This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

The question 'Why should I obey the law?' introduces a contemporary puzzle that is as old as philosophy itself. The puzzle is especially troublesome if we think of cases in which breaking the law is not otherwise wrongful, and in which the chances of getting caught are negligible. Philosophers from Socrates to H.L.A. Hart have struggled to give reasoned support to the idea that we do have a general moral duty to obey the law but, more recently, the greater number (...) of learned voices has expressed doubt that there is any such duty, at least as traditionally conceived. (shrink)

Linda Krieger's paper in this volume relies on the concepts of "equal" and "special" rights, and I focus my attention upon the bivalent view of equality which justifies the creation of special rights. Krieger argues, I point out, that equality of effect is a fundamentally more just consideration than equality of treatment, and special rights allow disadvantaged groups to achieve this equality of effect.

We present evidence from a pre-registered experiment indicating that a philosophical argument––a type of rational appeal––can persuade people to make charitable donations. The rational appeal we used follows Singer’s well-known “shallow pond” argument (1972), while incorporating an evolutionary debunking argument (Paxton, Ungar, & Greene 2012) against favoring nearby victims over distant ones. The effectiveness of this rational appeal did not differ significantly from that of a well-tested emotional appeal involving an image of a single child in need (Small, Loewenstein, and (...) Slovic 2007). This is a surprising result, given evidence that emotions are the primary drivers of moral action, a view that has been very influential in the work of development organizations. We did not find support for our pre-registered hypothesis that combining our rational and emotional appeals would have a significantly stronger effect than either appeal in isolation. However, our finding that both kinds of appeal can increase charitable donations is cause for optimism, especially concerning the potential efficacy of well-designed rational appeals. We consider the significance of these findings for moral psychology, ethics, and the work of organizations aiming to alleviate severe poverty. (shrink)

This volume offers new perspectives on some better known authors such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Catharine Macaulay, and Anna Laetitia Barbauld, as well as neglected figures from the British Isles and continental Europe. The collection advances discussion of how best to understand women’s political contributions during the period, the place of salon sociability in the political development of Europe, and the interaction between discourses on slavery and those on women’s rights. It will interest scholars and researchers working in women’s intellectual history (...) and Enlightenment thought and serve as a useful adjunct to courses in political theory, women’s studies, the history of feminism, and European history. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

Paul Cartledge, The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization, TV Books, ISBN - 9781575000930.

Lawyers and philosophers have long debated whether law should enforce social morality. This paper explores whether law should improve social morality. It explains how this might be possible, and what sort of obstacles, factual and moral, there are to doing so. It concludes with an example: our law should attempt to improve our social morality of sexual conduct.

ABSTRACT:A wide range of research uses patterns of genetic variation to infer genetic similarity between individuals, typically referred to as genetic ancestry. This research includes inference of human demographic history, understanding the genetic architecture of traits, and predicting disease risk. Researchers are not just structuring an intellectual inquiry when using genetic ancestry, they are also creating analytical frameworks with broader societal ramifications. This essay presents an ethics framework in the spirit of virtue ethics for these researchers: rather than focus on (...) rule following, the framework is designed to build researchers’ capacities to react to the ethical dimensions of their work. The authors identify one overarching principle of intellectual freedom and responsibility, noting that freedom in all its guises comes with responsibility, and they identify and define four principles that collectively uphold researchers’ intellectual responsibility: truthfulness, justice and fairness, anti-racism, and public beneficence. Researchers should bring their practices into alignment with these principles, and to aid this, the authors name three common ways research practices infringe these principles, suggest a step-by-step process for aligning research choices with the principles, provide rules of thumb for achieving alignment, and give a worked case. The essay concludes by identifying support needed by researchers to act in accord with the proposed framework. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays by various contributors in honor of the late Laurence Berns, Richard Hammond Elliot Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Annapolis. The essays address the literary, political, theological, and philosophical themes of his life's work as a scholar, teacher, and constant companion of the "great books.".

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Naomi Greene SARTRE, SEXUALITY, AND THE SECOND SEX Few would deny that Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of female sexuality plays a very important role in her book The Second Sex, widely regarded as one of the key works of modern feminist thought. At the same time, it is precisely her view of sexuality, and many of the conclusions it gives rise to concerning female behavior, which constitute some of (...) the most problematical areas in this vast and complex work. Margaret Walters echoes the concerns of many feminists when she remarks that de Beauvoir "attacks the mystique of femininity—by accepting a masculine mystique. In the end, it is she who equates the human with the male sex, who idealizes male values, sees life from a masculine perspective." So far, however, little attention has been paid to the ways in which de Beauvoir's view of female sexuality and behavior reveals the unmistakable influence of her life-long friend and companion, Jean-Paul Sartre. It is not difficult to discern in some of Sartre's central metaphysical ideas—ideas which de Beauvoir uses to create the theoretical framework of The Second Sex—a world view which is deeply anti-sexual (perhaps even anti-life, but then life itself appears symbolized by sex) and anti-female. Sartre's anti-sexual bias is more readily apparent in the metaphors of Nausea (1938), his philosophical novel, than in his strictly philosophical work, Being and Nothingness (1943). Nausea is, in fact, alive with metaphors since it seeks to render accessible, even tangible, some of the fundamental abstractions of Being and Nothingness. The feeling of nausea itself, for example, is essentially a metaphor for man's basic experience of Being: the nausea comes when man realizes that all the distinctions and orders (in particular, language itself) he has imposed upon the world are arbitrary (there is, for example, no necessary connection between words and things) and the real nature of Being unfolds itself as a vegetal, ever-changing, viscous, engulfing matter. Deprived of a "reason" for being, man is "de trop," part of the world of matter, and his unjustified existence is contrasted both with lifeless 199 200Philosophy and Literature and unchanging forms, such as minerals and stones, and with the abstract realms of mathematics and music, realms governed by inexorable laws. Unlike these lifeless or abstract realms, the world of matter, of Being, is in perpetual movement and metamorphosis. And it is when Sartre discusses these infinite, arbitrary metamorphoses, the revelation of which provokes the nausea, that his imagery betrays a distaste for sexuality. In one famous passage, for example, we are told that when the nausea takes over, a man may well awaken in a "forest of murmuring cocks, rising red and white towards the sky like the chimneys of Jouxtebouville, with great balls half out of the earth, shaggy and bulbous like onions. And birds will fly around those cocks and peck them with their beaks and make them bleed. Sperm will flow slowly, gently, from these wounds, sperm mixed with blood, vitreous and lukewarm with small bubbles." This implied link between unpleasant sexuality and a basic fear of engulfing Being is made even clearer in one of his early philosophical tales, "The Room" (1939), in which madness, like nausea, seems to stand for what we will experience when we become aware of the nature of Being. But it can hardly be arbitrary or coincidental that the form taken by this madness is that of a pathological, sexual nature. And in still another early tale, "Intimacy," a wife actually enjoys the relationship she shares with her impotent, disturbed husband. The distaste for sexuality suggested in Sartre's early works declares itself openly in the portrait of women found in his later fiction, indicating that the sexual metaphors of Nausea, far from being chosen at random, were inspired by deep and persistent feelings. In the trilogy The Roads to Freedom (1945-49), a historical fresco of France during the crucial years preceding World War II, women seem to incarnate all the attributes which disgust Sartre in matter or unjustified Being: they embody the viscous, passive, heavy world of the en-soi ("being-in... (shrink)

