bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Population and ethics
Authors: Heyd David 
Published: September 2018

Ethical concern with population policies and with the issue of optimal population size is, generally speaking, a modern phenomenon. Although the first divine injunction of the Bible is ‘be fertile and multiply’, systematic theoretical interest in the normative aspects of demography has become associated largely with recent developments which have provided humanity with unprecedented control over population size, mainly through medical and economic means. Once the determination of the number of people in the world is no longer a natural given fact, but rather a matter of individual or social choice, it becomes subject to moral evaluation.
However, the extension of traditional ethical principles to issues of population policies is bedevilled by paradoxes. The principle of utility, the ideal of self-perfection, the idea of a contract as a basis for political legitimacy and social justice, the notion of natural or human rights, and the principle of respect for persons – all these presuppose the existence of human beings whose interests, welfare, rights and dignity are to be protected and promoted. But population policies deal with the creation of people and the decision concerning their number. They relate to the creation of the very conditions for the application of ethical principles.
Power
Authors: Green Leslie 
Published: September 2018

The general notion of power involves the capacity to produce or prevent change. In social and political philosophy, narrower conceptions of power specify the nature of these changes. Social power is the capacity to affect the interests of agents. Normative power is the capacity to affect their normative relations, such as their rights or duties.
There are long-standing conceptual disputes about the nature of power. Some emphasize the role of actual or potential conflicts of interest in defining power relations, others take legitimacy and consensus about norms as the basis. There is also a dispute, involving the nature of social explanation, about whether power must rest with agents or with social structures or forces of some kind. The lack of consensus on these matters raises the overarching question of whether the concept of power, which seems to function as a descriptive term, in some way involves evaluation.
Republicanism
Authors: Hanson Russell L. 
Published: September 2018

Significant divisions exist in all societies and communities of any size. The expression of these divisions in politics takes many forms, one of them republican. The hallmark of republican politics is the subordination of different interests to the common weal, or what is in the interest of all citizens. To ensure this outcome, government in a republic can never be the exclusive preserve of one interest or social order; it must always be controlled jointly by representatives of all major groups in a society. The degree of control exercised by representatives of different social elements may not be equal, and different styles of government are compatible with republican objectives. However, all republican governments involve power-sharing in some way. Even in a democratic republic political majorities must share power with minorities for the common good to be realized.
Maintaining an appropriate balance of political power is the chief problem of republicans. One or another faction may obtain control of government and use it to further its own interests, instead of the common weal. To prevent this republicans have developed a variety of strategies. Some rely on constitutional ‘checks and balances’ to cure the mischief of factionalism. Others seek to minimize factionalization itself by regulating the causes of faction – for example, the distribution of land and other forms of property. Still others promote civic religions in order to bind diverse people together. All these methods accept the inevitability of conflicting interests, and see the need to accommodate them politically. Hence, civic life is at the heart of republicanism.
Revolution
Authors: Schouls Peter A. 
Published: September 2018

There have been revolutions in politics, science, philosophy and most other spheres of human life. This entry discusses revolution mainly through concepts pertaining especially to the political realm. Attempts to define political revolution have been controversial; as a consequence there is dispute about whether specific occurrences were revolutions, rebellions, coups d’état or reformations.
If we define revolution as the illegal introduction of a radically new situation and order for the sake of obtaining or increasing individual or communal freedom, we may list those characteristics most often ascribed to it. These characteristics distinguish it from its earlier use where revolution referred to the return of an original state of affairs, as in astronomy; they also allow its distinction from related concepts such as reformation. At least at a superficial level this definition can do justice to early modern (seventeenth and eighteenth) as well as late modern (nineteenth and twentieth century) revolutions. Through these periods there has, however, been sufficient change in concepts closely related to revolution to require the definition’s openness to nuances for it to apply to both periods. It is unclear whether even such a nuanced definition can apply in postmodern thought.
State, the
Authors: Nicholson Peter P. 
Published: September 2018

