Two Concepts of Community or Moral Theory and Canadian Culture

Dialogue ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Cragg
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
George Grant ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Canadian Culture ◽  
The Impact

One of the striking characteristics of contemporary moral philosophy is the speed with which philosophers in the English-speaking world have jettisoned their reluctance to address concrete ethical problems and dilemmas and have plunged into the field of applied ethics. No less interesting is the impact that the work of some of the more noted of them has had outside of strictly philosophical circles. One need only to mention John Rawls or H. L. A. Hart to make the point. It is no longer difficult to prove that these same trends are deeply entrenched amongst Canadian philosophers. A further parallel is suggested by the fact that a Canadian philosopher, George Grant, has also had a substantial impact on recent Canadian thought. The appearance of a parallel, however, is illusory. For while applied ethics certainly has its practitioners in Canada today, and while it is widely recognized that both American and British philosophers have had a substantial and philosophically respectable impact on their respective societies, there seems widespread resistance to the idea that philosophical reflection has a role to play in the development of a distinctive understanding of Canadian society. And there is widespread scepticism in professional philosophical circles in Canada that the work of George Grant is of genuine philosophical interest, whatever his popular reputation.

Bodies in Play: Maternity, Repertory, and the RivalRomeo and Juliets, 1748–51

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-236
Author(s):  
Chelsea Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Women's Labor ◽  
Birth Rates ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
And Performance ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Impact

In her recent book on celebrity pregnancy, legal scholar Renée Ann Cramer writes, “in the years from 1970 to 2000, popular culture became more open to performances of pregnancy; once kept secret and articulated as private, pregnancy became ‘public.’” This is not wholly true. In the English-speaking world, “celebrity pregnancy,” with its overt performances of femininity and maternity, bodily monitoring, and careful dance between the concealment and revelation of private information, had its first public moment in the long eighteenth century. That century's professional theatre was a site for the intersection of two forms of women's labor: the maternal labor of pregnancy and birth, which affected women of all classes throughout a century with rapidly rising birth rates, and the theatrical labor of professional actresses. Although the latter has been the subject of much-needed study in recent decades, the impact of maternal labor on the professional theatre of the time is only beginning to be explored. Between 1700 and 1800, birth rates for middle- and upper-class British woman rose significantly. Among the aristocracy, rates doubled from four to eight children, and middle-class women averaged seven births by the end of the century. At the same time, women in the professional theatre were inventing and modeling new forms of public womanhood, capitalizing on a burgeoning culture of female celebrity, and, in some cases, wielding exceptional economic and artistic power. Though not all actresses had children, many did, and at rates that were not unlike those of their nontheatrical counterparts. For these women, the successful balancing of maternal and theatrical labor could be vital to their careers and, in many cases, their family's survival. The need to balance personal and professional demands was all the more imperative within the hectic and extremely competitive repertory system. The day-to-day repertory of a London company was of necessity a malleable thing, accommodating short runs of popular pieces, audience requests, illnesses and absences of company members, and the perpetual state of competition between the patent houses of Covent Garden and Drury Lane. To compete profitably, managers needed competent and popular performers (bodies) and performance vehicles (texts) in which to feature them. As the available bodies changed, then, so too did the available plays for performance.

George Grant's Justice

Dialogue ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
George Grant ◽  
English Speaking

In 1974, George Grant delivered the Josiah Wood lectures at Mount Allison University on the theme English-Speaking Justice. The lectures, first published in 1978, have been republished, and a volume of later essays on somewhat related themes has recently appeared. Grant's work offers an impressionistic but deep challenge to the conception of justice in modern moral thought and practice, a challenge paralleled, in interesting and important ways, by concerns about morality raised in the writings of such persons as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, and, perhaps more surprisingly, J. L. Mackie. In this review, I want briefly to expound Grant's treatment of justice, to exhibit its relationships to other disquieting accounts, and to suggest some of the resources available to contractarian moral theory for lightening what for Grant is a terrifying darkness.

Reflections on Rawls

2008 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-271
Author(s):  
Shaun P. Young
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Number Of Individuals

Arguably, there have been few contemporary political theorists who have had as great an impact as John Rawls. During his lifetime his work was referred to as “epoch-making” and “cataclysmic in its effect” on the field of political theory. On numerous occasions he was proclaimed “the most important political philosopher of the twentieth century,” and other titles equally celebratory. A number of individuals have gone so far as to credit Rawls with reviving political philosophy, breathing new life into what was (according to Peter Laslett's now famous 1956 declaration) a dead discipline, once again making it a valid and valuable enterprise. While the accuracy of such a claim has been questioned, one fact seems indisputable: Rawls redefined late twentieth-century political theory, altering its “premises and principles.” Indeed, “political philosophy since the early 1970s has been—at least in the English-speaking world—in very substantial part a commentary on Rawls's work.”

