Problem Of Political Philosophy Research Articles

Ownership and convention

The basis of property rights is a central problem in political philosophy. The core philosophical dispute concerns whether property rights are natural facts, independent of human conventions. In this article, we examine adult judgments on this issue. We find evidence that familiar property norms regarding external objects (e.g., fish and strawberries) are treated as conventional on standard measures of authority dependence and context relativism. Previous work on the moral/conventional distinction indicates that people treat property rights as moral rather than conventional (e.g., Dahl & Waltzer, 2020; Nucci & Turiel, 1993; Tisak & Turiel, 1984). However, these studies explicitly assume that one person owns property that another steals. Study 1 explores judgments of authority dependence regarding ownership in cases that explicitly appeal to stealing and prior ownership as compared to cases that omit such explicit appeals. We find that participants tend to treat ownership as authority dependent when explicit appeals to stealing are absent, but not when the explicit appeals are present. Study 2 examines intuitions about authority dependence of ownership violations as compared to canonical conventional and harm-based moral violations. We find that ownership violations are treated as more authority dependent than harm-based moral violations. This all suggests that some central property norms are treated as conventional. However, we also find that the conventionality of property norms is restricted in several ways. In study 3, we find that people do not treat norms of self-ownership as conventional. Other people cannot take your hair or skin cells even if the teacher says it's okay. Study 4 uses a measure of context relativism to examine the conventionality of ownership norms, comparing different possible norms of ownership. We find that participants regard takings that are violations in their own culture as permissible in other cultures; however, only some foreign norms are deemed acceptable. In study 5 we find another limitation – participants think it's impermissible to take resources from someone based on a new property norm that is retrospectively imposed. Finally, in study 6 we explore whether some takings might be judged to be morally (non-conventionally) wrong as a function of scarcity. We find that when asked about another culture that allows taking, participants tend to say that taking a food item from the person who caught it is permissible when the food is plentiful, but not when the food is scarce.

A Theory of Argumentation: The Case of Ethical, Political, and Utopian Thinking

A relevant problem in political philosophy and political theory is the distinction between political and utopian arguments. The boundary between these two types of argumentation may be blurred, which leads us to the point when we often deal with contaminations of both ways of thinking in individual positions. This involves, for example, presenting a utopian argument as a political argument and vice versa. The main purpose of the article is to organize these issues by applying the argumentation model developed by Stephen Toulmin to the analysis of both theoretical approaches. The three main problems of this work are: 1) the distinction between political and ethical arguments; 2) identifying the proper structure of political argumentation; 3) evaluation of the coherence of the idea of a realistic utopia (proposed by John Rawls).

Distributive justice, equality and the enhancement of human cognition: A commentary on fairness and ‘cognitive doping’

What implications might the use of techniques to enhance human cognition have for the kind of polities or civil societies we inhabit? What might political philosophy, if anything, have to tell us about the desirability of using drugs to increase our intellectual powers? Much of the focus in contemporary debates about human enhancement has been upon the ethical desirability of endeavouring to enhance our capacities: should we be meddling with ‘human nature’, as it were? Therapeutic uses of drugs are regarded as acceptable but enhancement is frowned upon in much of this literature. This rejection of enhancement is especially prevalent in the area of sport where there is a great deal of opposition to doping. Herein I take a somewhat different approach and explore enhancement as a problem in political philosophy and, more specifically, as a problem of distributive justice. Should the enhancement of human intellectual functioning be rejected on distributive grounds of equality? Alternatively, might it be plausibly be argued that distributive justice requires such enhancement? In this paper I shall outline two contemporary theories of justice—namely, the Egalitarianism and the Rawlsian Prioritarianism—and then consider what these principles might tell us about the political legitimacy (or otherwise) of ‘doping for intellect’.

Much Ado About Body: Shakespeare’s Vision of Body Politic In 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'

This paper offers a new philosophical interpretation of the first scene of William Shakespeare’s play “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”. It analyzes Shakespeare’s vision of the “body politic” metaphor and the ways in which he used it to reflect on fundamental problems of political philosophy. These findings are backed by the comparison of the play’s storyline to its original source—Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans”. The author shows that Shakespeare deliberately changed Plutarch’s narrative in order to explicate the problematic character of organic metaphors as such and the metaphor of body politic in particular.

Equidad política, pluralidad cultural y comprensión del pasado histórico

Para Rawls, el problema de la filosofía política es la existencia duradera de una sociedad democrática, cuyos ciudadanos, sin embargo, no dejan de estar “profundamente divididos” por doctrinas religiosas, filosóficas y morales razonables. La convivencia de tal pluralidad en un espacio jurídico-estatal, está conformada por ideas intuitivas básicas, decantadas en un consenso superpuesto, que expresa la historicidad cultural de tal sociedad. Pero la trascendentalidad reflexiva del concepto ético-político de ciudadano debe realizar una epokhé sobre los procesos culturales de identificación que la posibilitan. La justicia constitucional como equidad establece la discriminante entre razón pública y razón privada. Pero para el A. la privatización de la racionalidad personal y cultural socava la durabilidad y estabilidad postuladas. Los procesos de identificación personal y cultural consistentes, no se resuelven en la mera privacidad ni progresan en la mutua extraneidad de la tolerancia pasiva e indiferente, que concentra la vida pública en el sólo horizonte del poder. Ricoeur elabora el concepto de tolerancia difícil o virtuosa. Implica autoconciencia de la propia identidad y diálogo crítico en el espacio público de la pluralidad como libertad cultural y educativa. La hipótesis de significado transmitida por el propio pasado histórico es una instancia fundamental de confrontación para identificaciones exigentes. Éstas consolidan la intercomunicación en el espacio público de la sociedad civil, generando una democracia viva y durable. AbstractAccording to Rawls, the problem of the political philosophy is the lasting existence of a democratic society whose citizens, however, do not stop being “deeply divided” by reasonable religious, philosophical and moral doctrines. The act of living together in such plurality in a juridical state space is conformed by intuitive basic ideas, decanted in an overlapping consent, that expresses the cultural historicity of such society. But the reflexive transcendentalism of the ethical-political concept of citizen, must achieve an epoché of the cultural process of identification that will make it possible. The constitutional justice as equity sets down the discrimination between public reason and private reason. But for the A. the privatization of the personal and cultural rationality undercuts the postulated durability and stability. The processes of consistent personal and cultural identifications cannot be solved in mere privacy and they do not progress in the mutual extraneity of the passive and indifferent tolerance that concentrates the public life only in power horizon. Ricoeur elaborates the concept of difficult or virtuous tolerance. It implicates self-consciousness of the proper identity and critical dialogue in the public space of the plurality, as cultural and educative freedom. The hypothesis of meaning transmitted by its own historical past is a fundamental instance of confrontation for exigent identifications. These consolidate the intercommunication in the public space of the civil society, generating a live and durable democracy.

Trust, Reliance, and Democracy

From the perspective of philosophy and political science it is often pointed out that trust is of central value for democracy. The paper critically examines this claim and argues that we should not overestimate the role of trust in democracy. In order to do that, I argue for a specific understanding of the notion of trust that appropriately accounts for the distinction between trust and mere reliance. In a second step, I argue that we have no reason to put this kind of trust in our elected officials and representatives, but should instead focus on legislative and institutional ways to make sure that they are reliable in particular respects. After contrasting my suggestion with the position of Hardin, I point to two advantages of my account: (1) The avoidance of political analysis through the lens of trust allows us to react more flexibly to unforeseen circumstances and resist populist attempts to emotionalize public debates; (2) at the same time, diffusing the tension between trust and civic vigilance solves a systematic problem in political philosophy. In a concluding section, I briefly discuss the question whether there is an alternative role for trust to play in the field of politics.

