L’autore si occupa di aspetti distinti del recente fenomeno dell’uso della forza internazionale mo¬tivato dall’impellente esigenza di tutelare i diritti dell’uomo. Nel primo paragrafo tratta i pre¬supposti storico-politici del fenomeno, riferendosi in particolare alla stra¬tegia del new world order, elaborata dagli Stati Uniti nei primi anni novanta del Novecento. Nel secondo paragrafo af¬fronta gli aspetti giuridici dell’uso della forza internazionale per ragioni umanitarie, esa¬mi¬nando sia il caso in cui tale uso sia stato autorizzato del Consiglio di Sicurezza delle Nazioni Uni¬te, (...) sia il caso in cui non sia stato autorizzato. Nel terzo paragrafo si occupa del rapporto fra la prospettiva universalistica implicita nell’‘interventismo umanitario’ e l’attuale ordinamento in¬ternazionale, che ha come presupposto la sovranità degli Stati nazionali e il principio della non-ingerenza nella loro domestic jurisdiction.The author deals with distinct aspects of a recent phenomenon, i.e. the use of international force grounded on the urgency to enforce human rights. In the first section he discusses the historical and political bases of this phenomenon, by referring in particular to the strategy of ‘new world order’, worked out by the United States in the early 1990s. In the second section the author treats the legal aspects of the use of international force for humanitarian reasons, both authorised and unauthorised by the United Nations Security Council. Finally he addresses the relationship between the universalistic perspective im¬plied by ‘humanitarian interventionism’ and the present international order, based on nation states sovereignty and non-interference within their domestic jurisdiction. (shrink)

This paper critically explores the growing assertiveness with which liberalism has approached questions of the just use of force since 9/11. The liberal position rests upon broad claims about the centrality of human rights concerns to considerations of the justice of war. The claim is that a liberal-cosmopolitan respect for human rights forces us to reconsider the conservative, generally prohibitive, position on the use of force defended by traditional just war theory and enshrined in international law. This argument (...) is has been most fully developed by Allen Buchanan in several important books and papers and it is Buchanan’s position that forms the basis for the critique of the assertive cosmopolitan attitude to the use of force that is offered in this article. The paper shows that both the just war tradition and those who theorize the ethics of the law of armed conflict have taken the moral and political reality of human rights seriously (in a manner that directly addresses Buchanan’s core argument) but that there remain compelling reasons to defend a conservative approach to the use of force. (shrink)

Christian political theologians have usually taken one of two approaches to the purpose of political order: agonist or perfectionist. Either political order should seek a civic peace between opposing forces or advance the full human good. Both approaches face difficulties, so I propose a middle-way: Christian reconciliationism. This political theology holds that political order should seek reconciliation between diverse moral perspectives. With perfectionism, reconciliationism aims to establish the political order as a moral order, but with agonism, reconciliationism rejects attempts to (...) use the political order to promote the full human good. It thereby avoids the vices of both approaches. (shrink)

Defining "terrorism" as the intentional targeting of non-combatant civilians, the paper argues that, other things being equal, it is not possible to effectively distinguish morally between "terrorism" and use of military power against combatant targets which might reasonably be expected to produce some guesstimable quantity of "collateral" or non-combatant civilian casualties; that it is upon the expected likely consequences of actions rather than upon the intentions underlying them, that actors should be morally judged. Furthermore I argue that other attempts to (...) rationalize the use of conventional military force, as retaliatory for prior "terrorist" actions, or as preemptive, also often largely fail either on historical grounds or pragmatic grounds. (shrink)

Music students at the University of Chichester Conservatoire completed questionnaires about their experience of the forced use of remote teaching and learning due to Lockdown, as imposed in the United Kingdom from March to June 2020, and how this impacted their self-beliefs, decision making processes, and methods of preparation for their performance assessments. Students had the choice to either have musical performance assessed in line with originally published deadlines via self-recorded video or defer the assessment until the following academic year. (...) Student’s choice to defer or submit the assessment during Lockdown was influenced by a range of forced factors, such as adaptions required by online teaching, limitations of rehearsal in their home environment, and the challenges in facilitating and recording their own assessments. Students completed online questionnaires about their self-efficacy, resilience, wellbeing, and provided free text responses explaining the reasoning for their decision to record their performance or to defer the assessment were coded to reveal patterns impacting their decision and preparation processes. Those choosing to submit their assessments demonstrated more strategies in their preparation and reported higher perceived self-efficacy scores. The specific conditions for this assessment, as a result of Lockdown, revealed correlations between resilience and both self-efficacy and wellbeing. The impact on teaching and the student experience is discussed and suggestions to support students in future settings of blended delivery are presented. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

_The Bounds of Reason: Habermas, Lyotard & Melanie Klein on Rationality_ is a highly original yet accessible study of the debate between modernity and postmodernity. Emilia Steuerman clearly explains the modernity/postmodernity dispute by examining the problem that has driven the whole debate: whether the use of reason is an emancipatory or enslaving force. Steuerman clearly sets out this debate by critically examining the arguments of two of its key proponents, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard. She clearly explains Habermas' defence (...) of modernity and his attempt to salvage Enlightenment ideas of truth, justice, and freedom through the use of reason. She contrasts this with Lyotard's postmodernism and his scepticism about the use of reason, and its claims to universalism and objectivity. Throughout, Steuerman contrasts the Habermas-Lyotard debate with important insights from psychoanalytic theory, and shows how Habermas' notions of intersubjectivity and a community of shared language users can be compared and contrasted with Melanie Klein's theory of object relations. (shrink)

Drawing from the complete normative resemblance between the questions of moral justification of the use of force and the moral justification of deception, the author finds in Kant's ethics an example of theoretical inconsistency. He shows that Kant's conclusion about the situational moral permissibility of forcible compulsion necessarily entails a decision in favor of the moral permissibility of lying for philanthropic reasons, which Kant denies.

