Social Phenomena

Streszczenie: Od samego początku istnienia ludzkości szeroko pojęta praca stanowi kluczowy element naszego życia i to w niej od zawsze znajdował, znajduje i będzie znajdować się potencjał wyzwoleńczy. W związku z tym praca zawsze była obiektem zainteresowań i analiz ze strony filozofów i innych naukowców. Niniejsza praca bada etykę pracy Antonia Negriego, skupiając się na jego dziełach i innych wybranych tekstach filozoficzno-społecznych oraz dziełach kultury. Na początku dokonano historyczno-ideowego wprowadzenia do postaci i filozofii Negriego oraz filozofii innych myślicieli, aby następnie (...) przejść do interpretacji Kartezjańskiego (burżuazyjnego/kapitalistycznego) projektu według Negriego. W trzeciej kolejności omówiono Negriego interpretację materialnej tradycji filozofii, której najwybitniejszymi przedstawicielami są Machiavelli, Spinoza i Marks, będących razem w fundamentalnej opozycji do transcendentnej i transcendentalnej tradycji filozofii uosabianej przez Hobbesa, Rousseau i Hegla. Następnie omówiono istotę etyki pracy Negriego, czyli podmioty pracy w postaci robotnika pierwotnego, robotnika wykwalifikowanego, robotnika masowego i robotnika społecznego. Analiza wykazała, że etyka pracy Negriego pełni fundamentalną rolę w jednostkowym i kolektywnym wyzwoleniu oraz wolności, która to wolność jest i będzie w pełni realizowana w obecnej i przyszłej absolutnej demokracji, rozumianej jako rządy wszystkich przez wszystkich. -/- Abstract: From the beginning of humanity, work has been a crucial element of our life, and in work there always was, is, and will be, capacity for liberation. As a result, work has always been an object of great interest and analysis from philosophers and other scientists. This thesis examines work ethics of Antonio Negri, focusing on his works, other selected socio-philosophical writings, and cultural works. The thesis begins with historical and ideological introduction into life and philosophy of Negri, and philosophy of other thinkers, and interpretation of Cartesian (bourgeois/capitalist) project according to Negri. Thirdly, Negri’s interpretation of materialist philosophical tradition, of which most prominent representatives are Machiavelli, Spinoza, Marx, who are together in fundamental opposition to transcendent and transcendental philosophical tradition, represented by Hobbes, Rousseau and Hegel, is discussed. Furthermore, the essence of work ethics of Negri, that is figures of work represented by primary worker, professional worker, mass worker, and socialized worker, is discussed. The results of the investigation show that work ethics of Negri plays a crucial role in individual and collective liberation, and in freedom, which is and will be, fully realized in contemporary and future absolute democracy, understood as rule of everyone by everyone. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Nietzsche thinks emotional experience is psychologically constructed. Specifically, he thinks discrete emotions are feeling-states fabricated by an individual’s mind as it (automatically and unwittingly) interprets the phenomenally experienced bodily feelings to which the individual finds herself subject. On Nietzsche’s view, this interpretive process requires the deployment of socially available emotion concepts and emotion narratives. Recognizing that Nietzsche understands our emotional lives as shaped by the emotion concepts and narratives utilized to make sense of them (...) allows us to better understand his claims that enlarging our emotional vocabulary and familiarizing ourselves with new emotional narratives can be profoundly transformative. It also allows us to make sense of the possibility he sees for reflective intervention into our emotional and perceptual lives. (shrink)

