Shane J Ralston
Woolf University, Wright College, Faculty Member
- Political Science, Humanities, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Human Resources, Industrial And Labor Relations, and 29 morePolitical Theory, Pedagogy, Democratic Theory, Environmental Ethics, Pragmatism, History of Philosophy, Environmental Sustainability, Normative Ethics, Applied Ethics, John Dewey, Environmental Philosophy, American Philosophy, Environmental Justice, Social and Political Philosophy, Deliberative Democracy, Democracy, Political Philosophy, Pragmatism (Philosophy), Epistemology, Rethoric, Urban Gardening, NeoPragmatism, Child Welfare, Child abuse and neglect, Social Movements, Public Reason, Sanctuary, Social Activism, and Cultural Differencesedit
- Shane Ralston is an ethicist, philosophy professor, HR professional and academic administrator with graduate-level tr... moreShane Ralston is an ethicist, philosophy professor, HR professional and academic administrator with graduate-level training in the following disciplines: Philosophy, Political Science, Public Administration, Human Resources and Labor Relations. He taught Philosophy and Political Science for 20 years. Eight of those years were at Pennsylvania State University, where he earned tenure and associate rank. He also worked in city government and private business.He travels widely and lectures on corruption, foreign policy, American philosophy, professional ethics and higher education. He is currently the Dean and a Teaching Fellow at Wright College, Woolf University.
Dr. Ralston possesses six higher education degrees, one undergraduate and five graduate: B.A. in Legal Studies and Philosophy from University of California at Santa Cruz (1997), M.A. in Philosophy from California State University Long Beach (2000), M.A. in Political Science from California State University Los Angeles (2003), M.P.A. in Public Administration from the University of Montana (2007), M.P.S. in Human Resources and Employment Relations from Pennsylvania State University (2015) and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Ottawa (2007). He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Centre for Research on Ethics at the University of Montreal in 2007-8. He has taught for Mount Saint Mary's University, Platt College, Western Colorado University, University of Ottawa, University of Maine and Pennsylvania State University. He has also served as a Human Resources (HR) Consultant and Founding HR Director for the American University of Malta as well as an affiliate advisor for the world's first blockchain university, Woolf University. He is currently volunteering in the capacity of Dean and Teaching Fellow for Wright College, Woolf University.
Dr. Ralston is the author of two monographs (1) John Dewey's Great Debates--Reconstructed (IAP, 2011), and (2) Pragmatic Environmentalism: Towards a Rhetoric of Eco-Justice (Troubador, 2013) as well as fifty published articles and fifteen book chapters. He is also the editor of a collection of essays on pragmatism and international relations, titled Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations: Essays for a Bold New World (Lexington Books, 2013).
Dr. Ralston's research interests include American pragmatism (esp. John Dewey), social-political philosophy (esp. deliberative democracy), ethics (normative and applied), environmental philosophy (esp. Aldo Leopold), environmental communication, philosophy of education (esp. higher education and educational technology), philosophy of law, public administration theory, organizational theory, business ethics, human resources ethics and the philosophy of public policy.
Dr. Ralston formerly served as the book review editor for the journal Education and Culture and was a member of the American Philosophical Association's Committee on Public Philosophy. He regularly writes for the online public issues forums and edits two publications on Medium. Dr. Ralston is a featured author in Henry Giroux's The Public Intellectual Project series on Truthout.
Dr. Ralston's research projects revolve around six broad areas: politics, ethics, education, environment, business and sports. Most of his scholarly work on politics deals with deliberative democratic theory/practice, public policy, social science research methodology, international relations and the history of Political Science. In ethics, he has written on pragmatist ethical theory, Marxist ethical theory, meta-ethics and ethics pedagogy. His research and writing in the area of education address a variety of topics, such as home schooling, civility in the classroom, school gardens and online literacy. His scholarship on environmental philosophy/ethics includes papers on environmental instrumentalism, global climate change, geoengineering, environmental justice, environmental communications/rhetoric and community gardening. He also conducts research on business and human resources ethics, including organizational theory, employment discrimination, whistle-blowing, workplace productivity and pay secrecy. His newest area of scholarly interest is philosophy of sport.
Dr. Ralston is a past winner of the American Philosophical Association's (APA) William James Prize and the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy's (SAAP) Ila and John Mellow Prize.edit
What are the implications of philosophical pragmatism for international relations theory and foreign policy practice? According to John Ryder, “a foreign policy built on pragmatist principles is neither naïve nor dangerous. In fact, it is... more
What are the implications of philosophical pragmatism for international relations theory and foreign policy practice? According to John Ryder, “a foreign policy built on pragmatist principles is neither naïve nor dangerous. In fact, it is very much what both the U.S. and the world are currently in need of.” Close observers of Barack Obama’s foreign policy statements have also raised the possibility of a distinctly pragmatist approach to international relations. Absent from the three dominant theoretical perspectives in the field—realism, idealism and constructivism—is any mention of pragmatism, except in the very limited, instrumentalist sense of choosing appropriate foreign policy tools to achieve proposed policy objectives. The key commitments of any international relations approach in the pragmatist tradition could include a flexible approach to crafting policy ends, theory integrally related to practice, a concern for both the normative and explanatory dimensions of international relations research, and policy means treated as hypotheses for experimental testing. Following the example of classic pragmatists such as John Dewey and neo-pragmatists like Richard Rorty, international relations scholars and foreign policy practitioners would have to forgo grand theories, instead embracing a situationally-specific approach to understanding and addressing emerging global problems. Unfortunately, commentary on the relationship between philosophical pragmatism and international relations has been limited. The authors in Philosophical Pragmatism and International Relations remedies this lacuna by exploring ways in which philosophical pragmatism, both classic and contemporary, can inform international relations theory and foreign policy practice today.
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Although this book is about the newly emerging academic field of environmental communication, it is also about voice and practical activism. I contend that a deeply pragmatic form of environmental communication has the potential to... more
Although this book is about the newly emerging academic field of environmental communication, it is also about voice and practical activism. I contend that a deeply pragmatic form of environmental communication has the potential to transform the way environmental activists speak about their methods and goals – moving them toward a rhetoric of eco-justice. Sometimes looking forward requires stepping back – in this case back to two progressive era thinkers who revolutionised our outlook on social and environmental justice: John Dewey and Aldo Leopard. I argue that the impoverished state of present day studies in environmental communication can be traced to a shallow conception of the pragmatic – a conception that can be made deeper through recourse to Dewey’s and Leopold’s ideas. Originating from their philosophies are twin rhetorics — control and restraint — that when balanced constitute a rhetoric of eco-justice. This new approach to speaking about environmental matters proves helpful for contemporary environmental activists – particularly when working in the areas of wilderness preservation, gardening politics, global climate change and environmental justice ""
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"Confirming his moniker as “America’s philosopher of democracy,” John Dewey engaged in a series of public debates over the course of his lifetime, vividly demonstrating how his thought translates into action. These debates made Dewey a... more
"Confirming his moniker as “America’s philosopher of democracy,” John Dewey engaged in a series of public debates over the course of his lifetime, vividly demonstrating how his thought translates into action. These debates made Dewey a household name and a renowned public intellectual during the early to mid-twentieth century, a time when the United States fought two World Wars, struggled through an economic depression, experienced explosive economic growth and spawned a grassroots movement that characterized an entire era: Progressivism. Unfortunately, much of the recent Dewey scholarship neglects to situate Dewey’s ideas in the broader context of his activities and engagements as a public intellectual. This project charts a path through two of Dewey’s actual debates with his contemporaries, Leon Trotsky and Robert Hutchins, to two reconstructed debates with contemporary intellectuals, E.D. Hirsch and Robert Talisse, both of whom criticized Dewey’s ideas long after the American philosopher’s death and, finally, to two recent debates, one on home schooling and the other on U.S. foreign policy, in which Dewey’s ideas offer a unique and compelling vision of a way forward.
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Philosophical pragmatists rarely receive credit for their contribution to virtue ethics. But perhaps they should. How did America's philosopher of democracy, John Dewey, and one of its most famous elder statesmen, Benjamin Franklin,... more
Philosophical pragmatists rarely receive credit for their contribution to virtue ethics. But perhaps they should. How did America's philosopher of democracy, John Dewey, and one of its most famous elder statesmen, Benjamin Franklin, advise troubled souls in search of moral improvement? According to James Campbell, Dewey and Franklin recommended the cultivation of inquiry-specific virtues, specifically imagination and fallibilism, thereby transforming the moral agent into a more effective ethical problem solver. For Gregory Pappas, open-mindedness and courage resemble Deweyan virtues, since both are integral to the pragmatist's ideal of a balanced character. However, Pappas contends that Dewey would reject any procedure whereby the virtues are isolated and cultivated individually-a qualification that if applied to Franklin's virtue project undermines his entire method of moral development. Cultivating virtue, on Pappas' reading of Dewey's ethics, must contribute to the integrated whole of a person's character. The implication of the imperfect Dewey-Franklin comparison is that Dewey is not a strict virtue ethicist. Nevertheless, Dewey's and Franklin's respective models of moral improvement offer valuable insight and assistance to the moral agent wanting to cultivate a good character-or so I argue.
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This commentary proposes that the concept of slacktivism be enlarged and refined in light of postdigitalism’s Parity Thesis, which states that digital media should not receive undue privilege relative to non-digital media. The term... more
This commentary proposes that the concept of slacktivism be enlarged and refined in light of postdigitalism’s Parity Thesis, which states that digital media should not receive undue privilege relative to non-digital media. The term ‘slacktivism’ makes an implicit comparison of activism in digital and non-digital contexts, demeaning the former as less potent, valuable, and impactful than the latter. As a reconstructed concept, postdigital slacktivism would apply equally in both contexts, and most importantly to poorly reasoned activism. After this reformulation, slacktivism’s vapidity no longer reflects the means of transmitting the activist’s message but conveys that there is a breakdown in the rational or logical relation between the activist’s means and the movement’s end. My argument is that subjecting slacktivism to a postdigital reinterpretation positively enriches the concept, transforming it into a pragmatically useful tool for understanding a wider swath of social and political phenomena.
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In the time of Coronavirus, it is perhaps as good a time as any to comment on the use and abuse of metaphors. One of the worst instances of metaphor abuse-especially given the recent epidemiological crisis-is Lynne Tirrell's notion of... more
In the time of Coronavirus, it is perhaps as good a time as any to comment on the use and abuse of metaphors. One of the worst instances of metaphor abuse-especially given the recent epidemiological crisis-is Lynne Tirrell's notion of toxic speech. In the foregoing reply piece, I analyze Tirrell's metaphor and reveal how it blinds us to the liberating power of public speech. Lynne Tirrell argues that some speech is, borrowing from field of Epidemiology, toxic in the sense that it harms vulnerable listeners. In this response piece, I summarize the main points of Tirrell's toxic speech argument, map the underlying conceptual metaphor and pose three objections.
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For the past thirty years, the Transitional Justice (TJ) research program has been undergoing a period of transition, simultaneously expanding and consolidating; in one sense, expanding its scope to encompass the measurement of TJ’s... more
For the past thirty years, the Transitional Justice (TJ) research program has been undergoing a period of transition, simultaneously expanding and consolidating; in one sense, expanding its scope to encompass the measurement of TJ’s impact and the redefinition of ‘transitional’ to include societies afflicted by deep social and economic injustice; and in a second sense, consolidating its practical approach to promoting democracy and peace by developing best practices for institutionalizing TJ. While there have been advances in designing new TJ mechanisms and remedying the concept’s under-theorization, little comparative progress has been made to date in offering a guiding framework for TJ’s push to institutionalize. The thesis of this article is that philosophical pragmatism, specifically Deweyan pragmatism, offers a bevy of resources—a virtual tool-kit—for scholars and practitioners wishing to design TJ-friendly institutions within transitional societies.
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As the COVID-19 pandemic descended upon us, the myth of nature's revenge took hold of our collective imagination. Anthropomorphizing flora/fauna, ecosystems and the biosphere as vengeful forces punishing humanity is especially effective.... more
As the COVID-19 pandemic descended upon us, the myth of nature's revenge took hold of our collective imagination. Anthropomorphizing flora/fauna, ecosystems and the biosphere as vengeful forces punishing humanity is especially effective. It communicates the urgency of imminent environmental apocalypse. By tying the threat of environmental catastrophe to a global health emergency, environmentalists wielded a truly pragmatic environmental rhetoric. They had harnessed the myth of nature's revenge. If we have learned anything from Thunberg's idea of generational environmental betrayal and environmentalists' notion of nature's revenge, it is that myth-making is an effective way to catalyze mass behavioral change.
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As the value of a university degree plummets, the popularity of digital microcredentials has soared. Similar to recent calls for the early adoption of Blockchain technology, the so-called ‘microcredentialing craze’ could be no more than a... more
As the value of a university degree plummets, the popularity of digital microcredentials has soared. Similar to recent calls for the early adoption of Blockchain technology, the so-called ‘microcredentialing craze’ could be no more than a fad, marketing hype or another case of ‘learning innovation theater’. Alternatively, the introduction of these compact skills- and competency-based online certificate programs might augur the arrival of a legitimate successor to the four-year university diploma. The thesis of this article is that the craze for microcredentialing reflects (1) administrative urgency to unbundle higher education curricula and degree programs for greater efficiency and profitability and (2) a renascent movement among industry and higher education leaders to reorient the university curriculum towards vocational training.
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Parental overuse of portable technology poses a bonafide threat to the welfare and development of children. In the past decade, researchers have documented this phenomenon whereby parents pay far more attention to handheld electronic... more
Parental overuse of portable technology poses a bonafide threat to the welfare and development of children. In the past decade, researchers have documented this phenomenon whereby parents pay far more attention to handheld electronic devices than to their children's safety and developmental needs. What most studies have failed to examine is the extent to which workers in privately owned and operated daycares also exhibit technology-induced distracted behavior. This article aims to identify the moral harm of caregivers' distracted behaviour in a private daycare setting or, more simply, the welfare effects of distracted daycare. First, with the assistance of recent research, the phenomenon of distracted caregiving is defined. Then, the documented harms of distracted caregiving in a daycare setting are catalogued. Next, an ethical analysis of the phenomenon of distracted daycare working is undertaken from four normative ethical perspectives: (i) ethical egoism, (ii) utilitarianism, (iii) principlism and (iv) care ethics. Five recommendations for reforming distracted daycares, each based upon one or more of the four ethical perspectives, inform the article's conclusions.
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With DLT’s success in driving the development of cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin), the technology bridged to a myriad of knowledge-based applications, most notably in the areas of commerce, industry and government . In the language of... more
With DLT’s success in driving the development of cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin), the technology bridged to a myriad of knowledge-based applications, most notably in the areas of commerce, industry and government . In the language of technology sector insiders, these areas were ‘disrupted’ by Blockchain. Some higher education analysts, technology industry insiders and futurists have claimed that Blockchain technology will inevitably disrupt higher education in a similarly dramatic fashion. The aim of this commentary is to introduce a healthy dose of realism into the hype-filled atmosphere of the Blockchain-for-higher-education narrative. A postdigital approach is taken because it treats digital and non-digital technologies as having equal material and cultural standing as candidates to transform higher education.
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Remembrance Education (RE) indicates “an attitude of active respect in contemporary society based on the collective remembrance of human suffering that is caused by forms of human behavior such as war, intolerance or exploitation, and... more
Remembrance Education (RE) indicates “an attitude of active respect in contemporary society based on the collective remembrance of human suffering that is caused by forms of human behavior such as war, intolerance or exploitation, and that must not be forgotten.” Unlike traditional history education, the point of RE is not the straightforward teaching of historical facts (if that is at all possible). Instead, RE’s purpose is to bring learners into a community, a community of memory, where they become witnesses, judges and guardians of the memories of tragic past events. Writings on RE are conspicuously absent from Dewey studies. In this bibliographic essay, I offer an overview of RE, including a sample of its programs, initiatives and curricula. In addition, I propose that Dewey’s educational philosophy can helpfully inform the practice of RE. Rather than articulate a definitive account of Dewey-inspired RE, my intention is only to draw a tentative ground map to motivate future research.
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This article explores the possibility that John Dewey’s silence on the matter of which democratic means are needed to achieve democratic ends, while confusing, makes greater sense if we appreciate the notion of political technology from... more
This article explores the possibility that John Dewey’s silence on the matter of which democratic means are needed to achieve democratic ends, while confusing, makes greater sense if we appreciate the notion of political technology from an anthropological perspective. Michael Eldridge relates the exchange between John Herman Randall, Jr., and Dewey in which Dewey concedes “that I have done little or nothing in this direction [of outlining what constitutes adequate political technology, but that] does not detract from my recognition that in the concrete the invention of such a technology is the heart of the problem of intelligent action in political matters.” Dewey’s concession could be interpreted as an admission that he was unqualified to identify political machinery or institutions suitable for realizing his vision of democracy as a way of life. Not being able to specify adequate means to achieve lofty democratic ends is not problematic, though, if we appreciate the roots of Dewey’s work (especially Human Nature and Conduct) in the anthropological writings of Immanuel Kant and Franz Boas. For then experience reflects a myriad of social and cultural conditions such that specifying explicit means to structure that experience risks stymieing the organic development of political practice. When pressured to operationalize political technology, he chose the appropriately open-ended and, at times, frustratingly vague means of education and growth. In short, Dewey did not want his ambitious democratic vision to outstrip the possibilities of practice, so he left the task of specifying exact political technology (or which democratic means are best suited to achieve democratic ends) unfinished.
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The American philosopher John Dewey is probably best known for his contributions to educational philosophy, though his writings on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and value theory are for the most part equally impressive. Before and... more
The American philosopher John Dewey is probably best known for his contributions to educational philosophy, though his writings on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and value theory are for the most part equally impressive. Before and after his death in 1952, he was lauded as “America’s philosopher” and a “public intellectual for the twentieth century.” During the early 1920s, to call Dewey an internationalist would be to state the obvious. He had travelled to Japan, Russia, Mexico, Turkey and China. Of all these places, he stayed in China the longest—two years and two months (May 1919 to July 1921)—and wrote the most about his experiences there. Unfortunately, too much of the extent literature speaks to how Dewey influenced China. In this brief paper the author focuses on the question of how China changed Dewey. Before attempting this project it helps to explicate how Dewey conceived experience—to paint a picture of his so-called “metaphysics of experience”—in order to then appreciate how he conceived his own China experience.
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Scientific management introduced a novel way of organizing labor and measuring productivity into the modern workplace. With a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis, Frederick Winslow Taylor gave industrial/organizational consultancy... more
Scientific management introduced a novel way of organizing labor and measuring productivity into the modern workplace. With a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis, Frederick Winslow Taylor gave industrial/organizational consultancy a groundbreaking tool: the efficiency study. In the almost one-hundred intervening years, it has been largely forgotten that the American pragmatist John Dewey criticized scientific management for its dualistic assumptions, specifically for treating workers as pure doers or “muscle” and management as pure thinkers or “brains” in an efficient work process. The first section of this paper examines the similarities and differences between Dewey’s and Taylor’s respective conceptions of science and management. In the second section, I consider Dewey’s critique of scientific management in his book Democracy and Education. The paper concludes with some final thoughts concerning the usefulness of the Dewey-Taylor comparison for organizational theorists, human resource administrators and industrial relations specialists.
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Despite the minimal attention philosophers paid by philosophers to gardening, the activity has a myriad of philosophical implications—aesthetic, ethical, political, and even edible. The same could be said of the quest for food security... more
Despite the minimal attention philosophers paid by philosophers to gardening, the activity has a myriad of philosophical implications—aesthetic, ethical, political, and even edible. The same could be said of the quest for food security and struggles for food justice by communities around the globe. Two of gardening’s most significant practical benefits are that it generates communal solidarity and provides sustenance for the needy and undernourished during periods of crisis. In the twentieth-century, large-scale community gardening in the U.S. and Canada coincided with relief projects during war-time and economic downturn. More recently, small-scale gardening projects have emerged in schools, blighted urban areas, and communities of activists committed to increasing food security and resisting neo-liberal city planning policies. It is therefore surprising that pragmatist philosophers, who typically work at the nexus of theory and practice, have remained relatively silent about the relationship between gardening and food security. If more were to take up the challenge, they might find guidance from a number of contemporary scholars working in diverse disciplines, from cultural geography to community studies, who explore the topic in a range of imaginative ways. In this paper, I’ll propose a tentative pragmatist model for understanding how gardens make our food system more secure—a model inspired by John Dewey’s writings on school gardening, what I call the pragmatic pyramid.
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In the past four years, a small but intense debate has transpired on the margins of mainstream scholarship in the discipline of Philosophy, particularly within the sub-field of American pragmatism. While most philosophical pragmatists... more
In the past four years, a small but intense debate has transpired on the margins of mainstream scholarship in the discipline of Philosophy, particularly within the sub-field of American pragmatism. While most philosophical pragmatists dedicate their attention to questions concerning how ideas improve experience (or the theory-practice continuum), those participating in this exchange have shown greater concern for an issue that is, at its core, a theoretical matter: Does the theory of experience espoused by the classic American philosopher John Dewey succumb to what contemporary analytic philosophers—for instance, Wilfred Sellars, Donald Davidson and John McDowell—call the Myth of the Given? One commentator, Scott Aikin, claims that Dewey relied on non-inferential and non-conceptual content or givens as perceptual inputs for cognitive experience. The upshot of Aikin’s objection is that these experiential givens constitute a proxy epistemological foundation for the beliefs that flow from inquiry—a position clearly in conflict with Dewey’s commitment to anti-foundationalism. The objection assumes a slightly different form in the hands of another scholar of American pragmatism, Colin Koopman. Gregory Pappas and David Hildebrand respond to Koopman’s version of the objection. The goals of this essay are to clarify the objection, highlight the stakes in the debate, identify misunderstandings of Dewey’s experiential metaphysics on both sides, and determine why the experiential givenism objection merits serious philosophical scrutiny in the future.
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Michael Dorf and Charles Sabel invoke John Dewey’s “pragmatist account of thought and action” as the “backdrop” for their theory of democratic experimentalism, an approach to governance emphasizing judicially monitored local decision... more
Michael Dorf and Charles Sabel invoke John Dewey’s “pragmatist account of thought and action” as the “backdrop” for their theory of democratic experimentalism, an approach to governance emphasizing judicially monitored local decision making within a system of decentralized administrative authority. Little credit for influence is given to the Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek and his classic liberal ideas. Indeed, Sabel has been highly critical of Hayek’s ideas. Yet, an argument can be made that (i) democratic experimentalism is at least loosely Hayekian and (ii) a combined Deweyan-Hayekian analysis of Dorf and Sabel’s theory reveals some critical mistakes. One implication of my analysis is that Dewey and Hayek’s ideas are more compatible than most democratic theorists and political philosophers will admit. Evidence of this compatibility opens the door for creating and evaluating democratic experiments within a Deweyan-Hayekian theoretical framework, as well as extending the framework to other areas of political inquiry.
In this article, I formulate a Deweyan argument in support of guerrilla gardening, or the political activity of reclaiming unused urban land, sometimes illicitly, for cultivation and beautification through gardening. Historically,... more
In this article, I formulate a Deweyan argument in support of guerrilla gardening, or the political activity of reclaiming unused urban land, sometimes illicitly, for cultivation and beautification through gardening. Historically, gardening movements in the United States have been associated with relief projects during periods of economic downturn and crisis, urban blight and gentrication, as well as nationalism, nativism and racism. Despite these last few unfortunate associations, the American philosopher John Dewey detached gardening from the nativist’s tool-kit, portraying it as a gateway for young people toward enriched adult experiences, not as a technique for assimilating immigrant children to a distinctly American way of life. One of those experiences that school gardening can prepare children for is political activism, particularly involvement in gardening movements. Dewey did not mention this collateral benefit. Nevertheless, an argument can be made that garden advocacy—or, more specifically, participation in politically-motivated gardening movements such as guerrilla gardening—is an acceptable interpretation, or elaboration, of what Dewey meant by “a civic turn” to school and community gardening.
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In Law, Pragmatism and Democracy, Richard Posner wrestles with the ghost of John Dewey for the mantle of pragmatist jurisprudence. Most commentators have seen this work as pitting Posner against Dewey in a contest of pragmatisms, the... more
In Law, Pragmatism and Democracy, Richard Posner wrestles with the ghost of John Dewey for the mantle of pragmatist jurisprudence. Most commentators have seen this work as pitting Posner against Dewey in a contest of pragmatisms, the stakes for which are no less than their respective legacies for legal and democratic theory. Some have sided with Posner and others with Dewey. I contend that the commentators have misidentified the target of Posner’s critique. Posner had another legal theorist in mind and he was disingenuous in naming Dewey. A careful reconstruction of Posner’s argument shows that Dewey’s pragmatism provides a genuine middle way between Posner’s position and that of his intended rival.
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In this paper, I formulate a Deweyan argument for school gardening that prepares students for a specific type of gardening activism: community gardening, or the political activity of collectively organizing, planting and tending gardens... more
In this paper, I formulate a Deweyan argument for school gardening that prepares students for a specific type of gardening activism: community gardening, or the political activity of collectively organizing, planting and tending gardens for the purposes of food security, education and community development.
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Is Benjamin Franklin the old Dewey or the new Socrates? James Campbell embraces the view that he is the old Dewey, or, at least, following the late H.S. Thayer, a nascent pragmatist of a Deweyan stripe. Lorraine Pangle, among others,... more
Is Benjamin Franklin the old Dewey or the new Socrates? James Campbell embraces the view that he is the old Dewey, or, at least, following the late H.S. Thayer, a nascent pragmatist of a Deweyan stripe. Lorraine Pangle, among others, defends the view that Franklin's thought and writings are distinctly Socratic. I would like to accomplish two objectives in this essay that might initially appear incompatible, one, to question the premise of the question and, two, to assume the premise's acceptability for the sake of exploring the claim that pragmatism is quintessentially American, or as Colin Koopman puts it, a corollary to the experiment of American democracy. If indeed pragmatism has its roots in the American experience, then we would expect to find a heavy deposit of pragmatist ideas in America's formative experience, especially in the thinking of its Founders and revolutionaries, such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and John Adams, among others. While Franklin's writings surely have philosophical significance, giving them a gloss based on the insights of other philosophical figures, such as John Dewey and Socrates, means reconstructing them for other purposes, and thus risks distortion by reading them through a foreign filter, what I call the filtering strategy. Still, if we accept the premise that this American founder possesses philosophical credentials that would make him resemble one figure more than the other, greater evidence can be found to support the conclusion that Franklin is the old Dewey, rather than the new Socrates. The upshot of this thesis is that the claim that pragmatism is quintessentially American gets off the ground. Furthermore, this claim has the resources to withstand a familiar criticism, namely, that pragmatism reflects philosophically shallow American values, such as practical know how, pioneer like ingenuity and the capitalist spirit.
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Interest in Barack Obama’s status as a pragmatist has recently surged in both scholarly and non-scholarly circles, particularly among philosophers, political scientists, policy pundits and conspiracy theorists. Arguments and speculation... more
Interest in Barack Obama’s status as a pragmatist has recently surged in both scholarly and non-scholarly circles, particularly among philosophers, political scientists, policy pundits and conspiracy theorists. Arguments and speculation concerning Obama’s pragmatist credentials can be found in philosophers’ blogs, political commentators’ blogs and academic papers. One could dismiss the phenomenon as equivalent to the surge of speculation during the past eight years that philosophical Straussians (or followers of the late Leo Strauss, such as Paul Wolfowitz) had captured the Bush administration’s policy agenda or that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy was the result of his apprenticeship with Ayn Rand: that is, a species of conspiracy theory. On closer examination, though, more evidence seems to confirm the Obama-as-pragmatist hypothesis than the Straussian-capture theory and even the Greenspan-as-Rand-devotee thesis. One key piece of evidence is that Obama identifies himself as a pragmatist. However, the lacuna in these Obama-as-pragmatist accounts, whether found in the scholarly journals, the blogosphere or the traditional news media, is the little attention paid to the question of whether his pragmatism extends beyond the domain of domestic affairs. Some commentators only address his pragmatism in the realm of domestic politics; others uncritically assume that it does carry over to international politics. So, the question arises: Is Obama also a pragmatist in international affairs? Although pragmatism does not fit nicely into any of the traditional theoretic frameworks in international relations (realism, liberalism and constructivism), I argue that it represents a flexible policy making approach that floats freely between multiple theories, tailoring them to the conditions of the international situation and helping practitioners craft tools to resolve or ameliorate particular global problems.
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What is the normative significance of school gardening for environmental activism and activists today? Philosophical treatments generally highlight gardening's importance for human well-being, aesthetic theory, and urban landscape design.... more
What is the normative significance of school gardening for environmental activism and activists today? Philosophical treatments generally highlight gardening's importance for human well-being, aesthetic theory, and urban landscape design. Several accounts of John Dewey's educational philosophy draw attention to the school gardens tended by students at the University of Chicago's Experimental School. However, these typically neglect the social and political significance of Dewey's writings on school gardening. One way to bring the normative dimension of school gardening to the fore is to compare Dewey's work on the topic with more recent scholarship on the politics of gardening movements. In this paper, the object of comparison is an essay by the Community Studies scholar Mary Beth Pudup. While Pudup's and Dewey's approaches are not identical, the comparison proves fruitful in so far as it exposes the political reasons for gardening education, relates school gardening to contemporary gardening movements and gives the call for creating more school garden projects greater normative force—or so I argue.
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Standard methods for teaching Deliberative Democratic Theory (DDT) in the philosophy classroom include presenting theories in the historical order in which they originated, by theorist (or groups of theorists) or in various thematic... more
Standard methods for teaching Deliberative Democratic Theory (DDT) in the philosophy classroom include presenting theories in the historical order in which they originated, by theorist (or groups of theorists) or in various thematic categories, including criticisms of the theories. However, if Simone Chambers is right and DDT has truly entered “a working theory stage,” whereby the theory and practice of deliberation receive equal consideration, then such approaches may no longer be appropriate for teaching DDT. I propose that DDT be taught using the Critical Friends (CF) discussion protocol. This protocol enables high quality deliberation in the context of a supportive intellectual community. The key advantage of my proposal is that the CF pedagogical framework empowers students to conceive DDT through the lens of their own and others’ deliberative practices. By referring to a rather than the strategy, this proposal does not specify the single right way to teach DDT, but suggests one among a field of possibilities.
