One criticism of revisionist just war thought is often called the “contingent pacifism” objection. According to this objection, revisionist just war theory fails because it requires combatants on the just side to evaluate the moral responsibility for wrongful harm of each combatant on the unjust side to determine liability to defensive harming in each case. Combatants on the just side are epistemically barred from making these determinations. Moreover, many combatants on the unjust side (e.g., cooks and administrative soldiers) fail (...) to meet the threshold of responsibility for wrongful harm to make them liable to lethal defensive harm. Therefore, ex hypothesi, combatants on the just side will inevitably target enemy combatants who are not liable to be killed. In this paper, I offer a novel response to the contingent pacifism objection. I argue that, even on the revisionist account, participation in a military engaged in an unjust war is sufficient for liability to lethal defensive harm. First, I show merely signaling a threat of unjust harm—even if one lacks the means to actualize the threat—is sufficient for liability to defensive harm. Second, I argue that almost all participants in military activity signal a threat. Finally, I conclude that, in general, combatants on the unjust side of a conflict signal threats of unjust harm and are therefore liable to lethal defensive harming. This novel account of signaling-as-threatening disarms the contingent pacifist objection. (shrink)

Patient autonomy, as exercised in the informed consent process, is a central concern in bioethics. The typical bioethicist's analysis of autonomy centers on decisional capacity—finding the line between autonomy and its absence. This approach leaves unexplored the structure of reasoning behind patient treatment decisions. To counter that approach, we present a microeconomic theory of patient decision-making regarding the acceptable level of medical treatment from the patient's perspective. We show that a rational patient's desired treatment level typically departs from the level (...) yielding an absence of symptoms, the level we call ideal. This microeconomic theory demonstrates why patients have good reason not to pursue treatment to the point of absence of physical symptoms. We defend our view against possible objections that it is unrealistic and that it fails to adequately consider harm a patient may suffer by curtailing treatment. Our analysis is fruitful in various ways. It shows why decisions often considered unreasonable might be fully reasonable. It offers a theoretical account of how physician misinformation may adversely affect a patient's decision. It shows how billing costs influence patient decision-making. It indicates that health care professionals' beliefs about the ‘unreasonable’ attitudes of patients might often be wrong. It provides a better understanding of patient rationality that should help to ensure fuller information as well as increased respect for patient decision-making. (shrink)

Patient noncompliance with physician prescriptions, especially in nonsymptomatic chronic diseases, is frequently characterized in the literature as harmful and economically costly (Miller 1997).1 Nancy Houston Miller views patient noncompliance as harmful because noncompliance can result in continued or new health problems leading to hospital admissions. Further, she places the annual monetary cost of noncompliance at $100 billion.Patient noncompliance with prescribed treatment is considered the least understood form of health behavior (Coons 2001). Despite the plethora of attention in journal articles, the (...) issue of noncompliance remains unresolved even in terms of understanding the main correlates to .. (shrink)

Contemplating Suicide: The Language and Ethnics of Self Harm By Gavin J. Fairbairn Routledge, 1995. Pp. xxx. ISBN 415?10606. £12.95(pbk). Religious Transformation in Western Society. The End of Happiness By Harvie Ferguson, Routledge, 1992. Pp. xvi + 269. ISBN 0?415?02574?5. £XX.xx. Feminism and the Self: The Web of Identity By Morwenna Griffiths Routledge, 1995. Pp. 191. ISBN 0?415?09821?1. £12.99 (pbk). Faith, Scepticism and Personal Identity. A Festschrift for Terence Penelhum Edited by J.J. Macintosh and H. A. Meynell University of (...) Calgary Press, 1994. Pp. vii + 304. CAN$27.95. The Shape of Space (second edition) By Graham Nerlich Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0?521?45645?2. Logical Learning Theory: A Human Teleology and its Empirical Support By Joseph F. Rychlak University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Pp. 387. ISBN 0?8032?3904?1. £32.95 Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief By Alan P.F. Sell University of Wales Press, 1995. Pp. x + 338. (shrink)

Is the tick a machine or a machine operator? Is it a mere object or a subject? With these questions, the pioneering biophilosopher Jakob von Uexküll embarks on a remarkable exploration of the unique social and physical environments that individual animal species, as well as individuals within species, build and inhabit. This concept of the umwelt has become enormously important within posthumanist philosophy, influencing such figures as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and, most recently, Giorgio Agamben, who has called Uexküll (...) "a high point of modern antihumanism." A key document in the genealogy of posthumanist thought, _A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans_ advances Uexküll's revolutionary belief that nonhuman perceptions must be accounted for in any biology worth its name; it also contains his arguments against natural selection as an adequate explanation for the present orientation of a species' morphology and behavior. _A Theory of Meaning_ extends his thinking on the _umwelt_, while also identifying an overarching and perceptible unity in nature. Those coming to Uexküll's work for the first time will find that his concept of the _umwelt_ holds out new possibilities for the terms of animality, life, and the whole framework of biopolitics itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Seeking the Sources of a Theologian:In Memory of Fr. Roch Kereszty, O.Cist. (1933–2022)Joseph Van House O.Cist.Fr. Roch Kereszty long enjoyed thinking about how, and how much, we can discover the truth about Jesus of Nazareth through historical research into his earthly life. Fr. Roch also often enjoyed indicating that at least part of the answer is that research about a human being can never be content with descriptions (...) of any number of empirical facts or ideas from that person's life. The true goal of one who writes or reads about the life of another is insight into the meaning of that person's life. Such insight is possible some extent while the person's life is ongoing, but it calls for a more decisive kind of assessment after the person's death. The meaning of a life also cannot truly reveal itself when viewed through the lens of an inadequate philosophy or theology. Indeed, Fr. Roch tended to think that philosophy itself is adequate to show that any quest to understand another human being cries out to be structured by love, or at least some form of empathy: I can truly understand another only in my proportion to my ability to discover communion or affinity with that person, to find in him or her another self who is in some deep way similar to my own self.1 [End Page 781] Although Fr. Roch elaborated such ideas to guide historians seeking to write a "biography" of Jesus, and although they make great demands of many kinds, it nevertheless seems fitting to consider them when beginning to memorialize Fr. Roch himself.Last December, God granted Fr. Roch the gift of a passage from this life that was surrounded by the love of many people who had known him on earth. Among them were many who had known him through his theological writings and had found them to offer a special combination of intellectual vigor and personal relevance. It is a blessing now to be able to offer a short memorial for the benefit of his sympathetic readers of the past and the future. Attempting to explain the golden thread that unites his many books and articles seems unreasonable; the writings themselves remain their own best explanation. Such an approach could also perhaps suggest that we are most loved in our productivity rather than in the ways we are dependent on God and others. For both of these reasons, one good way to serve love and communion with a theologian of interest would be to portray him in some of the ways that he himself was loved, fathered forth and shaped, by the One from whom all fatherhood is named. In this essay, then, I offer a simple and very fragmented portrait of the sources of a theologian, the fontes theologi: the different ways that God fathered in Roch Kereszty a theological writer who was a blessing to people who read periodicals such as this one. If I provoke either fresh appreciation of his writings or deeper reflection on the variety and patterns in the ways God leads his children generally (and especially those who are interested in theology), then this act of thanksgiving to God for a good teacher will have been successful.A Reader Raised in RomeIt is suggestive to notice that Fr. Roch was born in central Europe just six years after Joseph Ratzinger, and died seventeen days before him; their lifespans as theologians roughly overlapped and were formed by engagement with many of the same theological movements and crises. This said, moving quickly to the specifics of the person in question, it seems especially natural to attend to the character of Fr. Roch's formal theological education. This education took place in Rome, in the company of a handful of fellow bright young refugee Hungarian Cistercians, from 1957 to 1962 (during which time he also made his solemn vows and was ordained). In those days leading up to the Second Vatican Council, theology in the Roman universities was dominated by an increasingly stale and self-contained Neo-Scholasticism. The Benedictine Athenaeum of Sant'Anselmo, where young Roch and his [End... (shrink)

In this article, Joseph S. O’Leary recounts the origin and inspirations behind the 1979 Colloquium Heidegger et la Question de Dieu, and reflects on why it became such a key moment in the development of many of those who took part in it. In addition to the contingent factors of a particular time and place, and the deep personal and intellectual significance that Heidegger bore for many of them, O’Leary identifies the perennial philosophical questions which the participants were able (...) to address in original and controversial ways. O’Leary also reflects on the way this Colloquium served as a subsequent influence on his own original work as well as the critical dialogue he engaged in with many of the other participants, culminating in his most recent work on interreligious dialogue which further amplifies the central problematics here concerning the nature of the quest for truth. (shrink)

Are there natural kinds of things around which our theories cut? The essays in this volume offer reflections by a distinguished group of philosophers on a series of intertwined issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of classification.

Introduction Joseph Dunne, Attracta Ingram, Frank Litton This volume of essays has two main objectives: first, to pay tribute to Fergal O'Connor, ...

