The View from Here is a study of our must fundamental attitudes toward the past. The book explores the dynamics of affirmation and regret, tracing the connections of each to our ongoing attachments. The focus is on situations in which our attachments commit us to affirming events or decisions that we know to have been unfortunate or regrettable.

Affirming the consequent is an inferential pattern in which one infers the antecedent of a given conditional from its consequent. Abductive inference is structurally similar: given some evidence, one infers a hypothesis that explains the evidence. I show that a Bayesian analysis of affirming the consequent helps us understand under which conditions abduction may be justified. This provides a Bayesian vindication of explanatory inference.

In this paper, the concept of birth affirmation is clarified in both the psychological dimension and the philosophical dimension. In the psychological dimension, we propose two interpretations: 1) Possible world interpretation: Even if I could imagine a possible world in which my ideal was realized or my grave sufferings were resolved, I would never think, at the bottom of my heart, that it would have been better to have been born to that possible world. 2) Anti-antinatalistic interpretation: I would (...) never think, at the bottom of my heart, that it would have been better not to have been born. In the philosophical dimension, we propose the following interpretation: The comparison of betterness or worseness between the actual world and a possible world and between my having been born and my not having been born should be impossible. In the final part of this paper, the differences from other related concepts and frequently asked questions are discussed. (shrink)

This essay explores Friedrich Nietzsche’s concepts of Eternal Recurrence and Amor Fati from a personal philosophical perspective, examining how these ideas illuminate the meaning of human existence, ethical self-realization, and the creative affirmation of life. The doctrine of Eternal Recurrence presupposes that every human experience—whether positive or negative—repeats infinitely, while Amor Fati transforms this repetition into an active ethical practice of loving and affirming one’s destiny. By connecting these concepts with my own reflections and lived experiences, I attempt to (...) understand life as an integrated totality that includes both suffering and joy, failure and success, loss and creation. The essay further discusses how ethical choice and self-realization can be achieved within this cyclical view of existence and how Nietzsche’s thought can be applied to the moral and existential challenges of modern life. Keywords Eternal Recurrence; Amor Fati; Will to Power; Nietzsche; Ethical Self-Realization; Existential Responsibility; Affirmation of Life; Personal Philosophy; Non-Dualism; Value Creation. (shrink)

Posthuman affirmative ethics relies upon a fluid, nomadic conception of the ethical subject who develops affective, material and immaterial connections to multiple others. Our purpose in this paper is to consider what posthuman affirmative business ethics would look like, and to reflect on the shift in thinking and practice this would involve. The need for a revised understanding of human–animal relations in business ethics is amplified by crises such as climate change and pandemics that are related to ecologically destructive business (...) practices such as factory farming. In this analysis, we use feminist speculative fiction as a resource for reimagination and posthuman ethical thinking. By focusing on three ethical movements experienced by a central character named Toby in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we show how she is continually becoming through affective, embodied encounters with human and nonhuman others. In the discussion, we consider the vulnerability that arises from openness to affect which engenders heightened response-ability to and with, rather than for, multiple others. This expanded concept of subjectivity enables a more relational understanding of equality that is urgently needed in order to respond affirmatively to posthuman futures. (shrink)

My paper addresses a topic--the implications of Rawls's justice as fairness for affirmative action--that has received remarkably little attention from Rawls's major interpreters. The only extended treatments of it that are in print are over a quarter-century old, and they bear scarcely any relationship to Rawls's own nonideal theorizing. Following Christine Korsgaard's lead, I work through the implications of Rawls's nonideal theory and show what it entails for affirmative action: viz. that under nonideal conditions, aggressive forms of formal equality of (...) opportunity (e.g., sensitivity training, outreach efforts, external monitoring and enforcement) and compensating support (e.g., special fellowship programs, childcare facilities, mentoring, co-op opportunities, etc.) can be justified, but that "hard" and even "soft" quotas are difficult to defend under any conditions. I conclude the paper by exploring the implications of these surprising results for contemporary liberalism more broadly and for constitutional law and public policy. (shrink)