This paper aims to explore whether there are any legal limits to the use of force, in particular when force is used for political reasons. How plausible is it to expect people to limit their options when they feel that what they’re doing paves the way towards paradise? In this light, much of the law of armed conflict would seem to be inadequate, based as much of it is on the premise that force is non-political. To the (...) extent then that limits are conceivable, these may stem from the individual morality of those engaged in battle rather than from any grand legal designs. (shrink)

The article analyses how robotisation as the latest advance in military technology can depersonalise the methods of killing in the 21st century by turning enemy soldiers and civilians into mere objects devoid of moral value. The departing assumption is that robotisation of warfare transforms military operations into automated industrial processes with the aim of removing empathy as a redundant?cost?. The development of autonomous weapons systems raises a number of sharp ethical controversies related to the projected moral insensitivity of robots regarding (...) the treatment of enemies and civilian population. The futurist vision of war as a foreign policy instrument entirely?purified? of the risk of morally wrong actions is in opposition with the negative effects of the use of drones. The author concludes that the use of lethal robots in combat would eventually remove enemy soldiers and civilians from the realm of ethical reasoning and deprive them of human dignity. Decision to kill in military operations ought to be based on human conscience as the only proper framework of making decisions by reasoning whether an action is right or wrong. (shrink)

Kant's discussion of the feeling of respect presents a puzzle regarding both the precise nature of this feeling and its role in his moral theory as an incentive that motivates us to follow the moral law. If it is a feeling that motivates us to follow the law, this would contradict Kant's view that moral obligation is based on reason alone. I argue that Kant has an account of respect as feeling that is nevertheless not separate from the use of (...) reason, but is intrinsic to willing. I demonstrate this by taking literally Kant's references to force in the second Critique. By referring to Kant's pre-critical essay on Negative Magnitudes (1763), I show that Kant's account of how the moral law effects in us a feeling of respect is underpinned by his view that the will is a kind of negative magnitude, or force. I conclude by noting some of the implications of my discussion for Kant's account of virtue. (shrink)

The work of Carl von Clausewitz Clausewitz, Carl von, [1832] 1976. On War, Michael Howard, and Peter Paret, eds. and trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar] continues to provoke heated debate. For some scholars, Clausewitz's On War remains indispensable to serious thought on the resort to war in the modern period. Others, however, see Clausewitz's work as either outdated, or a morally repellent argument for unlimited, unrestrained and brutal warfare. This essay argues not only that Clausewitz's work continues (...) to be relevant to discussions on the use of armed force, but also that On War provides a framework for ethical reflection on war and its conduct. Two main preoccupations of western military academies and staff colleges—Clausewitz on the one hand, and the just war tradition on the other—can complement, rather than rival each other. On War creates a space for reflection on the use of armed force, and for that reason if no other, should still be considered an important resource for contemporary students and practitioners of strategy. (shrink)

Both Rawls and Walzer argue for a supreme emergency exemption and are commonly thought to do so for the same reasons. However, far from ‘aping’ Walzer, Rawls engages in a reconstruction of the exemption that changes its focus altogether, making clear its dependence on an account of universal human rights and the idea of a well-ordered society. This paper is therefore, in the first instance, textual, demonstrating that Rawls has been misinterpreted in the case of supreme emergency. In the second (...) instance the approach is reconstructive, providing a reinterpretation of Rawls that fits his treatment of supreme emergency with his broader commitments in just war and international relations. This reinterpretation enables us to draw out a pattern of argument that Rawls appears to share with a much more strident liberal cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This chapter evaluates how necessity works as a central element of jus ad bellum legal arguments. In particular, it notes that the concept of necessity works differently depending on whether it is asserted as an independent excuse in international relations or whether it is one component of a self-defense analysis. In the former case it is invoked as an exception to general rules of conduct, whereas in the latter case necessity functions as a constraint on the application of a general (...) justification. Although both examples share structural similarities, the former is more dangerous, and for that reason international lawyers have generally placed external constraints on the application of the necessity doctrine. (shrink)

In the closed wards of mental health institutions, moral decisions are made concerning the use of forced seclusion. In this article we focus on how these moral decisions are made and can be improved. We present a case study concerning moral deliberations on the use of seclusion and its prevention among nurses of a closed mental health ward. Moral psychology provides an explanation of how moral judgments are developed through processes of interaction. We will make use of the Social Intuitionist (...) Model of Jonathan Haidt that emphasizes the role of emotions, intuitions and the social context in moral judgments and reasoning. We argue that this model can help to explain social dynamics in the context of enforced seclusion. In the discussion we explore how moral psychology can be complemented with the normative perspective of dialogical ethics to develop strategies for improving psychiatric practices. We conclude that social processes play an important role in moral deliberations and that moral development can be fostered by bringing in new perspectives in the dialogue. Moral case deliberation provides a practical tool to systematically organize moral reflections among nurses on the work floor. (shrink)

