This volume explores whether the concept of the common good might be retrieved and become central in contemporary religious social thought. Contributors include: Charles C. West, John J. Collins, Ralph McInerny; J. Philip Wogaman, Charles E. Curran, Richard John Neuhaus, Dennis P. McCann, Ernest Bartell, Michael Novak, Charles K. Wilber, John W. Cooper, Gar Alperovitz, Richard T. DeGeorge, Gerald Cavanagh, William J. Cunningham, Peter Mann, Bette Jean Bullert and David Vogel. Co-published with the Notre Dame Center for Ethics (...) and Religious Values in Business. (shrink)

Philip Pettit offers a new insight into moral psychology. He shows that attachments such as love, and certain virtues such as honesty, require their characteristic behaviours not only as things actually are, but also in cases where things are different from how they actually are. He explores the implications of this idea for key moral issues.

Many philosophers maintain that the ability to do otherwise is compatible with comprehensive divine foreknowledge but incompatible with the truth of causal determinism. But the Fixity of the Past principle underlying the rejection of compatibilism about the ability to do otherwise and determinism appears to generate an argument also for the incompatibility of the ability to do otherwise and divine foreknowledge. By developing an account of ability that appeals to the notion of explanatory dependence, we can replace the Fixity of (...) the Past with a principle that does not generate this difficulty. I develop such an account and defend it from objections. I also explore some of the account's implications, including whether the account is consistent with presentism. (shrink)

Philip Pettit has drawn together here a series of interconnected essays on three subjects to which he has made notable contributions. The first part of the book discusses the rule-following character of thought. The second considers how choice can be responsive to different sorts of factors, while still being under the control of thought and the reasons that thought marshals. The third examines the implications of this view of choice and rationality for the normative regulation of social behaviour. Rules, (...) Reasons, and Norms makes original and illuminating connections across a large swathe of territory, from metaphysics to philosophical psychology to the theory of rational regulation. (shrink)

This paper has two goals: (1) to defend a particular response to the problem of resultant moral luck and (2) to defend the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. Cases of overdetermination threaten to undermine the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided. To deal with this issue, I will motivate a particular way of responding to the problem of resultant moral luck. I defend the view that one's degree (...) of responsibility is immune to moral luck but the scope of events for which one is responsible is subject to moral luck. I will then argue that this view allows us to explain away certain intuitions about responsibility and overdetermination (as well as similar intuitions regarding Frankfurt Cases). As a result, the claim that we are only responsible for what we could have avoided becomes significantly more plausible. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease can lead to the development of neuropsychiatric symptoms. These can include harmful changes in mood and behaviour that alienate family members and raise ethical questions about personal responsibility for actions committed under stimulation-dependent mental states. Qualitative interviews were conducted with twenty participants following subthalamic DBS at a movement disorders centre, in order to explore the meaning and significance of stimulation-related neuropsychiatric symptoms amongst a purposive sample of persons (...) with PD and their spousal caregivers. Interview transcripts underwent inductive thematic analysis. Clinical and experiential aspects of post-DBS neuropsychiatric symptoms were identified. Caregivers were highly burdened by these symptoms and both patients and caregivers felt unprepared for their consequences, despite having received information prior to DBS, desiring greater family and peer engagement prior to neurosurgery. Participants held conflicting opinions as to whether emergent symptoms were attributable to neurostimulation. Many felt that they reflected aspects of the person’s “real” or “younger” personality. Those participants who perceived a close relationship between stimulation changes and changes in mental state were more likely to view these symptoms as inauthentic and uncontrollable. Unexpected and troublesome neuropsychiatric symptoms occurred despite a pre-operative education programme that was delivered to all participants. This suggests that such symptoms are difficult to predict and manage even if best practice guidelines are followed by experienced centres. Further research aimed at predicting these complications may improve the capacity of clinicians to tailor the consent process. (shrink)