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Did the pragmatic turn encompass the linguistic turn in the history of philosophy? Or was the linguistic turn a turn away from pragmatism? Some commentators identify the so-called “eclipse” of pragmatism by analytic philosophy, especially... more
Did the pragmatic turn encompass the linguistic turn in the history of philosophy? Or was the linguistic turn a turn away from pragmatism? Some commentators identify the so-called “eclipse” of pragmatism by analytic philosophy, especially during the Cold War era, as a turn away from pragmatist thinking. However, the historical evidence suggests that this narrative is little more than a myth. Pragmatism persisted, transforming into a more analytic variety under the influence of Quine and Putnam and, more recently, a continental version in the hands of Richard Rorty and Cornel West. In this paper, I argue that proof of the linguistic turn’s presence as a moment in a broader pragmatic turn in philosophy can be garnered from close examination of a single article, W. V. O. Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” and a single issue: whether the analytic-synthetic distinction is philosophically defensible.
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The goal of this paper is examine the recent literature on the intersection between philosophical pragmatism and International Relations (IR), including IR theory and IR research methodology. One of the obstacles to motivating pragmatist... more
The goal of this paper is examine the recent literature on the intersection between philosophical pragmatism and International Relations (IR), including IR theory and IR research methodology. One of the obstacles to motivating pragmatist IR theories and research methodologies, I contend, is the difficulty of defining pragmatism, particularly whether there is a need for a more generic definition of pragmatism or one narrowly tailored to the goals of IR theorists and researchers.
Interdisciplinarity is without a doubt a contested concept. It’s much more difficult to say exactly what it is, i.e. to positively define it, than it is to say what it’s not, i.e. to negatively define it. For instance, we can say with... more
Interdisciplinarity is without a doubt a contested concept. It’s much more difficult to say exactly what it is, i.e. to positively define it, than it is to say what it’s not, i.e. to negatively define it. For instance, we can say with some confidence that it’s not rigid observance of the boundaries of a single discipline. It’s also not a matter of declaring a single discipline the ideal or supreme model and expecting scholars in other disciplines to model their inquiries after a pattern found in that supreme discipline (as occurred in the 20th century with the rise of positivism and the declaration by some that physics was the “queen of the sciences”). In this paper, I take up the more difficult question: What is interdisciplinarity, positively-speaking? My analysis of the concept and recommendations for ways to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations draw heavily on the works of John Dewey, but also rely on ideas introduced by Arthur Fisher Bentley, Max Weber and Colin Koopman.
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Through a close reading of the works of John Dewey and Aldo Leopold, I demonstrate that it is possible to reframe debates about the environment in language better suited to robust and inclusive public discourse. There are at least two... more
Through a close reading of the works of John Dewey and Aldo Leopold, I demonstrate that it is possible to reframe debates about the environment in language better suited to robust and inclusive public discourse. There are at least two ways of framing the instrumental relationship between human and environmental health: (i) in terms of control and (ii) in terms of restraint. On the one hand, means of control are associated with an anthropocentric view of environmental value: the environment has worth only insofar as it provides resources for human benefit. On the other hand, means of restraint reflect greater concern for environmental health, sustainable living, non-anthropocentric (whether eco- or bio-centric) environmental value and lifestyles in harmony with nature, similar to the rhythmic relationship between human and environment captured in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. While John Dewey defends an instrumentalism of control, Aldo Leopold supports an opposing instrumentalism of restraint. At first blush, these two concepts appear to form a dualism, as incompatible dyads in a permanently bifurcated relationship. However, the matter is not quite so simple--or so I argue. Dewey and Leopold's concepts of environmental instrumentalism prove more compatible than this simple control/restraint dichotomy suggests. Nevertheless, it is helpful to frame environmental issues in terms of these two competing instrumentalism. To test the distinction's usefulness, I examine the wilderness debate, the global warming controversy and a more local matter, attempting to frame these environmental discourses in terms of an instrumentalism of control and an instrumentalism of restraint.
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Part of John Andrew Rice’s legacy, besides being a founder of Black Mountain College, is his vision of what a small liberal arts college curriculum should be. This vision helps shed light on some possible avenues by which to answer the... more
Part of John Andrew Rice’s legacy, besides being a founder of Black Mountain College, is his vision of what a small liberal arts college curriculum should be. This vision helps shed light on some possible avenues by which to answer the following important questions: What implications do John Dewey’s progressive educational ideas have for experimenting with curricular design at small colleges? Does the college teacher’s struggle for improvement or growth depend on her having a belief that there is an ideal liberal arts college curriculum? Probably the best known of such ready-made curricula is the Great Books Program, which employs a list of classic primary-source texts as the entry point into highly engaged dialogue, scholarship and learning guided by a teacher or tutor. In order to answer these questions, the paper turns to the historical debate between John Dewey and Robert Maynard Hutchins over the relative merits of progressive educational ideals and the Great Books approach. Most who have commented on this debate emphasize the differences between Dewey and Hutchins’ views.[ii] While Dewey emphasized learning through practical problem solving, in a dynamic mix of subject matter and method, Hutchins stressed exposure to and discussion of at least one-hundred primary texts in the Western canon, from Plato and Aristotle to Emerson and J.S. Mill. Hutchins resisted what he saw as the progressive educator’s push to transform the proper end of educating the whole person into training her for a particular vocation. In response, Dewey criticized Hutchins’ insistence that there existed a “hierarchy of truths” and that higher learning should remain aloof to the concerns of everyday life. Few commentators, however, mention the significant areas of agreement between the pedagogical approaches of Dewey and Hutchins, as well as other Great Books scholars. Since Rice praised the ideas of at least one Great Books proponent (Stringfellow Barr of St. John’s College), a more positive reconstruction of the Dewey-Hutchins exchange helps us to see how Dewey’s ideas informed Rice’s vision for the experimental college at Black Mountain—or so I argue.[iii]
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Abstract During the 1960s and 1970s, institutionalists and behavioralists in the discipline of political science argued over the legitimacy of the institutional approach to political inquiry. In the discipline of philosophy, a similar... more
Abstract During the 1960s and 1970s, institutionalists and behavioralists in the discipline of political science argued over the legitimacy of the institutional approach to political inquiry. In the discipline of philosophy, a similar debate concerning institutions has never taken place.
Most contemporary deliberative democrats contend that deliberation is the group activity that transforms individual preferences and behavior into mutual understanding, agreement and collective action. A critical mass of these deliberative... more
Most contemporary deliberative democrats contend that deliberation is the group activity that transforms individual preferences and behavior into mutual understanding, agreement and collective action. A critical mass of these deliberative theorists also claims that John Dewey's writings contain a nascent theory of deliberative democracy.
In this paper, I argue that many recent interpretations of John Dewey's vision of democracy distort that vision by filtering it through the prism of contemporary deliberative democratic theories. An earlier attempt to defend Dewey's... more
In this paper, I argue that many recent interpretations of John Dewey's vision of democracy distort that vision by filtering it through the prism of contemporary deliberative democratic theories. An earlier attempt to defend Dewey's theory of moral deliberation is instructive for understanding the nature and function of this filter. In James Gouinlock's essay "Dewey's Theory of Moral Deliberation," he argues that Morton White and Charles L. Stevenson's criticisms of John Dewey's ethical theory are based upon fundamental misinterpretations of Dewey's theory of moral deliberation. In the spirit of Gouinlock's 1978 essay, I show how this historical debate relates to a claim of political philosophers and political theorists that is currently in vogue, namely, that Dewey's writings contain a nascent theory of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democratic theorists contend that deliberation is the group activity that transforms individual preferences and behavior into mutual understanding, agreement, and collective action. Once Dewey's vision of democracy is identified with this theory of deliberative democracy, the strategic question for Deweyans arises: If Deweyan democracy is identified too closely with deliberative democracy, will Dewey scholars risk making Dewey's democratic vision an outmoded approach to theorizing about democracy in the wake of an expired deliberative turn? One way to see our way clear of this strategic question is to remove the deliberative democracy filter and appreciate Dewey's vision of democracy as a unique and free-standing contribution to democratic theory.
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In this article, I outline a teaching demonstration that lasts approximately twenty-two minutes, which a candidate can employ when interviewing for a position in ethics. Since job openings in ethics, and especially applied ethics, are... more
In this article, I outline a teaching demonstration that lasts approximately twenty-two minutes, which a candidate can employ when interviewing for a position in ethics. Since job openings in ethics, and especially applied ethics, are becoming increasingly common, I think that this outline will be helpful to many candidates deliberating about the topic and structure of their future teaching demonstrations. This demonstration is also especially well-suited to a search at a teaching institution, whether a community college, state college, or state university, where faculty and administration place more emphasis on success in pedagogy than success in research and publication. In the conclusion, I offer some suggestions for ways to adapt this outline for a longer teaching demo.
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In this paper, I evaluate three views of philosophical pragmatism’s practical implications for academic and non-academic or public discourses, as well as offer my own view of those implications. The first view is that of George Novack.... more
In this paper, I evaluate three views of philosophical pragmatism’s practical implications for academic and non-academic or public discourses, as well as offer my own view of those implications. The first view is that of George Novack. In an underappreciated tract, Pragmatism versus Marxism, the American Trotskyite and union organizer launched a vicious attack on John Dewey’s career as a professional philosopher. He alleged that Dewey’s ideas were inaccessible to all but a small community of fellow academicians. While Novack conceded that Dewey’s philosophical inquiries had a cross-pollinating influence on other academic fields, he doubted that the beneficial products of those inquiries traveled far beyond the walls of the so-called ‘ivory tower.’ Larry Hickman offers a second view. He understands Dewey’s claim in Experience and Nature that philosophy serves as a “liaison officer” to mean that philosophers should provide a common lexicon that translates between the languages of distinct disciplines. In other words, for Dewey, the role of philosophy, including philosophical pragmatism, is to facilitate interdisciplinarity. Since interdisciplinary sharing is usually confined to academic discourse, Novack’s challenge is perfectly compatible with Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim. Both Novack and Hickman are mistaken, though in different degrees and for different reasons. The third, and more promising, view is advanced by Robert Talisse. He cites the life and works of Sidney Hook, one of Dewey’s better-known students, as an exemplary case of a pragmatist who consistently realized his pragmatic commitments in public discourse. The most important reason for qualifying Hickman’s interpretation of Dewey’s ‘liaison officer’ claim is that the measure of pragmatism’s value is not solely the ability of pragmatists to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, but their ability to also insert their ideas into public discourse. In my view, philosophical pragmatists, and philosophers generally, should both facilitate interdisciplinarity in academic discourse and introduce philosophical notions into public discourse—that is, serving in the dual capacity of interdisciplinary scholar and public intellectual.
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John Dewey's metaphysics of experience has been criticized by a number of philosophers-most notably, George Santayana and Richard Rorty. While mainstream Dewey scholars agree that these critical treatments fail to treat the American... more
John Dewey's metaphysics of experience has been criticized by a number of philosophers-most notably, George Santayana and Richard Rorty. While mainstream Dewey scholars agree that these critical treatments fail to treat the American Pragmatist theory of what exists on its own terms, there has still been some difficulty reaching consensus on what the casual reader should take away from the pages of Experience and Nature, Deweys seminal work on naturalistic metaphysics. So, how do we unearth the significance of Dewey's misunderstood metaphysics? One way is for philosophers to look to spatial and social-cultural geographers for help. To fully grasp the movement of experience, these geographers recommend that we start with an experiential activity, such as touring. The activity of sea kayak touring, I contend, discloses the general movement of experience in Dewey's metaphysics between its primary and secondary phases. With this illustration and a closely connected metaphor, I demonstrate that Dewey's naturalized metaphysics can not only withstand the objections of the likes of Santayana and Rorty it can also assist us in gaining a deeper appreciation of the qualitative richness of our own day-to-day practices.
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What Talisse refers to as his “pluralist objection” states that Deweyan democracy, or John Dewey’s theory of democracy as contemporary Dewey scholars understand it, resembles a thick account, that is, a theory establishing a set of prior... more
What Talisse refers to as his “pluralist objection” states that Deweyan democracy, or John Dewey’s theory of democracy as contemporary Dewey scholars understand it, resembles a thick account, that is, a theory establishing a set of prior restraints on the values that can count as legitimate within a democratic community, and thus is incompatible with pluralism, at least insofar as contemporary political theorists define that term. In this paper, I argue that by undermining the pluralist objection, a reunion of Deweyan democracy and pluralism—two ideas that have been torn asunder by Talisse’s misreading of Dewey and Deweyans—becomes possible.
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Abstract The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth's atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as... more
Abstract The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth's atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as launching reflective materials into the Earth's atmosphere, positioning sunshades over the planet's surface, depositing iron filings into the oceans to encourage phytoplankton blooms, and planting more trees, to name only a few.
ABSTRACT: Environmental justice refers to many things: a global activist movement, local groups that struggle to redress the inequitable distribution of environmental goods (and bads), especially as they affect minority communities, as... more
ABSTRACT: Environmental justice refers to many things: a global activist movement, local groups that struggle to redress the inequitable distribution of environmental goods (and bads), especially as they affect minority communities, as well as a vast body of interdisciplinary scholarship documenting and motivating these movements. In the past three decades, scholarly debates over what environmental justice requires have been dominated by a discourse of rights.
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Imagine you are the CEO of a hospital [. . .]. Decisions are constantly being made in your organization about how to spend the organization's money. The amount of money available to spend is never adequate to pay for everything you wish... more
Imagine you are the CEO of a hospital [. . .]. Decisions are constantly being made in your organization about how to spend the organization's money. The amount of money available to spend is never adequate to pay for everything you wish you could spend it on, therefore you must set spending priorities. There are two questions you need to be able to answer . . . How should we set priorities in this organization? How do we know when we are doing it well? When people seek to achieve good public policy, the result will tend to be good public policy. In a collective choice process, public‐spirited individual participants produce good public policy by deliberating—talking with each other, listening to each other's arguments, and being willing to learn and change their minds based on such dialogue. –Steven Kelman (1992: 181) Public policy scholars agree that those persons (or agencies) vested with the authority to establish health care priorities should elicit public input before making rationing decisions. The two most common approaches are (i) consultation and (ii) deliberation. Though deliberation has obvious advantages over consultation, it falters in the face of the objection that ordinary citizens lack the cognitive resources for the extended, rigorous inquiry required of them in undertaking the priority‐setting task. To overcome this objection, I propose that deliberative forums for health care rationing should be designed so that they imitate the natural pattern of human experience. The experience of deliberation should encompass both prolonged periods of less‐demanding cognitive activity, in which citizens passively receive information, and briefer periods of more‐demanding cognitive activity, in which they engage in active problem‐solving. In arguing for this thesis, I rely on two theoretical sources and one practical case study, in the following order: (i) John Dewey's metaphysics of experience, (ii) cognitive science research on schemas and frames, and (iii) the Health Care Council in São Paulo, Brazil.
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Robert Talisse objects that Deweyan democrats, or those who endorse John Dewey’s philosophy of democracy, cannot consistently hold that (i) “democracy is a way of life” and (ii) democracy as a way of life is compatible with pluralism, at... more
Robert Talisse objects that Deweyan democrats, or those who endorse John Dewey’s philosophy of democracy, cannot consistently hold that (i) “democracy is a way of life” and (ii) democracy as a way of life is compatible with pluralism, at least as contemporary political theorists define that term. What Talisse refers to as his “pluralist objection” states that Deweyan democracy resembles a thick theory of democracy, that is, a theory establishing a set of prior restraints on the values that can count as legitimate within a democratic community. In this paper, it is argued that his pluralist objection succumbs to some combination of four charges. The first two sections of the paper are devoted to presentations of Talisse’s two formulations of his pluralist objection, as they appear in his essay “Can Democracy be a Way of Life?” and his book A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, respectively. The four charges against the pluralist objection receive attention in the second section. In the third section, Dewey’s pluralist procedure is articulated and illustrated using a recent Canadian public policy debate, followed by some concluding remarks on the acceptability of relying on contemporary political examples of Deweyan democracy in action.
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Should ethics be taught in the high schools? Should high school faculty teach it themselves or invite college and university professors (or instructors) into the classroom to share their expertise? In this paper, I argue that the... more
Should ethics be taught in the high schools? Should high school faculty teach it themselves or invite college and university professors (or instructors) into the classroom to share their expertise? In this paper, I argue that the challenge to teach ethics in the high schools has a distinctly Deweyan dimension to it, since (i) Dewey proposed that it be attempted and (ii) he provided many valuable resources with which to proceed. The paper is organized into four sections. In the first, I summarize Jim Garrison’s account of Dewey’s philosophy as education and argue that it offers an exceptional tool-kit to someone interested in advocating for high school ethics pedagogy. The second section presents Dewey’s model for ethics instruction in a high school setting, as articulated in his only essay devoted specifically to the subject: “Teaching Ethics in the High School.” The third examines Peter Singer’s brief essay, “Moral Experts,” to see whether moral expertise is a sine qua non for teaching ethics in the high schools. In the fourth and concluding section, I propose that meeting the Deweyan challenge of teaching ethics in the high schools requires, first, preparing oneself to overcome the objection that such a project is naïve, utopian or just plain foolish and, second, organizing enthusiastic participants to develop and test a prototype, experimenting with various implementation strategies on a small scale before attempting a bolder and larger scale version of the project. Apropos of this second requirement, I showcase the Center for Education in Law and Democracy’s “The High School Ethics Project” in the state of Colorado.
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Abstract: In chapter 8 of The Grace and the Severity of the Ideal, Victor Kestenbaum disputes the naturalistic-instrumentalist reading of John Dewey's A Common Faith. Rather than accept the orthodox reading, he challenges mainstream Dewey... more
Abstract: In chapter 8 of The Grace and the Severity of the Ideal, Victor Kestenbaum disputes the naturalistic-instrumentalist reading of John Dewey's A Common Faith. Rather than accept the orthodox reading, he challenges mainstream Dewey scholars to read Dewey's theism from a phenomenological perspective.
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In the 1920s, a debate took place between several American thinkers concerned about the proper role of citizens in a democracy. Walter Lippman authored two books, Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, and John Dewey penned two reviews... more
In the 1920s, a debate took place between several American thinkers concerned about the proper role of citizens in a democracy. Walter Lippman authored two books, Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, and John Dewey penned two reviews of the aforementioned books and his own, The Public and Its Problems. Commentators have seen these works as pitting Dewey against Lippmann, and some have argued that Lippmann got the better of it and some that Dewey did. I, however, contend that they have grossly misunderstood the exchange; that in fact Lippmann had another target in mind, and Dewey stepped in to mediate. Two theses about this debate punctuate the two major sections of this paper. In the first, the negative or historical thesis states that the commentators have misinterpreted the debate’s construction and dynamic. In the second section, the positive or analytic thesis is that Dewey employs a concept called public-spiritedness to mediate the two conflicting positions taken in the debate. Not only does this concept help to reach a resolution, but as suggested in section three, it also anticipates the contemporary notion of deliberative democracy.
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A pivotal philosophical debate transpired between the twentieth century’s strongest defenders of linguistic analysis, the logical positivists, and their most avid neo-pragmatist critic, Willard Van Orman Quine. Among their several points... more
A pivotal philosophical debate transpired between the twentieth century’s strongest defenders of linguistic analysis, the logical positivists, and their most avid neo-pragmatist critic, Willard Van Orman Quine. Among their several points of disagreement, the one that we will focus on here is the issue of whether linguistic statements ought to be divided into two types, (1) those the meaning of which is dependent on facts about the world, or the synthetic type, and (2) those the meaning of which is independent of such facts “come what may,” or the analytic type. For the sake of exempting statements of second type from a strict standard of empirical verification applicable to the first type, positivists Rudolf Carnap and A.J. Ayer defend a version of Immanuel Kant’s seminal distinction. However, the distinction relies not only on its own credentials, but also on a host of related notions, including definition, consistency, necessity and synonymy. Quine exploits this fact in his groundbreaking paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” to demonstrate that in every attempt to explain synonymy, each explanation draws on a related notion which itself requires explanation. On Quine’s assessment, then, there is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions for a statement to be analytic, such that it would be true “come what may,” wholly in virtue of its own meaning or in every possible language; for each related notion recursively enumerates some conventionally accepted meaning in an already existing language. Therefore, Quine concludes that with enough alterations in our “web of beliefs,” any statement in our language can be designated analytic; the analytic-synthetic distinction is thus a distinction without a difference.
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Winston Churchill voiced the felt, but unexpressed, emotions of his times, as exceptional politicians and demagogues so skilfully do. He remarked that, "Democracy is the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others." And,... more
Winston Churchill voiced the felt, but unexpressed, emotions of his times, as exceptional politicians and demagogues so skilfully do. He remarked that,
"Democracy is the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others." And,
"The best argument against democracy is a fiveminute conversation with the average voter." In his pithy indictments of democracy, Churchill captured a feeling prevalent among intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century; a feeling that government-by-the-people warranted, at best, a limited or half-hearted faith; a feeling that
might be described as the “majoritarian creed.” This creed can be characterized by the following propositions. A believer-inthe-democratic-faith defends majoritarian methods—such as popular votes, polls and representation—as the best available
means to signal the people’s collective political preferences. Yet, in the same breath, he tempers his faith with scepticism. Specifically, he doubts that the typical citizen-voter has the time, the desire or the capacity to intelligently deliberate about
the consequences of his voting-decisions. Twenty years prior to Churchill’s sceptical remarks, a debate over the primacy of popular deliberation in a democracy had already transpired. It occurred in two books, Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, written by the journalist and public intellectual Walter Lippmann, as well as two reviews of
the aforementioned books and one book, The Public and Its Problems, authored by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. Commentators have seen these works as pitting
Dewey against Lippmann, and some have argued that Lippmann got the better of it and some that Dewey did.
"Democracy is the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others." And,
"The best argument against democracy is a fiveminute conversation with the average voter." In his pithy indictments of democracy, Churchill captured a feeling prevalent among intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century; a feeling that government-by-the-people warranted, at best, a limited or half-hearted faith; a feeling that
might be described as the “majoritarian creed.” This creed can be characterized by the following propositions. A believer-inthe-democratic-faith defends majoritarian methods—such as popular votes, polls and representation—as the best available
means to signal the people’s collective political preferences. Yet, in the same breath, he tempers his faith with scepticism. Specifically, he doubts that the typical citizen-voter has the time, the desire or the capacity to intelligently deliberate about
the consequences of his voting-decisions. Twenty years prior to Churchill’s sceptical remarks, a debate over the primacy of popular deliberation in a democracy had already transpired. It occurred in two books, Public Opinion and The Phantom Public, written by the journalist and public intellectual Walter Lippmann, as well as two reviews of
the aforementioned books and one book, The Public and Its Problems, authored by the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. Commentators have seen these works as pitting
Dewey against Lippmann, and some have argued that Lippmann got the better of it and some that Dewey did.
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While 'synthesis' might aptly describe the resolution of a historical conundrum through Hegel's dialectical reasoning, the process might also serve to facilitate a solution to another kind of puzzle, namely the sorites paradox.
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John Austin and Jeremy Bentham equated every law with an imperative, i.e., an order issued by a sovereign to his subjects. The purpose of this paper is to consider the strengths and weaknesses of a legal theory based on the simple model... more
John Austin and Jeremy Bentham equated every law with an
imperative, i.e., an order issued by a sovereign to his subjects. The
purpose of this paper is to consider the strengths and weaknesses of a legal theory based on the simple model of legal imperatives in terms of (1) the obligation of citizens to obey the law, (2) the duty of officials to enforce the law, and (3) the overwhelming purpose of a legal system to secure just results. The preliminary discussion will focus on justice,
generally, and the limitations of any formal procedure for securing just
results. Then, I elucidate the tenets of John Austin's command
theory of law. Next, the objections to Austin's theory will be critically
examined on their own merit and in light of some differences with
Bentham's theory of legal imperatives. The concluding section will
address the issue of whether a legal system founded on an imperative
jurisprudence is likely to produce just results.
imperative, i.e., an order issued by a sovereign to his subjects. The
purpose of this paper is to consider the strengths and weaknesses of a legal theory based on the simple model of legal imperatives in terms of (1) the obligation of citizens to obey the law, (2) the duty of officials to enforce the law, and (3) the overwhelming purpose of a legal system to secure just results. The preliminary discussion will focus on justice,
generally, and the limitations of any formal procedure for securing just
results. Then, I elucidate the tenets of John Austin's command
theory of law. Next, the objections to Austin's theory will be critically
examined on their own merit and in light of some differences with
Bentham's theory of legal imperatives. The concluding section will
address the issue of whether a legal system founded on an imperative
jurisprudence is likely to produce just results.
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John Locke is often understood as the inaugurator of the modern discussion of personal human identity—a discussion that inevitably falls back on his own theory with its critical reliance on memory. David Hume and Sigmund Freud would later... more
John Locke is often understood as the inaugurator of the modern discussion of personal human identity—a discussion that inevitably falls back on his own theory with its critical reliance on memory. David Hume and Sigmund Freud would later make arguments for what constituted personal identity, both relying, like Locke, on memory, but parting from Locke's company in respect the role that memory played. The purpose of this paper will be to sketch the groundwork for Locke's own theory of personal identity and consider some common objections tied to his special reliance on memory. Then, we will investigate the extent to which Hume and Freud refined their respective concepts of self-identity in ways that escape some of the most intractable objections to Locke's theory in its dependence on memory. Finally, we will consider which theorist's conception of self-identity best accords with our notion of the cyber-self, or psychological subjectivity in the context of cyberspace. For Locke, the nature of self-identity is that it is continuous across time, and to remain uninterrupted it must be beholden to a psychological process, rather than a material or immaterial substance. First of all, Locke answers the query 'what does a person represent' by reference to this attribute of diachronic persistency: "a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places."{Locke, 448} Although Locke's employment of the language, "thinking thing" and "reason," might seem to allude to Descartes' "thing which thinks," res cogitans, it is actually diametrically opposed in the following way. While Descartes grasped the human self as thinking, or immaterial, substance, Locke, on the other hand, understood the self as constituted by a mental process of reflecting on, or being conscious of, the sensations and thoughts. These sensations and thoughts flow not only through the subject at this time, but also the subject at previous times, so that identity is constituted by realizing that the subject past and present are the same. Locke says: "And as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now as it was then; and 'tis by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that action was done." {Locke, 449} In taking this position, Locke clearly rejects two positions: (1) that, as he says, the Man and the Person are equivalent, meaning that continuity of body does not secure self-identity and (2) that some immaterial substance, such as the soul, defines the essence of personal identity, allowing two bodies with the same transmigrated soul to be the same person. His tactic in (2) is not to deny the existence of an immaterial substance, or soul, (for all he knows, one could exist) but to instead affirm that if the adoption of a new consciousness through transmigration of the soul would detach the subject of the present and the one in the previous memory, then two persons would result: the person of the previous consciousness and the person of the newfound consciousness. Several other puzzles result from this substance and consciousness dichotomy, where continuity of consciousness preserves identity: Can an immaterial, thinking, substance be separated from its consciousness of the past? If a person loses all memory of his past is he still the same person? If not, does he regain his personal identity once he recovers his memory? The answers all rely on the connection of personal identity to consciousness, a connection established by the necessity of memory, or the setting aside of past actions in order to confirm the continuity of identity between the past self and the present self. If you will, memory is much like a glue which binds personal identity to consciousness so that that the one extends only so far as the other. Many of the objections to Locke's theory of identity specifically prosecute the necessary element of memory in making personal identity rely on continuity of consciousness. Let us begin with a more practical objection. Since we know that identity of material or immaterial substance is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to conclude that we have sameness of person, then we are left to ask what are the practical ramifications of this definition of personhood, for instance, in the case of a drunk person who harms another while unconscious? Locke in fact says that in issues of law, the inconclusiveness of evidence for demonstrating the presence or absence of consciousness makes its application impractical, though God will judge everyone in the light of his conscious decisions. {Locke, 457}
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‘Puzzles’, ‘word games’, ‘logical anomalies’, whatever we call them, they perplex us and challenge our familiar patterns of reasoning. One of these puzzles, among many others, originated from the mind of an ancient Megarian logician,... more
‘Puzzles’, ‘word games’, ‘logical anomalies’, whatever we call them, they perplex us and challenge our familiar patterns of reasoning. One of these puzzles, among many others, originated from the mind of an ancient Megarian logician, Eubulides of Miletus, and endures to the modern day.1 Its name, ‘sorites’, can be traced to the Greek word soros, meaning ‘heap.’ The answer to whether one grain of sand ‘is a heap’ or ‘is not a heap’ seems quite simple: it is not a heap. However, as we add grains to the one, at what future point does the non-heap become a heap? Our decision is fraught with uncertainty. Are the objects or the language we are using to describe them vague?
In academic philosophy, the ancient Greek puzzle has gained the status of a paradox, as philosophers apply stoic and modern logic to these propositions considered to have vague predicates. The current debate has developed quite serious and wide-ranging implications, such as whether sorites issues provide adequate grounds for abandoning our standard ontology (or our understanding of what really exists), 2 and (germinating into another discipline) whether vagueness in the language of legal rules can generate disagreement as to whether there are right answers to questions of law. 3
Several unique solutions to the paradox have been proposed, yet all suffer from specific inadequacies that might, upon further reflection, disappear in the event that we endeavour to produce a synthesis. When we say that we are attempting to derive a synthesis, we seek to combine elements of two solutions for the sake of creating a new (and hopefully, though not necessarily, a better) one. The paradox of the sorites, or ‘the heap’, appeals to us because it challenges our assumption that we may categorically describe clear cases and their negations, yet fail to distinguish the borderline ones. I will demonstrate that some combinations of solutions are easy fits while others are extremely weak and awkward as attempts at resolving the paradox. Nonetheless, the process of synthesis produces three noteworthy combinations.
