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40Platone e l'efficacia: realizzabilità della teoria normativaAcademia. 2009.Plato's political thought gave rise to a number of concepts and issues - such as the idea of a normative theory, the philosophical foundation of politics, the philosopher-kings, the standard of utopian theory - which have played a significant role on Western political and philosophical thought. This volume aspires to bring out Plato's concept of efficacy in a normative theory. By efficacy, the author means the way in which the theory conceives of its practical realization. If in the Republic thi…Read more
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56A Theory of Justice for Animals. Animal Rights in a Nonideal World. By Robert GarnerConstellations 22 (3): 473-475. 2015.
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10Il progresso morale in Kant Impossibilità ontologica e necessità praticaRivista di Filosofia 100 (3): 373-396. 2009.This article examines the notion of moral progress in Kant's moral system. Moral progress is required (and it is recognized as a duty of virtue in the "Metaphysics of Morals") insofar as it is a consequence of the assumption that human beings are responsible for their moral characters. Nevertheless, moral progress is metaphysically impossible, since individual "Gesinnung" is placed in a noumenical dimension, which, by definition, is independent of both time and empirical conditions. This leads K…Read more
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25A Matter of Respect: On Majority‐Minority Relations in a Liberal DemocracyJournal of Applied Philosophy 30 (3): 239-253. 2013.In this article, we engage critically with the understanding of majority-minority relations in a liberal democracy as relations of toleration. We make two main claims: first, that appeals to toleration are unable to capture the procedural problems concerning the unequal socio-political participation of minorities, and, second, that they do not offer any critical tool to establish what judgements the majority is entitled to consider valid reasons for action with respect to some minority. We sugge…Read more
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83Toleration and informal groups: How does the formal dimension affect groups' capacity to tolerate?European Journal of Political Theory 12 (3): 288-305. 2013.The ‘agents’ of toleration can be divided into three categories: public institutions, groups and individuals. If it is mostly accepted that both public institutions and individuals are capable of toleration, it is not clear that such a capacity can be attributed to groups, although in daily discourse we seem ready to say that a certain social group is (in)tolerant. This article aims to address this issue by investigating the relationship between collective agency and social groups. Formal groups…Read more
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123Dignity and Animals. Does it Make Sense to Apply the Concept of Dignity to all Sentient Beings?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (5): 1117-1130. 2016.Although the idea of dignity has always been applied to human beings and although its role is far from being uncontroversial, some recent works in animal ethics have tried to apply the idea of dignity to animals. The aim of this paper is to discuss critically whether these attempts are convincing and sensible. In order to assess these proposals, I put forward two formal conditions that any conception of dignity must meet and outline three main approaches which might justify the application of di…Read more
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42How groups matter: challenges of toleration in pluralistic societiesRoutledge. 2014.When groups feature in political philosophy, it is usually in one of three contexts: the redressing of past or current injustices suffered by ethnic or cultural minorities; the nature and scope of group rights; and questions around how institutions are supposed to treat a certain specific identity/cultural/ethnic group. What is missing from these debates is a comprehensive analysis of groups as both agents and objects of social policies. While this has been subject to much scrutiny by sociologis…Read more
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37Individuals, Species and Equality. A Critique of McMahan’s Intrinsic Potential AccountJournal of Value Inquiry 50 (3): 573-592. 2016.Jeff McMahan has recently provided a forceful defense of methodological anti-speciesism against speciesists’ claim that species standard is a meaningful criterion to assess the value of lives and the nature of deprivation. In this paper I discuss McMahan’s favored account (the Intrinsic Potential Account) to assess the value of life and the nature of deprivation and challenge its overall ethical and methodological tenability. I level three charges against the Intrinsic Potential Account. I argue…Read more
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33The Legitimacy of the Supranational Regulation of Local Systems of Food Production: A Discussion Whose Time Has ComeJournal of Social Philosophy 46 (4): 418-433. 2015.By reference to the illustrative case of the supranational regulation of local systems of food production, we aim to show the importance of identifying issues of international legitimacy as a discrete component – alongside issues of global distributive justice – of the liberal project of public justification of supranational collective decisions. Therefore, we offer the diagnosis of a problem but do not prescribe the therapy to cure it.
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47The Priority of Suffering Over Life. How to Accommodate Animal Welfare and Religious SlaughterLes ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 9 (3): 162-183. 2014.Federico Zuolo | : Most contemporary Western laws regarding the treatment of animals in livestock farming and animal slaughter are primarily concerned with the principle that animal suffering during slaughter should be minimized, but that animal life may be taken for legitimate human purposes. This principle seems to be widely shared, intuitively appealing and capable of striking a good compromise between competing interests. But is this principle consistent? And how can it be normatively ground…Read more
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133Equality, its Basis and Moral Status: Challenging the Principle of Equal Consideration of InterestsInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 25 (2): 170-188. 2017.The principle of equal consideration of interests is a very popular principle in animal ethics. Peter Singer employs it to ground equal treatment and solve the problem of the basis of equality, namely the problem of why we should grant equal treatment despite the variability of people’s features. In this paper, I challenge Singer’s argument because ECOI does not provide plausible grounds to presume that the interests of diverse individuals are actually equal. Analyzing the case of pain and the i…Read more
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78On Justice and Other Values: G.A. Cohen's Political Philosophy and the Problem of Trade-offsPhilosophical Papers 42 (1). 2013.(2013). On Justice and Other Values: G.A. Cohen's Political Philosophy and the Problem of Trade-offs. Philosophical Papers: Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 1-24. doi: 10.1080/05568641.2013.774721
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37Kant's Conception of Moral Progress: Ontological Impossibility and Practical NecessityRivista di Filosofia 100 (3): 373-396. 2009.
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9Durkheim and Weber: Methodological Reflections for Management and Business StudiesPhilosophy for Business 54. 2009.
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136Frontiers of toleration and respect: non-moral approaches and groups' relationsEuropean Journal of Political Theory 12 (3): 219-222. 2013.
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54The relations between the majority and minorities in a democracy have been standardly viewed as the main subject matter of toleration: the majority should refrain from using its dominant position to interfere with some minorities’ practices or beliefs despite its dislike or disapproval of such practices or beliefs. Can the idea of toleration provide us with the necessary resources to understand and respond to the problems arising out of majority/minorities relations in a democracy? We reply in t…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |