Alasdair MacIntyre

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Debates about cultural recognition have been divided into two main views: on the differencesensitive liberal view, recognition of individuals' collective identities requires group-specific minority rights, whereas on the difference-blind liberal view, recognition requires nothing beyond the basic rights guaranteed by liberal procedural justice. This article seeks to show that in fact, both camps are wrong about what recognition requires. Instead, I argue that what recognition requires must be decided through a democratic discursive procedure, which allows members of minority groups to freely articulate their claims to recognition, and have those claims in turn, reviewed by the public through an impartial process of mutual argumentation. In fact, I show that even if independent principles of fairness might seem to require extending group-specific minority rights, the content of those rights must be determined by the affected agents themselves through a democratic discursive procedure. On the basis of this argument, I defend an alternative discursive approach to the problem of recognition.

O presente artigo discute a teoria das múltiplas racionalidades no contexto da razão religiosa contemporânea, com base nas contribuições dos filósofos Alasdair MacIntyre e Stanley Hauerwas. Refutando a concepção moderna de racionalidade universal e abstrata, o texto destaca a importância das tradições vividas e das experiências comunitárias como condições para a compreensão e validação da racionalidade. Ressalta-se que a racionalidade religiosa, especialmente no âmbito do cristianismo, é legitimada pelo testemunho prático da comunidade e pelo engajamento ético-conceitual fundamentado na tradição, permitindo a superação do relativismo e o estabelecimento de critérios para o discernimento epistêmico.

In a previously published paper, “A Little Shelter from the Storm; COVID-19 and the ‘Atlantic Bubble’” (Canadian Journal of Practical Philosophy, Vol. 6, No. 1, Fall, 2021), I argued that 'the Atlantic Bubble' (hereafter AB) was a political plan which demonstrated how community strength, and the underlying positive liberty of communal action, mitigate risk. Returning to this, I consider recent developments, exploring COVID-19's transition to a perennial issue, along with how features of AB might be emulated more broadly. Here, we confront long-standing philosophical issues which are of particular concern for initial considerations of how a theoretical shift, applying traditional virtue ethics to our contemporary context, might accompany the practical one of developing a robust sense of community.

The intent of this paper is to establish a non-reductive neural base for the conscious self and freedom. Given (1) the dependency of consciousness or the conscious self on the neural brain (2) established correlates between mental (cognitive) and neural states, (3) the persistent claim for 'free will' exhibited in human praxis, an attempt is made to continue the debate on 'free will' in the light of Libet's claim that "readiness potential" precedes the "will to act"? Do we need to locate, detect or create consciousness or the conscious self before we can accept it? We know that conscious self is contingent or related to the physical brain, but until (or unless) we can establish what role non-neural elements (temperature, pressure, neural oscillations and sleep) play in making 'conscious self' possible we cannot detect, locate or create the conscious self. All we know is that conscious self or consciousness is related to the physical brain, but it could be a fundamental property of the physical universe-as such not only related to the physical but related to the laws of physics. Consciousness is contingent or related to the physical brain but we do not know whether it is purely physical (as Dennett claims), whether it is reductive (as Smart suggests), whether it is non-reductive (as Chalmers claims), whether it is irreducible (as Searle claims), or whether it is immaterial (as Sartre claims). Consciousness is an existential/emergent mode of being and so is 'free will', hence only existentially detectable. The emergence of consciousness from organic sentience gives rise to the phenomenal, intentional, functional, moral and the existential but non-reductive self. The detectable genetic and neural activity generates the non-reductive 'state consciousness' (Rosenthal), which I shall call existential sentience. It is existential sentience' (the awareness that we are conscious) that is responsible for the self, which is nonreductive though organic in its roots. All creatures exhibit levels of sentience but human sentience exhibits something unique -the awareness of being conscious. The awareness that we are conscious to begin with is selfawareness. So belief in the conscious existential self is basic if one is to accept the phenomenal, functional, moral, and volitional self.

This is a review essay on David McIlwain’s book, Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss: The Politics of Renaissance and Enlightenment (2019) which compares their divergent responses to the decline of Neo-Kantianism and the political implications they drew from them, in part motivated by their own political experiences and especially Strauss's understanding of Prussian bureaucracy.

This study seeks to develop an understanding on how the Catholic Social Teaching (CST) can inform, criticize, and enhance economic thought through key human values writ weakly in the tenets and principles of Catholic Social Teaching, which include, dignity, justice and the common good. Standard economics is arguably more relevant as taught to include efficiency, production and consumption economics in the state of scarcity. It tends to depend on conceptions of human beings as rational self-seeking actors in search of utility maximisation (Cima and Schubeck, 2001). Nonetheless the models often disregard ethical inquiries of justice, human welfare and solidarity. CST offers a moral, spiritual context appealing to not exist as it does, struggling to impose that economic systems ought to be subordinated to human dignity and to the prosperity of all, and especially of the poor and marginalised (CAFOD, 2015).
This study will thus seek to examine ways in which the CST values can lead to the establishment of just, inclusive and common good-oriented economic policies as opposed to profit or growth-seeking economic policies. In this way, this paper aims at filling the gap between moral theology and economics, in order to provide some insights to the policymakers, business leaders, theologians and development professionals interested in human centred development.

Indagare la relazione teorico-pratica tra filosofia e antropologia in un’ottica prospettica. La genesi filosofica mirante alla “cura per la chiarezza” converge con la prassi antropologica della ricerca etno-critica; un’euristica plurale, molteplice, con punti di contatto e divergenze nel ricorrente nesso uomo-cultura-civiltà. La filosofia si erge rivolgendosi all’universale (unus versus alia) fornendo quella “cassetta degli attrezzi” utile per tutte le scienze umane, a partire dall’antropologia.

Nel saggio il testo hessiano emerge come paradigmatico sia dell’esplosione di ogni certezza che aveva investito l'Europa della Grande Guerra, sia quale risposta a questa stessa crisi, sottolineando l’importanza che l'esercizio di responsabilità comporta nel delineare i tratti costitutivi del soggetto

A survey of the existing literature shows that there is limited philosophical inquiry into the concept of well-being, particularly from East Asian spiritual traditions. In this article, I reconceptualise well-being by critiquing the prevailing constructs of well-being and proposing an alternative formulation from Confucian viewpoints. I argue that the dominant categorisation of well-being into hedonic and eudaimonic has engendered two major weaknesses. First, the emphasis on positive emotions in hedonic well-being privileges individualism and self-interest, catalysed by the positive psychology movement. Secondly, there is a lack of clarity on the role of emotions and the place of virtues in self-actualisation for eudaimonic well-being. I then sketch a Confucian interpretation of well-being by drawing on Mencius' ideal of joy. My argument is that Mencian well-being revolves around virtue-directed joy which is experienced through the extension of innate moral feelings. Instead of an artificial dichotomy of well-being into hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, Mencius harmonises both by acknowledging positive emotions and self-actualisation. Confucian perspectives extend the existing scholarship by providing an original interpretation of well-being that foregrounds the primary role of collectivism, emotions and character development.

This research explores the enduring relevance of Aristotelian thought (Aristotelian philosophy) for achieving a truly happy life. Taking Aristotle's philosophy as inspiration, and focusing on his understanding of 'motion', not just physical movement, but the broader sense of change and development, as the actualization of potential, this work examines how a continuous, deliberate striving towards goodness can ultimately lead to eudaimonia, often translated as flourishing or a well-lived life (the happy life). The research problem addressed is the modern difficulty of living meaningfully amidst rapid change and disconnection from ethical traditions. Aristotle viewed all these things in nature, especially human beings, as inherently possessing a natural tendency towards realizing their full potential, and for us, that means the achievement of happiness. The objective of this work is to provide a practical model grounded in Aristotelian ethics that can be applied in contemporary life. The core method used is philosophical reasoning supported by conceptual analysis. Building on the view that human beings are not merely passive entities or blank slates, but active, conscious agents capable of shaping their lives, we introduce the "Revised Realization of Aristotelian Goodness," defined by the continuous, active realization of the good for human beings. In other words, Aristotelian goodness will be practically realized in human life when an individual gains practical wisdom, theoretical wisdom, and understands both themself and the surrounding natural world. This goodness is not a static state, but a dynamic, ongoing process of self-improvement, driven by reason, reflection, and the conscious pursuit of virtue. A brief, illustrative case study will then be presented, offering a more concrete example of how this revised model might be applied in practice. This research ultimately concludes that a life aligned with virtue through rational action leads to deep-seated purpose and lasting well-being.

For millennia, the Aristotelian concept of morality as moderation has served as an influential moral compass. This essay delves into the validity and constraints of this idea, especially when viewed through the lens of modern ethical theories and socio-political challenges. Starting with an analysis of Aristotle's "golden mean," the discussion expands to include the psychological aspects of moral decision-making, the firm boundaries of deontological duties, the urgent demands of justice, and the sometimes extreme conclusions of consequentialist ethics. The essay argues that while moderation is a valuable virtue in personal life, a comprehensive modern morality requires a more pluralistic and context-aware framework. In such a framework, the wisdom of the mean is often supplemented, and at times overridden, by undeniable principles, the necessity of structural change, and the duty to maximize wellbeing. The conclusion is that morality cannot be simplified to a single principle. Instead, it exists in a dynamic tension between balance, principle, justice, and consequence.