An Ambiguous Institution: Slavery, the State, and the Law in Colonial Massachusetts

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 154-180
Author(s):  
Jared Ross Hardesty
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Southern Colonies ◽  
Effective Path

This essay examines the impact the state had in shaping slavery in colonial Massachusetts. Like other parts of the early modern English-speaking world, there was no legal precedent for slavery, meaning that positive law had to enforce and define the institution. Even more problematic for Massachusetts, however, the colonial assembly passed few statutes regarding slavery, leaving it to the courts and town selectmen to govern slavery on an ad hoc and informal basis. As opposed to strict slave codes in the Southern colonies, the legally ambiguous status of slavery in Massachusetts allowed slaves to make use of a legal system that granted them the right to a fair trial and full legal recourse. By using the courts, then, African-Americans created an innovative and effective path to freedom by the late colonial period.

Ending the Physical Punishment of Children by Parents in the English-speaking World: The Impact of Language, Tradition and Law

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernadette J. Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Physical Violence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Physical Punishment ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Impact

Ending the physical punishment of children remains an enormous challenge. In societies which tolerate even limited physical punishment as discipline or control, it is a response to children that adults may unthinkingly adopt simply because they can. This paper primarily focuses on the language, traditions and law prevailing in English-speaking, common law countries – Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom – that have ratified the CRC but have not yet fully outlawed physical punishment. New Zealand, the first English-speaking country to ban physical punishment, and the United States which has neither ratified the CRC nor fully outlawed physical punishment, are also discussed. Separately, language, traditional attitudes and practices, and laws impacting children’s lives are considered, with a view to envisioning a status quo where adults and children are accorded equal respect as human beings and any degree of physical violence towards children is regarded as an aberration.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
James Uden
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Art And Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The Impact

The book begins by briefly surveying the origin and history of the word Gothic from the Roman Empire to the first canonical novel of the English Gothic tradition, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764). It then surveys relevant debates about the classical world and its legacy in eighteenth-century England, including the aftershocks of the French “Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns” and appropriations of classical ideas and images in politics, art, and literature. The Gothic was a “pan-European” phenomenon. Although this book focuses largely on literary works from Britain and America, the allusive connections with Classical literature remind us that the impact of the Gothic was not limited to the English-speaking world.

Utilitarianism for a Broken World

Utilitas ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIM MULGAN
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Applied Ethics ◽  
Basic Needs ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Rule Utilitarianism ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Broken World

Drawing on the author's recent bookEthics for a Broken World, this article explores the philosophical implications of the fact that climate change – or something like it – might lead to abroken worldwhere resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs, and where our affluent way of life is no longer an option. It argues that the broken world has an impact, not only on applied ethics, but also on moral theory. It then explores that impact. The article first argues that the broken world creates severe difficulties for both libertarians and contractualists. It then explores the impact of the broken world on utilitarianism – and especially on reflective equilibrium arguments for rule-utilitarianism. The article concludes that, while such arguments may still be viable, the form of rule-utilitarianism that results will be less moderate and less liberal than contemporary rule-utilitarians might hope.

Dworkin on the Foundations of Liberal Equality

Legal Theory ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-226
Author(s):  
Patrick Neal
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

Ronald Dworkin's Tanner Lectures, “Foundations of Liberal Equality,” have hardly elicited comment within the academic political theory community. This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, Dworkin is widely taken to be one of the leading liberal theorists in the English-speaking world, and “Foundations” is a major statement (120 pages in length) involving reflection upon issues of principle that are at the center of contemporary scholarly debate among liberals. Secondly, “Foundations” introduces a number of ideas and concepts that are new in Dworkin's corpus and that serve to illuminate and clarify some of his wdely discussed earlier works, especially the famous article “Liberalism,” which sparked so much argument over the idea of neutrality and its place within liberal political theory. Finally, the lectures are interesting because of the approach they take to the matter of “defending liberalism,” an approach that departs in interesting and significant ways from those presently pursued by other leading liberal thinkers, notably John Rawls and Joseph Raz.

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