scholarly journals The epistemological crisis of Marxian economic theory

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-33
Author(s):  
Matias Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Marxian Economics

In Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, MacIntyre argues that neo-Aristotelians have much to learn from Marx’s economic theory, not only for understanding the nature of capitalism, but also for thinking about alternative social and political institutions. This article outlines the arguments given by MacIntyre for embracing Marxian economic theory and argues that if Marxian economics is a tradition of enquiry, in the MacIntyrean sense of the term, we should take seriously the debates within this tradition in order to conclude whether it has been able to withstand internal and external criticism. I argue that Marxian economic theory, as a tradition of enquiry, has been defeated by its opponents and that a synthesis between Aristotelian moral philosophy and Marxian economics is an obstacle to the development of MacIntyre’s political philosophy.

scholarly journals Between Kantian Rationalism and Moral Mysticism: The Search for the Grounding of Morality in the Philosophy of A. Jokubaitis

Politologija ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Aistė Noreikaitė
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
First Person ◽  
The Third ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Moral Subject ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
The One ◽  
Implicit Normativity

Although it is common to associate the thought of A. Jokubaitis with political philosophy, this article argues that his texts also allow us to talk about a specific moral philosophy of A. Jokubaitis. At the center of it we find an attempt to articulate and discuss the grounding ideas of morality. The article argues that the first two ideas – an idea of unconditional character of morality and an idea of ontological grounding – are related to Kant’s influence on A. Jokubaitis philosophy. These two ideas allow us to explain morality as an autonomous part of reality, which is different from the empirical one but nonetheless real. This part of reality is grounded in the first-person perspective of a moral subject and can be characterized by implicit normativity and unconditionality. The first-person perspective structures a radically different relation to our reality, which allows us to be agents, not simply spectators. Such an interpretation of Kant allows to associate A. Jokubaitis with his contemporary Kantians, such as Ch. Korsgaard, B. Herman, O. O’Neill, and A. Reath. However, the third idea, the one of a person, which becomes more visible in his book Politinis idiotas, transcends the Kantian conception of practical reason and encourages to perceive morality and its grounding in a much wider context. The concept of a person allows A. Jokubaitis to distance himself from Kantian rationalism and integrate social and mystical aspects of morality, which he has always found important.

Rethinking Kant as a public intellectual

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-108
Author(s):  
Sofie Møller
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The Political ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past

In Kant’s Politics in Context, Reidar Maliks offers a compelling account of Kant’s political philosophy as part of a public debate on rights, citizenship, and revolution in the wake of the French Revolution. Maliks argues that Kant’s political thought was developed as a moderate middle ground between radical and conservative political interpretations of his moral philosophy. The book’s central thesis is that the key to understanding Kant’s legal and political thought lies in the public debate among Kant’s followers and that in this debate we find the political challenges which Kant’s political philosophy is designed to solve. Kant’s Politics in Context raises crucial questions about how to understand political thinkers of the past and is proof that our understanding of the past will remain fragmented if we limit our studies to the great men of the established canon.

Aristóteles Contra o Bem dos Economistas

2021 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-234
Author(s):  
Mário Maximo
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Real Function ◽  
Capability Approach ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Ethical Naturalism ◽  
Human Form ◽  
The Real ◽  
Weak Points ◽  
The Capability Approach

Despite its origins within moral philosophy, economists think their science has nothing to do with the good. They appeal to some kind of Hume’s guillotine that divides the descriptive and the normative. With that in hand, they affirm the solely descriptive aspect of their discipline. I argue this is not the case. Economists have, as they need to, an all encompassing notion of the good. I suggest going back to Aristotelian arguments to show the shortcomings of this good of economists. Aristotle is helpful because of his analysis of chrematistics and the real function of money. Hence, the loosely utilitarian good of the economists is confronted with a robust sense of the good and the human form. The capability approach is the first to identify these weak points on economic theory and to propose a sort of Aristotelian comeback. However, I claim the capabilities approach itself doesn’t follow the Aristotelian arguments used to attack economists to its necessary conclusion. Therefore, I suggest that the recent advances in neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism can be used to reformulate economics by dispossessing economists of their sumo bonnun.

The Truth in Political Realism

2020 ◽  
pp. 68-121
Author(s):  
Charles Larmore
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Political Realism ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Primary Object

This chapter analyzes groups that follow different moral or religious traditions that generally have their own internal controversies, such as conflicts in the absence of laws to handle them and render social cooperation difficult or even impossible. It also explains why political philosophy is not properly a province of moral philosophy. It talks about the fundamental task in determining the kind of political order that can justifiably impose authoritative rules for handling the major conflicts in society. The chapter also clarifies why legitimacy and not distributive justice should be the primary object of political philosophy. For legitimacy is involved with the conditions under which enforceable rules may be justifiably imposed on the members of a society.

MacIntyre, Alasdair (1929–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Thomas ◽  
Tom Angier
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Ethical Approach

Alasdair MacIntyre has contributed to the diverse fields of social, moral and political philosophy. He is one of the leading proponents of a virtue ethical approach in moral philosophy, part of a wider attempt to recover an Aristotelian conception of both morality and politics. His return to ancient and mediaeval sources has been powered by a critical indictment of the modern moral predicament, which MacIntyre regards as theoretically confused and practically fragmented; only a return to a tradition which synthesizes Aristotelian and Augustinian elements will restore rationality and intelligibility to contemporary moral and political life.

Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology. By Darin Barney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. 340p. $29.00.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 200-201
Author(s):  
Ted Becker
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Computer Network ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Network Technology ◽  
University Of Chicago ◽  
Tornado Warning ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
University Of Chicago Press ◽  
Mother Lode

This is a welcome and provocative addition to the growing literature on the politics of the Internet. In addition to its rich intellectual texture and mother-lode of information about computer hard- and software, it is a quick read because the author has a sharp tongue and makes excellent points. It is a unique blend of political philosophy, political economic theory, and computer network technology in support of a political F-5 tornado warning.

The Market, Preferences, and Equality

1994 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Ronald Dworkin ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Equitable Distribution ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
Mutual Advantage ◽  
Distribution Of Resources ◽  
Egalitarian Justice

The perfectly competitive market of economic theory often enters political philosophy because it can be represented as illuminating important values. Theorists who are enthusiastic about the heuristic potential of the market claim that we can learn much about individual liberty, the promotion of mutual advantage and efficiency in the distribution of goods by studying it. However, a principal limitation of the market for many theorists is its supposed insensitivity to the demands of egalitarian justice. According to the standard charge, markets—even idealised ones—are hostile to the achievement and maintenance of an equitable distribution of resources. It is striking, then, that a leading exponent of egalitarian justice like Ronald Dworkin should argue that there are very deep and systematic links between equality and the market. He contends that, contrary to the received view, “the best theory of equality supposes some actual or hypothetical market in justifying a particular distribution of goods and opportunities.” Moreover, the articulation of Dworkin’s influential egalitarian account of liberal political morality depends on acceptance of the market as an ally of equality. Thus Dworkin claims not only that the market plays a crucial role in the elaboration of a doctrine of distributive justice but also that it illuminates the distinctively liberal commitments to the protection of extensive individual liberty and to the requirement that the state must be neutral between different conceptions of the good. The aim of this paper is to raise some doubts about the soundness of one of the fundamental onnections Dworkin draws between the market and distributive justice.

Economic theory as political philosophy

1999 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 575-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Political Philosophy

Kant's Political Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 54 (210) ◽  
pp. 548-551
Author(s):  
H. P. Rickman
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Positive View

These comments on Professor Gallie's paper, ‘Kant's View of Reason in Politics’ (Philosophy January 1979) are focused on a particular issue, and I shall explain at the outset what it is and why I have concentrated on it. Gallie's account of the details of Kant's political philosophy and his specific comments on them strike me as interesting and reasonable and I have, therefore, little to add. Instead I want to question Gallie's assumptions about, and dissatisfactions with, the philosophic framework on which Kant's political philosophy rests. There is, firstly, his complaint that reason is insufficiently defined (p. 23) though he takes a somewhat more positive view later. There is, secondly, his claim that Kant's moral philosophy is inferior to his epistemology (i.e. ‘less original, less illuminating, less architectonic’, p. 24). On these points Gallie is, in my view, not convincing and not even completely clear. Without disagreeing totally with Gallie's assessments—still less claiming that Kant is invariably right—I want to argue that Kant's conclusions are formidably supported by, and can best be understood in terms of, his own arguments. To me the question about the cogency of his case is more interesting than the details of his political philosophy. How rational are, in fact, his conclusions? So, at the risk of covering some familiar ground, I want to stress some of the general features of Kant's philosophy and argue, in particular, that his political philosophy is based on and, in turn, supplements, his moral one. The latter seems to me to be as intricate, interesting and fruitful as his epistemology and exhibits a similar architectonic. (This would also account for the parallel between the roles of reason in politics and knowledge on which Gallie comments (p. 28).)

Plato's Politics

2008 ◽  
pp. 310-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Bobonich
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Perfect State ◽  
Important Contributor ◽  
Ideal State ◽  
Rational Actions

The dialogues of Plato that are of the most obvious importance for his political philosophy include the Apology, the Crito, the Gorgias, the Laws, the Republic, and the Statesman. Further, there are many questions of political philosophy that Plato discusses in his dialogues. These topics include, among others: the ultimate ends of the city's laws and political institutions and who should rule, and the forms of constitution and their ranking. Plato draws upon Socrates' idea of Apology where the former stalwart compares himself to a gadfly, which is placed upon the great horse of Athens. What is especially worth noting here is that Socrates claims to benefit Athens by benefiting its citizens, and this benefit consists in getting them to examine themselves and their lives with regard to virtue. Since Plato, throughout his career, believed that virtue was by far the most important contributor to happiness, and that the ultimate end of all of a person's rational actions is that person's own greatest happiness, such encouragement to virtue seems a reasonable way to proceed for anyone seeking really to benefit his fellow citizens. The middle dialogues and the. late dialogues wind up Plato's idea of a perfect state. However, the major idea that Plato draws upon is citizen's happiness, which will result in an ideal state.

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