To date, international law has not featured prominently in academic analyses of Buddhism. Especially absent from this small body of literature are real-life examples of Buddhist monks and laity turning to international law to resolve grievances or protect Buddhism against perceived threats to it. This article seeks to fill this void. Drawing on interview and archival sources from Sri Lanka and the United Nations, it analyzes how one particular monk from Colombo became a key agent in the interpretation and transformation (...) of international law. By so doing, this article complements existing scholarship concerning Buddhism’s philosophical or conceptual sympathies with international legal principles and provides further empirical ballast for understanding how, when and why Buddhists turn to international law. (shrink)

Strict libertarianism, as one of us has defined it elsewhere, is “a radical political view which holds that individual liberty, understood as the absence of interference with a person’s body and rightfully acquired property, is a moral absolute or near-absolute, and that the only governmental activities consistent with that liberty are (if any) those necessary to protect individuals from aggression by others.” Strict libertarianism is a radicalized form of classical liberalism that is, characteristically, rationalistic, monistic, and (relatively) absolutist in its (...) approach to political principles. One advantage of bringing so many well-informed proponents and critics of libertarianism together in the same volume is that it makes clear the tremendous diversity of libertarian thought. Libertarians are a methodologically, normatively, and even politically diverse group. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. (shrink)

Extending Alvin Plantinga’s model of warranted belief to the beliefs of groups as a whole, I argue that if the dogmatic beliefs of the Catholic Church are true, they are also warranted. Catholic dogmas are warranted because they meet the three conditions of my model: they are formed (1) by ministers functioning properly (2) in accordance with a design plan that is oriented towards truth and reliable (3) in a social environment sufficiently similar to that for which they were designed. (...) I show that according to Catholic doctrine the authoritative spokespersons of the Church—ecumenical councils and popes—meet these conditions when defining dogmas. I also respond to the objection that the warrant of Catholic dogmas is defeated by the plurality of non-Catholic Christian sects that deny Catholic dogmas. (shrink)

This article explores the moral permissibility of sweatshop boycotts. We build explicitly on Tomhave and Vopat’s (2018) framework for evaluating the moral permissibility of boycotts in general for the specific case of sweatshop labor. We argue that sweatshop boycotts are more likely to be morally justified when targeting forced labor compared to free labor and we explore the relevant moral tradeoffs associated with boycotts of free labor sweatshops. We analyze the morality of three cases of sweatshop boycotts—Indonesia in the 1990s, (...) Bangladesh following the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, and the Uyghur region in China—and then discuss how insights from these cases might provide a model to guide activists and business ethicists in analyzing the morality of other sweatshop boycotts. (shrink)

The mass killings, large-scale gang rape and large-scale expulsion of the Rohingyas from Myanmar constitute one of the most repugnant world events in recent years. This article addresses the question of whether armed humanitarian intervention would have been morally permissible to protect the Rohingyas. It approaches the question from the perspective of the jus ad bellum criteria of just war theory. This approach does not yield a definitive answer because knowing whether certain jus ad bellum conditions might have been satisfied (...) is difficult to judge without detailed knowledge of military intelligence assessments. Nevertheless, I argue that there was just cause for intervention according to both liberal and communitarian perspectives; that legitimate authority in the form of United Nations Security Council authorization would not have been morally necessary; that it is doubtful whether permissible intervention would have required humanitarian intent; that in late August 2017, intervention might well have been a last resort, but that morally relevant facts suggest intervention might have been disproportionate and lacked a reasonable chance of success, such that, all things considered, it would have perhaps been impermissible. -/- (Free access via third external link). (shrink)

