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Articles 31 - 48 of 48

Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan Dec 2009

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …


Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan Dec 2009

Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Christiaan Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Although the term “cosmopolitan-communitarian debate” never really caught on, a national-global fault line remains prominent in debates about global justice. “Dialogic cosmopolitanism” holds the promise of bridging this alleged fault line by accepting many of the communitarian criticisms against cosmopolitanism and following what can be described as a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism. This article identifies and describes four key elements that distinguish dialogic cosmopolitanism: a respect for difference; a commitment to genuine dialogue; an open, hesitant and self-problematising attitude on the part of the moral subject; and an undertaking to expand the boundaries of moral concern to the point of …


Beyond Elitism: Community Ideal For A Modern East Asia, Sor-Hoon Tan Oct 2009

Beyond Elitism: Community Ideal For A Modern East Asia, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is often remarked that East Asian polities have been hierarchical and the "elite" category continues to figure prominently in works on Chinese society and politics. Many scholars believe that hierarchy and elitism are deeply rooted in Confucianism, which served as the state orthodoxy in imperial China and provided the "psycho-cultural construct" of the way of life in other East Asian cultural communities as well. It is therefore not surprising that some should believe that if modern Confucian societies are to be democratic at all, elitism must be reconciled with democracy. In contrast, elitism is commonly a pejorative term in …


Two Constructions Of Libertarianism, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2009

Two Constructions Of Libertarianism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The libertarian first principle—a belief in individual freedom—can lead to two different and not necessarily acceptable societies from the standpoint of liberty. One is the “Union of Liberty,” in which communities, associations, and intermediate bodies are held to rigorous standards of voluntariness (and thus face sharp limits on their internal associational freedom because of the knowledge that children will be born into them). In the other, the “Federation of Liberty,” they are not (thereby allowing children to be born into locally unfree environments).While in any free society individuals may voluntarily join together and waive some of their rights (in institutions …


Cosmopolitanism, Freedom And Indifference: A Levinasian View, Eduard Jordaan Jan 2009

Cosmopolitanism, Freedom And Indifference: A Levinasian View, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite cosmopolitanism's concern for the world's poor and its concomitant heavy moral demands, cosmopolitans establish a limit to the self's responsibility for the global poor. This contrasts with Emmanuel Levinas's view that the self has an infinite responsibility for the other, a responsibility that derives from the self's questioning of the impact of his freedom on others. From a Levinasian perspective, cosmopolitanism's restriction of the self's responsibility for others creates a sphere of rightful indifference to the needs of the other; lends legitimacy to a disregard of the other; forestalls an ethical awakening to the other; constrains the achievement of …


Richard Rorty And Moral Progress In Global Relations, Eduard Jordaan Aug 2006

Richard Rorty And Moral Progress In Global Relations, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Richard Rorty's navigation of the pitfalls of the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate, concern with human suffering, recognition of the contingency of communal identities and relationships, and his endorsement of liberal societies, by definition inclusive and always in search of a greater justice, make it appear as though his thought can guide us towards greater concern for the world's poor. However, this article questions the progressive potential of Rorty's thought. Obstacles to such (global) moral progress include Rorty's unquestioned statism and his focus on internal outsiders who are suffering and/or oppressed, instead of external outsiders beyond national borders; his insistence on a public-private …


Affinities In The Socio-Political Thought Of Rorty And Levinas, Eduard Jordaan Mar 2006

Affinities In The Socio-Political Thought Of Rorty And Levinas, Eduard Jordaan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article considers the affinities in the socio-political thought of Emmanuel Levinas and Richard Rorty. The writings of both display considerable concern for the suffering of others. Both authors note the importance of a self-critical subject becoming more aware of its own injustice as very important for recognizing our responsibilities to others. Furthermore, both stress the importance of recognizing the other outside of the usual, objectifying categories, since it is the uniqueness of the other that reminds us of our responsibility for the other. Both writers view the liberal state as the best political forum in which to realize a …


Hayek And Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2006

Hayek And Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

F. A. Hayek occupies a peculiar place in the history of twentiethcentury liberalism. His influence has, in many respects, been enormous. The Road to Serfdom, his first political work, not onlyattracted popular attention in the west but also circulated widely(in samizdat form) in the intellectual underground of Eastern Europeduring the years between the end of the war and the revolutions of1989. His critique of central planning has been thoroughly vindicated, if not by the demise of communist economic systems, thenat least by the recognition by socialists of many stripes of theimportance of market processes.1 Books and articles on his thoughtcontinue …


Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Commentary On The Words Of Jesus Christ: Compel Them To Come In, John Kilcullen, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2005

Pierre Bayle's Philosophical Commentary On The Words Of Jesus Christ: Compel Them To Come In, John Kilcullen, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this defence of religious toleration, Bayle discusses the words attributed to Jesus Christ in Luke 14:23, “And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be full.” Bayle contends that the word compel cannot mean “force.” From this perspective, he constructs his doctrine of toleration based on the singular importance of conscience. Bayle argues that if the orthodox have the right and duty to persecute, then every sect will persecute since every sect considers itself orthodox. The result will be mutual slaughter, something God …


Trust (And Social Capital) In Cultural Theory, Marco Verweij Jan 2005

Trust (And Social Capital) In Cultural Theory, Marco Verweij

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


The Case For Open Immigration, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2004

The Case For Open Immigration, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

People favor or are opposed to immigration for a variety of reasons. It is therefore difficult to tie views about immigration to ideological positions. While it seems obviousthat political conservatives are the most unlikely to defend freedom of movement,and that socialists and liberals (classical and modern) are very likely to favor more openborders, in reality wariness (if not outright hostility) to immigration can be foundamong all groups. Even libertarian anarchists have advanced reasons to restrict themovement of peoples.


Nationalism And Multiculturalism, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2004

Nationalism And Multiculturalism, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

If any issue dominates contemporary political theory, it is how to deal with cultural diversity and the claims –moral, legal, and political – made in the name of ethnic, religious, linguistic, or national allegiance (Kymlicka,2001: 17). Today, governments are confronted by demands from cultural minorities for recognition, protection,preferential treatment, and political autonomy within the boundaries of the state. Equally, international societyand its political institutions, as well as states themselves, have had to deal with demands from various peoplesfor political recognition as independent nations, and for national self-determination. The turbulent politics ofthe contemporary world may account in part for this development: …


Ethical Pluralism From A Classical Liberal Perspective, Chandran Kukathas Jan 2002

Ethical Pluralism From A Classical Liberal Perspective, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Is the ideal society one that embodies or aims for ethical uniformity, orone that emphasizes instead the accommodation of ethical pluralism?From a classical liberal perspective the answer can only be that ethicalpluralism should be accommodated.


Tolerating The Intolerable, Chandran Kukathas May 1999

Tolerating The Intolerable, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Presenting a lecture[1] on the virtue of toleration anywhere, let alone in the chambers of the Australian Senate department, should strike most people as a peculiarly pointless kind of exercise. Would anyone not in favour of toleration bother to turn up? (And what is the point of preaching to the converted? Would anyone against it bother to listen? And could such a person be converted?) In truth, it might not be easy to find anyone who openly professed intolerance. Almost everyone is in favour of tolerance; though of course, each will hasten to add, this does not mean that ‘anything …


Liberty, Chandran Kukathas Jan 1993

Liberty, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Such is the rhetorical appeal of the idea of liberty that a variety of political philosophiesclaim to honour it. Republicans and Marxists, no less than libertarians and liberals,maintain that they and they alone are the true defenders of freedom. The literature ofcontemporary political theory is thus replete with rival analyses of the meaning ofliberty, and disputes about its measurement, distribution and institutional requirements. Our aim here is to gain some understanding of the meaning and the conditionsof liberty by working through the thicket of contemporary argument, though we mayhave to rest content with a better knowledge of the terrain.


Foreword, Chandran Kukathas Jan 1992

Foreword, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Hayek's essay 'Why I am not a Concervative' first appeared in 1960 as the final chapter of his treatise, The Constitution of Liberty. Strictly speaking, it was not really a concluding chapter; it was presented as a 'postscript' to the main text-a text whose concern was to articulate and elaborate upon the fundamental principles of classical liberalism. In this postscript Hayek attempted a task which the main treatise did not take up: to explain how the principles of classical liberalism set it apart from the conservatism with which it seemed to have so much in common.


Foreword, Chandran Kukathas Jan 1992

Foreword, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

What is the conservative committed to? According to some, the answer is quite simply nothing. Certainly, the argument goes, they are not committed to individual freedom: they defend only order, morality, religion and virtue - all 'traditionally' conceived. So it seemed to many classical liberals, libertarians and 'Old Whigs' in the early 1960s when they denounced traditionalists in the name of individual liberty, private property and reason. And so it also seems to many classical liberals and libertarians today.


Welfare, Contract, And The Language Of Charity, Chandran Kukathas Jan 1989

Welfare, Contract, And The Language Of Charity, Chandran Kukathas

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.