Vagueness in law leads to indeterminacies in legal rights and obligations in many cases. The book defends that claim and explains its implications for legal theory. Vague language is the book's focus, but vagueness is not merely a linguistic feature of law. Law is necessarily vague. That fact seems to threaten the coherence of the ideal of the rule of law. The book defends a new, coherent articulation of that ideal.

The author argues that philosophers' attempts to use philosophy of language to solve problems of jurisprudence have often failed- the most dramatic failure being that of Jeremy Bentham. H.L.A.Hart made some related mistakes in his creative use of philosophy of language, yet his focus on language still yields some very significant insights for jurisprudence: the context principle (that the correct application of linguistic expressions typically depends on context in ways that are important for jurisprudence), the diversity principle (that grounds of (...) correct application of legal language may be diverse), and the importance of vagueness. (shrink)

What can a philosophical analysis of the concept of interpretation contribute to legal theory? In his recent book,Interpretation and Legal Theory, Andrei Marmor proposes a complex and ambitious analysis as groundwork for his positivist assault on “interpretive” theories of law and of language. I argue (i) that the crucial element in Marmor's analysis of interpretation is his treatment of Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks on following rules, and (ii) that a less ambitious analysis of interpretation than Marmor's can take better advantage of (...) those insights about rules. I explore some implications of such an analysis for the role of interpretation in legal reasoning. (shrink)

No community fully achieves the ideal of the rule of law. Puzzles about the content of the ideal seem to make it necessarily unattainable (and, therefore, an incoherent ideal). Legal systems necessarily contain vague laws. They typically allow for change in the law, they typically provide for unreviewable official decisions, and they never regulate every aspect of the life of a community. It may seem that the ideal can never be achieved because of these features of legal practice. But I (...) ask what counts as a ‘deficit’ in the rule of law, and I argue that none of these features of legal practice necessarily amounts to a deficit. I conclude that communities fail to achieve the rule of law only because of official infidelity to law, and the failure of lawmakers to pursue the ideal (or their decision not to pursue it). The rule of law is not necessarily unattainable. (shrink)

The use of vague language in law has important implications for legal theory. Legal philosophers have occasionally grappled with those implications, but they have not come to grips with the characteristic phenomenon of vagueness: the sorites paradox. I discuss the paradox, and claim that it poses problems for some legal theorists (David Lyons, Hans Kelsen, and, especially, Ronald Dworkin). I propose that a good account of vagueness will have three consequences for legal theory: (i) Theories that deny that vagueness in (...) formulations of the law leads to discretion in adjudication (including Dworkin's) cannot accommodate “higher-order” vagueness, (ii) A legal theory should accept that the law is partly indeterminate when it can be stated in vague language, (iii) However, the traditional formulation of the indeterminacy claim, that a vague statement is “neither true nor false” in a borderline case, is misconceived and should be abandoned. (shrink)

In fundamental rights adjudication, should judges defer to the judgment of other decision makers? How can they defer, without betraying the respect that judges ought to accord those rights? How can they refuse to defer, without betraying the respect that judges ought to accord to other decision makers? I argue that only principles of comity justify deference, and their reach is limited. Comity never forbids the judges to take and to act upon a different view of fundamental rights from that (...) of another decision maker. I elaborate this view by reference to the decision of the House of Lords in Adan and Aitseguer [2001] 1 All ER 593. (shrink)

Argues that some important problems in the theory of legal interpretation can be resolved with three techniques that John Finnis used in Natural Law and Natural Rights to address a methodological problem in jurisprudence: (1) The analogy principle: The application of a word such as “friendship” or “law” is not based on a set of features shared by each instance, but is based on similarities of a variety of kinds, seen by the people who use the words as justifying the (...) extension of the word. (2) The paradigm (or central case) principle: You cannot understand a word like “friendship” or “law” without seeing what counts as a good instance of friendship or law. (3) The context principle: What counts as a good instance depends on the context in which the word is to be used, and on the concerns and purposes which justify the use of the word. (shrink)

Even to disagree, we need to understand each other. If I reject what you say without understanding you, we will only have the illusion of a disagreement. You will be asserting one thing and I will be denying another. Even to disagree, we need some agreement.

