Many believe that a citizen who engages in civil disobedience is not exempt from the sanctions that apply to standard law-breaking conduct. Since he is responsible for a deliberate breach of the law, he is also liable to punishment. Focusing on a conception of responsibility as answerability, I argue that a civil disobedient is responsible (i.e. answerable) to his fellows for the charges of wrongdoing, yet he is not liable to punishment merely for breaching the law. To support this claim, (...) I defend an account of political obligation framed in terms of respect for (rather than mere obedience to) the law, and argue that the mere illegality of civil disobedience does not suffice to establish wrongdoing. I then discuss and reject three objections to my argument. (shrink)

This article describes activities carried out at the computational art laboratory and discusses a question about place. To think of place as the place of universal, it’s ground, the place where you live, it isn’t only a residence place, a construction of exploration, but also the planet as a possible place of survival. Therefore, we will present artworks that, in the name of a conception inspired by ecocentrism, propose to eliminate the ontological and axiological difference between all living beings and, (...) for this reason, considers the biosphere as an important biotic unit in the context of artworks. Here the development of affective computer interfaces that seek to promote interactions is also described: a process by which an external or an internal stimulus causes a specific reaction, producing a perception, considering that the idea, in the Deleuzian and Guattarian sense, goes through creative activities. The idea arises in three distinct forms: in the philosophical context, in the form of concepts and in visual production. We describe below the results of collaborative research that has in common the poetics of interactivity between living beings and machines through graphical and machine interfaces, provided by computational processes and methods that approach several ideas involving affective mapping, body, nature and artificial life. (shrink)

Acts of civil disobedience, which imply the open violation of a legal directive, often result in the forceful imposition of a choice upon others (e.g. blockades). This is sometimes justifiable, within a democracy, in cases of ‘democratic deficit’, namely, when fundamental rights of an oppressed minority are at stake. In this article, I claim that the use of physical force, in a democracy, may also be justified by the rights of (at least some of) the very people upon whom force (...) is applied. Focusing on the nature of civil disobedience as a ‘form of address’, I argue: (1) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena does not entail infringing upon their status as autonomous agents; (2) using physical force to address others in the democratic arena may contribute to the fulfilment of a positive duty to promote the autonomy of (at least some of) those very people upon whom force is applied. This is not a defence of paternalism: I claim that using force against others, in the democratic arena, may be constitutive of a behaviour that treats others with the respect due to their status as autonomous agents. (shrink)

The study investigates the effects of ESG washing on banks' reputational exposure. We define ESG washing as a disparity between a bank's environmental and social disclosure level and the practical implementation of the relative measures. The analysis involves an international sample of 120 banks operating across 35 countries from 2014 to 2020. The results evidence a different effect based on the pillar considered: the higher the inconsistency on environmental issues, the higher a bank's reputational exposure. Conversely, higher levels of disclosure (...) compared to performance on social issues appear to reduce reputational exposure. In addition, citizen movements and the country's legal system play a significant role in amplifying or mitigating a bank's reputational exposure. Our findings offer insight into the phenomenon of ESG washing in the banking industry, supporting the need for more verified information across countries and all economic sectors. (shrink)

The fair-play theory of punishment claims that the state is justified in imposing additional burdens on law-breakers, to remove the unfair advantage the latter have enjoyed by disobeying the law. From this perspective, punishment reestablishes a fair distribution of benefits and burdens among all citizens. In this paper, I object to this view by focusing on the case of civil disobedience. I argue that the mere illegality of this conduct is insufficient to establish the agent’s unfair advantage over his lawabiding (...) fellows, hence the imposition of additional burdens upon him through legal punishment. I articulate a broader account of citizens’ fair-play duties, able to capture disobedience as well as obedience to the law. While claiming that some law-breakers may not be treated as free-riders, I also gesture at the fact that some law-obeying citizens may not be ‘playing fair’: in some cases, a failure to engage in civil disobedience represents a failure to do one’s own part within the cooperative scheme of society. (shrink)

The author aims to sketch out a biographical and philosophical profile of Alberto Caracciolo, Italian philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century. In order to reach a better understanding of the philosopher's religious point of view, he believes it is necessary to emphasize both Caracciolo's juvenile friendship with Teresio Olivelli - martyr of the resistance against Nazism - and his critical engagement with the thought of great philosophers such as Croce, Leopardi, Kant, Troeltsch, Jaspers and Heidegger. The author (...) intends also to analyze how Caracciolo's renewal of religious tradition, reconsidered through the concept of Liberalität, connected with his restless and anxious way of considering the malum mundi, led towards an original interpretation of European nihilism. This involves an idea of philosophy, linked to an inexhaustible question and to an ethical and religious view of human life, grounded in a paradoxical way on the imperative of eternity. (shrink)

This paper considers the boundaries of "civility" in civil disobedience, by focusing on an extreme form of protest, namely, bossnapping. The latter involves workers 'kidnapping' their bosses, in order to force them to listen to their grievances. I argue that, notwithstanding its use of force, bossnapping may, under some circumstances, fulfil the requirements of a "civil" act of disobedience.