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing the development model of the global agriculture and food industry. From smart planting, agricultural robots, and precision fertilization to food research and development, supply chain optimization, and personalized nutrition services for consumers, AI has gradually become an important driving force for agricultural modernization. However, existing research focuses more on specific technological applications and lacks a theoretical framework that can systematically explain the synergistic development of agriculture, food, and ecology. Therefore, this paper proposes the (...) AIFE-SC (Artificial Intelligence–Food–Ecology Symbiosis Cycle) theory. This theory posits that generative AI, through three core capabilities—data generation, knowledge generation, and decision generation—drives a dynamic and synergistic cycle among agricultural production systems, food supply systems, and ecological environment systems. This paper constructs a theoretical model, operational mechanism, and evaluation index system, and explores its application value in smart agriculture, precision food manufacturing, agricultural supply chain management, and sustainable development. Research shows that the AIFE-SC theory can explain the process of agricultural systems transforming from traditional production models to intelligent ecosystems in the era of generative AI, providing a new theoretical foundation for future agricultural digitalization and food industry upgrading. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between moral values and self-referential ignorance — a condition in which individuals, groups, or institutions validate their beliefs primarily through internally reinforcing assumptions while dismissing contradictory evidence or outside perspectives. The central argument is that moral systems become epistemically and ethically dangerous when they lose the capacity for self-critique and external evaluation. Within such systems, moral absolutism, hypocrisy, tribalism, ideological extremism, and dehumanization emerge not as aberrations but as structural consequences of cognitive closure. Drawing from (...) philosophy, psychology, sociology, political theory, and historical analysis, this paper explores how moral frameworks evolve from constructive ethical systems into closed ideological loops. Through historical examples including colonialism, totalitarianism, religious extremism, political polarization, and digital echo chambers, the paper demonstrates how self-referential moral structures contribute to social conflict and ethical decay. The paper engages critically with prior theoretical work — including epistemic closure, motivated reasoning, ideological totalism, and moral foundations theory — to clarify what the concept of self-referential ignorance distinctively contributes. It concludes by proposing solutions centered on intellectual humility, critical thinking, institutional accountability, and cross-cultural dialogue, while reflexively acknowledging the limits of these prescriptions. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Katharine Jenkins’s concept of ontic injustice can be extended to apply to the case of social class, thereby helping to address the abiding class-ignorance of the social ontology field that Åsa Burman has recently diagnosed. Ontic injustice, as a moral wrong inflicted on a person in being socially constructed as a certain kind, requires both an account of the ontology of that kind and of the specified normative entitlement infringed. This paper satisfies both of (...) these by supplying a social ontology of class as an embodied social identity centered on group-defining differential relationships towards work. Through an analysis of the necessary preconditions for class-differentiated work, I derive a normative standard of the human as a being capable of rationally coordinating and developing itself in multiple distinct ways. Combining these elements results in what I dub the Anthropological Critique of the ontic injustice of social class which applies to the wrong perpetrated in any sort of class society. In carrying out this exercise, several minor incongruencies motivate proposing further modifications to the ontic injustice concept as Jenkins sketches it. These include softening the emphasis on the wrong of ontic injustice being adequately elaborated in property and rights terminology and acknowledging that consideration for factors like the epigenetics of social kinds defined by ontic injustice sometimes entails that the injustice consists of both an abstract moral injury and an effect upon the life of those included in the relevant social kind. (shrink)

Purpose: By comparative analysis of international cultural projects, identify strategies and methods that ensure project team cohesion and its effectiveness. To substantiate directions and approaches that, in the context of the complexity of managing international cultural projects, can form effective strategies for overcoming the negative impacts of cultural diversity and communication barriers, and for realizing the expectations of stakeholders. Methods: The study uses both a qualitative approach based on research from various fields, in particular based on the use of Cross-Case (...) Synthesis, inductive coding, cross-case comparison, and a quantitative approach, in particular based on сorrelation analysis, involved constructing a Pearson correlation matrix and a multimodal approach for a balanced combination of structured and semi-structured data. It also integrates insights from project management frameworks and cultural intelligence models to analyze the role of leadership, adaptability, and technology in international project environments. Findings: The study identifies key strategies for mitigating conflicts, leveraging cultural intelligence, and enhancing project outcomes in multicultural settings. It highlights the importance of digital tools and virtual collaboration in managing culturally diverse teams, as well as the impact of cultural awareness on project efficiency, innovation, and stakeholder engagement. Originality: This research contributes to the growing field of international project management by offering actionable strategies for professionals working in culturally diverse environments. By understanding cultural dynamics, project managers can implement inclusive strategies that foster collaboration, reduce misunderstandings, and ensure the sustainable success of international cultural initiatives. Keywords: International Cultural Project Management; Cross-Cultural Collaboration; Cultural Intelligence; Global Project Management. (shrink)

Some political movements are structured less by shared ideals than by a perpetual need for opposition. I argue that grievance politics involves a constitutively negative orientation, in which hostility and condemnation are not merely responses to perceived injustice but are instead the primary sources of identity, meaning, and solidarity. Because opposition itself does the motivational and existential work, compromise and appeasement fail. Countering this dynamic requires alternative forms of commitment that can sustain meaning and belonging without relying on enemies.

This Element tackles the question of how – in what way, and in virtue of what – facts about the legal properties and relations of particulars (such as their rights, duties, powers, etc.) are metaphysically explained. This question is divided into two separate issues. First, the Element focuses on the nature of the explanatory relation connecting legal facts to their metaphysical determinants. Second, it looks into the kinds of entities that figure in the explanation of legal facts. In doing so, (...) special attention is paid to the role that laws, or legal norms, play in such explanations. As it turns out, there are different ways in which legal facts might be explained, all of which have something to be said in their favor, and none of which is immune from problems. (shrink)

According to some theories, a rule counts as a social norm within a community only if the members of the community generally accept the rule. This is a conceptual claim: proponents of these theories do not deny that a rule can structure people’s interactions and relationships even though few people accept it; they simply deny that such a rule should count as a social norm. I argue that this approach draws arbitrary boundaries that cut through explanatorily significant categories with no (...) theoretical payoff. We typically invoke social norms either to explain empirical phenomena (e.g. what people do) or moral phenomena (e.g. what people should do). In both domains, “acceptance theories” of social norms do not define a category of rules that warrants distinctive attention. On an alternative approach, a rule counts as a social norm as long as people cooperate with expressive practices representing the rule as valid, whether they accept the rule or not. I argue that “practice theories” of social norms are more fruitful, and so we should abandon “acceptance theories.”. (shrink)

In this essay, I reinterpret Hartley B. Alexander’s early 20th-century account of liberty and democracy in light of the 21st-century populist resurgence, integrating the economic analysis of Jonathan Hopkin and Mark Blyth. By combining Alexander’s concerns surrounding the ethical collapse of democratic citizenship with Hopkin and Blyth’s diagnosis of structural economic disenfranchisement, I construct a dual account of populism’s rise as the convergence of moral atrophy and institutional decay. From Trump’s America to Modi’s India, populism emerges as a liberty weaponised (...) against itself. I argue that populism is a condition wherein the form of democracy is preserved, but its substance is debased, thereby reduced to spectacle, demagoguery, and institutional dysfunction. Drawing on specific examples and institutional analysis, I further argue for a reconstruction of liberty grounded in moral formation and institutional responsiveness, thus offering a normative pathway beyond the populist condition. (shrink)

Estelle Ferrarese’s book _The Market of Virtue: A Critique of Ethical Consumerism_ demonstrates that ethical consumerism collaborates with the very order it seeks to escape. Today’s spread of consumer practices advocating ‘fair’ prices or ‘responsible’ purchases is grounded in a supposed critique of capitalism at the level of everyday life. This book runs counter to the prevailing view. Ethical consumerism, it argues, conceals the fact that the market perpetually undoes any of the moral standards that are injected into it. Arguments (...) for ethical consumerism incorrectly suppose that capitalism can be reduced to psychological mechanisms, such as an apparently predatory temperament, mechanisms that can then be curbed by the upholding of virtues. Practices of ethical consumerism invest individual intention with absolute mastery over the world, with a boundless ability to reshape it. And given ethical consumerism’s wont to put a figure on everything – whether damages or virtuous behaviour – it ends up contributing to the very form imposed on the world by the market, namely generalized commensurability. (shrink)

