these de-politicizing effects. Yet this paper also draws on Foucault's thought in order to stress the importance of re-orienting debates concerning the relationship between ethics and politics toward associative rather than reflexive practices of freedom. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1985, Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain has become a seminal text in the study of embodiment. In its foregrounding of the body in war and torture, it critiques the minimising of the body in questions of politics, offering a compelling account of the structure and phenomenology of violent domination. However, at the same time the text can be seen to shore up a mind/body dualism that has been associated with oppressive forms of gendering, racialisation and (...) disablement. Divisive, powerful and elegant, the text has been central in the shaping of approaches to embodiment over the past 30 years. This special issue revisits Scarry's text in the light of 30 years of scholarship on embodiment and the body. Its legacies and limits are exemplified through a series of articles that mobilise the arguments of The Body in Pain even as they push at the limits of the text. (shrink)

A broad sociocultural perspective defines trauma as the result of an event, a series of events, or a set of circumstances that is experienced as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening, with lasting impacts on an individual’s physical, social, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing. Contexts and practices that aim to be “trauma-informed” strive to attend to the complex impacts of trauma, integrating knowledge into policies and practices, and providing a sanctuary from harm. However, there is a body of critical and (...) decolonial scholarship that challenges the ways in which “trauma-informed” practice prioritizes individualized interventions, reinscribes colonial power relations through its conceptualizations of safety, and obscures the role of systemic injustices. Within music therapy trauma scholarship, research has thus far pointed to the affordances of music in ameliorating symptoms of trauma, bypassing unavailable cognitive processes, and working from a strengths-based orientation. In critiquing the tendency of the dominant trauma paradigm to assign vulnerability and reinforce the individual’s responsibility to develop resilience through adversity, this conceptual analysis outlines potential alternatives within music therapy. Drawing on a case example from a research project with young people in school, I elucidate the ways in which music therapy can respond to power relations as they occur within and beyond “trauma-informed” spaces. I highlight two overarching potentials for music therapy within a shifting trauma paradigm: (1) as a site in which to reframe perceived risk by fostering young people’s resistance and building their political agency and (2) in challenging the assumption of “safe spaces” and instead moving toward practices of “structuring safety.”. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on recent artworks by South African artist Nandipha Mntambo. I read these for the ways in which the discourse of species works within and against the humanist sacrificial economy of the subject that Jacques Derrida calls “carno-phallogocentric”. Drawing on Derrida's “metonymy of ‘eating well,'” Achille Mbembe's analysis of colonial violence, and Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection, I argue that these works inscribe and disturb a speciesist, sexual, and racial politics of animalization, and do so by (...) figuring a transgressive animality that stalks the “origins” of “the human” and troubles its carnivorous and colonial relations of “eating the other.” The works render ambiguous the humanist border that separates “man” from what he calls “the animal” and thicken the singular division between edible and inedible bodies, and literal and figurative eating. I suggest that this figures what Haraway might call an “eccentric subject”, one that not only holds open the possibility of a nonanthropocentrism but, as Haraway would say, “nourishes indigestion” at the heart of “carno-phallogocentric” power. But this is risky practice, as a recent controversy about reading Mntambo's work shows. (shrink)

Exemption claims remain a tangled and divisive moral and legal issue both in academia and in the public sphere. In his book Exemptions: Necessary, Justified, or Misguided?, the constitutional scholar Kent Greenawalt zeros in on the vexed question of whether exemptions from rules of general applicability based on the conscientious convictions of individuals or groups are sometimes justified or prudent by discussing a wide range of cases drawn from the American jurisprudence. Although he does not engage in a significant way (...) with political and legal philosophy and comparative law, his contextualist and pragmatic approach is a powerful antidote against oversimplification and dogmatism with regard to exemption claims. Unsurprisingly, Greenawalt’s approach comes at times dangerously close to casuistry, and some of his analyses and normative recommendations would benefit from a firmer footing in moral principles and rational argumentation. In this review, I flesh out some of the strengths and limits of Greenawalt’s valuable book. (shrink)

Though this paper acknowledges the progress made in business ethics over the past several decades, it focuses on the challenges and limits of global business ethics. It maintains that business ethicists have provided important contributions regarding the Evaluative, Embodiment, and Enforcement aspects of business ethics. Nevertheless, they have not sufficiently considered a fourth part of a theory of moral change, an Enactment theory, whereby the principles and values business ethicists have identified might actually be followed. Enactment theory argues that appeals (...) to ethical leadership, moral imagination, and communicative participation have been insufficient to the task of closing the gap between what businesses do and what they ought to be doing. To address this problem, a theory of moral change focusing on the relations of power within which individuals and businesses operate needs to be developed. Drawing on the work of John Gaventa, the paper sketches some directions in which business ethics should proceed to help diminish this gap. The upshot is that business ethics needs greater connection with economic, social, and political theories. It also suggests that there are important limits to fostering the ethics of global business. (shrink)

Vardoulakis traces the function of violence in Balibar’s theory of the subject/citizen. Doing so, Vardoulakis brings together areas of Balibar’s philosophy that are usually discussed separately, such as his work on Spinoza, his anthropology and his lectures on violence. Finally, Vardoulakis uses the presentation of the way violence figures in all these fields to offer a critique of Balibar’s conceptions of democracy and power.