The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. What precisely is the connection between the concept of causation used in attributing responsibility and the accounts of causal relations offered in the philosophy of science and metaphysics? How much of what we call causal responsibility is in truth defined by non-causal factors? This book argues that much of the legal doctrine on these questions is confused and incoherent, and offers the first comprehensive attempt since Hart and Honore to clarify the philosophical background to the legal and moral debates.
The book first sets out the place of causation in criminal and tort law and then outlines the metaphysics presupposed by the legal doctrine. It then analyses the best theoretical accounts of causation in the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and using these accounts criticizes many of the core legal concepts surrounding causation - such as intervening causation, forseeability of harm and complicity. It considers and rejects the radical proposals to eliminate the notion of causation from law by using risk analysis to attribute responsibility. The result of the analysis is a powerful argument for revising our understanding of the role played by causation in the attribution of legal and moral responsibility.

Issues concerning the upbringing of children are among the most contested in modern political debate. How should childrearing rights and resources be distributed between families? To what extent are parents morally permitted to shape the beliefs and desires of their children? At what age should children acquire adult rights, such as the right to vote? Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing sets out a liberal conception of political morality that supports a set of answers to these questions which many liberals have been reluctant to accept. The central argument is that the ideals of justice and individual autonomy place significant constraints on both governments and parents. Clayton insists that while their interests should count directly in allocating childrearing rights, parents should exercise their rights in accordance with these liberal ideals. He argues that we owe our children a childhood that develops their sense of justice, but in which further attempts to enrol them into particular religious practices, for instance, are illegitimate. Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing is a work of applied political philosophy that will be of interest to students of political theory, the philosophy of education, and social and public policy.

In How to Be a Marxist in Philosophy one of the most famous Marxist philosophers of the 20th century shares his concept of what it means to function fruitfully as a political thinker within the discipline and environs of philosophy. This is the first English translation to Althusser's provocative and, often, controversial guide to being a true Marxist philosopher. Althusser argues that philosophy needs Marxism. It can't exist fully without it. Similarly, Marxism requires the rigour and structures of philosophy to give it form and focus. He calls all thinking people to, 'Remember: a philosopher is a man who fights in theory, and when he understands the reasons for this fight, he joined the ranks of the struggle of workers and popular classes.' In short, this book comprises Althusser's elucidation of what praxis means and why it continues to matter. With a superb introduction from translator and Althusser archivist G.M. Goshgarian, this is a book that will re-inspire contemporary Marxist thought and reinvigorate our notions of what political activism can be.

This book approaches the topic of the subjective, lived experience of hate crime from the perspective of Husserlian phenomenology. It provides an experientially well-grounded account of how and what is experienced as a hate crime, and what this reveals about ourselves as the continually reconstituted "subject" of such experiences. The book shows how qualitative social science methods can be better grounded in philosophically informed theory and methodological practices to add greater depth and explanatory power to experiential approaches to social sciences topics. The Authors also highlight several gaps and contradictions within Husserlian analyses of prejudice, which are exposed by attempts to concretely apply this approach to the field of hate crimes. Coverage includes the difficulties in providing an empathetic understanding of expressions of harmful forms of prejudice underlying hate crimes, including hate speech, arising from our own and others' 'life worlds'. The Authors describe a 'Husserlian-based' view of hate crime as well as a novel interpretation of the value of the comprehensive methodological stages pioneered by Husserl. The intended readership includes those concerned with discrimination and hate crime, as well as those involved in qualitative research into social topics in general. The broader content level makes this work suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students, even professionals within law enforcement.

This collection builds on the growing recognition and critical acclaim of Volumes 1 and 2 of "Violence, Desire, and the Sacred "with a distinct focus on media, film and television. It showcases the work of outstanding scholars in mimetic theory and how they are applying and developing Rene Girard's insights. Consistent with the previous volumes, "Mimesis, Movies, and Media" presents the most up-to-date interdisciplinary work being developed with the ground-breaking insights of Girard. This volume has a more popular focus with the contributors analyzing well-known films and television series. It brings together major Australian and international scholars working in this area.

This book seeks to better understand the meaning and implications of the UKs calamitous encounter with the COVID-19 global pandemic for the future of British neoliberalism. Construing COVID-19 as a political pandemic and mobilising a novel applied political philosophy approach, the authors cultivate fresh intellectual resources, both analytical and normative, to better understand why the UK failed the COVID-19 test and how it might 'fail forward' so as to strengthen its resilience. COVID-19 they argue, has intercepted the UK government's decades-long experimentation with neoliberalism at what appears to be a threshold moment in this model's life course. Neoliberalism has served as a key progenitor of the country's vulnerability: the pandemic has cruelly unveiled the failings of neoliberal logics and legacies which have placed the country at elevated risk and hampered its response. The pandemic in turn has attenuated underlying systemic maladies inherent in British neoliberalism and served as a great disruptor and potential accelerant of history; a consequential episode in the tumultuous life of this politico-economic model. To meaningfully 'build back better', a true renaissance of social democracy is needed. Drawing upon the neorepublican tradition of political philosophy, the authors confront neoliberalism's hegemonic but parochial concept of human freedom as non-interference and place the neorepublican idea of freedom as non-domination in the service of building a new UK social contract. This book will be of interest to political philosophers, political geographers, medical sociologists, public-health scholars, and epidemiologists, to stakeholders engaged in the public inquiry processes now gathering momentum globally and to architects of build back better programmes, especially in western advanced capitalist economies.

