This article explores how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) operating in a development context built resilience during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a qualitative analysis of eight partnerships operating in East-Africa, Central America, and Indonesia, I show how CSPs engaged in three practices of resilience building (i.e., forming unconventional alliances, mobilizing digital technologies, and building subnetworks), which allowed them to remain functional despite facing adversity. In addition to fostering their resilience, my findings show how engaging in these practices enabled (...) the CSPs to develop new capabilities (i.e., improved abilities to engage with beneficiaries) that benefit them in the long run. Based on these insights, I advance our understanding of resilience building by unpacking this concept on a CSP level. Furthermore, by unfolding the relevance of incidental learning in a cross-sectoral setting, I widen our knowledge of learning processes in CSPs. (shrink)

This article investigates how firms address the stability-change paradox inherent in sustainability transitions through the maintenance and utilization of a portfolio of sustainability-oriented partnerships. Drawing on a retrospective case study of Dong/Ørsted, a Danish energy company, we demonstrate the varying manifestations of the stability-change paradox during different phases of the company’s transition, influenced by both exogenous and endogenous factors. Furthermore, our findings reveal how Dong/Ørsted employed their partnership portfolio to implement diverse responses to manage the paradox. Based on these findings, (...) we argue that partnership portfolios can serve as spatiotemporal pockets, enabling organizations to effectively address and leverage the temporal and spatial aspects inherent in sustainability paradoxes. In addition, we highlight how partnership portfolios facilitate sustainability transitions by creating and leveraging different forms of collaborative value. (shrink)

This article discusses how cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) for sustainability manage the paradoxical tension between stakeholder inclusiveness and administrative efficiency. Drawing on qualitative data from a case study of a CSP focused on urban sustainability, we show how the inclusiveness–efficiency paradox unfolded throughout the studied collaboration. We discuss how the paradox reemerged in a different guise within each phase of the partnership and how three practices of paradox management helped actors to cope with the tension: “customized inviting” (during the formation phase), (...) “sequential including” (during the preparation phase), and “tailored instructing” (during the implementation phase). On the basis of these findings, we argue that (a) the paradox reoccurred throughout the phases of the CSP because the three paradox management practices accentuated boundaries, thereby helping to resolve the paradox temporarily while at the same time creating grounds for the paradox to resurface, and (b) that the three paradox management practices can be theorized as a special type of boundary work that “plays up” relevant differences between actor groups and thereby ensures collaboration. (shrink)

Although a good deal has been written about Kant's conception of free will in recent years, there has been no serious attempt to examine in detail the development of his views on the topic. This book endeavours to remedy the situation by tracing Kant's thoughts on free will from his earliest discussions of it in the 1750s through to his last accounts in the 1790s. This developmental approach is of interest for at least two reasons. First, it shows that the (...) path that led Kant to view freedom as a transcendental power that is both radically distinct from and compatible with the causality of nature was a winding one. Second, it indicates that, despite the variety of views of free will that Kant held at various times, the concept occupied a central place in his thought, because it was the point of union between his theoretical and practical philosophy. (shrink)

Henry Allison is one of the foremost interpreters of the philosophy of Kant. This new volume collects all his recent essays on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. All the essays postdate Allison's two major books on Kant, and together they constitute an attempt to respond to critics and to clarify, develop and apply some of the central theses of those books. Two are published here for the first time. Special features of the collection are: a detailed defence of the (...) author's interpretation of transcendental idealism; a consideration of the Transcendental Deduction and some other recent interpretations thereof; further elaborations of the tensions between various aspects of Kant's conception of freedom and of the complex role of this conception within Kant's moral philosophy. (shrink)

