This chapter offers a phenomenological analysis of the intentionality of desires. It argues that desires are complex intentional states that entail both axiological and conative characters in relations of founding. By explicating the intentionality of desires, the chapter demonstrates that desires are similar to emotions as well as volitions but also differ crucially from both. Whereas emotion can lack conative components, desires always posit some goals or other, and strive for their posited goals. Unlike full-fledged volitions, however, desires entail deeply affective axiological components. The first section of the chapter provides the basic conceptual tools that are needed for a phenomenological analyses of the intentionality of desires. The second section distinguishes intentional desires from pre-intentional drives, affections, and feelings. It thereby clarifies the type of object-directedness that is characteristic of desire. The third section then explicates the axiological and conative constituents of desires in the interest of distinguishing desires from both emotions and volitions. The final section throws light on the temporality of desires. It argues that the intentionality of desires provides them with a specific “temporal shape” and makes them future-orientated. At the same time, this gives them a strong interest in realities and prospects of realization.

This chapter analyses the Marxian problem of transforming values into prices of production in light of Sraffa’s price system. It begins by introducing an ‘ideal’ price system where workers receive the entire net product. This system, based on ‘values’ or embodied labor, is contrasted with the ‘prices-of-production system’ where profits are distributed in proportion to total capital. The chapter then delves into the differences between these systems, highlighting Marx’s three propositions about the relationship between the rate of surplus value and the rate of profit.

It examines the special case of Sraffa’s Standard system where income distribution is independent of the price system and explores the concept of a linear operator that transforms values into prices. The chapter also discusses Marx’s simplification of uniform ‘organic composition of capital,’ where values and prices coincide. Finally, it demonstrates that the rate of surplus value is inherent in the prices-of-production system when expressed in terms of the per-capita net product.

The first chapter provides an orientation in the lives of disabled people in Kinshasa through a consideration of how the interlocutors were identified and identified themselves as disabled, as handicapé – a relatively narrowly defined and recently agreed-upon category of persons. People sometimes overtly pursued this identity for the occasional advantages it could provide, but recognition as an handicapé, and enforcing associated privileges, is far from straightforward. Rather than a depoliticised knowable fact of the body, making handicapé into a recognised identity continues to be politically contested and destabilised, among others through internal rivalries among disabled people and between their organisations. The chapter thus considers the role of a wide variety of disabled peoples’ organisations, and especially the bureaucracy represented by their membership cards, as means of establishing disability status. ‘Real’ membership and leadership was ultimately uncertain and based on constant mutual evaluation. Keeping uncertainties alive allows for an expression of values on the distribution of resources, while creating a productive uncertainty around the question of membership itself.

The Conclusion urges us to consider practices that lead to becoming ‘valuable people’ as something that goes beyond overcoming stigma to changing the evaluations that define what is good. It brings the discussions about values together with a final example of how my interlocutors pursued valued inclusion, by embracing a biomedical model of personhood where people are judged on their minds rather than on their bodies. This draws attention to the wider relevance of questions of entitlement, distribution, and values: wherever my interlocutors went, discussions of values followed.

This chapter reconceptualises environmental competence as a dynamic capability rooted in an interconnected blend of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, understanding and desire. Drawing on foundational models, it examines the structural components of pro-environmental behaviour and links these to empirical studies emphasising the foundations of ecological action. Building on this, the chapter introduces dynamic frameworks – particularly the sustainability competency models developed by Wiek, Withycombe and Redman and extended by Redman and Wiek – which emphasise collaborative, anticipatory, normative and strategic dimensions of sustainability planning. Through reflective tasks and case-based learning, readers are encouraged to recognise and cultivate transformative competencies, such as intercultural mediation and intra-personal awareness, essential for navigating global environmental challenges. The chapter also highlights concepts like Kickwa alli kawsay and Japanese kizuna as culturally embedded pathways towards sustainable living, reinforcing the argument that environmental competence must be pluralistic, inclusive and action-oriented. Ultimately, the text advocates for a holistic shift from static notions of competence to adaptive, integrative models that empower individuals and communities to enact meaningful change within diverse societal contexts.

There are two readings of how Sellars analyzed ought-statements: a first-order expressivist reading and a metalinguistic reading. In this chapter, I argue that unpublished draft material related to the creation of a key text in Sellars’s practical philosophy, the last chapter of Science and Metaphysics, shows that Sellars at least seriously considered adopting a metalinguistic analysis of “ought.” I also explore the relation between these exegetical questions and the broader problems raised by Sellars’s thought. Which reading of Sellars on “ought” we adopt can affect our outlook on the place of norms in Sellars’s scientific naturalism. I argue that a metalinguistic reading of “ought” permits the view that norms can become perfectly implicit at Sellars’s ideal end of inquiry.

Chapter 2 reviews John Merryman’s ‘two ways of thinking’ about cultural property, rooted in an eighteenth-century dispute about the respective merits of particularism and cosmopolitanism, which continues to the present. A new section has been added on material looted from Benin.

The sale, twice, of a Medici cabinet ordered for an English estate introduces the modern idea of heritage, initiated by Edmund Burke. It covers Protestant narratives and customary laws, and concludes with Alasdair MacIntyre’s thesis about narrative and identity.

Focused on China, Chapter 4 explores ideological competition in the construction of heritage. New material has been added on holding human remains. It concludes with a major set of Buddhist figures to set up the discussion about the reintegration of sculptural groups.

Chapter 5 begins with export controls and then moves to the domestic regulation of art and architecture in common law countries, with the removal of a Tiffany mosaic as the test case. Finally, it examines a ‘compositional’ reason to reintegrate the Parthenon frieze.

Chapter 1 opens with a discussion of values, which frames the volume. It then reviews four well-known works/groups of work to introduce a debate about cultural ownership, beginning with the Bamiyan Buddhas, followed by Guernica, the Parthenon sculptures, and Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington.

The final chapter opens with a hypothetical debate between cosmopolitan and particularist positions, which is then mapped onto contemporary political philosophy. It concludes with Joseph Raz’s pluralist and perfectionist liberal requirement that states should support culture.

The traditional narratives of Austrian constitutional law are evolving. Long decried by scholars and practitioners to be ‘in ruins’, the Austrian Constitution has recently been lauded as ‘elegant and beautiful’ by Austria’s President, thus attempting a paradigm shift in the Austrian public’s perception of its constitution. While some textbooks claim it (still) is a merely formal, ‘value neutral constitution of game rules’ much in the spirit of Hans Kelsen, the Austrian Constitution and its interpretation show more and more signs of converging into a principled, value-oriented and purposive approach common in many other countries. The multinational legal legacy of the Habsburg Empire and its potential for understanding the European integration have been recognized as an asset, just as the ensuing creation of the world’s first constitutional court is of pride and the Austrian Constitution’s leading export.