The correspondence theory of truth is a precise and innovative account of how the truth of a proposition depends upon that proposition's connection to a piece of reality. Joshua Rasmussen refines and defends the correspondence theory of truth, proposing new accounts of facts, propositions, and the correspondence between them. With these theories in hand, he then offers original solutions to the toughest objections facing correspondence theorists. Addressing the Problem of Funny Facts, Liar Paradoxes, and traditional epistemological questions concerning how (...) our minds can access reality, he challenges recent objections, and defends what has traditionally been the most popular theory of truth. Written with clarity, precision, and sensitivity to a range of philosophical backgrounds, his book will appeal to advanced students and scholars seeking a deeper understanding of the relationship between truth and reality. (shrink)

It has become commonplace in introductions to Indian philosophy to construe Plato’s discussion of forms (εἶδος/ἰδέα) and the treatment in Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika of universals ( sāmānya/jāti ) as addressing the same philosophical issue, albeit in somewhat different ways. While such a comparison of the similarities and differences has interest and value as an initial reconnaissance of what each says about common properties, an examination of the roles that universals play in the rest of their philosophical enquiries vitiates this commonplace. (...) This paper draws upon the primary texts to identify the following metaphysical, epistemological, semantic and soteriological roles that universals play in the philosophy of Plato and of Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika: Metaphysical: causal of the existence of x Metaphysical: constitutive of the identity/essence of x Epistemological: cognitively causal (i.e. of the cognition of one over many) Epistemological: epistemically causal (i.e. of knowledge of x) Semantic: necessary condition of speech and reason Epistemological: vindicatory of induction (Nyāya only) Metaphysical: explanatory of causation (Nyāya only) Soteriological: cathartic contemplation (Plato only) These roles provide us with motivations or reasons to believe that universals exist. As we examine these motivations, we find pressures mounting against our assimilating Platonic forms and the universals of Nyāya and Vaiśeṣika in the discourse about common properties. It is especially when we appreciate the utterly different contribution that universals make in securing our highest welfare that we realize how Plato and the two sister schools are not so much talking somewhat differently about the same thing, but talking somewhat similarly about different things. This better understanding of this difference in these philosophies opens a route for our better understanding of their unique contributions in the ongoing dialogue of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Shape of Ancient ThoughtWill S. RasmussenThe Shape of Ancient Thought. By Thomas McEvilley. New York: Allworth Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvi + 732. $35.00.The Shape of Ancient Thought, Thomas McEvilley's magnum opus of over thirty years' preparation, draws together an encyclopedic array of texts and archaeological evidence from Greece and India, which he employs in clearly written arguments toward an answer to a volatile question: just how indebted (...) to each other are India and Greece for their philosophical ideas and techniques? The subject is volatile in that it often arouses the rancor of challenged claims to intellectual property or cultural superiority, and the author shows admirable sensitivity by arguing to his conclusions in a way that explicitly eschews the lesser motives of rivalry and self-aggrandizement; instead he promotes the appreciation of a passion and genius for philosophy that is shared equally in the East and the West. McEvilley has collected for his purposes a treasury of key passages from Greek and Indian philosophy, and this review will seek to give some idea of the vast scope of his work and to assess its contribution to our understanding of philosophy.In his Foreword McEvilley says that his book will challenge a dichotomy, which prevails in Western thinking, that divides the ancient world of thought into Greek and non-Greek. Greek thought is characterized as that which is rational, and non Greek thought as that which is irrational, antirational, or at least nonrational. He faults E. R. Dodds' The Greek and the Irrational for supporting this dichotomy, by which Orphism and even certain elements of Plato become assigned, solely by virtue of their nonrational character, to Oriental provenance. He condemns as "deeply and glaringly false" W.K.C. Guthrie's History of Greek Philosophy for disparaging the comparison of Indian and Greek philosophy on the grounds that their motives, methods, and background of thought are so utterly different. In such a spirit he undertakes to prove by argumentation and a "sea of evidence" the invalidity of so brusque a dismissal of Indian philosophy.The rest of the Foreword explores how the post-Enlightenment "Oriental Renaissance," that is, the discovery by nineteenth-century Europe of India as "the primal [End Page 182] font of wisdom," aroused troubling questions about racial and cultural superiority. McEvilley traces claims and counterclaims made by philologists, historians, philosophers, and art historians who asserted the hierarchical status of India relative to classical Greece as the source of Western culture. He shows how attitudes toward colonialism in India from the eighteenth century up to the present day have further fueled the politicization of scholarship about India. The scope of this controversy ranges from the view that in the second millennium B.C.E. white invaders called Aryans brought into India both Sanskrit and all that is of any cultural value there, to the view that the hypothesis of an Aryan invasion is a racist myth, that there was virtually no foreign intervention in Indian history, and that India was the origin of all the world's civilizations. He commends the attempts since World War II to approach afresh the question of intercultural influence between East and West, including the founding of Philosophy East and West in 1951, and he declares his own view, which forms the main thesis of the book, namely that there were "significant intrusions first from India to Greece in the pre-Socratic period, and then from Greece back to India in the Hellenistic period" (p. xxxi).In chapter 1 McEvilley presents archaeological evidence from as early as the middle of the third millennium B.C.E. of trade between the Near East and India, and between the Near East and Greece. He argues for "full East-West transport of goods" through the intermediary of the Near East around 1500 to 1300 B.C.E. (p. 4). He argues that by the seventh century B.C.E. the activity of Phoenician merchants and the Persian conquests eastward and westward facilitated the transmission of ideas between the Near East and Greece via the "diffusion channels" of merchants, artisans, mercenaries, philosophers, physicians, and seers. He argues for similar diffusion channels between the... (shrink)

The community has legislatively conferred on external auditors a special but lucrative responsibility to provide fair and independent opinions about management''s preparation of company financial statements. In return, auditors are obliged by professional standards to act with integrity, independently and in the public interest. This study examined 174 auditors'' predisposition to provide just and fair judgements, using Kohlberg''s theory of developmental moral reasoning, one of the most widely accepted theories in justice psychology. Respondents came from five international audit firms in (...) Copenhagen. Results indicated that auditors with pre-conventional or low level of just reasoning or comprised 64 respondents, the largest group in the sample. The pre-conventional level suggests that people will act in their own self-interest and do the right only to avoid punishment. Pre-conventional auditors have the ability to "do deals", advantageous for business. When faced with an ethical crisis, however, auditors as this level will tend to focus on their own needs at the expense of others. The post-conventional or mid level of just reasoning comprised 59 auditors, second largest group in the sample. This level indicates that these auditors have the predisposition to act fairly on principal, particularly when faced with an ethical crisis. The conventional level or mid-just reasoning consisted of 51 auditors. People with a conventional level of just reasoning believe in law and order, the maintenance of the status quo, however they tend not to be critical of laws, nor authority even if those laws and authority are unjust or evil. (shrink)

If biotechnology can be used to "upgrade" humans physically and mentally, should it be done? And if so, to what extent? How will biotechnology affect societal cohesion, and can the development be controlled? Or is this a Pandora's box that should remain closed? These are just a few of the many questions that arise as a result of the increasing ability of technology to change biology and, eventually, transform human living conditions. This development has created a new horizon of (...) a posthuman future that will influence contemporary life and politics in a number of ways. The book gathers researchers within the fields of biotechnology, medicine, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Among the contributors are Francis Fukuyama, Julian Savulescu, Maxwell Mehlman, Lone Frank and Chris Hables Gray. (shrink)

Scenarios are flexible means to integrate disparate ideas, thoughts and feelings into holistic images, providing the context and meaning of possible futures. The application of narrative scenarios in engineering, development of socio-technical systems or communities provides an important link between general ideas and specification of technical system requirements. They focus on how people use systems through context-related storytelling rather than abstract descriptions of requirements. The quality of scenarios depends on relevant assumptions and authentic scenario stories. In this article, we (...) class='Hi'>will explore how the narrative approach may enrich the scenario ‘skeleton’ with ‘flesh and blood’, that is, living, detailed and consistent storytelling. In addition, criteria are suggested for evaluation of the quality of scenario storytelling. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, many political philosophers have rejected the idea that justice is fundamentally about distribution. Rather, justice is about social relations, and the so-called distributive paradigm should be replaced by a new relational paradigm. Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen seeks to describe, refine, and assess these thoughts and to propose a comprehensive form of egalitarianism which includes central elements from both relational and distributive paradigms. He shows why many of the challenges that luck egalitarianism faces reappear, once we try (...) to specify relational egalitarianism more fully. His discussion advances understanding of the nature of the relational ideal, and introduces new conceptual tools for understanding it and for exploring the important question of why it is desirable in the first place to relate as equals. Even severe critics of the distributive understanding of justice will find that this book casts important new light on the ideal to which they subscribe. (shrink)

We develop a new puzzle concerning a material being's relationship to the smallest parts of the material world. In particular, we investigate how a being could be responsible for anything if its be...

Many have thought that there is a problem with causal commerce between immaterial souls and material bodies. In Physicalism or Something Near Enough, Jaegwon Kim attempts to spell out that problem. Rather than merely posing a question or raising a mystery for defenders of substance dualism to answer or address, he offers a compelling argument for the conclusion that immaterial souls cannot causally interact with material bodies. We offer a reconstruction of that argument that hinges on two premises: Kim’s Dictum (...) and the Nowhere Man principle. Kim’s Dictum says that causation requires a spatial relation. Nowhere Man says that souls can’t be in space. By our lights, both premises can be called into question. We’ll begin our evaluation of the argument by pointing out some consequences of Kim’s Dictum. For some, these will be costs. We will then present two defeaters for Kim’s Dictum and a critical analysis of Kim’s case for Nowhere Man. The upshot is that Kim’s argument against substance dualism fails. (shrink)

