Recent years have seen a growing interest among psychologists for debates in moral philosophy. Moral psychologists have investigated the causal origins of the opposition between utilitarian and deontological judgments and the psychological underpinnings of people’s beliefs about the moral status of animals. One issue that remains underexplored in this research area is the relationship between people’s disposition to engage in utilitarian thinking and their attitudes towards animals. This gap is unfortunate considering the tight philosophical connection between utilitarianism and the claim (...) that animals have the same moral status as humans. Indeed, the principle of utility leads naturally enough to the view that animals count every bit as much as human beings. In this paper, we report two empirical studies dedicated to bridging this gap. In Study 1, we looked at the relationship between attitudes towards animals and utilitarian judgments in the context of sacrificial dilemmas. In Study 2, we bypassed the problems raised by the use of such dilemmas as a measure of utilitarianism by relying on other types of thought experiments. Overall, our results suggest no strong correlation between utilitarianism and attitudes towards animals. Rather, the existence of a correlation between utilitarianism and attitudes towards animals very much depends on how both are measured. (shrink)

Past research on people's moral judgments about moral dilemmas has revealed a connection between utilitarian judgment and reflective cognitive style. This has traditionally been interpreted as reflection is conducive to utilitarianism. However, recent research shows that the connection between reflective cognitive style and utilitarian judgments holds only when participants are asked whether the utilitarian option is permissible, and disappears when they are asked whether it is recommended. To explain this phenomenon, we propose that reflective cognitive style is associated with a (...) greater moral leniency—that is, a greater tendency to be tolerant of moral violations, and that moral leniency predicts utilitarian judgment when utilitarian judgment is measured through permissibility. In Study 1 (N = 192), we design a set of vignettes to assess moral leniency. In Studies 2 and 3 (N = 455, 428), we show that reflective cognitive style is indeed associated with greater moral leniency, and that moral leniency mediates the connection between cognitive style and utilitarian judgment. We discuss the implication of our results for the interpretation of the relationship between utilitarianism and reflective cognitive style. (shrink)

Agonistic democrats have enriched debates on the political challenge of pluralism by raising awareness for the depth of disagreements and the political potentials of conflict. However, they have so far failed to explore the shape of institutional settings that are conducive to agonism and show how the agonistic stance may, in a very practical sense, strengthen democracies’ capacity to deal with pluralism and conflict. This article argues that this ‘institutional deficit’ of agonistic democracy can be overcome. It develops an approach (...) that reads theories of agonistic democracy as accounts of conflict regulation and uses principles of agonistic politics as measures for a critical assessment of institutional design. A discussion of a test case that is prominent in the recent literature on democratic innovations for pluralist societies—mini-publics—demonstrates that the principles of agonistic conflict regulation as developed by Mouffe, Connolly and Tully provide the basis for both a critique of certain institutions and a development of alternative designs. (shrink)

What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. In philosophy, even less has been said on why women submit to men and the discussion has been equally contradictory—submission has traditionally been considered a vice or pathology, but female submission has been valorized as innate to women’s nature. Is there (...) a way to explore female submission in all of its complexity—not denying its appeal in certain instances, and not buying into an antifeminist, sexist, or misogynistic perspective? -/- We Are Not Born Submissive offers the first in-depth philosophical exploration of female submission, focusing on the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, and more recent work in feminist philosophy, epistemology, and political theory. Manon Garcia argues that to comprehend female submission, we must invert how we examine power and see it from the woman’s point of view. Historically, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and even some radical feminists have conflated femininity and submission. Garcia demonstrates that only through the lens of women’s lived experiences—their economic, social, and political situations—and how women adapt their preferences to maintain their own well-being, can we understand the ways in which gender hierarchies in society shape women’s experiences. Ultimately, she asserts that women do not actively choose submission. Rather, they consent to—and sometimes take pleasure in—what is prescribed to them through social norms within a patriarchy. -/- Moving beyond the simplistic binary of natural destiny or moral vice, We Are Not Born Submissive takes a sophisticated look at how female submissiveness can be explained. (shrink)

