We consider the problem of moral disjunction in professional and business activities from a virtue-ethical perspective. Moral disjunction arises when the behavioral demands of a role conflict with personal morality; it is an important problem because most people in modern societies occupy several complex roles that can cause this clash to occur. We argue that moral disjunction, and the psychological mechanisms that people use to cope with it, are problematic because they make it hard (...) to pursue virtue and to live with integrity. We present role coadunation as a process with epistemic and behavioral aspects that people can use to resolve moral disjunction with integrity. When role coadunation is successful, it enables people to live virtuous lives of appropriate narrative disunity and to honor their identity-conferring commitments. We show how role coadunation can be facilitated by interpretive communities and discuss the emergence and ideal features of those communities. (shrink)

In moral dilemmas, where circumstances prevent two or more equally justified prima facie ethical requirements from being fulfilled, it is often maintained that, since the agent cannot do both, conjoint obligation is overridden by Kant's principle that ought implies can, but that the agent nevertheless has a disjunctive obligation to perform one of the otherwise obligatory actions or the other. Against this commonly received view, it is demonstrated that although Kant's ought-can principle may avoid logical inconsistency, the principle is (...) incompatible with disjunctive obligation in standard deontic logic, and that it entails paradoxically that none of the conflicting dilemma actions will in fact occur. The principle appears to provide the only plausible safeguard against deontic antinomy, but cannot be admitted because of its collision with considered moral judgments. (shrink)

This two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the (...) beginning of something new: The paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview. Three main theoretical challenges leading to, and present in the Rule are tackled: What are the sources of our modern understanding of subjectivity? Can Ancient sources provide an alternative genealogy that resists the individualistic turn of Modernity? And can the commons be saved without suppressing individuality? Jodra seeks to prove that the synthesis-which is also an appropriation-of Greek and Judaic sources carried out by the first Christians allowed for two contrasting models of subjectivity, the self-less and the other-less, to 'take turns' to dominate our understanding of human nature. The Greek world provided the political dimension and the Jewish world established the key theological principles of a Mediterranean synthesis which took place in Rome. Coherently and progressively, Jodra emphasizes the theopolitical nature of our worldview even today, and claim that the subject of the primitive Church is its most visible incarnation. These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world. (shrink)

The Reading Augustine series presents short, engaging books offering personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo's contributions to western philosophical, literary, and religious life. This two-volume work provides a new understanding of Western subjectivity as theorized in the Augustinian Rule. A theopolitical synthesis of Antiquity, the Rule is a humble, yet extremely influential example of subjectivity production. In these volumes, Jodra argues that the Classical and Late-Ancient communitarian practices along the Mediterranean provide historical proof of a worldview in which the (...) self and the other are not disjunctive components, but mutually inclusive forces. The Augustinian Rule is a culmination of this process and also the beginning of something new: The paradigm of the monastic self as protagonist of the new, medieval worldview. Three main theoretical challenges leading to, and present in the Rule are tackled: What are the sources of our modern understanding of subjectivity? Can Ancient sources provide an alternative genealogy that resists the individualistic turn of Modernity? And can the commons be saved without suppressing individuality? Jodra seeks to prove that the synthesis-which is also an appropriation-of Greek and Judaic sources carried out by the first Christians allowed for two contrasting models of subjectivity, the self-less and the other-less, to 'take turns' to dominate our understanding of human nature. The Greek world provided the political dimension and the Jewish world established the key theological principles of a Mediterranean synthesis which took place in Rome. Coherently and progressively, Jodra emphasizes the theopolitical nature of our worldview even today, and claim that the subject of the primitive Church is its most visible incarnation. These volumes therefore restore the unity of the Hellenistic and Judaic world as found by the first Christians, proving that the self and the other are two essential pieces in the construction of our world. (shrink)

In this paper, we motivate, propose and defend the following two conditions as individually sufficient and disjunctively necessary for moral responsibility: PODMA —originally proposed by Coren, Acta Analytica, 33, 145–159,, now cast as sufficient rather than necessary—and the TWC*, which amends versions presented by Young, 961–969, 2016; Philosophia, 45, 1365–1380, 2017). We explain why there is a need for new necessary and sufficient conditions, how these build on and improve existing ideas, particularly in relation to Frankfurt-style counterexamples and the (...) continuing discussion on their effectiveness, and why PODMA and the TWC* are good candidates. Finally, we defend the proposal against anticipated objections in order to clarify why we think these individually sufficient and disjunctively necessary conditions are plausible and able to inform the ongoing debate on the role of alternate possibilities in the ascription of moral responsibility. (shrink)

This article examines the idea of disjunctive rights—an idea first suggested by Joel Feinberg and more recently advocated by Richard Arneson. Using a hypothetical scenario to bring forward a conflict between two rights that cannot be simultaneously fulfilled, the suggestion that the conflict can be solved by describing the right-holders as holding disjunctive rights—rights that involve, in a significant way, a disjunction—is scrutinized. Several interpretations of the idea of disjunctive rights are examined from the perspectives of the interest theory (...) and will theory of rights. Ultimately, the idea of disjunctive rights fails to provide an acceptable solution to the problem at hand, as each interpretation has unacceptable implications. This conclusion challenges the compossibilist thesis, according to which moral rights do not, ultimately, conflict. Alternatively, if one wishes to keep the possibility of compossibility and disjunctive rights, the mainstream theories of rights must be revised or rejected. (shrink)

Can a certain sort of property supervene on another sort of property without reducing to it? Many philosophers find the superveniencel irreducibility combination attractive in the philosophy of mind and in moral philosophy. They think that mental properties supervene upon physical properties but do not reduce to them, or that moral properties supervene upon natural properties without reducing to them. Other philosophers have tried to show that the combination is ultimately untenable, however attractive it might initially appear. Thus (...) Ted Honderich and Jaegwon Kim argue that the combination cannot explain the causal efhcacy of the supervening properties. And Simon. (shrink)