Gender‐affirming care is almost exclusively discussed in connection with transgender medicine. However, this article argues that such care predominates among cisgender patients, people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. To advance this argument, we trace historical shifts in transgender medicine since the 1950s to identify central components of “gender‐affirming care” that distinguish it from previous therapeutic models, such as “sex reassignment.” Next, we sketch two historical cases—reconstructive mammoplasty and testicular implants—to show how cisgender patients offered justifications grounded (...) in authenticity and gender affirmation that closely mirror rationales supporting gender‐affirming care for transgender people. The comparison exposes significant disparities in contemporary health policy regarding care for cis and trans patients. We consider two possible objections to the analogy we draw, but ultimately argue that these disparities are rooted in “trans exceptionalism” that produces demonstrable harm.. (shrink)

Affirmative action is often implemented as a way of making redress to victims of past injustices. But critics of this practice have launched a three-pronged assault against it. Firstly, they point out that beneficiaries of preferential policies tend not to benefit to the same extent as they were harmed by past injustices. Secondly, when its defenders point to the wider benefits of affirmative action , critics maintain that such ends could never be sufficiently weighty to permit violating equal treatment. And, (...) thirdly, critics dispute whether the alleged benefits of affirmative action really ensue. I argue this three-pronged assault is flawed at the conceptual level. Firstly, it operates with an impoverished conception of redress. When X wrongs Y, X does not make exhaustive redress to Y by compensating Y for the harm Y suffered due to X’s wrong action. Redress also requires rectification of the wrong: X must put right the wrong done to Y by making adequate amends. While the means of compensation are determined by the extent of the harm for which compensation is due, the adequacy of amends for a wrong is less tightly controlled by the nature of the wrong. So, secondly, it is perfectly right that the choice of amends be informed by the prospect of wider benefits. Whether, thirdly, these benefits are in fact in prospect in the case of affirmative action is an empirical question which philosophy cannot answer. (shrink)

Challenging the dominant scholarly consensus that Nietzsche is simply an enemy of religion, Tyler Roberts examines the place of religion in Nietzsche's thought and Nietzsche's thought as a site of religion. Roberts argues that Nietzsche's conceptualization and cultivation of an affirmative self require that we interrogate the ambiguities that mark his criticisms of asceticism and mysticism. What emerges is a vision of Nietzsche's philosophy as the enactment of a spiritual quest informed by transfigured versions of religious tropes and practices. Nietzsche (...) criticizes the ascetic hatred of the body and this-worldly life, yet engages in rigorous practices of self-denial--he sees philosophy as such a practice--and affirms the need of imposing suffering on oneself in order to enhance the spirit. He dismisses the "intoxication" of mysticism, yet links mysticism, power, and creativity, and describes his own self-transcending experiences. The tensions in his relation to religion are closely related to that between negation and affirmation in his thinking in general. In Roberts's view, Nietzsche's transfigurations of religion offer resources for a postmodern religious imagination. Though as a "master of suspicion," Nietzsche, with Freud and Marx, is an integral part of modern antireligion, he has the power to take us beyond the flat, modern distinction between the secular and the religious--a distinction that, at the end of modernity, begs to be reexamined. (shrink)

I defend impact-based accounts of institutional racism against the criticism that they are over-inclusive. If having a negative impact on non-whites suffices to make an institution racist, too many institutions (including institutions whose affirmative action policies inadvertently harm its intended beneficiaries) would count as racist. To address this challenge, I consider a further necessary condition for these institutions to count as racist—they must stand in a particular relation to racist ideology. I argue that, on the impact-based model, institutions are racist (...) if they have a negative racial impact AND this impact is legitimized by racist ideology. Racist ideologies limit social criticism of and collective action against institutions that have a negative racial impact, and in so doing, lend stability to systems of racial domination. (shrink)

This paper has five parts: (1) A First Defense of Fletcher’s Thesis that Agapeic Love is Justice: This section considers the almost immediate objection to this claim since justice demands punishment whereas love might not punish but forgive a criminal. In response, the paper notes that Fletcher begins with Augustine’s important affirmation that agapeic love needs a high degree of thoughtfulness and prudence, thereby distinguishing between emotional love and agapeic love such that whereas emotional love, for example, by a (...) parent might be willing to forgive an adult child for a felony crime, agapeic love for a convicted felon can recognize that punishment is needed both for the felon to recognize the seriousness of one’s crime and for society to be protected against such a felon returning too easily to the repetition of such crimes. This section also explores the acceptance of the Aristotelian Principle noted by John Rawls which is crucial in helping to determine how an adult criminal is to be treated in response to that person’s responsibility. (2) A Fuller Development of Fletcher’s Thesis that Agapeic Love is Justice: Fletcher strongly agrees with Augustine’s important affirmation that agapeic love needs to be diligent love, love that is identical with practical wisdom. Consequently, even if we were to grant the approach of Augustine and Aquinas that justice is giving to each person what is their due, Fletcher points out that agapeic love needs to involve practical wisdom, that is, prudence, for a proper understanding of the many rights and obligations of individuals and groups in society. This prudent, agapeic love loves one’s neighbor as one loves oneself by not offending against the commandments, noted by Paul in Romans 13, 8-20, not committing adultery, not committing murder, not stealing, not giving false witness and not coveting. Such love is noted by Paul to be the fulfilment of the law. (3) Reflections on Korsgaard, Outka, Confucius, and Mencius: First, we examine Korsgaard’s argument that even familial love for one’s child necessarily implies that the parent should have justice for all children, indeed, for all persons. Consequently, this section shall argue all the more so that agapeic love, which involves at least love of all others such that their life, rationality, freedom, and dignity need to be affirmed and respected, necessarily asserts the intrinsic dignity of all others who can be loved as the self loves itself. Second, we examine the analysis of Gene Outka who agrees with Fletcher’s reading of Romans 13: 8-10 that love of neighbor involves not harming one’s neighbor by violating any of tencommandments condemning actions against one’s neighbor. Third, we consider the different approaches of Confucius and Mencius to justice and love and favor the approach of Mencius that great evils can only be overcome and transformed by great love. (4) Reflections on Frankena, Outka, Haring, Augustine, and Aquinas: This section evaluates the argument of Frankena that both the affirmation of persons through love towards them as having dignity and the affirmation of equal treatment of all through justice are two principles of moral philosophy irreducible to each other. This section further uses the analysis of Outka to support our evaluation of Frankena. Finally, in section (5), the paper considers agapeic love as a potential in all natural loves and uses the analyses of Haring, Augustine, and Aquinas to evaluate the overemphasis in Christian thought that agapeic love is especially to be commended in love as self-sacrifice. This section will argue, instead, that in all forms of human love noted by C. S. Lewis, whether affection, friendship, eros, or charity, we can find a realistic potential for agapeic love even if a person does not believe in God. There is no need to conceive of all human action as reducible to selfish action. Human action can take the generous form of loving one’s neighbor, even one’s enemy, as one loves oneself. For Augustine and Aquinas, such love comes first before explicit love of God in the order of psychological learning. Loving another self-sacrificially does not mean that one loves another more than oneself, rather one is loving the moral good of both the self and the other. Keywords: love, justice, Augustine, Aquinas, Mencius. (shrink)

The main theme of Nietzsche’s first published work, The Birth of Tragedy, is that the affirmation of life requires ‘illusion’ which allows us to cope with the ‘insight into the horrible truth’ of our condition. This article argues that Nietzsche held the same position in his later works: that illusion is a necessary to affirm life. The discussion is organized as follows. Section 1 sets out the core thesis of BT vis-à-vis the relationship between affirmation and illusion. Section (...) 2 examines the role of illusion in one of Nietzsche’s litmus tests of affirmation found in The Gay Science of 1882, ‘amor fati’—that is, the ability ‘to see as beautiful what is necessary in things’. Sections 3, 4, and 5 consider Nietzsche’s understanding of ‘self-creation’ and how, through the employment of ‘distance’ and ‘pretence’, it engenders an affirmation of existence. Finally, Section 6 attempts a provisional assessment of Nietzsche’s conception of affirmation. (shrink)

This paper presents affirmation as the central normative category of Nietzsche’s positive ethics. The paper argues in particular for two interpretive claims: first, that from Beyond Good and Evil onwards, we find a new variety of Nietzschean affirmation (‘natural affirmation’), which is crucial to the strategy of his later works; and second, for reasons internal to his own philosophical aims, Nietzsche’s new variety of affirmation is seriously flawed. The author argues for the second claim on the (...) basis that Nietzsche himself requires that affirmation not perform exactly the role he requires that it perform. The author contends that we are thus faced with a major challenge to Nietzsche’s late philosophical project—that (late) Nietzschean affirmation fails by Nietzsche’s own standards. (shrink)

