Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Acceptance Governance, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

There is a form of power whereby the moral relationship governs those who are part of, or affected by, the relationship. Called “acceptance governance,” it develops “power-with" in a decolonial manner, reframing agency as guided by accountability. Power-with leads to minimal moral relations between worlds out of which processes of acceptance build justice and right relations from the bottom up. There are two senses of acceptance, however, the second being accepting the conditions of acceptance. Power-with then becomes grounded in “power from,” a new form of power uncommon in the literature. In addition to cohering with a number of indigenous …

Of Life Beyond Domination: Capability Determination, Surfacing, Norm Play, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

“Surfacing” is the process of rediscovering one’s sense of self-determination from within a context of enduring domination, including systems of enduring domination, such as racism, capitalism, and patriarchy. “Enduring domination” is the afterlife of domination that carries on into the conditions and mentality of anyone affected by domination, even indirectly. This article riggs together a concept from the Capability Approach to human development, a process from intersectional, epistemic justice work, and some broad possibilities within social practice art around norm play and subversion to fill out a practice of wondering that helps its participants surface. It serves as a contribution …

A Planetary Imagination: Responses To Chakrabarty’S Socio-Natural Historiography, Editorial Introduction, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

Dipesh Chakrabarty’s 2009 essay in Critical Inquiry, “The Climate of History: Four Theses” sent tremors through the environmentally aware humanities in the 2010s. Last year, he published the book that brought that essay forward into the present, The Climate of History in a Planetary Age. It’s no overstatement to think of this book as having clanged the bell for a new normal in the humanities and social sciences when it comes to telling the story of ourselves, that is, when it comes to human history. Responsible history should today be geological even when recounting the human record. Chakrabarty raised a …

The Planetary Sublime Part Ii Of The Problem Of An Unloving World, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

This essay interprets Dipesh Chakrabarty’s The Climate of History in a Planetary Age in light of the European tradition of thought about the sublime. The first half of the essay stages Chakrabarty’s historiography within that tradition focusing on a critical understanding of Kant. Then, the essay considers how the trace of the sublime in Chakrabarty’s approach to planetary history is interpretable as a form of social alienation. That argument draws on the critical theory of Steven Vogel and decolonial critique. Finally, the essay considers the moods of protest as non-alienated responses to the planetary bypassing the coloniality of the sublime.

"For You There Are No Strangers": Albert Schweitzer And The Ethics Of Necessity In Pandemic America, Joel (J.T.) Young

Faculty Scholarship

Claiming millions of lives and affecting millions more, the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust humanity into a period of intense reflection on the fragility of life. However, in this time when people have been encouraged to care for their fellow human beings by taking the precautions necessary to protect one another, many have asked the same question as one of Jesus’ antagonistic opponents in the Gospel of Luke: “and who is my neighbor?” In addition to the virus, though, the United States has been plagued by another adversary: non-necessity toward the other. By claiming no responsibility for the well-being and care …

Normative Powers, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter provides an analysis of normative powers as the ability to change a normative condition, and distinguishes and analyses several kinds of such powers. It distinguishes between wide normative powers possessed by any act that non-causally results in a normative change, and narrow normative powers, which are the main topic of the chapter. The most important theses of the chapter are: First, the distinction between basic normative powers and chained normative powers (the latter being powers created by the exercise of other powers) and second, defending the apparently surprising claim that people have narrow powers when and because there …

Review Of "German, Jew, Muslim, Gay: The Life And Times Of Hugo Marcus" By Marc David Baer., Asaf Angermann

Faculty Scholarship

When Hugo Marcus (1880–1966), a German Jewish gay author, philosopher, and activist, converted to Islam in 1925, he “did not know yet what significance the word ‘jihad’ would one day mean to [him]. For it also signifies the duty to leave the country that is under godless rule, even if in so doing one has to give up one’s homeland. In this sense,” he wrote retrospectively in 1951, “I have been on a pilgrimage for the last twelve years” (135). In a footnote to this quotation from Marcus’s unpublished manuscript, Marc David Baer, author of this fascinating, erudite, and unusual …

A Dilemma About The Mental, Guy Dove, Andreas Elpidorou

Faculty Scholarship

Physicalism demands an explication of what it means for something to be physical. But the most popular way of providing one—viz., characterizing the physical in terms of the postulates of a scientifically derived physical theory—is met with serious trouble. Proponents of physicalism can either appeal to current physical theory or to some future physical theory (preferably an ideal and complete one). Neither option is promising: currentism almost assuredly renders physicalism false and futurism appears to render it indeterminate or trivial. The purpose of this essay is to argue that attempts to characterize the mental encounter a similar dilemma: currentism with …

Unacceptable Agency Part I Of The Problem Of An Unloving World, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

The Earth System Governance Project is the largest scholarly body in the world devoted to articulating governance of the Earth’s systems. It recently published a “Harvesting Initiative” looking back on the first iteration of its Scientific Plan. This paper contributes to the decolonial and constructive critique of the theory of agency in that Initiative and argues that it displays “fragmentary coloniality” especially around problematic authority relations in governance. By turning to work on “worlding,” the paper argues for radicalizing questions of authority, leading us to focus not on agency but on moral relationships—work for a sequel to this paper.