The papers published here were given at the second biennial conference of the Hegel Society of America, held at the University of Notre Dame, November 9-11, 1972. They appear in an order which reflects roughly two headings: (1) Hegel's conception of the history of philosophy in general, and (2) his relation to individual thinkers both before and after him. Given the importance of the history of philosophy for Hegel, and the far-reaching impact of his thought upon subsequent philosophy, it becomes (...) immediately apparent that we have here only a beginning. At the conference, cries went up "Why not Hegel and Aristotle, Aquinas, HusserI and Hart mann?" Indeed, why not? The answer, of course, might be given by Hegel himself : if we wish to accomplish anything, we have to limit ourselves. We trust that future conferences and scholarship will bring to light these relationships and the many more which testify to Hegel's profound presence in the mainstream of past and present thought. It is furthermore no accident that the renaissance of Hegelian studies has brought with it a rebirth of the history of philosophy as something relevant to our own problems. For Hegel, the object of philosophy is alone the truth, the history of philosophy is philosophy itself, and this truth which it gives us cannot be what has passed away. (shrink)

The final book of O'Leary's trilogy, Conventional and Ultimate Truth deals with the nature of theological rationality today, drawing on Buddhist ideology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 315-318 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Contemplation et Dialogue: Quelques Exemples de Dialogue Entre Spiritualitiés Après le Concile Vatican II The Ground We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian Contemplation et Dialogue: Quelques Exemples de Dialogue Entre Spiritualitiés Après le Concile Vatican II. By Katrin Amell. Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia LXX. Uppsala: The Swedish Institute of Missionary Research, 1998. 245 pp. ISBN 91-85424-50-1. The Ground (...) We Share: Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian. By Robert Aitken and David Steindl-Rast. Edited by Nelson Foster. Boston and London: Shambala, 1996. xviii + 233 pp. ISBN 1-57062-219-1. $15.00. Here are two meritorious and well-produced works devoted to the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity. They also have in common a certain desultoriness which left me reflecting on the limits of the rhetoric of 'dialogue.' Having taken over from 'liberation' as a theological buzzword, 'dialogue' seems by now to have exhausted its usefulness. William James remarked that everything genuine will somewhere become a sham. Lip service to a vague ideal of dialogue becomes a substitute for the unmet challenge of Buddhist-Christian thought, and the less the dialogue is practiced the more its importance is verbally celebrated. The retention of the word 'dialogue' may even serve to keep the religious other at a comfortable distance: it is more reassuring to say, "Of course we are in dialogue with the Buddhists" than to say "We are facing up to the challenge Buddhist thought poses to Christian theology," for in the former statement the Buddhists remain conveniently located others, sitting across the table, rather than a troublesome, potentially subversive presence within our own intellectual world. [End Page 315]In their submission to the recent Roman synod of Asian bishops, the Japanese bishops made much of their commitment to interreligious dialogue, and this was acclaimed with enthusiasm. But the impression left by Karin Amell's book (a doctoral thesis in missiology) is that not very much is going on in this area in Japan, the country seen as "the promised land of dialogue" after Vatican II (p. 119). "One has the impression that it is an activity for a few specialists" (p. 145), leaving the ordinary faithful largely untouched. Amell apparently does not read Japanese, so there may be much that she has missed, yet for my part I can think of nothing to add to the factual content of her account. For the spiritual side of the encounter she focuses on three Japanese pioneers, now in their seventies (pp. 150-191): Kadowaki Kakichi, SJ, Okumura Ichiro, OCD, and Oshida Shigeto, OP. To what extent these men have succeeded in creating a widespread Catholic Zen culture remains unclear, but Amell believes the "dialogue of religious experience" is the most widespread form of Buddhist-Catholic interaction in Japan (p. 146). As to scholarship, which is not Amell's direct concern, one has the impression that everyone is too busy with church and university affairs to devote their time to this. The scholarly labors of Heinrich Dumoulin, for example, have not been continued by anyone else. Despite the work of a powerful Catholic foundation, the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (p. 141), Buddhism does not seem to excite Catholic intellectuals in Japan. Japanese Catholics are a small community, numbering about half a million. But given the high number of theologians, clergy and religious (p. 137), one would expect a more intensive interaction with local religious traditions. Instead the focus of theological interest remains fixed on Western sources. It is not so much that the situation of a small church in the midst of secularized-polytheistic-Buddhist Japan fails to give food for thought as that people seem afraid to think out its implications. Those engaged in contemplative sharing with Buddhists seem to avoid intellectual issues. Amell is uneasy with the insistence on intuition and the latent anti-intellectualism she finds in the intermonastic dialogue (discussed in the first half... (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I argue that a remotely piloted aircraft pilot’s act of killing remotely, when it is done in the defense of another person, can be viewed as an act of sacrifice. This argument concludes from two premises. First, the RPA pilot faces psychological risk to self by carrying out such an action; second, the RPA pilot is motivated to some significant degree by something other than self-interest. Moreover, I challenge both the view that RPA represent merely an incremental (...) development in technology yielding an incremental expansion of the distance between the war-fighter and the target and the view that RPA is revolutionary in some fundamental sense. I instead argue that, based upon the natural geometric boundary imposed by the earth’s shape, RPA have maximized the physical distance between the war-fighter and the target and, over time, this fact will change, not only the psychological effects on the RPA pilot, but also the way we view killing and distance in general. When taken togethe... (shrink)

