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Conservatives tend to oppose any attempt at reforming the American healthcare system. This ideologically based objection witnessed a remarkable increase after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), nicknamed "Obamacare." The present paper will mainly discuss and analyze both the genesis of the political polarization over the ACA and its potential destiny. In tackling the issue of polarization over Obamacare as a case study, this article will employ the Lakoffian Metaphor Theory. This latter differentiates between the conservative and liberal moral worldviews by a metaphor of "nation as family" where the strict father stands for the conservative mind and the nurturant parent represents the liberal thought. Hence, this paper seeks to explore the reasons that lie behind the liberals' tolerance and conservatives' antipathy towards Obamacare. It draws the conclusion that the conservatives' strenuous efforts to reform some provisions of the ACA were achievable, yet the pursuit of repealing the whole law was not an overnight issue.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Pädagogik is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The reform of the American health care system and its magnitude has always been a contested issue between the Democrats and Republicans. In this respect, the political struggle over health care repair has intensified during the enactment and implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) adopted by President Barack Obama. In an attempt to analyze the polarization concerned with this system’s reform, particularly the ACA as a case study, this paper employs the metaphor theory introduced by the American cognitive linguist George Lakoff. This theory utilizes the metaphor of “nation as family” to refer to the two major ideologies composing the American political spectrum, namely liberalism and conservatism. Through employing a Lakoffian model of family-based morality, this paper seeks to provide a careful examination of the liberals’ tolerant and empathetic standpoint towards public health care expansion on the one hand, and the conservatives’ commitment to anti-ACA welfare provisions on the other hand. Accordingly, it attempts to explore areas of debate including universalizability of health care access, the interference with the market, and the issue of abortion and contraception. My paper draws the conclusion that the Democrats’ unlimited approval of the ACA and Republicans’ vehement resistance to it stem from principled moral choice rather than mere partisanship.

This paper analyzes the institutional and legal organization of the Brazilian Empire during the transition from the Old Regime to a liberal world, in a country still deeply affected by its colonial status. The paper tries to answer the following questions: With the country moving towards independence, how was the new liberal order put in place in a continental, agro-exporting, slave-owning and predominantly illiterate country like Brazil, whose source of power came mainly from large rural estates? And how was the new normativity established during this huge and long period of transition? It is determined that the liberal framework involved new constitutional and infra-constitutional laws, while also accepting the survival of old legal and judicial rules and doctrines.

The paper reconstructs Axel Honneth’s Neo-Hegelian critique of the classical-liberal conception of autonomy and his articulation of an alternative view of personal autonomy as the property of certain types of intersubjective relations of recognition in modernity, developed most systematically in Honneth’s recent work Freedom’s Right (Das Recht der Freiheit). The analysis of Freedom’s Right focuses on reconstructing Honneth’s critique of the ‘negative’ and ‘reflexive’ types of freedom (autonomy) articulated within the liberal tradition, and contrasting the former two with the conception of ‘social freedom’ (the inter­subjectivist conception of autonomy) that Honneth formulates through a detailed ‘normative reconstruction of modernity’. Finally, the paper considers the proximity of Honneth’s ‘Hegelian liberalism’ to communitarianism.

Copyright of Journal for Business, Economics & Ethics / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts und Unternehmensethik is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is to show certain aspects of Rorty’s philosophy that are relevant to social theory, and also to point out the most important divergences of Rorty’s insights from postmodern understanding of social reality. Therefore, in the first part of the paper I will examine both Rorty’s philosophy of edification and all relevant criticisms to his view of philosophy “as a communication of mankind”. Furthermore, I will try to establish to which extent Rorty’s understanding of contingency and its implications really falls close to postmodern thought. I will also argue that the impossibility of philosophical justification of social reality, according to Rorty, does not entail impossibility of moral progress and that the role of social theory is actually in raising the level of inclusion of social interaction and in providing social hope. Moreover, it will be shown that Rorty, unlike Foucault and Derrida, thought that the institutions of Western democracy and liberalism are quite capable to achieve these goals and that accomplishment of this liberal utopia greatly depends on the degree of commitment to moral progress that all actors (writers, social scientists and philosophers) within the cultural field share.