In academic philosophy, the ancient Greek puzzle has gained the status of a paradox, as philosophers apply stoic and modern logic to these propositions considered to have vague predicates. The current debate has developed quite serious and wide-ranging implications, such as whether sorites issues provide adequate grounds for abandoning our standard ontology (or our understanding of what really exists), 2 and (germinating into another discipline) whether vagueness in the language of legal rules can generate disagreement as to whether there are right answers to questions of law. 3
Several unique solutions to the paradox have been proposed, yet all suffer from specific inadequacies that might, upon further reflection, disappear in the event that we endeavour to produce a synthesis. When we say that we are attempting to derive a synthesis, we seek to combine elements of two solutions for the sake of creating a new (and hopefully, though not necessarily, a better) one. The paradox of the sorites, or ‘the heap’, appeals to us because it challenges our assumption that we may categorically describe clear cases and their negations, yet fail to distinguish the borderline ones. I will demonstrate that some combinations of solutions are easy fits while others are extremely weak and awkward as attempts at resolving the paradox. Nonetheless, the process of synthesis produces three noteworthy combinations.
Research Interests:
One of the most bewildering concepts in the Witcher television series is the so-called “Law of Surprise”—a concept with philosophical implications as massive as Geralt’s biceps! For new fans of the Witcher TV show, episode flashbacks and... more
One of the most bewildering concepts in the Witcher television series is the so-called “Law of Surprise”—a concept with philosophical implications as massive as Geralt’s biceps! For new fans of the Witcher TV show, episode flashbacks and flash forwards combine with the Law to make for a steep learning curve. The Law of Surprise befuddles viewers at several points in the series, especially during the betrothal banquet scene. It begs for a helpful explanation . This chapter offers that, plus a novel account of the Law tied to the stance in the debate about free will and determinism known as “compatibilism.” Determinism is the position that anything that occurs at any given moment in time necessarily occurs the way it does because of what occurred the moment before. If determinism is true, then given the laws of physics and causation we should, in principle, be able to predict all future occurrences. Libertarianism is the exact opposite position: humans possess free will and so can choose to do otherwise, so not all occurrences are determined in advance. Compatibilism is the position that libertarianism and determinism are compatible, so that despite most occurrences being determined in advance, humans can nevertheless choose to act out of a capacity to realize their own intentions, to freely will outcomes or to behave unpredictably.
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In conducting postdigital research, the relationship between the predigital and the digital can be perplexing. One way to forge continuity between the two involves formulating a flexible principle of parity or functional equality-what I... more
In conducting postdigital research, the relationship between the predigital and the digital can be perplexing. One way to forge continuity between the two involves formulating a flexible principle of parity or functional equality-what I have elsewhere called 'postdigitalism's parity thesis'. According to this seminal formulation, the digital and predigital should be treated as relatively equal, except when there is a good reason to prioritize one over the other. However, the principle-at least as it is currently formulated-lacks sufficient theoretical grounding to serve as anything more than a rule-of-thumb for conducting postdigital inquiry. The point of the chapter is to rectify this shortcoming, suggesting one or more theories of postdigital parity. The metarationale for this project is to offer a demonstration of how to theoretically ground ancillary concepts in postdigital research. Grounding a concept in a robust theory assists the researcher in operationalizing related variables and variable relations, thereby making them more concrete and measurable. Clarifying this relationship holds the promise of offering a clearer direction to postdigital inquiry. Out of the survey of recent postdigitalism literature emerges evidence of a workable parity principle.
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If it were followed by “I’m a president,” Richard Nixon’s televised denial (“I am not a crook”) would be tantamount to Jimmy McGill’s self-portrayal in Better Call Saul. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, an honest president or an... more
If it were followed by “I’m a president,” Richard Nixon’s televised denial (“I am not a crook”) would be tantamount to Jimmy McGill’s self-portrayal in Better Call Saul. Out of the crooked timber of humanity, an honest president or an ethical lawyer rarely emerges. They’re like needles in a haystack. Nevertheless, it’s worthwhile to search for these rare artifacts and, in the process, ask, “Why do so many lawyers (and presidents) fall from grace, transforming into morally bad or corrupt actors?”
The ability to be a good or ethical person can deteriorate over time. In their personal and professional lives, people can make consistently poor choices in their capacity as moral agents. In turn, they cultivate flawed habits or what are often referred to as vices. Jimmy McGill’s trajectory is, without a doubt, a harrowing story of moral decline. In some ways, his transformation into Saul Goodman resembles a trite story about how a profession, lawyering, corrupts its practitioners. On a deeper level, McGill’s journey involves a fundamental change in how he habitually interacts with his environment, a change of motivation and disposition that is, almost entirely, a change for the worse. To know the content of Jimmy’s character is to be familiar with his story, a story of moral decline and ethical failure.
The ability to be a good or ethical person can deteriorate over time. In their personal and professional lives, people can make consistently poor choices in their capacity as moral agents. In turn, they cultivate flawed habits or what are often referred to as vices. Jimmy McGill’s trajectory is, without a doubt, a harrowing story of moral decline. In some ways, his transformation into Saul Goodman resembles a trite story about how a profession, lawyering, corrupts its practitioners. On a deeper level, McGill’s journey involves a fundamental change in how he habitually interacts with his environment, a change of motivation and disposition that is, almost entirely, a change for the worse. To know the content of Jimmy’s character is to be familiar with his story, a story of moral decline and ethical failure.
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In this chapter, the points of intellectual consonance between Jane Addams and John Dewey are explored, specifically their (1) shared belief that philosophy is a method, (2) parallel commitments to philosophical pragmatism and (3) similar... more
In this chapter, the points of intellectual consonance between Jane Addams and John Dewey are explored, specifically their (1) shared belief that philosophy is a method, (2) parallel commitments to philosophical pragmatism and (3) similar convictions that philosophy should serve to address social problems. Also highlighted are points of divergence in their thinking, particularly their positions on U.S. entry into World War I and, more generally, the value of social conflict. Finally, the chapter concludes with what the author believes is Addams's and Dewey's most significant joint contribution to the contemporary philosophical landscape: a vision of practically engaged pragmatism.
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'Ghosting' or the unethical practice of having someone other than the student registered in the course take the student's exams, complete their assignments and write their essays has become a common method of cheating in today's online... more
'Ghosting' or the unethical practice of having someone other than the student registered in the course take the student's exams, complete their assignments and write their essays has become a common method of cheating in today's online higher education learning environment. Internet-based teaching technology and deceit go hand-in-hand because the technology establishes a set of perverse incentives for students to cheat and institutions to either tolerate or encourage this highly unethical form of behavior. For students, cheating becomes an increasingly attractive option as pre-digital safeguards-for instance, in-person exam proctoring requirements and face-to-face mentoring-are quietly phased out and eventually eliminated altogether. Also, as the punishments for violating academic integrity policies are relaxed, the temptation to cheat increases accordingly. For institutions, tolerating, normalizing and encouraging one type of student cheating, ghosting, improves the profitability of their online divisions by bolstering student enrolments and retention. In universities and colleges across the globe, online divisions and programs have become thriving profit centers, not because of the commonly attributed reasons (student ease, safety during health crises and convenience of taking courses online), but due to a single strategic insight: Ubiquitous opportunities for ghosting improve profit margins and maximize revenue.
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The American rock band KISS is notorious. Its notoriety derives not only from the band’s otherworldly costumes (except for of course during the unmasked period), the fact that they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their... more
The American rock band KISS is notorious. Its notoriety derives not only from the band’s otherworldly costumes (except for of course during the unmasked period), the fact that they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, their numerous hit records or the amazing stage theatrics and pyrotechnics of their live shows. It’s also related to the band’s constantly changing makeup (and I don’t mean the kind on their faces!). Of the four members, only Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were fixtures. With so many changes to the band’s composition, has KISS always remained the same band? Some see this head-scratcher as roughly similar to a conundrum in philosophical metaphysics (that’s the area of philosophy addressing problems of existence): the puzzle of Theseus’s ship.
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The notion of the “deep state” or a “state within a state” is creepy, to say the least. It indicates the existence of a shadowy group of unelected bureaucrats deeply embedded in the military-intelligence establishment secretly... more
The notion of the “deep state” or a “state within a state” is creepy, to say the least. It indicates the existence of a shadowy group of unelected bureaucrats deeply embedded in the military-intelligence establishment secretly manipulating government policy. International relations scholars and public administration experts associate deep states with authoritarian regimes, such as Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and pre-civil-war Syria. However, as we’re finding out, the U.S. has its own deep state. While some media outlets portray deep state talk as tantamount to conspiracy theory, the deep state is quite real.
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Besides being the title of an EP by The (International) Noise Conspiracy, “Bigger cages, longer chains!” is an anarchist rallying cry. It’s meant to ridicule those political activists who compromise their ideals, make demands and then... more
Besides being the title of an EP by The (International) Noise Conspiracy, “Bigger cages, longer chains!” is an anarchist rallying cry. It’s meant to ridicule those political activists who compromise their ideals, make demands and then settle for partial concessions or, to put it bluntly, bargain with the Man. In the T.V. series Mr. Robot, Christian Slater plays the anarchist leader of a hacktivist group known as fsociety. Mr. Robot won’t negotiate with the FBI and E(vil) Corp for bigger cages and longer chains. He tells Elliot Anderson, the young cybersecurity expert and hacker, “We live in a kingdom of bullshit!” Victory over the tyranny of corporations and states requires radical means to achieve radical ends. Mr. Robot wants freedom without limits, total liberation from corporate and statist control, and the opportunity to live in a world without bullshit. Mr. Robot’s objective is to free citizens of first-world nations from the cages of consumer debt and citizens of third-world nations from the shackles of extreme poverty. Meeting half-way will not do. So what are the inspirations for Mr. Robot’s hacktivist philosophy? The most proximate sources are David Graeber’s anarchism, which also influenced the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the hacktivist group Anonymous’s moralfaggery, that is, the policy of some of its members to use collective computer hacking to serve the greater good. Candidates for more remote sources are Marxism and pragmatism; the former, a blueprint for freeing the working class from their bourgeois oppressors; the latter, a philosophy of action, intelligent inquiry and democratic reform. Some might object that pragmatism is too conventional to be compatible with the radical ideas that motivate Mr. Robot’s worldview. Hacktivism demands action, not mere thinking! But any organized social-political movement requires a well-thought-out plan as well as a vision of what its participants hope to achieve. Since pragmatism is a philosophy of action and reform, it’s possible that Mr. Robot is a closet pragmatist!
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This chapter explores the personal and professional obstacles faced by Humanities and Social Science scholars contemplating pre-publication of their scholarly work in an on-line network. Borrowing a theoretical framework from the radical... more
This chapter explores the personal and professional obstacles faced by Humanities and Social Science scholars contemplating pre-publication of their scholarly work in an on-line network. Borrowing a theoretical framework from the radical educational theorist Ivan Illich, it also develops the idea that pre-publication networks offer higher education a bottom-up, decentralized alternative to business-modeled e-learning. If learners would only embrace this more anarchical medium, appreciating writing for pre-publication as a process of open-ended discovery rather than product delivery, then the prospect of deinstitutionalizing e-learning could become an exciting new reality. The chapter’s methodology is a combination of normative-theoretical analysis and small sample (n=2) case study based on the author’s personal and professional experiences. While the generalizability (or external validity) of the conclusions is limited, the author hopes to motivate further inquiry into the connection between on-line pre-publication and e-learning.
Richard Bernstein’s recent book The Pragmatic Turn is a first-rate scholarly work, an enduring contribution to the literature on the history of Pragmatism, and one that is very difficult to find fault with. Since I am a Dewey scholar and... more
Richard Bernstein’s recent book The Pragmatic Turn is a first-rate scholarly work, an enduring contribution to the literature on the history of Pragmatism, and one that is very difficult to find fault with. Since I am a Dewey scholar and a democratic theorist, I will focus mainly on the book’s third chapter (“John Dewey’s Vision of Radical Democracy”) and its relation to Bernstein’s overall thesis: namely, that “during the past 150 years, philosophers working in different traditions have explored and refined themes that were prominent in the pragmatic movement.” While Bernstein criticizes several of Dewey’s intellectual opponents (e.g., Maine, Trotsky and Lippmann), he does not excuse Dewey and his democratic theory from similarly exacting scrutiny—as some Dewey scholars are guilty of. Indeed, a recurring critique in the third chapter is that Dewey’s democratic theory is too light on particulars, saying very little about how to institutionalize the ideal he sets forth. I think that there is a good reason for Dewey’s vagueness, and that reason comes forth when we appreciate the turn within the pragmatic turn.
Some philosophical historians draw attention to philosophy’s large-scale or macro-level turns, such as the so-called “pragmatic” and “linguistic” turns, but tend to ignore the small-scale or micro-level turns within those broader turns. Bernstein is not one of them. Democratic theory experienced a deliberative turn in the late twentieth-century, followed by a turn toward more practical issues, such as testing, applying and institutionalizing the deliberative democratic ideal. Likewise, we encounter a more recent turn within pragmatist studies, which manifests in the secondary literature on John Dewey’s pragmatism.
Some philosophical historians draw attention to philosophy’s large-scale or macro-level turns, such as the so-called “pragmatic” and “linguistic” turns, but tend to ignore the small-scale or micro-level turns within those broader turns. Bernstein is not one of them. Democratic theory experienced a deliberative turn in the late twentieth-century, followed by a turn toward more practical issues, such as testing, applying and institutionalizing the deliberative democratic ideal. Likewise, we encounter a more recent turn within pragmatist studies, which manifests in the secondary literature on John Dewey’s pragmatism.
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Interest in Barack Obama’s status as a pragmatist has recently surged in both scholarly and non-scholarly circles. One could dismiss the phenomenon as equivalent to the surge of speculation during the past ten years that philosophical... more
Interest in Barack Obama’s status as a pragmatist has recently surged in both scholarly and non-scholarly circles. One could dismiss the phenomenon as equivalent to the surge of speculation during the past ten years that philosophical Straussians (or followers of the late Leo Strauss, such as Paul Wolfowitz) had captured the Bush administration’s policy agenda or that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan’s monetary policy was the result of his apprenticeship with Ayn Rand: that is, a species of conspiracy theory. On closer examination, though, more evidence seems to confirm the Obama-as-pragmatist hypothesis than the Straussian-capture theory or even the Greenspan-as-Rand-devotee thesis. One key piece of evidence is that Obama identifies himself as a pragmatist. However, what is missing in these Obama-as-pragmatist accounts is any attention to the question of whether his pragmatism extends beyond the domain of domestic affairs. Some commentators only address his pragmatism in the realm of domestic politics; others uncritically assume that it carries over to international politics.
So, the question arises: Is Obama also a pragmatist in the domain of international affairs? Although pragmatism does not fit straightforwardly into any of the traditional theories in international relations (realism, liberalism and constructivism – hereafter IR), I argue that it represents a flexible policy making approach that floats freely between multiple theoretical perspectives, tailoring them to the specific conditions of the international situation and helping practitioners craft tools to resolve or ameliorate particular global problems. In order to defend this account, I carefully analyze the content of two essays authored by the classic American Pragmatist John Dewey: “Imperialism is Easy” and “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” as well as two of Obama’s presidential speeches addressing pressing issues in international affairs (Cairo and Prague). Prior to these two analyses, a brief survey of the three standard theoretical approaches in IR is in order.
So, the question arises: Is Obama also a pragmatist in the domain of international affairs? Although pragmatism does not fit straightforwardly into any of the traditional theories in international relations (realism, liberalism and constructivism – hereafter IR), I argue that it represents a flexible policy making approach that floats freely between multiple theoretical perspectives, tailoring them to the specific conditions of the international situation and helping practitioners craft tools to resolve or ameliorate particular global problems. In order to defend this account, I carefully analyze the content of two essays authored by the classic American Pragmatist John Dewey: “Imperialism is Easy” and “Three Independent Factors in Morals,” as well as two of Obama’s presidential speeches addressing pressing issues in international affairs (Cairo and Prague). Prior to these two analyses, a brief survey of the three standard theoretical approaches in IR is in order.
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In this chapter, the inquiry shifts to the scale of the local and everyday, specifically to the topic of gardening, in the hope of integrating the theory and practice of a deeply pragmatic form of environmental communication. Gardening is... more
In this chapter, the inquiry shifts to the scale of the local and everyday, specifically to the topic of gardening, in the hope of integrating the theory and practice of a deeply pragmatic form of environmental communication. Gardening is not always a private affair. A group of individuals can partake in the activity and co-create not only plants and food, but also ideas that inform their communal lives and democratic politics (Holba, 2011, p. 69). Individuals motivated by environmental causes can anchor their activism in gardening, connecting green politics to community gardening, gardening education, and food movements. While environmental activists engage in garden politics, so do average people with an interest in preserving shared spaces for recreation, beautification, and food cultivation. As the saying goes, “all politics is local.” If this is the case, then studying the rhetorical engagements involved in community gardening and gardening politics presents an opportunity to demonstrate an even more localized application of the Leopoldian-Deweyan framework. What is the significance of gardening for social and environmental justice generally? How should gardening activists communicate their demands to the government and their fellow citizens in a democratic society? While philosophical treatments generally highlight gardening’s importance for human well-being, aesthetic theory, and urban landscape design, few of these treatments offer the “green” reformer more than minimal encouragement and a sense of historical context with which to guide her activism. Few also address the vital connection between school gardening and community gardening. For instance, several accounts of John Dewey’s educational philosophy draw attention to the school gardens tended by students at the University of Chicago’s Experimental School. However, these typically neglect the social and political significance of Dewey’s writings on school gardening.
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Not long after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, an American citizen was captured by U.S. soldiers on the battlefield carrying a weapon and wearing the dress of a Taliban soldier. Heralded by the news media as the “American Taliban,” he... more
Not long after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, an American citizen was captured by U.S. soldiers on the battlefield carrying a weapon and wearing the dress of a Taliban soldier. Heralded by the news media as the “American Taliban,” he became a spectacle, bound, gagged, naked and blind-folded on a stretcher in a photo taken soon after his capture. The story of how the homeschooled twenty-year-old from a middle-class Northern California family became an enemy combatant in the Afghani desert piqued the popular imagination. After converting to Islam, he went to Yemen, learned Arabic, returned home and then left again to attend a madrassa (or Islamic religious school) before receiving training at an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Some Americans reacted to the young man’s story with wonder; others with loathing. How did this youth stray from the values that most Americans hold dear? In fact, he did not. Similar to Paul Maud’dib who, at the end of Dune Messiah, wandered into the desert a blind holy man, the American Taliban had acted in accordance with values that most American prize: self-reliance, ingenuity, spirituality and practical know-how. It is widely believed that the Fremen culture derives from their religion, Zensunni , an imaginative blending of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Muslim beliefs. However, a closer look reveals that the Fremen (similar to the American Taliban) were shockingly American in their core values. To demonstrate this, I begin by discussing the weirdness of Dune’s Fremen, their religion, customs and lifestyle. Then, I give a brief summary of American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay “Self-Reliance” followed by a similar treatment of John Dewey’s notion of democracy as a way of life. The essay returns to paint a clearer picture of the American Fremen and their exhilarating though dangerous faith in jihad as a way of life.
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John Dewey's political and educational ideas can offer some guidance in arbitrating the online literacy debate.
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The legacy of George W. Bush will probably be associated with the President’s infallibly certain style of visionary leadership and his specific vision of a ‘Freedom Agenda’. According to this vision, the United States must spread... more
The legacy of George W. Bush will probably be associated with the President’s infallibly certain style of visionary leadership and his specific vision of a ‘Freedom Agenda’. According to this vision, the United States must spread democracy to all people who desire liberty and vanquish those tyrants and terrorists who despise it. Freedom is universally valued, and the United States is everywhere perceived as freedom’s protector and purveyor. So, the mission of the Freedom Agenda is to guard existing freedoms as well as spread the democratic political system to those countries lacking comparable freedoms. Recent analyses of the Bush Freedom Agenda examine its roots in realist foreign policy and neoconservative political thought. In this paper, I take a different approach, connecting the Freedom Agenda to the ideas of two philosophers: (i) Isaiah Berlin’s notion of positive-negative liberty and (ii) John Dewey’s concept of freedom as a function of culture.
My central claim is that when compared with the ideas of Berlin and Dewey, the Freedom Agenda is a faulty construct, both conceptually and practically, for understanding America’s role in global affairs. The Freedom Agenda proves to be neither conservative nor universal. Nevertheless, it constitutes an essential element of George W. Bush’s legacy, a vision of American purpose in a threatening and divisive world.
My central claim is that when compared with the ideas of Berlin and Dewey, the Freedom Agenda is a faulty construct, both conceptually and practically, for understanding America’s role in global affairs. The Freedom Agenda proves to be neither conservative nor universal. Nevertheless, it constitutes an essential element of George W. Bush’s legacy, a vision of American purpose in a threatening and divisive world.
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Recent criticisms of Elon Musk reveal more about his critics' ethical shortcomings than Musk's alleged hypocrisy. Musk, CEO of Twitter and Tesla, has been criticized for suspending the Twitter accounts of several journalists who published... more
Recent criticisms of Elon Musk reveal more about his critics' ethical shortcomings than Musk's alleged hypocrisy. Musk, CEO of Twitter and Tesla, has been criticized for suspending the Twitter accounts of several journalists who published his location and that of his family members. In Musk’s words, it’s tantamount to broadcasting “assassination coordinates.” According to Musk’s critics, you can’t be a free speech champion, as Musk claims he is, and stop short of allowing social media users to dox their enemies. Are Musk’s critics right? If not, then what’s the moral problem with doxxing? Why is it ethically questionable behavior?
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Harvard University faculty currently include Regret Clauses in their syllabi, stipulating that if a student cheats, she can confess to the professor and receive a second chance. The rigor of higher education is diluted. A renowned... more
Harvard University faculty currently include Regret Clauses in their syllabi, stipulating that if a student cheats, she can confess to the professor and receive a second chance. The rigor of higher education is diluted. A renowned Biochemistry professor at New York University is fired after he fails a majority of his pre-Med students on an exam. The administration offers the students a second chance to pass the course taught by a less demanding faculty member. The rigor of higher education is diluted. Now higher education practitioners are rallying around the convention of permitting students a second chance to ‘earn’ a passing grade on assignments by submitting a revise assignment. The practice is modeled after the same practice in journal article refereeing, whereby a journal referee grants a qualified acceptance to a scholar-author.
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The name ‘Yanis Varoufakis’ doesn’t easily fall from their lips of people discussing the future of Ukraine. But it should. Dr. Varoufakis is an Economics Professor at the University of Athens, a former finance minister of Greece and a key... more
The name ‘Yanis Varoufakis’ doesn’t easily fall from their lips of people discussing the future of Ukraine. But it should. Dr. Varoufakis is an Economics Professor at the University of Athens, a former finance minister of Greece and a key lieutenant in the MeRA25 Party, who knows a thing or two about international conflict and its economic impact. Varoufakis is a public intellectual and part of Greece’s brain trust. He possesses a clear, though unpopular, vision of how to bring the Russo-Ukraine war to a quick conclusion. Similar to Henry Kissinger, Noam Chomsky and John Mearsheimer, Varoufakis sees through the West’s propaganda to the truth: the U.S. and Europe are fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Moreover, the West harbors grand delusions of a final military victory over Russia and economic sanctions that would decapitate Putin’s regime. These delusions blind Western leaders to other more constructive possibilities, such as a negotiated peace settlement. In a recent editorial, Professor Varoufakis argues that the best course of action would be to negotiate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
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Conspiracy theories abound: Baby-eating liberals, the moon landing deepfake, the rigged 2020 U.S. presidential election, Pizzagate, pedophile rings, QAnon intrigues and even the ‘Birds aren’t real’ satire. There’s no shortage of wildly... more
Conspiracy theories abound: Baby-eating liberals, the moon landing deepfake, the rigged 2020 U.S. presidential election, Pizzagate, pedophile rings, QAnon intrigues and even the ‘Birds aren’t real’ satire. There’s no shortage of wildly concocted stories to tease the popular imagination. Theorizing conspiracies can also prove instrumental to radicalizing citizens; getting them to support populist, radical or revolutionary political agendas; or even inciting them to start insurrections. Conspiracy theories serve the express purpose of spreading misinformation. Falsehoods, not truth. Nothing philosophically interesting there, right? Some say differently. Two well-known scholars — Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule — criticize conspiracy theories by recourse to philosophical concepts. In their paper titled “Conspiracy Theories,” they’ve alleged that these outlandish stories reveal “crippled epistemologies” and “cognitive infiltration” of citizen groups by populist leaders. But should all conspiracy theories be painted with the same brush stroke? Is every single concocted story defective because it’s false, unjustified and damaging?
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In the recent Higheredjobs.com article, titled “Avoid the ‘Complexity Trap’ when Explaining Your Candidacy,” Justin Zackal argues that higher ed job candidates should simplify their presentations to job search committees. In other words,... more
In the recent Higheredjobs.com article, titled “Avoid the ‘Complexity Trap’ when Explaining Your Candidacy,” Justin Zackal argues that higher ed job candidates should simplify their presentations to job search committees.
In other words, present yourself as an average Joe or Janet. Abstain from using technical, discipline-specific jargon in the interview and job talk.
Is this wise advice? Not at all. Indeed, not only is Zackal’s advice poorly crafted, it’s also highly conditioned by a private sector perspective on Human Resources recruitment and selection, as well as a constrained view of someone who works in a small college environment. (In Zackal’s defense, he is the Communications Specialist at a small ‘university’ with less than 10,000 student enrollment.)
In other words, present yourself as an average Joe or Janet. Abstain from using technical, discipline-specific jargon in the interview and job talk.
Is this wise advice? Not at all. Indeed, not only is Zackal’s advice poorly crafted, it’s also highly conditioned by a private sector perspective on Human Resources recruitment and selection, as well as a constrained view of someone who works in a small college environment. (In Zackal’s defense, he is the Communications Specialist at a small ‘university’ with less than 10,000 student enrollment.)
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In recent news, NATO allies decided to increase the volume and speed of weapons shipments to Ukraine. This isn’t a secret deal. It’s a public announcement meant to ratchet up the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and potentially draw... more
In recent news, NATO allies decided to increase the volume and speed of weapons shipments to Ukraine. This isn’t a secret deal. It’s a public announcement meant to ratchet up the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and potentially draw the U.S. and the entire world into a full-scale nuclear war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promising more military support. Austin declared that, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” What Austin didn’t mention is that while arming Ukraine might weaken Russia’s military, it doesn’t deprive the superpower of its nuclear arsenal. Indeed, weakening Russia might make Putin more willing to use it. In response to Blinken and Austin’s public announcment, Russia accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of escalating the conflict and risking nuclear annihilation.
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Besides comparing invasions — for instance, Ukraine with Kuwait and Iraq — another analogy has been circulating in recent commentaries. It is a comparison of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. In recent news, NATO... more
Besides comparing invasions — for instance, Ukraine with Kuwait and Iraq — another analogy has been circulating in recent commentaries. It is a comparison of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In recent news, NATO allies have committed to send more weapons to Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promising more support. Austin declared that, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” In response, Russia has accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of escalating the conflict and risking nuclear war. Proxy wars are nothing new. The U.S. is obviously fighting one with Russia in Ukraine. The Soviet Union’s attempt to arm Cuba with nuclear weapons was also a proxy conflict. In both cases, nuclear armageddon look(ed) to be the outcome of one superpower arming a small country on another superpower’s doorstep. But is the analogy warranted? 60 years separates the two events. Let’s look more closely at the history.
In recent news, NATO allies have committed to send more weapons to Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promising more support. Austin declared that, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” In response, Russia has accused the U.S. and its NATO allies of escalating the conflict and risking nuclear war. Proxy wars are nothing new. The U.S. is obviously fighting one with Russia in Ukraine. The Soviet Union’s attempt to arm Cuba with nuclear weapons was also a proxy conflict. In both cases, nuclear armageddon look(ed) to be the outcome of one superpower arming a small country on another superpower’s doorstep. But is the analogy warranted? 60 years separates the two events. Let’s look more closely at the history.
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Comparisons of the Russo-Ukraine conflict with past military engagements are quickly piling up: most notably, (1) the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and (2) the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. So, it’s about time for another. Let’s go... more
Comparisons of the Russo-Ukraine conflict with past military engagements are quickly piling up: most notably, (1) the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and (2) the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. So, it’s about time for another. Let’s go even farther back into the historical archives — an entire century — in search of the perfect analogue. Why not? History is a wise teacher. The most recent historical analogy to grab any attention is between teh present conflict and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. It was a two-year-long conflict that resulted in the destruction of Tsarist Russia’s entire Baltic fleet. The victor was a rising superpower — Imperial Japan — that would later launch a surprise attack against the U.S. at Pearl Harbor.
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Recently, the allegation of pushing Critical Race Theory has fallen short of its intended effect. It’s lost its shock value. So, conservative pundits, 4Chan “groypers” and QAnon conspiracy theorists have ratcheted up the rhetorical... more
Recently, the allegation of pushing Critical Race Theory has fallen short of its intended effect. It’s lost its shock value. So, conservative pundits, 4Chan “groypers” and QAnon conspiracy theorists have ratcheted up the rhetorical stakes. The new political insult is to call someone who disagrees with you a ‘pedophile’, ‘groomer’ or ‘pro-pedophilia’. Why is this rhetorical shift in contemporary political discourse problematic?
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The famous Linguistics scholar-turned-social/political commentator Noam Chomsky (1928-) is no stranger to defending unconventional views on global issues. The Russia-Ukraine war is no different. Chomsky's rise out of academic obscurity... more
The famous Linguistics scholar-turned-social/political commentator Noam Chomsky (1928-) is no stranger to defending unconventional views on global issues. The Russia-Ukraine war is no different. Chomsky's rise out of academic obscurity into the role of a prominent cultural critic began with the publication of "The Responsibility of Intellectuals." In its pages, he wrote: "Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions." Chomsky took that responsibility seriously. He analyzed and criticized U.S. imperialism in South America, Israeli aggression against Palestine, and the U.S. Bush administration's vengeful war on terror, among many other issues, provoking objections from foreign policy experts and pundits on the ideological left and right. In 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon placed Chomsky on his Enemies List.
