Minimal Morality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Moehler
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Diversity ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Restricted Form ◽  
Pluralistic Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Just Society

This book develops a novel multilevel social contract theory that, in contrast to existing theories in the liberal tradition, does not merely assume a restricted form of reasonable moral pluralism, but is tailored to the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies that may be populated by liberal moral agents, nonliberal moral agents, and, according to the traditional understanding of morality, nonmoral agents alike. To develop this theory, the book draws on the history of the social contract tradition, especially the work of Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Rawls, and Gauthier, as well as on the work of some of the critics of this tradition, such as Sen and Gaus. The two-level contractarian theory holds that morality in its best contractarian version for the conditions of deeply morally pluralistic societies entails Humean, Hobbesian, and Kantian moral features. The theory defines the minimal behavioral restrictions that are necessary to ensure, compared to violent conflict resolution, mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in deeply morally pluralistic societies. The theory minimizes the problem of compliance by maximally respecting the interests of all members of society. Despite its ideal nature, the theory is, in principle, applicable to the real world and, for the conditions described, most promising for securing mutually beneficial peaceful long-term cooperation in a world in which a fully just society, due to moral diversity, is unattainable. If Rawls’ intention was to carry the traditional social contract argument to a higher level of abstraction, then the two-level contractarian theory brings it back down to earth.

The Modern City

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIANE E. DAVIS
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
Political Alliances ◽  
The Social ◽  
Shifting Balance ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The City ◽  
Rich History

What constitutes modern Mexico? Is there a clear distinction between the historic and modern Mexico City? And if there are, does this distinctions hold up throughout the twentieth century, when what is apparent is a mix of legacies coexisting overtime? This chapter discusses the semiotics of history and modernity. It discusses the struggle of the Mexico City to find its own image including its struggle to preserve historic buildings amidst the differing political alliances that either promote change or preserve the past. However, past is not a single entity, hence if the preservation of the rich history of Mexico is pursued, the question arises as to what periods of history represented in the city are to be favoured in its future development. In this chapter, the focus is on the paradoxes of the Torre Bicentenario and on the pressures to preserve Mexico’s past, the ways they have been juxtaposed against the plans for its future and how the balance of these views has shifted over time. It determines the key actors and the institutions who have embraced history as opposed to progress, identifies the set of forces that dominated in the city’s twentieth-century history, and assesses the long-term implications of the shifting balance for the social, spatial and built environmental character of the city. The chapter ends with a discussion on the current role played by the cultural and historical authorities in determining the fate of the city.

Long-Term Ecological Research Over the Long Term: A Historian’s Perspective

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Ecological Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Long Term Ecological Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ecological Science

There are many precedents for long-term research in the history of science. Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program’s current identity reflects significant change—intended and accidental, both consensual and conflictual—from research concerns that were prevalent in the 1980s. LTER program has pioneered modes of research organization and professional norms that are increasingly prominent in many areas of research and that belong to a significant transformation in the social relations of scientific research. The essays in this volume explore the impact of the LTER program, a generation after its founding, on both the practice of ecological science and the careers of scientists. The authors have applied the agenda of long- term scrutiny to their own careers as LTER researchers. They have recognized the LTER program as distinct, even perhaps unique, both in the ways that it creates knowledge and in the ways that it shapes careers. They have reflected on how they have taught (and were taught) in LTER settings, on how they interact with one another and with the public, and on how research in the LTER program has affected them “as persons.” A rationale for this volume is LTER’s distinctiveness. In many of the chapters, and in other general treatments of the LTER program, beginning with Callahan (1984), one finds a tone of defensiveness. Sometimes the concerns are explicit: authors (e.g., Stafford, Knapp, Lugo, Morris; Chapters 5, 22, 25, 33, respectively) bemoan colleagues who dismiss LTER as mere monitoring instead of serious science or who resent LTER’s independent funding stream. But more broadly, there is concern that various groups, ranging from other bioscientists to the public at large, may not appreciate the importance of long-term, site-specific environmental research. Accordingly, my hope here is to put LTER into several broader contexts. I do so in three ways. First, to mainstream LTER within the history of science, I show that the LTER program is not a new and odd way of doing science but rather exemplifies research agendas that have been recognized at least since the seventeenth century in the biosciences and beyond.

