Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David (...) Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism. (shrink)

This article examines the excitement that Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments generated in France during the French Revolution, focusing particularly on the writings of political theorists, participants and commentators such as the abbé Sieyès, Pierre-Louis Rœderer, the Marquis de Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy Condorcet, who were dismayed at their political opponents’ use of Rousseau, and looked to Smith for an understanding of the passions that was compatible with democratic sovereignty and representative government. In the political context (...) of the early 1790s, clarifying the concept of natural sociability, which Rousseau had rejected, but Smith and Helvétius, in different ways, each regarded as indispensible to a society dependent on advanced division of labour, became a central concern in the public lectures delivered by Pierre-Louis Rœderer as the Terror took hold. ☆ My thanks to Emma Rothschild, Michael Sonenscher, Brian Young and other participants in the History of Political Thought Seminar, Oxford, and The Hexagonal Forum, Cambridge, where earlier versions of this paper were presented and helpfully discussed. I’m also grateful for comments on an earlier draft from Carolina Armenteros, Clare Jackson, Duncan Kelly, Michael Sonenscher and Richard Whatmore. (shrink)

In deeply divided societies (DDS) – those having experienced episodes of ethnic or religious mass violence – thousands of survivors must confront the challenge of reconstructing their public identity, split between their tragic human experience as victims and their political obligations as citizens. They are required to cooperate precisely with those who are, in their eyes, responsible for the crimes perpetrated against them. Is liberal democratic theory able to respond to such deep divisions? Is democracy, even, compatible with the reconciliation (...) that in these societies is a priority? Building on the idea that certain cultural conditions are important for securing the stability of liberal democracy, this paper presents an account of deliberative reconciliation appropriate to the context of DDS and which provides guidance in such circumstances of unmitigated pluralism. Deliberative reconciliation works with those elements of background culture that disclose some forms of civility within society. This is the culture of civility: a deliberative consensus, which enables former enemies to become part of a community of equals and to reciprocate on the basis of some shared political values, thus displaying support for liberal democratic institutions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 29.2 (2005) 379-393 [Access article in PDF] Love, Self-Deception, and the Moral "Must" Randy Ramal Claremont Graduate University I One significant impact that conceptual relativism has had on current discussions in moral philosophy is the denial of intelligibility to discourses that affirm moral absolutism. The denial is typically based on two allied arguments. The first argument entails that the justification of absolute (...) class='Hi'>moral laws and values presupposes the existence of an Archimedean standpoint, but since such viewpoint is unintelligible, a "view from nowhere" as it has been called, then affirming moral absolutism could only be the result of a confused temptation for metaphysical universality and objectivity. The second argument states that since all moral values and concepts are the products of particular cultural-linguistic contexts, it would not make sense to speak of absolute values that have application in other cultural-linguistic contexts.I sympathize with the critical spirit in which this dual argument is made. The unintelligibility of a neutral standpoint and the obvious contextuality of all moral discourses render meaningless any attempt to affirm metaphysically-based moral absolutes. But what this argument fails to acknowledge is that the ordinary language of moral absoluteness is not only infinitely distant from the metaphysical claims to Olympian grounds but also internally related to the absolute moral judgments and principles it invokes. Furthermore, it is doubtful that one could speak at all of moral discourse as needing metaphysical justification. It would not make sense to speak of moral discourse as either needing or not needing metaphysical backing because both notions ignore the ordinary contexts of moral discourse, where the issue of philosophical justification does not arise. The point here is not simply to reject the [End Page 379] metaphysical need for justifying moral discourse but to question the intelligibility of the attempt itself.1In what follows I argue that the ordinary claims to moral absoluteness, be it to give moral advice, to justify personal beliefs and actions, or to judge and criticize the conduct of other people, are perfectly intelligible practices that embody ordinary moral judgments and values. I elucidate the intelligibility of these moral claims by discussing Leo Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych," Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and Ann Beattie's "Learning to Fall." These works, I argue, portray an ethical notion of "need" that expresses natural, and intelligible, affirmations of moral necessity. The context of this affirmation concerns the ethical call to end all self-deception about one's love life.Traditionally, the relationship between love and self-deception has been interpreted to suggest that people often deceive themselves about love in order to fulfill a deep need in them to give meaning to their lives. This interpretation is often invoked to explain, on the one hand, why people who are in love might claim otherwise and, on the other hand, why those who are not in love at all convince themselves of the opposite. Although this interpretation is not philosophical in nature and does not necessarily entail the denial of all discourses of moral necessity, the idea that self-deception fulfils a deep need in people is often invoked as a philosophical explanation of the notion of "need." One example of such philosophical explanation is Martha Nussbaum's Love's Knowledge, where she endorses the traditional interpretation of the relation between love and self-deception through a discussion, among other works, of the above mentioned works by Proust and Beattie.There is no doubt that self-deception, whether in regards to one's love life or other aspects of it, could sometimes arise as a result of a need in people to give their existence some meaningful stability. But this interpretation cannot apply to all cases of love and self deception because the radical plurality of our notions of love prevents such explanatory reductionism. The insistence on this type of reductionism, it seems to me, rests on a common tendency among moral philosophers, Nussbaum included, to read into literature personal ethical views that are not intended by it. The task of the moral philosopher... (shrink)

Christian morality has been of enormous significance in world history and still underpins moral notions today. In this groundbreaking volume, J. Ian H. McDonald explores the notion of Christian ethics and discusses its roots, its significance in developing moral standards throughout the world and its stability in the modern world. The Crucible of Christian Morality begins with a study of the ethos of early Christian communities, examining the relation of cosmic vision to moral attitude and authority, (...) noting also the types of moral discourse used, and tracing the roots of these developments to the Old Testament and to the ministry of Jesus. The second half of the book concentrates on selected moral themes, concerned with persons, with communities in societies and with virtue or moral excellence, situating them in the context of ancient cultural developments. (shrink)