This book discusses the political philosophy of Paul Ricoeur. More precisely, it offers a sustained engagement with Ricoeur's political thought in a way that demonstrates both the significance of the political in his own thinking throughout his career, and how Ricoeur's understanding of the political offers something valuable to current discussions in political philosophy. A second goal is to begin to fill a gap in Ricoeur studies and situate his work on political ethics more fully in contemporary discussions about political thought. In this way, Ricoeur can be seen as a figure pertinent to recent trends in political philosophy that make political thinking more realistic to the conditions for political life. The various essays in the book move along intersecting but different trajectories. First, as some of these essays attest, the concept of the political is a pervasive theme that runs throughout Ricoeur's corpus. In this way a theme throughout the book examines this notion of the political, as well as how it relates to his more well-known work in other areas. Second, and related, the historical understanding of perennial issues in political philosophy are most often updated by those standing in the lineage of those who have come before. As such, Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation has moved him to engage contemporaries who attempt to "think forward" in various ways this tradition for current situations. Unlike most who engage in political thought, Ricoeur goes where others dare not, namely, to those who appear to be opponents but, as he shows, offer perspectives worth more consideration in the name of the best of political thinking. In this light, Ricoeur's hermeneutical orientation is again a unique framework for understanding the nature of political engagement, an orientation in what follows that highlights the ways that Ricoeur and a Ricoeurian perspective cross philosophical orientations to develop a unique understanding of political thought that is different.

This book analyses multiple facets of Kracauer's work, comprehending the essayistic, narrative, philosophical, theoretical and critical writings, and putting special emphasis on some aspects: the phenomenology of metropolis, the theory of historiographic method, the reflections on the crisis of the subject and the emergence of a new subjectivity, the new forms of perception and aesthetic behaviour in late capitalism, the function of critic-intellectuals, the sociology of the middle classes, the theory of fascism, the aesthetical and sociological reflections on literary genres, the politicization of melancholy. An original feature of this book is the attention it pays to the links between Kracauer's theoretical and critical writings and the traditions of heterodox Marxism, against a habitual tendency to obliterate the political (and emancipatory) dimension in the German author.

This book will offer a full reconstruction of the history of Theoretical Marxism in Italy between 1895 and 1935, based on a rigorous philological method. The starting term (1895) is marked by the publication of Antonio Labriola's first essay on historical materialism (In memory of Communist Manifesto); the final term coincides with the conclusion of the "Prison Notebooks" written by Antonio Gramsci. This book analyses the original character of the Marxist philosophy in Italy, which emerged by distinguishing itself from the "orthodoxy" of the Second and Third International. By delineating a significant chapter in the history of Marxism, the book will also propose a specific contribution to the history of Italian Philosophy, which is here studied in relation to the developments of European philosophy, beyond the traditional subdivisions of Positivism, Idealism and Marxism.

One of the most influential works in the history of political theory, Aristotle's Politics is a treatise in practical philosophy, intended to inform legislators and to create the conditions for virtuous and self-sufficient lives for the citizens of a state. In this Companion, distinguished scholars offer new perspectives on the work and its themes. After an opening exploration of the relation between Aristotle's ethics and his politics, the central chapters follow the sequence of the eight books of the Politics, taking up questions such as the role of reason in legitimizing rule, the common good, justice, slavery, private property, citizenship, democracy and deliberation, unity, conflict, law and authority, and education. The closing chapters discuss the interaction between Aristotle's political thought and contemporary democratic theory. The volume will provide a valuable resource for those studying ancient philosophy, classics, and the history of political thought.

