This post is written by Dr. Seunghyun Song (Assistant professor, Tilburg University). Based on her research on linguistic justice, she provides a tentative answer to the issue of the limits of the linguistic territoriality principle and its aim to protect languages. She uses the Dutch case as a proxy for these discussions.
Image by woodleywonderworks from Flickr (Creative Commons)
(more…)In this post, Tim Fowler (University of Bristol) discusses his recently published article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy in which he explores whether children can be deemed as competent to engage in political activism.
The Fridays for Future or ‘Climate Strikes’ have been a striking feature of political action on climate change. Most associated with Greta Thunberg, these actions reveal the power of children to intervene effectively in political spaces. In doing so, they raise ethical, political, and sociological questions. In my paper I focus on two: first, whether recognizing children’s right to protest should affect the age thresholds for other activities, especially voting; and second, the impact on the child protesters themselves.
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This is a guest post by Zsolt Kapelner (University of Oslo).
‘Flooding the zone’ is a term often used to describe the strategy Trump and his team have followed in recent weeks. This strategy involves issuing a torrent of executive orders, controversial statements, and the like with the aim of overwhelming the opposition and the media and creating confusion. Many have criticized this strategy and, in my view, rightly so. But what precisely is wrong with it? In this short piece I want to argue that ‘flooding the zone’ is not simply one of the, perhaps dirtier, tricks in the toolbox of democratic competition; instead, it is an inherently antidemocratic strategy which deliberately aims at exploiting one of our crucial vulnerabilities as a democratic public, i.e., our limited attentional capacity.
I have argued in previous posts (here and here) that we have good moral reasons to end the practice of keeping pets (for a full defence see here). Pet keeping involves the unjustifiable instrumentalisation of animals, sets back animals’ interests in self-determination, and exposes animals to unnecessary risks of harm. Not to mention the many attendant harms that the practice involves to farmed animals, wild animals and the environment. Given all this, we should seek to transition to a pet-free world.
In this post, I suggest we won’t be able to make progress towards a more just world for animals until we’ve engaged in some honest soul-searching about our desire to keep animals as pets.
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This is a guest post by Mario J Cunningham M.
“Mass deportation now!” was the omnipresent motto of banners at the 2024 Trump rallies – replacing the “Build the wall!” of 2016. The re-election of Donald Trump, who openly ran on a mass deportation platform, represents a hard blow for all those concerned about migration justice. The hardening of anti-immigrant rhetoric is now understood as a mandate in the most prominent Western liberal democracy. How should we make sense of this? Paying attention to how this policy was marketed and the role “migrant crime” played in its success sheds light on an often-overlooked normative challenge migrant advocates need to come to terms with.
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This interview was conducted as part of a benefit conference for the Ukrainian academy that Aaron James Wendland organized in March 2023 at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. The benefit conference was designed to provide financial support for academic and civic initiatives at Kyiv Mohyla Academy and thereby counteract the destabilizing impact that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had on Ukrainian higher education and civilian life. The interview has been lightly edited for the purpose of publication in Studia Philosophica Estonica and the original interview can be found on the Munk School’s YouTube channel under the heading: ‘What Good is Philosophy? – A Benefit Conference for Ukraine.’
Contributors to the conference have published their work in an edited volume of Studia Philosophica Estonica. Justice Everywhere has published edited versions of several of the papers from this special issue over the past few weeks. We now reproduce Aaron’s interview with Margaret Atwood as a conclusion to the series.
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Vancouver’s official city bird is the small but charming Anna’s Hummingbird. This bird’s namesake was a 19th Century Italian Duchess – Anna Masséna. These hummingbirds are not found in Europe, so the chances are Anna never even saw one in flight. And yet, the whole species unknowingly trills through the sky carrying her banner.
The colonial practice of giving birds eponyms (names after a particular person) was frequently used to uphold a person’s legacy, curry favour, or directly honour them. In North America alone, there are over 150 bird species with eponyms.[1] They include the Stellar’s Jay, the Scott’s Oriole and the Townsend’s Warbler. And this practice is not reserved just for our feathered friends. Many mammals, reptiles and fish are named eponymously, too. The mammals include the Abert’s Squirrel, the Heaviside’s Dolphin, and the Schmidt’s Monkey.[2]
This post provides a short case in support of renaming animals currently named eponymously. It defends two ideas that should inform the renaming process. First, renaming prevents the improper glorification of racist or colonial figures and so it is morally required to create a social environment necessary for human equality. Second, renaming as a process productively reorients us to each animals’ importance – independent of human history.
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Last week, the news that the UK has agreed to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius was widely reported. The agreement was denounced by many in the British press and political establishment – including by all current candidates for leadership of the Conservative Party. On the other hand, in other quarters the deal was greeted with cautious optimism. US President Joe Biden welcomed the agreement as a “clear demonstration that … countries can overcome longstanding historical challenges to reach peaceful and mutually beneficial outcomes”. In a joint statement, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth called it “a seminal moment in our relationship and a demonstration of our enduring commitment to the peaceful resolution of disputes and the rule of law”.
Among Chagossians the feelings seem more mixed. Some see it as a step in the right direction, suggesting that Mauritius is more likely to put resettlement plans in place. Others, however, have criticised the fact that, even in a decision like this, Chagossians have been systemically excluded from the discussion. One group representing Chagossians in the UK, Mauritius and the Seychelles claimed that “Chagossians have learned this outcome [of the negotiations] from the media and remain powerless and voiceless in determining our own future and the future of our homeland”. Others, speaking to the BBC, expressed frustration that, once again, decisions about their future were made without their input.
(more…)This is a guest post by Callum MacRae (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)
Tucked behind the public Voivodeship library, connecting Karmelicka street to the east with Dolnych Młynów to the west, lies Krakow’s Wisława Szymborska park. The park is new to Krakow, having opened just last year. But, sitting just a short walk from the historic old town, those who live in the city have already come to know and love it as a precious area of public greenspace. On warm days, the park’s carefully considered design is alive with people; playing, chatting, reading, passing time, watching the world go by.
But the park represents more than just an impressively successful example of green, public, urban design. It is a product of Krakow’s Citizens’ Budget scheme, having been approved in the 2019 round of funding, and as such it also represents the power and potential of Poland’s remarkable modern engagement with participatory budgeting in local government.
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The hot topic in British politics last week was the government’s decision to scrap the winter fuel payment. People over the age of 65 used to be able to claim a lump sum of between £200 and £300 pounds each winter. Desperately scrabbling around for cash, the government has changed the policy so that now only elderly people who are already receiving state financial help are eligible for the payment. This is a classic example of “means-testing”: making state benefits only available to those who do not have the means to pay for things themselves.
Means-testing tends to be popular because it seems to make a lot of sense. Why waste money providing benefits to millionaires? At the most general level, a state with any egalitarian ambitions must treat the rich and poor differently.
Nonetheless, means-testing is generally small-minded and regrettable.
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