Technological Tethereds: Potential Impact Of Untrustworthy Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice Risk Assessment Instruments, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Faculty Scholarship

Issues of racial inequality and violence are front and center in today’s society, as are issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). This Article, written by a law professor who is also a computer scientist, takes a deep dive into understanding how and why hacked and rogue AI creates unlawful and unfair outcomes, particularly for persons of color.

Black Americans are disproportionally featured in criminal justice, and their stories are obfuscated. The seemingly endless back-to-back murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and heartbreakingly countless others have finally shaken the United States from its slumbering journey towards intentional criminal justice …

Motivation As An Epistemic Ground [Pre-Print], Peter Antich

Faculty Scholarship

In several papers, Mark Wrathall argued that French phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, identifies a sui generis type of grounding, one not reducible to reason or natural causality. Following the Phenomenological tradition, Merleau-Ponty called this form of grounding “motivation,” and described it as the way in which one phenomenon spontaneously gives rise to another through its sense. While Wrathall’s suggestion has been taken up in the practical domain, its epistemic import has still not been fully explored. I would like to take up the epistemic dimension of Wrathall’s thought in this paper. Following Wrathall, I explain how motivation can help us understand …

Can There Be An Existentialist Virtue Ethics? [Pre-Print], Peter Antich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Benefits Of Being A Suicidal Curmudgeon: Emil Cioran On Killing Yourself, Glenn M. Trujillo Jr

Faculty Scholarship

Emil Cioran offers novel arguments against suicide. He assumes a meaningless world. But in such a world, he argues, suicide and death would be equally as meaningless as life or anything else. Suicide and death are as cumbersome and useless as meaning and life. Yet Cioran also argues that we should contemplate suicide to live better lives. By contemplating suicide, we confront the deep suffering inherent in existence. This humbles us enough to allow us to change even the deepest aspects of ourselves. Yet it also reminds us that our peculiar human ability—being able to contemplate suicide—sets us above anything …

Involving Anthroponomy In The Anthropocene: On Decoloniality, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

This book introduces the idea of anthroponomy – the organization of humankind to support autonomous life – as a response to the problems of today’s purported "Anthropocene" age. It argues for a specific form of accountability for the redressing of planetary-scaled environmental problems. The concept of anthroponomy helps confront geopolitical history shaped by the social processes of capitalism, colonialism, and industrialism, which have resulted in our planetary situation. Involving Anthroponomy in the Anthropocene: On Decoloniality explores how mobilizing our engagement with the politics of our planetary situation can come from moral relations. This book focuses on the anti-imperial work of …

Ecological Investigations: A Phenomenology Of Habitats, Adam Konopka

Faculty Scholarship

These investigations identify and clarify some basic

assumptions and methodological principles involved in

ecological explanations of plant associations. How are

plants geographically distributed into characteristic groups?

What are the basic conditions that organize groups of

interspecific plant populations that are characteristic of

particular kinds of habitats? Answers to these questions

concerning the geographical distribution of plants in late

19th century European plant geography and early 20th

century American plant ecology can be distinguished

according to differing logical assumptions concerning the

habitats of plant associations.

Friendship For The Flawed: A Cynical And Pessimistic Theory Of Friendship, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

When considering the value of friendship, most philosophers ignore the negatives. Most assume that humans need friends to flourish, and some argue that friendships can be good, no matter the risks entailed. This makes conversations about the value of friendship one-sided. Here, I argue that Cynics and Pessimists have an important view on friendship, despite it being ignored. They hold that: (a) friendship is unnecessary for flourishing, and (b) friendship presents ethical risks, especially to one’s own self-sufficiency. I defend these views. Then I conclude with reflections on why Cynics and Pessimists actually make great friends. By helping people to …

Words Have A Weight: Language As A Source Of Inner Grounding And Flexibility In Abstract Concepts, Guy Dove, Laura Barca, Luca Tummolini, Anna M. Borghi

Faculty Scholarship

The role played by language in our cognitive lives is a topic at the centre of contemporary debates in cognitive (neuro)science. In this paper we illustrate and compare two theories that offer embodied explanations of this role: the WAT (Words As social Tools) and the LENS (Language is an Embodied Neuroenhancement and Scaffold) theories. WAT and LENS differ from other current proposals because they connect the impact of the neurologically realized language system on our cognition to the ways in which language shapes our interaction with the physical and social environment. Examining these theories together, their tenets and supporting evidence, …

Sincere Exchanges, Not Fabricated Neutrality: A Response To Mark Piper, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lostness, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, I argue that lostness is the life of wonder and that it carries the weight of human striving as understood in the neo-Aristotelian tradition exemplified by philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum and Michael Thompson. Being lost in wonder is an especially important part of human dynamism without which our excellence, or virtue, cannot be grasped. I explore the first part of this argument in some detail and situate it within the wider question I am pursuing about a politics of wonder in conditions of dissensus. Overall, I seek a revised understanding of democracy as collective capacity grounded …

The Space In A Life Beyond Skill, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Edward Snowden, National Security Whistleblowing, And Civil Disobedience, David E. Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

No recent whistleblower has been more lionized or vilified than Edward Snowden. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and denounced as a "total traitor" deserving of the death penalty. In these debates, Snowden's defenders tend to portray him as a civil disobedient. Yet for a range of reasons, Snowden's situation does not map neatly onto traditional theories of civil disobedience. The same holds true for most cases of national security whistleblowing.

