Social Criticism and the Exclusion of Ethics

Abstract As Axel Honneth has recently noted, the critical concerns of social philosophers during the past three decades have been focused primarily on questions of justice, with ethical issues about the human good being largely excluded. In the first section I briefly explore this exclusion in both ‘Anglo-American’ political philosophy and ‘German’ critical theory. I then argue, in the main sections, that despite this commitment to their exclusion, distinctively ethical concepts and ideals can be identified both in Rawls’s Theory of Justice and in Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action, taking these as exemplary, representative texts for each theoretical school. These ethical elements, and their implications for the critical evaluation of economic institutions, have gone largely unnoticed. In the final section I indicate the kinds of debates that might be generated, were these to be given the attention they arguably deserve. I focus especially on the significance of empirical issues, and hence on the role of social science in social criticism.</jats:p

Technological elites, the meritocracy, and postracial myths in Silicon Valley

Entre as modernas elites tecnológicas digitais, os mitos da meritocracia e da façanha intelectual são usados como marcadores de raça e gênero por uma supremacia branca masculina que consolida recursos de forma desproporcional em relação a pessoas não brancas, principalmente negros, latinos e indígenas. Os investimentos em mitos meritocráticos suprimem os questionamentos de racismo e discriminação, mesmo quando os produtos das elites digitais são infundidos com marcadores de raça, classe e gênero. As lutas históricas por inclusão social, política e econômica de negros, mulheres e outras classes desprotegidas têm implicado no reconhecimento da exclusão sistêmica, do trabalho forçado e da privação de direitos estruturais, além de compromissos com políticas públicas dos EUA, como as ações afirmativas, que foram igualmente fundamentais para reformas políticas voltadas para participação e oportunidades econômicas. A ascensão da tecnocracia digital tem sido, em muitos aspectos, antitética a esses esforços no sentido de reconhecer raça e gênero como fatores cruciais para inclusão e oportunidades tecnocráticas. Este artigo explora algumas das formas pelas quais os discursos das elites tecnocráticas do Vale do Silício reforçam os investimentos no pós racialismo como um pretexto para a re-consolidação do capital em oposição às políticas públicas que prometem acabar com práticas discriminatórias no mundo do trabalho. Por meio de uma análise cuidadosa do surgimento de empresas de tecnologias digitais e de uma discussão sobre como as elites tecnológicas trabalham para mascarar tudo, como inscrições algorítmicas e genéticas de raça incorporadas em seus produtos, mostramos como as elites digitais omitem a sua responsabilidade por suas reinscrições pós raciais de (in)visibilidades raciais. A partir do uso de análise histórica e crítica do discurso, o artigo revela como os mitos de uma meritocracia digital baseados em um “daltonismo racial” tecnocrático emergem como chave para a manutenção de exclusões de gênero e raça.Palavras-chave: Tecnologia. Raça. Gênero.Among modern digital technology elites, myths of meritocracy and intellectual prowess are used as racial and gender markers of white male supremacy that disproportionately consolidate resources away from people of color, particularly African Americans, Latino/as and Native Americans. Investments in meritocratic myths suppress interrogations of racism and discrimination even as the products of digital elites are infused with racial, class, and gender markers. Longstanding struggles for social, political, and economic inclusion for African Americans, women, and other legally protected classes have been predicated upon the recognition of systemic exclusion, forced labor, and structural disenfranchisement, and commitments to US public policies like affirmative action have, likewise, been fundamental to political reforms geared to economic opportunity and participation. The rise of the digital technocracy has, in many ways, been antithetical to these sustained efforts to recognize race and gender as salient factors structuring technocratic opportunity and inclusion. This paper explores some of the ways in which discourses of Silicon Valley technocratic elites bolster investments in post-racialism as a pretext for re-consolidations of capital, in opposition to public policy commitments to end discriminatory labor practices. Through a careful analysis of the rise of digital technology companies, and a discussion of how technology elites work to mask everything from algorithmic to genetic inscriptions of race embedded in their products, we show how digital elites elide responsibility for their post-racial re-inscriptions of racial visibilities (and invisibilities). Using historical and critical discourse analysis, the paper reveals how myths of a digital meritocracy premised on a technocratic colorblindness emerge key to perpetuating gender and racial exclusions.Keywords: Technology. Race. Gender

Fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin with gemtuzumab ozogamicin improves event-free survival in younger patients with newly diagnosed aml and overall survival in patients with npm1 and flt3 mutations