Many moral theorists argue that the concept of moral wrongness is connected to, and can be understood in terms of, the concept of blameworthiness. This tradition has its earliest roots in Mill’s Utilitarianism, and can be found in the work of, among others, Alan Gibbard, Stephen Darwall, and John Skorupski. Their ambition is to offer a non-circular analysis of the concept of moral wrongness in terms of blameworthiness. While these views have been criticized on various grounds, it (...) has not generally been thought that they encounter difficulties accounting for moral excuses. Indeed, it is often that by including a disjunction in the analysans—for example, S’s A-ing is morally wrong if and only if S is either excused or blameworthy for A-ing—these analyses can adequately account for moral excuses. But in attempting to account for moral excuses, these views wind up being either false or circular. (shrink)

This article argues that the disjunctive obligation in contract law can be justified on moral grounds. It argues that from a perspective that regards human beings as free agents capable of choice and therefore independent of material objects, the contracting parties must be understood as agreeing to mutually guarantee one another's ownership of a certain value. This guarantee can be fulfilled either by handing over what was promised or by making up the difference between the market value and the (...) contract value of what was promised. The plaintiff's contractual right is therefore a right that the defendant perform or pay. This makes expectation damages intelligible as a vindication of the plaintiff's contractual right. Moreover, the disjunctive obligation can be reconciled with all the doctrines that others take to be decisive arguments against it—with the doctrines of specific performance, inducing breach, impossibility, preexisting duty consideration, and nominal damages. (shrink)

Can a certain sort of property supervene on another sort of property without reducing to it? Many philosophers find the superveniencel irreducibility combination attractive in the philosophy of mind and in moral philosophy (Davidson 1980 and Moore 1903). They think that mental properties supervene upon physical properties but do not reduce to them, or that moral properties supervene upon natural properties without reducing to them. Other philosophers have tried to show that the combination is ultimately untenable, however attractive (...) it might initially appear. Thus Ted Honderich and Jaegwon Kim argue that the combination cannot explain the causal efhcacy of the supervening properties (Honderich 1982, Kim 1984b). And Simon.. (shrink)

A concern that accompanies the recognition that people are not morally responsible is how this affects our relationships. In particular, there is concern as to whether the absence of these things eliminates or lessens love. Love is relevant on some of the most plausible theories of well-being. In particular, it might be thought to cause pleasure and fulfill desires and thus bring about well-being on hedonist and desire-fulfillment theories of well-being. It might also be included on the objective list of (...) things that make someone’s life go better independent of pleasure and desire-fulfillment. In this article, I argue for the Intense Pro-Attitude Theory, specifically, that love is a disjunctive combination of intense affective, cognitive, intentional, and valuational pro-attitudes that focus on something’s well-being. If this account is correct, then love is empirically and conceptually independent of moral responsibility. Hence, love is independent of moral responsibility. (shrink)

People are excused from moral blame for the harm they are said to have caused if they could not have done otherwise. Such excuses rely on causal explanations deriving mostly from social and biological sciences whose paradigms are probabilistic, disjunctive, and combine dispositional and circumstantial factors according to the variance accounted for by each type of factor. The more complete the explanation, the less choice the harm-doer seems to have and therefore the less moral blame is warranted. Thus, (...) the biological bases of people’s behaviour, their earlier socialization, and their prior choices reduce the scope and severity of moral blame — but have no effect on judgments of right and wrong. Fairness also requires a similar analysis of the behaviour of moral judges whose standards vary with their dispositions, social class, and culture. It follows that moral assessments are joint products of both ethics and the social and biological sciences, with neither group able to make fair moral assessments of people’s behaviour without help from the other. (shrink)

Charles Hermes argues that the Direct Argument for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility fails because one of the inference rules on which it relies, Rule A, is invalid. Rule A states that if a proposition p is broadly logically necessary, then p is true and no one is, or ever has been, even partly morally responsible for the fact that p. Hermes purports to offer a counterexample to Rule A which focuses on agents’ moral responsibility for (...) disjunctions. Hermes’s objection is motivated by the idea that the logic of moral responsibility ought to be based on the logic of truthmakers rather than the logic of propositions. I show that the logic of moral responsibility does not track the logic of truthmakers and defend the validity of Rule A against Hermes’s objection. (shrink)

Moral particularism, on some interpretations, is committed to a shapeless thesis: the moral is shapeless with respect to the natural. (Call this version of moral particularism ‘shapeless moral particularism’). In more detail, the shapeless thesis is that the actions a moral concept or predicate can be correctly applied to have no natural commonality (or shape) amongst them. Jackson et al. (Ethical particularism and patterns, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000) argue, however, that the shapeless thesis violates (...) the platitude ‘predication supervenes on nature’—predicates or concepts apply because of how things are, and therefore ought to be rejected. I defend shapeless moral particularism by arguing that Jackson et al’s contention is less compelling than it firstly appears. My defense is limited in the sense that it does not prove shapeless moral particularism to be right and it leaves open the possibility that shapeless moral particularism might attract criticisms different from the ones advanced by Jackson et al. But at the very least, I hope to say enough to undermine Jackson et al’s powerful attack against it. The plan of this paper is as follows. Section 1 glosses the view of moral particularism and why it is taken to be essentially committed to the shapeless thesis. Section 2 examines a Wittgensteinian argument for the shapeless thesis. I shall argue that the Canberrans’ counter-arguments against it on grounds of disjunctive commonality and conceptual competence do not succeed. Section 3 explicates Canberrans’ predication supervenience argument against the shapeless thesis. Section 4 offers my criticisms of the Canberrans’ predication supervenience argument. In view of the above discussions, in Sect. 5, I conclude that there is no compelling argument (from the Canberrans) to believe that the shapeless thesis fails (as I have argued in Sect. 4). In fact, there is some good reason for us to believe it (as I have argued in Sect. 2). If so, I contend that moral particularism, when construed as essentially committed to the shapeless thesis, still remains as a live option. (shrink)

