quinta-feira, 28 de novembro de 2013

Lançamento: Mulheres Brasileiras e Gênero nos Espaços Público e Privado

Os pesquisadores Gustavo Venturi (USP) e Tatau Godinho (Secretaria da Mulher)  lançam os resultados de sua pesquisa "Mulheres Brasileiras e Gênero nos Espaços Público e Privado" (os principais resultados bem como o desenho da pesquisa se encontram no link). A pesquisa foi patrocinada em conjunto pelo SESC e pela Fundação Perseu Abramo. O evento será dia 28 de novembro (quinta-feira) em São Paulo na unidade Consolação do SESC. 





O SESC, a Fundação Perseu Abramo e os organizadores,  Prof. Dr. Gustavo Venturi (Departamento de Sociologia) e Tatau Godinho (Doutora em Ciências Sociais), convidam para o lançamento do livro Mulheres Brasileiras e gênero nos espaços público e privado: uma década de mudanças na opinião pública.

O evento acontece nesta quinta-feira, 28 de novembro, às 20h, no Teatro Anchieta - Sesc Consolação (Rua Dr. Vila Nova, 245, Vila Buarque)

Haverá debate com Albertina Costa, Simone Grilo Diniz e Nilza Iraci Silva. Mediação do Prof. Dr. Gustavo Venturi.

Resultado da pesquisa nacional homônima, realizada em 2010, pela Fundação Perseu Abramo em parceria com o Departamento Nacional do Sesc, o livro reúne textos de pesquisadores e estudiosos que analisam as desigualdades de gênero no Brasil contemporâneo, discutindo questões como feminismo, machismo, violência, mídia, saúde, sexualidade, aborto, trabalho e política. Expressam a diversidade de olhares acerca do avanço das mulheres na última década, do grau de satisfação com a condição feminina, da confiança na progressiva melhoria do estatuto das mulheres e da adesão ao feminismo. 

* Evento gratuito. Retirada de ingressos com 1h de antecedência. 

Reunião da ASAP em São Paulo

Nos dias 5 e 6 de dezembro a ASAP (Academics Stand Against Poverty) organiza a conferência de lançamento de sua filial brasileira. Para quem não a conhece, a associação reúne acadêmicos e ativistas do mundo todo na tentativa de formular respostas práticas para a erradicação da pobreza e da desigualdade global. O evento pretende discutir como podemos atingir, no país, os resultados estabelecidos pela Metas do Milênio da ONU contra a fome e a miséria (no caso, a meta estipula que devemos reduzir pela metade a proporção da população que vive com até um dólar por dia até 2015). Entre os palestrantes, Thomas Pogge (Yale), fundador e diretor da ASAP, e Dalmo Dallari (USP). O programa e o local das palestras pode ser consultado aqui.


ASAP Brazil Launch Conference


Brazilian academics are building a new chapter of ASAP, which they will launch with a conference in São Paulo on December 5 and 6, 2013.
The conference, titled Ideas to Overcome Extreme Poverty and Hunger, aims to analyze the structural causes of world poverty from an interdisciplinary perspective in order to shore up normative critiques about these conditions, as well as come up with proposals and discuss viable and systemic reforms to support the reduction of world poverty.
A major objective of the conference is to stimulate academic research on different approaches to fighting poverty, to disseminate research findings, and to foster discussion on how to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal in Brazil.
The event will take place at the auditorium of the Federal Attorney’s Regional Office, Brigadeiro Luiz Antonio Avenue n. 2020, on December 5 and 6 from 9:00 am to 6:30 pm. Each day will feature five panels on different topics and a keynote lecture. Each panel will open with a “social platform”, in which a development practitioner will speak for 5-10 minutes about a successful story or enterprise connected to the panel theme and the goals of ASAP Brazil.
This event is co-organized by ASAP Brazil, the Brazilian Ministry of Public Affairs, the Federal Attorney’s Office for the Rights of the Citizen, and Rapporteurs for the Fight Against Poverty.
To read the conference program, in both English and Portuguese, click here.

domingo, 24 de novembro de 2013

Vagas de estágio na ASAP

A associação Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) reúne pesquisadores e acadêmicos do mundo todo em busca de soluções práticas para a pobreza e a desigualdade social. O Brasil contará com sua primeira conferência da ASAP em dezembro (o cronograma do evento pode ser encontrado no site da ASAP) e está em busca de estagiários que tenham interesse acadêmico na área. O prazo é dia 1 de dezembro. A carta programa da associação pode ser lida aqui.


Call for Applications: Winter Internships with Academics Stand Against Poverty

Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) is seeking exceptionally talented and motivated students from around the world to join the team this winter.