In recent years, neuroscience has been making dramatic progress. The discipline holds great promise but also raises a number of important ethical concerns. Among these is the concern that, some day in the distant future, we will have brain scanners capable of reading our minds, thus making our inner thoughts transparent to others. There are at least two reasons why we might regret our resulting loss of privacy. One is, so the argument goes, that this would undermine our ability (...) to form intimate relations. Another is that the omnipresent gaze of others would render an authentic inner life impossible. I argue that both of these concerns are exaggerated. First, intimacy might flourish through the differential acknowledgement of knowledge as common knowledge; for example, even if I know that both a friend and my taxi driver know that I have kinky sexual fantasies, I might only acknowledge this as common knowledge and, thus, an admissible piece of conversation with my friend, and this differential acknowledgement might be enforced by norms of social interaction. Second, the gaze of others would become much less oppressive if everyone’s inner lives were transparent to everyone else. I also argue that our minds are already partly transparent to others through the use of non-neuroscience-assisted mindreading techniques and, thus, that the latter offer no distinct threat to mind privacy. I offer an additional argument for this conclusion; to wit, that our minds extend beyond our brains. (shrink)

In response to the intellectual movement of New Atheism, this volume articulates a "New Theist" response that has at its core a desire to engage in productive and depolarizing dialogue. To ensure this book is of interest to atheists and theists alike, a team of experts in the field of philosophy of religion offer an assessment of the strongest New Atheist arguments. The chapters address the most pertinent questions about God, including politics and morality, and each essay shows how a (...) reflective theist might deal with points raised by the New Atheists. This volume is a serious academic engagement with the questions asked by New Atheism. As such, it will be of significant interest to scholars working in the philosophy of religion and theology, as well as those engaged in religious studies generally. (shrink)

While it has many connections to other topics in normative and applied ethics, discrimination is a central subject in philosophy in its own right. It plays a significant role in relation to many real-life complaints about unjust treatment or unjust inequalities, and it raises a number of questions in political and moral philosophy, and in legal theory. Some of these questions include: what distinguishes the concept of discrimination from the concept of differential treatment? What distinguishes direct from indirect discrimination? Is (...) discrimination always morally wrong? What makes discrimination wrong? How should we eliminate the effects of discrimination? By covering a wide range of topics, and by doing so in a way that does not assume prior acquaintance, this handbook enables the reader to get to grips with the omnipresent issue. The Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of Discrimination is an outstanding reference source to this exciting subject and the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into six main parts: • conceptual issues • the wrongness of discrimination • groups of ‘discriminatees’ • sites of discrimination • causes and means • history of discrimination Essential reading for students and researchers in applied ethics and political philosophy the handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as law, sociology and politics. (shrink)

Many ethical theorists believe that a given distribution of healthcare is morally justified only if (1) it is cost-effective and (2) it does not discriminate against older adults and disabled people. However, if (3) cost-effectiveness involves maximizing the number of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) added by a given unit of healthcare resource, or cost, it seems the pursuit of cost-effectiveness will inevitably discriminate against older adults and disabled patients. I show why this trilemma is harder to escape than some theorists (...) think. We cannot avoid it by using age- or disability-weighted QALY scores, for example. I then explain why there is no sense of “discrimination” on which discrimination isbothunjust, and thus something healthcare rationing must avoid,andsomething cost-effective healthcare rationing inevitably involves. I go on to argue that many of the reasons we have for not favoring rationing that maximizes QALYs outside the healthcare context apply in healthcare as well. Thus, claim (1) above is dubious. (shrink)

This focused review is based on earlier studies which have shown that both children and adults diagnosed as having developmental coordination disorder (DCD), benefited from sensorimotor therapy according to the method Retraining for Balance (RB). Different approaches and assessments for children and adults in regard to DCD are scrutinized and discussed in comparison to RB which mainly includes (a) vestibular assessment and stimulation (b) assessment and integration of aberrant primary reflexes and (c) assessment and stimulation of auditory and visual perception. (...) Earlier results indicate that the process of sensorimotor therapy using RB techniques could be described according to a conceptual Kinesthetic-Vestibular Developmental Model (KVDM) whereby the training elicited temporary physical and psychological regressions followed by transformations i.e. positive physical and psychological development. We have also seen that this recurring pattern is similar for children and adults. In our conceptual model vestibular stimulation (perceptual priming) stimulates the nervous system, which might enhance object-related priming. This perceptual priming will also assist the suppression of persistent aberrant primary reflexes. In order to develop effective methods for assessment and intervention of DCD over the life span the importance of primary reflex inhibition and vestibular stimulation as well as a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches have to be considered. (shrink)

In recent work, T.M. Scanlon has unsuccessfully challenged the doctrine of double effect (DDE). First, comparing actions reflecting faulty moral deliberations and involving merely foreseen harm with actions reflecting less faulty moral deliberations involving intended harm suggests that proponents of DDE do not confuse the critical and the deliberative uses of moral principles. Second, Scanlon submits that it is odd to say to a deliberating agent that the permissibility of the actions she ponders depends on the intention with which she (...) will act. I argue that this can be explained without appeal to the claim that intentions are irrelevant to permissibility. (shrink)

