Food is a powerful symbol in the struggle to transition to a more sustainable pathway since the food choices citizens make have deep environmental and social impacts within their communities and around the world. Using transformative learning theory, this research explored the learning that took place among individual adults who consumed goods directly from local organic producers, and how this behavior affected their worldview. Learning was classified as instrumental, communicative, or transformative. Ultimately, we considered if the learning created lasting change, (...) directed toward a more sustainable society, among learners. Three different models of producer/consumer interfaces located in Atlantic Canada were considered: a market-garden operation, an education and outreach center, and a community shared agriculture project. It was found that all participants experienced some form of learning, either instrumental or communicative, through their participation in organic agriculture. Closing the gap between producer and consumer through direct contact with the farmer at a market, visiting the farm, or participating in food production oneself is both a desirable step in reaching a more sustainable lifestyle and a powerful learning tool in linking the consumer to a host of other environmental and social issues. (shrink)

John Rawls is regarded as the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century. His seminal work, _A Theory of Justice_, transformed the study of political philosophy and shaped the political thought of a generation. _Rawls on Justice_ demystifies this difficult text by introducing and assessing: Rawls’ life and the background to his philosophy The key concepts of _A Theory of Justice_, including the ‘orginal position’, the ‘veil of ignorance’, and the two principles of justice Rawls’ continuing importance to (...) contemporary philosophy and influence on political thought Ideal for those coming to Rawls for the first time, _Rawls on Justice_ is an invaluable guide for students of philosophy, political thought, economics and law. (shrink)

This article explores the conflict between those who find value in religious commitment and others who recommend the complete abandonment of religion. It examines John Dewey's reflections on religion in order to assess its possible resources for addressing this specific conflict. Dewey's discussion highlights deep human impulses that a secular perspective should address. But this should be accomplished not through his proposed broadening of religious life, but by promoting these impulses and the community life that responds to them as (...) shared human needs and ideals that go beyond religious commitment. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, 'reification'. A relative newcomer to the world of logical fallacies, reification is difficult to place and its status as a fallacy not that well understood. In general, reification involves taking something that is abstract, like an idea or concept, and making it concrete, or assigning it a concrete, 'real' existence. The standard analysis of reification presents it as a fallacy of presumption, which can be avoided by minimizing the (...) assignment of causal agency to the abstractions used in logical reasoning. However, the perhaps deeper and more serious consequences of what has been called “pernicious reification” have been further explored by the pragmatist philosophers William James and John Dewey. Both philosophers emphasize the indispensable value found through the use of abstract thought. (shrink)

This essay explores the tension between those who find value in the example of the religious life and others who take the intellectual bankruptcy of religious doctrines as recommending the complete abandonment of religion. It briefly describes John Dewey’s attempt to overcome this tension through a rethinking of the religious life and the sources of its continuing value and purpose. Dewey responds to this conflict over religion by attempting to emancipate its fundamental valuefrom the constraints of any supernatural affiliation. (...) He thereby suggests a more inclusive conception of the religious experience that permeates all aspects of social life. It is argued that Dewey’s attempt to find alternative outlets for religious values within our larger social community provides a better platform for dialogue across social divisions, since it does not begin from a secular standpoint that simply rejects the import of any sort of religious value. (shrink)

The section dealing with the "phenomenology of consciousness" is finally dominated by the question, How does consciousness become self-consciousness, or how does consciousness become conscious that it is self-consciousness? This assertion, however, that consciousness is self-consciousness, is a central teaching of modern philosophy since Descartes. To this extent, Hegel’s idea of phenomenology lies in the Cartesian line. Contemporary parallels show how much this is the case, especially the quite unknown book of Sinclair, the friend of Hölderlin and Hegel, which (...) deals with the Sphragis in the Rhein hymn, and is entitled Truth and Certitude. The work attempts, beginning quite explicitly with the Cartesian concept cogito me cogitare, to lead one along the path from certitude to truth in two rather similar fashions, through Fichte, and, almost contemporaneously, in Hegel. (shrink)

A. John Simmons is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and creative of today's political philosophers. His work on political obligation is regarded as definitive and he is also internationally respected as an interpreter of John Locke. The characteristic features of clear argumentation and careful scholarship that have been hallmarks of his philosophy are everywhere evident in this collection. The essays focus on the problems of political obligation and state legitimacy as well as on historical theories (...) of property and justice. Cumulatively the collection presents a distinctive social and political philosophy, exploring the nature of our most fundamental rights and obligations, and displaying the power and plausibility of Lockean ideal theory. (shrink)

Three general issues emerge from the preceding papers: a confusion between judgement and related activities such as decision making, problem solving, and attitudes; differences in the underlying assumptions about the nature of judgement; and different approaches for testing the adequacy of theories human judgement. The implications of these issues for studying human judgement processes and for future research priorities in this area are briefly discussed.

