Contemporary Political Philosophy Research Articles

Charles Mills’ ‘Black Radical Kantianism’ as a Plot Twist for Kant Studies and Contemporary Kantian-Liberal Political Philosophy

AbstractThis article shows that themethodologyof Mills’ ‘Black Radical Kantianism’ (BRK) represents a major plot twist for Kant studies as well as contemporary political philosophy utilizing Kantian ideas. BRK is no mere upgrade of Kant’s or Kantian ideal theory for racial justice. Mills’ methodology requires us to positboththat the real Kant and establishment Kantianism have been racist, sexist and Eurocentric;andthat only by first admitting and reckoning with the compatibility of white supremacy and liberal egalitarianism can we hope to radicalize Kant or Kantianism.

What can we still learn from the Rawls-Habermas debate? A paradigm of political philosophy for liberal democracies

This article argues about John Rawls' paradigm shift in contemporary political philosophy. In the article, this paradigm is defined as democratic insofar it claims, among other things, to leave enough room for democratic deliberations and citizens’ political autonomy. On this specific issue, Rawls and Habermas dialogue is still particularly fruitful. Both authors believe that contemporary political philosophy must be modest in some relevant theoretical and methodological aspects but they disagree on which of these aspects should be more or less modest. This article argues that when we look for the legitimate boundaries of the contemporary political philosophy, Rawls and Habermas projects should be seen as closely complementary to one another. On the one hand, the article partially agrees with Habermas’ objections to Rawls that political philosophy should not be too modest in providing orientations for the normative grounds of the political justification. On the other hand, against Habermas, the article remains on Rawls's side on the idea that political philosophy cannot be agnostic regarding the substantive and distributive issues of social justice.

The Limits of Freedom

The research discusses a number of interrelated ideas, which are intended to lead us to the conclusion that absolute freedom is absolute corrupt, and that freedom is not limited by law and ethical and social and political controls is a chaos that leads to conflicts and dismantling the ties of society, and awareness of society's rights to maintain cohesion through The introduction of the liberal concept of freedom in contemporary political philosophy.

Martha Nussbaum and Aristotle on Distributive Justice and Equality

Abstract This article gives a detailed analysis of Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’ and her claim that it is a genuinely Aristotelian contemporary po-litical philosophy. The paper examines how Nussbaum bases her ‘capabilities approach’ on human nature and questions her assertion that both Aristotle’s account of human nature and her own approach are not metaphysical. In order to analyze the normative dimension of Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’, this article focuses on Aristotle’s doctrine of distributive justice and equality. It shows how Nussbaum adopts and modifies this doctrine in an egalitarian way and demonstrates that her reading and appropriation of it is problematic. With reference to contemporary literature on Aristotle’s Politics, the article criticizes how Nussbaum assimilates Aristotle’s political philosophy into modern values and notions, laying out six primary reasons supporting the thesis that Nussbaum’s ‘capabilities approach’ cannot be regarded as an Aristotelian one.

Liberalism and the Good Life

Contemporary political philosophers are often uncomfortable with the notion that a conception of the good life can be developed out of liberalism. Liberalism, they say, should remain neutral out of respect for pluralism. Early liberals of the nineteenth century, however, understood their project as a vindication of the good life, along with a diagnosis of what threatens it. This article attempts to build a conception of the good life from liberal values and sensibilities, yet not run afoul of the need to respect pluralism. It draws on early and contemporary liberals, as well as popular culture, to sketch a way of life that is fulfilling and available for us today.

