Search

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents an analysis of the musical composition "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. Topics discussed include the poetic subject of the composition, goddess Fortuna's control over human love, joy and suffering; the ideals of German life reform movement Lebensreform in the composition; and the disillusionment with society in the Germany.

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Synthesis Philosophica is the property of Croatian Philosophical Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses social practice theory of personal ideals and the social dimensions of the emotions of pride and shame. Topics include how a commitment to living in accordance with our own ideals is a commitment to a social practice, how the feeling of interpersonal superiority that follows pride is a failure to cognitively appreciate the social basis of one's personal ideals and sociality objections to personal ideal accounts of shame and pride.

Choices that are underdetermined by reason, such as choices arising from incommensurability among values, involve an element of arbitrariness, and arbitrary choices are commonly thought to be inimical to the rule of law. In this article, I suggest that we should distinguish between two different ideals of the rule of law, and that the arbitrariness of some judicial choices has different implications for these different ideals. One ideal of the rule of law can be understood as 'the rule of authority'; the other can be understood as 'the rule of reason'. The latter ideal is opposed to decisions that lack reason, but not to arbitrary choices between undefeated reasons. The arbitrariness involved in choosing between undefeated reasons may be a deficit in one ideal of the rule of law (the rule of authority), but not a deficit in the other (the rule of reason). Moreover, it is important to recognise that these are distinct ideals that can conflict, and not rival interpretations of a single ideal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nicomachean Ethics X.7-8, Aristotle defends a striking view about the good for human beings. According to Aristotle, the single happiest way of life is organized around philosophical contemplation. According to the narrowness worry, however, Aristotle's contemplative ideal is unduly Procrustean, restrictive, inflexible, and oblivious of human diversity. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle has resources for responding to the narrowness worry, and that his contemplative ideal can take due account of human diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Chrétien de Troyes' Yvain serves as an exemplum of Christian virtue through which the author explores caritas—love directed toward a higher purpose than oneself—as the theological virtue under which all others are ordered and which the hero Yvain must work to perfect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses seventeenth century discourse of the human body over the Early English Books Online full-text corpus. Topics include fiction and poetry tend to represent the body as a social entity, knowable primarily through intersubjective action and ethical ideals, and deep conceptual structures at work underneath both anatomy and fiction underlie a conception of the body that informs more particularized notions of mobility, sociality, and physicality.

This article focuses on the preference of perfection over practice in a competitive, goal-oriented society. Findings of a survey that appeared in "USA Today," revealed that 44 percent of teenagers feel they are under pressure to achieve at any cost. Due to the culture of perfection, the process of working toward something, which frequently offers satisfaction, has been devalued.

This article focus on the culture war between people who have accepted modern science and people who do not. Modern science as a large-scale human enterprise is a very recent historical development, and until quite recently, very few people grasped its philosophical implications. The author observes that most Americans are aware of the conflicts between religious fundamentalists and those who oppose their God-centered worldview. These conflicts between and within cultures now seem to be occurring on a more global scale than ever before. All the examples in the article involve a struggle between tradition-minded people who cling to old religious ways and those who favor a more secular, science-oriented perspective on the world.