The book deals with key ethico-political issues of modernity, that of responsibility and of the subject(s) that can assume it. Today, new realities, from global political issues to economic crises and lack of confidence in governments, show that there is no authority, institution, or public organism capable of taking charge.A" In fact, people find themselves less responsible than ever before. Available for the first time in English, this text by one of the leading European intellectuals explores why we need to return to a full personal responsibility. This entails a revisiting of such concepts as personal identity, tolerance, and action -all essential components of responsibility. Featuring a preface by Gianni Vattimo, the book not only analyzes the problem of responsibility from various perspectives (including Nietzsche, Weber, Arendt, Sartre), but also confronts today's realities and challenges. As Cruz puts it, Until now, men attempted to describe the world; the moment has arrived for them to take it on.A"

Antonio Gramsci lived the Great War as a "historic break," a profound experience that left an indelible mark on the development of his political thought. Translated into English for the first time, Alternative Modernities reconstructs and analyses this critical period of Gramsci's intellectual formation through a systematic analysis of his writings from 1915 to 1935. For Gramsci, Soviet Communism, "Americanism," and the "new" Fascist State were the principle responses to the crisis of the old world order. He portrayed them as the three protagonists of twentieth-century modernity, alternatives destined to tragically clash in the worldwide struggle for hegemony. Among the arguments in his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci casts doubt on the political strategy of Soviet Communism and the theoretical underpinnings of "official Marxism." Instead, he suggests a radical revision of Marxism by breathing life into a new interpretation whose fundamental concepts are: politics as the struggle for hegemony, the "passive revolution" as a historical paradigm of modernity, and the philosophy of praxis as the welding between visions of the worlds, historical analyses, and political strategies. Gramsci's intuitions culminate in a new theory of the political subject, supported by a reflection upon the 20th century that still speaks to us today, pointing the way toward a new narrative of world history.

This book bridges the regions of East Asia and the West by offering a detailed and critical inquiry of educational concepts of the East Asian tradition. It provides educational thinkers and practitioners with alternative resources and perspectives for their educational thinking, to enrich their educational languages and to promote the recognition of educational thoughts from different cultures and traditions across a global world. The key notions of Confucian and Neo-Confucian philosophy directly concern the ideals, processes and challenges of learning, education and self-transformation, which can be seen as the western equivalences of liberal education, including the German concept of Bildung. All the topics in the book are of fundamental interest across diverse cultures, giving a voice to a set of long-lasting and yet differentiated cultural traditions of learning and education, and thereby creating a common space for critical philosophical reflection of one's own educational tradition and practice. The book is especially timely, given that the vocabularies in educational discourse today have been dominantly "West centred" for a long time, even while the whole world has become more and more diverse across races, religions and cultures. It offers a great opportunity to philosophers of education for their cross-cultural understanding and self-understanding of educational ideas and practices on both personal and institutional levels.

Defining Sport: Conceptions and Borderlines is not about the variations of usage of the term "sport." It is about the concept, the range of activities in the world that we unite into one idea-sport. It is through the project of defining sport that we can come to understand these activities better, how they are similar or different, and how they relate to other human endeavors. This definitional inquiry, and the deeper appreciation and apprehension of sport that follows, is the core of this volume. Part I examines several of the standard and influential approaches to defining sport. Part II uses these approaches to examine various challenging borderline cases. These chapters examine the interplay of the borderline cases with the definition and provide a more thorough and clearer understanding of both the definition and the given cases. This work is not meant to be the definitive or exhaustive account of sport. It is meant to inspire further thought and debate on just what sport is; how it relates to other activities and human endeavors; and what we can learn about ourselves through the study of sport. This book will be of interest to scholars in philosophy of sport, history, communications, sociology, psychology, sports management, cultural studies, and physical education.

This book is a critical review of the problems that caused America's decline in economic, strategic, and cultural leadership. How American Salesmanship and Marketing Doomed Its Economy and Leadership Role By Encouraging Unfettered Consumption and Debt while Undermining Growth and Social Justice

Raphael Sassower examines the concept of hypocrisy for its strategic potential as a means of personal protection and social cohesion. Given the contemporary context of post-truth, the examination of degrees or kinds of hypocrisy moves from the Greek etymology of masks worn on the theater stage to the Hebrew etymology of the color adjustment of chameleons to their environment. Canonical presuppositions about the uniformity of the mind and the relation between intention and behavior that warrant the charge of hypocrisy are critically reconsidered in order to appreciate both inherent inconsistencies in personal conduct and the different contexts where the hypocrisy appears. Sassower considers the limits of analytic moral and political discourses that at times overlook the conditions under which putative hypocritical behavior is existentially required and where compromises yield positive results. When used among friends, the charge of hypocrisy is a useful tool with which to build trust and communities.

The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their field of application - namely, social reality. Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within Western liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms democratic ethical life : a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established. Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel s Philosophy of Right and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society.

