This paper explores the religious origins of the secular. It troubles the often rigid and misleading opposition between the secular and sacred through an exploration of this relationship in the thought of Augustine, Calvin, Madison, up to Obama.

Noah Feldman’s elegant essay contains many attractive suggestions, especially in its final compelling discussions of various conceptions of Cosmopolitan Law. Less importantly for your purposes, dear Reader, than for mine, it also provides a fair and clear account of some of my own discussions of cosmopolitanism (in the course of which I have made a few suggestions that may be of relevance for the law). In this brief response, I should like to focus on clarifying one of the (...) conceptual distinctions that I have made: the distinction between the rational and the reasonable. In marking that distinction, I was returning to a contrast I had made many years ago, in In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. Reading Feldman’s response, I realize that I had been a good deal too economical in explaining what I had in mind. Clarifying my view will also help to reinforce an important distinction, which Feldman both accepts and rightly finds stressed in my own work, between the context of our cosmopolitan obligations, on the one hand, and our political obligations, on the other. That is a central theme of his essay, of course; and in clarifying my view, I hope to clarify, as well, how my “reined-in” account of cosmopolitanism might relate to some of the legal and political exigencies he explores. What distinction do I mark by using the two words “rational” and “reasonable,” words that many people would treat as synonyms? I should say, first, that I take both terms to apply both to ways of thinking about what to believe—epistemic reasoning—and to ways of thinking about what to do—practical reasoning. (I think that feelings can be reasonable and unreasonable, too, but this is a complication I shall ignore here.) At a first pass, the distinction I have in mind is between epistemic and practical procedures that are likely to be successful, given the way the world is (which I call “rational”); and procedures that a normal human being has no reason to doubt will be effective, whether or not, in fact, they are (which I call “reasonable”).. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that, all else being equal, theism is more probable than naturalism on the assumption that human beings are able to arrive at a body of moral knowledge that is largely accurate and complete. I put forth this thesis on grounds that, if naturalism is true, the explanation of the content of our moral intuitions terminates either in biological-evolutionary processes or in social conventions adopted for pragmatic reasons; that, if this is so, our moral intuitions were (...) selected for their utility, not their truth; and that, if our moral intuitions were so selected, they are probably false. I defend the argument against three objections: first, that the argument amounts to a generic skeptical challenge; second, that ethical naturalism explains how our moral intuitions could have been selected for their truth; and third, that there is a pre-established harmony between the utility of moral beliefs and their truth-values. (shrink)

Abstract: In this essay, I outline and defend a version of the aesthetic argument for the existence of God, according to which theism explains our capacity for subjective aesthetic experience better than its major competitor, naturalism. I argue that naturalism fails to adequately explain the nature and range of our aesthetic experiences, since these are amenable neither to standard Darwinian explanation nor to explanation in terms of more complex sociobiological mechanisms such as sexual selection or between-group selection. I concede that (...) aesthetic experience may be an evolutionary spandrel but argue that the conjunction of this thesis with naturalism is highly improbable given the prevalence of beauty in the natural world. Theism, on the other hand, furnishes a robust personal explanation of aesthetic experience, since on theism God has both good reasons to bring such experiences about and the power to do so. I address an objection to the theistic explanation from broadly negative aesthetic experiences, arguing that God plausibly has many reasons to allow these. I contend that this formulation of the argument is superior to other extant versions, since it does not depend on controversial probability judgments, dubious analogies between natural phenomena and human artefacts, or objectivism about aesthetic values. (shrink)

I argue for the viability of one neglected way of developing supervenience-based objections to metaethical non-naturalism. This way goes through a principle known as ‘Hume’s Dictum’, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. I challenge several objections to the Hume’s Dictum-based argument. In the course of doing so, I formulate and motivate modest and precise versions of Hume’s Dictum, illustrate how arguments employing these principles might proceed, and argue that the Hume’s Dictum argument enjoys some advantages (...) relative to other supervenience-based objections to non-naturalism. (shrink)

