Procedures that increase the sustainability of agriculture often result in animals being treated more humanely:both livestock in animal and mixed farming and wildlife in arable farming. Equally, procedures ensuring humane treatment of farm animals often increase sustainability, for example in disease control and manure management. This overlap between sustainability and humaneness is not coincidental. Both approaches can be said to be animal centered, to be based on the fact that animal production is primarily a biological process. Proponents of both will (...) gain from recognition of commonality and development of cooperation. A collaborative approach to humane sustainable agriculture will benefit animals, people, and the environment. (shrink)

This paper is the report of a meetingthat gathered many of the UK's most senioranimal scientists with representatives of thefarming industry, consumer groups, animalwelfare groups, and environmentalists. Therewas strong consensus that the current economicstructure of agriculture cannot adequatelyaddress major issues of concern to society:farm incomes, food security and safety, theneeds of developing countries, animal welfare,and the environment. This economic structure isbased primarily on competition betweenproducers and between retailers, driving foodprices down, combined with externalization ofmany costs. These issues must be addressed (...) by acombination of legislation, restructuring ofthe market, and use of public funds. Themeeting included workshops that made otherrecommendations for research and education. Themost urgent requirement is recognition thatchange is needed and development of a visionfor what that change must achieve. (shrink)

There are many ongoing debates within the scientific and ethical communities about the subject of animal welfare. This book distills some of the major themes of current debate into one volume, edited by internationally known names in the field of animal welfare. Each chapter is written by one or more leading experts who discuss, in an even-handed way, a provocative topic that will be of interest to anyone concerned with animal welfare. Issues covered include tail docking, farm animal production, neutering (...) of feral cats and the need to conserve habitats of native wild animals in the face of threats from non-native species. Chapters address the different values and priorities involved in dealing with these issues, including scientific and more explicit ethical approaches. Each chapter ends with questions for discussion that may help readers to engage with these dilemmas. (shrink)

Stewardship is potentially a usefulconcept in modernizing management philosophies. Use ofthe term has increased markedly in recent years, yetthe term is used loosely and rarely defined in landmanagement literature. The connections between thispractical usage and the ethical basis of stewardshipare currently poorly developed. The followingdefinition is proposed: ``Stewardship is theresponsible use (including conservation) of naturalresources in a way that takes full and balancedaccount of the interests of society, futuregenerations, and other species, as well as of privateneeds, and accepts significant answerability (...) tosociety.'''' A religious interpretation would require thephrase ``and ultimately to God'''' to be added.Stewardship has both secular and religiousinterpretations and it will be desirable to developboth of these aspects in parallel. A task forphilosophers is to establish whether the ethical basisof stewardship is sufficient to address environmentalconcerns or whether it is necessary to embrace widerethical approaches. Stewardship occupies similarground to several other concepts of use and managementof resources, particularly sustainability. It canbuild on sustainability by encouraging a broader viewof who and what should benefit from managementactivity. In particular, it focuses attention on therole of managers in providing public benefit and onenvisaging other species as a form of ``stakeholder'''' inmanagement decisions. Stewardship is applicable acrossthe widest range of fields of resource use and alsohas relevance to aspects of land tenure and propertyrights. Application of stewardship will require someadjustments in the roles of private managers/ownersvis-à-vis government. It might providemanagers with an expanded role and, importantly, amore positive image, both of themselves and in theeyes of the public. Stewardship could alsobe developed in a way that has relevance to citizensin general (as opposed to managers and owners ofresources), through their interactions with naturalresources as consumers. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to provide characterizations of matter, form and constituency in a way that avoids what I take to be the three main drawbacks of other hylomorphic theories: (i) commitment to the universal-particular distinction; (ii) commitment to a primitive or problematic notion of inherence or constituency; (iii) inability to identify viable candidates for matter and form in nature, or to characterize them in terms of primitives widely regarded to be intelligible.

