Moral responsibilities and political realities

Responsibility depends on neither causes nor intentions. It is a matter of answerability to a community of obligation. Only individuals are responsible, for collective actions as well as personal ones. Responsibility is both political and moral. Politics give substance to moral responsibility. Political forms, in turn, reflect the prevailing structure of moral responsibility. Both policy makers and policy analysts can be held responsible; this act itself, however, must be done responsibly.This article is based on the Presidential Address, Israel Philosophical Association, April 21, 1981.The author can be contacted at 2434 Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, U.S.A. until August 1982.     

理性、实践、价值之于政治哲学

政治哲学作为政治理论和实践的道德辩护者,首先表现为理性批判者,它以健康的怀疑和批判精神,"沉思"政治生活中的一切,而决不是以君临世界的绝对权威,以改造现实的实践者和革命者姿态去"做"和"行动"。     

Perfectionist public space: a political philosophy approach

Public spaces are often sites of contention between competing conceptions of the good life. The potential for such conflicts increases in diverse societies where different ethnic, religious and cultural groups compete for space and representation in the public sphere. A paradigmatic example is the conflict between multiculturalism and conservatism towards the function and character of public spaces. A clear criterion is necessarily, in such conflicts, to determine which conception may be legitimately crowded-out, and which may prevail. The paper examines two strategies to justify such a criterion: a liberal approach and a perfectionist approach. According to the liberal approach, public spaces should reflect the pluralism of values in society, by combining multiplicity and coherence of values. Yet pluralism is too ambiguous a concept to determine, in practice, which conceptions of the good can legitimately be crowded-out, both physically and metaphorically, from the public sphere. Perfectionism, an ethical approach grounded in human developmentalism, holds that the good life is a life of developing and exercising our human capacities. This approach yields a substantive account of public space regulation: public spaces should promote the development and exercise of our human capacities. On this account, we can approach the conflict between competing claims on public spaces by asking whether crowding-out might harm the potential development and exercise of our capacities. The perfectionist approach also provides a finer distinction between different types of conservatisms, such that we may differentiate between conservatism that may be legitimately crowded-out from the spatial sphere, and conservatism which may prevail. This paper argues that a perfectionist approach—one which is explicitly committed to a view of the good life—is both necessary and timely.     

西方自由主义政治思想的转折点--托马斯·格林的政治哲学

托马斯·格林是一位影响英国思想界两代人的理论家,他的唯心主义政治哲学在1880-1920年的四十年间对英国大学里政治理论的教学和研究产生了重要影响.他提出的"共同之善"所阐述的政治学理论对改革开放中的我们仍有重大的借鉴和启示意义.     

Public choice and political philosophy: Reflections on the works of Gordon Spinoza and David Immanuel Buchanan

The paper explores some of the surprisingly many relations between theories of public choice and political philosophy. Focusing on variants of Homo oeconomicus it does so systematically rather than historically. But it factors in the history of the two disciplines along with some recent developments in (experimental) economics. This sheds new light on the counterfactual assumption that in politics everybody should be supposed to be a knave and suggests that we better seek factually sound behavioral foundations for Public Choice.     

劳动、工作、行动的区分与诠释——浅述汉娜·阿伦特政治哲学基本观念架构

汉娜·阿伦特由于曲折的人生经历促使她对哲学和政治产生与人不同的独特见解。她在严格区分和诠释劳动、工作、行动的基础上建立了政治哲学理论;然而,她过高估计政治在人的生活中的地位和意义,在政治领域中清除经济活动,使政治活动的内容狭隘而空虚,成为她理论中最大的缺陷。     

Constitutional,legal and political problems of local government in Nigeria

The new Nigerian local government system was clearly intended by its creators to be a representative and democractic system of devolution. The speed with which elected councils have been dissolved and replaced by caretaker committees and state appointees contrasts strangely with the constitutional provision that there should be a system of local government by democratically elected local councils. The constitutionality of dissolution has been confused with the constitutionality of further local government reform. Dissolution should be seen as an emergency measure to be used rarely in cases of proven maladministration by a local government. Further reform and reorganization of a state's system of local government should be regarded as a legitimate power of the state legislature. The role given by the Constitution to local government should not be interpreted as entrenching the system. Constitutional amendment is not required should further reform be necessary.     