This paper explores the philosophical debate between Slavoj Žižek and Robert Brandom over Hegel's metaphysics, focusing on their opposing views on reconciliation and negativity. Brandom, through an inferentialist lens, interprets Hegel as advancing a process of normative reconciliation, where conceptual idealism and pragmatic semantics align to resolve contradictions. Žižek, by contrast, argues that Hegel's ontology is one of fundamental antagonism, where contradiction is not merely a step toward resolution but an essential feature of reality itself. This disagreement raises broader issues concerning historical progress, ideology, and the limits of conceptual determination.

Este trabajo analiza el principio de responsabilidad de Hans Jonas desde una perspectiva ontológica. A diferencia de las éticas tradicionales centradas en la acción inmediata, Jonas plantea que la responsabilidad surge de la vulnerabilidad del ser y su continuidad en el tiempo. Se examina cómo la ética jonasiana se distancia de la deontología kantiana y de la bioética principialista, incorporando una dimensión prospectiva y ecológica. Además, se exploran los vínculos entre la responsabilidad y la fenomenología del otro, contrastando su enfoque con el de Emmanuel Levinas. Se concluye que el principio de responsabilidad no solo responde a la fragilidad del ser humano, sino que exige una acción orientada a la preservación de la existencia futura, consolidando así una ética basada en la afectación y la ontificación del mundo.

In this paper, I advance two theses. First, while attributions of prudence or practical wisdom to some agent presuppose that agent’s possession of certain cognitive capacities, to state that an agent’s activities presupposes the possession of certain cognitive capacities is not eo ipso to say the agent is practically wise or prudent. Second, attributions of prudence or practical wisdom are irreducibly normative, depending on our assessment of the practical reasoning, that is, the justifications and argumentation, that we judge to be the source and explanation of the agent’s activities. That is to say, while we may attribute prudence or practical wisdom to an agent in virtue of his or her activities, those attributions presuppose the rectitude of the practical reasoning that is the origin of the teleological structure of those activities.

Este trabalho visa apresentar as teses a respeito do conceito de 'bom' defendidas por George Edward Moore no primeiro capítulo de seu Principia Ethica (1903), um clássico que é considerado o livro fundador da metaética como uma área de estudo na Ética. O segundo objetivo é comentar a sua recepção na Filosofia Analítica das últimas décadas. Moore defende, essencialmente, duas teses em seu primeiro capítulo do Principia: uma metafísica, que diz respeito ao 'bom' como não natural; e uma epistemológica, que defende a intuição ética como meio para conhecê-lo. Segundo Moore, o 'bom' é a única propriedade moral, que certas coisas partilham de diferentes maneiras, sendo seu caráter simples, de ordem não natural e indefinível. Para fundamentar esta ideia, ele apresenta o famoso argumento da questão aberta e caracteriza a "falácia naturalista". Para além do sucesso de sua teoria, que se mantém controversa entre os especialistas, Moore demonstrou e assegurou algo crucial: a autonomia da Ética em relação às ciências empíricas, tema que este trabalho também aborda. Sucedendo a apresentação das teses mooreanas, o artigo analisa objeções e leituras de comentadores mais recentes, como Peter Railton, Darlei Dall'Agnol, Judith Jarvis Thomson, entre outros, resgatando a metaética mooreana a partir de uma ótica atualizada.

El artículo que a continuación presento defenderá una tesis que juzgo sumamente sencilla e incluso sobremanera probada: si no soy capaz de una auténtica philoautía, jamás podré amar verdaderamente a ningún otro ser humano; la amistad con otras personas se fundamenta sobre el adecuado amor de sí. Confío en que el desarrollo de este principio, tal y como lo propongo en estas páginas, tendrá algo de mérito, al menos para pensar de un modo renovado una cuestión tan vieja como la filosofía misma.
Problematizando una tesis aristotélica, destaco que, al menos en la presente cultura, el amor y la amistad con uno mismo no es algo que cabría suponer espontáneo, se trata más bien de un punto de llegada, un horizonte a alcanzar, tal y como lo es la virtud misma. Llegamos a cuidar de nosotros mismos a partir de una experiencia primera de amor, una realidad que no siempre se da en términos afectivos, pero que puede ser descubierta como una certeza metafísica y religiosa.
Una vez asumida y sanada, la philoautía podrá salir al despliegue de la amistad política, particularmente en el seno de la familia y de las comunidades intermedias. Sin embargo, en la práctica, nos dirigimos al encuentro de los otros amándonos poco y mal, lo cual produce, inevitablemente, el conflicto, las heridas y el aprendizaje propio del amor. Pero cuando hay predisposición al diálogo y buena voluntad, todo conduce a una ganancia, la muchas veces dolorosa y magnifica experiencia de aprender a vivir.
Palabras clave: hypolepsis, philoautía, amistad política, psycomaquia.