This collective writing paper brings together writers from Southeast Asia and the Western world to highlight challenges and opportunities for ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and its education in the rising of the Asian Century. The inspiration for this project was started by Michael A. Peters’ conception of collective writing and the Asian Century. ASEAN is diverse in terms of economy and society; a look from different angles will help to improve policy and practice of ASEAN. Multiple scholars have (...) contributed to creating a series of arguments and explications towards a philosophical stance, and collaboration in higher education to build novel solutions regarding contemporary knowledge and ASEAN practices. Overall, this article illustrates ASEAN International Education (IE) circumstances and possibilities considering statistical data and past experience from transregional perspectives and diverse academic institutions. (shrink)

This paper develops a new account of Beauvoir's "Hegelianism" and argues that the strand of contemporary interpretation of Beauvoir that seeks to represent her thought in isolation from that of Jean-Paul Sartre constitutes a betrayal of the philosophy of recognition that she denves from Hegel. It underscores the extent to which Beauvoir influenced Sartre's Being and Nothingness and shows that Sartre and Beauvoir both adapted Hegel's ideas and agreed in rejecting his optimism.

The author reviews a series of deep affinities between the Catholic social teaching embodied in Pope John Paul II''s recent encyclical,Centesimus Annus, and traditional Jewish teachings about economic justice. At the same time, the author maintains that from a Jewish perspective there is a disquieting feature to this recent papal letter. It presents twentieth century history in ways that mute or conceal the role some earlier papal teaching played in the rise of corporatist states, with their authoritarian regimes and (...) xenophobic nationalism.Centesimus annus thus obscures the complex contribution Catholic social teaching made to the events leading up to the Holocaust of European Jewry. (shrink)

The New South Wales union movement embraced the principles of heritage and conservationism in the 1970s through the imposing of “green bans” – a strategy wherein union members refused to work on construction projects that were a threat to the state’s natural or built environment. Led by radicals like Builders Labourers’ Federation leader Jack Mundey, the green bans were seen in several sectors as a departure from the traditional “Old Left” priorities of securing workers’ wages and conditions. Rather (...) than a hard shift towards radicalism, this article proposes that the green bans were instead reflective of an already existing conservationist tradition in the New South Wales union movement. This reinterpretation is predicated on a content analysis of extant historical material such as contemporaneous news articles, personal memoirs, transcripts of political speeches and archival documents related to the policing of left-wing activism in the 1960s and 1970s. The results show that an existing tradition of engagement with a broad spectrum of social issues in the New South Wales union movement predates the emergence of the New Left, including the commitment to environmental justice principles that underpinned the green bans. (shrink)

This commentary critically evaluates the capacity for the Green Climate Fund to deliver distributive justice in the light of Conference of Parties 17 and the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (UNFCCC, 2011b).

Including more than 150 color images—several rarely seen before—drawn from the Royal Collection and the J. Paul Getty Museum, this volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name, on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from February 4 to ...

Growing detrimental effects on the bio-physical environment have been responsible for a large number of small firms to adopt a more strategic stance toward exploiting green-related opportunities. This article aims to shed light on how internal company factors help to formulate a green business strategy among small manufacturing firms, and how this, in turn, influences their competitive advantage and performance. Based on data received from 153 small Cypriot manufacturers, we propose and test a conceptual model anchored on the (...) Resource-based View of the firm. The findings underscore the critical role of both organizational resources and capabilities in pursuing a green business strategy. The adoption of this strategy was more evident in the case of firms operating in more harmful, as opposed to less harmful, industries. The implementation of a green business strategy was found to generate a positional competitive advantage, with this association becoming stronger under conditions of high regulatory intensity, high market dynamism, high public concern, and high competitive intensity. It was also revealed that this competitive advantage is conducive to gaining heightened market and financial performance. Our study makes a fivefold contribution: it injects a theoretical perspective into a relatively atheoretic field, underlines the role of organizational resources/capabilities as drivers of eco-friendly initiatives, highlights the often neglected strategic aspects of small firms’ ecological business activities, stresses the contingent role of external forces in moderating the positive impact of small firm green business strategy on competitive advantage, and focuses on the performance implications of the small firm’s engagement in environmental operations. (shrink)