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Articles 31 - 60 of 60
Full-Text Articles in Ethics and Political Philosophy
Jian Ghomeshi And Secular Sexualities, Justin Kh Tse
Jian Ghomeshi And Secular Sexualities, Justin Kh Tse
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The public conversation swirling around Jian Ghomeshi’s termination from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) is a grand exercise in secular sexualities.It begins with his Facebook post. Explaining that he was fired because of his private BDSM consensual acts with an ex-girlfriend, he castigates the CBC for both acknowledging that his acts were consensual and then wrongfully pulling the plug on him because he would serve as a poor role model.
Theologies Of Word And State: Some Reflections On The Ottawa Shooting, Justin Kh Tse, Matt Sheedy
Theologies Of Word And State: Some Reflections On The Ottawa Shooting, Justin Kh Tse, Matt Sheedy
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The shooting in Ottawa on 22 October 2014 has uncovered the remarkable way that the Canadian state remains theologically constituted. In some ways, this is a relatively uncontroversial argument. The White House press conference immediately following the attacks made a link between the Canadian support for military action against the Islamic State and the deaths of both Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent on October 20 in Quebec and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on the October 22. When one says that Ottawa shootings have a religious dimension, the gut response is that my argument will be about …
"Those Stubborn Principles": From Stoicism To Sociability In Joseph Addison’S Cato, Christine Dunn Henderson, Mark Yellin
"Those Stubborn Principles": From Stoicism To Sociability In Joseph Addison’S Cato, Christine Dunn Henderson, Mark Yellin
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Joseph Addison’s 1713 play, Cato: A Tragedy, dramatizes the final days of Cato the Younger’s resistance to Julius Caesar before his eventual suicide at Utica in 46 BC. Although Addison initially seems to present Cato as a model for emulation, we argue that Addison is ultimately critical of both Cato and the Stoicism he embodies. Via the play’s romantic subplot and via his work as an essayist, Addison offers a revision of the Catonic model, reworking it into a gentler model that elevates qualities such as love, friendship, and sympathy and that is more appropriate to the type of peaceful …
The Labor Theory Of Justice, Chandran Kukathas
The Labor Theory Of Justice, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions as truth is of systems ofthought. So John Rawls famously proclaimed in the beginning of hismasterwork, A Theory of Justice. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if untrue. Laws and institutions no matterhow efficient and well arranged must be reformed or abolished if unjust.Justice, perhaps unlike some other values, was not something we mightreadily trade a little of in exchange for other benefits.1In his critique ofRawls, Rescuing Justice and Equality, G. A. Cohen proposes to take justicemore seriously while at the same time conceding that justice might …
Beyond Minority Report: Pre-Crime, Pre-Punishment And Pre-Desert, John N. Williams
Beyond Minority Report: Pre-Crime, Pre-Punishment And Pre-Desert, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Utilitarian ethics are apparently incommensurable with other ethical perspectives. Faced with a choice between maximizing general benefit to society and committing an act of injustice, those of us who reject utility in favor of justice are powerless to change the viewpoint of someone who rejects justice in favor of utility. Since there are no higher ethical principles that overarch both principles of utility and principles of justice, both sides must run out of reasons when deciding which principles should be put first. But the unreasoned decision is ineluctable, because there are possible cases in which the principles conflict.1 This kind …
Including The Excluded: Communitarian Paths To Cosmopolitanism, Eduard Jordaan
Including The Excluded: Communitarian Paths To Cosmopolitanism, Eduard Jordaan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Cosmopolitanism is frequently criticised for overlooking the situatedness of morality and the importance of solidarity in their aspiration to global justice. A number of thinkers take these criticisms seriously and pursue ‘a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism’. Four such approaches are considered. All four view morality and justice as grounded in a specific social setting and hold that justice is more likely to result if there is some ‘we-feeling’ among people, but are simultaneously committed to expanding the realm of justice and moral concern to beyond national boundaries. To enable the theorisation of an expanded realm of situated justice and moral …
E Pluribus Plurum, Or, How To Fail To Back Into A State In Spite Of Really Trying, Chandran Kukathas
E Pluribus Plurum, Or, How To Fail To Back Into A State In Spite Of Really Trying, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
“The framework for utopia,” Robert Nozick tells us at the beginning of the fi nal section of Part iiiof Anarchy, State, and Utopia( ASU), “is equivalent to the minimal state” (p. 333). The rich andcomplex body of argumentation of Parts iand iihad produced theconclusion that the minimal, and no more than a minimal, statewas legitimate or morally justifi ed. What Part iiireveals is that theminimal state “is the one that best realizes the utopian aspirationsof untold dreamers and visionaries” (p. 333). Although this happyconvergence is surely no accident, neither, Nozick insists, is it contrived, for it is the conclusion reached …