This paper concerns the relation between two metaethical theses: moral naturalism and moral skepticism. It is important that we distinguish both from a couple of methodological principles with which they might be confused. Let us give the label “Cartesian skepticism” to the method of subjecting to doubt everything for which it is possible to do so—usually by introducing alternative hypotheses that are consistent with all available evidence (e.g., brains in vats). Let us give the label “global naturalism” to (...) the principle that requires of any item which we admit into our ontology that it “fits” (in some manner or cluster of manners to be specified) with our naturalistic scientific worldview. One might be both a Cartesian skeptic and a global naturalist, if the latter principle is something that has survived the former test procedure. Alternatively, one might have adopted global naturalism for some other reason, while having little patience for the Cartesian method of doubt. Moral naturalism is the metaethical view that moral entities (e.g., properties like goodness and evil) fit within the scientific image of the world. The moral naturalist will probably be a global naturalist, but need not be: It is consistent with allowing non-natural entities into one’s ontology that one happens to think that moral properties are of the natural variety. Moral skepticism denies that moral entities fit within our scientific worldview. One way of denying moral naturalism is to be a moral error theorist: to hold that our moral discourse attempts to make reference to moral properties, but these properties do not exist.1 Another way of denying moral naturalism is to be a noncognitivist: to hold that our moral discourse was never really in the business of referring to moral facts or properties in the first place, and ipso facto such facts or properties are not naturalistic. In this paper, the label “moral skepticism” denotes the disjunction of these two theses. Neither the error theorist nor the noncognitivist must be committed to global naturalism, but usually will be; indeed, this commitment will often be a motivating factor of their metaethical views.. (shrink)

Pellegrino's philosophy of medicine is explored in categories such as the motivation in constructing a philosophy of medicine, the method, the starting point of the doctor-patient relationship, negotiation about values in this relationship, the goal of the relationship, the moral basis of medicine, and additional concerns in the relationship (concerns such as gatekeeping, philosophical anthropology, axiology, philosophy of the body, and the general disjunction between science and morals). A critique of this philosophy is presented in the following areas: (...) methodology, relation to ontology and sociology, the dynamic of individual and social concerns, and the new social condition of medicine. Finally, some suggestions for the future revitalization of philosophy of medicine are made based on Pellegrino's ideas. The focus throughout is on the moral basis and moral consequences of the philosophy of medicine, and not on other important themes. Keywords: doctor-patient relationship, goal of medicine, medical ethics, philosophical method, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of the body, values in medicine CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article gives two arguments for believing that our society is unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing. First is an inductive argument: most other societies, in history and in the world today, have been unknowingly guilty of serious wrongdoing, so ours probably is too. Second is a disjunctive argument: there are a large number of distinct ways in which our practices could turn out to be horribly wrong, so even if no particular hypothesized moral mistake strikes us as very (...) likely, the disjunction of all such mistakes should receive significant credence. The article then discusses what our society should do in light of the likelihood that we are doing something seriously wrong: we should regard intellectual progress, of the sort that will allow us to find and correct our moral mistakes as soon as possible, as an urgent moral priority rather than as a mere luxury; and we should also consider it important to save resources and cultivate flexibility, so that when the time comes to change our policies we will be able to do so quickly and smoothly. (shrink)

Chapter 1. The causal relata. Ordinary talk suggests that entities from different ontological categories can cause and be caused: Kathy's throw, the fact that Kathy threw, and Kathy herself can all cause the window to break. But according to the majority view, causation exclusively relates events. This chapter defends the contrary view that the causal relata are as miscellaneous as ordinary talk suggests. A question remains: is there an ontological kind K such that causal relations on entities of that kind (...) are somehow more fundamental than causal relations on the non-Ks? I argue that there is such a kind: facts. I defend this claim against objections. ;Chapter 2. Causation by omission. Ordinary talk also suggests that omissions can be causes. For example, if Barry promised to water Alice's plant, didn't water it, and the plant then dried up and died, then Barry's not watering the plant---his omitting to water the plant---is a cause of its death. But there are reasons to think that either there is no causation by omission, or there is far more of it than common sense allows. I argue that neither disjunct is acceptable, and propose that we avoid the dilemma by embracing the view that causation has a normative component. The proposal faces the objection that causation is a paradigmatic example of a natural, and so entirely non-normative, relation. I argue that the objection can be defused once we are clear about the kind of normativity that plays a role in causation by omission. ;Chapter 3. Causation and the Making/Allowing Distinction. Common sense morality suggests that it can matter morally whether an agent makes an outcome occur or merely allows it to occur. For example, it is far worse to pinch your little brother than to allow him to be pinched. I argue against the assumption that the making/allowing distinction is exclusive: in fact, the categories of making and allowing overlap. I go on to offer a positive account of makings, and a positive account of allowings. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy is organized around an exclusive disjunction of dignity or price, equality or equivalence. In his 1797 Doctrine of Right, however, Kant places enslaved black people on the wrong side of this disjunction when he speculates that their status as currency may offer insight into the origins of money. Recent work in black studies has begun to speculate on the link between blackness and money in modernity, and this paper draws attention to Kant’s role (...) as an unlikely and unwitting precursor for monetary theories of blackness. Precisely in his attempt to secure the priceless and unconditional character of freedom and dignity, it argues, Kant ends up demonstrating the positional value of both. (shrink)

Mainstream political liberals hold that state coercion is legitimate only if it is justified on the grounds of reasons that all may reasonably be expected to accept. Critics argue that this public justification principle is self-defeating, because it depends on moral justifications that not all may reasonably be expected to accept. To rebut the self-defeat objection, I elaborate on the following disjunction: one either agrees or disagrees that it is wrong to impose one’s morality on others by the (...) coercive power of the state. Those who disagree reject PJP, they understand politics as war. Those who agree accept PJP, they understand politics as competition. Political competitors abide by PJP to avoid politics as war, by enforcing PJP on political combatants they engage in a war that is unavoidable. In both cases their exercise of political power has a justification that is reasonably acceptable to all. (shrink)

