Liberal Philosophy Research Articles

Neoliberalism and its criticism by well-known defenders of the market order

The article critically examines the philosophy of neoliberalism. The author finds a wide destructive potential of neoliberalism for society and the state. The privatization promoted by the neoliberal ideology, the withdrawal of the state from the economic and social spheres, the rejection of protectionism have a negative impact on the development of the economy and on the standard of living of society. The economic freedom exalted by liberal philosophy makes it possible for speculative activity to develop. Ethical foundations are undermined by the substitution of personal responsibility for social protection. Liberal philosophy creates numerous myths, with the help of which an ideological defense of the growth of inequality and many other socially unacceptable results of the functioning of the liberal economic and political system is built. The article proves the mythological nature of liberal theses about free competition and equality of chances, about hard work as the key to success. The unreasonableness of pairing neoliberalism with democracy is postulated. Anti-democracy seems to be inherent in neoliberalism. The social disfunctionality of neoliberal reforms and their anti-national character are proved. The growth of inequality, the loss of sovereignty by states, the expansion of poverty, the development of the corporate sector (including socially irresponsible speculative capital) is a natural result of the functioning of the neoliberal project. This project is a methodology in the hands of transnational business for opening up the economies of sovereign states and enslaving societies. The growth of inequality in the world is associated with the policy of neoliberal reforms. The modern “postmodern economy” is characterized by virtualization, simulacrization, and financial speculation. In the article, the greatest attention is paid to the development of the speculative financial sector, which has become widespread due to the implementation of neoliberal policies. Financial speculation is considered as a socially harmful phenomenon, bearing its share of responsibility for the growth of inequality. Special attention in the article is paid to the recently expressed positions of analysts who have long stood on the ideological ground of defending neoliberalism. However, it is interesting that due to the disastrous results that this project brings to humanity, they have in some way changed their attitude towards it.

JUSTICE AND THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC WORLD ORDER

The article examines the features of the world order existing in the modern civilizational place. It is mainly formed on the inviolability of faith in the justice of the ideals and values of law, the achievement of which is ensured by the supremacy of the power of the law rule. The justice ontology of the understanding transformation is analyzed in particular. The article analyzes the justice ontology of the understanding transformation. At the same time, the format of its achievement is in the following logic: freedom – duties – rights is replaced by logic: law – rights – freedom. The evolution of the social arrangement of society based on the supremacy of the power of laws is traced. It is emphasized that a special demand in the laws defining the right to a measure of human freedom was adopted by individual states in the era of bourgeois revolutions in Europe and America. At the same time, the use of natural law doctrines and concepts of the philosophy of liberalism was due to the growing desire in society to expand the rights of subjects in order to protect them from medieval religious and feudal-secular arbitrary power. It is shown that the observance of «human rights» has become the leading criterion for achieving justice in society. The author substantiates the illusory nature of ensuring the triumph of universal justice if the existing world order will continue to be built only on this basis.

Should Political Leaders Be Highly Educated?

ABSTRACTMany liberal philosophers view elite education as a virtue of political leaders and, in addition, hold that an important role of a just education system is to create better elites. A compelling and influential articulation of this view has been offered by Elizabeth Anderson. However, this view is in conflict with a commitment to substantive democracy, given the background conditions of the United States today. This article will argue, contra Anderson, that having the highly educated disproportionately represented in political leadership is incompatible with egalitarian principles of democracy. The key reason for this is that it systematically shuts out the working class from full political participation. Therefore, in order to satisfy the constraints of democracy, we must sever the connection between elite education and political office.

Religiones nativas y pensamiento popular. El aporte de Rodolfo Kusch a la corriente argentina de teología

The relations that Kusch established with the Argentine current of liberation philosophy and the encounter with the Argentine current of liberation theology. In these encounters and intersections, Rodolfo Kusch's thinking on native religions, popular thought, religiosity and popular wisdom influenced, through Juan Carlos Scannone, the conceptualization and systematic development of the theology of the people. In this text I will refer firstly to the sapiential and symbolic in the thought of Rodolfo Kusch within the framework of the logic of negation and the sapientiality of the popular. (1) Second, I will present the absolute and founding wisdom in the context of native religions and popular thought. (2)

The Human “Historicity” as a Permanent Transition in the Philosophy of Ignacio Ellacuría

