Over the course of six years and more than two dozen meetings, members of the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues learned so many things: about emerging science; technological challenges; citizen engagement; the public's, experts’, and our own understandings and misperceptions; and even the nature of our own most cherished values. Our commission's commitment to democratic deliberation began deliberatively, when we decided (in the summer of 2010) upon basic principles to guide our first report. At the time, Craig (...) Venter had just announced that he had used techniques of synthetic biology to “create life,” albeit the most elementary form of life, from nonliving building blocks. Headlines alternated between applauding Venter for creating life and accusing him of playing God. It was one of those all‐too‐frequent instances where sound‐bite democracy was headed toward shedding more heat and fear than light and understanding. The commission was asked to take synthetic biology under review and make recommendations to President Obama on how to proceed. We saw the need to question the most salient facts of the matter: what were the fundamental values at stake in this kind of discovery? (shrink)

An article by Melissa Gymrek and colleagues, published this January in Science, described how the researchers used surname inferences from commercial genealogy databases and Internet searches to deduce the identity of nearly fifty research participants whose supposedly private data were stored in large, publicly available datasets. This news comes just months after the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues published a report that expressed serious concerns about personal privacy and security in whole genome sequencing. The bioethics commission (on (...) which we serve as chair and vice‐chair) highlighted the importance of reconciling the enormous public benefits anticipated from research in this area with the potential risks to individuals’ privacy, and it offered several policy proposals to help balance the potential of scientific progress with privacy and respect for persons. The human subjects research protections laid out in the federal regulations are triggered by the identifiability of data. The participants in the Gymrek et al. study were not “readily identifiable”; however, the data proved far more easily identifiable than expected. With rapidly evolving technology, a precise definition of that notion may be impossible. But if we move the debate from the rhetoric of identifiability to the ethical principles of public beneficence and the centrality of respecting all persons, we find that the real ethical focus must be on promoting generalizable progress while at all times respecting individual privacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William James, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Art of New Religious IdealsKolby Knight (bio)And I don’t know a soul who’s not been batteredI don’t have a friend who feels at easeI don’t know a dream that’s not been shatteredOr driven to its knees...Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alrightYou can’t be forever blessedStill, tomorrow’s going to be another working dayAnd I’m trying to get some (...) restThat’s all, I’m trying to get some rest—Paul Simon, “American Tune” (1973) / Recreated by Allen Toussaint (2016)William James and W. E. B. Du Bois believed that an artful life could produce new and world-changing religious ideals. As cosmopolitan scholars who studied in the United States and Europe, both men confidently interlaced original interpretations of Shakespeare, Wagner, and Goethe into their academic accounts of individual and social behavior. Beyond their patronage of the arts, James and Du Bois also saw themselves as scientists and artists who had the responsibility to create new pathways and religious ideals at a time when many European and American intellectuals depicted Western civilization as the endpoint of history.This article explores the pragmatic visions of science, art, and religion respectively offered by James and Du Bois. Pragmatism, here, refers to an active mode of study that looks closely at the interaction between specific thoughts and behaviors in particular situations without assuming a standard of truth which influences or evaluates human life from the outside of experience. As pragmatists, James and Du Bois did not believe their work consisted of merely the explication and description of preexisting truths, but more importantly the religious creation of what James called “new facts,” including healthier habits of thought and practice.1 [End Page 71]In this article, I will trace how the two men, as religious naturalists and leaders in the development of a pragmatic social science at the turn of the twentieth century, challenged evolutionary theories which envisioned Western civilization as the highest standard of aesthetic and intellectual development. Part one demonstrates how James, as a psychologist who prioritized the study and development of “first-hand” experiences, worked against visions of science that saw “lower” emotions as a hindrance to impartial intellectual discovery. It also explores how James centered personal religious experiences in his effort to de-center “impersonal” scientific frameworks which depicted human behavior and thinking as beholden to evolutionary laws which transcended individual experience. Part two considers James’s dissatisfaction with the “bad habits” of his privileged intellectual class, and how his own experience of “soul-sickness” and “stage fright” led him to contest both celebratory histories of Western progress and institutional arrangements which juxtaposed his “mystifying” intellectual performances to the lives of everyday people.Part three moves to how Du Bois, as a sociologist and former student of James, refocused James’s religious pragmatism within the context of his experience of anti-Black racism in the United States. This section traces how Du Bois saw his intellectual career as a work of art which could empower Black individuals to see themselves beyond what David Lloyd describes as “the racial regime of aesthetics” which imagines the progress of “lower humans” as dependent on higher civilizational and educational agents. This section also offers a tripartite interpretation of Du Bois’s experience of “double-consciousness” that considers its aesthetic, social, and political dimensions.2 While James expressed a desire to discard his own sense of double-consciousness, Du Bois’s experience of anti-Black racism made his two-ness more enforced and insidious. The fourth section looks at Du Bois’s disillusionment with white standards of beauty and intelligence as an experience akin to what James described as “soul-sickness.” It shows that whereas James believed that his negative emotional experiences could lead him to “new religious ideals” taking shape within the spiritual energy [End Page 72] and discomforts of his own individual body, Du Bois’s negative experience of racism led him to immerse himself in the religious and artistic vitality of Black social worlds which resisted the oppressive mechanisms and caricatures of... (shrink)