Using a data set of 30 authentic institutional emails written by Chinese college students to their native English teacher, this article investigates the frequency and combinations of apology strategies used by English as a Foreign Language learners in natural contexts. Drawing on the coding framework adapted from previous studies, this article carries out a fine-grained analysis of apology behaviors of Chinese EFL learners when they offended their teacher for various reasons. Results revealed that the most frequently used strategy was illustrative (...) force indicating devices, and “IFIDs + taking on responsibility” ranked the most frequent combination. Among IFID sub-strategies, an expression of regret had the highest frequency. In addition, a new strategy—request for a chance to repair—was identified, which was used by Chinese learners to show their respectful and pious attitude when a more serious offense was made to their teacher. Findings from the study indicate that Chinese EFL learners tend to use culture-specific apology strategies in academic contexts. This study has pedagogical implications for EFL pragmatics instruction in Chinese contexts and also second language pragmatics instruction tailored for native Chinese learners in English-speaking countries. (shrink)

In legal decisions standpoints can be supported by formal and also by substantive interpretative arguments. Formal arguments consist of reasons the weight or force of which is essentially dependent on the authoritativeness that the reasons may also have: In this connection one may think of linguistic and systemic arguments. On the other hand, substantive arguments are not backed up by authority, but consist of a direct invocation of moral, political, economic, or other social considerations. Formal arguments can be analyzed (...) as exclusionary reasons: The authoritative character excludes—in principle—substantial counterarguments. Formal arguments are sometimes used to conceal value judgements based on substantial arguments. This paper deals with reconstructing problems regarding this strategic use of formal arguments in legal decisions, with a focus on linguistic argumentation. (shrink)

Kant’s critical project has been understood as a description of the functioning of knowledge. Such an understanding of the first Critique seems however limited, especially if we consider Kant’s frequent use of political analogies. These analogies suggest another reading in which Kant’s critical project emerges as an attempt to overcome a state of nature in reason through the institution of a legal state in and by reason itself. Seen in this perspective, Kant’s critical metaphysics can be considered revolutionary, because it (...) assumes the issues of the two revolutions of modernity, the political and the scientific one: from the former, Kant adopts the conviction that a conflict can be settled only through the separation and reciprocal limitation of powers, as theorized by Locke and Montesquieu - and thus neither by force nor by the establishment of an absolute power; from the latter, he acquires a model of proof, which is based, not on description, but on the elaboration of an explicative hypothesis. The Critique of Pure Reason, then, is not a mere treatise of epistemology or of descriptive metaphysics, but the attempt of setting up a policy of reason at the service of peace and civil communal life. (shrink)

Although analogical reasoning has long been a popular method of reasoning in bioethics, current literature does not sufficiently grasp its variety. We assert that the main shortcoming is the fact that an analogy's value is often judged on the extent of similarity between the source situation and the target situation, while in (bio)ethics, analogies are often used because of certain dissimilarities rather than in spite of them. We make a clear distinction between dissimilarities that aim to reinforce a similar approach (...) in the source situation and the target situation and dissimilarities that aim to undermine or denounce a similar approach. The former kind of dissimilarity offers the analogy more normative force than if there were no dissimilarities present; this is often overlooked by authors who regard all relevant dissimilarities as detrimental to the analogy's strength. Another observation is that an evaluation of the normative force of an analogy cannot be made independently of moral principles or theories. Without these, one cannot select which elements in an analogy are morally relevant nor determine how they should be interpreted. (shrink)

First published in 1752, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason [Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre] was written as a textbook and widely adopted by many 18th-century German instructors, but most notably by Immanuel Kant. For forty years Kant used the Excerpts as the basis of his lectures on logic making extensive notes on his copy of the text. More than a text on formal logic, Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason covers epistemology and the elements of thought and language Meier believed (...) made human understanding possible. Working across the two dominant intellectual forces in modern philosophy, the rationalist and the empiricist traditions, Meier's work was also instrumental to the introduction of English philosophy into Germany; he was among the first German philosophers to study John Locke's philosophy in depth. This complete English translation of Meier's influential textbook is introduced by Riccardo Pozzo and enhanced by a glossary and a concordance correlating Meier's arguments to Kant's logic lectures, the related Reflexionen and the Jäsche Logic of 1800 - the text considered of fundamental importance to Kant's philosophy. For scholars of Kant, Locke and the German Enlightenment, this valuable translation and its accompanying material presents the richest source of information available on Meier and his 18th-century work. (shrink)

This article uses what Patti Tamara Lenard refers to as the cosmopolitan problem of motivation to discuss the roles of loyalty in two philosophical accounts of global solidarity. Avery Kolers’ Kantian, deontological approach to solidarity as reason-based deference is contrasted with Richard Rorty's controversial, anti-Kantian description of solidarity as ethnocentric inclusivity generated through sentimental education. This article offers critical reflections on the work of these two influential thinkers and combines elements of their theories to contribute a limited but useful response (...) to Lenard's concerns regarding loyalty and the motivation of global solidarity. (shrink)

In his essay On the necessary limits in the use of beautiful forms Schiller delineates to what degree beautiful packaging of philosophical thoughts is beneficial, as opposed to cases where it merely masks an inconsistent position—defending his philosophical style in contrast to Fichte’s, therewith taking another step in the Horenstreit. This paper shows how Schiller justifies the seeming paradox why his Aesthetic Education is not as nicely written as one might expect from a poet, and why his insistence on a (...) full development of our sensible and imaginative capacities is not tantamount to a call for replacing textbooks with novels. Our capacity to coordinate reason and sensibility finds its limits in women, who are deemed unable to reason sufficiently and are forced to resort to beautiful form alone. Schiller relegates learned women to the sidelines of literary discussion, setting the tone for German academia. (shrink)