Jason Brennan has argued that democracy is intrinsically unjust, for it grants voting power to politically incompetent individuals, thus exposing people to an undue risk of harm. He claims democracy should be replaced by epistocracy, i.e., the rule of the knowers. In this paper, I show that his argument fails. First, Brennan mistakes voters’ competence for voters’ trustworthiness. Second, despite Brennan's claim to the contrary, an epistocracy may not reduce people’s exposure to an undue risk of harm. Third, Brennan overlooks (...) the fact that citizens are not equally affected by ‘bad voting.’ Fourth, far from being a defence of libertarian ideals, Brennan's argument supports paternalism. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 129-160.

Part of an eleven-volume set which contains all of Ricardo's published and unpublished writings, and provides great insight into the early era of political economics.

This article analyses the origin of TI 49–51 on the basis of several posthumous fragments from the autumn of 1887, which had been reworked in 1888. This analysis highlights significant connections that got lost along the way to the final version of these aphorisms, such as Nietzsche’s comparison between Goethe and Spinoza which, in 1887, was the beginning of his updated reflections on Goethe. The origin and context of these aphorisms allow for a better understanding of the long-established image of (...) Goethe expressed in the aphorisms of Twilight of the Idols and their close connection to the new reflections on Goethe as they had already come to the fore in Human, All Too Human when Nietzsche distanced himself from Wagner’s ideas. This also presents the opportunity for a more careful consideration of Nietzsche’s conception of European culture and its intellectual heritage and his relation to Napoleon as well as his characterization of the eighteenth-century and the need for self-overcoming during the nineteenth-century. Nietzsche considered this self-overcoming to be an important aspect of his thinking, and Goethe was an important precursor for Nietzsche’s conception of self-overcoming. (shrink)

It is still an open question whether or not Civil Disobedience (CD) has to be completely nonviolent. According to Rawls, “any interference with the civil liberties of others tend to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one's act”. From this Rawls concludes that by no means can CD pose a threath to other individuals' rights. In this paper I challenge Rawls' view, arguing that CD can comprise some degree of violence without losing its “civil” value. However, I specify that violence (...) must not be aimed at seriously injuring, or even killing, other individuals. This would contravene the communicative aspect of CD. The main claim is that what really is important is that the civil disobedients be willing to accept the punishment following their law-breaking behaviour. By doing so, they demonstrate the conscientiousness of their civilly disobedient action. This also shows that they are aiming for future cooperation with the State, and are expecting the State to be sensitive to their concern for the principles of justice. (shrink)

What is the difference between civil and uncivil disobedience? How can illegal protest be compatible with a democratic regime based on the rule of law? Is Edward Snowden a civil disobedient? This book follows the philosophical debate around these and other issues, showing how the notion of civil disobedience has evolved from a form of passive resistance against injustice, to an active way to engage with the political life of the community. The author presents the major contributions in political and (...) legal philosophy, ranging from John Rawls' seminal account in 1971, to the recent views advanced by Kimberley Brownlee, David Lefkowitz and William Smith. In the last chapter, the author proposes a novel account of civil disobedience, able to meet some of the unresolved challenges. The author argues that, to make sense of civil disobedience, we should expand our conception of political obligation, so to include acts that, despite being illegal, may reveal the agent's civility. (shrink)

Diese Ansicht wird von Kant an einigen Stellen der Kritik der Urteilskraft dargelegt, an denen die Musik als „Sprache der ...

(2000). The Evolutionary challenge for the Enterprise. World Futures: Vol. 55, Challenges of Evolution at the Turn of the Millennium: Part III: The Chllenges of Globalization and Sustainability, pp. 159-171.

ABSTRACTThis article examines the Trinitarian anthropology inherent in the ‘charism of unity’ that characterizes the Focolare Movement stemming from the mystical experience of Chiara Lubich. After describing the theological cornerstones of this charism―namely the evangelical centrality of the commandment of reciprocal love, the circularity between theology and anthropology and Jesus Forsaken as the Christological key to understanding and achieving unity―the article studies its cultural implications as reflected in the philosophical and theological contribution of Klaus Hemmerle. In dialogue with modern thought, (...) Hemmerle in fact draws from and develops the anthropological meaning of the charism of unity as a feasible way to respond to the most acute challenges of today. (shrink)

This chapter offers a critique of mainstream accounts of civil disobedience (CD) in contemporary political theory. Its goal is to highlight how the notion of “civility” is used as a political tool to sanitise and domesticate social protest. Focusing on Australia’s 2017 marriage equality campaign, the chapter highlights how the dominant conception of “civil” disobedience reproduces the logic of a patriarchal system in which women and non-mainstream men are expected to remain quiet and behave with “decorum”. The chapter draws attention (...) to the peculiarity of the Australian context, where the lack of a bill of rights fosters power inequalities by hindering vulnerable groups’ access to justice. Overall, the chapter highlights the risk of an excessive (or exclusive) focus on the behaviour of protesters, at the expense of the structural injustices they seek to unveil. (shrink)