For many liberals, the question "Do others live rightly?" feels inappropriate. Liberalism seems to demand a follow-up question: "Who am I to judge?" Peaceful coexistence, in this view, is predicated on restraint from morally evaluating our peers. But Rahel Jaeggi sees the situation differently. Criticizing is not only valid but also useful, she argues. Moral judgment is no error; the error lies in how we go about judging. One way to judge is external, based on universal standards derived from ideas (...) about God or human nature. The other is internal, relying on standards peculiar to a given society. Both approaches have serious flaws and detractors. In On the Critique of Forms of Life, Jaeggi offers a third way, which she calls "immanent" critique. Inspired by Hegelian social philosophy and engaged with Anglo-American theorists such as John Dewey, Michael Walzer, and Alasdair MacIntyre, immanent critique begins with the recognition that ways of life are inherently normative because they assert their own goodness and rightness. They also have a consistent purpose: to solve basic social problems and advance social goods, most of which are common across cultures. Jaeggi argues that we can judge the validity of a society's moral claims by evaluating how well the society adapts to crisis--whether it is able to overcome contradictions that arise from within and continue to fulfill its purpose. Jaeggi enlivens her ideas through concrete, contemporary examples. Against both relativistic and absolutist accounts, she shows that rational social critique is possible.--. (shrink)

In this book Jaeggi draws on phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, along with recent work in the analytical tradition, to reconceive of alienation as the absence of a meaningful relationship to oneself and ...

What is the problem with capitalism? Is it wrong, unjust, irrational, or bad? Is it evil or dumb—or is it just not working? While critiques of capitalism have become commonplace—particularly since the most recent global economic crisis—it is often unclear what exactly is being condemned. Likewise, the normative presuppositions and criteria of such criticisms have been left unspecified. In this paper, I distinguish between three approaches to the critique of capitalism, distinguishing a functional, a moral, and an ethical argumentative strategy (...) and paying special attention to the distinctive types of argumentation they mobilize. First, I consider the “functional” critique, typically directed against capitalism's straightforward dysfunctions or crises. We will find, however, that this sort of criticism presupposes a normative criterion that is frequently unarticulated, namely: the implied “purpose” of a well‐functioning economic system. Second, I examine a common “moral” critique, that is, that capitalism is premised on exploitation. Yet, the concept of exploitation, too, introduces certain difficulties, since the kind of moral wrong associated with it—unequal exchange—is hardly obvious to everyday observation and must be derived systematically. Third, I introduce and address the “ethical” critique, broadly, that capitalism constitutes a bad form‐of‐life. However, while I object to some of the forms this criticism has taken—in particular, I argue that much “alienation” diagnosis is tainted by nostalgia and naiveté—I nonetheless recommend developing a critique of capitalism as a form‐of‐life that would include ethical and functional criteria. I conclude with some remarks in this direction. (shrink)

The argument from inductive risk has become widely accepted as good reason to reject the value-free ideal. The literature that follows is then focused on where inductive risk judgements are required and whose values ought to determine them. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, to offer motivation for aiming at the value-free ideal, and therefore avoiding inductive risk. To do so I show that there is a tension between principles in science ethics and value encroachment because of inductive (...) risk. Secondly, I offer a renewed defence of Jeffrey’s response to the argument from inductive risk. By appealing to theories in epistemology about rational belief modelling, I argue that the Bayesian belief model offers a suitable alternative to current belief modelling in science, despite criticism that is either explicit in the literature or fairly expected to arise. (shrink)

This article reads Adornos's Minima Moralia as an ethical critique of capitalism as a form of life. Negativistic in his approach Adorno reflects, at the same time, on the difficulty of establishing a positive standard for this critique. Reading Minima Moralia through the lenses of the contemporary debate I hold that his approach undermines the alternative between liberal abstinence towards ethical questions and paternalistic theories of the good life in a fruitful way.

