Inspired by a 1988 trip to El Salvador, Michael J. Perry's new book is a personal and scholarly exploration of the idea of human rights. Perry is one of our nation's leading authorities on the relation of morality, including religious morality, to politics and law. He seeks, in this book, to disentangle the complex idea of human rights by way of four probing and interrelated essays. * The initial essay, which is animated by Perry's skepticism about the capacity of (...) any secular morality to offer a coherent account of the idea of human rights, suggests that the first part of the idea of human rights--the premise that every human being is "sacred" or "inviolable"--is inescapably religious. * Responding to recent criticism of "rights talk", Perry explicates, in his second essay, the meaning and value of talk about human rights. * In his third essay, Perry asks a fundamental question about human rights: Are they universal? In addressing this question, he disaggregates and criticizes several different varieties of "moral relativism" and then considers the implications of these different relativist positions for claims about human rights. * Perry turns to another fundamental question about human rights in his final essay: Are they absolute? He concludes that even if no human rights, understood as moral rights, are absolute or unconditional, some human rights, understood as international legal rights, are--and indeed, should be--absolute. In the introduction, Perry writes: "Of all the influential--indeed, formative--moral ideas to take center stage in the twentieth century, like democracy and socialism, the idea of human rights is, for many, the most difficult. It is the most difficult in the sense that it is, for many, the hardest of the great moral ideas to integrate, the hardest to square, with the reigning intellectual assumptions of the age, especially what Bernard Williams has called 'Nietzsche's thought': 'There is not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind....' For those who accept 'Nietzsche's thought', can the idea of human rights possibly be more than a kind of aesthetic preference? In a culture in which it was widely believed that there is no God or metaphysical order of any kind, on what basis, if any, could the idea of human rights long survive?" The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries will appeal to students of many disciplines, including law, philosophy, religion, and politics. (shrink)

There has been growing interest in, and scholarly attention to, issues and questions that arise within the subject matter domain we may call "human rights theory". See, in particular, Amartya Sen, "Elements of a Theory of Human Rights," 32 Philosophy & Public Affairs 315 (2004); James W. Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (rev. ed. 2006); Michael J. Perry, Toward a Theory of Human Rights: Religion, Law, Courts (2007); James Griffin, On Human Rights (2008); Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and (...) Wrongs (2008). This essay - a version of which will appear in a multi-authored collection of essays to be published by Oxford University Press in 2009 - is intended as a contribution to human rights theory. These are the principal questions, or sets of questions, I address in the essay:1. What is the morality of human rights - by which I mean the morality that, according to the International Bill of Human Rights, is the principal warrant for the law of human rights?2. How does the morality of human rights warrant the law of human rights?3. Some human-rights-claims are legal claims, but some are moral claims, and some are both. What does a human-rights-claim of the legal sort mean? A human-rights-claim of the moral sort? And when does it make sense to think of a right that only some human beings have - children, for example - as a human right?4. Is there a plausible secular ground for the morality of human rights?5. At the end of the proverbial day, what difference does it make - why should we care - if there is no plausible secular ground for the morality of human rights?Comments and questions welcome. (shrink)

According to the propositional view of belief, a belief situation involves a believer’s standing in the relation of belief to a proposition. It is argued that the propositional view has unacceptable implications concerning the identity conditions of belief situations involving beliefs with indexical contents, especially where such beliefs are held over a period of time during which background circumstances change. After a critical discussion of Perry’s alternative to the propositional view, a version of the adverbial theory of belief, which accounts (...) satisfactorily for the identity conditions of belief situations, is advanced. This theory, which avoids the standard objections to adverbialism, is defended against the charge that it cannot provide an account of the semantics of sentences attributing the same belief to two or more believers. In the course of this defense it is argued that the standard propositional account of such sentences is insensitive to everyday language. (shrink)