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As Netflix and other streaming services compete for for new customers, a black market in passwords has emerged. As profitability plummets, so does new, high quality content. Online marketplaces for purchasing passwords are clearly... more
As Netflix and other streaming services compete for for new customers, a black market in passwords has emerged. As profitability plummets, so does new, high quality content. Online marketplaces for purchasing passwords are clearly illegal. Sharing your password with family and friends? Perfectly legal. But is password sharing morally wrong? Is it ethically obligatory to keep your password to yourself?
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Student-centeredness was once a buzzword solely reserved for teaching and learning. In the past decade, it’s become associated with the whole of university administration, extending from the president’s office to student affairs. It’s a... more
Student-centeredness was once a buzzword solely reserved for teaching and learning. In the past decade, it’s become associated with the whole of university administration, extending from the president’s office to student affairs. It’s a stand-in for the corporate mantra of customer-first!
The emergence of the so-called “student-centered university” coincided with the rise of the corporate model of higher education, reorienting all functions towards satisfying the customer: the student. In the neoliberal learning economy, faculty and administrators must aim to improve student satisfaction, retention and performance. However, as students’ satisfaction with their university experience is on the rise, faculty and staff satisfaction with their jobs has been on the decline. The result is a mass exodus of employees from the higher education workplace. If higher education institutions were to invest more resources in making faculty happy — call this faculty-centeredness — would such an investment translate into happier students? Could faculty-centered practices also reap greater rewards in terms of student learning outcomes, graduation rates, program quality, etc.?
The emergence of the so-called “student-centered university” coincided with the rise of the corporate model of higher education, reorienting all functions towards satisfying the customer: the student. In the neoliberal learning economy, faculty and administrators must aim to improve student satisfaction, retention and performance. However, as students’ satisfaction with their university experience is on the rise, faculty and staff satisfaction with their jobs has been on the decline. The result is a mass exodus of employees from the higher education workplace. If higher education institutions were to invest more resources in making faculty happy — call this faculty-centeredness — would such an investment translate into happier students? Could faculty-centered practices also reap greater rewards in terms of student learning outcomes, graduation rates, program quality, etc.?
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For fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the story of Gyges’s ring is a familiar tale: A ring that makes the person who wears it invisible frees the wearer to commit unspeakable acts without accountability, eventually corrupting... more
For fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the story of Gyges’s ring is a familiar tale: A ring that makes the person who wears it invisible frees the wearer to commit unspeakable acts without accountability, eventually corrupting the wearer’s soul. But the story of this magical ring wasn’t Tolkien’s creation. It was the philosopher Plato’s. Or at least it was a myth making the rounds in 4th century BC Greece. What gives the story a timeless quality? I’d like to suggest that the historical accuracy of the story is irrelevant. (Fanciful stories about rings that make you invisible are fiction, not fact.)
What matters is that, like most philosophical thought experiments, the story of Gyges’s ring pumps our intuitions — in this case, about the requirements of justice.
What matters is that, like most philosophical thought experiments, the story of Gyges’s ring pumps our intuitions — in this case, about the requirements of justice.
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John Mearsheimer is not just another voice in the information wars that run parrallel to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He’s the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, a political scientist and... more
John Mearsheimer is not just another voice in the information wars that run parrallel to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He’s the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, a political scientist and what in international relations (IR) circles is called a ‘realist’.
He’s become a divisive figure in recent debates over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of a message he’s been sharing since 2014 (when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea): Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine isn’t about Russia’s expansionist ambitions or a desire to restore the nation’s global status to that of its Soviet glory days.
He’s become a divisive figure in recent debates over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine because of a message he’s been sharing since 2014 (when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea): Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine isn’t about Russia’s expansionist ambitions or a desire to restore the nation’s global status to that of its Soviet glory days.
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In a recent op-ed, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of Defense Joseph Felter insists that Russian President Vladimir Putin is guilty of war crimes. Felter argues that the autocrat violated the “laws of war” — most notably the Geneva... more
In a recent op-ed, former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of Defense Joseph Felter insists that Russian President Vladimir Putin is guilty of war crimes. Felter argues that the autocrat violated the “laws of war” — most notably the Geneva Convention — and that he should pay for his crimes.
Similar arguments have been aimed at ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton (for the bombing of Belgrade), George W. Bush (for torturing inmates at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center), Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger (for carpet bombing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).
Felter’s argument is novel insofar as it alleges that a sitting Russian president is guilty of war crimes before the conflict, the Ukraine-Russia War, is even over. It’s possible that Felter, a U.S. foreign policy hardliner, is simply doing the bidding of the U.S. State Department, which has levelled similar allegations against Putin and Russian military commanders.
Similar arguments have been aimed at ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton (for the bombing of Belgrade), George W. Bush (for torturing inmates at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center), Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger (for carpet bombing Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia).
Felter’s argument is novel insofar as it alleges that a sitting Russian president is guilty of war crimes before the conflict, the Ukraine-Russia War, is even over. It’s possible that Felter, a U.S. foreign policy hardliner, is simply doing the bidding of the U.S. State Department, which has levelled similar allegations against Putin and Russian military commanders.
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In 1989, The National Interest published an article by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama entitled “The End of History.” In its pages, he argued that with the Cold War over, we had reached the end of history — not literally, but... more
In 1989, The National Interest published an article by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama entitled “The End of History.” In its pages, he argued that with the Cold War over, we had reached the end of history — not literally, but ideologically speaking, the evolutionary pinnacle of Liberalism and Capitalism. The West had won. Communism had lost. History was over. Andrew Bacevich, historian, international relations scholar and Boston University Professor, recently observed the resurgence of Fukuyama’s end-of-history rantings. They issued from none other than Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense under two presidents: George W. Bush, Jr., and Barack Obama. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Gates proclaimed that, “Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has ended Americans’ 30-year holiday from history.” Not only is Gates wrong about history. He’s wrong about American foreign policy. And he’s dead wrong about Ukraine.
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The British philosopher John Stuart (J.S.) Mill (1806–1873) is widely lauded for his contributions to the ethical theory known as Utilitarianism. He is less well known for his defense of leisure. Mill argued that the best use of a... more
The British philosopher John Stuart (J.S.) Mill (1806–1873) is widely lauded for his contributions to the ethical theory known as Utilitarianism. He is less well known for his defense of leisure. Mill argued that the best use of a society’s surplus wealth is to enable more people to relax and participate in idle diversions. In contrast, Mill’s intellectual nemesis, Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), championed the “gospel of work,” the idea that laboring cultivates virtue and idleness vice. (He also defended the institution of slavery). Did J.S. Mill anticipate the emergence of the so-called ‘Great Resignation’ — or the recent mass exodus of full-time employees from the workforce?
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In recent news, a Chapman University professor, David A. Berkovitz, sued five of his students after they posted copyrighted midterm and final exams to the site Course Hero. The case highlights a number of salient issues in higher... more
In recent news, a Chapman University professor, David A. Berkovitz, sued five of his students after they posted copyrighted midterm and final exams to the site Course Hero. The case highlights a number of salient issues in higher education today and in the future: The ubiquity of student cheating and the refusal of many institutions and faculty members to address the problem as it grows out of hand; The multiplication of private companies that assist students in cheating and the tendency of faculty and administration to ignore, minimize or even enable third-party assisted cheating; The matter of whether faculty should sue their students in order to address academic integrity issues, and whether doing so threatens to undermine student-faculty trust.
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Ina Zoom address to the Israeli Knesset on March 20, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an impassioned plea for help to repel the invading Russian forces. So far, Israel has refused to send military assistance to Ukraine,... more
Ina Zoom address to the Israeli Knesset on March 20, 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an impassioned plea for help to repel the invading Russian forces. So far, Israel has refused to send military assistance to Ukraine, restricting its aid to medical supplies. Unfortunately for Ukraine, Zelensky’s speech didn’t have the intended effect. It simply cemented Israel’s reticence. Israeli legislators still decline to provide safe haven for Ukrainian refugees or military support, including prized anti-aircraft defense systems. Why are the Israelis so immune to Zelensky’s charms? Why can’t a Jewish leader of a besieged state appeal to the sympathies of Israel’s leaders and its people? Is it proof that Israel is allied with Russia?
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Ina detailed report posted last week, Columbia University math professor Michael Thaddeus shared proof that the university provided data to U.S. News for its annual rankings that was false or deceptive. In Thaddeus’s words, “several of... more
Ina detailed report posted last week, Columbia University math professor Michael Thaddeus shared proof that the university provided data to U.S. News for its annual rankings that was false or deceptive.
In Thaddeus’s words, “several of the key figures supporting Columbia’s high ranking are inaccurate, dubious, or highly misleading.”
Do faculty have an obligation to expose administrators when they fudge the numbers? Does submitting fraudulent data to a magazine that ranks universities for educational excellence rise to the level of corruption?
In Thaddeus’s words, “several of the key figures supporting Columbia’s high ranking are inaccurate, dubious, or highly misleading.”
Do faculty have an obligation to expose administrators when they fudge the numbers? Does submitting fraudulent data to a magazine that ranks universities for educational excellence rise to the level of corruption?
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The current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken once called the U.S. Senate vote to invade Iraq on the pretext that they had an active WMDs program (a lie) ‘a vote for tough diplomacy’. Now he stands to negotiate with China and Russia... more
The current U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken once called the U.S. Senate vote to invade Iraq on the pretext that they had an active WMDs program (a lie) ‘a vote for tough diplomacy’. Now he stands to negotiate with China and Russia over the Ukraine crisis. In a recent phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Biden threatened that if China assisted Russia in its invasion of Ukraine it would face horrible consequences. Tough diplomacy was Biden’s strategy. Unfortunately, tough diplomacy won’t work with China.
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Northwestern University Philosophy professor Megan Hyska’s recent op-ed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s messaging during the Ukraine war is problematic, to say the last. Hyska analyzes a statement by the Russian autocrat, relying... more
Northwestern University Philosophy professor Megan Hyska’s recent op-ed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s messaging during the Ukraine war is problematic, to say the last. Hyska analyzes a statement by the Russian autocrat, relying exclusively on an ahistorical analytic framework. As a specialist in philosophy of language, she is trained to examine linguistic claims in a vacuum. Philosophers who ignore history do so at their peril. In Hyska’s case, her analysis of Putin’s propaganda completely misses the mark.
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In 1963, the Bronx Zoo had an exhibit titled “The most dangerous animal in the world.” It was a mirror. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is also a mirror. It reflects the horrors of human nature. Of the human condition. Of the human... more
In 1963, the Bronx Zoo had an exhibit titled “The most dangerous animal in the world.” It was a mirror. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is also a mirror. It reflects the horrors of human nature. Of the human condition. Of the human psyche. And the human soul. Shocking stories, analyses and images of the war haunt us on a daily basis. Is this who we are? Or is this just who they are (the Russians)? To blunt the effect, mass media sources frame these representations in an official narrative. A narrative of good and evil. There is a hero and a villain. We are expected to cheer and boo. We scream in horror and then hope for the best.
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Asthe Russian invasion of Ukraine proceeds, we are left to ask: Where did Putin get his playbook? In recent news, Russia alleged in a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that the U.S. and Ukraine collaborated on a bioweapons... more
Asthe Russian invasion of Ukraine proceeds, we are left to ask: Where did Putin get his playbook? In recent news, Russia alleged in a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that the U.S. and Ukraine collaborated on a bioweapons program, and it had the documents to prove it.
A similar rationale was used in 2015 to justify Russia’s bombing campaigns and ground force deployments in Syria. The bioweapons justification for invading a sovereign country has been described by foreign policy commentators and insiders alike as Russia’s “New Big Lie”.
While we might agree that it’s a lie, is it all that new? What is the provenance of this tactic of ginning up false intelligence about biological and nuclear weapons programs to excuse military aggression?
Bush’s noble lie
A similar rationale was used in 2015 to justify Russia’s bombing campaigns and ground force deployments in Syria. The bioweapons justification for invading a sovereign country has been described by foreign policy commentators and insiders alike as Russia’s “New Big Lie”.
While we might agree that it’s a lie, is it all that new? What is the provenance of this tactic of ginning up false intelligence about biological and nuclear weapons programs to excuse military aggression?
Bush’s noble lie
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Recently, Russia claims to have killed 180 foreign mercenaries with a missile strike in western Ukraine. It's rumored that these soldiers-of-fortune, housed at a NATO training center, were recruited by the U.S. to extract influential... more
Recently, Russia claims to have killed 180 foreign mercenaries with a missile strike in western Ukraine. It's rumored that these soldiers-of-fortune, housed at a NATO training center, were recruited by the U.S. to extract influential civilians from the war zone. (Indeed, President Zelensky was offered safe passage out of the Ukraine by the U.S., likely with the assistance of American mercenaries, but bravely declined.) Twenty four hours prior, Russia insisted that captured Western mercenaries would not have Prisoner of War (POW) status under the Geneva Convention, but would be prosecuted under Russian criminal law. Putin warned that those foreign fighters planning to join the fight to liberate Ukraine should rethink their decision. Meanwhile, British media reports that Russia is recruiting its own mercenaries, especially from Chechnya, Lybia, Serbia and Syria. Private firms that provide military support, on both sides of the conflict, are gearing up to recruit and deploy mercenaries in the Ukrainian conflict. The phenomenon of mercenaries in Ukraine is, without a doubt, a hot topic in recent news. But how should we judge these guns-forhire? Are they criminals entering a war zone or heroes looking for a pay day? One way to inform our judgments about mercenaries in Ukraine is to appreciate who mercenaries are and their long, rich history.
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John R. Wooden (1910–2010) was the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) basketball coach responsible for the team winning ten national championships in a twelve year period. Through his own experience, he learned a way to cover... more
John R. Wooden (1910–2010) was the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) basketball coach responsible for the team winning ten national championships in a twelve year period. Through his own experience, he learned a way to cover oneself in glory, to selflessly give everything to a team and thus to have obtain success — both in sports and life. In Wooden’s lifetime, his great accomplishments were only matched by an extraordinary philosophy, expressed in a number of motivational sayings and a comprehensive plan for high achievement, called the “pyramid of success.” Coach Wooden’s philosophy hinted at the secrets to his and his players’ success.
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Campus politics can sometimes resemble gang warfare. Faculty, staff and administrators claim turf, test the loyalties of new members, ostracize those among them who express unorthodox views and, of course, talk behind each others’ backs.... more
Campus politics can sometimes resemble gang warfare. Faculty, staff and administrators claim turf, test the loyalties of new members, ostracize those among them who express unorthodox views and, of course, talk behind each others’ backs. Aggressive policing of sniping, gossiping and spreading rumors is one approach to curbing toxic campus politics. It’s tantamount to treating these behaviors as if they were far worse phenomena: bullying and harassment. However, such an approach can go horribly wrong.
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An obscure conflict between American and Russian special forces in Syria, called the ‘Battle of Khasham’, has become a topic of conversation recently. Why? It relates to whether the U.S. should intervene militarily in the Russia-Ukraine... more
An obscure conflict between American and Russian special forces in Syria, called the ‘Battle of Khasham’, has become a topic of conversation recently. Why? It relates to whether the U.S. should intervene militarily in the Russia-Ukraine war. The issue: Should either the U.N. declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine or the U.S. deploy troops in Ukrainian territory, thereby escalating the conflict between the U.S. and Russia? Simply put, the argument for non-intervention is that any armed escalation would provoke a war between the two nuclear powers. Nobody wants that. The Battle of Khasham offers a clear counter-example, an instance in which the U.S. and Russia fought a pitched land battle without inciting either side to deploy nuclear weapons. Is it a devastating objection to the argument for non-intervention?
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Bombing campaigns are highly effective instruments of war. They destroy infrastructure. They demoralize and kill the enemy. They are also instruments of propaganda. Ultimately these deadly campaigns are designed to achieve victory. During... more
Bombing campaigns are highly effective instruments of war. They destroy infrastructure. They demoralize and kill the enemy. They are also instruments of propaganda. Ultimately these deadly campaigns are designed to achieve victory. During WWII, the three-day Allied bombing of the German city of Dresden killed 25,000 civilians. The atomic bombs dropped b the U.S. on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed a quarter of a million. Since the winners make the rules and the losers live by them, it’s unsurprising that these bombing campaigns are deemed by most historians as tragic, yet necessary. Nowadays, technology permits a degree of bombing accuracy unheard of in previous conflicts. Surgical strikes destroy valuable military targets. Since perfection is impossible, mistakes involving the destruction of civilian infrastructure (churches, hospitals, etc.) and the deaths of innocents are almost inevitable. Is it possible to execute a humanitarian bombing campaign?
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Described as “the most dangerous philosopher in the world,” Aleksandr Dugin is a Russian political theorist who arguably inspired Vladimir Putin’s most recent decision to invade Ukraine. If you want to understand Putin, it helps to... more
Described as “the most dangerous philosopher in the world,” Aleksandr Dugin is a Russian political theorist who arguably inspired Vladimir Putin’s most recent decision to invade Ukraine. If you want to understand Putin, it helps to appreciate the man described as “Putin’s brain” and “Putin’s Rasputin.” Dugin is an ultranationalist, organizer of the National Bolshevik Party and the author of a 1997 book, Foundations of Geopolitics, referred to as “Putin’s playbook” for Russian expansionism in the 21st century. In the 600-page book, he lays out a comperehensive strategy whereby Russia can regain its Soviet-era power and dominance that it lost at the end of the Cold War. That strategy includes retaking Ukraine.
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According to the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, if you “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” But is there any truth to this saying? Research shows that the opposite is true. For... more
According to the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu, if you “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” But is there any truth to this saying? Research shows that the opposite is true. For instance, it’s better to give the poor money than offer them what we think is best for them--such as career counseling, professional training or advice on how to bootstrap themselves out of their impoverished condition.
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Some commentators on the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine have been quick to draw comparisons with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Seven months of occupation was ended by U.S. military operation Desert Shield, following the U.N.... more
Some commentators on the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine have been quick to draw comparisons with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Seven months of occupation was ended by U.S. military operation Desert Shield, following the U.N. security council’s resolution to authorize the use of military force in order to expel Saddam Hussein’s forces.Usually the
analogy is invoked to show that the Russian occupation of Ukraine could have been prevented. For instance, one scenario puts a joint U.S.-European military expedition in country when there was reliable intelligence that an invasion would be imminent. But are the similarities between the Kuwait and the Ukraine invasion sufficient to justify the analogy?
analogy is invoked to show that the Russian occupation of Ukraine could have been prevented. For instance, one scenario puts a joint U.S.-European military expedition in country when there was reliable intelligence that an invasion would be imminent. But are the similarities between the Kuwait and the Ukraine invasion sufficient to justify the analogy?
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I once asked my 92-year-old grandfather if he knew who John Dewey (1859–1952) and Jane Addams (1860–1935) were. He shyly responded (perhaps self-consciously aware of his age), “I know who Jane Addams was. Everyone in Chicago in the 1940s... more
I once asked my 92-year-old grandfather if he knew who John Dewey (1859–1952) and Jane Addams (1860–1935) were. He shyly responded (perhaps self-consciously aware of his age), “I know who Jane Addams was. Everyone in Chicago in the 1940s knew of Addams. She was like a local celebrity.” Jane Addams and John Dewey were contemporaries, collaborators and friends. Dewey assigned Addams’s books as required readings in his Philosophy courses at the University of Chicago. Addams was regularly invited by Dewey to guest lecture in his courses. Dewey served on the Hull House board of directors, which Addams led. Addams often invited Dewey to deliver lectures for the Hull House residents as part of their weekly philosophy club. And Dewey showed his appreciation for Addams’s immense intellectual influence on his social philosophy by dedicating Liberalism and Social Action (1935) to her.
What is the legacy of these American intellectual titans? What do their ideas share in common? How are they different? How do their writings and activities support a certain way of living?
What is the legacy of these American intellectual titans? What do their ideas share in common? How are they different? How do their writings and activities support a certain way of living?
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Every so often you might happen upon a story from a teacher-scholar who struggled on the challenging academic job market and eventually gave up, settling for a non-academic career or a plan B outside of the Academy. A parallel phenomenon... more
Every so often you might happen upon a story from a teacher-scholar who struggled on the challenging academic job market and eventually gave up, settling for a non-academic career or a plan B outside of the Academy.
A parallel phenomenon is occurring on a much wider scale: Relatively successful faculty and staff are leaving higher education institutions in droves, seeking employment opportunities in other sectors of the economy. What are the reasons for this exodus? Low morale? Poor institutional leadership? Dissatisfaction with Covid-19 pandemic policies? Poor pay? Offer of better benefits? How can higher ed institutions reverse the flow and retain high valued employees?
A parallel phenomenon is occurring on a much wider scale: Relatively successful faculty and staff are leaving higher education institutions in droves, seeking employment opportunities in other sectors of the economy. What are the reasons for this exodus? Low morale? Poor institutional leadership? Dissatisfaction with Covid-19 pandemic policies? Poor pay? Offer of better benefits? How can higher ed institutions reverse the flow and retain high valued employees?
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If you lived through the second U.S.-Iraq War (2003–2011), you will likely recall Baghdad Bob, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s full-time Information Minister and part-time comedian. Until the bitter end, he predicted that the U.S.... more
If you lived through the second U.S.-Iraq War (2003–2011), you will likely recall Baghdad Bob, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraq’s full-time Information Minister and part-time comedian. Until the bitter end, he predicted that the U.S. invasion of Iraq would fail under its own steam. What made his video press releases humorous was the level of self-delusion: He could look a clear defeat in the face and call it a resounding victory! Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor-comedian, is also fighting an invading force: Russia. He bravely tweets and releases short videos from the capital, Kyiv, which is currently under siege from Russian troops. Zelensky declares that Ukranians will fight for their independence until the bitter end. Zelensky’s communications strike most of us as authentic. He’s a brave man in a harrowing situation, a true patriot who cares for his people. But it must not be forgotten that he is also a trained actor and comedian. He knows how to give a good performance!
Some might be offended by the comparison. Baghdad Bob broadcast blatant lies and propaganda, while Zelensky truthfully reports how he and his fellow citizens will save their nation from Russian aggression. This might be the case. However, many of Baghdad Bob’s predictions — though funny and seemingly false at the time — turned out to be true. Will Zelensky’s predictions of Ukranian victory also be prophetic?
Some might be offended by the comparison. Baghdad Bob broadcast blatant lies and propaganda, while Zelensky truthfully reports how he and his fellow citizens will save their nation from Russian aggression. This might be the case. However, many of Baghdad Bob’s predictions — though funny and seemingly false at the time — turned out to be true. Will Zelensky’s predictions of Ukranian victory also be prophetic?
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In the Dialogues, Plato (429–347 BCE) articulated his Theory of the Forms or Doctrine of Ideas. According to the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, knowledge (episteme) and existence (onto) manifest at two levels: (1) the... more
In the Dialogues, Plato (429–347 BCE) articulated his Theory of the Forms or Doctrine of Ideas. According to the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, knowledge (episteme) and existence (onto) manifest at two levels:
(1) the lower level of sensible experience and
(2) the upper level of cognition or pure reason.
On the lower level, the five senses detect what is unstable and fleeting: the sensations.
On the upper, reason apprehends that which is stable and abiding: the Forms or Ideas.
One of the great mysteries of Plato’s philosophy is whether his Doctrine of Ideas changed over time and, if so, exactly why it changed. For instance, Aristotle noted that Plato came under the spell of “Pythagorean mysticism” and, as a result, mathematized the Theory of the Forms. Different Socratic dialogues present slightly altered or qualified versions of the Doctrine, but no single dialogue offers a major facelift or complete overhaul, let alone a mathematical version of the Doctrine.
The only way to confirm that the Theory transformed over time would be to directly inspect Plato’s lecture notes. But these have been lost in the dustbin of history. So we are left to investigate the constancy of Plato’s Doctrine through a careful examination of the Dialogues, one by one, and then conjecture about the contents of those lost lectures.
(1) the lower level of sensible experience and
(2) the upper level of cognition or pure reason.
On the lower level, the five senses detect what is unstable and fleeting: the sensations.
On the upper, reason apprehends that which is stable and abiding: the Forms or Ideas.
One of the great mysteries of Plato’s philosophy is whether his Doctrine of Ideas changed over time and, if so, exactly why it changed. For instance, Aristotle noted that Plato came under the spell of “Pythagorean mysticism” and, as a result, mathematized the Theory of the Forms. Different Socratic dialogues present slightly altered or qualified versions of the Doctrine, but no single dialogue offers a major facelift or complete overhaul, let alone a mathematical version of the Doctrine.
The only way to confirm that the Theory transformed over time would be to directly inspect Plato’s lecture notes. But these have been lost in the dustbin of history. So we are left to investigate the constancy of Plato’s Doctrine through a careful examination of the Dialogues, one by one, and then conjecture about the contents of those lost lectures.
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The first rule of negotiation is never appear weak. Always negotiate from a position of strength. Never take your most valuable bargaining chip off the table. In the case of the U.S., which has the strongest military in the world, that... more
The first rule of negotiation is never appear weak. Always negotiate from a position of strength. Never take your most valuable bargaining chip off the table. In the case of the U.S., which has the strongest military in the world, that chip is the threat of military action. U.S. President Biden assumed a weak bargaining position when he stated that he would not send troops to Ukraine despite Russia’s imminent invasion. “We have no intention of fighting Russia,” Biden said. Likewise, Obama betrayed his impotence in the face of Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, similar to Biden, when he conceded that he could only impose economic sanctions. In Chloé Valdary’s recent appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, she made a similar point: You don’t respond to a bully by taking the threat of physical violence off the table.
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A controversial figure condemned by many as a war criminal and lauded by others as a foreign policy genius, Henry Kissinger (1923—) has written widely about post-Soviet Russia and its relation to Ukraine. Serving as the U.S. Secretary of... more
A controversial figure condemned by many as a war criminal and lauded by others as a foreign policy genius, Henry Kissinger (1923—) has written widely about post-Soviet Russia and its relation to Ukraine. Serving as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, he is accused of directing a U.S. policy to kill thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians in carpet-bombing campaigns. Hate him or love him, it’s difficult to deny that Kissinger offers unique insight into the often inscrutable subject of International Relations. In light of Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, one particular essay has renewed significance: “To Settle the Ukraine Crisis, Start at the End.” Although Kissinger has been widely recognized as a proponent of Realpolitik (i.e., all nations selfishly act to expand their geopolitical influence), he argues in this essay that the major Eastern and Western powers should leave Ukraine alone. In other words, Russia, Europe and the U.S. ought to stop meddling in Ukrainian affairs.
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In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato (429–347 BC) hinted at his mature Theory of the Forms or Ideas (specifically, that the objects of knowledge are stable and enduring, perfect models or ideals laid up in heaven, to which sensible... more
In the seventh book of the Republic, Plato (429–347 BC) hinted at his mature Theory of the Forms or Ideas (specifically, that the objects of knowledge are stable and enduring, perfect models or ideals laid up in heaven, to which sensible and mutable objects on Earth are but faint copies). Rather than issuing his theory in some grand lecture, Plato shared it by telling a humble story: what is commonly referred to as the ‘Allegory of the Cave.’ (An allegory is a story with a hidden meaning.)
Philosophers who study knowledge (so-called ‘epistemologists’) are quick to claim the Cave Allegory as their own. Many insist that it is a story exclusively about Epistemology, or the theory, scope and methods of knowing. However, other readings of the Allegory have also emerged— for instance, Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (claiming that mass media hides the truth) and Peter Losin’s “Education and Plato’s Parable of the Cave” (suggesting that the story indicates new avenues for teaching and learning). My argument is that in order to preserve this old philosophical story, it helps to demonstrate how it continues to have relevance to our cntemporary circumstances. One way to accomplish this task is to appreciate the Allegory’s implications not just for Epistemology, but also for Education.
Philosophers who study knowledge (so-called ‘epistemologists’) are quick to claim the Cave Allegory as their own. Many insist that it is a story exclusively about Epistemology, or the theory, scope and methods of knowing. However, other readings of the Allegory have also emerged— for instance, Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (claiming that mass media hides the truth) and Peter Losin’s “Education and Plato’s Parable of the Cave” (suggesting that the story indicates new avenues for teaching and learning). My argument is that in order to preserve this old philosophical story, it helps to demonstrate how it continues to have relevance to our cntemporary circumstances. One way to accomplish this task is to appreciate the Allegory’s implications not just for Epistemology, but also for Education.
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The academic job market is highly competitive. After establishing that a candidate meets the minimum qualifications, search committees rarely look for more of the same (e.g. more proof of teaching excellence, more publications, or more... more
The academic job market is highly competitive. After establishing that a candidate meets the minimum qualifications, search committees rarely look for more of the same (e.g. more proof of teaching excellence, more publications, or more degrees). Instead, they search for evidence of ‘fit’.
Fit is an amorphous concept. Indeed, it reflects things like the candidate’s views on diversity and inclusion, their overall vision of higher education, their appreciation of the need to keep current with best pedagogical practices and how they deal with institutional uncertainty and change.
Fit is often invoked in a corporate context through the story of the Northbound Train: Either the candidate’s values align with the corporation’s values (mission and vision) or they don’t; if they don’t (say they point eastward), the candidate won’t be offered a ticket on the Northbound Train (a job in the company); if they do, the ticket is granted (the candidate is hired).
Fit is an amorphous concept. Indeed, it reflects things like the candidate’s views on diversity and inclusion, their overall vision of higher education, their appreciation of the need to keep current with best pedagogical practices and how they deal with institutional uncertainty and change.
Fit is often invoked in a corporate context through the story of the Northbound Train: Either the candidate’s values align with the corporation’s values (mission and vision) or they don’t; if they don’t (say they point eastward), the candidate won’t be offered a ticket on the Northbound Train (a job in the company); if they do, the ticket is granted (the candidate is hired).
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In what I have called the omertà of institutional liars, higher education officers intentionally deceive the public in order to cover up their colleagues’ wrongdoing. They offer a wink and a nod to the ethically questionable activities of... more
In what I have called the omertà of institutional liars, higher education officers intentionally deceive the public in order to cover up their colleagues’ wrongdoing. They offer a wink and a nod to the ethically questionable activities of their fellow administrators and faculty, often with deleterious consequences. The mounting evidence of such arrangements confirms that corruption is widespread within today’s higher ed institutions. These arrangements resemble an an omertà because administrators are bound to each other like a group of criminals, members of a gang or conspiracy, hiding each other’s illicit activities. Similar to members of the mob, they are sworn to secrecy on pain of being harmed or expelled from the club if they reveal the truth. Administrators are institutional liars because they deceive in order to preserve the appearance of supporting institutional mandates — for instance, to uphold standards of academic integrity or pursue Title IX cases — while actually undermining those same mandates.
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Antisthenes (446–366 BCE), a student of Socrates (469–399 B.C.), was the originator of Cynicism. Diogenes (404–323 B.C.) elaborated the ideas of the Cynics, and by association, those of Socrates. However, the notions of the Cynics, while... more
Antisthenes (446–366 BCE), a student of Socrates (469–399 B.C.), was the originator of Cynicism. Diogenes (404–323 B.C.) elaborated the ideas of the Cynics, and by association, those of Socrates. However, the notions of the Cynics, while inspired by Antisthenes’ teacher, were far from identical to Socrates’ doctrines. The genealogical relationship between Socrates and the Cynics is a troubled one. The Cynics twisted the content and meaning of Socrates’ teachings, falsely claiming that they were close relatives. My point is that the Cynics were the original philosophical revisionists.
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The relation between knowledge and virtue was firmly established by the Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 BCE). According to Socrates, the path to happiness is to live a life of virtue, which is simultaneously a life of knowledge.... more
The relation between knowledge and virtue was firmly established by the Greek philosopher Socrates (469–399 BCE). According to Socrates, the path to happiness is to live a life of virtue, which is simultaneously a life of knowledge. Alternatively, a life lacking virtue and knowledge is not worth living. Think about it this way: The virtuous person is one who has knowledge of said virtue. The unvirtuous person is one who is ignorant of said virtue. To be just is to know what justice requires. To be temperate is to have knowledge of how to exercise self-control. On the other hand, an unjust person is wholly ignorant of justice’s demands, just as an intemperate person lacks knowledge of temperance. And so on. Arguably, the legacy of ethical intellectualism is all around us. Socrates’ identification of virtue with knowledge has spawned a cottage industry of popular moralists: clinical therapists such as Dr. Phil, virtue-signaling public figures like Oprah Winfrey, and pseudo-intellectuals such as Jordan Peterson. If virtue is a form of knowledge, then it follows that virtue can be taught. The modern “ethical intellectual” profits from teaching the masses what it means to be a good person. Fans of these popular teachers hope to unlock the secrets to a good life by closely following their ethical teachings. So, are we living in the shadow of Socrates’ doctrine that virtue is a form of knowledge? Or are we beholden to a less rational, more mysterious view, such that virtue is the result of moral intuition or simply a feeling that something is ethically right (or wrong).
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I should begin with a confession: disability ethics is not an area where I normally conduct research. I’m a philosophical pragmatist with a research agenda revolving mainly around issues in social-political philosophy, environmental... more
I should begin with a confession: disability ethics is not an area where I normally conduct research. I’m a philosophical pragmatist with a research agenda revolving mainly around issues in social-political philosophy, environmental philosophy and philosophy of education. For eight years (2009–2017), I was a Philosophy faculty member at a small satellite campus of Penn State University (student population=1300) in Northeastern Pennsylvania. When my research veers towards ethics, it usually centers on environmental, educational and sometimes healthcare policy, but never disability. Indeed, disability ethics was not on my radar until last term when I encountered two disabled students. The experience of working with them transformed the way I viewed disability and educational opportunity. In pragmatist’s language,the problem of how to equalize educational opportunity for the disabled did not really dawn on me until a felt difficulty arose in my own lived experience. So, rather than an analytical piece, this artcile is more of a narrative, describing how my own lived experience as an educator changed my understanding and appreciation of the challenges faced by disabled students, as well as the choices that confront faculty and administrators intent on equalizing educational opportunity for the disabled. What little analysis I do attempt comes out in four themes that I distill from the two narratives. I’m sure that there are more themes that others with more expertise on disability ethics can draw from these narratives.
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I’ve written in the past about a little college on the Western slope of the Colorado Rockies, named Western State College. Despite changing its name to Western Colorado University, the institution has never escaped its reputation as a... more
I’ve written in the past about a little college on the Western slope of the Colorado Rockies, named Western State College. Despite changing its name to Western Colorado University, the institution has never escaped its reputation as a party school, more commonly known as Wasted State College. Not only is the quality of instruction abominably low, but recent news reveals that the institution’s leadership is toxic. The president was tossed and replaced by an alumnus with little or no experience in higher education, and few credentials other than a degree from Wasted State.
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As a follow-up to my article on The Journal of Controversial Ideas and why it might be too controversial for today’s academic set, I decided to submit a manuscript to the journal and see what happened. You might call it an experiment in... more
As a follow-up to my article on The Journal of Controversial Ideas and why it might be too controversial for today’s academic set, I decided to submit a manuscript to the journal and see what happened. You might call it an experiment in applied ethics, testing if the journal lives up to its promise of offering venue for “careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial, in the sense that certain views about them might be regarded by many people as morally, socially, or ideologically objectionable or offensive.”
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John Dewey, the renowned educational philosopher, once wrote, "Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." If he's right, then thoughtful educators should be... more
John Dewey, the renowned educational philosopher, once wrote, "Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." If he's right, then thoughtful educators should be afforded the opportunity to experiment-i.e., to try out new educational materials, course designs and methods of instruction-and, of course, to make mistakes along the way. Students and faculty learn from both curricular successes and failures. If he’s right, then thoughtful educators should be afforded the opportunity to experiment — i.e., to try out new educational materials, course designs and methods of instruction — and, of course, to make mistakes along the way. Students and faculty learn from both curricular successes and failures. Unfortunately, many U.S. states and school districts don’t agree. According to the newfound orthodoxy, teachers shouldn’t experiment with new curricula, methods or materials for fear of falling afoul of the edicts of those with more power than them. The paramount concern among some politicians, parents and school administrators is that race-related issues are being taught in the wrong way. Instead of experimenting, teachers are expected to teach as they are instructed from above. No ands, ifs or buts about it. Teaching about race has become a political football. As a result, a big chill has descended on faculty experimentation.
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Most of us are familiar with the mature Socrates (470–399 B.C.), the renowned Greek philosopher and the main character in his student Plato’s many works. Plato produced a series of written dialogues, documenting conversations between his... more
Most of us are familiar with the mature Socrates (470–399 B.C.), the renowned Greek philosopher and the main character in his student Plato’s many works. Plato produced a series of written dialogues, documenting conversations between his teacher Socrates and purported experts of the time. These performances demonstrate how Philosophy emerged in the ancient world. The early dialogues (e.g., Apology, Crito, Protagoras) are believed to record Socrates’ actual teachings (so that they are sometimes referred to as the ‘Socratic dialogues’). His later dialogues (e.g., Republic, Theatetus, Timaeus), on the other hand, put Plato’s doctrines in Socrates’ mouth (for instance, Plato’s theory of the Forms).
Socrates, a barefooted, simply dressed man, traveled the countryside engaging any and all supposed authorities on a number of subjects. He questioned the Sophists, religious gurus and political leaders. He interrogated their strongest beliefs, similar to how a gadfly irritates a horse. He scrutinized their opinions with the intention of revealing hidden truths behind false appearances. In his quest for truth, he was only certain of one thing: namely, that he was entirely ignorant or knew nothing. But what is known of the young Socrates? How did the boy become a man? What failures inspired him? Which attributes of the Athenian citizen-soldier and family man survived during his transformation into the wisest of Western civilization’s philosophers?
Socrates, a barefooted, simply dressed man, traveled the countryside engaging any and all supposed authorities on a number of subjects. He questioned the Sophists, religious gurus and political leaders. He interrogated their strongest beliefs, similar to how a gadfly irritates a horse. He scrutinized their opinions with the intention of revealing hidden truths behind false appearances. In his quest for truth, he was only certain of one thing: namely, that he was entirely ignorant or knew nothing. But what is known of the young Socrates? How did the boy become a man? What failures inspired him? Which attributes of the Athenian citizen-soldier and family man survived during his transformation into the wisest of Western civilization’s philosophers?
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It is widely believed that we live in a post-Truth era, and this era was anticipated by a group of itinerant teachers in ancient Greece: the Sophists. The term ‘sophistry’ means making the worse argument appear the better; persuading... more
It is widely believed that we live in a post-Truth era, and this era was anticipated by a group of itinerant teachers in ancient Greece: the Sophists. The term ‘sophistry’ means making the worse argument appear the better; persuading through clever arrangements of words; and sacrificing the pursuit of truth on the altar of politically expedient bullshit. Should we blame the Sophists for our current predicament, whereby the truth means so little and success so much? Several Platonic dialogues record Socrates’ interactions with Sophists. So, perhaps their value to ancient Greek society is understated.
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‘Ghosting’ or the unethical practice of having someone other than the student registered in the course taking the student’s exams, completing their assignments, and writing their essays has become a common method of cheating in today’s... more
‘Ghosting’ or the unethical practice of having someone other than the student registered in the course taking the student’s exams, completing their assignments, and writing their essays has become a common method of cheating in today’s online higher education learning environment. Internet-based teaching technology and deceit go hand-in-hand because the technology establishes a set of perverse incentives for students to cheat and institutions to either tolerate or encourage this highly unethical form of behavior. In addition, online divisions of major universities and their administrators are highly invested in schemes that incentivize and normalize student cheating, as well as duping external stakeholders into falsely believing that academic dishonesty policies are strictly enforced.
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In this short and highly readable monograph, the author aims to answer the question of why humans construct moral orders grounded upon natural orders, deriving normative authority from divine or otherwise non-anthropomorphic sources in... more
In this short and highly readable monograph, the author aims to answer the question of why humans construct moral orders grounded upon natural orders, deriving normative authority from divine or otherwise non-anthropomorphic sources in nature.
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Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) wore many hats during his lifetime: playwright, biographer, novelist, literary critic, political activist and, of course, existentialist philosopher. In The Existentialist Moment, sociologist Patrick Baert... more
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) wore many hats during his lifetime: playwright, biographer, novelist, literary critic, political activist and, of course, existentialist philosopher. In The Existentialist Moment, sociologist Patrick Baert explores another of Sartre’s roles: public intellectual. Sartre’s stardom and existentialism’s popularity grew and peaked in the post-war years, between 1944 and 1947—a period Baert describes as ‘the existentialist moment’—and then went into significant decline, especially from the 1960s onwards. Besides exploring Sartre’s biography as a public intellectual, Baert’s broader project is to understand public intellectualism as a sociological phenomenon. Although Sartre never held an academic post, his ideas initially gained favor among the Parisian literary and educated elite, including the professoriate. So the question arises: How do philosophical notions filter their way from intramural academic discussions into the wider currents of public discourse? In Baert’s words, ‘under which conditions [are] ideas … likely to spread from the intra- to the public intellectual arena’ (16)? The book is organized into seven chapters: the first on the intellectual collaboration and resistance to the German occupation of France in 1940-4; the second on the purges of French intellectuals who collaborated with the Germans during 1944-5; the third on how the intellectual landscape or zeitgeist changed with the purges; the fourth on the emergence of existentialism in fall 1945 and extending into 1946; the fifth on how Sartre cemented his role as a public intellectual in 1946-7; the sixth offers an explanatory framework for Sartre’s rise and decline as a public intellectual; and the seventh shows how the framework helps us understand the career trajectories of other public intellectuals.
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Originally published in 1927, John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems is a landmark work in pragmatist political philosophy. Today many commentators appreciate it as the mature expression of the American pragmatist’s democratic theory... more
Originally published in 1927, John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems is a landmark work in pragmatist political philosophy. Today many commentators appreciate it as the mature expression of the American pragmatist’s democratic theory (though at least two later essays are perhaps more representative). It is also considered a classic text for students of twentieth-century American political thought. The book was originally a series of lectures given at Kenyon College in 1926. Many of its central ideas grew out of debate Dewey had with a fellow public intellectual, Walter Lippmann. Besides its inclusion in the collected works (1996, edited by Larry Hickman), the only other edition to be released was by Swallow Press in 1954, containing Dewey’s half-page foreword (1927) and his twelve-page afterword (1946). With the arrival of Penn State Press’ new edition, introduced and edited by Melvin L. Rogers, The Public and Its Problems receives a monumental facelift. It includes a chronology of Dewey’s life events, an editorial note, and Rogers’ introduction to the work, subtitled ‘Revisiting the Public and Its Problems’.
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Although ambitious tracts in political philosophy are fairly common, those in which the author carries through with the project’s aims – for instance, John Rawls’s a A Theory of Justice, Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom and John... more
Although ambitious tracts in political philosophy are fairly common, those in which the author carries through with the project’s aims – for instance, John Rawls’s a A Theory of Justice, Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom and John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems – are all too rare. Johnson and Knight’s new book on democratic politics and institutional design promises much, but the question is whether, in the end, it delivers. The central argument of the book is that democracy proves superior to, or should have priority over, other governing mechanisms when choosing and monitoring highly effective political institutions.
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In the past twenty years, scholarly interest in John Dewey's later writings has surged. While later works such as Art as Experience (1934), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), and Freedom and Culture (1939) have received considerable... more
In the past twenty years, scholarly interest in John Dewey's later writings has surged. While later works such as Art as Experience (1934), Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (1938), and Freedom and Culture (1939) have received considerable attention, Knowing and the Known (1949), Dewey's late-in-life collaboration with Arthur F. Bentley, has been largely neglected. A common bias among Dewey scholars is that this work, instead of developing Dewey's Logic, departs from its spirit, reflects the overbearing influence of Bentley on Dewey (who was at the time an octogenarian), and, therefore, merits little serious scholarly consideration. However, Dewey and Bentley engaged in an extended correspondence, collected in John Dewey and Arthur Bentley: A Philosophical Correspondence, 1932-1951 (1964), the result of which was no less than a watershed moment in Dewey's thinking on the experimental method of inquiry. The Logic was improved in ways that incorporated the insights of Charles Sanders Peirce's logic and developed Dewey's earlier work in a direction expressly intended by the aging pragmatist. Indeed, Dewey writes in correspondence with his co-author: "You [Bentley] shouldn't lean too heavily on the [1938] Logic; it wasn't a bad job at the time, but I could do better now [with Knowing and the Known]; largely through association with you and getting the courage to see my thing [logical theory] through without compromise" (Correspondence, 4:595, see also 184, 420, 481, 483-84). One of the few scholars of American pragmatism to acknowledge that Knowing and the Known was a watershed development in Dewey's thinking is Frank X. Ryan, author of an exciting new book, Seeing Together: Mind, Matter, and the Experimental Outlook of John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley, that clearly and concisely presents the revolutionary method developed in Knowing and Known: the transactional approach.
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John McGowan is a prolific humanities scholar whose writings engage topical issues in political philosophy, literary criticism and rhetorical studies. In Pragmatist Politics, American liberal democracy and its contentious philosophical... more
John McGowan is a prolific humanities scholar whose writings engage topical issues in political philosophy, literary criticism and rhetorical studies. In Pragmatist Politics, American liberal democracy and its contentious philosophical commitments are his chosen subject-matter for a second time. What distinguishes this recent treatment from the one previous—aptly titled American Liberalism (University of North Carolina Press 2007)—is its more thorough grounding in the homegrown American philosophy known as pragmatism. In the introduction, McGowan announces the primary aim of his project: ‘Pragmatism, a philosophy of possibility tied to a commitment to liberal democracy, provides me with the opportunity to articulate in these pages a more expansive vision of what our polity might be’ (xii). Besides ‘a more expansive vision,’ the author catalogues those challenges that the American polity faces today, from culture wars to environmental crises, from wars on drugs and terrorism to the failings in the policy agendas of both the political right and left. So, the question arises: What makes American liberalism capable of ameliorating, if not settling, seemingly intractable policy problems without sacrificing citizens’ effective freedom? The author provides an answer to this question in five chapters, the majority of which can be found in the initial three: the first, ‘The Philosophy of Possibility,’ explores American pragmatism’s potential as a resource in the fight against ideological extremism; the second, ‘Is Progress Possible?’ addresses how hope and progress shape a political environment in continual flux; the third, ‘The Democratic Ethos,’ speaks to the way of life that democracy engenders; and the final two chapters, titled ‘Human Rights’ and ‘Liberal Democracy as Secular Comedy,’ treat the topics of how to alleviate human suffering and bring a healthy dose of humor to the tragedy of liberal politics, respectively.
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It is no secret that disputes between philosophers working in separate traditions do arise, especially along the analytic-continental fault line. Flashes of disagreement between analytic philosophers and pragmatists have also been... more
It is no secret that disputes between philosophers working in separate traditions do arise, especially along the analytic-continental fault line. Flashes of disagreement between analytic philosophers and pragmatists have also been witnessed in recent years. Many analytic philosophers allege that pragmatism lacks logical rigor or contains a naïve theory of truth (i.e., what is useful is true). Some pragmatists contend that analytic philosophy fails to address practical issues—what John Dewey called ‘the problems of men’—and endorses a faulty fact-value dichotomy. Many of these disagreements reflect mistaken views on both sides of the analytic-pragmatist divide, views that could easily be corrected through more open dialogue across the two traditions. Since at least the mid-twentieth century, analytic philosophers and pragmatists have reached out to each other in an effort to bridge the divide. When the founders of the analytic tradition, the logical positivists, immigrated from Austria and Germany to the United States during World War II, the stage was set for greater collaboration. Indeed, the logical positivist Otto Neurath invited the American pragmatist John Dewey to contribute to the Encyclopedia of Unified Sciences. This collaborative spirit finds expression in the present collection of essays. According to the editor, ‘(t)his volume aims to clarify the most recent developments in this process (of collaboration), focusing on the key theoretical issues in the revival of salient themes in the classic tradition of American philosophy within the context of analytical thought’ (xi).
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Environmental historian Kevin Armitage’s new book offers welcome relief to readers grown weary of anthropocentrism versus nonanthropecentrism debates and Muir-Pinchot-Leopold “third way” arguments. It will also find a receptive audience... more
Environmental historian Kevin Armitage’s new book offers welcome relief to readers grown weary of anthropocentrism versus nonanthropecentrism debates and Muir-Pinchot-Leopold “third way” arguments. It will also find a receptive audience among those who have maintained all along that education is the key to addressing our environmental woes. In the United States, environmental education has a vibrant history. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, a critical mass of policy makers, educators, scientists, and philosophers shared the belief that a curriculum based on the careful observation and study of nature should be taught in primary and secondary school classrooms. The “nature study movement,” as it was called, advanced an ambitious agenda for education reform based on a simple theory: children who develop a deep and abiding interest in the natural world mature into environmentally conscious adults and good citizens. Organized thematically, Armitage’s book lays out the meaning of nature study as well as its scientific and sentimental interpretations (introduction and chap. 1), the influence of progressive education on nature study (chap. 2), the connection between recapitulation theory and nature study (chap. 3), nature study and bird conservation (chap. 4), school gardening as an extension of nature study (chap. 5), the growth of nature photography in tandem with nature study (chap. 6), and finally nature study’s role in promoting agricultural reform (chap. 7). In case the significance of this progressive-era movement is still in doubt, the movement’s legacy can still be felt, Armitage contends, in the ideas of perhaps two of the most influential environmental thinkers of the past century: Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson (conclusion).
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The distinctive trait of this newest addition to Joseph Margolis’ magnificent oeuvre of thirty books is its broad-ranging and highly partisan approach to evaluating contemporary trends in Western philosophy. The book is divided into three... more
The distinctive trait of this newest addition to Joseph Margolis’ magnificent oeuvre of thirty books is its broad-ranging and highly partisan approach to evaluating contemporary trends in Western philosophy. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 addresses the trifecta of competing philosophical traditions: pragmatism, continental philosophy and analytic philosophy. Based on the book’s title, the reader can easily forecast the winner: pragmatism. Margolis directs Part 2 to the goal of reclaiming naturalism as an antidote to the ailments of all three philosophical traditions. Part 3 concerns the enduring challenge that Immanuel Kant’s model of transcendental reason and G. W. F. Hegel’s subsequent critique pose to contemporary philosophy. The book’s thesis is that pragmatism has lost its distinctly American quality. In its more recent incarnations, pragmatism (or neopragmatism) has been continually cross-pollinated with elements in the continental and analytic traditions. Moreover, this open-ended capacity for hybridization is what constitutes pragmatism’s advantage.
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Jason Frank's book can be situated in this second wave. Similar to other agonistic theorists, he focuses on the affective, aesthetic, and strategic dimensions of politics, while assuming that conflict and struggle are inevitable features... more
Jason Frank's book can be situated in this second wave. Similar to other agonistic theorists, he focuses on the affective, aesthetic, and strategic dimensions of politics, while assuming that conflict and struggle are inevitable features of political experience.
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This new book by Nathan Crick explores the integral relationship between philosophical pragmatism and rhetoric. Unlike Robert Danisch’s earlier work on the topic, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric (University of South... more
This new book by Nathan Crick explores the integral relationship between philosophical pragmatism and rhetoric. Unlike Robert Danisch’s earlier work on the topic, Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric (University of South Carolina Press 2007), Crick’s project focuses almost exclusively on the rhetorical resources found in John Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy. To trace the connections between pragmatism and rhetoric, the first obstacle the author must overcome is the time-honored tradition whereby philosophers denigrate rhetoric or sophistry because it deals only with appearance and persuasion, not with truth and knowledge. The second is that Dewey wrote very little about rhetoric per se, even though he highlighted the importance of communication to democracy in The Public and Its Problems (1927) and praised eloquence in Art as Experience (1940). Still, sparking a conversation between scholars of rhetorical studies and philosophical pragmatism, particularly Dewey’s version, is among the most significant goals of the work. ‘In fact’, Crick writes in the introduction, ‘one of the core arguments of this book is that it is only by bringing rhetoric to Dewey, and by creating something new through transaction, that we can produce a novel perspective on the arts of rhetoric and of democracy’ (10). The work is organized into three main sections: i) on rhetoric and politics, ii) on rhetoric and science and iii) on rhetoric and art.
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As the title suggests, this collection addresses the very topical subject matter of environmental ethics by bringing together a host of unique voices. In the editor’s words, ‘[t]he essays collected here represent a joint effort in dealing... more
As the title suggests, this collection addresses the very topical subject matter of environmental ethics by bringing together a host of unique voices. In the editor’s words, ‘[t]he essays collected here represent a joint effort in dealing with this problem [of global environmental conservation and protection]. All contributors to this volume agree that what we urgently need now is global awareness of the environmental crisis we are facing’ (9). While a thread of consensus weaves throughout, what is more striking is the diverse and colorful tapestry of approaches these essays yield on a single theme. The first four essays articulate the ethical injunction to conserve and protect the natural environment in terms of various axiological and methodological commitments: normative, biocentric, aesthetic and empirical. In the final five essays, the thematic emphasis shifts ever so slightly. A plurality of perspectives on environmental conservation and protection emerges from different theological commitments, at times reflecting and at other times transcending individual—Christian/Western, Islamic/Middle Eastern, Buddhist/Eastern, and (in the final two essays) Daoist/Eastern—cultures.
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H. L. A. Hart’s (1907-1992) influence on contemporary philosophy is not restricted to the philosophy of law. As the book’s sub-title suggests and the table of contents confirm, he wrote widely on matters social, political and moral, not... more
H. L. A. Hart’s (1907-1992) influence on contemporary philosophy is not restricted to the philosophy of law. As the book’s sub-title suggests and the table of contents confirm, he wrote widely on matters social, political and moral, not just legal. Probably best known for The Concept of Law (1961), Hart also authored a collection of essays on Jeremy Bentham (Essays on Bentham,1982), two books on the morality of criminal law based on his exchange with Lord Patrick Devlin (Law, Liberty and Morality, 1963) and The Morality of the Criminal Law, 1965), one on punishment (Punishment and Responsibility, 1968), a treatise as well as a collection of essays on jurisprudential theory (Definition and Theory in Jurisprudence, 1953, and Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, 1983), and finally a volume on legal causation, co-authored with Tony Honoré (Causation in the Law, 1959). The book under review here, on Hart’s legacy, is divided into six sections: the first is devoted to Hart’s general jurisprudential theory; the second to his writings on criminal law; the third to legal causation; the fourth to concerns of justice; the fifth to legal, political and moral rights; and the sixth and final section to matters of toleration and liberalism.
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Environmental studies is a highly interdisciplinary field of inquiry, involving philosophers, ecologists, biologists, sociologists, activists, historians and professionals in public and private environmental organizations. It comes with... more
Environmental studies is a highly interdisciplinary field of inquiry, involving philosophers, ecologists, biologists, sociologists, activists, historians and professionals in public and private environmental organizations. It comes with no surprise, then, that the follow-up to Nelson and Callicott’s original anthology The Great Wilderness Debate (1998) features essays from authors in a broad array of disciplines. While there is considerable overlap between the two volumes, this new version offers forty-one essays, five of which are new additions, organized into four sections. What constitutes wilderness? Is wilderness real or social constructed? What kinds of values are served—recreational, aesthetic, scientific, or others—by protecting wild areas? While many commentators trace these questions back to an exchange in the 1990s between two environmental ethicists, J. Baird Callicott and Holmes Rolston III, the debate over the wilderness idea actually has older roots. At least in the U.S. context, it travels back in time to the earliest part of the twentieth-century, when the American public, politicians and ecologists were pressed to justify why wilderness areas should be set aside in a new National Park system. Since then, the fundamental question fuelling the ‘Great Wilderness Debate’ is whether what is being preserved is actually wilderness. Is there such a thing or place as wilderness, that is, a quintessentially non-human or wild setting untainted by human influence? If so, why do we believe such areas deserve protection?
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When Dewey scholars and educational theorists appeal to the value of educative growth, what exactly do they mean? Is an individual's growth contingent on receiving a formal education? Is growth too abstract a goal for educators to pursue?... more
When Dewey scholars and educational theorists appeal to the value of educative growth, what exactly do they mean? Is an individual's growth contingent on receiving a formal education? Is growth too abstract a goal for educators to pursue? Richard Rorty contended that the request for a “criterion of growth” is a mistake made by John Dewey's “conservative critics,” for it unnecessarily restricts the future “down to the size of the present.” Nonetheless, educational practitioners inspired by Dewey's educational writings may ask Dewey scholars and educational theorists, “How do I facilitate growth in my classroom?” Here Shane Ralston asserts, in spite of Rorty's argument, that searching for a more concrete standard of Deweyan growth is perfectly legitimate. In this essay, Ralston reviews four recent books on Dewey's educational philosophy—Naoko Saito's The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson, Stephen Fishman and Lucille McCarthy's John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope, and James Scott Johnston's Inquiry and Education: John Dewey and the Quest for Democracy and Deweyan Inquiry: From Educational Theory to Practice—and through his analysis identifies some possible ways for Dewey-inspired educators to make growth a more practical pedagogical ideal.
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According to Leo Strauss, the proper approach to interpreting a philosophical text is one that ‘‘understands the thought of a philosopher exactly as he understood it himself’’ (1966, 66). Strauss’s insight should not be treated lightly.... more
According to Leo Strauss, the proper approach to interpreting a philosophical text is one that ‘‘understands the thought of a philosopher exactly as he understood it himself’’ (1966, 66). Strauss’s insight should not be treated lightly. As a regulative ideal, appreciation of authorial intention ought to inform every scholar’s struggle to capture a text’s genuine meaning. Melvin Rogers’s new book on the religious and political ideas of John Dewey is also a struggle at scholarly exegesis, an ambitious attempt to reveal dimensions of the American Pragmatist’s philosophy that were, up until now, (as the title suggests) undiscovered. The book is organized into five chapters: (1) ‘‘a stylized intellectual history’’ (15), (2) an argument that Dewey’s theories of action and inquiry are modified extensions of Aristotelian categories, (2) an interpretation of A Common Faith that closely allies Dewey and the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, (4) an account of Dewey’s theory of moral deliberation that makes it suitable for addressing more contemporary debates concerning pluralism and ethnic-religious conflict and (v) an exegesis of Dewey’s democratic vision as a method for managing power relations.
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What makes serious scholarship in this area especially daunting is that there is no single authoritative statement of Dewey’s ethics. Indeed, the puzzle pieces of Dewey’s ethical theory are distributed throughout the 37 volumes of his... more
What makes serious scholarship in this area especially daunting is that there is no single authoritative statement of Dewey’s ethics. Indeed, the puzzle pieces of Dewey’s ethical theory are distributed throughout the 37 volumes of his collected works (The Collected Works of John Dewey 1882–1953, Early, Middle and Later Works, edited by Jo Ann Boydston, Southern Illinois University Press, 1967–1987, hereafter CW). Pappas assures his readers that a cohesive account of Dewey’s ethics is not a mirage: ‘Even though Dewey never wrote a single comprehensive and definitive rendition of his moral thought, he had a coherent and complex view worth reconstructing and reconsidering today’ (p. 300). The book is organized into three thematic sections: (i) the metaethics or what Pappas calls ‘the methodological commitments that form the basis of Dewey’s reconstruction of moral theory’ (p. 301), (ii) the metaphysics of Dewey’s ethics or those generic traits that pervade morally problematic situations and (iii) the normative ethics, extending to Dewey’s democratic ideal and its justification within experience.
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This collection is a contribution to the growing scholarship in the humanities and social sciences devoted to the normative dimension of global climate change.
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Johnston contributes to the existing body of Dewey scholarship in at least two important respects.
This collection stands out from what has come to resemble a cottage industry of volumes on global democracy and cosmopolitanism. Tan and Whalen-Bridge’s collection has the distinction of exploring whether Deweyan democracy, or the account... more
This collection stands out from what has come to resemble a cottage industry of volumes on global democracy and cosmopolitanism. Tan and Whalen-Bridge’s collection has the distinction of exploring whether Deweyan democracy, or the account of democracy inspired by Dewey’s writings and embraced by contemporary Deweyans, can be disseminated globally and across diverse cultures. According to the collection’s editors, the eleven essays share a single approach: ‘By examining the implications for conceiving of democracy as culture, rather than as something that precedes or follows from cultural formations, the essays in this volume consider Dewey’s adumbrations of democracy as one face of globalization’ (1). Since the volume is dedicated to the late Richard Rorty, it is unsurprising that the relevance of Rorty’s neopragmatism to Dewey’s pragmatism also emerges in several of the essays.