In this essay, Emerson Bodde argues that class ought to be viewed as a “real social identity” in the sense developed by Linda Alcoff to describe race and gender as bodily, hermeneutic, and historically shaped social categories. Taking inspiration especially from Alcoff's arguments concerning gender, Bodde argues class is just as “real” and “embodied” while rejecting Alcoff's own anti-realist evaluation of class. In the same way that the differential relationship to sexual reproduction anchors the social category of gender as an (...) underdetermining element for a social identity, work and its effect upon the embodied subject does the same for class. The anthropological necessity of work, the wracking of the body by work, and the determinate autonomy one exercises in “dealing with” exhaustion—these all situate work as a subjectivity-forming phenomenon that forms differential groupings. The argument is further defended by linking this account with Shannon Sullivan's argument that epigenetic inheritance serves as a key element of the transgenerational dimensions of anti-black racism and racial injustice. Bodde concludes by suggesting that a fully sufficient elaboration of social class as a real social identity must be supplemented by an account of society and the reproduction of such identities over time. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to assess the merit of applying technical or economic rationality to social, legal and political problems. Diesing describes reason as calculation, discovery and application of rules to cases, and creative. Tentatively relating each type of rationality to one aspect of reason, he finally declares that creative reason "facilitates the study of social and political rationality, which are more difficult to characterize in terms of the other conceptions of reason."--C. E. B.

The Virtue of Solidarity brings together twelve world-leading philosophers to reflect on the nature, history, and virtue of solidarity. The new essays in this volume range from the sociological, to the religious, to the political. This comprehensive volume presents solidarity's many forms and justifications and explores the most urgent questions that surround it.

In this paper, I argue that Nietzsche thinks emotional experience is constructed. To say that my experience of a particular emotion—for example, compassion—is constructed is to say that any instance of compassion I experience is something of my own making. Specifically, it is a feeling-state fabricated by my mind as it (automatically and unwittingly) interprets the phenomenally experienced bodily feelings to which I find myself subject in a particular circumstance. In other words, any compassion I experience is the result of (...) my mind having constructed such a feeling. What’s more, since Nietzsche thinks the process by which my mind interprets these bodily feelings will always involve the deployment of socially available emotion concepts and emotion narratives, he will think not only that emotions are constructed, but that they are constructed via social artifacts. Recognizing that Nietzsche understands our emotional lives as shaped by the emotion concepts and narratives we utilize to make sense of them allows us to better understand his claims that enlarging our emotional vocabulary and familiarizing ourselves with new emotional narratives can be profoundly transformative. It also allows us to make sense of the possibility he sees for reflective intervention into our emotional and perceptual lives (i.e., the potential to open up new ways of feeling and seeing by deploying new emotion concepts and narratives). (shrink)

The papers collected in this volume explore the richness of Adolf Reinach's short but penetrating philosophical work. Basically, three topics are covered; one group of papers deals with ontology broadly construed, covering the ontological status and nature of Reinach's realism, his contribution to the contemporary understanding of states of affairs, and his ontology of legal objects. The second group of papers deals with social acts and their products, focusing on the structure of social acts and their nature as social encounters, (...) promises and normativity, and contracts and exchanges. A final paper in this issue covers the contemporary concerns in the philosophy of feelings, emotions and values from the perspective of Reinach and his interlocutors. In this way, the contributors, with varying types of emphasis, stress the continuing relevance of Reinach's ideas, and with novel contributions to our understanding of him, they establish vistas for further research in dialogue with contemporary accounts of the respective phenomena. (shrink)

I scratch your back, you scratch mine—how must these services relate in order to constitute a quid pro quo exchange? In the ordinary quid pro quo exchange, each party agrees to do their part in order to get the other party to do theirs; each conditions their own willingness to perform on the willingness of the other; and each regards the other as obligated to do their part in light of their agreement. But not all exchanges are ordinary, and a (...) proper analysis is of considerable practical and theoretical significance. In the law alone, quid pro quo figures prominently in a wide range of contexts—civil as well as criminal, public as well as private—and lies at the core of a number of raging controversies concerning official corruption, insider trading, and other matters. This Article offers the first philosophical analysis of quid pro quo exchange in the Anglophone tradition. (shrink)

Can AI developers be held epistemically responsible for the processing of their AI systems when these systems are epistemically opaque? And can explainable AI (XAI) provide public justificatory reasons for opaque AI systems’ outputs? Koskinen (2024) gives negative answers to both questions. Here, I respond to her and argue for affirmative answers. More generally, I suggest that when considering people’s uncertainty about the factors causally determining an opaque AI’s output, it might be worth keeping in mind that a degree of (...) uncertainty about conclusions is inevitable even in entirely human-based empirical science because in induction there’s always a risk of getting it wrong. Keeping this in mind may help appreciate that requiring full transparency from AI systems before epistemically trusting their outputs might be unusually (and potentially overly) demanding. (shrink)