The use of excessive force in war is an all-too-familiar phenomenon that resists an obvious philosophical solution. A principle that prohibits disproportionate use of force is commonly recognized. Yet I argue that an adequate proportionality principle is more difficult to formulate than may appear. There are too many morally relevant considerations to be weighed — especially harms to combatants versus noncombatants, depending on which side they are on — and we have no clear idea how to weigh them. (...) These difficulties are avoided through the dominant understanding of proportionality codified in international law and military practice, which rules out only attacks that intentionally target civilians or that involve negligence in targeting or conduct. We should find it harder to deny that use of force can be excessive despite conforming to these narrow constraints. Specifically, we can clearly identify as excessive the use of force in pursuit of unjust goals. This will still leave a range of hard cases in which there is a just cause for war. For these cases, I propose a "golden rule" test of the sincerity of deliberation about whether a use of force would be excessive. Relying on narrow constraints that would govern use of force in war can be morally worse than not having them. The golden rule test can help to direct us toward broader, reasonable moral considerations regarding excessive force. (shrink)

Kant’s critical project has been understood as a description of the functioning of knowledge. Such an understanding of the first Critique seems however limited, especially if we consider Kant’s frequent use of political analogies. These analogies suggest another reading in which Kant’s critical project emerges as an attempt to overcome a state of nature in reason through the institution of a legal state in and by reason itself. Seen in this perspective, Kant’s critical metaphysics can be considered revolutionary, because it (...) assumes the issues of the two revolutions of modernity, the political and the scientific one: from the former, Kant adopts the conviction that a conflict can be settled only through the separation and reciprocal limitation of powers, as theorized by Locke and Montesquieu - and thus neither by force nor by the establishment of an absolute power; from the latter, he acquires a model of proof, which is based, not on description, but on the elaboration of an explicative hypothesis. The Critique of Pure Reason, then, is not a mere treatise of epistemology or of descriptive metaphysics, but the attempt of setting up a policy of reason at the service of peace and civil communal life. (shrink)

Under conditions of physiological stress, officers are sometimes required to make split-second life-or-death decisions, where deficits in performance can have tragic outcomes, including serious injury or death and strained police–community relations. The current study assessed the performance of 122 active-duty police officers during a realistic lethal force scenario to examine whether performance was affected by the officer’s level of operational skills training, years of police service, and stress reactivity. Results demonstrated that the scenario produced elevated heart rates, as well (...) as perceptual and cognitive distortions, such as tunnel vision, commensurate with those observed in naturalistic use of force encounters. The average performance rating from the scenario was 59%, with 27% of participants making at least one lethal force error. Elevated stress reactivity was a predictor of poorer performance and increased lethal force errors. Level of training and years of police service had differential and complex effects on both performance and lethal force errors. Our results illustrate the need to critically reflect on police training practices and continue to make evidence-based improvements to training. The findings also highlight that while training may significantly improve outcomes, flawless performance is likely not probable, given the limits of human performance under stress. Implications for the objective reasonableness standard, which is used to assess the appropriateness of force in courts of law, are discussed. (shrink)

Ideally, should liberals in a pluralistic society be able to agree to abide by a common legal system such that all their disputes are resolved without resort to illegal force? Rawls believes the answer is “yes.” I explain and defend his answer, but I also conclude, focusing on the example of abortion, that the truth is “not necessarily, not always.” Rawls’s conceptions of reasonable citizens and public reason help explain why there is a strong prima facie duty to (...) forswear illegal force. It is based on the duty to respect others, which requires that one be able to justify one's actions to them insofar as they are reasonable and matters of basic justice are at issue. One cannot justify using illegal force to those who reasonably think a law is just; to them it is a form of disrespect. Nonetheless, if one reasonably thinks that a fundamental injustice is tolerated or even established by the law, then one may be no less reasonable than one has reason to be if one uses illegal force, sacrificing this form of respect to right a greater wrong. (shrink)

Persuasion is a special aspect of our social and linguistic practices – one where an interlocutor, or an audience, is induced, to perform a certain action or to endorse a certain belief, and these episodes are not due to the force of the better reason. When we come near persuasion, it seems that, in general, we are somehow giving up factual discourse and the principles of logic, since persuading must be understood as almost different from convincing rationally. Sometimes, for (...) example, we can find persuasion a political speech that relies on our feelings, emotions and values, but we can also find a persuasive person a dodger, busy in his own questionable activities that are intentionally performed in order to mislead and manipulate other people. However, I do not want to try to define a general notion of persuasion from the beginning. I would rather start with a conception that already has a place, even if controversial, in the philosophical debate. In particular, the version that I have always found particularly provocative is that provided by Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. This peculiar version of the idea of persuasion, which is often associated with the possibility of overcoming deep disagreements, is quite famous in the literature and often understood as indicating certain intrinsic limits of our reason-giving practices. The following are Wittgenstein’s famous remarks on persuasion: -/- 608. Is it wrong for me to be guided in my actions by the propositions of physics? Am I to say I have no good ground for doing so? Isn’t precisely this what we call a ‘good ground’? -/- 609. Suppose we met people who did not regard that as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it? If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language-game as a base from which to combat theirs? -/- 611. Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. -/- 612. I said I would ‘combat’ the other man, – but wouldn’t I give him reasons? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives.) -/- This paper is not devoted, as far as possible, to focus on interpretative matters about Wittgenstein’s late philosophy. Rather, it aims to investigate whether there are problems and incompatibilities between this particular conception of persuasion and our contemporary understanding of our reason-giving practices and of our belief-revision procedures. The first part of this study will be concerned about assessing this conception of persuasion and trying to shed new light on it (and on its consequences); most of the work here is done by looking at some truisms and normative features of our practices regarding the rational updating of our beliefs. It also addresses the question: Is the resistance to reasons of Wittgenstein’s persuasion capable to avoid the strict dynamics of belief revision? The second section of this study concerns the possibility of limiting the scope of this conception of persuasion, thanks to some of our contemporary ways of understanding rational discursive practices (I will focus especially on Robert Brandom’s game of “giving and asking for reasons”). If our rational practices require at least a certain degree of epistemic responsibility, then how is it possible that one invokes the end of reasons (that would explicitly mean giving up this responsibility)? A third section is the attempt, on this basis, to try to revise our contrasting conception(s) of persuasion (with an eye open on the near doxastic territory). Are there other conceptions of persuasion which are more compatible with our rational practices and do not entail any version of the “end of reasons” that are so compatible with our individual and social epistemic responsibility? (shrink)