In his essay "What Makes a Life Significant," James argues that significant lives are based on a marriage of two components: consciously chosen ideals and bold energetic activity. James' metaphor of "marriage" richly indicates the relationship between ideals and courageous activity. As is the case in so many of his writings, James' metaphors perform philosophical functions by situating abstract concepts like a "significant life" in experiential contexts that reveal core aspects of their meanings. I offer a fresh interpretation of the two elements of significant living, and then explain how they are integrally connected, or, "married." James' account is worth another look, in part, because of the unique way it probes the issue of a meaningful life without presuming a single conception of the good life. He helps us to see how to address important issues of character in a pluralist age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Synthesis Philosophica is the property of Croatian Philosophical Society and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article criticizes John Rawls' conception of political liberalism, which insists that political sphere governed by his two principles of justice can be separated from any comprehensive moral doctrines, and that the validity of his conception of justice is political, not metaphysical nor comprehensive. I argue that Rawls' project is flawed by showing that his two principles of justice and political liberalism are presupposed by the very comprehensive/ metaphysical doctrines which he denies. Whether he realizes it or not Rawls chooses a particular comprehensive theory of the good/person, specifically that of an unencumbered self. I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from two points of view. First, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from political economy points of view, which I argue that the foundation of Rawls' principles of justice lies in his particular theory of the person. Second, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from philosophical points of view, which I argues that Rawls' political liberalism and theory of the person are comprehensive, and that political sphere cannot be separated from private sphere. This article criticizes John Rawls' conception of political liberalism, which insists that political sphere governed by his two principles of justice can be separated from any comprehensive moral doctrines, and that the validity of his conception of justice is political, not metaphysical nor comprehensive. I argue that Rawls' project is flawed by showing that his two principles of justice and political liberalism are presupposed by the very comprehensive/ metaphysical doctrines which he denies. Whether he realizes it or not Rawls chooses a particular comprehensive theory of the good/person, specifically that of an unencumbered self. I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from two points of view. First, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from political economy points of view, which I argue that the foundation of Rawls' principles of justice lies in his particular theory of the person. Second, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from philosophical points of view, which I argues that Rawls' political liberalism and theory of the person are comprehensive, and that political sphere cannot be separated from private sphere. This article criticizes John Rawls' conception of political liberalism, which insists that political sphere governed by his two principles of justice can be separated from any comprehensive moral doctrines, and that the validity of his conception of justice is political, not metaphysical nor comprehensive. I argue that Rawls' project is flawed by showing that his two principles of justice and political liberalism are presupposed by the very comprehensive/ metaphysical doctrines which he denies. Whether he realizes it or not Rawls chooses a particular comprehensive theory of the good/person, specifically that of an unencumbered self. I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from two points of view. First, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from political economy points of view, which I argue that the foundation of Rawls' principles of justice lies in his particular theory of the person. Second, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from philosophical points of view, which I argues that Rawls' political liberalism and theory of the person are comprehensive, and that political sphere cannot be separated from private sphere. This article criticizes John Rawls' conception of political liberalism, which insists that political sphere governed by his two principles of justice can be separated from any comprehensive moral doctrines, and that the validity of his conception of justice is political, not metaphysical nor comprehensive. I argue that Rawls' project is flawed by showing that his two principles of justice and political liberalism are presupposed by the very comprehensive/ metaphysical doctrines which he denies. Whether he realizes it or not Rawls chooses a particular comprehensive theory of the good/person, specifically that of an unencumbered self. I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from two points of view. First, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from political economy points of view, which I argue that the foundation of Rawls' principles of justice lies in his particular theory of the person. Second, I discuss Rawls' political liberalism from philosophical points of view, which I argues that Rawls' political liberalism and theory of the person are comprehensive, and that political sphere cannot be separated from private sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end-its final value-may be conditional on its extrinsic features. They support this claim by appealing to examples: Kagan points to Abraham Lincoln's pen, Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen to Lady Diana's dress, and Korsgaard to a mink coat. They contend that these things may have final value in virtue of their historical or societal roles. These three examples have become familiar: many now merely mention them to establish the conditionalist position. But the widespread faith in such cases is, I believe, unjustified. This is because, surprisingly, the pen, the dress, and the coat cannot have final value. I argue that the problem is internal: these cases are ruled out by every conditionalist account of final value. Further, the problem with these well-known cases applies to most other supposed examples of extrinsic, final goods. Thus nearly all cases given to support the conditionalist view cannot succeed. I suggest a kind of diagnosis: I claim that these examples are best seen as instances of sentimental value, rather than final value. I close by providing a brief account of sentimental value and explain how it relates to instrumental, intrinsic, and final goodness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the Global South’s role in disarmament. It offers evidence of a customarily ignored Southern agency in UN processes and suggests that the later work of Hans Morgenthau explains both this agency and contrary state policies. The article looks at the recent agreement with Iran as an example of constructive convergence and sets out the structure of an emerging and Southern-supported disarmament initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Human Nature and the Limits (If Any) of Political Philosophy, I argued that justice might require things of people that they cannot bring themselves to do. A central step was to argue that this does not entail an inability to ‘do’ the putatively required thing. David Wiens challenges that argument of mine, and this piece is my reply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on educational goal which means transmission of knowledge from one individual to another in reference to poetics and pedagogy in the works of philosophers Aristotle and Plato. Topics discussed include students' learning of ideals, importance of belief, behavior and habit in a society for which child's education is mandatory, and dominance of skills in school curriculum.

This article explores how gendered body ideals are constructed and negotiated among 12 competitive youth swimmers in three Swedish clubs. Of particular interest are the ways boys and girls negotiate body ideals inside and outside of swimming contexts and how they shift gendered symbolic boundaries. The paper is framed by gender theory, and it draws on concepts of sport culture and social culture as well as symbolic boundaries. Interpretative repertoires were analysed to explore the language use in swimmers’ conversations related to the body and body ideals. Data were produced through interviews with competitive youth swimmers. My findings show that both girls and boys negotiate body ideals. The functional body was an interpretative repertoire important in the negotiations and shifting of gendered boundaries between the athletic body in sports and the aesthetic body in society. Swimmers also used an interpretative repertoire of similarity to negotiate symbolic gender boundaries. Furthermore, both identifying with a group and being accepted in that group are suggested to be important factors involved in shifting symbolic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of news values/factors has a long and rich history in journalism and communications research. Conceptually, they encompass not only the newsworthy aspects of happenings or news actors but also external aspects that impact journalism practice, such as the influence of proprietors or advertisers, meeting deadlines or competition among news providers to get exclusive stories. Some view news values as existing in the actual events and people who are reported on in the news, that is, in events in their material reality (a material perspective). Others conceive news values as existing in the minds of journalists (a cognitive perspective). News values are also constructed in the discourses involved in the production of news (a discursive perspective). The focus in this article is on this third perspective, with the aim of demonstrating what a discursive approach to news values can add to the two other, theoretical and analytical perspectives. The article has an additional focus on the much neglected area of visual analysis and investigates the construction of news values in news photography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines questions of the family and its role and place in the system of life values in northern regions, where familial traditions have been preserved. Results of six demographic-sociological studies conducted in 1993–2011 in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) are presented. A broad spectrum of opinions about the value and significance of family is revealed. Three main groupings of life values established their relevance for the preservation of familial traditions. Differing views are explained concerning competition among familial, societal-labor and personal orientations as functions of the age and marital and social status of study participants. Family retains its significance in the life of northerners, given their clear child-centric priorities. The relevance for survey participants of material well-being and acceptable modern housing is understood by the authors as a base condition for the life-sustenance of families, and in such a context is not a competitor to family as a fundamental life value for northerners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rawls ignited a debate in political theory when he introduced a division between the ideal and nonideal parts of a theory of justice. In the ideal part of the theory, one presents a positive conception of justice in a setting that assumes perfect compliance with the rules of justice. In the nonideal part, one addresses the question of what happens under departures from compliance. Critics of Rawls have attacked his focus on ideal theory as a form of utopianism, and have argued that political theory should be focused instead on providing solutions to the manifest injustices of the real world. In this essay, I offer a defense of the ideal/nonideal theory distinction according to which it amounts to nothing more than a division of labor, and explore some scientific analogies. Rawls’s own focus on the ideal part of the theory, I argue, stems from a felt need to clarify the foundations of justice, rather than a utopian neglect of real world problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A qualified pluralism is defended that recognizes value in a variety of forms of political theory and resists arguments that purport to show that one particular approach should occupy a privileged position. Against realists, it is argued that abstract analyses of political values that bracket a wide range of facts about people and their circumstances can be both coherent and important, whereas against those who think “ideal theory” or the identification of ultimate principles should come first, it is argued that the case for always giving priority to either one of these is weak. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The essay agues that there is little scope for ideal theory in political philosophy, even under Rawls’s conception of its aims. It begins by identifying features of a standard example of ideal theory in physics — the ideal gas law, PV=NRT and draws attention to the lack of these features in Rawls’s derivation of the principles of justice from the original position. A. John Simmons’s defense of ideal theory against criticisms of Amartya Sen is examined, as are further criticisms of both by David Schmidtz. The essay goes on to develop a conception of the domain of social relations to be characterized by justice that suggests that as a moving target it makes ideal theory otiose. Examination of Rawls’s later views substantiate the conclusion that ideal theory as propounded in A Theory of Justice is a mistaken starting point in the enterprise of political philosophy. Differences between the domains of ideal theory in mathematics, physics, and economics on the one hand, and political philosophy on the