Human genetic enhancement, examined from the standpoint of the new field of political bioethics, displaces the age-old question of truth: What is human nature? This book displaces that question with another: What kind of human nature should humans want to create for themselves? To answer that question, this book answers two others: What constraints should limit the applications of rapidly developing biotechnologies? What could possibly form the basis for corresponding public policy in a democratic society? Benjamin Gregg focuses on (...) the distinctly political dimensions of human nature, where politics refers to competition among competing values on which to base public policy, legislation, and political culture. This book offers citizens of democratic communities a broad perspective on how they together might best approach urgent questions of how to deal with the socially and morally challenging potential for human genetic engineering. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the permissibility of forming defensive alliances, which is a neglected topic in the contemporary literature on the ethics of war and peace. Drawing on the jus ad bellum criterion of proportionality in just war theory, I argue that if permissible defensive force requires that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, then, permissible defensive alliance formation seems to also require that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, as the (...) latter can result in much the same consequences as the former. Moreover, due to the incommensurability of values in play when making proportionality judgments, I argue for a value pluralist understanding of the criterion. On this view, defensive alliance formation is proportionate if the expected gains in certain values (goods) intuitively justify the expected losses in others (harms) when compared to the alternative expected value trade-offs of not allying. To explore the implications of my theoretical claims I consider them in relation to John Mearsheimer’s influential account of the causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War. On this account, the West’s strategy to assimilate Ukraine and Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership post-annexation of Crimea were disproportionate because the expected harms were unjustified when compared to the alternative expected goods and harms of forgoing Ukrainian membership of NATO. This does not imply that Russia’s aggression is just, but it does imply that the West and Ukraine are partially responsible for the war and that they acted impermissibly in attempting to expand/join NATO. (shrink)

The twenty-five canons of the council that Patriarch Warmund of Jerusalem and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem convened in Nablus on 16 January 1120 constitute the only extant body of Latin ecclesiastical legislation promulgated in the First Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem . Yet neither council nor canons have drawn much attention. Fulcher of Chartres, who lived in Jerusalem from 1100 to 1127 and left behind a detailed chronicle, does not waste a word on the council. William of Tyre, who began (...) to write his chronicle in about 1170 and worked on it until 1184, summarizes the introduction to the canons and reproduces the list of the council's participants but, oddly enough, skips the canons themselves, claiming that they may easily be found in the archives of many churches in the kingdom. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a new kind of conciliatory answer to the problem of peer disagreement. Instead of trying to guide an agent’s updating behaviour in any particular disagreement, I establish constraints on an agent’s expected behaviour and argue that, in the long run, she should tend to be conciliatory toward her peers. I first claim that this macro-approach affords us new conceptual insight on the problem of peer disagreement and provides an important angle complementary to the standard micro-approaches (...) in the literature. I then detail the import of two novel results based on accuracy-considerations that establish the following: An agent should, on average, give her peers equal weight. However, if the agent takes herself and her advisor to be reliable, she should usually give the party with a stronger opinion more weight. In other words, an agent’s response to peer disagreement should over the course of many disagreements average out to equal weight, but in any particular disagreement, her response should tend to deviate from equal weight in a way that systematically depends on the actual credences she and her advisor report. (shrink)

While stakeholder theory has traditionally considered organization’s interactions with stakeholders in terms of independent, dyadic relationships, recent scholarship has pointed to the fact that organizations exist within a complex network of intertwining relationships [e.g., Rowley, T. J.: 1997, The Academy of Management Review 22(4), 887–910]. However, further theoretical and empirical development of the interactions between stakeholders has been lacking. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding and measuring the effects upon the organization of competing, complementary and cooperative stakeholder (...) interactions, which we refer to as stakeholder multiplicity. We draw upon three forms of fit (i.e. fit as matching, fit as moderation, and fit as gestalts; Venkatraman, N.: 1989) to develop a framework for understanding stakeholder multiplicity based upon the direction, strength, and synergies of the interacting claims. Additionally, we draw upon the theory of stakeholder identification and salience of Mitchell et al. (1997), which we argue provides a more relevant and significantly more illustrative explanation of the nature and effects of stakeholder interactions upon the organization than the network approach of Rowley (1997). Furthermore, we ground our framework through reference to three stakeholder groups (i.e. governments, customers, and employees) and the stakeholder issue of concern for the natural environment. We propose a hierarchy of the multiplicity strength of influence of these three stakeholder groups. Potential measurement and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Ethical questions surrounding withdrawal of life support can be complex. When life support therapies are the result of a suicide attempt, the potential ethical issues take on another dimension. Duties and principles that normally guide clinicians’ actions as caregivers may not apply as easily. We present a case of attempted suicide in which decisions surrounding withdrawal of life support provoked conflict between a patient’s family and the medical team caring for him. We highlight the major unresolved philosophical questions and contradictory (...) normative values about suicide that underlie this conflict. Finally, we show how these considerations were practically applied to this particular case. (shrink)

Some propositions are more epistemically important than others. Further, how important a proposition is is often a contingent matter—some propositions count more in some worlds than in others. Epistemic Utility Theory cannot accommodate this fact, at least not in any standard way. For EUT to be successful, legitimate measures of epistemic utility must be proper, i.e., every probability function must assign itself maximum expected utility. Once we vary the importance of propositions across worlds, however, normal measures of epistemic utility become (...) improper. I argue there isn’t any good way out for EUT. (shrink)

Benjamin Barber is one of America's preeminent political theorists. He has been a significant voice in the continuing debate about the nature and role of democracy in the contemporary world. A Passion for Democracy collects twenty of his most important writings on American democracy. Together they refine his distinctive position in democratic theory. Barber's conception of "strong democracy" contrasts with traditional concepts of "liberal democracy," especially in its emphasis on citizen participation in central issues of public debate. These essays (...) critique the "thin representation" of liberal democracy and buttress the arguments presented in Barber's twelve books, most recently in his well-received Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Re-shaping the World. In these pieces, Barber argues for participatory democracy without dependence on abstract metaphysical foundations, and he stresses the relationship among democracy and civil society, civic education, and culture. A Passion for Democracy is divided into four sections. In the first, "American Theory: Democracy, Liberalism, and Rights," Barber addresses issues of ongoing relevance to today's debates about the roots of participatory democracy, including individualism vs. community, the importance of consent, and the irrelevance of Marxism. Essays in the second section, "American Practice: Leadership, Citizenship, and Censorship" provide a "strong democracy" critique of American democratic practice. "Education for Democracy: Civic Education, Service, and Citizenship" applies Barber's theories to three related topics and includes his much-discussed essay "America Skips School." The final section, "Democracy and Technology: Endless Frontier or End of Democracy?" provides glimpses into a future that technology alone cannot secure for democracy. In his preface, Barber writes: "In these essays... I have been hard on my country. Like most ardent democrats, I want more for it than it has achieved, despite the fact that it has achieved more than most people have dared to want." This wide-ranging collection displays not only his passion for democracy, but also his unique perspective on issues of abiding importance for the democratic process. (shrink)

This paper makes explicit the way in which many theorists of the epistemology of uncertainty, or formal epistemologists, are committed to a version of noncognitivism—one about thoughts that something is likely. It does so by drawing an analogy with metaethical noncognitivism. I explore the degree to which the motivations for both views are similar and how both views have to grapple with the Frege‐Geach Problem about complex thoughts. The major upshot of recognizing this noncognitivism is that it presents challenges and (...) opportunities not only in the philosophy of mind and language but also in epistemology itself. I present some examples where attention to the implicit noncognitivism in formal epistemology has affected or should affect epistemological theory. And I suggest that it is likely that further examples of this sort will arise. (shrink)

In addition to full beliefs, agents have attitudes of varying confidence, or credences. For instance, I do not believe that the Boston Red Sox will win the American League East this year, but I am at least a little bit confident that they will – i.e. I have a positive credence that they will. It is also common to think that agents have conditional credences. For instance, I am very confident – i.e. have a conditional credence of very-likely strength – (...) that the Red Sox will win the AL East this year given that their pitching staff stays healthy. There are good reasons to think that conditional credences are neither credences nor some combination of credences. In this paper, I show that similar reasons support thinking that agents have what we can call quantificational credences – attitudes like, thinking that each AL East team with a healthy pitching staff is at least a little bit likely to win the division – which are neither credences, conditional credences, nor some combination thereof. I provide a framework for assessing the rationality of credal states which involve quantificational credences. And I give a general picture of credal states that explains the similarities and differences between ordinary, conditional, and quantificational credences. (shrink)

It is widely accepted in science that the universe is a closed deterministic system in which everything can, ultimately, be explained by purely physical causation. And yet we all experience ourselves as having the freedom to choose between alternatives presented to us — ‘we’ are in the driving seat. The puzzling status of volition is explored in this issue by a distinguished body of scientists and philosophers.

