Volume 41, Issue 2, May 2020, Page 199-202.

After so many decades dominated by molecular biology, it is important to remember that scientists have also devoted much attention to entire living organisms and ecosystems. In this spirit, Sharon...

Thom Brooks criticizes utilitarian and retributive theories of punishment but argues that utilitarian and retributive goals can be incorporated into a coherent and unified theory of punitive restoration, according to which punishment is a means of reintegrating criminals into society and restoring rights. I point to some difficulties with Brooks’ criticisms of retributive and utilitarian theories, and argue that his theory of punitive restoration is not unified or coherent. I argue further that a theory attempting to capture the complex set (...) of rules and behaviors that constitute the practice of legal punishment cannot persuasively be unified and coherent: legitimate features of the practice advance goals and promote values that in some cases conflict. (shrink)

Volume 51, Issue 3, July 2020, Page 276-278.

The animating idea behind this book is that “a better understanding of linguistic communication may help us to a better understanding of legal regulation” . While for Marmor the philosophy of language has played a foundational role in the philosophy of law, The Language of Law is concerned more narrowly with “linguistic communication as a means of conveying legal content” . In preliminary statements Marmor foregrounds his interest in “the linguistic aspects of legal directives”, specifically “the boundaries between linguistic and (...) normative considerations in the inference to legal content of statutory law”. The aim is to articulate “how the legal determinants work” . These linguistic questions, Marmor argues, can be considered independently of any theory of law or of the nature of legal philosophy. His assumption is that “we can make some philosophical progress by paying close attention to the kind of speech acts that legal enactments are” . The underlying issue .. (shrink)

Within a single paragraph in his Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume prompted what has become one of the most central orthodoxies in ethical theory: the thesis that one cannot derive what ought to be from what there is. In the aftermath of Hume’s seminal discussion, the No-Ought-From-Is-thesis has obtained approval among moral theorists to the point that it has been assigned the status of an undisputed ‘law’. As common with commonplaces in philosophy, alas, both the exact content and argument (...) of ‘Hume’s Law’ have proven to be quite elusive. The present anthology aims to clarify and discuss several controversies surrounding the No-Ought-From-Is-thesis. (shrink)

Drew M. Dalton: Longing for the other: Levinas and metaphysical desire Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s11007-012-9216-y Authors Christopher Yates, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842.