On Becoming Worthy of Victory

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Sanjay Lal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Natural Place ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Activist Movements ◽  
Philosophical Writings

While there has been no shortage of philosophical writings dealing with humanity’s great struggles (be they on issues of justice, war, the proper structure of the state, et al) there is a notable absence within academic philosophy in asserting a broad, overriding, and natural place for philosophical analysis regarding such issues—a role which can be crucial in making us better people (and thus capable of realizing a better world). In the first part of this paper, I will discuss the notable absence of certain character traits on the part of activists fighting for a better world that are essential for attaining the lofty goals protest movements aim for. I will then show that philosophy is uniquely suited for helping develop such traits (specifically when philosophy is seen as a practice). In the last part of this paper, I will discuss possible areas of philosophical exploration that would be particularly fruitful for making us better people. My intention is to ultimately help establish a unique and irreplaceable role academic philosophy can have in activist movements.

Justice as a Personal Virtue and Justice as an Institutional Virtue: Mencius’s Confucian Virtue Politics

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 (4) ◽  
pp. 277-294
Author(s):  
Yong Huang
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Affirmative Answer ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The Government

AbstractIt has been widely observed that virtue ethics, regarded as an ethics of the ancient, in contrast to deontology and consequentialism, seen as an ethics of the modern (Larmore 1996: 19–23), is experiencing an impressive revival and is becoming a strong rival to utilitarianism and deontology in the English-speaking world in the last a few decades. Despite this, it has been perceived as having an obvious weakness in comparison with its two major rivals. While both utilitarianism and deontology can at the same time serve as an ethical theory, providing guidance for individual persons and a political philosophy, offering ways to structure social institutions, virtue ethics, as it is concerned with character traits of individual persons, seems to be ill-equipped to be politically useful. In recent years, some attempts have been made to develop the so-called virtue politics, but most of them, including my own (see Huang 2014: Chapter 5), are limited to arguing for the perfectionist view that the state has the obligation to do things to help its members develop their virtues, and so the focus is still on the character traits of individual persons. However important those attempts are, such a notion of virtue politics is clearly too narrow, unless one thinks that the only job the state is supposed to do is to cultivate its people’s virtues. Yet obviously the government has many other jobs to do such as making laws and social policies, many if not most of which are not for the purpose of making people virtuous. The question is then in what sense such laws and social policies are moral in general and just in particular. Utilitarianism and deontology have their ready answers in the light of utility or moral principles respectively. Can virtue ethics provide its own answer? This paper attempts to argue for an affirmative answer to this question from the Confucian point of view, as represented by Mencius. It does so with a focus on the virtue of justice, as it is a central concept in both virtue ethics and political philosophy.

People’s Movement in Odisha: An Assessment

2017 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-283
Author(s):  
Subhendu Ranjan Raj
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Growth Strategies ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Set Up

Development process in Odisha (before 2011 Orissa) may have led to progress but has also resulted in large-scale dispossession of land, homesteads, forests and also denial of livelihood and human rights. In Odisha as the requirements of development increase, the arena of contestation between the state/corporate entities and the people has correspondingly multiplied because the paradigm of contemporary model of growth is not sustainable and leads to irreparable ecological/environmental costs. It has engendered many people’s movements. Struggles in rural Odisha have increasingly focused on proactively stopping of projects, mining, forcible land, forest and water acquisition fallouts from government/corporate sector. Contemporaneously, such people’s movements are happening in Kashipur, Kalinga Nagar, Jagatsinghpur, Lanjigarh, etc. They have not gained much success in achieving their objectives. However, the people’s movement of Baliapal in Odisha is acknowledged as a success. It stopped the central and state governments from bulldozing resistance to set up a National Missile Testing Range in an agriculturally rich area in the mid-1980s by displacing some lakhs of people of their land, homesteads, agricultural production, forests and entitlements. A sustained struggle for 12 years against the state by using Gandhian methods of peaceful civil disobedience movement ultimately won and the government was forced to abandon its project. As uneven growth strategies sharpen, the threats to people’s human rights, natural resources, ecology and subsistence are deepening. Peaceful and non-violent protest movements like Baliapal may be emulated in the years ahead.