My goal in this paper is to show that naturalists cannot reasonably endorse moral realism. My argument will come in two parts. The first part aims to show that any plausible and naturalistically acceptable argument in favor of belief in objective moral properties will appeal in part to simplicity considerations (broadly construed)—and this regardless of whether moral properties are reducible to non-moral properties. The second part argues for the conclusion that appeals to simplicity justify belief in moral properties only if (...) either those properties are not objective or something like theism is true. Thus, if my argument is sound, naturalists can reasonably accept moral realism only if they are prepared to accept something like theism. But, as will become clear, naturalists can reasonably accept theism or something like it only if belief in some such doctrine is justified by the methods of science. For present purposes, I’ll assume (what I think virtually every naturalist will grant) that belief in theism and relevantly similar doctrines is not justified by the methods of science. Thus, I will conclude that naturalists cannot reasonably accept moral realism. (shrink)

This study considers the hiddenness of God, and the problems it raises for belief and trust in GOd. Talk of divine hiddenness evokes a variety of phenomena--the relative paucity and ambiguity of the available evidence for God's existence, the elusiveness of God's comforting presence when we are afraid and in pain, the palpable and devastating experience of divine absence and abandonment, and more. Many of these phenomena are hard to reconcile with the idea, central to the Jewish and Christian scriptures, (...) that God is deeply lovingly concerned with the lives and emotional and spiritual well-being of human creatures; and the philosophical problem of divine hiddenness ranks alongside the problem of evil as one of the two most important and widely discussed reasons for disbelieving in God. -/- The central argument of the book is that the hiddenness problem, construed as an argument against the existence of God, rests on unwarranted assumptions and expectations about God's love and goodness. In challenging these assumptions, however, Michael C Rea also considers the question of why we should accept traditional positive characterizations of God's love rather than the negative ones suggested by the phenomena of divine hiddenness. In the final four chapters, Rea aims to address this question through discussion of God's widespread experiential availability, God's loving authorization of lament and protest, and the surprising ease of seeking and participating in a relationship with God. (shrink)

Over the past sixty years, within the analytic tradition of philosophy, there has been a significant revival of interest in the philosophy of religion. More recently, philosophers of religion have turned in a more self-consciously interdisciplinary direction, with special focus on topics that have traditionally been the provenance of systematic theologians in the Christian tradition. The present volumes Oxford Readings in Philosophical Theology, volumes 1 and 2 aim to bring together some of the most important essays on six central topics (...) in recent philosophical theology. Volume 1 collects essays on three distinctively Christian doctrines: trinity, incarnation, and atonement. Volume 2 focuses on three topics that arise in all of the major theistic religions: providence, resurrection, and scripture. (shrink)

Many of the most well-known Protestant systematic theologies, particularly in the Reformed tradition, display (more or less) a common thematic division. There are prolegomena: questions about the nature of theology, the relationship between faith and reason, and (sometimes treated separately) the attributes of scripture and its role in faith and practice. There is the doctrine of God: divine attributes, Godʼs relationship to creation, etc. There is the doctrine of humanity: the nature and post-mortem survival of human persons, and the human (...) condition, including the Fall and human sinfulness. There are parts devoted to the person and work of Christ: most especially, the incarnation and atonement. There is discussion of questions in practical theology: the organization and function of the church, morality and politics. Other matters get discussed along the way as well. Most of these topics are ones which we contributors to this volume have been asked to address in our position statements. So I take my assignment to be, in effect, the production of a miniature sketch of a partial systematic theology. Even in miniature, this is a monumental task for a mere essay, and a daunting one for someone whose formal training lies outside of theology. The remarks that follow represent my best effort to articulate such views on these topics as I currently hold—albeit briefly and incompletely. I hope that the views hang together in a reasonably systematic way; but, as this is but a first effort at accomplishing a task of this sort, I wish to emphasize the programmatic nature of what I shall be saying. Since I am writing specifically as a representative of Protestantism (in all of its wide diversity), it seems fitting for me to structure my essay in accord with the thematic divisions just described. I begin with prolegomena, focusing primarily on faith and reason, and doctrines about scripture. The next three sections are devoted, respectively, to the doctrine of God, doctrine of humanity (in which I include doctrines about the person and work of Christ), and practical theology. (shrink)

This book steers readers through these issues, providing a clear and decisive history of the main figures and texts in Christian ethics.

