Michael P. Levine

Integrity and the fragile self

Views of integrity: integrated-self identity clean-hands. Integrity as a virtue: should we strive for integrity? integrity and commitment emotional integrity integrity and morality integrity and moral limits the virtue of integrity. Integrity and utilitarian moral theory: Williams against the utilitarian the argument from integrity what is the problem with utilitarianism? is utilitarianism really incompatible with integrity?. Types of integrity: professional integrity political integrity what defeats political integrity? intellectual integrity artistic integrity artistic integrity and moral integrity the many roles of integrity. Striving for integrity: is the pursuit of integrity self-indulgent? too much integrity? can political and social structures undermine integrity?.

Engineering and War:Militarism, Ethics, Institutions, Alternatives

This book investigates the close connections between engineering and war, broadly understood, and the conceptual and structural barriers that face those who would seek to loosen those connections. It shows how military institutions and interests have long influenced engineering education, research, and practice and how they continue to shape the field in the present. The book also provides a generalized framework for responding to these influences useful to students and scholars of engineering, as well as reflective practitioners. The analysis draws on philosophy, history, critical theory, and technology studies to understand the connections between engineering and war and how they shape our very understandings of what engineering is and what it might be. After providing a review of diverse dimensions of engineering itself, the analysis shifts to different dimensions of the connections between engineering and war. First, it considers the ethics of war generally and then explores questions of integrity for engineering practitioners facing career decisions relating to war. Next, it considers the historical rise of the military-industrial-academic complex, especially from World War II to the present. Finally, it considers a range of responses to the militarization of engineering from those who seek to unsettle the status quo. Only by confronting the ethical, historical, and political consequences of engineering for warfare, this book argues, can engineering be sensibly reimagined.

Politics most unusual: Violence, sovereignty and democracy in the 'war on terror'

How has September 11 and the declaration of the ‘global war on terror’ changed our conceptions of politics? How has it affected our understanding of democracy, human rights, personal freedom and government accountability? How should we respond in the face of growing violence and authoritarianism? In answering these questions, the authors engage in a comprehensive and critical analysis of politics in the age of terrorism. They explore different dimensions of a new political paradigm that has started to emerge in our societies, one characterized by an obsession with security, a loss of civil liberties and democratic transparency, government lies and cover-ups, the intrusion of religion into the public sphere, and an increasingly violent and militaristic foreign policy. In attempting to make sense of these developments, Politics Most Unusual examines a series of political, moral and psychological questions which are central to explaining politics in the age of terror.

Can There be Self-Authenticating Experiences of God?

Let us follow Robert Oakes in describing a self-authenticating experience of God as one that ‘would have the epistemic uniqueness of guaranteeing –all by itself – its veridicality to the person who had it.’ The idea that there could be self-authenticating experiences of God has been criticized often in recent years. It seems that the only experiences that could be self-authenticating are those about ones own current psychological states. Nevertheless, the individual who claims to have such an experience of God is clearly using ‘experience’ in such a way as to suppose that ones experience of God is logically independent of the existence of God, but still self-authenticating.

Sacred Cows and the Changing Face of Discourse on Terrorism: Cranking it Up a Notch

ABSTRACT Ethicists working in either ‘just war’ and/or ‘human rights’ traditions continue to be embroiled with the definition of terrorism and the question of whether terrorism can ever be morally justified; obsessed with non-combatant immunity and criteria for distinguishing combatants from non-combatants; and examining ‘the doctrine of double effect’. The move to other issues has, however, been embraced by those who initiated it since 9/11, those with new ideas and analyses that draw from many disciplines. We will discuss why philosophical/political discussion about terrorism has taken a turn away from questions like ‘can terrorism can be morally justified’ and efforts to define terrorism. Discourse on terrorism, much of it extra-philosophical, has taken a turn for the better. It is increasingly concerned with issues about the nature of terrorism rather than its definition; the nature of the discourse itself about terrorism, and what this tells us about terrorism; and the causes of terrorism – the examination of which is subverted by the discourse on terrorism.