Do children have a theory of mind? If they do, at what age is it acquired? What is the content of the theory, and how does it differ from that of adults? The Child's Theory of Mind integrates the diverse strands of this rapidly expanding field of study. It charts children's knowledge about a fundamental topic - the mind - and characterizes that developing knowledge as a coherent commonsense theory, strongly advancing the understanding of everyday theories as well as the (...) commonsense theory of mind. Wellman presents evidence that children as young as age three do possess a commonsense theory of mind - that they grasp the distinction between mental constructs and physical entities and that they have an understanding of the relationship between individuals' mental states and their overt actions. He delves in detail into questions about the nature of adults' commonsense theories of mind and about the nature of commonsense theories. Wellman then examines the content of the three-year-old's theory of mind, the nature of children's notions of mind before age three, the changes in the theory during subsequent development from ages three to six, and the young child's conception of mind in comparison with those of older children and adults. Henry M. Wellman is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. (shrink)

Mitigation—preventative actions to reduce the human forcing of climate change with the goal of keeping climate change within a range to which humans can adapt—must be prompt, rigorous, and focused on eliminating emissions of carbon dioxide, beginning with rapid cessation of the use of coal. Carbon dioxide is by far the most threatening greenhouse gas because it remains in the atmosphere for millennia longer than any other major greenhouse gas, and the heat retained on the planet by atmospheric carbon dioxide (...) will continue to emerge from its transitional storage in the deep oceans for millennia after the atmospheric carbon finally dissipates. Sustainable development can be increased and ocean acidification can be stopped only if the dominant fossil fuel regime is promptly replaced by an affordable and accessible alternative energy regime. Poorer countries cannot be reasonably expected to cooperate with vigorous mitigation unless they are assisted with necessary adaptation. (shrink)

Some of our most fundamental moral rules are violated by the practices of torture and war. If one examines the concrete forms these practices take, can the exceptions to the rules necessary to either torture or war be justified? Fighting Hurt brings together key essays by Henry Shue on the issue of torture, and relatedly, the moral challenges surrounding the initiation and conduct of war, and features a new introduction outlining the argument of the essays, putting them into context, (...) and describing how and in what ways his position has modified over time. The first six chapters marshal arguments that have been refined over 35 years for the conclusion that torture can never be justified in any actual circumstances whatsoever. The practice of torture has nothing significant in common with the ticking bomb scenario often used in its defence, and weak U.S. statutes have loop-holes for psychological torture of the kind now favoured by CIA in the 'war against terrorism'. The other sixteen chapters maintain that for as long as wars are in fact fought, it is morally urgent to limit specific destructive practices that cannot be prohibited. Two possible exceptions to the UN Charter's prohibition on all but defensive wars, humanitarian military intervention and preventive war to eliminate WMD, are evaluated; and one possible exception to the principle of discrimination, Michael Walzer's 'supreme emergency', is sharply criticized. Two other fundamental issues about the rules for the conduct of war receive extensive controversial treatment. The first is the rules to limit the bombing of dual-use infrastructure, with a focus on alternative interpretations of the principle of proportionality that limits 'collateral damage'. The second is the moral status of the laws of war as embodied in International Humanitarian Law. It is argued that the current philosophical critique of IHL by Jeff McMahan focused on individual moral liability to attack is an intellectual dead-end and that the morally best rules are international laws that are the same for all fighters.Examining real cases, including U.S. bombing of Iraq in 1991, the Clinton Administration decision not to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, and CIA torture after 9/11 and its alternatives, this book is highly accessible to general readers who are interested in the ethical status of American political life, especially foreign policy. (shrink)

Henry Richardson argues that we can determine our ends rationally. He constructs a rich and original theory of how we can reason about our final goals. Richardson defuses the counter-arguments for the limits of rational deliberation, and develops interesting ideas about how his model might be extended to interpersonal deliberation of ends, taking him to the borders of political theory. Along the way Richardson offers illuminating discussions of, inter alia, Aristotle, Aquinas, Sidgwick, and Dewey, as well as the work (...) of several contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

Bringing together evolutionary biology, psychology, and philosophy, Henry Plotkin presents a new science of knowledge, one that traces an unbreakable link between instinct and our ability to know.

One of the most influential of the Victorian philosophers, Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) also made important contributions to fields such as economics, political theory, and classics. An active promoter of higher education for women, he founded Cambridge's Newnham College in 1871. He attended Rugby School and then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained his whole career. In 1859 he took up a lectureship in classics, and held this post for ten years. In 1869, he moved to a lectureship in moral (...) philosophy, the subject where he left arguably his greatest mark when he produced this work, regarded as his masterpiece. Published in 1874, the book argues the utilitarian approach to ethics, and a systematic and historically sensitive approach to ethical research that influenced utilitarian philosophers well into the twentieth century. It remains a valuable introduction to the philosophy, practice and history of ethics. This reissue includes the 1877 supplement. (shrink)

Henry E. Allison presents an analytical and historical commentary on Kant`s transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason. He argues that, rather than providing a new solution to an old problem, it addresses a new problem, and he traces the line of thought that led Kant to the recognition of the significance of this problem in his 'pre-critical' period. In addition to the developmental nature of the account of Kant`s views presented (...) here, two distinctive features of Allison's reading of the deduction are a defense of Kant`s oft criticized claim that the conformity of appearances to the categories must be unconditionally rather than merely conditionally necessary and an insistence that the argument cannot be separated from Kant`s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

This essay argues that the key to understanding Kant's transcendental idealism is to understand the transcendental realism with which he contrasts it. It maintains that the latter is not to be identified with a particular metaphysical thesis, but with the assumption that the proper objects of human cognitions are “objects in general” or “as such,” that is, objects considered simply qua objects of some understanding. Since this appears to conflict with Kant's own characterization of transcendental realism as the view that (...) (mistakenly) regards appearances as if they were things in themselves, the essay explicates the connection between the concepts of an object (or thing) considered as such and a thing considered as it is in itself. In light of this, it maintains that Kant's transcendental idealism is compatible with a robust empirical realism and that many of its critics are tacitly committed to a misguided transcendental realism. (shrink)

In a criminal trial, a judge or jury needs to reason about what happened based on the available evidence, often including statistical evidence. While a probabilistic approach is suitable for analysing the statistical evidence, a judge or jury may be more inclined to use a narrative or argumentative approach when considering the case as a whole. In this paper we propose a combination of two approaches, combining Bayesian networks with scenarios. Whereas a Bayesian network is a popular tool for analysing (...) parts of a case, constructing and understanding a network for an entire case is not straightforward. We propose an explanation method for understanding a Bayesian network in terms of scenarios. This method builds on a previously proposed construction method, which we slightly adapt with the use of scenario schemes for the purpose of explaining. The resulting structure is explained in terms of scenarios, scenario quality and evidential support. A probabilistic interpretation of scenario quality is provided using the concept of scenario schemes. Finally, the method is evaluated by means of a case study. (shrink)

In order to decide whether a comprehensive treaty covering all greenhouse gases is the best next step after UNCED, one needs to distinguish among the four questions about the international justice of such international arrangements: (1) What is a fair allocation of the costs of preventing the global warming that is still avoidable?; (2) What is a fair allocation of the costs of coping with the social consequences of the global warming that will not in fact be avoided?; (3) What (...) background allocation of wealth would allow international bargaining (about issues like 1 and 2) to be a fair process?; and (4) What is a fair allocation of emissions of greenhouse gases (over the long-term and during the transition to the long-term allocation)? In answering each question we must specify from whom any transfers should come and to whom any transfers should go. As the grounds for the answers we usually face a choice between fault-based principles and no-fault principles. (shrink)

This piece, which was revised greatly subsequent to the publication of the Methods of Ethics, appears in this collection in its original form. In it, Sidgwick distinguishes between Universal Hedonism and Egoistic Hedonism, the former espoused by Bentham, who nonetheless approves of individual self‐interest, which he regards as inevitable. Mill attempts to forge a connection between the psychological and ethical principles that he and Bentham share, maintaining that, since each person seeks her own happiness, she ought to seek the happiness (...) of others. Sidgwick endeavours to dissociate universal hedonism from the egoistic notions that appear in both Bentham and Mill's positions. (shrink)

