Political Philosophy Research Articles

Professional Ethics in the Commodity Economy

Research on professional ethics in the conditions of commodity economy aims to clarify the systematic transformation of natural functions into social tasks, thereby clarifying the moral life governed by standards and measured by money; profession is the object of life. The content of the article uses the methodology of humanistic and social philosophy, and combines qualitative methods in the study of moral life, in which humans are both the subject and the object of morality. The result has clarified the object of morality, which is the truth of life. However, the truth of life is standardized and measured by money, causing the truth to be distorted. Profession is joy, the mission of life, the truth, creativity, and freedom in profession, but working for money is suffering; that is, forced labor. The conclusion is that the right to own life in all species is the instinct of survival. Property rights make each individual a product of the family, religion, state, economic unit, and professional organization. Standards are the measure of occupation, and social status in the division of labor becomes the appropriation of money from each other, giving rise to class morality. The struggle is not to abolish humans but to abolish everything that is not human for sustainable development in a commodity economy.

The ethics of alterity and the ethics of care in literary studies

The ethics of care has regularly been described via contrast with deontological, consequentialist, and virtue theories of ethics. Often, such descriptions play care and justice against one another as potentially congruent but frequently competing social goods. This articulation of the field, which moves across major perspectives within moral and political philosophy, does not fully describe how ethics appears in some areas of humanities, particularly literary studies, where an ‘ethics of alterity’ has predominated for several decades. This ethics emphasizes a scene of encounter across difference, and an ethical responsibility to the other which has been narrativized via the scene of hospitality. This essay proposes that the ethics of care and the ethics of alterity share much—more than care ethics shares with other kinds of moral philosophy. But it also identifies differences which have made it easier to position alterity, rather than care, as a guiding ethos for literature, literary criticism, and literature education. Why is this so, and what would it mean for the ethics of care to be more central in literary study and literature education? Taking as an occasion a novel explicitly concerned with care-taking and care-giving, J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man (2005), the essay explores the prospects for a care-focused practice of literary studies.

How to Do Things with Normative Political Theories: The Performative Nature of Political Philosophy

Recently, there has been much debate about the role and nature of political theories. Jeremy Waldron has argued that we misconstrue a theory’s purpose if we summarize it in terms of ‘What Plato Would Allow’, because a normative theory is a conceptual exploration and should not be reduced to a policy wish list. To make sense of such phrases beyond Waldron’s critique, this paper provides some conceptual tools to clarify the practical purpose of normative political theories. First, it draws on Bernard Williams’ distinction between the enactive and structural models in political theory. Second, it seeks to reconstruct normative political theories as sets of speech acts having an illocutionary point that expresses the relation between theory and practice. Third, the paper outlines five types of illocutionary points (Intervention, Justification, Reconciliation, Critique, and Imagination of alternatives). The idea of an illocutionary point can make sense of the practical import of a theory in a multifaceted manner and without subscribing to a specific conception of practicality.

Book Review: Concealed Silences and Inaudible Voices in Political Thinking

Book Review: Concealed Silences and Inaudible Voices in Political Thinking

X-Phi and Theory Acceptance in Political Philosophy

AbstractWhat is the relevance of experimental philosophy (X-Phi) to theory acceptance in political philosophy? To answer this question, the paper distinguishes between four views, to wit: (i) X-Phi as a systematic method to avoid or reduce biases in our moral intuitions—The De-Biasing View; (ii) X-Phi as a tool for assessing the fruitfulness or consequences of various concepts—The Fruitfulness View; (iii) X-Phi as the best way to unearth the kind of moral principles we are interested in as political philosophers—The Unearthing Principles View; and (iv) X-Phi as a way of testing the coherence of principles with folk intuitions—The Defeasible Reason (or Squatters’ Rights) View. The paper argues that the first two views and the last—subject to some clarifications—describe important X-Phi contributions to theory acceptance as this is traditionally understood within contemporary political philosophy. In contrast, the third view goes too far in suggesting that X-Phi can supplant more traditional, in part non-empirical, methods.

