Our society's longstanding commitment to the liberty of conscience has become strained by our increasingly muddled understanding of what conscience is and why we value it. Too often we equate conscience with individual autonomy, and so we reflexively favor the individual in any contest against group authority, losing sight of the fact that a vibrant liberty of conscience requires a vibrant marketplace of morally distinct groups. Defending individual autonomy is not the same as defending the liberty of conscience because, although (...) conscience is inescapably personal, it is also inescapably relational. Conscience is formed, articulated, and lived out through relationships, and its viability depends on the law's willingness to protect the associations and venues through which individual consciences can flourish: these are the myriad institutions that make up the space between the person and the state. Conscience and the Common Good reframes the debate about conscience by bringing its relational dimension into focus. (shrink)

This article provides a brief introduction to the interplay between law and religion in the health care context. First, I address the extent to which the commitments of a faith tradition may be written into laws that bind all citizens, including those who do not share those commitments. Second, I discuss the law’s accommodation of the faith commitments of individual health care providers—hardly a static inquiry, as the degree of accommodation is increasingly contested. Third, I expand the discussion to include (...) institutional health care providers, arguing that the legal system’s resistance to accommodating the morally distinct identities of institutional providers reflects a short-sighted view of the liberty of conscience. Finally, I offer some tentative thoughts about why these dynamics become even more complicated in the context of Islamic health care providers. (shrink)

This book seeks to reframe our understanding of the lawyer's work by exploring how Martin Luther King, Jr built his advocacy on a coherent set of moral claims regarding the demands of love and justice in light of human nature. King never shirked from staking out challenging claims of moral truth, even while remaining open to working with those who rejected those truths. His example should inspire the legal profession as a reminder that truth-telling, even in a society that often (...) appears morally balkanized, has the capacity to move hearts and minds. At the same time, his example should give the profession pause, for King's success would have been impossible without his substantive views about human nature and the ends of justice. This book is an effort to reframe our conception of morality's relevance to professionalism through the lens provided by the public and prophetic advocacy of Dr King. (shrink)

This essay concerns the causation involved in divine sustenance—the “pressure of the will of God” that continually upholds things in existence and supplies them with their properties and powers. My aim is to consolidate the theological doctrine of sustenance and a metaphysical theory of properties. Towards that end, I develop and motivate two consolidatory proposals, which together secure a more parsimonious theistic ontology and integrate the doctrine of sustenance and a theory of properties in a mutually enhancing way. The bulk (...) of the essay concerns the first proposal, which I explain and motivate in the first three sections. In the last two sections I explain and motivate the second proposal. (shrink)

The general concept of a trope – that of a non-shareable character-grounder – admits of a distinction between modifier tropes and module tropes. Roughly, a module trope is self-exemplifying whereas a modifier trope is not. This distinction has wide-ranging implications. Modifier tropes are uniquely eligible to be powers and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes are uniquely eligible to play a direct role in perception and causation. Moreover, each type of trope theory faces unique challenges concerning character- grounding. Modifier trope theory (...) faces challenges concerning the inscrutability of predication and the incompatibility with bundle theory, whereas module trope theory faces challenges concerning character overdetermination and a collapse into austere nominalism. These differences indicate that the modifier/module distinction divides the advantages of general trope theory and thus presents the trope theorist with a pivotal choice. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Michael Loux’s important distinction between “tropes” and “tropers”. First, I argue that the distinction throws into relief an ambiguity and discrepancy in the literature, revealing two fundamentally different versions of trope theory. Second, I argue that the distinction brings into focus unique challenges facing each of the resulting trope theories, thus calling into question an alleged advantage of trope theory—that by uniquely occupying the middle ground between its rivals, trope theory is able to recover and (...) preserve the insights of these views. Ultimately, the distinction suggests that trope theory is a divided house. (shrink)

An analysis is made of Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si from a general systems approach. A call is made for a dialogue between theologians and environmental scientist. A parallel is found between the Pope’s identification of rapidification as a root cause of global warming and McLuhan’s notion of the speedup of modern life due to the emergence of electric technology. An analysis of Hebrew Scriptures is made, suggesting that rather than subduing the earth, the translation of Gen 1:28 seems to (...) indicate that the intention was to occupy and tend the land. The Jewish notion of Bal Tashchit one of the 613 mitzvos or commandments from Scripture, supports this interpretation as it calls for stewardship of G-d’s gifts. (shrink)