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Despite Jon Elster’s caveat that the market potentially endangers the forum, Goodin insists that commercial innovations, such as the focus group and the market test, would actually strengthen democracy and citizen engagement. His thesis... more
Despite Jon Elster’s caveat that the market potentially endangers the forum, Goodin insists that commercial innovations, such as the focus group and the market test, would actually strengthen democracy and citizen engagement. His thesis in this book is that governments should task members of smallscale deliberative bodies — or what he calls, in the singular, a ‘micro-public’, and what Robert Dahl before him termed a ‘mini-populus’ — to experiment with alternative solutions to public problems. While the book is a collection of previously published essays, many are extensively altered and rewritten to support this thesis and to round out a literature that has recently become increasingly oriented toward deliberative practice. Indeed, Goodin is more circumspect than some of the less praxis-focused deliberative theorists — for instance, Jürgen Habermas — concerning the capacity of deliberative forums to displace traditional democratic institutions: ‘Inevitably . . . deliberative democracy can only supplement rather than supplant the institutional apparatus of representative democracy as we know it’ (7-8). The book is organized into two sections, one concerning the design and function of small-scale deliberative bodies or micro-publics, and the other devoted to deliberative activities in macro-political institutions, including the translation of micro-public recommendations into sound public policy (what is often called ‘uptake’).
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Houston's thesis is that Franklin's ideas concerning these five matters gravitate around a central theme of improvement.
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In this volume of essays, each chapter flows together so seamlessly that the whole could easily be mistaken for a single monograph.
With Spanish the third most widely spoken language in the world, one would expect more Spanish translations of important texts in American philosophy. Given the recent publication of a Spanish translation of The Public and Its Problems... more
With Spanish the third most widely spoken language in the world, one would expect more Spanish translations of important texts in American philosophy. Given the recent publication of a Spanish translation of The Public and Its Problems (1927), more people have access to John Dewey’s ideas about democracy than ever before. A broader readership might bring greater inclusivity to the existing debate over the significance of Dewey’s legacy for democratic theory. For the past few years, this debate has raged almost exclusively between English-speaking scholars. Many have responded to the arguments of Richard Posner, the law professor and Circuit Court judge who delivered a scathing critique of Dewey’s legacy in his book Law, Pragmatism and Democracy (2003). Even if new readers of The Public and Its Problems fail to join the debate, they will at least be better equipped to evaluate Posner’s arguments with some appreciation for the object of his criticism. Hopefully they will come to acknowledge Dewey’s contribution as a vital thread in the tapestry of thought making up contemporary currents in democratic theory—currents that University of Toronto professor Frank Cunningham collectively labels “democratic pragmatism.” See his Theories of Democracy (Routledge, 2002). Ramon Del Castillo’s introduction to the translation captures the rich context of Dewey’s work on democratic theory. It places the book in the proper historical milieu, 1920s America at the time of the height and decline of American Progressivism. It also juxtaposes The Public and Its Problems against Lippmann’s two earlier works, Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925).
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In this volume of papers, each author's contribution might be compared to a small riptide in what Larry Hickman describes in toto as "a kind of sea change in Dewey studies.""
Why do average Americans recall the wise words of their politicians (e.g., John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you. . .”) but forget those of their political philosophers (e.g., John Rawls’s two principles of justice)?... more
Why do average Americans recall the wise words of their politicians (e.g., John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you. . .”) but forget those of their political philosophers (e.g., John Rawls’s two principles of justice)? Notably absent from Sandel’s list is Benjamin Franklin, the author, printer, scientist, and statesman who led the United States through a tumultuous period of colonial politics, a revolutionary war, and its momentous, though no less precarious, founding as a nation. Lorraine Smith Pangle’s new book on Franklin seeks to remedy another glaring omission, namely, “that while so much attention has been paid to Franklin’s life, so little has hitherto been given to his political thought."
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Jopling highlights three theories of philosophical psychology.
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The general aim of this study is to revive the analysis of language in legal theory by reevaluating Ronald Dworkin’s critique of Herbert Hart’s “open texture” argument. The specific aims of this study fall into two categories: (1)... more
The general aim of this study is to revive the analysis of language in legal theory by reevaluating Ronald Dworkin’s critique of Herbert Hart’s “open texture” argument. The specific aims of this study fall into two categories: (1) expository and (2) analytic. The expository aims are: first to show how the semantics-pragmatics distinction applies to legal theory; second, to sketch Hart’s theory, its influences and his argument that difficult legal cases arise from vagueness or open texture in legal language; and, three, to describe Dworkin’s criticisms of Hart and the legal positivists’ “semantic” theories. The analytic aims are: one, to partially defend Hart’s theory by proving that some difficult legal cases do reduce to disagreements over how to clarify language; two, to reveal the weakness of Dworkin’s critique by demonstrating that Hart’s theory is not thoroughly semantic in character, and, three, to effectively blur the distinction between semantics and pragmatics.
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Pennsylvania State University is a public, state‐related research university with a flagship or main campus as well as nineteen satellite campuses collectively referred to as the Commonwealth. Penn State has a policy of pay secrecy,... more
Pennsylvania State University is a public, state‐related research university with a flagship or main campus as well as nineteen satellite campuses collectively referred to as the Commonwealth. Penn State has a policy of pay secrecy, meaning that it does not publicly disclose the wages and salaries of its thousands of employees, with the exception of its top‐most earners. This action research project explores the reasons for and the consequences of this policy, especially as they affect employees at Penn State’s Commonwealth campuses. The researcher has conducted a survey of employees at the nineteen satellite campuses, sharing some standardized reasons for and against pay secrecy and asking a series of questions about how respondents think the policy affects them, Penn State’s organizational culture, its ability to retain top talent, transparency, ethics and pay equity. With the results, the researcher proposes a way in which Penn State might address the concerns of Commonwealth campus employees with the policy of pay secrecy and create a more inclusive, transparent and ethical culture at Penn State. The researcher’s recommended solution is to conduct an education/deliberation/outreach campaign at Penn State on pay secrecy and its ethical implications. Benefits and costs are assessed and a roadmap for the future is proposed.
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This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy,... more
This dissertation addresses a debate about the proper relationship between democratic theory and institutions. The debate has been waged between two rival approaches: on the one side is an aggregative and economic theory of democracy, known as constitutional economics, and on the other side is deliberative democracy. The two sides endorse starkly different positions on the issue of what makes a democracy legitimate and stable within an institutional setting. Constitutional economists model political agents in the same way that neoclassical economists model economic agents, that is, as self-regarding, rational maximizers; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and stability depend on the extent to which the design of institutional rules and practices maximize individual utility by promoting efficient schemes of collective choice. Deliberative democrats, on the other hand, understand political agents as communicative reason-giving subjects who justify their preferences and positions on issues that jointly affect them in a process of consensus-directed discourse, or deliberation; so that evaluations of democratic legitimacy and order depend on the degree to which institutional norms and practices promote deliberation and draw upon deliberated public judgment. I argue that despite the numerous incompatibilities between constitutional economics and deliberative democracy—which amount to a 'deep divide'—an opportunity to produce a genuine synthesis of the two approaches arises inasmuch as it is possible to overcome several points of opposition in their separate research programmes. The central thesis of the dissertation is that it is possible to construct a bridge spanning the divide between constitutional economists and deliberative democrats, and that Dewey and Bentley's transactional view can facilitate this bridge-building project. Pursuant to this end, the points of opposition between the v research programmes are mediated by way of five concepts which, on balance, favor deliberative democracy and its feasible institutionalization. In charting a transactional middle way between the two programmes, deliberative institutional designers should be empowered to achieve two objectives: (i) to integrate deliberative practices into new and existing democratic institutions and (ii) to heed the critical insights and caveats of constitutional economists, who have identified genuine limitations to realizing the deliberative ideal in modern constitutional democracies.
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In the past decade, scholarly interest in the public choice approach to studying politics has waned as critiques similar in tone and message to Steven Kelman's mounted. Public choice critics contend that assuming political actors behave... more
In the past decade, scholarly interest in the public choice approach to studying politics has waned as critiques similar in tone and message to Steven Kelman's mounted. Public choice critics contend that assuming political actors behave as rationally self-interested agents is a fundamentally flawed strategy because of its unrealism and incompatibility with a vision of politics as a noble, public-spirited and humanistic endeavor. Consequently, such luminaries as James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Geoffrey Brennan, and Victor Vanberg have found fewer and fewer allies outside of their own research program and the public choice paradigm. By surrendering all pretense of humanism, the detractors argue, the public choice approach to political inquiry has lost its way. Likewise, Vincent Ostrom's defense of a democratic conception of public administration from a public choice perspective, particularly in his The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, has lost much of its appeal among mainstream public administration scholars. If we take the public choice critics at their word, then Ostrom's approach has forsaken what Louis C. Gawthrop called " the human side of public administration. " In this essay, I argue that, to the contrary, the loss of scholarly interest in a public choice approach to the study of public administration is unfortunate and undeserved.
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Presentation on Deweyan Pragmatism and Institutionalizing Justice under Transitional Circumstances
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Presentation for the 2017 John Dewey and Critical Philosophies for Critical Political Times conferences in Dublin, Ireland
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Management theories abound. However, theories that truly help organizations manage, adapt and excel in the face of monumental change are needed now more than ever. Any executive leader who witnesses organizational crisis, such as a major... more
Management theories abound. However, theories that truly help organizations manage, adapt and excel in the face of monumental change are needed now more than ever. Any executive leader who witnesses organizational crisis, such as a major product recall, a shortage of human talent or the loss of competitive market share, will tell you that an organization’s survival and success require that it “turns on a dime,” quickly planning for change and effectively meeting its challenges. Change management (or CM) signifies both the theory and the practice of transforming organizations in order to adapt and thrive in a dynamic environment, as well as the study of how individuals within changing organizations cope. The paper is organized into five sections. In the first section, I offer a brief history of CM’s development from the 1960s to the present. The second section provides a survey of CM theories, models and frameworks. The third section outlines some critical responses to CM. The fourth section presents a case study in how organizational change generates corruption and its normalization: Penn State University’s failed attempt to adapt to change in the wake of the Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. I hypothesize that the reasons for this failure were executive leadership’s overreliance on top-down control (for instance, presidential calls for civility), the administration’s unwillingness to modify ethics-related human resource policies (for instance, pay secrecy) and, finally, the strategic decision to implement two new programs, one in the area of ethics and compliance and the other in employee training and development (viz. external reporting procedures and mandatory employee child abuse training), but to leave intact the organization’s culture of secrecy and silence. Unfortunately, the mainstream models of CM—most of which, as Cotter notes, seek only “to minimize the distractions and impacts of the change”—cannot advise an alternative course of action, or at least not one that would have saved Penn State from its path-dependent course towards a breakdown in its normative control system. In the last section, I recommend a more pragmatic approach to managing organizational change that starts with openness and transparency, so that large-scale organizational change does not have the unintended effect of fostering and normalizing organizational corruption.
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The American philosopher John Dewey is probably best known for his contributions to educational philosophy, though his writings on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and value theory are for the most part equally impressive. Before and... more
The American philosopher John Dewey is probably best known for his contributions to educational philosophy, though his writings on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and value theory are for the most part equally impressive. Before and after his death in 1952, he was lauded as “America’s philosopher” and “a public intellectual for the twentieth century.” During the early 1920s, to call Dewey an internationalist would be to state the obvious. He had traveled to Japan, Russia, Mexico, Turkey and China. Of all these places, he stayed in China the longest—two years and two months (May 1919 to July 1921)—and wrote the most about his experiences there. Unfortunately, too much of the extent literature speaks to how Dewey influenced China. What I would like to focus on in this brief paper is how China changed Dewey. But before attempting this project it helps to explicate how Dewey conceived experience—to paint a picture of his so-called “metaphysics of experience”—in order to then appreciate how he conceived his own China experience.
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Pennsylvania State University is a public, state-related research university with a flagship or main campus as well as nineteen satellite campuses collectively referred to as the Commonwealth. Penn State has a policy of pay secrecy,... more
Pennsylvania State University is a public, state-related research university with a flagship or main campus as well as nineteen satellite campuses collectively referred to as the Commonwealth. Penn State has a policy of pay secrecy, meaning that it does not publicly disclose the wages and salaries of its thousands of employees, with the exception of its top-most earners. This action research project explores the reasons for and the consequences of this policy, especially as they affect employees at Penn State’s Commonwealth campuses. The researcher has conducted a survey of employees at the nineteen satellite campuses, sharing some standardized reasons for and against pay secrecy and asking a series of questions about how respondents think the policy affects them, Penn State’s organizational culture, its ability to retain top talent, transparency, ethics and pay equity. With the results, the researcher proposes a way in which Penn State might address the concerns of Commonwealth campus employees with the policy of pay secrecy and create a more inclusive, transparent and ethical culture at Penn State. The researcher’s recommended solution is to conduct an education/deliberation/outreach campaign at Penn State on pay secrecy and its ethical implications. Benefits and costs are assessed and a roadmap for the future is proposed.
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Public policy scholars agree that those persons (or agencies) vested with the authority to establish health care priorities should elicit public input before making rationing decisions. The two most common approaches are (i) consultation... more
Public policy scholars agree that those persons (or agencies) vested with the authority to establish health care priorities should elicit public input before making rationing decisions. The two most common approaches are (i) consultation and (ii) deliberation. Though deliberation has obvious advantages over consultation, it falters in the face of the objection that ordinary citizens lack the cognitive resources for the extended, rigorous inquiry required of them in undertaking the priority-setting task. To overcome this objection, I propose that deliberative forums for health care rationing should be designed so that they imitate the natural pattern of human experience. The experience of deliberation should encompass both prolonged periods of less-demanding cognitive activity, in which citizens passively receive information, and briefer periods of more-demanding cognitive activity, in which they engage in active problem-solving. In arguing for this thesis, I rely on two theoretical sources and one practical case study, in the following order: (i) John Dewey’s metaphysics of experience, (ii) cognitive science research on schemas and frames, and (iii) the Health Care Council in São Paulo, Brazil.
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The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth’s atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as launching... more
The idea of geoengineering, or the intentional modification of the Earth’s atmosphere to reverse the global warming trend, has entered a working theory stage, finding expression in a variety of proposed projects, such as launching reflective materials into the Earth’s atmosphere, positioning sunshades over the planet’s surface, depositing iron fillings into the oceans to encourage phytoplankton blooms and planting more trees, to name only a few. However, geoengineering might not be as promising a solution to the problem of global warming as its advocates claim. Many scientists, policy-makers and ethicists still dismiss the option as infeasible and too risky given the immense scale at which most geoengineering projects must be instituted and the catastrophic consequences that could, in all likelihood, result. The thesis of this paper is that geoengineering should not be so easily dismissed in policy debates concerning how to mitigate the anthropogenic emissions of global greenhouse gases. My plan is to investigate the desirability of the geoengineering option for addressing global climate change in terms of its capacity to overcome collective action issues, to accommodate ethical norms and to provide an artful, or creative, response to the problem. In the first section, a general picture of the global warming problem and the particulars of some proposed geoengineering projects are laid out. The second section frames the issue as a collective action problem that demands an innovative approach to coordinating individual and group action. In the third section, I reveal six ethical quandaries that emerge in global climate change debates and how they complicate any attempts to ameliorate or resolve the problem. The penultimate section shows how the ideas and activism of two twentieth-century titans in philosophy and ecology—John Dewey and Aldo Leopold, respectively—might be combined to address the problem of global warming through artful inquiry and the adoption of an Earth ethic. Finally, I conclude by arguing that a fundamental shift in perspective must occur if we are to take intentional climate change seriously as a possible, even if a second-best, tool in the environmentalist’s tool-kit.
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Scientific management introduced a novel way of organizing labor and measuring productivity into the modern workplace. With a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis, Frederick Winslow Taylor gave industrial/organizational consultancy... more
Scientific management introduced a novel way of organizing labor and measuring productivity into the modern workplace. With a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis, Frederick Winslow Taylor gave industrial/organizational consultancy a groundbreaking tool: the efficiency study. In the almost one-hundred intervening years, it has been largely forgotten that the American pragmatist John Dewey criticized scientific management for its dualistic assumptions, specifically for treating workers as pure doers or “muscle” and management as pure thinkers or “brains” in an efficient work process. The first part of my talk examines the similarities and differences between Dewey’s and Taylor’s respective conceptions of science and management. In the second part, I consider Dewey’s critique of scientific management in his book Democracy and Education. I conclude with some final thoughts concerning the usefulness of the Dewey-Taylor comparison for organizational theorists, human resource administrators and industrial relations specialists.
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Despite the minimal attention paid by philosophers to gardening, the activity has a myriad of philosophical implications—aesthetic, ethical, political, and even edible. The same could be said of the quest for food security and struggles... more
Despite the minimal attention paid by philosophers to gardening, the activity has a myriad of philosophical implications—aesthetic, ethical, political, and even edible. The same could be said of the quest for food security and struggles for food justice by communities around the globe. Two of gardening’s most significant practical benefits are that it generates communal solidarity and provides sustenance for the needy and undernourished during periods of crisis. In the twentieth-century, large-scale community gardening in the U.S. and Canada coincided with relief projects during war-time and economic downturn. More recently, small-scale gardening projects have emerged in schools, blighted urban areas, and communities of activists committed to increasing food security and resisting neo-liberal city planning policies. It is therefore surprising that pragmatist philosophers, who typically work at the nexus of theory and practice, have remained relatively silent about the relationship between gardening and food security. If more were to take up the challenge, they would find considerable guidance from several contemporary scholars working in diverse disciplines, from cultural geography to community studies, who explore the topic in a number of non-philosophical, though equally effective and imaginative, ways (e.g. ethnographic and action research). In this talk, I propose a tentative pragmatist model for understanding how gardens make our food system more secure—a model inspired by John Dewey’s writings on school gardening, which I call the pragmatic pyramid.
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The goal of my talk is to persuade social scientists, and particularly political scientists, that Dewey’s firm commitment to empiricism in the social sciences provides some valuable clues for how to more effectively teach social science... more
The goal of my talk is to persuade social scientists, and particularly political scientists, that Dewey’s firm commitment to empiricism in the social sciences provides some valuable clues for how to more effectively teach social science research methods. First, I present a fairly orthodox way of teaching social science research methods. Then, attention is drawn to a collection of instances in which commentators have mistaken Dewey’s endorsement of intelligent inquiry in the social sciences for a defense of scientism. I demonstrate that upon closer examination of Dewey’s own writings, empiricism, not scientism, emerges as the central feature of pragmatic social inquiry. Sharing this feature of Deweyan inquiry in the classroom can enhance our students’ understanding and appreciation of the limits and possibilities of doing social science research. Several specific suggestions for teaching research methods emerge from a close reading of Dewey’s works on social and scientific inquiry, Patricia Shields’s essay “Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Science” and James Scott Johnston’s recent book Deweyan Inquiry.
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Modern American cities were designed to accommodate the demands of commerce and technology. The proliferation of fast and easy transportation, especially private automobiles, and access to affordable oil created the conditions for the... more
Modern American cities were designed to accommodate the demands of commerce and technology. The proliferation of fast and easy transportation, especially private automobiles, and access to affordable oil created the conditions for the emergence of the suburb. People sprawled outwards in search of more pedestrian-friendly, greener, more family-oriented and remoter places to live, while commuting to the city center to work. Some suburbs have suffered the same fate as urban centers. With traffic congestion, rising crime and signs of urban decay, residents flee in increasing numbers from suburbs to exurbs. Although gentrification projects have in some cases successfully slowed sprawl, I argue that two changes are required if built environments—whether urban centers or suburbs—are to become more livable environments: (i) the creation of more city/suburban gardens and (ii) the removal of automobile traffic from city centers and suburbs. My argument draws on three sources: one, the reasons behind John Dewey’s project to create school gardens at the University of Chicago Laboratory School; two, an extension of the lessons of Aldo Leopold’s land ethic from the preservation of natural environments to the management of built environments; and, finally, the example of Vauban and Quarry Village, two experimental suburbs designed for people to enjoy the experience of living in green spaces without cars.
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The literature on teaching Philosophy graduate students how to write a proper book review is diminutive, to say the least. Many graduate students are first-time book reviewers and undertake reviews with little or no guidance in the... more
The literature on teaching Philosophy graduate students how to write a proper book review is diminutive, to say the least. Many graduate students are first-time book reviewers and undertake reviews with little or no guidance in the practice. The most common mistakes first-time reviewers make are that they fail to check their interpretations with competent experts, use the book review format as an excuse to mount an excessively strong critique of the author's position, offer a self-flattering presentation of their own position, or some combination of these. Typically, the outcome is a less-than-fair-and-balanced portrayal of the book under review. If graduate students are not afforded instruction in the fundamentals, writing a high-quality review is in jeopardy of becoming a lost art. An excellent book review starts with a non-controversial statement of the book's central thesis, its basic structure, how the author develops their ideas chapter-by-chapter and, finally, an evaluation of the work's overall contribution to the current state of knowledge in Philosophy. Without proper instruction in book reviewing, graduate students risk cultivating poor habits of presenting others' views, such as failure to respect the charity principle or the presumption of infallibility. Teaching best practices for reviewing books should occupy some part of the Philosophy graduate school curriculum or, at a minimum, feature prominently in the advisor-advisee relationship and graduate student mentoring process. In this article, I summarize the existing literature on how to teach Philosophy in review and then extrapolate some key lessons that an advisor ought to impart to a graduate student in advance of the advisee authoring an excellent book review.
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Lynne Tirrell has argued that some speech is, borrowing from field of epidemiology, toxic in the sense that it harms vulnerable listeners. In this brief response piece, I summarize the main points of Tirrell’s toxic speech argument – as... more
Lynne Tirrell has argued that some speech is, borrowing from field of epidemiology, toxic in the sense that it harms vulnerable listeners. In this brief response piece, I summarize the main points of Tirrell’s toxic speech argument – as she has developed it in two articles – map the underlying conceptual metaphor and argue that toxic speech is a hyperbolic metaphor.
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Philosophical pragmatists rarely receive credit for their contributions to aretaic ethics. Nevertheless, some modern-day commentators claim that the classic American pragmatist John Dewey was a virtue ethicist. For instance, Stephen... more
Philosophical pragmatists rarely receive credit for their contributions to aretaic ethics. Nevertheless, some modern-day commentators claim that the classic American pragmatist John Dewey was a virtue ethicist. For instance, Stephen Carden and John Teehan propose that Dewey anticipated the contemporary aretaic turn in ethics. According to James Campbell, Dewey recommended the cultivation of inquiry-specific virtues, such as imagination and fallibilism, en route to transforming the moral agent into a more effective ethical problem-solver. For Gregory Pappas, open-mindedness and courage constitute Deweyan virtues, since both are integral to the pragmatist’s ideal of a balanced character. However, Pappas stops short of calling Dewey a ‘virtue ethicist’ on the grounds that he neither lists the virtues nor recommends their individual cultivation. The question guiding the present inquiry is whether Dewey was a virtue ethicist in the American tradition. In order to answer it, I compare Dewey’s approach to that of a figure who clearly recommended a method for cultivating the virtues and who sits squarely within the American tradition: Benjamin Franklin. If the Dewey-Franklin comparison is successful, then there is a prima facie reason to accept the claim that Dewey was a virtue ethicist in the American tradition. If not, then we should altogether reconsider what kind of ethical theory Dewey espoused—or so I argue.
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In the universe of employment-based health benefits, change on the order of a Copernican revolution has been underway for at least the past ten years. What's happened is nothing less than a major decentering of choice and control over... more
In the universe of employment-based health benefits, change on the order of a Copernican revolution has been underway for at least the past ten years. What's happened is nothing less than a major decentering of choice and control over health insurance options. Reference based pricing (sometimes called 'reference pricing' or indicated by the acronym RBP) has accelerated this shift toward employee choice and employer savings. The question on the minds of many stakeholders, experts and observers is whether RBP should be further expanded. In this paper, it is argued that expansion is imperative if employers are to take a more pragmatic approach to offering their employees healthcare.
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Since the attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers, some foreign policy scholars have interpreted the U.S. response--its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the so-called "war on terror"--as continuous with "longstanding claims of... more
Since the attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers, some foreign policy scholars have interpreted the U.S. response--its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the so-called "war on terror"--as continuous with "longstanding claims of U.S. exceptionalism vis-à-vis the world," "comforting narratives of our past" as a special force for good in the world and an American tradition of imperialistic aggression against less powerful nations and peoples. Joseph Schumpeter's definition of "imperialism" as "an objectless disposition on the part of a state to unlimited forcible expansion" describes much of the history--and to some extent, the current trajectory--of U.S. foreign policy. This critique of American imperialism has met with skepticism. Critics argue that it is a vestige of radical revolutionary thinking and action on the order of that advanced by, for instance, Leon Trotsky and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In this respect, the thought of the American pragmatist John Dewey--specifically, his essay "Imperialism is Easy," written more than seventy years prior to the September 11 th attacks--offers a needed corrective.
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Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM) consists of a bundle of theories, concepts and metrics — for instance, high-performance work practices, organisational success and the balanced scorecard method. Together, they bridge between... more
Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM) consists of a bundle of theories, concepts and metrics — for instance, high-performance work practices, organisational success and the balanced scorecard method. Together, they bridge between the strategic and operational sides of Human Resources Management (HRM) equation. When the two sides, operational and strategic, are appropriately integrated, a more pragmatic approach to SHRM becomes possible. A pragmatic approach to SHRM can also help to shed light on employer best practices to prevent litigation, particularly employee lawsuits for unjust dismissal, as demonstrated in three case studies. In Human Resources Management (HRM), Human Resources (HR) processes are described, organized and evaluated in terms of specific programs, policies and practices. Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM) connects specific HR processes with broader organisational goals. The objective of a firm is to secure and sustain its competitive advantage through proper alignment of its HR function with its business strategy (Barney & Wright 1997). Unlike HRM, the focus of SHRM is not simply on administering the HR function. In addition, it is to utilize those resources in order to gain and maintain a competitive position in the marketplace (Stalk, Evans & Shulman 1982). In other words, SHRM integrates HR processes within a more comprehensive strategic platform aimed at achieving business success (Schuler & Jackson 1987). Take, for instance, the linked HRM concepts of development, training and performance management. In any organisation committed to employee engagement and growth, the three concepts must be operationalized (described, organized and measured) through programs, policy statements and standard operating procedures. Development is the process whereby employees grow, progress and learn new habits, skills and competencies — what is collectively termed the acquisition of intellectual capital (Bontis 1997). Training is the HR process whereby learning and development specialists — whether external consultants or in-house HR professionals — impart intellectual capital to staff and line employees. In performance management, employees and managers establish agreed-upon ends or goals that complement existing organisational goals. Management regularly reviews employee performance relative to those goals. Ideally, employee productivity improves through measured assessment, training and professional development.
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Since the attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers, many foreign policy scholars have interpreted the U.S. response – its so-called " war on terror " – as continuous with " longstanding claims of U.S. exceptionalism vis-à-vis the world, "... more
Since the attacks on the Pentagon and Twin Towers, many foreign policy scholars have interpreted the U.S. response – its so-called " war on terror " – as continuous with " longstanding claims of U.S. exceptionalism vis-à-vis the world, " " comforting narratives of our past " and an American tradition of imperialistic aggression. Joseph Schumpeter's definition of " imperialism " as " an objectless disposition on the part of a state to unlimited forcible expansion " describes much of the history—and to some extent, the current trajectory—of American foreign policy. Though Barack Obama's foreign policy stance backed away from George W. Bush's strong unilateralism (on display in, for instance, the invasion of Iraq) and the war on terror fizzled, doubts persist to the effect that the two policies have never been much different. A remarkably imperialist (at least on Schumpeter's definition) approach to managing the threat of asymmetrical warfare or terrorism through interventions in the affairs of sovereign nations, nation-building and military assistance for regimes (and sometimes resistance fighters) during civil wars was witnessed throughout the Obama administration (e.g. in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Syria). It is still uncertain whether this approach will survive into Donald Trump's administration. The American pragmatist John Dewey offers insight into the current international situation in his essay " Imperialism is Easy, " written more than seventy years prior to the September 11 th attacks. The essay has been largely neglected, perhaps because of the perception that its relevance was constrained to the times in which it was written. Though the subject of Dewey's essay was the scope and intentionality of American influence in Mexico during the Cristero War, the lessons it teaches its readers are timeless. For the current international situation, Dewey's " Imperialism is Easy " offers a ground map for curbing American exceptionalism and overcoming U.S. ambitions to be an imperialist power or global hegemon.
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At the beginning of the present century, a debate over the compatibility of constitutionalism and pragmatism erupted in the pages of the journal Administration and Society. Several scholars (especially James Stever, Kevin Snider and... more
At the beginning of the present century, a debate over the compatibility of constitutionalism and pragmatism erupted in the pages of the journal Administration and Society. Several scholars (especially James Stever, Kevin Snider and Patricia Shields) expressed concern that Deweyan pragmatism, or the classic pragmatism of John Dewey that some contemporary philosophers subscribe to, might be incompatible with the commitment to constitutional order found at the heart of the administrative state tradition. In this paper, the issue that arose in Administration and Society is framed more generally: Can pragmatists, and particularly Deweyan pragmatists, be constitutionalists? By way of answering this question, I define Dewey's experimentalism in terms of his theory of inquiry and action, before proceeding to the administrative state debate, where the claim emerges that constitutional limits offend the experimentalist drive of Dewey's pragmatism. Next, three typical (though by no means exhaustive) conceptions of constitutionalism are presented: (i) traditionalism (or that a constitution expresses the traditions or mores of its drafters' society), (ii) organicism (or that a constitution is a living document, the meaning of which evolves with the changing values and norms of each new generation) and (iii) functionalism (or that a constitution functions as an ordering device, both creating and perpetuating legitimate legal-political frameworks). Then, I consider whether a founding document modeled after each conception can preserve political stability amidst a tolerable level of political change without offending Dewey's experimentalism. In light of Dewey's essay "Presenting Thomas Jefferson," a related issue arises: Does Jefferson's notion of generational sovereignty have any bearing on the matter of pragmatism and constitutionalism's compatibility? The paper concludes with a final evaluation of the degree to which Deweyan experimentalism can accommodate a commitment to constitutionalism in its various forms.