The socially responsible investment industry (SRI) is slowly changing from a screening, avoidance paradigm to a comprehensive paradigm that seeks to affect corporate behavior. Credible rating systems are a key component of this sea change. Reliable and recognizable social and environmental metrics are critical to this progress. The Total Social Impact (TSI) rating approach is a new social metric scheme based on a comprehensive rating of stakeholder issues. This paper describes the evolution of SRI ratings and the role that TSI (...) hopes to play in affecting business behavior by promoting principled business leadership. (shrink)

In fact, law is necessarily very vague. So if vagueness is a problem for legal theory, it is a serious problem. The problem has to do with the ideal of the rule of law and with the very idea of law: if vague standards provide no guidance in some cases, how can the life of a community be ruled by law? The problem has long concerned philosophers of law; the papers at this symposium address it afresh by asking what legal (...) theory may have to learn from (or contribute to) work on vagueness in philosophy of language and philosophy of logic. Here I will not try to state the implications of vagueness for philosophy of law; I will try to set the stage by showing that vagueness is both an important and an unavoidable feature of law. (shrink)

To be realistic –to face up to the unvarnished facts– a philosophy of human affairs needs the idea of misinterpretation in its tool kit. Sometimes there is conclusive reason to adopt one interpreta...

The author argues that vagueness in law is typically extravagant, in the sense that it is possible for two competent users of the language, who understand the facts of each case, to take such different views that there is not even any overlap between the cases that each disputant would identify as borderline. Extravagant vagueness is a necessary feature of legal systems. Some philosophers of law and philosophers of language claim that bivalence is a property of statements in the domains (...) that concern them (the domain of law in the former case, the whole domain of meaningful discourse in the latter). The author argues that the bivalence claim should be rejected. In philosophy of law, the motivation underlying the bivalence claim is an urge to assert the principle that the law must be capable of standing against arbitrary use of political power. The challenge – once the bivalence claim is rejected – is to articulate the law's opposition to arbitrariness in a way that is compatible with the possibility of indeterminacy in the application of vague laws. (shrink)

People can be autonomous, if they are subject to authority. In particular, they can be autonomous if they are subject to the authority of law. I defend the first claim through a study of Joseph Raz's compelling account of authority; I claim that his work leads to the conclusion that autonomous judgment is needed to determine the jurisdiction of an authority, and to interpret its directives. I defend the second claim by arguing that law does not claim unlimited jurisdiction, and (...) need not claim unlimited scope for its directives. But the requirements of the rule of law create a standing risk that the law will not adequately recognize the autonomy of its subjects, because of its artificial techniques for controlling its own jurisdiction and for controlling the scope of its own directives. (shrink)

A good deal of attention has been given in recent philosophy of religion to the question of whether we can sensibly attribute to God a form of knowledge which the 16th-century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina termed "middle knowledge". Interest in the doctrine has been spurred by a recognition of its intimate connection to certain conceptions of providence, prophecy, and response to petitionary prayer. According to defenders of the doctrine, which I will call "Molinism", the objects of middle knowledge are (...) all the true counterfactuals of the form, 'If C were to occur, then S would freely do A', where C specifies a particular set of circumstances. (Such propositions are usually referred to as "counterfactuals of freedom" - hereafter "CFs".)' I will try to assess the current status of two distinct questions: (1) Are there true CFs? and (2) Could God know true CFs if there are any? Obviously, Molinism must answer both questions affirmatively. Most of the discussion has focused on the first question. I hope to show that this approach has been a dialectical mistake on the part of critics of Molinism, for the difficulties of giving an affirmative answer to question (2) are, I believe, far easier to state clearly and convincingly. (shrink)

Widespread, deep controversy as to the content of the law of a community is compatible with the view that the law is a system of rules. I defend that view through a critique of Ronald Dworkin's discussion of Riggs v. Palmer 22 N.E. 188. Dworkin raised an important challenge for jurisprudence: to account for the fact that legal rights and duties are frequently controversial. I offer an explanation of the possibility of deep disagreement about the application of social rules, which (...) reconciles controversy as to the content of the law, with the model of a legal system as a system of rules. And I discuss the implications for understanding the role of judicial discretion in law. (shrink)

A state is sovereign if it has complete power within a political community, and complete independence. It may seem that the idea of sovereignty is objectionable because of two moral principles, or incoherent because of a paradox. The paradox is that a sovereign state must be capable of binding itself and must also be incapable of binding itself. The moral principles are that no state can justly exercise complete power internally, or complete independence (since complete independence would imply freedom from (...) norms of ius cogens, and from interference with mass atrocities by the state). Through an analogy with human autonomy, I argue that the paradox is only apparent, and that the moral principles are compatible with state sovereignty. So the idea of sovereignty is a coherent idea, and sovereignty, rightly understood, is a valuable feature of states in international law. Sovereignty is to be understood as internal power and external freedom that are complete for the purposes of a good state. (shrink)

It can be compatible with justice and the rule of law for a court to impose new legal liabilities retrospectively on a defendant. But judges do not need to distinguish between imposing a new liability, and giving effect to a liability that the defendant had at the time of the events in dispute. The distinction is to be drawn by asking which of the court's reasons for decision the institutions of the legal system had already committed the courts to act (...) upon, before the time of decision. I explain these conclusions through an assessment of the last episode in the debate between H.L.A.Hart and Ronald Dworkin. (shrink)

Moral premises are required in sound reasoning to the conclusion that a community does or does not (more or less) attain the rule of law. Those moral premises include, for example, the principle that judges should act with comity toward executive agencies. A failure in that moral requirement of comity is a failure to attain the rule of law. Because the ideal of the rule of law necessarily has a moral content, there is a necessary connection between law and morality– (...) albeit a modest connection that is compatible with deep moral defects in the law. (shrink)

Preface to a Symposium on Vagueness and Law at Columbia University Law School on September 24 and 25, 1999. The purpose of the seminar was to provide an opportunity for philosophers of law, philosophers of language, and philosophers of logic to discuss problems about vagueness that are currently under debate in all three areas.

The meaning of a word is given by a customary rule for its use. I defend that claim and explain its implications by a comparison with customary rules in law. I address two problems about customary rules: first, how can the mere facts of social practice yield a norm? Secondly, how can we explain disagreement about the requirements of a custom, if those requirements are determined by the shared practice of the participants in a community? These problems can be resolved (...) in a way that illuminates customary rules, and helps to explain the relation between the meaning of a word and the customary rule for its use. The meaning of a word is the usefulness that it has because of the customary rule for its use. (shrink)

I approach the identification of the principles of legal interpretation through a discussion of an important but largely forgotten strand in our legal heritage: the idea (and at some points in English law, the rule) that the interpretation of legislation is to be done by the law maker. The idea that authentic interpretation is interpretation by the law maker united the Roman Emperors Constantine and Justinian with Bracton, Aquinas, King James I of England, Hobbes, and Bentham. Already in the early (...) 17th century, a new modern approach was emerging in England. The modern approach separates the interpretive power from the legislative power, and allocates the interpretive power to an independent court. I will argue that there are some cogent, general considerations in favour of the modern approach. But it is worth identifying the elements of good sense that made it seem that the interpretive power ought to be reserved for the law maker. And it is worth identifying the drawbacks in the modern approach; they are relevant to the complex question of how judges ought to interpret. (shrink)