The much endorsed idea that reasons are facts, gives raise to several issues, not least when it is applied to the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons. The paper distinguish in broad terms between two important views on the nature of facts. Given in particular a view that conceives of facts as abstract entities, the dichotomy is not particularly problematic. We might run into problems when it comes to identifying which facts are reasons and which are not, but the very (...) dichotomy itself seems sound. On this, the so-called thin approach, it is at least a possibility that some reasons will be (in some sense of the dichotomy) agent-neutral and some will be agent-relative. The second approach, the thick account, is, much less popular. It is argued that the thin approach trivializes an interesting issue among practical philosophers. The thin account is also in one respect less appealing than its thick cousin. The thick account is not flawless, though. At the end, a couple of objections to it will be considered. (shrink)

It is sometimes asserted that enabling harm is morally equivalent to allowing harm. In this article, I criticize this view. Positively, I show that cases involving self-defence and cases involving people acting on the basis of a reasonable belief to the effect that certain obstacles to harm will remain in place, or will be put in place, show that enabling harm is harder to justify than allowing it. Negatively, I argue that certain cases offered in defence of the (...) moral equivalence thesis fail, because either their similarity with the archetypal trolley case limits their relevance to an assessment of this thesis, or they are compromised by their reliance on the elusive notion of a situation being completely stable. (shrink)

For quite some time now philosophers have stressed the need to distinguish between explanatory (motivating) reasons and justifying (good) reasons. The distinction is often illustrated with an example of someone doing something that is intended to strike the reader or listener, at least at the outset, as incomprehensible. The story of Abraham on Mount Moriah, who decided to sacrifice his son, Isaac, illustrates this pattern. Killing one’s own child is a horrific thing to do, and it is hard to understand (...) what would drive a parent to do such a thing. But once we are informed that Abraham actually believed God had told him to do so, we can see (allegedly) that there is at least an explanation of why he decided to kill his son. In the eyes of most people the planned act remains awful. But once we assume that Abraham was mistaken (say, because the best explanation in this case need not postulate the existence of God), we can see that his decision to kill his son is not a response to a normative good reason.1 So in a few lines we have outlined two reason notions: explanatory and normative (good) reasons. Cases like this afford an intuitive grasp of the distinction between explanatory and normative reasons — the difference between what explains Abraham’s motivation and behaviour and the good or bad reasons that apply to him. However, more recently (see e.g. Dancy 2000) the picture such cases present has been supplemented, or perhaps even corrected. There is a further feature of the Abrahamic story that needs to be teased out — one that gives a finer-grained understanding of what is going on than that provided by talk of the agent’s explanatory reasons. I share this view, and so what I will be doing in this paper is mainly to underline the need to dig a bit deeper. Motivation, as I shall argue, comes in different forms . (shrink)

We have been asked to consider how a "Constitution of Civic Virtue" might contribute to a "good society." To answer this question, we need to have some idea of what a good society might be, and we need to be able to articulate that idea. Certainly, we think we know a good movie when we see it, a good book when we read it, a good argument when we hear it, and a good idea when we have one, but we (...) are not sure we have a handle on what a good society is. Even what we think we know about good books, movies, arguments, and ideas gives us pause. For we are not sure we can always explain why we think a particular movie is good or a book is bad. And even when we can explain it, we find that many people disagree with us about such matters. Indeed, we, at times, even disagree with each other. By this we do not mean to suggest any skepticism about there being such a thing as a good book, a good film, a good wine, a good car, or even a good person. If there is one thing we think we know in this world, it is that there are good persons-quite amazingly good actually. Nor do we mean to deny that there may be such a thing as a good society, though we are not so confident about this. A lot depends on what is meant by those words. Having said this, we will set our skepticism aside and now offer a conception of a good society; but we no more expect everyone to agree with this conception then we expect them to agree with one of us that "The Tao of Steve" was a really good movie. (shrink)

In this brief review it is not possible to do full justice to this lively and lucidly presented study. It is fair to say, I think, that the considerable merits of this work rest primarily with its intelligent and reliable selection of material, most of which is already available and familiar. This study does not aim to challenge any orthodoxies or present new material of some significant kind. Rasmussen does not need to do this since his real concern is (...) to tell a story about two great thinkers in an engaging manner – a task which he achieves with great success. This is a book that scholars will thoroughly enjoy and appreciate and which will also find many appreciative readers well beyond these boundaries. (shrink)

Moral cognitivism, internalism about moral judgements, and Humeanism about motivating reasons all possess attractions.Yet they cannot all be true.This is the so–called moral problem. Dancy offers an interesting particularist response to the moral problem. However, we argue that this response, first, provides an inadequate basis for the distinction between motivating states and states necessary for motivation although not themselves motivators; second, draws no support from considerations about weakness of the will; and third, involves an implausible account of desire.We conclude (...) that particularism ú whatever other attractions it may have ú does not solve the moral problem. 1We would like to thank Jonathan Dancy, Paul Robinson, and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. (shrink)

A recent argument by Nadelhoffer et al. defends a cautious optimism regarding the use of neuroprediction in relation to sentencing based, in part, on an assessment of the offender’s dangerousness. While this optimism may be warranted, Nadelhoffer et al.’s argument fails to justify it. Although neuropredictions provide individualized, non-statistical evidence they will often be problematic for the same reason that basing sentencing on statistical evidence is, to wit, that such predictions are insensitive to the offender’s dangerousness in relevant counterfactual (...) situations and, accordingly, fail to provide the court with knowledge of the offender’s dangerousness. Admittedly, it could be replied that standard clinical assessments of dangerousness possess the same objectionable feature, but doing so undermines a different part of Nadelhoffer et al.’s argument. Finally, I criticize an incentives-based rationale for sentencing informed by neuropredictions of dangerousness. (shrink)

If “perfectionism” in ethics refers to those normative theories that treat the fulfillment or realization of human nature as central to an account of both goodness and moral obligation, in what sense is “human flourishing” a perfectionist notion? How much of what we take “human flourishing” to signify is the result of our understanding of human nature? Is the content of this concept simply read off an examination of our nature? Is there no place for diversity and individuality? Is the (...) belief that the content of such a normative concept can be determined by an appeal to human nature merely the result of epistemological naiveté? What is the exact character of the connection between human flourishing and human nature? These questions are the ultimate concern of this essay, but to appreciate the answers that will be offered it is necessary to understand what is meant by “human flourishing.” “Human flourishing” is a relatively recent term in ethics. It seems to have developed in the last two decades because the traditional translation of the Greek term eudaimonia as “happiness” failed to communicate clearly that eudaimonia was an objective good, not merely a subjective good. (shrink)

CHARLES TAYLOR, IN TWO IMPORTANT ESSAYS, offers both a refutation of what appears to be the foundations of liberalism as well as an alternative “third way” to the liberal-communitarian debate. In this paper we are broadly interested in the role of community within a liberal framework, and for that reason the Taylor essays are a useful way to begin such an exploration. There is, we believe, much in Taylor with which to agree. If liberalism somehow fails to accommodate any meaningful (...) conception of community or somehow manages to undermine the possibility of community, that would be a serious strike against it. “Atomism” is one of those concepts inherently linked by thinkers such as Taylor to liberalism. It is the sort of concept meant to evoke, if not describe, a perspective on human association that is at least problematic to community-building, if not directly undermining it. Taylor’s first essay with the title of “Atomism” explores this idea and levels the charge of anticommunity against liberalism. The second essay, “Cross Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” builds upon that charge but seeks to moderate the apparent antiliberal stance of the first. Our position is that liberalism is not opposed to community and that “atomism” when applied to liberalism is something of a myth — a caricature rather than an integral part of liberalism. Our specific theses will be the following: “atomism” as used by Taylor is a confused tool and one whose uses for understanding liberalism are extremely limited, if applicable at all; the applicability of “atomism” is ironically more consistent with certain forms of collectivism than with liberalism; and Taylor’s own proposed way of navigating the difference between liberalism and communitarianism is in the end a form of communitarianism and not an alternative at all. (shrink)

Philosophers of time say that if presentism is true (i.e. if reality is comprised solely of presently existing things), then a complete description of reality must contain tensed terms, such as ‘was’, ‘presently is’ and ‘will be’. I counter this viewpoint by explaining how the presentist may de-tense our talk about times. I argue, furthermore, that, since the A-theory of time denies the success of any such de-tensing strategy, presentism is not a version of the A-theory – contrary to (...) the popular opinion. (shrink)

Plural quantification, often used to evade Russell paradoxes, will lead back to them, given certain assumptions about propositions. This chapter provides a more generalized version of the path to paradox by showing that any theory that makes possible the construction of an appropriate packaging relation falls prey to a Russell paradox. It gives examples of widely-held metaphysical theories that require such a relation. It shows that the paradoxes that can result from plural quantification are more widely damaging, and harder (...) to tame, than has been recognized. It also displays formal requirements that any metaphysical framework with a packaging relation must meet if it is to have a chance of escaping self-contradiction. The chapter first gives the general paradox-generating setup, and then shows how three families of metaphysical assumptions allow one to instantiate it. It concludes by assessing the aftermath of the arguments presented. (shrink)

In this article, we critically discuss different versions of the fairness objection to the legalisation of neuro-doping. According to this objection, legalising neuro-doping will result in some enjoying an unfair advantage over others. Basically, we assess four versions. These focus on: 1) the unequal opportunities of winning for athletes who use neuro-doping and for those who do not; 2) the unfair advantages specifically for wealthy athletes; 3) the unfairness of athletic advantages not derived from athletes’ own training ; and (...) 4) the unfair health care costs imposed on everyone as a result of athletes’ use of neuro-doping. We conclude that none of these versions offer a convincing principled fairness-based objection to legalising neuro-doping. (shrink)

On 24 July 2022, the landmark decision Roe v. Wade (1973), that secured a right to abortion for decades, was overruled by the US Supreme Court. The Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation severely restricts access to legal abortion care in the USA, since it will give the states the power to ban abortion. It has been claimed that overruling Roe will have disproportionate impacts on women of color and that restricting access to abortion contributes (...) to or amounts to structural racism. In this paper, we consider whether restricting abortion access as a consequence of overruling Roe could be understood as discrimination against women of color (and women in general). We argue that banning abortion is indirectly discriminatory against women of color and directly (but neither indirectly, nor structurally) discriminatory against women in general. (shrink)