ASAP is a global network of scholars using research, teaching, and advocacy to accelerate the end of poverty. Its core activities are promoting collaboration among poverty-focused academics, effective outreach to policy makers and broader public audiences, and helping academics turn their expertise into impact through on-the-ground projects.

ASAP internships take place both in-person in New Haven, Connecticut, and remotely from anywhere in the world—students outside of the New Haven area may submit work electronically and coordinate with ASAP staff via e-mail and Skype. All internships are UNPAID and entail a minimum commitment of 3 months of work, beginning December 1, with an average of 5-10 hours of work per week.

ASAP is currently recruiting for the following intern positions: IT, Communications, Fundraising, Graphic Design, and Research on Institutional Reform. Information about these positions is provided here.

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, and work begins December 1, 2013.

Chamada: Sciences Po. Political Theory Graduate Conference

A segunda conferência de teoria política da Sciences Po. organizada pelo CEVIOPF vai ser realizada nos dias 19 e 20 de junho (2014). Pesquisadores que ainda não concluíram suas pesquisa de doutorado podem apresentar seus trabalhos durante dois dias de debates com alunos franceses e professores convidados. Propostas de trabalho serão aceitas até 28 de fevereiro. O convidado desta edição será o filósofo norte-americano Jeremy Waldron (NYU).


Sciences Po Political Theory Graduate Conference (Paris June 2014)


Keynote Speaker: Jeremy Waldron

We are happy to announce that the Second Sciences Po Graduate Political Theory Conference is going to take place at Sciences Po, Paris, from June 19 to June 20 2014.

We welcome contributions from young political theorists across the board and intend to accommodate various approaches to political theory (analytical, normative, critical, historical). We also aim at geographic diversity, in that we shall try to foster a substantial academic dialogue between young political theorists from Europe and their peers across the world.
Jeremy Waldron (Oxford/NYU) will deliver the keynote address. The work of Jeremy Waldron covers a wide spectrum, including theories of rights, questions of dignity, torture and hate speech, the problems of justice and equality, and the relationship between law and politics. Contributions that touch upon any of these subject-matters are warmly encouraged, but we are open to proposals on other topics as well.
Only graduate students who have not defended their PhD are eligible. Each (2 to 2 and ½ hours-long) session of the conference will concentrate on two to three papers and will be chaired by a Sciences Po graduate student. Presentations will be followed by a Q&A period open to the public (professors and graduate students alike).
Breakfast, lunch and refreshments will also be provided for the duration of the conference.
Submission deadline: February 28, 2014
Submission/selection procedure: A detailed abstract (between 500 and 750 words) of the proposal should be sent to sciencespotheorygrad@gmail.com in PDF format, prepared for blind review. You should also send us a separate document, mentioning your name, the title of your proposal, and your institutional affiliation. Political theory students from the Ecole Doctorale of Sciences Po, Paris, will select approximately 15 proposals on a blind basis. The proposals and final papers should be written in English, which is also the working language of the Graduate Conference. The selected participants will be notified of their acceptance by April 15, 2014. All the other proposals will be acknowledged.
Selection committee: Benjamin Boudou, Amélie Ferey, Marianne Fougère, Maurits De Jongh, Yoel Mitrani, Andrei Poama, Denis Ramond, Elise Rouméas, Tom Theuns
For any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us at: sciencespotheorygrad@gmail.com

sexta-feira, 22 de novembro de 2013

Vagas de doutorado: York e CEU

A York University (Inglaterra) abriu uma nova linha de bolsas de estudo para doutorandos nos departamentos de Política (que abriga tanto filosofia e ciência política) e Economia. As vagas são para 2014 e 2015 (veja a chamada abaixo). Já o departamento de ciência política da Central European University (Budapeste) oferece duas bolsas de doutorado para a área de teoria política com prazo de três anos. O deadline para a submissão é 23 de janeiro de 2014. 


AHRC PhD Studentships in Political Philosophy & Political Theory, at the University of York 


AHRC PhD Studentships in Political Philosophy & Political Theory, at the University of York (from 2014-5)
Following the announcement that the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH) has received £19m from the AHRC to establish a Doctoral Training Partnership that will create over 300 PhD studentships and join the expertise of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, we are pleased to announce that a number of studentships will be open to PhD applicants to the Department of Politics and/or the School of Politics, Economics and Philosophy (PEP), working on topics in political philosophy and political theory.
Information about postgraduate research in the Department of Politics can be found from our website: http://www.york.ac.uk/politics/postgraduates/research/

Included on our webpages are details about our staff and their research interests:

Details of postgraduate research degrees in the School of PEP can be found here:

Applicants for an AHRC studentship must have been accepted for a place on the course and have discussed their funding application with their prospective Department. They may only apply for AHRC funding at one of Leeds, Sheffield or York. The studentship application form and details of how to apply are only available from the WRoCAH website http://www.arts-and-humanities.whiterose.ac.uk/



AHRC studentship applications opened on 8 November 2013, and must be submitted by midnight GMT on 3 February 2014. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of April 2014.
For further details of the application processes and funding opportunities, or if you would like to visit the Department of Politics or the School of PEP, please contact:


Dr Nina Caspersen, Director of Graduate Research, Department of Politics:  nina.caspersen@york.ac.uk

Professor Neil Carter, Director of the School of PEP: neil.carter@york.ac.uk

Candidates are strongly encouraged to contact prospective supervisors at their earliest convenience, in order to discuss possible research projects.
Martin O’Neill
The Doctoral School of Political Science at the Central European University offers two full fellowships with stipends for three years for the track in Political Theory. Possible supervision and courses are offered in the following areas: distributive justice, democratic theory, political obligation, philosophy of the social sciences, applied political philosophy, transitional justice, and others. Application deadline is 23rd January 2014.  For more information, please go to htpp://www.ceu.hu/ds or contact us at: ds@ceu.hu
 Doctoral School of Political Science
1051 Budapest, Hungary

terça-feira, 19 de novembro de 2013

Moralidade de Livre Mercado

Duas concepções distintas de sociedade disputam os valores liberais no panorama politico contemporâneo. De um lado, uma sociedade de livre mercado fundada na moralidade de contratos livres entre indivíduos autônomos. Do outro, uma sociedade de bem-estar social fundada na moralidade da distribuição de recursos. Partindo dessas premissas, a filósofa Amia Srinivasan (Oxford) formulou quatro perguntas para os seguidores da "moralidade de livre mercado" (tal como formulada, por exemplo, por Robert Nozick) - incluindo ai o influente economista Gregory Mankiw que publicou nesse semestre o artigo "Em defesa do 1% [mais rico da sociedade]". Para Srinivasan, assumir a defesa moral do livre mercado nos leva a uma concepção absurda de liberdade individual que dificilmente poderíamos aceitar em nossas vidas pessoais. A seguir, os artigo de Srinivasan (para o The Stone) e o de Gregory Mankiw (para o Journal of Economics Perpectives). 



Questions of Free-Market Moralists
by Amia Srinivasan


In 1971 John Rawls published “A Theory of Justice,” the most significant articulation and defense of political liberalism of the 20th century. Rawls proposed that the structure of a just society was the one that a group of rational actors would come up with if they were operating behind a “veil of ignorance” — that is, provided they had no prior knowledge what their gender, age, wealth, talents, ethnicity and education would be in the imagined society. Since no one would know in advance where in society they would end up, rational agents would select a society in which everyone was guaranteed basic rights, including equality of opportunity. Since genuine (rather than “on paper”) equality of opportunity requires substantial access to resources — shelter, medical care, education — Rawls’s rational actors would also make their society a redistributive one, ensuring a decent standard of life for everyone.

In 1974, Robert Nozick countered with “Anarchy, State, and Utopia.” He argued that a just society was simply one that resulted from an unfettered free market — and that the only legitimate function of the state was to ensure the workings of the free market by enforcing contracts and protecting citizens against violence, theft and fraud. (The seemingly redistributive policy of making people pay for such a “night watchman” state, Nozick argued, was in fact non-redistributive, since such a state would arise naturally through free bargaining.) If one person — Nozick uses the example of Wilt Chamberlain, the great basketball player — is able to produce a good or service that is in high demand, and others freely pay him for that good or service, then he deserves to get rich. And, once rich, he doesn’t owe anyone anything, since his wealth was accumulated through voluntary exchange in return for the goods and services he produced. Any attempt to “redistribute” his wealth, so long as it is earned through free market exchange, is, Nozick says, “forced labor.”

Rawls and Nozick represent the two poles of mainstream Western political discourse: welfare liberalism and laissez-faire liberalism, respectively. (It’s hardly a wide ideological spectrum, but that’s the mainstream for you.) On the whole, Western societies are still more Rawlsian than Nozickian: they tend to have social welfare systems and redistribute wealth through taxation. But since the 1970s, they have become steadily more Nozickian. Such creeping changes as the erosion of the welfare state, the privatization of the public sphere and increased protections for corporations go along with a moral worldview according to which the free market is the embodiment of justice. This rise in Nozickian thinking coincides with a dramatic increase in economic inequality in the United States over the past five decades — the top 1 percent of Americans saw their income multiply by 275 percent in the period from 1979 and 2007, while the middle 60 percent of Americans saw only a 40 percent increase. If the operations of the free market are always moral — the concrete realization of the principle that you get no more and no less than what you deserve — then there’s nothing in principle wrong with tremendous inequality.

