1,721,017 research outputs found
Reconstructing the justice dispute in America.
No full textThis dissertation centers around a concept which I construct in order to classify, explain, understand, and criticize an existing kind of moral conception. I call the concept proceduralism. A proceduralist moral conception is defined as a moral conception which uses constitutive principles of reasoning in a procedure of justification to justify substantive principles of right or justice. The commitment to justifying principles of right is so strong as to shape the entire moral conception into a theory of justification. Moreover, proceduralist moral conceptions typically express a norm of impartial regard in their procedures, and they are also typically animated by a theory of the moral or rational person as an impartial justifier. In the first part of the dissertation I argue that it is fruitful to regard the moral conceptions of John Rawls, R. M. Hare, and Richard Brandt, among others, as proceduralist moral conceptions. I contrast proceduralism with a kind of moral conception I call separatism, namely a moral conception which holds that the correctness conditions of principles of right are independent of the methods we use to arrive at them. Ross's intuitionistic theory is an example. The second and longer part of the dissertation contains criticisms of these reconstructed moral conceptions from a feminist point of view, one which takes its origins in Nancy Chodorow's theory of gender development and capitalist patriarchy. I explain and use her theory in order to criticize proceduralist theories about both public and private morality, as well as to criticize actual social targets, namely, husbands and certain traditional marriage arrangements. A framework is provided to reconcile the proceduralist and the feminist points of view. This framework is proposed as one way out of the impasse in the dispute between liberalism and its critics.PhDPhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/104616/1/9116110.pdfDescription of 9116110.pdf : Restricted to UM users only
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
A context for liberalism: A Humean account of political justification.
No full textFrom Rousseau and Marx to Alasdair MacIntyre and Michael Sandel, communitarians have argued that liberalism fails to understand and respect the values that arise from the practices of particular communities. But liberalism need not fall prey to this objection, once we understand the role that practices should play in a political theory. In the largely-unread historical and political works of David Hume, I argue, we can find the resources for a political theory that stresses the importance of the material and social conditions of a society that shape its practices and that can answer these and other critics of liberalism. The practices of a society, Hume suggests, are the best--and perhaps the only--means by which we can judge the legitimacy of its political structure. No abstract rules for revolution or absolute values for justification can ever do the task that is required. Only by constructing an interpretation of our own practices that is sensitive to the values that can be found within them can we, as political critics, determine when a revolution is justified. And only by seeing political justification itself as a social practice will we understand the dynamics of this process and the limits of its scope. Thus, liberal practices were justified in Britain after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, I argue, because they cohered best with the practices that had developed in Britain during the seventeenth century, and it is justified in the West today precisely because, despite the polemics of the communitarians, it is still the best system given our practices and our community.PhDPhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/103417/1/9034412.pdfDescription of 9034412.pdf : Restricted to UM users only
Sharing fate: Contractualism, individualism and collective agency.
No full textIn this project I develop a theory of collective agency for Kantian social contract theory (contractualism). Contractualists (e.g. Rawls, Scanlon) lack a unified, coherent theory of agency. At some points they endorse an individualistic theory of the agent. Elsewhere they recognize the possibility of collective agents, but they never take seriously the concept of an irreducibly collective agent. Contractualism makes more sense, and can better achieve its own goals, if reinterpreted in terms of a theory of agency which avoids these equivocations. Drawing on recent work in metaphysics and action theory, I define the agent as an entity with the capacity to exhibit patterns of intention and concern. This theory accommodates both individual and collective agents. I present theories of practical reasoning, welfare, and autonomy for agents so defined. I revise contractualism in terms of this non-individualistic theory of agency. The central modification specifies that a party in Rawls' hypothetical choice situation should represent an agent, simpliciter, without any presumption that this agent is coextensive with a single human being. This revision generates challenging political implications. I conclude that it would not be unjust, in principle, for the state to require higher levels of individual self-sacrifice for the sake of the less fortunate than even egalitarian liberals traditionally support. At the very least, a coherent contractualism presents no principled objection to the state's taking the firm public position that justice imposes a higher level of mutual responsibility than we have historically understood ourselves to have. There may be decisive practical reasons for the state to exercise caution in this regard, but justice has no complaint.PhDPhilosophyPhilosophy, Religion and TheologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131854/2/9938404.pd
Emotion and ethical theory in Mencius.