El surgimiento y desarrollo de la digitalización alumbraron en los albores del siglo XXI la esperanza de una etapa de mayor participación para la democracia y el activismo político con base en una opinión pública más y mejor informada. Sin embar-go, hoy parece evidente que aquella esperanza se vio truncada. En la actualidad, la conversación pública digital aparece como fragmentaria y parcial, pues en ella los usuarios proliferan fake news, discursos de odio y la llamada posverdad. Todo ello ha dado como resultado públicos segmentados, aislados y altamente polarizados. En este escenario, el discurso populista emerge como el discurso imperante en la era digital. Nos proponemos reflexionar sobre este proceso y sus implicaciones. En primer lugar, procuraremos comprender las motivaciones teórico-políticas de las esperanzas iniciales depositadas en la digitalización para la transformación de la esfera de la opinión pública, de la ciudadanía y de la democracia. En segundo lugar, trataremos de comprender y analizar las distintas normatividades de la democracia que inspiraron en el pasado los diferentes juicios de valor sobre la digitalización y el balance actual que hacen sobre el impacto real de dichos procesos de digitalización. Finalmen-te, nos aproximamos a las complicidades entre la digitalización y el discurso populista en la actualidad, en específico, al uso de los afectos del populismo y cómo esos componentes de la discursividad populista se han visto reforzados con las nuevas posibilidades comunicativas digitales.

To what extent should business have an implication of service when its fundamental purpose is profit-seeking? We explore this issue through a contextually informed reappraisal of British interwar management thinking , drawing on rich archival material concerning the Rowntree business lectures and management research groups. Whereas existing literature is framed around scientific management versus human relations schools, we find a third pronounced, related theme: business as service. Our main contribution is to identify the origins in Britain of the discourse of corporate social responsibility in the guise of business as service. We show that this emerged earlier than commonly assumed and was imbued with an instrumental intent from its inception as a form of management control. This was a discourse emanating not from management theorists but from management practitioners, striving to put the corporate system on a sustainable footing while safeguarding the power, authority, and legitimacy of incumbent managerial elites.

This article offers a critical review of John Rawls's 1955 essay Two Concepts of Rules and argues that a full understanding of his mature work requires examining his early philosophical development. The central hypothesis posits that Rawls's analysis of constitutive rules is essential for understanding the epistemic foundations of his later theory of justice. A key distinction is that drawn between justifying an action that falls within a rule (or practice) and justifying the rule itself. This distinction allowed Rawls to defend utilitarianism against its critics, highlighting their logical misunderstanding of how this theory evaluates actions. Furthermore, the article argues that Rawls's early concern with practices and social institutions directly influenced his subsequent interest in the basic structure of society, developed in A Theory of Justice. Ultimately, it reveals Rawls's nascent attention to the evaluation of systems of rules that shape social practices, rather than focusing solely on individual actions, representing a crucial step in the elaboration of his theory.

This paper sets out to explore the work of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in relation to his profound criticisms of the social and economic order of modern capitalist modernity. The paper begins by setting his broad intellectual trajectory within the context of the emergence of the British New Left in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It highlights the continuing significance of some of the key themes explored by the New Left throughout all of MacIntyre's work and especially regarding his latest work Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity published in 2016. The paper attempts to bring out the significant role that MacIntyre gives to sociological analysis within his account of modernity and notes the importance of such analysis within what otherwise appears to be his purely philosophical approach and points towards MacIntyre's work being a form of moral philosophy rooted in social practices that is especially congenial to sociology.

This paper sets out to explore the work of the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in relation to his profound criticisms of the social and economic order of modern capitalist modernity. The paper begins by setting his broad intellectual trajectory within the context of the emergence of the British New Left in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It highlights the continuing significance of some of the key themes explored by the New Left throughout all of MacIntyre's work and especially regarding his latest work Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity published in 2016. The paper attempts to bring out the significant role that MacIntyre gives to sociological analysis within his account of modernity and notes the importance of such analysis within what otherwise appears to be his purely philosophical approach and points towards MacIntyre's work being a form of moral philosophy rooted in social practices that is especially congenial to sociology.

This paper undertakes a comprehensive examination of Hume's Guillotine, a perennial problem in moral philosophy first identified by David Hume. The central objective of this inquiry is to explore potential solutions to this conundrum, grounded in a naturalistic framework. The paper is divided into four sections. The paper provides an overview of general naturalistic claims in ethics, establishing the foundational context for the subsequent discussion, delves into the 'is-ought' problem, a fundamental challenge in moral philosophy, and examines Hume's perspective on this issue & presents a critical analysis of various naturalistic approaches to addressing the 'is-ought' problem, with a focus on their strengths and limitations. The paper concludes with a synthesis of the key findings, offering a philosophical reflection on the implications of naturalistic solutions to Hume's Guillotine with special reference to John Searle .