Autonomous vehicles are one of the most spectacular recent developments of Artificial Intelligence. Among the problems that still need to be solved before they can fully autonomously participate in traffic is the one of making their behaviour conform to the traffic laws. This paper discusses this problem by way of a case study of Dutch traffic law. First it is discussed to what extent Dutch traffic law exhibits features that are traditionally said to pose challenges for AI & Law models, (...) such as exceptions, rule conflicts, open texture and vagueness, rule change, and the need for commonsense knowledge. Then three approaches to the design of law-conforming AV are evaluated in light of the challenges posed by Dutch traffic law, which includes an assessment of the usefulness of AI & Law models of nonmonotonic reasoning, argumentation and case-based reasoning. (shrink)

Sidgwick offers a largely unflattering review of Fitzjames Stephen's critique of Mill's On Liberty. Sidgwick observes that, when discussing the legitimate influence of society over the individual, Stephen directs his argument against Mill and Comtism in turn, without seeming to notice that these thinkers hold opposing views on the issue. As a consequence, this generates inconsistencies in his position. Yet, despite the significant amount of wilful paradox and misplaced ingenuity in his work, Stephen does highlight the right arguments to challenge (...) Mill's position in On Liberty. Here, Mill seems to forget the essential limits of the utilitarian method by seeking to establish absolute practical maxims. (shrink)

This volume, originally published in 2002, assembles the historical sequence of writings that Kant published between 1783 and 1796 to popularize, summarize, amplify and defend the doctrines of his masterpiece, the Critique of Pure Reason of 1781. The best known of them, the Prolegomena, is often recommended to beginning students, but the other texts are also vintage Kant and are important sources for a fully rounded picture of Kant's intellectual development. As with other volumes in the series there are copious (...) linguistic notes and a glossary of key terms. The editorial introductions and explanatory notes shed light on the critical reception accorded Kant by the metaphysicians of his day and on Kant's own efforts to derail his opponents. (shrink)

Here, Sidgwick discusses Bradley's main ethical principle that self‐realisation is the ultimate aim of practice, noting the oddity of Bradley's acknowledgment in another paper in Ethical Studies that he does not know what he means by ‘self’, ‘real’ or ‘realise’. In an essay comparing determinism and indeterminism, Bradley specifies the notion of ‘self’ by stating that each person has a definite character, which under certain circumstances expresses itself in actions of a particular kind. In his paper on why we ought (...) to be moral, however, Bradley starts afresh, arguing that the self we try to realise is a whole, that is to say, the ultimate end. Then again, in a third paper, he speaks of the person as a social being, stating that ‘we have found self‐realization, duty, happiness in one, when we have found our function as an organ in the social organism.’ Given these various attempts, Sidgwick holds that Bradley's main ethical argument lacks the coherence and completeness it would require to be tenable. (shrink)

In this essay, Sidgwick analyses Fowler's attempt to develop a scientific conception of morality that addresses practical applications rather than theoretical difficulties. After distinguishing the moral sanction from the legal sanction and the social sanction, Fowler turns to the central issue of how we are to justify the application of the moral sanction as the supreme and final sanction in cases of conflict. In his response to this question, Sidgwick suggests that Fowler oscillates between Hume's view, that moral sentiment or (...) strong feeling puts the final stamp of approbation or disapprobation on actions or character, and the incompatible view, that moral judgments or opinions determine the rightness of action. (shrink)

According to Sidgwick, Green does not present a clear and consistent conception of an ethical system in Prolegomena to Ethics. In its most comprehensive form, Green's doctrine of morality is stated to be a ‘Theory of the Good as Human Perfection’. This pursuit of the ultimate end of rational conduct is taken to be realization of certain human faculties or capacities, that is to say, the self‐realization of the divine principle in man. Amongst other things, Sidgwick questions not only how (...) this relation of man to God is to be philosophically known, but also how the human spirit is to aim at any kind of perfection except the increase of knowledge. (shrink)