The article shows that an uncritical view of domination is a weakness of current accounts of realist legitimacy and it argues that an agonistic supplement can help overcome that weakness. Two accounts of realist legitimacy are discussed: the moral minimum account and the acceptance account. In each case, certain modifications of the argument are needed to establish a distance from moralism, but these modifications create an indifference to domination. The incorporation of an agonistic principle into realist legitimacy can solve this (...) problem. The agonistic case for effective possibilities for contestation endows realist legitimacy with a critical stance towards arrangements that are unresponsive to criticism on the part of those who are subject to them without, however, introducing a moralist argument. (shrink)

L’affaire Weinstein et le mouvement #MeToo ont mis la question des violences sexuelles au premier plan. Depuis, le consentement renvoie naturellement au consentement sexuel et amoureux, envisagé comme un sésame de l’égalité entre femmes et hommes. Pourtant, il est bien difficile à définir, et soulève trois problèmes. Le problème juridique, bien connu de celles et ceux qui suivent l’actualité, peut être résumé ainsi: que faire pour que les cas de viol, d’agression et de harcèlement sexuels soient efficacement punis ? Le (...) deuxième problème est moral : comment penser des relations amoureuses et sexuelles qui ne soient pas fondées sur des normes sociales sexistes et inégalitaires ? Enfin, le problème politique : comment ne pas reconduire les injustices de genre qui se manifestent dans les rapports amoureux et sexuels ? La magistrale analyse du consentement que propose Manon Garcia revisite notre héritage philosophique, plongeant au cœur de la tradition libérale, mettant à nu ses impensés et ses limites. De John Locke aux théoriciennes féministes françaises et américaines, en passant par Michel Foucault et les débats sur la pratique du BDSM, c’est une nouvelle cartographie politique de nos vies privées que dessine cet essai novateur. Au terme de ce livre, il s’agira en somme, pour reprendre la formule de Gloria Steinem, d’« érotiser l’égalité » plutôt que la domination : en ce sens, le consentement sexuel, conçu comme conversation érotique, est sans doute l’avenir de l’amour et du sexe. (shrink)

Along with Machiavelli, Hobbes is usually regarded as the pre-eminent representative of the ‘power-politics’ school of classical realism. He is frequently quoted for his pessimistic depiction of the state of nature that he so famously described as a brutal and anarchic arena in which each individual seeks his own advantage to the detriment of all other individuals, in a perpetual struggle for power. As reflective of this, political realism is sometimes even named the ‘Hobbesian tradition’. Yet there is reason to (...) question whether the standard characterization of realism as a form of moral scepticism which ‘resists the application of morality to war’ provides an accurate description of Hobbes’s political philosophy. In this essay I examine Hobbes’s conception of war, in order to show how, in some fundamental respects, it deviates from this ‘realism’. (shrink)

The forms of status quo critique that current approaches to realist political theory enable are unsatisfactory. They either formulate standards of constructive critique, but remain uncritical of a great range of political situations, or they offer means for criticising basically all political situations, but neglect constructive critique. As part of the endeavour to develop a status quo critique that is potentially radical and constructive, realists might consider possibilities to use non-standard social practices – social practices that function differently than stipulated (...) by existing political forms – as resources for critique. The article shows how the capacity of non-standard social practices to serve as resources for critique might be exploited. It also defends the proposed procedure against the likely objection that it relies on moralist argumentation. The evaluation of the status quo and the selection of social practices need normative argumentation, but such argumentation can be grounded in the actual to an extent that safeguards its realist nature. (shrink)

This introductory chapter gives an overview of the debate on realism in political theory and sets out two themes that are particularly important for this debate: the role of practice in realist political theory and the nature and place of normativity in realist political theory. These two themes are not only among the most discussed topics in the debate on possibilities to do realist political theory. Answers to the question of what more applied forms of realist political theory might look (...) like will also depend significantly on how realists specify the role of practice in political theory and the meaning of realist normative argumentation. We outline some of the main positions in the field and highlight questions that have been insufficiently addressed. Finally, we give an overview of the arguments of the articles assembled in this collection and how they contribute to the ongoing debates on the two themes. (shrink)

Realist political theory is often confronted with the objection that it is biased towards the status quo. Although this criticism overlooks the fact that realist political theories contain various resources for critique, a realist approach that is strong in status quo critique and contributes, constructively, to the theorising of alternatives to the status quo is a desideratum. The article argues that contextual realism, which sources its normativity from particular contexts, harbours an underexploited potential to establish such a form of political (...) theorising. By drawing on ideas and principles that have guided critical engagements with social and political forms in a particular context, and on widely shared views of need for reform, realists can identify deficits of the status quo and contribute to a debate on how these deficits might be addressed. This article describes and illustrates the idea of a transformative contextual realism, and defends it against some potential objections. (shrink)

Leopolis in Latin, Lemberg in German, Lwów in Polish, Lviv in Ukrainian, this city located in the historic province of Eastern Galicia (Galizien, Galicja, Halychyna) has a history marked by the successive conquests of the region by imperial powers. Founded in the 13 th century by Prince Danylo of Galicia as a fortress against the Tatar and Mongol invasions of the period, then bequeathed to his son Lev (Leo) who built it into the city which bears his name, in the (...) 14th century it came under rule of the kings of Poland for the next 400 years or more, emerging as a major centre of the Polish-Lithuanian union. Its multi-ethnic make-up was nevertheless established very early on, like that of most Central-European cities, as a consequence of coming under the ‘Magdeburg rights’ legal system in 1352. Through this development, the city attracted a large number of immigrants of diverse origins (Germans, Czechs, Poles, Jews, Armenians, Tatars, Moldavians and Saracens, both merchants and artisans, who established themselves in their own ethnic quarters in various parts of the city). They had been invited there by King Casimir the Great who was anxious to develop prosperous urban centres in Poland. It was also this ‘German law’ status (jus teutonicum) that set the city apart from its hinterland, populated by Ruthenian peasants and a Polish petty nobility. (shrink)

While the benefits of including local communities in multi-stakeholder initiatives have been acknowledged, their successful involvement remains a challenging process. Research has shown that large business interests are regularly over-represented and that local communities remain marginalized in the process. Additionally, little is known about how procedural fairness and inclusion can be managed and maintained during multi-stakeholder initiatives. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate how marginalized stakeholders, and local communities in particular, can be successfully involved during the course (...) of a multi-stakeholder initiative. An action research approach was adopted where the first author collaborated with a social housing association on an initiative to involve the local community in the design and implementation of circular economy approaches in a low-income neighbourhood. This study contributes to the multi-stakeholder initiative literature by showing that the successful involvement of marginalized stakeholders requires the initiators to continuously manage a balance between uncertainty–certainty, disagreement–agreement and consensus- and domination-based management strategies. Furthermore, our study highlights that factors which are regularly treated as challenges, including uncertainty and disagreement, can actually play a beneficial role in multi-stakeholder initiatives, emphasizing the need to take a temporally sensitive approach. This study also contributes to the circular economy literature by showing how communities can play a bigger role than merely being consumers, leading to the inclusion of a socially oriented perspective which has not been recognized in the previous literature. (shrink)

Cet article s’intéresse aux traces laissées par l’expérience du coma, en particulier aux conséquences de ces lésions sur les capacités du sujet à être en lien avec lui-même et avec les autres. Pour les enfants et adolescents, ce lien semble osciller du manque à l’excès, en lien avec une mise à mal de la fonction d’étayage du premier environnement. À partir de son expérience auprès d’un adolescent hospitalisé suite à une lésion cérébrale et une période de coma, et ce dans (...) le cadre d’une pratique clinique en service de rééducation, l’auteur interroge la possibilité de reprise en termes de subjectivation et historicisation de cette période inscrite en creux pour le sujet et ce qui semble se jouer dans le lien parents-enfant. L’angoisse de mort, à vif, y circule violemment en quête de mise en forme. Le miroir que peut tendre l’autre parental est convoqué. (shrink)

