Gene editing in agriculture and food (GEAF) is a nascent development with few products and is unfamiliar among the wider US public. GEAF has garnered significant praise for its potential to solve for a variety of agronomic problems but has also evoked controversy regarding safety and ethical standards of development and application. Given the wake of other agribiotechnology debates including GMOs (genetically modified organisms), this study made use of 36 in-depth key interviews to build the first U.S. based typology of (...) proponent and critic priorities for shaping public trust in GEAF actors and objects. Key organizational actors provide early and foundational messaging, which is likely to contribute heavily to public salience, comprehension, and decision-making as potential consumers reflect upon their experiences, envision future outcomes, and consider the reputation of those trying to influence them. As is documented in our results, the trust-building priorities of these groups often stand in opposition to one another and are influenced by distinct motivations for how the public will come to trust or distrust GEAF actors and objects as more products are developed and enter the market. (shrink)

The growth of responsible innovation scholarship has been mirrored by a proliferation of RI definitions and practices, as well as a recognition of the importance of context for RI. This study investigates how researchers in the field of nanotechnology for food and agriculture define and practice RI, as well as what motivations they see for pursuing RI. We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with nano-agrifood researchers from industry and academia in the USA, where we asked them to describe their RI definitions, (...) practices, and motivations. We analyzed the emergent themes from these interviews, including how the themes aligned with four prominent RI principles. We found that nano-agrifood researchers largely focused their descriptions of RI definitions, practices, and motivations around a narrow envisioning of the RI principle of anticipation — emphasizing product safety, efficacy, and efficiency. We also found noteworthy tensions surrounding the less frequently mentioned RI principles. For example, some researchers envisioned inclusion as a way to align products with industry interests while others saw it as a way to align products with the public good. Concerning motivations for RI, some researchers viewed RI as a way to protect one’s reputation and avoid lawsuits while others viewed it as a way to improve human well-being and solve societal problems. Given these findings, future efforts to foster RI within nano-agrifoods should promote discussions among researchers concerning what it means to responsibly innovate and what practices this could entail, particularly beyond ensuring product safety, efficacy, and efficiency. (shrink)

The development and use of nanotechnology in the food industry have grown steadily. While visions for nanofood suggest that the applications will improve quality and safety, they are also controversial for several reasons including potential health risks coupled with difficulty in assessing low-dosage nanoparticle risks as well as values-based objections. In recent years, debate over nanofoods has sparked inquiry into factors that predict public attitudes and purchase intentions. Such studies have investigated the roles of demographics and sociographics, value predispositions toward (...) science and technology, preferences for natural products, trust in regulatory agencies, scientific knowledge, and media attention. This study assesses the role of each of these factors in shaping public attitudes toward nanofood and improves the predictive models by evaluating concepts from protection motivation theory. We find that incorporating threat and coping appraisals provides the best predictive models of public attitudes and intention to purchase nanofood products. (shrink)

The opening sentence of Christopher Meyers’ Target Article is “Lying to one’s patient is wrong”. The author continues, “This truism is one that bioethicists have heartedly endorsed fo...

Evolutionary developmental biology represents a paradigm shift in the understanding of the ontogenesis and evolutionary progression of the denizens of the natural world. Given the empirical successes of the evo-devo framework, and its now widespread acceptance, a timely and important task for the philosophy of biology is to critically discern the ontological commitments of that framework and assess whether and to what extent our current metaphysical models are able to accommodate them. In this paper, I argue that one particular model (...) is a natural fit: an ontology of dispositional properties coherently and adequately captures the crucial casual-cum-explanatory role that the fundamental elements of evo-devo play within that framework. (shrink)

In February 54b.c. Cicero concludes a missive to his brother with a passing and – for us – tantalizing remark:Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum veneris. virum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris; hominem non putabo. Quintus had, it seems, readDe rerum natura, or at least parts thereof, just before he left Rome for an undisclosed location nearby, and he shared his enthusiasm with his brotherper codicillos. Meanwhile, he was corresponding with Julius (...) Caesar, whose staff in Gaul he was about to join. When, a few months later, he was stationed with Caesar, he was involved in another literary affair, this time concerning his brother who wrote to him, inquiring about his autobiographicalDe temporibus suis:quo modo nam, mi frater, de nostris versibus Caesar? nam primum librum se legisse scripsit ad me ante, et prima sic ut neget se ne Graeca quidem meliora legisse; reliqua ad quendam locum ῥᾳθυμότερα (hoc enim utitur verbo). dic mihi verum: num aut res eum aut χαρακτὴρ non delectat?(Q.fr.2.15.5). (shrink)