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Management theories abound. However, theories that truly help organizations manage, adapt and excel in the face of monumental change are needed now more than ever. Any executive leader who has witnessed organizational crisis, such as a... more
Management theories abound. However, theories that truly help organizations manage, adapt and excel in the face of monumental change are needed now more than ever. Any executive leader who has witnessed organizational crisis, such as a major product recall, a shortage of human talent or the loss of competitive market share, will tell you that an organization's survival and success require that it " turns on a dime, " quickly planning for change and effectively meeting its challenges. Change management (or CM) signifies both the theory and the practice of transforming organizations in order to adapt and thrive in a dynamic environment, as well as the study of how individuals within changing organizations cope. This paper provides a brief history of CM's development from the 1960s to the present, a survey of groupings of CM models and approaches as well as stand-out theories, critical responses to CM, a case study involving Penn State's attempt to manage change in the wake of the Sandusky scandal and finally a recommendation for a more pragmatic approach to managing organizational change.
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This brief paper investigates the country culture of Mexico, teasing out those factors which are critical for someone managing diversity in a firm employing Mexican nationals. In the first section, I offer a description of Mexican culture... more
This brief paper investigates the country culture of Mexico, teasing out those factors which are critical for someone managing diversity in a firm employing Mexican nationals. In the first section, I offer a description of Mexican culture based on the extant literature. The second section examines the reaction of Americans to Mexican workers, especially as a consequence of recent waves of immigration, in terms of both negative and positive stereotypes. In the third section, I address the effect of Mexican culture and stereotypes on various organizational behaviors and outcomes, such as employee engagement, satisfaction, empowerment, productivity, retention, and quality work results. The fourth section concludes the paper. Mexicans experience American people, culture and work practices as " other, " or as a strange and foreign presence in their working lives. The question is how this experience of other-ness might be ameliorated in an organization. In other words, how can such diversity be managed? According to Hood and Logsdon, " [m]anagers need to become more knowledgeable about and comfortable with cultures outside their home countries in order to be successful in an increasingly competitive environment. " Note that the paper discusses stereotypes that many people find irritating, upsetting or repulsive. Reading the following text might trigger feelings associated with past trauma, particularly those who have been treated in a discriminatory or hateful manner based on these stereotypes. The author does not intend to endorse these stereotypes.
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More and more families face a shortage of time negotiating the responsibilities of work and home life. Matos and Galinsky's research confirms this fact: " The lack of time to attend to family and oneself in the preferred manner, which we... more
More and more families face a shortage of time negotiating the responsibilities of work and home life. Matos and Galinsky's research confirms this fact: " The lack of time to attend to family and oneself in the preferred manner, which we term a 'time famine', appears to impact a diverse array of employees in multiple sectors. " For more progressive companies, the solution to the time famine has been to offer greater flexibility through work-life policies, i.e. " any organizational programs or officially sanctioned practices designed to assist employees with the integration of paid work with other important life roles such as family, education, or leisure. " This paper examines the work-life conflict experienced by a couple with two small children, both of whom work for a satellite campus of Penn State University.
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The issue of whether public employees have a right to strike is a contentious one. In fewer than a dozen U.S. states is it legal for public employees to strike. Recently Illinois state employees belonging to the American Federation of... more
The issue of whether public employees have a right to strike is a contentious one. In fewer than a dozen U.S. states is it legal for public employees to strike. Recently Illinois state employees belonging to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) threatened to strike after an impasse in contract talks with state negotiators and unfulfilled past promises of pay increases. The governor insists that he must " push for the taxpayers of Illinois, " while the executive director of AFSCME claims that workers " are getting to the point where they're so angry and so frustrated that they think, 'What's the use of sitting down with these folks every two or three weeks if nothing's going to change?' " In a similar situation, nearly twelve years ago, state employees in Minnesota held a public strike only a month after the September 11 th terrorist attacks, generating a backlash by their fellow citizens, who called the strikers " unpatriotic " and " selfish. " The unresolved issue of whether public employees should have the right to strike pits unionized public workers against elected political officials and tax-paying citizens.
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In this brief paper I will give my interpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's twenty-second chapter of The Prince, in which he discusses how a prince should choose and manage his secretaries. I will then expand on Machiavelli's discussion,... more
In this brief paper I will give my interpretation of Niccolò Machiavelli's twenty-second chapter of The Prince, in which he discusses how a prince should choose and manage his secretaries. I will then expand on Machiavelli's discussion, showing how his recommendations relate to contemporary management practices, specifically the activity of supervising an administrative assistant. A benefit of examining workplace behavior through the prism of Machiavelli's The Prince is that it contributes to a more " empirical, pragmatic, and practical " appreciation of organizational politics. Similar to political influence, managerial power can effectively change the behavior of employees; but even more than influence, power can cause them to " do things that they would not otherwise do. "
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Poor academic performance among students at U.S. colleges and universities has become a matter of increasing concern. Research shows that SAT scores have declined in recent decades and high school students are increasingly coming to... more
Poor academic performance among students at U.S. colleges and universities has become a matter of increasing concern. Research shows that SAT scores have declined in recent decades and high school students are increasingly coming to college unprepared. This phenomenon is troubling because of the much larger crisis looming in American society. If college-educated citizens lack the basic skills and requisite competencies that would enable them to contribute to the success of U.S. companies, then it is likely that American dominance in the global marketplace will soon decline. As a result of this skills crisis, more and more jobs held by Americans in American companies are being exported to better educated foreign workers in foreign countries, such as Dell Computers' removal of customer support representative positions to India. This study aims to determine why the academic achievement of American college and university students is currently in such a poor state. Past research has explored many possible explanations for the academic under-performance of college and university students. Some researchers have connected poor academic performance with specific types of student behavior, such as delinquency, failure to work hard, and lack of self-control. Others have linked lower academic achievement with particular student attributes, such as minority racial status, a sense of alienation from the academic community, inability to form strong support networks and antisocial personality characteristics. One possible explanation that has received too little attention from researchers is that more time spent participating in intramural and intercollegiate athletics coupled with the consequent rise in sports-specific self-esteem causes student-athletes to perform poorly in their studies.
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Although many U.S. citizens are concerned about public problems, those policies adopted to solve them are usually so complex as to be inscrutable to all but the very few. Here, " public policy " refers to those courses of action (or... more
Although many U.S. citizens are concerned about public problems, those policies adopted to solve them are usually so complex as to be inscrutable to all but the very few. Here, " public policy " refers to those courses of action (or outcomes) chosen and undertaken by government actors in order to address issues of general concern. " Public policy " also signifies the product of an overall process known as " the public policy cycle. " This process can be understood as comprising four stages: (i) Agenda-setting, (ii) policy formulation, (iii) policy implementation, and (iv) policy evaluation and change. Although intellectual mastery of any policy area is extremely difficult and often reserved for the very few (e.g. public policy scholars and policy analysts), citizens of a democracy should have an adequate understanding of public policy and the public policy cycle if they are to make informed and meaningful decisions about their collective destiny. Otherwise, they risk becoming passive subjects of a nominally democratic regime ruled by elites and experts. The purpose of this paper is to obtain a clear conceptual and concrete understanding of the public policy cycle by following the National Forest Management Act of 1976 through each of the four successive stages of the cycle.
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Both in the public and private sectors, the process of evaluating job performance can appear highly subjective and conditioned upon personal tastes, biases, prejudices, philosophies and management styles. Widespread perception that... more
Both in the public and private sectors, the process of evaluating job performance can appear highly subjective and conditioned upon personal tastes, biases, prejudices, philosophies and management styles. Widespread perception that evaluations are based on criteria irrelevant to merit can adversely affect the morale and productivity of employees. Because it is the largest provider of services, the public sector is even more reliant on the performance of its employees. So, it is critical that performance appraisal systems be considered legitimate by public sector employees. Yet, rarely are job performance appraisal systems designed with any input from their users. Job descriptions, on the other hand, are typically designed by human resource managers in conjunction with end-users, including management and their subordinates. Overall, the difficulty of designing an appraisal system in a public sector organization that is, one, closely tailored to job descriptions and, two, represents an objective, not an arbitrary and capricious, measure of employee performance, is a matter of much concern. The thesis of this paper is that job performance appraisal systems ought to be cooperatively designed by managers and their subordinates in much the same way that job descriptions are. If the evaluative instrument is a product of such collaboration, employees who are regularly evaluated will be more likely to agree that the results fairly and objectively measure their performance.
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Modern American cities were designed to accommodate the demands of commerce and technology. The proliferation of fast and easy transportation, especially private automobiles, and access to affordable oil created the conditions for the... more
Modern American cities were designed to accommodate the demands of commerce and technology. The proliferation of fast and easy transportation, especially private automobiles, and access to affordable oil created the conditions for the emergence of the suburb. People sprawled outwards in search of more pedestrian-friendly, greener, more family-oriented and remoter places to live, while commuting to the city center to work. Some suburbs have suffered the same fate as urban centers. With traffic congestion, rising crime and signs of urban decay, residents flee in increasing numbers from suburbs to exurbs. Although gentrification projects have in some cases successfully slowed sprawl, I argue that two changes are required if built environments—whether urban centers or suburbs—are to become more livable environments: (i) the creation of more city/suburban gardens and (ii) the removal of automobile traffic from city centers and suburbs. My argument draws on three sources: one, the reasons behind John Dewey's project to create school gardens at the University of Chicago Laboratory School; two, an extension of the lessons of Aldo Leopold's land ethic from the preservation of natural environments to the management of built environments; and, finally, the example of Vauban and Quarry Village, two experimental suburbs designed for people to enjoy the experience of living in green spaces without cars.
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A highly romanticized view of public philosophy has unfortunately taken hold of our collective imagination. The reality of doing public philosophy is often starkly different than this romanticized view. Public philosophy is an enterprise... more
A highly romanticized view of public philosophy has unfortunately taken hold of our collective imagination. The reality of doing public philosophy is often starkly different than this romanticized view. Public philosophy is an enterprise fraught with peril. Public philosophers can face employer retaliation, police harassment, cyber-stalking and outright bullying as a result of injecting philosophical ideas into the public discourse. In this essay I draw a ground-map of the terrain that we public philosophers tread and locate the metaphorical landmines – not in order to help others avoid them (some are simply unavoidable), but so that we can all acknowledge the risks in advance of undertaking the enterprise. In other words, the point is to speak to some of the dangers of doing public philosophy and explain why I believe attempts at eliminating those dangers – making public philosophy safe and sanitized – threaten to undermine the enterprise itself.
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Pay secrecy or concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common human resources practice and policy among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the... more
Pay secrecy or concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common human resources practice and policy among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice has also been widely criticized. Besides demonstrating that it reduces employee motivation, productivity and organizational effectiveness, human resources scholars and organizational psychologists have also argued that pay secrecy is morally wrong. Applied ethicists and moral philosophers have been relatively silent on the ethical status of pay secrecy practices. This paper aims to correct this lacuna in the literature. In a previous paper I offered a philosophical analysis of whether pay secrecy constitutes lying and deception. In a second paper, the most commonly given reason for sustaining the practice of pay secrecy was examined: namely, that pay is private, the personal business of the employee him-or herself. In this paper I ask whether pay offends norms of publicity, or standards of transparency widely accepted within our political and economic system, specifically by comparing and contrasting pay openness with the ideal that all public information should be freely accessible.
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Early childhood educators will often say that children are concrete thinkers. But is this true? Are children predisposed to think in this narrow fashion? Because of their early stage of cognitive development, are they denied the capacity... more
Early childhood educators will often say that children are concrete thinkers. But is this true? Are children predisposed to think in this narrow fashion? Because of their early stage of cognitive development, are they denied the capacity to engage in abstract thought? I not only address these questions, but also respond to Paul Harris' criticisms of progressive educational
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Pay secrecy or the human resources practice of concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice... more
Pay secrecy or the human resources practice of concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice has also been widely criticized. Besides demonstrating that it reduces employee motivation, productivity and organizational effectiveness, human resources scholars and organizational psychologists have also argued that pay secrecy is morally wrong. Applied ethicists and moral philosophers have been relatively silent on the ethical status of pay secrecy practices. This paper aims to correct this lacuna in the literature. In a previous paper I offered a philosophical analysis of whether pay secrecy constitutes lying and deception. In this paper the most commonly given reason for sustaining the practice is examined: namely, that pay is private, the personal business of the employee him- or herself.
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Pay secrecy or the human resources practice of concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice... more
Pay secrecy or the human resources practice of concealing compensation information from employees and the wider public has become increasingly common among private firms, as well as some state-related institutions. However, the practice has also been widely criticized. Besides demonstrating that it reduces employee motivation, productivity and organizational effectiveness, human resources scholars and organizational psychologists have also argued that pay secrecy is morally wrong. Applied ethicists and moral philosophers have been relatively silent on the ethical status of pay secrecy practices. This paper aims to correct this lacuna in the literature, starting with a philosophical analysis of whether pay secrecy constitutes lying and deception. By not disclosing pay data, are corporate boards of directors, executives, managers and human resources professionals making false statements to their employees? If so, then the next logical question is whether failing to disclose this data constitutes lying. Are pay secrecy decision makers and enforcers guilty of intentionally deceiving employees? If this is the case, then we might conclude that pay secrecy is a species of lying, an ethically indefensible human resources practice and, moreover, a symptom of an unethical and non-transparent organizational environment—or what has been termed a culture of secrecy.
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Among political scientists, economists and philosophers, the social choice critique of majority rule has given rise to widespread fear of a phenomenon known as 'majority cycling'. In this paper, I present this highly complex problem in... more
Among political scientists, economists and philosophers, the social choice critique of majority rule has given rise to widespread fear of a phenomenon known as 'majority cycling'. In this paper, I present this highly complex problem in voting theory, discuss two responses and then propose a very simple solution. Indeed, my thesis is that no political scientist, economist, philosopher or political practitioner should have reason to fear cycling majorities. By way of arriving at this conclusion, I survey the solutions offered by deliberative democrats and constitutional economists. Deliberative democrats contend that deliberation alters individual preferences or restructures preference orderings so as to produce collectively transitive and single-peaked rankings of alternatives. In plain terms, people are expected to formulate and revise their preferences through public debate, not independent of it. Constitutional economists, on the other hand, believe that either majority cycling is a desirable feature of electoral democracy or that it is undesirable yet controllable. In the case that it is desirable, majority cycling prevents a recalcitrant and tyrannical majority from taking power. In the situation that it is undesirable, constitutional economists recommend strategic behavior, such as log-rolling or vote-trading, to induce singe-peaked collective outcomes. In short, they opt for forms of political bargaining among agents with stable interests or fixed preferences, not collectively reasoned and malleable views.
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Is it possible to take the domain of the political too seriously? I claim that there are two ways in which it is: (i) To overestimate the relationship between humanity's purpose or end and the concept of the political, and (ii) to ignore... more
Is it possible to take the domain of the political too seriously? I claim that there are two ways in which it is: (i) To overestimate the relationship between humanity's purpose or end and the concept of the political, and (ii) to ignore those feasibility constraints on methods and institutions and place too much confidence in democratic means for resolving problems in the domain of the political. The first I call the ends objection and the second the means objection. Although this framework might appear oversimplified, it maps well on to the ideas of two thinkers who, it can be argued, also take the domain of the political too seriously: (i) Carl Schmitt, who in The Concept of the Political argued that awareness of a relationship between friends and enemies provides insight into the contestational nature of politics and (ii) John Dewey, who in " The Future of Liberalism " claimed that being a genuine liberal means eschewing the absolutism of John Locke and the laissez-faire attitude of libertarians, embarking instead on a process of collective experimentation he terms "thoroughgoing liberalism." An antidote to Schmitt and Dewey's all too serious treatments of the political, I suggest, is to explore the comedic side of Benjamin Franklin's political writings. While some of his letters, essays and fictitious newspaper articles indicate something akin to Schmitt's friends-enemies distinction and Dewey's experimentalist attitude, one in particular, " An Edict to the King of Prussia, " reveals how satire can invoke a less serious sense of the political. Whether the political is conceived as essentially contestational or experimental, Franklin's satirical approach proves more effective than Schmitt or Dewey's more serious approach to the political—or so I argue.
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In this paper, I argue in support of homeschooling under non-ideal educational circumstances, including lack of material resources, a shortage of properly trained teachers, an abundance of curricula remote from the concerns of everyday... more
In this paper, I argue in support of homeschooling under non-ideal educational circumstances, including lack of material resources, a shortage of properly trained teachers, an abundance of curricula remote from the concerns of everyday life and the inability of the existing institutions and institutional actors to generate the proper conditions for what John Dewey terms 'growth.' In chapter two of The School and Society, Dewey demonstrates how a model of the 'ideal home' can impart crucially important lessons about a comparable model of the 'ideal school.' Dewey then insists that education should direct the student's natural impulses, just as the concerned parent guides the growth of the child. There are at least two ways in which to interpret this position. One is that homeschooling is the ideal form of early education. The other is that school life should emulate family life. Though advocates of homeschooling would prefer the former account, the case is difficult to make because (i) Dewey rarely recommended specific institutional forms or practices and (ii) the interpretation does not align with the book's thesis that the school should be a microcosm for the best and most educative kinds of experience that the larger society has to offer. So, consistent with the overall theme of the work, the better interpretation is that school life should resemble family life. Nevertheless, a Deweyan defense of homeschooling is possible. Of course, Dewey would not agree with the rationale of religious conservatives to home school, namely, that it allows them to impart sectarian values and thereby insulate their children from a secular world. Still, a Dewey-inspired defense proves possible if the practice of homeschooling is the sole alternative to an educational environment that stifles growth, imposes values through bald appeals to authority and denies the opportunity for learning through experimental inquiry and intelligent habit formation. Finally, I examine the policy implications of a Deweyan defense of homeschooling, arguing that homeschoolers and public schooling advocates should find common ground and forge partnerships for their mutual advantage.
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In this paper, my goal is to persuade social scientists, and particularly political scientists, that Dewey's firm commitment to empiricism in the social sciences provides some valuable clues for how to more effectively teach social... more
In this paper, my goal is to persuade social scientists, and particularly political scientists, that Dewey's firm commitment to empiricism in the social sciences provides some valuable clues for how to more effectively teach social science research methods. First, I present a fairly orthodox way of teaching social science research methods. Then, attention is drawn to a collection of instances in which commentators have mistaken Dewey's endorsement of intelligent inquiry in the social sciences for a defense of scientism. I demonstrate that upon closer examination of Dewey's own writings, empiricism, not scientism, emerges as the central feature of pragmatic social inquiry. Sharing this feature of Deweyan inquiry in the classroom can enhance our students' understanding and appreciation of the limits and possibilities of doing social science research. Several specific suggestions for teaching research methods emerge from a close reading of Dewey's works on social and scientific inquiry, Patricia Shields's essay " Pragmatism as a Philosophy of Science " and James Scott Johnston's recent book Deweyan Inquiry.
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What points of comparison can be found between behaviorialists, such as B. F. Skinner, and pragmatists, such as John Dewey? One possibility is that they share a particularly strong belief in scientism, unifying the sciences or the view... more
What points of comparison can be found between behaviorialists, such as B. F. Skinner, and pragmatists, such as John Dewey? One possibility is that they share a particularly strong belief in scientism, unifying the sciences or the view that the methods and theories of the physical and biological (or 'hard') sciences should carry over to the social (or 'soft') sciences. Clearly a devotee of scientism, Skinner complains that the social sciences have failed to keep pace with significant developments in physics and biology. Dewey's commitment to scientism, however, is less clear. He claims that short of conducting an exhaustive survey, it would be impossible to justify the claim that the social sciences' relative inferiority is due to " unreasoning devotion to physical science as a model. " In this paper, I argue that Dewey's firm commitment to empiricism in the social sciences should not be construed as blind or " unreasoning devotion " to scientism. In the first section, I present the orthodox account of science or scientific method, explaining why it is not always a superior way for coming to know social reality. In section two, attention is drawn to a collection of instances in which commentators have mistaken Dewey's endorsement of intelligent inquiry as a method to solve social problems for a defense of scientism. In the third section, I demonstrate that upon closer examination of Dewey's own writings on the social sciences, empiricism, not scientism, emerges as the central feature of pragmatic social inquiry. In section four, the paper concludes with a speculative account of how Dewey might appraise the last fifty years of progress in refining social scientific research methodology-a half century of developments constructed largely, if not exclusively, on the edifice of Logical Positivism.
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According to the 'incompatibility thesis,' tenets of Marxist and Pragmatist ethics are incompatible at a very basic level. An opening move in the strategy of defending the incompatibility thesis is to summon the ghosts of Pragmatists and... more
According to the 'incompatibility thesis,' tenets of Marxist and Pragmatist ethics are incompatible at a very basic level. An opening move in the strategy of defending the incompatibility thesis is to summon the ghosts of Pragmatists and Marxists past, such as John Dewey and Leon Trotsky, and recount how their positions in a debate concerning ethics proved to be fundamentally at odds. The central claim of the paper is that despite the initial promise of this strategy, scholars should be wary of citing the 1930s debate between Dewey and Trotsky and the differences revealed in this exchange as evidence in support of the incompatibility thesis. Significant areas of agreement between the two thinkers, both in their exchange and in the events surrounding it, ought to make us question the claimed incompatibility between Marxist and Pragmatist ethics. After presenting its standard interpretation, the ethical dimension of the debate is brought to the fore. Two versions of the debate-one offered by a Trotskyite and contemporary of Dewey and Trotsky's (George Novack) and the other by a recent Dewey biographer (Alan Ryan)-are reviewed. Both, it is argued, exaggerate Dewey and Trotsky's differences. Next, four areas of agreement between the two thinkers' ethical views are identified, each drawing support from the content of their debate as well from select events in the years preceding and following it. By way of reconstructing the Trotsky-Dewey debate, it is possible to trace a vital thread between Pragmatist and Marxist ethics-or so it is argued.
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This paper examines John Brown's daring plan to take Harpers Ferry in order to determine whether it was merely pragmatic, in the sense of intended to achieve a clearly practical end through expeditious means, or an instance of... more
This paper examines John Brown's daring plan to take Harpers Ferry in order to determine whether it was merely pragmatic, in the sense of intended to achieve a clearly practical end through expeditious means, or an instance of pragmatism-inaction or intelligent inquiry, as understood by the American pragmatist John Dewey. I compare the phases of Brown's plan with Dewey's five-step pattern of intelligent inquiry. Even though Brown overcame considerable obstacles to eventually institute his plan, it could be faulted for not being very well thought out and for being too ambitious. This brings us to a consideration of whether pragmatism is a philosophy well-suited to radical social-political action. In George Novack's book, Pragmatism versus Marxism, he identifies three stages of American history and their defining philosophies. They are (i) the " Deism and rationalism " of the eighteenth-century, (ii) the " Transcendentalism " of the nineteenth-century, and (iii) the " Deweyism " of the twentieth-century. In the style of a Marxist critique, Novack polemically attacks pragmatism, faulting the Dewey-inspired phase of American historical development for its comparative inferiority to the previous two phases. Unlike the founding era, which was punctuated by a revolutionary war, and the nineteenth-century, with its bloody civil war, the Deweyans of the modern era have been impotent to change the capitalist-dominated status quo. Extending Novack's critique to John Brown's situation, proto-Deweyan abolitionists would have been powerless to transform the pro-slavery status quo of nineteenth century America. Thus, it appears that we can safely infer that John Brown was no proto-Deweyan. While we might wish to dismiss Novack's argument given its strongly Marxist assumptions, the implications of his critique should nevertheless be taken seriously: Pragmatism is ill-suited as a guide for instituting radical social-political action. So, the question arises, can intelligent inquiry serve some useful function in planning a radical, even militant, political action to achieve a just cause, as Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry surely was?
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Parental overuse of portable technology, especially smart phones and tablets, poses a real danger to the welfare and development of children. In the past few years, research studies have documented this phenomenon whereby parents pay far... more
Parental overuse of portable technology, especially smart phones and tablets, poses a real danger to the welfare and development of children. In the past few years, research studies have documented this phenomenon whereby parents pay far more attention to hand-held electronic devices than to their children’s safety and developmental needs. The phenomenon is called distracted parenting. This article aims to identify the moral harm in distracted parenting. First, with the assistance of recent research, the phenomenon is defined. Then, an ethical analysis is undertaken from three perspectives: (i) utilitarian, (ii) pragmatist and (iii) care. Five recommendations for reforming distracted parents, each based upon one or more of the three ethical perspectives, conclude the analysis.
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Abstract Scientific management in public administration is usually associated with the Philadelphian, machinist and industrial engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who introduced high-priced efficiency studies into the workplace with a... more
Abstract Scientific management in public administration is usually associated with the Philadelphian, machinist and industrial engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor, who introduced high-priced efficiency studies into the workplace with a stopwatch and a clever method of analysis. In contrast, scientific management in philosophy finds more resonance with the ideas of the American pragmatist John Dewey, who conceived management as a species of intelligent inquiry, or scientifically-modeled problem solving.
In the study and practice of business management, the concept of empowerment is so vague and complex as to seem utterly inscrutable. Some characterize it as an individual employee’s capacity to be engaged, self-directed, intrinsically... more
In the study and practice of business management, the concept of empowerment is so vague and complex as to seem utterly inscrutable. Some characterize it as an individual employee’s capacity to be engaged, self-directed, intrinsically motivated and accountable for their actions. Others portray it as a feature of employee work groups, related to power-sharing, participation, strategic vision, collective synergy and holistic learning. Still others see empowerment as a boon to employee job performance, perceived task satisfaction and organizational success. The purpose of this paper is to explore a selection of the normative and empirical literature on empowerment in order to better understand the value of employee empowerment metrics for HRM. In the first section, I discuss two representative normative theories of empowerment and their shortcomings. The second section examines the empirical literature on empowerment, summarizing the key findings of two projects devoted to producing a valid and reliable empowerment metric. The paper concludes by considering the obstacles and opportunities an empirically-grounded metric of empowerment poses for HRM. While an empowerment metric is not a panacea for motivation and performance problems in the workplace, it would at least be a helpful resource for HR managers intent on supporting the efforts of line managers to empower their subordinates.
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Is an employer legally required to show just cause for dismissing a non-union employee? How one answers this question is a matter of paramount concern in employment law. From a human resources standpoint, the answer creates employee... more
Is an employer legally required to show just cause for dismissing a non-union employee? How one answers this question is a matter of paramount concern in employment law. From a human resources standpoint, the answer creates employee expectations of fairness and equity (or a lack thereof) in termination decisions. The answer will also dictate strategic decisions by employers to limit their legal liability in the face of potential wrongful dismissal claims. Different legal regimes can also deliver starkly different answers. This last point is perhaps epitomized in comparisons of U.S. and Canadian employment jurisprudence. The more complex question this paper addresses is why mandatory private arbitration stipulations are so uncommon in Canadian employment agreements. To answer this demands, first, a brief inquiry into the history of the U.S. employment-at-will doctrine; then, an examination of the Canadian alternative; and finally, an account of why the convention of including mandatory arbitration clauses in employment agreements has emerged so forcefully in the American, but not in the Canadian, legal context.
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Paid paternity leave is becoming an increasingly common fringe benefit, both in the U.S. and abroad. This paper examines paid paternity leave as a human resource innovation, especially from the labor economic and gender equality... more
Paid paternity leave is becoming an increasingly common fringe benefit, both in the U.S. and abroad. This paper examines paid paternity leave as a human resource innovation, especially from the labor economic and gender equality perspectives. The next section discusses the major positions in the research literature. The paper concludes with a brief set of recommendations for adopting a paid paternity leave policy. Finally, the paper includes an annotated bibliography.
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Recently, in the U.S., President Obama and Congressional Democrats supported an increase to the federally-mandated minimum wage, from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, as a way of boosting the economy and reducing income inequality. Debate raged... more
Recently, in the U.S., President Obama and Congressional Democrats supported an increase to the federally-mandated minimum wage, from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, as a way of boosting the economy and reducing income inequality. Debate raged between Republicans and Democrats about how the Fair Minimum Wage Act would affect the recessionary economy with its consistently high unemployment, stagnating real wages (i.e. wages adjusted for the costs of goods and services), and paradoxically increasing productivity. My (hypothetical) mid-sized firm regularly hires contingent workers through a temp agency for 90-day periods (so that they are not eligible for unemployment insurance payments after dismissal) and pays an efficiency wage (i.e. a wage above the market-clearing level meant to increase employee productivity) for low-skilled, high-intensity manufacturing work ($14 an hour, almost twice the current minimum wage of $7.25) . The main concern expressed by management is that the increase to the minimum wage (to $10.10 an hour) might reduce the supply of labor (leftward shift), since workers will seek lower-intensity work available at almost the same wage rate elsewhere. In other words, the current efficiency wage ($14 an hour) would no longer attract low-skilled employees willing to work harder for a significantly increased pay day (unless, of course, the wage was increased to nearly $20 an hour, which would reduce the company’s profit). On the other hand, if the Republican predictions are correct and the federally-mandated minimum wage increase causes widespread job losses, then the supply of unskilled workers will increase and there should be no reason for concern.
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For years diversity training has weathered a virtual storm of criticism, for being too preachy, stereotype-affirming, conflict-inducing, hostile to conservatives, prejudicial against white males, and incompatible with our (purportedly)... more
For years diversity training has weathered a virtual storm of criticism, for being too preachy, stereotype-affirming, conflict-inducing, hostile to conservatives, prejudicial against white males, and incompatible with our (purportedly) post-racial society. In this paper, I argue that it is a matter of pragmatic necessity that organizations sustain and improve their members’ diversity training experience. The meaning of diversity training is not always clear. Pendry, Driscoll and Field define it “as any discrete programme, or set of programmes, which aims to influence participants to increase their positive or decrease their negative intergroup behaviours, such that less prejudice or discrimination is displayed towards others perceived as different in their group affiliations." DeRosa conceives diversity training as “an increasingly common approach that organizations use to address the realities and challenges of a diverse workforce and society." Diversity training comes in many flavors, but the core idea remains intact. These controlled employee experiences should cultivate sensitivity, tolerance and understanding of difference, usually for the sake of improving employee productivity, reducing lawsuits, promoting workforce inclusion and generating organizational success.