Moral reflection is the process through which persons come to perceive, analyze, judge, and decide moral problems, issues, and dilemmas. Because of its complex character, the process can be studied from a variety of perspectives. Psycho-genetic approaches, such as those of Lawrence Kohlberg, study the sequential stages through which individuals develop capacities for moral reasoning. Victor Turner, an anthropologist interested in the relationship between elements of structure and antistructure in society, considered the role of structured beliefs during (...) periods of social crises, while some sociologists have focused attention on the everyday structural roles played by norms in social life. Peter Berger's image of religion as a" sacred canopy" which provides a" nomizing" or stabilizing context for societies could be applied with equal justice to moral norms. Philosophers, in contrast to these considerations, have usually been concerned with the rational foundations for specific moral claims; with normative ethical theories and their applications, or with metaethical questions about the meaning and nature of moral utterances and the logic of moral reasoning. This restriction of philosophical interest to rational justification at various levels has led to an emphasis on two phases of the moral reflection process, analysis, and decision, at the expense of two other phases, of perception and resolution. Concentration on the universal and rational character of moral justification has also prevented attention from being given to some unique characteristics which distinguish moral reflection among persons involved in a crisis moral community, called into being by a breach in established social order from moral reflection among persons in everyday moral communities. The following remarks seek to (1) define the moral reflection process in an expanded sense, and then (2) discuss how that process works within crisis moral communities. (shrink)

Background: Moral courage as a part of nurses’ moral competence has gained increasing interest as a means to strengthen nurses acting on their moral decisions and offering alleviation to their moral distress. To measure and assess nurses’ moral courage, the development of culturally and internationally validated instruments is needed. Objective: The objective of this study was to validate the Dutch-language version of the four-component Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale originally developed and validated in Finnish data. (...) Research design: This methodological study used non-experimental, cross-sectional exploratory design. Participants and research context: A total of 559 nurses from two hospitals in Flanders, Belgium, completed the Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. Ethical considerations: Good scientific inquiry guidelines were followed throughout the study. Permission to translate the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale was obtained from the copyright holder, and the ethical approval and permissions to conduct the study were obtained from the participating university and hospitals, respectively. Findings: The four-component 21-item, Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale proved to be valid and reliable as the original Finnish Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale. The scale’s internal consistency reliability was high (0.91) corresponding with the original Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale validation study (0.93). The principal component analysis confirmed the four-component structure of the original Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale to be valid also in the Belgian data explaining 58.1% of the variance. Confirmatory factor analysis based on goodness-of-fit indices provided evidence of the scale’s construct validity. The use of a comparable sample of Belgian nurses working in speciality care settings as in the Finnish study supported the stability of the structure. Discussion and conclusion: The Dutch-language version of the Nurses’ Moral Courage Scale is a reliable and valid instrument to measure nurses’ self-assessed moral courage in speciality care nursing environments. Further validation studies in other countries, languages and nurse samples representing different healthcare environments would provide additional evidence of the scale’s validity and initiatives for its further development. (shrink)

In an influential article, Simon C. May forcefully argued that, properly understood, there can never be principled reasons for moral compromise. While there may be pragmatic reasons for compromising that involve, for instance, concern for political expediency or for stability, there are properly speaking no principled reasons to compromise. My aim in the article is to show how principled moral compromise in the context of moral disagreements over policy options is possible. I argue that when (...) we disagree, principled reasons favoring compromises or compromising can assume a more significant part of what makes a position all things considered best, and in this way disagreement can ground moral compromise. (shrink)

Hume assigns a pivotal role to stability in understanding normativity in a variety of theoretical contexts, including the passions, justice, and moral judgment; in epistemology, he seeks to sustain his pretheoretical epistemic intuitions in terms of a stability‐based theory of justification. A distinctive feature of Hume's naturalism is that he tends to ground epistemic obligation in the desire to relieve the discomfort or felt uneasiness in unsettled states. Since he rejects the Pyrrhonian claim that ataraxia or quietude (...) results from an equipollence of opposing arguments where belief is suspended, if tranquillity is to be secured, it will have to be within a system of beliefs. In this regard, a series of hopeful results ultimately give way to a destructive conclusion, a negative assessment of the prospects for stability in belief, and hence for justified belief, at least for the reflective person. This overall interpretive perspective is compared to that of Kemp Smith, MacNabb and Passmore, Garrett, and the reflexive approval interpretation of Baier and Korsgaard. (shrink)

The account of rational morality presented in Morals by Agreement is based, to a large extent, on the concept of constrained maximisation. Rational agents are assumed to have reasons to constrain their maximisation provided they interact with other similarly disposed agents. On this account, rational agents will internalise a disposition to behave as constrained maximisers. The assertion of constrained maximisation is problematic and unrealistic mainly because it does not explain how the process of internalisation occurs. I propose an amended version (...) of constrained maximisation that is based on a conventional understanding of social behaviour and the social contract. Repeated interactions between rational agents lead to the creation of social conventions, which in turn serve as supportive mechanisms for behaviours that reinforce their stability. In addition, established social conventions facilitate and ensure information sharing, thus making it possible for conventional agents to know others' dispositions. The development and establishment of social conventions are best described and explained through an evolutionary account of social structures. The evolutionary account offers a more powerful and more realistic method of discussing cultural evolution, since it considers large populations over long periods of time and the interdependence between social structures and individual behaviour. In this context, information availability ensures that the most efficient conventions take over and maximising strategies become dominant. While for Gauthier moral behaviour depends on constrained maximisation, in the conventional account of morality it comes about as a result of repeated interactions between rational agents within the bounds of social conventions. (shrink)

The punishment of social misconduct is a powerful mechanism for stabilizing high levels of cooperation among unrelated individuals. It is regularly assumed that humans have a universal disposition to punish social norm violators, which is sometimes labelled “universal structure of human morality” or “pure aversion to social betrayal”. Here we present evidence that, contrary to this hypothesis, the propensity to punish a moral norm violator varies among participants with different career trajectories. In anonymous real-life conditions, future teachers punished a (...) talented but immoral young violinist: they voted against her in an important music competition when they had been informed of her previous blatant misconduct toward fellow violin students. In contrast, future police officers and high school students did not punish. This variation among socio-professional categories indicates that the punishment of norm violators is not entirely explained by an aversion to social betrayal. We suggest that context specificity plays an important role in normative behaviour; people seem inclined to enforce social norms only in situations that are familiar, relevant for their social category, and possibly strategically advantageous. (shrink)