I address four questions that arise out of Nigel Simmonds's book, Law as a Moral Idea : Is politics a moral idea too? Is there any such thing as law making? Is there a right answer to every legal dispute? What justifies a judicial decision? To each question I propose an answer that shares much with Simmonds's views, but diverges. Simmonds is right to call law a 'moral idea', and that implies a connection between law and a moral ideal; in (...) my view, the connection is compatible with a necessary connection between law and the morally non-ideal. (shrink)

Philosophical Foundations of Precedent offers a broad, deep, and diverse range of philosophical investigations of the role of precedent in law, adjudication, and morality. The forty chapters present the work of a large and inclusive group of authors which comprises of well-established leaders in the discipline and new voices in legal philosophy. The magnitude of the resulting project is extraordinary, presenting a diverse array of innovative and creative philosophical investigations of the practice of adhering to past decisions, in law and (...) allied fields of practical reasoning. And by the same token, the contributions elucidate the reasons that courts and other decision-makers may have for departing from what has been done before. The phenomena under investigation include the law and practice of common law and civil jurisdictions around the world. In addition to its fundamental relevance to common law jurisdictions, this work will be of broad and significant interest to theoretically minded audiences in continental Europe, Latin America, and Asia because it involves an extensive study of practices of precedent in civil law systems as well as common law systems. (shrink)

In English law, there are various ways in which contracts can be invalid or unenforceable because they are immoral — and yet English lawyers know that many contracts are conclusively binding. The first two sources of legal gaps that Joseph Raz identifies do not seem surprising. Vagueness in the sources of law leads to gaps in borderline cases, and there is a gap if the law includes inconsistent rules, with no way of deciding which is effective. In those situations it (...) seems right to say that the law does not tell people where they stand, so that people may need a court to make a decision. But if Raz is right about the third source of gaps, then judges have discretion whenever the law appeals to moral considerations. This chapter discusses the sources thesis, moral considerations, judicial discretion, the social morality of judges, and contract law. (shrink)

We are delighted to present four articles that had their inception in a conference at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid in June 2016 on the question, ‘What aspects of justice should not be the law’s...

Suppose that you are wandering across the tundra, and you find an infant, all alone, in the snow. She is incapable of discourse, and yet she has the same human rights as anyone who is capable of discourse. Those rights do not depend on the practices or conventions of your people, or hers. Human discourse and human conventions play no role in human rights. I elaborate these claims through a critique of J.W. Harris’s groundbreaking analytical account of human rights. I (...) conclude that some welfare rights are paradigms of human rights, while rights of freedom of expression, privacy, and assembly, and rights to vote, and rights to independent tribunals are not human rights at all, except in a distantly metaphorical sense. Moreover, human rights can be explained with no reference at all to state authorities (though state authorities may have various special roles in observing and promoting some of them). (shrink)

John Finnis says that central cases of the concepts of social theory (such as the concept of law) fully instantiate certain characteristic values (which are instantiated in more-or-less watered-down ways in peripheral cases). Yet the instances of some such concepts (such as the concepts of slavery, of tyranny, and of murder) do not instantiate any value. I propose a solution to this puzzle: the central cases of such concepts focally instantiate certain ills. The central case of a concept essential to (...) social theory may excel in some specific good or in some specific ill, or in neither, or in both. What about law? The central cases of a legal system, or of a law, involve goods that Finnis ascribes to them; I argue that the central cases also involve certain ills. That is the irony of law. Law secures essential goods for a community, and also (and, in fact, by the same token) it incurs certain ills that are necessarily involved in its specific techniques for securing those goods. (shrink)

Are there human rights to a good such as social welfare, which depends on circumstances, and on the needs of a putative right-holder? Is justice constituted by rights? Does it take belief in God to understand the grounds of human rights? The essay responds to Nicholas Wolterstorff’s answers to these questions.

This provocative book refurbishes the traditional account of freedom of will as reasons-guided "agent" causation, situating its account within a general metaphysics. O'Connor's discussion of the general concept of causation and of ontological reductionism v. emergence will specially interest metaphysicians and philosophers of mind.