Our Country Right Or Wrong: A Pragmatic Response To Anti-Democratic Cultural Nationalism In China, Sor-Hoon Tan
Our Country Right Or Wrong: A Pragmatic Response To Anti-Democratic Cultural Nationalism In China, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since Deng Xiaoping came into power, China has been described as pragmatic in its approach to politics and development, and in the nineties there has been a revival of interest in Chinese cultural tradition. What is the relation between these two phenomena? Do they coexist, separately in mutual indifference, or in tension? Has there been constructive engagement, or at the very least does the potential for such engagement exist? More specifically, what roles, if any, do they play in China's quest for democracy? Does Dewey's pragmatism have any relevance to China in the twenty-first century? The issue of cultural tradition …
Reconciling Modernity And Tradition In A Liberal Society, Chandran Kukathas
Reconciling Modernity And Tradition In A Liberal Society, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many modern liberals have been eager to tout the virtues of diversity, but many have equally found it difficult to tolerate customs or traditions that do not conform to liberalism’s deepest commitments to equality and individual liberty. The distinction between traditional and modern is not a very useful one for understanding the problems confronting liberal society, or for working out how to address them because the contrast does not pick out a tension or conflict about which we can usefully generalise. Chandran Kukatahs suggests that as the tension in question is not one that is capable of resolution, the best …
Understanding Hayek, Chandran Kukathas
Understanding Hayek, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Although some of this will be familiar to a number of you all,I will talk a bit about Friedrich A. Hayek since I am goingfirst. I’ll say a little bit about his life, how he came to theideas that he became so famous for espousing, and then a little bitabout his liberalism and the contribution he has made to liberaltheory and to intellectual life.
Dialogic Cosmopolitanism And Global Justice, Eduard Jordaan
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
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
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
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
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 …
Do Sages Have Emotions?, Alan Kam Leung Chan
Do Sages Have Emotions?, Alan Kam Leung Chan
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
Contemporary discussions of Confucian philosophy may tend to privilege certain key ethical concepts such as “benevolence“ (ren 仁) and “filial piety” (xiao 孝), but in traditional China much of the Confucian hermeneutical and philosophical enterprise revolved around the figure of the ideal “sage” (shengren 聖 人 ). Virtues are neither abstract nor self-existing; they are seen to cohere and find profound expression in the being of the sage. In this context, “sagehood“ thus emerges as a critical concern in Confucian self-understanding. Can sagehood be attained? Can the “average person” (zhongren 中人), indeed, become like Confucius, the sage par excellence, who …
Richard Rorty And Moral Progress In Global Relations, Eduard Jordaan
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
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
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
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
Trust (And Social Capital) In Cultural Theory, Marco Verweij
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
Nationalism And Multiculturalism, Chandran Kukathas
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: …
The Case For Open Immigration, Chandran Kukathas
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.
Ethical Pluralism From A Classical Liberal Perspective, Chandran Kukathas
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
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 …
Negotiating Cultural Boundaries: Confucianism And Trans/National Identity In Korea, William A. Callahan
Negotiating Cultural Boundaries: Confucianism And Trans/National Identity In Korea, William A. Callahan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay looks to the complex intercultural relations of China and Korea to highlight two important issues in political theory and international relations: the transnational nature of world politics and the limits of analytical binaries such as East‐West and tradition‐modernity. Discussions of international politics in East Asia characteristically address issues of security and development studies. More recently, Confucianism has been mobilized as part of the clash of civilizations of Asia with the West. This essay will consider how cultural boundaries are negotiated within the region via an analysis of the workings of the transnational discourse of Confucianism in the construction …
Liberty, Chandran Kukathas
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
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.
Foreword, Chandran Kukathas
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.
Welfare, Contract, And The Language Of Charity, Chandran Kukathas
Welfare, Contract, And The Language Of Charity, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.