States are inescapable, powerful and fundamentally important in the modern world. They spend a substantial portion of their members’ wealth; they tax, confiscate or compulsorily purchase private property; conscript; impose punishments, including capital punishment; defend their members from aggression and protect their rights; and provide educational, health and other essential social services.
States are also central to modern political philosophy, and figure in its main topics. For instance, the various theories of social justice concern which principle or principles of justice should be followed by states. Again, discussions of the rights of individuals, or of groups, presuppose states to make the preferred rights effective. The answers to traditional questions, such as whether one is morally obliged to obey the laws of a state, or whether freedom is reduced by the state or made possible by it, must depend in part on what a state is taken to be.
The principal features of the modern state are basically agreed upon (population, territory, effective and legitimate government, independence). But there are underlying assumptions needing notice, and many questions about the state, especially concerning its proper activities, are controversial and disputed. Moreover, the value of the state can be challenged, and its future doubted, especially in the light of increasing economic and political globalization and moral cosmopolitanism.
Hayek, Friedrich August von (1899–1992)
Authors: Kukathas Chandran 
Published: September 2018

An Austrian-born British economist who turned political philosopher, Hayek was best known for his critique of socialism and the modern welfare state. Writing as an avowed classical liberal (he repudiated the label ‘conservative’), he attempted to develop his account of the market as a mechanism facilitating economic coordination into a more general theory of law and politics.
Hayek’s liberalism was first formulated as a response to totalitarianism, which he regarded as a tendency manifest in the regimes of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and inherent in proposals for central planning in society. This was the basis of his early opposition to socialism and his theory of limited constitutional government under the rule of law. The development of his political thought, however, saw him become increasingly critical of government and its interventions in the spontaneous evolution of society. Society was a ‘spontaneous order’ and not the product of human design. The threat to this order or civilization came from mankind’s mistaken confidence in reason’s capacity to take control of social processes to shape society in accordance with particular ideals. Socialism, as well as proposals for social justice, he regarded as variants of this tendency, which he labelled ‘constructivist rationalism’. This social philosophy was underpinned by a philosophy of science which emphasized the subjective character of the data of the social sciences.
Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527)
Authors: Dietz Mary G. 
Published: September 2018

Florentine diplomat, dramatist and political thinker, Machiavelli’s treatise, Il principe (The Prince) (1532a), has earned him notoriety as a political immoralist (or at least an amoralist) and a teacher of evil. In The Prince, Machiavelli posits a complex relationship between ethics and politics that associates princely virtù with the capacity to know and act within the political world as it ‘is’, and with the beastly abilities to dispense violence and practise deception. Behind this argument dwells the distinctly Machiavellian insight that politics is a realm of appearances where the practice of moral or Christian virtues often results in a prince’s ruin, while knowing ‘how not to be good’ may result in greater security and wellbeing for both prince and people. Machiavelli warns that the prince’s possibilities for success in this matter are always mediated by fortune; hence the prudent prince is one who is prepared to resist fortune by adapting his procedure to the times and his nature to ‘the necessity of the case’.
A less notorious but equally influential text is the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio (Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy) (1531), in which Machiavelli offers a defence of popular liberty and republican government that takes the ancient republic of Rome as its model and emphasizes the role of the people in the ‘public administration’ of the city. However, Machiavelli also argues that a republic is only as successful in self-governance as its citizens are infused with civic virtùand therefore not corrupted. Accordingly, he praises the work of political founders who craft republican laws and institutions, and religious founders who fuse God and patria as one in the people’s hearts. The apparent tension between Machiavelli’s republican sympathies in Discourses and his elitist proclivities in The Prince has helped to fuel a vast interpretive literature concerning his political attitudes, his theory of politics, and the nature and meaning of ‘machiavellianism’ in Western political thought.
Rawls, John (1921–2002)
Authors: Freeman Samuel 
Published: September 2018

Rawls’ main work, A Theory of Justice (1971), presents a liberal, egalitarian, moral conception – ‘justice as fairness’ – designed to explicate and justify the institutions of a constitutional democracy. The two principles of justice outlined in this text affirm the priority of equal basic liberties over other political concerns, and require fair opportunities for all citizens, directing that inequalities in wealth and social positions maximally benefit the least advantaged. Rawls develops the idea of an impartial social contract to justify these principles: Free persons, equally situated and ignorant of their historical circumstances, would rationally agree to them in order to secure their equal status and independence, and to pursue freely their conceptions of the good.
In Political Liberalism (1993), his other major text, Rawls revises his original argument for justice as fairness to make it more compatible with the pluralism of liberalism. He argues that, assuming that different philosophical, religious and ethical views are inevitable in liberal society, the most reasonable basis for social unity is a public conception of justice based in shared moral ideas, including citizens’ common comception of themselves as free and equal moral persons. The stability of this public conception of justice is provided by an overlapping consensus; all the reasonable comprehensible philosophical, religious and ethical views can endorse it, each for their own specific reasons.
Market, ethics of the
Authors: Miller David 
Published: September 2018