We continue investigations of reasonable ultrafilters on uncountable cardinals defined in previous work by Shelah. We introduce stronger properties of ultrafilters and we show that those properties may be handled in λ-support iterations of reasonably bounding forcing notions. We use this to show that consistently there are reasonable ultrafilters on an inaccessible cardinal λ with generating systems of size less than $2^\lambda$ . We also show how ultrafilters generated by small systems can be killed by forcing notions which (...) have enough reasonable completeness to be iterated with λ-supports. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 115-116 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Plato and His Predecessors: The Dramatisation of Reason Mary Margaret McCabe. Plato and His Predecessors: The Dramatisation of Reason. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. viii + 318. Cloth, $59.95. This book originated with the W. B. Stanford Memorial Lectures delivered at Trinity College, Dublin in 1996. In it Mary Margaret McCabe considers (...) a "late quartet" of Platonic Dialogues: Theaetetus, Sophist, Politicus, Philebus. Her main task is expressly to consider how Plato viewed his philosophical predecessors, particularly Protagoras, Parmenides, and Heraclitus. McCabe argues that the key to understanding how Plato viewed his predecessors lies in the way they are presented dramatically in her late quartet. There they appear as "shadowy figures" with no voice of their own, unable to defend themselves against the arguments put to them by the main speakers, and it is by dramatizing their self-refuting position (for that is what their inability to defend themselves reveals) that Plato develops his most mature account of the principles of reason. In this way, McCabe argues, the dialogue form remains significant to Plato even in his latest works. The dramatic presentation of the dialogues in the late quartet only appears unnecessary if we focus on the relation between the main speaker and interlocutor. If we focus instead on the discussions between Plato and his predecessors, and understand the dialectical role of self-refutation, we can see how the dialogue form remains important. McCabe thus shows how her three main themes--Plato's relation to Presocratic philosophy, his use of the dialogue form, and his views about the principles of reason--are interrelated. It is not clear, however, whether she achieves the full integration of these three themes. McCabe attends much more diligently and thoroughly to the theme about the principles of reason than to either of the other two themes. In this respect her work fits better into the context of philosophical analysis of Plato's views, rather than, say, into the context of historical or hermeneutical approaches.McCabe's analysis of the dramatic elements of the late quartet is, in fact, somewhat narrow. There are extant commentaries on all the dialogues of her late quartet that examine in far greater detail their settings, characterization, dramatic structure, dialectical development, and so on. To judge from these commentaries, it is not clear that the late quartet is dramatically inferior to Plato's early and middle dialogues or that the discussions between the main speaker and interlocutor take a back seat, aesthetically or philosophically, to the dialectic between Plato and his predecessors. But McCabe's aim is the more limited one of finding at least one philosophically compelling reason to favor the dialogue form. She finds it in the way that the "mean-spirited opponents" of Plato--Protagoras, Parmenides, and Heraclitus--show up holding theories that are incompatible with more general views they themselves hold about reason. The only way to defeat such an opponent, one might suggest, is dialectically, by getting them to refute themselves. This is indeed one of the things the late quartet of dialogues shows, and through it McCabe forces us to see the dialectical tactics of refutation that are prevalent in Plato's late dialogues.It is not clear, however, that the positive "principles of reason" Plato is reputed to be developing--"that we are persistent, continuant entities, whose intellectual concerns focus on consistency with oneself and thus disagreement with others; whose autonomy depends on our beliefs belonging to us... and whose best life is constituted by the proper structuring of those beliefs into the single and complete structure of systematic understanding" (289)--require a dramatic presentation, or why Plato should think they require such a presentation. Plenty of philosophical arguments have been made, and were made in ancient [End Page 115] times, about personal identity, rationality, autonomy, and eudaimonia entirely outside of the context of dialogue or drama. Here, in the case of positive advocacy of his principles of reason, it is more difficult to see a... (shrink)

Rotter’s theory of internal-external locus of control evolved from Carl Jung’s work. In Psychological Types (1923), Jung defined two opposing tendencies in personality introversion and extroversion. While both tendencies are present in all individuals, one tends to dominate the other. The internal–external control construct was conceived as a generalized expectancy to perceive reinforcement either as contingent upon one’s own behaviors (internal control) or as the result of forces beyond one’s control, such as chance, fate, or powerful others (external control) (Lefcourt, (...) 1981, p. 15). Locus of control refers to those causes to which individuals attribute their successes and failures. Individuals are responsive to some external motivators (e.g. better jobs, promotions, higher salaries), but the more powerful are internal pressures (the desire for increased job satisfaction, self-esteem, and quality of life). Research indicates that an individual’s internal–external locus of control impacts their ethical behavior in an organization. Rotter’s I–E Scale (1966, Psychological Monographics 80(1), 1–28), a 29 item forced choice instrument, is the most widely used instrument to measure the degree of internality versus externality. Each respondent’s score for this scale had a potential range from 0 to 23. As there are six filler items used to mask the intent of the questionnaire a score of 23 being extremely external in nature and a score of zero being extremely internal in nature. The I Scale (Internal Scale) measures the extent to which people believe that they have control over their own lives; the E Scale (External Scale) measures the extent to which people believe that they do not have control over their own lives. This study utilized the I–E Scale. Jones (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation) and Deflumeri (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation) investigated the likelihood of an individual to engage in unethical behavior in an organization. This research suggests that when employees perceive that locus of control resides internally they themselves decide what is appropriate behavior, but with an external locus of control, employees will look at others to decide appropriate behavior. The researcher in this study investigated the relationship between managers’ locus of control and their moral reasoning. (shrink)