The current economic crisis is no exception to the trend toward Nozickian market moralizing. In the recent debates in the Senate and House of Representatives about food stamps — received by one out of six Americans, about two-thirds of them children, disabled or elderly — Republicans made their case for slashing food subsidies largely about fairness. As Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said in his speech, “This is more than just a financial issue. It is a moral issue as well.”

The Nozickian outlook is often represented as moral common sense. But is it? Here I pose four questions for anyone inclined to accept Nozick’s argument that a just society is simply one in which the free market operates unfettered. Each question targets one of the premises or implications of Nozick’s argument. If you’re going to buy Nozick’s argument, you must say yes to all four. But doing so isn’t as easy as it might first appear.The Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw recently published a draft of a paper titled “Defending the One Percent.” In it he rehearses (but, oddly, does not cite) Nozick’s argument for the right of the wealthy to keep their money, referring to the moral principle of “just deserts” as what makes distribution by the market essentially ethical. And in a recent issue of Forbes, the Ayn Rand apostle Harry Binswanger proposed that those earning over one million dollars should be exempt from paying taxes, and the highest earner each year should be awarded a Medal of Honor — as a reward (and incentive) for producing so much market value. Again, Binswanger explained that “the real issue is not financial, but moral.”

sábado, 16 de novembro de 2013

Livro: Freedom's Right

Com a tradução em inglês prevista para dezembro, Freedom's Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life é a obra mais recente do filósofo alemão Axel Honneth. Trata-se de mais uma formulação de sua já famosa teoria do reconhecimento como fundamento da justiça social. Em setembro o filósofo ministrou uma conferência na Stone Brook Univesity na qual apresentou os principais argumentos do livro.

O vídeo pode ser assistido abaixo:





Freedom's Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (Columbia Press)


The theory of justice is one of the most intensely debated areas of contemporary philosophy. Most theories of justice, however, have only attained their high level of justification at great cost. By focusing on purely normative, abstract principles, they become detached from the sphere that constitutes their “field of application” - namely, social reality.

Axel Honneth proposes a different approach. He seeks to derive the currently definitive criteria of social justice directly from the normative claims that have developed within Western liberal democratic societies. These criteria and these claims together make up what he terms “democratic ethical life”: a system of morally legitimate norms that are not only legally anchored, but also institutionally established.

Honneth justifies this far-reaching endeavour by demonstrating that all essential spheres of action in Western societies share a single feature, as they all claim to realize a specific aspect of individual freedom. In the spirit of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and guided by the theory of recognition, Honneth shows how principles of individual freedom are generated which constitute the standard of justice in various concrete social spheres: personal relationships, economic activity in the market, and the political public sphere. Honneth seeks thereby to realize a very ambitious aim: to renew the theory of justice as an analysis of society.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Theory of Justice as an Analysis of Society

A. Historical Background: The Right to Freedom
1. Negative Freedom and the Social Contract
2. Reflexive Freedom and Its Conception of Justice
3. Social Freedom and the Doctrine of Ethical Life

Transition: The Idea of Democratic Ethical Life

B. The Possibility of Freedom
1. Legal Freedom
2. Moral Freedom
C. The Reality of Freedom
3. Social Freedom

sexta-feira, 15 de novembro de 2013

Igualdade de Oportunidades

John Roemer (Yale) e Alain Trannoy (EHESS) anteciparam o artigo sobre "Igualdade de Oportunidade" a ser publicado na nova edição do Handbook of Income Distribution. Os autores fazem um balanço do conceito tanto na literatura filosófica como na econômica de bem-estar. O artigo é seco, porém rigoroso. Para quem tiver interesse, existe um excelente verbete sobre o conceito na SEP escrito por Richard Arneson que pode ajudar.





Abstract
This forthcoming chapter in the Handbook of Income Distribution (eds., A. Atkinson and F. Bourguignon) summarizes the literature on equality of opportunity. We begin by reviewing the philosophical debate concerning equality since Rawls (sections 1 and 2), present economic algorithms for computing policies which equalize opportunities, or, more generally, ways of ordering social policies with respect to their efficacy in opportunity equalization (sections 3, 4 and 5), apply the approach to the conceptualization of economic development (section 6), discuss dynamic issues (section 7), give a preamble to a discussion of empirical work (section 8), provide evidence of population views from surveys and experiments concerning conceptions of equality (section 9), and a discuss measurement issues, summarizing the empirical literature on inequality of opportunity to date (section 10). We conclude with mention of some critiques of the equal-opportunity approach, and some predictions (section 11).

