Eco-ethica

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.

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.

This essay explores how Paul Ricoeur analyses the body as both flesh and text. Beginning with a phenomenology of embodiment and life in his early philosophy of the will, after his hermeneutic turn in the 1960s he concentrated more on the mediation of flesh through textual interpretation and language. This led Ricoeur beyond Husserl and Levinas and closer to the work of Merleau-Ponty. His later writing opens horizons for rethinking the ‘flesh of the world’ in new ontological and ethical ways.

The aim of this paper is to show the anthropological resources of Ricceur’s philosophy of the act, in order to elaborate a living articulation of ethics and politics that avoids the deadlock which represents the idea of a complete divorce between moral idealism and political realism. In this second part, it defends the thesis that the reconquest of an “ethical-political teleology” is only possible to the extent that, in Ricceur, the reappropriation of the “ethical originary affirmation” takes a radically critical form. Then it tries to show how this critical approach is likely to lead to a release of the mediating power of social imaginary, which always complements and precedes our acts.

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.

La liberté humaine a besoin des institutions justes où chacun accepte des disciplines communes pour réaliser des projets communs. Si ces institutions ne sont pas établies, les gens ont raison de se révolter. Mais, comme la révolte en 1968, cette critique reste souvent « messianique » sans devenir vraiment politique ou pratique. Or aujourd’hui des philosophes « messianiques » ont insisté sur l’opposition contre l’Etat de droit comme la vraie manière de critiquer la société. Cependant s’il faut réaliser une communauté politique cosmopolite, il faut lutter pour des institutions juridiques internationales et transnationales et par là transformer les bonnes intentions en politique.

Malgré le développement des droits de l’homme et l’apparition d’une justice pénale internationale, la mondialisation lance de nouveaux défis à l’humanisme juridique : durcissement du contrôle des migrations, aggravation des exclusions sociales, multiplication des atteintes à l’environnement, persistance des crimes internationaux « les plus graves », risques d’asservissement créés par les nouvelles technologies. Humaniser la mondialisation renvoie à trois objectifs : résister à la déshumanisation, responsabiliser les acteurs, anticiper sur les risques à venir. Pour y contribuer, il faudrait une mutation de la notion d’ordre juridique car le modèle souverainiste (ordre international), postulant l’autonomie de chaque État, est dépassé. Mais l’universalisme (ordre supranational), comme l’ultra-libéralisme (ordre transnational), risquent de conduire à l’impérialisme du plus puissant. D’où la recherche d’un «pluralisme ordonné», combinant souverainisme intégré, universalisme assoupli et libéralisme régulé.

This article deals with the notion of transnational democracy, which is an object of debate in contemporary political philosophy. The analysis focuses on a few central issues. First, the notion of transnationality is developed in contrast with the ideal-type of the nation-state (I). Two possible viewpoints on transnational democracy are envisaged, in relation to the opposition between state and society and the alternative between representation and participation (II). Then, three paradigms of transnational democracy are defined (III) and their respective limits are examined (IV). An extended conclusion develops some remarks regarding the transformation and “universalization” of traditions (V).

Le présent article interroge l’intensification des politiques sécuritaires dans nos sociétés démocratiques en mettant en évidence le risque majeur qu’elle constitue pour nos équilibres politiques, sociaux et existentiels. Car si au nom de la sécurité, nous acceptons d’être de plus en plus surveillés, c’est en négligeant le fait que nous avons besoin de confiance, d’autonomie et de liberté pour nous inscrire solidement dans le monde. Pourquoi semblons-nous faire preuve si massivement d’une telle négligence ? Notre vigilance critique, tant sur le plan individuel que collectif, ne devrait-elle pas au contraire être singulièrement accentuée à l’heure où les régimes d’exception tendent à devenir la règle ?

L’originalité de cet article porte tant sur l’approche que sur l’actualité du problème choisi. Il croise sciences politiques (quantitatives et comparatives) et théorie politique, pour traiter de la montée d’une citoyenneté critique. Il analyse ses formes et passe ensuite à une critique plus étayée et philosophique. Ces deux types de résultats ne se recouvrent que très partiellement. Principalement focalisée sur des questions d’identité, la majeure partie des travaux en philosophie politique passent à côté de ce qui constitue le coeur de l’exercice politique. L’article propose alors de considérer des formes de responsabilités, notamment dans l’Union européenne, permettant d’affronter cette critique réactive.

The author discusses the concept of equality in ethics and political economy. The first section presents a philosophical concept of equality of resources, as it is suggested by Ronald Dworkin. The second section looks at the concept of equality in relation to the factual distribution in our contemporary political economy. It relies on Thomas Piketty who argues that it is the concept of capital that reproduces inequality and that is still the most essential concept in our economic system. The third section discusses the conceptions and perspectives on the relation between ethics and political economy in our present society.

Politics and ethics are closely linked in many ways. One such link is the central but still contentious notion of the person. Take the case of today’s European Union. Most basically, member states disagree on what and who persons are. This EU paradox may be resolved when political debates about sovereignty’s limits expand to include ethical discussions of the nature of persons. The aim of this paper is to point in the direction of an account of the person that will support proper understandings of those ethical, and not just political, values that the Preamble of any eventual European Union constitution will need to entrench tomorrow.

Ziel des Beitrages ist es, ein Oikos- und Polisverständnis vorzustellen, das sich widerständig und sperrig zu einem gängigen Politikverständnis verhält, da es entpolitisiert und jenseits eines Macht- und Herrschaftsdenkens situiert ist. Auf diese Weise gelangt man zugleich zu einer Herausforderung für die narrative Philosophie, die darin besteht, die narrative Differenz, die aus der menschlichen Grundbefmdlichkeit des Menschen als Heim-weg entspringt, wach zu halten und um das Verständnis eines ‘Ortes des Wohnens und Unterwegsseins’ zu ringen, das es zu bewahren und weiter zu entfalten gilt. Dieser, Ort seines Wohnens und Unterwegsseins’ ist ein lebendiges Geschichtenbezugsgewebe, in dem die Erzählfäden aus dem Oikos und der Polis eingewoben sind und immer wieder neu wieder eingesponnen werden.

A characteristic feature of the 21st century is that every important thing is invisible: boundaries, technological risk, global warming, etc. In Eco-ethica, a new ethics in contrast to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics must be developed with respect to these invisible realities. What should we do to demolish the nuclear facilities at Fukushima? This is a question of “technica negativa”, the invisible process of demolition. The problem must be examined through ethics, Kant’s legal thinking and, finally, politics. Habermas’ idea of “solidarity” is fruitful here because he insists on civic democracy at a transnational scale. This idea may be linked to a new form of cosmopolitanism.

Human beings experience themselves through various kinds of collectively experienced time. Medicine that relies upon precarious forms of ancestral or evolutionary explanation generates such collectively experienced forms of time, which are thus essentially politico-medically instituted versions of kin relations. Kin relations structure our ethical relations to each other rather thoroughly, even in Western modernity, especially through legally sanctioned relations. Hence, an ancestral or evolutionary explanation in medicine should be examined for its ethical import via its structuring of etiologically linked kin relations, even if those relations extend beyond the family, people, population or group context back into cosmic and evolutionary origins.