The property theory of musical works says that each musical work is a property that is instantiated by its occurrences, that is, the work's performances and playings. The property theory provides ontological explanations very similar to those given by its popular cousin, the type/token theory of musical works, but it is both simpler and stronger. However, type/token theorists often dismiss the property theory. In this essay, I formulate a version of the property theory that identifies each type (thus, each musical (...) work) with a unique property. I then scrutinize the arguments offered for thinking that types, including musical works, are distinct from properties. I respond that no such argument is forceful and conclude that the property theory of musical works is superior to the type/token theory. (shrink)

In late March of 2020, a new hashtag, #FilmYourHospital, made its first appearance on social media. The hashtag encouraged people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos of empty hospitals to help “prove” that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax. Using techniques from Social Network Analysis, this case study examines how this conspiracy theory propagated on Twitter and whether the hashtag virality was aided by the use of automation or coordination among Twitter users. We found that while (...) much of the content came from users with limited reach, the oxygen that fueled this conspiracy in its early days came from a handful of prominent conservative politicians and far right political activists on Twitter. These power users used this hashtag to build awareness about the campaign and to encourage their followers to break quarantine and film what is happening at their local hospitals. After the initial boost by a few prominent accounts, the campaign was mostly sustained by pro-Trump accounts, followed by a secondary wave of propagation outside the U.S. The rise of the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy from a single tweet demonstrates the ongoing challenge of addressing false, viral information during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the spread of misinformation can be potentially mitigated by fact-checking and directing people to credible sources of information from public health agencies, false and misleading claims that are driven by politics and supported by strong convictions and not science are much harder to root out. (shrink)

In the topological semantics for modal logic, S4 is well-known to be complete for the rational line, for the real line, and for Cantor space: these are special cases of S4’s completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. The construction used to prove completeness can be slightly amended to show that S4 is not only complete, but also strongly complete, for the rational line. But no similarly easy amendment is available for the real line or for Cantor space and the question (...) of strong completeness for these spaces has remained open, together with the more general question of strong completeness for any dense-in-itself metric space. In this paper, we prove that S4 is strongly complete for any dense-in-itself metric space. (shrink)

In response to the liar’s paradox, Kripke developed the fixed-point semantics for languages expressing their own truth concepts. Kripke’s work suggests a number of related fixed-point theories of truth for such languages. Gupta and Belnap develop their revision theory of truth in contrast to the fixed-point theories. The current paper considers three natural ways to compare the various resulting theories of truth, and establishes the resulting relationships among these theories. The point is to get a sense of the lay of (...) the land amid a variety of options. Our results will also provide technical fodder for the methodological remarks of the companion paper to this one. (shrink)

In recent years, interest has increased in regenerative practices as a strategy for transforming food systems and solving major environmental problems such as biodiversity loss and climate change. However, debates persist regarding these practices and how they ought to be defined. This paper presents a framework for exploring the regenerative potential of food systems, focusing on how food systems activities and technologies are organized rather than the specific technologies or practices being employed. The paper begins with a brief review of (...) debates over sustainable food systems and the varying ways that regenerative food systems have been defined and theorized. Then, it provides the theoretical backing of the framework—the conservation of change principle—which is an interpretation of the laws of thermodynamics and theories of adaptive change as relevant to the regenerative capacity of living systems. Next, the paper introduces the framework itself, which comprises two independent but intersecting dimensions of food systems organization: resource diversity and livelihood flexibility. These two dimensions result in four archetypical regimes for food systems: degenerative, regenerative, impoverished, and coerced. The paper defines each and offers real-world examples. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of pathways for transforming food systems and opportunities for additional research. (shrink)

Andrew Kania has attempted to argue for nihilistic fictionalism about musical works. This view combines an error theory about musical work discourse with the proposal that musical work discourse has a non-alethic value which warrants continued participation in it. In this paper, I argue that Kania fails to establish either component of nihilistic fictionalism. First, I elaborate and reject Kania’s attempt to establish fictionalism on the basis of a methodological proposal he calls ‘descriptivism’. I argue that the methodology is unpopular, (...) unappealing and that the interest in its implications is unclear. What is worse descriptivism does not support fictionalism. I then elaborate and reject Kania’s attempt to establish fictionalism as the best theory compatible with nominalism. I argue that, even by Kania’s standards, eliminativist nominalism, materialist nominalism and materialist fictionalism are preferable to nihilistic fictionalism. (shrink)

Philip Pettit; X*—Social Holism and Moral Theory: A Defence of Bradley's Thesis, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 86, Issue 1, 1 June 1986, Pages.

A and B continue their conversation concerning the Identity of Indiscernibles. Both are aware of recent critiques of the principle that haven’t received replies; B summarizes those critiques, and A offers the replies that are due. B then raises a new worry.

We begin to fill a lacuna in the relevance logic enterprise by providing a foundational analysis of identity in relevance logic. We consider rival interpretations of identity in this context, settling on the relevant indiscernibility interpretation, an interpretation related to Dunn's relevant predication project. We propose a general test for the stability of an axiomatisation of identity, relative to this interpretation, and we put various axiomatisations to this test. We fill our discussion out with both formal and philosophical remarks on (...) identity in relevance logic. (shrink)

In a recent article, Caterina Moruzzi (2018) develops and defends her musical stage theory. This discussion response supposes that Moruzzi's development and def.

The s, p, d and f blocks of the elements, as delimited by Charles Janet in 1928, can be represented as parallel slices of a regular tetrahedron. They also fit neatly on to the surface of a sphere. The reasons for this are discussed and the possible objections examined. An attempt is made to see whether there are philosophical implications of this unexpected geometrical regularity. A new tetrahedral design in transparent plastic is presented.

The development of effective means to enhance research integrity by universities requires baseline measures of individual, programmatic, and institutional factors known to contribute to ethical decision making and behavior. In the present study, master’s thesis and Ph.D. students in the fields of biological, health and social sciences at a research extensive university completed a field appropriate measure of research ethical decision making and rated the seriousness of the research issue and importance for implementing the selection response. In addition they were (...) asked to rate their perceptions of the institutional and departmental research climate and to complete a measure of utilitarian and formalistic predisposition. Female students were found to be more ethical in their decision making compared to male students. The research ethical decision measure was found to be related to participants’ ethical predisposition and overall perception of organizational and departmental research climate; however, formalism was the only individual predictor to reach statistical significance and none of the individual subscales of the research climate measure were significantly correlated to ethicality. Participants’ ratings of the seriousness of the issue were correlated with their ratings of the importance of carrying out their selected response but neither was significantly predictive of the ethicality of their responses. The implications of these findings for the development of more effective training programs and environments for graduate students in research ethics and integrity are discussed. (shrink)

We review some recent developments in the conformal gravity theory that has been advanced as a candidate alternative to standard Einstein gravity. As a quantum theory the conformal theory is both renormalizable and unitary, with unitarity being obtained because the theory is a PT symmetric rather than a Hermitian theory. We show that in the theory there can be no a priori classical curvature, with all curvature having to result from quantization. In the conformal theory gravity requires no independent quantization (...) of its own, with it being quantized solely by virtue of its being coupled to a quantized matter source. Moreover, because it is this very coupling that fixes the strength of the gravitational field commutators, the gravity sector zero-point energy density and pressure fluctuations are then able to identically cancel the zero-point fluctuations associated with the matter sector. In addition, we show that when the conformal symmetry is spontaneously broken, the zero-point structure automatically readjusts so as to identically cancel the cosmological constant term that dynamical mass generation induces. We show that the macroscopic classical theory that results from the quantum conformal theory incorporates global physics effects that provide for a detailed accounting of a comprehensive set of 138 galactic rotation curves with no adjustable parameters other than the galactic mass to light ratios, and with the need for no dark matter whatsoever. With these global effects eliminating the need for dark matter, we see that invoking dark matter in galaxies could potentially be nothing more than an attempt to describe global physics effects in purely local galactic terms. Finally, we review some recent work by ’t Hooft in which a connection between conformal gravity and Einstein gravity has been found. (shrink)

I interpret Kant's distinction between free and dependent beauty in a way that makes it possible for an object to be judged dependently beautiful without being judged freely beautiful. This is an alternative to the analyses provided by Malcolm Budd and Christopher Janaway, which both face a dilemma because they entail that an object must be judged freely beautiful in order to be judged dependently beautiful. The dilemma is that either the determinant of a judgement of dependent beauty is based (...) upon non-aesthetic criteria (if the object is not freely beautiful), or else the judgement is superfluous for an account of aesthetic value. My analysis of the distinction allows both kinds of beauty to play a meaningful role in a theory of aesthetic value. (shrink)

We critically investigate and refine Dunn's relevant predication, his formalisation of the notion of a real property. We argue that Dunn's original dialectical moves presuppose some interpretation of relevant identity, though none is given. We then re-motivate the proposal in a broader context, considering the prospects for a classical formalisation of real properties, particularly of Geach's implicit distinction between real and ''Cambridge'' properties. After arguing against these prospects, we turn to relevance logic, re-motivating relevant predication with Geach's distinction in mind. (...) Finally we draw out some consequences of Dunn's proposal for the theory of identity in relevance logic. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to take relational ethics concepts and apply them to the context of application to research ethics committees for approval to carry out research. The process of a multinational qualitative research application is described. The article suggests that a relational ethics approach can address two issues: how qualitative proposals are interpreted by research ethics committees and how this safeguards potentially vulnerable respondents. In relational terms, the governance of a research project may be enhanced by shared (...) ownership and willingness to engage in mutual dialogue. This challenges both researchers and research ethics committees to reframe their understanding of roles and functions in the assessment of research protocols, particularly those of a qualitative nature and those that address end-of-life issues. (shrink)

This book critically and constructively explores the resources offered for natural law doctrine by classical thinkers from three traditions: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Three scholars each offer a programmatic essay on natural law doctrine in their particular religious tradition and then respond to the other two essays.

The study of existentially closed closure algebras begins with Lipparini’s 1982 paper. After presenting new nonelementary axioms for algebraically closed and existentially closed closure algebras and showing that these nonelementary classes are different, this paper shows that the classes of finitely generic and infinitely generic closure algebras are closed under finite products and bounded Boolean powers, extends part of Hausdorff’s theory of reducible sets to existentially closed closure algebras, and shows that finitely generic and infinitely generic closure algebras are elementarily (...) inequivalent. Special properties of algebraically closed, existentially closed, finitely generic, and infinitely generic closure algebras are established along the way. (shrink)

Shehtman introduced bimodal logics of the products of Kripke frames, thereby introducing frame products of unimodal logics. Van Benthem, Bezhanishvili, ten Cate and Sarenac generalize this idea to the bimodal logics of the products of topological spaces, thereby introducing topological products of unimodal logics. In particular, they show that the topological product of S4 and S4 is S4 ⊕ S4, i.e., the fusion of S4 and S4: this logic is strictly weaker than the frame product S4 × S4. Indeed, van (...) Benthem et al show that S4 ⊕ S4 is the bimodal logic of the particular product space Q × Q, leaving open the question of whether S4 ⊕ S4 is also complete for the product space R × R. We answer this question in the negative. (shrink)

Shehtman introduced bimodal logics of the products of Kripke frames, thereby introducing frame products of unimodal logics. Van Benthem, Bezhanishvili, ten Cate and Sarenac generalize this idea to the bimodal logics of the products of topological spaces, thereby introducing topological products of unimodal logics. In particular, they show that the topological product of S4 and S4 is S4 ⊗ S4, i.e., the fusion of S4 and S4: this logic is strictly weaker than the frame product S4 × S4. In this (...) paper, we axiomatize the topological product of S4 and S5, which is strictly between S4 ⊗ S5 and S4 × S5. We also apply our techniques to (1) proving a conjecture of van Benthem et al concerning the logic of products of Alexandrov spaces with arbitrary topological spaces; and (2) solving a problem in quantified modal logic: in particular, it is known that standard quantified S4 without identity, QS4, is complete in Kripke semantics with expanding domains; we show that QS4 is complete not only in topological semantics with constant domains (which was already shown by Rasiowa and Sikorski), but wrt the topological space Q with a constant countable domain. (shrink)

Hart identified a utilitarian tradition in jurisprudence, which he associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. This tradition consisted in three doctrines: the separation of law and morals; the analysis of legal concepts; and the imperative theory of law. I argue, contrary to Hart, that Bentham did not adopt a 'positivist' conception of law whether understood in terms of the separation of legal theory and morality or in terms of the separation of law and morals. Misinterpreting Bentham's approach to the (...) analysis of language, Hart was wrong to assume that Bentham's jurisprudential project was a precursor to his own attempt to provide a morally neutral description of a legal system. It was this assumption that led to mistakes in Hart's editing of Of Laws in General. Bentham's utilitarian theory of law should be recognised as a distinct alternative to Common Law and Natural Law theories. (shrink)

These original essays reconceive the place of religion for critical thought following the recent ‘turn to religion’ in Continental philosophy, framing new issues for exploration, including questions of justice, anxiety, and evil; the sublime, and of the soul haunting genetics; how reason may be reshaped by new religious movements and by ritual and experience. Contributors: Pamela Sue Anderson, Gary Banham, Bettina Bergo, John Caputo, Clayton Crockett, Jonathan Ellsworth, Philip Goodchild, Matthew Halteman, Wayne Hudson, Grace Jantzen, Donna Jowett, Greg Sadler, (...) Graham Ward, and Edith Wyschogrod. (shrink)

Henriksen et al. use phenomenology as a tool to clarify the status of what they regard as the abnormal experiences of the condition called schizophrenia. This reveals phenomenology as a method of detailed scrutiny of these experiences to establish a theory about them in terms of the “dissolution of certain structures of self-consciousness” and “morbid objectification of inner speech”. Our commentary is in two parts. In the first, we set out a contrasting view of phenomenology, and its use in madness.1 (...) In the second, we exemplify this use of phenomenology and the meaningful nature of voices through evidence that links.. (shrink)

W.G. Sebald’s literary output has consistently addressed the theme of exile, which is most fully explored in his last novel, Austerlitz. This article places Sebald’s literary output in the context of contemporary debate in the social sciences about memory and identity. It is argued that Sebald used the form of a biographical memoir to illuminate powerfully the ‘condition of exile’. His focus is the impact of the Holocaust on European Jews. As a self-conscious German writer possessed of a sense of (...) historical responsibility, he chose to treat this subject obliquely. Sebald used the device of the unreliable narrator. At least some of the disconcerting effect of his literary work lies in its playful use of an ethnographic style and method. It is argued that Sebald has developed a hybrid style, method and form that may be called ‘literary ethnography’. For Sebald, himself in self-exile, the recovery of memory and the seeking of one’s past do not – and cannot – ultimately resolve the problems of being in exile. Knowing one’s past has no ultimately redemptive qualities. The condition of exile remains irredeemably liminal and there is no repairing the damage. (shrink)

This research examines the speeded detection and, separately, classification of photographic images of animals. In the initial experiments each display contained various images of animals and, in the detection task, participants responded whether a display contained only images of birds or also included an oddball target image of a cat or dog. In the classification search task, a target was always present and participants classified this as an image of a cat or a dog. Half of the target images depicted (...) the animal in a non-threatening state and the remaining half images depicted the animal in a threatening state. A complex pattern of effects emerged showing some evidence of more efficient detection of a threatening than non-threatening target. No corresponding pattern emerged in the data for the classification task. Next the tasks were repeated when the stimuli were more carefully matched in terms of general pose and salience of facial features. Now the effects in the detection task were reduced but more consistent than before. Threatening targets were more readily detected than non-threatening targets. In addition, non-threatening targets were more readily classified than threatening targets. The nature of these effects appears to reflect decisional/response mechanisms and not search processes. The performance benefit for the non-threatening images was replicated in a final classification task in which, on each trial, only a single peripheral image was presented. The results demonstrate that a number of different affective and perceptual factors can influence performance in speeded search tasks and these may well be confounded with the variation in threat content of the experimental stimuli. The evidence for the automatic detection of visual threat remains illusive. (shrink)