quarta-feira, 13 de novembro de 2013

Lançamento: Do Dever e seus Impasses

O filósofo Vladimir Safatle (USP) lança hoje (dia 13 de novembro) seu livro O Dever e seus Impasses na livraria Martins Fontes da Av. Paulista a partir das 19h30. Trata-se de uma breve genealogia do conceito de "dever" na filosofia moderna e uma crítica ao modelo kantiano de autonomia. 



terça-feira, 12 de novembro de 2013

4a. Conferência da Associação Européia de Ciência Política

Entre os dias 19 e 21 de junho de 2014, será realizada a quarta edição da Conferência Geral da Associação Européia de Ciência Política (EPSA) na cidade de Edimburgo (Escócia). Entre as 18 mesas cadastradas, pela primeira vez na história do evento teremos uma mesa específica de teoria política - organizada por Peter Stone (Trinity Dublin). Os trabalhos podem ser submetidos aqui até o dia 13 de dezembro. Abaixo vocês encontram o convite de Stone e a lista com todas as mesas:



Good Afternoon:
The call for papers has gone out for the 4th Annual General Conference of the European Political Science Association. It will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland, on June 19-21, 2014. This is the first year that the conference has had a political theory category for proposals. I have been asked to serve as head of the political theory section, and so I am anxious to see political theory make a big splash at the conference.
The proposal submission deadline is December 13, 2013. For further details, or to propose a paper and/or panel, please visit http://epsanet.org/conferences/general-conference-2014.html. And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.
Yours Very Sincerely,
Peter Stone - Trinity College Dublin (pstone at tcd.ie)
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segunda-feira, 11 de novembro de 2013

Pode um soldado se recusar a matar?

Jeff McMahan (Rutgers) foi o autor convidado da última edição do Forum na Boston Review. Para aqueles que não conhecem o evento, no Forum um autor ou autora é convidado para escrever e propor soluções sobre algum tópico relevante do debate público nos EUA. Suas propostas são, então,  avaliadas por profissionais da área e respondidas pelo autor. McMahan é o autor de Killing in War um dos livros mais importantes sobre o problema da "guerra justa" dos últimos anos. No ensaio "Moral Wounds: The Ethics of Volunteer Military Service" o filósofo parte dos argumentos de seu livro - especialmente do pressuposto de que não existem "guerras justas" - para questionar a proibição de soldados em recusar ordens moralmente questionáveis vindas de seus superiores. 

Os comentários ficaram por conta dos filósofos Lionel McPherson e Kimberley Brownlee, do ativista Matt Gallagher, do oficial Brian Imiola. Para os interessados sobre o assunto, os argumentos de McMahan contra a noção tradicional de guerra justa podem ser encontrados nesse artigo:

- McMahan: "The Ethics of Killing in War" 


The Moral Responsibility of Volunteer Soldiers
Should they say no to fighting in an unjust war?

The military services in the United States have been organized on a volunteer basis since 1973, when President Richard Nixon abolished the draft. The end of conscription came as a relief to most people—to young men, their parents, and eventually the leaders of the military services, which had been plagued by internal dissent and a lack of professionalism, partly as a result of having so many unwilling members.
Though isolated voices have always challenged the shift to a volunteer military, their criticisms have recently become more widespread and more vocal. The main objections come from two quite different directions.
Some critics argue that the reliance on an all-volunteer, professional army has led to diminished public concern and vigilance with respect to the wars the government decides to fight. Limiting the burdens of military service to volunteers has, according to these critics, weakened inhibitions against the use of military force. When the Iraq War was debated in 2002–3, most citizens were not concerned that they or their children would be required to fight. This eliminated a powerful constraint against the resort to war. According to these critics, the reintroduction of some form of conscription is necessary to reestablish greater democratic control over the practice of war.
Other critics come from the ranks of just war theorists. Their concern is not with diminished public vigilance but with individual moral responsibility. They argue that volunteering for military service in current conditions is morally problematic. Those who join the military may be motivated by a desire to serve their country; to prove, improve, or reform themselves; to have a steady income with benefits; to get an education; to carry on a family tradition; or some combination of these. Whatever their motivation, they are committing themselves to become weapons controlled by others whose purposes cannot be reliably predicted. Some just war theorists question whether it can be permissible for people thus to convert themselves into instruments for killing without knowing whom they may be required to kill, or why. In contrast to the problem cited by the first group of critics, this one would be exacerbated rather than resolved by the reintroduction of conscription.
I will focus here on the second, less familiar critique. I believe that the all-volunteer military can survive the challenge, but only if it undergoes significant reform and acknowledges a right of selective conscientious objection.
Traditional Just War Theory

