While the impassibility debate has traditionally been construed in terms of whether God suffers, recent philosophy of religion has interpreted it in terms of whether God has emotions more generally. This article surveys the philosophical literature on divine im/passibility over the last 25 years, outlining major arguments for and against the idea that God has emotions. It argues that questions about the nature and value of emotions are at the heart of the im/passibility debate. More specifically, it suggests that presuppositions (...) about the dichotomy between emotions and reason (or the ‘heart and the head’) have negatively impacted the debate. It contends that the debate can only move forward in response to serious reflection on our affects as we experience them, aided by historical and anthropological as well as contemporary philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

Contemporary debates on God’s emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God’s emotionality on the basis of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us. Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent (...) with traditional divine attributes. Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy. (shrink)

Moralising accounts of depression include the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin, and/or that it is the result of demonic possession which has occurred because of moral or spiritual failure. Increasingly some Christian communities, understandably concerned about the debilitating effects these views have on people with depression, have adopted secular folk psychiatry’s ‘medicalising’ campaign, emphasising that depression is an illness for which, like (so-called) physical illnesses, experients should not be held responsible. This paper argues that (...) both moralising and medicalising models of depression are intellectually and practically (pastorally and therapeutically) problematic, gesturing towards more promising emphases. (shrink)

There are many Christian theologies of depression. Depression is spoken of variously as the result of personal or original sin, as a kind of sin, as a sign of demonic possession or as involving demons, as a test of faith, as a sign of holiness, or as an occasion for spiritual transformation. Although it is difficult to draw any absolute distinctions, we might helpfully split them into the following three categories for the sake of discussion:Spiritual illness SI), in which depression (...) and other forms of mental illness are believed to be a kind of SI. This includes the ideas that depression is caused by sin or demons or both);Spiritual health SH), where depression is viewed as an indication of and... (shrink)

Some recent considerations of religion and psychiatry have drawn a distinction between pathological and spiritual/mystical experiences of mental phenomena typically regarded as within the realm of psychiatry (e.g. depression, hearing voices, seeing visions/hallucinations). Such a distinction has clinical implications, particularly in relation to whether some religious people who suffer from depression, hear voices, or see visions should be biomedically treated. Approaching this question from a theological and philosophical perspective, I draw a distinction between (what I call) ‘spiritual health’ (SH) and (...) ‘potentially transformative’ (PT) theologies, arguing that a PT model is therapeutically and philosophically more sound than a SH one. I then apply this to the clinical debate in critical dialogue with Dein and Durà-Vilà’s 2009 article, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul: spiritual distress and psychiatric implications’. My primary focus is on depression, though the discussion is also relevant to debates about psychosis and schizophrenia. (shrink)

Among the more notable Christian understandings of depression is the idea that depression is a sin or the result of sin. While this idea is dismissed by many Christians and non-Christians, it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly is wrong with it. This paper seeks to address this problem, focusing on a common premise of the ‘depression is a sin’ claim: that it is within a person’s power to recover, such that remaining depressed is a choice. This claim is held (...) not only by Christians who believe depression to be a sin, but also by other religious and non-religious voluntarists, who believe depression to be under the control of the will. I will object to this idea by pointing to accounts that indicate that one widespread feature of depression is an experience of diminished free will, and will argue that this means that asserting the possibility of making choices that are relevant to recovery in the context of all depression is misplaced. I will then turn from the question of whether ‘depression is a choice’ claims are true, to whether they are helpful, and will argue that they can be helpful, but only in non-extreme forms of depression. Finally, I will reflect on the pastoral and clinical implications of the discussion. (shrink)

A recent paper in this journal argues that some cases of schizophrenia should be seen as cases of demon possession and treated by faith healers. A reply, also published in this journal, responds by raising concerns about the intellectual credibility and potentially harmful practical implications of demon possession beliefs. My paper contributes to the discussion, arguing that a critique of demon possession beliefs in the context of schizophrenia is needed, but suggesting an alternative basis for it. It also reflects on (...) important differences between demonic and other forms of spirit possession, and considers the implications of this for mental health care providers. (shrink)

Christian interpretations of what psychiatry terms "depression" vary widely. Although liberal forms of Christianity regard depression as both a form of mental illness and a catalyst for moral and spiritual transformation, some Catholic theology regards some forms depression not as pathological but as a Dark Night of the Soul. Nonliberal Protestant forms of Christianity tend to view depression more as a sign of spiritual illness than spiritual health: an indication of demonic possession in some Charismatic and syncretistic/indigenous forms of Christianity, (...) and a sin or a result of sin, primarily in conservative Evangelical thought.This paper is about the... (shrink)

Many thanks to Ian Kidd and John Swinton for their most interesting, and extremely different, commentaries on my paper. I agree with the thrust of Kidd’s argument and hope that these possibilities may be explored more fully elsewhere. Swinton’s commentary is far more critical, and raises issues in need of urgent clarification—I therefore focus on these.Swinton begins his critique by saying that, “One of the basic presumptions that underpins the study and its conclusions is that depression is a natural entity (...) that can be clearly identified and responded to.” This perception of my paper confuses and concerns me, because I am not sure what has given this impression. It has thus far proved impossible to... (shrink)

This paper explores the perennial objection to passibilism (conceived as susceptibility to or capacity for emotion) that an omnipotent being could not experience emotions because emotions are essentially passive and outside the subject's control. Examining this claim through the lens of some recent philosophy of emotion, I highlight some of the ways in which emotions can be chosen and cultivated, suggesting that emotions are not incompatible with divine omnipotence. Having concluded that divine omnipotence does not exclude emotional experience in general, (...) I go on to address an objection to the idea that God experiences the emotions involved in suffering in particular, suggesting one possible way of arguing that God's suffering is chosen while also maintaining the authenticity of divine suffering. (shrink)

This paper explores the perennial objection to passibilism that an omnipotent being could not experience emotions because emotions are essentially passive and outside the subject's control. Examining this claim through the lens of some recent philosophy of emotion, I highlight some of the ways in which emotions can be chosen and cultivated, suggesting that emotions are not incompatible with divine omnipotence. Having concluded that divine omnipotence does not exclude emotional experience in general , I go on to address an objection (...) to the idea that God experiences the emotions involved in suffering in particular , suggesting one possible way of arguing that God's suffering is chosen while also maintaining the authenticity of divine suffering. (shrink)

My thanks go to Marcia Webb and Warren Kinghorn for their thoughtful and stimulating commentaries, one drawing attention to clinical studies of religion and depression and neuroscientific studies of determinism and free will, and the other making a case for a theological rather than philosophical argument against Christian voluntarism. In combination, the commentaries raise an important question about what a philosophical approach might valuably bring to the topics surrounding this paper, Kinghorn's by raising an explicit challenge to this end and (...) Webb's by pointing to the achievements of empirical studies in this field without the aid of philosophical engagement. Unfortunately, there is not space in this response... (shrink)

Even a morally good practical agent does not act solely from the recog- nition of the abstract demands of moral duty. Often, she acts to satisfy desires for particular ends that are not intrinsically moral. But if freedom, as Kant claims, consists in acting from universal principles one adopts from respect for the moral law, how can agents freely act to satisfy desires for particular ends? The standard answer to this question, the so-called Incorporation Thesis, is, I argue, unsatisfactory both (...) as an interpretation of Kant and on philosophical grounds. I propose instead that, for Kant, the capacity to act freely for the sake of a particular, non-intrinsically moral end is not exhausted by the ability to step back, reflect and decide whether a desire is or can provide a reason to act. Rather, Kant shows, the place for the pursuit of particular ends is determined by practically rational agents’ spontaneous constitution of their moral character, whereby they subordi- nate the pursuit of material, particular ends to the pursuit of formal, moral ones or vice versa. (shrink)

It has been widely accepted that Kant holds the “Opacity Thesis,” the claim that we cannot know the ultimate grounds of our actions. Understood in this way, I shall argue, the Opacity Thesis is at odds with Kant's account of practical self-consciousness, according to which I act from the (always potentially conscious) representation of principles of action and that, in particular, in acting from duty I act in consciousness of the moral law's determination of my will. The Opacity Thesis thus (...) threatens to render acting from duty unintelligible. To diffuse the threat, I argue, first, that we need not attribute the Opacity Thesis to Kant. Kant's concern with the ubiquity of moral self-opacity does not imply the strong skeptical conclusion that knowledge of the grounds of one's action is impossible. Second, I show how moral self-opacity in cases of morally bad action emerges from the intrinsic inability of representing oneself, insofar as one is pursuing the indeterminate end of “happiness.” Thus, moral self-opacity does not undermine the will's self-consciousness but is born of it. (shrink)