Timothy O'Hagan investigates Jean-Jacques Rousseau's writings concerning the formation of humanity, of the individual and of the citizen, in his three master works, the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among Men , The Emile , and The Social Contract . He explores Rousseau's reflections on developmental psychology, the nature of the political order, relations between the sexes, language and religion. O'Hagan gives Rousseau's arguments a close and sympathetic reading. He writes as a philosopher, not a historian, yet he (...) never loses sight of the cultural context of Rousseau's work. (shrink)

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very (...) closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1.). (shrink)

In this paper, I examine some main threads of the identification stage of Scotus's project in the fourth chapter of De Primo, where he tries to show that a first efficient cause must have the attributes of simplicity, intellect, will, and infinity. Many philosophers are favorably disposed towards one or another argument such as Scotus's (e.g., the cosmological argument from contingency) purporting to show that there is an absolutely first efficient cause. How far can Scotus take us from this starting (...) point towards the ultimate aim of establishing the existence of a being more recognizably identifiable as God? (shrink)

All organised bodies are composed of parts, similar to those composing inorganic nature, and which have even themselves existed in an inorganic state; but the phenomena of life, which result from the juxtaposition of those parts in a certain manner, bear no analogy to any of the effects which would be produced by the action of the component substances considered as mere physical agents. To whatever degree we might imagine our knowledge of the properties of the several ingredients of a (...) living body to be extended and perfected, it is certain that no mere summing up of the separate actions of those elements will ever amount to the action of the living body itself. (shrink)

An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most (...) general features of the world we inhabit Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument. (shrink)

The objective probability of every physical event is fixed by prior physical events and laws alone. (This thesis is sometimes expressed in terms of explanation: In tracing the causal history of any physical event, one need not advert to any non-physical events or laws. To the extent that there is any explanation available for a physical event, there is a complete explanation available couched entirely in physical vocabulary. We prefer the probability formulation, as it should be acceptable to any physicalist, (...) though some reject the explanation formulation.) (3) Causal Exclusion. (shrink)

In this classic, exciting, and thoughtful text, Metaphysics , Peter van Inwagen examines three profound questions: What are the most general features of the world? Why is there a world? and What is the place of human beings in the world? Metaphysics introduces to readers the curious notion that is metaphysics, how it is conceived both historically and currently. The author's work can serve either as a textbook in a university course on metaphysics or as an introduction to metaphysical thinking (...) for the interested reader. This second edition, revised though not fundamentally changed, includes the basis of the first edition with a new chapter on the nature of time. (shrink)

In what follows, I will contend that the commonsense view of ourselves as fundamental causal agents - for which some have used the term “unmoved movers" but which I think might more accurately be expressed as “not wholly moved movers” - is theoretically understandable, internally consistent, and consistent with what we have thus far come to know about the nature and workings of the natural world. In the section that follows, I try to show how the concept of ‘agent’ causation (...) can be understood as a distinct species (from ‘event’ causation) of the primitive idea, which I’ll term “causal production”, underlying realist or non-Humean conceptions of event causation. In section III, I respond to a number of contemporary objections to the theory of agent causation. Sections IV-V are devoted to showing that the theory is compatible with ordinary reasons explanations of action, which then places me in a position to respond, in the final section, to the contention that we could never know, in principle, whether the agency theory actually describes a significant portion of human activity. (shrink)

In its restless metamorphosis, the environmental movement captures ideas and transforms them into principles, guidelines and points of leverage. Sustainability is one such idea, now being reinterpreted in the aftermath of the 1992 Rio Conference. So too is the precautionary principle. Like sustainability, the precautionary principle is neither a well defined principle nor a stable concept. It has become the repository for a jumble of adventurous beliefs that challenge the status quo of political power, ideology and civil rights. Neither concept (...) has much coherence other than it is captured by the spirit that is challenging the authority of science, the hegemony of cost-benefit analysis, the powerlessness of victims of environmental abuse, and the unimplemented ethics of intrinsic natural rights and inter-generational equity. It is because the mood of the times needs an organising idea that the precautionary principle is getting a fair wind. However, unless its advocates sharpen up their understanding of the term, the precautionary principle may not establish the influence it deserves. Its future looks promising but it is not assured. (shrink)