An Approach to the Problem of Authority

This paper examines the central problem of authority as illustrated through the lenses of philosophical anarchism. The justification of authority constitutes the paramount problem of political philosophy. The philosophical debate on political obligation, initiated by defenders of the state and anarchists, concerns the justification of a special bond between citizens and political institutions and lies at the centre of the discussion on authority. Philosophical anarchism’s criticism of political obligation creates great difficulties to state justification. Yet, this anarchist strand has been dismissed as a merely negative critique of political authority, with no alternative positive proposal of its own. In disagreement with this view, this paper aims at improving our idea of authority by revealing the value of the anarchist approach. For this I focus on the position of critical philosophical anarchism and on three theorists each of whom relates in a significant way to this position. I discuss Rousseau as a traditional theorist whose view is a basic inspiration for the anarchist approach to political institutions. Joseph Raz’s theory is analyzed as a view largely compatible with critical philosophical anarchism’s perspective on state authority. Finally, I discuss Simmons as a representative critical philosophical anarchist, from whose approach, however, I depart in my defense of critical philosophical anarchism. My conclusion is that critical philosophical anarchism sheds a new light on the important insights on authority offered by the above theorists and helps us adopt a new perspective on political institutions. In contrast with political anarchism, it does not propose to overthrow the state. Yet it justifies the former by establishing an everlasting criticism of authority. The absence of political obligation reaffirms the responsibility of citizenship. This entails a responsibility on our part, whether anarchists or not, to participate in evaluating continually authority’s decisions and practices, toward a better political world.

The Good Bishop and the Explanation of Political Authority

A central problem of political philosophy is that of explaining how a state could have the moral authority to enforce laws, promulgate laws which citizens are thereby obliged to obey, give new duties to citizens and levy taxes. Many rival solutions to this problem of political authority have been offered by contemporary and recent philosophers but none has obtained wide acceptance. The current debate takes no cognisance of George Berkeley’s ‘Passive Obedience’, in which he defends the exceptionless duty of not using force to resist the state and offers a rule-consequentialist account of morality which indicates an explanation of political authority as grounded in the social connectedness of human beings. I expound, criticise and develop Berkeley’s explanation to provide a promising solution to the problem of political authority. The solution impugns the political authority of all existing states as well as the duty of passive obedience.

IN WHAT SENSE MUST POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY BE POLITICAL?

Abstract:Political philosophy appears to have recovered from its alleged death in the middle of the last century, but now faces the realist charge that in the work of John Rawls and those influenced by him it fails to be political in the right way; it is merely “applied moral philosophy.” I dismiss the hyper-realist position of authors such as Raymond Geuss for taking an implausibly narrow view of politics. There is more merit in Bernard Williams’s claim that legitimacy, not justice, is the central problem of political philosophy. Yet we cannot understand the significance of legitimation without referring to the moral values that are realized when it succeeds. Thus, Williams fails to show that political normativity can be detached entirely from ethics. Moreover the legitimacy requirements of a liberal state, according to Williams, are substantively close to the requirements of justice according to Rawls. In light of the latter’s turn to “political liberalism,” they appear also to hold convergent views about the status of the theories they are advancing. I conclude by suggesting that the “applied moral philosophy” charge would apply only to philosophers who believe that general moral principles, like utility or rights, can do all the work of political evaluation. Politics does indeed have special features that impose distinctive justificatory requirements on its procedures and the outcomes they produce.

<I>The Concept of Law</I> and Political Philosophy

H.L.A. Hartʼs "The Concept of Law" is, of course, primarily a work of legal philosophy. It is indeed the most influential work of legal philosophy in the English language (and perhaps in any language) published during the twentieth century. However, the immense importance of the book for philosophers of law should not prevent readers from discerning its importance for political and moral philosophers as well. Hartʼs insights into the nature of law and sovereignty are themselves of great significance for political philosophy, and the second half of "The Concept of Law" contains ruminations on justice and on the relationships between law and morality that deserve attention from anyone who aspires to think clearly about the problems of political philosophy. In a short compass, this paper -- written for the "Oxford Handbook of Classics in Political Theory" -- seeks to underscore the import of Hartʼs classic text for theorists who grapple with those problems.

Niilismo e política em Leo Strauss

Trata-se de pensar a possibilidade da filosofia política. Para tanto, procura-se situar a questão a partir da obra de Leo Strauss, objetivando-se mostrar por que o niilismo contemporâneo - em suas mais difundidas e às vezes insuspeitas manifestações - impede a realização e mesmo a existência de uma reflexão sobre a natureza das coisas políticas. Tendo-se a retomada por parte de Strauss do "direito natural" como chave de leitura tanto para o "problema central da filosofia política" quanto para o enfrentamento de seus principais opositores, espera-se investigar o sentido e a plausibilidade das críticas aos motivos que nos conduzem ao niilismo e, caso estas se mostrem apropriadas, apontar como um proposto "renascimento do racionalismo político clássico" pode reconduzir à interrogação filosófica acerca do que é bom, da boa vida, da melhor sociedade, de "como deve o homem viver".

Retrotraction and the Young Leibniz’s Critique of Hobbesian Sovereignty Notions

Leibniz' 1669-1671 manuscript Elements of Natural Right - first published in the 21st century - provides keen insights into problems of political philosophy and marks the outset of Leibniz' engagement with the Hobbesian indivisible sovereignty idea. While concurring with the Sage of Malmesbury that any state worthy of the name is a security system, Leibniz - via reversal of Hobbes' contention security produces happiness - throws open a series of questions related to retrotraction (retrotractio) and the state legitimacy problematic. Citizens' cognitive capacity to link current state crisis manifestations to past ones - to retrotract - is seen as determining whether dissolution of the state is immanent, and the functioning of such capacity is described as intimately linked to self-perceived happiness of individuals. The plurality of happiness possibilities in various polities in turn is conceptualized by Leibniz as proof of degrees of state quality and (ultimately) sovereignty, degrees of sovereignty constituting Hobbes' bete noire.

Political obligation: a critical introduction

Political obligation is concerned with the clash between the individual's claim to self-governance and the right of the state to claim obedience. It is a central and ancient problem in political philosophy. In this authoritative introduction, Dudley Knowles frames the problem of obligation in terms of the duties citizens have to the state and each other. Drawing on a wide range of key works in political philosophy, from Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume and G. W. F. Hegel to John Rawls, A. John Simmons, Joseph Raz and Ronald Dworkin, Political Obligation: A Critical Introduction is an ideal starting point for those coming to the topic for the first time, as well as being an original and distinctive contribution to the literature. Knowles distinguishes the philosophical problem of obligation - which types of argument may successfully ground the legitimacy of the state and the duties of citizens - from the political problem of obligation - whether successful arguments apply to the actual citizens of particular states. Against the anarchist and modern skeptics, Knowles claims that a plurality of arguments promise success when carefully formulated and defended, and discusses in turn ancient and modern theories of social contract and consent, fairness and gratitude, utilitarianism, justice and a Samaritan duty of care for others. Against modern communitarians, he defends a distinctive liberalism: 'the state proposes, the citizen disposes'.

