PhilPapers: may - april 2018

PhilPapers

Lee A. Mcbride Iii
Journal of Speculative Philosophy 32 (1):168 (2018)

Abstract

In “Race, Multiculturalism, and Democracy,” Robert Gooding-Williams offers an insight. He writes: “Our sense of ourselves and of the possibilities existing for us is, to a significant degree, a function of the descriptions we have available to us to conceptualize our intended actions and prospective lives. . . . ‘Hence if new modes of description come into being, new possibilities of action come into being in consequence.’” In this article, I discuss the philosopher’s role in the articulation of new descriptions and thus new possibilities. I argue that potential modes of bold and assertive comportment are conjured when new insurrectionist descriptions are articulated within oppressed populations. To bring this to a higher resolution, I discuss the pervasiveness of dialectical conflict, the need to creatively reorient the descriptions of oppressed groups toward liberation, and the need for more than one prescriptive mode of social amelioration.

Susanna Siegel

Analysis (Reviews) 

Abstract

Includes a summary of my book *The Rationality of Perception* (Oxford, 2017) and replies to commentaries on it by Endre Begby, Harmen Ghijsen, and Katia Samoilova. These commentaries and my summary and replies will be published soon in Analysis Reviews. Begby focuses on my analysis of the epistemic features of the interface between individual minds and their cultural milieu (discussed in chapter 10 of *The Rationality of Perception*), Ghijsen focuses on the notion of inference and reliabilism (chapters 5 and 6), and Samoilova focuses on the relationship between epistemic charge (chapter 3) and shifts in the amount of justification needed for knowledge.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/1633abdd1bd198a1

May 6th, 2018 GMT

Book Review: Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State, by Clare ChambersAgainst Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State, by ChambersClare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 226 Pp. US$35.00. ISBN 9780198744009.Tamara Metz - forthcoming - Political Theory:009059171877016.

 May 5th 2018 GMT

Teleologie Senza Spirito? Sui Deficit Politici Della Filosofia Della Storia di Honneth, in "Consecutio Reurum", 2, N.4, 2018, Pp. 181-199.Marco Solinas - 2018 - Consecutio Rerum 2 (4):181-199.

The aim of this paper is to show that Honneth’s philosophy of history is teleological in a narrow sense. This teleological character is problematic for the theory of the struggle for recognition, for the conception of history as such, and for the methodology of the normative reconstruction. In particular, the teleological conception gives to the theory of recognition a historical form that points out a unilateral character. Furthermore, the teleological neo-Hegelian methodology of normative reconstruction seems to adopt a too stark trust in the progress of human societies faced with the problem of social, political and cultural regressions.

Social Domination and Epistemic Marginalisation: Towards Methodology of the Oppressed.Venkatesh Vaditya - forthcoming - Social Epistemology:1-14.

Europe as a Political Society: Emile Durkheim, the Federalist Principle and the Ideal of a Cosmopolitan Justice.Francesco Callegaro & Nicola Marcucci - forthcoming - Constellations.

May 4th, 2018 GMT

Does Reliabilism Have a Temporality Problem? Jeffrey Tolly - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.

Matthew Frise claims that reliabilist theories of justification have a temporality problem—the problem of providing a principled account of the temporal parameters of a process’s performance that determine whether that process is reliable at a given time. Frise considers a representative sample of principled temporal parameters and argues that there are serious problems with all of them. He concludes that the prospects for solving the temporality problem are bleak. Importantly, Frise argues that the temporality problem constitutes a new reason to reject reliabilism. On this point, I argue that Frise is mistaken. There are serious interpretive difficulties with Frise’s argument. In this essay, I show that there are principled and reasonable temporal parameters for the reliabilist to adopt that successfully undermine the interpretations of Frise’s argument that only invoke plausible premises. 

There are interpretations of Frise’s argument that leave reliabilism without a clear parameter solution. However, I argue that these interpretations invoke controversial premises that are at best unmotivated, and at worst they merely re-raise older disputes about reliabilism. In any event, the temporality problem fails to constitute a new reason to reject reliabilism.

