A wide-ranging collection of essays inspired by the memory of the cognitive psychologist John Macnamara.

Parents respond to the death of a child in very different ways. Some parents may be violent or angry, some sad and tearful, some quiet and withdrawn, and some frankly delusional. We present a case in which a father’s reaction to his daughter’s death is a desire to protect his wife from the stressful information. The wife is in the second trimester of a high-risk pregnancy and so is particularly fragile. We asked pediatricians and bioethicists to discuss the ways in (...) which they might respond to the father’s understandable but troubling request. -/- The death of a young child is one of the most stressful events that can happen to parents. The stress of such a loss is compounded if the parents are in a foreign country, far from home, and without a network of family and friends to provide social support. The stress may be more difficult to deal with if the parents have acute health problems of their own. In this month’s “Ethics Rounds,” we present a case in which a father whose daughter died requested that the doctors delay telling his wife. His reason: She is pregnant, in the second trimester, and on bed rest because of preterm labor. He does not want to add to her stress. We asked both pediatricians and bioethicists to respond to this request. (shrink)

The ”dark night of the soul’ is a common motif in Christian spiritual writing; and the locus classicus for this motif is the work of John of the Cross, a Spanish Carmelite friar of the sixteenth century. My aim in this paper is to use John’s account of the ”night’ to consider how the themes of mystery, humility and religious practice may be subsumed, and related to one another, within a Christian conception of God and of human life (...) lived out in relation to God. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the fruitfulness of the notion of supererogation for an understanding of the relationship between religious and secular ethics. I approach this theme in three ways. First, I note a contrast between the virtues of neighbour love and infused temperance, as they are represented in the work of Thomas Aquinas: in the first case, but not the second, appeal to religious context changes the status of an action, so that it is now obligatory when it would (...) otherwise have been supererogatory. I consider how we might explain this difference, and what it indicates about the distinctive character of a ‘religious ethic’. Next, I note how John of the Cross's account of the spiritual life, while tracking Aquinas's discussion on certain points, invites a more radical revision of the distinction between obligation and supererogation. Finally, and briefly, I argue that these reflections throw new light on a puzzle that is posed by some attempts to ground religious commitments in moral commitments. In all of these ways, the notion of supererogation turns out to be key for an appreciation of the distinctive character of a religious vision of human life. (shrink)

John Henry Newman's An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is a commonly cited source for the idea that religion and ethics are in some fashion mutually implicated, and specifically the idea that religious belief can be grounded in our moral experience.1 In this paper I aim to do two things. First of all, I shall try to show that Newman's account of the relationship between religious and ethical understanding, as expounded in the Grammar, is more richly (...) nuanced than one might suppose from reading the work of his commentators, and indeed anticipates a great deal of recent discussion in the philosophy of religion. Secondly, I shall argue that one strand of Newman's case in particular merits further attention in the context of current debate; here I shall argue that Newman's position is reminiscent of recent discussion in the philosophy of mind concerning the sense in which feelings are intentional, and articulates a view which is at best underdeveloped in recent work in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

John Henry Newman's An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent is a commonly cited source for the idea that religion and ethics are in some fashion mutually implicated, and specifically the idea that religious belief can be grounded in our moral experience.1 In this paper I aim to do two things. First of all, I shall try to show that Newman's account of the relationship between religious and ethical understanding, as expounded in the Grammar, is more richly (...) nuanced than one might suppose from reading the work of his commentators, and indeed anticipates a great deal of recent discussion in the philosophy of religion. Secondly, I shall argue that one strand of Newman's case in particular merits further attention in the context of current debate; here I shall argue that Newman's position is reminiscent of recent discussion in the philosophy of mind concerning the sense in which feelings are intentional, and articulates a view which is at best underdeveloped in recent work in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

This paper considers whether John McDowell’s cognitivist account of affectively toned ethical experience can be extended to the case of theistic experience. It makes particular use of McDowell’s claim that there is no simple correlation between value-free qualities in the world and kinds of value experience. The paper draws on the work of William Alston and John Henry Newman, and argues that at various points, McDowell’s work can help to strengthen their defence of the epistemic significance of religious (...) experience. (shrink)

In this commentary, we propose that the shifts in symmetry Wynn documents may be explained in terms of simpler mechanisms than he suggests. Furthermore, we argue that it is dangerous to draw definitive conclusions about the cognitive abilities of a species from the level of symmetry observed in the artefacts produced by that species.

Wynn's claims are, in principle, entirely reasonable; although, as always, the devil is in the details. With respect to Wynn's discussion of the cultural evolution of artifactual symmetry, we provide a few more arguments for the utility of mirror symmetry and extend the enquiry into the tacit and explicit processing of natural and artifactual symmetry.

This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author, in which he responds to thirty years of discussion, criticism and further work in the field to ...

Natural Law and Natural Rights is widely recognised as a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law, and an essential reference point for all students of the subject. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author responding to thirty years of comment, criticism, and further work in the field.

Misunderstanding Science? offers a challenging new perspective on the public understanding of science. In so doing, it also challenges existing ideas of the nature of science and its relationships with society. Its analysis and case presentation are highly relevant to current concerns over the uptake, authority, and effectiveness of science as expressed, for example, in areas such as education, medical/health practice, risk and the environment, technological innovation. Based on several in-depth case-studies, and informed theoretically by the sociology of scientific knowledge, (...) the book shows how the public understanding of science questions raises issues of the epistemic commitments and institutional structures which constitute modern science. It suggests that many of the inadequacies in the social integration and uptake of science might be overcome if modern scientific institutions were more reflexive and open about the implicit normative commitments embedded in scientific cultures. (shrink)

In recent years there have been various attempts to relate theories of emotion to the concerns of Christian ethics. In this article, I consider two such attempts, those of Daniel Maguire and Paul Lauritzen, and thereby identify five ways in which a theory of emotion might in principle contribute to the formulation of a Christian ethic. I then argue that some recent developments in theoretical reflection on the emotions, especially the idea that feelings may be world-directed in their own right, (...) enable these five points of connection to be stated with new clarity and cogency. The article concludes that a theory of emotion can help to articulate the following claims: love is properly a cardinal concept for ethical theory; there are specifically Christian emotions, which make possible a specifically Christian moral personality; religious faith (informed by ‘real assent’) is a cognitive state which is of its nature motivationally effective. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the role of materiality in human cognition. We address issues such as the ways in which brain functions may change in response to interactions with material forms, the attributes of material forms that may cause change in brain functions, and the spans of time required for brain functions to reorganize when interacting with material forms. We then contrast thinking through materiality with thinking about it. We discuss these in terms of their evolutionary significance and history (...) as attested by stone tools and writing, material forms whose interaction endowed our lineage with conceptual thought and meta-awareness of conceptual domains. (shrink)

This launch volume in the Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought series presents a critical examination of Aquinas' thought, combining an accessible, historically-informed account of his work with an assessment of his central ideas and arguments. John Finnis presents a richly-documented critical review of Aquinas's thought on morality, politics, law, and method in social science. Unique in his coverage of Aquinas's primary and secondary texts and his own vigorous argumentation on many themes, the author focuses on the philosophy (...) in Aquinas's texts, and demonstrates how this interconnects with the theological elements. Professor Finnis shows how Aquinas, despite some medieval limitations, makes clear and profound contributions to present debates. (shrink)

SYMBOLIC LOGIC. CHAPTER I. ON THE FORMS OF LOGICAL PROPOSITION. IT has been mentioned in the Introduction that the System of Logic which this work is ...