Nationalism, Patriotism, and Cosmopolitanism in an Age of Globalization

A major issue in political philosophy is the extent to which one or another version of nationalism or, by contrast, cosmopolitanism, is morally justified. Nationalism, like cosmopolitanism, may be understood as a position on the status and responsibilities of nation states, but the terms may also be used to designate attitudes appropriate to those positions. One problem in political philosophy is to distinguish and appraise various forms of nationalism and cosmopolitanism; a related problem is how to understand the relation of patriotism to each. Nationalists may tend to be patriots, but need not be; patriots may tend to be nationalists, but need not be. Like nationalism, patriotism may also be considered in propositional forms or in related attitudinal forms; but unlike nationalism and cosmopolitanism, patriotism can exist in the form of an emotion: roughly, love of one’s country. This paper characterizes nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and patriotism in both forms and argues for a conception of patriotism on which it is both distinct from nationalism and compatible with certain kinds of cosmopolitanism. It also suggests that, in qualified forms, nationalism and cosmopolitanism may overlap in what they require of their proponents.

Dissertation Chapter 5: The Dependence Thesis Applied and Tested

This Chapter applies the Dependence Thesis to an important problem in political philosophy. It then tests the Thesis against hard cases. By so doing, we aim to lend inductive support to the Thesis, and to demonstrate its usefulness and power. In Part 2, we apply the Thesis to the range problem about basic political principles. This problem was made famous by the monism-dualism debate in political philosophy. The problem concerns whether there is a fundamental normative principle regulating political institutions which does not apply to personal conduct. The view called holds that there cannot be such a principle. The view called holds that there are such principles. Part 2 shows that the Dependence Thesis offers an attractive solution to the problem, one which explains why both monism and dualism seem attractive. In Parts 3-5, we apply the Thesis to three hard cases, cases which prima facie seem to contradict the Thesis. These cases are a normative political theory, a normative group economic theory, and a normative group decision theory, each of them widely considered independent of any normative ethical theory. These are John Rawls's political conception of justice as fairness, the normative part of Gerard Debreu's general equilibrium theory, and the normative part of Buchanan and Tullock's public choice theory of decision rules. Parts 3-5 show that, as the Dependence Thesis predicts, these three theories each depend on a normative ethical theory. They depend on Equal-Respect Contractualism, Paretian Ethics, and Actual Unanimous Consent Ruleism, respectively.

Authority problems in political philosophy

Authority problems in political philosophy

James Madison e a Protecção dos Direitos Individuais

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contribution of Statesman James Madison - in its theoretical and practical component - to the solution of a classical problem of Political Philosophy: how is it possible to guarantee the protection of citizens within a political project that deeply involves them? First, we will consider Madison’s theoretical contributions, examining his letters, political writings and speeches; secondly, we will analyse his participation in the discussion and framing of the American Bill of Rights (1791), there by trying to widerstand the reasons for its success and how important Madison’s procedures and observations were in accomplishing it.