Interaction in French as a Foreign Language: From the Concept Itself to Methodological Challenges. This paper proposes a theorisation of interaction anchored in the framework of sociodidactics, as a ‘linking concept’, and the different issues that arise from this position. This epistemological reflection focuses on interaction as a concept that allows to bring together several aspects of research. Thus, interaction as a concept allows us to weave links between different disciplinary traditions, between different theories and ways of analysing human interactions. (...) As an object and a tool, it makes it possible to link and considers the different participants in the research, their points of view, their imaginaries. This brings many challenges (relational, interpretive among others) to be met. (shrink)

Le but de cet article est de présenter et de discuter le débat qui opposa Searle à Derrida sur les questions du langage et de l'intentionnalité. L'auteur montre que les enjeux de ce débat dépassent largement la réappropriation de la philosophie du langage d'Austin, et qu'il nous fait pénétrer au cœur même de la problématique du langage. Derrida stigmatise dans la théorie du langage de Searle un avatar de la pensée de la présence, qu'il faut déconstruire. En adoptant une stratégie (...) visant à exclure de l'analyse les formes "parasitaires" (par exemple fictionnelles) du discours, mais aussi en optant pour une téléologie du remplissement intuitif et de la parfaite adéquation expressive, Searle aurait sous-estimé le discours parasitaire et l'aurait subordonné à tort au discours "normal". (shrink)

El contenido de la noción de filosofía.--La filosofía de Aristóteles.--La filosofía de Santo Tomás.--La filosofía de Descartes.--La filosofía de Maurice Blondel.

La gestation pour autrui ( gpa ) est une des méthodes de procréation médicalement assistée qui pose aujourd’hui le plus question. En effet, sa légitimité est discutée tant elle bouscule toutes les représentations classiques de la famille et la parentalité. Afin de mieux comprendre ce phénomène, l’étude reprise dans cet article s’est penchée sur la motivation des mères porteuses à offrir leurs services à un couple souhaitant avoir un enfant en recourant à la gpa. Quatre femmes ont été rencontrées à (...) qui il a été proposé de raconter la manière dont elles ont vécu cette « expérience ». La méthodologie est qualitative et comprend un entretien semi-structuré complété par deux génogrammes. Seront présentés dans cet article les principaux résultats concernant la motivation de la mère porteuse. Deux aspects ont particulièrement retenu l’attention : leur haut niveau d’empathie et la présence d’une dette au fondement de la motivation des mères porteuses. (shrink)

Ce dossier interroge la question des temporalités articulée à celle des migrations. Nous faisons le constat que si le « temps » est fréquemment mobilisé dans les titres d’articles ou d’ouvrages sur les migrations, force est de constater que ce concept reste souvent à l’état d’illustration. Le dernier ouvrage sur les migrations qui a utilisé le terme « temporalités » faisait ainsi part du constat suivant : « les temporalités constituent une entrée courante de l’approche des migrations internat...