This book is the first complete survey and critical appraisal of the large body of research that has appeared during approximately the last decade concerning the analysis of knowing. Robert K. Shope pays special attention to the social aspects of knowing and proposes a new formulation of the fundamental structure of the Gettier problem. Originally published in 1983. 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 editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover 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)

Are mystical experiences primarily formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as modern day "constructivists" maintain, or do mystics in some way transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ in the different religious traditions, as "pluralists" contend, or are they identical across cultures? Twelve contributors here attempt to answer these questions through close examination of a particular form of mystical experience, "Pure Consciousness"--the experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content for consciousness. The contributors (...) analyze pure consciousness and other mystical experiences from historical Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish sources, as well as from modern mystics. They demonstrate that pure consciousness poses serious conceptual problems for a contructivist understanding of mysticism. Revealing the inconsistencies and inadequacies of current models, they make significant strides towards developing new models for the phenomenon of mysticism, breaking new ground for our understanding of mysticism and of human experience in general. (shrink)

I examine the meaning and merits of a premise in the Exclusion Argument, the causal closure principle that all physical effects have physical causes. I do so by addressing two questions. First, if we grant the other premises, exactly what kind of closure principle is required to make the Exclusion Argument valid? Second, what are the merits of the requisite closure principle? Concerning the first, I argue that the Exclusion Argument requires a strong, “stringently pure” version of closure. The latter (...) employs two qualifications concerning the physical sufficiency and relative proximity of the physical cause required for every physical effect. The second question is addressed in two steps. I begin by challenging the adequacy of the empirical support offered by David Papineau for closure. Then I assess the merits of “level” and “domain” versions of stringently pure closure. I argue that a domain version lacks adequate and non-question-begging support within the context of the Exclusion Argument. And I argue that the level version leads to a puzzling metaphysics of the physical domain. Thus, we have grounds for rejecting the version of closure required for the Exclusion Argument. This means we can resist the Exclusion Argument while avoiding the implausible implications that come with rejecting one of its other premises. That is, because there are grounds to reject causal closure, one can reasonably affirm the non-overdeterminative causal efficacy of conscious mental states while denying that the latter are identical with physical states. (shrink)

abstract The term ‘moralism’ is often used to pick out a set of vices in judgment, such as hypocrisy, officiousness, arrogance, presumption, and sanctimony. I relate these vices to notions of standing and office and the roles they play in proper moral judgment. Behind these notions, I suggest, lie broad moral injunctions to think generously of our fellows and sternly of ourselves. These injunctions are manifested in both serious discourse and popular opinion. Finally, I explore the possibility that the distinction (...) I urge between moralism (the counterfeit) and morality (the genuine) can't ultimately be sustained, and conclude that the distinction stands. (shrink)

I am grateful for Mr Bagger's thoughtful remarks, as well as those of Professors Cousins, Smith, Katz, and Gimello at a recent American Academy of Religion panel devoted to The Problem of Pure Consciousness . But I cannot help but be struck by the tone of Mr Bagger's notice. As one colleague communicated to me after reading the piece, this is one of the most gratuitously rude pieces he had ever seen! If our book is really as bad as all (...) this, it makes one wonder why Religious Studies , or Mr Bagger, would bother to give it such attention, and whether it indicates how deeply we have touched a nerve in the contemporary debate. (shrink)

abstract The term ‘moralism’ is often used to pick out a set of vices in judgment, such as hypocrisy, officiousness, arrogance, presumption, and sanctimony. I relate these vices to notions of standing and office and the roles they play in proper moral judgment. Behind these notions, I suggest, lie broad moral injunctions to think generously of our fellows and sternly of ourselves. These injunctions are manifested in both serious discourse and popular opinion. Finally, I explore the possibility that the distinction (...) I urge between moralism and morality can't ultimately be sustained, and conclude that the distinction stands. (shrink)

The Description for this book, The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research, will be forthcoming.