Due to the pressing environmental and social issues facing the global economic system, the role of organizations in promoting socially responsible behavior among employees warrants attention in research and practice. It has been suggested that the concept of socio-moral climate might be particularly useful for understanding how participative organizational structures and processes shape employees’ prosocial behaviors. While SMC has been shown to be positively related to employees’ prosocial behaviors within the work context, little is known about the potential (...) spillover effects of SMC. The present study aims to address this gap by investigating how and why SMC is related to employees’ socially responsible purchase intention. Drawing on the relational job design framework, we argue that employees’ perceptions of their social impact may explain why SMC is positively related to responsible purchase intentions. We collected data from 492 employees working in various industries at two measurement points with a time lag of 12 months. Hypotheses were tested using path analysis, in which we controlled for the temporal stability of the study variables. The results showed that SMC was positively related to perceived social impact and socially responsible purchase intention and that perceived social impact was positively related to socially responsible purchase intention. In addition, we found a significant indirect relationship between SMC and socially responsible purchase intention through perceived social impact. The findings provide initial support for the spillover of employees’ work-related experiences onto their responsible purchase intentions within the nonwork domain. This study contributes to the literature by extending the traditional focus of SMC research on the development of moral reasoning skills to suggest that perceived social impact is an important mechanism underlying the relationship between SMC and prosocial behaviors. In terms of practical implications, this study suggests that organizational interventions designed to increase SMC may enhance employees’ perceptions of their social impact. (shrink)

The evolving Sino-Russian relationship is a cornerstone in contemporary international relations, with significant implications for global peace, stability, and strategic balance. This dynamic has progressively deepened, transitioning from a "strategic partnership of coordination" to a "comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era," marked by enhanced political trust and strategic alignment. Notably, the intensification of this partnership under the leadership paradigms of Xi Jinping has yielded significant advancements in military, technological, economic, and cultural domains. This paper explores the (...) ethical and philosophical challenges and opportunities presented by the Sino-Russian relationship from the perspective of ecopolitical philosophy, which considers the environmental implications of these international dynamics. As global leaders in energy consumption and environmental impact, China and Russia's ecological policies carry profound ethical considerations, which intersect with religious and moral philosophy concerning stewardship of the earth and intergenerational justice. The evolving Sino-Russian relationship is a cornerstone in contemporary international relations, with significant implications for global peace, stability, and strategic balance. This dynamic has progressively deepened, transitioning from a "strategic partnership of coordination" to a "comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era," marked by enhanced political trust and strategic alignment. Notably, the intensification of this partnership under the leadership paradigms of Xi Jinping has yielded significant advancements in military, technological, economic, and cultural domains. This paper explores the ethical and philosophical challenges and opportunities presented by the Sino-Russian relationship from the perspective of ecopolitical philosophy, which considers the environmental implications of these international dynamics. As global leaders in energy consumption and environmental impact, China and Russia's ecological policies carry profound ethical considerations, which intersect with religious and moral philosophy concerning stewardship of the earth and intergenerational justice. In the context of this relationship, ethical questions arise regarding the balance of power and environmental responsibility, the moral obligations to address climate change, and the ethical management of natural resources. These considerations are crucial as both nations seek to uphold their commitments to sustainable development while navigating the complexities of their strategic alliance. The analysis is framed by Xi Jinping's diplomatic philosophy, which advocates for a new model of major power relationships based on mutual respect and ecological sustainability. This approach underscores the need for a deeper understanding of the philosophical underpinnings that guide international relations in the era of significant environmental challenges. By examining the Sino-Russian relationship through the lens of global environmental ethics, this study contributes to a broader discourse on how major powers can negotiate their strategic interests with their moral responsibilities to the global community. (shrink)

Objective: To determine whether a moral reasoning exercise can improve response quality to surveys of healthcare priorities Methods: A randomised internet survey focussing on patient age in healthcare allocation was repeated twice. From 2574 internet panel members from the USA and Canada, 2020 (79%) completed the baseline survey and 1247 (62%) completed the follow-up. We elicited respondent preferences for age via five allocation scenarios. In each scenario, a hypothetical health planner made a decision to fund one of two programmes (...) identical except for average patient age (35 vs 65 years). Half of the respondents (intervention group) were randomly assigned to receive an additional moral reasoning exercise. Responses were elicited again 7 weeks later. Numerical scores ranging from –5 (strongest preference for younger patients) to +5 (strongest preference for older patients); 0 indicates no age preference. Response quality was assessed by propensity to choose extreme or neutral values, internal consistency, temporal stability and appeal to prejudicial factors. Results: With the exception of a scenario offering palliative care, respondents preferred offering scarce resources to younger patients in all clinical contexts. This preference for younger patients was weaker in the intervention group. Indicators of response quality favoured the intervention group. Conclusions: Although people generally prefer allocating scarce resources to young patients over older ones, these preferences are significantly reduced when participants are encouraged to reflect carefully on a wide range of moral principles. A moral reasoning exercise is a promising strategy to improve response quality to surveys of healthcare priorities. (shrink)

Societies in transition from repressive rule or civil conflict to a just social order confront distinctive challenges. Many authors claim that the long-term stability of newly established democracies depends crucially upon the ability of former adversaries to reconcile. Interestingly, however, authors typically assume, rather than attempt to prove, the truth of this claim, thereby presupposing the moral value of political reconciliation. Similar assumptions underlie debates about whether truth commissions can be morally justified in granting amnesty to perpetrators of (...) offenses against human rights. A central issue in these debates is whether reconciliation or retribution should have priority. There is thus a general tendency to employ such central concepts as reconciliation without offering an adequate account of their meaning or moral and practical import. Until we adequately understand the concept of reconciliation, the goals of a wide range of policies and the issues at stake in important moral debates will remain unclear. ;In my dissertation, I offer a novel account of political reconciliation. The concept of reconciliation, I argue, implies both a goal and a means of pursuing it. The state of reconciliation is the goal ideally promoted by processes of reconciliation. In the context of transitional justice, this goal is to establish healthy democratic political relationships. I analyze such democratic political relationships in terms of two fundamental ideals of political morality: respect for the rule of law and equality of agency. My strategy is to discuss first the intuitively problematic aspects political relationships typical of societies in conflict or under repressive rule, drawing on empirical data from political science. I then provide a characterization of a philosophical ideal, which I use to offer a new interpretation of the empirical description of problematic political relationships. Finally, based on my account of the state reconciliation, I develop a set of criteria that we can use when judging the effectiveness of various processes in promoting reconciliation. (shrink)