Most commentators assume (a) that the affirmation of life can be defined univocally, as an act the success of which can be assessed by means of the test of the eternal return in GS341; and (b), that the affirmation of life is synonymous with what Nietzsche calls amor fati, and thus singlehandedly encapsulates Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. I take issue with both assumptions and develop an alternative view. I argue that for Nietzsche there are two ways to affirm life (...) ethically. The first is unreflective and piecemeal. I propose a substantive modification to Bernard Reginster’s (2014) procedural approach by suggesting that life is affirmed each time an agent seeks to overcome, and succeeds in overcoming, resistance in the pursuit of a first order desire expressive of love for life – the last clause being mine. I further argue that even with this added clause this first form cannot defeat what Reginster calls the ‘normative core of nihilism’, namely the experiencing of suffering as an objection to life. I identify in Nietzsche’s later work a second form of ethical life affirmation: a holistic, ecstatic act, a Dionysian blessing which ‘calls good’ life as a whole and thus redeems it by making it fully desirable on erotic grounds. Yet even in its two ethical forms the affirmation of life does not suffice to define Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. The very perspective of life affirmation is limited because it remains beholden to the very framework Nietzsche sought to escape: the Christian overarching concern for redemption and preoccupation with theodicic narratives. By contrast, I argue that amor fati, as agapic love of life, affords Nietzsche with a distinct resource to go beyond theodicic prospects and examine its relation to the erotic love of life, which is at the core of both forms of ethical life affirmation. I offer a pluralistic reading of GS341, not simply as a test of life affirmation, but as articulating Nietzsche’s two ethical ideals, amor fati on the one hand, and the affirmation of life in both its forms, on the other. (shrink)

Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three-hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants’ discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As (...) expected, the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants’ self-rated prosocial affect (e.g., empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implications of these findings for understanding the social psychological mechanisms underpinning intellectual humility are considered. (shrink)

Institutional guidelines for transgender children and adolescent minors fail to adequately address a critical juncture of care of this population: how to proceed if a minor and their parents have disagreements concerning their gender-affirming medical care. Through arguments based on ethical, paediatric, adolescent and transgender health research, we illustrate ethical dilemmas that may arise in treating transgender and gender diverse youth. We discuss three potential avenues for providing gender-affirming care over parental disagreement: legal carve-outs to parental consent, the mature minor (...) doctrine and state intervention for neglect. Our discussion approaches this parent–child disagreement in a manner that prioritises the developing autonomy of transgender youth in the decision-making process surrounding medically assisted gender affirmation. We base our arguments in the literature surrounding the risks and benefits of gender-affirming therapy in transgender children and the existing legal basis for recognising minors’ decision-making authority in certain medical situations. (shrink)

This paper argues that besides the critical and historically informed genealogies of his later work, Nietzsche also sketched genealogies that are not historically situated and that display an under-appreciated affirmative aspect. The paper begins by looking at two early examples of such genealogies where datable historical origins are clearly not at issue, which raises the question of what kind of origins Nietzsche is after. It is argued that these genealogies inquire into practical origins—into the original point of certain conceptual practices (...) given certain needs, and that this reflects Nietzsche’s instrumentalism about concepts. It is then argued that this focus lends the genealogies an affirmative dimension, because they present their object as naturalistically intelligible and practically indispensable. Finally, it is shown how the nature and limits of this affirmative dimension can be tentatively sharpened by connecting it to Nietzsche’s later notion of the economic justification of morality. (shrink)

This article demonstrates that Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) meets both conditions of Paisley Livingston's bold thesis of cinema as philosophy. I delineate my argument in terms of Aaron Smuts's clarifications of Livingston's conditions. The results condition, which is concerned with the nature of the philosophical content, is developed in relation to Berys Gaut's conception of narrational confirmation, which I designate ‘experiential affirmation.’ Because experiential affirmation is a function of cinematic depiction, it meets Livingston's means condition, which is concerned (...) with the capacities of the medium or art form. I address two objections to my argument and conclude with a brief commentary on the implications for the broader relationship between film and philosophy. (shrink)