Resum: En el seu dia, vàrem imaginar aquesta activitat partint de la metàfora, espacial i musical, del «punt de fuga». M’agradaria començar aquesta intervenció estirant aquesta metàfora o, millor dit, aquesta manera de representar-nos la mort humana. Part de: Comunicació a: Conferència VilaPensa -Festival del Pensament del Penedès 2023 12 d’abril de 2023.

This paper examines the complexity of the interconnection of varna and caste systems in Indian society. It reflects the complexities of the traditions of different caste groups and the system that regulates their relationship with each other. It will also reflect on the modes where they turn slightly flexible and become harshly rigid. The concept of community no longer exists. However, it is a stronger claim but is made while stressing the importance of the social Purushārtha Sādhana. Both terms (caste (...) and varna) are used interchangeably. However, a question regarding their meaning would need an entire book to be written. Both words are too ambiguous, especially for non-Indians or non-Hindus, though everyone, including Hindus and Indians, may find it challenging to distinguish between them. (shrink)

We argue against the view that human behavior is the benchmark of robotic performance for every kind of social interaction. To the contrary, it is rather human agents who, in what we call ‘functional social interactions,’ aim at simulating social automatons. An important aspect of this simulation is the agent’s attempt to suppress every indication of the existence of a difference between what she experiences from the “‘I’-perspective” and what is perceived by other agents, the “‘me’-perspective”. Although experiencing this difference (...) is not needed for realizing functional interaction it is, however, needed for what we call “close interhuman relationships”. (shrink)

The question of whether or not one should procreate is rarely cast as a personal choice in philosophical discourse; rather, it is presented as an ethical choice made against a backdrop of aggregate concerns. But justifications concerning procreation in popular culture regularly engage with the role that identity plays in making procreative decisions; specifically, how one’s decision will affect who they are and who they might be in the future. Women in particular cite the personally transformative aspects of becoming a (...) parent — personal circumstances, including socioeconomic status, age, health, and relationship status — as the most important considerations for the decision they make regarding possible parenthood, and not the more aggregate concerns that an ethics of procreation prioritizes. I highlight women because when women undergo a transformative experience related to parenthood, they do so in contexts where the social, economic, and emotional effects related to pregnancy and motherhood are extensive and impose greater effects on women than men. These harmful material effects threaten a woman’s economic stability, career development, social relationships, and emotional health. Because of this, I argue that an ethics of procreation must engage with the ways in which women’s identities are transformed through procreative decisions. (shrink)

New Mutualisms. Politics, Needs and Emancipation. According to the research hypothesis that forms the backdrop of this contribution, the most diverse forms of mutualism represent variants of political action born of, among, and for subjects in need. In contrast to the hypothesis of an uncritical valorization of these experiences, however, it is not necessarily the case that these collective actions of solidarity reciprocity also express the same need for renewal of institutional politics. The reconstruction of the different stages of the (...) modern history of mutualism will allow to question the alleged mutually exclusive relationship between politics and needs theorized by a long and authoritative philosophical tradition and, paradoxically, reaffirmed precisely by its fiercest critics such as Hannah Arendt. Following this operation of historical and conceptual contextualization it will become possible to identify the main differences between mutualism and other forms of civic engagement of the charitable or assistentialist kind, and then to draw an idealtypical classification of the different degrees of politicalness openly claimed or, in fact, expressed, by its contemporary manifestations. (shrink)

In this essay, I will outline a novel strategy for using constitutivist ideas from Kantian metaethics to critique social practices and institutions. In doing so, I do not mean to defend this model of critique as the only viable form of social and political critique, even within a Kantian framework – nor, indeed, as always the most appropriate. But I hope to show that it provides us with a form of critique that allows us to (i) develop a robust critique (...) of many social practices (ii) on both epistemic and practical grounds, while nonetheless (iii) beginning from a perspective that is, in some sense, internal – or better, immanent – to the practice in question. Thus, if we are looking for a form of social critique that is neither purely epistemic nor merely external – which, in other words, allows us to critique social practices on something like their own terms as practically irrational – this method should be attractive for philosophers with Kantian (or post-Kantian) sympathies. At the heart of this conception of critique lies in the idea that social practices may be thought of as attempts at (some form of) collective practical understanding. As I will explain more below, this way of thinking about the rationality of social practices may be seen as the product of applying a general (post-Kantian) model of rationality, which I have developed elsewhere, to the rationality of social collectives or practices. (shrink)

Most psychological literature on gaslighting focuses on it as a dyadic phenomenon occurring primarily in marriage and family relationships. In my analysis, I will extend recent fruitful philosophical engagement with gaslighting by arguing that gaslighting, particularly gaslighting that occurs in more public spaces like the workplace, relies upon external reinforcement for its success. I will ground this study in an analysis of the film Gaslight, for which the phenomenon is named, and in the course of the analysis will focus on (...) a paradox of this kind of gaslighting: it wreaks significant epistemic and moral damages largely through small, often invisible actions that have power through their accumulation and reinforcement. (shrink)

A good education provides useful ‘knowledge, skills, attitudes, and dispositions’ (Brighouse, Ladd, Loeb, & Swift, 2016, p. 6).1 Educational justice cares about the distribution of these goods beca...

In contemporary political discussions, it is depressingly common to see people criticized for expressing impure beliefs. Moreover, those who sometimes defect from their tribe are criticized for failing to be firmly enough on the side of the angels. We consider explanations for this behavior, including its relationship to moral grandstanding. We will also argue, on both moral and epistemic grounds, in favor of a norm against “blocking the exits.” We should not use social pressure to discourage people from publicly changing (...) their minds. (shrink)

According to public reason liberalism, the laws and institutions of society must be in some sense justifiable to all reasonable citizens. But why care about justifiability to reasonable citizens? Recently, Gerald Gaus has developed a novel and sophisticated defence of public justification. Gaus argues that our everyday reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation presuppose public justification and that these reactive attitudes are essential to social life. In this article, I challenge the first premise by considering cases in which agents are (...) liable to the reactive attitudes for violating moral rules that they had no sufficient reason to endorse, and I challenge the second premise by drawing on recent work on moral responsibility that suggests that social life would still be possible, and perhaps even improved, in the absence of the reactive attitudes. Finally, I question whether the reactive attitudes are even the kind of thing that could justify public reason. (shrink)

We are witnessing increasing use of the Internet, particular social media, to criticize (perceived or actual) moral failings and misdemeanors. This phenomenon of so-called ‘online public shaming’ could provide a powerful tool for reinforcing valuable social norms. But it also threatens unwarranted and severe punishments meted out by online mobs. This paper analyses the dangers associated with the informal enforcement of norms, drawing on Locke, but also highlights its promise, drawing on recent discussions of social norms. We then consider two (...) crucial conditions that online public shaming must meet in order to be justifiable: proportionality and accountability. We argue that these requirements are in fact frequently violated, rendering most cases of online public shaming unjustified. While the use of online public shaming against others’ vices has some apparent virtues, it is currently rarely justified, given its own vices. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Solar radiation management (SRM) has been proposed as a means of mitigating climate change. Although SRM poses new risks, it is sometimes proposed as the ‘lesser evil’. I consider how research and implementation of SRM could be regulated, drawing on what I call a ‘precautionary checklist’, which includes consideration of the longer term political implications of technical change. Particular attention is given to the moral hazard of ‘regulatory drift’, in which strong initial regulation softens through complacency, deliberate deregulation (‘regulatory gift’) (...) and the limited constituency of people with the skills to regulate (‘thin markets’). I propose the strengthening of civil society groups to keep regulators in check. (shrink)