In his digression on the Gauls in Book 6 of theGallic War, Caesar includes a portrait of the Druids (BGall.6.13.3sed de his duobus generibus[sc. quae aliquo sunt numero atque honore]alterum estdruidum) and their public roles first and foremost in religious and legal affairs (6.13.4–5illirebus diuinisintersunt,sacrificiapublica ac priuata procurant,religionesinterpretantur … fere de omnibuscontrouersiispublicis priuatisque constituunt), not forgetting their philosophical doctrine (6.14.6multa …disputantet iuuentuti tradunt). He emphasizes the strictly oral form their teaching takes (6.14.4), how ‘they do not deem it appropriate to (...) commit it [their learning] to writing even though in almost everything else, in public and private affairs, they resort to Greek writing (neque fas esse existimantea litteris mandare, cum in reliquis fere rebus, publicis priuatisque rationibus Graecis litteris utantur)’, about the reasons for which he then proceeds to speculate (6.14.4):idmihiduabus de causis instituisseuidentur, quod neque in uulgum disciplinam efferri uelint neque eos qui discunt litteris confisos minus memoriae studere: quodfere plerisque accidit, ut praesidio litterarum diligentiam in perdiscendo ac memoriam remittant.This [sc. practice] they seem to me to have instituted for two reasons: they do not wish either that their teaching be revealed to the general public or that those who are learning it, having become reliant on writing, give less attention to memorization; and it does, as a rule, happen to many that, because of the prop offered by writing, they relax their diligence in thoroughly committing things to memory. (shrink)

A recent piece in this journal by Morgan and Taylor made the case that C. Memmius is not to be seen as an active prosecutor of Epicureanism but rather as an Epicurean himself, who merely has disagreed with the grimly orthodox Epicurean sect in Athens. As such, Memmius’ building intentions for Epicurus’ home could have been to create an honorary monument or possibly even construct a grander locus for pilgrimage and the practice of Epicureanism. This note adds to their findings (...) by considering allusions to De Rerum Natura found in Fam. 13.1 and the implications of Cicero speaking to Memmius in Lucretius’ striking language. Cicero expresses his judgement on De Rerum Natura, famously, at QFr. 2.10.3, Lucreti poemata ut scribis ita sunt, multis luminibus ingeni, multae tamen artis. sed cum ueneris, uirum te putabo si Sallusti Empedoclea legeris, hominem non putabo, and Memmius, of course, is the addressee of De Rerum Natura. This Lucretian language, unremarked on by previous scholars, points to the shared literary culture of Cicero and Memmius as well as Memmius’ own ability to recollect and contextualize the references. By echoing Lucretius in this letter, Cicero hints at Memmius’ sophistication and learning, underscores Lucretius’ own fervent devotion to Epicurus’ strictures, and suggests the need for Memmius to achieve ataraxia, at the very least, in regards to his building plans and the furore it is causing in Athens. (shrink)

Daniel Sennert is one of the more neglected big figures of that seventeenth-century process that goes by the shorthand name of Scientific Revolution. Born in Breslau/wroclaw in 1572, he was professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg from 1602 until his death in 1637. However, his fame and importance were not due to his classroom teaching but to his writings, which were reprinted throughout the century in Germany, France, England, Italy, and the Netherlands, and partially translated into English. His (...) reputation among both his contemporaries and today’s historians of science has to do with the highly innovative synthesis of natural philosophy, medicine, and chymistry, which he presented notably in the two editions of his De chymicorum cum Aristotelicis et Galenicis consensu ac dissensu and in his late Hypomnemata physica, both of which relied on a novel type of atomistic matter theory. His influence, generally underestimated in today’s scholarship, was felt throughout the century and, as William R. Newman has demonstrated, is particularly important in the case of Robert Boyle, who was “plundering Sennert’s œuvre for proofs of the corpuscularian hypothesis,” albeit without acknowledging his source. (shrink)