Normativism and Realism Within Contemporary Democratic Constitutionalism.Valerio Fabbrizi - 2018 - Philosophy and Social Criticism:1-21.

The renewed interest on political realism can offer a new reading of the traditional dichotomy between normative and realist conception of constitutionalism. The purpose of this article is to analyze this renewed discussion, especially by focusing on the relationship between “political realism” and “political constitutionalism,” in the light of some theorists and authors—such as Richard Bellamy and Jeremy Waldron. After a brief introduction in which political realism will be discussed, especially through Bernard Williams’ reinterpretation, the article proposes a rereading of democratic constitutionalism from the classical dichotomy between normativism and realism in political theory. 

The focus will be set on three key issues: 1. Richard Bellamy’s constitutional theory in a realist perspective; 2. An insight of legal constitutionalism under a normative banner; 3. A brief conclusion in which the risks of a majoritarian and populist constitutionalism will be discussed.

Emancipation, Progress, Critique: Debating Amy Allen’s The End of Progress.Albena Azmanova, Martin Saar, Guilel Treiber, Azar Dakwar, Noëlle McAfee, Andrew Feenberg & Amy Allen - forthcoming - Contemporary Political Theory:1-31.

The Policy State: An American Predicament.Bernardo Zacka - forthcoming - Contemporary Political Theory:1-4.

Book Review: Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times, by Alison McQueenPolitical Realism in Apocalyptic Times, by McQueenAlison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 244 Pp. US$ 80.00, ISBN 9781107152397.Paul Sagar - forthcoming - Political Theory:009059171877105.

Book Review: Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring, by Asef Bayat Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring, by BayatAsef. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017. 312 Pp. US$24.95. ISBN 9781503602588.Arash Davari - forthcoming - Political Theory:009059171877108.

Book Review: Reordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, by Duncan BellReordering the World: Essays on Liberalism and Empire, by Bell Duncan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.Adom Getachew - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):487-493.

Book Review: Sex and Harm in the Age of Consent, by Joseph J. FischelSex and Harm in the Age of Consent, by FischelJoseph J.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016.Jennifer C. Nash - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):503-506.

Book Review: Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration, by Teresa BejanMere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration, by BejanTeresa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017, 288 Pp.Douglas Casson - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):498-502.

Destabilizing Religion, Secularism, and the StateBeyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion, by HurdElizabeth Shakman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015.Religious Difference in A Secular Age: A Minority Report, by MahmoodSaba. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.Tobias Müller - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):455-466.

Book Review: Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance, by Ajay SkariaUnconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance, by SkariaAjay. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016. 408 Pp.J. Daniel Elam - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):493-498.

Paternalism Revisited: Definitions, Justifications, and TechniquesGovernment Paternalism: Nanny State or Helpful Friend?, by Le GrandJulianNewBill. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015.Why Nudge? The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism, by Sunstein Cass R.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.Bart Engelen - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):478-486.

Revising the Cambridge School:

 Republicanism RevisitedPolitics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith, by HontIstvan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.The Sleeping Sovereign: The Invention of Modern Democracy, by Tuck Richard. Cambridge: 

Cambridge University Press, 2015.Richard Bourke - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):467-477.

The Rights of Families and Children at the Border.Matthew J. Lister - 2018 - In Philosophical Foundations of Children's and Family Law. pp. 153-170.

