Janelle Pötzsch

This paper provides a political account of sweatshop labour by highlighting the role of political actors in establishing and sustaining exploitative working conditions in global sweatshops. In academic debates on sweatshop labour, the focus has been mostly on the responsibility of business or consumers (cf. Arnold & Bowie, 2007; Meyers, 2007; Zoller, 2015), although there are some authors who deal with the role of trade unions and civil society (cf. Kabeer, 2000). To provide a broader picture, I draw on the differentiation between extractive and inclusive institutions made by development economists Acemoglu and Robinson (2013) and apply this account to the sweatshop issue. I argue that sweatshops are a political rather than an economic problem, and substantiate my claim by drawing on the Chinese household registration system _hukou_, and the political background conditions in Bangladesh.

Zu kaum einer anderen Thematik äußern sich Vertreter so unterschiedlicher Disziplinen wie zur Sweatshop-Diskussion. Neben Historikern, Sozialwissenschaftlern und Ökonomen umfassen diese auch Philosophen. Obwohl eine solche Kombination das Potential für fruchtbare und relevante Analysen birgt, scheint die wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung um Sweatshops weitestgehend stagnierend. Bei der bisherigen Diskussion stellt sich das Problem, dass moralische Fragen einerseits entweder ausgeklammert oder als gegenstandslos dargestellt wer-den und andererseits moralische Vorgaben postuliert werden, ohne sich mit ihren Realisierungsmöglichkeiten auseinanderzusetzen. Die Argumente bewegen sich noch auf sehr unterschiedlichen Ebenen. Für eine aussagekräftige normative Bewertung der Sweatshop-Problematik gilt es daher, diese verschiedenen Ebenen aufeinander zu beziehen bzw. zwischen ihnen zu vermitteln. Dies soll in der vor-liegenden Arbeit geschehen, indem ich für die normative Analyse der Sweatshop-Thematik auch empirische Untersuchungen berücksichtige und damit relevante Ergebnisse der unterschiedlichen Forschungsdisziplinen einbeziehe.

This paper discusses Mill’s early essay on marriage and divorce (1832) and gives two possible sources of influence for it: Plato’s arguments on the appropriate scope of the law in book IV of his Republic and Unitarian ideas on motherhood. It demonstrates that Plato’s Republic and Mill’s essay both emphasize the crucial role of background conditions in achieving desirable social aims. Similar to Plato’s claim that the law should provide only a rough framework and not concern itself with questions of etiquette (Republic, 425d), Mill envisions a society in which men and women meet as equals and hence are in no need of marriage laws. Besides, this paper will relate Mill’s essay on marriage and divorce to Unitarian ideas on the social role of women to account for his reservations about the gainful employment of married women and mothers. Mill’s claim that the rightful employment of a mother is “the training of the affections” (Mill 1970, 76) is fueled by the Unitarian conception of women as the moral educators of future citizens.

This paper discusses the political implications of Diderot’s Paradox on the actor by relating it to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Albeit these two authors seem to have only very little in common, they actually just employ different techniques in order to deal with a similar problem: In the same way that Diderot’s Paradox is more than a theoretical essay on the theory of acting, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is not only a fictitious travel narrative critical of society. In fact, Swift’s literary text offers a unique illustration of Diderot’s theoretical exploration of power structures and structures of thinking. It will become evident that both works are meditations on the correlations of observation, and hence also on power relations. As such, they raise questions concerning the functioning of society and the role of the individual in maintaining this society.

In episode 6 of the first season of The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–, MGM Television), the Republic of Gilead welcomes a trade delegation of the United Mexican States. Offred’s hope that the ensuing trade agreement between Gilead and Mexico would eventually bring the sexual exploitation she and the other handmaids suffer to public are quickly dashed. During a chance encounter at the house of Offred’s master, the Mexican ambassador Mrs Castillo confides in Offred that Mexico is suffering a fertility crisis just like Gilead. Her country is seriously considering trading with Gilead in handmaids (season 1, episode 6, “A Woman’s Place”). My article will use this episode as a starting point to reflect on the correlation between women’s social and economic status. I will illustrate how The Handmaid’s Tale demonstrates that markets are socially embedded and thereby reproduce and amplify social and political inequalities. This series thereby also functions as a powerful validation of the asymmetry thesis concerning markets in reproductive labour.

John C. Altmann decides whether Dracula can really be blamed for his crimes, since it's his nature as a vampire to behave a certain way. Robert Arp argues that Dracula's addiction to live human blood dooms him to perpetual frustration and misery. John V. Karavitis sees Dracula as a Randian individual pitted against the Marxist collective. Greg Littmann maintains that if we disapprove of Dracula's behavior, we ought to be vegetarians. James Edwin Mahon uses the example of Dracula to resolve nagging problems about the desirability of immortality. Adam Barkman and Michael Versteeg ponder what it would really feel like to be Dracula, and thereby shed some light on the nature of consciousness. Robert Vuckovich looks at the sexual morality of Dracula and other characters in the Dracula saga. Ariane de Waal explains that "Dragula" is scary because every time this being appears, it causes "gender trouble." And Cari Callis demonstrates that the Count is really the Jungian Shadow archetype--with added Shapeshifter elements--in the journey of Mina Harker, heroine/victim of Stoker's novel, from silly girl to empowered woman.

This paper discloses the intellectual context of the feminist arguments English philosopher Harriet Taylor Mill (1807-1858) gives in her essay “Enfranchisement of Women” (1851). It will discuss to what extent Taylor Mill’s feminist views have been influenced by, and contributing to, Unitarianism and radical Unitarianism. My analysis of Taylor Mill’s essay focuses on three core aspects of the Unitarian tenet: its philosophy of history, its educational theory, and the “marriage as slavery”-trope of the radical Unitarians. I thereby provide an account of the influences on Taylor Mill’s thought that are both separate from, and even predate her meeting with J.S. Mill.

Are the houyhnhnms, the rational horses Gulliver meets in the fourth chapter of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), meant as role models for man? I think there are reasons to doubt this view. To illustrate this claim, I’ll compare Swift’s portrayal of the houyhnhnms with Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). There, Kant explicates that man is no ‘purely rational being’ but a ‘sensual rational being’. We’ll see that this characterization has tremendous consequences for the justification of Kant’s moral principle. Similarly, Swift designates man as an animal rationis capax, i.e. an animal which is only capable of reasoning, but not wholly governed by it. Violations of moral norms are hence very likely to occur. Concluding, I shall argue that the houyhnhnms are no role-models because their morality runs counter to human nature. Instead, they serve to show that man adheres to an illusion.

Jonathan Swift and Philosophy is the first book to analyse and interpret Swift’s writing from a philosophical angle. By placing key texts of Swift in their philosophical and cultural contexts and providing background to their history of ideas, it demonstrates how well informed Swift’s criticism of the politics, philosophy, and science of his age actually was. Moreover, it also sets straight preconceptions about Swift as ignorant about the scientific developments of his time. The authors offer insights into, and interpretations of, Swift’s political philosophy, ethics, and his philosophy of science and demonstrate how versatile a writer and thinker Swift actually was. This book will be of interest to scholars of philosophy, history of ideas, and 18th century literature and culture.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the background to Mill’s feminist thought by relating his Subjection of Women (1869) to his early piece ‘On Marriage’ (1832) and three contemporary essays that were written among the radical Unitarian community of South Place Chapel by Harriet Taylor Mill, William Bridges Adams (1797–1872), and William Johnson Fox (1786–1864). It seeks to demonstrate that Mill’s Subjection of Women (1869) still has close ties with the earlier feminist thought of the South Place Chapel circle. Specifically, it will show that key arguments like the characterisation of marriage as slavery, the pernicious moral effects of gendered education, and the social benefits of women’s liberation feature in the early essays by Mill himself, Harriet Taylor Mill, William Bridges Adams, and William Johnson Fox as well as in Mill’s Subjection.

Robert Zaretsky’s The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas offers a nuanced and engaging account of a thinker who to this date is mostly shunned by academic philosophy. As indicated by its subtitle, it explores five key concepts in Weil’s thought that according to Zaretsky “still reso-nate today. Or, I believe, should resonate”, given Weil’s obscurity. By linking each of these con-cepts to a particular episode or development in Weil’s more-than-eventful life, Zaretsky makes both his protagonist and the contemporary challenges she deals with in her writings palpable. Es-pecially the first is no easy task, in view of the many paradoxes that surround Weil’s life and per-sonality: A secular Jew in the search of a Christian God, a pacifist eager to fight in the Spanish Civil war, a rationalist with mystic leanings, “a communist with a small c” (68) mistrustful of par-ties on either side of the political spectrum. Zaretsky demonstrates that it is precisely this ambiva-lence of Weil which makes her such a “subversive” and fascinating author who defies expectations and unnerves her readers.