Must a society aim indefinitely for continued economic growth? Proponents of economic growth advance three central challenges to the idea that a society, having attained high levels of income and wealth, may justly cease to pursue further economic growth: if environmentally sustainable and the gains fairly distributed, first, continued economic growth could make everyone within a society and globally, and especially the worst off, progressively better off; second, the pursuit of economic growth spurs ongoing innovation, which enhances people’s opportunities and (...) protects a society against future risks; and third, continued economic growth fosters attitudes of openness, tolerance, and generosity, which are essential to the functioning of a liberal democratic society. This article grants these challenges’ normative foundations, to show that, even if one accepts their underlying premises as requirements of justice, a society may still justly cease to aim for economic growth, so long as it continues to aim for and realize gains on other dimensions. I argue that, while continued economic growth might instrumentally serve valuable ends, it is not necessary for their realization, as a society can achieve these ends through other means. (shrink)

Starting with the observation that transparency has become a concept so familiar that one hardly ever stops to consider the presuppositions and consequences of its usage, the chapter analyses transparency demands as a specific way of exercising power. By doing so, the author shows that the intrinsic logic of transparency leads to paradoxical effects. Any attempts to realize complete transparency undermine its own preconditions. As Vogelmann argues, instead of providing more visibility and clarity, transparency makes its objects “invisible” and the (...) intensification of transparency demands produces self-censorship. The chapter concludes that transparency claims undermine the distinction between the private and the public and threaten the individual autonomy. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This is a comprehensive, critical review of social theory that places leading contributions in their larger context. Written predominantly for students, the scope and range of the subjects and authors dealt with results in one of the most comprehensive introductions to social theory published to date. Ranging from the philosophical foundations of sociology and the discovery of `the social' to distinctive sociological approaches, to the significance of issues pertaining to gender and patriarchy, to questions of modernity and post-modernity, the book (...) is comprehensive in subject matter. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relation between our experience in everyday life and ontological reflection. While many accounts in contemporary ontology still defend the idea that the world consists only of material objects, some new views on everyday metaphysics or social ontology which try to articulate the specific properties of the objects used and found in ordinary life have been established during the last years. In the critical ontology of Nicolai Hartmann, the social and cultural dimension (...) of our life is situated in the sphere of spiritual being [Geistiges Sein]. By investigating the methodical relation of phenomenology and critical ontology as well as specific entities (objective spirit, cultural objects), it is established that Hartmann offers a wide and methodologically reflected view which could be able to satisfy the practical significance of these entities. (shrink)

An epistemic account of the circumstances of justice allows one to make three important claims about the Humean and Rawlsian ‘standard account’ of those circumstances. First, and contrary to Hume, the possibility and necessity of justice are rooted not in limited beneficence or confined generosity, but in the epistemic insight that the knowledge relevant to deciding what to do with the fruits of social cooperation is for a variety of reasons uncentralisable. Second, and regardless of whether Rawlsian ethical disagreement is (...) more persuasive as a circumstance of justice than Humean confined generosity, it does not explain the possibility and necessity of justice, for the uncentralisability of social knowledge would be decisive even under conditions of unanimity. Finally, the epistemic account not only shows what the circumstances of justice are but, contra Cohen’s critique of the standard account, also provides at least some guidance as to what justice itself may be. (shrink)

This paper responds to a recent challenge posed to Claudia Card’s atrocity paradigm by “transmuted goods,” or, goods which positively transmute victims of atrocity in ways which are difficult for the paradigm to explain. Whereas the legacy of Card’s atrocity paradigm will surely be its demand that we hold others culpable for allowing and perpetuating systems of harm which threaten our ability to flourish, this paper suggests a way for the paradigm to incorporate transmuted goods in a manner that strengthens (...) the paradigm’s overall goal of holding people responsible for perpetuating atrocious harms. To that end, I will articulate the systematicity and transmutativity conditions of an “atrocity,” will demonstrate how “transmuted goods” can threaten the transmutativity condition of an atrocity, and will conclude by suggesting a potential integration of transmuted goods into the atrocity paradigm to salvage the transmutativity condition for the paradigm. (shrink)