Family ties play a particular and distinctive role in immigration policy. Essentially every country allows ‘family-based immigration’ of some sorts, and family ties may have significant importance in many other areas of immigration policy as well, grounding ‘derivative’ rights to asylum, providing access to citizenship and other benefits at accelerated rates, and serving as a shield from the danger of removal or deportation. Furthermore, status as a child may provide certain benefits to irregular migrants or others without proper immigration standing that is not available to adults. Despite the fact that these benefits are extremely widespread, the justification for them remains less than fully clear, and the extent of the benefits required by considerations of justice (as opposed to expediency or other policy considerations) is debated. While essentially all states recognize at least some of these rights, a significant number of them wish to reduce, rescind, or place significant conditions on them. The role of the family in immigration policy, then, stands in need of further clarification. In this paper, I attempt to provide the needed clarification and justification. I discuss first questions about family unification or formation, focusing in particular on how broad a right must be provided by states wishing to have a just immigration policy, and on whether this right violates norms of liberal neutrality. I then discuss the family in relation to refugee and asylum policy, considering both when family ties should be given weight in refugee protection decision and when harm to a family member should, on its own, be able to be grounds for applying for refugee protection. I turn next to the question of when, and to what extent, family ties should be able to serve as a “shield” to removal or deportation, and finish with a discussion of the special rights of and obligations to children in immigration settings.

What Should We Believe About the Future? Miloud Belkoniene - forthcoming - Synthese:1-12.

This paper discusses the ability of explanationist theories of epistemic justification to account for the justification we have for holding beliefs about the future. McCain’s explanationist account of the relation of evidential support is supposedly in a better position than other theories of this type to correctly handle cases involving beliefs about the future. However, the results delivered by this account have been questioned by Byerly and Martin. This paper argues that McCain’s account is, in fact, able to deliver plausible results in cases involving such beliefs and that explanationism, if properly articulated, is illuminating with respect to the justification we have for holding such beliefs, as it manages to correctly distinguish evidence that only supports believing probabilistic claims about the future from evidence that is sufficient to believe that a particular event will happen.

Introduction to Symposium on Contemporary Moral and Political Philosophy.Thomas Christiano - 2018 - Politics, Philosophy and Economics 17 (2):117-118.

May 3rd, 2018 GMT

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion.Mark Smith - forthcoming - Ethics and Social Welfare:1-2.

Democracy for Realists, Groups, and Ordinary Voters.Eric Schickler - forthcoming - Critical Review:1-11.

May 2nd, 2018 GMT

The Contradiction of Crimmigation.José Jorge Mendoza - 2018 - APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy 17 (2):6-9.

This essay argues that we should find Crimmigration, which is the collapsing of immigration law with criminal law, morally problematic for three reasons. First, it denies those who are facing criminal penalties important constitutional protections. Second, it doubly punishes those who have already served their criminal sentence with an added punishment that should be considered cruel and unusual (i.e., indefinite imprisonment or exile). Third, when the tactics aimed at protecting and serving local communities get usurped by the federal government for immigration enforcement purposes, they often undermine these original aims or get used in ways that conflict with the U.S. Constitution. These concerns should prompt us therefore either to reject the government’s plenary power over immigration or require the federal government to be more consistent about maintaining the separation between criminal law and immigration law.

The Color of Childhood: The Role of the Child/Human Binary in the Production of Anti-Black Racism.Toby Rollo - 2018 - Journal of Black Studies:1-20.

The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central feature of racialization. Where Black peoples are situated as objects of violence it is often precisely because Blackness has been identified with childhood and childhood is historically identified as the archetypal site of naturalized violence and servitude. I proceed by offering a historical account of how Black peoples came to inherit the subordination and dehumanization of European childhood and how White youth were subsequently spared through their partial categorization as adults.

Book Review: Political Realism in Apocalyptic Times, by Alison McQueen.Paul Sagar - forthcoming - Political Theory:009059171877105.

Book Review: Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring, by Asef Bayat.Arash Davari - forthcoming - Political Theory:009059171877108.

Women’s Human Rights, Then and Now: Symposium on Eileen Hunt Botting’s Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Women’s Human Rights.Ruth Abbey, Linda M. G. Zerilli, Alasdair MacIntyre & Eileen Hunt Botting - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):426-454.

Paternalism Revisited: Definitions, Justifications, and Techniques. Bart Engelen - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):478-486.

