Immanuel Kant enshrined the modem notion of race. Many commentators prefer to ignore this aspect of Kant’s thinking, considering it to be out-dated, merely a remnant of eighteenth century philosophy or bad science. This article will examine Kant’s racial theory within the context of his wider work, and mainly so with regard to the teleological principle. Kant often presents his new notion of race and racial differences in relation to teleology, i.e., he used races as an example for understanding the teleological principle. The aim of this article is to understand the relationship between Kant’s racial theory and his teleology, which is essential for comprehending his cosmopolitanism. Instead of merely discarding the racist remarks in Kant’s work as marginal and distracting from his central argument, the article will show that Kant’s teleology is a means for him to exclude non-white races from a positive, moral development of a culture.

Peter Singer places a stringent requirement on us to come to the aid of those who are suffering, as long as we do not have to give up something of comparable worth. I consider some criticisms of this view here, while arguing in defense of Singer’s conclusion. I presume here that it is morally impermissible to create unnecessary and avoidable harm to innocent people. I argue that if we have an adequate understanding of agent causation and moral responsibility then we can meet these objections. I refer to this as ‘agent-causation responsibility.’ I argue that through our intentional inaction we do cause unnecessary and avoidable suffering to continue and that we are therefore morally required to work towards eliminating it.

For the economic and political processes being brought about in the name of the current wave of globalization to be ethical, they must avoid recapitulating the processes of the previous wave of globalization: colonialism. The paper discusses the logic of colonialism and a minimum requirement that the current globalization would have to fulfill in order to finally and definitively overcome the colonial structures inherited from the previous globalization: it must be democratic. It is argued that supranational democratic structures are, thus, key to definitively overcoming colonialism, and a necessary condition fornon-neocolonial globalization; without such structures, globalization is neocolonial and, therefore, unethical.

This paper discusses international terrorism and the diagnosis of terrorism that is found in Baudrillard, Habermas, and Derrida. The paper suggests a way of responding to terrorism based upon Gadanler’s understanding of Bildung. Terrorism is analyzed as arising out of an encounter between singularities that are experienced as otherness and alterity. Gadamer’s distinction between the humanities and the natural and social sciences reveals two fundamentally different epistemological orientations. Philosophical understanding is essentially hermeneutic and treats the phenomenon of terrorism symbolicaIly, in contrast to the fact-oriented positivistic sciences.

This article focuses on the difficult issue of what exactly goes on when an individual tolerates something. It focuses on the problem of why an individual would ever choose to allow for some practice that he deerns unacceptable while having the power to do something about it. After distinguishing between different attitudes (tolerant as well as intolerant), this article argues that individuals can have various reasons for deciding to tolerate what they deern wrong. As such, we defend a broad conception of tolerance, which goes against the grain of recent literature in which tolerance is generally understood as a virtue.

Forgiveness at its deepest level is a remarkable individual and interpersonal achievement that can restore one’s identity and reconstitute one’s relationship with another. Exemplars of forgiveness can transcend the particular and contribute to constructive inter-group relations and the creation of a new national narrative of reconciliation. Existing decisional or emotional explanations for forgiveness do not fully account for the transformative experience of the most radical forms of forgiveness. Exploring personal identity from Eastern and Western philosophical perspectives can help us locate a new understanding of this form of forgiveness. Some of those who forgive deeply do so by transitioning from one cognitive-emotional state to another radically different one. This reappraisal is mediated by the experience of the nonessential nature of the self and the other, and this realization, in turn, allows for a profound transformation in personal identity and interpersonal relations.

Just war theory has been criticized since it so often is employed by governments and political leadership to justify uses of violent force for nationalistic, political self-serving or otherwise non-moral reasons. This paper acknowledges that reality but argues that just war thinking exemplifies a nonabsolutist mode of moral thinking that actually sets a high bar for morally justifying any use of force. The paper argues that just war thinking must be based on the presumption that force ordinarily ought not be used to settle conflicts. To make the point the author examines Gandhi’s satyagraha, which Gandhi understood as a use of nonviolent force. The paper demonstrates how Gandhi implicitly appealed to the various criteria of just war in thinking about satyagraha. The author concludes that just war theory is not an enemy of peace.

This paper examines Cornel West’s attempt to offer an alternative to the dominant liberal view concerning the proper role of religion in the democratic public square. Whereas mainstream liberals seek strategies to keep religion and public life separate, West seeks to dissolve the apparent tension between religion and democratic citizenship by reconstructing religion pragmatically such that it can be rendered compatible with democracy. I argue that West’s proposal fails to be a viable alternative precisely because the “prophetic pragmatism” underwriting his view is unethical to the extent that it relies upon manipulative relationships with traditional religious believers in African-American churches.

There is much within contemporary continental philosophy that might give the indication that it is really just disguised Christian theology. However, in line with Hent de Vries and in contrast to Dominique Janicaud, I contend that there are reasons for taking continental God-talk seriously on purely philosophical grounds. On this basis, I then go on to advocate a specific form of God-talk-that dealing with kenosis-as being deeply relevant to contemporary politics because of the way in which it provides an argument for democracy as the political system best opened to the critical function of charity.

Class action lawsuits and the justice that they are supposed to enforce have become of great concem to legislators in recent years. The traditional ruIes of tort liability cannot completely support the court decisions that have been reached. The rulings, however, are clearly in the interest of giving victims the justice that they are due. Legal scholars, such as Jules Coleman, claim that the conflicts between tort liability and class action justice cannot be reconciled in our legal system. I propose an avenue of analysis whereby the principles of justice that support tort law are preserved as needed for modem issues, yet at the same time address the genuine public policy concems in these class actions.

The following essay involves a discussion of four theories about lying and their application to a specific circumstance, the Nazi-Jew situation, as found in Kant, Aquinas, Pruss, and Guervin. By examining their thoughts on this particular situation, we may draw out, by the use of “right reason,” ways to handle everyday situations that causes us to face the tragic choice between two goods that lying presents. The argument is that, if approached in a certain way, the tragic choice lying presents may be avoided.

Nozick’s Experience Machine thought experiment is generally taken to make a compelling, if not conclusive, case against philosophical hedonism. I argue that it does not and, indeed, that regardless of the results, it cannot provide any reason to accept or reject either hedonism or any other philosophical account of wellbeing since it presupposes preferentism, the desire-satisfaction account ofwellbeing. Preferentists cannot take any comfort from the results of such thought experiments because they assume preferentism and therefore cannot establish it. Neither can anyone else, since only a preferentistshould accept the terms of the thought experiment.

The normative criterion of attainability, or non-utopianism, is often referred to in discussions of goal-setting rationality. Goals should be realistic, it is argued, since it is unreasonable to adopt goals that cannot be achieved and that are of no use in the selection of means toward their realization. However, despite the proposed requirement of attainability, utopian or semi-utopian goals are often adopted in political contexts, the Swedish Vision Zero for trafflc safety being one example. This paper develops and analyzes four objections that can be raised against the use of utopian goals and to support the normative criterion of attainability: that utopian goals are (1) too imprecise and (2) too far-reaching to guide action effectively, (3) counterproductive, and (4) morally objectionable. A tentative defense of utopian goal-setting is built on the counter-arguments that can be put forward to weaken each of the four objections.