I examine issues in the philosophy of religion at the intersection of what possibilities there are and what a God, as classically conceived in the theistic philosophical tradition, would be able to do. The discussion is centered around arguing for an incompatibility between theism and two principles about possibility and ability, and exploring what theists should say about these incompatibilities. -/- I argue that theism entails that certain kinds and amounts of evil are impossible. This puts theism in conflict with (...) popular principles of modal recombination. However, theists have plausible explanations for the violations of recombination that they posit, and can suitably amend these principles without giving up their usefulness in accounting for what possibilities there are. -/- I also argue that despite the impossibility of these evils, God is able to bring these evils about. This puts theism in conflict with the principle that no one is able to do the impossible. However, theists can give a plausible account of why God is unique in being able to do the impossible, and have distinctive resources to address the arguments in favor of the idea that no one is able to do the impossible. And by denying this principle, theists are able to resolve several otherwise difficult puzzles, including reconciling conflicts between the divine attributes. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 30-31, February 2012.

Little is known about the mechanisms by which psychology graduate programs transmit responsible conduct of research (RCR) values. A national sample of 968 current students and recent graduates of mission-diverse doctoral psychology programs completed a Web-based survey on their research ethics challenges, perceptions of RCR mentoring and department climate, whether they were prepared to conduct research responsibly, and whether they believed psychology as a discipline promotes scientific integrity. Research experience, mentor RCR instruction and modeling, and department RCR policies predicted student (...) RCR preparedness. Mentor RCR instruction, department RCR policies, and faculty modeling of RCR behaviors predicted confidence in the RCR integrity of the discipline. Implications for training are discussed. (shrink)

The sages of Israel and natural wisdom -- Jews and natural philosophy -- Jews and science.

Is language understanding a special case of social cognition? To help evaluate this view, we can formalize it as the rational speech-act theory: Listeners assume that speakers choose their utterances approximately optimally, and listeners interpret an utterance by using Bayesian inference to “invert” this model of the speaker. We apply this framework to model scalar implicature (“some” implies “not all,” and “N” implies “not more than N”). This model predicts an interaction between the speaker's knowledge state and the listener's interpretation. (...) We test these predictions in two experiments and find good fit between model predictions and human judgments. (shrink)

The health co-benefits of CO2 mitigation can provide a strong incentive for climate policy through reductions in air pollutant emissions that occur when targeting shared sources. However, reducing air pollutant emissions may also have an important co-harm, as the aerosols they form produce net cooling overall. Nevertheless, aerosol impacts have not been fully incorporated into cost-benefit modeling that estimates how much the world should optimally mitigate. Here we find that when both co-benefits and co-harms are taken fully into account, optimal (...) climate policy results in immediate net benefits globally, overturning previous findings from cost-benefit models that omit these effects. The global health benefits from climate policy could reach trillions of dollars annually, but will importantly depend on the air quality policies that nations adopt independently of climate change. Depending on how society values better health, economically optimal levels of mitigation may be consistent with a target of 2 °C or lower. (shrink)

In this essay, I reply to an influential objection to evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism. According to this objection, our capacity for autonomous rational reflection allows us to grasp moral truths independently of distorting evolutionary influences, so those influences do not prevent us from having moral knowledge. I argue that rational moral reflection is not, in fact, autonomous from evolutionary influences, since it depends on our evolved, pre-reflective grasp of moral properties. I then consider and reject the suggestion that (...) realists can supply an autonomous foundation for rational moral reflection or do without any such foundation. Next, I address the allegation that my arguments have skeptical implications for rational reflection in non-moral domains. Finally, I conclude with a gesture toward a more promising route for realists who oppose debunking arguments. (shrink)

This book addresses some basic questions about intrinsic value: What is it? What has it? What justifies our beliefs about it? In the first six chapters the author defends the existence of a plurality of intrinsic goods, the thesis of organic unities, the view that some goods are 'higher' than others, and the view that intrinsic value can be explicated in terms of 'fitting' emotional attitudes. The final three chapters explore the justification of our beliefs about intrinsic value, including coherence (...) theories and the idea that some value beliefs are warranted on the basis of emotional experience. Professor Lemos defends the view that some value beliefs enjoy 'modest' a priori justification. The book is intended primarily for professional philosophers and their graduate students working in ethics, value theory and epistemology. (shrink)