Markets are systems of exchange in which people with money or commodities to sell voluntarily trade these for other items which they prefer to have. Most economic transactions in advanced societies are of this kind, and any attempt to replace markets wholesale with a different form of economic coordination seems destined to fail. But questions about the ethics of markets are still of considerable practical concern, for two reasons at least. First, we need to make collective decisions about the proper scope of markets: are there goods and services which in principle should not be distributed and exchanged through market mechanisms – medical care, for instance? Second, markets work within a framework of property rights which sets the terms on which people can exchange with one another, and this too is subject to collective decision: for instance, should a person’s labour be regarded as a commodity like any other, to be bought and sold on whatever terms the parties can agree, or does labour carry special rights that set limits to these terms? Are employees morally entitled to a share of the profits of the companies they work in, to take a concrete issue?
To guide such decisions, we need to apply general ethical principles to market transactions. First, are markets justified on grounds of efficiency, as is often claimed? What criterion of efficiency is being used when such claims are made? Second, can we regard the outcome of market exchanges as just, or, at the other extreme, should we see them as necessarily exploitative? Third, do market exchanges necessarily alienate people from one another and destroy their sense of community? These are very different questions, but an overall assessment of market ethics needs to address each of them, and perhaps others besides.
Globalization
Authors: Scholte Jan Aart 
Published: September 2018

Globalization is one of the most hotly contested issues in contemporary social inquiry and public discussion. The debates mainly revolve around six points: definition, measurement, chronology, causes, consequences, and policy responses.
In regard to definition, five broad usages of ’ globalization’ can be distinguished: internationalization, liberalization, universalization, Westernization, and deterritorialization. Although these conceptions overlap to some extent, their emphases are substantially different.
With respect to magnitude, ’ globalists’ suggest that today’ s world is thoroughly globalized, whereas sceptics dismiss every claim of globalization as myth. Most observers agree that the incidence of globalization has been uneven, and that some countries and social circles have experienced globality more than others.
The chronology of globalization depends in good part on the definition adopted. Internationalization, liberalization, universalization and Westernization can all be traced back at least several centuries, if not millennia. On the other hand, deterritorialization has transpired on a large scale only since the third quarter of the twentieth century.
Accounts of the causal dynamics of globalization depend upon one’ s theoretical persuasion. However, most researchers explain globalization in some way as a product of modernity and/or capitalism. Many studies also highlight the enabling effects of certain technological developments and certain regulatory arrangements.
In terms of its consequences for social structure, some analysts treat globalization as radically transformative. Such accounts link globalization to the end of the state, the end of nationality, the end of modernity, and more. In contrast, other assessments downplay any suggestion of social change in connection with globalization. Still others conclude that globalization generates an interplay of changes and continuities in social structure.
Finally, in regard to policy, neoliberal approaches argue that globalization should be guided by market forces. In contrast, reformist strategies maintain that globalization should be deliberately steered with public policies, including in particular through suprastate laws and institutions. From a more radical position, traditionalists seek to ’ de-globalize’ and return to a pre-global status quo ante. Other radicals advocate a continuation of globalization, but in tandem with a revolutionary social transformation, for example, to a post-capitalist society.
Sovereignty
Authors: Ford J.D. 
Published: September 2018

In legal and political philosophy sovereignty is the attribute by which a person or institution exercises ultimate authority over every other person or institution in its domain. Traditionally, the existence of a final arbiter or legislator is said to be essential if people are to live together in peace and security. The example brought most readily to mind by the word ’sovereign’ is the individual monarch, and the theory of sovereignty was at one time closely linked with the defence of monarchy. But leading theorists of sovereignty, like Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes, recognize that authority can be exercised by sovereign bodies of people; and later writers, like Rousseau and Austin, locate sovereignty in the people, to whom the officials of more democratic institutions are ultimately accountable.
Traditionally, too, it is deduced from the nature of the state or law that the sovereign’s authority must be absolute, not limited by conditions; perpetual, not merely delegated for a time; and indivisible, not distributed between different persons or institutions. It is further deduced that the sovereign must be independent from external domination as well as internally supreme. All these inferences have been subjected to criticism, not least because they can be difficult to reconcile with the actual practice of states and legal systems.
Ambiguity
Authors: Bach Kent 
Published: September 2018