With the principle of tour de force, we refer to the use of the power of moral legality, the strength of statutes, and the fairness of judgments. A quantum force of moral legality and legal morality serves as an imperative force in the implementation of fair criminal justice, as well as in the prevention of future victims across the globe. Contrary to positivist ideas, the simple notion of morality contains within itself the very essence of international criminal (...) norms. If the source of morality did not exist in the structure of our criminal justice, we could no longer call it criminal justice and would instead have to call it criminal revenge. Beyond the moral essence of international criminal justice, we also challenge the hidden illegality and immorality of certain attitudes. This is done in order to prevent acts which violate human rights law and criminal justice provisions. The codes of international human rights law cannot properly function without the comprehensive nature of morality which elevates the moral virtue of international criminal justice and strengthens the tour de force. One may observe that the principle of the tour de force of the moral virtue within the system of international criminal justice loses its legal power when governments attempt to justify their unjust decisions. This is the main reason why the major potential value of the tour de force of the moral virtue of human rights law and international criminal justice is not as strong as it should be. In order to achieve a vision of the tour de force of moral virtue, we need to establish a devoted influential ethical vision of the truth beyond political tradition. An unparalleled philosophical piece of literature for libraries. (shrink)

The first wave of philosophical work on global justice focused largely on the distribution of economic resources, and on the development or reformation of institutions relevant thereto. More recently, however, the horizon has broadened significantly, to also include a concern with the global spread of the right to live under reasonable legal institutions and representative forms of government (cf. “a human right to democracy”). Thus, while the first wave was focused primarily on international (non-territorial) institutions, later work has also (...) brought critical focus to bear on domestic institutions traditionally assumed to be protected by rights of state sovereignty. This naturally raises the question of whether, when, and how the international community can coercively intervene in issues falling under assumed to fall under domestic jurisdiction. Many theorists of global justice will accept, however reluctantly, that coercive means such as military force may be used (even unilaterally, if necessary) to halt a government’s mass atrocities against its civilian population (so-called “humanitarian intervention”). They are, however, for the most part firmly opposed to the use of military force as a tool to force regime change or democratic reform. I will discuss the viability of this stance along two dimensions: (i) can we draw a morally relevant distinction between humanitarian intervention and regime change policies? (ii) can we draw a morally relevant distinction between the use of military force as a policy tool and the use of other kinds of coercive measures such as economic sanctions? (shrink)

Crawshay-Williams defines the scope of his book as the study of statements "put forward with a sort of claim to general acceptance by the company [to which they are addressed]". Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca would certainly agree that only such statements are capable of giving rise to controversy. But this point, and one other that I shall mention shortly, are nearly the only ones on which the two books agree. And there is profound disagreement about how even this point is to (...) be interpreted. Crawshay-Williams is interested only in the extent to which the claim to acceptance can be satisfied. The phrase I have just quoted is his definition of statements that are testable. His book is largely a discussion of the tests that can be used to determine the correctness of such statements. The implication is, of course, that any genuine controversy can, in principle, be adjudicated by applying such tests to the statements over which it arises. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, on the other hand, are primarily interested in ways of expressing the claim to general acceptance. Their book is mainly a study of the means by which a statement, or a series of them, can be put forward so as to claim general acceptance by the company to which it is addressed. For them, controversy consists in claims and counter-claims. It can thus be decisively settled only when a claim is sufficiently overpowering to silence all counter-claims. But such a result can be accomplished only by force or hypnosis, and these settle controversy not by adjudicating it but by abolishing it. Controversy cannot therefore be adjudicated at all, except in relatively trivial cases. (shrink)

This dissertation sets out Dewey's theory of society, as outlined in the lecture notes for his courses on social and political philosophy between 1923 and 1928. I argue that Dewey had tripartite theory of economic processes, political/legal structures and social-moral functions that focuses on the relationship between material/technological forces and the institutions established to direct them. ;The first section presents and then refutes the charge that pragmatic social thought reduces thought to sheer efficiency and is therefore unable to resist ideology. (...) The primary dispute was between the turn toward objectivist methodology in American social science, frequently attributed to Dewey's influence, and those who saw this turn as a decline into crude, instrumental reason. Unlike the objectivists, instrumentalism incorporated ideas of intersubjectivity, value, and reflexivity. He did not believe that democracy could be best served by a managerial elite who sharply divides facts from values and means from ends. ;The second section comprises the positive presentation of Dewey's social theory. Chapter three discusses economic processes. I set out the organic model that guides his early and late economic theory and how Dewey draws from J. A. Hobson's theory of underconsumption to organize a coherent set of specific economic proposals during the Great Depression. Chapter four presents Dewey's theory of political structures, laws, institutions and habits that shape the direction of material life. But these structures may come in time to restrain further economic and technological growth. The final chapter takes up the breakdown of traditional structures, the reconstruction of which Dewey believed to be the fundamental problem of modernity. There is a need for new customs and institutions that continue traditional ideals of liberalism while being grounded in modern material conditions. The need, Dewey believed, was for a social theory that would understand the interplay of forces and institutions and direct them toward a democratic culture. ;I end with an epilogue on uses of Dewey's thought within contemporary social theory. The cheerful pursuit of instrumental reason by the neo-pragmatists Richard Rorty, Stanley Fish and Richard Posner is contrasted with recent work in the communitarianism/liberalism debate. (shrink)