Purpose To determine the optimal induction chemotherapy regimen for younger adults with newly diagnosed AML without known adverse risk cytogenetics. Patients and Methods One thousand thirty-three patients were randomly assigned to intensified (fludarabine, cytarabine, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, and idarubicin [FLAG-Ida]) or standard (daunorubicin and Ara-C [DA]) induction chemotherapy, with one or two doses of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (GO). The primary end point was overall survival (OS). Results There was no difference in remission rate after two courses between FLAG-Ida + GO and DA + GO (complete remission [CR] + CR with incomplete hematologic recovery 93% v 91%) or in day 60 mortality (4.3% v 4.6%). There was no difference in OS (66% v 63%; P = .41); however, the risk of relapse was lower with FLAG-Ida + GO (24% v 41%; P < .001) and 3-year event-free survival was higher (57% v 45%; P < .001). In patients with an NPM1 mutation (30%), 3-year OS was significantly higher with FLAG-Ida + GO (82% v 64%; P = .005). NPM1 measurable residual disease (MRD) clearance was also greater, with 88% versus 77% becoming MRD-negative in peripheral blood after cycle 2 (P = .02). Three-year OS was also higher in patients with a FLT3 mutation (64% v 54%; P = .047). Fewer transplants were performed in patients receiving FLAG-Ida + GO (238 v 278; P = .02). There was no difference in outcome according to the number of GO doses, although NPM1 MRD clearance was higher with two doses in the DA arm. Patients with core binding factor AML treated with DA and one dose of GO had a 3-year OS of 96% with no survival benefit from FLAG-Ida + GO. Conclusion Overall, FLAG-Ida + GO significantly reduced relapse without improving OS. However, exploratory analyses show that patients with NPM1 and FLT3 mutations had substantial improvements in OS. By contrast, in patients with core binding factor AML, outcomes were excellent with DA + GO with no FLAG-Ida benefit

RK Citizens Consumers Environment

In The Economy of the Earth Mark Sagoff presents a sustained and deservedly influential attack on what I shall call the &apos;economistic&apos; view of how decisions should be made about environmental issues -about the protection of wilderness and landscapes, or of various species of plants or animals; the control of air and water pollution, and so on. 2 This economistic approach does not consist in consigning such matters to the &apos;decisions&apos; made by an unregulated market economy. Rather, it is espoused by those who recognize the frequent inability of markets to generate the &apos;right&apos; decisions about the environment, but who nonetheless wish to deal with them by applying, in a suitably extended form, the conceptual framework of neo-classical economic theory to situations where the market itself fails to operate satisfactorily. According to this view, environmental problems are due primarily to &apos;market failures&apos;: such failures being

Citizens, Consumers and the Environment: Reflections on The Economy of the Earth

This paper presents a critical evaluation of Mark Sagoff's critique of economistic approaches to environmental decision-making in The Economy of the Earth . Whilst endorsing many of Sagoff's specific arguments against the use of extended versions of cost-benefit analysis in making such decisions, it criticises the conceptual framework within which these arguments are developed. In particular, it suggests that what Sagoff represents as a tension between consumers and their public roles as citizens is better understood as one between culturally shared values concerning both the protection of nature and the pursuit of consumption; and that this conflict has itself to be resolved by them as citizens.Citizens, consumers, environment, Sagoff

Social theory as science

xi, 315 p.; 21 cm

A breakdown of cosmopolitanism : self, state and nation

In this study in political theory I challenge the way in which national identity and liberalism are traditionally counterposed, by arguing that this opposition does not of existence rooted in time and space. On the proposed understanding, Locke’s position is a reaction to Hobbes’s demand for the complete surrender of individual particularity in exchange for an immutable state of perfect stability. It is argued that Locke appreciates the requirement of stability for generating future-oriented motivations in individuals, but exhibits a more humble approach to the human capacity to rule its own existence. The unbound autonomy to take charge of reality that Hobbes grants to humanity is replaced by a constrained ability to administer its existence within the corporeal confines of time and space. It is argued that the timespace constraints that Locke insists are metaphysically inherent to humankind, conflict with the boundary-free assumptions of cosmopolitanism. Conversely, it is maintained, Hobbes’s radical argument for dislodging humankind from spatiotemporal constraints serves as a platform for a cosmopolitan outlook, albeit a markedly authoritarian one. obtain in the work of one of the key figures in liberal thought, John Locke. This controversial assertion is supported by arguing that the conventional reading of Locke is tainted by Hobbesean preconceptions. Rejecting the view that Locke builds upon, or enhances, Hobbes’s position, this thesis instead maintains that Locke is replying to, and moreover divorcing himself from Hobbes. Thus Locke’s stance is portrayed as a distinctive and far more substantial contribution to political theory than he has traditionally been credited with. Furthermore, the distancing of Locke from Hobbes serves to expose the roots of the misconception of Locke’s political thought as a precursor of, and foundation for, a boundary-free cosmopolitanism. It is argued here that Locke’s political theory has become entangled with Hobbes’s due to a lack of attention to the formative relation between metaphysics and politics in their thought. This has obscured the metaphysical foundation of the social problem they are attempting to resolve, reducing it to the language of a clash of conflicting interests, so that the difference between their political prescriptions is presumed merely to echo the different degrees of potential conflict they observe, rather than being a substantive difference. The conventional framing of such conflict as a security problem, a concern for the harm of one’s person and possessions, is replaced here with that of an insecurity problem: an anxiety about the inability to identify regular rules that attach attributes, including possessions, to persons. In social terms, the future having not been secured, it cannot be trusted to connect with the past and present in a continuum. On the interpretation proposed here, Locke and Hobbes offer radically different measures for the artificial generation of this ‘continuum’. Their divergence concerns the degree of control they assume political solutions can exert over the social parallel of the metaphysical ‘continuum’ problem. It is maintained that Hobbes proposes to reverse the causes of anxiety about the future by artificially generating a constant environment, detached from the fluctuations inherent to a mode.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo