This article discusses the philosophy of legal judgment that Alessio Lo Giudice has developed in his recent book Il dramma del giudizio. Lo Giudice's main contribution is a forceful defense of the human nature of legal judgment, something that he links to the notion of a 'leap'. This article considers what this leap might entail and asks whether it can accommodate the nature of legal judgment. For this purpose, it will juxtapose the figure of Judge Tatting as sketched by Lon Fuller with the work of the Dutch legal theorist Paul Scholten. Finally, the article asks what the reality of anthropogenic climate change might entail for the role of the judge and Lo Giudice's view on judgment.
The aim of this essay is to address three issues in relation to the problem of judgement: that of technique, that of fraternity, and that of the necessary relationality in the pursuit of "an expectation of justice". These themes are present in Alessio Lo Giudice's book, Il dramma del giudizio, with which I will be in constant dialogue. Through this confrontation, I will try to live up to the hope expressed by the author himself of stimulating further reflection on the themes developed in the volume. In this way, I will attempt to contribute to the consolidation of what Alessio Lo Giudice defines as a "radically human concept of law", a definition that I believe is the keystone of the entire volume.
The Drama of Judgment invites a reconsideration of the fundamental concepts underpinning the judicial experience. It challenges both the mechanistic conception of logical judgment and the notion of arbitrary subjectivism, instead situating the act of judgment within an intersubjective space. This rethinking is accompanied by a renewal of language, imbuing the qualificative terms of judgment with new semantic nuances - more positive, more trustful. This contribution proposes an interpretation of the text through the technique of word cloud analysis, exploring the author's innovative ideas and suggesting that judgment, beyond being a drama, is fundamentally nourished by human relationships, by individuals who act, communicate, and judge. The reflections developed here offer a framework for rereading Lo Giudice's work, highlighting how, in many instances, it provides compelling insights for a rhetorical perspective on law.
This paper discusses the aporias of judgment by analyzing Alessio Lo Giudice's recent book "The Tragedy of Judgment". These aporias consist in the fact that the judge is a human being judging another - which means he is never perfectly impartial -, in the lack of a universal notion of justice, and in the leap over the uncertainties of imputed events. Lo Giudice employs Hannah Arendt's appropriation of the Kantian reflective judgment to grasp the features of juridical judgment. This contribution further delves into the aporia of the personality of judgment by analyzing its contraries: "nobody can judge" with Arendt and "nobody's judgment" with Kafka. Thereby the enormous risks of impersonal judgment will be exposed.
In his essay Il dramma del giudizio (Mimesis, 2023), Alessio Lo Giudice offers a meditation on the act of judging and thus on law itself. He poses a salvific act of resistance against the technocratic temptation to evacuate judgement as a necessary step and expression of the legal process. On the contrary, the author reaffirms that there is no law without judgment and no judgment without drama. To face this drama, he proposes a third way between cynicism and angelism, through "judgmental sensitivity" (sensibilit & agrave; giudicante), which brings together reason and sensitivity, commitment and impartiality.
This article, taking its cue from the comments to the book entitled "Il dramma del giudizio", develops a radically human conception of law by tracing its conceptual roots to the experience of judgment. Starting from a philosophical analysis of judgment as a situated and relational practice performed by finite rational agents, the paper argues that law cannot be adequately understood either as a purely objective, rule-based system or as the product of arbitrary subjectivity. Drawing primarily on a relational interpretation of Kantian autonomy, the article conceives normativity as originating in the intersubjective space constituted by the mutual recognition of human beings as ends in themselves. Judgment is thus presented as a paradigmatic legal experience in which autonomy, universality, and relationality converge. Against both technocratic disembodiment-exemplified by algorithmic decision-making-and subjectivist relativism, the article emphasizes the normative role of the self as rational and historically situated. This perspective allows for a critical rethinking of the foundations of law, highlighting its function as a relational device oriented toward justice understood not as a fixed content but as a dynamic tendency toward social coexistence. The radically human dimension of law ultimately emerges as a critical standard for evaluating contemporary transformations of legal practice and normativity.
The last book of Alasdair MacIntyre, recently translated into Italian, considers the peculiarity of Grossman's life and work (MacIntyre 2016). Grossman appears as one of the examples of practical reasoners who succeeded in achieving a virtuous life. On the one hand, MacIntyre's reading is a sign of the growing popularity of Grossman in our epoch. On the other hand, philosophically speaking, MacIntyre's peculiar reading is part of a tradition of readers focused on Grossman's work, which is considered part of or an emblem of a philosophical theory.This paper attempts to recall those fundamental early theoretical readings (1), to situate MacIntyre's reading of Grossman within this tradition, emphasizing in particular his realism (2), and further to qualify Grossman's realism, taking into account the chronological development of his thought in a metaphysical sense (3).