In this chapter, Sidgwick discusses the connection between value and psychology. Sidgwick points out that while ancient philosophers were concerned with the proper ultimate object of rational thought, modern thinkers have been interested in the basis and validity of a received code of restrictive, not directive, rules. Whereas modern philosophers concentrate on the general good, ancient Greek philosophers focused on an egoistic good, that is, the good for any individual seeking the true way of life. And yet, the old question (...) ‘What is the Ultimate Good?’ has arisen again. To this question of how to reconcile a desire for one's own Good with the dictates of duty by reason, Sidgwick argues that only Utilitarianism offers a rational account of the ideal subordination of individual psychological impulses to universal ends. (shrink)

This paper is Sidgwick's second critique of aspects of James Martineau's Types of Ethical Theory. Sidgwick begins by highlighting Martineau's unwarranted assumption that if his idiopsychological account is presented to a variety of individuals, they will each provide the same story as his on what the moral sentiment says about its own experience. In short, if presented with similar impulses or incentives to action, people's moral judgments will be similar. Concluding that Martineau's account is erroneous, Sidgwick adopts a view that (...) recognizes irreducible differences in people's moral judgments. (shrink)

Sidgwick reviews what he regards as a thorough, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt by Leslie Stephen to establish an ethical doctrine that aligns with the theory of evolution. Stephen engages in discussions that fall under three categories. The first is subjective psychology; Stephen analyses from the individual's perspective the kind of consciousness that precedes and determines volition. The second is sociology; his aim here is to develop a positive morality understood as a property of the social organism. The third kind of (...) discussion falls under ethical theory; Stephen's purpose is to determine systematically the ideal code of morality. Although Stephen's work is to be praised for its abundance of pertinent observations and reflections, Sidgwick finds it lacking in ‘clearness of method and systematic arrangement.’. (shrink)

In his reply to Barratt's criticisms of his Methods of Ethics, Sidgwick states that Barratt misapprehends his position by overlooking the fact that he reviews various methods of ethics from a neutral and impartial standpoint. Following Butler, Sidgwick holds that reasonable self‐love and conscience are the two primary principles in human life. He differs from Butler on which precepts of conscience are reasonable, and maintains that the central formula of conscience holds that one ought not to prefer one's own good (...) to the greater good of another. To Barratt's challenge that this confutes the principle of Rational Egoism, Sidgwick replies that the principle is contradicted, not confuted. (shrink)

Sidgwick argues that Calderwood's criticisms of his view on Intuitionism presented in Methods of Ethics derive from a misunderstanding of Sidgwick's project. Sidgwick did not set out to criticize, from the outside, a particular school of thought, but rather to trace the phases and to estimate the scientific value of a specific method of reaching practical decisions. One phase in this process is intuitionism. According to Sidgwick, the only ultimately valid moral intuitions are those that provide the philosophical basis for (...) utilitarianism. (shrink)

In his writings on animal ethics, Spencer maintains that the ultimate end of human conduct as well as of animal conduct is the greatest length, breadth, and completeness of life; acts are good that are conducive to the preservation of offspring or the individual. In this article, Sidgwick considers Spencer's account of both ‘the law of sub‐human justice’ and ‘the law of human justice’. The former, which is recognized as being imperfect both in its general form and in its details, (...) involves the dictum that each individual shall receive the benefits and evils of its own nature and consequent conduct. The latter – the law of human justice – is seen by Spencer as an extension of sub‐human justice, and yet, the application of the law is modified by the condition of gregariousness in a way only faintly indicated in lower species. It is not obvious, says Sidgwick, that Spencer's principle is actually just since it is not the common sense view that justice requires a man to suffer for failures that do not result from wilful wrongdoing or neglect. Despite this, Sidgwick finds some truth in Spencer's account of the origin of the sentiment of justice, which begins with an egoistic sentiment of justice, and then introduces a fear of similar resentment and retaliation by others to create an altruistic sentiment of justice. (shrink)

This piece includes both Bradley's response to Sidgwick's critique of his Ethical Studies and Sidgwick's reply to that response. Bradley states that he has no pretension to solve the problem of the individual in general, and the origin of the Self in particular. Moreover, he says that he repudiates the doctrine that one's self‐realization is achieved when someone else brings about something one desires. To these and other defences, Sidgwick offers various replies: Bradley scarcely attempts to address the charge that (...) his exposition of the self lacks clarity and coherence; and Bradley misunderstands the position that the social organism of which the individual is said to be an essential part is a relative whole, not an absolute whole. (shrink)