John Locke's political theory has been the subject of many detailed treatments by philosophers and political scientists. But The Lockean Theory of Rights is the first systematic, full-length study of Locke's theory of rights and of its potential for making genuine contributions to contemporary debates about rights and their place in political philosophy. Given that the rights of persons are the central moral concept at work in Locke's and Lockean political philosophy, such a study is long overdue.

A. John Simmons is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and creative of today's political philosophers. His work on political obligation is regarded as definitive and he is also internationally respected as an interpreter of John Locke. The characteristic features of clear argumentation and careful scholarship that have been hallmarks of his philosophy are everywhere evident in this collection. The essays focus on the problems of political obligation and state legitimacy as well as on historical theories (...) of property and justice. Cumulatively the collection presents a distinctive social and political philosophy, exploring the nature of our most fundamental rights and obligations, and displaying the power and plausibility of Lockean ideal theory. (shrink)

As its subtitle indicates, Democracy’s Discontent is a study of the political philosophies that have guided America’s public life. The “search” Michael Sandel describes has, in his view, temporarily come to a disappointing resolution in America’s acceptance of a liberal “public philosophy” that “cannot secure the liberty it promises” and has left Americans “discontented” with their “loss of self-government and the erosion of community”. This theme is unlikely to surprise readers familiar with Sandel’s earlier work. What may surprise them is (...) how little of Sandel’s second book is devoted to his critique of liberal theory or to his defense of his favored “republican” alternative. Far less than 10 percent of the book is devoted to characterizing liberal and republican political philosophy and to argument concerning their relative theoretical virtues. The body of Democracy’s Discontent is a history of American Constitutional law and political/economic debate, from pre-Revolutionary times to the Clinton presidency, all designed to show that the republican vision that has animated so much of that history has been recently abandoned to our detriment, replaced by a liberal public philosophy whose dramatic failure in practice “recapitulates” its “poverty in theory”. Sandel’s history is lively and engaging, and many of his analyses are insightful and persuasive. But the looseness in his treatment of theory regularly infects the conclusions he draws from this history and undermines his efforts to show that American political practice indicts liberal political philosophy. (shrink)

Chapter 4 examines the possible strategies of moral justification for states’ claims to jurisdictional and property-like authority over a particular geographical territory. It distinguishes nationalist, functionalist, and voluntarist strategies, dividing this last category into Lockean-individualist and plebiscitary voluntarism. All of these strategies are viewed as possible responses to cosmopolitan skepticism on these questions. Nationalism, functionalism, and plebiscitary voluntarism are criticized for their strongly counterintuitive implications. In particular, the chapter stresses their problems with “trapped minorities,” where minority groups or individuals do (...) not share the political interests and assumptions of the majority nation or people, and their implausible commitments concerning “rights supersession,” where rights are assumed to lapse or pass to wrongdoers. (shrink)

This chapter examines John Locke's work entitled Two Treatises of Government. It suggests that this work helped revitalize the social contract tradition by extending the elements of Calvinist political thought, and expanded the modern natural law tradition of Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf. The chapter also contends that this work represents Locke's defense of his political philosophy and of the Whig political principles.

‘Rights and Territories: A Reply to Nine, Miller, and Stilz’ defends the Lockean theory of states’ territorial rights (as this theory was presented in Boundaries of Authority) against the critiques of Nine, Miller, and Stilz. In response to Nine’s concern that such a Lockean theory cannot justify the right of legitimate states to exclude aliens, it is argued that a consent-based theory like the Lockean one is flexible enough to justify a wide range of possible incidents of territorial rights – (...) importantly including, though not necessarily including, the sort of right to exclude aliens that is familiar from actual political practice. Miller’s criticisms are more wide-ranging. In response, the article argues that Lockean labor-based property rights are both stronger and more enduring than Miller suggests and that nationalism’s resources for dealing with concerns about rights-supersession and trapped minorities are importantly overstated by Miller. Against Stilz’s Kantian, ‘presentist’ account of states’ authority over persons and territories, it is argued that the rectification of past (historical) wrongs remains morally crucial even in the context of otherwise-just societies and that Stilz’s Kantian/rawlsian position unconvincingly privileges the rights to autonomy of territorially concentrated groups over those of dissenting individuals or wrongfully dispersed groups. (shrink)