Major debates on democratic renewal suggest two ways of eliciting social change: either by strengthening vertical practices of representation or by expanding horizontal forms of participation. The article develops an argument for why there is a need to rethink democratic resistance beyond the vertical–horizontal divide. If contemporary forms of resistance encompass a strategic interplay between vertical and horizontal practices, then an alternative framework is required to capture this logic. Filling this gap, the article introduces the concept of ‘horizontal experimentalism’. Such (...) an idea comprehends an understanding of political means and ends as a continuum and as adjusting each other in an ongoing process of experimental inquiry. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 63 Heft: 3 Seiten: 569-576.

Books reviewed: Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000. By Geoff Eley.. Foucault, Subjectivity, and Identity. By Robert Strozier.. Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action. By Albert O. Hirschman. Twentieth‐anniversary edition, with a new foreword by Robert H. Frank.

In the contemporary globalized economy, multinational companies have come to hold considerable power that may previously have rested with nation states. However, state structures remain relevant. With Brexit, the year 2016 featured an exemplary case in which the ongoing importance of nation states came to the fore. Preceding the British referendum to exit the European Union, discourses of national identity were deployed to promote a vote for the anti-globalization campaign. It is against this background that this research investigates how the (...) relationship between multinational corporations and nation states is constructed in news discourse. The underlying assumption is that news actively construct rather than merely reflects the nature of this relationship. Drawing on Social Actor Analysis and Transitivity as a theoretical framework, this study examines news coverage of the BP oil spill that occurred in the United States in 2010 but was caused by a multinational company headquartered in the United Kingdom. The main research question is ‘How does the media establish a link between multinational corporations and nation states?’. To address this central question, this study investigates how corporate responsibility is assigned, the role of the nation state is portrayed and victim status is allocated in the news. Findings show that the nature of the problem is constructed differently according to diverging national interests or priorities of the two nations represented by the media sources analyzed. The study indicates that the discourse around British nationality emphasized in the political struggle around Brexit was already mobilized extensively in the years leading up to the referendum. (shrink)

For nursing, the idea of bearing witness is of utmost importance. Nurses are present with persons who experience changes in their health and quality of life and who live intense and profound moments of struggling, questioning, and finding meaning. Nurses are also with persons from moment to moment as their lives unfold, and when joy, serenity, contentment, vulnerability, sadness, fear, and suffering are experienced. In this paper, it is proposed that bearing witness is a moral way of engaging in the (...) nurse–person relationship. Based on Levinas’s ethics of the face, it is claimed that bearing witness is enacting one’s moral responsibility, which arises from the encounter with the other. Drawing on Parse’s human becoming theory, ways of witnessing and bearing witness are defined and discussed. It is suggested that bearing witness is a human‐to‐human way of being‐relating, a mode of human coexistence. Bearing witness is being present and attentive to the truth of another’s experiences. Moreover, in this paper, the ways nurses enact their moral agency and bear witness to others placed in their care, or turn away, are explored. Nurses’ moral agency is located in the constrained moral space of contemporary health care. Hence, the creation of a moral space, which allows nurses to enact their moral responsibility of bearing witness to other persons’ experiences of health and quality of life, is called for. In doing so, it is suggested that the act of bearing witness needs a specific nursing knowledge base and a recognition that being present and being with another is a valuable nursing practice that is utterly meaningful for persons who are living through difficult times. (shrink)