This book presents a detailed analysis of three ancient models of spatial magnitude, time, and local motion. The Aristotelian model is presented as an application of the ancient, geometrically orthodox conception of extension to the physical world. The other two models, which represent departures from mathematical orthodoxy, are a "quantum" model of spatial magnitude, and a Stoic model, according to which limit entities such as points, edges, and surfaces do not exist in (physical) reality. The book is unique in its (...) discussion of these ancient models within the context of later philosophical, scientific, and mathematical developments. (shrink)

Sceptical theists--e.g., William Alston and Michael Bergmann--have claimed that considerations concerning human cognitive limitations are alone sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil. We argue that, if the considerations deployed by sceptical theists are sufficient to undermine evidential arguments from evil, then those considerations are also sufficient to undermine inferences that play a crucial role in ordinary moral reasoning. If cogent, our argument suffices to discredit sceptical theist responses to evidential arguments from evil.

This paper criticizes the pragma-dialectical conception of a fallacy, according to which a fallacy is an argumentative speech act which violates one or more of the rules of 'rational discussion'. That conception is found to be neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for committing a fallacy. It is also found wanting in several other respects.

It is not very surprising that it was no less true in antiquity than it is today that adult human beings are held to be responsible for most of their actions. Indeed, virtually all cultures in all historical periods seem to have had some conception of human agency which, in the absence of certain responsibility-defeating conditions, entails such responsibility. Few philosophers have had the temerity to maintain that this entailment is trivial because such responsibility-defeating conditions are always present. Another not (...) very surprising fact is that ancient thinkers tended to ascribe integrality to "what is" (to on). That is, they typically regarded "what is" as a cosmos or whole with distinguishable parts that fit together in some coherent or cohesive manner, rather than either as a "unity" with no parts or as a collection containing members (ta onta or "things that are") standing in no "natural" relations to one another. 1 The philoso phical problem of determinism and responsibility may, I think, best be characterized as follows: it is the problem of preserving the phenomenon of human agency (which would seem to require a certain separateness of individual human beings from the rest of the cosmos) when one sets about the philosophical or scientific task of explaining the integrality of "what is" by means of the development of a theory of causation or explanation ( concepts that came to be lumped together by the Greeks under the term "aitia"). (shrink)

This paper is a critical assessment of argumentum ad baculum, or appeal to force. Its principal contention is that, contrary to common opinion, there is no general fallacy of ad baculum. Most real-life ad baculums are, in fact, fairly strong. A basic logical form for reconstructed ad baculums is proposed, and a number of heterodoxical conclusions are also advanced and argued for. They include that ad baculum is not necessarily a prudential argument, that ad baculum need not involve force, violence, (...) or threats, and that one can argue ad baculum to oneself. The starting point of the paper, however, is a critical evaluation of three ad baculums from the exercise sets of Irving Copi's well-known Introduction to Logic. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Aristotle on the Infinite (to apeiron): From Cosmological Principle to Mathematical Operation Aristotle on Space: Magnitude (megethos) and Place (topos) Aristotle on Time: The “Number of Motion” and “Ever‐rolling Stream” Bibliography.

Some carnivores defend the position that the opportunistic consumption of meat is morally permissible even under the assumption that it is morally wrong to act in ways that ause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings. Ordering and consuming chicken once a week, they argue, will not increase the numbers of chickens suffering or slaughtered, since the system of purchasing and farming chickens is not sufficiently fine‐tuned to register differences at margin. We argue that, insensitivity of the market notwithstanding, consistent consequentialists are (...) morally prohibited from each additional purchase and consumption of meat. (shrink)

The existence of God as demonstrated from motion has preoccupied men in every age, and still stands as one of the critical questions of philosophic inquiry. The four thinkers Father Buckley discusses were selected because their methods of reasoning exhibit sharp contrasts when they are juxtaposed. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts (...) of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

The thought that human embryos could command moral respect yet also be acceptably used in medical research has struck some as incoherent. Given some assumptions about why they deserve respect, however, the thought is not objectionable, indeed not even unusual.

Some believe reality is dynamic: time passes, not just in our experience of reality, but objectively, in reality itself. There are many objections to this view. I focus on the rate objection: that time passes only if it passes at the rate of 1 second per second, but that it cannot coherently pass at that rate. Existing replies to this objection do not fully engage with its motivation. My aim is to refute the rate objection. Time can coherently pass at (...) the rate of 1 second per second. This does not conclusively show that time passes, but it removes one of the main obstacles to believing that it does. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of the so-called slippery slope argument for the conservative position on abortion. The argument was discussed in the philosophic literature some time back, but has since fallen into disfavor. The argument is first exposed and a general objection to it is advanced, then rebutted. Rosalind Hursthouse's more detailed and stronger objection is next aired, but also found less than convincing. In the course of discussing her objection, the correct form of the argument is identified, (...) and it's noted that rejection of the argument requires finding fault with its inductive premise. That, in turn, requires either (a) identifying and defending a cutoff point other than conception, or (b) not identifying a cutoff point but directly attacking the argument's conclusion. As far as (a) is concerned, all except one alternative cutoff point have severe problems that have been well discussed in the literature. The one that doesn't, the appearance of the ‘primitive streak’, is examined in detailed, but ultimately rejected. As for (b), five different grounds for rejecting the conclusion are identified and discussed, but none is found plausible. Variations on the slippery slope argument, concerning different conclusions that it may have, are then distinguished, related to each other, and critically discussed, and the paper ends with some cautionary remarks about the defense of the argument tendered. (shrink)

We develop a framework for assessing security market quality, relating five elements of market design to three metrics of market integrity and two metrics of market efficiency. We empirically implement this integrity–efficiency MQ framework by testing a hypothesis that trade-based ramping manipulation at the close raises execution costs on 24 security markets worldwide. Estimating a simultaneous equations model of ramping incidence, spreads, and the probability of deploying real-time surveillance, we show that quoted bid-ask spreads are positively related to the incidence (...) of MTC across seven liquidity deciles. The magnitude is economically significant; improving market integrity by cutting MTC in half reduces spreads 6–11 %. Allowing direct market access in conjunction with RTS, conducting auctions at the close, and developing regulations that require surveillance, all reduce MTC and thereby lower spreads, assuring better market integrity and enhancing market efficiency. Introducing circuit breakers or prohibiting shorts poses integrity–efficiency tradeoffs. (shrink)

Beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, systematic scientific abstracting played a crucial role in reconfiguring the sciences on an international scale. For mathematicians, the 1931 launch of the Zentralblatt für Mathematik and 1940 launch of Mathematical Reviews marked and intensified a fundamental transformation, not just to the geographic scale of professional mathematics but to the very nature of mathematicians’ research and theories. It was not an accident that mathematical abstracting in this period coincided with an embrace across mathematical (...) research fields of a distinctive form of symbolic and conceptual abstraction. This essay examines the historical, institutional, embodied, and conceptual bases of mathematical abstracting and abstraction in the mid-twentieth century, placing them in historical context within the first half of the twentieth century and then examining their consequences and legacies for the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Focused on scale, media, and the relationship between mathematical knowledge and its forms of articulation, my analysis connects the changing social structure of modern mathematical research communities to their changing domains of investigation and resources for representation and collective understanding. (shrink)

One form of argument from analogy is identified and Stephen Barker's remarks about a second kind of argument from analogy, non-inductive (and non-deductive) argument from analogy, are used as a springboard to identify a second form. That form is then refined, explained, exemplified, and related to the first form. It is argued that there is a spectrum of different forms of argument from analogy, with the two forms identified being end points on the spectrum. Except in terms of form, however, (...) there is no reason to speak of two different kinds of argument from analogy. (shrink)

Partisan or Neutral? critically examines the Rawlsian ideal of a public, supposedly neutral, political theory meant to justify contemporary constitutional democracies. Placing this ideal-appealed to by neo-natural law theorists and advocates of "public theology" as well as by political theorists-against the background of the history of political liberalism, White shows its contradictory nature. He argues that any such legitimating theory will be 'partisan,' in the sense of appealing to convictions concerning the human good that will not be universally accepted. He (...) concludes that all politics must be imperfect-a matter of pragmatism and prudence in forming the most workable compromises possible and in acquiescing, where our principles allow us to do so, in situations that are often far from optimal. (shrink)