In this article I examine the compatibility of a leading trope bundle theory of substance, so-called Nuclear Theory, with trope theory more generally. Peter Simons (1994) originally proposed Nuclear Theory (NT), and continues to develop (1998, 2000) and maintain (2002/03) the view. Recently, building on Simons’s theory, Markku Keinänen (2011) has proposed what he calls the Strong Nuclear Theory (SNT). Although the latter is supposed to shore up some of NT’s weaknesses, it continues to maintain NT’s central tenet, the premise (...) that tropes are variously existentially interdependent. I argue that the central tenet of NT frustrates several important aims of trope theory. If my arguments go through, they also implicate SNT. Because of this, I largely set aside other aspects of NT and SNT and focus on their shared central tenet. (shrink)

Trope theory is an increasingly prominent contender in contemporary debates about the existence and nature of properties. But it suffers from ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation reveals two fundamentally different concepts of a trope: modifier tropes and module tropes. These types of tropes are unequally suited for metaphysical work. Modifier tropes have advantages concerning powers, relations, and fundamental determinables, whereas module tropes have advantages concerning perception, causation, character-grounding, and the ontology of substance. Thus, the choice between modifier (...) tropes and module tropes is significant and divides the advantages of trope theory simpliciter. In addition, each resulting trope theory is unstable: modifier trope theory threatens to collapse into realism and module trope theory threatens to collapse into austere nominalism. This invites reflection on the stability of trope theory in general. (shrink)

In “Conditions and Analyses of Knowledge”, Robert Shope focuses on the conditions that must be satisfied for a person to have knowledge, specifically knowledge that something is so. Traditionally, knowledge has been analyzed in terms of justified true belief. Shope addresses philosophers’ disagreements concerning the truth and belief conditions. After introducing the justification condition, he presents challenges that have provoked several attempts to replace or to supplement the justification condition for knowledge. Shope presents and assesses several of these, including (...) early causal theories, the nonaccidentality requirement, reliable process and conditional analyses, the reliable‐indicator analysis, the conclusive reasons analysis, defeasibility analyses, analyses in terms of cognitive or intellectual virtues, and proper functionalism as well as his own account of knowledge. (shrink)

There is a largely unrecognized ambiguity concerning the nature of a trope. Disambiguation throws into relief two fundamentally different conceptions of a trope and provides two ways to understand and develop each metaphysical theory that put tropes to use. In this paper I consider the relative merits that result from differences concerning a trope’s ability to ground the character of ordinary objects. I argue that on each conception of a trope, there are unique implications and challenges concerning character-grounding.

In Grassroots Spirituality, Robert Forman documents an important and profound shift in the nature of spirituality in North America, that strongly influences Europe as well. His exciting survey graphically illustrates the possibility of this "grassroots" movement shaping a creative era that responds to new and old needs of religiosity.

Morality and religion: intimately wed, violently opposed, or something else? Discussion of this issue appears in pop culture, the academy, and the media—often generating radically opposed views. At one end of the spectrum are those who think that unless God exists, ethics is unfounded and the moral life is unmotivated. At the other end are those who think that religious belief is unnecessary for—and even a threat to—ethical knowledge and the moral life. -/- This volume provides an accessible, charitable discussion (...) that represents a range of views along this spectrum. The book begins with a lively debate between Paul Kurtz and William Lane Craig on the question, Is goodness without God good enough? Kurtz defends the affirmative position and Craig the negative. Following the debate are new essays by prominent scholars. These essays comment on the debate and advance the broader discussion of religion and morality. The book closes with final responses from Kurtz and Craig. (shrink)

Within medical ethics, there is widespread agreement that morally valid consent includes an understanding condition. Disagreement centers on what is meant by that understanding condition. Tom Dougherty proposed that this understanding condition should be divided into the two mutually exclusive categories of descriptive information and contextual information. Further, Dougherty argues that each type of information is necessary to satisfy the understanding condition. In contrast, I argue that when the deontic aspect of valid consent is in view, each type of information (...) can be sufficient to satisfy the understanding condition on its own. Moreover, by analyzing delegation, which is conceptually related to consent since both are morally transformative actions, I show that delegation often depends not on descriptive or contextual information but on trust. So, I argue that trustworthiness can also be a type of information that does the same work as descriptive and contextual information in satisfying the understanding condition for valid consent. (shrink)