philosophie, Ökonomie und Politik sind die drei wichtigsten Koordinaten, welche das Werk von Karl Marx markieren. Diese Begriffe stellen aber nicht etwa thematische Rubriken oder Disziplinenunterscheidungen dar, sondern bilden theoretische Kategorien, die zueinander in einem Negations- oder Kontestationsverhältnis stehen. Den im vorliegenden Band versammelten Texten geht es um eine systematische Reflexion dieser drei Begriffe und ihres Verhältnisses zueinander vor dem Hintergrund aktueller sozialer und politischer Entwicklungen. Die Texte bieten einen Überblick über Disparität und Spannbreite von Ansätzen und Überlegungen, die sich (...) heute auf Marx beziehen: von Arbeiten über aristotelische, hegelsche oder fouriersche Einflüsse in Marx' Arbeiten über Bezüge zur Neoklassik oder analytischen Philosophie bis hin zu postkolonialen und feministischen Theorien. Auch sie stehen zueinander in ebenso einem Konkurrenz- wie in einem Komplementärverhältnis, denn sie widersprechen einander zwar, verweisen so aber auch einander auf blinde Flecken oder Problemfelder. Gemeinsam ist ihnen allerdings eine Unzufriedenheit mit den Beschränkungen der Vorherrschaft des politischen Liberalismus, mit welchem sich nach Eindruck der Beitragenden weder die Pathologien den gegenwärtigen Gesellschaftsformation, noch eine fruchtbare politische Perspektive zu deren Veränderung gewinnen lässt. (shrink)

Two paradoxes seem to characterise the method of the critique of ideology. The first has to do with the fact that ideologies are “both true and false” (Adorno). The second has to do with the fact that the critique of ideology seems to carry both a normative and a descriptive dimension. The article argues that these two paradoxes disappear when the critique of ideology is addressed by way of a Hegelian mode of immanent critique. Such an approach highlights both the (...) specific normative claim of the critique of ideology and the specific problematic which it exemplifies. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 3 Seiten: 338-377.

A rejoinder to comments by Marco Solinas, Giorgio Fazio, Alessandro Pinzani, Italo Testa, Federica Gregoratto, Leonardo Marchettoni and Matteo Bianchin in this Special Issue of Critical Horizons.

In order to understand the economy in a wider sense we should conceive of the economy as a set of social practices. To conceive of a ‘practices-oriented’ foundation for our thinking about economy a...

Die Abschaffung der Sklaverei, die Einführung sozialer Sicherungssysteme, die Sanktionierung von Vergewaltigung in der Ehe gelten gemeinhin als gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt – als ein Wandel zum Besseren. Dennoch hat die Idee einer generellen Fortschrittsbewegung ihren alten Glanz verloren, ja, sie ruft sogar Skepsis hervor. In aller Munde ist hingegen die Diagnose der Regression. Sie wird diversen Zeiterscheinungen gestellt, vom rechtsautoritären Populismus bis zur Demokratiemüdigkeit. -/- Rahel Jaeggi verteidigt in ihrem Buch das Begriffspaar Fortschritt und Regression als unverzichtbares sozialphilosophisches Werkzeug für die (...) Kritik unserer Zeit. Als fortschrittlich oder regressiv versteht sie nicht nur das Resultat, sondern vor allem die Gestalt gesellschaftlicher Transformationen selbst. Indem sie nach den Erfahrungsblockaden fragt, die regressiven Tendenzen Vorschub leisten, entwickelt sie einen Begriff des Fortschritts, der eurozentrische Verzerrungen ebenso vermeidet wie die Vorstellung einer zwangsläufigen Entwicklungstendenz. Fortschritt, so zeigt sie, ist nicht der Vorlauf zu einem bereits bekannten Ziel, sondern der nie abgeschlossene Prozess der Emanzipation. (shrink)

Comment on Philip Kitchers “What is the Use of Philosophy”, arguing that while Kitcher is right to insist on the practical relevance of philosophy one should be careful to distinguish this view from an instrumental understanding of philosophy. Maybe philosophy is of no use but still has an impact.

The article discusses a notion of form as reflection in Benjamin and Adorno that can be traced back to early German Romanticism. A reading of Novalis’s Hymns to the Night exemplifies the notion and shows that form-as-reflection amounts to a mimetic relation between Dargestelltem and Darstellendem in a work of art. It is further argued that Husserl’s theory of the image, too, discusses this relation and allows to clarify the account of form in Benjamin and Adorno. The article thus reveals (...) a neglected development of a romantic paradigm of form in 20th century image theory and aesthetics. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and EconomicsMargaret Jane Radin, Contested Commodities.