Ever since the publication of the third edition of Rudolph Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica to the present gradual production of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta so-called editiones criticae minores of the Hebrew Bible are diplomatic editions. The Codex Leningradensis, dating from 1008/9 CE, is used as the base text, and the Biblia Hebraica text editors note significant variants in other Hebrew manuscripts and/or the ancient versions in eclectic fashion in a text-critical apparatus. The Hebrew University Bible Project also publishes a diplomatic text (...) based on the Codex Aleppo but with a more detailed text-critical apparatus. The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Edition follows a different route, traditionally more familiar in the production of critical editions of the Septuagint and New Testament, namely to publish an eclectic edition. The text editors produce a theoretical, reconstructed text of what they regard as the ‘correct’ reading after careful consideration and weighing of variants in all available textual witnesses. I argue that critical editions of the Hebrew at the disposal of Hebrew Bible scholars, whether based on a diplomatic or eclectic text, have two inherent weaknesses, namely eclecticism and lack of context. Taken together, these shortcomings might be classified as subjectivism. I propose at least considering the alternative of a synoptic text-critical approach beyond the diplomatic-eclectic dichotomy.Contribution: This research critically reviews the current diplomatic/eclectic approaches in the production of scholarly Hebrew Bibles and proposes at least considering a third alternative, namely a synoptic approach. (shrink)

We give a historical overview of the development of almost 50 years of empirical research on the affordances in the past and in the present. Defined by James Jerome Gibson in the early development of the Ecological Approach to Perception and Action as the prime of perception and action, affordances have become a rich topic of investigation in the fields of human movement science and experimental psychology. The methodological origins of the empirical research performed on affordances can be traced back (...) to the mid 1980’s and the works of Warren (1984, 1988) and Michaels (1988). Most of the research in Ecological Psychology performed since has focused on the actualization of discretely defined actions, the perception of action boundaries, the calculation of pi-numbers, and the measurement of response times. The research efforts have resulted in advancements in the understanding of the dynamic nature of affordances, affordances in a social context and the importance of calibration for perception of affordances. Although affordances are seen as an instrumental part of the control of action most studies investigating affordances do not pay attention to the control of the action. We conclude that affordances are still primarily treated as a utility to select behaviour, which creates a conceptual barrier that hinders deeper understanding of affordances. A focus on action-boundaries has largely prevented advancement in other aspects of affordances, most notably an integrative understanding of the role of affordances in the control of action. (shrink)

Derek Parfit, Joseph Raz, and T. M. S canlon, among others, all hold that reasons for action are provided by facts about those actions. They also hold that the fact that an action would promote or achieve the object of an agent's desire is not one of the relevant facts, and does not provide a reason. Rather, the facts that provide reasons are typically facts about valuable states of affairs that the action is likely to bring about, or valuable properties (...) that the action itself will instantiate. For this reason it is appropriate to call Parfit, Raz, and Scanlon "value-based" theorists about reasons for action. In contrast to value-based theorists, there is a strong current of contemporary theorizing, starting with Bernard Williams, that can be called "desire-based." Desire-based theorists argue that practical reasons should be understood in terms of the desires of the agents who are said to have those reasons. (shrink)

This essay argues that normative judgments, in general, and moral judgments, in particular, are "truth apt" and can be objects of belief. Other main claims are: judgments about reasons, if interpreted as true, do not have metaphysical implications that are incompatible with a scientific view of the world. Two kinds of normative claims should be distinguished: substantive claims about what reasons people have and structural claims about what attitudes people must have insofar as they are rational. Employing this distinction, the (...) practical significance of substantive normative judgments is explained, and critical analysis of expressivist and Kantian views on this question is offered. (shrink)

How do we judge whether an action is morally right or wrong? If an action is wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Why should we give such reasons priority over our other concerns and values? In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other. According to his contractualist view, thinking about right and wrong is thinking (...) about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject. He shows how the special authority of conclusions about right and wrong arises from the value of being related to others in this way, and he shows how familiar moral ideas such as fairness and responsibility can be understood through their role in this process of mutual justification and criticism. Scanlon bases his contractualism on a broader account of reasons, value, and individual well-being that challenges standard views about these crucial notions. He argues that desires do not provide us with reasons, that states of affairs are not the primary bearers of value, and that well-being is not as important for rational decision-making as it is commonly held to be. Scanlon is a pluralist about both moral and non-moral values. He argues that, taking this plurality of values into account, contractualism allows for most of the variability in moral requirements that relativists have claimed, while still accounting for the full force of our judgments of right and wrong. (shrink)

Recombinant DNA technology will soon allow physicians an opportunity to carry out both somatic cell- and Germ-Line gene therapy. While somatic cell gene therapy raises no new ethical problems, gene therapy of gametes, fertilized eggs or early embryos does raise several novel concerns. The first issue discussed here relates to making a distinction between negative and positive eugenics; the second issue deals with the evolutionary consequences of lost genetic diversity. In distinguishing between positive and negative eugenics, the concept of malady (...) is applied as a definitional criterion for identifying genetic disorders that could qualify for Germ-Line therapy. Because gene replacement techniques are currently unavailable for humans, and because even if they were possible the number of people involved would be quite small, the loss of diversity concern seems moot. Finally, we dissuss the issue of iatrogenic disorders associated with gene therapy and discuss several ‘real world considerations.’. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Kalâm Atomism Cosmology and Creation Can Humans Know the Superlunar Heavens? Conclusion further reading.

