November 2007

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Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (4), Dec 2007

Monday, 19 November 2007 in Journals, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | 6 comments

The December 2007 issue of the Journal of Political Philosophy is available. The links should work. Read the rest of this entry »

Northwestern: 2nd SETPP Conference Call for Papers

Tuesday, 13 November 2007 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Northwestern SETPP: 15-17 May 2008 | CFP: 15 February 2008

Via Douglas Portmore at PEA Soup:

The Northwestern Society for Ethical Theory and Political Philosophy will hold its second annual conference from 15-17 May 2008. David Velleman and Susan Wolf are the keynote speakers. Submissions from faculty and graduate students are due by 15 February 2008. Here’s the flyer.

Berkeley: ISUS X Call for Papers

Sunday, 11 November 2007 in Calls for Papers, Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

ISUS: 11-14 September 2008 | CFP: 18 February 2008

Via Larry Solum:

The Tenth Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies will be held on 11-14 September 2008, at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, California, U.S.A.). Read the rest of this entry »

Teaching Nietzsche

Friday, 9 November 2007 in Posts, Teaching by Mark LeBar | 8 comments

I am teaching Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil) for the first time this term, and I have run into some puzzles I am hoping some of the more experienced Nietzsche scholars on this list can help me work through. The points are two; these have come out in class discussions and I’ve been uncertain how to respond. I’ll put them as tendentiously, contentiously, and ignorantly as I can, and plan on backtracking as quickly as I can once knowledge is imposed upon me.

1. Nietzsche seems to suggest contradictory things as to what sort of social arrangements his view would prescribe (if it would prescribe anything; more on this next). On the one hand, he indicates that the oppression of the “free spirits” by the moral codes of the herd (“one long coercion”) are necessary for the development and fruition of the greatness of spirit and exfoliation of the will to power in those spirits. On the other hand, he also indicates that hierarchical societies — with abundant sacrifice of the lower forms of human life for the sake of the development of the higher forms — are a precondition for the highest development of the type “human being.” These seem like contradictory prescriptions. The best I can do with them is to think that his view is analogous to Marx’s on the communist revolution. The idea in that case is that capitalist societies overproduce to a point at which, after the revolution, the superabundance of material goods “launches” the new communist arrangements successfully. Here, the idea would be that the “long coercion” does likewise for the development of free spirits or “philosophers of tomorrow” — in effect the hierarchical societies would build on the obstructive “capital” of the long period of “rule of the rabble” under the usual run of moral codes. Beyond this, I am stuck.

2. I wonder what prescriptive force the view has for individuals at all. Suppose, on the one hand, you are (or take yourself to be) one of the free spirits. Then what the hell do you care what Nietzsche thinks? You are in the business of creating your own values, you accept no one’s rules or values but your own, etc. Nietzsche is just another source of noise; in fact, his is just another will for yours to overcome. So there’s no normative point to his view if you’re one of the free spirits.

On the other hand, if you’re not a free spirit — if you’re one of the herd — Nietzsche has, so far as I can see — given you absolutely no reason to accept any of his ideals. It may be that some ideal of human greatness is possible only through your exploitation and slavery, but on the other hand by hypothesis such ideals get no grip on you (if you could appreciate them, you would be noble, not despicable). So, once again, who the hell cares what Nietzsche has to say?

So: is there any prescriptive point to the view at all, by its own lights?

Samuel Scheffler on “Immigration and the Significance of Culture”

Thursday, 8 November 2007 in Articles, Posts by Thom Brooks | 12 comments

In our political philosophy reading group yesterday, we read Samuel Scheffler’s new essay “Immigration and the Significance of Culture” published in Philosophy & Public Affairs 35(2) (2007). It can be downloaded here.

There was quite a lot that colleagues objected to in the essay, but a major worry concerns a summary of his views at the end of his essay. Scheffler says:

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“….The implication of my argument, then, is not that all of the political claims advanced under the heading of cultural rights or cultural preservation should automatically be dismissed, but rather that those claims should be redescribed in such a way as to make clear the values, ideals, and principles that are at stake. Ver often, I believe, these will turn out to be moral, religious, or philosophical values or ideals, so that the appeal to cultural will turn out to have been redundant … it may in some cases turn out that there was really no value at all at stake, and that the appeal to culture was sheer bluff: that it was simply an appeal to the brute fact that some people behave in a certain way, which by itself has no normative force….” (p. 124).