The childhood platitude, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” has become nothing more than wishful thinking as we prepare each new generation for the slew of hurtful words they will inevitably encounter throughout their life. The truth of the matter is, words can hurt. To discuss how this is possible, a recent surge in philosophy of language literature has had the sole focus of analyzing pejorative language, particularly slurs. From semantic content theories to (...) deflationary accounts, there have been numerous attempts to answer the questions “How can words hurt?” and “Why do some words hurt?” Unfortunately, in the current discourse, the focus has been so heavily on accounting for the features of derogatory words that the accounts skip over providing for even the most basic insult, as an indirect speech act. Using an analysis of insults, I argue that there is a layer of analysis prior to any semantic content that theories regarding speech acts should include and and I present a framework for an ethicist to do such an analysis. (shrink)

This philosophical dialogue explores some of the barriers to an adequate definition of general health, encompassing physical, social, and mental/emotional well-being. Many of the putative obstacles to such a definition—concerns about subjectivity, cultural difference, marginal cases, etc.—prove to be chimerical once the characters take seriously the Peircean insight that truth-claims methodologically grounded in people’s lives, experiences, and conversations need not be apodictic to be useful. Drawing on Canguilhem and others, the characters critically discuss a proposed definition of health: a dynamic (...) equilibrium by which a human being thrives in relation to its situation. Although they do not manage to resolve all of this definition’s difficulties, or all of their differences, their interaction in some ways models the ongoing task of inquiry. (shrink)

Does expertise have a place in ethics? As this question has been raised in moral philosophy and bioethics literatures over the past twenty years, skepticism has been a common theme, whether metaphysical (there is no such thing as ethics expertise), epistemological (we cannot know who has ethics expertise) or social-political (we should not treat anyone as having ethics expertise). Here I identify three common, contestable assumptions about ethics expertise which underwrite skepticism of one form or another: (1) a singular conception (...) of ethics expertise constituted by a core property or unity among multiple properties, (2) equivocation of ethics expertise and ethicists’ expertise, and (3) priority of moral deference as an unavoidable implication of ethics expertise. Taken separately, each assumption can have unpalatable implications for ethics expertise that make skepticism seem more attractive; taken together, the resulting picture of ethics expertise is that much worse. Each of these assumptions is vulnerable to criticism, however, and jettisoning them enables a pluralist approach to ethics expertise less prone to skepticism and better suited for the ranging functions of ethics expertise in healthcare and other contexts. (shrink)

When it comes to explaining someone’s puzzling, objectionable, or otherwise problematic behavior, one type of explanation occasionally employed in the service of doing so is as follows: “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so.” But what, exactly, do explanations of the type “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so” mean? More specifically, in what way, if any, is it meaningful or informative to say such things? And what is the precise function of such explanations of someone’s behavior? Is it merely to present what one (...) takes to be the underlying causes of the behavior, or something beyond that? In what follows, I lay out a few possibilities—basic possibilities, to be precise, given philosophy’s keen interest in fundamentals—with respect to the various meanings, functions, and moral implications of explanations of the type “That’s just so-and-so being so-and-so.” While doing so, I apply these basic possibilities to three tokens of this kind of explanation: “That’s just Manny being Manny” (in reference to Manny Ramirez, the former professional baseball player), “That’s just Charlie being Charlie” (in reference to Charlie Rose, the former television host), and “That’s just Trump being Trump” (in reference to Donald Trump, the current President of the United States). (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of confidentiality and the quality of the relationship between young people experiencing mental health problems and social workers supporting them. The nature of a therapeutic intervention brings into focus the rigidities and complexities in adhering to agency and professional guidelines on confidentiality. The paper highlights the tensions and ethical dilemmas in making decisions about risk and whether, when, and how to breach confidentiality.

Hope has been neglected as a topic by philosophers interested in families, children, and children's autonomy. Hope may be confused with adjacent phenomena, such as optimism and wishful thinking. However, hope, when understood to involve goals, exploration of pathways to achieving those goals, and motivation to explore the pathways, is necessary for autonomy. It is also importantly related to children's resilience in response to challenges and stressors. In the course of explaining what I take autonomy to involve, why I think (...) children can have areas of local autonomy, and connections between hope, autonomy and resilience, I examine evidence that supports my claims about these connections. I then conclude with a brief discussion of implications of these connections for social policy, especially in the educational context, and for personal interactions with children. (shrink)