Magdalena Bogacz

The May Coup, carried out in Poland by Marshal Józef Piłsudski, overthrew the elected officials of the government. Piłsudski removed the government by force but chose not to impose traditional dictatorship and declined the presidency. However, he was considered the power behind the throne until his death. The May Coup differed from other earlier Polish coups. Its presumed goal was the rebirth of the soul of the nation. This article tests this thesis by exploring the ideological and military backgrounds of the May Coup. Although it cannot be denied that Piłsudski relied on force and guided democracy himself after the coup, I argue that focusing on the consequences of the coup is missing the point. The point of contention is not whether the coup achieved its goal of rebirthing democracy in Poland but rather whether there was a just cause to pursue it. Hence, in the light of virtue ethics and the just war concept of legitimate authority, and based on a specific reading of the coup, namely, as a citizen's arrest of the government, I make a case that the coup was permissible from the point of view of military and political ethics.

There is an “underrepresentation problem” in philosophy departments and journals. Empirical data suggest that while we have seen some improvements since the 1990s, the rate of change has slowed down. Some posit that philosophy has disciplinary norms making it uniquely resistant to change. We present results from an empirical case study of a philosophy department that achieved and maintained male-female gender parity among its faculty as early as 2014. Our analysis extends beyond matters of gender parity because that is only one, albeit important, dimension of inclusion. We build from the study to reflect on strategies that may catalyze change.