Roger Scruton and Mark Dooley, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Conversations with Roger Scruton</Emphasis>

English philosopher and critic Roger Scruton considers his intellectual odyssey, which has ranged from analytic philosophy at Cambridge to Hegel, Burke, and Plato’s Socrates, with topics including music, moral philosophy, and the relation of science to religion. Providing an overview of Scruton’s philosophic quest, the book shows how its elements cohere and serves as an unsurpassed introduction to his work.     

Antinomies of race: diversity and destiny in Kant

ABSTRACT

Larrimore's essay reads Kant's pioneering work in the theory of race in the context of his thought as a whole. Kant wrote on race for most of his career; at different stages of his thinking, race assured meaning in human diversity, confirmed the value of a practical-reason-informed understanding of human destiny, and provided a model for the ‘pragmatic’ knowledge of what ‘man can and should make of himself’. ‘Race’ was invented in 1775 as an advertisement for the new disciplines of geography and anthropology that Kant inaugurated and promoted throughout his career. Giving new meaning to a foreign (French) term associated with animal husbandry, Kant presented the (supposedly) exceptionlessly hereditary traits of race as the first fruit of a truly scientific ‘natural history’ of humanity. His concerns were not merely classificatory; his four-race schema, modeled on the temperaments, allowed a special status for Whites as at once a race and the transcendence of race (Kant invented ‘whiteness’ as well as ‘race’). The notion of ‘race’ was refined in essays Kant published in the 1780s, in the same journal as his celebrated essays on Enlightenment and the philosophy of history. It was given a new status, rather than displaced, by the critical turn. Granted a sanction ‘similar’ to the postulates of pure practical reason, its empirical verification would confirm Kant's whole critical system. Kant's theory of race came into its own in the 1790s, gaining wide acceptance. He relied on familiarity with it (and its lingering association with animal husbandry) in explaining the larger project of the ‘pragmatic anthropology’ without which he thought human progress impossible. Understanding how the concept of race contributed to Kant's more familiar and still appealing intellectual and practical concerns, we gain a better sense of its fateful and enduring attractiveness in subsequent eras.     

What Mr. Spock told the earthlings: the aims of political philosophy,action-guidingness and fact-dependency

Abstract

Recently, G. A. Cohen introduced an influential distinction between fact-sensitive and fact-insensitive principles arguing that all basic normative principles are of the latter type. David Miller rejects this claim submitting that the validity of basic normative political principles depends on some general propositions about human nature and societies; for example, that men’s generosity is ‘confined’ and that nature has made ‘scanty provision’ for his wants. Miller ties this view of the nature of basic political principles to the view that political philosophy ought to guide people engaged in real-world politics and claims plausibly that in order to fulfil this purpose, political philosophy must be informed by social science. I argue that Miller neither succeeds in showing that basic principles can be fact-sensitive, nor establishes any connection between the Cohen-Miller disagreement on fact-sensitivity, on the one hand, and the nature and aims of political philosophy, on the other hand.     

A Critique of the Universalisability of Critical Human Rights Theory: The Displacement of Immanuel Kant

While the critically oriented writings of Immanuel Kant remain the key theoretical grounds from which universalists challenge reduction of international rights law and protection to the practical particularities of sovereign states, Kant’s theory can be read as also a crucial argument for a human rights regime ordered around sovereign states and citizens. Consequently, universalists may be tempted to push Kant’s thinking to greater critical examination of ‘the human’ and its properties. However, such a move to more theoretical rigour in critique only solidifies the subversive statism of Kant’s apparent universalism, as long as it remains embedded in his prior theory of critical philosophy that privileges a singular form of reason. Universalist theories of human rights can break with this contradiction only insofar as they also displace the right to philosophy from the subject and site of ‘civil’ man to a politics of theory where no such subject or site is guaranteed.     

