Should we Distinguish Between Repugnant and Non-Repugnant Unreasonable Views?
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Alasia Nuti
Abstract
Shmuel Nili’s Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory is a thought-provoking book, calling philosophers to arms in the effort of containing the spread of ‘unreasonable’ views characterising many contemporary societies. Nili argues that philosophers can play a distinctive role by arguing from premises they reject to show how those presumptions do not lead to upholding the ‘repugnant’ policies their interlocutors back up. This paper focuses on a distinction that is key to Nili’s argument, i.e. that between ‘repugnant’ and ‘non-repugnant’ unreasonable policies. According to Nili, philosophers should be under no obligation to engage discursively in the way he envisions when their interlocutors support policies that are repugnant, i.e. they clearly violate universal human equality. The paper argues that it does not make sense to treat repugnant unreasonable views as normatively different from non-repugnant premises. The repugnant/non-repugnant distinction is untenable and too subject to ‘reasonable’ disagreement to offer concrete normative guidance.
References
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© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus: Shmuel Nili, Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory
- Précis of Philosophizing the Indefensible
- Should we Distinguish Between Repugnant and Non-Repugnant Unreasonable Views?
- Property Rights, Fossil Fuel Imports, and Climate Change
- Civic Friendship, the Burdens of Politics, and the Ethics of Attention
- Philosophizing the Indefensible: Reply to Critics
- General Part
- What Can Historicising Rawls Achieve?
- Can Two Opposing Narratives Be Equally Valid? Reflections on Zreik’s Reflections on the War in Gaza
- Just Independence Wars and the October 7th Massacre
- Past, Present, and Future: A Reply to Heyd and Benbaji
- Proportionality and Necessity in Israel’s Invasion of Gaza, 2023–2024
- Discussion
- Response to My Critics
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus: Shmuel Nili, Philosophizing the Indefensible: Strategic Political Theory
- Précis of Philosophizing the Indefensible
- Should we Distinguish Between Repugnant and Non-Repugnant Unreasonable Views?
- Property Rights, Fossil Fuel Imports, and Climate Change
- Civic Friendship, the Burdens of Politics, and the Ethics of Attention
- Philosophizing the Indefensible: Reply to Critics
- General Part
- What Can Historicising Rawls Achieve?
- Can Two Opposing Narratives Be Equally Valid? Reflections on Zreik’s Reflections on the War in Gaza
- Just Independence Wars and the October 7th Massacre
- Past, Present, and Future: A Reply to Heyd and Benbaji
- Proportionality and Necessity in Israel’s Invasion of Gaza, 2023–2024
- Discussion
- Response to My Critics