In his paper "Role Obligations," Michael Hardimon defends an account of the nature and justification of institutional obligations that he takes to be clearly superior to the "standard" voluntarist view. Hardimon argues that this standard view presents a "misleading and distorted" picture of role obligations (and of morality generally); and in its best form he claims this view still "leaves out" of its understanding of even contractual role obligations an "absolutely vital factor". I argue against Hardimon that a related version (...) of this "standard view" of institutional obligations is "standard" for a very good reason - namely, that it is true. (shrink)

There is growing interest in developing co-operation between adult literacy researchers and practitioners to further research skills and approaches. Canada’s National Literacy Secretariat has recently initiated a series of policy debates that suggested several possibilities: targeted research grants, research internships for practitioners, practical sabbaticals for researchers, support for networking between literacy researchers and practitioners, and joint seminars and workshops between researchers and practitioners. A common theme throughout these discussions is the need to develop critical thinking about both collaborative research and (...) adult literacy. In this paper we discuss two collaborative initiatives between university-based researchers and adult literacy groups in the provinces of British Columbia and Ontario. Each project was based on the notion of “research circles” and specifically designed to enhance research capacity and critical thinking about literacy research. (shrink)

Chapter 5 defends a Lockean theory of territory, arguing that it avoids the unpalatable commitments of its rivals. The chapter first outlines Locke’s own view, which derives states’ territorial rights from its willing members’ private rights over land and resources. It then describes the ways in which that historical position needs to be modified to make it defensible, taking the ideal it describes to be its strong point. The chapter also describes and answers the standard objections to this sort of (...) theory. In doing so, it defends a view about the real point of philosophical theories of territory. (shrink)

In this essay I will discuss the relationship between two of the most basic ideas in political and legal philosophy: the justification of the state and state legitimacy. I plainly cannot aspire here to a complete account of these matters; but I hope to be able to say enough to motivate a way of thinking about the relation between these notions that is, I believe, superior to the approach which seems to be dominant in contemporary political philosophy. Today showing that (...) a state is justified and showing that it is legitimate are typically taken to require the very same arguments. I will argue that this contemporary stance obscures the difference between two central ways in which we should morally evaluate states, and it generates confusions about other serious practical issues, such as those surrounding our moral obligations to comply with law. I begin with brief discussions of the ideas of justification and legitimacy and with an attempt to capture what ought to be most central in our concerns about these ideas. I turn then to two basic ways of thinking about the relation between justification and legitimacy that I want to distinguish: what I will call the Lockean and the Kantian approaches. Next, I argue that the minority Lockean approach to this issue captures essential features of institutional evaluation that the majority Kantian approach does not; and I add brief mention of one further complication facing any adequate account of political evaluation. (shrink)

Every political theorist will need this book . . . . It is more 'important' than 90% of the work published in philosophy."--Joel Feinberg, University of Arizona.

Agricultural industries in developed countries may need to consider transformative change if they are to respond effectively to contemporary challenges, including a changing climate. In this paper we apply a resilience lens to analyze a deliberate attempt by Australian governments to restructure the dairy industry, and then utilize this analysis to assess the usefulness of resilience thinking for contemporary agricultural transformations. Our analysis draws on findings from a case study of market deregulation in the subtropical dairy industry. Semi-structured interviews were (...) conducted with dairy producers, their service providers, and industry and government staff. We found the adaptive cycle concept contributed to understanding how deregulation changed industry structures and working practices, how those changes led to feedbacks within the production system and supply chain, and how the industry following deregulation has experienced periods of stability and instability. Regime shifts were associated with an increase in demand for human capital, a degradation of cognitive social capital and a reduction in farm income. Findings identified that were not readily explained by the resilience thinking conceptual framework include a producer’s ability to anticipate and make choices and the change in social and power relationships in the industry. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that we can challenge religion in its own backyard by setting up community centers to wean local communities from their dependence on organized religions. This is a new departure not to be compared with most humanist societies, which have a much narrower remit in promoting humanism itself. These centers may be based on humanist principles but no absolute conformity to these principles is required. Unlike religious organizations, there would be no need for orthodoxy or adherence (...) to specific belief systems. Such centers are to be not purveyors of religion but explorers of the human condition in all its forms. They are to function as inclusive organizations rather than exclusive ones. All kinds of views and opinions would be considered and those that are disagreeable would not be excluded because they are unorthodox. By these means, we might at last inspire humanity to put religion behind it and move forward to pastures new. (shrink)