We argue that the value of authenticity does not explain the value of self-knowledge. There are a plurality of species of authenticity; in this paper we consider four species: avoiding pretense (section 2), Frankfurtian wholeheartedness (section 3), existential self-knowledge (section 4), and spontaneity (section 5). Our thesis is that, for each of these species, the value of (that species of) authenticity does not (partially) explain the value of self-knowledge. Moreover, when it comes to spontaneity, the value of (that species of) (...) authenticity conflicts with the value of self-knowledge. (shrink)

A new theory of how the brain constructs emotions that could revolutionize psychology, health care, law enforcement, and our understanding of the human mind Emotions feel automatic, like uncontrollable reactions to things we think and experience. Scientists have long supported this assumption by claiming that emotions are hardwired in the body or the brain. Today, however, the science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology--and (...) this paradigm shift has far-reaching implications for us all. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose theory of emotion is driving a deeper understanding of the mind and brain, and shedding new light on what it means to be human. Her research overturns the widely held belief that emotions are housed in different parts of the brain and are universally expressed and recognized. Instead, she has shown that emotion is constructed in the moment, by core systems that interact across the whole brain, aided by a lifetime of learning. This new theory means that you play a much greater role in your emotional life than you ever thought. Its repercussions are already shaking the foundations not only of psychology but also of medicine, the legal system, child-rearing, meditation, and even airport security. Why do emotions feel automatic? Does rational thought really control emotion? How does emotion affect disease? How can you make your children more emotionally intelligent? How Emotions Are Made answers these questions and many more, revealing the latest research and intriguing practical applications of the new science of emotion, mind, and brain. (shrink)

To meet the luck objection to incompatibilism, philosophers such as Timothy O’Connor, Randolph Clark, and William Rowe resurrected the Reidian notion of agent causation, which implies the “Substance-Causal Thesis” (SCT): some causes are fundamentally substances, not events. I examine an objection to SCT by C. D. Broad, developed by Carl Ginet, that substances cannot cause events because substances cannot explain why events happen when they do. The objection fails as it rests on a demand for contrastive explanations of free actions. (...) However, I show that a slightly different objection succeeds in showing SCT false. (shrink)

I examine two related arguments for the claim that if God is omnipotent, God cannot lack abilities such as the ability to do evil or to act irrationally. Both arguments concern the idea that omnipotence is inconsistent with being dominated with respect to abilities. I raise new issues in the formulation of such dominance principles about ability, and attempt to solve them. I also discuss and reject existing objections to these arguments. I conclude that these arguments are promising but not (...) conclusive, and that important work remains to be done in formulating the relevant dominance principles. (shrink)

This paper explores the editorial influence of Joseph Banks on the Philosophical Transactions—still, at the time of his accession to the Presidency of the Royal Society in 1778, the most prestigious scientific periodical published in English. In particular, it examines how Banks forged, and wielded, personal influence over what went into the Transactions. Nominally, at least, the periodical was under the collective control of the Society's council, with significant statutory safeguards in place to prevent editorship by a presidential clique. Yet (...) this was exactly what Banks was able to speedily create and maintain. In this essay I explore how Banks accomplished this and the pressures it produced, addressing two key questions. First, I examine the social dimension of Banks's management of the Transactions (and what contemporaries thought of it), including particularly the questions of how and to whom access to the periodical was afforded or denied by Banks and his associates; and second, I consider how Banks and the Society dealt with the emerging competitive pressure of new commercial and learned society periodicals. I outline a sphere of scientific sociability partly created by informal processes of communicating, circulating, and evaluating papers developed by Banks and his close associates, and its significance for the Transactions in its engagements with other sites, genres, and conventions of scientific publication. (shrink)