The intuitive, folk concept of hypocrisy is not a unified moral category. While many theorists hold that all cases of hypocrisy involve some form of deception, I argue that this is not the case. Instead, I argue for a disjunctive account of hypocrisy whereby all cases of “hypocrisy” involve either the deceiving of others about the sincerity of an agent's beliefs or the lack of will to carry through with the demands of an agent's sincere beliefs. Thus, all cases (...) of hypocrisy can be described either as cases of deception or as cases of akrasia. If this analysis correct, then I suggest further that the moral status of all instances of hypocrisy must be reduced either to the moral blameworthiness of deception or to the moral blameworthiness of akrasia. There can be no unified account of the moral wrongness of “hypocrisy” that holds across the disjunction. (shrink)

After many years of enduring the drought and famine of Quinean ontology and Carnapian meta-ontology, the notion of ground, with its distinctively philosophical flavor, finally promises to give metaphysicians something they can believe in again and around which they can rally: their very own metaphysical explanatory connection which apparently cannot be reduced to, or analyzed in terms of, other familiar idioms such as identity, modality, parthood, supervenience, realization, causation or counterfactual dependence. Often, phenomena such as the following are cited as (...) putative examples of grounding connections: systematic connections between entire realms of facts (mental/physical; moral/natural; etc.); truthmaking (e.g., the relation between the truth of the proposition that snow is white and snow’s being white); logical cases (e.g., the connection between conjunctive facts or disjunctive facts and their constituent facts); the determinate/determinable relation (e.g., the relation between something’s being maroon and its being red). I argue in this paper that classifying all of these phenomena as exhibiting grounding connections does not achieve much in the way of illumination. In fact, by treating a collection of phenomena which is in fact heterogeneous as though it were homogeneous, we have, if anything, taken a dialectical step backward. (shrink)

Could emotions be a uniquely human phenomenon? One prominent theory in emotion science, Lisa Feldman Barrett’s “Theory of Constructed Emotion” (TCE), suggests they might be. The source of the sceptical challenge is that TCE links emotions to abstract concepts tracking socio-normative expectations, and other animals are unlikely to have such concepts. Barrett’s own response to the sceptical challenge is to relativize emotion to the perspective of an interpreter, but this is unpromising. A more promising response may be to amend the (...) theory, dropping the commitment to the abstract nature of emotion concepts and allowing that, like olfactory concepts, they have disjunctive sensory groundings. Even if other animals were emotionless, this would not imply they lack morally significant interests. Unconceptualized valenced experiences are a sufficient basis for morally significant interests, and such experiences may occur even in the absence of discrete, constructed emotions. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal, Joshua Blanchard has identified a novel problem: the problem of unwelcome epistemic company. We find ourselves in unwelcome epistemic company when we hold a belief that is also held mainly or most prominently by those we regard as morally or epistemically bad. Blanchard argues that some, but not all, unwelcome epistemic company provides higher-order evidence against our belief. But he doesn't provide a test for when company is unwelcome or a diagnosis of why (...) it is unwelcome. I provide both. On my disjunctive test, unwelcome epistemic company provides us with a defeater when either there is a match between the content of the belief and the properties that make our company unwelcome, or there is reason to suspect that the belief arose via a shared, unreliable, causal process. (shrink)

The application of genetic editing techniques for the prevention or cure of disease is a highly promising tool for the future of humanity. However, its implementation contains a number of ethical and legal challenges that should not be underestimated. On this basis, some sectors have already asked for a veto on any intervention that modifies the human germ line, while supporting somatic line editing. In this paper, I will support that this suggestion makes no sense at all, because the somatic/germ (...) line disjunctive has no moral relevance and, therefore, it should not play any role in legal terms. I will provide a number of reasons to hold this assumption, such as the non‐sacred nature of the germ line, the difference between germ line and human genome modification, or the moral importance of the presence of a will to create modified descendants. While doing so, I will provide some examples of the different approaches to germ line editing adopted by different regulations so as to demonstrate that, contrary to what is sometimes stated, a general ban on this practice is not the rule, but the exception. Additionally, I will show how alternative options which currently exist, such as a selective ban based on criteria different to the germ line/somatic line distinction, match better with the need to conciliate research needs and legitimate ethical concerns. Finally, I will introduce some further suggestions to this same purpose. (shrink)

Ethical reductionism is the best version of naturalistic moral realism. Reductionists regard moral properties as identical to properties appearing in successful scientific theories. Nonreductionists, including many of the Cornell Realists, argue that moral properties instead supervene on scientific properties without identity. I respond to two arguments for nonreductionism. First, nonreductionists argue that the multiple realizability of moral properties defeats reductionism. Multiple realizability can be addressed in ethics by identifying moral properties uniquely or disjunctively with properties (...) of the special sciences. Second, nonreductionists argue that irreducible moral properties explain empirical phenomena, just as irreducible special-science properties do. But since irreducible moral properties don't successfully explain additional regularities, they run the risk of being pseudoscientific properties. Reductionism has all the benefits of nonreductionism, while also being more secure against anti-realist objections because of its ontological simplicity. (shrink)

The 3Rs, or the replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal research, are widely accepted as the best approach to maximizing high-quality science while ensuring the highest standard of ethical consideration is applied in regulating the use of animals in scientific procedures. This contrasts with the muted scientific interest in the 3Rs when they were first proposed in The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Indeed, the relative success of the 3Rs has done little to encourage engagement with their original text, which (...) remains little read and out of print. By adopting a historical perspective, this article argues that one explanation for this disjunction may be found in another, more celebrated, event of 1959: C. P. Snow’s Rede lecture on The Two Cultures. The moral outlook of The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique derived from an earlier ethos wherein humanistic and scientific values occupied a shared culture. While the synthetic style of The Principles has hindered its readership, this article concludes that there is value to recovering the notion that the humanities and social sciences can contribute to the improvement of animal research. (shrink)

White supremacy dominates the academy and political discussions. It first consists of conflating the geography of the West (where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color—BIPOC—are to be found) with a specific colonizing tradition originating in ancient Greek thought—call this tradition the West. Secondly, and more profoundly, it consists in treating this tradition as the frame for the study of every other intellectual tradition, which since the Romans it brands as religion. The political function of this marginalization of BIPOC philosophy is (...) to shield Western colonialism from moral philosophical criticism. The mechanism of colonialism is interpretation— explanation in terms of propositional attitudes, like belief. Not only is this a basic commitment of the Western tradition owing to its foundational linguistic account of thought (LAT), the South Asian moral philosophy of Yoga shows interpretation to be the essence of irresponsibility: it undermines the possibilities of choice as it is antilogical and is the mechanism of oppression. In contrast, Yoga, a fourth basic ethical theory (in addition to virtue ethics, consequentialism, and deontology) identifies an alternate metaethical choice as the essence of moral responsibility: explication—understanding in terms of inferential relationships. Yoga is not only the locus classicus for a nondiscriminatory, antioppressive approach to moral standing: it constitutes reason-based, (both ideal and nonideal) normative practices of solidarity with people (including nonhumans and celestial bodies like the Earth). This paper explores the mutually exclusive disjunction between interpretation and explication, the historical impact of these methodologies, and the colonization by the West of philosophy in the game of Publish or Perish. Shaking this off is as easy as returning to the philosophically indigenous practice of explication. (shrink)

The language of morality and legality infuses every aspect of the Middle East conflict. From repeated assertions by officials that Israel has “the most moral army in the world” to justifications for specific military tactics and operations by reference to self-defense and proportionality, the public rhetoric is one of legal right and moral obligation. Less often heard are the voices of those on the ground whose daily experience is lived within the legal quagmire portrayed by their leaders in (...) such uncompromising terms. This Article explores the opaque normative boundaries surrounding the actions of a specific group within the Israeli military, soldiers returning from duty in Hebron in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By examining interviews with these soldiers by an Israeli NGO, it identifies different narratives of legality and illegality which inform their conduct, contrasting their failure to adhere to conventional legal discourses with the broader “legalization” of military activities. Seeking an explanation for this disjunction, it explores the ways in which the soldiers’ stories nonetheless reflect attempts to negotiate various normative and legal realities. It places these within the legal landscape of the Occupied Palestinian Territories which has been normatively re-imagined by various forces in Israeli society, from the judicially-endorsed discourse of deterrence manifested in the day-today practices of brutality, intimidation and “demonstrating power,” to the growing influence of nationalist-religious interpretations of self-defense and the misuse of post-modernist theory by the military establishment to “smooth out” the moral and legal urban architectures of occupation. The Article concludes by considering the hope for change evident in the very act of soldiers telling ethically-oriented stories about their selves, and in the existence of a movement willing to provide the space for such reflections in an attempt to confront Israeli society with the day-to-day experiences of the soldier in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. (shrink)

Modern American nursing has an extensive ethical heritage literature that extends from the 1870s to 1965 when the American Nurses Association issued a policy paper that called for moving nursing education out of hospital diploma programs and into colleges and universities. One consequence of this move was the dispersion of nursing libraries and the loss of nursing ethics textbooks, as they were largely not brought over into the college libraries. In addition to approximately 100 nursing ethics textbooks, the nursing ethics (...) heritage literature also includes hundreds of journal articles that are often made less accessible in modern databases that concentrate on the past 20 or 30 years. A second consequence of nursing’s movement into colleges and universities is that ethics was no longer taught by nursing faculty, but becomes separated and placed as a discrete ethics course in departments of philosophy or theology. These courses were medically identified and rarely incorporated authentic nursing content. This shift in nursing education occurs contemporaneously with the rise of the field of bioethics. Bioethics is rapidly embraced by nursing, and as it develops within nursing, it fails to incorporate the rich ethical heritage, history, and literature of nursing prior to the development of the field of bioethics. This creates a radical disjunction in nursing’s ethics; a failure to more adequately explore the moral identity of nursing; the development of an ethics with a lack of fit with nursing’s ethical history, literature, and theory; a neglect of nursing’s ideal of service; a diminution of the scope and richness of nursing ethics as social ethics; and a loss of nursing ethical heritage of social justice activism and education. We must reclaim nursing’s rich and capacious ethics heritage literature; the history of nursing ethics matters profoundly. (shrink)

This paper is a philosophical discussion about the link between utopianism and responsibility. It argues that our time demands a strong practice of political responsibility in both organizations and society based on what has been called ‘real utopianism’. It takes as a starting point Hans Jonas’ critique of utopianism. Keeping in mind the horrors of the Second World War this Jewish thinker disconnected the principle of responsibility from the idea of utopianism, and connected it to a ‘heuristics of fear’ – (...) we should be careful with ‘wild’ new technologies, but also with new utopian perspectives. In a second step Jonas’ predecessors and utopian thinkers Martin Buber, Ernst Bloch and Ernest Callenbach are revisited. They show that a fully conceptualized idea of utopianism includes at least three dimensions of responsibility: subsistence, justice and spirituality. I then argue that if one digs deeper into the work of Jonas, it seems that the concept of responsibility in fact implies the courage to overcome a heuristics of fear. This paper therefore argues that there is no need to radically disjunct responsibility from utopianism and that the concept of responsibility actually opens a path to ‘real utopianism’. Such a concept of responsibility can best be supported by a confessionally neutral but nonetheless spiritual eco-humanist worldview that develops a new attitude towards nature, in which (eco)asceticism, morality and spirituality become intertwined. (shrink)

We sometimes face personal choices that are so momentous they appear to give rise to an intrapersonal analogue to the non-identity problem. Where the non-identity problem presents as a problem for morality, the intrapersonal analogue presents as a problem for prudence. The analogy has been explored recently by Das and Paul, and although, as this paper argues, their analysis fails—there is no intrapersonal analogue for the non-identity problem—it functions to highlight a persistent and perplexing puzzle for prudential rationality. This paper (...) offers its own explanation: namely, that the phenomena that motivate the purported intrapersonal problem are better accounted for by conceiving prudence as disjunctive. To this end, I sketch a theory of two varieties of prudence. (shrink)