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.     

当代中国族际政治整合若干问题分析

中国自古拥有众多的民族.从秦汉至清代两千多年间,各民族共同缔造了统一的多民族国家.自1840年至1949年的一个多世纪中,各民族从自发走向自觉,实现民族大联合,共同捍卫祖国的统一,争取并实现了中华民族的独立和解放.新中国的成立,为各民族在统一的"政治屋顶"下维护、实现、扩大自己的权利提供了可能.建国60年来,中国族际政治整合取得了巨大的成功,初步构建起了平等、团结、互助、和谐的新型民族关系.但在新的历史条件下,也面临一系列新的问题与挑战.因此,研究当代中国族际政治整合的基础、机制、问题、原则等问题具有重要的理论和现实意义.     

西部开发中民族政治问题的思考

本文认为,在西部大开发中,如何客观地认识民族关系、民族区域自治这些问题,有效地处理好这些问题,直接关系着西部大开发的顺利进行.作者对这些问题形成的原因、特点和影响进行了分析,同时提出了有关解决这些问题的基本思路.     

浅议我国政治体制改革中的几个难点问题

党的十七届四中全会对我国新形势下党的建设进行了研究和部署，并且就加强和改进党的建设作出了决定。结合当前政治体制改革实践，进一步研究和探讨我国政治体制改革的难点问题，对加强和改进民主政治建设具有重大的理论和实践意义。     

Analysing political ideas and political action

Abstract

This paper examines the relevance of Boltanski and Thévenot's newly translated book, On justification, to the analysis of political ideas and political action. While situating the work of the authors within its initial intellectual context, namely the ‘economics of conventions’, it shows that one of the key contributions of the ‘sociology of justification’ lies in the answers it brings to two fundamental, as yet unresolved, questions in political science and political sociology: first, how is it possible to identify those ideas which are politically relevant? Second, how is it possible to capture the dynamics of public ideas? After outlining the sources of the quandaries faced within political science and political sociology as regards these two questions, the conceptual framework of Boltanski and Thévenot is presented and explained, and research perspectives suggested. This article argues that On justification provides a highly engaging, stimulating and empirically useful contribution to current debates in social and political theory around the dynamics of political arguments and ideas.     

Agenda responsiveness in the European Council: public priorities,policy problems and political attention

The existence of political responsiveness in multi-level systems like the EU remains an open question despite significant recent research on the topic. This article studies whether the European Council responds to the shifting policy priorities of European citizens. More specifically, it explores the synchronic and diachronic associations between what people consider to be the most important problems and the political attention devoted to these issues from 2003 to 2014. The economic crisis after 2008 appears to have made the ranking of public concerns and the European Council agenda more alike. However, a detailed examination of the shifts in prioritisation of single issues over time reveals little evidence for dynamic issue responsiveness. Recently the European Council has paid more attention to the issues that the public considered the most pressing problems but the convergence could possibly be driven by the intensity of the underlying policy problems.     

边疆多民族地区政治文明建设面临的问题和主要任务

边疆多民族地区在现代化进程迅速推进的过程中 ,必须着力加强政治文明建设。但是 ,边疆多民族地区政治文明建设有其特殊性 ,面临着一系列问题。因此 ,只有从实际出发 ,紧紧围绕存在的突出问题 ,边疆多民族地区政治文明建设才能真正富有实效。     

论马克思主义哲学对黑格尔思辨哲学的超越

马克思主义哲学通过对黑格尔思辨哲学进行批判,摆脱了近代以来抽象思辨哲学的困境,并开始创建以实践为核心、以现实生活为根基的新唯物主义,从而实现了哲学史上伟大的变革。本文试对黑格尔思辨哲学及其局限性进行分析,并对马克思主义哲学变革的真实内涵及其可行性进行阐释。     

A political genealogy of political economy

If, at the end of the eighteenth century, political economy became the prevailing representation of economic phenomena, this was due to the fact that, better than other economic or political discourses, it constructed a political framework in which three forces could co-exist. These forces were those that all the authors of this century tried to articulate: the state, capitalism, and those who tried to protect themselves from their power.