_ "LaBossiere brilliantly tackles many of the toughest ethical dilemmas of our times, from gender selection, cloning and sexual inequality to violence in the media and the conduct of warfare. In an age of snap judgments and stereotypes, he approaches his topics in a refreshingly open-minded fashion. His quick wit and firm knowledge of contemporary culture bring philosophy full-force into the 21st century." —Paul Halpern, Professor Of Physics, University Of The Sciences in Philadelphia and author of What's Science Ever Done (...) for Us? From the author's introduction: Philosophy, as I see it, is not about believing certain tenets or accepting certain dogmas. Philosophy is about asking questions, seeking answers and entertaining doubt. Critical to that endeavor is a willingness to be rationally provoked by different ideas and to see where they might lead—assuming they turn out to be worth following. If you find that you disagree with me, so much the better. The search for truth and wisdom benefits most from dissent. It is uncritical agreement that derails this search and leaves people stuck in the dark. Of course, if you do agree with me on some points, that is cool, too. _ I n this stimulating book, Michael C. LaBossiere takes a provocative look at issues in contemporary politics, culture and society through the lens of philosophy. Collected from LaBossiere's regular column in The Philosopher's Magazine, this fascinating set of philosophical provocations assumes no background in philosophy and focuses on matters that are of popular interest to the general public, yet are also philosophically significant. Topics range across a whole host of controversial issues that are of genuine interest to the reader, including same sex marriage, video games, gene therapy, true love, chance, torture, gender, god, the media, and freedom. >. (shrink)

Though Michel Foucault is one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, little is known about his early life. Even Foucault’s biographers have neglected this period, preferring instead to start the story when the future philosopher arrives in Paris. Becoming Foucault is a historical reconstruction of the world in which Foucault grew up: the small city of Poitiers, France, from the 1920s until the end of the Second World War. Beyond exploring previously unexamined aspects of Foucault’s childhood, including (...) his wartime ordeals, it proposes an original interpretation of Foucault’s oeuvre. Michael Behrent argues that Foucault, in addition to being a theorist of power, knowledge, and selfhood, was also a philosopher of experience. He was a thinker intent on making sense of the events that he lived through. Behrent identifies four specific experiences in Foucault’s childhood that exercised a decisive influence on him and that, in various ways, he later made the subject of his philosophy: his family’s deep connections to the medical profession; his upbringing in a bourgeois household; the German Occupation during World War II; and his Catholic education. Behrent not only reconstructs the specific nature of these experiences but also shows how reference to them surfaces in Foucault’s later work. In this way, the book both sheds light on a formative period in the philosopher’s life and offers a unique interpretation of key aspects of his thought. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, I offer a proposal to clarify what I believe is the proper relation between value maximization and stakeholder theory, which I call enlightened value maximization. Enlightened value maximization utilizes much of the structure of stakeholder theory but accepts maximization of the long-run value of the firm as the criterion for making the requisite tradeoffs among its stakeholders, and specifies long-term value maximization or value seeking as the firm’s objective. This proposal therefore solves the problems that arise (...) from the multiple objectives that accompany traditional stakeholder theory. I also discuss the Balanced Scorecard, which is the managerial equivalent of stakeholder theory, explaining how this theory is flawed because it presents managers with a scorecard that gives no score—that is, no single-valued measure of how they have performed. Thus managers evaluated with such a system (which can easily have two dozen measures and provides no information on the tradeoffs between them) have no way to make principled or purposeful decisions. The solution is to define a true (single dimensional) score for measuring performance for the organization or division (and it must be consistent with the organization’s strategy), and as long as their score is defined properly, (and for lower levels in the organization it will generally not be value) this will enhance their contribution to the firm. (shrink)

