Farid Abdel-Nour - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Farid Abdel-Nour
Abstract will be provided by author.
Abstract will be provided by author.
The Journal of Politics, 1999
Political Theory, 2003
This article offers an account of the responsibility that individuals bear by virtue of their nat... more This article offers an account of the responsibility that individuals bear by virtue of their national belonging alone. Via their national pride, the living connect themselves actively with select actions performed by others who might long be dead. They imagine themselves as having won past wars, built ancient empires and the like. This same feat of their imagination imposes on them a responsibility for the bad outcomes that were brought about through their imagined exploits. Their national responsibility for the “sins of the fathers” however lends itself only to the kinds of responses that these living agents can demand of themselves. While their national responsibility can be captured by either the vocabulary of guilt or that of shame, the latter turns out to be more promising as it better accounts for the strong hold that the national idea has on contemporary political thinking.
Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2004
In his recent work, Jürgen Habermas signals the abandonment of his earlier claims to justify huma... more In his recent work, Jürgen Habermas signals the abandonment of his earlier claims to justify human rights and universalist morality. This paper explains the above shift, arguing that it is the inescapable result of his attempts in recent years to accommodate pluralism. The paper demonstrates how Habermas’s universal pragmatic justification of modern normative standards was inextricably tied to his consensus theory of validity. He was compelled by the structure of that argument to count on the current or future availability of a unified framework within which all can potentially articulate their needs and interests. With his abandonment of the justification Habermas has rid discourse theory of this controversial assumption. In weakening its defense of human rights and universalist morality against the charge of ethnocentrism, he has strengthened his theory’s foothold in the lived pluralist world.
On Iris Marion Young's “social connection model” of responsibility, individuals bear politica... more On Iris Marion Young's “social connection model” of responsibility, individuals bear political responsibility to collectively organize against structural injustices to which they are connected. After situating Young's theory in relation to the global distributive justice and global poverty debates, I ask: what is ‘structural injustice”? What does “connection” to injustice consist of and why does it matter? How does the social connection model of responsibility differ from standard conceptions of responsibility? And what is “political responsibility”?
The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as ... more The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as a challenge by ancient critics of democracy. In tension with that criticism, the authors argue that attention to the above challenge is consistent with a defence of Athenian democratic politics. In fact, ordinary citizens' function in the Assembly and courts implicitly included the burden of justifying their own political decisions to an imagined authority, as if they could be brought to account. By means of practices that encouraged this self-scrutiny, Athenians marked the challenge of citizens' political unaccountability as an unavoidable but manageable aspect of their democracy.
Abstract will be provided by author.
Abstract will be provided by author.
The Journal of Politics, 1999
Political Theory, 2003
This article offers an account of the responsibility that individuals bear by virtue of their nat... more This article offers an account of the responsibility that individuals bear by virtue of their national belonging alone. Via their national pride, the living connect themselves actively with select actions performed by others who might long be dead. They imagine themselves as having won past wars, built ancient empires and the like. This same feat of their imagination imposes on them a responsibility for the bad outcomes that were brought about through their imagined exploits. Their national responsibility for the “sins of the fathers” however lends itself only to the kinds of responses that these living agents can demand of themselves. While their national responsibility can be captured by either the vocabulary of guilt or that of shame, the latter turns out to be more promising as it better accounts for the strong hold that the national idea has on contemporary political thinking.
Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2004
In his recent work, Jürgen Habermas signals the abandonment of his earlier claims to justify huma... more In his recent work, Jürgen Habermas signals the abandonment of his earlier claims to justify human rights and universalist morality. This paper explains the above shift, arguing that it is the inescapable result of his attempts in recent years to accommodate pluralism. The paper demonstrates how Habermas’s universal pragmatic justification of modern normative standards was inextricably tied to his consensus theory of validity. He was compelled by the structure of that argument to count on the current or future availability of a unified framework within which all can potentially articulate their needs and interests. With his abandonment of the justification Habermas has rid discourse theory of this controversial assumption. In weakening its defense of human rights and universalist morality against the charge of ethnocentrism, he has strengthened his theory’s foothold in the lived pluralist world.
On Iris Marion Young's “social connection model” of responsibility, individuals bear politica... more On Iris Marion Young's “social connection model” of responsibility, individuals bear political responsibility to collectively organize against structural injustices to which they are connected. After situating Young's theory in relation to the global distributive justice and global poverty debates, I ask: what is ‘structural injustice”? What does “connection” to injustice consist of and why does it matter? How does the social connection model of responsibility differ from standard conceptions of responsibility? And what is “political responsibility”?
The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as ... more The political unaccountability of ordinary citizens in classical Athens was originally raised as a challenge by ancient critics of democracy. In tension with that criticism, the authors argue that attention to the above challenge is consistent with a defence of Athenian democratic politics. In fact, ordinary citizens' function in the Assembly and courts implicitly included the burden of justifying their own political decisions to an imagined authority, as if they could be brought to account. By means of practices that encouraged this self-scrutiny, Athenians marked the challenge of citizens' political unaccountability as an unavoidable but manageable aspect of their democracy.