Introduction. The Chinese concept of Tianxia as a theory of political philosophy is analyzed on the basis of the main thoughts of two main representatives-philosophers - Zhao Tingyang and Xu Jiulin. As representatives of “hard” and “soft” Tianxiaists, Zhao and Xu offer different solutions to existing problems, developing an ancient concept. The purpose of the study is to present and analyze the concept of Tianxia as a philosophical doctrine with a focus on its logical structure and conceptual system. Methods. The (...) hermeneutic method was used to examine the philosophical concepts of the philosopher being studied and criticize his theory. Scientific novelty of the research. The topic under study shows a close connection with modern realities, especially in the context of the fact that modern Chinese philosophy is discussed quite rarely in Russian science. When writing the article, the latest scientific works of researchers were used, which made it possible to obtain a broader view with a focus on different scientific traditions. Results. The main assumptions of the two philosophers are analyzed. Based on the analysis, we came to the conclusion that the Tianxia system, as a rethinking of the old Chinese concept against the backdrop of globalization, contains many ambiguities and contradictions that require further development. As Zhao suggests, his Tianxia system as a “political epistemology” with peace as the supporting political unit strives to resolve conflicts through a policy of “turning enemies into friends.” As he believes, “real politics” should not lead to conflicts and struggle, but solve existing problems; therefore political theory is needed precisely to create an order of stability and coexistence. Culturologist Xu, in turn, sees the main task in modernizing the Tianxia theory - eliminating the centrism and hierarchy of the old Tianxia system and presents his version called “neo-Tianxiaism.” He believes that this modern version of Tianxia represents certain universal and supranational values, on the basis of which all participating parties in the system can develop mutually beneficial friendly relations and achieve stability. Based on hermeneutic and comparative analysis, we found that the main tenets of Tianxiaism, consisting of inclusiveness, non-nationality, equality and “friendship,” are contradicted by assumptions and elements from the traditional understanding of Tianxia, such as the leading role of China itself in creating this order, the universality of Chinese traditional (which are, in fact, national) values and the “wrongness” of Western political theories. The author identifies terminological and conceptual uncertainties, which can be characterized as “internal conflicts” of the system. (shrink)

In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. The Parc de La Villette represents the (...) last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Bernard Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Jacques Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Peter Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, Absolute Otherness (tout autre) and the Impossibile were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others). Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

The relevance of the research reflects the unity of the requirements of the Beijing Philosophical Congress "Learning to be a man" and the anniversary report of the "Rome Club" "Come On! Capitalism, myopia, population and destruction of the planet", which the transformation processes of the socio-sphere are revealed from the standpoint the need for a radical breakdown of the spiritual and moral world of man and his worldview. The foundation of these transformations is the transition in education, as the (...) hippocrine of our knowledge, the source that quenches thirst in them to the "new Enlightenment" as a decisive factor in the learning of a person to be him. This determined the purpose and objectives of the article. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the natural and necessary character of the formation of the "new Enlightenment", to reveal the architectonics of its content. Research objectives : in the context of the goal to uncover the factors that determine the need for a transition in education to the "new Enlightenment", its qualitative difference from the Enlightenment of the 17th-18th centuries; to characterize the new content of "connectedness" in education based on the use of new information technologies; analyze the process of formation of a new spiritual and moral outlook of a specialist on the universal values of humanity; focus the learner’s attention on focusing knowledge of sustainable development as a determining factor of the global problems of mankind through the interrelation of academic disciplines; an important component presents the demand for the formation of a new integral thinking, innovative in its essence and qualitatively different from the analytical one. It is noted that the transition to the path of integral thinking contributes to the connection, coordination and organization into a single whole of the fragments of the object under study. Such thinking is characterized by stability, reliability, variability; it is original in its connections with science and education, and methodological influence on individual and social consciousness. Integral thinking reflects a qualitatively new level of intelligence. Research methods: to achieve the stated goal and constructive solution of the tasks, the article used the method of abduction, analysis and synthesis, historical and logical, synergistic approach. The results of the research: a new paradigm of education is represented – the noospheric-information one corresponding to the factuality of the “new Enlightenment”, as its ability to reproduce itself on a changing scale. The change in the scale of the socio-sphere is due to its globalization processes. The content of the “new Enlightenment” is explicated as a qualitatively new level of formation of students' sustainable knowledge based on the integral innovative type of thinking based on the information resources of society, the use of modern educational technologies, as well as on the values of society, as the quintessence of its wisdom and public intelligence. Conclusions. Thus, the formation of a "new Enlightenment" is natural and necessary. This follows from the requirements of the “learn to be human” program, as well as from the development of an internally ordered education process. “New Enlightenment” also has an attribute of uniqueness, since it does not have anything to compare with, identify; it is an objective, essential, unique phenomenon; it is single, relative, determined by the previous development of education. It is based on the processes of intellectualization, innovation, informational content, humanism and is capable of solving constructively the tasks facing society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Political Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology by Joshua HordernMichael P. JaycoxPolitical Affections: Civic Participation and Moral Theology By Joshua Hordern NEW YORK: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2013. 312 PP. $125.00Hordern asks his reader to consider that the decline of participatory democracy in Western societies may be ameliorated by a renewed appreciation of the role of emotions in politics. Creatively retrieving many elements of the Augustinian tradition, (...) he argues that the “evaluative intentionality” of emotions is an imperfect type of moral insight whereby human beings both participate in and conform themselves to the created “order of value” (40, 77). Although the power of sin profoundly destabilizes human inclinations, emotions can become stable moral guides through a process of “intersubjective verification” (81). Hordern claims that the epistemological capacities of socially stabilized emotions are substantial enough to enable the community to “participate in and evaluate the goods with which institutional practices are concerned, recognize the authority of those who promote the proper ends of those goods, and initiate common political reflection and deliberation” (142).Bringing these insights to bear upon his own political context, Hordern claims the “resentment,” “alienation,” and “disillusionment” that some British citizens feel toward the cosmopolitan project of the European Union stands as [End Page 213] evidence that “law which is not primarily rooted in the locality which it governs will run the risk of opposing the affections of the people” (22, 23, 242). Working from the premise that “local loves are the fertile soil in which more wide-ranging loves may grow,” Hordern champions “the politically beneficial possibilities of a limited ethnocentricity,” by which he means that emotions shared in smaller communities and within nation-states motivate citizens to attend to the common good most effectively (224, 240).Anticipating the objections to this proposal, Hordern assures his reader that the influence of Christianity upon democratic processes minimizes the negative effects of ethnocentric nationalism, such as the oppression of socially vulnerable groups. Insofar as Christian emotions participate uniquely in the transcendent order of values, the participation of this community in the temporal order would “disturb, renew, or correct patterns of social trust” (271) and provide “a critical standpoint whereby affections in all institutions may be described and assessed” (164).This reviewer shares some of Hordern’s general premises regarding the intelligence of emotions and their motivational potential in public life. By way of evaluation, however, I find three significant problems with his argument. First, although Hordern grasps Martha Nussbaum’s emotion theory quite well, he habitually mischaracterizes the more central aspects of her moral thought in order to prop up his somewhat more conservative agenda. For example, he accuses her of denying the existence of a “stable moral order” and of endorsing an individualistic concept of agency (98). These inferences fail to account for the highly social and essentialist vision of human flourishing that provides the normative content of her capability theory and her feminist ethic.Second, he offers some weak arguments as he develops his account of emotional stabilization. For example, he alleges that virtue cannot stabilize emotion because it is a form of “epistemological self-dependence” that “tends to block repentant attentiveness,” but this assertion is grounded in his antecedent concern to discredit Aristotelian habituation as a moral theory (110, 101). As he develops his own alternative proposal about intersubjective verification by appeals to “the power of memory,” he glosses over significant counterarguments concerning the “contested” nature of social memories of historical events (110, 115).Third, Hordern does not propose any universal norms of justice capable of checking the authority of particular civil governments. For example, he seems dismissive about the moral dangers of emotionally motivated nationalism, the gravity of which he attempts to minimize by emphasizing the critical aspect of Christian political participation. (The historical record of fascism in Europe would hardly support such a claim.) Nevertheless, he presumes a tacit normative point of reference every time he offers a political judgment. For example, he claims that civil authority should caution “against overreaching [End Page 214] itself in pride,” but this is to beg the question of what the interventionist role of governments should be vis-à-vis systemic injustice (198).Political... (shrink)