Behavior genetics is a controversial science. For decades, scholars have sought to understand the role of heredity in human behavior and life-course outcomes. Recently, technological advances and the rapid expansion of genomic databases have facilitated the discovery of genes associated with human phenotypes such as educational attainment and substance use disorders. To maximize the potential of this flourishing science, and to minimize potential harms, careful analysis of what it would mean for genes to be causes of human behavior is needed. (...) In this paper, we advance a framework for identifying instances of genetic causes, interpreting those causal relationships, and applying them to advance causal knowledge more generally in the social sciences. Central to thinking about genes as causes is counterfactual reasoning, the cornerstone of causal thinking in statistics, medicine, and philosophy. We argue that within-family genetic effects represent the product of a counterfactual comparison in the same way as average treatment effects (ATEs) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Both ATEs from RCTs and within-family genetic effects are shallow causes: They operate within intricate causal systems (non-unitary), produce heterogeneous effects across individuals (non-uniform), and are not mechanistically informative (non-explanatory). Despite these limitations, shallow causal knowledge can be used to improve understanding of the etiology of human behavior and to explore sources of heterogeneity and fade-out in treatment effects. (shrink)

This paper assesses the effect of DNA barcoding—the use of informative genetic markers to identify and discriminate between species—on taxonomy. Throughout, we interpret this in terms of _varipraxis_, a concept we introduce to make sense of the treatment of biological variation by scientists and other practitioners. From its inception, DNA barcoding was criticised for being reductive, in attempting to replace multiple forms of taxonomic evidence with just one: DNA sequence variation in one or a few indicative genes. We show, though, (...) how DNA barcoding has not narrowed or reduced taxonomy in the way it was projected to. We examine the development and implementation of DNA barcoding across three kingdoms of life: animals, plants, and protists. Through this, we demonstrate that for DNA barcoding to work, the range of acceptable intra-specific variation needs to be demarcated from variation deemed to be characteristic of inter-specific differences. Consequently, biological processes responsible for particular patterns of variation need to be investigated and understood. This encourages an integrative disposition towards understanding and explaining the evolutionary processes affecting the rate and nature of change at the nucleotide level. We detail how the impact of DNA barcoding has manifested differently across the three kingdoms we examine, assessing this in terms of the ontological commitments that are held and instantiated in practice. Based on this evaluation, we consider the problem of studying multi-kingdom communities, and assess the consequences of our analysis for understanding classification and taxonomy. (shrink)

From the 1980s onwards, the Roslin Institute and its predecessor organizations faced budget cuts, organizational upheaval and considerable insecurity. Over the next few decades, it was transformed by the introduction of molecular biology and transgenic research, but remained a hub of animal geneticists conducting research aimed at the livestock-breeding industry. This paper explores how these animal geneticists embraced genomics in response to the many-faceted precarity that the Roslin Institute faced, establishing it as a global centre for pig genomics research through (...) forging and leading the Pig Gene Mapping Project (PiGMaP); developing and hosting resources, such as a database for genetic linkage data; and producing associated statistical and software tools to analyse the data. The Roslin Institute leveraged these resources to play a key role in further international collaborations as a hedge against precarity. This adoption of genomics was strategically useful, as it took advantage of policy shifts at the national and European levels towards funding research with biotechnological potential. As genomics constitutes a set of infrastructures and resources with manifold uses, the development of capabilities in this domain also helped Roslin to diversify as a response to precarity. (shrink)

