Volume Eight of the project documenting Thomas Jefferson's last years presents 591 documents dated from 1 October 1814 to 31 August 1815. Jefferson is overjoyed by American victories late in the War of 1812 and highly interested in the treaty negotiations that ultimately end the conflict. Following Congress's decision to purchase his library, he oversees the counting, packing, and transportation of his books to Washington. Jefferson uses most of the funds from the sale to pay old debts (...) but spends some of the proceeds on new titles. He resigns from the presidency of the American Philosophical Society, revises draft chapters of Louis H. Girardin's history of Virginia, and advises William Wirt on revolutionary-era Stamp Act resolutions. Jefferson criticizes those who discuss politics from the pulpit, and he drafts a bill to transform the Albemarle Academy into Central College. Monticello visitors Francis W. Gilmer, Francis C. Gray, and George Ticknor describe the mountaintop and its inhabitants, and Gray's visit leads to an exchange with Jefferson about how many generations of white interbreeding it takes to clear Negro blood. Finally, although death takes his nephew Peter Carr and brother Randolph Jefferson, the marriage of his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph is a continuing source of great happiness. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions. (shrink)

Thomas Jefferson is among the most important and controversial of American political thinkers: his influence (libertarian, democratic, participatory, and agrarian-republican) is still felt today. A prolific writer, Jefferson left 18,000 letters, Notes on the State of Virginia, an Autobiography, and numerous other papers. Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball have selected the most important of these for presentation in the Cambridge Texts series: Jefferson's views on topics such as revolution, self-government, the role of women and African-American and Native (...) Americans emerge to give a fascinating insight into a man who owned slaves, yet advocated the abolition of slavery. The texts are supported by a concise introduction, suggestions for further reading and short biographies of key figures, all providing invaluable assistance to the student encountering the breadth and richness of Jefferson's thought for the first time. (shrink)

People hold wildly opposing and very strong views on the question whether mental disorders are brain disorders, and the disagreement is primarily a conceptual one, not one about whether there are,...

This paper aims to reflect on a philosophy of resistance based on Michel Foucault’s thought and it questions whether the present has reached the end of the era of revolution. The paper presents two studies. Study I discusses the author’s position concerning Marx’s theses in order to outline the notion of resistance within the framework of relations of power. In that regard, the general strike of May 1968 is exemplary. Study II deals with how to think of resistance as an (...) experience. The notion of foyer highlights the articulating function between the ‘empowerment’ aspect of resistance and the processes of desubjectivation of experience. By developing this hypothesis, three themes addressed in Foucault’s works are considered: transgression, counter-conduct, and critical attitude. Finally, this thesis respects the limitations found in Foucault’s philosophy, without neglecting his records to support it. Conclusion suggests that the philosophy of resistance may promote an experience of defiance. (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments are frequently dismissed as fallacious or weak arguments but are nevertheless commonly used in political and bioethical debates. This paper gives an overview of different variants of the argument commonly found in the literature and addresses their argumentative strength and the interrelations between them. The most common variant, the empirical slippery slope argument, predicts that if we do A, at some point the highly undesirable B will follow. I discuss both the question which factors affect likelihood of (...) slippage and the relation between the strength of the prediction and the justificatory power of the argument. (shrink)

The challenges facing us today require practical wisdom to allow us to react appropriately. In this paper, we argue that at a group level, we will make better decisions if we respect and take into account the moral judgment of agents with diverse styles of cognition and moral reasoning. We show this by focusing on the example of autism, highlighting different strengths and weaknesses of moral reasoning found in autistic and non-autistic persons respectively.

In this paper, I respond to commentaries on my book “Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders?”. The topics I discuss are: accounts of function and dysfunction, constraints on the relationship between processes at the level of the brain and the mind, externalism in psychiatry, implications for moral responsibility and the question whether my account is a form of conceptual engineering. I defend my account and argue that the key criterion for whether mental disorders are brain disorders is whether we can map (...) dysfunctional psychological processes onto specific differences in brain function. I also acknowledge that my commentators have identified points where my account needs further development. (shrink)

