Showing papers in "Social Theory and Practice in 1994"

Dilemmas in social philosophy: abortion and animal rights

Abstract: L'A. etudie la tension qui se fait ressentir dans le domaine de la philosophie sociale, entre la cause feministe en faveur d'une politique liberale de l'avortement, signe essentiel de la liberation de la femme, et la cause animale qui revendique la protection legale des etres sensibles non-humains. A ce titre, le statut precaire du foetus considere comme non-personne revele l'urgence d'une alliance entre feministes et defenseurs des droits des animaux, au nom de la vie

Paternalism: does gratitude make it okay?

Abstract: L'A. souleve le probleme de la justification d'une action ou politique paternaliste par la marque potentielle de gratitude exprimee par ses beneficiaires. Le paternalisme semble en effet justifie si le sujet de l'intervention bienveillante eprouve le besoin d'exprimer sa reconnaissance. Mais l'assentiment du sujet a l'action paternaliste consiste au renoncement a ses droits a la non non-intervention. En ce sens, la paternalisme apparait comme un acte de violence envers les droits de l'individu a l'autonomie et a la liberte

The Many Guises of the Slippery Slope Argument

Abstract: L'A. denonce la popularite publique et le succes rhetorique de l'argument de la pente glissante qui consiste, a partir d'une certaine pratique P et a travers un long raisonnement, a engendrer une pratique O moralement inacceptable. L'A. montre qu'un tel argument, quelque soient sa forme logique ou causale, son contexte theorique ou pratique, ne sert qu'a masquer les choix tragiques que la societe fait pour maintenir un certain statut quo dans les debats en cours, dans le domaine de la bioethique en particulier

Can There Be a “Humanistic” Ecology?: A Debate Between Hegel and Heidegger on the Meaning of Ecological Thinking

Abstract: adherents of "deep ecology" and proponents of "social ecology." While the debate is many-faceted, perhaps the most central issue of contention focuses on the appropriate role of humanity in its relationship to nature. Deep ecologists argue for a "species egali tarianism" or "biocentric equality" that denies any special value or rights for human beings within the whole of nature: "all organ isms and entities in the ecosphere, as parts of the interrelated whole, are equal in intrinsic worth," as Bill Devall and George Sessions say. Or as the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess wrote in the 1973 essay where he coined the term "deep ecology," "there is a core democracy in the biosphere," such that "all things in the biosphere have an equal right to live and blossom and to reach their own individual forms of... self-realization."2 Social ecology, on the other hand, stresses the unique character of humanity within nature: human beings are not a "simple zoological phenomenon,... interchangeable with rodents or ants, ... merely one life-form among many," as Murray Bookchin, the anarchist ecologist who was most responsible for the development of "social ecology" in the early 1960s, puts it.3 In humanity, "blind nature" turns into "free nature," because only humanity is capable of creatively and self-consciously evolving, while nature can only adapt. Human beings are thus the highest expression of natural evolution, its coming into self-conscious direction of its own destiny.4

Liberties, Not Rights: Gauthier and Nozick on Property

Abstract: David Gauthier's Morals by Agreement is an ambitious attempt to understand morality as the outcome of a rational agreement among persons, each concerned to promote her own interest.1 In this paper, I will focus only on Gauthier's theory of the initial bargain ing position: specifically, his attempt to derive property rights from a moral principle called the Lockean proviso.2 I argue that the derivation fails, and that the true implications of the moral principles that Gauthier invokes are quite different. These princi ples imply that persons have extensive liberties to use physical materials, but relatively few rights against interference by others in this use. Since Robert Nozick's argument for an extensive system of property rights is similar to Gauthier's, I briefly argue that it likewise fails. I conclude that in order to defend property rights, Lockeans need to start from a moral foundation richer than those offered by Gauthier and Nozick.

Perfectionism with a Liberal Face? Nervous Liberals and Raz's Political Theory

Abstract: The views of Rawls and the defenders of the idea of neutrality about the good constitute the mainstream of contemporary American liberal thought. But this procedural-deontological voice is not the only voice in the liberal chorus, even if it is the leading one. This chapter critically analyzes what I take to be an important expression of the minority voice of perfectionist liberalism, the political theory advanced by Joseph Raz in The Morality of Freedom and other works. In my view, while perfectionist liberalism is correct to abandon the notions of neutrality and deontology as the essence of the liberal project, it nevertheless fails to express the spirit of that project in its most compelling form. This chapter seeks to explain and support these judgments, and along the way to bring to light the sources of appeal of a more modest, pragmatic expression of the liberal spirit which might stand as an alternative to both neutralist and perfectionist expressions.

Individualism and Social Responsibility: Reflections on Recent Work by French and May

Abstract: Liberalism was a response to oppression. The concern of the liberal tradition was with the individual—the significance of every individual, the equal moral worth of all individuals, the importance of individual rights and freedom, and the necessity of protecting them from illegitimate exercises of power, particularly by states. The accomplishments of this tradition are significant and well known, but there have also been some untoward side effects that have become the focus of increasing concern in recent philosophi cal discussion. It is commonly thought by adherents of liberalism and critics alike that a major failing of liberal theory is its limited ability (or perhaps inability) to provide an adequate account of social responsibility in any form. Perhaps the most devastating and comprehensive version of this critique was given by Alasdair Maclntyre in 1981, by arguing in part that in its focus on the individual, the liberal tradition had failed to provide any adequate foundation for morality at all because it failed to provide any adequate account of social relations. Moral responsibility is basi cally a social concept that requires an account of community at its heart. Maclntyre's critique set off a flurry of communitarian proposals and a focus on virtue ethics that have both had salutary effects, but have provided no clearer account of social responsi bility that retains the crucial moral and political protections pro vided by liberalism that only a fool would be willing to jeopardize.1 In 1984, in a book called Rights and Goods, Virginia Held made some astute observations and positive suggestions about the possible progress of moral and social philosophy that are worth reviewing. Observing the surge of interest in "applied" or "professional" ethics, she noted that this is an encouraging trend, given that ethical theory not long before had retreated to narrow