At its January 2017 meeting, the Executive Committee of the Peirce Society decided to plan a panel on "Charles S. Peirce and the Study of Religion" for the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in November, 2017, in Boston. The AAR accepted our proposal as a special meeting and I had the privilege of organizing and chairing it. We are pleased that the panel of papers will be published as a group in The Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.Michael (...) L. Raposa's paper, "On Reading God's Great Poem: A Delayed Response to Christopher Hookway," picks up a long debate about the extent to which Peirce's late "Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" is continuous or discontinuous with his early work.Brandon... (shrink)

Renouvelant la distinction du fait et du droit posée par Pascal, on s’efforce d’établir que les Cinq propositions n’étaient pas dans l’Augustinus en un sens hérétique.

Jeremy Waldron This is a poorly organized book, and it does not really present any well- structured arguments. In a blurb on the back of the book, Christopher Eisgruber says that “every serious scholar of religious toleration will have to contend with Leiter’s bold claims.” That would have been so if Leiter had proceeded less precipitously to the question that interests him and then focused on it more steadily— if, for example, he had first identified the classic arguments for (...) toleration and criticized them and had then gone on to argue that neither the classic tolerationist arguments ðsuch as they areÞ nor any other principled arguments can make a case for religious accommodations. That would have been a bold and bracing argument. But poor structure and lack of clarity with definitions make it harder to see what is at stake in any of the arguments and what position exactly Leiter is counseling us to take. Christopher McCammon There’s been enough renewed interest in republicanism over the past thirty years that we can call it a “republican revival.” If you know about this revival, it’s probably through the Quentin Skinner cum Philip Pettit excavation of a third way between Isaiah Berlin’s conceptions of negative and positive freedom. For republicans, Skinner and Pettit tell us, freedom is ðor at least requiresÞ nondomination. Living without domination requires neither the absence of interference nor the actualization of ideals associated with positive liberty—autonomy, self-mastery, and so on. Suppose I want to drink less, but I just can’t sober up. So I hand over my liquor cabinet’s key to a friend, on the understanding that she will only return it after a day’s notice. This is one of Pettit’s favorite examples. He thinks it shows how interference doesn’t always compromise freedom. If I beg you for the immediate return of my key, and you refuse as per my instructions, you interfere with me, but you don’t reduce my freedom because you interfere on my terms. Interference makes me less free only when it isn’t on my terms—such interference is “arbitrary”as republicans often say. Arbitrary interference always reduces freedom. Suppose you stole the key in hopes of helping me overcome alcoholism. Your actions might lead to increased self-mastery, but you left me worse off in a freedom-specific way nonetheless. Pettit thinks that a robust commitment to democracy falls right out of this conception of freedom. The republican tradition rejects outright William Paley’s claim that life under “the edicts of a despotic prince” might be “no less free than the purest democracy” ðThe Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy [Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002], 314Þ. Why? Because however religiously they leave us alone, despotic princes hold a power of arbitrary interference. The promise of democracy, from a republican perspective like Pettit’s, is that a democratic regime is one where the state interferes only as bidden by the people. He claims that there is thus a deep, maybe even conceptual, connection between republicanism and democracy. (shrink)

pars 1. Exhibens principia cum generalia politicae publicae tum simplicibus civitatum formis propria -- pars 2. Continens sapientiam publicam in temperandis rerum publicarum formis procurando iusto civium numero ... -- pars 3. Sistens sapientiam publicam in perficiendis civium voluntate eorundemque corpore et statu externo -- pars 4. Tradens prudentiam publicam, vel artem feliciter regnandi in statu civitatis pacato, cum indice quatour [sic] tomorum.