The idea that voluntary enlistment in the military can be morally problematic derives from a neglected tradition of just war thinking. This approach to the ethics of war informed the work of some of the classical just war theorists, such as the 16th century Spanish philosophers Francisco de Vitoria and Francisco Suárez. It was, however, gradually abandoned by thinkers whose views together constitute what I call “traditional just war theory.” The traditional theory has been ascendant since at least the 18th century, but the older approach has recently been resurrected by a group of “revisionists.” The best way to understand revisionist just war theory is to contrast it with the traditional theory, which has had a profound influence in shaping common sense thinking about the ethics of war, in part because it was developed in tandem with the international law of armed conflict.


According to traditional just war theory, a soldier does no wrong by fighting in an unjust war, provided that he or she obeys the rules regulating the conduct of war. This theoretical idea finds powerful expression in public sentiments. For centuries it has been regarded as not merely permissible but conspicuously noble and admirable for a soldier to go to war without any concern for whether the war’s cause was just. Although the famous lines in Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade” refer to obedience to tactical commands within a war, they articulate a general Victorian ideal of soldiering: “Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die / . . . When can their glory fade?” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was even more explicit:
In the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands.
Traditional just war theory offers a theoretical basis for this familiar sentiment. A foundational tenet of the theory is that the principles governing the conduct of war (jus in bello) are entirely independent of those governing the resort to war (jus ad bellum). One implication of this fundamental dualism in traditional just war theory is that what it is permissible for soldiers to do in war does not depend on whether the war is just. Whether the cause is just or unjust, soldiers are prohibited, for example, from intentionally attacking noncombatants. And whether the cause is just or unjust, soldiers are permitted to attack and kill enemy combatants. Typically in a war between states, one state’s war is just while the other’s is unjust. Yet according to the traditional theory, the principles of jus in bello are neutral between soldiers on opposing sides and are equally satisfiable by all.
One rationale for this traditional dualism is provided by a view about responsibility. Soldiers cannot do wrong by violating the principles of jus ad bellum because, it is claimed, those principles do not apply to them. The principles of jus ad bellum govern decisions concerning the resort to war, but ordinary soldiers have no control over those decisions and thus are not responsible for them. Only those who are involved in making such decisions—political leaders—are capable of either violating or complying with ad bellumprinciples. But even though ordinary soldiers cannot be responsible for whether a war is fought, they are responsible for how it is fought. And according to the traditional theory, there are permissible and impermissible ways of fighting even in a war that is unjust.
The traditional theory seeks to reinforce its claim that one can permissibly fight in an unjust war in part by observing that all soldiers fighting in a war pose a threat to others. Because they pose a threat, even if they are fighting for a just cause, they forfeit their right not to be attacked. But even though they forfeit this right, they retain their rights of self- and other-defense. Hence all soldiers, including those who fight for unjust aims (unjust combatants), are permitted to attack enemy combatants because those combatants pose a threat and are thus liable to attack. The traditional principle of noncombatant immunity is an extension of this line of argument. Noncombatants pose no threat and thus do not forfeit their right not to be attacked. Hence no soldiers, even those fighting in just wars (just combatants), are permitted to attack noncombatants.
We can refer to the traditional theory’s claim that it is always permissible to fight in a war, whether just or unjust, provided that one obeys the principles of jus in bello, as the permissibility of participation. It is a moral principle that is echoed by a parallel permission in the law of armed conflict, which allows that it is legal to fight in a war that is itself illegal.

domingo, 10 de novembro de 2013

Entrevista: Philip Mirowsky

O economista e historiador da ciência Philip Mirowsky (Notre Dame) foi entrevistado no blog NewBooks sobre seu livro "Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: how the neoliberalism has survived the financial meltdown". No livro, Mirowsky utiliza os instrumentos da filosofia da ciência para reconstruir o desenvolvimento da corrente neoliberal tanto na economia como na gestão pública. O autor procura ressaltar que as premissas epistêmicas neoliberais tem dificuldade de cumprir aquilo que, historicamente, prometeu aos economistas e cientistas sociais: um método falível

Na entrevista Mirowsky explica quais as intenções de sua reconstrução e estabelece algumas distinções importantes - como, por exemplo, as diferenças entre o programa específico dos neoliberais, por um lado, e a teoria econômica neoclássica, por outro. 