О ФОРМИРОВАНИИ ПАРАДИГМЫ КОНКУРЕНЦИИ В ПОЛИТИЧЕСКОЙ ФИЛОСОФИИ РАННЕГО МОДЕРНА (Т. ГОББС И И. КАНТ)

В современных академических исследованиях понятие «конкуренция» вполне справедливо считается междисциплинарным. Постоянным объектом интенсивной дискуссии является вопрос об особенностях ценностного восприятия конкуренции, вследствие чего нормативный элемент нередко становится составной частью даже строго научных дефиниций. Любое определение конкуренции во многом зависит от различных субъективных ее оценок этического свойства, прежде всего, от того, рассматривается ли она в качестве полезной или, наоборот, приносящей вред. У большинства специалистов обычно не вызывает сомнения тот факт, что многие современ-ные представления о конкуренции как социально-политическом феномене восходят в ранним этапам формирования античной общественной мысли. Политическая философия Гоббса и Канта представляет собой важное «соединительное звено», позволяя исследователям четко зафиксировать линию преемственности споров о природе конкуренции между классической древностью и современными теоретическими дис-куссиями. Уже в ранний период своего творчества Гоббс разработал две основные модели естественного состояния, основанные на идеях конкуренции и различия, а также третью зарождающуюся модель «языкового хаоса». Заслуживает внимания ги-потеза Дж. Гамильтона, согласно которой в основе гоббсовской философской аргументации, связанной с разработкой теорий естественного состояния и государства, лежит комплекс идей, который он определяет как «состязательное мышление». Следующий радикальный по своему значению и теоретическим следствиям этап разработки идеи конкуренции безусловно связан с моральной и политической философией И. Канта, инициировавшего продолжающуюся уже несколько веков дискуссию о международном порядке. В кантовской философии рельефно отразились новые представления о роли конкуренции, тесно связанные с промышленной революцией в Англии и постепенным распространением идеи общественного прогресса. In modern academic research, the concept of “competition” is quite rightly considered interdisciplinary. A constant object of intense discussion is the question of the peculiarities of the value perception of competition, as a result the normative element often becomes an integral part of even strictly scientific definitions. Any definition of competition largely de-pends on various subjective assessments of its ethical properties, first of all, on whether it is considered useful or, conversely, harmful. Most experts usually have no doubt about the fact that many modern ideas of competition as a socio-political phenomenon go back to the early stages of the formation of ancient social thought. The political philosophy of Hobbes and Kant represents an important “connecting link” providing clear fixation by specialists of the line of continuity of debates about the nature of competition between classical antiquity and modern theoretical discussions. Already in the early period of his work, Hobbes developed two main models of the state of nature, based on ideas of competition and difference, as well as a third emerging model of “linguistic chaos”. The hypothesis of J. Hamilton is worthy of attention, according to which the basis of Hobbes's philosophical argumentation associated with the development of theories of the state of nature and the state is a complex of ideas, which he defines as “adversarial thinking”. The next stage in the development of the idea of ​​competition, radical in its significance and theoretical consequences, is certainly associated with the moral and political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who initiated the discussion about the international order that has been going on for several centuries. Kant's philosophy clearly reflected new ideas about the role of competition, closely related to the industrial revolution in England and the gradual spread of the idea of ​​social progress.

Personal Life in the Context of Globalization

The purpose of this study is to clarify the role of the individual in social life; each individual is not only a subject of cognition but also an object of cognition in the context of globalization. To achieve the above purpose, the author uses the methodology of humanistic philosophy and social philosophy, as well as qualitative, analytical, synthetic, comparative, and vice versa. The result is that the subject satisfies his capacity and needs through different activities and lifestyles. Respecting personal life is respecting differences in tradition, culture, religion, beliefs, occupation, and job position. The purpose, method, and results achieved by the author can lead to the conclusion that personal life is human communication. The capacity of an individual is the need of another individual. Mutual satisfaction between individuals is the ultimate happiness of life. In globalization, individuals have many opportunities to assert their abilities and needs, but at the same time, each faces challenges.