No full textEarly Confucian thought is still not completely understood. This is particularly so, I argue, in the case of Mencius (or Meng Zi XX, ca. 372-289 BCE), who was the first prominent follower of Confucius. I present a new reading of this early figure. The key problem in traditional analyses is in attributing to Mencius the view that a person's motivational capacities, especially her emotions, require cultivation in order for her to act and feel correctly. That reading, combined with certain important passages of the text, make it seem that Mencius is quite simply confused. For he seems in those passages to exhort people to do and feel what is right even though it is clear that they lack the kind of cultivation Mencius's view supposedly requires. What is more, he quite obviously expects such people to be able immediately to do and feel what is right. Once we leave the cultivation reading behind, I argue, pieces of Mencius's fall into place and a more or less systematic ethical theory begins to form. Far from being confused, I argue, Mencius combines a psychologically realistic account of the morally virtuous person, i.e. one which recognizes human limitations with respect to our emotional lives, with a plausible account of the control that we have and the responsibility that we bear for how we feel or don't feel toward one another.PhDAsian historyAsian literatureLanguage, Literature and LinguisticsPhilosophyPhilosophy, Religion and TheologySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130738/2/9811103.pd
Kantian consequentialism: Utilitarianism and autonomy.
No full textKantian Normative theories abound, but most share a rejection of consequentialist normative principles and an emphasis on the importance of autonomy. According to many Kantians, consequentialism is inadequate for two related reasons. First, since consequentialist principles may require unacceptable sacrifices of some for the benefit of others, consequentialist principles do not adequately respect the autonomy of persons. Second, since any consequentialist normative principle is based on the value of consequences rather than respect for autonomy, consequentialism provides a misguided view of the basis of normative principles. In response to these objections to consequentialism, I argue that respect for autonomy does not generate moral demands which are inconsistent with those of a consequentialist normative theory. Any normative theory, grounded on an adequate notion of autonomy, will require the same kinds of sacrifices that allegedly undermine consequentialism. There are, of course, many possible autonomy-based normative theories. I focus on three important Kantian approaches and defend the following conclusions: (i) Kant's arguments for the universalizability formula of the categorical imperative do not rule out consequentialist normative principles. (ii) No priority of negative duties over positive duties follows from Kant's normative theory. More specifically, Kant's normative theory does not provide a rationale for Nozick's side constraints, Dworkin's trumps, or Nagel's agent-centered restrictions. (iii) Rawls's argument for the priority of liberty over welfare does not provide a plausible autonomy-based alternative to consequentialist arguments for the priority of liberty. In short, I argue that the demand to respect autonomy does not generate the desired rights-based theory. Indeed, I maintain that the contrast between Kant's normative theory and consequentialism is ill founded. These are the critical or negative conclusions of the dissertation. On the positive side, (i) I draw on the work of Rousseau and Harry Frankfurt and argue that autonomy involves the capacity to form, to revise, and rationally to act on regulative higher-order desires and (ii) I present a consequentialist account of the importance of respect for autonomy. The resulting theory is, I hope, an interesting synthesis of traditionally Kantian concerns and consequentialist normative theory.PhDPhilosophyPhilosophy, Religion and TheologyPolitical scienceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/128142/2/8812879.pd
Naturalizing the normative.
No full textThe normative dimension of language and thought has been cited recently in arguments against naturalist reductions of the intentional--of meaning, belief, and desire. These arguments have been met with much scepticism, primarily because their proponents say little about the kind of 'normativity' on which they depend. There is, however, a rich tradition in ethics of thinking about the nature of the normative, and why it might pose a problem for naturalist reduction. In this dissertation, I bring the discussions in language and ethics together, arguing that doing so lends clarity and plausibility to the objections to naturalist reduction in both fields. In Part I, I draw from ethics to characterize normativity, and to explain how it provides a barrier to naturalistic reduction. In doing so, I respond to two common criticisms of irreducibility arguments in ethics: that they only show the irreducibility of our concepts of the ethical, not of ethical properties; and that they depend on outdated views of conceptual analysis. I argue that both objections misfire, though for interesting reasons, and that the anti-reduction argument succeeds. In Part II I use the characterization of normativity to shed light on recent arguments against reducing the intentional. I examine two prominent authors who have advanced such arguments, Saul Kripke and Donald Davidson. In addition to fleshing out and defending each of their arguments, I develop a general challenge to any reductive approach. The proposal is that intentional items have an essential capacity to define a context of reasons, something to which no naturalist reduction can do justice. In Part III I consider a new trend toward non-reductive forms of naturalism. I argue that most current non-reductive accounts also fail to accommodate the requisite normativity. But if the non-reductive, naturalist approach is developed in a certain direction, one which depends on the idea of response-dependency, it can capture just the kind of normativity that is needed. In closing, I briefly defend such an approach to both intentionality and value.PhDPhilosophyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/105691/1/9208542.pdfDescription of 9208542.pdf : Restricted to UM users only
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