Here I defend my solution to the wrong-kind-of-reason problem against Mark Schroeder’s criticisms. In doing so, I highlight an important difference between other accounts of reasons and my own. While others understand reasons as considerations that count in favor of attitudes, I understand reasons as considerations that bear (or are taken to bear) on questions. Thus, to relate reasons to attitudes, on my account, we must consider the relation between attitudes and questions. By considering that relation, we not only solve (...) the wrong-kind-of-reason problem, but we also bring into view rational agency—the use of reasons in thought. (shrink)

Making arguments makes reasons apparent. Sometimes those reasons may affect audiences’ relationships to claims (e.g., accept, adhere). But an over-emphasis on audience effects encouraged by functionalist theories of argumentation distracts attention from other things that making arguments can accomplish. We advance the normative pragmatic program on argumentation through two case studies of how early advocates for women’s suffrage in the U.S. made reasons apparent in order to show that what they were doing wasn’t ridiculous. While it might be possible to (...) identify this as a new function of argumentation, we encourage instead attention to a more important question: explaining how all the diverse uses of argument have pragmatic force. (shrink)

The art of living idiom suits well a practice-oriented approach in ethics of technology. But what remains or becomes of the functioning and use of reason in ethics? In reaction to the comments by Huijer this reply elaborates in more detail how Foucault’s art of living can be adapted for a critical contemporary ethics of technology. And the aesthetic-political rationality in Foucault’s ethics is compared with Wellner’s suggestions of holding on to the notion of code but with a new meaning. (...) Foucault’s fourfold scheme of subjectivation and a distinction of “below and above reason” structure the argument. (shrink)

In this paper, we answer a question asked in Koepke et al. regarding a Mathias criteria for Tree-Prikry forcing. Also we will investigate Prikry forcing using various filters. For completeness and self inclusion reasons, we will give proofs of many known theorems.

Many formalisms for reasoning about knowing commit an agent to be logically omniscient. Logical omniscience is an unrealistic principle for us to use to build a real-world agent, since it commits the agent to knowing infinitely many things. A number of formalizations of knowledge have been developed that do not ascribe logical omniscience to agents. With few exceptions, these approaches are modifications of the possible-worlds semantics. In this paper we use a combination of several general techniques for building non-omniscient reasoners. (...) First we provide for the explicit representation of notions such as problems, solutions, and problem solving activities, notions which are usually left implicit in the discussions of autonomous agents. A second technique is to take explicitly into account the notion of resource when we formalize reasoning principles. We use the notion of resource to describe interesting principles of reasoning that are used for ascribing knowledge to agents. For us, resources are abstract objects. We make extensive use of ordering and inaccessibility relations on resources, but we do not find it necessary to define a metric. Using principles about resources without using a metric is one of the strengths of our approach.We describe the architecture of a reasoner, built from a finite number of components, who solves a puzzle, involving reasoning about knowing, by explicitly using the notion of resource. Our approach allows the use of axioms about belief ordinarily used in problem solving – such as axiom K of modal logic – without being forced to attribute logical omniscience to any agent. In particular we address the issue of how we can use resource-unbounded (e.g., logically omniscient) reasoning to attribute knowledge to others without introducing contradictions. We do this by showing how omniscient reasoning can be introduced as a conservative extension over resource-bounded reasoning. (shrink)

One of the new ways used by companies to demonstrate their social responsibility is to encourage employee volunteering, whereby employees engage in socially beneficial activities on company time, while being paid by the company. The reasoning is that it is good for employee motivation (internal effects) and good for the company reputation (external effects). This article reports an empirical investigation of the internal effects of employee volunteering conducted amongst employees of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank. The study showed that (a) socio-demographic (...) characteristics from employee volunteers markedly differ from those of non-volunteers and community volunteers and (b) employee volunteering seems to have positive effects on attitudes and behavior towards the organization. (shrink)

Contemporary public reason liberalism holds that coercion must be publicly justified to an idealized constituency. Coercion must be justified to all qualified points of view, not the points of view held by actual persons. Critics, in particular Nicholas Wolterstorff and David Enoch, have complained that idealization, by idealizing away what actual people accept, risks authoritarianism and disrespect by forcing people to comply with laws they in fact reject. I argue that idealization can withstand this criticism if it satisfies two conditions. (...) First, the standards of idealization, such as the norms of rationality and information, must be grounded in the present commitments of the large majority of members of the public. Second, the standards of idealization must be moderate; that is, they cannot be used to attribute reasons to citizens that stray too far from their actual commitments. (shrink)

Kant is compared with Socrates because the two philosophers have much in common. Both thinkers were central figures in their time. Kant revolutionised the philosophy of the modern period dealing with questions of ethics and epistemology; Socrates brought about a similar revolution in ancient Greek philosophy. The image of Socrates continues to inspire modern scholars, the main features of this image being rationality and publicity. Socrates is seen as an arch-rationalist and the founder of science and philosophy as a whole. (...) Besides, he practised philosophy publicly, being an antipode of another ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, whose doctrines were secret. Coming together in the image of Socrates, publicity and rationality mutually condition each other. This again is a feature shared with Kant who put forward the concept of the public and private use of reason. Today, the term “publicity” should be replaced by the more accurate term “openness.” Like publicity, openness implies accessibility of knowledge to the largest possible number of people. However, openness is a broader concept: it makes it possible both to explain the interconnection between the freedom of reason and its publicity advocated by Kant and to draw a demarcation line between Socrates and the Sophists who were also public intellectuals. Whereas the Sophists sought personal gain and popularity, Socrates viewed the practice of philosophy as a form of self-sacrifice for the good of society; this led the Sophists to relativism and Socrates to the discovery of rational thinking. The conclusion is that openness, interpreted as accessibility of knowledge and the possibility of its development, constitutes the key component of rationality. (shrink)