Most conceptions of human rights rely on metaphysical or theological assumptions that construe them as possible only as something imposed from outside existing communities. Most people, in other words, presume that human rights come from nature, God, or the United Nations. This book argues that reliance on such putative sources actually undermines human rights. Benjamin Gregg envisions an alternative; he sees human rights as locally developed, freely embraced, and indigenously valid. Human rights, he posits, can be created by the (...) average, ordinary people to whom they are addressed, and that they are valid only if embraced by those to whom they would apply. To view human rights in this manner is to increase the chances and opportunities that more people across the globe will come to embrace them. (shrink)

This review essay looks at Andrew Brei’s edited volume, Ecology, ethics and hope, Candis Callison’s How climate change comes to matter: The communal life of facts, Randall Curren and Ellen Metzger’s Living well now and in the future: Why sustainability matters, Willis Jenkins’ The future of ethics: Sustainability, social justice, and religious creativity, and Byron Williston’s The Anthropocene project: Virtue in the age of climate change. These recent works highlight various normative approaches for engaging with what is often referred to (...) as the Anthropocene. Drawing on virtue ethics, pragmatism, and concepts such as intergenerational justice, they seek to address some of the defining moral challenges of our time: how we should respond to this unprecedented era of anthropogenic climate and environmental change, and what ethical resources we can draw on to guide our response. On a larger level, they reveal how the climate crisis is testing the limits of our current moral systems and helping to drive greater ethical innovation and adaptation in the process. (shrink)

In addition to beliefs, people have attitudes of confidence called credences. Combinations of credences, like combinations of beliefs, can be inconsistent. It is common to use tools from probability theory to understand the normative relationships between a person’s credences. More precisely, it is common to think that something is a consistency norm on a person’s credal state if and only if it is a simple transformation of a truth of probability. Though it is common to challenge the right-to-left direction of (...) this biconditional, I argue in this paper that the left-to-right direction is false for standard versions of probability theory. That is, I make the case that there are consistency constraints on credal states that are not simple transformations of truths of standard versions of probability theory. I do so by drawing on a newly discovered type of credal attitude, a quantificational credence, and by showing how the consistency norms on this attitude can’t be represented as simple transformations of truths of standard versions of probability theory. I conclude by showing that a probability theory that could avoid the result would have to be strikingly different from the standard versions—so different that I suspect many would hesitate to call it a theory of probability at all. (shrink)

What follows is an attempt to do some conceptual housekeeping around the notion of secret law as provided by Christopher Kutz (2013). First I consider low-salience (or merely obscure) law, suggesting that it fails to capture the legal and moral facts that are at stake in the case which Kutz used to motivate it. Then I outline a theoretical contrast between mere obscurity and secrecy, in contrast to the 'neutral' account of secrecy provided by Sissela Bok (1989). The upshot of (...) the two sections is that low-salience law is neither secret law nor necessarily problematic, though it closely resembles a kind of law that is both secret and problematic: namely, those legal obscurities that subvert manifest interests related to the informational needs of citizens. The ensuing argument undermines the fiction of constructive presence found in Austin and Blackstone. (shrink)

Phenomenological accounts of technology, mediation, and embodiment are beginning to problematize traditional distinctions between subject (human) and object (machine). This shift is often attributed to a material or post-human turn since it is usually associated with an interest in the non-human actors and objects that make media interfaces possible. This article contends that these tendencies should also be considered part of a deeper lineage of dialectical thought in critical theory. Using videogames as an example, I argue that academic debates related (...) to the player/game relationship can be read through the lens of Adorno’s aesthetic theory. Developing Adorno’s concept of mimesis, I argue that the interface is often treated as a dialectical question of how the space between subject and object should be traversed. I reflect on the possible advantages of focusing on this contested space through a discussion of game controllers and the Aristotelian concept of techne. (shrink)