En El puesto del hombre en el cosmos, Scheler presenta el instinto como una conducta predominante en el actuar de los animales y, de igual modo, observa que el hombre, en cuanto ser psicofísico, también lo posee y realiza acciones instintivas. La diferencia entre el hombre y el animal es el espíritu, ausente en el segundo y presente en el primero, por lo cual puede actuar racionalmente. Este artículo investiga la presencia del instinto en la constitución del hombre en cuanto (...) ser vivo, analizando cómo este se verfica en la conducta humana inteligente. (shrink)

Esta investigación se emprende motivada por la necesidad de desentrañar la progresión delos modelos de aprendizaje, los cuales se han ido adaptando para responder a las demandas de lasociedad en su dinámica constante de fluctuación y transformaciones. El objetivo de este trabajo es examinar de forma sistemática la evolución de los modelos de aprendizaje, destacando los cambios paradigmáticos que han favorecido la transición de enfoques de aprendizaje tradicionales hacia propuestas más innovadoras y transdisciplinarias. Para lograrlo, se lleva a cabo un (...) análisis bibliográfico apoyado en el método hermenéutico para la interpretación contextual de la literatura y los discursos, a fin de desentrañar las complejidades inherentes en la evolución de los modelos de aprendizaje. Los resultados resaltan la influencia limitante del paradigma de la simplicidad en laformación educativa tradicional y la necesidad de un giro hacia la dialogicidad y la colaboración eintegración disciplinaria para avanzar hacia la complejidad. Se concluye argumentando a favor de la adopción del paradigma de la complejidad, abogando por una epistemología transdisciplinariay un enfoque de aprendizaje interestructurante, que permitan el desarrollo humano integral.El reconocimiento de la complejidad humana en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje exige una transformación radical de la educación hacia prácticas más holísticas y transformadoras, esenciales para construir una sociedad equitativa y justa. (shrink)

Opponents of biomedical enhancement frequently adopt what Allen Buchanan has called the “Personal Goods Assumption.” On this assumption, the benefits of biomedical enhancement will accrue primarily to those individuals who undergo enhancements, not to wider society. Buchanan has argued that biomedical enhancements might in fact have substantial social benefits by increasing productivity. We outline another way in which enhancements might benefit wider society: by augmenting civic virtue and thus improving the functioning of our political communities. We thus directly confront critics (...) of biomedical enhancement who argue that it will lead to a loss of social cohesion and a breakdown in political life. (shrink)

Does a diagnosis of brain dysfunction matter for ascriptions of moral responsibility? This chapter argues that, while knowledge of brain pathology can inform judgments of moral responsibility, its evidential value is currently limited for a number of practical and theoretical reasons. These include the problem of establishing causation from correlational data, drawing inferences about individuals from group data, and the reliance of the interpretation of brain findings on well-established psychological findings. Brain disorders sometimes matter for moral responsibility, however, because they (...) change an individual’s moral psychology in a way that is beyond their control. While control over psychological changes is not an excusing factor, brain disorders can mitigate moral responsibility because they confront individuals with new psychological deficits or urges for which their previous moral education and existing external and internal moral resources have not prepared them. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate over the so-called “easy argument for numbers”, an argument that uses evidence from natural language to support the metaphysically significant claim that numbers exist. It presents novel data showing that critical examples in the literature are ambiguous between two readings, contrary to previous assumptions. It then accounts for these data using independently motivated linguistic theory. The account developed rescues the easy argument from the primary challenges leveled against it in the literature and sets the (...) agenda for future work to determine whether or not the argument is valid. (shrink)

Ecological accounts of responsible agency claim that moral feedback is essential to the reasons-responsiveness of agents. In this paper, we discuss McGeer’s scaffolded reasons-responsiveness account in the light of two concerns. The first is that some agents may be less attuned to feedback from their social environment but are nevertheless morally responsible agents – for example, autistic people. The second is that moral audiences can actually work to undermine reasons-responsiveness if they espouse the wrong values. We argue that McGeer’s account (...) can be modified to handle both problems. Once we understand the specific roles that moral feedback plays for recognizing and acting on moral reasons, we can see that autistics frequently do rely on such feedback, although it often needs to be more explicit. Furthermore, although McGeer is correct to highlight the importance of moral feedback, audience sensitivity is not all that matters to reasons-responsiveness; it needs to be tempered by a consistent application of moral rules. Agents also need to make sure that they choose their moral audiences carefully, paying special attention to receiving feedback from audiences which may be adversely affected by their actions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Analogy and the Principle of Justice The Logical Form of Analogical Inference Limitations of Analogical Reasoning Challenges to Traditional Theory Analogical Reasoning and Normative Legal Theory References.

