John Tomasi's Free Market Fairness treats both traditions with depth, nuance, and unremitting fair-mindedness, and then points us toward a synthesis. Social democrats and libertarians equally need to read this book.

"This is a daring, inventive, and engagingly written book. Tomasi escapes the current liberal fixation with justice and legitimacy by asking searching questions about how truly good lives can be led under a just liberal regime.

Based on brain imaging findings, we present a model according to which addiction emerges as an imbalance in the information processing and integration among various brain circuits and functions. The dysfunctions reflect (a) decreased sensitivity of reward circuits, (b) enhanced sensitivity of memory circuits to conditioned expectations to drugs and drug cues, stress reactivity, and (c) negative mood, and a weakened control circuit. Although initial experimentation with a drug of abuse is largely a voluntary behavior, continued drug use can eventually (...) impair neuronal circuits in the brain that are involved in free will, turning drug use into an automatic compulsive behavior. The ability of addictive drugs to co‐opt neurotransmitter signals between neurons (including dopamine, glutamate, and GABA) modifies the function of different neuronal circuits, which begin to falter at different stages of an addiction trajectory. Upon exposure to the drug, drug cues or stress this results in unrestrained hyperactivation of the motivation/drive circuit that results in the compulsive drug intake that characterizes addiction. (shrink)

Research Articles John Tomasi, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

ABSTRACTThe ten essays in this symposium offer a rich and varied set of challenges to the market-democratic research program. Rather than replying to each critic in turn, I respond only to the main lines of critical challenge raised in this collection: that my account of thick economic liberty is too vague, that economic liberties are not basic, that market democracy gives too little attention to socialist possibilities, that market democracy can accommodate only an impoverished conception of fair equality of opportunity, (...) and, most notably, that market democracy is grounded upon a tendentious or “bourgeois” conception of the person. To meet these criticisms, I refine a central claim of market democracy: that the right to private ownership of productive property is a basic right. In response to the worry that market democracy allows for class domination, I revise market democracy on the issue of bequests. After replying to the critics I extend my challenge to social democracy, presenting an historical argument against liberal democratic socialism. (shrink)

Heidegger, Winner, and Ellul's critiques of Western technology focus on a notion of efficiency that subordinates to itself all non-instrumental values. An alternative conception of efficiency is proposed based on the Taoist theory of non-action. The ancient Taoist text, The Chuang Tzu, reveals a type of efficiency that is effective, resourceful, and entrepreneurial. It is a form of action which has an intimate rather than alienated relation to technology, and which is sensitive to the ethical and aesthetic values that Heidegger (...) and Ellul claim are excluded from the Western conception of efficiency. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege criticized Kant's use of the term "representation" in a footnote in the Foundations of Arithmetics. According to Frege, Kant used the term "representation" for mental images, which are private and incommunicable, and also for objects and concepts. Kant thereby gave "a strongly subjectivistic and idealistic coloring" to his thought. The paper argues that Kant avoided the kind of subjectivism and idealism which Frege hints in his remark. For Kant, having "Vorstellungen" requires the capacity of synthesis, by virtue of (...) which the mind goes beyond its subjective states, and its modifications become presentations of an independent world. (shrink)

The other aim of the volume is to show that there is a close semantic connection between the concepts of individual, mind and body in Leibniz.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a global health crisis that required US residents to understand the phenomenon, interpret the cues, and make sense within their environment. Therefore, how the communication of COVID-19 was framed to stakeholders during the early stages of the pandemic became important to guide them through specific actions in their state and subsequently with the sensemaking process. The present study examines which frames were emphasized in the states' press releases on policies and other COVID information to influence stakeholders (...) on what to focus on to help with sensemaking during the crisis. We conducted content analysis on 602 press releases from 50 US states using an unsupervised machine learning approach called Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The results show that health communication using press releases to help the public make sense of the crisis were framed to include health frames as well as economic frames. Health communication messages are typically framed with health and safety measures; however, this study shows that economic frames were emphasized more than public health frames in the government's health communication for COVID-19, which forced both large and small businesses to engage in specific socially responsible activities that were previously voluntary to support public health safety. (shrink)

