The persistence of some central instances of social injustice in European democracies governed by the rule of law; despite abundant resources for durably reducing them, is poorly understood. Understanding better the nature of law as constructive interpretation may strongly motivate future applications of the rule of law to alleviating substantially the social injustice of unnecessary yet continuing destitution among many persons, particularly in affluent and resourceful Paris. However, recent critical examinations of the nature of law as constructive interpretation have uncovered a crucial problem with this otherwise cogent account. Here, I show how some eco-ethical reflection on the nature of aesthetic interpretation may suggest a way for resolving this problem with the nature of jurisprudential interpretation. If correct, a further developed version of this analysis may re-open constructively interpretive ways towards more socially effective means for applying the rule of law to help in the elimination of the persistent social injustice of widespread impoverishment in Paris and in other similarly governed major world cities.

This essay deals with two conceptions of the political; one that entails a clash of civilizations associated with a Schmittian critique of liberalism and a second which envisions the political as an emerging domain. The latter idea can be associated with the later work of John Rawls which separates the comprehensive from the political. I argue that it is this idea when reconstructed in relationship to a theory of multiple modernities that can be appropriated for an emerging notion of global justice. Hence, it is in the domain of the political that we should look for a new and emerging concept of justice.

This paper tries to show that, in our criticism of society today, it is not enough to presuppose an idea of utopia but also to integrate an idea of dystopia into our reflections. The first two parts consider two documents that analyze the socio- environmental crisis of our world today: (1) the fifth assessment report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2014, and (2) the Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis on Care of Our Common Home, which argues that there are not two different crises but one single socio-environmental crisis that threatens all life on our planet, and calls for a new ethics. The next two parts confront two philosophers, Ernst Bloch and Hans Jonas. Bloch has provided a strong defense of the utopian thinking but in a Marxist context, whereas Jonas has rejected all utopian thinking and replaced it with the idea of responsibility for the present world. Both thinkers need a more fundamental idea of hope.

The aim of this paper is, first, to test the hypothesis whereby narrativity constitutes an existential in the Heideggerian sense. Second, the author renews his appeal for a pluralism of possible modes of self-emplotment, without presupposing any separation between pre-narrative experience and narrative experience. Finally, he devotes some time to a discussion with Strawson and Ricceur on the limits of narrative or, more accurately, to limit-narrativity as a form of narration impeded as a result of traumatic experiences. The article then introduces the concept of narrative substitution in highlighting the role played by others and by third-person narrators who substitute themselves for the inability to self- emplot. - Key-words: narrativity, Ricceur, Strawson, traumatic experiences, self-emplotment.

The 21st International Climate Conference (COP21) demonstrated that a global consensus is possible among 195 countries. For this reason, we could say that climate change is a chance (perhaps the last) for humanity.It is indeed the only area where worldly governance now seems possible, although it also is needed to fight, for example, against global terrorism or to regulate international migration. - Through the ongoing experience concerning climate policy, a triple dynamic, which would establish a genuine global governance, can be drawn: recognizing interdependencies, regulating contradictions, making actors aware of their responsibilities. It is therefore urgent we learn the lessons of the COP 21.

The characteristic feature of modernized systematic environment is realized by one little, thin box named a smart phone or iPhone. By touching the surface, it can open various kinds of technologically magnified internet environment, and bring us into so-called world-wide information society. Our surrounding world is changed to a “technologically developed imaginary world”, virtual reality, where we can live and enjoy. Through this instrument we will be an “anonymous person” for helping people but we may hurt another person’s dignity. It is possible to hide one’s own “self’ behind the technological tool. People always look at the surface of smart phone and concentrate upon outer world without consciousness. It is the crisis of “self’, because of a lack of thinking. Unfortunately, dehumanization will occur. But for solving transnational problems, for example global warming, refugees, etc., we must change our ethical attitude from nosism without any responsibility to an awakening consciousness or living together as “world citizens”.

Moral naturalism in Europe and elsewhere today is the view that only the natural sciences can satisfactorily analyze the ethical value of persons. Many thoughtful people appear still to believe that the natural sciences can “reduce” the distinctive ethical value of persons ultimately to microphysical terms. Such an apparently widespread belief in part of the EU cultural environment today, however, raises serious questions. - In this EU context and in the Symposium contexts of Tomonobu Imamichi’s (1922-2012) eco-ethical concerns about “a new ethics for our new times,” I would like to offer here two sets of critical observations in support of non-naturalistic accounts of the ethical value of persons. The first group comprises reasons why even some impressive contemporary forms of scientific ethical naturalisms of the person continue to be surprising. And the second, briefer set comprises several elements only of what a non- naturalistic ethics of the person might require.

The pragmatic turn away from epistemology could mean a number of things for the definition of the future of political theory. First, political liberalism would mark a distinct departure from comprehensive liberalism that is based solely on epistemological justification of fundamental liberal notions. Second, the pragmatic turn would cause Rawls to modify his long-time emphasis on constructivism, moving from Kantian constructivism to political constructivism, and implicitly adopting more substantive approach. Third, the fact of pluralism would radically open up the question of the foundation for consensus, which would lead to an emphasis on constitutionalism. Fourth, this move, innovative as it was, would lead to the establishment of an association between constitutional interpretation and public reason. Finally, this set of moves associated with the pragmatic turn would essentially set up a series of constraints when it comes to evaluating public reason from an international perspective.

The aim of this article is to cope with the academic schizophrenia and the anthropological deficit of contemporary social theory by a comparative investigation of Christian Smith and Paul Ricoeur. Two interrelated “gaps” are identified: the “external” gap, which has to do with the brutal, yet seldom recognized, contrast between the naïve, uncritical praise of humanism in public life, and the theoretical anti-humanism of the strong versions of the predominant poststructuralist and postmodern epistemologies within human and social sciences - and the “internal” gap associated with the academic schizophrenia of scholars who systematically disconnect scholarly theory and personal experience, description of facts from normative convictions. In order to provide resources to cope with these challenges, the author turns to Smith and Ricoeur, considered as two different versions of contemporary personalism.

The distinction between xenophobia and racism is sometimes used to deny that Islamophobia is a racism. I challenge this strategy by tracing that distinction back to the formation of the term racism by Franz Boas, Julian Huxley, and Ashley Montagu, that culminated in the UNESCO Statement on Race in 1950. By showing the connection between their understanding of racism and the deployment in this context of further distinctions, such as that between race and religion, or that between nature and culture, and by recalling the ideological purpose the use of these distinctions were intended to serve, I deploy a genealogical approach to show that Islamophobia is a racism. Racism cannot be identified through the use of analytically established distinctions when what is at issue is the discriminatory behavior which is at its heart. Antiracism needs to learn to be as flexible in its thinking as racism appears to be.

This paper demonstrates the importance of the concept of responsibility as the foundation of an ethics of the environment, in particular in the fields of politics and economics in the modem civilization marked by globalization and technological progress. We can indeed observe a moralization of responsibility going beyond a strict legal definition in the development of an ethics of the environment. Accordingly, the concept of responsibility for the environment and for sustainability is the key notion of international development in order to understand the ethical duty of a modem technological civilization.