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Paid paternity leave is becoming an increasingly common employee benefit, both in the U.S. and abroad. It is also a subject of escalating political contestation. The governments of some countries mandate paid parental leave and encourage... more
Paid paternity leave is becoming an increasingly common employee benefit, both in the U.S. and abroad. It is also a subject of escalating political contestation. The governments of some countries mandate paid parental leave and encourage fathers to become leave-takers. For instance, Norway and Sweden require employers to offer their male employees use-it-or-lose-it parental leave or so-called “daddy days” as part of the state-mandated parental leave system. In contrast, paid paternity leave in the U.S. is an elective, not state-mandated, human resource policy. The government only requires a subset of America’s employers to provide unpaid parental leave, meaning that an estimated 40% of the workforce is ineligible. About 10-15% of American firms choose to offer their employees paid paternity leave. Research reveals that men who think their employer has family-unfriendly policies, including the absence of paid leave for new fathers, are more likely to change jobs in the next six months. So, top firms have adopted paid paternity leave policies in order to attract and retain high-value employees. Besides a tool for talent management, paid paternity leave policies have also become a way to improve gender equality, both inside and outside of the workplace. According to one manager at AT&T, “It’s a nice thing to have on your books." This paper examines paid paternity leave as a politically-contested human resource policy innovation. The next section discusses the major positions in the research literature. Then I examine the issue of mandating paid paternity leave from two political perspectives: right-libertarian and left-liberal. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief set of recommendations for governmental and employer leave policies that would reduce political conflict.
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ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that hope, growth and progress are three critical concepts in pragmatist thinking, cornerstones in a philosophy of lived experience that are capable of continually informing and enriching practice. I... more
ABSTRACT In this paper, I argue that hope, growth and progress are three critical concepts in pragmatist thinking, cornerstones in a philosophy of lived experience that are capable of continually informing and enriching practice. I discuss recent works by Naiko Saito, James Scott Johnston, Stephen Fishman and Lucille McCarthy that address the meaning of hope, growth and progress in John Dewey’s educational philosophy. What these authors’ treatments are not always clear about, though, is how to operationalize (or make concrete) these three concepts as policy resources in contemporary educational debates. While Dewey often discussed the vital relationship between the school and the home, not one of these three authors speaks to the important question of how Dewey might respond to the relatively recent controversy over homeschooling. I attempt to outline a Deweyan defense of homeschooling in the spirit of the three cornerstones of pragmatism: hope, growth and progress.
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Many people give lip-service to the idea that every child's well-being matters. However, talk is cheap. Protecting children has social costs. So does treating children as human beings, rather than as the property of their parents. The... more
Many people give lip-service to the idea that every child's well-being matters. However, talk is cheap. Protecting children has social costs. So does treating children as human beings, rather than as the property of their parents. The state-sanctioned treatment of children as chattels worries those of us who genuinely value child welfare. In family law, notions of possession, protection, exclusion and dominion are ubiquitously applied to the parent-child relationship. In child custody cases, the law protects a parent's property interest in their children except when there is clear evidence of abuse or neglect. The best-interests-of the-child legal standard is so vague that judges usually interpret it narrowly to mean no more than what satisfies the custodial parent's desires, since she is the child's owner. In child abuse cases, interventions by child protective services are rare because these intrusions risk infringing on the parent's due process right to raise and discipline their child property as they see fit. In reaction, some scholars and activists have advocated for liberating children from their status as property and affording them rights on par with adults. This proposal raises concerns among parents because it challenges the norm that a parent should have exclusive authoritative control over their children's lives. However, the status quo provides the perfect storm of enabling conditions for child predation, a phenomenon epitomized in the Jerry Sandusky case—or so I will argue.
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A compilation of data based on searches of local PA papers since 1996.
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This is a review of the HBO documentary The Diplomat, a retrospective about U.S. diplomat Robert C. Holbrooke's life and work. In addition to assessing the film, I also consider the question of whether he was a genuine pragmatist in... more
This is a review of the HBO documentary The Diplomat, a retrospective about U.S. diplomat Robert C. Holbrooke's life and work. In addition to assessing the film, I also consider the question of whether he was a genuine pragmatist in international affairs.
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In urban communities around the country (and the world), more and more people are becoming self-sufficient and healthier by growing their own food in personal and community gardens. Urban gardening addresses the inner city problems that... more
In urban communities around the country (and the world), more and more people are becoming self-sufficient and healthier by growing their own food in personal and community gardens. Urban gardening addresses the inner city problems that Donald Trump promised to solve during his campaign but has neglected to deliver during his presidency, and it does so in a more socially inclusive, racially sensitive and environmentally sustainable way.
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Between 2000 and 2007 two judges in Luzerne County Pennsylvania’s Court of Common Pleas executed one of the most elaborate judicial corruption schemes in U.S. history. The kids-for-cash scandal is a testimony to Luzerne County’s culture... more
Between 2000 and 2007 two judges in Luzerne County Pennsylvania’s Court of Common Pleas executed one of the most elaborate judicial corruption schemes in U.S. history. The kids-for-cash scandal is a testimony to Luzerne County’s culture of corruption and the parade of horribles -- including bribery, kickbacks, retaliation and conflicts of interest -- that continue to afflict the region’s political and legal community. Unfortunately, a new batch of judges in Luzerne County’s juvenile and family court system is at risk of perpetrating another kids-for-cash scandal.
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In the past five years, technology-related distracted behavior while caring for children, such as compulsive smartphone checking and tablet overuse, has come under increasing public scrutiny. Social science research shows that these... more
In the past five years, technology-related distracted behavior while caring for children, such as compulsive smartphone checking and tablet overuse, has come under increasing public scrutiny. Social science research shows that these technology-related behaviors harm children. Children suffer physical harm, cognitive damage and emotional trauma as a result of distracted caregiving. The problem is heightened in daycare businesses, which employ low-paid, contingent workers from the most technologically " wired " generation: Millennials. In addition, the owners and directors of these businesses can easily cover up the injuries to children by satisfying minimal state-mandated reporting requirements. Unfortunately, state regulatory agencies have been slow to respond to this problem, acknowledging the danger it poses to child welfare, but taking little action other than to recommend that daycares adopt and enforce workplace smartphone-use policies. Addressing the problem of distracted caregiving in daycares demands a more holistic approach.
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Abstract: Few comparative East-West philosophers have appreciated the yogic principles latent in John Dewey's writings, particularly those on the topics of nature and experience. The yogi in Dewey emerges especially when one... more
Abstract: Few comparative East-West philosophers have appreciated the yogic principles latent in John Dewey's writings, particularly those on the topics of nature and experience. The yogi in Dewey emerges especially when one considers the phenomenological dimension of his metaphysics. From his endorsement of the Alexander technique to his rich notions of growth and ecology, parallels exist between Dewey's pragmatism and both Indian and American yogic philosophies. I argued in a previous paper (“John Dewey 'on the side ...
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In the essay “Pragmatism and Pets,” Matthew Pamental argues that the lived experience of animal rescue effectively refutes Gary Francione’s position that welfarist programs have been ineffective and the rationale for animal welfarism,... more
In the essay “Pragmatism and Pets,” Matthew Pamental argues that the lived experience of animal rescue effectively refutes Gary Francione’s position that welfarist programs have been ineffective and the rationale for animal welfarism, generally, is flawed. Underlying the steps in his argument is John Dewey’s process of intelligent inquiry, whereby Pamental demonstrates that organizations such as Maddie’s Fund, Best Friends Animal Sanctuary and the No More Homeless Pets in Utah program have taken pragmatic measures towards achieving the lofty goal of eliminating pet homelessness and euthanasia. Despite Pamental’s careful chronicling of how these organizations have persevered in the face of a multitude of practical challenges, one question persists: Does the lived experience of animal rescue really undermine Gary Francione’s anti-welfarist argument? Francione’s radical position is that animals ought not to be treated as property or instruments for the satisfaction of human needs. Taki...
Recent literature on the American philosopher John Dewey’s understanding of industrial democracy is sparse. The literature on the relationship between Dewey’s idea of industrial democracy and the modern notion of union democracy is... more
Recent literature on the American philosopher John Dewey’s understanding of industrial democracy is sparse. The literature on the relationship between Dewey’s idea of industrial democracy and the modern notion of union democracy is non-existent. This might be explained by the lack of scholarly interest in what Dewey called “the problems of men” or the popular backlash against unionism in recent American history. Union democracy is the view that the internal structure and operations of unions should be democratic—for instance, extending free speech and assembly rights to union members as well as guaranteeing fair union elections. Its predecessor, industrial democracy, addresses the democratization of worker-management relations. Dewey, the consummate public intellectual of his day, wrote on the topic of industrial democracy, served as president of the League for Industrial Democracy and was an active member of the New York Teachers’ Union. In this paper, I attempt to revive Dewey’s i...
While the “Hegelian deposit” in John Dewey’s mature philosophy has been well established, what is far less clear is the extent to which Hegel and Dewey shared similarly specific visions of acceptable institutional arrangements. Both... more
While the “Hegelian deposit” in John Dewey’s mature philosophy has been well established, what is far less clear is the extent to which Hegel and Dewey shared similarly specific visions of acceptable institutional arrangements. Both thinkers believed that the social is prior to the individual. Free and ethical institutions – for instance, the family, corporation, and state – establish the preconditions for individual freedom and morality. However, scholars disagree as to whether Dewey was genuinely concerned with institutional specific outside of those general ideas (e.g. fraternity, liberty and equality) that inspire their creation, maintenance, and reform. Commentators dispute how to interpret Hegel’s concept of freedom in so far it becomes actualized in a rational institutional order. In this essay, I argue that one helpful way to address these scholarly disagreements is to appreciate Hegel and Dewey as star-crossed lovers, sharing a passion for institutions and their logical dev...
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Ethics is not a discrete set of rules or God-given imperatives concerning how humans ought to behave. Ethics resembles a holistic process of normative inquiry, implicating concepts such as duty, utility, virtue, and rationality.... more
Ethics is not a discrete set of rules or God-given imperatives concerning how humans ought to behave. Ethics resembles a holistic process of normative inquiry, implicating concepts such as duty, utility, virtue, and rationality. Postdigitalism concerns the ways in which human knowledge and experience adapt to the rapid growth and dissemination of digital technologies. Since technology and morality are in constant flux, postdigital ethics must remain flexible and accommodating to the tools and mores that define a rapidly changing civilization. In this vein, the outcomes of postdigital ethical inquiry are typically treated as fallible, unsettled, and subject to revision in light of shifting societal norms and dynamic moral beliefs. The proper subject-matter of postdigital ethics includes theory, applied ethics, posthumanism, and theology.
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Perception of the four-year diploma's value as a catalyst for personal, social and economic mobility has declined over the past two decades. In response, higher education institutions have increasingly turned towards private technology... more
Perception of the four-year diploma's value as a catalyst for personal, social and economic mobility has declined over the past two decades. In response, higher education institutions have increasingly turned towards private technology firms to assist in the development, marketing and sale of short courses and mini-degrees, termed 'micro-credentials'. The clients range from large corporate employers with immense training needs to struggling job-seekers in high-tech industries. Postdigital scholars' reception of this growing microcredentialing phenomenon has ranged from qualified endorsement to critical scrutiny.
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Postdigital activism is the idea that organizing, mobilizing, petitioning, protesting, and other forms of social and political activism can be effectuated through technological means that bridge between predigital and digital media.... more
Postdigital activism is the idea that organizing, mobilizing, petitioning, protesting, and other forms of social and political activism can be effectuated through technological means that bridge between predigital and digital media. Postdigital activism may involve artistic performance, computer hacking, slacktivism, publishing at the margins, through memes, algorithms, politics of identity, transdisciplinarity, and Marxist critiques of capitalism. The objective of postdigital activism is genuine social and political change.
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Holism is the notion that all the elements in a system, whether physical, biological, social or political, are interconnected and therefore should be appreciated as a whole. Consequently, the meaning or function of the total system is... more
Holism is the notion that all the elements in a system, whether physical, biological, social or political, are interconnected and therefore should be appreciated as a whole. Consequently, the meaning or function of the total system is irreducible to the meaning or function of one or more of the system’s constituent elements. The whole is, on the holist’s account, prior to its parts. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle captures the idea of holism in his statement that “the whole is more than the sum of the parts.” The term holism was coined by South African statesman and scholar Jan Smuts. Etymologically, it comes from a Greek root meaning total, whole, entire or everything. In political thought, the idea is commonly associated with organicism, the view that the state is a living whole (the so-called “body politic”) and therefore studies of the how it functions should be treated systematically rather than piecemeal (cf. Plato, G.W.F. Hegel and Henry Maine).
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Heralded as the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison was, besides one of the most influential architects of the U.S. Constitution, a man of letters, a politician, a scientist and a diplomat who left an enduring legacy for American... more
Heralded as the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison was, besides one of the most influential architects of the U.S. Constitution, a man of letters, a politician, a scientist and a diplomat who left an enduring legacy for American philosophical thought. As a tireless advocate for the ratification of the Constitution, Madison advanced his most groundbreaking ideas in his jointly authoring The Federalist Papers with John Jay and Andrew Hamilton. Indeed, two of his most enduring ideas—the large republic thesis and the argument for government separation-of-powers/checks-and-balances—are contained in there. In his life’s work, Madison fused together the three dominant philosophies in post-revolutionary, antebellum America: Lockean liberalism, classical republicanism and Christian Protestantism.
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Although there is no consensus about the exact span of time that corresponds to the American Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the eighteenth century among thinkers in British North America and the early United... more
Although there is no consensus about the exact span of time that corresponds to the American Enlightenment, it is safe to say that it occurred during the eighteenth century among thinkers in British North America and the early United States and was inspired by the ideas of the British and French Enlightenments. Based on the metaphor of bringing light to the Dark Age, the Age of the Enlightenment (Siècle des lumières in French and Aufklärung in German) shifted allegiances away from absolute authority, whether religious or political, to more skeptical and optimistic attitudes about human nature, religion and politics. In the American context, thinkers such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin invented and adopted revolutionary ideas about scientific rationality, religious toleration and experimental political organization—ideas that would have far-reaching effects on the development of the fledgling nation. Some coupled science and religion in the notion of deism; others asserted the natural rights of man in the anti-authoritarian doctrine of liberalism; and still others touted the importance of cultivating virtue, enlightened leadership and community in early forms of republican thinking. At least six ideas came to punctuate American Enlightenment thinking: deism, liberalism, republicanism, conservatism, toleration and scientific progress. Many of these were shared with European Enlightenment thinkers, but in some instances took a uniquely American form.
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Any treatment of the relationship between pragmatism and politics would be incomplete without considering the multiple areas in which pragmatist thought and political studies intersect. Extensive scholarly work on pragmatism and politics... more
Any treatment of the relationship between pragmatism and politics would be incomplete without considering the multiple areas in which pragmatist thought and political studies intersect. Extensive scholarly work on pragmatism and politics can be found in the broad literature on political science, democratic theory, global political theory, public administration, and public policy. To a lesser extent, scholarship employing a pragmatist approach can be found in other subfields of political studies, including American politics and international relations. Unfortunately, the few works in these subfi elds tend to appeal to a generic form of pragmatism (e.g., pragmatism as brute instrumentalism or pragmatism as vicious opportunism), not the robust version associated with classic and contemporary philosophical pragmatism.1 Most works on classic pragmatism and politics draw heavily on John Dewey’s political writings. Pragmatism’s two other founders remained relatively silent on the subject; in Robert Talisse’s words, “neither [Charles Sanders] Peirce nor [William] James wrote systematically about politics.” Neo-pragmatist treatments of politics can be found in the works of the late Richard Rorty, Cornell West, and Richard Posner.
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An extensive literature on pragmatism and compromise, as well as their relationship to civic and political leadership, can be found in the field of Public Administration (hereafter PA). PA is broadly defined as that discipline of study... more
An extensive literature on pragmatism and compromise, as well as their relationship to civic and political leadership, can be found in the field of Public Administration (hereafter PA). PA is broadly defined as that discipline of study addressing the development, institutionalization and reconstruction of bureaucratic-governmental organizations as well as the policies they are tasked to implement—or more “[s]imply stated . . . the management of government agencies." However, the literature is not limited to the works of PA scholars and practitioners. It also encompass the writings of philosophers, and specifically philosophical pragmatists, who can contribute “a kind of methodological sophistication that either sharpens the issues at point in public controversy or discloses the absence of real or genuine issues, thus clarifying the options open for decision." In this literature, questions arise as to how unelected leaders in governmental bureaucracies are guided by pragmatism or pragmatic ideas to (i) negotiate with stakeholders to fashion appropriate compromise agreements, (ii) solve policy problems within a zone of legally mandated authority, (iii) clearly articulate the scope and content of that body of knowledge considered PA scholarship, (iv) understand the origins of PA as a distinct discipline and (v) bridge between the abstract principles offered by PA theorists and the concrete practices of bureaucratic-governmental organizations and public administrators. Classified thematically, these issues fit into four areas: first, controversy over whether administrative action is legitimate (i and ii); second, the PA’s identity crisis as a discipline (iii and iv); third, the gap between theory and practice (v); and fourth, the difficulty of integrating pragmatism and PA (i through v).
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An infamous scene from the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris was shot by violating a very basic requirement for exercising moral agency. In 2016, a clip of director Bernardo Bertolucci speaking about a Last Tango in Paris scene set off a... more
An infamous scene from the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris was shot by violating a very basic requirement for exercising moral agency. In 2016, a clip of director Bernardo Bertolucci speaking about a Last Tango in Paris scene set off a firestorm of reactions on Twitter. He had failed to get an actor’s informed consent to participate in a mock rape scene, hoping to evoke a genuine reaction of horror from her. The film tells the story of a recently widowed American man’s sordid sexual affair with a French woman. In one particular scene, the character Jeanne, played by 19-year-old Maria Schneider, is raped by the character Paul, played by 48-year-old Marlon Brando. This scene is problematic for many reasons, several of which are ethical in nature.
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A Philosophy of Film-themed blog has the potential to be many things to many people. As an academic sub-field of Aesthetics, Philosophy of Film touches on a wide swath of topics, ranging from, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of... more
A Philosophy of Film-themed blog has the potential to be many things to many people. As an academic sub-field of Aesthetics, Philosophy of Film touches on a wide swath of topics, ranging from, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “the idea of philosophy of film,” “the nature of film,” “film and authorship,” “emotional engagement,” “film and society” and “film as philosophy” (Wartenberg 2015). Issues in ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, meta-ethics, philosophy of technology, educational philosophy, philosophy of mind and even social, political and legal philosophy can emerge through the analysis of a film.
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How many times have you read a job announcement, decided to apply, read the required application materials and then felt your heart drop with disappointment? In the current job market, there is an arms race in required applications... more
How many times have you read a job announcement, decided to apply, read the required application materials and then felt your heart drop with disappointment? In the current job market, there is an arms race in required applications materials. (Besides an arms race, I’ve elsewhere called it a ‘paper chase’.) Fail to submit one of these required items and you’re immediately eliminated from the candidate pool.
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In 1983, a 30-minute special titled “Mister Rogers Talks with Parents about Daycare” was broadcast on U.S. national television. Hosted by Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame, the program advised parents on topics germane to... more
In 1983, a 30-minute special titled “Mister Rogers Talks with Parents about Daycare” was broadcast on U.S. national television. Hosted by Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame, the program advised parents on topics germane to the placement of children in daycare, including (1) managing separation anxiety, (2) transitioning from home life to the daycare environment, and (3) choosing a daycare that works best for the parents and child. Unfortunately, Mister Rogers’ daycare special was filmed prior to the advent of mobile internet technology. So, it did not broach the subject of distracted caregiving and its dangerous consequences for child well-being. If the show were aired today, it would need to address the risks of entrusting the health and safety of children to daycare workers who regularly check their portable internet-enabled devices to the point of distraction. In the present article I define the problem of distracted daycare, explain its ramifications for child welfare and imagine a similar contemporary television show, “Mister Rogers Talks with Parents about Distracted Daycare.” In this fictional show, Mister Rogers would offer advice to parents concerning how to protect their children against the threat posed by distracted daycare workers.
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I’ve lived in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, for seven years now. I’m a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Hazleton campus of Penn State University. Besides teaching ethics and logic to undergraduate students, I also indulge from... more
I’ve lived in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, for seven years now. I’m a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Hazleton campus of Penn State University. Besides teaching ethics and logic to undergraduate students, I also indulge from time to time in citizen journalism, writing mainly for Truthout and Intellectual Takeout (both online forums devoted to reasoned discussion about contemporary social, political and environmental issues). In the Hazleton community, I also perform the function of intellectual gadfly, questioning, irritating and, when I’m successful, exposing the truth.
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A highly romanticized view of public philosophy has unfortunately taken hold of our collective imagination. The reality of doing public philosophy is often starkly different than this romanticized view. Public philosophy is an enterprise... more
A highly romanticized view of public philosophy has unfortunately taken hold of our collective imagination. The reality of doing public philosophy is often starkly different than this romanticized view. Public philosophy is an enterprise fraught with peril. Public philosophers can face employer retaliation, police harassment, cyber-stalking and outright bullying as a result of injecting philosophical ideas into the public discourse. In this essay I draw a ground-map of the terrain that we public philosophers tread and locate the metaphorical landmines – not in order to help others avoid them (some are simply unavoidable), but so that we can all acknowledge the risks in advance of undertaking the enterprise. In other words, the point is to speak to some of the dangers of doing public philosophy and explain why I believe attempts at eliminating those dangers – making public philosophy safe and sanitized – threaten to undermine the enterprise itself.
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Perhaps what gives gardens their political meaning are those practical features that all gardens—including dooryard gardens, house gardens, community gardens, allotment gardens and school gardens—share in common.1 According to Clarissa... more
Perhaps what gives gardens their political meaning are those practical features that all gardens—including dooryard gardens, house gardens, community gardens, allotment gardens and school gardens—share in common.1 According to Clarissa Kimber (2004), “[a]ll . . . gardens depend on the gardeners for maintenance and are spaces made meaningful by the actions of people during the course of their everyday lives” (p. 263). More than philosophers, cultural geographers have consistently explored the connections between community gardening and political activism. For example, Lauren Baker (2004) has conducted research on Toronto’s Community Food- Security (CFS) movement, which is not only about gardening, but also about challenging the food system status quo (especially its corporate leaders) and securing alternative food sources (food security) for area residents (especially immigrants and the poor).2 Christopher Smith and Hilda Kurtz (2003) consider the controversy over New York City Mayor Giuliani’s plan to auction and redevelop the land occupied by 114 community gardens, describing it as “a politics of scale in which garden advocates contested the fragmentation of social urban space wrought by the application of neoliberal policies” (p. 193). Giuliani’s redevelopment project exemplifies neo- liberal economic policy, for it attempts to privatize public use land, maximize property values and, ultimately, remove government involvement in a free market.3 Mary Beth Pudup (2008) describes the conflict between New York City gardening activists and the Giuliani administration in the early 1990s, claiming that “gardening in such collective settings is an unalloyed act of resistance” (p. 1232). Poised to contest neoliberal policies at various geographical scales (local, city-wide and state-wide), members of New York City’s gardening coalition successfully ended Giuliani’s ambitious plan to redevelop and auction the public land. The city’s extensive network of community gardening activists, including guerrilla gardeners, prevailed.
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A forum for sharing ideas that are outside of the mainstream, whether because they are unpopular, divisive or too controversial for polite company
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Submit your original Medium articles, preferably 3-5-minutes reading time. Articles are encouraged on any topic relevant to innovative practices and approaches in higher education. Critical reviews are also welcome. Submit to... more
Submit your original Medium articles, preferably 3-5-minutes reading time.
Articles are encouraged on any topic relevant to innovative practices and approaches in higher education.
Critical reviews are also welcome.
Submit to medium.com/the-higher-learning-futurist
Preference will be given to Ph.D.s but submissions from all are welcome.
Articles are encouraged on any topic relevant to innovative practices and approaches in higher education.
Critical reviews are also welcome.
Submit to medium.com/the-higher-learning-futurist
Preference will be given to Ph.D.s but submissions from all are welcome.
Research Interests:
This short 4-week course examines Effective Altruism (EA), a philanthropic movement based on utilitarianism, exploring its key philosophical principles, practical recommendations and the reactions of its critics.
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This short 4-week course asks and answers the question, how should corporations and their employees behave in today's globally competitive business environment? It introduces students to key concepts in business ethics such as moral... more
This short 4-week course asks and answers the question, how should corporations and their employees behave in today's globally competitive business environment? It introduces students to key concepts in business ethics such as moral agency, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory and responsible environmental stewardship. The first week examine the issue of whether businesses and corporations can be ethical agents in the same way that individuals are. The second week looks at the notion of corporate responsibility, inquiring into whether corporations should serve only their shareholders or the wider set of stakeholders who are affected by their policies and activities. The third week tackles the matter of responsible environmental stewardship, or whether corporations have a moral responsibility to protect natural environments, ecosystems and the flora and fauna within them. The fourth week grapples with the question of whether whistleblowing, or reporting unethical and criminal corporate behavior, is merely permissible or morally obligatory for employees of corporations.
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This 8-week course focuses on the question, what is law? The point of this course is to ask and answer this question by exploring four analytical theories of jurisprudence: (1) positivism, (2) naturalism, (3) formalism and (4) realism.
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This short 4-week course focuses on a single historical text: John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916). The purpose of the course is to introduce the student to this landmark work in pedagogical theory, read its key chapters,... more
This short 4-week course focuses on a single historical text: John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916). The purpose of the course is to introduce the student to this landmark work in pedagogical theory, read its key chapters, comprehend the book's significance and Dewey's legacy for contemporary educational ideas and practices through an appreciation of the text, scholarly interpretations and critical responses.
The first week examines the book's first four chapters, addressing education as a necessity of life, a social function, direction and growth. The second and third weeks sample the remaining chapters, addressing vocational education, citizen education and ethics education. The final week looks at the influence of Democracy and Education on contemporary currents in philosophy of education.
The first week examines the book's first four chapters, addressing education as a necessity of life, a social function, direction and growth. The second and third weeks sample the remaining chapters, addressing vocational education, citizen education and ethics education. The final week looks at the influence of Democracy and Education on contemporary currents in philosophy of education.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION This course will familiarize students with central philosophical and ethical problems in the history of business practices. It will investigate the nature of business and business practices, their relation to the human... more
COURSE DESCRIPTION This course will familiarize students with central philosophical and ethical problems in the history of business practices. It will investigate the nature of business and business practices, their relation to the human condition more generally, and their relation to as well as effect on human values. The course will develop a student's critical skills in evaluating both the assumptions and the philosophical foundations and justifications for business and economic systems, the relation between morality and specific business practices, and central positions and figures in the history of philosophical analysis of these questions. Historical figures will include Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, John Dewey and Karl Marx. The course will investigate business as a central feature of modern society and culture, how it evolved, and the philosophical implications for contemporary society and human values.
COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To understand the place of ethics and moral philosophy within the broader discipline of Philosophy. 2. To demonstrate mastery of basic ethical theories, including ethical egoism, character/Aristotelian ethics, consequentialism/utilitarianism, deontological/Kantian ethics, Marxist and pragmatist ethics. 3. To develop an appreciation for the free-will/determinism debate and those critical thinking skills necessary for good ethical reasoning and for evaluating others’ ethical arguments. 4. To acquaint students with the how professional ethicists and moral philosophers apply ethical theories to concrete cases/problems in order to derive defensible conclusions.
COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To understand the place of ethics and moral philosophy within the broader discipline of Philosophy. 2. To demonstrate mastery of basic ethical theories, including ethical egoism, character/Aristotelian ethics, consequentialism/utilitarianism, deontological/Kantian ethics, Marxist and pragmatist ethics. 3. To develop an appreciation for the free-will/determinism debate and those critical thinking skills necessary for good ethical reasoning and for evaluating others’ ethical arguments. 4. To acquaint students with the how professional ethicists and moral philosophers apply ethical theories to concrete cases/problems in order to derive defensible conclusions.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION This course offers students a broad, coherent overview of moral issues, moral reasoning, and, questions concerning a good life. It emphasizes the thought of major, influential figures and their works. The course also... more
COURSE DESCRIPTION This course offers students a broad, coherent overview of moral issues, moral reasoning, and, questions concerning a good life. It emphasizes the thought of major, influential figures and their works. The course also allows students to apply to contemporary ethical issues the theories espoused by these figures. Students will compare, contrast, and critically assess competing theories of persons and goodness, their assumptions and background world views, and their implications for practice. Ethics, a sub-field of Philosophy, is divided three ways: 1) Normative ethics (understanding the methods/theories for conducting ethical analysis) 2) Applied ethics (applying normative ethical methods/theories to moral dilemmas and problems), and 3) Meta-ethics (explaining what ethics is and how we resolve ethical disagreements). The primary tasks in this course are to acquire the skills to think critically, understand a set of normative ethical theories and apply those normative ethical theories to morally problematic situations-i.e., to master both the normative and applied dimensions of ethical reasoning. The applied portion of the course focuses on the sanctity and quality of human life as they relate to the moral issues of abortion and euthanasia. The final section of the course is devoted to meta-ethics. COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To understand the place of ethics and moral philosophy within the broader discipline of Philosophy. 2. To demonstrate understanding of six ethical theories: (i) ethical egoism, (ii) character/Aristotelian ethics, (iii) consequentialism/utilitarianism, (iv) deontological/Kantian ethics, (v) Marxist ethics and (vi) pragmatist ethics. 3. To develop those critical thinking skills necessary for good ethical reasoning and for evaluating others' arguments. 4. To acquaint students with the how professional ethicists and moral philosophers apply ethical theories to concrete cases/problems in order to derive defensible conclusions.
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This is a list of other scholars' works citing Dr. Ralston's articles and book chapters.
Research Interests:
This is a list of other scholars' works citing Dr. Ralston's books.