El presente trabajo desarrolla distintas figuras que Carl Schmitt señala como formas de subjetividad antipolítica. Si desde la perspectiva del jurista alemán las operaciones que constituyen un modo de ser político son aquellas que producen o sostienen una forma representativa, lo propio de una subjetividad antipolítica son aquellas operaciones que erosionan o conducen a la destrucción de dicha forma política. El trabajo intenta mostrar que la operación fundamental en este sentido es la dilación, entendida como la postergación indefinida de la decisión. Así, bajo las diversas figuras de la antipolítica que Schmitt aborda, esta operación también adquiere diversas formas de aparición: en el caso de la subjetividad liberal se da bajo la forma de la discusión y el compromiso, en el caso del romántico político bajo la forma de la poetización.This paper develops various figures noted by Carl Schmitt as forms of anti-political subjectivity. Whereas, from the German jurist's perspective, the operations which constitute a political way of being are those which produce and care for a representative form, the specificity of a anti-political subjectivity is shaped by those operations which erode or wear that political form down. The paper aims to show that the main feature of the antipolitical way of being is the delay, meaning the indefinite postponement of the decision as such. Thus, under the various figures of the anti-politics that Schmitt deals with, this operation appears on different manners: the liberal form of postponing is the endless discussion and the compromise; the romatic form is the aesthetization of the world.

This paper examines the validity of economic thoughts of Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes for the present time. The paper compares Marx and Keynes, and aims to show that the difference in treatment of the major economic issues between them is not as significant as one may expect. Marx and Keynes held some ideas in common with neo-classical economists especially in the sphere of microeconomics, and they differ from neo-classical economists significantly in their approach to both: macroeconomic issues and their consequences for a society as a whole. They predicted wars in the future, and were speaking about a new, and global world! That is why those giants of economic thought deserve to be re-approached and reexamined, especially as the events of our age remind us of no small extent of the times when they had written

In the main part of the paper an analysis of liberalism and globalization has been offered. It has been argued in the third part of the paper that the process of association between Serbia and Montenegro and European Union would contribute substantially to the solution of the so called "coordination problem" in Serbia and Montenegro-the country heavily burdened and ravaged by its historical past, recent civil wars, NATO bombardment and corruptive economy.

This paper considers the concept of political community, its constitution and value. The starting point is that the concept of community is not sufficiently recognized in modern political theories, as well as in contemporary liberal theory. In the last two decades communitarian and republican political theory attempted to revitalize this notion. The first part of the paper elaborates on the polemics between these three theoretical orientations. The concluding part examines the possibilities and prospect for stable political community in conditions of pluralism of particular social communities and ethnocultural heterogeneity.

The paper examines the relationship between public reason liberalism and one, historically important, conception of illiberal perfectionism. Public reason liberalism has always pursued the backing of various comprehensive doctrines, and therefore the question comes about as to whether it can also succeed in this with perfectionist authors belonging to the Thomistic tradition. Towards this goal, the author first delineates the basic concepts that he analyzes in the article – namely, liberalism, perfectionism and public reason liberalism. He subsequently elaborates in two steps why it is that the representatives of the Thomistic tradition must ultimately reject public reason liberalism. He first notes their critique of the unsatisfactory metaphysical assumptions of liberalism so that he can then break down the problematic relationship between natural law reasons and public reasons. The article offers an answer to the rarely asked question of why the representatives of this alternative tradition ultimately consider public reason liberalism to be unacceptable.

This paper aims at highlighting the contact points between Carlo Rosselli’s theoretical elaboration and the British political thought. Rosselli’s major work, Socialismo liberale, is read here in relation to the reflections of British liberal authors such as Mill, Green and Hobhouse, in whose works the prodromes of an elaboration combining elements of liberalism and socialism can be found. The attempt to present some aspects of the long-standing connection between Rosselli and England concerns the concept of freedom, the criticism of the degenerations of bourgeois liberalism and the solutions, although not systematic, that Rosselli provides in his work as an alternative to the existing political, social and economic system, where freedom and justice could be joined.