The contradictory and confused responses that these cases provoke, this essay suggests, are not just the product of polarized politics or insufficient information. Rather, they reflect …

Sovereignty And Complex Interdependence: Some Surprising Indications Of Their Compatibility, Charles F. Sabel

Faculty Scholarship

Even as democratic sovereignty and globalization are increasingly seen as incompatible in theory, this chapter argues that, in some important realms, they are proving compatible in practice. As tariffs have fallen to negligible levels, trade agreements among rich countries have come to focus on reconciling regulatory differences. In many sectors, novel forms of cooperation have emerged that allow trade partners deliberately to investigate and learn from one another’s practices, eventually recognizing the equivalence of regimes that are not strictly identical — and in the process extending domestic political oversight to relations among states while often heightening domestic accountability. The emergent …

The Wind: An Unruly Living, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

A process begun in Pisa, Italy in April of 2016 during a workshop on political theory in the Anthropocene, The Wind ~ An Unruly Living is a philosophical exercise (askêsis, translated, following Ignatius of Loyola, as “spiritual exercise”). In his exercise, Bendik-Keymer throws to the void: the ideology of self-ownership from a society of possession. By using the Stoic kanôn, the rule of living by phûsis, he follows an element. Unhappily for the Stoic and happily for us, the wind is unruly. A swerve of currents through a social fabric, it’s full of holes, all holely. Stretch …

On Affect: Function And Phenomenology, Andreas Elpidorou

Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores the nature of emotions by considering what appear to be two differing, perhaps even conflicting, approaches to affectivity—an evolutionary functional account, on the one hand, and a phenomenological view, on the other. The paper argues for the centrality of the notion of function in both approaches, articulates key differences between them, and attempts to understand how such differences can be overcome.

The Moral Duty Of Solidarity, Avery Kolers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Taquería To Medical School: Juan Carlos, Aristotle, Cognitive Enhancements, And A Good Life, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

This paper begins with a vignette of Juan Carlos, an immigrant to America who works to support his family, attends classes at a community college, and cares for his ill daughter. It argues that an Aristotelian virtue ethicist could condone a safe, legal, and virtuous use of cognitive enhancements in Juan Carlos’s case. The argument is that if an enhancement can lead him closer to eudaimonia (i.e., flourishing, or a good life), then it is morally permissible to use it. The paper closes by demonstrating how common objections to cognitive enhancement fail to undermine Juan Carlos’s justifiable use of the …

Socratic Oblivion And The Siren Songs Of Academe: Responding To Anne-Marie Schultz’S “Stirring Up America’S Sleeping Horses”, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo, Terrell Taylor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Race Terms Do: Du Bois, Biology, And Psychology On The Meanings Of “Race”, Glenn "Boomer" Mac Trujillo

Faculty Scholarship

This paper does two things. First, it interprets the work of W. E. B. Du Bois to reveal that the meanings of race terms are grounded by both a historical and an aspirational component. Race terms refer to a backward-looking component that traces the history of the group to its present time, as well as a forward-looking component that sets out values and goals for the group. Race terms thus refer to a complex cluster of concepts that involve biological, sociological, historical, moral, and political properties. Second, the paper defends W. E. B. Du Bois’s conservationist thesis about races, which …

On Waldron's Critique Of Raz On Human Rights, Joseph Raz

Faculty Scholarship

This commentary responds to Waldron’s “Human Rights: A Critique of the Raz/Rawls Approach”. It points out that some supposed criticisms are nothing more than observations on conditions that any account of rights must meet, and that Waldron’s objections to Raz are due to misunderstanding his thesis and its theoretical goal. The short comment tries to clarify that goal.

Initiating Research On Igniting Fires In The Blue Ridge Mountains During The Autumn 2016 Conflagration, Cynthia Twyford Fowler, Cynthia Fowler

Faculty Scholarship

An unprecedented moment in the fire ecology of the Blue Ridge Mountains occurred in Autumn 2016 when severe drought, frequent anthropogenic ignitions, and seasonality in disturbed deciduous forests fueled widespread burning. As the wildfires burned, wildland firefighters from around the U.S. temporarily moved into the region to assist local land managers. As wildfire risks increased and air quality decreased, local residents became increasingly interested in fire ecology. The community shifted continuously as wildfires were extinguished, wildland firefighters returned home, and local residents disengaged. In conducting research during the conflagration, obtaining consent from community members varied depending on whether or not …