Philosophy Commons^™

Queer Activism In India: A Story In The Anthropology Of Ethics, Rahul Rao

International Dialogue

The queer movement in India has been adept at documenting itself. A succession of anthologies compiled by leading voices from within the movement has made available to a wider reading public the lives and longings of many of its diverse participants (Sukthankar 1999; Bhattacharyya and Bose 2005; Narrain and Bhan 2006; Narrain and Gupta 2011). Naisargi Dave’s book on queer activism in India offers something new and valuable. A book-length account of the queer political landscape with a focus on lesbian activism, this study is distinctive both for its longer temporal view and for the productively ambivalent positionality of its …

Michael Oakeshott: Religion, Politics And The Moral Life, Noël K. O'Sullivan

International Dialogue

Although students of Michael Oakeshott have special reason to be grateful to Timothy Fuller for this carefully selected volume of ten of Oakeshott’s early and mid-career essays, as well as for the scholarly introduction Fuller has provided, his book will also appeal to general readers concerned to grapple with the central issues of modern life and thought with which Oakeshott constantly wrestled. Four of the essays have never been previously published and six are now made available in a more accessible form.

U.S. Cultural Diplomacy And Archeology: Soft Power, Hard Heritage, Nicholas J. Cull

International Dialogue

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 generated a maelstrom of images. There were cities lit by the “shock and awe” bombardment, the falling statues, the traumatized civilians and scene after scene of coalition forces vainly searching for weapons of mass destruction. But among the most peculiarly troubling were the images of the looting of Iraq’s national museum. The human suffering was sadly familiar to the TV audience around the world but the looting broke new ground. The images of looting spoke of the depth of the anarchy into which Iraq was tumbling. They represented the destruction of something greater …

Cutting The Fuse: The Explosion Of Global Suicide Terrorism And How To Stop It, Sunil K. Sahu

International Dialogue

Since 9/11 there has been a burgeoning literature on terrorism written by journalists, scholars, policy makers, diplomats, and military professionals. The last decade has also witnessed a dramatic increase in suicide terrorist attacks—violent attacks designed to kill others where the death of the attacker is a necessary part of the action—especially against American interests. There were twenty suicide terrorist attacks worldwide in 2000, one of which was anti-American inspired; the number of such attacks increased ten-fold by 2010, 90% of which were anti-American inspired. Although suicide bombing was used by imperial Japan at the end of World War II, the …

The Power Of Religion In The Public Sphere, Robin Alice Roth

International Dialogue

Of the numerous topics current philosophy is attentive to certainly the issue of religion is central. This anthology starts with Jürgen Habermas’ notion of “the public sphere” and works to connect this notion to the issue of religion. Of course, religion has long been part of the public sphere. For much of human history, people established their various formations of society and state in a manner continuous with religion. Their discourses were compact. Habermas’ early works argue for a differentiation of the religious and political spheres from the public sphere that eventually overcame “representational” culture, with its authoritarianism, particularly with …

Genocide And The Europeans, Kate Ferguson

International Dialogue

Next year the world will commemorate twenty years since the Rwandan genocide and the following year will mark twenty years since the genocide at Srebrenica. As the International Community prepares to honor these grim milestones, somber deliberation of the mistakes of the past must inform the development of a more committed future. Karen Smith’s book, Genocide and the Europeans, provides just such a reflection for Europe, tracing the continent’s policy responses to incidents of genocide since the Holocaust. It is an important text that draws a detailed history of the past sixty years, pairing the careful analysis of an international …

The Foundations Of Deliberative Democracy: Empirical Research And Normative Implications, Lauren Johnston

International Dialogue

As the theory of deliberative democracy developed in the late-1980s and 1990s much of the focus was on its normative foundations. However, for the last decade there has been a greater focus on practice and institutionalization, accompanied by a wealth of empirical evidence on deliberative democracy. Therefore, there is now a need to return to these normative debates in light of this empirical evidence. Jürg Steiner’s book aims to contribute to this endeavour by concentrating on the “interplay between normative and empirical aspects of deliberation” (1). In undertaking this goal he acknowledges that he is not a professional philosopher, but …