In this essay, I address an objection to inference to the best explanation due to Bas C. van Fraassen, according to which explanatory virtues cannot confirm a theory, since they make the theory more informative and thus less likely to be true given the probability axioms. I try to show that van Fraassen’s argument, once made precise, is deductively invalid, and that even an ampliative version of the argument (i) implies, absurdly, that no theory is confirmed by its fit with (...) empirical data; (ii) fails to account for confirmatory closure under deduction; and (iii) falsely presupposes that a theory and its sub-theories can be competing explanations. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida's insistence on submitting politics to the test of undecidability elicits the common accusation that an aporetic form of thought can only end in dubious conclusions concerning the pressing matter of politics and that no normative claims can emerge from a thought of radical undecidability. In this paper, I articulate the structural undecidability (aporia) that constitutes politics according to Derrida, the manner in which this structural undecidability elicits judgments, and the importance for critique of not ignoring it. In particular, (...) this structural undecidability is articulated within the event of foundation of any state or set of social relations by way of a declarative act. In addition, the aporetic structure of the political renders visible the essential relationship between (revealed) religion and politics. Ultimately, due to a necessary reference to an ultimate authority at any event of foundation, the political is always already theologico-political in character. (shrink)

Among the important themes in Roderick Chisholm's epistemology are his commitment to internalism, his defense of the independence of epistemology from empirical science, and his assumption that we do know most of what we initially think we know. In “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology” Hilary Kornblith argues that Chisholm's views lead to a radical divorce between the factors that justify beliefs and the factors that cause beliefs, that Chisholm's views have the consequence that there is no connection (...) between justification and truth, and that Chisholm's kind of epistemology is unable to give epistemic advice. I argue that Chisholm's views do not have these consequences. (shrink)

By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the (...) source of this lenient assessment? In this contentious new book, one of our leading philosophers argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments. Through a detailed look at how these tendencies operate, Unger shows that, on the good morality that we already accept, the fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. By uncovering the eminently sensible ethics that we've already embraced fully, and by confronting us with empirical facts and with easily followed instructions for lessening serious suffering appropriately and effectively, Unger's book points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay, I defend a mind-body dualism, according to which human minds are immaterial substances that exercise non-redundant causal powers over bodies, against the notorious problem of psychophysical causation. I explicate and reply to three formulations of the problem: (i) the claim that, on dualism, psychophysical causation is inconsistent with physical causal closure, (ii) the claim that psychophysical causation on the dualist view is intolerably mysterious, and (iii) Jaegwon Kim’s claim that dualism fails to account for causal pairings. Ultimately, (...) I conclude that these objections fail and that dualist interactionism is no more problematic or mysterious than physical causation. (shrink)

: Contemporary common sense holds that authenticity is an ethical ideal: that there is something bad about inauthenticity, and something good about authenticity. Here we criticize the view that authenticity is bad because it detracts from the wellbeing of the inauthentic person, and propose an alternative moral account of the badness of inauthenticity, based on the idea that inauthentic behaviour is potentially misleading.