On 25 May 2020, Officer Derek Chauvin asphyxiated George Floyd in Minneapolis — a murder that was captured in a confronting nine-minute bystander video that set off a firestorm of activity on online social networks, in the streets of the United States, and even worldwide. These protests captured the collective rage, dissatisfaction, and resentment personally and vicariously experienced towards the widespread systematic injustice and mistreatment of African Americans by police and vigilantes. The scale of these protests, both online and in (...) the streets, has been estimated to have far exceeded the civil rights marches of the 1960s (Buchanan et al. 2020). Considering the widespread extent of these protests, our research aims to analyse conflictual intergroup moral dynamics in terms of the reactive attitudes expressed by distinct online communities on Twitter. This paper examines the extent to which the Strawsonian (1962) reactive attitudes framework is applicable to the Twitter discourse around the Black Lives Matter protests reignited by the murder of George Floyd. In particular, we argue that the Strawsonian framework is inadequate to understand a range of prevalent attitudes expressed in this discourse — attitudes that we call reactionary as opposed to merely reactive. Reactionary attitudes include counter-indignation on behalf of the accused rather than Strawsonian indignation on behalf of the victim of a moral wrong. We document the expression of such attitudes among the right-wing participants in the online discourse about the Black Lives Matter movement. (shrink)

Kant’s account of the feeling of moral respect has notoriously puzzled interpreters: on the one hand, moral action is supposed to be autonomous and, in particular, free of the mediation of any feeling on the other hand, the subject’s grasp of the law somehow involves the feeling of moral respect. I argue that moral respect for Kant is not, pace both the ‘intellectualists’ and ‘affectivists,’ an effect of the determination of the will by the law – whether it be a (...) mere effect or the motivating cause of action – but is instead identical to it. Drawing on Kant’s general account of feeling as the awareness of how representations and their objects harm or benefit our own powers, I argue that the identity between moral respect and the determination to action contains two elements. Moral respect is, first, a form of practical self-consciousness which constitutes the subject’s recognition of the moral law and thus of herself as intrinsically bound by it, i. e., as a moral agent. Second, respect is a capacity for receptive awareness of particular features of our environment as well as other persons insofar as they benefit and harm us as moral agents. Thereby moral respect affords us awareness in concreto of particular, morally-conditioned ends. In this way moral respect provides the key for a Kantian account of genuinely free practical receptivity. (shrink)

The evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial. To capture gender biases in banks’ loan allocations, we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict EUR 10,000 loan ceiling on microcredit. Descriptive statistics indicate that the presence of the ceiling is associated both with bank-MFI co-financing and with harsher treatment of female borrowers. To investigate causal links, we develop an econometric approach that addresses the concerns (...) of selection biases, multicollinearity, and endogeneity. Our empirical findings suggest that the change in the MFI’s gender-related attitude was triggered by banks through co-financing. Hence, we speculate that co-financing pushes ceiling-constrained MFIs to import whatever biases in loan granting that the banks are prone to. Overall, this paper stresses that apparently benign regulations such as loan ceilings can significantly harm the women’s empowerment efforts made by MFIs. (shrink)

Limited distribution phenomena related to negation and negative polarity are usually thought of in terms of affectivity where affective is understood as negative or downward entailing. In this paper I propose an analysis of affective contexts as nonveridical and treat negative polarity as a manifestation of the more general phenomenon of sensitivity to (non)veridicality (which is, I argue, what affective dependencies boil down to). Empirical support for this analysis will be provided by a detailed examination of affective dependencies in Greek, (...) but the distribution of any will also be shown to follow from (non)veridicality. (shrink)