Ignacio Ellacuría was brutally murdered in November the 16th, 1989 by the hands of El Salvador’s Armed Forces; ten years later in 1999, a quick but detailed “schema” of Xavier Zubiri’s anthropology, which he had used for a course he taught between July and August 1968 at the Centro de Estudios Superiores para el Desarrollo (CESDE) in Medellín, was published within the second volume which collected the Jesuit’s philosophical writings. The “schema” brings together many of those theses that form the basis of his most important work, and which came out posthumously, “Filosofía de la realidad histórica” (1990); this was developed in close comparison with the thought of the great Spanish philosopher whose Ellacuría was student and collaborator. The historiographical reconstruction of the salient passages of Ellacuría’s research on the relationship between historicity and history in the broader Zubiri anthropological context makes possible to highlight some peculiar aspects of the Jesuit’s thought, which is not merely limited to offer a new and different line of interpretation of Zubiri’s thought. The prominence of the idea of history as a transition within the social body, characteristic of the human experience, offers a new perspective, all internal to the Ibero-American philosophy of liberation, and at the same time, allows us to trace new and different sources in Ellacuría’s philosophical production.

Liberalism Philosophy Influence in Islamic Social Movements in Malaysia

This article focuses on the early development of evolution and the development of liberalism specifically in Malaysia since it was brought by the western colonists to form a social movement in Malaysia. The objective of this article is to see how liberalism progresses in influencing a liberal Islamic movement in Malaysia. The philosophy of liberalism in Malaysia is not a new issue, but a philosophy that has long existed among the Malaysian Muslim community. This article uses the method of historical analysis to look at the development of the philosophy of liberalism to highlight the impact of the evolution of liberalism in Malaysia. This writing found that the philosophy of liberalism has been seen as having an evolution among the community in Malaysia since it was first brought by the colonialists to form a social movement in Malaysia which is referred to as the liberal Islamic movement. In fact, supporters of liberalism are increasingly highlighting the philosophy of liberalism, especially through the liberal Islamic movement and in the name of human rights. Although the philosophy of liberalism has existed in the middle of society in areas of life such as economics, politics, culture, law and administration in Malaysia. This article found that the development and dissemination of the philosophy of liberalism can lead to threats in the society if there are no social control of various new ideology in Malaysia.

Decoding the Changing Role of the Neo-Liberal State in a Globalising World: Convergence of Public–Private Partnership in Innovative Governance

Ever since the concept of territorial nation-state occupied the centre stage of global politics, the international community has witnessed different political and economic systems being introduced from time-to-time to cater to the needs of the global community. Since the inception of the Westphalia State System (Treaty of Westphalia 1648), nation states have reinvented themselves and re-imagined their political and economic trajectories to adapt themselves to the changing needs of time and circumstances. In the contemporary international political economy, one finds a paradigm shift towards the convergence of interests between private and public, where the states across the globe are striving to achieve common good and promote public interest by creating a synergy with the private stakeholders. This article aims at decoding the circumstances and explaining the rationale behind the changing role of the state, while redefining its economic strategy and priorities in the era of globalisation. It further tries to examine the areas of convergence and issues of divergence in public–private partnership in pursuit of the goals of development and progress. The conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of the article are conceived around the philosophy of liberalism and democracy, on the one hand, and the institutional framework of free market capitalism, on the other, as envisaged in the doctrine of globalisation.

An anthropological investigation of cruelty and its contrasts

In liberal political philosophy, from Michel de Montaigne to Judith Shklar, cruelty – the wilful inflicting of pain on another in order to cause anguish and fear – has been singled out as ‘the most evil of all evils’ and as unjustifiable: the ultimate vice. An unconditional rejection and negation of cruelty is taken to be programmatic within a liberal paradigm. In this contribution, two anthropologists triangulate cruelty as a concept with torture (Stade) and with love (Rapport). Treating the capability to practise cruelty and the liability to suffer from cruelty as universal aspects of a human condition, Stade and Rapport aim to instantiate the precise enactment of cruelty, firstly, and secondly, to propose a process of its social negation. CIA training manuals and quotidian practice within the British National Health Service are employed as illustrative materials.

Against the grain

ABSTRACT This agenda-setting theory essay offers a collaborative response to Sprague, J. (1992). Expanding the research agenda for instructional communication: Raising some unasked questions. Communication Education, 41(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529209378867 early theorizing on critical approaches to communication pedagogy, developing it to account not only for critical developments since but also to the political precarity increasingly organizing everyday life, especially of the dispossessed and particularly of the Global South (Shome, 2020). Indeed, we argue that the only viable pedagogical route that responds to the precariousness of life in the twenty-first century must be emancipatory rather than reformist. To make our point, we offer a metareview of over a century of literature published in the Quarterly Journal of Speech (1915–1952) and Communication Education (formerly The Speech Teacher; 1952–2021) to reveal the same Western liberal philosophies of education undergirding communication pedagogies generally. In this regard, our agenda-setting essay calls for a paradigmatic shift against the grain and toward emancipatory futurities. Content warning: This essay cites anti-Indigenous, anti-Black, and xenophobic discourse; take good care of yourself as you move through these pages interrogating our disciplinary complicities.

Muscular Morality

Abstract This three-part essay discusses the sort of pragmatic, common-practice based animal liberation philosophy engagingly developed and successfully practiced by Bernard Rollin for many decades. Part I discusses the reasoning involved in holding both of the following beliefs: first, the value of animals’ lives and experiences is not limited to their usefulness for satisfying human interests; there is also the value their experiences and lives have for the animals themselves. Second, it is morally permissible for us routinely to sacrifice their interests in using animals to satisfy human needs and wants. Part II discusses why that reasoning is seldom questioned, and part III suggests some lessons that infrequency holds for animal liberation.

Conceptualizing Political Illiberalism: A Long Overdue Index of Illiberal Political Values

Abstract There is an urgent need to study illiberal political values. However, current efforts have focused on democratic values, democratic support, populist attitudes, and authoritarian values. Consequently, they have missed something older and more fundamental, namely, political illiberalism. Hence, I pave the way for future inquiries by proposing and validating a composite measure built upon a reverse engineering of political illiberalism from existing works on illiberal democracy, political intolerance, and the normative philosophy of political liberalism. Through quantitative psycho-political analysis (i.e., factor analysis, internal reliability tests, and basic descriptive statistics), I posit and dissect an index responding to the limits of existing ones. Overall, I define illiberal political values as a value system constituted by intolerant and leader-centric values tied with anti-institutionalist tendencies.

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’.

Avatars of colonial and liberal violences: the revelatory character of COVID-19 governance in Colombia

This article analyses the institutionalised injustices faced by Indigenous populations and other ‘others’ in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the government’s responses are rooted in a liberal philosophy that has historically sustained biases and inequalities through an exclusionary definition of citizenship. To analyse these issues, the article first concentrates on the broader epistemic assumptions of liberal citizenship and the ways in which they are connected to historical legacies in Colombia. Despite liberal claims of equality for all, the biases that emerge from these notions of citizenship lead towards political disempowerment, silencing, erasure and abandonment. Consequently, Indigenous peoples in Colombia have experienced institutionalised biases such as the prioritisation of particular forms of participation, the exclusion of populations from rights, and the elevation of plans of development that aim to erase other ways of being. These biases were further reinforced by the governmental responses to the pandemic. Hence, the article analyses the inequalities that have been exacerbated as a result of COVID-19 policies, showing their scope and depth, and establishing a discussion about injustices that might affect populations beyond the current context of Colombia.

On Kant’s Conception of Perpetual Peace—Rereading Kant’s “On Perpetual Peace”

Kant expressed his deep concern for the cause of human peace in the “Permanent Peace Theory”. The clauses concerning 
 the realization of permanent peace are based on the perspective of a global citizen who transcends ordinary citizens. Established 
 in a calm and rational questioning. These terms are too abstract in the eyes of many liberal philosophers. Therefore, many liberal 
 philosophers no longer try to use a comprehensive theory of value as the basis for the concept of peace, but we still have reason 
 to hope that there is some kind of abstraction. Although this principle has many differences in specific concepts, after proper 
 reflection, most people will agree with these principles.Rules and the way of thinking behind the principles, and eventually it is 
 possible to establish some logically advanced principles.

The Cultural and Spiritual Dimension of Russian Liberalism at the Turn of the Nineteenth/Twentieth Centuries

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the features of the intellectual and cultural environment in which the ideas of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century liberalism developed. Based on the assumption of liberalism as the “major ideology” created by the Enlightenment and, in that sense, a doctrine designed to “work” in any social and historical conditions, the author describes Russian liberalism as distinctive phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between the unique and the universal principles in Russian liberal philosophy and sociopolitical thought of this era. The article focuses on the influence that transformation of ideas and cultural life in turn-of-the-century Russia had on the representatives of liberalism: the then-urgent crisis of ideals at that time and the desire to identify new vectors for social development, radicalization of sentiments and reform projects, and so forth. The author also notes the reciprocal influence of ideas on the sociopolitical process. One of the key focuses of this article is the conceptual ideas of Orthodox renewal with the possibility of an ultimate synthesis of Christian and liberal ideas. This study should produce a fairly complete picture of the cultural and spiritual background of liberal thought in Russia at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