The main focus of this book is on philosophy of religion-in-general instead of on the philosophy of a particular religion or family of religions. For example, in the first of four main parts of the book, J. L. Schellenberg and Robert McKim write chapters on future progress in religion. Hopefully, their efforts will jump-start work in the field on this important but neglected topic. The next part of the book (as well as the book's final chapter) addresses the issue of (...) life after death. Mark Johnston follows the demands of morality wherever they lead, and arrives at a highly original conception of the after- (or elsewhere-) life, one that involves neither the resurrection of the body nor the survival of an immaterial soul. Dean Zimmerman, in his chapter, makes it clear that he will not be joining Johnston on this trip, though in some sense he arrives at the same destination by a different route. In the third part of the book, Mark Murphy pursues a highly unconventional approach to the problem of evil: he tries to solve it by denying that an absolutely perfect being must be morally perfect. Laura Ekstrom pushes back, arguing that a perfect God would have, not only justifying, but requiring reasons to prevent setbacks to the well-being of Her sentient creatures. The final part of the book, which consists of three chapters, addresses an additional topic in the philosophy of religion-in-general, namely, alternative concepts of God. Tim Mulgan defends a disjunction of two positions, one of which involves a conception of God that is very much like Murphy's, and the other of which, a form of axiarchism, is similar in some ways (but dissimilar in others) to the conception of God defended by Fiona Ellis in the chapter following Mulgan's. Although Mulgan, unlike Murphy, claims that the God he describes is morally perfect, he would agree with Murphy that God is not motivated by any moral requirements to prevent setbacks to our well-being. Ellis is unhappy with Mulgan's spin on classical theism in part because of its commitment to supernaturalism. Both she and Paul Draper, in the final two chapters of the book, attempt to articulate ideas of God that are compatible with the naturalism that some believe will guide religion into the future instead of signing its death warrant. However, Ellis and Draper pursue their common goal in opposite ways, Ellis by making God more abstract than Mulgan's God and Draper by making God more concrete. (shrink)

Metaethical noncognitivists have trouble arriving at a respectable semantic theory for moral language. The goal of this article is to make substantial progress toward demonstrating that these problems may be overcome. Replacing the predominant expressivist semantic agenda in metaethics with a dynamic perspective on meaning and communication allows noncognitivists to provide a satisfying analysis of negation and other constructions that have been argued to be problematic for metaethical noncognitivism, including disjunctions. The resulting proposal preserves some of the key insights (...) from recent work on the semantics of expressivism while highlighting the widely neglected early noncognitivists' sympathies to the kind of dynamic story I intend to tell here. A comparison between the advertised dynamic semantic story and current proposals that treat expressivism as a pragmatic rather than semantic theory about moral language is provided. (shrink)

There have been two recent strands of argument arguing for the pro tanto impermissibility of fully autonomous weapon systems. On Sparrow's view, AWS are impermissible because they generate a morally problematic ‘responsibility gap’. According to Purves et al., AWS are impermissible because moral reasoning is not codifiable and because AWS are incapable of acting for the ‘right’ reasons. I contend that these arguments are flawed and that AWS are not morally problematic in principle. Specifically, I contend that these arguments (...) presuppose an incoherent conception of an AWS as somehow making genuine decisions but not being morally responsible for those very same decisions. Rather than conceiving of AWS in this way, I argue that an AWS is either a socially-constructed institution that has been physically instantiated or it is a genuine agent. If it is the former, then we should treat AWS as we do any other collective action problem. If it is the latter, then we should treat AWS as responsibility-bearers, but also as bearers of rights and/or interests. To reject this disjunction is not only conceptually incoherent but also potentially morally dangerous. (shrink)

In Burge 2005, Tyler Burge reads disjunctivism as the denial that there are explanatorily relevant states in common between veridical perceptions and corresponding illusions. He rejects the position as plainly inconsistent with what is known about perception. I describe a disjunctive approach to perceptual experience that is immune to Burge's attack. The main positive moral concerns how to think about fallibility.

Imagine a dog tracing a scent to a crossroads, sniffing all but one of the exits, and then proceeding down the last without further examination. According to Sextus Empiricus, Chrysippus argued that the dog effectively employs disjunctive syllogism, concluding that since the quarry left no trace on the other paths, it must have taken the last. The story has been retold many times, with at least four different morals: (1) dogs use logic, so they are as clever as humans; (2) (...) dogs use logic, so using logic is nothing special; (3) dogs reason well enough without logic; (4) dogs reason better for not having logic. This paper traces the history of Chrysippus's dog, from antiquity up to its discussion by relevance logicians in the twentieth century. (shrink)

In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Bernard Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Jacques Derrida, prove that (...) terms such as disruption, dissociation, disfunction, disjunctions and dispersion not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette, 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Park de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Peter Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus a thesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the stratus of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. (shrink)

Two kinds of cosmopolitan vision are typically associated with Kant's practical philosophy: on the one hand, the ideal of a universal moral community of rational agents who constitute a 'kingdom of ends' qua shared humanity. On the other hand, the ideal of a distinctly political community of'world citizens' who share membership in some kind of global polity. Kant's Grounded Cosmopolitanism introduces a novel account of Kant's global thinking, one that has hitherto been largely overlooked: a grounded cosmopolitanism concerned with (...) spelling out the normative implications of the fact thata plurality of corporeal agents concurrently inhabit the earth's spherical surface. It is neither concerned with a community of shared humanity in the abstract, nor of shared citizenship, but with a 'disjunctive' community of earth dwellers, that is, embodied agents in direct physical confrontationwith each other. Kant's grounded cosmopolitanism as laid out in the Doctrine of Right frames the question how individuals relate to one another globally by virtue of concurrent existence and derives from this a specific set of constraints on cross-border interactions. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre’s work in ethics follows in the footsteps of twentieth century efforts to put the ideals of Enlightenment and modernity on trial, and his book After Virtue diagnoses a wide-spread malaise in contemporary moral discourse. As a corrective to this condition, MacIntyre offers a remedy along Aristotelian-Thomistic lines. He specifically conceives of a recovery of these lines that would allow for a common ground in moral debates which would reveal the normative and teleological character of the human (...) good. However, within these pages, I argue that MacIntyre underestimates how his moral corrective is actually a re-inscription of the Enlightenment project, and thus equally doomed to failure. I do this by sketching out three different lines. First, I present MacIntyre’s appraisal of modern moral discourse, which has long since abandoned a reliance on Aristotelian principles of ethics. Second, I outline an informative disjunction MacIntyre sets up between having to choose between a Nietzschean or an Aristotelian model of ethical action. Last, I argue that MacIntyre’s own choice, simultaneously based on, but also diverging from, Aristotle fails because his revamped account of the virtue formation so necessary for modern human flourishing leaves open a space for its development according to contingent histories and traditions, which implies an attenuated account of the virtue ethics he seeks to recover, and vindicates, rather than condemns, the Enlightenment’s attempt to liberate moral theories from its strict teleological forbears. (shrink)