The decontamination of German history: Jürgen Habermas and the ‘Historikerstreit’ in West Germany

The ‘Historikerstreit’ in West Germany was opened by the non-historian Habermas who sought to expose what he saw as a ‘scandalous’ revision of aspects of the history of German fascism on the part of leading conservative historians like Nolte, Hillgruber and Stürmer. Habermas sees this revisionism in the wider context of the perceived need to foster a new German nationalism as a means of legitimation. The attempt to decontaminate German history would seem to derive from the need to resist the demands for political realignment in West Germany and to establish a strong pedigree of German anti-communism which takes in National Socialism and its membership of the Anti-Comintern Pact as well as West Germany's membership of NATO. Habermas's critique of conservative historians and the non-rational assumptions of their philosophy of history is essentially linked to his critique of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault and his identification of a common paralyzing influence on discourse.     

The iron law of democratic socialism: British and Austrian influences on the young Karl Polanyi

Abstract

A central thesis of Karl Polanyi's The great transformation concerns the tensions between capitalism and democracy: the former embodies the principle of inequality, while democracy represents that of equality. This paper explores the intellectual heritage of this thesis, in the ‘functional theory’ of G.D.H. Cole and Otto Bauer and in the writings of Eduard Bernstein. It scrutinizes Polanyi's relationship with Bernstein's ‘evolutionary socialism’ and charts his ‘double movement’ vis-à-vis Marxist philosophy: in the 1910s he reacted sharply against Marxism's deterministic excesses, but he then, in the 1920s, engaged in sympathetic dialogue with Austro-Marxist thinkers. The latter, like Bernstein, disavowed economic determinism and insisted upon the importance and autonomy of ethics. Yet they simultaneously predicted a law-like expansion of democracy from the political to the economic arena. Analysis of this contradiction provides the basis for a concluding discussion that reconsiders the deterministic threads in Polanyi's oeuvre. Whereas for some Polanyi scholars these attest to his residual attraction to Marxism, I argue that matters are more complex. While Polanyi did repudiate the more rigidly deterministic of currents in Marxist philosophy, those to which he was attracted, notably Bernstein's ‘revision’ and Austro-Marxism, incorporated a deterministic fatalism of their own, in respect of democratization. Herein lies a more convincing explanation of Polanyi's incomplete escape from a deterministic philosophy of history, as exemplified in his masterwork, The great transformation.     

Deleuze,cinema, Bergson

In the Cinema books, Deleuze integrated his ‘counter‐history’ of philosophy and arrived at a philosophy of art. For him, the artist is a ‘creator of truth’ because truth is not to be achieved, formed, or reproduced; it has to be created’ (Cinema 2 1985: 146). Stressing the pre‐eminent importance of the ‘creation of the New’, Deleuze calls on us to reread and rethink with him the works of Bergson, whom he views as indispensable to the ‘pure semiotics’ of cinema.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Forum Internum</Emphasis> Revisited: Considering the Absolute Core of Freedom of Belief and Opinion in Terms of Negative Liberty,Authenticity, and Capability

Human rights theory generally conceptualizes freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief as well as freedom of opinion and expression, as offering absolute protection in what is called the forum internum. At a minimum, this is taken to mean the right to maintain thoughts in one’s own mind, whatever they may be and independently of how others may feel about them. However, if we adopt this stance, it seems to imply that there exists an absolute right to hold psychotic delusions. This article takes the position that this conclusion is ethically problematic from the perspective of psychiatric treatment and the rights of persons with psychosis. The article reflects on this particular challenge and sets forth an understanding of freedom in the forum internum that might apply to situations where for various reasons it is not, necessarily accurate to maintain that persons have an absolute right to their own thoughts. For the purpose of proposing such an understanding, the article engages with current debates within human rights theory and political philosophy and analyzes discussions about psychotic delusions and the way in which involuntary treatment is justified. Based on this analysis, this article in turn conceptualizes freedom in the forum internum as ‘negative liberty’, ‘authenticity’, and ‘capability’. This article suggests that when forum internum is redefined as encompassing a right to certain internal capabilities, the right remains meaningful for persons with psychotic delusions as well.     

The ‘Othering’ of ‘Red Ed’, or How the Daily Mail ‘Framed’ the British Labour Leader

This article takes as its starting point the attack on the late Ralph Miliband, the left‐wing intellectual and father of the current Labour leader Ed Miliband, by the Daily Mail in late 2013. It argues that this attack was a response by the Mail to its failed campaign to dub the Labour leader ‘Red Ed’. The article demonstrates that ever since Miliband won the Labour leadership in 2009, the Mail has sought to ‘other’ him by presenting him as ‘alien’—this by constant references to his Jewish background, his upbringing in a wealthy North London intellectual milieu, his supposed extreme left‐wing views and his ineffable ‘oddness’—at least, an oddness as characterised by the newspaper. The paper will conclude by asking why the Daily Mail's ‘Red Ed’ moniker failed to catch on, while noting that their ‘Odd Ed’ moniker seems to have had more resonance.     

