David Ingram

Bio: David Ingram is an academic researcher from Loyola University Chicago. The author has contributed to research in topics: Democracy & Poverty. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 14 publications receiving 92 citations.

Foucault and Habermas

Abstract: r e g u l a t i o n o f e v e r y d a y l i f e . H o r k h e i m e r a n d A d o r n o h a v e , l i k e F o u c a u l t , d e s c r i b e d t h i s p r o c e s s o f a s e l f o v e r b u r d e n i n g a n d a s e l f r e i f y i n g s u b j e c t i v i t y a s a w o r l d h i s t o r i c a l p r o c e s s . B u t b o t h s i d e s m i s s e d i t s d e e p e r i r o n y , w h i c h c o n s i s t s i n t h e f a c t t h a t t h e c o m m u n i c a t i v e p o t e n t i a l o f r e a s o n f i r s t h a d t o b e r e l e a s e d i n t h e p a t t e r n s o f m o d e r n l i f e wo r l d s b e f o r e t h e u n f e t t e r e d i m p e r a t i v e s o f t h e e c o n o m i c a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e s u b s y s t e m s c o u l d r e a c t b a c k o n t h e v u l n e r a b l e p r a c t i c e o f e v e r y d a y l i f e a n d c o u l d t h e r e b y p r o m o t e t h e c o g n i t i v e i n s t r u m e n t a l d i m e n s i o n t o d o m i n a t i o n o v e r t h e s u p p r e s s e d m o m e n t s o f p r a c t i c a l r e a s o n . T h e c o m m u n i c a t i v e p o t e n t i a l o f r e a s o n h a s b e e n s i m u l t a n e o u s l y d e v e l o p e d a n d d i s t o r t e d i n t h e c o u r s e o f c a p i t a l i s t m o d e r n i z a t i o n ( P D M , 3 1 5 ) .

Reconciling positivism and realism: Kelsen and Habermas on democracy and human rights

Abstract: It is well known that Hans Kelsen and Jurgen Habermas invoke realist arguments drawn from social science in defending an international, democratic human rights regime against Carl Schmitt’s attack ...

When Microcredit Doesn’t Empower Poor Women: Recognition Theory’s Contribution to the Debate Over Adaptive Preferences

Abstract: This essay proposes recognition theory as a preferred approach to explaining poor women’s puzzling preference for patriarchal subordination even after they have accessed an ostensibly empowering asset: microfinance. Neither the standard account of adaptive preference offered by Martha Nussbaum nor the competing account of constrained rational choice offered by Harriet Baber satisfactorily explains an important variation of what Serene Khader, in discussing microfinance, dubs the self-subordination social recognition paradox. The variation in question involves women who, refusing to reject the combined socio-economic benefits of patriarchal recognition and empowering microfinance, dissemble their subordination to men. In this situation, women experience a genuine form of divided consciousness which recognition theory frames as an identity crisis. Understanding the pathological nature of deceit as a way of life that blurs the boundaries between rational choice and rationalization, recognition theory shows how dissemblance itself is constrained by conflicting recognition orders in ways that prevent women who live such a life from successfully emancipating themselves. In this respect, recognition theory provides an important—albeit, from the standpoint of recent feminist and intersectional research on identity and autonomy, inadequately qualified—norm of personal integrity and genuine agency requisite for conceptualizing adaptive preferences.

Recognition and Positive Freedom

Abstract: The presentation argues that a recognitive account of positive freedom, understood as reconciliation with society, cannot be achievable within the ambit of a capitalist society.

Dworkin, Habermas, and the cls movement on moral criticism in law

Abstract: Critical Legal Studies advocates renew Marx’s critique of liberalism by impugning the rationality of formal rights: they see contradictions and biases reflected in law as mirroring the class antagonisms of capitalism. Granted that capitalism vitiates law’s impartiality and coherence, it remains to be seen whether liberalism is accomplice or victim in this affair.2 Radical critics should remain open to both possibilities. For, by repudiating liberalism’s ideology of reason, they deprive themselves of the

Of Theory and Practice

Abstract: Much has been written about theory and practice in the law, and the tension between practitioners and theorists. Judges do not cite theoretical articles often; they rarely "apply" theories to particular cases. These arguments are not revisited. Instead the Essay explores the working and interaction of theory and practice, practitioners and theorists. The Essay starts with a story about solving a legal issue using our intellectual tools - theory, practice, and their progenies: experience and "gut." Next the Essay elaborates on the nature of theory, practice, experience and "gut." The third part of the Essay discusses theories that are helpful to practitioners and those that are less helpful. The Essay concludes that practitioners theorize, and theorists practice. They use these intellectual tools differently because the goals and orientations of theorists and practitioners, and the constraints under which they act, differ. Theory, practice, experience and "gut" help us think, remember, decide and create. They complement each other like the two sides of the same coin: distinct but inseparable.

Law's Empire

Abstract: Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.