This book will attempt to achieve a constructive and positive correla tion between mythic-symbolic language and philosophical anthropolo gy. It is intended as a reflection on the philosophical accomplishment of Paul Ricoeur. The term mythic-symbolic language in this context means the language of the multivalent symbol given in the myth with its psychological and poetic counterparts. The term symbol is not con ceived as an abstract sign as it is used in symbolic logic, but rather as a concrete phenomenon (...) - religious, psychological, and poetic. The task inherent in this correlation is monumental when one considers the dual dilemma of problematic and possibility which is at its heart. The prob lematic arises out of the apparent difficulty presented by the so-called challenge of modernity which seems to require the elimination of my thic-symbolic language as an intelligible mode of communication. Mythic-symbolic language is sometimes eliminated because in a world molded by abstract conceptualizations conceptUalizations of science, such a language is thought to be unintelligible. The claim is that its "primitive" explana tions have been transcended by our modernity. Others believe that the problem of mythic-symbolic language is the problem of the myth. If the mythic forms of language could be eliminated, the truth of such language could be preserved through its translation into an intelligible mode of discourse. The problematic is heightened further by the relation of consider ations of language to philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

The field of nanoscience and nanotechnology is expanding rapidly, promising great benefits for society in the form of better medicine, more efficient energy production, new types of materials, etc. Naturally, in order for the science and technology to live up to these promises, it is important to continue scientific research and development, but equally important is the ethical dimension. Giving attention to the social, ethical and legal aspects of the field, among others, will help in developing a fully responsible—and (...) thereby capable—science and technology. Nanoethics has emerged as a field concerned with such ethical issues related to nanoscience and nanotechnology. Even though this field is relatively new, a significant amount of literature has already been published. This paper focuses on three of the major issues which are discussed in the literature of nanoethics, and also points to a certain bias in this literature. Each quite different in nature, these issues are: (1) The naming and (2) the timing of and approach to the field, as well as (3) the issue of safety. As will be seen, these issues are almost exclusively discussed by ethicists, (throughout the article, the term’ethicist’ is used in a broad definition covering philosophers, social and political scientists as well as philosophers of science) thus having no direct influence on the work being carried out by scientists. One can argue, therefore, that this bias creates a distortion of the ethical debate, making it insufficient and misleading. Ultimately, this bias is caused by the lack of communication and collaboration between ethicists on the one hand, and nanoscientists on the other. Thus, an argument is made for the different disciplines to begin collaborating, so as to more effectively and responsibly develop the field of nanoscience. (shrink)

Many people think that truth somehow depends upon the way things are. Yet, it has proven difficult to precisely explain the nature of this dependence. The most common view is that truth depends upon the way things are by corresponding to things. But this account relocates the difficulty: one now wonders what correspondence is. It is worth emphasizing that the question of how truth relates to reality is not only a question for correspondence theorists; theorists of all stripes may wonder (...) how truth and reality connect. There are many reasons one might care to have an analysis of how truth relates to reality. Here are two. First, an analysis would help philosophers better understand how truth could depend upon the way things are. Why is it that when Joe shoves his cat off his pillow, the proposition that Joe's cat is on his pillow switches from true to false? It may seem puzzling that an abstract thing, such as a proposition, should be affected by physical changes to concrete particulars. How does that happen? The difficulty of seeing just how true propositions are able to systematically relate to reality will be called "the Problem of Matching." A thorough analysis of the relationship between truth and reality would effectively solve the Problem of Matching. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that the distinction between biological life and political life as found in Hannah Arendt’s reading of Aristotle and later repeated and elaborated by Giorgio Agamben under the headings of and, is in fact a fertile point of entry to, and the only viable option in order the grasp what constitutes the political as such for Aristotle. By hashing out the conceptual steps necessary for the establishment of what can be called a “political community”, (...) I seek to illuminate how the distinction upon which much of Arendt’s and Agamben’s works rests, does indeed play a vital role in the work of Aristotle. By clarifying the nature of a “political community” according to Aristotle, this paper thus seeks to make a proper assessment of the thought of both Arendt and Agamben possible. (shrink)

The deliberative model of politics has recently been criticized for not being very well equipped to conceptualize current developments such as the misinterpretation of political difference, the digital turn, and public protests. A first critique is that this model assumes a conception of public spheres that is too idealistic. A second objection is that it misconceives the relationship between empirical reality and normativity. Third, it is assumed that deliberative democracy offers an antiquated notion of a shared ‘we’ of political actors (...) and because of this, fourth, fails to take into consideration the ‘digital turn’, in particular the de-personalizing effects of social media that have led to a rapid decline of the public sphere. And a fifth critique states that the deliberative model ignores the fact that politics is not, and especially protests and revolutions are not, seminar-like debates but spontaneous, chaotic and sometimes violent expressions. I will argue that all of these critiques fall short in a variety of ways. A deliberative model of politics allows us to address the tension between the ideal and the real, the ‘old media’ and the so-called digitalization of public spheres as well as peaceful discourse and violent uprisings. Especially the concept of communicative power, a notion also used by Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, reveals the potentials for future participation in digital spaces and public places. (shrink)