Four myths in the history of social thought

Four commonly held interpretations of the development of European social thought in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are analysed and criticised, with particular reference to Durkheim's writings. These four myths are: the notion that Durkheim's sociology developed in substantial degree as a response to the ‘problem of order’; the conception that Durkheim's work is to be understood in terms of its origins in ‘conservative’ social thought; the view that Durkheim's writings, together with those of some of his contemporaries, mark a radical break in the transition from ‘social philosophy’ to ‘sociology’; and the idea that the type of intellectual tradition represented by Durkheim, concerned with the ‘problem of order’, can be usefully compared with a divergent tradition concerned with ‘conflict’ and ‘change’. It is argued that while these myths each contain a kernel of truth, this can only be extracted if Durkheim's writings are examined in relation to the historical context in which he developed his sociological concerns.     

General templer and counter-insurgency in Malaya: hearts and minds,intelligence, and propaganda

General Sir Gerald Templer's period as High Commissioner for Malaya (1952–54) has provoked considerable and enduring controversy. To his admirers, he turned the tide of the Malayan Emergency in Britain's favour by combining a more vigorous prosecution of the war against the communist insurgents with a well-judged civilian campaign designed to win ‘hearts and minds’. To his detractors, he arrived with the turning tide, benefiting from the policies of his predecessors, particularly in the field of population control and rural resettlement. This article scrutinizes recent contributions to the debate which attempt to downgrade Templer's importance, and seeks to reach a balanced judgement on his role in defeating communist insurgency in Malaya.     

The Gordon Brown Problem: New Labour and the Two ‘Adam Smiths’

As is well known, New Labour is often presented as an alternative to the conventional preferences of the left and right in British politics. Less commented upon is Gordon Brown's self‐conscious appeal to the thought of Adam Smith in doing so. Brown claims to have rescued Smith from those on the right that interpret his ‘invisible hand’ metaphor from The Wealth of Nations to represent dogmatic advocacy of free markets. Rather than interrogate this view, Brown attempts to complement it with the ‘helping hand’ that Smith supposedly proffers in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in order to stress New Labour's resolution of ‘enterprise and fairness.’ I argue that Brown instead reiterates the academically discredited Adam Smith Problem, in which the moral ‘Smith’ is deemed subordinate to the economic ‘Smith,’ and that his use of these erroneous characterisations highlights his commitment to a set of preferences usually associated with the right.     

Work,Leisure, and Care: A Gender Perspective on the Participation Income

In ‘The case for a participation income’, Anthony Atkinson identified unconditionality as an obstacle to support for a citizen's income. He advocated prioritising the universality and individuality of a citizen's income but replacing its unconditionality with a ‘participation’ requirement. At the time, Atkinson's critique read as political realism: to eliminate means‐testing, make a concession to the fear of free‐riding. Ironically, Atkinson remained opposed to unconditionality despite his own critical contributions to documenting the growing income and wealth inequality that have increased support for an unconditional basic income. In this article I consider the ‘participation’ requirement from a gender perspective in order to uncover the problematic notions of ‘dependence’, ‘independence’, reciprocity, and free‐riding that underlie normative arguments for conditional over unconditional benefits. Employing such a perspective demonstrates the superiority of unconditional benefits in achieving more efficient and effective income support and reducing inequality—Atkinson's core commitments throughout his distinguished career.     

