Locating Sovereignty in Systems of Divided and Limited Government

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.A. Lloyd
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Regress Argument ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Decision Authority

Thomas Hobbes famously mounted a regress argument intended to show that unless sovereignty is undivided and unlimited, stable and effective government is impossible. This chapter examines the implications of that argument for complex systems of government such as that of the United States and makes the case that such systems may evade the dilemma Hobbes poses if they are determinately rule-governed. The discussion covers such elements of Hobbes’s view as the sovereign as an artificial person, the puzzle of the sovereign assembly, Hobbes’s arguments against both divided sovereignty and limited sovereignty, and the location of sovereignty in complex systems. It also notes that enforcement power must follow the location of decision authority, and asks who bears moral responsibility for the sovereign’s actions in complex systems.

The Late-19th-Century Economy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Adams
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
The United States ◽  
Financial Accounting ◽  
Economic Order ◽  
Industrial Firms ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Labor Strikes ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Marketing Methods

The United States underwent massive economic change in the four decades following the end of the American Civil War in 1865. A vibrant industrial economy catapulted the nation to a world leader in mining and manufacturing; the agricultural sector overcame organizational and technological challenges to increase productivity; and the innovations in financial, accounting, and marketing methods laid the foundation for a powerful economy that would dominate the globe in the 20th century. The emergence of this economy, however, did not come without challenges. Workers in both the industrial and agricultural sectors offered an alternative path for the American economy in the form of labor strikes and populist reforms; their attempts to disrupt the growing concentration of wealth and power played out in both the polls and the factory floor. Movements that sought to regulate the growth of large industrial firms and railroads failed to produce much meaningful policy, even as they raised major critiques of the emerging economic order. In the end, a form of industrial capitalism emerged that used large corporate structures, relatively weak unions, and limited government interventions to build a dynamic, but unbalanced, economic order in the United States.

Refugees in an Age of Anger

Eco-ethica ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
James Winchester ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Central America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Southern Border ◽  
Return Home ◽  
Western Nations ◽  
First World

In this paper, I will first argue that the refugee crises in Europe and along the southern border of the United States are the direct result of colonial and neo-colonial politics. The nations that have caused the problems, therefore, have a moral responsibility first to accept refugees and then to work to fix the problems they created. The nations that are responsible for the problems should work to fix them so that the refugees can return home. We will also see that at times, for example in the case of Central America, the problems first-world people are facing are directly tied to the problems that are making refugees flee. In the second part of the paper, I will argue that there are good reasons to think that Western nations can accept more refugees without creating a xenophobic backlash if they work to address the problems that their own citizens are facing.

Enduring Freedom: Globalizing Children's Rights

Hypatia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-203
Author(s):  
Constance L. Mui ◽  
Julien S. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Global Community ◽  
The World ◽  
September 11 Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Effects Of War ◽  
Moral Questions

Events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States raise compelling moral questions about the effects of war and globalization on children in many parts of the world. This paper adopts Sartre's notion of freedom, particularly its connection with materiality and intersubjectivity, to assess the moral responsibility that we have as a global community toward our most vulnerable members. We conclude by examining important first steps that should be taken to address the plight of children.

The Man-Not and the Inapplicability of Intersectionality to the Dilemmas of Black Manhood

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-205
Author(s):  
Adebayo Oluwayomi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Black Males ◽  
Black Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Manhood ◽  
Sexual Discrimination ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Accurate Reading

This essay argues against the proposal that Tommy J. Curry’s The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood be read as a work of intersectionality. It argues that such a proposal amounts to a misjudgment of the overarching philosophical significance of the text. As Curry insists, intersectionality is inapplicable to the dilemmas of Black manhood because it does not consider the suffering, sexual discrimination, and death of Black males. Thus, this essay concludes that a more accurate reading of the text should be as a prolegomenon to a new schema focused on the complex systems of Black male victimization in the United States—“The Theory of Phallicism.”