In the Ethics, Spinoza advances two apparently irreconcilable construals of will [voluntas]. Initially, he presents will as a shorthand way of referring to the volitions that all ideas involve, namely affirmations and negations. But just a few propositions later, he defines it as striving when it is “related only to the mind” (3p9s). It is difficult to see how these two construals can be reconciled, since to affirm or assent to some content is to adopt an attitude with a cognitive (...) (mind-to-world) direction of fit, while to strive to persevere in one’s being would seem to be to adopt an attitude with a conative (world-to-mind) direction of fit. Attempting to achieve consistency by taking striving under the attribute of thought to consist in affirming only pushes the equivocation problem onto the concept of affirmation (Lin 2019). It would seem, then, that Spinoza equivocates on the concepts of will, affirmation, or perhaps both. I defend the univocity of Spinoza’s accounts of will and affirmation, showing that it comports with established accounts of affirmation in early modern philosophy and yields a clear, uniform account of what it means to strive under the attribute of thought, preserving the systematicity of Spinoza’s account of mind in ways that other interpretations do not. (shrink)

A travers une analyse des concepts d’affirmation originaire, d’attestation et de reconnaissance, cet article tente de reconstituer le sens et les motivations du cheminement réflexif qui conduit Ricœur de L’Homme faillible à Soi-même comme un autre et à Parcours de la reconnaissance. Pour ce faire, il s’efforce d’abord de montrer ce qui fait la continuité profonde, de problématique et de méthode, du projet anthropologique ricœurien; afin de dégager ensuite les difficultés centrales liées à l’idée d’une constitution poétique du soi, (...) qui conduisent Ricœur à réélaborer les concepts directeurs de son herméneutique du soi. A la lumière du dialogue constant de Ricœur avec la philosophie de Nabert, il tente enfin de montrer comment les concepts d’attestation et de reconnaissance trouvent, pour l’essentiel, leur genèse dans un approfondissement de la notion d’affirmation originaire, lui-même prolongé par une réflexion sur le témoignage.  . (shrink)

This chapter discusses the theme of suicide in Améry’s work with a particular focus on what it reveals about how the notion of freedom changes in his thought from the post-war period to the final years of his life in the 1970s. I bring Améry into dialogue with Albert Camus, the thinker of twentieth century existentialism most famously associated with the problem of suicide through his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. Améry is more successful than Camus in achieving their (...) shared aim: to discuss suicide from the individual perspective of the suicidal person. Améry’s success is in large part due to his concept of échec, which I subsequently argue carries all the burden and responsibility of Sartrean freedom, but none of its creative potential. Améry’s 1976 book On Suicide: A Discourse on Voluntary Death signals one of these definitive shifts away from Sartre. In it, Améry’s conception of freedom is more indebted to Schopenhauer, and to a lesser extent to Nietzsche, than to his former master, Sartre.Améry’s concept of échec also underscores a changing understanding of freedom in his thought, in which the burden of responsibility of Sartre’s ontological freedom remains but its creative capacity appears to be absent. Améry articulates a conception of freedom in On Suicide that is not necessarily inconsistent with Sartre, but that is a closer parallel with Schopenhauer’s theory of the Will and, to a lesser extent, Nietzsche’s “will to power.” On Suicide signals a definitive shift in Améry’s conception of freedom, one I claim is more indebted to Schopenhauer and his pessimistic orientation than it is to Sartre. Finally, I consider whether Améry’s pessimistic conception of freedom is at odds with his professed commitment to Enlightenment reason, a question that for the time-being I leave unresolved. (shrink)

La réaffirmation des constantes de la responsabilité dans les différents projets de réforme de cette matière marque la fonction réparatrice de cette institution, bien que les auteurs des propositions se soient, pour la plupart, contentés d’une codification à droit constant, loin de grandes ruptures conceptuelles, marquant la stabilité des conditions relatives au préjudice et au lien de causalité.

Rosi Braidotti's contribution to the Deleuze Studies Conference 2016 held in Rome (University of Roma Tre, 11–13 July), later transcribed and then revised by the author, points firmly to the current need for an affirmative thinking approach, actively standing to the present, while assessing its becoming and imagining new configurations. Saying yes to the world, being worthy of it, does not entail passive acceptance but rather the activation of transformative and critical thinking. To this aim, Braidotti looks at Deleuze as (...) well as at feminist theory. The ontology of immanence turns into a materialist, collective, vital, embodied and relational ethics. (shrink)