"L'ouvrage que nous propose aujourd'hui Mme Delphine Espagno est peut-être la plus belle des invitations qui ait été écrite afin d'inciter le lecteur, citoyen et/ou juriste, à comprendre la pensée du doyen de Bordeaux. Léon Duguit méritait effectivement le présent ouvrage et hommage car le doyen, comme Jean-Jacques Rousseau avant lui, a longtemps été et est encore souvent présenté soit comme un marginal de la pensée juridique, soit est même dédaigné de façon méprisante comme si sa qualité de juriste (...) lui était déniée. Hauriou, nous rappelle l'auteure, ira même ainsi jusqu'à affubler Duguit d'être un "anarchiste de la chaire" ce qui n'avait manifestement pas totalement déplu à ce dernier! Car, ce que rappelle Mme Espagno dès son introduction, c'est bien une nouvelle manière de penser et de réinventer le Droit dans son ensemble que nous invite à accomplir Léon Duguit. Il n'est pas qu'un faiseur de théorie(s) (comme celles du service public, des agents publics ou encore de l'Etat), il est - pour reprendre l'expression de Chenot désormais consacrée - un véritable "faiseur de système dans son sens le plus noble et mélioratif. Duguit assume en effet son rôle de guide et nous a donné à voir une nouvelle façon d'appréhender le Droit non pas tel qu'il est mais tel qu'il devrait être. Un Droit qu'il a comme réinventé en chaussant de nouvelles lunettes tel le spectateur qui verrait en deux dimensions et désormais en découvrirait - grâce à lui - une troisième. Après Léon Duguit, les juristes n'ont ainsi pu feindre de ne concevoir le Droit qu'à l'instar d'un artifice fictif, technique et juridique : le Droit est devenu indissociable de la sociologie. Ce "droit duguiste" nous offre alors grâce à la lumière qu'y dépose avec délicatesse Mme Delphine Espagno la vision renouvelée des relations existantes entre Droit, individu et collégialité ou société. En outre, ce que va construire le doyen de Bordeaux n'est pas - comme on le lit encore souvent - une "simple" théorie du service public mais une théorie réaliste de l'Etat par le service public", Mathieu Touzeil-Divina. (shrink)

In the last decade, the importance of Simone de Beauvoir’s contribution to 20th-century French philosophy has been beyond debate. However, it can be tempting to read her contributions as the dated beginnings of feminist philosophy, and to believe that her work is only interesting from the perspective of the history of philosophy. To the contrary, this article claims that contemporary philosophers can and should take Beauvoirian philosophy as a source of fruitful insights on contemporary issues in political and moral philosophy (...) by showing the limited scope of two classic critiques of Beauvoir and by defending the relevance of her work for thinking about female submission and the importance of erotic experience. (shrink)

Une affirmation récurrente parcourt les travaux récents consacrés à Georges Canguilhem : l’essor des études canguilhémiennes aurait avant tout permis de prendre conscience du caractère pleinement philosophique de cette œuvre, laquelle aurait été indûment considérée comme relevant avant tout de l’histoire des sciences ou de l’épistémologie. On s’interroge ici sur le sens de cette redécouverte. Comment la philosophie canguilhémienne aurait-elle pu être oubliée? On montrera dans cet article que cette affirmation surprenante doit être resituée dans un contexte de débats académiques, (...) en France et à l’étranger, concernant la nature de la philosophie des sciences. (shrink)

Delphine Abadie Malgré une historiographie riche de plusieurs orientations, les imaginaires, la recherche et les débats académiques semblent parfois demeurer enfermés dans l’exigence d’un devoir-être de la philosophie africaine tout à fait caractéristique du seul moment ethnophilosophique. Pourtant, les avenues les plus récentes en philosophie africaine partagent un ensemble de présupposés qui rendent inopérante cette confrontation stérile entre un type de philosophie qui désignerait la « véritable » manière de décoloniser les épistémologies africaines, et toutes les autres formes de (...) la philosophie en Afrique. Depuis les années 1980, on doit constater pourtant que la plupart des philosophes du continent ont emprunté des avenues qui nous éloignent de ce premier moment décolonial de l’« authenticité africaine » en internalisant les critiques développées durant les plusieurs décennies qu’a duré la fameuse querelle de la philosophie africaine. Éclairé par la distinction entre approche décoloniale et approche postcoloniale, cet article propose une relecture des chemins parcourus, des détours et des mutations opérées par la philosophie africaine telle qu’elle s’est développée dans l’espace francophone depuis les années 1940 jusqu’à nos jours. (shrink)

The Second Sex can be read as a compelling philosophical exploration of masculinity. Beauvoir proposes to understand masculinity as a situation. It is an impasse as men are stuck in a position where they seek recognition from women, but they construct women in such a way that the recognition women can give them is incomplete and unsatisfying. This understanding of masculinity is crucial for Beauvoir’s emancipatory agenda and suggests that men have nonaltruistic reasons to take part in feminist movements.