Korean Intercountry Adoption History: Culture, Practice, and Implications

2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-251
Author(s):  
Kyunghee Ma
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Korean War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intercountry Adoption ◽  
Birth Mothers ◽  
Korean Children ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
The Korean War

Large-scale intercountry adoption emerged in a humanitarian crisis following the Korean War. With the growing demand in the United States for, and a steady supply of, adoptable South Korean children, as well as the limited government regulations, it has become permanent practice. Over the years, concerns were raised about unethical adoption practices. To address this issue, limited attempts have been made to promote in-country adoption and include birth mothers' perspectives in reformed adoption policies. However, these efforts have failed to bring about significant changes. The purpose of this article is to examine factors that influence intercountry adoption between the United States and South Korea and to discuss the challenges faced by South Korean birth mothers. Practice implications are also elucidated.

“America’s First Freedom”

2021 ◽  
pp. 85-128
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Lacombe
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
The Political ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
National Rifle Association ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Political Unity

This chapter employs the same American Rifleman editorials and gun control-related letters to explain how the National Rifle Association (NRA) has created a gun-centric political ideology, in which gun rights are central to a broader set of issue positions, and thus how gun rights became so closely related to contemporary conservatism in the United States. For many gun owners, gun rights stand at the center of a broader political ideology that embraces liberty, nationalism, limited government, and law and order. The chapter addresses the roots of this ideology and its relation to the gun owner identity by examining NRA's decades-long efforts to build an ideology around gun rights. Working in conjunction with its group identity, the NRA's ideology comprises the second stream of the gun-centric worldview it has used to advance gun rights. This group ideology increases the political unity of gun rights supporters — they are similar not just in their shared support for gun rights, but also along a broader range of issue positions and values. In connecting gun rights to other issues, the chapter unveils how ideology linked the gun owner identity to other politically relevant identities, strengthening each.

The Growth Machine across the United States: Business Actors’ Influence on Communities’ Economic Development and Limited–Government Austerity Policies

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 462-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lazarus Adua ◽  
Linda Lobao
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Local Economic Development ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Growth Machine ◽  
Limited Government ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
Scale Down

The growth machine (GM) perspective has long guided urban research. Our study provides a new extension of this perspective, focusing on local business actors’ influence on communities across the United States. We question whether GM–oriented business actors remain widely associated with contemporary local economic development policies, and further, whether these actors influence the use of limited–government austerity policies. Conceptually, we extend the GM framework by bringing it into dialogue with the literature on urban austerity policy. The analysis draws from the urban–quantitative tradition of large–sample studies and assesses localities across the nation using the empirical case of county governments. We find local real estate owners, utilities, and other business actors broadly influence U.S. localities’ economic development policies. We also find some evidence that these actors’ influences in local governance are related to the use of such cutback policies as hiring freezes, capping of social services, expenditure cutbacks, and sale of public assets. Local Chambers of Commerce are particularly associated with cutback policies. Overall, the findings suggest that where local GM actors are influential, communities are more likely to adopt business–oriented economic development policies, limit the growth of social services for the less affluent, and scale–down the public sector.

The failed institutionalization of “complexity science”: A focus on the Santa Fe Institute’s legitimization strategy

2020 ◽  
pp. 007327532093829
Author(s):  
Fabrizio Li Vigni
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Complex Systems ◽  
Present Article ◽  
The United States ◽  
Complexity Science ◽  
Santa Fe ◽  
Complexity Sciences ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Educational Field

“Complexity sciences” are an interdisciplinary and transnational domain of study that aims at modeling natural and social “complex systems.” They appeared in the 1970s in Europe and the United States, but were boosted in the mid-1980s by the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) under the formula of “science of complexity.” This small but famous institution is the object of the present article. According to their promissory ambitions and to the enthusiastic claims of some scientific journalists, complexity sciences were going to revolutionize all of knowledge and even private and public actors who had learned to master them. In the light of this, one would expect to observe a well-established and autonomous research and educational field, capable of reproducing itself through professional institutions. Yet this is not the case. To explain the paradox, I propose to combine different models of history and sociology of emergent and declining domains, in order to give account of the rise and failure of complexity sciences.

The Moral Basis for Healthcare Reform in the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRIFFIN TROTTER
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Healthcare Reform ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
Moral Basis

In speculating on the motives for government, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes identified the pervasive role of fear and the danger of violent death, holding famously that where no government prevails to secure physical safety and property, there can also be no enduring knowledge, art, or civilization—leaving human lives “solitary, poore [sic], nasty, brutish and short.”

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