Feminism, agency and objectivity

In this article I defend the capability approach by focusing on its built-in gender-sensitivity and on its concern with comprehensive outcomes and informationally-rich evaluation of well-being, two elements of Sen's work that are too rarely put together. I then try to show what the capability approach would have to gain by focusing on trans-positional objectivity (as Elizabeth Anderson does) and by leaving behind the narrow confines of states in favor of a more cosmopolitan stance. These preliminary discussions are followed by two more precise applications. At first, I show how a gender-sensitive capability approach that respects the criteria of trans-positional objectivity and cosmopolitanism can enhance the agency of women inhabiting third-world societies. I turn next to show how mainstream feminism can insulate itself against criticisms such as bell hooks' by switching to trans-positional objectivity in public reasoning

O cultura nerepresiva? Dincolo de societatea abundentei

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the concept of a non-repressive culture is viable, and whether this form of liberation from the affluent society has indeed left the field of Utopia and has turned into an alternative to the industrial advanced society, as it is firmly believed by Marcuse. I believe that, in spite of his masterful argumentation in favour of this qualitative leap into an empire of freedom, there are several fallacies pertaining to the ontology of the individual, since there are certain characteristics which eschew socio-historical (weak) determinism and shape human life. Throughout this paper, I will link the Althusserian concept of Ideological State Apparatuses to the so-called mechanisms of escape postulated by Erich Fromm, to prove that even the new potential agents of revolution (students, "wretched of the earth", hippies, beatniks, et. al. ) are influenced to such a degree by specific human drives, that the complacency offered by the affluent society will not be sacrificed for an Aesthetic Form of a free society

How should we justify moral principles? A constructivist defense of fact-sensitivity

Constructivism is the metaethical position stating that although we cannot have direct access to moral facts, we can still come up with a set of principles that can be justified and that ought to be respected by individuals. The strength of these moral principles derives from the fact that they are the result of a procedure respecting certain desirable conditions. Constructivism concerns the methodology of political philosophy, being preoccupied with the process of generating and justifying moral principles. In this review article I present the main contentions of constructivism (focusing especially on the Kantian constructivism advanced by Rawls and Scanlon), describe its positioning on the realist–antirealist axis, and compare it with its main competitor in the field of metaethical views, intuitionism. I dedicate a separate section to the method of reflective equilibrium, which represents an important part of several metaethical accounts, be they constructivist, realist, or intuitionist. I show how reflective equilibrium represents the main instrument constructivists can employ in order to capture the appeal of relying on intuitions in moral theorizing, without leaning toward intuitionism. Toward the end of the article I present G. A. Cohen’s (2003, 2008) criticism of constructivism. I focus on the replies Ronzoni and Valentini (2008), Hall (2013), de Maagt (2014, 2016) and Rossi (2016) give to Cohen, ending with a criticism of my own

On the Moral Irrelevance of a Global Basic Structure: Prospects for a Satisficing Sufficientarian Theory of Global Justice

Many important criticisms to the possibility of global justice are advanced following one or another operationalization of the Rawlsian concept of a basic structure. The purpose of this paper is twofold: i) to show that the existence of a global basic structure is irrelevant from the standpoint of justice; ii) to set the stage for a cosmopolitan theory of global justice that employs satisficing suffi cientarianism as a distributive principle. One of the main contentions is that the institutional-interactional cut in the recent literature should be transcended. That is, the site of justice should be extended to incorporate both the efficiency of discharging one’s duties through a just institutional scheme and the moral value of promoting a good state of affairs through one’s own efforts. In order to avoid the overdemandingness objection, however, the selected principles of justice ought to belong to the suffi cientarian family. Towards the end of the paper I sketch one such theory, satisficing sufficientarianism

Holocaust Remembrance as Reparation for the Past: A Relational Egalitarian Approach