Phenomenological accounts of technology, mediation, and embodiment are beginning to problematize traditional distinctions between subject (human) and object (machine). This shift is often attributed to a material or post-human turn since it is usually associated with an interest in the non-human actors and objects that make media interfaces possible. This article contends that these tendencies should also be considered part of a deeper lineage of dialectical thought in critical theory. Using videogames as an example, I argue that academic debates related (...) to the player/game relationship can be read through the lens of Adorno’s aesthetic theory. Developing Adorno’s concept of mimesis, I argue that the interface is often treated as a dialectical question of how the space between subject and object should be traversed. I reflect on the possible advantages of focusing on this contested space through a discussion of game controllers and the Aristotelian concept of techne. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIt appears to have become customary amongst many centrist European and conservative American leaders in the new century to present Muslim refugees’ stories as tales of dangerous Others. The...

This paper explores the possibility that Hobbesian jurisprudence is best understood as a ‘third way’ in legal theory, irreducible to classical natural law or legal positivism. I sketch two potential ‘third theories’ of law -- legal pragmatism and legal dualism -- and argue that, when considered in its broadest sense, Leviathan is best viewed as an example of legal pragmatism. I consider whether this legal pragmatist interpretation can be sustained in the examination of Leviathan’s treatment of civil law, and argue (...) that the pragmatic interpretation can only be successful if we can resolve two textual issues in that chapter. First, while Hobbes argues that law entails the existence of public (sharable) reasons, he does not adequately defend the view that the sovereign is the unique authority over such reasons in all cases, especially as far as they concern known collective emergencies. Second, Hobbes both affirms and denies that a sovereign can fail to do justice, which is paradoxical. Both problems are best resolved by legal pragmatism, though the second problem resists a fully satisfying resolution. The upshot is that, although Leviathan ought to be regarded as an episode of legal pragmatism, there are trade-offs on every reading. (shrink)

Anyone taking a class in Modern Philosophy will learn that one of the most important issues in 17th and 18th Century philosophy was the debate between rationalists and empiricists. In 2005, Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa edited a book entitled Contemporary Debates In Epistemology, which includes a chapter entitled ‘Is There A Priori Knowledge?’. In this chapter, Laurence BonJour defends rationalism and Michael Devitt defends empiricism. So, this philosophical debate has been going on for four centuries, and it still has (...) not been settled. This is the kind of thing that gets philosophy a bad reputation. If a dispute can continue for four centuries without resolution, that is surely an indication that nobody knows how to tell a good answer from a bad one. In this article I want to consider why the debate is unresolved after so much time. (shrink)