Sobre el libro: La Revoluci n Bolivariana es un proceso en marcha y est creando colectivamente y democr ticamente, paso a paso, golpe a golpe un nuevo modelo de estado. El estado bolivariano es aut ntico se fundamenta en la historia, las ideas solidarias de Sim n Bol var y la prioridad de los derechos humanos b sicos de "seguridad y subsistencia" de todos los venezolanos sin exclusiones. Es revolucionario primero porque incorpora participativamente a un sector mayoritario de la poblaci n -incluyendo a los pobres y a los militares-- que hab an sido hist ricamente marginados y excluidos de la pol tica, la econom a y la sociedad. Segundo, porque el nuevo modelo de "Seguridad y Subsistencia" es lo opuesto a su predecesor hist rico: el modelo de "Seguridad Nacional" o "Pacto de Punto Fijo." La "Seguridad Nacional" fue impuesta desde los Estados Unidos durante la guerra fr a a toda su rea de influencia y ha causado estragos: guerras, muertes, torturas y la violaci n sistem tica de los derechos humanos en Venezuela, en Latinoam rica y en muchas partes del mundo. Tercero, porque el modelo bolivariano ofrece una respuesta democr tica y solidaria al capitalismo salvaje que propone el neo-liberalismo en la actualidad. Venezuela hoy nos ofrece algo radicalmente diferente, es "la posibilidad optimista" de una democracia nueva, solidaria, soberana, socialista, moderna, no dogm tica y por qu no, ecol gica.

A broad-ranging and pluralistic textbook which highlights the rich variety of approaches to studying politics. Written by an international team of experts, this fully revised fourth edition offers cutting-edge coverage from fundamental to contemporary issues. Integrating guides to further reading and clear examples of how research methods can be applied, it enables readers to feel confident about taking their study of politics forward. An ideal foundation for study and research in political science, this textbook will be essential to students at any stage of their degree. It serves as core reading on undergraduate and postgraduate political analysis, theory and methods courses. In demonstrating how independent research is undertaken in political science, the book allows students and early career researchers to begin thinking about formulating their own research agendas. This new edition: - Leads the way with fresh new ideas and perspectives with the help of new co-editor Vivien Lowndes - Includes new chapters on post-structuralism as a theoretical approach and on 'big data' as a methodological resource - Offers an international perspective on political science, with discussion of global as well as domestic politics and a range of international cases and examples.

The book examines the postcolonial Muslim political discourse through monuments. It establishes a link between the process by which historic buildings become monuments and the gradual transformation of these historic/legal entities into political objects. The author studies the multiple interpretations of Indo-Islamic historical buildings aspolit

This book explores the implication of diversity for humanism. Through the insights of academics and activists, it highlights both the successes and failures related to diversity marking humanism in the US and internationally. It offers a timely depiction of how humanism in general as well as how particular humanist communities have wrestled with the nature of our changing world, and the issues that surface in relationship to markers of difference.

C.B. Macpherson occupies an ambiguous place in contemporary political thought. Though his work is well known, it remains on the margins of current democratic theory. That marginalization, Phillip Hansen argues, comes from our failure to appreciate the underlying philosophical dimension of Macpherson's work. Identifying and exploring Macpherson's systematic critique of the liberal claim that the individual is the "proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them," Reconsidering C.B. Macpherson highlights his affinities to Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer, and the Frankfurt School. This stimulating reappraisal illustrates the importance of Macpherson's classic books, including The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism and Democratic Theory, and demonstrates how much his work has to offer to the future of political and social thought.

This book presents a unique effort to apply political philosophy to realities of the world. Among numerous objectives that states, politicians, and individuals try to reach, some are vague, like power, interest, and happiness. Some others, like democracy, order, and rule of law, are ways and means to serve more fundamental purposes. While national reunification is seen as prerequisite on the political agenda of the People's Republic of China and both South and North Koreas, and religious purity is regarded as essential to many Muslim communities, these are not universally accepted principal goals in the world. The author identifies and defines security, wealth, faith, justice, and freedom as five ultimate goals in world politics and explains why they are central. Without jargons and using many cases in China and other countries, the author illustrates that different countries at different times have varied priorities in their national politics, but they must provide security, sustain economic growth, set up a value system, maintain social justice, and secure personal freedom for their citizens. Although the world today has been relatively peaceful and accumulated much more wealth as compared to the past centuries, vacuums of faith and morality, conflicting beliefs, and lack of social justice are threatening mankind. In theory, the five ultimate goals should be reached simultaneously and reinforce each other. However, in practice they are often in contradiction. For example, national security might be strengthened at the expense of prosperity, and industrialization for economic growth has sacrificed nontraditional security interests such as the environment. The accumulation of wealth often results in its unequal distribution and grievances about injustice, and freedom and equality are regarded by some political thinkers as "natural enemies" to each other. A virtuous state should be able to reach all the five goals, while a bad state may not have even one of them. Looking around the world today, Denmark in Europe and Japan in Asia are closer to a virtuous state than most other countries despite their own deficiencies, but they are generally homogeneous in terms of ethnicity and culture. Singapore, with its ethnic diversity, has to limit freedom to obtain other goals. This book compares the development paths of China, the United States, and some other countries to demonstrate their advantages and disadvantages in becoming a better polity.