This paper explores the potential of a contextual approach to multicultural conflict. It reconstructs two cases that were hotly debated in the Netherlands—Islamic headscarves for police officers and for court officers—and asks whether a contextual approach reaches compromises and thus promotes social stability more easily than a deductive approach. The argument is that a deductive approach accepts standing interpretations of normative principles, whereas a contextual approach reinterprets these principles in the light of the circumstances and that, whether or not (...) it promotes social stability, a contextual approach makes us attend to otherwise neglected perspectives and thus yields greater normative insights. (shrink)

The stability of every society is closely tied to the proper establishment of its ideological foundations. In this context, religious education is of great importance, especially today, when conflicts are widespread. A lack of religious education and growing ignorance often lead to the rise of religious radicalism and extremism. The ideological, political, economic, and spiritual damage caused by these forms of extremism is profound. Religious ignorance is a key factor contributing to this issue. However, the teachings of our (...) religion, promote peace, mercy, consideration, and moderation. The social organization of religion and establishment of religious institutions make great contributions to promoting religious ideas in a healthy way and allows people to be religiously more educated. Therefore, the Quran, Islamic tradition, and the wisdom of intellectuals emphasize the significance of religious education in numerous instances. The main purpose of writing this article is to partially explore the methods of combating religious ignorance. Although the topic is new, it addresses one of the most important issues of modern times. Based on the conducted research, emphasizing the importance of religious education, organizing secondary and higher religious education, valuing education as a moral virtue, preparing sound religious literature, learning lessons from the harm caused by religious ignorance, and encouraging specialists working in the field of religious education are considered some of the most important and effective methods in the fight against religious ignorance. This article has been studied in a descriptiveanalytical manner and based on content analysis. Additionally, it is considered an interdisciplinary study, as it encompasses the subjects of religious education, history, sociology, and the Quran. (shrink)

Within the context of his epochal distinction between the sphere of law and of morals, of iustum and honestum, Christian Thomasius introduces a further category of conduct rules, which relate to so-called decorum, to good and proper behavior. They teach the individual how to behave socially, and have a stabilizing effect on society. As Thomasius distinguishes between a natural-law oriented, and thus for all individuals equal, natural decorum and a decorum politicum, which is oriented toward actual practices and feudal (...) order, he seems to waver between stabilizing and challenging then current feudalism. This impression weakens if one realizes that although Thomasius, in contrast to Cicero, undertook to demoralize decorum, still he accepted Cicero's theory of social roles. In the context of the actor's own interests, decorum covers those areas of social regulation that are not included within positive law seen as a means of coercive command. It is here that decorum is interesting systematically.Im Kontext seiner historischen Trennung der Sphären des Rechts und der Moral, des Iustum vom Honestum, führt Christian Thomasius noch eine weitere Kategorie von Verhaltensregeln ein, die zum sog. Decorum gehören, zur Wohlanständigkeit, welche die Menschen lehrt, in der Gesellschaft voranzukommen und für die Gesellschaft stabilisierende Wirkung besitzt. Da Thomasius zwischen einem naturrechtsnahen und daher für alle Menschen gleichen natürlichen Decorum und einem an die faktischen Sitten und die ständische Ordnung angelehnten Decorum politicum unterscheidet, scheint er zwischen einer Stabilisierung und einer Infragestellung der Ständegesellschaft zu schwanken. Dieser Eindruck schwächt sich ab, wenn man bedenkt, daß Thomasius gegenüber Cicero zwar eine Entmoralisierung des Decorum vornimmt, jedoch dessen Lehre der sozialen Rollen aufgreift. Das Decorum erfaßt unter Rückgriff auf des Eigeninteresse der Akteure jenen Bereich sozialer Regulierung, der von dem als Zwangsbefehl gedeuteten positiven Recht nicht berücksichtigt wird. Darin liegt sein systematisches Interesse. (shrink)

The present study aimed to analyze the stability of the memory of a stressful event (medical examination within a hospital setting) over time in young people (age range 12 to 21, Mage = 15.11 years old, SD = 3.047) with mild or moderate intellectual disability (IQ = 54.32, SD = 13.47). The results show a stability of the memory of what happened an hour and a week after the event in relation to the people involved, the apparatus used, (...) and the parts of the body explored. No interaction effects were found between the stability of memory over time and the level of intellectual disability. The level of disability (mild or moderate) only affected the description of the doctor who performed the exploration and the explored parts of the body, showing better results for people with mild disability. In addition, the results highlight the relationship between memory and IQ, especially verbal IQ. (shrink)

