scholarly journals Immigration, Humanity, and Morality

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sunday Adeniyi Fasoro

AbstractThe trend toward the concept of humanity in political theory has arisen largely as a reaction against the mistreatment of vulnerable people such as immigrants. The issue of immigrants’ vulnerability has led political thinkers to ponder on how to apply the principle of humanity to the question of the treatment of immigrants. I would like to address this matter by examining two questions: what is humanity, is it a value property, or a virtue? Does it really matter if the means by which an immigrant immigrates is demeaning to his own humanity as a person? The most common or intuitive reply to these questions would probably be: ‘humanity’ is simply a value-bestowing property, so regardless of immigrants’ actions they are owed respectful treatment. The aim of this paper is to emphasise instead that ‘humanity’ should be conceived as a virtue of actual commitment to act on moral principles. I explore three different meanings of humanity. First, I discuss ‘humanity’ as the common ownership of the earth. Second, I discuss ‘humanity’ as a value property. Third, I discuss humanity as a virtue of acting, on the one hand, with humanity, and on the other hand, on moral principles.

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 676-702
Author(s):  
Dimitris Gakis

Reification, a central theme in radical social/political theory from the 1920s onward, has started falling out of fashion since the 1970s, a period when a number of crucial alterations in the composition of capital and labour start taking place, for example, the tendential hegemony of immaterial/biopolitical labour. The main goal of this article is to discuss reification in light of contemporary changes in the shape of capitalism such as the above. After discussing the relation between reification, alienation and commodity fetishism, I highlight, largely following Hardt and Negri, how reification under the hegemony of immaterial/biopolitical production is, on the one hand, intensified and, on the other hand, (potentially) easier to diagnose, diminish or overcome, due to the increasing emergence of the common as a social relation antagonistic to capital. The article concludes with a note on Wittgenstein and the critique of reification of the symbolic (language) and the ‘inner’ (affects) as the new extended terrain of struggle.


Author(s):  
Sebastian Lecourt

This chapter considers a series of formative debates in British anthropology from the 1840s through the 1860s and uses them to map out the two dominant constructions of religion whose politics the subsequent authors in this study would reinvent. It describes, on the one hand, a liberal and evangelical construction of religion as the common human capacity for spiritual cultivation, and on the other hand a conservative, reactionary model that interpreted religious differences as the expressions of fixed racial identities that neither civilization nor Christianization could erase. In the work of the Oxford philologist F. Max Müller we see how the former model tended to associate religion above all with language. But we can also see the subtle forms of determinism that it contained—an ambiguity that Arnold, Pater, Eliot, and Lang would explore by picturing racialized religion as a resource for liberal self-cultivation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
EJ Udokang

Many well-meaning parents and teachers are hamstrung in their attempts at moral education of their children and wards. Hence they are caught in some dilemma. On the one hand, if they incline toward the code of conception, they tend to be authoritarian in their approach; if, on the other hand, they favour some variant of the romantic reaction, they may expect that children will go it alone and decide it all for themselves. To overcome this dilemma, there is need for a synthesis of both alternatives. It is precisely the synthesis of these two positions (principles and creativity) that we propose to explore in this paper as a preliminary to any discussion on moral education. With analytic method as a tool, the paper concludes that until a more adequate view of morality which embroils the proper place for both authority and self-directed learning is synthesized, a discourse on moral education will be of no good.


2006 ◽  
pp. 29-56
Author(s):  
Michal Sládecek

In first chapters of this article MacIntyre?s view of ethics is analyzed, together with his critics of liberalism as philosophical and political theory, as well as dominant ideological conception. In last chapters MacIntyre?s view of the relation between politics and ethics is considered, along with the critical review of his theoretical positions. Macintyre?s conception is regarded on the one hand as very broad, because the entire morality is identified with ethical life, while on the other hand it is regarded as too narrow since it excludes certain essential aspects of deliberation which refers to the sphere of individual rights, the relations between communities, as well as distribution of goods within the state.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-221
Author(s):  
Wardah Nuroniyah

Hijab (veil) for female Muslims has been subject to a debate regarding its meanings. On the one hand, it represents the virtue of religious obedience and piety. Still, on the other hand, it is associated with the form of women oppressions in the public domain. At this point, the hijab has been an arena of contesting interpretations. Meanwhile, contemporary Indonesia is witnessing the increase in the use of veil among urban female Muslims that leads to the birth of various hijab wearer communities. One of them is Tuneeca Lover Community (TLC). This community has become a new sphere where female Muslims articulate their ideas about Islam through various activities such as religious gathering, hijab tutorial class, fashion show, and charity activities. This study seeks to answer several questions: Why do these women decide to wear a hijab? Why do they join the TLC? How do they perceive the veil? Is it related to religious doctrines or other factors such as lifestyle? This research employs a qualitative method using documentation and interview to gather the data among 150 members of the TLC.  This research shows that their understanding of the hijab results from the common perception that places the veil as a religious obligation. Nevertheless, each of the members has one's orientation over the hijab. This paper also suggests that they try to transform this understanding into modern settings. As a consequence, they are not only committed to the traditionally spiritual meaning of the hijab but are also nuanced with modern ideas such as lifestyle and particular social class. Their participation in the TLC enables them to reach both goals simultaneously.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiichi Suzuki