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:It is very unlikely that Professor Jan P. Hudzik—a professor of philosophy at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, the author of the highly acclaimed Prawda i teoria [Truth and theory, 2011], among several other publications in the field of theoretical foundations of the humanities and, more recently, contemporary political philosophy—had ever had any of his works described as “unscientific, unscrupulous, and partisan,” until such epithets were directed at him by Professor Irena Grudzińska-Gross in her letter to The Polish Review (vol. 66, no. 4).Her ire was provoked by Jan P. Hudzik's article “Reflections on German and Polish Historical Policies of Holocaust Memory” (TPR, vol. 65, no. 4) and, more exactly, by the author's somewhat critical comments in the last section of the article, “Historian in the Public Sphere—a Case of the Paris Conference.” (The February 2019 conference in question was titled “The New Polish School of History of the Holocaust.”) In her brief letter, Irena Grudzińska-Gross admonishes the author on two grounds. First, that he allegedly “declares that history is not a science but a matter of opinion.” He does not. He wrote: “history as a science is not free from constraints of political and ideological conditioning.” Second, that he defends the Polish concentration camps law that curtails research on the Holocaust in Poland, “and that he attacks the participants in the Paris conference with “calumnies” (my emphasis) borrowed from the right-wing media. But rather than defend that law he presents arguments on both sides of the debate, quoting statements by the ambassador of Israel in Poland and by the US Department of State, along with provisions of the IPN Act that triggered those statements. He then writes: “It is not my task to determine who is right and who is wrong in this argument.”The argument is indeed complex, infused with understandable emotional underpinnings, and I do not feel competent to address its content—nor would I attempt this response to Irena Grudzińska-Gross's letter if not for its last sentence in which she chastises the TPR editors for publishing Jan P. Hudzik's article. In its sixty-six years of existence, TPR has never compromised its principle of openness to diverse ideas and opinions, winning respect of a large, international, and multi-faceted community, including the Polish diaspora and readers in Poland. TPR would not stand for any form of censorship, and we trust it will so remain.On a personal note, I have long admired Irena Grudzińska-Gross for her courage—as a young freedom fighter against the authoritarian regime in Poland—and her intellectual acumen in scholarly endeavors. We have shared our abhorrence of all aspects of antisemitism in Poland and elsewhere. Hence my alarm at her disregard for the freedom of discourse in the journal to which we both subscribe and contribute.

Cesare Beccaria e la filosofia politica normativa

The article ponders a number of key concepts in Cesare Beccaria’s political thought (contractualism, the relationship between legal obligation, justice, utility and rights) and links them to the theory of legal obligation based on the duty of fair play proposed by Herbert L. A. Hart. Highlighting the importance of Beccaria’s positions to contemporary political philosophy, the essay also maintains the usefulness, for normative political philosophers, of taking a historical approach to this author.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Federalism: Contemporary political philosophy issues

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Federalism: Contemporary political philosophy issues

Law, Politics, and Liberal Hope: A Literary and Anthropological Analysis of Secular Society

Abstract This essay argues that efforts to accommodate religion within the contemporary liberal-democratic and secular state give rise to difficulties that liberals struggle to understand. It also argues that practical impulses that exhibit intensity of the sort present in religion threaten to destabilize the operations of the contemporary liberal-democratic state. This essay develops these arguments by reference to Hilary Mantel’s novel A Place of Greater Safety (a fictionalized account of the French Revolution). In this novel, Mantel explores Maximilien Robespierre’s ambiguous relationship with the Christian faith. As well as drawing on Mantel, this essay also makes use of Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kundera’s account of the ‘Grand March’ of the political left provides a basis on which to explore practical impulses that are reminiscent of religion in their intensity and that threaten to destabilize the liberal-democratic state. The two literary reference points that feature in this essay also provide resources with which to probe the contributions to contemporary liberal political philosophy made by Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Ronald Dworkin. The result is an analysis that supports the conclusion that contemporary liberal-democratic states may be destabilized by practical impulses that, in their intensity, have affinities with religion. This essay also finds support for this conclusion in the writings of Stanley Fish and Carl Schmitt. Fish and Schmitt each argue in terms that give expression to a pessimistic political anthropology. This pessimistic political anthropology throws light on the difficulties that those who wield power within the liberal-democratic state face when they seek justly to accommodate religion. These difficulties lend plausibility to an observation made by John Adams (one of the founders of the USA): ‘[t]here is a germ of religion in human nature’ and it is ‘strong’.

On the way to expansive political liberalism: Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach as a reinterpretation of the ideas of young John Rawls