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I would be interested to hear what others make of this statement, but let me first offer a few observations. In essence, Scheffler’s argument is that what is of value about culture is not culture itself, but certain values that may (or may not) be present in a given culture. The suggestion is that rather than honour claims from culture, we should honour claims from values: “culture” should then drop from view.

This is a very curious understanding of culture. If I am a part of a culture and find significant a particular way of life relating to this culture, then it is unclear which parts of the culture I honour (or do not honour) based upon which foundational values are worthy (or not worthy) of recognition. It strikes me that “culture” comes to us as a package, perhaps as a package of values rooted in a distinctive way of life. It is a whole, rather than a variety of unconnected parts. Thus, a claim from culture does not pick and choose amongst a variety of values, but takes them together. As a result, Scheffler’s view of culture then strikes me as a bit too fast and loose in its efforts to set culture aside.

Again, I would be very interested to hear what readers think of what is surely an important essay.

Moving ahead

Sunday, 4 November 2007 in Housekeeping, Posts by Simon Cabulea May | 13 comments

We now have sixty-five eighty-nine contributors, over ten thousand twenty-eight thousand page views, and a couple of hundred visits a day on average. Following on some [robust] discussion over at Crooked Timber, I thought I’d start asking what people have to say about four matters:

1. Decision-making: I’d prefer decisions about policy to be taken out of my hands, but we still need to figure out how an editorial committee can be formed and what it’s scope should be.

2. Membership policy. At the moment we require that contributors be professional academics working in political philosophy, and have completed their doctoral studies. Would a more open policy be better?

3. Comments policy. I’ve restricted comments to people within the academic community, as evidenced by IP or email addresses or homepages. The goal here is to cut down on unproductive and unpleasant comments that may serve to inhibit academics from making use of the site. Would a less cautious policy generate better discussion between political philosophers? Please bear in mind that any policy has to be practical to implement.

[Over at Brian Leiter's place, David Estlund has recalled Gerald Dworkin's post about comments at Left2Right.]

[Also to keep in mind is that of the 151 comments at the site so far, 147 bear a particularly salient characteristic in common.]

4. Future projects. At the moment, members are free to post papers, problems, and announcements, etc., when they choose to do so. There may be scope, however, for organising more regular features as a collective, such as reading groups for books, or discussions of the articles in the latest issue of the leading political philosophy journals. These would require groups of people to take the initiative in organising them though.

Twin Cities: Grad Conference Call for Papers

Thursday, 1 November 2007 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Minnesota: 29 February-1 March 2008 | CFP: 10 December 2007

A third graduate conference CFP coming up soon: “Philosophy of Ice,” hosted by the graduate students of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, from 29 February to 1 March 2008. Keynote speaker is J. David Velleman. CFP deadline is 10 December 2007. Here’s the flyer. Read the rest of this entry »

Fordham: Grad Conference Call for Papers

Thursday, 1 November 2007 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Fordham: 11-13 April 2008 | CFP: 1 December 2007

Another conference for graduate students, this time at Fordham University in the Bronx, from 11-13 April 2008. The topic is “Cosmopolitanism in Philosophical Contexts”; the keynote speaker is Yale’s Seyla Benhabib and the plenary speaker is Fordham’s John Davenport. Papers or abstracts should be emailed by 1 December 2007. Here’s the flyer. Read the rest of this entry »

Princeton: Grad Conference Call for Papers

Thursday, 1 November 2007 in Calls for Papers, Grad Conferences, Notices by Simon Cabulea May | No comments

Princeton: 11-12 April 2008 | CFP: 15 December 2007

This is one I’ve been meaning to post for a while. The Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton will take place from 11-12 April 2007. The deadline for papers is 15 December 2007, and these should be submitted via a submission form. Read the rest of this entry »