In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason Kant famously argues that the moral quality of an an agent’s actions depends on the moral quality of their moral character and since their moral character can be either absolutely good or absolutely bad, all of an agent’s actions share the same moral quality: good or evil (R 6: 22). This claim, which implies that any agent who is not wholly good must therefore be wholly evil, has vexed Kant’s readers. Ordinary moral (...) intuitions suggest that differences in moral character come in degrees, and leaving some room for moral variance seems necessary to any account of moral corruption and improvement. What is not often remarked upon is that Kant’s rigorism about moral character stands in apparent tension with his own account, given that in the same work, of the Stufen, levels or grades, of evil: frailty, impurity, and wickedness. I argue that rigorism is grounded in a philosophical insight which we should not give up and show that we can preserve it while making room for the complexity of moral failure if we understand the first two grades of evil, frailty and impurity, as states of moral immaturity, a condition that precedes the acquisition of a stable moral character. To substantiate the claim, I argue that the idea of the acquisition of character must play a wholly different role in Kant’s practical philosophy than that accorded to it on standard readings. Not merely an “empirical” concern, the acquisition of character must be understood as a genuinely rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our uniquely rational capacities for feeling, necessary for the development of stable moral character. (shrink)

We offer an analysis of future morphemes as epistemic operators. The main empirical motivation comes from the fact that future morphemes have systematic purely epistemic readings—not only in Greek and Italian, but also in Dutch, German, and English will. The existence of epistemic readings suggests that the future expressions quantify over epistemic, not metaphysical alternatives. We provide a unified analysis for epistemic and predictive readings as epistemic necessity, and the shift between the two is determined compositionally by the lower tense. (...) Our account thus acknowledges a systematic interaction between modality and tense—but the future itself is a pure modal, not a mixed temporal/modal operator. We show that the modal base of the future is nonveridical, i.e. it includes p and ¬p worlds, parallel to epistemic modals such as must, and present arguments that future morphemes are a category that stands in between epistemic modals and predicates of personal taste. We identify, finally, a subclass of epistemic futures which are ratificational, and argue that will is a member of this class. (shrink)

Some ideas expressed in the collective monograph Universality in Morality (2020), edited by Ruben Apressyan, are here critically examined. The book is based on the results of a large-scale study by professional ethical philosophers devoted to the question of the nature of universality in morality and the mechanisms of universalisation of individual maxims and norms from antiquity to modern ethical theories, represented above all by the analytical tradition in philosophy. Of great interest is the analysis of related phenomena in morality, (...) which makes it possible to determine the causes and nature of the transformation of morality in different eras and the accompanying change in the terminological apparatus of absolute ethical universalism, considered to be the starting point in the analysis of key modern concepts of moral universality. The article also suggests possible avenues for continued research in this area which could prompt modifications not only to the history of the concept of universality in morality, but also to our assessment of the contribution of individual authors and entire eras to the progress of human civilisation. This concerns above all the moral theory of contractarianism and the Enlightenment. Focus on their ideas goes a long way to determining the direction of current historical-philosophical research that reconstructs the history of ethical teachings and individual concepts. The importance attached today to a new view of the theory of the social contract, considered not only from socio-political but also from moral positions, forces us to approach in a new way the question concerning the universality of the key philosophical categories developed within this theory throughout its history. Elaborating the ideas set forth in the monograph, the author also stresses the relevance of the problem of justifying the thesis about the moral law as an analogue of the universal law of nature in the modern context. (shrink)

Although the world of sports has witnessed numerous corruption scandals, the effects of perceived corruption in sports have not been sufficiently investigated in the literature. The aim of this paper is to examine how sports team identification weakens people’s perceptions of corruption in sports, and how it dampens corruption’s negative effects on spectator behavior. The study also examines how prevalent social norms regarding corruption in a country strengthen or weaken these effects. A survey of 1,005 sports spectators from four Sub-Saharan (...) African countries reveals how the interplay between team identification and perceived corruption can encourage or discourage sports attendance under different conditions. Corruption is investigated through the theoretical lenses of the pluralistic nature of morality. Findings indicate that particularistic values linked to moral obligations toward the team collide with the universalistic values that demand fairness in sports. In addition, social norms of corruption moderate the clash between universalistic and particularistic values. (shrink)