The ideas of later Rawls (after 1993) and particularly his early period of work (before the 70s of the 20th century), often become the subject of serious attention. In the author’s view, this situation establishes stereotypical and one-sided interpretations. However, objective attention to Rawls’ ideas of the early period (the project of naturalist ethics based on the protestant basis, objective morality, which constitutes itself through the fact of perception of others as human beings, robust definition of human nature) and later («political conception», «background culture», «public reason») period of work let us substantively enrich the field of interpretation in contemporary political philosophy. The aim of this article is triple: to prove (1) that Martha Nussbaum’s critique of later John Rawls, proposed within capabilities approach, is not exhaustive; (2) that this critique will arise as more fruitful if it will use several early ideas of Rawls, which he later stopped using; (3) that such an overlap of arguments creates a new version of political liberalism, more consistent than later Rawls’ version and Nussbaum’s. The author proposes to name this version with the term «expansive (the one, which can expand) political liberalism» (hereafter EPL). The important components of EPL are the idea of Henry Richardson about the complementarity of «good» and «right», a thesis about the necessity of civic education, and also the interpretation of capabilities approach within «reasonable comprehensive doctrines». Based on these components, the author describes the mechanism of impact on the «background culture», from which the «public reason» emerges, which will define Rawls’ «political conception». Accordingly, the «political conception» can expand within EPL. Because of the complementarity of «good» and «right», it gains the ability to respond better to the political challenges, while maintaining the inviolability of fundamental political principles of society.

The problem of equal moral status

A central puzzle of contemporary moral and political philosophy is that while most of us believe that all or almost all human beings enjoy the same moral status, human beings possess the capacities that supposedly ground moral status to very unequal levels. This paper aims to develop a novel strategy to vindicate the idea of moral equality against this challenge. Its central argument is that the puzzle emerges only if one accepts a usually unstated theoretical premise about value and the proper response to value. The premise holds that if the presence of a valuable property warrants a certain kind of response towards its bearers, then every variation in the degree to which the property is present necessarily constitutes a reason for a corresponding variation in the response that is warranted towards its bearers. It argues that despite its intuitive appeal, the premise is not plausible as a general view about the proper way of responding to value, and as a view about responding to the value of rational beings in particular. It proposes an account of the proper manner of valuing rational beings that supports a distinctive version of the so-called threshold approach to justifying equal moral status.

Consensus, convergence, and COVID-19: The ethical role of religious reasons in leaders' response to COVID-19.

Focusing on current efforts to persuade the public to comply with COVID-19 best practices, this essay examines what role appeals to religious reasons should (or should not) play in leaders’ attempts to secure followers’ acceptance of group policies in contexts of religious and moral pluralism. While appeals to followers’ religious commitments can be helpful in promoting desirable public health outcomes, they also raise moral concerns when made in the contexts of secular institutions with religiously diverse participants. In these contexts, leaders who appeal to religious reasons as bases of justification for imposing COVID policies may seem to fail to show respect for the autonomy of those who lack the relevant religious commitments, and—especially when a leader herself rejects the religious commitments she makes reference to to persuade others—her appeals to religious reasons may seem to constitute ethically problematic exercises of manipulation. This essay draws on the resources of contemporary political philosophy to analyze and respond to these concerns and concludes that they are not sufficiently well-founded. To the contrary, it contends that there are good moral grounds for leaders to appeal to religious reasons as (partial) bases of justification for why followers should accept COVID policies. In the course of the argument, this essay also highlights how contemporary political theory can enrich discussions about the distinctions between coercion, manipulation, and leadership. It thereby give insight not only into the ethics of leadership but also—at least by the lights of central theories of leadership like that of James MacGregor Burns (1978)—into whether and how appeals to religious reasons can figure into genuine exercises of leadership, in contrast with mere instances of the wielding of social power.

Federalism: Contemporary political philosophy issues

AbstractFederalism has important implications for basic philosophical concepts, including authority and distributive justice. Philosophers played key roles in the development of federalism as a(n at least purportedly) normative doctrine. However, federalism remains peripheral in contemporary political philosophy, leading to periodic calls for renewed scrutiny. This article identifies questions that any complete philosophical account of federalism should aim to answer and provides an overview of some dominant responses to those questions offered in contemporary work in law, political science, and the nascent contemporary philosophical work on the doctrine. It first explains why federalism should be considered philosophically important. It then explores issues about the meaning and purpose, paradigm cases, institutional implications, and subjects/objects of federalism. It finally highlights the need to explain federalism's relationships to adjacent concepts, like democracy, subsidiarity, and self‐determination, and possible links between them.

The Concept of Honor in Contemporary Political Philosophy: A Critical and an Adaptational Argument

In spite of a growing number of contemporary publications in the field of political philosophy that are dedicated to the concept of honor and to it’s analysis, there still is a lack of a systemic presentation of the conceptual field of honor itself. Political theorists and philosophers that treat the subject of honor state out their definitions of honor and compare them with one another, yet a general overview of the competing definitions and their critical comparison is still a rarety. A systemic presentation of all prominent contemporary philosophical studies that treat the concept of honor is useful in two ways. It facilitates the understanding of the main arguments that determine different definitions of honor, as well as it identifies major polemical issues that set the diferent concepts of honor apart. This article suggests two main arguments – a critical and an adaptational – for interpreting and comparing the different concepts of honor in contemporary political philosophy. Structuring the conceptual field of honor with these two arguments offers an analytic tool for further analyses of honor that are based on concrete polemical issues. It also gives a new perspective to explain the reemergence of honor in contemporary political philosophy.

Political realism and the quest for political progress

Political realism and the quest for political progress

IF YOU’RE AN EGALITARIAN … SO WHAT?

AbstractG. A. Cohen is justly acclaimed for his penetrating and searching critique of the commanding Rawlsian liberal paradigm in contemporary political philosophy. He is also well known for his fervent advocacy of a radical view of economic equality, namely, that “justice requires (virtually) unqualified equality itself.” This essay focuses on two issues at the heart of Cohen’s critique, namely, his argument that economic equality is a moral as well as a political responsibility, and his interrogatory question: “If you’re an egalitarian, how come you’re so rich?” I take up critics’ objection that Cohen’s arguments for what economic egalitarianism requires are overly morally demanding. I also present a puzzle about the critical reception of Cohen’s work: Given the amount and quality of engagement with his arguments on what egalitarianism would look like in a future just society, how come there’s been such scant attention to his reflections on the predicament of the “rich egalitarian” in current-day unjust society? The essay culminates in a tentative answer to this question.

Protestant Christian Supremacy and Status Inequality

In the United States, Protestant Christian identity is the dominant religious identity. Protestant Christian identity confers status privileges, yet also creates objectionable status inequalities. Historical and contemporary evidence includes the unfair treatment of Mormons, Native Americans, Muslims, and other religious minorities. Protestant Christian supremacy also plays a significant role in bolstering anti LGBTQ prejudice, xenophobia, and white supremacy. Ways that Protestant Christian identity correlates with objectionable status inequalities are often neglected in contemporary political philosophy. This paper aims to make a modest contribution towards filling that gap. Some forms of inequality linked to Protestant Christian supremacy can be characterized as domination and oppression. Other instances include barriers to fair equality of opportunity for self-determination. Adapting ideas from egalitarian political philosophy I propose an analysis of objectionable status inequality rooted in Protestant Christian supremacy. Alan Patten’s defense of an egalitarian principle for assessing the effects of law and policy is helpful for this task.

Подход возможностей М.К. Нуссбаум: между нормативностью и релятивизмом

Many philosophical ideas of the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum are relevant and widespread in contemporary ethics and political philosophy. The most notorious of her theoretical ideas is her capability approach, designed to achieve basic human capabilities and to ensure respect for human dignity and a minimum level of social justice. The first problem considered in this article is the status of neo-Aristotelian ethics that is usually seen only as a critical theory, not a normative one, and Nussbaum’s primary attempt to classify neo-Aristotelians as either anti-Utilitarians or anti-Kantians. Despite this differentiation in her one article, there is no such distinction in her further works. The second problem in question is a reconstruction of the Aristotelian approach of virtues in the Nussbaumian interpretation and her attempt to combine it with two types of her capability approach – the basic and the global one. The article also focuses on whether the capability approach is normative or relativistic, and its critique.

The Right to Have Rights in the Americas

This article examines how Hannah Arendt’s idea of a “right to have rights” could travel in the Americas. It offers a reading of the right to have rights that foregrounds the right to land as a basic right. This reading emerges through an attention to contemporary Indigenous social movements and political philosophy. Taken together, this examination and reading ask justice-oriented actors to support land back movements as part of a broader practice of defending human rights and situating those rights within a responsibility to land.

Communitarian Critiques of Liberalism and Its Applicability

The debate between communitarianism and liberalism constitutes the main line of contemporary political philosophy. The challenges of communitarianism are mainly reflected in three aspects. First, communitarianism challenges the liberal “individual” with “community”. Second, communitarianism challenges the “justice” of liberalism with the "common good". Third, communitarianism uses “historicism” to challenge liberal “universalism”. In essence, individuals and societies coexist and construct each other in reality.