In 2014, Colonel M. Shane Riza published an article in this journal arguing that remotely piloted aircraft and robotic weapons threaten the US Air Force’s warrior ethos. Riza has clearly articulated the sentiments of one side of a vibrant debate within our service. This paper presents an alternative view; a view held by some who have experienced these new forms and tools of war, and who have wrestled with their implications first-hand. In this paper, we address some methodological concerns with (...) Riza’s approach and then engage some misunderstandings about RPA’s relationship to military history and to risk. The second part of this paper takes a close look at some of the early Just War thinkers to determine what implications the tradition may have on the warrior ethos. We propose, as an alternative to Riza’s position, a return to an ethos grounded in humility, charity, and a conception of war as a last resort; in short, a return to the Just Warrior Ethos. (shrink)

Most philosophical explorations of responsibility discuss the topic solely in terms of metaphysics and the "free will" problem. By contrast, these essays by leading philosophers view responsibility from a variety of perspectives -- metaphysics, ethics, action theory, and the philosophy of law. After a broad, framing introduction by the volume's editors, the contributors consider such subjects as responsibility as it relates to the "free will" problem; the relation between responsibility and knowledge or ignorance; the relation between causal and moral responsibility; (...) the difference, if any, between responsibility for actions and responsibility for omissions; the metaphysical requirements for making sense of "collective" responsibility; and the relation between moral and legal responsibility. The contributors include such distinguished authors as Alfred R. Mele, John Martin Fischer, George Sher, and Frances Kamm, as well as important rising scholars. Taken together, the essays in _Action, Ethics, and Responsibility_ offer a breadth of perspectives that is unmatched by other treatments of the topic. Contributors: Joseph Keim Campbell, David Chan, Randolph Clarke, E.J. Coffman, John Martin Fischer, Helen Frowe, Todd Jones, Frances Kamm, Antti Kauppinen, Alfred R. Mele, Michael O'Rourke, Paul Russell, Robert F. Schopp, George Sher, Harry S. Silverstein, Saul Smilansky, Donald Smith, Charles T. Wolfe The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo argumentar a favor de la tolerancia de ciertas "inmoralidades inofensivas o sin víctimas". Tomando como punto de partida el liberalismo perfeccionista de Joseph Raz, así como la crítica que de él hace Robert P. George, se plantean argumentos a favor de tolerar ciertos males en aras de evitar que se instrumentalice a las personas. Como conclusión se afirma que, aunque equivocadamente, es posible elegir realizar acciones consentidas que atenten contra el principio del daño. This (...) paper argues for tolerance of some "harmless or victimless immoralities". To this end —and taking into account both Joseph Raz's perfectionist liberalism, and the critique of the latter by Robert P. George— arguments are set forth for tolerance of some evils aimed at avoiding using people as a means. In conclusion, it is stated that, although mistakenly, people should be free to carry out consented actions which infringe upon harm principle. (shrink)

