Suchergebnisse
"Shmuel Nili"
Titel: Précis of Philosophizing the Indefensible
Autor: Shmuel Nili
Seite: 249-256
This book asks what distinctive contributions political philosophers might make when reflecting on obvious moral failures in public policy. I defend a particular kind of contribution: I argue that political philosophers can and should craft ‘strategic’ arguments for public policy reforms, showing how morally urgent reforms can be grounded, for the sake of discussion, even in problematic premises associated with their opponents. The book’s opening chapter provides a general defense of this approach, situating it within a broader conception of political philosophy’s social responsibilities. Subsequent chapters then apply strategic theorizing to a set of diverse policy issues. These range from the abortion debate and financial regulation in the United States, through controversies surrounding the participation of Arab parties in Israel’s political process, to global issues, such as commercial ties with oil-rich dictatorships, and the bearing of such ties on global climate change.
Titel: Should we Distinguish Between Repugnant and Non-Repugnant Unreasonable Views?
Autor: Alasia Nuti
Seite: 257-265
Shmuel Nili’s Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory is a thought-provoking book, calling philosophers to arms in the effort of containing the spread of ‘unreasonable’ views characterising many contemporary societies. Nili argues that philosophers can play a distinctive role by arguing from premises they reject to show how those presumptions do not lead to upholding the ‘repugnant’ policies their interlocutors back up. This paper focuses on a distinction that is key to Nili’s argument, i.e. that between ‘repugnant’ and ‘non-repugnant’ unreasonable policies. According to Nili, philosophers should be under no obligation to engage discursively in the way he envisions when their interlocutors support policies that are repugnant, i.e. they clearly violate universal human equality. The paper argues that it does not make sense to treat repugnant unreasonable views as normatively different from non-repugnant premises. The repugnant/non-repugnant distinction is untenable and too subject to ‘reasonable’ disagreement to offer concrete normative guidance.
Titel: Property Rights, Fossil Fuel Imports, and Climate Change
Autor: Francisco Garcia-Gibson
Seite: 267-277
Shmuel Nili claims that when a country buys fossil fuels from dictatorships it becomes complicit with property rights violations in those dictatorships. Thus, Nili argues, people who have a strong commitment to property rights should support a ban on fossil fuel imports from dictatorships, and a transition to renewable energy. This article critically discusses Nili’s argument. The argument fails to consider competing moral reasons that some people may have to oppose a ban on fossil fuel imports from dictatorships, such as moral preference for family and compatriots. The argument also mistakenly assumes that renewable energy would be overwhelmingly economically attractive when fossil fuel imports are forbidden, and that switching to renewable energy would not involve importing stolen goods too. The article ends more propositively, by elaborating an alternative argument that Nili dismisses too quickly, and which may help persuade those who are strongly committed to property rights of transitioning to renewable energy: the argument that transitioning would help avoid violating those rights through contributions to harmful climate change.
Titel: Civic Friendship, the Burdens of Politics, and the Ethics of Attention
Autor: Zsolt Kapelner
Seite: 279-287
In Philosophizing the Indefensible Shmuel Nili proposes strategic political theory as a productive and respectful manner for political philosophy to engage with unreasonable political views. One objection to his proposal he considers is that strategic political theory gives ‘excessive attention’ to unreasonable views. In this paper I offer a perspective on this objection which Nili does not consider and which, I believe, has important consequences for his account. The strategic theorist pays engaged and respectful attention to unreasonable views for the sake of showing respect and upholding ties of civic friendship with unreasonable citizens. Yet such attention might inadvertently disrespect and damage ties of civic friendship with those disadvantaged by the indefensible policies of the unreasonable. I consider how this consideration bears on Nili’s argument for strategic theorizing based on the practical necessity to alleviate what he calls ‘the burdens of politics’.
Titel: Philosophizing the Indefensible: Reply to Critics
Autor: Shmuel Nili
Seite: 289-304
This essay responds to the central critiques of Philosophizing the Indefensible advanced by Nuti, Kapelner, and Garcia-Gibson. Nuti and Kapelner pose general challenges to the strategic method driving the book. Garcia-Gibson focuses on this method’s application to green energy policies. I explain why I believe that both the general account of strategic theorizing presented in the book and its specific green-energy arguments withstand the critics’ scrutiny.
Focus: Shmuel Nili, Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory
2024 (46) Heft 2
Editorial
...