Anastasia's book offers stimulating keys to understanding today's demagogic uses of criminal justice and the dynamics that characterize the crisis in the prison system. A decisive chapter is dedicated to penal populism, should not be referred to a specific justicialist ideological movement that identifies the criminal repression of crimes as its sole purpose. More widespread than is generally thought, it also resonates within the intermediate bodies of democratic regimes themselves. The book gives an account of a complex of actors, motivations and objectives of the possible and actually practised uses of law and criminal justice. The author's reflections are part of the criminal guarantee movement and participate in an abolitionist sensibility, which is manifested both in the radical questioning of the current model of repression and punishment of crimes, and in the search for alternative solutions to those advocated by neo-liberal penal policies, which feed the same feeling of insecurity that they claim to want to curb.
In this article, I analyze a series of publications on "new ethics" and propose to define this term as a demand for "hyper-recognition" for those whose group identity has been previously discriminated against.I argue that contemporary moral and political philosophy can justify any of the three desirable moral attitudes between individuals and groups: tolerance (negative), recognition (equality), and hyper-recognition (new ethics in domestic discourse). In my opinion, the most adequate option in the moral sphere remains classical negative tolerance. To support this thesis, I compare the mechanisms of tolerant consciousness (J. Horton, D. Heyd) with the mechanisms of recognition (A. Galeotti, P. Jones) and show that there are either logical contradictions or undesirable practical consequences in both the principle of recognition and the principle of hyper-recognition. I do not reconstruct or analyze the whole approach marked as "theory of recognition" here (A. Honneth, N. Fraser and some others prominent philosophers have been playing the key role in the theory) as far I plan to compare pros and cons of toleration being substituted by recognition in a very narrow domain of morality. I accept the idea that domains of morality, politics, and law as far as normative principles these spheres hold at their ground are somehow overlap and shift in respect to the borders of each sphere in real public debates, but in this paper, I rather prefer to treat them as if they are not intertwined. In conclusion, I outline the task of modern tolerance theory as the search for and justification of contextually sensitive second-order grounds for implementing an effective tolerant attitude.
The aim of this article is to identify a dimension related to animality in bodily experience. The thesis is that animality is a dimension of the body on the borderline between identity and foreignness. The main question is: can a description of the relationship between body and animality shed light on the way we experience corporeality? To answer this question, I will use Bernhard Waldenfels'concept of the experience of the alien and Helmuth Plessner's biophilosophy. Waldenfels speaks of moments of strangeness in the corporeal self. These are moments in which the subject experiences its own body as identical with itself and at the same time as other than itself. Plessner suggests the idea of an animal form remaining embedded in the human body through his description of the various levels of the organic. The experience of the alien will therefore be related to the animal dimension in the living body to suggest that animality can be considered among the experiences of the alien.
This essay offers a reflection on the role of narrative in understanding human action, taking Alasdair MacIntyre's perspective as a key framework for rethinking the intelligibility of moral agency. Through a critical engagement with G.E.M. Anscombe and Stephen Brock, it highlights the epistemological function of narrative in accounting not only for explicit intentions, but also for the consequences of praeter intentionem, which often accompany human action. Far from being a mere interpretative tool, narrative emerges as the very structure within which action becomes intelligible, evaluable, and communicable. The narrative unity of moral life-rooted in historical and communal traditions-thus appears as a condition for genuine responsibility. The essay concludes by emphasizing the necessity of shared deliberation as a means to grasp the complexity of human motivation and to orient action toward the common good.
This paper explores the prospects of reasonableness as a civic virtue in the digital age, where the architecture of online platforms and the dynamics of information flow pose significant challenges to democratic life. Drawing on Rawlsian political liberalism, the paper revisits the concept of reasonableness, its role in public deliberation, and its vulnerability to phenomena such as epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, conspiracy thinking, and epistemic injustice. Arguing that ideal theory alone offers limited resources to address these challenges, the paper examines two neo-Aristotelian reconceptualizations of reasonableness: the reasonableness-as-phronesis view, grounded in practical wisdom, and the reasonableness-as-civility view, centered on civic benevolence and civil deliberation. It is argued that the civility-based account offers two key advantages: it provides clearer boundaries for the exercise of the relevant virtues and poses less demanding conditions for their cultivation. These features enhance the feasibility of developing educational strategies that promote reasonable civic engagement and counteract the harmful attitudes that undermine it.
This article examines the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, with particular attention to the geographical and geopolitical dimensions that underpin his thought. It outlines the central arguments concerning the relationship between morality, tradition, and rationality, situating them within broader debates in geographical thought and geopolitical implications. Special emphasis is given to MacIntyre's critique of modern individualism and his call for a return to Aristotelian virtue ethics as a framework capable of providing coherence to moral life. The analysis also highlights how his reflections on community and practices clashes with modern international politics. Through this overview, the article provides readers with essential insights into the geographical implicit reminds of MacIntyre's thought, while also offering points of reflection for future discussion across disciplinary boundaries.
The engagement with Aquinas's philosophical heritage marks a turning point in the intellectual development of Alasdair MacIntyre. In particular, the Thomistic doctrine of natural law provides the Scottish philosopher with a more comprehensive framework for grounding ethics not only at the individual level but, more importantly, at the level of the community. This paper examines how MacIntyre engaged with Aquinas's doctrine of natural law and adopted its key features as a foundation for the ethical and political order. Through MacIntyre's interpretation of Aquinas's ideas, it also becomes possible to highlight certain aspects of the Dominican master's arguments.