Researchers designing a clinical trial may be aware of disputed evidence of serious risks from previous studies. These researchers must decide whether and how to describe these risks in their model informed consent document. They have an ethical obligation to provide fully informed consent, but does this obligation include notice of controversial evidence? With ACCORD as an example, we describe a framework and criteria that make clear the conditions requiring inclusion of important controversial risks. The ACCORD model consent document did (...) not include notice of prior trials with excess death. We develop and explain a new standard labeled risk in equipoise. We argue that our approach provides an optimal level of integrity to protect the informational needs of the reasonable volunteers who agree to participate in clinical trials. We suggest language to be used in a model consent document and the informed consent discussion when such controversial evidence exists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward an East–West Ultramontane Polyphony:On Dogma, Ecclesial Unity, and the FilioqueThomas Joseph White O.P.The book that the contributors to this symposium have commented upon with graciousness and remarkable intellectual acuity is a work consisting of four parts. There are four main claims to the book associated with these four parts, each of which is divided into sub-themes. Thus, one can denote a number of inevitably controversial ideas advanced (...) by the book. In clarifying the nature of these claims, I can initially respond to some of the main points advanced by various of the helpful review essays in this symposium.Framing the Argument of the BookThe first part of the work posits that there is a fundamental developmental continuity between Old and New Testament revelation, wherein God is revealed first to Israel as the one Creator, and subsequently in Jesus Christ as three distinct persons, the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.1 This revelation is in turn received in the pre-Nicene era of the early Church, principally under a twofold conceptual format, according firstly to a model of God as a single transcendent subject of wisdom who sends his Word into the world in human nature, and inspires the prophets by his Spirit (the apologists' monotheistic model, exemplified by Justin Martyr) and, secondly, to [End Page 569] a model of economic Trinitarian activity, of the Father, Son and Spirit, who are each divine and one in being, active in sacred history (Irenaeus).2 Nicene Trinitarian authors sought in various ways to find a deeper concordance of the two approaches, one of which emphasized more the immanent unity of God (potentially tending toward a danger of Sabellianism) and the other of which emphasized real distinction of persons active in the economy (potentially tending toward the danger of subordinationism).3 Pro-Nicene figures like Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine, among others, paved the way for a mature doctrine of immanent Trinitarian life, in which God was understood to be characterized, mysteriously, by eternal processions of the Word and the Spirit who originate from the Father, and receive from him the plenitude of their deity or divine nature, and thus are equally and identically the one God.4 God is mysteriously three persons who are truly one both in essence and being.The second part of the book is concerned with the theological exploration of what it means to speak of God as one, and of the divine nature of God. This determination of Christian theological wisdom stems from a threefold exigency: first, to uncover the inner unity of revelation itself, as indeed the Israelite revelation of the divine unity and the oneness of God the transcendent Creator is thematic to both Testaments;5 second, to consider the preconditions of Nicene orthodoxy, as indeed the claim that the three persons in God are one in essence or nature presupposes that there is a nature of God that is one common to the three persons;6 third, to consider what must be said about the inner life of God as truth and love, as a precondition for thinking about the processional life of the Word and Spirit, who are immanent distinct persons in God who receive and possess this fullness of life but who do not divide this one eternal life in God or cause it to evolve due to their relational proceeding.7I argue that a consideration of God's nature as simple, perfect, good, eternal, immutable, and so forth is essential to any theology that takes the biblical revelation of the unity and transcendence of God seriously, and therefore confesses the revelation of the Trinity integrally.8 Furthermore, regarding [End Page 570] the apophatic contours of this form of reflection, I hold that it is precisely in order to guarantee the kind of circumspect avoidance of "non-biblical speculation" about positive knowledge of God outside of Christ that it is necessary to qualify rightly how God is not identifiable with creation and thus remains unknown in his inner divine nature and eternal life apart from and outside of his divine self-disclosure in the revelation of the Old and New Testaments. Philosophical... (shrink)

The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience -- it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all -- and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of (...) persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical considerations of time. This volume of original essays brings together these two essentially related concepts in a way not reflected in the available literature, making it required reading for philosophers working in metaphysics and students interested in these topics. The contributors, distinguished authors and rising scholars, first consider the nature of time and then turn to the relation of identity, focusing on the metaphysical connections between the two, with a special emphasis on personal identity. The volume concludes with essays on the metaphysics of death, issues in which time and identity play a significant role. This groundbreaking collection offers both cutting-edge epistemological analysis and historical perspectives on contemporary topics. Contributors:_ _Harriet Baber, Lynne Rudder Baker, Ben Bradley, John W. Carroll, Reinaldo Elugardo, Geoffrey Gorham, Mark Hinchliff, Jenann Ismael, Barbara Levenbook, Andrew Light, Lawrence B. Lombard, Ned Markosian, Harold Noonan, John Perry, Harry S. Silverstein, Matthew H. Slater, Robert J. Stainton, Neil A. Tognazzini The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

New essays by leading philosophers explore topics in epistemology, offering both contemporary philosophical analysis and historical perspectives. There are two main questions in epistemology: What is knowledge? And: Do we have any of it? The first question asks after the nature of a concept; the second involves grappling with the skeptic, who believes that no one knows anything. This collection of original essays addresses the themes of knowledge and skepticism, offering both contemporary epistemological analysis and historical perspectives from leading philosophers (...) and rising scholars. Contributors first consider knowledge: the intrinsic nature of knowledge—in particular, aspects of what distinguishes knowledge from true belief; the extrinsic examination of knowledge, focusing on contextualist accounts; and types of knowledge, specifically perceptual, introspective, and rational knowledge. The final chapters offer various perspectives on skepticism. Knowledge and Skepticism provides an eclectic yet coherent set of essays by distinguished scholars and important new voices. The cutting-edge nature of its contributions and its interdisciplinary character make it a valuable resource for a wide audience—for philosophers of language as well as for epistemologists, and for psychologists, decision theorists, historians, and students at both the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels. Contributors Kent Bach, Joseph Keim Campbell, Joseph Cruz, Fred Dretske, Catherine Z. Elgin, Peter S. Fosl, Peter J. Graham, David Hemp, Michael O'Rourke, George Pappas, John L. Pollock, Duncan Pritchard, Joseph Salerno, Robert J. Stainton, Harry S. Silverstein, Joseph Thomas Tolliver, Leora Weitzman. (shrink)