John Locke’s political philosophy

Abstract John Locke (1632-1704) was an English philosopher, very influential in the 17th century. He is considered the first English empiricist, where his ideas had an enormous influence on the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings later influenced Voltaire and Rousseau. Regarding the examination of the natural state, Locke, like Hobbes, starts from the problem of what characterizes the natural state, when there is no political power. Unlike Hobbes, Locke thought that the state from nature was an affordable state characterized by reason and tolerance. As for the social contract, he understood it as “a way to ensure the natural morality of man in a more efficient way, not to throw away his ugly condition, but to achieve his goals, that is, peace and security” (Locke, 2012). The paper also examines the influence and importance of Locke’s ideas in the development of modern political thought, analyzing how these concepts have contributed to the shaping of democratic ideas and human rights. In conclusion, a critique and re-contextualization of Locke’s theories in the contemporary context is offered, addressing their relevance to current issues of governance and justice in modern societies. This analysis aims to help deepen the understanding of Locke’s political philosophy and assess its influence on today’s political theories and practices.

A Critic on the Other Side of the Rhine? On the Appropriations of Foucault's Political Thought by the Heirs of the Frankfurt School

In this article, I make the case that the reception of Foucault's political thought by different authors linked to the Frankfurt School tradition (J. Habermas, N. Fraser, A. Honneth, A. Allen and M. Saar) allows us to discern a series of transformations within the tradition itself. In general terms, it is argued that the fundamental change concerns the gradual abandonment of the problem of social rationalization in favor of a perspective focused on the question of processes of subjectivation, a change that calls into question the very meaning of the tradition.

Science as public service

The problem this paper addresses is that scientists have to take normatively charged decisions which can have a significant impact on individual members of the public or the public as a whole. And yet mechanisms to exercise democratic control over them are often absent. Given the normative nature of these choices, this is often perceived to be at odds with basic democratic principles. I show that this problem applies in similar ways to civil service institutions and draw on political philosophy literature on the civil service (e.g. Rosanvallon, 2011; Heath, 2022) to discuss when such normative judgements can nevertheless be said to be democratically legitimate. Concretely, I seek to show that normative judgements in research need not be democratically legitimated in order for science to be democratically legitimate. Indeed, it can be democratically legitimate for scientists to go against the expressed views of the public or political representatives if this is justified in light of, firstly, the role science has been asked to fulfil and, secondly, when it is in line with public institutions’ key principles. This is a counter-position to views currently held in the values in science debate (e.g. by Kitcher, 2011; Intemann, 2015; Schroeder, 2021; Lusk, 2021) which argue that value-laden judgements in science are legitimate if they are aligned with the public’s views or directly decided by public.

Thinking politically about social work in child protection and welfare: A radical Reappropriation of the works of Hannah Arendt

This article presents a theoretical exposition of Arendtian political philosophy for child protection and welfare social work. The aim is to better understand and inform social work in the field of child protection and welfare, whilst accounting for the political context of practice. Sustaining the exposition is the view that power-laden child protection systems are ultimately socio-political through their authority to intervene in private family life. This is partly owing to the instrumental power inherent in child protection systems to exert dominance and control over service users and social groups leading to raced, gendered and classed outcomes in child welfare. To unpack the political nature of social work in child protection and welfare, a tripartite conceptual frame of private, public and social domains is derived from Arendt’s philosophical work. This is critically applied to put forward seven propositions for how social work can develop in child protection and welfare, with respect to practice in a socio-political context. Practical implications for future social work include implementing evidence-informed advocacy efforts and conducting empirical research toward preserving balance in social work attention to public and private life.

Review of Bidyut Chakrabarty and Rajendra K. Pandey, Modern Indian Political Thought: Text and Context

Review of Bidyut Chakrabarty and Rajendra K. Pandey, Modern Indian Political Thought: Text and Context

Becoming Hoa: Indigenous Political Thought and the Question of Settler Aloha 'Āina in Hawai'i

