Philosophy Commons^™

Practicing Politics With Foucault And Kant: Toward A Critical Life, Dianna Taylor

Philosophy

This paper problematizes the claim that Michel Foucault’s work is normatively lacking and therefore possesses only limited political relevance. While Foucault does not articulate a traditional normative framework for political activity, I argue that his work nonetheless reflects certain normative commitments to, for example, practicing freedom and improving the state of the world. I elucidate these commitments by sketching out Foucault’s notion of critique as a mode of existence charac- terized by practices of the self, arguing that such practices possess political significance within the context of what Foucault refers to as a way of life, and analyzing points of …

Living Legitimacy: A New Approach To Good Government In Africa, Ajume H. Wingo

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article argues for the reorientation of African governments from a model that privileges the central or garrison states to one rooted in the living experiences of citizens, such as their economic conditions, fellowship associations, local governments, and community self-reliance. It begins by describing and analyzing in depth an example of a set of moral, political, and social institutions that still work well to make collective decisions that the members of the community consider legitimate and follow without coercion. It demonstrates that a legitimate government is not and should not be a matter of instituting finished, polished, or ready-made solutions …

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Hannah Arendt E A Modernidade: Esquecimento E Redescoberta Da Política, Andre De Macedo Duarte

Andre de Macedo Duarte

Hannah Arendt views Modernity as the epoch of the forgetfulness of politics in its democratic determinations, since the political and the public sphere were either totally reduced to the specter of violence and terror, as it happened in the case of totalitarian regimes, or totally absorbed by the bureaucratic administration of society’s economic interests. In this article I intend to discuss the main arguments that constitute her critical diagnosis of Modernity, retracing them to their inspirational origins, that is, Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s critical assessments of Modernity. Finally, I try to demonstrate that Arendt has balanced her critical understanding of politics …

Lying To Protect Privacy, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Review Essay: Harris, Jonathan Gil. Foreign Bodies And The Body Politic: Discourses Of Social Pathology In Early Modern England, Julian Yates

Quidditas

Harris, Jonathan Gil. Foreign Bodies and the Body Politic: Discourses of Social Pathology in Early Modern England. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998. xi + 197 pp. $64.95. ISBN 0-521-59405-7.

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

Comment On Maccormick, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Immigration Policy, Liberal Principles, And The Republican Tradition, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Ethics And Sovereignty, William L. Blizek, Rory J. Conces

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In the political arena, every nation is considered to be sovereign. That is, what happens within the legitimate borders of a nation, what docs not affect other nations, is to be decided by the people of that nation or the government of' that nation and no one else. If a nation wants to centralize economic decisions, that is its business. If a nation wants a free market economy, no other nation can interfere. If a nation wants to be represented by a new form of government, it has the right to change governments. And so on.

Outside or the political …

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Disquiet On The Eastern Front: Liberal Agendas, Domestic Legal Orders, And The Role Of International Law After The Cold War And Amid Resurgent Cultural Identities, Jacques Delisle

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Place Of Religious Argument In A Free And Democratic Society, Robert Audi

San Diego Law Review

This Article provides an account of the notion of a religious argument, distinguishes several roles of religious arguments in a liberal democracy, and defends a set of principles for their proper use in such a society. The author argues that it is appropriate that citizens apply a kind of separation of church and state in their public use of religious arguments, especially in advocating laws or public policies that restrict liberty. More specifically, the author contends that whatever religious arguments one may have in such cases, one should also be willing to offer, and be to a certain extent motivated …

Book Review, Cynthia Dash

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Review of: DONALD C. LEE, TOWARD A SOUND WORLD ORDER: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL HIERARCHICAL ETHICAL THEORY. (Greenwood Press 1992). [240 pp.] Bibliography, index, notes, preface. LC: 91-440942; ISBN:0-313-27903-9. [Cloth $42.95. P.O. Box 5007, Westport CT 06881.]