This is the first systematic assessment of the work of J[um] rgen Habermas - the key theorist of the later Frankfurt School, whose writing has had a major impact on social theory and sociology. These four volumes comprise the key secondary literature on Habermas. Edited by David Rasmussen and James Swindal, leading commentators on Habermas's work, this will be the standard reference work on one of the canonical theorists of the 20th century. VOLUME ONE: The Foundations of Habermas's (...) Project VOLUME TWO: Law and Politics VOLUME THREE: Ethics VOLUME FOUR: Communicative Rationality, Formal Pragmatics, Speech Act Theory and Truth. (shrink)

In The Ends of Harm Victor Tadros develops an alternative to consequentialist, and non-consequentialist retributivist, accounts of the justifiability of punishment: the duty view. Crucial to this view is the claim that wrongdoers incur an enforceable duty to remedy their wrongs. They cannot undo them, but they can do something that is almost as good—namely, by submitting to appropriate punishment, which will deter potential wrongdoers in the future, reduce their victim’s risk of suffering similar wrongs again. Admittedly, this involves (...) harming wrongdoers as a means to an end, but according to Tadros the ‘means principle’ that we should not harm others as a means, properly construed, does not apply to cases where the victim has an enforceable duty to bear the kind of harm that he or she is being made to suffer. In this article, I shall express reservations about Tadros’ defense and interpretation of the means principle. In presenting his position, Tadros also sets out some interesting anti-retributivist considerations casting doubt on the idea that wrongdoers’ suffering is non-instrumentally good. I shall challenge these. Finally, I shall suggest that the duty view may have counterintuitive implications in relation to wrongs where the offender helps to lower the risk that victims will be subjected to similar wrongs in ways other than by being punished. (shrink)

Abstract‘Cruel optimism’ is a term coined by Lauren Berlant. In conceptualizing this term, Berlant draws on the resources of critical theory to interrogate people’s desires for things they think may improve their lot, but actually act as obstacles to flourishing. This notion may be useful for analysing the current state of education in Australia, and the desire to believe that My School, and the associated data it provides, will enable schools to address social inequalities. For Berlant, the promise of (...) such technologies is problematic because it diverts our attention from important ethical, social and political questions, some of which are highlighted in the contributions to this special issue. Using ‘cruel optimism’ as a point of departure, I interrogate how the notion of critical theory has been conceptualized in educational research by briefly looking at scholarship within and outside education relating to critical theory. Following on from this, I consider how what I am terming critical theory is put to work in each of the articles that make up this special issue on My School. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between human choice and Rand's ethical standard for moral goodness and obligation. It shows that the neo-Aristotclian interpretation of Rand's ethics—an interpretation that does not accept the doctrine of "premoral choice" but instead claims that flourishing as a rational animal is the telos of human life and choice—is crucial to the viability of her ethical theory. The defenders of premoral choice confuse the conceptual order with the real and, despite their intentions, make Rand's ethics into (...) a voluntarist ethics, that is, an ethics in which reason is subordinate to will. (shrink)

This project is a philosophical analysis of the practice of bioethics consultation---what might be called the philosophy of bioethics. It assesses claims made about the purposes and appropriate aims of the field, in order to establish whether an identifiable conceptual unity underlies the practice. The conclusion is that no such unity exists. ;The project begins by assessing the history of the field, in the hope that a historical analysis will explain why the field arose at all, which reason could (...) then be used as a basis for claiming a particular purpose for bioethics consultation. However, it becomes clear that history has bequeathed diverse and sometimes conflicting goals to bioethics consultation. History suggests that the field exists both as a service to physicians and as a service to patients, though the interests of these two parties may be in tension. ;This work also assesses contemporary accounts of bioethics consultation and shows that they are radically divergent and incommensurable, in addition to often being too vague to guide the practice. An investigation of possible philosophical arguments regarding bioethics consultation also fails to disclose a single coherent foundation for the field. The project ends with a conceptual geography of twelve possible roles a bioethics consultant may play, and finds that though some are in tension, none may be ruled out of court on independent grounds in the absence of an overarching account of the appropriate aims of the field. ;What this project demonstrates is that there is no conceptual unity underlying the practice of bioethics consultation. Instead, the enterprise must be understood as comprised of a plurality of roles serving a diversity of purposes and a heterogeneity of goods with no single uniting purpose. (shrink)