The last fifteen years have witnessed one of the strangest political rehabilitations: Karl Kautsky, chief theorist within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) during its heyday between 1890 and 1914 (when its membership numbered in the millions and its influence immense), the so-called "Pope of Marxism," has been resurrected. This rehabilitation is one of those peculiar ironies of history, in which the impossible somehow becomes real -the kind of dialectical inversion more sensible to a Hegelian Marxism than that of Plekhanov or Kautsky himself, almost playful and absurdist, the invention of an Ionesco or Beckett. Kautsky's fall from favour is easy enough to understand. Once committed to the principles of internationalism and revolution (if vaguely conceived), the outbreak of World War One saw Kautsky shift to the Right, when he tailed the SPD's abandonment of their traditional antiwar position. The political capitulation of this once-immense socialist party (numbering millions of members), the sudden revelation that is had transmuted into a bourgeois party of reform, shocked the internationalist Left -and Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin in particular. From that moment, Kautsky hovered in a grey half-life, a liminal world where he was marginalised by the SPD and yet spent his time denouncing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. 1 Lenin's work is nowhere near as vituperative as many of his critics maintain. A close reading reveals the bulk of his writing to be mostly fair-handed and considerate, especially when confronted with his opponents. To Kautsky, however, one senses the simmering anger of the betrayed. 2 As analogy: the genocide in Gaza today leaves little space for those who want to pontificate on abstract points about the democracy on one side and the other, as if there were some equivalent between the two sides, one in an open-air concentration camp, the other a powerfully militarised ruler of apartheid. unmistakeably bourgeois (in the sociological rather than Marxist sense) in his habits, his attitudes, his life experience, particularly when compared to the footloose, romantic, and often bohemian intellectuals and worker-intellectuals of the Third International. The latter were constantly on the move under threat of state repression or Right-wing violence, and whose natural habitat was not receiving visitors in the parlour but in the tumult of the masses, in the worker's councils (think of Antonio Gramsci or Rosa Luxemburg), in their parties' central committees, in the cut and thrust of debate (Lenin and Gramsci), sometimes at the head of governments or city administrations, however short-lived (Georg Lukacs or Gregory Zinoviev), almost always often with their own base of support in the class and the broad masses. They were engaged militants, not just intellectual commentators. 3 Lenin's victory over Kautsky came as much politically as theoretically. The capitulation of the SPD, the discrediting of its "strategy of patience" (of "attrition") left Kautsky's project stamped in ignominy and defeat. In contrast, Lenin's work appeared infinitely more relevant in times of crisis and given the stamp of approval by events themselves, by the march of history, by the victory of the October Revolution. As Lenin's star was ascendent, Kautsky was banished to the shadows, seemingly forever. Kautsky's resurrection is more puzzling. From forgotten "renegade," he has recently taken his place as a Marxist thinker worthy of serious consideration. A small but not insignificant group of acolytes make his case. The principal home of the New Kautskyism has been Jacobin magazine, based in New York, advocate for "democratic socialism," whose intellectual wellsprings include Ralph Miliband, the "Eurocommunist" version of Antonio Gramsci and his successor in the Italian Communist Party Palmiro Togliatti. Jacobin's Founder, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote admiringly of the German SPD in his erudite 2019 book, The Socialist Manifesto (over dinner I attended in Melbourne some years ago, he said, "My analysis is Trotskyist but my strategy is social-democratic"). The book argues for "classstruggle social democracy" that will need to move to "democratic socialism" -as close to a summary of Kautskyism as one gets: Democratic socialists must secure decisive majorities in legislatures while winning hegemony in the unions. Then our organizations must be willing to flex their social power in the form of mass mobilizations and political strikes to counter the structural power of capital and ensure that our leaders choose confrontation over accommodation with elites. This is the sole way we'll not only make our reforms durable but break with capitalism entirely and bring about a world that values people over profit. 4 Both Jacobin and the new Kautskyists have had an audience in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a group whose vitality made it a point of reference over the last decade, but whose strategy included support for the "Squad," (such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez), once viewed as a challenge to the Democratic Party establishment but in the eyes of many, now simply the left flank of it. 3 In a more contemporary example, Barry Shephard, former leader of the US SWP (and author of two memoirs about the party), once said that James P. Cannon, footloose organiser for the IWW, early CP USA leader, then leading Trotskyist, was a worker leader with a real base -that groups of workers would ask, "What does Cannon say on this?" 4 The Socialist Manifesto, Bhaskar Sunkara, 2019, found in the section "We must move quickly from social democracy to democratic socialism." A second nexus for the "New Kautskyists" lies across the Atlantic, in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), an iconoclastic organisation whose work seems also principally intellectual, and can be found on their website, The Weekly Worker and their online presence, principally YouTube. There a more Left-wing Kautskyism seems to hold sway, but existing in dialogue with their American counterparts. In the tracks of these two currents, the Marxist magazine Cosmonaut, dedicated to the development of "scientific socialism", has joined in the debates and is producing an audiobook of Ben Lewis's Karl Kautsky on Democracy and Republicanism. All in all, we have a disparate collection of intellectuals and activists (of a type) who might be categorised as the New Kautskyists.