other, reinforce this conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this essay, I critically engage with a methodological approach in contemporary political theory — unconstrained utopianism — which holds that we can only determine how we should live by first giving an account of the principles that would govern society if people were perfectly morally motivated. I provide reasons for being skeptical of this claim. To begin with I query the robustness of the principles unconstrained utopianism purportedly delivers. While the method can be understood as offering existence proofs, because we can devise other situations in which morally flawless decision making would unearth alternative sets of principles, I argue that such proofs tell us surprisingly little about how we should live in general. Drawing on this point, I contend that normative models that wish away certain phenomena that are uncontroversially central to any account of politics cannot plausibly claim to tell us how we should live in political society. I conclude by offering a more positive sketch of why avoiding this brand of utopianism might not represent a problematic capitulation to the morally nonideal and suggest that theorizing in light of certain constraints may be a precondition of good normative theorizing itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some understand utopia as an ideal society in which everyone would be thoroughly informed by a moral ethos: all would always act on their pure conscientious judgments about justice, and so it would never be necessary to provide incentives for them to act as justice requires. In this essay I argue that such a society is impossible. A society of purely conscientiously just agents would be unable to achieve real justice. This is the Paradox of Pure Conscientiousness. This paradox, I argue, can only be overcome when individuals are prepared to depart from their own pure, conscientious, judgments of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay discusses and criticizes the claim that normative political theory can be (justifiably and fruitfully) divided into two parts—a part having to do with ideal theory which assumes full compliance and abstracts away from issues having to do with implementation and, contrasting with this, a nonideal part having to do with implementation and with rules and institutions appropriate for conditions of partial compliance. On this conception of ideal theory, empirical facts about human behavior and motivation, connected to issues surrounding compliance and implementation, are irrelevant to ideal theory, although such facts can be relevant to the nonideal part of normative theory. I argue against this conception, holding instead that such empirical facts are relevant to most or all of normative political theory, including “fundamental” normative principles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The debate between proponents of ideal and nonideal approaches to political philosophy has thus far been framed as a meta-level debate about normative theory. The argument of this essay will be that the ideal/nonideal debate can be helpfully reframed as a ground-level debate within normative theory. Specifically, it can be understood as a debate within the applied normative field of professional ethics, with the profession being examined that of political philosophy itself. If the community of academic political theorists and philosophers cannot help us navigate the problems we face in actual political life, they have not lived up to the moral demands of their vocation. A moderate form of what David Estlund decries as “utopophobia” is therefore an integral element of a proper professional ethic for political philosophers. The moderate utopophobe maintains that while devoting scarce time and resources to constructing utopias may sometimes be justifiable, it is never self-justifying. Utopianism is defensible only insofar as it can reasonably be expected to help inform or improve non-utopian political thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ideal theorists in political philosophy seek to describe a perfect political society, and to evaluate political principles by reference to their consequences in a world where everyone complies with the principles. I argue that ideal theory is not needed to set goals for practical inquiries, nor to define justice, nor to enable rankings of injustices. Nor is it useful to theorize about very different kinds of society that might occur in the far future. Ideal theory tempts us to make each of three kinds of error: it tempts us to propose norms that no specific agent can act on, to posit crazy exaggerations of moral virtues, and to place too much trust in abstract philosophical reasoning. A better approach to normative questions is to rely on analogical arguments starting from uncontroversial intuitions about concrete scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay seeks to defend the claim that political philosophy ought to be appropriately guided by the phenomenon of politics that it seeks to both offer a theory of and, especially in its normative guise, offer a theory for. It does this primarily through the question of political values. It begins by arguing that for any value to qualify as a value for the political domain, it must be intelligible in relation to the constitutive features of politics as a human activity. It then examines the extent to which the preconditions for the realization of values in practice ought to figure in our considerations as to whether they are values that fit or belong to our social world. We can understand these parts of the essay as responding to two related questions, respectively: (i) Is this a political value at all? — which is to ask, is it a value that is appropriate for the political realm?; and then (ii) Is this a political value for us? The final section responds to the often-made complaint that political philosophy ought not to make any concessions to the actual world of politics as it really is, arguing that attending