Revising the Cambridge School: Republicanism Revisited. Richard Bourke - 2018 - Political Theory 46 (3):467-477.

Apr 30th, 2018 GMT

Optimism, Agency, and Success.Lisa Bortolotti - forthcoming - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Does optimism lead to success? Friends of optimism argue that positive beliefs about ourselves and our future contribute to fitness and mental health, and are correlated with good functioning, productivity, resilience, and pro-social behavior. Skeptics, instead, claim that when we are optimistic we fail to react constructively to negative feedback and put ourselves at risk because we underestimate threats. Thus, it is controversial whether optimistic beliefs are conducive to success, intended as the fulfillment of our goals in a given domain. According to the traditional view, optimistic beliefs lead to success when they do not involve any distortion of reality, and according to the trade-off view, they lead to success when they involve a distortion of reality, but a small one. 

Based on the literature about positive illusions in the perception of romantic partners and in the assessment of future health prospects, I suggest that optimistic beliefs lead to goal attainment when they support agency by contributing to the sense that we are competent and efficacious agents and that our goals are both desirable and attainable.

Reconciling Enkrasia and Higher-Order Defeat. Mattias Skipper - forthcoming - Erkenntnis.

Michael Titelbaum (2015) has recently argued that the Enkratic Principle is incompatible with the view that rational belief is sensitive to higher-order defeat. That is to say, if it cannot be rational to have akratic beliefs of the form “p, but I shouldn't believe that p,” then rational beliefs cannot be defeated by higher-order evidence, which indicates that they are irrational. In this paper, I distinguish two ways of understanding Titelbaum’s argument and argue that neither version is sound. The first version can be shown to rest on a subtle, but crucial, misconstrual of the Enkratic Principle. The second version can be resisted through careful consideration of cases of higher-order defeat. The upshot is that proponents of the Enkratic Principle are free to maintain that rational belief is sensitive to higher-order defeat.

Is Supernatural Belief Unreliably Formed. Hans Van Eyghen - 2018 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion:1-24.

I criticize 5 arguments for the conclusion that religious belief is unreliably formed and hence epistemically tainted. The arguments draw on scientific evidence from Cognitive Science of Religion. They differ considerably as to why the evidence points to unreliability. Two arguments conclude to unreliability because religious belief is shaped by evolutionary pressures; another argument states that the mechanism responsible for religious belief produces many false god-beliefs; a similar argument claims that the mechanism produces incompatible god-beliefs, and a final argument states that the mechanism is offtrack. I argue that the arguments fail to make the case for unreliability or that the unreliability can be overcome.

I Love My Children: Am I Racist? On the Wish to Be Biologically Related to One’s Children. Ezio Di Nucci - forthcoming - Journal of Medical Ethics.

Is the wish to be biologically related to your children legitimate? Here I respond to an argument in support of a negative answer to this question according to which a preference towards having children one is biologically related to is analogous to a preference towards associating with members of one’s own race. I reject this analogy, mainly on the grounds that only the latter constitutes discrimination; still, I conclude that indeed a preference towards children one is biologically related to is morally illegitimate because, in the context of parental love, biological considerations are normatively irrelevant.

Critical Ethics of Care in Social Work, Transforming the Politics and Practices of Caring.Aisha Macgregor - forthcoming - Ethics and Social Welfare:1-2.

Apr 29th, 2018 GMT

Reasonable Disagreement.Catherine Elgin - 2018 - In Voicing Dissent. New York USA: Routledge. pp. 10-21.

True Enough.Catherine Elgin - 2017 - Cambridge: MIT Press.

Science relies on models and idealizations that are known not to be true. Even so, science is epistemically reputable. To accommodate science, epistemology should focus on understanding rather than knowledge and should recognize that the understanding of a topic need not be factive. This requires reconfiguring the norms of epistemic acceptability. If epistemology has the resources to accommodate science, it will also have the resources to show that art too advances understanding.