El presente artículo tiene como finalidad explorar la complementariedad de dos propuestas narrativas contemporáneas sobre la vida y acción humanas, a través del concepto de «vulnerabilidad corporal». Por una parte, se encuentran las ideas de Hans Urs von Balthasar sobre las polaridades espíritu-cuerpo, hombre-mujer, e individuo-comunidad y su posible unidad metafísica y antropológica. Por otra parte, presentamos los planteamientos del filósofo moral Alasdair MacIntyre que se desarrollan desde la teleología, en el marco de los fines naturales que brindan la vulnerabilidad y la dependencia del ser humano. Así, en el primer apartado analizamos las ideas del teólogo suizo sobre las polaridades indicadas, en el contexto metafísico que él mismo propone siguiendo a Tomás de Aquino, y dentro de su visión de la dramática de la vida humana en su relación con Dios. Posteriormente, siguiendo los planteamientos tomistas de MacIntyre, consideramos los problemas de la dialéctica de la Modernidad para comprender adecuadamente la integración de tales polaridades en la narrativa vital humana, especialmente en el marco una teleología insertada en la vulnerabilidad corporal. Finalmente, llevamos a cabo una descripción de cada polaridad antropológica y presentamos, esquemáticamente, unas conclusiones, que resaltan cómo la vulnerabilidad del ser humano permite una lectura narrativa unitaria de la vida abierta a la libertad como búsqueda del bien.

Xunzi made a notable departure from Mengzi and Kongzi, by insisting that people are inherently bad and need to be shaped by social institutions. This may represent the beginnings of institutional politics in ancient China, which focused on establishing social order from chaos. There are obvious and interesting similarities with Thomas Hobbes’s social contract theory in their shared cynicism of human nature which have received only partial attention. Structurally, the institutionalism found in Xunzi is comparable to the social contract theory, making politics an objective, external and measurable set of institutional rules rather than virtues. There have been no notable attempts at this comparison. The Anglophone scholarship has not paid much attention to the structural and institutional dimensions of Xunzi’s political philosophy. The Sinophone scholarship has not paid as much attention to the comparative elements between the social contract theory and Xunzi’s social-moral institutions. This thesis attempts to supply a comparative interpretation of several key concepts in the Xunzi: 1. order zhi 治; chaos luan 亂, which are Xunzi’s foundational moral concerns; 2. duties yi 義; public gong 公, which alludes to a way public duties are generated from internal impulses; 3. rituals li 禮, which is a means of distributing esteem as a scarce social resource; 4. reason/coherence LI* 理, which is an externally accessible set of quasi-empirical principles that justifies political prescriptions; 5. the way and hierarchy dao 道/ fen 分, which show that hierarchies as the device that makes social order possible. Through these explications, I argue that Xunzi’s systematic political philosophy amounts to an alternative way to achieve civility through social institutions distinct from but comparable to the social contract theory familiar to Western philosophy.

Abstract: Despite decades of scholarly debate, how communitarianism should be understood remains unresolved, often divided into two dominant interpretations: one framing it as a friendly critique from within liberalism, and the other caricaturing it as a movement leaning towards authoritarianism. In this paper, I offer an alternative, more nuanced reading of communitarianism that moves beyond these binary interpretations. By examining its core philosophical tenets-the ontological priority of community, the contextuality of knowledge, and the impersonality of goods-I argue that communitarianism can be reinterpreted as a standalone ethical-political philosophy. Subsequently, I refine this initial reading by introducing two principles: immanent critique and the fusion of horizons, which help distinguish communitarianism from authoritarianism and relativism alike. These principles demonstrate how communitarianism fosters continuous value reproduction within communities while remaining open to cross-cultural dialog and the possibility of a universal morality. This reimagined communitarianism not only protects authenticity but also provides a framework for engaging with global diversity, offering promising avenues for interaction and mutual understanding across different cultural contexts.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-025-05506-3