Although there is a large literature on referentiality, going back to at least the nineteenth and early twentieth century, much of this early work is based on constructed data and most of it is on English. The chapters in this volume contribute to a growing body of work that examines referentiality through naturalistic data in context. Taking an interactional approach to (non)referentiality, contributors to this volume ask how participants talk in real time about persons and things as individuals or as (...) categories, and what distinguishes 'referential' from 'nonreferential', 'specific' from 'nonspecific', and 'generic' from 'nongeneric'. Crucially, we ask whether these distinctions even matter to participants in conversation, and if they do, what the evidence for that would be. Contributors investigate these issues using data from conversational interaction in a variety of social contexts - from close friends and family to more casual acquaintances, in service encounters, and between adults and children - and in a range of languages: English, Finnish, French, Indonesian, Japanese, and Mandarin. Collectively, the chapters develop insights showing that reference is often fluid, dynamic, and indeterminate, that referential indeterminacy is typically unproblematic for participants, that shifts in referentiality tend to be tied to specific social goals, and that reference and referentiality emerge dialogically and interactionally. (shrink)

This paper defends Mereological Universalism(the thesis that, for any set S of disjoint objects, there is an object that the members of S compose. Universalism is unpalatable to many philosophers because it entails that if there are such things as my left tennis shoe, W. V. Quine, and the Taj Mahal, then there is another object that those three things compose. This paper presents and criticizes Peter van Inwagen's argument against Universalism and then presents a new argument in favor of (...) Universalism. It turns out that the most reasonable way to resist the argument for Universalism is to deny the existence of artifacts; thus, if we believe in artifacts, we have no real choice other than to embrace Universalism. (shrink)

The arguments for redistribution of wealth, and for prohibiting certain transactions such as price-gouging, both are based in mistaken conceptions of exchange. This paper proposes a neologism, “euvoluntary” exchange, meaning both that the exchange is truly voluntary and that it benefits both parties to the transaction. The argument has two parts: First, all euvoluntary exchanges should be permitted, and there is no justification for redistribution of wealth if disparities result only from euvoluntary exchanges. Second, even exchanges that are not euvoluntary (...) should generally be permitted, because access to market exchange may be the only means by which people in desperate circumstances can improve their position. (shrink)

This article challenges conventional readings of Michel Foucault by examining his fascination with neoliberalism in the late 1970s. Foucault did not critique neoliberalism during this period; rather, he strategically endorsed it. The necessary cause for this approval lies in the broader rehabilitation of economic liberalism in France during the 1970s. The sufficient cause lies in Foucault's own intellectual development: drawing on his long-standing critique of the state as a model for conceptualizing power, Foucault concluded, during the 1970s, that economic liberalism, (...) rather than “discipline,” was modernity's paradigmatic power form. Moreover, this article seeks to clarify the relationship between Foucault's philosophical antihumanism and his assessment of liberalism. Rather than arguing that Foucault's antihumanism precluded a positive appraisal of liberalism, or that the apparent reorientation of his politics in a more liberal direction in the late 1970s entailed a partial retreat from antihumanism, this article contends that Foucault's brief, strategic, and contingent endorsement of liberalism was possible precisely because he saw no incompatibility between antihumanism and liberalism—but only liberalism of the economic variety. Economic liberalism alone, and not its political iteration, was compatible with the philosophical antihumanism that is the hallmark of Foucault's thought. (shrink)

This article characterizes the varieties of four - dimensionalism and provides a critical overview of the main arguments in support of it.