Taking ‘what ought to be’ to include both what is commonly judged to be ‘good’ and what is commonly judged to be ‘right’, that is to say, ‘the duty’ of a person, Sidgwick observes that there is a rationally based recognition of the variation in people's duties. Given the failure of people on many occasions to do their duty, we must acknowledge that ‘what ought to be’ to a large degree ‘is not’, and that the former is independent of whether (...) it comes into being. Sidgwick asks if this distinction is ultimate and irreducible. He argues that, although no answer can be provided by considering moral judgements from a psychological or sociological viewpoint, adopting a philosophical or epistemological perspective may allow for the reduction between ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be’, as this perspective takes both duty and facts to be objects of thought, or knowledge, that exhibit similar relations in thought, relations like that between the universal and the particular, and between inductive method and deductive method. (shrink)

Sidgwick discusses the dilemma confronting the ethical theorist whose first principles, as first principles, do not require a proof, and yet are rarely accepted without a defence. The solution lies in Aristotle's distinction between logical priority and priority in the mind of one person. While a proposition may be self‐evident, that is to say, cognizable without reference to other propositions, some rational process may be required to connect it to propositions already accepted in the mind of one individual.

Here Sidgwick presents his position on how ethical theory differs from the then new enterprise of sociology. After discussing the contributions made to the latter discipline by Comte and Spencer, Sidgwick analyses the claim that sociology absorbs ethical theory, reducing it to a subordinate branch of sociology. He argues that although these disciplines can and should be harmonized, it is not possible to bring together two such different lines of thought. Whereas ethical theory is a normative endeavour, sociology is inherently (...) descriptive. (shrink)

In this brief presentation of his version of utilitarianism, also known as universal hedonism, Sidgwick endeavours to eliminate the vagueness surrounding this view by distinguishing between the ethical theory utilitarianism and those theories within psychology that are sometimes classified under utilitarianism. As Sidgwick maintains, it does not follow from the fact that each person pursues her own happiness that she ought to seek the happiness of others. In distinguishing universal hedonism from egoistic hedonism, Sidgwick presents utilitarianism as providing a principle (...) and method for determining the objective rightness of an action. (shrink)

Here Sidgwick examines the nature of unreasonable action, that is, action that is contrary to reason or the subjective practical judgment of the agent. He undertakes his discussion from a psychological as opposed to an ethical standpoint, seeking to pin down the nature of the mental process involved in unreasonable action by a sane person in apparently normal conditions. Sidgwick notes that, on the one hand, an action may oppose the individual's moral sentiment without being unreasonable, and, on the other (...) hand, it may be unreasonable and yet align with her moral sentiments about what ought to be done. (shrink)

This paper is in three sections. The first establishes that Newton, in spite of a well-known passage in a letter to Richard Bentley of 1692, did believe in action at a distance. Many readers may see this merely as an act of supererogation, since it is so patently obvious that he did. However, there has been a long history among Newton scholars of allowing the letter to Bentley to over-ride all of Newton’s other pronouncements in favour of action at a (...) distance, with devastating effects on our understanding of related aspects of his physics and his theology. Furthermore, this misconceived scholarly endeavour shows no sign of abating. The second section then offers a historical reconstruction, based on Newton’s writings, of how, when and why he began to accept actions at a distance and make them one of the cornerstones of his physics. Finally, using this chronological account of Newton’s use of actions at a distance, the paper re-assesses the claims of B. J. T. Dobbs that Newton’s important manuscript, De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum, was written, not in the late 1660s or early 1670s as was previously supposed, but during the composition of the Principia, in 1684 or 1685.Keywords: Isaac Newton; Action-at-a-distance; Gravity; Force; Aether; Attraction. (shrink)