According to the ethics of care, practices of care are sources of moral knowledge that take human relatedness into account. However, caregivers may also find themselves in situations that demand sacrifices, even to the point where their own self is at stake. This may not only be cause for concern about the risks of caregivers, the result of an unequal distribution of power, but it may as well be a chance for affirmation of one’s identity, of self-attestation. As Ricoeur (...) argues, giving of the self or even giving one’s life may be the ultimate expression of one’s belonging, in friendship, devotion or loyalty. Ricoeur also considers the meaning of giving a gift, which to him does not lie in any return gift, but rather in the gift as offering, as generosity. Giving is first of all a risk, a sacrifice, with only the hope that it will be received. In this article I aim to extend his argument to the realm of caregiving, thereby supporting my claim that some sort of self-sacrifice is implied in the very act of caring for others. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the worth of a materialist/posthumanist approach to ethics, specifically affirmative ethics, within the field of education. I work empirical material that ‘does’ this ethics in classrooms and draw on Deleuze’s ethically guided materialism as taken up by Braidotti, to gain purchase on it. Defined as a relational matter of human and non-human powers of acting in pursuit of affirmative values, affirmative ethics focuses up relations, forces and affects. It poses considerable challenges to (...) a normalised construction of ethics as located solely within a constituted human subject with moral intentionality as its core. Affirmative ethics presents empirically as an emergent property of relational assemblages of human and more than human elements that bring ethical subjectivity into effect. Pedagogy and curriculum perform a constitutive role in these assemblages, as does pedagogic affect, showing how this ethics can be activated. A materialist affirmative ethics makes for a multi-faceted and generative practice of ethics. Oriented to collectivity and with relationality ‘built-in’, it has the potential to play a significant role in the reconstitution of individualised subjectivity which neoliberal modes of governance continue to advance in education. (shrink)

Affirming the consequent is a fallacious form of reasoning in formal logic that occurs when the minor premise of a propositional syllogism affirms the consequent of a conditional statement. A conditional statement is an “if‐then” sentence that expresses a link between the antecedent (the part after the “if”) and the consequent (the part after the “then”). A conditional statement does not assert either the antecedent or the consequent. It simply claims that if the antecedent is true, then the consequent is (...) also true. Although affirming the consequent is an invalid argument form and sometimes mistaken for, the valid argument form modus ponens. Modus ponens is a valid argument form in Western philosophy because the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion; however, affirming the consequent is an invalid argument form because the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of the conclusion. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the moral dimensions of gender affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a (...) way of challenging their marginalization. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak (2018) on the use of gender-neutral language. They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que l'homme? En se basant sur l'anthropologie à la fois d'Aristote et de Saint Thomas d'Aquin, Maritain propose une conception de l'homme dans laquelle la morale est étroitement liée aux composantes ontologiques dans l'être humain. Le personnalisme de Maritain met l'accent sur le caractère communautaire de l'humanisme. L'homme s'accomplit au moment où il se donne à soi-même et aux autres. Ces deux dimensions du don sont constitutives pour que l'homme s'épanouisse intégralement et pleinement : le don à l'égard de (...) soi-même (la surexistence en connaissance et en amour) et le don à l'égard des autres (le service du bien commun)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Critique and Affirmation in Erich Fromm explores the relations between Erich Fromm's theory and practice in politics and the psychoanalytic clinic - their points of continuity and contradiction. Drawing on a systematic reading of Fromm's published output, as well as extensive research in the Fromm archives, Matheus Romanetto extracts the fragments of ontology, logic, and ethics implicit in his writings, leading to a re-evaluation of Fromm's place in 20th century intellectual history. Interpolated with the theoretical argument are three historical (...) excursi thematizing Fromm's practice in political life, religious life, and the psychoanalytic clinic, setting the grounds for a new political sociology of radical humanism and critical theory. Critique and Affirmation in Erich Fromm will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, sociology, contemporary philosophy, political theory, and critical theory. (shrink)

Affirmative action programs are not justified by compensatory justice. They place a disproportionate burden on white-male applicants. White-male applicants do not owe compensation because they committed a relevant wrongdoing or because they benefitted from another’s wrongdoing. They did not commit a relevant wrongdoing. Receipt of an unjust benefit, when unavoidable and mixed with hard work, does not justify a duty to compensate a victim of the injustice. Thus, the compensatory-justice argument for affirmative action fails.