How Virtue Was Born

Gerontology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin A. Nowak ◽  
Karl Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
European Forum ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life On Earth

This paper summarizes the Opening Lecture of the European Forum Alpbach 2017 in Tyrol/Austria (https://www.alpbach.org/de/). It deals with the evolution of cooperation throughout the history of life on Earth, and in particular human cooperation based on partnership. It emphasizes the role of institutions providing incentives for cooperation, and the role of praise and blame in guiding our actions. This helps for a better understanding of the social contract, based on evolutionary biology and psychology.

scholarly journals The Siamese Twins: Citizenship Rights, Cleavage Formation, and Party-Union Relations in Western Europe

1995 ◽  
Vol 40 (S3) ◽  
pp. 51-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Ebbinghaus
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Siamese Twins ◽  
Interest Representation ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Prophecies of doom for both working-class party and labor unions have gained popularity in the Western industrial democracies over the last two decades. The “old” Siamese twins, working-class party and labor unions, have a century-long history of their combined struggle to achieve political and industrial citizenship rights for the working class. Both forms of interest representation are seen as facing new challenges if not a crisis due to internal and external changes of both long-term and recent nature. However, despite these prophecies political parties and union movemehts have been differently affected and have responded in dissimilar ways across Western Europe. The Siamese twins, party and unions, as social institutions, their embeddedness in the social structure, and their linkages, were molded at an earlier time with long-term consequences. Hence, we cannot grasp today's political unionism, party-union relations and organized labor's capacity for change, if we do not understand the social and political conditions under which the organization of labor interests became institutionalized. An understanding of the origins and causes of union diversity helps us to view the variations in union responses to current challenges.

The growth of rural madrasa

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicitas Becker
Keyword(s):  
Educational Practice ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
Mission Schools ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indirect Association ◽  
And Performance

In parallel with mosques, centres of Quranic education, known locally as madrasa, sprang up in the countryside between c.1920 and 1960. They were small, poor, and often transient; their one defining feature was the presence of a mwalimu, a teacher. Comparison of the parallel development of madrasa and mission schools makes clear that the main reason for this divergence was not resistance to Christian elements in the missionaries' syllabus, but to the perceived interference of mission teachers with the authority of students' families and with local religious practices. By contrast, madrasa tolerated these practices and were more closely integrated into the social networks of parents. The spread of madrasa and of mission schools involves three subtle long-term processes. Topics covered include educational practice and the status of knowledge, madrasa and mission schools, unyago, colonial politics and local networks, schools and madrasa as local institutions, madrasa as sites of encounter with Muslim knowledge, imagining Muslim scholarship, and performance and orality in Muslim education. In general, the history of madrasa emphasizes an indirect association between education and social control – the complex status of knowledge.

Love’s Evolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 71-94
Author(s):  
Celia E. Deane-Drummond
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Severe Disabilities ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reasonable Evidence ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

The relationship between empathy, love, and compassion has long been contested in the history of moral theory. Drawing on Martha Nussbaum’s definition of compassion as a form of judgement, and its relationship to empathy as both emotive and cognitive, this chapter seeks to uncover some of the reasons why empathy and compassion are still contested by scientists working in moral psychology as being relevant for the truly moral life. It also draws on fascinating work by archaeologists that shows reasonable evidence for the existence of deep compassion far back in the evolutionary record of early hominins, even prior to the appearance of Homo sapiens. The long-term care of those with severe disabilities is remarkable and indicates the importance of empathy and compassion deep in history. This is not so much a romanticized view of the past, since violence as well as cooperation existed side by side, but an attempt to show that the rising wave of anti-empathy advocates have missed the mark. Compassion is the fruit of cooperative tendencies. Primatologist Frans de Waal has also undertaken important work on empathy operative in the social lives of alloprimates. The Thomistic concept of compassion in the framework of his approach to the virtues in the moral life is also discussed.

Paris in the Orient: a spatial micro-history of the French in Shanghai (1942)

Urban History ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Cécile Armand ◽  
Christian Henriot
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
French Population ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
Spatial Approach ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract In this article, we rely on a census of French residents in 1942 to conduct a quantitative micro-history of the French community in the wake of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. On the basis of this snapshot, we examine this group from the perspective of long-term demography combined with a spatial approach drawing on the geospatial resources built over a decade in Shanghai. We argue that the system of power in the French Concession shaped the structural traits of the French population as a self-contained community. It created a politically, culturally and linguistically defined space where French nationals were presented with opportunities and even privileges. It sheds light on the social characteristics of foreign communities in a transcolonial city and on the spatial patterns they created in a non-western urban setting. Methodologically, we harness Geographical Information System tools to bridge demography and spatial history.

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