Charles Taylor's well-known essay, “Atomism”, criticizes libertarian theories of rights like Nozick's that make individual rights independent of any duties to belong to, support, or obey the law in the society in which those rights are to be enjoyed. Taylor argues that if one grounds rights to important liberties on the human capacity for autonomy, this commits one to the view that the development of autonomy in oneself and others is morally obligatory. Further, Taylor argues that most people cannot develop autonomy in the absence of a certain sort of social and political environment. Hence, if it is morally obligatory to try to develop autonomy in oneself and others, it is also obligatory to belong to, support, and give obedience to those institutions which create the environment in which autonomy can be developed.

In a famous passage in volume three of Capital, Karl Marx distinguishes between a “realm of freedom” and a “realm of necessity”. The passage has attracted attention as seeming to register a dismal perception by Marx of the productive labour that will be necessary even under communism. “Dismal perception” is G. A. Cohen's verdict in his lucid essay “Marx's Dialectic of Labour”. Cohen has now softened the charge to “a somewhat gloomy perception”. But he continues to hold that the passage reveals Marx viewing even post-capitalist labour “as bound always to be unsatisfying”, a marked shift from Marx's optimistic 1840s view that under communism labour would be unalienating. The debate has recently been joined by James Klagge, who has argued against Cohen (and others) that the volume three passage does not disclose a shift in view, and so does not register a “deep pessimism” or “negative appraisal” by Marx of post-capitalist labour.

For some time there have been arguments in favour of the claim that “free markets” are necessary for a proper account of distributive justice. Traditionally the arguments have come from two quarters. On the one hand markets are recommended for reasons of efficiency. This fits into a utilitarian argument claiming that market economies best promote the greatest good when compared to the alternatives. On the other hand there is a libertarian argument claiming that only free markets are consistent with individual liberty. Neither of these arguments have been met with widespread support. However, Ronald Dworkin has offered an argument supporting markets that breaks new ground. He argues that market economies have the considerable virtue of treating people as “equals” with respect to their preferences for goods and careers. This fits well with his larger claim that social justice in economics and politics requires treating people as equals.

Si elles ne manquent pas de bienveillance, les Quatrièmes Objections formulées par Antoine Arnauld comptent parmi les plus rigoureuses et les plus pénétrantes qui aient été opposées aux Méditations de Descartes. On sait d'ailleurs en quelle haute et chaleureuse estime Descartes tint, dès lors, le jeune théologien.

In everyday language, “objectivity” is an important normative term. It signifies that in our demeanour, in our judgments, in our attitudes, there is more at stake than just what we want in and of ourselves as isolated individuals. Whoever is called upon to moderate the presidential debate must be “objective”; that is, he or she must give each participant a fair hearing and fair treatment. It is not appropriate for such a moderator to take sides or to use the position to pay off personal scores. Now we know that this moderator will have his or her own personal political convictions, and that he or she may well dislike one, or both, of the candidates. However, we would all agree that this is not the time or the place to settle old scores. That would show a lack of “objectivity”.

C'est dans une fuite au-delà de la polarisation des sexes et de la prison de l'identité sexuale qui réside, selon Carolyn Heilbrun (1982, ix), notre salut; et la terre promise s'appelle: « androgynie ». De même, selon Bazin et Freeman (1974, 185), l'image de l'androgynie est essentielle pour nous guider dans un processus de changement radical de la société. Harris (1974), par contre, considère l'androgynie comme un mythe sexiste déguisé. Rhodes (1983, 109) l'assimile à un modèle utopique taré par des préjugés patriarcaux sexistes. Et Mary Daly, après une période d'engouement pour l'idéal androgyne, le décrit caricaturalement comme un être humain composé de deux moitiés déjetées: John Wayne et Brigitte Bardot fusionnés en frère et soeur siamois (1975, 30).

Marx called a social pattern “contradictory” if the conditions of its maintenance are also key ingredients for its demise. The science of ecology, too, studies patterns the conditions for whose maintenance are also key ingredients for their demise. The historical materialist notion of contradiction has a close counterpart in the ecological notion of succession. Succession is a process by which the structure of a biological community—both niche structure and species structure—changes as a result of each species' modification of the habitat. Just by living, each species members alters its environment, and in non-climax communities these effects, summed over all living things, constitute disequilibria. The habitat changes, and with it the niche structure. Gradually the species structure of the community changes. Each seral stage, with its distinctive species structure, requires for its maintenance the ongoing existence of living members of each species in the structure; yet this condition is the key ingredient for succession, for the demise of the seral stage. Succession results, in effect, from contradictions that are present in each seral stage. (For an illustrative example of seral stages and biological succession, see the Appendix.)

This work interlinks three rapidly developing fields: human reproduction, applied ethics, and feminism. The convergence of the three, each of which is interesting and important in its own right, creates a synergistic effect by which each mutually illuminates the others.

There was a misprint in the first paragraph of Catherine Canary and Douglas Odegard's Deductive Justification, vol. XXVIII, no. 2, 1989.