As good a definition as any of a _philosophical_ conundrum is a problem all of whose possible solutions are unsatisfactory. The problem of understanding the springs of action for morally responsible agents is commonly recognized to be such a problem. The origin, nature, and explanation of freely-willed actions puzzle us today as they did the ancients Greeks, and for much the same reasons. However, one can carry this ‘perennial-puzzle’ sentiment too far. The unsatisfactory nature of philosophical theories is a more (...) or less matter, and some of them have admitted of improvement over time. This, at any rate, is what we self-selecting metaphysicians tend to suppose, and I will pursue that high calling by suggesting a few improvements to a theory of metaphysical freedom, or freedom of the will. (shrink)

Many philosophers are persuaded by familiar arguments that free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Yet, notoriously, past attempts to articulate how the right type of indeterminism might secure the capacity for autonomous action have generally been regarded as either demonstrably inadequate or irremediably obscure. This volume gathers together the most significant recent discussions concerning the prospects for devising a satisfactory indeterministic account of freedom of action. These essays give greater precision to traditional formulations of the problems associated with indeterministic (...) accounts and to the range of theoretical avenues for pursuing resolutions. The first four essays set out different challenges (from both compatibilists and those skeptical of the possibility of free will) to the adequacy of standard indeterministic theories. The next seven essays meet one or more of these challenges. Each of the fundamental types of approach--simple indeterminism, causal indeterminism, and agent causation--is represented in these novel and sophisticated proposals. The collection finishes with two essays that debate whether compatibilism entails that freedom of choice is a comparatively rare phenomenon within an individual's life. Eloquently presenting some of the most compelling and accessible arguments surrounding this central philosophical issue, Agents, Causes, and Events makes a valuable contribution to courses in free will/action theory and metaphysics. (shrink)

In what follows, I shall presuppose the ecumenical core of the causal powers metaphysics. The argument of this paper concerns what may appear at first to be a wholly unrelated matter, the metaphysics of free will. However, an adequate account of freedom requires, in my judgment, a notion of a distinctive variety of causal power, one which tradition dubs ‘agent-causal power’. I will first develop this notion and clarify its relationship to other notions. I will then respond to a number (...) of objections either to the possibility of a power so explicated or to its sufficiency for grounding an adequate account of human freedom. (shrink)

This chapter considers a provisional hypothesis that Logos is indeed absolutely perfect – in a word, God – and then discusses the implications of this assumption for the scope of contingency. It then argues that if God exists, it is likely that contingent reality is vastly greater than what current scientific theory or even speculation fancies. The conditions for freedom in the divine and human cases differ in a way that reflects the difference in ontological status between an absolutely independent (...) Creator and a dependent, causally conditioned creature. The chapter also discusses some applications of the many‐universe‐creation hypothesis. Finally, it addresses the relationship of Logos to logical and mathematical necessities. (shrink)

Many familiar modal claims are clearly made against some set of background assumptions, as when making such claims, we hold fixed certain background truths, and intend to call attention to the fact that the ‘necessity’ in question is an invariable consequence of those truths. Ordinary explanations of particular phenomena that draw upon scientific theories are replete with modal concepts. Necessity plays a yet deeper role in the practice of formulating scientific theories. Alongside the ever increasing constraints of accumulating empirical evidence, (...) theories are always held to the constraint of logical and mathematical consistency. This chapter expresses common philosophical claims concerning the place of modality in scientific explanations that have nonetheless been heavily challenged, especially in the twentieth century. It also considers and criticizes a range of views that stand opposed to robust modal realism. (shrink)