Aimed at those new to studying Spinoza, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to his thought, placing it in its historical and philosophical contexts, and assessing its critical reception. In addition to providing an analysis of Spinoza's metaphysical, epistemological, psychological, and ethical views in the Ethics, Henry Allison also explores his political theory and revolutionary views on the Bible, as well as his account of Judaism, which led to the excommunication of the young Spinoza from the Jewish community in (...) Amsterdam. Although the book's main focus is on the analysis of Spinoza's views, including a close reading of the central arguments of the Ethics, it also considers many of the standard objections to these arguments as well as possible responses to them. This completely revised and updated new edition of Allison's classic book, with two new chapters, will help a new generation of students to understand and value Spinoza's work. (shrink)

Although only one aspect of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's diverse oeuvre, his religious thought had a significant influence on thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and present-day liberal Protestant theologians. His thought is particularly difficult to assess, however, because it is found largely in a series of essays, reviews, critical studies, polemical writings, and commentary on theological texts. Beyond these, his correspondence, and a few fragmentary essays unpublished during his lifetime, we have his famous drama of religious toleration, Nathan the Wise, (...) and his philosophical-historical sketch, The Education of the Human Race. In these scattered texts, Lessing challenged the full range of theological views in the Enlightenment, from Protestant orthodoxy, with its belief in Biblical inerrancy, to a radical naturalism, which rejected both the concept of a divine revelation and the historically based claims of Christianity to be one, as well as virtually everything in between. Since he refused to identify himself with any of these parties, Lessing was an enigmatic figure, and a central question from his time to today is where he stood on the issue of the truth of the Christian religion. Now back in print, and with the addition of two supplementary essays, Henry E. Allison's book argues that, despite appearances, Lessing was not merely an eclectic thinker or intellectual provocateur, but a serious philosopher of religion, who combined a basically Spinozistic conception of God with a sophisticated pluralistic conception of religious truth inspired by Leibniz. (shrink)

It is argued that the validity of the predictions of quantum theory in certain spincorrelation experiments entails a violation of Einstein's locality idea that no causal influence can act outside the forward light cone. First, two preliminary arguments suggesting such a violation are reviewed. They both depend, in intermediate stages, on the idea that the results of certain unperformed experiments are physically determinate. The second argument is entangled also with the problem of the meaning of “physical reality.” A new argument (...) having neither of these characteristics is constructed. It is based strictly on the orthodox ideas of Bohr and Heisenberg, and has no realistic elements, or other ingredients, that are alien to orthodox quantum thinking. (shrink)

One of the great merits ofOn Complicity and Compromiseis that it wades into specific swamps where ordinary theorists fear to slog. It is persuasive that in general it can be right sometimes to be complicit in wrongdoing by others through causally contributing to the wrongdoing, but not sharing its purpose, if by being involved one can reasonably expect to lessen the extent of the wrong that would otherwise be suffered by the victims. I focus on whether the book's general thesis (...) is applicable to torture, which depends on what torture and the torture situation are in fact like. I focus on the case to which the chapter several times refers: the innovative CIA paradigm of torture. First, to the extent that the paradigm, which is predominantly mental, or psychological, torture succeeds in its goal of producing regression to a compliant state, the physician would be unable to rely on the torture victim's expressions of preferences or interests as authentically his own. Second, since disorientation plays such a large role in the CIA's style of torture (adopted at Guantanamo by the military), the authorities would refuse to allow a stable relationship to be built up with any one doctor by any victim, making comprehension of the victim's preferences difficult. Third, even if the doctor could somehow judge what the victim's genuine interests were, the control of the situation is much too totalistic to allow the physician any action independent of what the torture regime requires. (shrink)

The philosopher Henry Richardson's short book is a defense of a position on a neglected topic in medical research ethics. Clinical research ethics has been a longstanding area of study, dating back to the aftermath of the Nazi death-camp doctors and the Tuskegee syphilis study. Most ethical regulations and institutions have developed in response to those past abuses, including the stress on obtaining informed consent from the subject. Richardson points out that that these ethical regulations do not address one (...) of the key dilemmas faced by medical researchers -- whether or not they have obligations towards subjects who need care not directly related to the purpose of the study, termed 'ancillary care obligation'. (shrink)