At the heart of liberalism lie two seemingly conflicting ideals: a commitment to robust individual rights and an ideal of equal opportunity. The former offers rights‐holders discretion in terms of with whom to cooperate, who to hire, admit, and so forth. The latter is often understood to require policies of affirmative action. This conflict is visible in the recent US Supreme Court Decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University, which firmly decided the matter on behalf of liberal rights. However, (...) such a resolution shifts the burden of injustice on those who are negatively affected by it. And this seems unfair. At the same time, affirmative action threatens to shift these burdens entirely to employers and other applicants. And liberal rights are meant to protect us from being made to bear such burdens. This essay offers a solution to this problem by formulating a rights‐based defense of affirmative action policies. According to this argument, affirmative action policies are fair when they realign the actual (injustice‐tainted) distribution of opportunities with the distribution to which people are entitled as a matter of their social positions. This solution is fair since rights‐holders have no just claims against lacking opportunities they had no right to enjoy in the first place, and victims of injustice have no more claim to redress than what their rights were supposed to yield. The argument justifies significant policies of affirmative action with respect to hiring, admissions, and so forth, in ways that remain fully consistent with even the strongest form of liberal rights. (shrink)

Affirmative ethics, as a collective and radically democratic praxis, must be constructed by subjects who collectively defy unity and actualise a virtual heterogeneous assemblage, while retaining ethical accountability. The composition of an ethically active subjectivity is achieved by transcending the force of the negative and by acknowledging and reworking reactive emotions such as pain, anger, greed and fear. It entails working through negative instances to attain a more profound understanding of their sources – both affective and cognitive – and striving (...) to transform them into affirmation. Ethics demands rigorous effort: it encompasses not only critical intelligence but also the force of affectivity in relational and epistemological operations. Affirmative ethics functions as a critique of power by exposing the despotic instances of contemporary power formations and the undercurrents of molecular molarities or micro-fascisms. It breaks free from the toxic bonds and the acquiescent application of established norm and values. It deterritorialises them by introducing ethical flows that unfold and enhance relational interdependence. Affirmative ethical subjects are not enamoured of power. An affirmative life, therefore, epitomises ‘the anti-fascist life’. (shrink)

Affirmations for Manifestation is an inspiring collection of daily affirmations that helps you shift your mindset, focus on positivity, and channel your inner power to create the changes you wish to see in the world around you. Touching on common goals for everyday life--from improving your career, to strengthening your relationships, to building your self-esteem--this book is a daily guide to manifesting change."--Provided by publisher.

This article explores the connections between Gloria Anzaldúa's and Friedrich Nietzsche's accounts of health, resilience, and life affirmation. While some of the ways in which they think about health and sickness as at once bodily, psychic, and cultural are similar, I argue that Anzaldúa's politics of healing turns a transformed sense of Nietzschean life affirmation into a liberatory project, overcoming the deeply problematic implications of Nietzsche's discussions of decadence, namely, his celebration of the culture of the oppressor. Anzaldúa's (...) account enables a vision and practice of active values as part of a liberatory social movement, the analogues of which Nietzsche disavows as indicative of a herd morality. In this way, I suggest that Anzaldúa's decolonial feminist politics of healing involves an overcoming of ressentiment by way of politically mobilizing and collectivizing a transformed Nietzschean sense of life affirmation. (shrink)

Most commentators assume that the affirmation of life can be defined univocally, as an act the success of which can be assessed by means of the test of the eternal return in GS341; and, that the affirmation of life is synonymous with what Nietzsche calls amor fati, and thus singlehandedly encapsulates Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. I take issue with both assumptions and develop an alternative view. I argue that for Nietzsche there are two ways to affirm life ethically. The (...) first is unreflective and piecemeal. I propose a substantive modification to Bernard Reginster’s procedural approach by suggesting that life is affirmed each time an agent seeks to overcome, and succeeds in overcoming, resistance in the pursuit of a first order desire expressive of love for life – the last clause being mine. I further argue that even with this added clause this first form cannot defeat what Reginster calls the ‘normative core of nihilism’, namely the experiencing of suffering as an objection to life. I identify in Nietzsche’s later work a second form of ethical life affirmation: a holistic, ecstatic act, a Dionysian blessing which ‘calls good’ life as a whole and thus redeems it by making it fully desirable on erotic grounds. Yet even in its two ethical forms the affirmation of life does not suffice to define Nietzsche’s ethical ideal. The very perspective of life affirmation is limited because it remains beholden to the very framework Nietzsche sought to escape: the Christian overarching concern for redemption and preoccupation with theodicic narratives. By contrast, I argue that amor fati, as agapic love of life, affords Nietzsche with a distinct resource to go beyond theodicic prospects and examine its relation to the erotic love of life, which is at the core of both forms of ethical life affirmation. I offer a pluralistic reading of GS341, not simply as a test of life affirmation, but as articulating Nietzsche’s two ethical ideals, amor fati on the one hand, and the affirmation of life in both its forms, on the other. (shrink)