The present work includes a discussion about the Kantian ideal of progress and its repercussions in the construction of a cosmopolitan education, by virtue of weighing its validity and the challenges it faces in contemporary times. The manuscript analyzes the Kantian postulates about progress to clarify the guidelines of a cosmopolitan education. The document is structured thanks to the bibliographic study and the consequent systematic review of an exploratory type and the help of the hermeneutical method. The approach to the (...) subject begins with the analysis of the enlightened ideals of a cosmopolitan, universal, humanizing education project aimed at fulfilling the ultimate purposes of reason, as the preferred path for human improvement and social progress. At the end of this work, the incompatibility between that ideal of Kantian cosmopolitan education, which promised freedom and self-control, and the current system that promotes an idea of ​​progress far from these principles is made evident. (shrink)

Thesis summary BATISTA, Jefferson Pinto.The social doctrine of the Catholic Church and the foundations of social work: the graduation course of Social Work at PUC Minas.

I defend an instrumentalist account of moral responsibility and adopt Manuel Vargas’ idea that our responsibility practices are justified by their effects. However, whereas Vargas gives an independent account of morally responsible agency, on my account, responsible agency is defined as the susceptibility to developing and maintaining moral agency through being held responsible. I show that the instrumentalism I propose can avoid some problems more crude forms of instrumentalism encounter by adopting aspects of Strawsonian accounts. I then show the implications (...) for our understanding of responsibility: my account requires us to adopt a graded notion of responsibility and accept the claim that certain individuals may not be responsible because they are not susceptible to being influenced by our moral responsibility practices. Finally, I discuss whether the account is committed to allowing the instrumentalization of non-responsible individuals in cases where blaming them may benefit others’ moral agency. (shrink)

El presente trabajo surge de la reflexión acerca del fracaso de modelos educativos exteriores aplicados en contextos emergentes sin considerar la realidad de cada pueblo. A juicio de Carnoy (1974) en los países subdesarrollados existe una fuerte tradición en copiar las formas culturales y modelos de sociedades de primer mundo, sin analizar las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que determinarán el éxito o el fracaso. El objetivo de este documento es analizar los fundamentos ontológicos presentes en el sistema educativo finlandés con (...) la finalidad de identificar los principales referentes que servirán de base para superar problemáticas de la realidad educativa en sociedades emergentes. El documento presenta una revisión de tipo exploratoria, descriptiva y comparativa que por la naturaleza del estudio es de carácter bibliográfico y cualitativo apoyado en el uso de los métodos lógico-científicos (deductivo-inductivo) con sus respectivos procedimientos, y fortalecido con la aplicación de los métodos filosóficos fenomenológico-hermenéutico. La tendencia a la imitación y a la copia de modelos educativos ajenos a nuestra realidad ha dado como resultado sistemas educativos deficientes y que no responden a las necesidades concretas propias de la realidad educativa de las sociedades emergentes. Es preciso determinar el ser, el sentido y el significado del sistema educativo finlandés con miras a la localización de aspectos esenciales que podrían convertirse en pautas para repensar otros modelos educativos. (shrink)

Literature, for Sartre, it could be said, is not so much an object of theory as the focus of a question. The notion of 'committed literature' is less prescriptive than it is interrogative: the title of the text most commonly associated with 'littérature engagée' is, after all, a question about literature itself, and the nature of 'commitment' lends itself much more to a practice of contestation than to implementation of any particular programme. In what follows, I shall be examining some (...) of the ways in which Sartre makes literature synonymous with a question. And I shall be arguing that the very terms in which literature is presented as a form of self-contestation make biography, rather than theory, the arena in which the notion of literature is most extensively opened up. (shrink)

Evaluates trade-offs and uncertainties inherent in achieving sustainable energy, analyzes the major energy technologies, and provides a framework for assessing policy options.

Should moral blame stop at the grave? We often blame the dead for the bad things they did while alive. But blaming the dead poses a prima facie challenge to accounts which take our blaming practices to aim at communicating moral disapproval to wrongdoers or at improving their moral agency. If these kinds of aims are made definitional for blame, blaming the dead becomes impossible. But even on accounts which say that paradigmatically, blame is a form of moral engagement which (...) aims to effect changes in the wrongdoer, blaming the dead may seem unjustified, pointless or even irrational. In this paper, I explain how blaming the dead can be made sense of and justified. However, not all cases of blaming the dead fit this explanation, because blaming the dead is not a homogenous practice. (shrink)

We often hear that certain mental disorders are disorders of the brain, but it is not clear what this claim amounts to. Does it mean that they are like classic brain diseases such as brain cancer? I argue that this is not the case for most mental disorders. Neither does the claim that all mental disorders are brain disorders follow from a materialist world-view. The only plausible way of understanding mental disorders as brain disorders is a fairly modest one, where (...) we label brain differences we find in mental illness as pathological based on their link to mental dysfunction. How many mental disorders will turn out to be brain disorders on this understanding is an empirical question. (shrink)

The question of whether psychopaths are criminally and morally responsible has generated significant controversy in the literature. In this paper, we discuss what relevance a psychopathy diagnosis has for criminal responsibility. It has been argued that figuring out whether psychopathy is a mental illness is of fundamental importance, because it is a precondition for psychopaths’ eligibility to be excused via the legal insanity defense. But even if psychopathy counts as a mental illness, this alone is not sufficient to show the (...) insanity defense is applicable; it must also be shown that, as a result of the illness, specific deficits in moral understanding or control are present. In this paper, we show that a diagnosis of psychopathy will generally not indicate that a defendant is eligible for an insanity defense. This is because the group of individuals subsumed under the diagnosis is so heterogeneous that while some psychopaths do show significant impairments in affect and control which may impact on their responsibility, many psychopaths are not incapacitated in a way relevant to responsibility. (shrink)

Perhaps the most difficult part of the famous inscription from Heraclea is the opening section of the extant text, where from a given form of procedure it is required to determine the subject matter. A solution of this puzzling problem, which I proposed some months ago, has recently been made the subject of an interesting article in this journal by Dr. E. G. Hardy. Mr. Hardy has long been engaged in this field, and has rendered much useful service. In this (...) article, however, he seems to be interested in my views chiefly in their relation to his own theory. This is apparent in his agreements with me. For example, one aim of my study was to identify the professiones of Cicero's letters ad Att. xiii. 33, 1, and ad Fam. xvi. 23, 1, with those provided for in the first section of the inscription. It appeared that the returns mentioned by Cicero were registrations of property, that they were to be made yearly, and that they had their prototype in the annual property census of Egypt. It also seemed clear that Caesar's recensus populi of 46 was modelled on the Egyptian kατ' oίkíαm άπoγραφήiKíαν. With these preliminary conclusions Mr. Hardy is not unwilling to agree. He even goes so far as to say that I have made a good case for ‘a new system of professiones somehow relating to property and introduced in 46.’ He thinks too that the settlement of the frumentations as a part of a more comprehensive legislative scheme would be most appropriate. So far so good, but when it comes to the vital point of admitting a connection between these matters and vv. 1–19 of the Tablet he draws back as if from some fatal step. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question whether mental disorders should be understood to be brain disorders and what conditions need to be met for a disorder to be rightly described as a brain disorder. I defend the view that mental disorders are autonomous and that a condition can be a mental disorder without at the same time being a brain disorder. I then show the consequences of this view. The most important of these is that brain differences underlying mental (...) disorders derive their status as disordered from the fact that they realize mental dysfunction and are therefore non-autonomous or dependent on the level of the mental. I defend this view of brain disorders against the objection that only conditions whose pathological character can be identified independently of the mental level of description count as brain disorders. The understanding of brain disorders I propose requires a certain amount of conceptual revision and is at odds with approaches which take the notion of brain disorder to be fundamental or look to neuroscience to provide us with a purely physiological understanding of mental illness. It also entails a pluralistic understanding of psychiatric illness, according to which a condition can be both a mental disorder and a brain disorder. (shrink)

Reiner Schürmann speaks of the end of Western metaphysics as the end of a mode of thinking that relies on an overriding metaphysical principle that establishes the economies that provide the space for permissible and impermissible actions. In its wake, he proposes a project of an-archy, of living without the reliance to the domination of one central metaphysical concept, but rather of kata physin, of “following the way things enter into mutual relations.” Kenneth Schmitz, in reacting to Schürmann, points out (...) that there are elements in Christian thought that can also provide new patterns of thought and action at the twilight of the end of metaphysics, namely, the notions of: charity, the Trinity, and mystery. I shall take up the second suggestion of Schmitz and attempt to articulate what the Christian notion of the Trinity can contribute to our understanding of thought and action after the end of metaphysics. I argue that through the theological detour of Thomistic Trinitarian thought, we can chart out new patterns of thought and action, specifically on the notion of the tri-personality of the Trinity, leading to the analogical understanding of persons-as-relations. Such a consideration not only provides a sharp rebuttal to Schürmann in his understanding of “hard unity” in terms of metaphysical principles, but it also helps us understand the place of man in the contemporary world: one of charitable relationality. (shrink)

Moral Psychology spans both philosophy and psychology: it addresses questions concerning the role of emotions in moral judgment, the nature of moral motivation, whether human beings are ultimately...

The question of whether mental disorders are disorders of the brain has led to a long- running and controversial dispute within psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of mind and psychology. While recent work in neuroscience frequently tries to identify underlying brain dysfunction in mental disorders, detractors argue that labelling mental disorders as brain disorders is reductive and can result in harmful social effects. This book brings a much- needed philosophical perspective to bear on this important question.

Social Dimensions of Moral Responsibility. Edited By Hutchison Katrina, Mackenzie Catriona, Oshana Marina.

El presente trabajo surge de la reflexión acerca del fracaso de modelos educativos exteriores aplicados en contextos emergentes sin considerar la realidad de cada pueblo. A juicio de Carnoy (1974) en los países subdesarrollados existe una fuerte tradición en copiar las formas culturales y modelos de sociedades de primer mundo, sin analizar las condiciones objetivas y subjetivas que determinarán el éxito o el fracaso. El objetivo de este documento es analizar los fundamentos ontológicos presentes en el sistema educativo finlandés con (...) la finalidad de identificar los principales referentes que servirán de base para superar problemáticas de la realidad educativa en sociedades emergentes. El documento presenta una revisión de tipo exploratoria, descriptiva y comparativa que por la naturaleza del estudio es de carácter bibliográfico y cualitativo apoyado en el uso de los métodos lógico-científicos (deductivo-inductivo) con sus respectivos procedimientos, y fortalecido con la aplicación de los métodos filosóficos fenomenológico-hermenéutico. La tendencia a la imitación y a la copia de modelos educativos ajenos a nuestra realidad ha dado como resultado sistemas educativos deficientes y que no responden a las necesidades concretas propias de la realidad educativa de las sociedades emergentes. Es preciso determinar el ser, el sentido y el significado del sistema educativo finlandés con miras a la localización de aspectos esenciales que podrían convertirse en pautas para repensar otros modelos educativos. (shrink)

Religious identity has, in recent times, become an important point of inquiry because of the growing awareness of religious diversity. On the one hand, this reality of diversity has served as an impetus to return to the roots of one’s religion. On the other hand, others have called for a more pluralist stance, out of the need to open up to other traditions. In light of this polarity, I argue that one can commit to one’s religion while opening up to (...) the religious other in a way that does not threaten one’s own tradition. This is done through a hermeneutic analysis of the religious identity, taking off from Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological hermeneutics – how this identity is formed and informed by the different significations of meaning within the tradition, and how the believer interacts with this tradition to construct his or her own narrative identity, through his or her imagination, mapping out the constellations of possible human action that root themselves in the necessity in encountering and working with the religious other, for this necessity is constitutive of one’s commitment to the tradition, embodied in the biblical narratives that call for this encounter. In sum, it is possible to be committed to one’s faith conviction while being hospitable to the religious other because it is constitutive of religion itself to encounter its other, and it is in this encounter that faith is truly understood as conviction. (shrink)

Philosophy Born of Struggle is an ambitious undertaking. It is explicitly conceived, the editor explains, as “a guide to the ideas of modern Afro‐American philosophers,” and “a historical resource directory for their works.”1 An anthology of texts with bibliographical apparatus, the volume has an implicit hortatory purpose as well. In representing Afro‐American philosophy as a “unidimensional text of divergent components”—concerned with the meaning of democracy and the human costs of “capitalism, colonial domination, and ontological designation by race”—the editor dignifies Afro‐American (...) philosophy conceptually, as a subject in its own right, calling in effect for its sustained historical treatment as such.2. (shrink)