Triviality arguments against the computational theory of mind claim that computational implementation is trivial and thus does not serve as an adequate metaphysical basis for mental states. It is common to take computational implementation to consist in a mapping from physical states to abstract computational states. In this paper, I propose a novel constraint on the kinds of physical states that can implement computational states, which helps to specify what it is for two physical states to non-trivially implement the same (...) computational state. (shrink)

Antonio Gramsci is one of the major social and political theorists of the 20th century whose work has had an enormous influence on several fields, including educational theory and practice. Gramsci and Education demonstrates the relevance of Antonio Gramsci's thought for contemporary educational debates. The essays are written by scholars located in different parts of the world, a number of whom are well known internationally for their contributions to Gramscian scholarship and/or educational research. The collection deals with a broad range (...) of topics, including schooling, adult education in general, popular education, workers' education, cultural studies, critical pedagogy, multicultural education, and the role of intellectuals in contemporary society. (shrink)

This paper defends the thesis of the analyticity of the principle of apperception, as developed in the first part of the B-Deduction, against recent criticisms by Paul Guyer and Patricia Kitchen The first part presents these criticisms, the most important of which being that the analyticity thesis is incompatible with both the avowed goal of which being that the Deduction of establishing the validity of the categories and Üie account of apperception in the A-Deduction. The second part argues that Kant's (...) procedure in the B-Deduction of beginning with an abstract analysis of a discursive understanding, independentiy of its relation to the specifically human forms of sensibility, requires him to regard the principle as analytic and that this explains the difference from the A-Deduction. By appealing to the model of a deduction in Kant's moral theory and the two step in one proof structure of the B-Deduction, the third part argues that the analyticity thesis is in fact compatible with the goal of the Deduction. (shrink)

Kant’s views on enlightenment are best known through his essay, “What is Enlightenment?” This is, however, merely the first of a series of reflections on the subject contained in the Kantian corpus. In what follows, I shall attempt to provide an overview of the Kantian conception of enlightenment. My major concern is to show that Kant had a complex and nuanced conception of enlightenment, one which is closely connected to some of his deepest philosophical commitments, and is as distinct from (...) the views of his contemporaries, including Mendelssohn’s, as his critical philosophy is from the rationalism of Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten. (shrink)

This essay deals with American fiction between the early 1850s, when Hawthorne and Melville produced their best work, and the first novels of Howells and James in the early 1870s. The familiar notion that this was the period of transition from pre-Civil War Romanticism to postwar Realism tells us nothing in particular about it. Yet we need some historical frame in which to place both of the later efforts of Hawthorne and Melville and the apprentice work of the next generation (...) of novelists. To this end, I propose to examine a few examples of the popular fiction that held at least quantitative dominance of the field. Hawthorne and Melville believed that the unprecedented sales of a new kind of stories by women writers contributed significantly to the loss of audience they both suffered in the early 1850s; and not only Howells and James but also Mark Twain showed in their early careers an unacknowledged attraction toward the procedures of the popular novelists along with a conscious effort to escape from them...the type of best-seller that appeared in the 1850s was an accidental creation rather than the result of conscious contrivance on the part of either authors or publishers. In fact, it caught the publishers by surprise. According to the author's sister , Susan Warner's The Wide, Wide World was rejected by "almost all the leading book firms in New York," and the manuscript was returned with the comment "Fudge!" written on it by a reader for Harper's. Miss Warner, a thirty-one-year-old spinster, was the daughter of a once prosperous New York lawyer who had fallen into financial difficulties. The story resembles Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre to the extent that its heroine is an orphan exposed to poverty and psychological hardships who finally attains economic security and high social status through marriage. But the American writer places much more emphasis on the heroine's piety, and the book sets an all-time record for frequency of references to tears and weeping.Henry Nash Smith, professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley, received the John H. Dunning prize and the Bancroft Award for hisVirgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. He has also written Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer, and Popular Culture and Industrialism. (shrink)