Introduction

I THE editor of Social Research, Arien Mack, and I both thought that it would be appropriate and of interest to begin this issue with a hitherto unpublished selection of Hannah Arendt’s writings that immediately followed the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism. Origins was first published in 1951 and that same year Arendt submitted a proposal to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a book that she described as follows: The most serious gap in The Origins of Totalitarianism is the lack of an adequate historical and conceptual analysis of the ideological background of Bolshevism. This omission was deliberate. All other elements that eventually crystallized into the totalitarian movements and forms of government can be traced back into subterranean currents in Western history, emerging only when and where the traditional social and political framework of European nations had broken down. Racism and imperialism, the tribal nationalism of the pan-movements and antisemitism, bear no relation to the great political and philosophical traditions of the West. The shocking originality of totalitarianism , the fact that its ideologies and methods of governing were entirely unprecedented and that its causes defied proper explanation in the usual historical terms, is easily overlooked if one lays too much stress on the only element that has behind it a respectable tradition and whose critical discussion requires a criticism of some of the chief tenets of Western political philosophy: Marxism.1 The new book was originally to be called Totalitarian Elements in Marxism, but as Arendt began work on it she became convinced Introduction of what she had only given a hint at the end of the final sentence in the description just quoted: namely, that her study could not be adequately undertaken without first thoroughly examining the entire tradition of philosophic and political thought. She realized that Marx not only stood firmly in that tradition, but also with him that tradition had come full circle: in an extremely complicated way it had come back to its origins and thus, as she said later, “culminated and found its end.”2 Henceforth Arendt’s working title for the book became Karl Marx and the Tradition of Western Political Thought, which is the overall title of the two manuscripts from which the selections published here are taken (the title of the first manuscript omits the word “Western”). The first selection bears the subtitle “The Broken Thread of Tradition” and the second “The Modern Challenge to Tradition.” Arendt’s proposed book was never completed. Although parts of it were incorporated into The Human Condition, On Revolution, and Between Past and Future, approximately a thousand pages prepared for or relevant to the work on Marx are in the Library of Congress’s collection of Arendt’s papers. Some of these materials were delivered as lectures for the Christian Gauss Seminar at Princeton University in 1953, others at Notre Dame University the following year, and still others elsewhere. To read these manuscript pages is not easy: they are disordered, cut up and pasted together for the various lectures, and for that reason also at times repetitive. More than anything else, however, their difficulty stems from the fact that in the early 1950s Arendt’s mind was extraordinarily fecund, literally brimming over with ideas, some revisited for further probing and all written down in white heat in a decidedly Germanized English. The sentences, and consequently the paragraphs, are often far too long and unwieldy; in addition, as she used to say and here exemplified, “the English language has no rules where the adverbs go.” Nevertheless, to immerse oneself in these texts is metaphorically to swim in a sea of ideas that would later be thematized in distinctive ways in Arendt’s published VI SOCIAL RESEARCH works throughout the rest of her life. These thematizations can be generally characterized as reflecting the tension that Arendt keenly felt between what she sometimes called thinking and acting and sometimes philosophy and politics. All the Marx manuscripts have been collected and edited and will be published under a title that tries to capture that tension at the moment it first became apparent to her: Karl Marx and the Problem of Political Philosophy. The following selections...

Beyond the communicative turn in political philosophy

I take it that (1) the central problem of political philosophy is how to deploy philosophy in the criticism and direction of practice. This paper maps out the basic terrain of the relationship between (A) neo‐Kantian Critical Theory (for example, Jürgen Habermas), (B) hermeneutics (for example, Charles Taylor) and (C) constructivism (for example, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari). It contends that this central problem (1) is not met by the arguments of (A) and (B) ‐ these representing what I call ‘the communicative turn in political philosophy’. They assume ‘democratic dialogue’ is its own justification and that from it spring both truth and right. The key objection is that the communication of opinions is not the same as the demonstration of their validity. I argue that (C) may help to take us beyond the failures of (A) and (B).

The Language of High Treason: Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke, and the Edinburgh Seven

n tracking the effects of the French Revolution in Great Britain, historians have usually been disposed to give more attention to political events than to discriminations about language, but charges were leveled and cases tried on the basis of the uses of words. Charged with high treason because of the language of The Rights ofMan, Tom Paine was indicted in May 1792; his counsel argued, to no avail, that to express opinions on the problems of political philosophy was not a criminal act. In cases of conspiracy, however, and Words were routinely taken as equally valid evidence of criminal intent.' When charged with sedition for his words, John Home Tooke informed the court that the case against him rested on two prepositions and a conjunction. In particular, the role assumed by the Corresponding Societies during the 1790s made the uses of language central to both popular agitations and the agitations for constitutional reform. At the same time that the documents of the Corresponding Societies were subjected to legal scrutiny during the trials for sedition and treason, the language of politics and the politics of language gained nuance and subtlety. As letters were exchanged among the Corresponding Societies, panic increased among conservatives, who believed that a conspiracy to overthrow the government was underway, and the government instituted far-reaching measures. The Habeas Corpus Acts were suspended on 23 May 1794. I hope you will be cautious in writing or expressing your political opinions, wrote Richard Wordsworth to his brother William on that very day, warning, By the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Acts the Ministers have great powers.2 In 1795, the