to the realities of politics, and in particular the constitutive conditions of political activity, gives meaning to the enterprise as the theorization of politics (and not something else). Furthermore those same conditions provide the limits of intelligibility beyond which ideals and values can no longer be, in any meaningful sense, ideals and values for the political sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay offers an account of feasible actions. It criticizes the conditional account of feasibility and offers instead what I call the constrained account of feasibility. The constrained account is superior, I argue, on account of how it deals with the problem of motivational failure to act and with collective action. According to the constrained account, roughly put, an action is feasible when the agent or agents performing it know how to perform it and are appropriately responsive to incentives. The essay shows that some collective requirements for action that appear feasible are not in fact feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Does social justice lose all application in the (imaginary, of course) condition in which people are morally flawless? The answer, I will argue, is that it does not — justice might still have application. This is one lesson of my broader thesis in this paper, that there is a variety of conditions we would all regard as highly idealistic and unrealistic which are, nevertheless, not beyond justice. The idea of “circumstances of justice” developed especially by Hume and Rawls may seem to point in a more realistic direction, but we can see that this is not so once we distinguish between conditions of need for norms of justice, conditions of their emergence, and conditions of applicability of the standard of justice. Justice, I argue, can have application even in conditions where no mechanism of justice is present or needed, such as the case of internalized motives of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this essay, I argue against the bright-line distinction between ideal and nonideal normative political theory, a distinction used to distinguish “stages” of theorizing such that ideal political principles can be deduced and examined before compromises with the flawed political world are made. The distinction took on its familiar form in Rawls and has enjoyed a resurgence of interest in the past few years. I argue that the idea of a categorical distinction — the kind that could allow for a sequencing of stages of theorizing — is misconceived, because wholly “ideal” normative political theory is a conceptual mistake, the equivalent of taking the simplifying models of introductory physics (“frictionless movement in a vacuum”) and trying to develop an ideal theory of aerodynamics. Political organization and justice are about moral friction in the first instance. I examine both logical and epistemological arguments for the position that we need the uniquely idealizing assumptions of ideal theory in order to arrive at, or to know, a genuine theory of justice or political morality; and I find them wanting. Such assumptions as full compliance, consensus, and the publicity principle of universal knowledge about consensus can sometimes be useful, if used carefully and with justification; but they are not categorically different from other idealizing and abstracting assumptions in generating normative theory. What is referred to as “nonideal” theory is all that there is, and it is many kinds of theory, not one — the many ways in which we learn about justice and injustice, and seek to answer questions of practical reason about what ought to be done in our political world. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls introduces a framework for realistic utopia, within which the limits of practicable political possibility are probed through the further development of his international theory. This essay addresses the apparent paradox of realistic utopianism within the context of, and in relation to, ideal theory, in an attempt to explore the scope and limits of Rawls’s theory. The ideas behind Rawls’s realistic utopia are discussed in detail, the concept is contrasted with ideal theory in order to assess to what extent Rawls’s framework for realistic utopia introduced in The Law of Peoples differs from other forms of ideal theory, and the limits of realistic utopianism are identified.I argue first, that, in an attempt to address the potential feasibility constraint, Rawls tries to distinguish his framework of realistic utopia from that of more traditional ideal theory. I then proceed to examine the differences between realistic utopianism in The Law of Peoples and ideal theory in A Theory of Justice. I then conclude that Rawls only partially meets the challenge of establishing practicable political possibility. In actuality, Rawls’s focus on ideal agents in ideal as well as nonideal theory, together with his emphasis on societies as closed and self-sufficient, ignores the potential for noncompliance by liberal and decent societies, as well as interdependencies between societies that can cause or lead to injustice, conflict, and instability. I argue that despite these flaws, Rawls’s approach nevertheless provokes new insights into the function of the principles of the ideal theory framework as guidelines for real-world policies striving toward peace, stability, and justice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Current debates about ideal theory and idealization in modern moral and political philosophy do not typically scrutinize the form of reflection itself. This is an unfortunate oversight: assumptions about the form of reflection shape the positions defended in those debates. I argue that the appropriate form of reflection on the nature and justification of standards of justice and morality is the form of practical reason. I further argue that the form of practical reason cannot support many of the idealizations typically deployed in modern moral and political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]