Abstract: How is Indigenous-settler solidarity to protect interconnected social ecologies urgent yet altogether precarious? The essay stews on this question in the context of Hawai'i and, through immanent critique of theories about settler aloha 'āina, demonstrates that becoming hoa provides a necessary alternative practice and dialectic process of binding relations together to aloha 'āina. First, I elaborate on Kanaka Maoli conceptualizations of aloha 'āina to foreground the investigation in Indigenous political thought and therein launch an immanent critique of settler aloha 'āina. Second, I examine the question of settler aloha 'āina to explore what it means, and its political and ethical implications concerning solidarity. I contend that the "settler" of settler aloha 'āina undermines Indigenous political thought by obscuring aloha 'āina. Third, I argue that becoming hoa is an alternative mode of solidarity to being settler aloha 'āina. Beyond contributing to critical interdisciplinary scholarship on Hawai'i, the analysis is useful for researching other contexts wherein non-Indigenous theorists, discourses, and movements deploy "settler" as a qualified additive to Indigenous worldviews and practices toward cultivating solidarity with Indigenous peoples on their territories. Settler liberal humanism's attachment to Indigenous worldviews and practices should be reconsidered even as it clings tightly to the language of solidarity.

«Советское» Сергея Никольского

The paper is a reflection on the first part of duology (two inextricably linked parts of one work) entitled “Soviet” by the Russian social philosopher Sergei Nikolsky. In the second part of duology, Nikolsky offers a philosophical analysis of Soviet literature, or rather a philosophical and literary analysis of the idea of the “Soviet”. The first part is devoted to the historiosophy of the “Soviet”. Therefore, the author of the review, to illuminate the author’s intention, focuses on the first volume and mainly writes about the preconditions of the “Soviet” that Sergei Nikolsky discovers in Russian history. The uniqueness of the “So­viet” consists primarily in the unexpected vitality of the idea, the originality of the social practice corresponding to it and the specific creative totality. “So­viet” is not only Leninism and Stalinism, but a socio-political adaptation of Marxism to a special historically determined context, the “Russian soil”. This is also a political and philosophical project to reform personal social conscious­ness, to create a new person and to build a new world. The source of the “So­viet” were the leaders and the state apparatus, but it appeared first in the heads of Marxist-oriented intellectuals, and then produced by the people as a whole and existed thanks to them and deeply-rooted tradition. Sergei Nikolsky admits that the “Soviet” had both the humanistic and liberating potential of the philoso­phy of Karl Marx. Thus, the “Soviet” is the idea of the comprehensive develop­ment of man, the construction of a future brotherhood, as well as the heroism shown by the people during the Great War. The author of the paper also writes on the special tonality of the “Soviet”, finding it successful

Education Motto of President Ho Chi Minh - Theoretical Basis of the Orientation of Constructing Philosophy of College Education in Vietnam Nowadays

From the philosophy of life and human morality, Ho Chi Minh's epistemology was raised to a high general level of dialectical thinking on the basic issues of the Vietnamese revolution. The outstanding characteristic of him is to perceive thoroughly and thoughtfully the nature and movement trends of things, phenomena and life processes in relationships, and then, correctly and appropriately solve the development requirements of real life. He grasped the laws of history, creatively applied them and developed them to a new level. The legacies that he left behind have created a system of comprehensive, diverse and rich philosophies, such as: The philosophy of human life, educational philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of great solidarity,... creating a Ho Chi Minh philosophy with the title of a sage, a philosopher, or a schoolman, brilliant thinker, practicing dialectician. Therefore, his educational philosophy and educational motto have profound theoretical and practical value in the direction of modern Vietnamese educational philosophy.

Political Philosophy and Moral Thinking as Phenomena and/or Personages: An Essential Short Guide of a Pragmatist Reader

Despite their similarity in style, language, and performance, symmetry, repetition, and the game of arbitrariness are represented by parallel intentional paths. After years of amorphous searching through the compilation of ruins and rubble, we could, with this study, carry out the situational need for the signifier and the signified by establishing a short theoretical framework that helps illuminate the striking appearance of pragmatic phenomena. For underlying concrete acts of interpretation, to understand the meaning to the required extent, alternatively constructed enactment must manage moral thinking and political practice to rationalise the symbolism on the map at the core of the theoretical construction. Since reports, as Mehan and Wood (1975) scholarly warrant, are decoded on behalf of the facts, not of social beings, certain pragmatics of a linguistic complex, according to Saussure (1959), show that word order alone expresses the thought.