DESPITE THE WELL-KNOWN historical significance of Aristotle’s doctrine of the productive or active intellect it is not unusual to find contemporary discussions treating the doctrine as an excrescence on the text of the De anima, a work, it is frequently nowadays supposed, in which an otherwise securely naturalistic epistemology and rational psychology are developed. Although the doctrine of the intellectus agens is found only in one place in Aristotle’s extant texts, the third book of the De anima, I shall nonetheless (...) maintain that an argument can be ferreted out of Aristotle’s discussion that establishes that the doctrine can be seen to follow from principles that are fundamental to Aristotle’s thought. I shall call this an “Aristotelian” argument for nous poiêtikos because of the fact that the argument obviously is not found, as I state it, on the surface of Aristotle’s text. I claim that there is a significant sense in which it is there, but that one must dig for it or, as I just put it, ferret it out. In a schematic form, the Aristotelian argument goes as follows. (shrink)

A well-known epigram by Callimachus on the philosopher Diodorus Cronus reads as follows:The question of the third line, while perhaps recondite from a contemporary perspective, was clear in antiquity. The crows are asking ‘What follows ?’, in allusion to the Hellenistic disputes concerning the truth conditions of conditional propositions , disputes in which the views of Diodorus figured prominently.I agree with Sedley that the question of the last line is ‘much more problematic’. The common interpretation has been to read the (...) αθι as a form of αθις and to interpret it temporally. The result, in Pfeiffer's estimation, is ‘quomodo posthac erimus?’.This interpretation derives from Sextus Empiricus' discussion at M. 1.309–12 of the last two lines of the epigram. After crediting the grammarian with the ability to understand the allusion in the crows' first question , he proceeds to argue that the philosopher has a better chance than the grammarian of understanding the second question. But, to quote Sedley, Sextus ‘makes a ghastly mess of it’ when he attempts his own elucidation. According to an argument of Diodorus, a living thing does not die in the time in which it lives nor in a time in which it does not live. Hence, Sextus concludes, it must be the case that it never dies and, ‘if this is the case, we are always living and, according to him, we shall come to be hereafter ’. (shrink)

This paper argues that patients' duties are derivable from the idea which typically grounds the idea of patients' rights: patient autonomy. The autonomous patient, joined in partnership with the health care professional, has self-regarding obligations and obligations to others, including health care professionals. Patients' duties include, but are not limited to: a duty to be honest about why the patient seeks care; a duty to collect information on available treatments and likely side-effects; a duty for a patient who has an (...) infectious condition to act on that information which can best prevent further transmission. Keywords: autonomy, duty, paternalism, patient, rights, self-care CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This paper presents a theorisation of collaborative activity that was developed in the research field known as “collaborative learning”, in order to understand the processes of co-elaboration of meaning and knowledge. Collaboration, as distinguished from cooperation, coordination and collective activity, is defined as a continued and conjoined effort towards elaborating a “joint problem space” of shared representations of the problem to be solved. An approach to analysing the processes of co-construction of a joint problem space is outlined, in terms of (...) inter-discursive operations, together with approaches to defining different forms of cooperative activity. In conclusion, the specificity of this approach to defining collaboration is discussed in relation to other fields of research. (shrink)

This paper presents a theorisation of collaborative activity that was developed in the research field known as “collaborative learning”, in order to understand the processes of co-elaboration of meaning and knowledge. Collaboration, as distinguished from cooperation, coordination and collective activity, is defined as a continued and conjoined effort towards elaborating a “joint problem space” of shared representations of the problem to be solved. An approach to analysing the processes of co-construction of a joint problem space is outlined, in terms of (...) inter-discursive operations, together with approaches to defining different forms of cooperative activity. In conclusion, the specificity of this approach to defining collaboration is discussed in relation to other fields of research. (shrink)