In an entry in his Notebooks 1914-1916 Wittgenstein appears to give some credit to the idea widespread in modern aesthetics that «the end of art is the beautiful »: «[…] there is certainly something» – he writes – in this conception. And he comments on: «[…] the beautiful is what makes happy » (NB 21.10.16). Maybe influenced by Tolstoy, who wrote that «people will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of (...) that activity is beauty, i.e. pleasure», Wittgenstein does not adopt the idea without reservations. However, he admits that there is some validity to it. Therefore what we read in his Lectures on Aesthetics (1938) is rather intriguing: «It is remarkable that in real life, when aesthetic judgments are made, aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’, ‘fine’, etc., play hardly any role at all» (LE, I, 8). Why is this a remarkable fact? Is it because, in spite of beauty being the aim of art, when aesthetic judgments are made, the predicate ‘is beautiful’ plays a marginal role? And if this is the case, why is the supposed end of art almost neglected in art appreciation? Or is Wittgenstein simply bringing a word back from its metaphysical to its everyday use here (cf. PI, 116)? I will argue that, while in the Notebooks entry Wittgenstein tells us something important on what makes an aesthetic experience a valuable experience and/or an experience of value, in the Lectures the topic is a bit different. Wittgenstein is talking about the appreciation of objects and works of art, about the ways we aesthetically react to them. I will focus on this shift in point of view and on a distinction introduced in the Lectures between approval and appreciation. It is in the light of this distinction, that we can understand the observation about the unimportance of ‘beautiful’ in aesthetic judgment. In the final part of my talk I will argue that, contrary to this opinion, the adjective ‘beautiful’ is of significance in aesthetic judgment. (shrink)

Si l’œuvre de Nietzsche présente une familiarité étonnante avec la pensée de Dostoïevski, le rapport du philosophe allemand au romancier russe est plus complexe qu’il n’y paraît. En effet, Nietzsche découvre par un heureux hasard, vers la fin de sa vie, les écrits de Dostoïevski. En quelques mois, il passe d’un enthousiasme absolu à l’aveu d’une déception à l’égard de celui qu’il considère comme un simple décadent chrétien. Comment interpréter ce retournement de Nietzsche vis-à-vis de Dostoïevski? Est-ce simplement un nouvel (...) exemple de la versatilité du philosophe allemand? Ou peut-on y déceler quelque chose de plus profond? Cet article tente de reconstituer la chronologie du rapport de Nietzsche à Dostoïevski et les indices permettant d’éclairer l’apport réel du romancier russe à la philosophie nietzschéenne. (shrink)

In his writings Wittgenstein has touched upon some key aspects of aesthetic experience, of the experience of art, and of the dynamics of culture. Moreover, several lines of research in these fields have emerged and are still emerging from the roots of Wittgenstein's thought. This volume collects a number of essays on these topics by renowned international scholars (such as H.-J. Glock, J. Hyman, S. Majetschak, J. Schulte, A. Voltolini, and W. Vossenkuhl) and younger researchers. Our aim is to document (...) the presence of aesthetics across the development of Wittgenstein's thought and to present Wittgenstein's point of view, as well as new views inspired by Wittgenstein, on music, literature and poetry, the visual arts, and architecture. (shrink)

This Chapter aims to present a very preliminary exploration of the role and functioning of some ‘leading ideas’ that represent the most consistent attempts to balance freedom of scientific research with the need to protect participants and the community as a whole. To this end, we searched two databases, a scientific and a legal one, for some keywords (Freedom of research, Precautionary principle, Risk-based approach, Responsible research and innovation), to check the consistency of their presence and evolution over time. Without (...) aiming to in-depth investigate the precise connotations of each term and the context in which they are used from time to time, the core idea is to provide a very first quantitative exploration, which lays the foundations for further future investigation. (shrink)