Respect For Nature: A Theory Of Environmental Ethics, Edward Abplanalp

International Dialogue

Paul Taylor’s Respect for Nature was first published 1986 when environmental ethics was a relatively new field. In it he defended a deontological biocentric environmental ethic predicated on the idea that all living beings have inherent value. It was a groundbreaking work in non-anthropocentric ethics, and since then it has been frequently anthologized and used in ethics and environmental philosophy courses taught around the world. The Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition of Respect for Nature (2011) contains a two-page forward by Dale Jamieson, who notes the continued urgency for intellectuals to consider the meaning of “respect for nature.” When Respect for Nature …

Just Democracy: The Rawls-Machiavelli Programme, Joseph Bien

International Dialogue

Professor Philippe Van Parijs is attempting nothing less than to examine and resolve the age old question of how one might have a just democracy in a modern state, especially when one is referring to those member states of the European Union. This is at the very least difficult but admirable task.

Course Syllabus (Fa13) Coli 211 Literature & Psychology: "Power, The Subject, And Technological Rationality", Christopher Southward

Comparative Literature Faculty and Student Scholarship

Course Description and Objectives:

In this course, we will examine mechanisms of power and the processes by which these produce categories of subjectivity. Theoretically speaking, we will begin by considering these processes at the level of society and then dwell on their human experience at the level of the psyche. Here, we will aim to discover processes by which the subject reproduces conditions of domination by power at the level of psychic experience. Power-practices assume their condition of possibility by positing, on the one hand, that the category of the subject is a priori existent and, on the other, that …

Hopi Oral Tradition And The Archaeology Of Identity, Brady Desanti

International Dialogue

Native American activists of the civil rights era leveled heavy critiques at archaeology and anthropology for their prior support of colonial legislation and lack of sensitivity towards Native viewpoints. Archaeology in particular was taken to task for the destruction of numerous burial sites and the theft of thousands of Native American bodily remains and cultural items for over a century. The decades-long efforts by Native Americans and their non-Indian allies (which included some archaeologists) to secure the return of these remains and objects paid off in 1990. The passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) mandates …

Kant's Political Theory: Interpretations And Applications, Alice Pinheiro Walla

International Dialogue

For a long time in Anglo-American political philosophy “Kant’s political philosophy” meant not Kant’s own developed political thought, but an application of his moral theory to political issues. Thankfully, Kant’s legal and political thought is experiencing a renaissance in the English-speaking world after a long period of neglect. Not only Kant’s short political writings such as Toward Perpetual Peace, “On The Common Saying: This May be True in Theory but it Does Not Hold in Practice,” and “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment” are being rediscovered; also the Doctrine of Right, the first part of the Metaphysics of …

Table Of Contents, Rory J. Conces

International Dialogue

Table of Contents for Volume 3

Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, And The Political, Julie A. Pelton

International Dialogue

nsurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey Juris and Alex Khasnabish, opens with a vignette describing an encounter between international activists and Zapatista base communities in 2006–7. The moment, and the thick description of it in the introduction, serves as an exemplar of the ethnographic approach to studying social movements advocated in this book: at once romantic, mysterious, and radical, while also rife with contradictions, struggles, and tensions. Juris and Khasnabish have gathered together a diverse collection of work on transnational activism that highlights the importance of ethnography as a set of methods largely neglected in …

Coalitions Of Convenience: United States Military Interventions After The Cold War, Jeffrey A. Griffin

International Dialogue

Sarah Kreps’ Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War provides a timely comparative analysis of military intervention in the context of a continuously globalizing world. Kreps endeavors to shed light on an important facet of international society today—military intervention. The study explores the question of why states, when they have the capacity to act unilaterally, often choose to take a multilateral approach. More specifically, Kreps questions why coercive and powerful states, particularly the United States, intervene multilaterally when the capacity exists for unilateral action. As the sole superpower in the international system, the way in which …