Money Life in These Conditions

The content of the article aims to clarify the life of money in today's conditions, thereby showing that money is not only a measure of value but also a commodity in the exchange of buying and selling; all activities of human life are determined by money. To clarify the purpose of the article, the author uses the methodology of human philosophy and social philosophy, and at the same time, uses qualitative methods, analysis, comparison, and synthesis to clarify the life of money. The result is a systematization of the life of money, at the same time pointing out the driving force of money in the process of economic and social development. Still, it also threatens the sustainable development of human society. With all the above content, I can conclude that: one, money is a product of human beings; it becomes a means of buying and selling goods; two, money is a common commodity, which makes money a monopoly product of the state; Third, the competition in issuing money becomes the competition between nations in all aspects of social life, from economics, politics, culture, to science, weapons, and war.

Ideological Mind-Shaping or Brain-Shaping: Fusing Empirical Biopolitics and Political Philosophy of Mind

There are two primary philosophical approaches to examining the relationship between human bodies and political bodies. The first, reflected in traditional political theory on the body politic, is concerned with the question of how individuals aggregate into functioning or malfunctioning collectives—how singular citizen bodies come to constitute wider political entities. The second approach, maturing later in 20th century social and political philosophy, considers the opposite relation: instead of evaluating how the body politic emerges from the bottom-up, it focuses on how bodies become politicized from the top-down. This, more sociological, perspective explores how human bodies are disciplined and learn to self-discipline into particular physical forms and functions. Dominant ideologies can infiltrate the bodies of adherents, and the task of the social critic or political philosopher is to delineate how, why, where, and when political structures shape the minds and bodies of citizens, as well as whether the effects are coercive, destructive, or liberatory. I will argue that a political philosophy of mind cannot flourish without attention to the cognitive science of ideologies. Until recently there has been little serious dialogue between biology and political philosophy, partly due to disciplinary balkanization and mostly because of the infancy of empirical biopolitics, the science of how cognitive and neurobiological processes are molded by political ideologies. I will suggest that attending to the emerging science of ideological cognition can allow us to build a stronger, more compelling, and provocative thesis on the mind-shaping consequences of immersion in ideologies than is possible with conceptual tools alone

The Black Consciousness Movement in Azania (South Africa): A triple heritage

Starting with the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall campaign, there has been renewed interest in the philosophy of black consciousness through popular expressions – on social media and mainstream media articles – and by scholars. This article seeks to revisit the origins of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in Azania (South Africa). Through an examination of primary sources, that is, documents written by the activist writers of the movement and secondary sources by scholars who reflect on the movement and other expressions of black resistance against colonialism and the oppression of black people globally, this article relies mainly on literature review of documents that are in the public domain. The overall findings of the review show that the BCM drew inspiration from and was shaped by the ‘black radical tradition’ influences from North America (specifically the United States), the Caribbean and South American region, and from the African continent, including locally in South Africa. While shaped by these influences the BCM adapted them and responded to the peculiarities of the condition of black people in South Africa and thus formulated a unique brand of black consciousness. The conclusion reached herein is that movements and the ideas that they espouse, are often confluences of views and practices drawn from different sources.Transdisciplinary Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the evolution of political movements from a variety of disciplines – political studies, history, sociology of ideas, history of consciousness and political philosophy.

Looking beyond women’s feminist thought in history

ABSTRACT Historians of political thought have done important and insightful work on women’s history of political thought. This scholarship has proliferated since the mid to late twentieth century and has focused largely on the feminist aspects of their thought. Although this was at first a necessary and crucial correction of prior neglect, I argue that by now this has turned into an overcorrection. By turning to the early reception and rediscovery of two eighteenth-century English female political thinkers, Mary Astell (1666–1731) and Catharine Macaulay (1731–1791), I show that this feminist focus can stand in the way of inclusion by obscuring other important aspects of women’s political thought. I also contend that the feminist focus implies an unfair double standard where women – as opposed to canonical men – are thought of as worthy of inclusion only if they espoused or anticipated ideas that would seem agreeable from a present perspective. This leads to the paradoxical conclusion that, if we want to do justice to the feminist aim of comprehensive inclusion of past female thinkers, we must learn to look beyond women’s feminist thought in history and to embrace their afeminist and even anti-feminist thought.