This collection of contemporary essays by prominent contemporary thinkers on the topics of determinism and free agency concentrates primarily on two areas: the compatibility problem and the metaphysics of moral responsibility. There are also essays on the related fields of determinism and action theory. The book is unique in that it contains up-to-date summaries of the life-work of five influential philosophers: John Earman, Ted Honderich, Keith Lehrer, Robert Kane, and Peter van Inwagen. There are also contributions by other familiar and (...) distinguished authors, including Richard Feldman, John Martin Fischer, Carl Ginet, and John Perry, as well as important rising philosophers. While most of the articles are written from a Western, analytic perspective, the volume includes a paper that addresses Buddhist perspectives on freedom of the will. With an opening essay written by the editors -- "Freedom and Determinism: A Framework" -- that sets the terms of the discussion, the book provides a remarkably comprehensive set of articles that are of value to a wide audience, from students of philosophy to scholars. (shrink)

Tout s’est passé très vite, prenant l’Église au dépourvu. Le mouvement pour la reconnaissance des mariages et des unions civiles entre personnes du même sexe a connu un succès extraordinaire. La hiérarchie de l’Église catholique oppose une fin de non-recevoir à toute reconnaissance positive des couples homosexuels, en invoquant une morale sexuelle qu’on dit ancienne et invariable,..

This collection of original essays on the topics of causation and explanation offers readers a state-of-the-art view of current work in these areas. The book is notable for its interdisciplinary character, and the essays, by distinguished authors and important rising scholars, will be of interest to a wide readership, including philosophers, computer scientists, and economists. Students and scholars alike will find the book valuable for its wide-ranging treatment of two difficult philosophical topics.The volume focuses first on the development of theories (...) of causation and explanation, and then on the application of those theories. Theoretical discussions include Patrick Suppes's investigation of the causal issues surrounding intentional activities such as computation and decision making, and Clark Glymour and Frank Wimberly's analysis of technical issues encountered in formulating an account of actual causation. The essays exploring applications include Nancy Cartwright's examination of the application of counterfactuals to economics and Alfred Mele's criticism of the work of Benjamin Libet on the applicability of experimental results in psychology to philosophical analyses of free will and self-control.Causation and Explanation offers a remarkably wide-ranging set of essays on two topics that present difficult philosophical issues. (shrink)

These essays by leading scholars illustrate the complexity and range of philosophical issues raised by consideration of law and social justice. The contributors to Law and Social Justice examine such broad foundational issues as instrumentalist versus Kantian conceptions of rights as well as such specific problems as the admissibility or inadmissibility of evidence of causation in toxic tort cases. They consider a variety of subjects, including the implications of deliberative democracy for privacy rights, equality as a principle of distributive justice, (...) the paradox of "moral luck," the treatment of intellectual property in China and its roots in Chinese tradition, and the extent to which initial acquisition of goods yields full property rights. Two special sections at the end of the volume discuss the treatment of law and social justice issues in the work of two philosophers: "Wittgenstein and Legal Theory," on the influence of Wittgenstein's thought on legal philosophy, and a discussion of Jules L. Coleman's The Practice of Principle, which concludes with a contribution, "Facts, Fictions, and the Grounds of Law," by Coleman himself. (shrink)

Specialist Sport Programs are an underexamined activity that combines the best features of two different contexts for adolescent development: a sporting program and a secondary school. A mixed-methods study was conducted to determine the influence of participation in SSPs on the educational outcomes of lower secondary students in Western Australia. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in specialist students' mean grade for Mathematics over the course of a year, while their mean grade for all other subjects, and their level of (...) engagement with school, remained stable over the same period of time. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key stakeholders. Overall, the participants felt that SSPs had a positive influence on students' engagement with school, and that this engagement had a positive impact on their academic achievement. Taken together, the results of this research suggest that there is a role for SSPs in promoting positive educational outcomes for lower secondary students attending public schools located in low SES areas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 22 (2002) 163-179 [Access article in PDF] Emptiness and Dogma Joseph S. O'Leary Sophia University The controversial Vatican document Dominus Iesus reasserts that non-Christian religions are objectively in a defective situation as regards salvation.Etymologically, salvation (soteria salus) means health. Here I should like to reflect on apparent symptoms of ill health in Christian theology and ask if Buddhist wisdom can help us formulate a diagnosis and (...) bring the issues into perspective in a healing way. I shall take as my guiding thread an idea familiar to readers of this journal, namely, that Christian theology has suffered from a delusive clinging to substance and identity, and that the Buddhist teachings of dependent co-arising, emptiness, and non-self may provide an antidote.Biblical and Christian traditions are rich in resources for a critique of substantialist conceptions of God and self. The God of the Bible is constantly shattering the fixated, idolatrous images his worshippers form of him, and the Johannine language of God as Spirit, light, love, locates God in a dynamic realm of communal contemplation from which it would be difficult to distill a well-defined divine substance suited to metaphysical analysis. As for self, Paul, and later Luther, present the Christian self as an existential and relational event, not a substantial self-contained soul.What of Christian theology as shaped from Greek metaphysics? Is it irredeemably substantialist, prey to naive reification and objectification? The definition of God as ipsum esse subsistens("being itself subsisting") sufficiently eludes objectification to include the Plotinian sense of God as "beyond being." The idea adopted from Aristotle that "the soul [as knower] is in a manner all things" suggests that metaphysical theology also developed a nonobjectifying conception of human being. The Christological debates of the early Christian centuries rely of necessity on substance language, yet in placing that terminology at the service of a revealed mystery beyond the grasp of language or thought, they introduce a ferment of paradox into the play of concepts and make of it a dance of traces, following the contours of a reality that cannot be brought under substantialist rubrics.Some might see the brilliant relational fireworks of Thomist trinitarian speculation as deconstructing logocentric images of divinity. However, the Trinity in itself is probably best seen as an abstract remainder concept, postulated as a dim background of the revealed phenomenon of Father, Jesus Christ, and Spirit, so that to spin stories of theories about it is futile, a form of misplaced concreteness. Robert Magliola finds [End Page 163] Nagarjunian resonances in the trinitarian logic of the Council of Florence, notably in the decree it addressed to the Copts in 1442 (Magliola, 85-89). The Copts were given an extra dose of the logic that had caused profound unease among the Greek delegates three years earlier (see Gill, 227-232; 325). How much of this later logic did the Latins read back into the patristic texts they cited? Though unbeatable in the fifteenth century, how convincing is it today? Theology has to face the hermeneutical task, and an ongoing one, of assessing the status and function of this trinitarian logic and referring it back to the biblical basis.The desubstantializing tendencies just noted can be drawn on in a contemporary "overcoming of metaphysics" in theology. But the mainstream of the tradition invested massively in substance and identity. It was by strong affirmations of substantial identity that Christianity made its way in the world. Dogma determined the identities of Father, Son, and Spirit as consubstantial hypostases of the one God, the identity of Jesus Christ as true God and true man united in one hypostasis, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the unity, sufficiency, infallibility of the Church and its Scriptures, the continuity of the episcopal and papal ministries as transmitted from the apostles. The substantiality of what was proclaimed was matched by the total conviction of the faith that proclaimed it. Theologians might tinker with speculative elaborations, but the core of faith and dogma was untouchable, never subjected to doubt or questioning.It is a kind of metadogma that all... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religious Pluralism and Christian TruthJoseph S. O’Leary has been named recipient of the 1998 Frederick J. Streng Book Award for his 1996 volume, Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth. Dr. O’Leary was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1949. He studied literature, theology, and philosophy in Maynooth, Rome, and Paris. After teaching briefly in the United States (University of Notre Dame and Duquesne University), he moved to Japan in 1983. He (...) has worked in association with the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture and currently teaches English literature at Sophia University (with special emphasis on Joyce and the modernist period) and a course on Japanese values at International Christian University.He has been working on a trilogy in fundamental theology that has taken on an increasingly interreligious character. The first volume is Questioning Back: The Overcoming of Metaphysics in Christian Tradition (Minneapolis: Winston/Seabury, 1985), reviewed in Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1987; a French version is in preparation. The second volume appeared first as La verite chretienne a l’age du pluralisme religieux (Paris: Cerf, 1994) and then as Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth (Edinburgh University Press, 1996). Joseph O’Leary is also coeditor of Heidegger et la question de Dieu (Paris: Grasset, 1980) and Buddhist Spirituality (vols. 8 and 9 of World Spirituality, New York: Crossroad, 1993 and 1999).Terry Muck: Why did you write this book?Joseph O’Leary: My earlier book, Questioning Back: The Overcoming of Metaphysics in Christian Tradition, advocated deconstruction of the Greek and Hebrew elements in Christian theology—the need for a radical retrieval of the tradition in the spirit of Heidegger’s “step back” from metaphysical systems to the original phenomena. In Religious Pluralism and Christian Truth, I broadened the horizon to see all religion as historical, cultural constructs growing and changing through mutual interaction. Living in Japan brought me a liberating sense of historical and cultural relativity and with it the sense that the Christian tradition should be thought of as an essentially incomplete project, always reaching out to other traditions in search of a fuller vision.But that discovery did not mean giving up on the Christian tradition.No. Rather than sitting back and enjoying the pluralism, I found myself more and more concerned with the question of truth. Followers of Jacques Derrida assured me that “truth” has been exposed as a historical myth. Struggling with Derrida I found rather a recontextualization of the value of truth. Moreover, the “situated truth” (always relative to a given context in culture and praxis) of historically formulated dogmatic propositions turned out to be quite defensible despite Derrida’s demolition [End Page 239] of notions of truth as totality (Hegel) or truth as presence (Heidegger). Christianity has nothing to fear from opening itself up to its historical relativity. Buddhism has long accepted the provisionality of all religious expressions. I focused especially on the notion of skillful means and on the theory of the two truths (conventional and ultimate) in Madhyamaka Buddhism.What does this “opening up” do to traditional Christian doctrines?The notion of God is not only compatible with such a relativized view of the status of religious language, but demands it. The biblical discourse about God consists in a constant deconstruction of old images of God by new ones. As for the role of Jesus Christ, Incarnation is an ongoing event in that the historical significance of Jesus is still unfolding. The uniqueness of Jesus resides not in some ontological amalgamation of divinity and humanity but in the specifics of his historical role. God’s Word is spoken in other ways elsewhere, indeed is spoken in all things, and its specifically “fleshly” (human and historical) and “eschatological” manifestation in the unfolding of the Jesus story should not be divorced from these wider contexts.How have these ideas been received?The most flattering response has come from the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in granting me the Frederick J. Streng Book Award. Streng’s book, Emptiness, which I read in Pittsburgh in 1982, opened my eyes to the world of Madhyamaka thought.Any criticisms?Predictably, the book has come under fire from two opposing camps. The Revue Thomiste reviewer claimed that I could... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Beauty, Transcendence, and the Inclusive Hierarchy of Creation1Thomas Joseph White, O.P.Interpreters of Thomas Aquinas have long argued about whether he holds that beauty is a “transcendental,” a feature of reality coextensive with all that exists, like unity, goodness, and truthfulness.2 In the first part of this article, I will argue that Aquinas can [End Page 1215] be read to affirm in an implicit way that beauty is a (...) transcendental. In the second part, I will consider what it might mean from a Thomistic point of view to speak of a transcendent divine beauty, given Aquinas’s metaphysical commitments, particularly with respect to his doctrine of divine simplicity. In the final part, I will treat the question of how the beauty of the creation both manifests and conceals divine beauty.Beauty as a Transcendental Feature of RealityAquinas does not list beauty as a transcendental term in texts on transcendental notions. Perhaps, then, one should simply exclude it from a responsible account of his teaching on this subject. However, at least two well-known texts should give us reason to pause before reaching such a conclusion. One is found in his Commentary on Dionysius’ Divine Names, chapter 4, lectio 5. The other is in his discussion of the beauty of the eternal Son of God in a discussion of the Holy Trinity in the Summa theologiae I, q. 39, a. 8.In the first of these texts, Aquinas is commenting on Dionysius. The extended text is analytically dense. Aquinas is discussing ways in which one might say that God is beautiful and in what ways one might not say so. I will return to his topic below. Here, however, it is pertinent to consider Aquinas’s discussion of the presence of beauty in all that exists. He makes six main points.3 First, all beauty comes [End Page 1216] from God insofar as God is the cause of all that exists. Second, he gives a first definition of beauty: beauty can be defined ontologically as the splendor (claritas) that results from form; everything has a formal determination of some kind insofar as it has existence (esse); therefore, insofar as anything exists (and has some formal ontological content) it has some degree of beauty. Third, the splendor of the form in created things is a participation in the divine splendor from which it originates. The divine nature is the transcendent exemplar of beauty in diverse finite created realities. Fourth, then (and perhaps most importantly), “ex divina pulchritudine esse omnium derivatur”: literally, the existence of everything originates from divine beauty. Fifth, a second definition of beauty is considered: beauty can be defined ontologically as a property of being that emerges from proportion or harmony (consonantia). For example, authentic relationships of personal friendship imply spiritual harmony or concord and are beautiful and noble in this respect. Sixth, then, the concord or beautiful harmonies we find in the created order are expressive of the wisdom of God, who is the author of creation.Evidently, if the existence of everything derives from divine beauty, and if everything that has existence is in some way beautiful by virtue of its intrinsic form, then it would seem to follow logically that beauty, for Aquinas, is a characteristic of being that is coextensive with all that exists. We see a similar idea expressed in the aforementioned passage of ST. Here, however, Aquinas gives a more synthetic definition of beauty in things that combines both the definitions found in our previous discussion, claritas and proportio, but it also adds a third, integritas: ontological integrity or wholeness.Species or beauty has a likeness to the property of the Son. For beauty includes three conditions, “integrity” or “perfection,” [End Page 1217] since those things which are impaired are by the very fact ugly; due “proportion” or “harmony”; and lastly, “brightness” or “clarity,” whence things are called beautiful which have a bright color.4The implication of this point of view is readily apparent. God is essentially beautiful, and God has created all that exists in light of the eternal Word and Wisdom of God, who is the Son. Consequently, all that exists and that... (shrink)