The paper argues that the sociological analysis of generation and abortion presented in The Foetal Condition constitutes a radicalisation of the sociology of critique and a challenge to it with respect to the understanding of authority and power. The challenge this book faces is to conceive of a freedom that is not liberal, not absolutized or individualistic. This freedom emerges as an issue in the words of the women interviewed in the research underlying The Foetal Condition. We will try to identify the reason the book’s analyses cannot fully understand it, identifying the main problem in the articulation of the notions of authority and power.

Hereby paper is dedicated to the issue of Brexit in the context of liberal theory of international relations, mainly by adoption of the qualitative method of textual examination of selected works, devoted to the abovementioned paradigm. The hypothesis of this article is a statement that liberal approach has a limited applicability to description of community disintegration mechanisms, including Brexit as their unquestionable syndrome. Existing theories of European integration, of which liberalism is one of the most influential theoretical schemes, reveal several malfunctions in exploration of Union’s decomposition processes, however, on the other hand, some of their specific components still remain valid. The above issue exposes a demand for investigating new tools and researching methods to scrutinize current trends in the European Union that would allow to review the present state of this organization in a more adequate manner.

Although it is founded on the universal rights of its citizens, the concept of the liberal state still resembles the monist nation state when focusing on its application in a political community. Consequently, pluri-nationalism questions the feasibility of liberal theory for the reasoned justification of a political community with free and equal citizens. Further, it addresses a central normative dilemma in liberal theory. On the one hand, liberalism emphasizes citizens’ active role in shaping their conditions for freedom. At the same time, it defends their protection from the public sphere as passive subjects of human rights. As a consequence, liberal theory divides up into a more contextualized view on social actions and an atomistic consideration of society based on positive recognition of abstract rights. In the face of this apparent dichotomy, this paper employs a “third way” between traditional liberal-democratic theory and more “communitarianist” approaches by stressing the significance of the state as the guarantor of a common legal community, which has to address its subjects of law in their individual and collective nature. The insights gained from the discussion on pluri-nationalism will contribute to reconcile these apparently oppositional approaches. It is demonstrated that both – instead of being competing conceptions – are rather two sides of the same coin.

The subject of this paper consists of the dichotomy between keynesism and liberalism. In the paper will be mentioned authors same on one side and same on the other side. We did’t mean to be partizans neither of liberalism nor of interventionism, but to ilustrate the alternatives that remain at the disposition of authorities in the process of implementing the public choice.

This contribution reviews the book titled Law and Religion in the Liberal State, and edited by two scholars, namely Md Jahid Hossain Bhuiyan and Darryn Jensen. The book contains a collection of papers dealing with the relationship between law and religion in liberal jurisdictions such as Great Britain, Europe, Italy, the USA, Australia and India. It also contains a few contributions that explore the relationship between religious freedom and certain traditions, such as Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity. It also has a contribution on the theological ideas of Roger Williams, who is regarded as the founder of the Rhode Island's colony.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Pädagogik is the property of Julius Beltz GmbH & Co. KG Beltz Juventa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on both Masaryk's theoretical concepts and practical endeavours to establish independent democratic sates in Central Europe after World War I. Masaryk's ideas developed from his theoretical knowledge, his knowledge of history, as well as from his political experience as a parliamentary deputy. At the centre lay his belief that the existence of nations as multilayered, integrated entities was an important condition for the development of democracy, provided that smaller nations were respected by larger ones and would be given sufficient space and autonomy to develop properly. The general acceptance of democratic and humanitarian values and principles would guarantee an end to the traditional expansionism of larger nations at the expense of the freedom, standards and dignity of smaller nations. Attention is also focused on Masaryk's extensive activities during the First World War regarding the independence of democratic states in Central Europe.

Michel Foucault's work and way of thinking of the late 1970s was marked by a fundamental turn, which was probably much more than the 'shift' he was speaking of at the very end of his life. To shed some light on this pivotal moment in Foucault's constantly 'shifting' style of reasoning, this paper focuses firstly on his 1978 lecture "What is critique?", and secondly presents some insights form an interview published only recently, where Foucault talks about his often-criticized journalistic trips to Iran in fall of the same year.