The topic of moral diversity is not only prevalent in contemporary moral and political philosophy, it is also practically relevant. Moral diversity, however, poses a significant challenge for moral theory building. John Thrasher, in his discussion of public reason theory, which includes social contract theory, argues that if one seriously considers the goal of moral constructivism and considerations of representation and stability, then moral diversity poses an insurmountable problem for most public reason theories. (...) I agree with Thrasher that moral diversity poses a significant challenge for orthodox multistage social contract theories. In fact, I even add a further problem for such theories under the assumption of deep moral diversity. Nevertheless, I argue that my recently developed multilevel social contract theory overcomes these problems. I focus on some of the underexplored features of this theory to show that multilevel social contract theory offers one conceptually coherent and plausible way to render social contract theory viable and relevant for modern diverse societies. (shrink)

Issues of sociopolitical systems’ stability and risks of their destabi-lization in process of political transformations belong to the most important ones as regards the social development perspectives, as has been shown again by the recent events in Ukraine. In this re-spect it appears necessary to note that the transition to democracy may pose a serious threat to the stability of respective sociopolitical systems. This article studies the issue of democratization of countries within globalization context, it points to (...) the unreasonably high economic and social costs of a rapid transition to democracy as a result of revolutions or of similar large-scale events for the countries unprepared for it. The authors believe that in a number of cases the authoritarian regimes turn out to be more effective in economic and social terms in comparison with emerging democracies especially of the revolutionary type, which are often incapable to insure social order and may have a swing to authoritarianism. Effective authoritarian regimes can also be a suitable form of a transition to efficient and stable democracy. The article investigates various correlations between revolutionary events and possibilities of establishing democracy in a society on the basis of the historical and contemporary examples as well as the recent events in Egypt. The authors demonstrate that one should take into account a country’s degree of sociopolitical and cultural preparedness for democratic institutions. In case of favorable background, revolutions can proceed smoothly (“velvet revolutions”) with efficient outcomes. On the contrary, democracy is established with much difficulty, throwbacks, return to totalitarianism, and with outbreaks of violence and military takeovers in the countries with high illiteracy rate and rural population share, with low female status, with widespread religious fundamental ideology, where a substantial part of the population hardly ever hears of democracy while the liberal intellectuals idealize this form, where the opposing parties are not willing to respect the rules of democratic game when defeated at elections. (shrink)

It is argued that the Nash bargaining solution cannot serve as a principle of distributive justice because (i) it cannot secure stable cooperation in repeated interactions and (ii) it cannot capture our moral intuitions concerning distributive questions. In this article, I propose a solution to the first problem by amending the Nash bargaining solution so that it can maintain stable cooperation among rational bargainers. I call the resulting principle the stabilized Nash bargaining solution. The principle defends justice in the (...) form 'each according to her basic needs and above this level according to her relative bargaining power'. In response to the second problem, I argue that the stabilized Nash bargaining solution can serve as a principle of distributive justice in certain situations where moral reasoning is reduced to instrumental reasoning. In particular, I argue that rational individuals would choose the stabilized Nash bargaining solution in Rawls' original position. (shrink)

I investigate the role of stability in cosmology through two episodes from the recent history of cosmology: Einstein’s static universe and Eddington’s demonstration of its instability, and the flatness problem of the hot big bang model and its claimed solution by inflationary theory. These episodes illustrate differing reactions to instability in cosmological models, both positive ones and negative ones. To provide some context to these reactions, I also situate them in relation to perspectives on stability from dynamical (...) systems theory and its epistemology. This reveals, for example, an insistence on stability as an extreme position in relation to the spectrum of physical systems which exhibit degrees of stability and fragility, one which has a pragmatic rationale, but not any deeper one. (shrink)

In the context of medical tourism, circumvention tourism consists of traveling abroad with the intention of participating in a health-related activity that is prohibited in one’s own country but not in the destination country. This practice raises a host of legal and ethical questions that focus on how the traveler should be treated once they have returned home. Joshua Shaw1 deftly shows that the question of whether circumvention tourists should be punished in their home countries is not something that (...) can be answered in principle and without reference to the prima facie morality of the prohibition. This implicates formalist accounts of circumvention tourism developed by Pennings2 and Huxtable3 that argue against punishing travelers who access fertility treatments and medical assistance in dying abroad on the grounds that civic peace and stability require opportunities for individuals to travel internationally to access domestically prohibited medical services. (shrink)

Anthropogenic climate change poses a direct and imminent threat to the stability of modern society. Recent reports of the probable consequences of climate change paint a grim picture; they describe a world environmentally much less stable than the world to which we have become accustomed. As we begin to adapt to our changing climate, we will need to identify new sources for the stability necessary for a flourishing society. I suggest that this stability should come from the (...) ideals of the good life we seek to promote when we focus on capabilities, on the substantial freedoms humans need to flourish. These ideals serve as a stable foundation for well-being in a time of great environmental and social instability; they should serve as guides for our policies, practices and institutions. I conclude by appealing to capabilities as a means of integrating well-being into our adaptation strategies, and show how doing so may well provide a way of formulating a powerful moral justification for adaptation strategies appropriate for both the developed and the developing world. (shrink)

John Rawls argued in A Theory of Justice that ‘justice as fairness … is likely to have greater stability than the traditional alternatives since it is more in line with the principles of moral psychology'. In support, he presented a psychology of moral development that was informed by a comprehensive liberalism. In Political Liberalism, Rawls confessed that the argument was 'unrealistic and must be recast'. Rawls, however, never provided a psychology of moral development informed by a (...) specifically political liberalism, leaving it at a disadvantage with respect to comprehensive liberalism itself. I argue that no coherent account is available. But, because Rawls’s Liberal Principle of Legitimacy, along with its implied stricture against 'indoctrination in the pejorative sense', is a creature of ideal rather than non-ideal theory, the deficiency is far less significant than many would assume. (shrink)