This paper defends Mereological Universalism (the thesis that, for any set S of disjoint objects, there is an object that the members of S compose. Universalism is unpalatable to many philosophers because it entails that if there are such things as my left tennis shoe, W. V. Quine, and the Taj Mahal, then there is another object that those three things compose. This paper presents and criticizes Peter van Inwagen’s argument against Universalism and then presents a new argument in favor (...) of Universalism. It turns out that the most reasonable way to resist the argument for Universalism is to deny the existence of artifacts; thus, if we believe in artifacts, we have no real choice other than to embrace Universalism. (shrink)

There are five individually plausible and jointly incompatible assumptions underlying four familiar puzzles about material constitution. The problem of material constitution just is the fact that these five assumptions are both plausible and incompatible. I will begin by providing a very general statement of the problem. I will present the five assumptions and provide a short argument showing how they conflict with one another. Then, in subsequent sections, I will go on to show how these assumptions underlie each of the (...) four puzzles. I will conclude by providing an exhaustive taxonomy of possible solutions to the problem. (shrink)

A bronze statue is a lump of bronze – or so it might appear. But appearances are not always to be trusted, and this one is notoriously problematic. To see why, imagine a bronze statue (perhaps a statue of David) and ask yourself: Which lump of bronze is the statue? Presumably, it is the lump that makes up the statue (or, as we say, the lump that constitutes the statue). After all, why should the statue be any other lump of (...) bronze? But if that is right, if the statue is the lump of bronze that constitutes it, then why can the lump of bronze survive being melted down whereas the statue it constitutes cannot? It seems that in fact the bronze statue is not the lump of bronze that constitutes it, since the statue and the lump of bronze have different persistence conditions. But then is it some other lump of bronze? Is it a lump of bronze at all? These questions are troubling; they appear to have no easy answers. (shrink)

In debate about the nature of persistence over time, the view that material objects endure has played the role of "champion" and the view that they perdure has played the role of the "challenger." It has fallen to the perdurantists rather than the endurantists to motivate their view, to provide reasons for accepting it that override whatever initial presumption there is against it. Perdurantists have sought to discharge their burden in several ways. For example, perdurantism has been recommend on the (...) grounds that: (i) it solves several of the puzzles that raise the problem of material constitution; (ii) it is (at least) suggested by the special theory of relativity (hereafter "SR"); (iii) it is the only view that makes sense out of the possibility of intrinsic change; (iv) it is the only view consistent with the doctrine of Humean supervenience; and (v) it makes better sense than its competitor out of the possibility of fission. There are primary and most powerful claims that have been made on behalf of perdurantism. They are individually persuasive and together they constitute a formidable assault upon the hegemony of endurantism. Endurantists of course, have not been without reply. However, since endurantists typically respond to these claims one at a time and in different ways, it is easy to get the impression that perdurantism offers a single, neat solution to a host of problems whereas endurantism requires a patchwork of different strategies. But this impression is an illusion. In Rea 1995, I argued that though perdurantism does solve some of the puzzles that raise the problem of material constitution, it does not solve the problem of material constitution itself. Thus, the problem of material constitution really has no bearing on the debate between endurantists and perdurantists. In his paper, I will show that the same is true with respect to SR, the problem of intrinsic change, the doctrine of Humean supervenience, and the possibility of fission. In short, I will argue that none of (ii-v) is true and that therefore the doctrine of temporal parts stands unmotivated. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an Aristotelian solution to the problem of material constitution. The problem of material constitution arises whenever it appears that an object a and an object b share all of the same parts and yet are essentially related to their parts in different ways. (A familiar example: A lump of bronze constitutes a statue of Athena. The lump and the statue share all of the same parts, but it appears that the lump can, whereas the statue (...) cannot, survive radical rearrangements of those parts.) I argue that if we are prepared to follow Aristotle in making a distinction between numerical sameness and identity, we can solve the problem of material constitution without recourse to co-location or contingent identity and without repudiating any of the familiar objects of common sense (such as lumps and statues) or denying that these objects have the essential properties we ordinarily think that they have. (shrink)