We introduce a simple model for so-called spin-echo experiments. We show that the model is a mincing system. On the basis of this model we study fine-grained entropy and coarse-grained entropy descriptions of these experiments. The coarse-grained description is shown to be unable to provide an explanation of the echo signals, as a result of the way in which it ignores dynamically generated correlations. This conclusion is extended to the general debate on the foundations of statistical mechanics. We emphasize the (...) need for an appropriate mechanism to explain the gradual suppression over time of the correlations in a thermodynamic system. We argue that such a mechanism can only be provided by the interventionist approach, in which the interaction of the system with its environment is taken into account. Irreversible behavior is then seen to arise not as a result of limited measurement accuracy , but as a result of the fact that thermodynamic systems are limited systems which interact with their environment. A detailed discussion is given of recent objections to the interventionist approach in the literature. (shrink)

What are words? What makes two token words tokens of the same word-type? Are words abstract entities, or are they (merely) collections of tokens? The ontology of words tries to provide answers to these, and related questions. This article provides an overview of some of the most prominent views proposed in the literature, with a particular focus on the debate between type-realist, nominalist, and eliminativist ontologies of words.

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1996, given by T.M. Scanlon, an American philosopher.

Transplantation is a medically successful and cost-effective way to treat people whose organs have failed--but not enough organs are available to meet demand. T. M. Wilkinson explores the major ethical problems raised by policies for acquiring organs. Key topics include the rights of the dead, the role of the family, and the sale of organs.

In response to a collection of essays in Jonathan Kvanvig's (1996) Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology: Essays in Honor of Plantinga's Theory of Knowledge, Alvin Plantinga notices that certain Gettier-style examples undermine his (1993b) canonical account of epistemic warrant as delineated in Warrant and Proper Function. In hopes to clarify how his account survives Gettier's purchase, he (1996; 2000) argues that a belief has warrant sufficient for knowledge only when produced in a favorable cognitive mini-environment. In Warranted Christian Belief Plantinga (2000) (...) specifies a condition required for a cognitive mini-environment's favorability. I argue that this condition falls prey to counterexample. Then I investigate a possible solution, which I reason fails as well. (shrink)

Though it enjoys widespread support, the claim that perceptual experiences possess nonconceptual content has been vigorously disputed in the recent literature by those who argue that the content of perceptual experience must be conceptual content. Nonconceptualism and conceptualism are often assumed to be well-defined theoretical approaches that each constitute unitary claims about the contents of experience. In this paper I try to show that this implicit assumption is mistaken, and what consequences this has for the debate about perceptual experience. I (...) distinguish between two different ways that nonconceptualist (and conceptualist) proposals about perceptual content can be understood: as claims about the constituents that compose perceptual contents or as claims about whether a subject. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)

[T. M. Scanlon] It is clearly impermissible to kill one person because his organs can be used to save five others who are in need of transplants. It has seemed to many that the explanation for this lies in the fact that in such cases we would be intending the death of the person whom we killed, or failed to save. What makes these actions impermissible, however, is not the agent's intention but rather the fact that the benefit envisaged does (...) not justify an exception to the prohibition against killing or the requirement to give aid. The difference between this explanation and one appealing to intention is easily overlooked if one fails to distinguish between the prospective use of a moral principle to guide action and its retrospective use to appraise the way an agent governed him or herself. Even if this explanation is accepted, however, it remains an open question whether and how an agent's intention may be relevant to the permissibility of actions in other cases. \\\ [Jonathan Dancy] My first four sections concentrate on the second section of Professor Scanlon's contribution, where he lays out his conception of moral principles and of the role they play in theory and practice. I will raise questions on the following issues: 1. Scanlon's initial introduction of the notion of a principle. 2. His rejection of the standard view that principles are concerned with the forbidding, permitting and requiring of actions. 3. His rejection of pro tanto conceptions of principles in favour of a conception of them as conclusive. 4. The resulting account of what it is for a principle to face and survive exceptions. Scanlon's discussion of these matters here both appeals to and is in some respects more detailed than the relevant section of his recent What We Owe to Each Other. The topic is interesting both for the role played by principles in Scanlon's present discussion of intention and permissibility, and more generally because of his account of wrongness: an act is wrong iff it is ruled out by principles that nobody could reasonably reject. The remainder of my contribution is concerned with the ostensible focus of IP, namely the relevance of agent-intentions to the permissibility of what is done. (shrink)