In the author's view, the proper verdict on the reconcilability of the content of Christian revelation with the full‐blown natural theological concept of God found in the works of classical theologians is much less clear than many contemporary theologians would have it. The author argues that one can reasonably accept the philosophical concept of God as necessary being while rejecting the more problematic notions of immutability and simplicity. This chapter briefly discusses the strands of thought offered by natural theology. It (...) describes Luis de Molina's problematic notion of middle knowledge to assess the timeless eternity theorist's conception of God's knowledge of and actions in response to the world. It argues that the eternity thesis is committed to the doctrine of middle knowledge (or, as with Leftow's alternative, something very much like it), and tries to persuade the reader that this constitutes something of a reductio of the eternity thesis. (shrink)

This chapter explores the notion of necessary being and defends its explanatory significance. Even if we were to accept the traditional answer involving necessary being to the existence question, its wider significance may be challenged. While it is often incorporated into what has come to be known as the ‘cosmological argument from contingency’ for the existence of God, the bare idea of ‘necessary being’ seems quite thin. The chapter shows how the causal efficacy of a necessary being could figure into (...) an explanation of a contingent universe that affirms the universe's contingency that is an inevitable emanation of the necessary being without thereby conceding an ultimate explanatory surd. It enables one comfortably to steer clear of their necessitarian excesses even while retaining Schopenhauer's cab as a permanent mode of transportation on the way to a philosopher's paradise. (shrink)

Twentieth-century analytic philosophy was dominated by positivist antimetaphysics and neo-Humean deflationary metaphysics, and the nature of explanation was reconceived in order to fit these agendas. Unsurprisingly, the explanatory value of theist was widely discredited. I argue that the long-overdue revival of moralized, broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics and an improved perspective on modal knowledge dramatically changes the landscape. In this enriched context, there is no sharp divide between physics and metaphysics, and the natural end of the theoretician’s quest for a unified explanation (...) of the universe is God, an absolutely necessary, transcendent, and personal source of all contingent reality. (shrink)

In its restless metamorphosis, the environmental movement captures ideas and transforms them into principles, guidelines and points of leverage. Sustainability is one such idea, now being reinterpreted in the aftermath of the 1992 Rio Conference. So too is the precautionary principle. Like sustainability, the precautionary principle is neither a well defined principle nor a stable concept. It has become the repository for a jumble of adventurous beliefs that challenge the status quo of political power, ideology and civil rights. Neither concept (...) has much coherence other than it is captured by the spirit that is challenging the authority of science, the hegemony of cost-benefit analysis, the powerlessness of victims of environmental abuse, and the unimplemented ethics of intrinsic natural rights and inter-generational equity. It is because the mood of the times needs an organising idea that the precautionary principle is getting a fair wind. However, unless its advocates sharpen up their understanding of the term, the precautionary principle may not establish the influence it deserves. Its future looks promising but it is not assured. (shrink)

These fifteen essays on Nietzsche's indebtedness to the Classical Tradition were composed by scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology, German and Classics. The essays roughly cover the following epochs: the age of the Fathers of the Western Church, medieval scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Romanticism and the several other intellectual trends and movements in the nineteenth century. Collection includes three essays comparing Nietzsche's perceptions of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates with those (respectively) of Augustine, Aquinas, and Hamann. Three (...) essays treat Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. Three deal with Nietzsche and French literature or thought, one explores possible parallels between Nietzsche and Dante, another the extent of his debt to Byron. Four contributions center on Nietzsche's view of tragedy, and an older study has been expanded to show the underlying harmony of Nietzsche's conception with that of the French classical tragedians. This book affirms and fulfills the need for serious scholarship by the student of Nietzsche unable to work in German, while presenting a readable cross-section of the work being done relating Nietzsche to the intellectual tradition from which he sprang. (shrink)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions). Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts. Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in evolutionary perspective. Individual chapters also cover prominent (...) historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur. Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference. Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)