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Is mercy more important than justice?Since antiquity, mercy has been regarded as a virtue. The power of monarchs was legitimated by their acts of clemency, their mercy demonstrating their divine nature. Yet by the end of the eighteenth century, mercy had become "an injustice committed against society . . . a manifest vice." Mercy was exiled from political life. How did this happen?In this book, Malcolm Bull analyses and challenges the Enlightenment's rejection of mercy. A society operating on principles of rational self-interest had no place for something so arbitrary and contingent, and having been excluded from Hobbes's theory of the state and Hume's theory of justice, mercy disappeared from the lexicon of political theory. But, Bull argues, these idealised conceptions have proved too limiting. Political realism demands recognition of the foundational role of mercy in society. If we are vulnerable to harm from others, we are in need of their mercy. By restoring the primacy of mercy over justice, we may constrain the powerful and release the agency of the powerless. And if arguments for capitalism are arguments against mercy, might the case for mercy challenge the very basis of our thinking about society and the state?An important contribution to contemporary political philosophy from an inventive thinker, On Mercy makes a persuasive case for returning this neglected virtue to the heart of political thought

The necessity of Arcadia, as fabular vantage-point for dear vision of the world we inhabit. Malcolm Bull follows a wooded path leading from the mythological parallels of Renaissance art to the modern gallery space. Adapted from the source document.

A discussion of Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri's Empire (2000) begins by acknowledging the value of Lacan's mirror stage, which is related to Dionysus' mirror, as a political myth & a model for migration dynamics. As migration is hardly attended to in classical political theory, it persists in the realm of myth. Augustine's & Slavoj Zizek's views on migration, or exodus, are looked at in this light & in relation to Hardt & Negri's multitude. For postmodernists, exodus -- typically seen to involve three phases -- has become a two-place relation. Hardt & Negri turn nomadism into the "Neoplatonic ascent of the soul" wherein their Augustinian rhetoric crosses with Deleuze & Guattari's nomadology; migrant & nomad refer to the same people whenever they wish to stress the liberatory potential of nomadism, made possible, they reason, because they believe that now this is a "smooth world" (ie, no longer striated) characterized by a withered civil society, the collapse of national boundaries, & the obsolescence of traditional forms of politics. According to Hardt & Negri, this smoothness is the condition of the multitude's utopian aggregation. Linkages between Durkheimian concepts, organic & mechanical solidarity & the Body without Organs, to Deleuzain/Guattarian ideas in Empire are noted before addressing migration as a model for a politics of unfettered political agency, a politics without sociology, ie, a politics of unimpeded movement. Yet this smooth politics winds up constrained anyway in the social forms it can take. It is then contended that while nomadism might effect political change, in late modernity, it is largely motivated by the desire for wealth. Remarks are then offered on the notion of desire, highlighting Plotinus, Lacan, & desire's centralty to Hardt & Negri. It is argued that Hardt & Negri are actually working with the illusion of a smooth world, ignoring the striations that still exist, however finely wrought. Thus, the multitude is able to see the fantasy of its own unity in this smooth mirror. It is asserted that reasserting Durkheim's organic solidarity against Deleuze & Guattari's conception of the Body without Organs exposes the striations beneath the illusion of smoothness. The example of the Wobblies is used to illustrate the fallacy in Hardt & Negri's rejection of hybridity, which is identity across striation, & suggest that the Wobblies make a productive model for a contemporary politics of migration. Ultimately, Hardt & Negri's secular utopianism retains the social dynamics of its mythological predecessors. J. Zendejas

Examines the concept of the self in the writings of political philosophers Alasdair MacIntyre & Charles Taylor. Argues that their conceptions of the self that they develop regarding the identity of the moral subject exclude many people & the various narratives they offer that account for their formation. Considers an alternative developmental path for development of the modern self in the works of Aristotle, Hegel, & DuBois after detailing Taylor's & MacIntyre's arguments. Nietzsche is considered in conclusion to further clarify how the self is conceived & transformed in Taylor & MacIntyre in response to modernity's emancipations. R. Rodriguez