Aristotle attaches particular significance to the homonymy of many central concepts in philosophy and science: that is, to the diversity of ways of being common to a single general concept. His preoccupation with homonymy influences his approach to almost every subject that he considers, and it clearly structures the philosophical methodology that he employs both when criticizing others and when advancing his own positive theories. Where there is homonymy there is multiplicity: Aristotle aims to find the order within this multiplicity, (...) and believes that doing so is crucial to scientific inquiry and philosophical progress.Christopher Shields investigates and evaluates Aristotle's approach to questions about homonymy, characterizing the metaphysical and semantic commitments necessary to establish the homonymy of a given concept. Then, in a series of case-studies, Shields examines in detail some of Aristotle's principal applications of homonymy--to the body, sameness and oneness, life, goodness, and being. Shields's aim is not only to give a fuller understanding of Aristotle's methodology and to illuminate his specific doctrines in a variety of areas, but to show that this methodology remains fruitful today. (shrink)

In this article Cristoph Wulf examines the basic concepts of pedagogy and educational science in the German-speaking world, looking at education and socialization from the perspective of educational anthropology. He makes evident that the complex German concept of Bildung, in particular, can only be fully understood by means of a historical and philosophical analysis.

Fallacies and Argument Appraisal presents an introduction to the nature, identification, and causes of fallacious reasoning, along with key questions for evaluation. Drawing from the latest work on fallacies as well as some of the standard ideas that have remained relevant since Aristotle, Christopher Tindale investigates central cases of major fallacies in order to understand what has gone wrong and how this has occurred. Dispensing with the approach that simply assigns labels and brief descriptions of fallacies, Tindale provides fuller (...) treatments that recognize the dialectical and rhetorical contexts in which fallacies arise. This volume analyzes major fallacies through accessible, everyday examples. Critical questions are developed for each fallacy to help the student identify them and provide considered evaluations. (shrink)

Authentizitat ist ein in unserem kulturellen Raum allgegenwartiges Phanomen. Doch wem oder was begegnen wir, wenn wir meinen, uns selbst verwirklichen oder alternativ einfach uns selbst treu sein zu mussen? Christoph Wiesinger zeigt, dass wir auf ein Selbst geworfen werden, das zwar als homogener Nukleus der Person projiziert werden kann, sich aber bei genauerem Hinsehen als komplexe sozial verinnerlichte Struktur entpuppt. Das Selbst ist keineswegs objektiv zu fassen, sondern unterliegt sozialen Genesen und wird durch soziale Adressierung unterschiedlich formiert. Das Ereignis (...) von Authentizitat gibt somit Anlass zur Reflexion der Differenz zwischen Erwartung und Erfahrung. Christoph Wiesinger legt die Strukturen des Phanomens der Authentizitat frei, zeigt die theologischen Implikationen auf und diskutiert die praktisch-theologischen Konsequenzen. (shrink)

Difficult Atheism shows how contemporary French philosophy is rethinking the legacy of the death of God in ways that take the debate beyond the narrow confines of atheism into the much broader domain of post-theological thinking. Christopher Watkin argues that Alain Badiou, Jean-Luc Nancy and Quentin Meillassoux each elaborate a distinctive approach to the post-theological, but that each approach still struggles to do justice to the death of God.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains thirty-three essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central issues about the (...) nature and variety of love, the possibility of its rational justification, and whether it is an emotion, to the significance of love for law, economics, morality, and free will. The volume also contains an introduction to the subject as well as essays on love’s relation to jealousy, biotechnology, religion, knowledge, and several other topics. This wide-ranging handbook will be a key resource for specialists working on the philosophy of love, and a helpful guide for those looking to learn more about the area. (shrink)

Do famous athletes have special obligations to act virtuously? A number of philosophers have investigated this question by examining whether famous athletes are subject to special role model obligations (Wellman 2003; Feezel 2005; Spurgin 2012). In this paper we will take a different approach and give a positive response to this question by arguing for the position that sport and gaming celebrities are ‘ambassadors of the game’: moral agents whose vocations as rule-followers have unique implications for their non-lusory lives. According (...) to this idea, the actions of a game’s players and other stakeholders—especially the actions of its stars—directly affect the value of the game itself, a fact which generates additional moral reasons to behave in a virtuous manner. We will begin by explaining the three main positions one may take with respect to the question: moral exceptionalism, moral generalism, and moral exemplarism. We will argue that no convincing case for moral exemplarism has thus far been made, which gives us reason to look for new ways to defend this position. We then provide our own ‘ambassadors of the game’ account and argue that it gives us good reason to think that sport and game celebrities are subject to special obligations to act virtuously. (shrink)