1848 is a watershed in Dutch political and intellectual history. In the wake of liberalism positivism and empiricism dominated Dutch philosophy. In this paper it is argued that Spinoza’s philosophy played an important part in developing a liberal Weltanschauung. Dutch Spinozism started with the theological dissertation of Johannes van Vloten (1843), who from the 1860s onwards became the great pamphleteer of Spinozism. However due to his break with Christianity he remained an exception in Dutch intellectual life. The Utrecht professor of philosophy Cornelis Willem Opzoomer (1821–1892) and his friend the classical scholar D. Burger jr. (1820-1891), for example, propagated a liberal Christianity purged from its mythical elements. Adopting Schleiermacher’s example Opzoomer developed a morality inspired by Ethics V. In 1850 he turned to J. S. Mill and A. Comte. From that year onwards he justified the methodological unity of the natural and ‘moral’ sciences in Spinoza’s doctrine of the passions. According to Burger the Ethics contains an obsolete metaphysics, but due to its morality consistent with science the book deserves a large 19th-century readership. In 1858 he translated Spinoza’s main work into Dutch.

In this paper, I will try to offer a very concise overview of the development of the capitalism after the World War II. Specific historical constellation in the postwar period has enabled the development of Keynesian project in response to the crisis of the Great Depression. However, due to the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system, the Keynesian project has exhausted itself by the beginning of the 1970s, which caused a new crisis. This opened the way for the return of neo-liberal theory and neo-liberal policies that dominates today.

Bill Clinton regained the tradition of social liberalism that, from an open minded perspective, shaped their design of a unique Presidency where action and response converged in the form of public policy for social demands. The Clinton administration operated democracy as a social asset of indispensable addition to the shared idea of Good Government and public service. In this paper we study various fields of application of social liberalism implemented by President Clinton. Public policies were the focus of government action, by implementing an elasticity covering citizen services and upholding their dignity as an active member of the demos. The deployment of social policy as a part of the moral heritage for democracy.

O presente artigo apresenta os principais componentes da filosofia política de Dworkin, aqui chamada de "igualitarismo liberal." Para atingir esse objetivo, reconstrói a sua teoria do Direito e sua compreensão do direito fundamental de todos cidadãos ao igual respeito e consideração. Além disso, discute criticamente a sua tentativa de compatibilizar essa igualdade formal, bem como uma concepção mais substancial de igualdade, com a liberdade.This paper sorts out the main elements in Dworkin's political philosophy here called "liberal igualitarianism." To reach this aim, it reconstructs his conception of Law and his understanding of the citizens' most fundamental right to equal respect and concern. Moreover, it analyzes his attempt to reconcile this formal equality, as well as a more substantial equality, with freedom

The paper is an analysis of Dworkin's attempt to develop, within liberal theory, a conception of community and associative obligations, where community is taken as a particular intrinsic value. Certainly, this attempt encounters various difficulties, like the insufficiently robust distinction between political community and other types of communities, as well as Dworkin's too narrow delimitation of the scope of activities and competences of political community. It is argued nevertheless that this endeavor is highly significant, complementing substantially the theoretical concerns of standard liberal theories.

The paper is an expanded version of the project proposal 'Liberal values and political stabilization in Serbia'. The idea of the proposal is to explore the possibilities of acceptance and stabilization of liberal patterns of distribution of social goods in transitional countries, keeping in mind peculiarities of the Serbian case. Liberalization of these countries is usually an uneasy and uncertain process. There are two kind paradoxes of liberalization. The first concerns the necessity of political incentives for depoliticization of several social spheres. The second is related to possible self-destructive performances of liberal institutions in the process of transition. The stabilization of liberal-democracy in transitional countries is dependent on the capacity of institutions to build within themselves the mechanisms for alleviating these uneasiness. Two of them I find especially important: the system of social responsibilities and public reason.