Faces of irrationality in Euripides: on Medea's Irrationality

In Nascimento (2015) I criticized the thesis defended in Irwin (1983) according to which two of the most famous characters in Euripides’ plays, Phaedra and Medea, could be said to exemplify akratic behavior and, in the case of Phaedra, even to explain it. In that article, I’ve pointed out several weakness in these thesis in order to justify my disagreement. I also suggested that, although there was no reason why we should stop looking for examples and explanations of akratic behavior in Euripides’ plays, that should not be the only kind of irrational behavior we ought to be interested in finding there. In this paper, I argue that Medea actually instantiates a form of irrational behavior that is different from akratic behavior. The argument that follows is divided in four parts. After a brief introduction (section I), I clarify what sort of irrationality I believe to be instantiated by Medea’s behavior using Michael Bratman’s theory of plan stability (section II). Then, I analyze Euripides’ text in order to show why I think we should say that Medea does display that kind of irrationality (section III). The paper concludes with a brief summary of the argument (section IV)

Aristotle on the Normative Value of Friendship Duties

In this article, I present an interpretation of Aristotle’s thought regarding the normative value of friendship duties.The argument is divided in VII sections. In Section I, I provide brief summaries of the main arguments defended by me in a previous article about the normative consequences of virtue and utility friendships in Aristotle, the objectives that are to be defended in this article and of the conclusions that I take them to support. In section II, I offer an interpretation of Aristotle’s thought regarding the normative value of friendship duties in cases where there is no practical conflict between friendship duties. In section III, I outline Aristotle’s theory about how we should deal with cases where there is such practical conflict. In the next sections, I analyze three other passages of the Aristotelian corpus where we have good reason to think that this kind of conflict appears, namely, NE, III 1, 1110a20-29 (IV), Pol., III 10, 1286b23-28 (V) and Pol., VII 9, 1330a9-25 (VI), in order to flesh out the outline presented in section III. In section VII I conclude with a summary of the argument

Engaging Civil Society in the Nagorno Karabakh Conflict: What Role for the EU and its Neighbourhood Policy?

The conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, opposing Armenia and Azerbaijan, is the longest conflict in the OSCE area and a fundamental security threat to the South Caucasus and surrounding regions, preventing full and inclusive economic development and constraining regional relations. This chapter takes the ENP as a conflict transformation tool and looks at how the EU has used this initiative to reach civil society organisations (CSOs) and improve their performance as peace-builders in this protracted conflict. Building on the theoretical framework presented by Tocci (2008), the chapter assesses EU involvement in the civil society domain, mapping the types of organisations privileged by the EU and the potential impact of their activities on the conflict. It puts forward relevant arguments regarding the suitability of the EU’s goals and instruments to the dynamics on the ground and concludes with a categorisation of the EU’s approach according to three hypotheses: The Liberal Peace, the Leftist Critique and the Realist hypothesis. It is argues that work with civil society is a crucial part of the EU’s approach, despite the difficulties of making such engagement a central part of its peace-building and conflict transformation activities.