The Altdeutsche Textbibliothek [Old German Text Library] is the series of editions of German medieval texts with the richest history. Foundedin 1881 by Hermann Paul, it has been edited by leading Germanists- Georg Beasecke, Hugo Kuhn, Burghart Wachinger. Since 2001, responsibility for the series has rested with Christian Kiening. In the meantime, the series comprises some 120 volumes, with an exemplary combination of closeness to the original manuscript(s) with ease of reading, philological accuracy with concern for university teaching. It includes (...) recognised editions of "classical" authors from around 1200- some with commentary- but also presents veritable editions of authors' works (Notker the German) and high-quality new editions (Eckenlied, Heinrich von dem Türlin). (shrink)

The Farm Animal Welfare Council’s concept of a Good Life gives an idea of an animal’s quality of life that is over and above that of a mere life worth living. The concept needs explanation and clarification, in order to be meaningful, particularly for consumers who purchase farm animal produce. The concept could allow assurance schemes to apply the label to assessments of both the potential of each method of production, conceptualised in ways expected to enhance consumers’ engagement such as (...) ‘naturalness’ and ‘freedom’; and the concept of a life worth living as a safeguard threshold below which no animal’s actual welfare should fall, based on each animal’s overall affective states. This may provide a framework for development of the Good Life concept, within scientific and sociological fields, in order to allow reliable and influential use by assessors, consumers and retailers. (shrink)

It now seems technically feasible to culture human embryos beyond the “fourteen‐day limit,” which has the potential to increase scientific understanding of human development and perhaps improve infertility treatments. The fourteen‐day limit was adopted as a compromise but subsequently has been considered an ethical line. Does it remain relevant in light of technological advances permitting embryo maturation beyond it? Should it be changed and, if so, how and why? What justifications would be necessary to expand the limit, particularly given that (...) doing so would violate some people's moral commitments regarding human embryos? Robust stakeholder engagement preceded adoption of the fourteen‐day limit and should arguably be part of efforts to reassess it. Such engagement could also consider the need for enhanced oversight of human embryo research. In the meantime, developing and implementing reliable oversight systems should help foster high‐quality research and public confidence in it. (shrink)

This book is a manuscript that was virtually complete when James W. Cornman died. Most of the chapters were in final form, and all but the last had been revised by the author. The last chapter was in handwritten form, and the concluding remarks were not finished. Swain took charge of the proofreading and John L. Thomas compiled the indices with the assistance of Lehrer. It is our opinion that this manuscript, like the other books Cornman published, is one (...) of exceptional scholarly and philo sophical importance. As do all of his philosophical publications, this work reflects Cornman's great love for philosophy and his commitment to the search for truth. Every serious student and author of epistemology will benefit from and admire the thorough scholarship and rigorous argumentation they will find herein. It has been our privilege to partici pate in the preparation of the manuscript for the philosophical public. KEITH LEHRER MARSHALL SWAIN IX INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION TO EPISTEMOLOGICAL SKEPTICISM Many philosophers try to refute skepticism, but few try to give a precise characterization of the thesis they attack. My first aim, consequently, is to characterize skepticism, or, more precisely, several species of skepticism. Then I shall choose those species I wish to consider and justify my choice. To begin, let me distinguish what I shall call "epistemological skepticism" from the thesis I shall call "ontological nihilism" and from what is believed by someone whom I shall call an "ontological skeptic". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 525 ever, Scharlemann's work is carefully reasoned, and should serve to encourage further reflection on the manner of human existence that is implied in the relation of discipleship. The book is in general well-printed, but there are some errors. The title of Chapter 4 is given incompletely in the table of contents. On p. 79, read intellectus quaerens fidem for intellectuals quaerens fidem. The Catholic University of (...) America Washington, D.C. JOHN P. GALVIN Time and Eternity. By BRIAN LEFTOW. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 377. $42.95 (cloth). This is a considerable book on a considerable topic-the logical relation of time to eternity, the possibility of a simple God's knowing temporal events, and their presence in God. The book aims to make sense of and defend the claim that God is in fact timeless, and to explore the relations between such a timeless being and temporal beings. The book is thus something of a tour de force which, as Professor Stump herself remarks in a review, no subsequent discussions of the topic will be able to neglect. It is also a mine of information about discussions of this venerable topic, ancient, medieval, and modern, with special emphasis on contemporary controversies. After plainly setting out his working assumptions, Leftow examines the possibility of the timeless and the logic of eternity. He argues that timeless entities do, or at least can, exist, whether or not God exists and is timeless. He argues further that if God exists and is timeless, " coexisting " with time does not make God temporal. Proper discourse of the eternal requires its own peculiar " eternal-present" tense. The author then turns to the classic discussions of these topics in Augustine, Boethius, and Anselm. His treatment of Boethius is mainly based on the contemporary interpretation by Eleanor Stump and Norman Kretzmann-indeed a great deal of the first half of the book consists in fencing with their view. Leftow argues that Stump and Kretzmann are correct in concluding that the Boethian concept of eternity is that of " atemporal duration," though he thinks they arrived at this conclusion for the wrong reasons. Having argued that one can understand Boethian eternity in terms of a form of duration, Leftow goes on to maintain that one can also understand it on the model of an extensionless point. At the same time, he maintains that God's life has earlier and later "positions" in a manner that this reviewer finds reminiscent of the Whiteheadian view 526 BOOK 1mvrnws of the genetic analysis of an actual occasion, or perhaps even of White· head's conception of divine everlastingness. In the long run, however, Leftow finds the Boethian view (at least as interpreted by Stump and Kretzmann) unsatisfactory. The reason is, if I have got it right, that he thinks that for Boethius as well as for Thomas Aquinas and others, God is aware of temporal things inasmuch as they are "present to God" in God's eternity. At the same time Leftow supposes (mistakenly) that for Aquinas God's knowledge is that of an observer, and he goes on to write: "Now if a temporal thing is really present to God, it seems to fallow that God and that thing exist simultaneously" (161, my emphasis). I fail to grasp how that seems to follow, unless one confuses the ontological order with the intentional, hut on the supposition that it does follow, Leftow argues that Boethius can't have it both ways: that God's knowledge, not being simultaneous with temporal events, is not foreknowledge and so does not impede human freedom, yet is truly omniscient, and so simultaneous with temporal events after all. Leftow then turns to the view of Anselm, which he judges more defensible, for he believes he finds in Anselm a position in which the temporal events that God knows are in a real sense thereby in God, and so simultaneous with God's knowledge of them. "On this alternative,... temporal events occur all at once in eternity, in addition to occurring at various points in time.... Temporal events occur at once for God and really do occur at once, in eternity" (219... (shrink)