It is now medically possible for a baby to have two biological mothers. A fertilized ovum from one woman can be implanted into a second woman for gestation in her uterus. In fact, there have been several such cases. The ova donor is the mother in the genetic sense: her genetic material,along with that of the sperm donor,appears in the developing baby. The uterine hostess is the birth mother: she gestates the fetus and gives birth to it. In essence, the (...) two female reproductive functions, genetic and gestational, can be and have been divided from each other. Our current conception of biological maternity has lagged behind these technological marvels and still assumes that both functions will be performed by the same woman. At a time when two "biological mothers" can and do make claims for the same child,each on the ground that she is the "true mother", it is crucial to examine our concepts of biological maternity and their relation to our social policies about maternity in these cases. In this paper I will argue that the best social and legal policy would involve a prima facie preference for the claims of the gestational mother over the claims of the genetic mother for custody of the child in a contest (if there is no question of parental unfitness on either side). That is, in any dispute, presumption should be in favor of the gestational mother. This argument is made independent of considerations about pre-birth and pre-conception contracts, because the issues raised about the roles of gestational and genetic maternity are substantial in themselves and have obvious implications about the acceptability of such contracts.Rather, I argue that a revision of our concept of biological maternity which emphasizes the importance of gestation and which would prefer the claims of the gestational over the genetic mother would have positive benefits for both women and newborns. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.1 (2001) 21-37 [Access article in PDF] Conscience and the Concealments of Metaphor in Hobbes's Leviathan Karen S. Feldman Introduction Conscience is not a topic of terribly heated debate in Hobbes research. 1 Nevertheless, my claim in this article is that conscience in the Leviathan, which Hobbes poses as an example of the dangers of metaphor, is not merely an example of the dangers of (...) metaphor, but rather is the most dangerous metaphor, the metaphor that corrupts knowledge and thereby makes error and deception possible. Hobbes's brief account of conscience, which appears in the chapter of Leviathan on the ends of discourse, tells the story of the insinuation of metaphor into proper nomenclature; however, his example of the metaphorical use of the word conscience turns the story into one in which public knowledge itself is made private and thereby corrupted. Moreover, according to the story, private conscience is itself invented by means of a metaphor; it is in effect metaphorized into being. 2 With the emergence of private conscience, the potential of privatization expands from the privatization of the meaning of words to an entire private sphere of opinion. The metaphorical corruption of conscience invents a new understanding of knowledge as isolated from other witnesses, and the resultant privatization of truth lends itself to the corruption of that truth. Thus, whereas Hobbes characterizes the wrong use of names (of which metaphor is an instance) as a threat to accurate judgment and reason (L 22-23, 34, 161-62), as I will argue in the sections following, Hobbes's demand for the preservation of proper meaning in Leviathan corresponds to an anxiety regarding privacy and its peculiar potential for corrupting truth and knowledge. Hobbes's worries as to the dangers that metaphor poses to the stability of the commonwealth thereby converge with his worries about the dangers of conscience to the principle of public authority (cf. Strong 1993). [End Page 21] Hobbes's condemnations of conscience In Leviathan, conscience is condemned as a source of principles of human decision and action in a commonwealth. The problem with conscience as a principle of action is that it renders each individual inventor of his own rules and judge of his own actions. In brief, individual conscience is incommensurable with the public authority that defines a commonwealth: Another doctrine repugnant to civil society, is, that whatsoever a man does against his conscience, is sin; and it dependeth on the presumption of making himself judge of good and evil. For a man's conscience, and his judgment is the same thing, and as the judgment, so also the conscience may be erroneous. Therefore, though he that is subject to no civil law, sinneth in all he does against his conscience, because he has no other rule to follow but his own reason; yet it is not so with him that lives in a commonwealth; because the law is the public conscience, by which he hath already undertaken to be guided. Otherwise in such diversity, as there is of private consciences, which are but private opinions, the commonwealth must needs be distracted, and no man dare to obey the sovereign power, further than it shall seem good in his own eyes. (L 311) In this account, conscience is not just inferior to civil law as a principle guiding action, but at odds with civil society and the good of the commonwealth. The fact that conscience is private renders it problematic for the commonwealth for several reasons: First, as privately invented, it may be erroneous. Likewise, because it is private, conscience does not possess any binding power outside the individual, private sphere. Each person may be bound by his own conscience, but insofar as consciences differ, standards of action differ, and this leads to the undermining and distraction of the commonwealth. Likewise, private consciences may be divergent from one another, and the conflicts in private judgment produce conflicting actions that disturb the peace of the commonwealth. This rule of privacy is, moreover, associated with primitive life and with the state of nature... (shrink)

The amount of biomedical research being conducted around the world has greatly expanded over the past 15 years, with particularly large growth occurring in low- and middle-income countries. This increased focus on understanding and responding to disease burdens around the world has brought forth a desire to help LMIC institutions enhance their own capacity to conduct scientifically and ethically sound research. In support of these goals the Johns Hopkins-Fogarty African Bioethics Training Program has, for the past six years, partnered with (...) three research institutions in Africa to support research ethics capacity. Each partnership began with a baseline evaluation of institutional research ethics environments in order to properly tailor capacity strengthening activities and help direct limited institutional resources. Through the course of these partnerships we have learned several lessons regarding the evaluation process and the framework used to complete the assessments. We believe that these lessons are generalizable and will be useful for groups conducting such assessments in the future. (shrink)