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This paper attempts to explore the potentially profound political implications of new research into the neuroarchitecture of the brain, especially the role of the mirror neuron system (MNS) which yields compelling evidence that humans are hard-wired for empathy. The same affective brain circuits are automatically mobilized upon feeling one's one pain and observing the pain of others. However, if morality is rooted in biology, in the raw material or building blocks for the evolution of its expression, how do we explain the disjunction between.x000d.its presence and a massive societal empathy deficit? Why hasn't this moral intuition produced a more ameliorating effect? I seek to examine the role of political culture, especially the cultural narrative of hyper-individualism as it interacts with this biological predisposition toward pro-social behavior. The paper draws upon recent work in biology, neuroscience, primatology, cultural studies, political science, psychology and sociology. In an attempt to avoid the dangers of neuroscientific reductionism, I'm comfortable with what William Connolly describes as "...politics through which cultural life mixes into the composition of body/brain process. And vice versa." ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are we to interpret the value shift in post-industrial societies towards a belief in individual freedom, and how important is this belief? Whereas previous research has argued for either a humanistic or an egoistic interpretation of the spreading com-mitment to individual freedom, this paper reveals that both sides are wrong. The main reason for this is their failure to operationalize the crucial concept of freedom values. This paper tests the main claims in the debate on the new freedom values by using better measures from the latest World Values Survey available (2005). The principal component analyses it presents clearly indicate that freeriding, hedonism, humanism, and freedom values are all separate dimensions. Moreover, freedom values cluster in two factors: negative and positive freedom. Finally, this paper also shows that not even in Sweden or the US, two of the purportedly most freedom-oriented countries in the world, do we find as many strong believers in these two freedoms as previous scholars have lead us to assume. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The minimal effects of self-interest on individual?s political attitudes have been explained by symbolic politics in general and American individualism in particular. This paper assesses the validity of these claims by using the British survey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the 1.5 generation of Koreans and how they shed light on the liberal Western society. 1.5ers tend to view relationships in terms of hierarchies, and to confound self-interest with group-interest (we-interest), resulting in a radically different logic in motives for action. 1.5ers find comfort in the hierarchical structures that they are a part of, as expectations and norms are defined by particular positions within a larger structure. As a result, 1.5ers form obligatory connections with others, as each position in a hierarchical structure denotes obligations and privileges to other positions. Individuals are viewed as more than mere individuals â€" they cannot be separated from the position they occupy. This view extends beyond the family, into a community of associations. The 1.5ers, though they spend the greater portion of their lives in America, are far from living by or endorsing the liberal values of egalitarianism and individualism. They are in a unique position â€" they grow up in both Korean and American worlds, allowing them to be insiders as well as outsiders. They can provide an exceptional critique on the liberal society, and show an alternative to the liberal self. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, confronted the U.S. electorate with both a visual image and a personal narrative depicting the challenges for women and their families in a country without a coherent work-family policy. However, rather than acting as a catalyst for a new dialogue and a new approach, her candidacy solidified the prevailing ideological perspective that solving the dilemmas of workers with families rests with individuals, not employers, and certainly not government. Drawing on Kindgon's model, this paper explores why such a fundamental social condition affecting millions of women and their families has gone without significant public policy attention in the United States. I attribute the lack of a serious public dialogue that includes the prospect of a new policy approach to three factors. Women, arguably the primary beneficiaries of new policies as well as those to which the most harm falls, lack agreement on the nature of the problem and thus the solution. Liberal feminism, the ideological catalyst for two waves of women's advancement in the public sphere, was seduced by the rhetoric of choice before effectively dismantling the gendered confines of the private sphere leaving women in the workforce with a double-burden too often culturally defined as "one of their own making." Finally, the menu of policy alternatives available in the United States has been truncated by a prevailing culture of individualism, best exhibited by women's willingness to adopt individual coping strategies rather than problematize/politicize the issue, and the presentation of modest work-family accommodations offered by some employers as "progress" by the media. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My argument in this paper is that Hegel’s political philosophy is a balm for the lost souls of liberal individualism. I argue that politically, the free and equal individuals of the liberal, democratic, State must be reconciled to their fundamental inequality and powerlessness with regard to the State and the mass of public opinion. Philosophically, the free, rational, self-interested, morally autonomous, liberal individual exists in contrast to the world that gave birth to him. Thus the individual knows himself as an individual only insofar as he is able to rebel against society and oppose his judgment to the judgment of others. He thus vacillates between passive acceptance of institutional and cultural norms (if he is a good Kantian) and violent rejection of the status quo (if he is not). In either case he is unable to be what he is supposed to be: at home in the world as a free individual governed by peaceful equality. .x000d.Hegel’s political philosophy teaches us that by being good citizens, by understanding ourselves in relation to the world of other people, we don’t limit or lose our freedom, we discover it, we don’t lose our individuality, we find it. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lincoln's Bicentennial is the occasion to consider major interpretations of Lincoln's political thought. This paper examines the natural rights and liberal interpretations in particular. .x000d..x000d.Part one examines works on Lincoln by Harry Jaffa. Part Two examines works by John Patrick Diggins and David Greenstone. Part Three examines historical works that situate Lincoln in Romanticism and ante-bellum religious thought. The conclusion argues for individualism as the key to Lincoln's political thought. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Alexis de Tocqueville's account of American ethical thought and religious impulses. I examine the degree to which he anticipates American pragmatism, exemplified in the thought of John Dewey. I compare the role of religion in Tocqueville and Dewey's political thought, and compare the necessary premises each must hold to support his position. I then place their thought in tension with each other as a means of exploring the plausibility of each. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Tocqueville's account of religion's benefits to American political society, the dangers for democracy in a loss of religious unity, and the prospect of privatized forms of religion that may exacerbate democratic individualism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the American tradition of individualism, which has been significant in recognizing and protecting individual rights, is singled out and critically examined for ways in which it could be leading citizens to disengage from the political process. This is a departure from previous research that has focused logistical concerns and external conflicts as the leading causes of disengagement. The primary causes discussed herein are ideological in nature, thereby suggesting internal factors.The United States Constitution is strongly rooted in classical liberalism. It has a commitment to liberal ideals of limited government, consent and individualism, and these ideals have been applied to all areas of American lifeâ??political, economic and socialâ??with varying degrees of success. The liberal ideal that has come into the most conflict with the principles of democracy and self-government, however, is individualism. The American political system requires the involvement of the people, and the liberal need for a limited government requires a neighborly concern for others in society. Unfortunately, individualism leads people away from both of these requirements by providing the justification and rationale for non-participation. Factor analyses of national datasets from the years 1960-2004 demonstrate a consistent relationship between individualistic attitudes and participation. The resulting factor scores consistently explain significant portions of the variance in other individualistic and communalistic attitudes and behaviors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Apology of Socrates we are presented with a Socrates that seems to preach individualism, a complete withdrawal from politics, as well as a call for radical civil disobedience. Many authors have often seen this avoidance of politics as evidence that Socrates, and the Socratic mission in general, is profoundly anti-political. Moreover, his call to avoid Athenian communal politics in favor of individual speculation is also seen as evidence that he is a radically anti-Athenian. This stands in contrast to Socrates in the Crito, where he sets strict rules of obedience to the laws, and professes his intimate connection and bond to the city of Athens. As a whole, the Socrates of the Crito seems to wholly contradict his earlier insistence on disobedience and allegiance to an authority other than the law. In this paper, I reconcile this apparently contradictory thought and present Socrates of the earlier dialogues as having a cohesive and non-contradictory project. This paper asserts that, while radically departing from the traditional notions of communal political action that formed the basis of Athenian life, Socrates’ mission was indeed political, intimately tied to, and constantly respecting, the laws of Athens and strove to improve not only Athens but also its citizens. Moreover, this paper asserts that the Socratic mission was radically democratic, thereby refuting the charge laid upon Socrates by many authors that he was indeed an anti-democrat. Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that the Socratic mission was ultimately to be undertaken by all Athenians, not just himself or a select segment of the population. The individualism called for in the project is not a withdrawl from politics but rather a rejucination of the individual and a realization of the true political capacity of the citizen. Finally, I argue that it is his radically democratic tendencies that explain why Socrates assiduously avoided entering traditional Athenian politics, because the philosophic enterprise was intimately tied to the dynamics and specific characteristics of the Athenian Agora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre-modern political theorists were well aware of the demands of individual conscience. Those fearing civil unrest highlighted individualism?s potential dangers, while those seeking revolutionary change merely masked their appeals to conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the concept of individualism as a core component of the American dream. The idea of the American dream is premised on the collective acceptance that "you can be anything you wanna be." The American dream, therefore, is available for every individual regardless of the individual's identity. To bestow its benefits, the dream does not select any chosen in group or abandoned out-group. It is equally available for all individuals. This characteristic of the American dream enables it to become a symbol of hope for a range of people--individual identities such as race, class, gender, sexuality, age, health, even nationality seemingly do not influence one's ability to achieve the American dream. Individualism represents various different ideas. Individualism can be ethical, methodological, rugged, political, religious, economic or even abstract.

Defends the efforts by political scientist Jürgen Habermas to reconcile the individual rights with democracy. Philosophic roots of modern individualism and natural rights; Criticisms of liberal individualism; Discussion of postmetaphysical critics of subjectivity; Promotion of autonomy and solidarity within a single framework.

Since the 1960’s, overt measures have failed to turn up racism in the American populace. In response, subtler measures have been created in order to account for the new and less blatant racism. Specifically, scales like the Symbolic Racism Scale, Modern Racism Scale, and the Racial Resentment Scale are meant to reveal racism by offering items that are not obviously racist, or socially undesirable. Instead, the new item are framed within ideology or policy choices, which offer legitimacy to “racist” responses that would otherwise be denied or suppressed. However, along with the more subtle detection of racism, came the concern that these scales were detecting more than just racism. Sniderman and Carmines (1997) argue that ideology accounts for the policy positions, which is orthogonal to racism. Thus, when affirmative action is denied, it is due to principle rather than prejudice. On the other hand, ideology has been argued to be a rationalization, or even a tool used by prejudiced people, in order to sustain discrimination (Kinder & Sears, 1981; Jackman, 1994). Although there have been endless studies that have tried to prove on side over another, both sides remain convinced of their position. The challenge is to separate out ideological and racist influences within the new racism items. The goal of our experiment is to distinguish between ideology and racism, and determine which of those factors influence policy positions. We will employ a lexical decision task (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971) in order to gauge what people are actually thinking about when they are confronted with race and ideology related policies. Specifically, the subject will be explicitly primed with a policy, like affirmative action, and then asked to press a given key to indicate if a letter sting that appears on a computer screen is a word or not. The letter strings will contain two groups: strings that are related to individualism and other conservative values, or strings that include negative minority stereotypes. The reaction time is dependent on the present activation of concepts in one’s mind. While the actual task is explicit, this method is implicit because the subject is unaware that they are revealing what is activated in their mind. This methodology may shed light on a previously unfalsifiable contention that ideology and racism are intertwined. Furthermore, this methodology may be useful in gauging if survey items actually activate the thoughts they are meant to, or if they are activating other factors that are muddling a given scale. Additionally, different groups may be compared to observe possible differences in their conceptions and considerations to given items. This experiment will enable use to observe whether or not conservative principles and/or negative affect towards blacks actually lies beneath policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary political theory finds itself in what could be called a “political-theological” moment, yet political theology so far has primarily been of interest to European thinkers. This paper is an effort to bring the theoretical concerns of political theology as a mode of political theory to the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson. The paper proposes a new interpretation of Emerson’s concept of “self-reliance.” Against the dominant interpretations, I argue that “Experience” is an essay about power and that “Self-Reliance” is an essay about grief. The key to this reading lies in Emerson’s thoughts on the finitude of language and ultimately on the finitude of the self, thoughts that are available in “The Poet.” In proposing that we read Emersonian self-reliance as a elegy on human finitude, I also suggest that Emerson sees self-reliance as a politics and an ethics of an individualism that struggles with theological themes as life, mortality, and human relation, despite any secular disavowal of interest in a “theological.” Finally, I suggest that we reconsider liberal individualism as itself a politics that confronts, and does not evade, the question of the “theological.” This paper is based on the fourth chapter of my dissertation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it has been suggested that preferences may be endogenous to institutional structures and that economics seeks to inculcate positive values toward market institutions, much work remains to be done in conceptualizing what such learning may be composed of and how it might occur. This paper represents an attempt to outline an interdisciplinary approach to piecing together this long-standing social science puzzle. Much can be gleaned by revisiting the participatory democratic tradition of Carole Pateman and Edward Greenberg, and examining the link between democratic theory and economics. It is suggested in particular that the debatable failure of democratic theorists’ predictions to come to fruition can be explained by insights drawn from radical economists working in the heterodox tradition as well as critical social scientists engaged with critical realism and questions of ontology. When one discards economists’ assumption of given, exogenous preferences, one is free to critique Milton Friedman’s defense of prediction and proposed irrelevance of realistic assumptions. More importantly, however, one is compelled to explain why such regularities that exist in the social world do in fact exist. Implicit ontological commitments (of a propositional nature), or the connotative meaning of workplace involvement practices, are advanced as the sort of knowledge that worker-citizens are likely to acquire in their interaction with work. The question becomes one of determining what sort of learning is occurring and what sort of processes of preference formation may be at work. This, in turn, has implications for basic ideas in social science, including power, beliefs, values, intentionality, and the like; for methodological premises related to holism and individualism; and, for the prospects of democratic theory. The explanation advanced here is intended to lay the theoretical foundation for future work that can begin to empirically delineate the mechanisms by which such learning may occur. The purpose of this paper is simply to describe key ideas of the larger text, their relationship to democratic theory, and some provisional “findings.” ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This proposal paper shows economic individualists are likely to participate in politics whereas social individualists are unlikely to do the same thing. The relationship between individualism and participation is explored in this proposal paper. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the emergence of self-doubt, or internal fear, as a major political problem and analyzes this problem as the “ugly side” of modern individualism and individual autonomy. Self-doubt, I argue, could only become a problem in the modern era, whereas previously self-doubt was institutionalized. The shift to the modern era gave rise to the empowered, self-directing individual -- the symbol of modernity’s “modernity.” However, the shift also gave individuals the burden to do for themselves what an omnipotent God had previously done on their behalf in the mediaeval era, namely ordering their lives. Modern individuals were required to replace faith in God with self-faith. Of course self-faith, or confidence, is often difficult to come by and individuals are often consumed by internal fears, which can be self-destructive. To illustrate the dichotomies of the modern individual, I analyze two figures in the Marlovian canon. Tamburlaine the Great exemplifies the empowerment ideal: he is supremely confident while conquering the world and even in death regards himself as God. Faustus, meanwhile, is constantly self-doubting and as he struggles with the problem of measuring up to God becomes increasingly self-destructive. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the possible relationship between the expression of two core American values â€" individualism and egalitarianism â€" and social capital. Very little has been done in the literature to link the expression of one or the other of these core values to an individual’s or community’s level of social capital. The author expects that a community in which many citizens are (ceteris paribus) equally and almost entirely individualistic will experience deep divisions where two or more groups of citizens strive to gain the upper-hand in community politics, whereas the same community with equally and almost entirely egalitarian citizens will experience a great degree of cooperation toward a unitary goal. In other words, it is expected that individualistic political cultures are highly competitive and that egalitarian political cultures are highly cooperative. This has an immediate bearing on the level social capital. Individualistic culture should produce lower levels while egalitarian culture should produce higher levels of social capital. The author intends to use a survey. Most questions will use a Likert scale to measure degree of agreement with the given statement in the survey. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiculturalism and liberal individualism have been at the center of the theoretical debate around the protection of minority groups in Western democracies. Will Kymlicka (1995) has been trying to bridge the inherent tension between minority group protection and the liberal principle of individualism prevalent in most liberal democracies. He has created a theoretical framework, which is meant to ensure the protection of minority groups as well as the individual group members. .x000d..x000d.In this paper, I will discuss Kymlicka’s framework by confronting it with the real-world case of women of Turkish immigrant background in Berlin, Germany. Based on field research in Berlin, I will argue that while the idea of protecting minority groups is honorable, the concept is highly problematic. As my field research will show, minority groups are highly diverse internally and can hardly be categorized as homogeneous wholes. Based on my findings, I suggest a modification of Kymlicka’s concept of a liberal multiculturalism, in which I acknowledge the need for protecting minority groups but at the same time point to their infinite internal diversity and the need for enhancing the protection of individual group members. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an overview of some of the main works of liberalism, this paper would like to interrogate one of the most commonly admitted couple of political philosophy: liberalism and individualism. A way of exploring “unconsciousness” of modernity. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents Rousseau's argument for family bonds being that which engenders and is the end of citizenship and individualism. The focus in modern politics on rights and wealth distracts us from the true barriers to human happiness. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leslie Paul Thiele writes of Thomas Hobbes that "Our inner drives, Hobbes assumed, are constantly in motion and remain ever unsatisfied. Chief among our insatiable drives is the desire for power." Termed by Thiele as "methodical individualism," each person "engages in voluntary and rational acts that serve its own interests."This paper explores the problems of methodical individualism in contrast to communitarian theory as espoused by Amitai Etzioni and Jean-Paul Sartre. While Sartre's philosophy does not carry the label communitarianism, he understands the problem of radical subjectivity as it relates to social responsibility. Both Sartre and Etzioni understand the need for a refined subjectivity if social justice - or peace - is to be attained. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I outline a method for defining public reason that differs from the prominent theories in political philosophy assembling this species of reasoning. My arguments offer prospects for a public reasoning formed on a view of the political as a collective practice with rules of composition that are discontinuous with nonpublic forms of reasoning, a strategy that suggests new understandings of political morality. Most of the energies here are directed toward a kind of intellectual cleansing, meaning a dismissal of two sources of opposition to holism. One is the free use of analogy in attempts to connect individual and whole as symmetrical units. The other is strong methodological individualism (the dismissal of which follows and extends some critical reflections on the uses of metaphor). I argue that a freestanding or detached political language is initially identified through a demarcation of both reasoned considerations and methods of reasoning at individual and collective levels, in part through the use of platforms to generate hypothetical collectives. In this sense the public reason indicated here is a type of political reasoning originating unevenly in reason of state, that tradition of thought holding that the exercise of power at collective levels presents its own distinct and independent rules of engagement and morality. The irony is that this version of public reasoning is free of liberal values but more sharply rendered in pluralist democracies than in the autocratic conditions marking its historical origins ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiculturalism is a highly contested term not only in theory but also in practice. Globalization and global inequalities are among the important phenomena that will cause multiculturalism to sooner or later become a highly salient issue on policy agendas of liberal democracies in the West. Minority groups that immigrate to and form within existing nation states are do not always receive a warm welcome, and are often marginalized and pushed to the edges of society. While the policy of multiculturalism is supposed to solve conflictual issues between minority groups and the dominant group in society, there has been much discussion about what this policy itself should entail. In this paper, I delve into the contestedness of the term by exploring different approaches to multiculturalism within liberal democracies that theorists such as Charles Taylor, Alain Touraine, Michael Walzer, Jurgen Habermas, Will Kymlicka, and Seyla Benhabib have outlined. In placing these different approaches on a scale between liberalism and individualism on one hand and communitarianism on the other hand, I am exploring the way that minority groups and their rights are perceived by the different theorists. I find that minority groups themselves and their status within the nation state cannot always be looked at in the same fashion. Hence, the issues of French Quebec within Canada and the issues of Muslim minorities in Europe differ in many ways, as does their status within those different nation states. Multiculturalist policy addressing these minority issues therefore cannot always be exercised in the same way. The one thing that minority groups do have in common, however, is that regardless of their features they are not homogeneous wholes and static communities. Group identities are fluid and individual identities within those groups are highly heterogeneous. A multiculturalist approach to policy needs to take that into consideration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that citizens in collectivistic countries are more likely to attribute their personal grievances to government than citizens in individualistic countries and this relationship is moderated by symbolic politics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we show not only that variations in unemployment and income distribution affect the rise of anti-immigrant parties but also that countries with higher individualism/collectivism scores have stronger anti-immigrant parties. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effects of national background, SES, immigrant status/generation, and various other experiences on the civic incorporation of young Latinos. Specifically, we examine the determinants of voting, registration, non-electoral activism, trust for government, economic individualism, and partisanship among Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other Latino youth. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health demonstrate that socioeconomic resources are the main determinant of registration and voting among this population, while variations in perceptions of discrimination, acculturation, and immigration status best account for political orientations. We uncover no evidence that Latino youth are inclined to reject core American civic values or behaviors; however, we also find that immigration status/generation, length of US residency, English dominance, and second-generation status do surprisingly little to deepen this population’s already-strong connections to the political mainstream. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To open a small window on the Reformation’s significant but stunted impact on the formation of the modern self, this chapter will 1) highlight Calvin’s individualist modifications to Thomistic theology, 2) reveal the political implications of these innovations for the English Puritan movement of the seventeenth century, and 3) expose the broad consonance of Locke’s individualism with Calvin’s, while also noting the points of departure that decisively (and intentionally) undermine evangelical self-understanding. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that it is in fact relevant to illuminate Emile Durkheim as a political thinker, especially considering those issues on democracy. To do so, I read with great interest PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CIVIC MORALS, where Durkheim analyzes various issues on democracy. After delineating Durkheimian individualism by examining his critiques of H. Spencer, I. Kant, and pramatists, I then pay attention to his unorthodox definition of democracy. Durkheim understands democracy as a unique political form in which the state extends government consciousness all over the society and opens hitherto covert processes of deliberation to people. Repudiating the illusory ideal of a direct rule of the people, Durkheim praises these indirectness and communicability as positive characteristics of modern representative democracy. In addition, I investigate Durkheim's unswerving emphasis on secondary groups and vivid social life. Durkheim reasons that continuous and active social life is necessary to maintain robust democratic politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nozick’s Entitlement Theory of Justice, based on justice in holdings, is meant to justify a non-redistributive minimal state. However, if either of the first two principles of justice in holding, justice in acquisition and transfer, is violated, then the principle of rectification comes into play. This principle can be used to temporarily justify a more than minimal state that has redistributive functions. Unlike the more general difference principle, any application of the rectification principle must be specific to a society’s particular history. For example, if an analysis of U.S. history justified Rawls’ difference principle as applicable to the U.S. only, it would not come into conflict with Nozick’s entitlement theory but would in fact be an application of the rectification principle. This fact has been used to argue that Nozick and Rawls are not juxtaposed to one another as they are usually portrayed. Examining these principles in detail, their normative underpinnings, the role they play in securing justice, and the way each is arrived at will be useful in assessing the extent to which this is true and specifically if Nozick’s “radical individualism” is closer to Rawls’ “liberal individualism” than it first appears. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though they are often spoken of as though they were alike, Emerson and Whitman are very different thinkers. The tensions between them highlight the tensions between individualism and democracy in ways that illuminate both the past and the present. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing body of scholarship on the political incorporation of Mexican-Americans overlooks a key cohort: young immigrants. The main purpose of this article is to fill this gap by exploring the question of whether Mexican-American immigrant youth are unusually resistant to political incorporation when compared to other immigrants. Using data from an exceptionally-large, nationally-representative longitudinal survey of young people, we examine several of the behavioral and attitudinal measures of political incorporation that scholars have identified as principal measures of an individual's integration into the nation's political mainstream. Specifically, we look at voting, registration, non-electoral activism, trust for government, individualism, and partisanship. While many policymakers, and some scholars, have voiced concerns about the political incorporation of young Mexican-Americans, we find that Mexicans are indistinguishable from other immigrants on almost all measures of political incorporation, despite lagging other immigrants in terms of economic and social integration. Our major finding is that, even in the absence of controlling variables, the vast majority of young Mexican immigrant youth report few suspicions of governmental institutions and processes, show high levels of support for economic individualism, and are engaged in the electoral process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shakespeare's tragic foil from Othello has another dimension to him. His character rejects Medieval and Renaissance values in favor of early liberal themes of rational individualism and meritocracy. Shakespeare's antipathy toward this character reflects a conservative reaction to the emergence of early liberal values that would become, increasingly, dominant during the next century, eventually evolving into the liberal ideology of today. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Putnam documents the decline of individual participation, but the causes he cites for this decline fail to account for the ideological shift that has led many toward neo-classical liberal individualism and withdrawal from participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I demonstrate that individualism is not only more likely to predict negative evaluations of welfare recipients when they are described as Black, but that this interaction between individualism and racial cues is stronger among well-educated whites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Liberalism now suffers from excess individualism. Citizens believe they owe nothing that they did not contract to give. I argue that our obligations to our fellow citizens arise not from individual contract, but from systemic commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This submission is for a panel entitled The Promise of Early Modern Liberalism (panel #030997) proposed by Thomas Powers. Does liberalism, for all its talk of individual freedom, only weaken our ability to stand on our own? Is our individualism merely a pale and shallow sort whose actual result is conformity? Will these tendencies only be exacerbated insofar as we follow many recent political theorists in grounding liberalism in social consensus? Richard E. Flathman fears that these questions must all be answered in the affirmative. Rather than abandoning liberalism, however, Flathman hopes to meet its greatest difficulties and overcome them. His attempt to revitalize liberalism begins with a serious reconsideration of early modern political philosophy, especially that of Hobbes. But even though Flathman does find certain aspects of Hobbes to be helpful in our present predicament, he ultimately thinks it necessary to look beyond the ambiguously liberal Hobbes to an admittedly illiberal thinker: Nietzsche. What, in Flathman’s view, is the promise of Hobbesian liberalism? Why is that promise ultimately unkept? And why should Nietzsche, against his own intentions, enable us to succeed where Hobbes alone has failed? My investigation of these questions will consider many of Flathman’s writings but will concentrate on Willful Liberalism (1992) and Freedom and its Conditions (2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1999) argue that social capital is built by the repeated interaction among actors involved in a social dilemma. Dense, overlapping networks based on “strong ties” lead to greater interpersonal or interorganizational trust, which in turn should increase the probabilities of success in overcoming the adverse collective effects of individual behavior. Burt (2000), on the other hand, argues that “weak ties” which span structural holes in networks are the primary source of social capital, and that strong-tie networks constrain the ability of actors to develop innovative solutions to new collective problems and opportunities. He reviews a number of empirical studies supporting the importance of weak ties in enhancing business performance. We analyze these opposing theories in the context of policy networks that attempt to resolve the problems of fragmented authority in environmental policies affecting estuaries. Specifically, we develop hypotheses about the impact of “weak” and “strong” network structures on trust, utilizing the “small world” framework suggested by Watts (1999). We use survey data from an NSF-sponsored survey in 22 U.S. estuaries to test these hypotheses, using network measures suggested by Burt supplemented by measures developed by Watts to describe small world networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The desire for distinctionâ€"to stand out in a crowd, to be rewarded or praised for one’s unique characteristics, achievements, and contributions, is an undeniably human characteristic entangled in questions of identity and individualism. Yet the moder ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on public identities of African American women has revealed that the introduction of images, which play on historical, cultural stereotypes, into the political arena, that categorize these women as the face of a social problem, marginalizes and silences them in politics. I seek to extend this literature by analyzing the predictors of the successful acceptance of the welfare queen identity among individuals. I propose that the welfare queen public identity has become accepted by dominate and dominated groups alike because it allow individuals to assign responsibility, or to pinpoint the source, of a given social ill (welfare) in a very narrow, concrete fashion. This assignment of responsibility, or blame attribution, becomes a cognitive heuristic, which triggers subconscious racist attitudes, and learned political values and social standards. Using data from the 1991 National Race and Politics Survey, I find evidence that blame attribution significantly