Nudging is considered a promising approach for behavioural change. At the same time, nudging has raised ethical concerns, specifically in relation to the impact of nudges on autonomous choice. A complexity is that in this debate authors may appeal to different understandings or dimensions of autonomy. Clarifying the different conceptualisations of autonomy in ethical debates around nudging would help to advance our understanding of the ethics of nudging. A literature review of these considerations was conducted in order to identify and (...) differentiate between the conceptualisations of autonomy. In 33 articles on the ethics of nudging, we identified 280 autonomy considerations, which we labelled with 790 unique autonomy codes and grouped under 61 unique super-codes. Finally, we formulated three general conceptualisations of autonomy. Freedom of choice refers to the availability of options and the environment in which individuals have to make choices. Agency involves an individual's capacity to deliberate and determine what to choose. Self-constitution relates to someone's identity and self-chosen goals. In the debate about the ethics of nudging, authors refer to different senses of autonomy. Clarifying these conceptualisations contributes to a better understanding of how nudges can undermine or, on the other hand, strengthen autonomy. (shrink)

A. Oikonomou, Lampes paléochrétiennes d'Argos. P. 481-502 En 1983, à Argos, une fouille d'urgence dans un cimetière paléochrétien a donné 116 lampes qui copient ou imitent des modèles corinthiens du me et du ive s., des types nord- africains, siciliens ou d'Asie Mineure. Elles ressemblent beaucoup quant à l'argile, la technique et le décor à des exemplaires de la «Fountain of Lamps» du Gymnase de Corinthe. Certaines d'entre elles sont d'origine argienne, d'autres des importations corinthiennes.

Despite the ubiquity of uncertainty, scientific attention has focused primarily on probabilistic approaches, which predominantly rely on the assumption that uncertainty can be measured and expressed numerically. At the same time, the increasing amount of research from a range of areas including psychology, economics, and sociology testify that in the real world, people’s understanding of risky and uncertain situations cannot be satisfactorily explained in probabilistic and decision-theoretical terms. In this article, we offer a theoretical overview of an alternative approach to (...) uncertainty developed in the framework of the ecological rationality research program. We first trace the origins of the ecological approach to uncertainty in Simon’s bounded rationality and Brunswik’s lens model framework and then proceed by outlining a theoretical view of uncertainty that ensues from the ecological rationality approach. We argue that the ecological concept of uncertainty relies on a systemic view of uncertainty that features it as a property of the organism–environment system. We also show how simple heuristics can deal with unmeasurable uncertainty and in what cases ignoring probabilities emerges as a proper response to uncertainty. (shrink)

The book investigates childbearing ambivalence and the philosophical resources available to overcome it by analyzing the nuances of the contemporary anxiety about having children while focusing on the moral and intellectual shifts that have occurred in how we think of the value and goodness of human life. Peeling back the layers of resistance, What Are Children For? argues that when we make the individual decision whether or not to have children we confront a profound philosophical question, that of the goodness (...) of our form life itself. How can we justify perpetuating human life given the catastrophic harm and suffering of which we are always at once both victims and perpetrators? If we wish to meet this challenge without succumbing to naivete about our predicament, we must, it argues, uncover a capacity to grasp the fundamental goodness of human life—not only theoretically but practically in the actual lives we lead today. (shrink)

The article deals with four original scripts for Munda languages, invented in the 20th century by the native speakers of Munda. These are as follows: Ol Chiki, invented by Raghunath Murmu for Santali language; Sorang Sompeng, invented by Mangei Gomango for Sora; Warang Citi, invented by Lako Bodra for Ho; Bani Hisir, invented by Rohidas Singh for Mundari. The author analyzes the structures of the character sets and makes assumptions regarding the origins of the characters. In some cases, the author (...) proposes alternative versions of the origins of the Warang Citi script, which was widely examined by Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow. Certain characters of Sorang Sompeng might bear resemblance to the Latin script and some Indian scripts, while Bani Hisir seems to have been influenced by Ol Chiki and partly by Warang Citi. (shrink)

Going beyond ordinary readings of Aquinas and building a foundation for further insights into the works of both theologians, this book draws out the implications of the thought of Eckhart and Aquinas for contemporary issues, including ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, liturgy and prayer, and religious inclusivity. Reading Aquinas and Eckhart in light of each other reveals the profound depth and orthodoxy of both of these scholars and provides a novel approach to many theological and practical religious issues.

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 7, July 2022.