Hind Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi is arguably the greatest text to have emerged from the anti-colonial movement in India and the first to seriously challenge the cultural and civilizational premises of the colonizers’ mentality. It is also the first text in India that falls within the broad tradition of modern political philosophy, advancing a complex cluster of theses with conceptual sensitivity, analytical precision, and sustained argument. This book critically engages with Hind Swaraj and explores the fascinating and subtle dialogue set up by Gandhi between the characters of the reader and the editor. With essays from leading contemporary thinkers on Gandhi, the volume looks at themes such as Gandhi on epistemic servitude, decolonization, and intercultural translation; his complex critique of modern civilization; his views on the empire, democracy, citizenship, and violence; the normative structure of Gandhian thought; Gandhi and the political praxis of educational reconstruction; and how to read this text. An important intervention in Gandhian studies, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of peace studies, political philosophy, Indian philosophy, Indian political thought, political sociology, and South Asian studies.

Christian ethicists from a wide spectrum of methods and commitments come together in arguing for some kind of social conception of the self, noticing that convergence sheds new light on the current range of theoretical options in Christian ethics. But it also opens up an important conversation about political reform. Social visions of the self help ethicists comprehend and evaluate the moral work of institutions--comprehension that is especially important in a time of crisis for democratic participation. But not all visions of the social self are equal. Snarr's book explores and evaluates five different visions of the social self from five key ethicists (Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, Hauerwas, Harrison, and Townes). It identifies insights and risks associated with each vision of the self and considers the adequacy of each vision for reforms that deepen democracy. The book concludes with a proposal for six core convictions about the social self that help form Christian political ethics able to respond to contemporary needs for democratic reform.

This book examines the public assertion of self by men and women in England, France and Germany from the Renaissance to Romanticism.

The Routledge Companion to Ethics, Politics and Organizations synthesizes and extends existing research on ethics in organizations by explicitly focusing on ‘ethico-politics’ - where ethics informs political action. It draws connections between ethics and politics in and around organizations and the workplace, examines cutting-edge areas and sets the scene for future research. Through a wealth of international and multidisciplinary contributions this volume considers the broad range of ways in which ethics and politics can be conceived and understood. The chapters look at various ethical traditions, as well as the discursive deployment of ethical terminology in organizational settings, and they also examine large scale political structures and processes and how they relate to different forms of politics which affect behaviour in organizations. These many possibilities are united by a focus on how ethics can be used to inform and justify the exercise of power in organizations. This collection will be a valuable reference source for students and researchers across the disciplines of organizational studies, ethics and politics.

Examining the impact of poststructuralist theories on the writings of four of the most eminent contemporary novelists, this book argues that the postmodern approach to language has given rise to fiction's ongoing exploration of ethics and the relation to the Other. In a globalised world that is marked by cruelty and intolerance, the contemporary novel appears to be preoccupied with ways to explore the reasons for violence and to find alternative ways for reconciliation. This book undertakes an in-depth study of the fiction of four leading contemporary novelists and draws attention to the ideas they share with the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Although Levinas's concept of ethics is mainly based on the responsibility to the other person and therefore appears to be confined to an interpersonal level, it should be noted that Levinas's philosophy emerged from personal suffering during the Nazi regime. Having to witness the cruelty that man can inflict onto others, Levinas developed a philosophy that revolves around the responsibility of the self for the other person. This book undertakes a close text analysis and reveals how the novels in discussion share with Levinas the view that political and social justice has to start with the personal relation to the other.

This innovative and theoretically sophisticated book investigates how aesthetic judgment forms the groundwork for understanding political identities. It posits aesthetics as central to conceptions of politics that are based on how people understand the relationship between themselves and larger communities. Kennan Ferguson focuses not only on how different theoretical conceptions of political judgment relate to one another, but also on their historical development and potential meaning for contemporary scholarship across the humanities and social sciences. Drawing on recent contributions to philosophy, economics, cultural studies, feminism, psychology, and anthropology, The Politics of Judgment demonstrates how modern political identities depend upon and are formed by aesthetic judgment. Political theorists, social scientists, philosophers, and cultural critics will find this book especially useful, though general readers will also be attracted by Ferguson's keen insight into contemporary political questions. Book jacket.

Addressing central questions in the debate about Foucault's usefulness for politics, including his rejection of universal norms, his conception of power and power-knowledge, his seemingly contradictory position on subjectivity and his resistance to using identity as a political category, McLaren argues that Foucault employs a conception of embodied subjectivity that is well-suited for feminism. She applies Foucault's notion of practices of the self to contemporary feminist practices, such as consciousness-raising and autobiography, and concludes that the connection between self-transformation and social transformation that Foucault theorizes as the connection between subjectivity and institutional and social norms is crucial for contemporary feminist theory and politics.

This book advocates for the philosophical import of care in re-evaluating problems of humanitarianism in the context of the ongoing international refugee and forced migration situation. In doing so, it rethinks the human capacity to care about the suffering of distant others. At a time when emotional resources are running low, there is a need to recast what it means to care, with the aim of generating a productive movement against the rise of value fundamentalism globally—embraced in mantras of ‘good and evil’ and ‘us and them’—and to confront xenophobia and oppressive politics. The author draws upon a wide array of rich traditions, including historical and contemporary writings on self-care and care of the other, to re-examine the intersection of care ethics and justice. She also rethinks the relationship between care and contestation, here analyzed in the aesthetic, ethical, political, and religious domains of human experience. From within the context of this contingent historical repetition of political oppression, the book constructs a reminder not only of what it feels like to care, but how and why we should act upon our care. Care Ethics and the Refugee Crisis is an important contribution to the growing literatures on care ethics and immigration/forced migration in philosophy. It will also appeal to scholars and advanced students working in other disciplines such as political science, refugee and migration studies, and social anthropology.

This book examines the political response to current environmental concerns in the context of the British Isles. How have the issues been assimilated by political parties? Which ones have been given priority? Who are the main actors and what is the role of ecologists? Answers to questions such as these are provided in this collective work, not only through valuable insights into the theories and concepts found in political ecology, but also with specific examination of present political debates, such as the Liberal Democrats’ stance, the question of nuclear energy or the salient issue of climate change. A recurring theme is the link between landscape and identity, explored in the contexts of Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalisms. While this volume reveals some cases of genuine commitment and effective action, it also highlights discrepancies between statements of intent on the one hand and implemented policies on the other. The authors’ aim is to promote dialogue among politicians, experts and academics in the field of environmental issues, political and social sciences, linguistics and discourse.