From the Welfare State to the Welfare Society: A Shift in Paradigm

Covid-19 and its aftermath brought home the lesson that in future we just cannot rely on welfare state to deal with sudden outbreaks or natural calamities. We would have to empower individuals in the era of digitalisation for quick support and social solidarity. We are living in a world today where profound socio-economic, political and cultural changes are taking place due to rapid technological changes and globalisation. The 2008 fiscal crisis made it clear that the new liberal philosophy is no longer valid in early 21st century. Unless and until there is solidarity at the societal level, the woes of modern men and women cannot be mitigated effectively. This study seeks to explore the possibility of a shift in paradigm from the welfare state to the welfare society in order to deal with some of the challenges faced by the welfare states in the 21st century. It concludes by highlighting the urgent need for associating participatory society and various stakeholders in the enterprise of welfare in future. The methodology adopted is analytical, comparative and empirical.

Conflict of allegiance: professional development challenges in transforming science teachers’ identities and practices

ABSTRACT Case studies of two biology teachers, Cathy and David, from the same minority-majority, urban U.S. high school, provide insights into their instructional practices while they engaged in long-term professional development (PD). Findings suggest why science teachers engaged with PD may, or may not, adopt more adaptive pedagogical approaches in the service of reform-based teaching. Gee’s institution- and affinity-identity constructs were used as analytic lenses regarding teachers’ perceptions of teaching, learning, and agency in the dual contexts of their school’s institutional environment and PD community. Over time, Cathy adopted more inquiry-based instructional practices she learned through PD seminars in building a scientific classroom discourse community with her majority Latinx students. Her professional identity and teaching became more aligned with the more progressive teaching philosophy and instructional practices promoted by the PD affinity group. While David understood and enjoyed the PD, ultimately, he minimally adopted new strategies, adhering mainly to his pre-PD mode of direct instruction, staying within the strict culture of accountability of his school’s administrative priorities to raise state test scores. These cases demonstrate why some teachers of diverse students are adaptive adopters of reform-based instruction through new affinity group membership, while others demonstrate greater allegiance to their institution-aligned identities.

Exploring the concept of ubuntu as a liberatory praxis

This article explores the notion of ubuntu philosophy as a praxis by employing Enrique Dussel’s philosophy of liberation as a critical lens. I aim to provide a contextual background to the imposed Euro-modernity that necessitates and dictates for a need for a liberatory praxis. I argue that given its anterior nature, ubuntu can be used as a praxis for the marginalised African subjects if authentically enacted to affirm critical consciousness and social transformation. To this end, I will critically analyse the two key maxims of ubuntu, namely “I am because you are”, and “my humanness is dependent on others’ humanity”.

The politics of 21st century environmental disasters

ABSTRACT We outline the main concerns for grappling with increasing environmental disasters in this Symposium. Our focus is threefold: first, to theoretically investigate what constitutes an environmental disaster and identify the parameters for political responses through the discourse in high level multilateral fora; through the construction of the sovereign state system; and through the promotion of ignorance. Second, we aim to identify contemporary practices of the state that exacerbate the impact of, and responses to, environmental disasters. We show how states promote extractivism based on limited understandings of nature drawn from Western political liberal philosophy. Finally, we highlight the strengths and weaknesses in political and institutional responses at the local level to such disasters by state and non-state actors. This shows how both slow and fast violence of environmental disasters affects communities, but also how vulnerable subjects are predicated on pre-existing capabilities.

As relações teórico-metodológicas entre Freire e Dussel e suas contribuições para uma práxis axiológico-transformadora

Abstract Studies that address the issue of the necessary values for a liberating education have been using authors such as Paulo Freire and Enrique Dussel. In this context, the present study aimed to characterize the axiological-transforming praxis of ethical-critical education. For this, a theoretical study was carried out with three points of discussion as reference: i) the theoretical-methodological relations between Freire's liberating pedagogy and the philosophy of Dusselian liberation; ii) Thematic Investigation contributions to the development of a Liberator Pedagogical Project; iii) the axiological perspectives from the relationship between pedagogy and the philosophy of liberation. This articulation allowed to understand the importance of popular culture values in the development of an ethical-critical educational process.