Balkan Genocides: Holocaust And Ethnic Cleansing In The Twentieth Century, Marko A. Hoare

International Dialogue

The sudden explosion of interest in genocide as a topic of academic study over the past decade or so has involved academics rushing to produce “big” general theories in their efforts to have their voices heard. But more often than not, their haste has produced books that are insufficiently researched and theses that strain to be profound. In Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Paul Mojzes has attempted something more moderately ambitious: an overview of the Balkan genocides of the twentieth century, focusing principally on the territory of the former Yugoslavia but involving forays into other …

Islam In Denmark: The Challenge Of Diversity, Aje Carlbom

International Dialogue

In public debates contemporary Denmark stands out as an extraordinary nationalist and racist country. This is particularly so on issues concerned with Islam and Muslim immigration. The growth of the nationalist political party Dansk folkeparti, the Muhammad caricatures and harsh laws regulating family reunion are often used as examples by outside observers trying to describe political transformations in the country. These, and some other themes, are discussed in the anthology Islam in Denmark: The Challenge of Diversity (2012), edited by Jørgen S. Nielsen, professor and director of The Centre for European Islamic Thought at the University of Copenhagen. What kind …

Reading Addams’S 'Democracy And Social Ethics' As A Social Gospel, Evolutionary Idealist Text, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

There is a Disciplinary divide between philosophers and historians in how they read Addams’s first book, Democracy and Social Ethics. Philosophers identify Addams primarily as a pragmatist. They often compare and contrast her thinking with that of James and Dewey, and find her a fruitful resource for contemporary discussions about gender, social justice, and peace. Much of this scholarship gives central place to Addams’s Democracy and Social Ethics. Except for nods to her 1892 essay “The Subjective Necessity of Settlements,” philosophers rarely discuss whether her religious sensibilities influenced her theorizing.¹ While historians debate Addams’s religious identity, many …

Lessons In Injustice: Privilege Walks, Karen Silverman

The Intellectual Standard

If you are a white male take one step forward. If your parents did not grow up in the United States take a step back. If you were born in the United States take a step forward. These are some of the questions one might hear at a Privilege Walk, which is an activity held at many universi­ties in order to "provide participants with an opportunity to understand the intricacies of privilege" (Young, 2006). Questions such as these are asked to partici­pating students who stand shoulder to shoulder in a straight line. Students take steps forward when their answers to …

Transcending Subjects: Hegel After Augustine, An Essay On Political Theology, Geoffrey J.D. Holsclaw

Dissertations (1934 -)

From where do political reformers and radicals come who are willing and prepared to challenge the status quo? Where are people formed who are capable of initiating change within a political system? Some worry belief in transcendence closes off authentic political engagement and processes of transformation. Others think that a transcendent orientation is the only means to protect and promote a more free and just society. Some see a positive commitment to transcendence as inimical to democratic practices, while others see such a commitment as indispensable for such a project. These general issues concern transcendence, immanence, and subjectivity as they …

Earth’S Garden-Happiness: Nietzsche’S Geoaesthetics Of The Anthropocene, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This essay proposes a reading of the concept and metaphor of the garden in Nietzsche’s philosophy as a contribution to exploring his aesthetics of the human earth and, accordingly, of his idea of the Sinn der Erde. Following Zarathustra’s agreement with his animals’ repeated declaration that „the world awaits you as a garden,” after his ordeal in struggling with the thought of eternal recurrence, the essay draws on Z and other writings to explore the senses of cultivation, design, and perspective which the garden embodies. Nietzsche recognizes and endorses another dimension of the garden in his discussions of Epicurus’ …

Thomas Aquinas On The Apprehension Of Being: The Role Of Judgement In Light Of Thirteenth-Century Semantics, Rosa Vargas Della Casa

Dissertations (1934 -)