predicts negative attitudes about black female welfare recipients. My research adds to the current literature by pushing the examination of the acceptance of the welfare queen public identity beyond individualism and stereotypes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Stuart Mill is often regarded as a liberal individualist whose thought chips away at the foundations of communal cohesiveness. Mill is in fact equally concerned with the social and the individual good, which he sees as ultimately complementary. The two diverged in his time, he thought, only because of society’s failure to properly divine its own best interests. The individuality of different societies, the very precondition of social progress, was predicated upon the individuality of their members. .x000d.Mill is, if anything, a “liberal communitarian” in aspiration -- a phrase which current political theory is liable to regard as an oxymoron. Communitarian political theorists generally regard the value of the communal group as being greater than the sum of their parts. They tend to submerge individual and communal identity and hence subjugate the individual to the group’s authority. Mill certainly does not subjugate individual liberty to group authority, which keeps him liberal. But he sees a fundamental harmony of interests, with social well being predicated on individual liberty and self-development. This view, combined with the lexical priority of individual freedom, is properly described as a liberal communitarianism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the influence of values on attitudes and policy preferences is well established, we have yet to understand the role of social influences on the values-attitudes relationship. I argue that socially shared values act as a reinforcing or deterring mechanism on the relationship between values and attitudes. Socially shared values, by exposing people in favor of certain opinions or leading to the framing of issues in certain ways create value conflict in individuals who do not share the value orientations of the society. Conversely, shared values should lead to the strengthening of the relationship between individual values and attitudes. .x000d.I use multilevel modeling to show that socially shared values interact with individual value orientations in determining individual attitudes and policy preferences. As an illustration, I look at the relationship between individualism and attitudes towards redistribution and support for welfare policies. I find that individualist people in more individualistic societies are much more reluctant to support redistribution and spending on welfare compared to individualistic people in more communitarian societies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of Turkish women will be utilized in order to fully examine the complexities and nuances of the ongoing confrontation between secularism and democracy. The emergence of veiled women in the hallowed halls of secularism has produced an ons ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alasdair MacIntyre’s criticisms of liberal individualism cannot stand in light of further examination. The functional concept of a human being he demands as support for ethical claims can in fact be constructed for liberal individualism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche's project of revitalizing modernity encounters a dilemma surrounding the concept of the individual: either the individual dissolves into the community or is reduced to its biological desires. Nietzsche avoids both horns of this dilemma by reconceiving the conditions for the possibility of the individual and asserting that the overman, understood as a regulative ideal, must structure individual and communal life. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard libertarianism as a normative account of justice is collectively self-defeating. This is a reason against it; the same is not true of its rivals and the problem cannot be fixed without departing from what is characteristic of the view. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

,K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation argues that self-replicating nanotechnology combined with artificial intelligence holds the promise of overcoming the human condition, or destroying life on earth. While this trope is familiar in relation to newly developing technologies, in Drexler’s case it is based on more than an assessment of the technologically possible. His argument for how to avoid oblivion and gain utopia is also based on a quasi-philosophy of history that posits nanotechnology as the necessary next step in an evolutionary process in which intelligence is replaced by chance, and a theory of personality which makes individual freedom of choice the highest value. In contrast with the essentially aristocratic Baconian vision of how to control the power of nature gained by technology, Drexler attempts to articulate near- and long-term structures that will reduce the risks of human power extended to “the limits of the possible,” while at the same time maintaining a democratic individualism. Unfortunately, tensions within his argument suggest that achieving this laudable goal may be more difficult than he believes. It seems likely that the freedom to “pursue happiness” means something very different in today’s world of common human limits from what it will in Drexler’s world of freely willed and wielded power, the logic of which suggests an ultimate disappearance of the merely human. Making choice the moral centerpiece of his argument thus becomes a way of avoiding confronting difficult questions about what ought to be done with novel technological possibilities. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]