The essay aims to analyse why the question of 'acceleration' has acquired a problematising mood, in the Foucauldian sense, in our contemporary times, and why a connection between 'acceleration', the 'end of History' and the 'de-futurisation of the future' can be found and be functional to the reproduction ofthe form of life of neo-liberal capitalism. The analysis starts with a discussion of the philosophy of the accelerationism and Hartmut Rosa's social philosophy of acceleration, and then moves on to the way in which the Anthropocene-the age of the unfolding ecological crisis, in its connection with all other crises of contemporaneity (economic, social, political, of the human condition)-questions the criteria with which Modernity has thought and thinks about its historical and temporal experience and structures. Drawing on the analyses of Reinhart Koselleck, Niklas Luhmann and Hans Blumenberg-how the temporal structures of Modernity were constructed, why the future cannot begin and the reasons for today's disorientation-the essay aims to understand the possibilities of another way of thinking about historical and temporal experience, something like a revolution of time itself.
This article responds to the suggestion implicit in Reinhart Koselleck's Critique and Crisis that the Enlightenment worldview should be understood as a kind of secularized eschatology. Specifically, I hope to gain more precision about what this apparently vague diagnosis means and what to do about it. To do this, I will place Michel Foucault's readings of Kant and Baudelaire in 'What is "Enlightenment"?' alongside Koselleck's own account in Critique and Crisis to flesh out some of the conceptual richness that is missing from the latter. I also draw on a number of religious scholars-particularly J.J. Collins-to give a more precise idea what in particular makes Enlightenment eschatological. Thus, I argue that, at the level of its conceptual grammar, Enlightenment rehearses many of the features of what Collins calls the apocalyptic genre. I conclude by suggesting that Foucault's concept of an experience book provides a model for future philosophies less beholden to the moral-eschatological framework latent in modern critique.
This paper examines the << empirization >> of Hegel's philosophy through the lens of William James and Jean Wahl, two key figures in 20th-century philosophical empiricism. While both thinkers were overtly critical of Hegel's systematic approach, their interpretations integrate elements of his thought into alternative structures. James's radical empiricism and Wahl's second-order empiricism prioritize lived experience over conceptual abstractions, offering a critique of Hegel's dialectics while reimagining his insights on the unity of thought and reality. However, their reinterpretations do not merely dissolve Hegel into experience; rather, they reconstruct his philosophy within a strong, albeit non-systematic, metaphysical framework. By opening Hegel's system to the flux of lived reality, they propose a model where individuality and universality coexist without hierarchical subordination, paving the way for ethical and philosophical pluralism. The paper situates these reinterpretations within broader debates on metaphysics, pragmatism, and the limits of systematic thought.
This essay analyses the role that educational practice assumes in MacIntyre's writings, bringing it into dialogue with the theme of narrative. Drawing on Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative, the paper examines the interplay between education and narrative in order to show the particular sense that the category of narrative takes on in MacIntyre's thought.
Alasdair C. MacIntyre and Hans J. Morgenthau are two central figures in the intellectual history of the 20(th )century who are rarely mentioned together. Without denying the important differences and the distance between the two, these article shows that they converge - partially yet importantly - both in their critique of contemporary morality and in some of the proposed solutions. Morgenthau and MacIntyre believed that the post-Enlightenment project of establishing rationalistically an objective and compelling standard of morality is doomed to fail. They also believe that, absent such framework, and given the rejection of pre-modern moral systems by central actors and institutions of modern societies, morality - and social life with it-are left in a Weberian/Nietzschean: de facto individualism, anarchism, and incoherence. The article concludes with an invitation of a further and systematic comparison: not only between MacIntyre and Morgenthau's moral and social critique, but also between their once again converging, original stance on the epistemological status of the socio-political sciences.
The issue of how philosophers should evaluate colonialism has acquired a new importance due to two recent conflicting views on European colonialism: 'anti-colonialism' and 'revisionism'. Especially revisionism challenges philosophical evaluation, because it purports to roughly rehabilitate European colonialism on moral grounds and suggests a critique of the prevailing view that European colonialism was an injustice. This article defends the thesis that to philosophically assess European colonialism is to insist primarily on its substantive injustice and thus its illegitimacy, even on a generous reading of the revisionist account. Four arguments are developed. First, accepting the anti-colonialist equation of (European) colonialism with slavery would be a non-starter philosophically: colonialism, as such and specifically European, is no obvious evil but requires further inquiry. Second, philosophers' argument of colonialism's procedural injustice, which suggests that a moral inquiry of evidence on European colonialism would be basically unnecessary, is inconclusive due to inherent instability and relevantsubstantive emptiness. Third, Charles Beitz's substantive justice theory of colonialism offers an appropriate philosophical perspective on empirical, European and other, forms of colonialism. Fourth, applying Beitz's theory to revisionist evidence strongly suggests that European colonialism, even if presented in a most favorable light, remains a serious violation of substantive justice.