The Final Stage of the Minority Revolution in the United States. Upward Mobility of Minorities to the Corridors of Power

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2-1) ◽  
pp. 62-91
Author(s):  
Irina Zhezhko-Braun ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Government

This article is the third and final in a series dealing with the birth of a new political elite in the United States, the minority elite. In previous articles, the mechanism of its appearance was analyzed, as well as its ideology, goals, program and values. The black movement, as the most co-organized of all protest movements, is entering the final phase of its development, being engaged in the placement of its representatives in state and federal governments, political parties and other social institutions. The women’s movement has recently been taken over by ethnic movements, primarily blacks, and has become their vanguard. This article describes new social elevators for the promotion of minority representatives into the corridors of power. The logic of promoting people of their own race, gender and nationality to the highest branches of power began to prevail over other criteria for recruiting personnel. During the 2020 election campaign, a new mechanism for promoting minorities in all branches of government was formed. It is based on numerous violations of local and federal electoral legislation. The mechanism of pressure on the US electoral system is analyzed using the example of the state of Georgia and the activities of politician Stacey Abrams. The article describes Abrams’ strategy to create a network of NGOs that are focused on one mission - to arrange for the political shift of the state in the elections. These organizations circumvented existing laws, making the state of Georgia the record holder for electoral irregularities and lawsuits. The article shows that Abrams’ struggle with the electoral laws of her state is based on the political myth of the voter suppression of minorities. The author identifies a number of common characteristics of the new elite. The minority elite does not show any interest in social reconciliation and overcoming racial conflict, but rather makes efforts to incite the latter, to attract the government to its side and increase its role in establishing “social justice” through racial quotas and infringement of the rights of those social strata that it has appointed bearers of systematic racism in society. As the colored elite increases and the government’s role in resolving racial conflicts grows, the minority movement is gradually condemned, it ceases to be a true grassroots movement and turns into astroturfing.

The Philosophy‐Literature Interface

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan May
Keyword(s):  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Modes Of Thought

Analytic philosophy has come to dominate modern academic thought.  It is a method of study that attempts to solve problems through a logical analysis of the terms in which they are expressed.  In many ways, analytic philosophy strives not to discover new metaphysical or supernatural truths.  Rather, it is meant to provide a deeper understanding of existing truths.  This strain of philosophy, I believe, sets forth exactly those goals and methods of thinking upon which philosophy should concentrate.  The investigation and clarification of the state of the world, whether through logic, metaphysics, value theory, or epistemology, is an invaluable development that is best suited to philosophical analysis.   However, this restricted focus means that something must pick up where philosophy leaves off.  The solutions to any potential problems or shortcomings necessarily imposed on analytic philosophy need to be found within a different realm of study.  This support to philosophy can be found in the study of English, or literature.  Neither realm of thought is more inherently valuable.  Each is needed for different reasons, and each relies on the other.  Philosophy needs literature to enter the modes of thought into which it cannot validly stray.  Literature needs philosophy to provide a stable base of thought from which it can imaginatively expand.  In short, no set of ideas can stand alone, and the rise of analytic philosophy has made its discipline’s role extremely clear.  It has also made evident the fact that philosophy’s greatest ally and clearest counterpart is literature.  

Class, Criticism and Culture: ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’

2020 ◽  
pp. 88-119
Author(s):  
Deaglán Ó Donghaile
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Structural Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Social Conditioning ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
The Spectator ◽  
Philosophical Writings

“The Soul of Man Under Socialism” was not an uncharacteristically radical text, but one informed by Wilde’s consistent engagement with revolutionary politics. This chapter contextualises his essay against the anarchic views expressed a year prior to its first publication in “A Chinese Sage”, his review of Herbert Giles’ translation of the ancient philosophical writings of the Taoist philosopher, Chuang Tsŭ, which appeared in The Spectator. His observations on the dynamics of government, class and empire, and the ideas that he drew from these systems, informed the later essay’s critique of authority, in which Wilde’s defence of revolt as a moral responsibility is underlined by his emphasis on radical self-awareness. This chapter focuses on the essay’s recognition of the structural violence through which, Wilde believed, the authority of the state functioned. This, he argued, was due to the modern subject’s internalization of the values, mechanisms and ideology of authority through means of political and social conditioning.

scholarly journals SOCIOHUMANITARIAN HABITUS OF HOMO ECONOMICUS: ECONOMIC EDUCATION IN THE MODERN UKRAINIAN SOCIETY

2018 ◽  
pp. 7-20
Author(s):  
Oksana Petinova
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Education ◽  
The State ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Strategic Resource ◽  
Ukrainian Society

The article presents a socio-philosophical analysis of economic education as a sociohumanitarian habitus of homo economicus in in the transformational processes of modern Ukrainian society. The article argues that in today's conditions economic education is a strategic resource for improving people's well-being, ensuring national interests, strengthening the authority and competitiveness of the state. The author concludes that a highly educated new economical person is a challenge of time.

scholarly journals A Humanistic Phylosophical Analysis on Women Existence in the Fiqh of Syafii

ULUMUNA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-58
Author(s):  
Iffatin Nur
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
The State ◽  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Women Empowerment ◽  
State Law ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
The Law ◽  
Marriage Laws ◽  
New View