In the third and final part of his A Theory of Determinism (TD) Ted Honderich addresses the fundamental question concerning “the consequences of determinism.” The critical question he aims to answer is what follows if determinism is true? This question is, of course, intimately bound up with the problem of free will and, in particular, with the question of whether or not the truth of determinism is compatible or incompatible with the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility. It is (...) Honderich’s aim to provide a solution to “the problem of the consequences of determinism” and a key element of this is his articulation and defence of an alternative response to the implications of determinism that collapses the familiar Compatibilist/Incompatibilist dichotomy. Honderich offers us a third way – the response of “Affirmation” (HFY 125-6). Although his account of Affirmation has application and relevance to issues and features beyond freedom and responsibility, my primary concern in this essay will be to examine Honderich’s theory of “Affirmation” as it concerns the free will problem. (shrink)

Gender affirming hormone treatment is an important part of the care of trans adolescents which enables them to develop the secondary sexual characteristics congruent with their identified genders. There is an increasing amount of empirical evidence showing the benefits of gender affirming hormone treatment for psychological health and social well-being in this population. However, in several countries, access to gender affirming hormone treatment for trans adolescents has recently been severely restricted. While much of the opposition to gender affirming hormone treatment (...) for trans adolescents has in part been ideologically motivated, it also reflects a debate about whether there are harms that outweigh the benefits of the treatment. Accordingly, a systematic and comprehensive philosophical analysis of the ethics of gender affirming hormone treatment for trans adolescents is needed. Herein, I offer such an analysis that draws on the four principles of biomedical ethics by Tom Beauchamp and James Childress. Based on the considerations of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice, I argue that the provision of access to gender affirming hormone treatment for consenting trans adolescents is ethically required and that the current restrictions to such treatment are ethically wrong. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Nietzsche's thinking on the notions of nobility and the affirmation of life and I subject his reflections on these to criticism. I argue that we can find at least two understandings of these notions in Nietzsche's work which I call a 'worldly' and an 'inward' conception and I explain what I mean by each of these. Drawing on Homer and Dostoyevsky, the work of both of whom was crucial for Nietzsche in developing and exploring (...) his notion of worldly nobility and affirmation, I then go on to argue that Nietzsche provides us with no concrete examples of worldly nobles and that, given his historicism, he cannot. Thus Nietzsche's thinking here is broken-backed. I turn, therefore, to explore the inward notions of nobility and affirmation. Discussing Montaigne and Napoleon in the context of Nietzsche's philosophy, I argue that we can make good sense in Nietzschean terms of someone's affirming his own life in an inward sense. This, however, opens up the difference between someone's affirming his own life and his affirming life überhaupt, and I argue that Nietzsche needs to be able to make sense not just of the former but also of the latter. Referring once again to Dostoyevsky, I suggest that Nietzsche can only do so by accepting the idea that all human beings possess dignity qua human beings. This thought is, however, one that he rejects. Thus Nietzsche's reflections in this area cannot be rendered finally plausible since they depend upon something which can find no room in his philosophy. (shrink)

Bernard Reginster's book The Affirmation of Life purports to fill a gap in our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophical project by explaining why Nietzsche regards the affirmation of life as his defining philosophical achievement. Reginster is not alone in emphasizing the centrality of life affirmation to Nietzsche's thought. What makes Reginster's book new and original is his systematic approach—his attempt to isolate a core of Nietzsche's philosophy and show how everything else, especially the affirmation of life, is (...) related to it. This article challenges the systematicity Reginster finds in Nietzsche's work; above all, it rejects Reginster's claim that what has led to nihilism is the condemnation of suffering, a view Nietzsche is said to inherit from Schopenhauer. I raise questions about how much of Schopenhauer's view Nietzsche in fact retains and about how well Reginster's account of affirmation fits with Nietzsche's account of the will to power, which, as I have argued elsewhere, has played an essential part in producing all the things Nietzsche values. (shrink)