This paper provides a typological account of Old Germanic metre by investigating its parametric variations that largely determine the metrical identities of the Old English Beowulf, the Old Saxon Heliand, and Old Norse eddic poetry (composed in fornyrðislag, málaháttr, or ljóðaháttr). The primary parameters to be explored here are the principle of four metrical positions per verse and the differing ways in which these constituent positions are aligned to linguistic material. On the one hand, the four-position principle works with a maximal strictness in Beowulf, and to a slightly lesser extent in fornyrðislag, whereas it allows for a wider range of deviations in verse size in the Heliand and ljóðaháttr. In málaháttr, however, the principle in itself gives way to the five-position counterpart. On the other hand, the variation in the metrical– linguistic alignment in the three close cognate metres may be generalised by positing the common scale, Heliand > Beowulf > fornyrðislag, for the decreasing likelihood of resolution, the increasing likelihood of suspending resolution, and the decreasing size of the drop.


PMLA ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 954-962
Author(s):  
Margaret Ferguson

On the one hand, the gift presents itself as a radical Other of the commodity—and therefore also of work, insofar as the latter is understood as an investment of time and energy made in the expectation of wages or profit. On the other hand, the idea of the gift seems constantly to be drawn back under the horizon of rational exchange, and to be thus endlessly re-revealed as a secret ally of both work and the Work.—Scott Cutler Shershow, The Work and the GiftI have put together all these details to convince you that this recommendation of mine is something out of the common.Quae ego omnia collegi, ut intellegeres non vulgarem esse commendationem hanc meam.—Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares, book 13LAST FALL I FOUND IN MY OFFICE MAILBOX AN ENVELOPE FROM A SOPHOMORE ENGLISH MAJOR WHO HAD ASKED ME DURING THE SUMMER for a last-minute letter of recommendation for a scholarship competition. The envelope contained a handwritten thank-you note—and a gift certificate for a local restaurant. I e-mailed the student to thank her and to tell her that I couldn't accept the gift certificate since the letter I had written for her was part of my job as a teacher. She insisted; I insisted. She said that several teachers had turned her down before I agreed (from a hotel in Germany) to write for her. I felt rueful, as well as grateful to her for the token of gratitude that I couldn't accept. Eventually she won the debate: I accepted the printed piece of paper and took my daughters out to a free lunch.


Author(s):  
Nathan Widder

This chapter examines Friedrich Nietzsche's political philosophy, first by focusing on his claim that the ‘death of God’ inaugurates modern nihilism. It then explains Nietzsche's significance for political theory by situating him, on the one hand, against the Platonist and Christian traditions that dominate political philosophy and, on the other hand, with contemporary attempts to develop a new political theory of difference. The chapter also considers Nietzsche's genealogical method and proceeds by analysing the three essays of On the Genealogy of Morals, along with his views on good and bad, good and evil, slave morality, the ascetic ideal, and the nihilism of modern secularism. Finally, it reviews contemporary interpretations of Nietzsche's relation and relevance to political theory and how his philosophy has inspired a broader set of trends that has come to be known as ‘the ontological turn in political theory’.


1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Morgenthau

Of the seeming and real innovations which the modern age has introduced into the practice of foreign policy, none has proven more baffling to both understanding and action than foreign aid. The very assumption that foreign aid is an instrument of foreign policy is a subject of controversy. For, on the one hand, the opinion is widely held that foreign aid is an end in itself, carrying its own justification, both transcending, and independent of, foreign policy. In this view, foreign aid is the fulfillment of an obligation of the few rich nations toward the many poor ones. On the other hand, many see no justification for a policy of foreign aid at all. They look at it as a gigantic boon-doggle, a wasteful and indefensible operation which serves neither the interests of the United States nor those of the recipient nations.


1989 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly M. Smith

A moral code consists of principles that assign moral status to individual actions – principles that evaluate acts as right or wrong, prohibited or obligatory, permissible or supererogatory. Many theorists have held that such principles must serve two distinct functions. On the one hand, they serve a theoretical function, insofar as they specify the characteristics in virtue of which acts possess their moral status. On the other hand, they serve a practical function, insofar as they provide an action-guide: a standard by reference to which a person can choose which acts to perform and which not. Although the theoretical and practical functions of moral principles are closely linked, it is not at all obvious that what enables a principle to fill one of these roles automatically equips it to fill the other. In this paper I shall briefly examine some of the reasons why a moral principle might fail to fill its practical role, i.e., be incapable of guiding decisions. I shall then sketch three common responses to this kind of failure, and examine in some detail the adequacy of one of the most popular of these responses.


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