Depuis quatre décennies, les organisations non gouvernementales alertent l'opinion publique face au modèle de croissance destructrice des ressources écologiques de la planète. Quelles leçons tirer de l'histoire récente? Comment accélérer l'innovation sociale afin de construire un autre monde? Autant de questions auxquelles répondent avec conviction douze auteur·e·s dans un ouvrage mosaïque. Sans doute que tout est dans le sous-titre : la société civile, moteur de la transition écologique. A côté des États et des collectivités supra-nationales, ONU, Europe entre autres, les (...) acteurs de la société civile ont joué un rôle prophétique de lanceurs d'alertes et de créateurs d'alternatives durables. Non écoutés ou à tout le moins peu pris en compte, ils prennent le relais d'acteurs politiques classiques, défaillants et timides, voire contribuant significativement à l'aggravation du constat. Crise de la gouvernance politique? Certainement. Démarquage, différences et divergences face au capitalisme mondial et existentiel? Oui encore. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the role of perspective in Hegel’s metaphysics, and in particular the role that multiple perspectives play within the ultimate structure in Hegel’s metaphysics, which Hegel calls ‘the idea [die Idee].’ My (somewhat anachronistic) way into this topic will be to inquire about Hegel’s stance on what Adrian Moore has called ‘absolute representations.’ I argue for the claim that perspective is maintained, even in the absolute idea, which generates the task of understanding the nature of that (...) perspective and its compatibility with absoluteness. I attempt to accomplish this task by asking what a logical perspective could be, and how it might be related to visual perspective. Then I inquire into the relation that perspectives have to each other, i.e., to the system of perspectives. I construe those relations in reciprocal and dynamic terms, so that absoluteness takes the form of a structured round of perspectives rather than a relation to reality “once and for all”. (shrink)

Ectogestation involves the gestation of a fetus in an ex utero environment. The possibility of this technology raises a significant question for the abortion debate: Does a woman’s right to end her pregnancy entail that she has a right to the death of the fetus when ectogestation is possible? Some have argued that it does not Mathison & Davis. Others claim that, while a woman alone does not possess an individual right to the death of the fetus, the genetic parents (...) have a collective right to its death Räsänen. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of ectogestation will radically transform the problem of abortion. The argument that I defend purports to show that, even if it is not a person, there is no right to the death of a fetus that could be safely removed from a human womb and gestated in an artificial womb, because there are competent people who are willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows into a person. Thus, given the possibility of ectogestation, the moral status of the fetus plays no substantial role in determining whether there is a right to its death. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should replace the common classification of theories of welfare into the categories of hedonism, desire theories, and objective list theories. The tripartite classification is objectionable because it is unduly narrow and it is confusing: it excludes theories of welfare that are worthy of discussion, and it obscures important distinctions. In its place, the paper proposes two independent classifications corresponding to a distinction emphasised by Roger Crisp: a four-category classification of enumerative theories (about which items constitute (...) welfare), and a four-category classification of explanatory theories (about why these items constitute welfare). (shrink)

Das Buch beschreibt die Transformation des Diskurses der Kulturwissenschaft, der seit seinem Entstehen um die Jahrhundertwende auch die deutsch-jüdische Interkulturalität retten sollte, in einem Diskurs der politischen Theologie (Carl Schmitt und Gerschom Scholem), über den sich der katastrophale Trennungsprozess beider Kulturen vollstreckt.

This chapter surveys hybrid theories of well-being. It also discusses some criticisms, and suggests some new directions that philosophical discussion of hybrid theories might take.

Aristotle attaches particular significance to the homomyny of many of the central concepts in philosophy and science: that is, to the diversity of ways of being that are denoted by a single concept. Shields here investigates and evaluates Aristotle's approach to questions about homonymy, characterizing the metaphysical and semantic commitments necessary to establish the homonymy of a given concept. Then, in a series of case studies, he examines in detail some of Aristotle's principal applications of homonymy--to the body, sameness and (...) and oneness, life, goodness, and being. This first full-length study of a central aspect of Aristotle's thought will interest philosophers working in a number of areas. (shrink)

What makes philosophy on the continent of Europe so different and exciting? And why does it have such a reputation for being 'difficult'? Continental philosophy was initiated amid the revolutionary ferment of the 18th century, philosophers such as Kant and Hegel confronting the extremism of the time with theories that challenged the very formation of individual and social consciousness. Covering the great philosophers of the modern and postmodern eras – from Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze right to up Agamben and (...) Žižek – and philosophical movements from German idealism to deconstruction and feminism – Christopher Kul-Want and Piero brilliantly elucidate some of the most thrilling and powerful ideas ever to have been discussed. (shrink)

Group-based reasons are reasons to play one’s part in some pattern of action that the members of some group could perform, because of the good features of the pattern. This paper discusses three broad conceptions of such reasons. According to the agency-first conception, there are no group-based reasons in cases where the relevant group is not or would not be itself an agent. According to the behaviour-first conception, what matters is that the other members of the group would play their (...) parts in the relevant pattern, not whether they would have the cooperative intentional states constitutive of group agency in doing so. This paper argues against these conceptions and in favour of the powers-first conception, according to which what matters is that the members of the group have practically relevant powers. (shrink)

Die Kernthese der Paracelsischen Naturphilosophie, die Ahnlichkeit von Mensch und Welt, festgelegt in der Analogie von Mikro- und Makrokosmos, enthullt einen -Code-, der als konstitutives Moment samtliche Aussagen auf einer prakonzeptionellen Ebene organisiert, samtliche Teilbereiche in ihrer funktionalen Bedeutung fur das -Ganze- markiert und schliesslich im Sinne Foucaults zu einer -diskursiven Formation- werden lasst. Die auf diese Weise vorgefuhrte Erfahrungsform von Welt und Natur steht zu dem neuzeitlich-technischen Verfugungswissen in einer historischen Diskontinuitat.".

Bernard Freydberg’s recent work is a careful and compact study of David Hume’s signature texts: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), An Enquiry Concerning Principles of Morals (1751), and “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757). Contrary to traditional epistemological readings that comfortably situate Hume as an empiricist naturalist, Freydberg argues that he is better understood as a profound thinker of imagination and Socratic ignorance. Hume’s figurative and Platonic argumentation varies in each text, but Freydberg makes a convincing case that his (...) theoretical, moral, and aesthetic philosophies share a proto-phenomenological center in the artistry of human nature and perception. (shrink)

This article proposes a way of understanding Kantianism, act-utilitarianism and some other important ethical theories according to which they are all versions of the same kind of theory, sharing a common structure. I argue that this is a profitable way to understand the theories discussed. It is charitable to the theories concerned; it emphasizes the common ground between them; it gives us insights into the differences between them; and it provides a method for generating new ethical theories worth studying. The (...) article briefly discusses the relationship between these ideas and some other recent proposals that emphasize the common ground between Kantianism and versions of consequentialism. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of an extended unit of action, which is the idea that the reasons for or against an individual action can depend on the qualities of a larger pattern of action of which it is a part. One concept of joint action is that the unit of action can be extended in this sense. But the idea of an extended unit of action is surprisingly minimal in its commitments. The paper argues for this conclusion by examining (...) uses of the idea of an extended unit of action in four theoretical contexts. It also explains why the idea of an extended unit of action need not involve magical thinking, and discusses possible replies to an objection based on a worry about recklessness. (shrink)

Plato’s engagement with rhetoric continues past the early and middle dialogues, like the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, contrary to the views of commentators. And that engagement recognizes a positive value to rhetoric as a necessary tool for leading people to justice. The paper explores rhetoric’s relation to Platonic dialectic through an examination of its role in late dialogues where the method of dialectic is most pronounced.

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

Our reception of Hegel’s theory of action faces a fundamental difficulty: on the one hand, that theory is quite clearly embedded in a social theory of modern life, but on the other hand most of the features of the society that gave that embedding its specific content have become almost inscrutably strange to us (e.g., the estates and the monarchy). Thus we find ourselves in the awkward position of stressing the theory’s sociality even as we scramble backwards to distance ourselves (...) from the particular social institutions that gave conceptualized form to such sociality in Hegel’s own opinion. My attempt in this article is to make our position less awkward by giving us at least one social-ontological leg to stand on. Specifically, I want to defend a principled and conceptual pluralism as forming the heart of Hegel’s theory of action. If this view can be made out, then we will have a social-ontological structure that might be filled out in different ways in Hegel’s time and our own while simultaneously giving real teeth to the notion that Hegel’s theory of action is essentially social. (shrink)