Aquinas’ famous comments in his early Scriptum on the Sentences (In I Sent., d. 38, q. 1, a. 3) regarding the intellect’s apprehension of essence and esse have traditionally been interpreted as grounding Aquinas’ doctrine on the judgment of esse. For Aquinas, it appears, what the intellect apprehends in a simple concept is essence. Since esse, for him, is not an essence, it cannot, on the received view, be the object of conceptualization. Therefore, esse is grasped by the intellect only in judgment. The claim that no genuine concept of esse is possible, however, is inconsistent with Aquinas’ theory of …

Is The Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception Of Nature False?, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper assesses the main argument of Thomas Nagel's recent book, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. The paper agrees with Nagel that, as an approach to the relation between mind and matter and the mystery of subjective experience, neutral monism is more likely to be true than either materialism or idealism. It disagrees with Nagel by favoring a version of neutral monism based on emergence rather than on a reductive pan-psychism. However, the paper invokes a reductive view when applied to information (as opposed to psyche), and posits a hierarchy of …

Philosophy And Theology: Responses To ‘After-Birth Abortion’, Christopher Kaczor

Philosophy Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Social Role Theory Of Unethical Leadership, Crystal L. Hoyt, Terry L. Price, Laura Poatsy

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Challenging the standard reasoning regarding leaders’ ethical failures, we argue that a potent contributor to these failures is the social role expectations of leaders. We maintain that leaders’ central role expectation of goal achievement contributes to the over-valuing of group goals and greater moral permissibility of the means used to achieve these goals. In studies 1 and 2 we demonstrated that the role of leader, relative to group member, is associated with an increased appraisal of group goals which is predicted by the leaders’ role expectations and not driven by the psychological effects of power. Next, we experimentally demonstrated the …

Climate Geoengineering And Iwu's Ethics Bowl, Jake K. Bates

The Intellectual Standard

In its sophomore season of competition, Illinois Wesleyan's Eth­ics Bowl team qualified for the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl hosted in San Antonio, Texas on February 28. In spite of technical difficulties and flight delays, the team returned to campus having won the first annual Spirit of the Ethics Bowl award, an honor recognizing sportsmanship which was voted on by opposing teams. Ethics bowl competition centers around a set of cases featuring ethical dilemmas and quandaries published by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. It is structured so that a presenting team has ten minutes to answer a question regarding anyone …

In Defense Of Technology, Mike Kelly

The Intellectual Standard

During the Middle Ages, i.e. the "Dark" Ages, man's worldview was largely dominated by mysticism, irrationality, and collectivism. The universe was widely perceived as epistemologically unknowable and meta­physically malevolent, dooming man to suffering and tragedy. Given the widespread political and social instability, as well as the ravages of un­stoppable plagues and warmongering nations, such conclusions were not totally unreasonable. The Enlightenment and its corollary, the Scientific Revolution, delivered western civilization from the Dark Ages into an age of reason, science, and individualism. What was once perceived as un­knowable, uncertain, and malevolent, became knowable, certain, and be­nevolent. The universe became a …

Sagp Ssips 2013 Program, Anthony Preus

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Recognizing Nonhuman Morality, Simon J. Coghlan

Between the Species

Claims that some sorts of genuine moral behavior exist in nonhuman beings are increasingly common. Many people, however, remain unconvinced, despite growing acceptance of the remarkable behavioral complexity of animals and despite the admission that there may be significant differences between human and nonhuman moral behavior. This paper argues that the rejection of “moral animals” is misplaced. Yet at the same time, it attempts to show how the philosophical task of exhibiting the possibility of nonhuman moral behavior is often misguided, leaving claims about nonhuman morality unnecessarily exposed to philosophical rejection.

Ethical Decision Making And Leadership: Merging Social Role And Self-Construal Perspectives, Crystal L. Hoyt, Terry L. Price

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

This research extends our understanding of ethical decision making on the part of leaders by merging social role and self-construal perspectives. Interdependent self-construal is generally seen as enhancing concern for justice and moral values. Across two studies we tested the prediction that non-leading group members’ interdependent self-construal would be associated with lower levels of unethical decision making on behalf of their group but that, in contrast, this relationship would be weaker for leaders, given their social role. These predictions were experimentally tested by assigning participants to the role of leader or non-leading group member and assessing the association between their …