This paper will begin by clarifying the kind of context, which requires toleration. My point of departure is a characterization of modernity that both departs from the classical modern theory of secularization and draws from the current research on multiple modernities. Because of the more or less recent resurgence of religion we can no longer characterize toleration on the basis of a theory of secularization. This will lead to the definition of conflict and tolerance within the confines of (...) a post-secular society. The philosophical component of the concept of toleration will be taken from both Aristotle and Kant in the sense that toleration is not only a necessary virtue in modern society, it is also a normative notion based on respect for the law. Finally, the paper concludes that toleration must be conceived of as a principle of justice in a society that requires respect not only for the rights of others but for their cultures as well. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that the distinction between biological life and political life as found in Hannah Arendt’s reading of Aristotle and later repeated and elaborated by Giorgio Agamben under the headings of (“bare life”) and (“qualified life”), is in fact a fertile point of entry to, and the only viable option in order the grasp what constitutes the political as such for Aristotle. By hashing out the conceptual steps necessary for the establishment of what can be (...) called a “political community”, I seek to illuminate how the distinction upon which much of Arendt’s and Agamben’s works rests, does indeed play a vital role in the work of Aristotle. By clarifying the nature of a “political community” according to Aristotle, this paper thus seeks to make a proper assessment of the thought of both Arendt and Agamben possible. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider whether the alleged demise of metaphysical realism does actually provide a better way for defending the cognitive status of ethical judgments. I argue that the rejection of a realist ontology and epistemology does not help to establish the claim that ethical knowledge is possible. More specifically, I argue that Hilary Putnam's argument does not succeed in making a case for ethical knowledge. In fact, his account of the procedures by which our valuations are warranted—the criteria (...) of idealized inquiry—ultimately begs the question in a number of crucial ways. Moreover, it prejudices the moral and political discussion in certain ideological respects. Finally, though Putnam has apparently modified to some extent his approach to the issue of realism in recent years, I will point out that these modifications are not fundamental and do not help to advance the case for ethical knowledge. I note also that Martha C. Nussbaum's appeal to Putnam’s argument actually works against her attempt to make a case for an Aristotelian conception of human flourishing. Ultimately, I conclude that metaphysical realism is vital for ethical knowledge. (shrink)

Vernon, Jim, ‘A passion for justice’: Martin Luther King, Jr. and G. W. F. Hegel on ‘world-historical individuals’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 43 February 2017 pp. 187–207, DOI 10.1177/0191453716680126 SAGE regrets that an error in the title of this article was included in the original publication. Subsequent online versions of this article will be corrected.

The modern republican history of Turkey and its relation with the question of ethnic diversity could be understood via the tension between the processes of system integration and social integration. This article, based on Jürgen Habermas’ conceptual framework, draws the sources of such tension with reference to the Kurdish identity in Turkey since the early republican era. For this purpose, from the 1920s to the 2000s, policies and discourses of system integration aiming at a certain degree of ethnic homogenization to (...) eliminate ‘possible threats’ to territorial integrity and national unity are discussed in detail. While system integration processes reflect an exclusionary and assimilative-securitist logic of state practices regarding the Kurdish question, this article argues that the Kurdish challenge to republicanism and to its system integration logic promises more for the dynamics of social integration. Especially since the 1990s, while processes of system integration are still in force; national, regional and diasporic achievements of Kurdish politics and its call for a democratic transformation of the republic based on decentralist, participatory and multiculturalist values have become much more visible. This new focus on democratic transformation demands more for social integration through internalization of roles as well as through promotion of an active communication between citizens by raising the claims of active participation to social and political spheres as well as by making identity visible in different aspects of socio-cultural life. Degree of social integration and its success vis-à-vis system integration will be decisive in the democratic transformation of Turkey in the future. (shrink)

Using multi-modal Conversation Analysis, this article demonstrates how teenage boys end assessments of social experiences with insults. When they participate in social activities, teenagers — as everybody else — routinely make assessments through which they produce social organization and create alignments. This article, however, analyzes structures of assessments that are contested in a counter-positional action. It will be demonstrated how the teenage boys end these challenged-assessment sequences through ‘insults’. A feature of these insults is that the conversationalists ‘go mental’, (...) that is, they question the ‘mental’ abilities and competences of their co-participant and thereby exclude him from the status of being a competent member of the group. In and through such conduct, the participants make the social function as well as the risks of assessing explicit: as competent members of a social group they are being held accountable for having claimed knowledge of the assessed target and may on these grounds be excommunicated as someone who does not understand social life. (shrink)

This essay presents a brief summary of the Sen/Nussbaum conception of liberalism, offers some main points of criticism, and contrasts their conception of human flourishing and politics with an alternative one. The ultimate aim will be to show that they do not advance the cause of liberalism properly understood but actually retreat from it. The “human capabilities argument,” “public reasoning,” “internalist essentialism,” and other key concepts are discussed. The paper concludes that Sen and Nussbaum fail to adequately defend the (...) premises of the human capabilities argument and that their argument invites a retreat from liberalism. Moreover, on their theory individuals have no basis upon which to erect borders for their resources or themselves and to say to any and all that some areas are off limits no matter who may benefit. Rather, there is only the relentless and enforced pursuit of capabilities. (shrink)

My extended project, for which this study of Machiavelli is the beginning, is to examine early modern constitutionalism in order to understand the modes of pluralism that were advocated either intentionally or unintentionally in the construction of the idea of the political that was bequeathed to us. I will consider the thought of two major figures in this historical section of the project, namely, Niccolò Machiavelli and James Madison. The first section will be focused on Machiavelli exclusively. This (...) section will consider Machiavelli’s work in the context of three major interpreters: J. G. A. Pocock, Anthony J. Parel, and Isaiah Berlin. The topics will be: time and the construction of the political, nature and prescriptive normativity, and the plurality of values. (shrink)