O lançamento do livro já havia sido tema de post no nosso blog:


 O áudio da entrevista pode ser encontrado aqui: http://newbooksinpoliticalscience.com


sábado, 9 de novembro de 2013

Chamada: "Social Contract Theory: Past, Present and Future"

Estão abertas as inscrições para a conferência "Social Contract Theory: Past, Present and Future", organizada pelo Center of Philosophy da Universidade de Lisboa. O prazo para o envio de trabalhos é dia 31 de janeiro


Social Contract Theory: Past, Present, and Future
University of Lisbon, 15th-16th May 2014
Social contract theories are typically philosophical attempts to explain the origins of society and the legitimacy of political institutions over individuals. They are based upon the presupposition that society and its connecting political structures are formed by an agreement (or a set of agreements) whose contracting parties are individuals.
The last few decades, however, have witnessed the appearance of serious challenges to the idea of the social contract. International organizations, transnational corporations, lobbyists, investment funds, and ONG’s (all of which are neither individuals nor parties to social contracts) seem quite often more capable than actual individuals or elected representatives of influencing political decision-making processes. Moreover, the network structure of human relations provided by globalization makes it possible for individuals to establish more intense connections with individuals who are not parties to the same contractual cohesive model rather than with fellow citizens.
Can such novelties constitute a potential deathblow to social contract theories? Or are they evidence that the idea of the social contract is in need of being recovered or perhaps even reformulated? The purpose of this conference is to consider the viability of social contract theory in the light of both practical and theoretical challenges.
We invite philosophers, political theorists, historians and other theoretically-minded scholars and practitioners to submit abstracts pertaining to this problem. Our interests include:
  • The idea of the social contract in the history of political theory;
  • Is there a future for social contract theory?
  • Is there a contractarian legitimacy for today’s political structures?
  • Social contract in moral philosophy;
  • The nature of agreement in collective action;
  • Theoretical criticisms of social contract theory (communitarianism, libertarianism, Marxism, anti-contractarian feminist and racial studies, etc.);
  • Social contract theory in international relations.
Proposals that fall beyond these interests are also welcome, provided they relate to the main theme.
Proposals should include an abstract of up to 500 words, name and institutional affiliation, as well as a short biographical note. They must be prepared for 30 minute presentations. We intend to publish a selection of the best papers in an international publisher still in 2014. Working language of the conference is English. Please send your proposals to José Gomes André (josegomesandre@gmail.com) or Andre Santos Campos (andredoscampossantos@gmail.com), by 31 January 2014
Organizing Committee: Andre Santos Campos (IFL, New University of Lisbon) and José Gomes André (Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon).
Fees: 30€ (includes conference materials and Lunch for two days)
Please note that the organization of the conference does not provide support for travelling and accommodation.
Timeline:
Deadline of abstract submissions: 31 January 2014
Notification of selected papers: 25 February 2014
Conference date: 15-16 May 2014

quinta-feira, 7 de novembro de 2013

Chamada: VII Congresso da Associação Portuguesa de Ciência Política

Estão abertas as inscrições para o VII Congresso da Associação Portuguesa de Ciência Política. O evento ocorrerá na Universidade de Coimbra entre os dias 14 e 16 de abril (2014). Trabalhos podem ser enviados até dia 15 de novembro.


VII Congresso da Associação Portuguesa de Ciência Política
Faculdade de Economia, Universidade Coimbra, 14-16 Abril 2014

Todos os interessados em apresentar propostas de painéis e comunicações ao VII Congresso da APCP devem submeter a sua proposta até 15 DE NOVEMBRO DE 2013 por e-mail para congressos@apcp.pt. Esta não deve exceder 200 PALAVRAS e deve incluir os seguintes elementos:

1. Número e nome da sessão em que o autor pretende apresentar a comunicação.
2. Título da comunicação.
3. Nome do autor.
4. Instituição a que pertence e posição que nela ocupa.
5. Endereço de correio eletrônico.
6. Resumo da comunicação.

A proposta deve ser acompanhada de um BREVE CURRICULUM VITAE (máximo 150 palavras).

Serão admitidas, por orador, uma comunicação individual e outra em co-autoria. As propostas de painéis devem apresentar um título, um moderador e as respectivas comunicações. 

O VII Congresso compreenderá as seguintes sessões (que poderão sofrer alterações de acordo com o número e os temas das propostas de comunicação recebidas e aprovadas):

Sessão 1: Sociedade e Política Portuguesa.
Sessão 2: Estudos Europeus.
Sessão 3: Política Comparada.
Sessão 4: Governaça e Políticas Públicas.
Sessão 5: Relações Internacionais.
Sessão 6: Teoria Política.


A apresentação de propostas de comunicação é aberta a todos os interessados, sendo a sua seleção baseada em critérios científicos. 

As propostas de comunicação devem ser enviadas por e-mail para congressos@apcp.pt até dia 15 DE NOVEMBRO DE 2013. 