Mediated Memories: the politics of the past

The age of monumentality , or meaningful memorials and memorialization in the public sphere, is over. The design, execution, and even the meanings of public memorials are subjected to the will of those with the political and economic clout that see to it that their own understanding of events is the one represented literally and symbolically in the media and by the memorial. This paper looks at a range of theoretical and empirical considerations to employ them in order to support the claim that meaningful memorialization in the public sphere has come to an end. At the same time, supposing this hypothesis to be reasonably accurate, some of its significant implications will be drawn out.

Teaching war and violence to the like-minded

According to the earliest line of objection, there was no need for Peace Studies to be introduced as a separate area of the curriculum because what Peace Studies courses would cover could be better accomplished within the well-established humanities disciplines, such as history, philosophy, and English literature. This objection was rooted in a rather narrow view of the disciplines—sometimes pumped up with claims of the specialized methodological grounding of traditional disciplines—and perhaps also in a territorial and self-protective mentality. Funds to universities were being cut and the introduction of new disciplines or fields of study was often financially threatening to established disciplines. This battle over the exclusivity of traditional disciplines has now been lost with the widespread introduction of fields such as cultural studies, and with the establishment of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. The change has come primarily from within, with humanities disciplines re-conceiving and reinventing themselves. Studying English literature, philosophy, or anthropology is now very different from what it was in the 1980s. A second objection, or series of objections, to the introduction of Peace Studies was directed at the nature of the field itself. According to Caroline Cox, Roger Scruton, and John Marks, teaching in such a field could not

American Empire and its Discontents

In the last chapter we explored the state of exception in terms of its implications for domestic politics. The moment of exception referred to the way that the sovereign defines a state of emergency and decides unilaterally on how to respond to it, suspending the legal framework which would otherwise limit it. The state of exception is therefore a crystallization of the power of the state, a strange no-man’s-land beyond the law in which the sovereign can act with violent impunity. We found that this situation applies increasingly to political life in contemporary Western societies, societies which define themselves as formally liberal and democratic but which implement ‘security’ measures that are more akin to those of authoritarian police states.

Mad, Bad, and Evil

Why has the term evil become so common in the theory and practice of disciplines in which the term—as a morally loaded religious notion—has no natural grounding? There are overlapping but also different reasons why the notion of evil—and not only the word evil, as if it could be divorced from its connotations—is used in psychiatry, psychoanalysis and other psychotherapies, and jurisprudence. In each case it points to a reflexive uneasiness and insecurity about the foundations of these disciplines, and nowhere more so than in psychiatry. More is at stake in using the term evil than may seem evident at first. The issue has little to do with merely proscribing usage. I argue for three interrelated claims: (a) It is not possible to naturalize the term evil, (b) the attempt to naturalize the term is undesirable, and (c) psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and lawyers should avoid using the term evil. These disciplines have commitments that are incompatible with the conceptual frameworks in which evil has interpretive or descriptive relevance. The view that these disciplines should be committed to eschewing the notion of evil in their professional discourses has been given short shrift in recent literature. Unsure of the nature of mental illness, and confused about what is cause and what is effect, it has for the most part reduced itself in practice to dispensers of an ever-increasing array of psychotropic drugs that alter behavior and feelings.

Can the concept of enlightenment evolve

Those who claim the concept of enlightenment (nibānna) has not evolved must rest their claim on a strong distinction between changing and variant interpretations of the concept on the one hand, and what the term really means or refers to on the other. This paper examines whether all evolution of the concept of enlightenment is best seen as interpretive variation rather than as embodying real notional change—a change in the reference of the term. It is implausible to suppose that the enlightenment has not evolved, and also implausible to suppose that the notion of enlightenment is the same across various sects of Buddhism. Zen enlightenment is not the same as Theravada enlightenment. Two points of controversy about niba¯nna are discussed and Christian attitudes toward scripture are compared with those in Buddhism.