The rejection of a “characterless” moral self is central to some of Bernard Williams’ most important contributions to philosophy. By the time of Truth and Truthfulness, he works instead with a model of the self constituted and stabilized out of more primitive materials through deliberation and in concert with others that takes inspiration from Diderot. Although this view of the self raises some difficult questions, it serves as a useful starting point for thinking about the process of developing an (...) authentic moral point of view in the context of contemporary living. In what follows, I begin to fill out and extend this picture of the self and its related notion of authenticity by exploring some of the “technologies of the self” at play in Rachel Cusk’s recent work (primarily, the Outline trilogy, Coventry, Second Place, and “The Stuntman”) that ask us to rethink the possibility and importance of stability; seek a way of constituting oneself and one’s values outside the confining structures of traditional narrative (focusing instead on a framework that might be provided by the visual arts); and give a different role to the sort of internalized other Williams sees as being at work in the mechanisms of shame. (shrink)

The replicator dynamics and Moran process are the main deterministic and stochastic models of evolutionary game theory. The models are connected by a mean-field relationship—the former describes the expected behavior of the latter. However, there are conditions under which their predictions diverge. I demonstrate that the divergence between their predictions is a function of standard techniques used in their analysis and of differences in the idealizations involved in each. My analysis reveals problems for stochastic stability analysis in a broad (...) class of games, demonstrates a novel domain of agreement between the dynamics, and indicates a broader moral for evolutionary modeling. (shrink)

In the 21st century, the enhancement of human beings beyond their natural capacities is a growing reality. Enhancement could include enlarging physical capacities such as muscularity, cognitive ability in areas like memory and mental focus, and psychological capacities, including emotional stability. As our ability to change our physical and mental capabilities increases, we will face new and complex ethical challenges. One such challenge is the implications of enhancement for moral status. It has been suggested that enhancement of human (...) cognitive or moral capacities might result in beings with dramatically greater mental capabilities than our own and that these beings might attain a moral status higher than that of unenhanced persons. A development of this kind could undermine the moral equality assumption that all with the characteristics sufficient for personhood enjoy the same moral status. Allen Buchanan has recently explored this issue, tentatively arguing that the concept of a being with greater moral status than us is dubious, and that consequently the prospect of enhancement does not threaten the moral equality assumption in any serious way.1 In this issue's feature article, David DeGrazia responds to some of Buchanan's ideas in the context of genetic enhancement ( see page 135 ). He begins by posing two fundamental questions. First, ‘could genetic enhancement in principle lead to the existence of beings so superior to contemporary human beings, in ways that matter to us, that we might aptly describe them as post-persons?’ and second, ‘if such post-persons emerged, how should we understand their moral status in relation to ours?’ DeGrazia suggests that we should take the notion of post-persons seriously. He introduces a case, A Future with Post-persons, to explore some of the qualities these genetically-enhanced beings might possess in the year 2145. Among other things, they possess exceptional memories and have far greater …. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls’s first argument for the inherent stability of a well-ordered society seeks to establish that citizens of such a society would come to share the same or similar senses of justice. In his late work, Rawls significantly revised his second argument for stability, but he repeatedly pronounced himself satisfied with the first. However, the pluralism that so drastically reoriented Rawls’s mature theory also creates destabilizing forces absent in Theory. These destabilizing forces suggest (...) that a shared sense of justice among citizens will be more difficult to achieve. This paper examines Rawl’s late theory in detail to reconstruct how Rawls, despite his stated satisfaction, addressed the destabilizing effects of pluralism through revisions to his first argument for stability. It argues that in his late theory Rawls no longer claims that a well-ordered society could achieve inherent stability. Instead, a more fragile stability is achieved through a disciplined commitment to publ... (shrink)

We introduce tame abstract elementary classes as a generalization of all cases of abstract elementary classes that are known to permit development of stability-like theory. In this paper, we explore stability results in this new context. We assume that [Formula: see text] is a tame abstract elementary class satisfying the amalgamation property with no maximal model. The main results include:. Theorem 0.1. Suppose that [Formula: see text] is not only tame, but [Formula: see text]-tame. If [Formula: see (...) text] and [Formula: see text] is Galois stable in μ, then [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is a relative of κ from first order logic. [Formula: see text] is the Hanf number of the class [Formula: see text]. It is known that [Formula: see text]. The theorem generalizes a result from [17]. It is used to prove both the existence of Morley sequences for non-splitting and the following initial step towards a stability spectrum theorem for tame classes:. Theorem 0.2. If [Formula: see text] is Galois-stable in some [Formula: see text], then [Formula: see text] is stable in every κ with κμ=κ. For example, under GCH we have that [Formula: see text] Galois-stable in μ implies that [Formula: see text] is Galois-stable in μ+n for all n < ω. (shrink)

This essay develops a joint theory of rational (all-or-nothing) belief and degrees of belief. The theory is based on three assumptions: the logical closure of rational belief; the axioms of probability for rational degrees of belief; and the so-called Lockean thesis, in which the concepts of rational belief and rational degree of belief figure simultaneously. In spite of what is commonly believed, this essay will show that this combination of principles is satisfiable (and indeed nontrivially so) and that the principles (...) are jointly satisfied if and only if rational belief is equivalent to the assignment of a stably high rational degree of belief. Although the logical closure of belief and the Lockean thesis are attractive postulates in themselves, initially this may seem like a formal “curiosity”; however, as will be argued in the rest of the essay, a very reasonable theory of rational belief can be built around these principles that is not ad hoc and that has various philosophical features that are plausible independently. In particular, this essay shows that the theory allows for a solution to the Lottery Paradox, and it has nice applications to formal epistemology. The price that is to be paid for this theory is a strong dependency of belief on the context, where a context involves both the agent's degree of belief function and the partitioning or individuation of the underlying possibilities. But as this essay argues, that price seems to be affordable. (shrink)

The concept of contextual emergence is proposed as a non-reductive, yet welldefined relation between different levels of description of physical and other systems. It is illustrated for the transition from statistical mechanics to thermodynamical properties such as temperature. Stability conditions are crucial for a rigorous implementation of contingent contexts that are required to understand temperature as an emergent property. It is proposed that such stability conditions are meaningful for contextual emergence beyond physics as well.