We received 23 spirited commentaries on our target article from across the disciplines of philosophy, economics, evolutionary genetics, molecular biology, criminology, epidemiology, and law. We organize our reply around three overarching questions: (1) What is a cause? (2) How are randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and within-family genome-wide association studies (GWASs) alike and unalike? (3) Is behavior genetics a qualitatively different enterprise? Throughout our discussion of these questions, we advocate for the idea that behavior genetics shares many of the same pitfalls (...) and promises as environmentally oriented research, medical genetics, and other arenas of the social and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

Given the recent ethics scandals in the United States, there has been a renewed focus on understanding the antecedents to ethical decision-making in the research literature. Since ethical norms and standards of behavior are not universally consistent, an individual’s choice of referent may exert a large influence on his/her ethical decision-making. This study used a social identity theory lens to empirically examine the relative influence of the macro- and micro-level variables of national culture and peers on an individual’s intention to (...) behave ethically. Our sample consisted of respondents from Germany, Italy, and Japan. The results indicated that both national culture and peers were found to act as significant referents in ethical decision-making dilemmas. Although peers exerted a much stronger influence on an individual’s ethical decision-making, the impact of peers varied depending on the national culture levels of individualism and power distance. (shrink)

The scientific realism debate in philosophy of science raises some intriguing methodological issues. Scientific realism posits a link between a scientific theory's observational and referential success. This opens the possibility of testing the thesis empirically, by searching for evidence of such a link in the record of theories put forward in the history of science. Many realist philosophers working today propose case study methodology as a way of carrying out such a test. This article argues that a qualitative method such (...) as case study methodology is not adequate for this purpose, for two reasons: to test scientific realism is to pose an effects‐of‐causes question, and observational and referential success are quantities that theories possess to a greater or lesser degree. The article concludes that an empirical test of scientific realism requires a quantitative method. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Intervention and Human Rights.

This article proposes a new account of the relation between the sciences and common sense. A debate between Alfred North Whitehead and Arthur S. Eddington highlighted both the tendency of the natural sciences to repudiate commonsense conceptions of the world and the greater closeness of the human sciences to common sense. While analytic writers have mostly regarded these features as self-evident, I offer an explanation of them by appealing to Wilhelm Dilthey and the phenomenological tradition. Dilthey suggested that, whereas the (...) natural sciences could individuate their phenomena purely from empirical data, human sciences were compelled to refer to commonsense understanding in order to individuate mental phenomena. I apply this insight to episodes from the history of science, and use it to contrast the work of Alfred Schutz and Carl G. Hempel in philosophy of social and natural science. In the final section, I argue that Dilthey’s framework also offers resources to challenge present-day reductionism about mental phenomena. (shrink)

In 2020, Amy-Jill Levine challenged the Society of Christian Ethics to take Christian privilege seriously. But Christian ethicists generally neglect Christian privilege as a distinct type. One site for Christian privilege is the ideal of authenticity, which grew from the idea that Christianity represents love, interiority, and spirituality (spirit), while Judaism represents legalism, exteriority, and materiality (letter). By prioritizing “spirit” over “letter,” an isolated ethic of authenticity can detach moral identity from history, race, community, land, and other seemingly extrinsic factors. (...) I draw on Willie James Jennings and Daniel Boyarin to illustrate authenticity’s exclusionary potential and Moses Mendelssohn to construct a more inclusive ideal. (shrink)

Animals are usually considered to lack the status of autonomous agents. Nevertheless, they do appear to make ostensible choices. This article considers whether, and how, I should respect animals' choices. I propose a concept of volitionality which can be respected if, and insofar as, doing so is in the best interests of the animal. Applying that concept, I will argue that an animals' choices be respected when the relevant human decision maker's capacities to decide are potentially challenged or compromised. For (...) example, it will be best to respect the animals' choice when the human decision maker: lacks accurate knowledge of the animal's subjective experiences; does not know what will lead to desirable experiences or allow for the avoidance of undesirable ones; is biased; is less aware of the animal's specific situation; cannot appreciate all elements comprehensively, including considering any value to the animal being allowed to make and implement a choice, such as where a lack of control or liberty would be unpleasant or where an animal would usefully learn from the process of choice-making; and when the animal's choice is achievable. This additionally suggests that we may often beneficially choose to set up situations that empower animals to make better choices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Karl Barth and Christian Ethics: Living in Truth by William WerpehowskiJames W. SkillenKarl Barth and Christian Ethics: Living in Truth William Werpehowski BURLINGTON, VT: ASHGATE, 2014. 172 PP. $54.95 (PAPERBACK), $153.00 (CLOTH)In this two-part volume, William Werpehowski aims in part 1 to elucidate Karl Barth's "approach to the nature and source of the good, the divine command in its relation to the personal history of a moral agent, (...) and the place of narrative in Christian ethics" (xii). The author does this both by exposition of Barth's writings and by engaging with the arguments of other students of Barth, including James Gustafson, Stanley Hauerwas, John Webster, Matthew Rose, and Gerald McKenny. The titles of the chapters of part 1 indicate the ground being covered: "Divine Commands and Philosophical Dilemmas," "Command and History," "Narrative and Ethics," and "Realism and Discernment." In part 2 the author presents diverse essays on "virtue, moral practices, and discernment," most of which deal with the rearing and education of children, which shows the author's sympathy with Barth even as he draws on other traditions of Christian ethics.Werpehowski's exposition is generally clear and detailed as he seeks to explain and defend Barth's identification of the norm for human ethics with the subject, Jesus Christ. According to Barth, "humanity's obedience to God … must always be obedience to and conformity with Jesus Christ. He is the criterion by which is measured all demands on our behavior" (6). Furthermore, "God's eternal will is for humanity in Jesus Christ; the normative criterion is identical to God's will and the history it accomplishes" (7). Although the response to God's electing love in Christ should be willing obedience, Barth (with Werpehowski) does not deal substantively with the accountability of those who do not so respond. In the end, for Barth, God's "Yes" in Christ always trumps God's "No" to sin (see 65–69).At times the author's defense of Barth appears to be more a deflection of, than an engagement with, the criticism. One example: the author offers a brief summary of Nigel Biggar's sympathetic criticism of Barth at the point where he believes Barth deals inadequately with human responsibility and accountability. Werpehowski acknowledges the legitimacy of Biggar's point—"that the temporal world of eternal grace may be depicted as our one common world only if creaturely rationality and non-arbitrary moral justification are prominently affirmed" (63); he states that Biggar is trying to save Barth "at his best" from a weakness in his position. Yet Werpehowski's next step is to say that Biggar's correction "is in danger of being an overcorrection" because his [End Page 212] moral justification requirement "belongs more to the periphery of the ethics of [Barth's] divine command" (64). That requirement, says Werpehowski, "must be governed by the central significance of the gracious God who commands in the reality of the ethical event" (64).Werpehowski's book is worthy of careful study, especially by those who want to understand Barth in relation to other ethicists. A criticism I have concerns the limits of Barth's ethics with respect to human institutions and social practices for which humans bear communal responsibility. Werpehowski acknowledges that those limits are due to Barth's focus on the relation of Christ to the individual person in the "ethical event." By contrast, at a few points in part 2, Werpehowski draws in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who insists that it is in "friendships, families, work, citizenship, and life in the church" where Christ is present preserving and reconciling the world to God (141). Despite all the attention in recent decades to Christian social and political ethics, the author does little with that subject in either his assessment of Barth or in the chapters of part 2.James W. SkillenPresident (retired), Center for Public JusticeCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Resolving Dooyeweerd’s temporal/supratemporal dialectic opens the way to a deeper appreciation of naive experience and human identity as the image of God. This essay makes a case for that proposition, building on my critique of Dooyeweerd’s idea of cosmic time published previously in this journal. There I hypothesized that time—temporality—should be recognized as the first modal aspect rather than as a transaspectual common denominator of the other aspects. The religious root unity of the human community is not a supratemporal, spiritual (...) concentration point but rather humans themselves in their generations answering to God in all that they are and do. Humans are not temporal bodies directed by imperishable souls but whole persons-in-community, subject to all the modal laws and norms, living by faith in the true God or in false gods throughout this age, which opens to creation’s fulfillment in the age to come. (shrink)

For more than forty years, The Universe Next Door has set the standard for an introduction to worldviews. This sixth edition uses James Sire's widely influential model of eight basic worldview questions to examine prominent worldviews that have shaped the Western world, critiquing each worldview within its own frame of reference and in comparison to others.

The nectar is in the journey, |3dotnld| ultimate goals may be illusory, nay, most likely are but a gossamer wing. Day by day, however, human life triumphs in its ineluctable capacity to hang in and make things better. Not perfect, simply better." John McDermott, Streams of Experience I investigate one manner in which classical American pragmatism might be utilized by theorists and practitioners interested in addressing urban environmental problems. Despite the widespread adoption of the sustainability moniker within the environmental movement, (...) evidence suggests that progress toward implementing urban environmental sustain ability proposals has been minimal. To address this inaction, I undertake an analysis of the philosophy of progress guiding efforts to transition urban environments toward sustainability. I argue that one of the reasons so little has been accomplished in terms of implementing existing urban environmental sustainability proposals is that a disproportionate emphasis has been placed on values that stem from economic-centered indicators of progress. I argue that the value of progress ought to be less about how much of a certain type of economic growth sustainability proposals ultimately can generate for urban environments and more about ensuring that continual incremental societal progress takes place. (shrink)

What do the rules of logic say about the meanings of the symbols they govern? In this book, James W. Garson examines the inferential behaviour of logical connectives, whose behaviour is defined by strict rules, and proves definitive results concerning exactly what those rules express about connective truth conditions. He explores the ways in which, depending on circumstances, a system of rules may provide no interpretation of a connective at all, or the interpretation we ordinarily expect for it, or (...) an unfamiliar or novel interpretation. He also shows how the novel interpretations thus generated may be used to help analyse philosophical problems such as vagueness and the open future. His book will be valuable for graduates and specialists in logic, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

It is commonly asserted that “death is not a welfare issue” and this has been reflected in welfare legislation and policy in many countries. However, this creates a conflict for many who consider animal welfare to be an appropriate basis for decision-making in animal ethics but also consider that an animal’s death is ethically significant. To reconcile these viewpoints, this paper attempts to formulate an account of death as a welfare issue. Welfare issues are issues that refer to evaluations concerning (...) an animal’s interests. This includes evaluations that refer only to comparisons between the presence and absence of states, including positive states. This means that an animal’s death may be a welfare issue insofar as it leads to the exclusion of relevant positive states. This allows us to deny that death is necessarily not a welfare issue. (shrink)

This fully revised and extended edition of James Nickel's classic study explains and defends the conception of human rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent human rights treaties. Combining philosophical, legal, and political approaches, Nickel addresses questions about what human rights are, what their content should be, and whether and how they can be justified.