NÃO SERÃO ACEITES PROPOSTAS SUBMETIDAS DEPOIS DESTE PRAZO.

Mais informações:

quarta-feira, 6 de novembro de 2013

Dworkin: The Moral Quest

Os filósofos Thomas Nagel e Ronald Dworkin mantiveram ao longo de 25 anos um seminário anual de filosofia política na Universidade de Nova York (oficialmente o curso se chamava "Colloquium in Legal, Political and Social Philosophy" alguns dos textos apresentados ainda podem ser encontrados no link). Quase todo mundo da área passou por ali, como Scheffler, Pogge, Scanlon, Habermas, Van Parijs, etc. Nagel utiliza a reedição do livro "Dworkin", escrito por Stephen Quest, para relembrar em artigo na NY Review essa famosa parceria e fazer um balanço da obra de Dworkin. 




By John Earle


by Thomas Nagel

Ronald Dworkin, who died on February 14 of this year, began to contribute to The New York Review of Books in 1968. His strong opinions and lucid prose helped to give the paper its distinctive tone, and he achieved through those writings on the law and politics of our time a level of public recognition and influence that is rare for a legal academic.
But much as he loved the public arena and the cultural limelight, he was fundamentally a theorist—originally a legal philosopher and then a moral and political philosopher whose interests expanded finally to include the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of religion. His theoretical development followed a personal path, and because he and I were friends and colleagues for many years, I saw much of it happen.
Ronnie and I were part of an unusually fortunate cohort of analytic philosophers and lawyers, formed in the 1960s, who were prepared to take moral questions seriously and who believed that both reasoning and intuition had a role in their resolution. Following the lead of John Rawls in the US and H.L.A. Hart in England, a group of younger scholars began to write about substantive moral, legal, and political questions, and to talk to each other regularly about their work in progress. We were also exercised by political and legal developments like the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and controversies over abortion and sexual freedom.
Ronnie was a brilliant member of this group. He left Yale in 1969 to become professor of jurisprudence at Oxford, but he visited the US regularly and in any case it was becoming a transatlantic conversation. A lot of important work in these fields appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, including two of Ronnie’s most influential books, Taking Rights Seriously (1977) and Law’s Empire (1986). By the time he began to split his time between Oxford and NYU Law School in 1987 and we began to teach together, he held a preeminent position as a philosopher of law. But his intellectual ambitions were much broader. As it turned out, he wanted to produce a modern version of Plato’s Republic.
Ronnie presented his theoretical writings as they developed to the colloquium in law and philosophy that he and I conducted at NYU for twenty-five years. But mainly the colloquium was an occasion for intensive discussion with many of the people working in these fields, and for close critical attention to their work. We developed a format that almost always produced an illuminating discussion. A paper would be submitted in advance, to be read by all participants. On Thursday morning Ronnie and I would meet for an hour of preliminary dissection, and at noon the author would appear for two to three hours of questions and argument, continued over lunch.
We would then part to prepare for the public colloquium, which began at four with a presentation of the paper and initial questions by Ronnie or me, followed by responses from the author and further questions from the other of us. After that we opened it up to the audience, subject to an agenda of issues that we had identified. We ended at seven, but if the guest was not from NYU, this was followed by a dinner at which the discussion continued. The colloquium was a course that about fifteen law and philosophy students took for credit, but most of the audience were auditors, including many faculty fromNYU and other universities in the area; so the students met separately with Ronnie in a seminar every Wednesday to discuss the papers on their own.
Ronnie was always eager to present his own ideas as widely as possible, as shown by his Herculean schedule of global speaking engagements, but in the colloquium he focused happily, with admirable generosity and interpretive skill, on the work of others. He was usually critical and often combative, but the general reaction of those who were subjected to this nine-hour ordeal was gratitude. The advantage of all that work was that no one felt they hadn’t been understood. I do remember one occasion, though, when we had Michael Walzer for a marathon engagement of two weeks in a row, and at the end we complimented him on his stamina and resourcefulness in responding again and again to all the questions, objections, and arguments we had thrown at him. “What was the alternative?” he replied sardonically.
When Ronnie or I presented a paper, the other took on the critical role alone, so I had a close view of the extension of his work into general moral and political theory, and the foundations of truth and objectivity in evaluative and other domains. He continued also to write about law, finding much to deplore as the Supreme Court moved to the right, but his search for the ultimate ground of his moral convictions led him gradually to quite another plane. He had never done graduate work in philosophy, but he succeeded, not without anxiety, in turning himself from a legal theorist into a general philosopher of large ambition and depth of view. It took courage, despite the air of effortlessness that has always been his style.