We live in an age when the dominant technologically utilitarian worldview is undergoing a transformation. To increase our awareness of this change, Turning Toward Technology introduces readers to the possibility of an alternative technological worldview by examining foundational concepts to Asian thought. The early Eastern philosophical treatment of technology was not ethical, but ontological, exhibiting sensitivity to how human existence was defined and determined in its relation to technology and to reality as a whole. Within the Eastern cultural orientation, technological (...) development was guided by a singular aesthetic sensibility to the useful, the good, the beautiful, the true, and the holy. Instead of controlling the shape of future technology by systems of rational management, George Teschner and Alessandro Tomasi recommend a view of technology that arises from questioning fundamental assumptions within Western culture about knowledge, reality, and human nature. Turning Toward Technology aims to stimulate awareness of an alternative technological paradigm, and thus a different mode of social action that can establish an optimistic future for global civilization. (shrink)

This paper examines the International Student Competition on Place Brand­ing and Mediterranean Diet held in Fermo, Italy, in the context of the devel­opment of rural areas. This one-week food-related educational programme was organised by the University of Macerata’s Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism in collaboration with The Piceno Laboratory on the Mediterranean Diet, a local network of public and private stakehold­ers committed to the promotion of Fermo area as a touristic destination based on traditional gastronomy. The aim of (...) this study was to understand how and to what extent such food-related educational events may con­tribute to providing students with the knowledge, expertise and soft skills needed for careers in the food tourism sector. Of interest also was how such events may benefit the development of rural areas. The ISC was founded in 2016 and continued in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In order to assess students’ perceptions about the experience, specifically regarding what they felt they had learned about food tourism, and which soft skills they had acquired or honed, 13 students who participated in the 2017 event were interviewed for a qualitative study. Moreover, the authors drew upon information gleaned from interactions with students and teachers, as well as with several important actors of the local food and tourism sector, in­cluding tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs and representatives of gov­ernment agencies, with whom they collaborated in the context of planning, running and evaluating the events. The findings show that the ISC can provide students with a good general understanding of the territory and practical knowledge about place branding and food tourism. In terms of career preparation, the combination of fieldwork activities with traditional lectures and group activities was particularly fruitful in promoting soft skills such as communication, efficient use of social media, teamwork, problem-solving and decision making. (shrink)

If communitarian political philosophers such as Michael Sandel are right about the importance of genuine community commitment, then it is the liberal minimal state, rather than the more expansive state implied both by communitarianism and by Rawlsian welfare liberalism, that should be preferred. It is contended that Sandel's antiliberal arguments, while inadequate as a criticism of Rawls's particular formulation of liberalism, nonetheless contain an important challenge to rights‐based political theories generally. However, by considering the various senses in which individual rights (...) can be said to draw lines between persons, it is shown how the classical liberal might meet Sandel's challenge. (shrink)

Per il primo Wittgenstein etica ed estetica erano tutt’uno. Scopo del saggio è fornire un’interpretazione di questa concezione. Esaminando il modo in cui è proposta nel Tractatus e considerando alcune annotazioni dei Quaderni 1914-1916 si evidenzia che l’unità di etica ed estetica è in un modo di vedere il mondo per cui esso non appare come fonte di limitazione. L’etica è un’estensione al mondo – alla vita – della capacità di conferire signifi cato che nell’arte si realizza nei riguardi di (...) oggetti particolari. Affermando l’unità di etica ed estetica Wittgenstein attira l’attenzione sul fatto che la radice dell’etica è in un certo modo di vedere le cose, in un atteggiamento verso la vita. Si tratta della prospettiva di un valore non connesso a come il mondo è e che è evocato dalla meraviglia per l’esistenza del mondo. (shrink)