Human nature,freedom and political community: An interview with Noam Chomsky

For Noam Chomsky ‘human nature’ is a clearly defined concept, biologically endowed and largely independent of social and historical conditions. Because its deepest properties are genetically determined, for Chomsky the study of human nature ought to proceed in much the same way the functions of other bodily organs are examined. His ground‐breaking research into the language faculty, which he claims is one of the more accessible attributes of human nature, revolutionised the study of linguistics and cognitive science generally in the 1950s and 1960s. However, this approach has put him at odds with those, such as behavioural scientists and existentialist philosophers, who have long argued that physical and mental development should be understood as separate processes because of the overwhelming influence of environmental conditions on the latter. It also sets him apart from some recent post‐modern thinkers who deny the existence of an intrinsic human nature, arguing that our moral and political values are socially and historically determined. For his part, Chomsky still finds it odd that what we take for granted in explaining physical growth becomes so ‘controversial’ in a discussion of the psychological aspects of human nature.

Noam Chomsky's understanding of human nature underwrites his conception of desirable social and political arrangements. A good society, according to Chomsky, is one ‘that leads to [the] satisfaction of intrinsic human needs, insofar as material conditions allow’ (Peck, 1988, p. 195). It should give expression to an ‘instinct for freedom, the consciousness of which gives us ‘the opportunity to create social conditions and social forms to maximize the possibilities of freedom, diversity, and individual self‐realization (Chomsky, 1973, pp. 395–6). Libertarian socialists and anarchists like Chomsky believe complex industrial societies can be organised within a framework of free institutions and structures leading to, in Rocker's words, a federation of free communities which shall be bound to one another by their common economic and social interests and arrange their affairs by mutual agreement and free contract’ (Peck, 1988, pp. 191–2). An appreciation of Chomsky's understanding of human nature provides some important clues to his political values, specifically his attitudes towards human rights, the nation‐state and alternative form of political community. These topics are explored in the interview below which is divided into two parts: human nature and moral behaviour; and political community and globalisation.     

Animal body,inhuman face

In the present essay, I apply various concepts associated with the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Fe´lix Guattari to an inquiry concerning what I call the ‘ontology’ of musical creation and performance. Specifically, I utilize both the theory and approach of ‘schizoanalysis’, which so pervasively marks co-operative works such as Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Deleuze and Guattari's schizoid becomes the model for my musician-performer. This ‘schizoid musician’ is the one who has the ability to apprehend that of a ‘musical space’, a central theme of the essay. Some additional clarification is needed as well. Although I surely offer this essay to the reader as a thoroughly honest, and hopefully provocative, attempt, it is also something of an indebted experiment. That is, the ‘after’ of my essay's title-as in ‘after Deleuze and Guattari’-has essentially two meanings. The first, and obvious meaning: I write after Deleuze and Guattari in that I inherit, to whatever extent, their thought. I grapple with their ideas. The second, and perhaps more unconventionally risky (because potentially easily misconstrued as representative of a kind of blind fidelity): I write after Deleuze and Guattari in the way that a painter paints ‘after’ another painter, in the way that a composer composes ‘after’ another composer, and so on. In one sense, the selective utilization of a sensibility associated with the schizophrenic condition provided the 'silent partner' and underlying guiding influence for Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Thus, this essay is, in part, a modest attempt at yet another 'fold' (to use a term of Deleuze's) in a philosophical inquiry-some kind theoretical exemplar of ‘difference and repetition’ (or, difference in repetition). This indebtedness notwithstanding, the reader will notice the scholarly utilization of Deleuze and Guattari also in terms of a silent partner, a guiding influence, and less in terms of a source that is explicitly acknowledged or referenced. This was an intentional part of the experiment from the beginning. Of course, other thinkers, on the other hand, will come to occupy such a space in the essay.     

Procedural Justice, Conflict of Interest and the Stolen Generations' Case

The Cubillo and Gunner hearing in the Federal Court of Australia possessed enormous historical, political and moral significance. The applicants' suit against the Commonwealth argued that having been removed they were then wrongfully detained, that government breached its statutory and fiduciary duties and duty of care, and the Commonwealth was responsible for the injuries and damages they incurred as a result of their removal and detention. They sought monetary compensation and exemplary damages. In response the Commonwealth government sought to have the case for damages dismissed on a variety of grounds. From the perspective of the plaintiffs, the case had the potential to set an important precedent. From the Commonwealth's perspective a lot was at stake. Beyond the financial costs, the government's reputation was at risk. The Cubillo–Gunner action tested the Australian legal system's capacity to deal justly with a critical range of moral, historical and political issues raised by the ‘stolen generations’. In his judgment delivered on 11 August 2000, O'Loughlin J dismissed each of the claims for damages by Lorna Cubillo and Peter Gunner. In this article attention is given to aspects of the case that have not yet received due consideration. It is argued here the Commonwealth government had an overriding resolve to win the Cubillo–Gunner case, which sat incongruously with the principle and practice of the federal government as a ‘model litigant’. I consider whether the Commonwealth breached those standards in respect to three central elements of the model litigant standards — namely (1) the exercise of proportionate power, (2) the over‐reliance on technical defences, and (3) a proper regard for accepting a responsibility to administer justice and fair play. I ask whether the appointment of Meagher as the Commonwealth's leading counsel was in the public interest? The case is put that Meagher had a conflict of interest relating to his own biography which connected to the HREOC report on the ‘stolen generations’ in general and the Cubillo–Gunner case in particular. Meager is the son of a man deeply implicated in the politics of Aboriginal affairs during the period under question. (Meagher's father was Chairman of the Aborigines Welfare Board and Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in Victoria until 1972.) Meagher junior was by his own public admission concerned about the findings of the HREOC report and its implications for his father's reputation. He felt it dishonoured his father's name while also sullying the standing of his father's contemporaries. Meagher indicated he believed the case must not be allowed to set a precedent. The public evidence on display in these comments reflects a hostility towards child removal policies which raises questions about the suitability of Meagher's appointment as counsel. As Meagher himself pointed out, he wondered whether his involvement in the case was ‘inappropriate for counsel’ and ‘possibly contrary to the client's interest’, but later decided it was not. His appointment raises questions about the Commonwealth's conformity to the model litigant standards.     

Having One's Cake and Eating It Too: Cameron's Conservatives and Immigration

The May 2010 general election represented a change in tone on immigration and asylum policy for the Conservative party. Although its manifesto still contained a promise to limit numbers and expressed concern about the abuse of student visas, the Party's previous fixation with asylum seekers had disappeared. This article considers the rationale for these developments in the light of David Cameron's election as leader in late 2005 and his efforts from then on to reposition his party. Cameron's initial silence on this issue and his appointment of a moderate as immigration spokesman were part of an attempt both to shift the focus onto the economic impact of migration and, more broadly, to ‘decontaminate the Tory brand’ in order to gain ‘permission to be heard’ by small‐l liberals who were critical to the Party's electoral recovery but alienated by hard‐line stances. That said, immigration was never entirely forgotten even in this early period and was always seen, so long as it was carefully handled, as an issue capable of benefitting the Tories. As such, it was skilfully factored back into the Party's offer from late 2007 onwards. In government, the Conservatives may have the upper hand on immigration over their junior coalition partner, but this is no guarantee that they will be able to deliver the outcomes they promised     

Of(f) Course: Michel Foucault,the Mobile Philosopher and his Dreamworlds

Foucault extolled the Iranian revolution and, anticipating the havoc that his public intervention in favour of the revolution would create, he wrote: “I can already hear the French laughing, but I know that they are wrong”. Examining Foucault’s (so unlikely) valorisation of certainty and the partisan affectivity it bestows upon knowledge and truth, I read his unusual engagement with the Iranian revolution against the grain. A major tendency is to approach Foucault’s Iranian writings as aberration; against this tendency, I read them as an effect of Foucault’s specific epistemic and utopian optics. Through a critical reading of neglected aspects of Foucault’s comments on Iran, I argue that much nuance is missing when damning critiques fail to see why and how Foucault’s interest in an active rather than folklore non-European political identity unveils deeper tensions of his own worldview and outlook on international politics and interrogates mainstream appraisals of Foucault’s political philosophy.     

Bernard Crick: citizenship and democracy in the United Kingdom

Bernard Crick's contribution to citizenship studies can be regarded as part of the tradition so ably represented by T.H. Marshall. I want to argue in this brief article on Crick that on the one hand he is part of the ‘golden age’ of political philosophy that has flourished in the English-speaking world over the last two or three decades, but on the other his work also shows the limitations of that tradition, at least from the perspective of comparative and historical studies in political sociology. His work was unquestionably ‘local’ in its focus on the subject of Scottish independence and the viability of the British Isles under the governance of a multi-national state.