The United States has never been culturally or religiously homogeneous, but its diversity has greatly increased over the last century. Although the U.S. was first a multicultural nation through conquest and enslavement, its present diversity is due equally to immigration. In this paper I try to explain the difference it makes for one area of thought and policy – equal opportunity – if we incorporate cultural and religious pluralism into our national self-image. Formulating and implementing a policy of equal opportunity (...) is more difficult in diverse, pluralistic countries than it is in homogeneous ones. My focus is cultural and religious diversity in the United States, but my conclusions will apply to many other countries – including ones whose pluralism is found more in religion than in culture. (shrink)

Designed for use by philosophy students, this 2006 book provides an accessible, yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort has been made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams in place of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dictio distinction. Discussion of philosophical issues (...) concerning the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems and also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This feature provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness, one that is easy to extend to systems that include quantifiers. (shrink)

This book on modal logic is especially designed for philosophy students. It provides an accessible yet technically sound treatment of modal logic and its philosophical applications. Every effort is made to simplify the presentation by using diagrams instead of more complex mathematical apparatus. These and other innovations provide philosophers with easy access to a rich variety of topics in modal logic, including a full coverage of quantified modal logic, non-rigid designators, definite descriptions, and the de-re de-dicto distinction. Discussion of philosophical (...) issues concerning the development of modal logic is woven into the text. The book uses natural deduction systems, which are widely regarded as the easiest to teach and use. It also includes a diagram technique that extends the method of truth trees to modal logic. This provides a foundation for a novel method for showing completeness that is easy to extend to quantifiers. This second edition contains a new chapter on logics of conditionals, an updated and expanded bibliography, and is updated throughout. (shrink)

It is nearly 10 years since Patrick Haggard and colleagues first reported the ‘intentional binding’ effect . The intentional binding effect refers to the subjective compression of the temporal interval between a voluntary action and its external sensory consequence. Since the first report, considerable interest has been generated and a fascinating array of studies has accumulated. Much of the interest in intentional binding comes from the promise to shed light on human agency. In this review we survey studies on intentional (...) binding, focusing, in particular, on the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency . We suggest that, whilst it is yet to be fully explicated, the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency is compelling. We conclude by considering outstanding questions and future directions for research on intentional binding. (shrink)

Profit is a concept that both causes and manifests deep conflict and division. It is not merely that people disagree over whether it is good or bad. The very meaning of the concept and its role in competing theories necessitates the deepest possible disagreement; people cannot agree on what profit is. Still, simply learning the starkly different sentiments expressed about profit gives us some feel for the depth of the conflict. Friends of capitalism have praised profit as central to the (...) achievement of prosperity and to civilized modern life. Calvin Coolidge, that silent sentinel of American business, said, “Profit and civilization go hand in hand.” F. A. Hayek tells us that in the evolution of the structure of human activities, profitability works as a signal that guides selection towards what makes man more fruitful; only what is more profitable will, as a rule, nourish more people, for it sacrifices less than it adds. (shrink)

At present, Third World countries owe over one trillion dollars to the developed Western nations; much of the debt is held by the leading international commercial banks. The debt of six Latin American countries alone — Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela — is over $330 billion, of which $240 billion is owed to commercial banks. Let us immediately narrow our focus to loans made by the major international commercial banks to Third World governments. We shall not be concerned (...) with government-to-government loans, or private-party-to-private-party loans, or with debt owed to the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The bank-to-government loans — the so-called “sovereign loans” — are the most economically troublesome and morally interesting. The largest lenders, at least with respect to the Latin American countries, are the American banks Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, Manufacturers Hanover, and Chemical Bank. About fifteen Third World countries have serious debt problems, including the largest: Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina. (shrink)

Although T. H. Green is primarily remembered today as a moral and political philosopher, many of his philosophical concerns owe their origins to the Victorian crisis of faith in which a widespread belief in the literal truth of Scripture confronted seemingly incompatible scientific theories. Green attributed this crisis to the inability of science and religion to find accommodation in the popular version of empiricism widely accepted by educated men and women of his day. In his 371-page introduction to Hume’s Treatise, (...) Green argued that this philosophy was unacceptable, even on its own terms, and that it needed to be replaced with a new philosophy of life, one recognizing that both knowledge and human action are .. (shrink)