There are various puzzles that set our intuitions about composition and identity against one another. Four that are particularly well known are the Growing Argument, the Ship of Theseus Puzzle, the Body-minus Argument, and Allan Gibbard’s puzzle about Lumpl and Goliath. Such puzzles have received a great deal of attention in the literature over the past thirty years, and there is an impressive and growing variety of solutions available for each of them. Surprisingly, however, no one has really discussed how (...) all of the different puzzles, and their solutions, are interrelated. On the surface, they seem to raise different problems; but clearly the puzzles are related somehow. They raise similar questions and generate similar sets of possible solutions. But, as yet, nothing has been said about how far the similarities extend. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, with special attention to the most influential solutions to the so-called "threeness-oneness problem".

In this paper I defend two conclusions: that time travel journeys to the past are not undertaken freely and, more generally, that nobody is free between the earliest arrival time and the latest departure time of a time travel journey to the past. Time travel to the past destroys freedom on a global scale.

In debate about the nature of persistence over time, the view that material objects endure has played the role of “champion” and the view that they perdure has played the role of “challenger.” As in other contests, the champion’s job is merely to defend her title, whereas the challenger’s job is to prove herself worthy. I have no view about how these roles came to be assigned; but the historical fact is that perdurantists have traditionally borne the proverbial burden of (...) proof in this debate. It has fallen to the perdurantists rather than the endurantists to motivate their view, to provide reasons for accepting it that override whatever initial presumption there is against it. (shrink)

There is a tradition according to which Parmenides of Elea endorsed the following set of counterintuitive doctrines: (a) There exists exactly one material thing. (b) What exists does not change. (g) Nothing is generated or destroyed. (d) What exists is undivided. For convenience, I will use the label ‘Eleatic monism’ to refer to the conjunction of a–d.

Drawing in part on recent work by Eleonore Stump and Sarah Coakley, I shall argue that even if NO HUMAN GOOD is true, divine hiddenness does not cast doubt on DIVINE CONCERN. My argument will turn on three central claims: (a) that ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE and INCONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE are better thought of as constituting divine silence rather than divine hiddenness, (b) that even if NO HUMAN GOOD is true, divine silence is compatible with DIVINE CONCERN so long as God (...) has provided a way for rational creatures to find him and to experience his presence despite the silence, and (c) that there is some reason to think that Biblical narratives and liturgical acts are vehicles by which we might find and experience the presence of God. Each of these claims will be defended, in turn, in the three sections that follow. (shrink)

In the first section, I characterize skeptical theism more fully. This is necessary in order to address some important misconceptions and mischaracterizations that appear in the essays by Maitzen, Wilks, and O’Connor. In the second section, I describe the most important objections they raise and group them into four “families” so as to facilitate an orderly series of responses. In the four sections that follow, I respond to the objections.

In a recent article in this journal, Achille Varzi (2009) argues that mereological universalism (U) entails mereological extensionalism (E). The thesis that U entails E (call it ‘T’) has important implications. For example, as is well known, T plays a crucial role in Peter van Inwagen’s argument against universalism (1990: 74–79). In what follows, I show that Varzi’s arguments for T rely on a tendentious assumption about parthood.

This paper argues that there is no straightforward conflict between the traditional Christian doctrine of original sin and the thesis that a person P is morally responsible for the obtaining of a state of affairs S only if S obtains (or obtained) and P could have prevented S from obtaining.

In the present article, he explains why divine silence poses a serious intellectual obstacle to belief in God, and then goes on to consider ways of overcoming that obstacle. After considering several ways in which divine silence might actually be beneficial to human beings, he argues that perhaps silence is nothing more or less than God’s preferred mode of interaction with creatures like us. Perhaps God simply desires communion rather than overt communication with human beings, and perhaps God has provided (...) ways for us to experience God’s presence richly even amidst the silence. (shrink)