In the present chapter I try to determine to what extent the public policies adopted by Romanian governments following the fall of the communist regime contributed to alleviating the most egregious past injustice, the Holocaust. The measures taken for memorializing the Holocaust will be analysed through the lens of a mixed reparatory justice – relational egalitarian account. Employing such a framework entails a focus on symbolic reparations, meant to promote civic trust, social solidarity, and encourage the restoration of social and cultural capital in societies affected by historical injustices. Such symbolic reparations can include public atonement, changing street names, establishing memorials, funding museums, including Holocaust study in the national curriculum, setting national days for the commemoration of the Holocaust, etc. The need for symbolic reparation has become increasingly clearer in the literature on Holocaust memorialization, and the present paper intends to go a step further, by providing researchers with a theoretical approach that can be used to make better sense of the effects of measures taken as part of the process of Holocaust remembrance. In the chapter I also address the issue of determining who the duty-bearers should be. I argue that there could be several indicators for reparatory justice, including in this case compensation programs and the establishment of institutions that would allow dialogue between descendants of the victims and descendants of the perpetrators, a sine qua non condition for restoring social trust in communities marked by violations of human rights, especially of such a scale as the Holocaust

Social policy as a catalyst of European Union’s becoming a well‑ordered society

In this paper I hold that the European social policy is an incentive for the qualitative leap of the European Union towards a well-ordered society, characterized by an overlapping consensus. I will follow Rawls’ account of these concepts, as they have been put forward in his Theory of Justice and in his subsequent works. I hold that not only this is what should happen, but also that the actual trends deem this scenario plausible and viable (correspondingly, I hold that European Union’s becoming a well-ordered society is desirable and that its social policy is what deems the transition feasible)

Book Review: Michael Baun and Dan Marek (eds.) The New Member States and the European Union. Foreign Policy and Europeanization

A radical decision at the time, the 2004 enlargement constituted a critical juncture for the Central and Eastern European Countries. Although a great deal of literature has been written in regard to other aspects of Europeanization, the effects of EU membership on the foreign policy of the new member states have been rarely discussed. This is what the volume coordinated by Michael Baun and Dan Marek seeks to accomplish, namely to fill a gap in the European Studies with a series of articles explaining the more or less significant institutional and behavioural changes which occurred at the level of the new member states’ political elites. Focusing on three main domains in which Europeanization purportedly occurred, namely national preferences and interests, institutions and procedures, foreign policy strategies and actions, the studies gathered in this volume provide a useful overview of the effects of EU membership on what was traditionally known as “foreign policy”

WHITHER DEVELOPMENT? THE EFFECTS OF THE EURASIAN UNION ON THE CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS

In this paper I analyze the impact of the Eurasian Union on the Central Asian republics, with a focus on remittances trends. To this end I review at first the literature regarding the effects of the Customs Union on its members. Then, I assess the current state of the economies most likely to be affected by membership in the Eurasian Union, i.e. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, whose specificity is their dependency on remittances. Secondly, I present a plausible scenario in regard to the influence of the formalization of this regional organization on the emerging Central Asian regional security subcomplex. I argue that the EEU is a hindrance towards the five Central Asian Republics’ evolving towards a regional security complex. Not only has it already distorted trade in the region, but it can also turn some presently frozen conflicts into security hotspots. I hold that the only way to spur development in the region is, internally, to diversify the economy, and, externally, to bring the five republics closer. I try to show that the Central Asian Republics should simultaneously pursue a switch from a balance of threat to regional integration and sustainable national development. Nonetheless, the EEU will have at best mixed effects when it comes to these necessities. Alternatively, China and the New Silk Road initiative that it endorses might contribute to de-securitizing some of the existing issues

Resursele educaționale deschise ca mijloc de depășire a asimetriei informaționale dintre societate, guvern și instituții de învățământ superior – O analiză din perspectiva modelului principal-agent

Open Educational Resources have often been criticized for their lack of quality. Specifically, it could be argued that there are no incentives to publish open content of high quality, in the absence of positive or negative sanctions. In reply to this, I provide a principal-agent interpretation of the role of open educational resources. Namely, I argue that open educational resources can be employed by higher education institutions (operationalized as agents) as a means of signaling the principals (operationalized as the government, or even the society as a whole) that they are worthy and thus that they deserve funding. This might contribute as a means of reducing the informational asymmetry between the society, the government and the higher education institutions which lies at the heart of the principal- agent problem. Since second-order collective action problems might occur within the higher education institutions, I briefly analyze some solutions for solving these.</p