Political ethics in illiberal regimes

Political ethics in illiberal regimes
Author: Zoltán Gábor Szucs
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2023-04-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1526142368

What is it like to live in an illiberal regime? Ethical life in totalitarian regimes is easy to critique because it deviates from everything we think morally acceptable. But illiberal regimes are similar enough to liberal democracies to make addressing the experience of living there strikingly difficult. Political ethics in illiberal regimes argues that the common language of normative political theory is simply not up to the task of capturing this experience. On the one hand, we do not really need political theory to know why illiberal regimes are dangerous and undesirable. On the other, we do need political theory – at least of a certain realist kind – to understand why millions of reasonable people come to terms with living in such regimes. The book presents a novel theoretical language – Williamsian, liberal and realist – to articulate this experience. Part I lays out the theoretical framework, while Part II examines how politicians, experts and citizens in illiberal regimes are confronted with role-specific, political-ethical challenges and how the various normative contexts of their roles shape their agency.

The Politics and Ethics of Toleration

The Politics and Ethics of Toleration
Author: Johannes Drerup
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000425185

Toleration plays a key role in liberal thought. This book explores our current understanding of toleration in liberal theory and practice. Toleration has traditionally been characterized as the willingness to put up with others or their actions or practices despite the fact that one considers them as objectionable. Toleration has thus been regarded as one of the core aspects of liberalism: as an indispensable democratic virtue and as a constitutive part of liberal political practice. In modern liberal societies, where deep disagreements about social values and ways of life are widespread, toleration still seems to be of crucial importance. However, contemporary debates on toleration cover an immense variety of theoretical and political issues ranging from controversies over its exact understanding and conceptual scope as well as its practical boundaries, e.g., regarding freedom of expression or the legitimate role of religious symbols in educational institutions. The contributions to this volume take up a number of carefully selected key questions and problems emerging from these ongoing theoretical and political controversies in order to explore and shed new light on pivotal conflicts and tensions that pervade different conceptions of toleration. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.

Government Action and Morality

Government Action and Morality
Author: Robert (R. S.) Downie
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2023-03-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000819035

This book was first published in 1964. Everything in politics has changed since then why a reprint? Because moral criticisms of governments haven’t changed. Indeed, historical comparison suggests a disconcerting similarity. We still accept a liberal-democratic morality and politics and believe that it is individuals who bear moral responsibility. How can we reconcile the corporate actions of governments with individual responsibility? Is the private life of politicians relevant to their official actions? Should politicians resign if they disagree with government policy? These problems are still with us, and the 1964 discussion of them remains illuminating. We elect governments to further our material interests, but we also believe that they should express our moral ideals, for example by providing vaccines, alleviating poverty or supporting oppressed countries. Are moral ideals consistent with political realism? The book reconciles these apparently opposed positions by introducing the concept of governments as ‘moral intermediaries.’ The reconciliation develops liberal-democracy in a way that will interest political theorists. As a whole the book offers a readable discussion of the many ways in which morality has a bearing on government action, and it captures and analyses contemporary political and moral aspirations.

Ethics, Liberalism and Realism in International Relations

Ethics, Liberalism and Realism in International Relations
Author: Mark D. Gismondi
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 533
Release: 2007-09-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1135980993

This book explores the complex issue of international ethics in the two dominant schools of thought in international relations; Liberalism and Realism. Both theories suffer from an inability to integrate the ethical and pragmatic dimensions of foreign policy. Liberal policy makers often suffer from moral blindness and a tendency toward coercion in the international arena, whilst realists tend to be epistemic sceptics, incorporating Nietzsche’s thought, directly or indirectly, into their theories. Mark Gismondi seeks to resolve the issues in these two approaches by adopting a covenant based approach, as described by Daniel Elazar’s work on the covenant tradition in politics, to international relations theory. The covenant approach has three essential principles: policy makers must have a sense of realism about the existence of evil and its political consequences power must be shared and limited liberty requires a basis in shared values. Ethics, Realism and Liberalism in International Relations will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, philosophy, ethics and international relations.

Towards Illiberal Democracy

Towards Illiberal Democracy
Author: D. Bell
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1995-08-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 023037641X

This book challenges the view that liberal democracy is the inevitable outcome of economic modernization. Focusing on the stable and prosperous societies of Pacific Asia, it argues that contemporary political arrangements are legitimised by the values of hierarchy, familism and harmony. An arrangement that clearly contrasts with a western understanding of political liberalism and the communicatory democracy it facilitates. Instead of political change resulting from a demand for autonomy by interest groups in civil society, the adoption of democratic practice in Asia ought to be viewed primarily as a state strategy to manage socio-economic change.

Compromise and Political Action

Compromise and Political Action
Author: J. Patrick Dobel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Total Pages: 236
Release: 1990
Genre: Law
ISBN:

No one likes to compromise, but we almost always do. Our politics and associations are built upon negotiation, respect for diversity, bargaining and elections. Compromise seems an awkward stepchild of morality and even dictionaries reflect its moral ambiguity.

Political Emotions

Political Emotions
Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674728297

How can we achieve and sustain a "decent" liberal society, one that aspires to justice and equal opportunity for all and inspires individuals to sacrifice for the common good? In this book, a continuation of her explorations of emotions and the nature of social justice, Martha Nussbaum makes the case for love. Amid the fears, resentments, and competitive concerns that are endemic even to good societies, public emotions rooted in love—in intense attachments to things outside our control—can foster commitment to shared goals and keep at bay the forces of disgust and envy. Great democratic leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr., have understood the importance of cultivating emotions. But people attached to liberalism sometimes assume that a theory of public sentiments would run afoul of commitments to freedom and autonomy. Calling into question this perspective, Nussbaum investigates historical proposals for a public "civil religion" or "religion of humanity" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Rabindranath Tagore. She offers an account of how a decent society can use resources inherent in human psychology, while limiting the damage done by the darker side of our personalities. And finally she explores the cultivation of emotions that support justice in examples drawn from literature, song, political rhetoric, festivals, memorials, and even the design of public parks. "Love is what gives respect for humanity its life," Nussbaum writes, "making it more than a shell." Political Emotionsis a challenging and ambitious contribution to political philosophy.

Exile, Statelessness, and Migration

Exile, Statelessness, and Migration
Author: Seyla Benhabib
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691167257

An examination of the intertwined lives and writings of a group of prominent twentieth-century Jewish thinkers who experienced exile and migration Exile, Statelessness, and Migration explores the intertwined lives, careers, and writings of a group of prominent Jewish intellectuals during the mid-twentieth century—in particular, Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Isaiah Berlin, Albert Hirschman, and Judith Shklar, as well as Hans Kelsen, Emmanuel Levinas, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Strauss. Informed by their Jewish identity and experiences of being outsiders, these thinkers produced one of the most brilliant and effervescent intellectual movements of modernity. Political philosopher Seyla Benhabib’s starting point is that these thinkers faced migration, statelessness, and exile because of their Jewish origins, even if they did not take positions on specifically Jewish issues personally. The sense of belonging and not belonging, of being “eternally half-other,” led them to confront essential questions: What does it mean for the individual to be an equal citizen and to wish to retain one’s ethnic, cultural, and religious differences, or perhaps even to rid oneself of these differences altogether in modernity? Benhabib isolates four themes in their works: dilemmas of belonging and difference; exile, political voice, and loyalty; legality and legitimacy; and pluralism and the problem of judgment. Surveying the work of influential intellectuals, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration recovers the valuable plurality of their Jewish voices and develops their universal insights in the face of the crises of this new century.