Alasdair MacIntyre pode ser considerado um dos filósofos morais mais influentes do século XX. Prova disso é a grande repercussão de suas obras no meio acadêmico, onde têm sido cada vez mais discutidas, revisadas e traduzidas. Com efeito, o livro Depois da Virtude, principal obra de MacIntyre, recebeu diversas traduções ao redor do mundo, sendo responsável por difundir o seu pensamento para além das fronteiras da academia inglesa. No Brasil, por exemplo, já contamos com duas traduções dessa obra importante, sem mencionar as recentes traduções de quase todos os livros que a sucederam 4. Entretanto, esse sucesso de Depois da Virtude, bem como das obras posteriores, encobre importantes contribuições de Alasdair MacIntyre para a área da ética médica, encontradas principalmente em artigos publicados em períodos anteriores. Mais precisamente, MacIntyre escreveu diversos artigos, na década de 1970, sobre os problemas éticos da medicina contemporânea, tais como, por

Recent decades have seen a resurgence of interest in Thomistic virtue ethics. In Growing in Virtue: Aquinas on Habit, William Mattison makes an important contribution to this body of scholarship by showing how our understanding of virtue can be enriched by analyzing the process by which habits are formed and developed. The book's argument unfolds in a straightforward manner, beginning in Chapter 1 with an explanation of the Thomistic concept of habitus. Appealing to the classic description of habit as "second nature," Mattison argues that habits exist "in between" agents and their actions, providing the "stable specification of a person's powers to do certain activities in certain ways" (7). Accordingly, they give direction to the inchoate inclinations bestowed on us by nature, by conferring upon certain kinds of behavior a consistency, promptness, and pleasure that render them especially desirable. Although the actions to which habits incline us are not always conducive to human flourishing (habits can be vices as well as virtues), all habits are nevertheless natural in the sense that without them the powers of the soul would remain underdetermined, lacking the specification necessary to facilitate voluntary action. In Chapters 2 and 3, Mattison expands on these reflections to consider how a habit differs from a mere disposition, arguing that what primarily distinguishes the former from the latter is its stability. Yet, as he goes on to note, this claim is complicated by the fact that natural dispositions and social customs sometimes incline us to act in ways that can be difficult to change. Consequently, Mattison argues that it is "not only stability, but also a specification of the more particular end informed by a person's rationality" that distinguishes a habit from a disposition (32). In other words, the reason why a disposition arising from nature or custom falls short of a full-blown habit is that it forms our sensory powers in a manner unmediated by our own rational judgment. This claim is further developed in Chapters 4 and 5, where Mattison explores how habits are naturally acquired and developed through "repeated acts that entail judgments of reason" (60). Here Mattison's aim is to describe in greater detail the stable rational specification that is characteristic of a habit, and how this specification can be further attuned to various modes and circumstances through a habit's growth or "intensification." As Mattison notes, this specification occurs not only "within" a habit, but also "across" habits, such that growth in a specific virtue also entails greater connectivity among all the virtues, as well as increased coherence of one's life as a whole. In Chapters 6 and 7, Mattison turns to consider how these insights inform Aquinas's account of growth in infused virtue, which in many ways parallels that of acquired virtue. As Mattison notes, however, there are some important differences, which arise from the fact that infused virtue is caused not by human action but God's grace, and is attuned to the measure of divine law rather than human reason. Drawing upon Aquinas's discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and charity as "form of the virtues," Mattison shows how despite their many commonalities, natural and supernatural virtues nevertheless grow and develop in fundamentally different ways. Deeply conversant with contemporary scholarship in philosophical virtue ethics, Mattison succeeds in showing how Aquinas's account of the attainment and development of habits can shed light on current debates in Thomistic moral theology, from disputes about the spontaneity of virtuous passions to the function of the last end in practical reasoning. Accessibly written and tightly argued, this book will be required reading for Thomistic virtue ethicists.

iN 1984, ir a k aTzNelsoN, The ameriCaN poliTiCal sCieNTisT and historian, and Dean of the Graduate Faculty at the time, asked Richard J. Bernstein to join a very special "Enabling Committee" that had the mission to save and rebuild the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School. For Bernstein, the invitation became the opportunity to honor the friendship he had with Hannah Arendt, who in the last conversation they had together in the Spring of 1975, just months before she died, kept coming back to the same theme: the uncertain fate of the New School. It was Arendt who initially invited Bernstein to the New School in 1972 with the hope of recruiting him to the Graduate Faculty. The faculty and students, however, didn't reach consensus and ultimately decided against going forward with the offer, a decision that Arendt explained with her characteristic wit

This short article starts with Alasdair MacIntyre's famous critical remarks on human rights in After Virtue, and proceeds to ask whether in fact MacIntyre can be read against himself, taking a range of his own texts. This provides the basis for a sketch of a substantive account of human rights, more historicised and political than those for which MacIntyre has so little time. The article engages with some leading English Aristotelians-James Griffin and John Tasioulas in particular. MacIntyre has been a Marxist: this article suggests that perhaps he still is and that a consistent Aristotelian is a Marxist, especially where human rights are concerned.