In the fiqh of Shāfi‘ī, a humanistic philosophical analysis on women existence is given serious attention, particularly in his investigation on the matters of women. It is very vivid in his magnum opuses entitled al-Umm (The Mother), al-Risālah fi Us\ūl al-Fiqh and his periodicals qawl qadīm (old view) and qawl jadīd (new view). This article seeks to provide thorough analysis on the women empowerment through humanistic values from methodological and legal products aspects generated by Shāfi‘ī. In the aspect of methodology (us\ūl fiqh), the use of qiyās (analogy) is an indication of the humanistic value in the development of the mas\lah\ah\ (beneficial) principles. The legal products aspect can be explored through the following three classifications. Firstly, humanistic values of women in the law regarding the properties. Secondly, the humanistic values of women in the state law on economic issues related to religious conversion and social relations in political settings. Thirdly, the humanistic values of women in the marriage laws. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20414/ujis.v19i1.1249

scholarly journals National Specificity of Dominance in Politicians’ Speech Behavior

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Irina A. Zyubina
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Cultural Orientation ◽  
The State ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
National Parliaments ◽  
Dominant Type ◽  
Female Politicians ◽  
Great Confidence ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Type Of Behavior

The aim of the article is to analyze the dominant speech behavior of groups of parliamentarians, depending on the national and cultural specifics of the sender of the text, using the methodology adopted in Implicit Pragmalinguistics. The text of each speech is divided into small syntactic groups, which in Implicit Pragmalinguistics are considered the standard units of the analysis. In total, more than three thousand such units were analyzed during the study period. The material for the study of the politicians’ speech behavior was the texts of the speeches of 20 politicians speaking in English and Russian, presented in the period from 2019 to 2020 in their national parliaments, the British Parliament and the State Duma. The analysis shows that the majority of politicians are distinguished by a dominant type of behavior, which is expressed in the manifestation of a bright individuality. A successful politician is always a talented leader and organizer who has the prevalence of character traits that are associated with independence, decisiveness, authoritarianism and focus not only on himself/herself, but also on the audience. All selected groups of the politicians showed great confidence in what they are talking about, which indicates the signs of a successful and professional leader. In the course of a comparative analysis, we came to the conclusion that dominance in the speech of the politicians is manifested differently and depends on the nationality of the parliamentarians. Thus, the Russian-speaking politicians of both sexes confirm their collectivist cultural orientation in speech behavior, and the British generally follow the principles of individualism; the Russian-speaking female politicians are a little more categorical and confident in their speeches than the English-speaking ones.

Public Choice and Libertarianism

2019 ◽  
pp. 813-830
Author(s):  
Peter Boettke ◽  
Ennio E. Piano
Keyword(s):  
Public Choice ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Arbitrary Power ◽  
Proper Role ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Philosophical Debates ◽  
Philosophical Writings

This chapter investigates the relationship between public choice and libertarianism. Public choice is a positive enterprise, the application of methodological individualism to the study of political processes and institutions. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that stresses individual liberty from the arbitrary power of the state. This chapter argues that public choice has had a substantial influence in the development of libertarian thought in the second half of the twentieth century. First, public choice theory reaches several conclusions that are consistent with libertarian assumptions about politics. Second, some public choice theorists have also directly contributed to the development of libertarianism in their politico-philosophical writings. In particular, this chapter focuses on the work of James Buchanan, one of the founders of the discipline and a major contributor to the philosophical debates in the 1970s about the proper role of the state in a free society. Finally, the chapter argues that some of the major criticisms of public choice, by both professional economists and libertarian purists, fail to understand the distinction between positive and normative in the writing of public choice theorists.

Reformatio regni: Wyclif and Hus as leaders of religious protest movements

1972 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 109-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Wilks
Keyword(s):  
Great Part ◽  
The State ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
Ecclesiastical Authority ◽  
The University ◽  
John Wyclif ◽  
Civil Government

In May 1382 William Courtenay, archbishop of Canterbury since the murder of his predecessor Sudbury during the Peasants’ Revolt the previous year, declared it to be a matter of frequent complaint and common report that evil persons were going about his province preaching without authority, and spreading doctrines which threatened to destroy not only ecclesiastical authority but civil government as well. They were the adherents, he was informed, of a certain teacher of novelties at Oxford, named John Wyclif, whose sect broadcast the seeds of pestiferous error so widely in the pastures of Canterbury that only the most savage hoeing would root them out. The chroniclers hastened to confirm this account. According to their accounts, by 1382 Wyclif had been able, through his writings and the preaching of his followers, to seduce the laity, including great lords and members of the nobility, over a great part of the realm. Even members of the clergy and scholars were not free from infection. Thus Knighton commented that – at least in the area around Leicester – every other person one met was a Lollard. Thirty years later it is the same story in Bohemia. As the carthusian prior Stephen of Dolany complained, despite the condemnation of Wyclif’s teachings at the university of Prague in 1403, the Wycliffites swarmed everywhere: ‘in the state apartments of princes, in the schools of the students, in the lonely chambers of the monks, and even in the cells of the Carthusians’.

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