abstract Moralism is often charged with being ineffective, rude, hypocritical, and intolerant. This article challenges all of those claims, first using evidence from social science to argue that moralism can be effective in changing others’ behaviour, serving as a remedy against the important problems of moral ignorance and weakness of will. Next, the apparent problems of rudeness, hypocrisy, and intolerance are argued to be either illusory or overstated. Finally, examples of unethical moralism are reviewed and a prudential type of moralism (...) is differentiated and defended. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Like a Virgin”Levinas’s Anti-Platonic Understanding of Love and DesireBrigitta Keintzel (bio)Translated by Brigitta Keintzel, Benjamin McQuade, and Sophie UitzMy article is divided into three parts. First, I outline transformations in the understanding of love through philosophical tradition from Plato to Levinas, exploring Levinas’s anti-Platonic understanding of love via the relationship between knowledge and love. This relationship is asymmetrical: knowledge functions in the name of love, but love does (...) not function in the name of knowledge. Love is not knowledge but instead entails knowledge. As love of wisdom, knowledge serves in the name of love. The open question here is: how can Platonic love of wisdom or Levinasian ethical desire have the ability to respond to social, political, and cultural challenges — a question I will come back to in the last section.In the second section, I discuss the relationship between love and desire. As opposed to desire, which is explicitly bound to the Desired, along with some ideal position vis-à-vis that person, love possesses a plethora of connotations that often render it vague. Love is bound not only to the self but to other persons — as well as to objects, facts, attitudes, situations, ideas, institutions, cultures, and even governments. Desire, on the other hand, is a stronger term than the timeworn and [End Page 21] much-abused word “love.” It entails a stronger orientation toward the Other with a temporal, prospective connotation: in the horizon of desire, the Other is “not yet,” the Other is future in the present. For Levinas, the delineation of “not-yet”-ness is a central feature for describing alterity and virginity.My central question in the third section is on how sensual love and ethical desire relate to Levinas’s description of the relationship between “intimate” and “real” society. I will show that it is particularly Levinas’s introduction of the figure of the Third that makes it possible to finally overcome the Platonic dualism between individuality and generality. In both erotic love and in ethical desire, the figure of the Third is decisive for exploring Levinas’s understanding of justice. The figure of the Third is not only a witness of the truth between the subject and a desiring Other but also a precondition for establishing this truth. Therefore, it is not necessary to see but to hear the claims of the Third, as well the claims of the Desired.The Wisdom of LoveIn Plato’s interpretation, love is seen as a progression from the discrete, individual, erotic love to the general and comprehensive. The lover feels in him/herself a deficiency and strives to compensate this deficiency — accomplished through various activities of consciousness, involving desire, suffering, thought, perception, the striving toward the good and the beautiful. These are not considered equal in quality but rather form a progression from the particular to the general. Eros remains dutiful to the idea of the good. Renunciation of corporal love is seen as a precondition for attaining love of the good and the beautiful, this being equated with the attainment of immortality. This renunciation, as it has been argued in the dialogue between Alcibiades and Socrates, implies that spiritual, intellectual love is of higher value than corporal love. As opposed to spiritual love, corporal love is fraught with a deficiency that can never be completely assuaged. [End Page 22]This model is based on the myth — related in the Symposium — of the spherical human being, comprised originally of two people in one body, with four hands, four legs, two genders, and two faces. Only the splitting of this single human into two people with two faces and two genders created the longing for a lost unity, expressed in erotic desire for the other gender or the other face. In this narrative, erotic desire is brought into semantic proximity with lost unity and with suffering. Unisexuality is seen as a deficiency, to receive a “truer and more perfect” assuagement only on a spiritual level. The implied antagonism between spiritual (“Platonic”) and corporal love constitutes a narrative motive that — in various forms — particularly marked post-Enlightenment literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In examples... (shrink)

This is a study of the encounter with the problem of heresy in Europe between the World Wars, in Germany and among Jews above all. It is first and foremost an intellectual history, though not exclusively so, and has four related aims. It argues, first, that the advent of a heretical ideal among Jews in the interwar period marked the definitive end of a chapter in German-Jewish history that began with Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's gambit and the liberal Judaism that arose (...) in its wake proved unworkable by this time, and the arrival of avowedly heretical forms of Jewish return signaled the end of his epoch. But we also find in this period the beginnings of a search for post-liberal modes of Jewish identity in which its predecessor endured in interesting and unexpected ways. Second, the dissertation reconstructs and analyzes the two leading languages of heresy in the interwar period, the gnostic and the pantheist. The first pined for salvation from a sinful world by the grace of a wholly transcendent, extramundane and therefore absent God, or a deus absconditus , and was associated in the interwar period with the Protestant representatives of dialectical theology. The pantheist language of heresy, by contrast, contested the gnostic spirit by divinizing the world, and was associated with the interconfessional revival of Spinoza. On the strength of this contextual reconstruction, the study aims, third, to reinterpret the philosophical careers of three important twentieth-century thinkers, all of them German-Jewish emigres: Hans Jonas, whose philosophical biology made him an unproclaimed "guru" to the German Green movment; Leo Strauss, the philosopher and unwitting father of a neo-conservative revolt in American politics; and Gershom Scholem, the eminent scholar of religion and Jewish culture. The study shows how their diverse projects all had origins in their encounter with the problem of heresy in interwar Europe. Their projects had also a common end: all resurrected the ancient Greek distinction between physis and nomos , and all contested normative Judaism by coming down squarely on the side of the former as the ground for Jewish identity in particular and human being more generally. Fourth and last, the dissertation makes an argument for the abiding salience of a theological dimension to European intellectual life between the wars and beyond. If nothing else, the stories presented here should alert us to the ways in which talk about God could be adapted for talk about nature, or politics, or art, to the ways in which discourses of the divine not only endure in this worldly world of ours, but flourish. (shrink)