Questo contributo propone un'indagine sistematica sul pensiero di Pantaleo Carabellese, attraverso un’analisi del suo testo Che Cosa è la filosofia?, con particolare attenzione allo sviluppo del suo "ontologismo critico" in rapporto alla cosiddetta filosofia concreta. L’autore esplora il superamento delle dicotomie tra soggetto e oggetto, teoria e prassi, idealismo e empirismo, mettendo in luce le implicazioni epistemologiche e metafisiche del pensiero carabellesiano. L'ontologismo critico viene delineato come un tentativo di ripensare l'essere non solo come concetto o dato, ma come atto conoscitivo che si radica nella coscienza teoretica e nella trascendenza dell'esperienza filosofica. La filosofia, secondo Carabellese, non si limita a riflettere sull'essere, ma è essa stessa atto fondante della realtà, una scienza della scienza che riconosce nell'elemento trascendentale il proprio fondamento. In opposizione sia al riduzionismo pratico di Croce che all’attualismo di Gentile, l’autore propone una filosofia come esercizio metafisico e ontologico, capace di restituire alla teoresi il suo ruolo originario. Il saggio si conclude con una riflessione sul rapporto tra filosofia, teologia e la possibilità di una coscienza concreta che superi la frammentazione del pensiero moderno.

not the case, however, that there are no examples of stress between conversation and argument. Chapter 8, which charts a very rich conversation between theology and philosophy over the millennia, might be a case in point. Besides speaking in general to the relation between theology and philosophy, Davies gives particular attention to Scotus and Eckhart in the premodern period and to the different receptions of phenomenology in Marion and Derrida in the modern period. While Davies never fails to be interesting, it is not clear that he is wholly successful. Davies' choice of Eckhart over the Aristotelian Aquinas appears counterintuitive given Davies' insistence on the embodied historical self, although, to be fair, Davies addresses the issue straight up by a reading of Eckhart which exculpates him from the charge of Platonism. The appeal to Duns Scotus is especially intriguing, given essential demonization in genealogies of decline. Yet it is not evident that Davies has made a strong enough case toward the Oxford theologian's rehabilitation. Worrying also is the somewhat schematic genealogy of two scientific revolutions and their theological effect in which the first led to the general acceptance of the disembodied self, and the second and ongoing revolution points to an embodied self more consonant with a Christian view of the world at once incarnational and sacramental. One could point to other imperfections, for example, the power of argument does not entirely prevent occasional repetition. But commendations can be compounded as well as quibbles. Above all, Theology of Transformation is a text that puts the reader on notice that real theological thinking is going on and that what is being said needs to be pondered for the good and future of theology.

In this article, we focus on global economic inequality and global justice. Drawing on Rawls’s emphasis on the basic structure (i.e., a society’s economic, political, and social institutions) and the principle of subsidiarity, we address how individual nations are implicated in a global economy that benefits those of us in the affluent global north to the detriment of people in the severely poor global south. While it has focused explicitly on issues within nation-states, magisterial teaching about subsidiarity has thus far inadequately addressed subsidiary structures between interdependent but radically unequal societies in the era of globalization. In light of this inadequacy, we speculate how Catholic Social Teaching’s principle of subsidiarity benefits from Rawls’s (and Rawlsian) explication of the basic structure, especially if the Church is to speak normatively and precisely about global economic inequality.

Bill Bowring’s presentation of ‘Misunderstanding MacIntyre on Human Rights,’ centers on three main points namely; first, MacIntyre’s Critics and Supporters of Human Rights, second, MacIntyre’s presupposition of Aristotelian conceptions on Human Rights as ‘socially embodied and located in history,’ and third, Human Rights as Substantive rather than Procedural.

In this journal by William Sweet entitled, ‘Foundations of Ethics and Moral Practices,’ William Sweet wanted to make it clear that this seemingly relativistic view of MacIntyre and further clarified pertinent approaches which he himself had somehow adopted from MacIntyre’s work. This adherence by William Sweet on some of MacIntyre’s positions did not imply a total embrace of MacIntyre’s positions rather, as a critical writer he also did question a number of concerns as regards the claims of MacIntyre, especially on the importance of moral practices and traditions as argued by MacIntyre. As these moral practices and traditions are concerned William Sweet now, drew his arguments on the possibility of substantive or objective moral standards which can be supported then, by reasoned arguments. As far as Sweet’s arguments are concerned, what seems to be the concern of his write-ups are described in the following questions:

First, is there a rational/objective/substantive foundation of morality? Second, how are practices and traditions relevant in the determination of meaning and truth in the community? (Does this mere subscription to practices and traditions of various communities not prone to relativism or perspectivism? If not. How these practices and traditions of communities be employed in the determination of meaning and truth without being relativistic in approach?) Third, what then, really is the telos of moral and ethical discourses? (Is it simply to know what ought to do? Or is it about how to live rightly, which is to live the ‘is’).