The importance of situational constraint for moral evaluations is widely accepted in philosophy, psychology, and the law. However, recent work suggests that this relationship is actually bidirectional: moral evaluations can also influence our judgments of situational constraint. For example, if an agent is thought to have acted immorally rather than morally, that agent is often judged to have acted with greater freedom and under less situational constraint. Moreover, when considering interpersonal situations, we judge that an agent who forces another to (...) act immorally (versus morally) uses more force. These two features can result in contradictory response patterns in which participants judge both that (1) a forcer forced a forcee to act and (2) the forcee was not forced by the forcer to act. Here, we characterize potential psychological mechanisms, in particular, “moral focus” and counterfactual reasoning that account for this paradoxical pattern of judgments. (shrink)

With this contribution we analyze ancient hunting technologies as one way to explore the development of causal cognition in the hominin lineage. Building on earlier work, we separate seven grades of causal thinking. By looking at variations in force dynamics as a central element in causal cognition, we analyze the thinking required for different hunting technologies such as stabbing spears, throwing spears, launching atlatl darts, shooting arrows with a bow, and the use of poisoned arrows. Our interpretation demonstrates that (...) there is an interplay between the extension of human body through technology and expanding our cognitive abilities to reason about causes. It adds content and dimension to the trend of including embodied cognition in evolutionary studies and in the interpretation of the archeological record. Our method could explain variation in technology sets between archaic and modern human groups. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

본고는 칸트와 아렌트의 교차해석을 통해 칸트적 계몽의 핵심인 이성의 공적 사용의 의미를 해명하고자 하는 시도다. 이성의 공적 사용의 의미 규명과 칸트와 아렌트 교차해석이라는 상호교직되어 있는 두 가지 작업의 핵심은 각각 다음과 같다. 1) 그간 뚜렷이 구분되어 논의되지 않았던 주체 외부와 내부를 향한 이성의 공적 사용을 구분하고 각각의 의미를 복수성을 본질로 하는 공적 공간으로서의 세계와 관련하여 ‘세계 구성’과 ‘세계 수용’으로 개념화한다. 2) 주로 『칸트 정치철학 강의』에 나타난 칸트 판단 개념에 대한 해석을 중심으로 이루어져 왔던 칸트와 아렌트의 관계에 대한 논의를 이성의 공적 (...) 사용에 대한 재해석을 매개로 세계, 정치, 공공성 등 아렌트 사상 전반의 문제의식을 함축하는 개념들과 관련된 것으로 확장한다. 종합하면 본고의 논의는 일종의 해석학적 순환을 이루는바, 한편으로는 아렌트의 정치행위이론 및 판단이론과의 교차해석을 통해 이성의 공적 사용이라는 문제가 갖는 의의를 현대화하려는 노력인 동시에, 다른 한편으로는 역으로 이성의 공적 사용이라는 문제계를 도입함으로써 칸트와 아렌트의 관계에 대한 연구에 새로운 접근경로를 제안하려는 이론적 시도라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

During the twentieth century, the view that assertions and norms are valid insofar as they respond to principles independent of all local and temporal contexts came under attack from two perspectives: the partiality of translation and the intersubjective constitution of the self, understood as responsive to recognition. Defenses of universalism have by and large taken the form of a thinning out of substantive universalism into various forms of proceduralism. Alessandro Ferrara instead launches an entirely different strategy for transcending the particularity (...) of context without contradicting our pluralistic intuitions: a strategy centered on the exemplary universalism of judgment. Whereas exemplarity has long been thought to belong to the domain of aesthetics, this book explores the _other_ uses to which it can be put in our philosophical predicament, especially in the field of politics. After defining exemplarity and describing how something unique can possess universal significance, Ferrara addresses the force exerted by exemplarity, the nature of the judgment that discloses exemplarity, and the way in which the force of the example can bridge the difference between various contexts. Drawing not only on Kant's _Critique of the Power of Judgment_ but also on the work of Hannah Arendt, John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Jürgen Habermas, Ferrara outlines a view of exemplary validity that is applicable to today's central philosophical issues, including public reason, human rights, radical evil, sovereignty, republicanism and liberalism, and religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

The implicit dimension of enthymemes is investigated from a pragmatic perspective to show why a premise can be left unexpressed, and how it can be used strategically. The relationship between the implicit act of taking for granted and the pattern of presumptive reasoning is shown to be the cornerstone of kairos and the fallacy of straw man. By taking a proposition for granted, the speaker shifts the burden of proving its un-acceptability onto the hearer. The resemblance of the tacit premise (...) with what is commonly acceptable or has been actually stated can be used as a rhetorical strategy. (shrink)

One of the new ways used by companies to demonstrate their social responsibility is to encourage employee volunteering, whereby employees engage in socially beneficial activities on company time, while being paid by the company. The reasoning is that it is good for employee motivation (internal effects) and good for the company reputation (external effects). This article reports an empirical investigation of the internal effects of employee volunteering conducted amongst employees of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank. The study showed that (a) socio-demographic (...) characteristics from employee volunteers markedly differ from those of non-volunteers and community volunteers and (b) employee volunteering seems to have positive effects on attitudes and behavior towards the organization. (shrink)