It was the explicit aim of my paper ‘Indexical Relativism versus Genuine Relativism’ to ‘characterize and compare’ (p. 297) two different forms of relativism. One form, exemplified by Harman’s and Dreier’s moral relativism (Harman, 1975 and Dreier, 1990), involves the claim that certain sentences express different propositions in different contexts of utterance, much like indexical sentences – hence the name ‘indexical relativism’. The other form involves the claim that the truth-value of certain contents or propositions depends on certain non-standard (...) parameters, i.e. depends not just on a possible world. The explicit conclusion of the paper was that the two forms differ significantly. Dan López de Sa (2007) seems quite happy to grant my main conclusion, namely that there is a significant difference between these two forms of relativism. However, López de Sa raises two worthwhile issues. First, he proposes a taxonomy of relativist views, one on which my ‘genuine relativism’ turns out to be the disjunction of two distinct views. Secondly, he offers an answer to a difficulty I raised for some forms of indexical relativism. I shall comment on each point. (shrink)

Alethic pluralism is the view that truth requires different treatment in different domains of discourse. The basic idea is that different properties play important roles in the analysis of truth in different domains of discourse, such as discourse about the material world, moral discourse, and mathematical discourse, to take three examples. Alethic disjunctivism is a kind of alethic pluralism, and is the view that truth is to be identified with the disjunctive property that is formed using each of the (...) domain-specific properties as disjuncts (i.e., in the view's simplest form, truth is the property of either having domain-specific property 1, or domain-specific property 2, and so on). This paper evaluates the prospects for alethic disjunctivism. In particular, it outlines the proper formulation of the view, and assesses some concerns that the disjunctive property lacks the pedigree necessary to be considered a truth property. I begin by briefly outlining the motivations for alethic pluralism, before noting four general constraints on formulations of the view. I then consider a ‘simple’ formulation of alethic disjunctivism, and recommend an amendment. I then demonstrate that the candidate truth property specified by this new formulation is able to meet the central constraints required for it to be considered a viable formulation of alethic pluralism. The final part of this demonstration involves making some distinctions between different kinds of disjunctive properties, and arguing that disjunctive properties are not necessarily highly abundant properties: some are more sparse than others. (shrink)

In this essay it is argued that (1) if the process of scientific inquiry were to continue foreever, then science would ultimately terminate in the acceptance of a single theoretical framework better than all conceivable others, and (2) there is some evidence in favor of the view that science will continue unto eternity but no evidence in favor of the contrary view. In arguing for claim (1) it is claimed that if we are to understand the sense in which science (...) is progressive we must mean either that science progresses by approximating a final goal which, given an infinite process, will be attained, or that science progresses simply in the sense of expanding a body of funded knowledge such that, given an infinite process, the body of funded knowledge expands ad infinitum. That the second member of this disjunct is false and that the first cannot be shown to be false follows largely from a discussion and rejection of all available arguments (five) against the hypothesis proposed in (1). Further, an argument provided by Peirce (and suitably supplemented) provides additional positive evidence for the truth of the first member. No such argument exists for the truth of the second member. In arguing for claim (2) it is held that evidence in favor of a belief can be purchased by the positive moral value likely to occur as a result of accepting the beliefs, and that there is at least one moral value which accrues to the belief that inquiry will continue forever but which does not accrue to the belief that inquiry will not continue forever. In short, while there is no systematic evidence for or against the view that inquiry will continue forever, we have the right (and duty) to believe that inquiry will continue forever but we do not have the right (and duty) to believe the contrary. (shrink)