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

Review Essay: Wayne, Valerie, Ed. The Matter Of Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism Of Shakespeare, Peggy Muñoz Simonds

Quidditas

Wayne, Valerie, ed. The Matter oof Difference: Materialist Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y. 1991. x + 227 pp. $48.95 / $18.95.

Gajowski, Evelyn. The Art of Loving: Female Subjectivity and Male Discursive Traditions in Shakespeare's Tragedies. University of Delaware Press, Newark 1992. 153 pp. $32.50.

Ways To Think About The Unitary Executive: A Comment On Approaches To Government Structure, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sir Clyomon And Sir Clamydes: A Revaluation, Peter T. Hadorn

Quidditas

Long dismissed as an immature play with no intrinsic merit, Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes (ca. 1570-1583) quite thoroughly debates issues of contemporary political interest. This essay seeks to restore Clyomon from its undistinguished position in Renaissance studies by showing how it dramatically supports Queen Elizabeth's use of chivalry as an ideology of power and order and criticizes military adventurism. By reading this play as a political text, in this essay I employ the methodologies of New Historicism, which identifies literature as only one of many cultural discourses taking part in the negotiation of power. "Representations of the world in …

Frankenstein's Monster Hits The Campaign Trail: An Approach To Regulation Of Corporate Political Expenditures, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Wellsprings Of Legal Responses To Inequality: A Perspective On Perspectives, Howard Lesnick

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Democracy And Its Critics, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Ignorance Be Bliss? Imperfect Information As A Positive Influence In Political Insitutions, Michael A. Fitts

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Truer Liberty: Simone Weil And Marxism, Lawrence Blum, Victor Seidler

Lawrence Blum

Shows how Simone Weil developed a penetrating critique of Marxism and a powerful political philosophy which serves as an alternative to liberalism and Marxism.

Review Essay: Leonard Tennenhouse, Power On Display: The Politics Of Shakespeare's Genres, Peggy Muñoz Simonds

Quidditas

Leonaard Tennenhouse, Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres, Methuen, 1986.

Unger's Philosophy: A Critical Legal Study, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

Of all the scholars associated with the Critical Legal Studies movement, none has garnered greater attention or higher praise than Roberto Unger of Harvard Law School. In this Article, William Ewald argues that Professor Unger's reputation as a brilliant philosopher of law is undeserved. Despite the seeming erudition of his books, Professor Unger's work displays little familiarity with the basic philosophical literature, and the philosophical, legal, and political analysis in those works-in particular, the celebrated critique of liberalism in Knowledge and Politics-is so riddled with logical and historical errors as to be unworthy of serious scholarly attention.

Reply To Cornel West, William Ewald

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Question Of Atheism And Communism In The Animal Welfare/Rights Movement, Michael W. Fox

Animal Welfare Collection

Just as economics has increasingly been employed as a political weapon, so religion is now being used to further self-serving goals. Agribusiness spokespersons not only use fallacious economic arguments to justify the "factory" farming of animals; they have also stated that any questioning about man's Godgiven right to exploit animals is atheistic, and perhaps an actual affront to God's will. Furthermore, taking an egalitarian attitude toward animals, and proposing that they have rights or should be given equal and fair consideration, is regarded as the inspiration of some covert communist conspiracy that is constantly working to restructure and thereby destroy …

Reading And Writing In The Text Of Hobbes's Leviathan, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Critics have often suggested that Hobbes is a paradigm case of a philosopher whose own style of writing violates the norms he sets down for rational discourse. Philosophy, he says, "professedly rejects not only the paint and false colors of language, but even the very ornaments and graces of the same." More specifically he says that metaphors must be "utterly excluded" from "the rigorous search of truth ... seeing they openly professe deceit, to admit them into counsel, or reasoning, were manifested folly.” Nevertheless, attention focuses on his flair for the dramatic or metaphorical, as in the great mise en …