This paper attempts to elucidate three characteristics of causal relationships that are important in biological contexts. Stability has to do with whether a causal relationship continues to hold under changes in background conditions. Proportionality has to do with whether changes in the state of the cause “line up” in the right way with changes in the state of the effect and with whether the cause and effect are characterized in a way that contains irrelevant detail. Specificity is connected both (...) to David Lewis’ notion of “influence” and also with the extent to which a causal relation approximates to the ideal of one cause–one effect. Interrelations among these notions and their possible biological significance are also discussed. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes briefly what John Rawls meant by stability, the role it plays in Theory of Justice (TJ), and the outline of his main strategies for showing that a well‐ordered society based on his principles of justice would be relatively stable. It presents comments on Rawls's use of developmental moral psychology in support of his claim that societies based on justice as fairness would be relatively stable. The chapter discusses Rawls's conception of self‐respect, its role in his (...) arguments for justice as fairness, and whether it is subject to a certain Kantian objection that echoes in our contemporary political culture. It argues that if Rawls's turn to an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines as the basis of stability in Political Liberalism (PL) was well motivated, then why not quietly bypass the earlier work on a sense of justice and self‐respect simply as an acknowledged failure. (shrink)

This essay re-examines Adam Smith’s encounter with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Against the grain of present scholarship it contends that when Smith read and reviewed Rousseau’s Second Discourse, he neither registered it as a particularly important challenge, nor was especially influenced by, or subsequently preoccupied with responding to, Rousseau. The case for this is made by examining the British context of Smith’s own intervention in his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments, where a proper appreciation of the roles of David Hume (...) and Bernard Mandeville in the formation of Smith’s thought pushes Rousseau firmly into the background. Realising this, however, forces us to re-consider our evaluations of Rousseau’s and Smith’s very different political visions. Given that questions of individual recognition, economic inequality, and political stability remain at the heart of today’s social challenges, the implications of this are not just historical but of direct contemporary import. (shrink)

Surprisingly little is known about what ancient Confucian thinkers struggled with in their own social and political contexts and how these struggles contributed to the establishment and further development of classical Confucian political theory. Leading scholar of comparative political theory, Sungmoon Kim offers a systematic philosophical account of the political theories of Mencius and Xunzi, investigating both their agreements and disagreements as the champions of the Confucian Way against the backdrop of the prevailing realpolitik of the late Warring States period. (...) Together, they contributed to the formation of Confucian virtue politics, in which concerns about political order and stability and concerns about moral character and moral enhancement are deeply intertwined. By presenting their political philosophies in terms of constitutionalism, Kim shows how they each developed the ability to authorize the ruler's legitimate use of power in domestic and interstate politics in ways consistent with their distinctive accounts of human nature. (shrink)

A growing body of empirical research suggests that people's concrete‐case intuitions are unstable—i.e., vulnerable to biasing influences—with no way of anticipating the instability. This has led some to challenge the use of intuitions in philosophical practice. In this chapter, I consider responses to this challenge. One is that the empirical research cited has no bearing on the epistemic status of intuitions because it fails to actually test intuitions. While this is a worry worth taking seriously, there is another response available—namely, (...) that even if we grant that these studies successfully elicited intuitions, in the midst of the instability uncovered there was also a fair amount of stability. And an investigation into the features of unstable vs. stable judgments, and the contexts within which they are generated, suggests that the instability in question may not actually be intuitional. (shrink)

We distinguish between the Aristotelian conception under which pleasure is understood as the feeling of the accomplished exercise of the active tendencies of a living being, and a conception according to which the search for pleasure or the removal of uneasiness determines every activity. Freud is considered as a representative of this second conception and more often than not he presents himself in that way. However, we find conclusive statements in Freud’s work according to which the principle of pleasure, considered (...) as a quantitative reduction of the stimulation level, presupposes the search for a sufficiently high energetic level which tends to reach a specific and functional discharge and not any discharge as such. In this context, Freud speaks about Bindung, a notion which points both to physiological stability and the symbolic appropriation of felt anxieties. (shrink)

Socrates’ official answer to Meno’s question about the value of knowledge, near the end of Plato’s Meno, is that knowledge is stable. I argue that both the answer and the question have been widely misunderstood. The question has been taken to be why knowing at a time is better than true belief at that time, and Socrates’ answer has been taken to point to the greater persistence of knowledge over time. I argue instead that, given the broader context of (...) the question and answer in the Meno, together with what Plato has to say about stability elsewhere, Meno’s question is better understood as a more difficult question – and Socrates’ answer as a good solution to it. This also involves arguing that Socrates’ analogy to the statues of Daedalus is not intended as the simple illustration of Socrates’ official answer for which commentators have taken it. (shrink)

In Lewisean signaling games with common interests, perfect signaling strategies have been shown to be optimal in terms of communicative success and evolutionary fitness. However, in signaling game models that involve contextual cues, ambiguous signaling strategies can match up to or even outperform perfect signaling. For a minimalist example of such a context signaling game, I will show that three strategy types are expected to emerge under evolutionary dynamics: perfect signaling, partial ambiguity and full ambiguity. Moreover, I will show (...) that partial ambiguity strategies are the most expected outcome and have the greatest basin of attraction among these three types when sender and receiver costs are arbitrarily small or similar. I will demonstrate that the evolutionary success of partial ambiguity is due to being risk dominant, which points to a better compatibility with other strategy types. (shrink)

In a recent article, McClennen (2012) defends an alternative bargaining theory in response to his criticisms of the standard Nash bargaining solution as a principle of distributive justice in the context of the social contract. McClennen rejects the orthodox concept of expected individual utility maximizing behavior that underlies the Nash bargaining model in favor of what he calls full rationality, and McClennen’s full cooperation bargaining theory demands that agents select the most egalitarian strictly Pareto-optimal distributional outcome that is strictly (...) Pareto-superior to the state of nature. I argue that McClennen’s full cooperators are best described as reasonable agents whose rationality is constrained by moral considerations and that McClennen’s bargaining theory is moralized in this regard. If, by contrast, the orthodox concept of rationality is assumed and plausible assumptions are made about human nature and social cooperation, then a modified version of the standard Nash bargaining solution, which I call the stabilized Nash bargaining solution (Moehler 2010), is justified. From the perspective of rational agents, the stabilized Nash bargaining solution can accommodate McClennen’s criticisms of the standard Nash bargaining solution in the context of the social contract and, for such agents, it can serve as a principle of distributive justice in deeply morally pluralistic societies. (shrink)