William Woodford, O.F.M. , contemporary and opponent of John Wyclif, on a number of occasions quotes from or mentions a work by Wyclif which he calls De religione. Thus, for example, in his Responsiones contra Wiclevum et Lollardos, composed in the autumn of 1395, his reply to the fortieth question concerning the lawfulness of begging begins as follows: “Hic respondeo et dico quod Magister Joannes Wyclif cuius discipulus tu es, quaerit istam quaestionem in primo capitulo libri quem fecit de Religione, (...) ubi plane concedit quod Christus mendicavit et fuit mendicus. Item in eodem capitulo concedit quod beatus Paulus mendicavit et similiter alii apostoli Christi discipuli. Si bene respexisses librum Magistri tui, non fecisses quaestionem istam.” Again, in answer to Fitzralph's question whether Christ begged spontaneously or not, Woodford asserts in the Defensorium fratrum mendicantium : “Dico sexto quod Magister Joannes Wyclif, quando minus haeretice sentiebat de mendicitate in tractatu de Religione quam posterius fecit in Trialogo suo, respondit ad istud argumentum dicens quod.…” Then in De causis condemnationis articulorum 18 damnatorum Joannis Wyclif, which was completed at Framlingham Castle, Suffolk, by Easter 1397, he writes: “Alias rationes contra religiones privatas facit in tractatu suo de Religione quae si forent bene reportatae, sequerentur non solum errores multi, sed etiam haereses multae et destructio fidei Christianae sicut alias in quadam publica determinatione Oxoniae declaravi et in qua ad illa argumenta respondi.” jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); }). (shrink)

This paper considers the popular visual jurisprudence of bumper stickers. Drawing upon a sample sticker/driver/vehicle assemblages observed at the Gold Coast, Australia in 2014, we argue that the meanings and messages projected by the assemblages have a significant legal dimension. The argument is located at the intersection of past research into bumper stickers, increased scholarly interest in the relation of law to automobility and especially recent considerations of the popular visual jurisprudence of the motor vehicle, its cultures and semiotics. In (...) particular we argue that the sticker/driver/vehicle assemblage represents an engagement with law and legality. We suggest this goes beyond immediate denotations of brands with intellectual property or flags and the sovereign nation state to more essential engagement with consumer capitalisms law of the image, the friend/enemy distinction, the ouroboros of rights and the essential legality of living in a polis. (shrink)

educational judgments Education, like art, politics, science, and other activities on which men pinned their highest hopes, has become the object of heated ...

This portrait of Hume as an ironist is offered as a supplement to recent historical and biographical studies, and especially to Mossner's The Life o] David Hume. While others have commented on the irony in Hume's writings, Price goes further and suggests that irony is a key with which to unlock Hume's philosophical attitudes and beliefs. Since ap- preciation of irony depends on an awareness of context, Price interprets this to mean that Hume's writings must be read against the background (...) of his life and intellectual milieu. He traces the development of Hume's use of irony through four successive stages, beginning with the formative influences on the early writings and concluding with the culmination of Hume's ironic style in the last works -- principally the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

Howard S. Cohen and Michael Feldberg, Power and Restraint: The Moral Dimension of Police Work, New York Praeger, 1991; xvii + 166 pp.

T he Question of punishment and its justification has been a major preoccupation in recent philosophy of law. The reasons for this growing concern are not difficult to discover. Both philosophers and jurists have become increasingly sceptical of traditional theories of legal punishment. Each of these inherited theories was designed to establish criteria for the recognition and appraisal of punishment as a legal institution. However, alternative theories emphasised different and often conflicting criteria. Some theories emphasised moral desert and retribution, while (...) others appealed to the social utilities of punishment. Failure to reconcile these diverse philosophical viewpoints, through sustained debate over two centuries, has been a major source of intellectual dissatisfaction. (shrink)

This book applies Augustine's thought to current questions of teaching and learning. The essays are written in an accessible style and is not intended just for experts on Augustine or church history.

‘Bioethics still has important work to do in helping to secure status equality for LGBT people’ writes Timothy F. Murphy in a recent Bioethics editorial. The focus of his piece, however, is much narrower than human rights, medical care for LGBT people, or ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Rather, he is primarily concerned with sexuality and gender identity, and the medical intersections thereof. It is the objective of this response to provide an alternate account of bioethics from a Queer perspective. (...) I will situate Queer bioethics within Queer studies, and offer three ‘lessons’ that bioethics can derive from this perspective. These are not definitive rules for Queer bioethics, since it is a field which fundamentally opposes categorizations, favoring pastiche over principles. These lessons are exploratory examples, which both complement and contradict LGBT bioethics. My latter two lessons – on environmental bioethics and disability – overlap with some of Murphy's concerns, as well as other conceptions of LGBT bioethics. However, the first lesson takes an antithetical stance to Murphy's primary focus by resisting all forms of heteroconformity and disavowing reproduction as consonant with Queer objectives and theory. The first lesson, which doubles as a primer in Queer theory, does heavy philosophical lifting for the remainder of the essay. This response to Timothy F. Murphy, whose work is certainly a legacy in bioethics, reveals the multiplicity of discourses in LGBT/Queer studies, many of which are advantageous – even essential – to other disciplines like bioethics. (shrink)

Jean E. Chambers and Timothy F. Murphy responded to my article “Cloning and Infertility” and extended the debate over human cloning in interesting ways. I had argued that none of the objections to cloning by somatic cell nuclear transfer are successful in the context of infertile couples who use cloning to have genetically related children, assuming the issue of safety is overcome by scientific advances.

In their paper “Members First: The Ethics of Donating Organs and Tissues to Groups,” Timothy Murphy and Robert Veatch question the ethical underpinnings of LifeSharers, a grass-roots effort to increase the supply of organs by giving organ donors preferred access to organs.