Metaethical noncognitivists have trouble arriving at a respectable semantic theory for moral language. The goal of this article is to make substantial progress toward demonstrating that these problems may be overcome. Replacing the predominant expressivist semantic agenda in metaethics with a dynamic perspective on meaning and communication allows noncognitivists to provide a satisfying analysis of negation and other constructions that have been argued to be problematic for metaethical noncognitivism, including disjunctions. The resulting proposal preserves some of the key insights (...) from recent work on the semantics of expressivism while highlighting the widely neglected early noncognitivists' sympathies to the kind of dynamic story I intend to tell here. A comparison between the advertised dynamic semantic story and current proposals that treat expressivism as a pragmatic rather than semantic theory about moral language is provided. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an original account of the distinction between the spheres of Sitten that goes beyond the traditional one based on the nature of incentives, since this underestimates some of their characteristics. First, the paper identifies in obligatio a common source between Ethics and Right. Then, it explores how in the Metaphysics of Morals the connection between law and incentive constitutes a more relevant criterion to distinguish ethical lawgiving from juridical lawgiving. Specifically, it demonstrates (...) that such connection: to be ethical should be linear, understood as a necessary self-determined process of connecting law to incentive; to be juridical should be mediated, namely it comprises an inclusive disjunction between two modalities of connecting law to incentive: a non-necessary linear and a divergent one. It concludes by exploring the implications of such perspective on the notions of internalisation and externalisation associated to each lawgiving. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo tiene por objetivo la reconstrucción del argumento dominador atribuido a Diodoro Crono y su revisión filosófica a la luz de la crítica aristotélica al actualismo extremo de la Escuela de Mégara en Metafísica IX, 3. Desde esta perspectiva, el trabajo aspira a situar el proyecto teórico de Diodoro en el marco de su disputa filosófica con la metafísica aristotélica y su concepto de δύναµις, con el fin de traducir esta querella dialéctica en lo que, a nuestro (...) juicio, constituye una disputa teórica de importantes consecuencias prácticas: la disyunción excluyente entre el azar y el destino como paradigmas de interpretación conceptual y de acción moral.: This paper aims to reconstruct and analyze the Master Argument attributed to Diodorus Chronus under the perspective of Aristotle's criticism of extreme actualism in Metaphysics IX. 3. From this point of view, the paper locates Diodorus' theoretical project within the framework of his philosophical dispute with Aristotle's metaphysics and the Aristotelian concept of δύναµις, trying to show that what really lies behind this dialectical confrontation is a theoretical problem of important practical consequences: the excluding disjunction between chance and destiny as paradigms of conceptual interpretation and moral action. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John Venn. A Life in Logic by Lukas M. VerburgtClaudia CristalliLukas M. VerburgtJohn Venn. A Life in Logic Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2022. 411 pp., incl. indexThis is the first intellectual biography of John Venn (1834–1923), British logician, “philosopher and antiquarian” (DNB). Until now, Venn had not been studied as a philosophical figure in its own right. He is mostly remembered today for the (...) “Venn Diagrams,” a graphical device illustrating logical relations such as inclusion, exclusion, conjunction, disjunction, and for having systematically articulated a frequentist theory of probability. Together with an in-depth account of Venn’s logical developments, of his studies in probability theory, and of its applications to history and to anthropometry, Lukas M. Verburgt brings to life Venn’s spiritual struggles within—and eventually out of— his family’s religion, evangelicalism. Verburgt’s reconstruction is substantiated by many extracts from Venn’s correspondence and private notes, which add substantially to the value of this biography. (Of note is Verburgt’s 2022 editon of Venn’s unpublished writings and slected correspondence, which can be considered a companion to this biography).While showing the connections of epistemology, religion and academic politics in Victorian Cambridge, Verburgt contributes an important chapter in the history of logic and of empiricist philosophy.The book opens with a chapter on Venn’s childhood and early youth (1834–53), largely drawn from manuscript material of the Venn family—the “Parentalia”—and from Venn’s Annals of a Clerical Family, where he included “autobiographical recollections” (p. 2). The chapter introduces the reader to the values of a prominent evangelical family and to their peculiar way of understanding Christianity as a faith to be embedded in habit and to be taught by example. The following two [End Page 385] chapters follow Venn’s development, first as a student at Caius college, Cambridge (1853–57) and then as a country curate; the chapters elaborate on the institutional history of the college and on parish life from the perspective of evangelical orthodoxy. Chapter 4 is still chronologically situated within Venn’s early clerical service but is arranged thematically around his first publication (1862), “Science of History,” which contains some elements of the fundamental ideas elaborated in the Logic of Chance (1866): namely, that probability theory could only make predictions about long-run frequencies of events, and never about individual cases (p. 77). The core of Venn’s argument in 1862 revolved around possible atheistic implications of a science of history. If at some point it would be possible to predict future events, would there still be free will? Or a God? In his reply, Venn maintained that any prediction concerning individual agents could be defeated by assuming that the agent gets to know the prediction and changes her actions accordingly (pp. 74–76).After the publication of the “Science of History” essay, Venn left the parish for Cambridge, where he worked first as a Catechist (1862– 1867) and then as a moral sciences lecturer. Verburgt devotes chapter 5 to that and to the Cambridge milieu, where Venn sides for university reforms and engages with the Grote Club, all while drifting away from evangelical orthodoxy. After laying out Venn’s theory of probability (Chapter 6), Verburgt returns to an integrated analysis of Venn’s scientific and religious thought in chapter 7. This chapter may be particularly relevant for pragmatist readers, since here Verburgt highlights the commonalities between Venn’s “religious logic” and the notion of belief that will be expressed in more detail by pragmatism. Verburgt focuses on Venn’s logic in three subsequent chapters (Chapters 8, 9 and 11). Considered together, they provide a comprehensive history of Venn’s logical development, which Verburgt proudly announces as the first of this kind (p. xx). The last chapter on Venn’s logic (Chapter 11) also includes Verburgt’s argument for “includ[ing] Venn in the local history of early analytic philosophy at Cambridge” (p. 262). Chapters 10 and 12 recount Venn’s last years with particular emphasis on his interests in natural and historical sciences; they provide relevant material for scholars interested in the history and philosophy of... (shrink)

'Community' and 'justice' recur in anthropological, historical, and legal scholarship, yet as concepts they are notoriously slippery. Historians and lawyers look to anthropologists as 'community specialists', but anthropologists often avoid the concept through circumlocution: although much used by historians, legal thinkers, and political philosophers, the term remains strikingly indeterminate and often morally overdetermined. 'Justice', meanwhile, is elusive, alternately invoked as the goal of contemporary political theorizing, and wrapped in obscure philosophical controversy. A conceptual knot emerges in much legal and political (...) thought between law, justice, and community, but theories abound, without any agreement over concepts.The contributors to this volume use empirical case studies to unpick threads of this knot. Local codes from Anglo-Saxon England, north Africa, and medieval Armenia indicate disjunctions between community boundaries and the subjects of local rules and categories; processes of justice from early modern Europe to eastern Tibet suggest new ways of conceptualizing the relationship between law and justice; and practices of exile that recur throughout the world illustrate contingent formulations of community. In the first book in the series, Legalism: Anthropology and History, law was addressed through a focus on local legal categories as conceptual tools. Here this approach is extended to the ideas and ideals of justice and community. Rigorous cross-cultural comparison allows the contributors to avoid normative assumptions, while opening new avenues of inquiry for lawyers, anthropologists, and historians alike. (shrink)