A word, phrase or sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning. The word ‘light’, for example, can mean not very heavy or not very dark. Words like ‘light’, ‘note’, ‘bear’ and ‘over’ are lexically ambiguous. They induce ambiguity in phrases or sentences in which they occur, such as ‘light suit’ and ‘The duchess can’t bear children’. However, phrases and sentences can be ambiguous even if none of their constituents is. The phrase ‘porcelain egg container’ is structurally ambiguous, as is the sentence ‘The police shot the rioters with guns’. Ambiguity can have both a lexical and a structural basis, as with sentences like ‘I left her behind for you’ and ‘He saw her duck’.
The notion of ambiguity has philosophical applications. For example, identifying an ambiguity can aid in solving a philosophical problem. Suppose one wonders how two people can have the same idea, say of a unicorn. This can seem puzzling until one distinguishes ‘idea’ in the sense of a particular psychological occurrence, a mental representation, from ‘idea’ in the sense of an abstract, shareable concept. On the other hand, gratuitous claims of ambiguity can make for overly simple solutions. Accordingly, the question arises of how genuine ambiguities can be distinguished from spurious ones. Part of the answer consists in identifying phenomena with which ambiguity may be confused, such as vagueness, unclarity, inexplicitness and indexicality.
Animal language and thought
Authors: Jamieson Dale 
Published: September 2018

The question of animal language and thought has been debated since ancient times. Some have held that humans are exceptional in these respects, others that humans and animals are continuous with respect to language and thought. The issue is important because our self-image as a species is at stake.
Arguments for human exceptionalism can be classified as Cartesian, Wittgensteinian and behaviourist. What these arguments have in common is the view that language and thought are closely associated, and animals do not have language. The ape language experiments of the 1960s and 1970s were especially important against this background: if apes could learn language then even the advocates of human exceptionalism would have to admit that they have thoughts. It is now generally believed that whatever linguistic abilities apes have shown have been quite rudimentary. Yet many sceptics are willing to grant that in some cases apes did develop linguistic skills to some extent, and clearly evidenced thought. Studies of other animals in captivity and various animals in the wild have provided evidence of highly sophisticated communicative behaviour. Cognitive ethology and comparative psychology have emerged as the fields that study animal thought. While there are conceptual difficulties in grounding these fields, it appears plausible that many animals have thoughts and these can be scientifically investigated.
Language and gender
Authors: McConnell-Ginet Sally 
Published: September 2018

How do language and gender interact? This can be interpreted as asking about sexual difference in relation to language-use. How do the sexes speak, how do we speak of the sexes? And could or should these patterns change?
Not surprisingly, understanding language-gender interactions solely in terms of sexual difference yields a static and polarized picture. Men insult and swear, women flatter and wheedle, women draw others out while men monopolize conversations, men are direct and women beat around the bush, women gossip whereas men lecture. Linguistic conventions and familiar vocabulary equate humanity with males (note, for example, so-called generic uses of ‘he’) and sexuality with females (‘hussy’, for instance, once meant ‘housewife’). Men are linguistically represented as actors and women as acted upon, passive. Men control the institutions controlling language – such as schools, churches, publications, legislatures. Children of both sexes, however, learn a ‘mother tongue’ at a mother’s knee.
Such generalizations contain a few grains of truth, at least if restricted to so-called mainstream contemporary America or England. But they completely obscure the differences among women and among men and the varied forms of social relations so important to gender. One is never just a woman or a man: sexual classifications are inflected by age, class, race and much else. And gender involves not only women in relation to men as a group but also more specific cross-sex and same-sex relations ranging from egalitarian heterosexual marriages and same-sex partnerships through intense friendships and enmities among adolescent schoolgirls to camaraderie among boys on a football team. All such relations are partly constituted by people using language to and of one another; all are informed by and inform larger social arrangements. On the more linguistic side, these include dictionaries, the language arts curriculum and editorial guidelines; arrangements with a gender focus include marriage, high-school dances and gay rights legislation.
Emphasizing large-scale sex difference ignores cross-cultural and historical variation and makes change in language, in gender, or in their interaction appear mysterious. And such an emphasis erases the linguistic dynamics of a particular society’s construction of gender. Yet it is in such dynamics that, for example, language shapes and is shaped by sexual polarization and male dominance. This entry highlights approaches to language and gender that root each in historically situated social practice. Linguistic change and gender change then become inseparable.