BackgroundFor many decades, the debate on children’s competence to give informed consent in medical settings concentrated on ethical and legal aspects, with little empirical underpinnings. Recently, data from empirical research became available to advance the discussion. It was shown that children’s competence to consent to clinical research could be accurately assessed by the modified MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Age limits for children to be deemed competent to decide on research participation have been studied: generally children of 11.2 (...) years and above were decision-making competent, while children of 9.6 years and younger were not. Age was pointed out to be the key determining factor in children’s competence. In this article we reflect on policy implications of these findings, considering legal, ethical, developmental and clinical perspectives.DiscussionAlthough assessment of children’s competence has a normative character, ethics, law and clinical practice can benefit from research data. The findings may help to do justice to the capacities children possess and challenges they may face when deciding about treatment and research options. We discuss advantages and drawbacks of standardized competence assessment in children on a case-by-case basis compared to application of a fixed age limit, and conclude that a selective implementation of case-by-case competence assessment in specific populations is preferable. We recommend the implementation of age limits based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, we elaborate on a suitable model for informed consent involving children and parents that would do justice to developmental aspects of children and the specific characteristics of the parent-child dyad.SummaryPrevious research outcomes showed that children’s medical decision-making capacities could be operationalized into a standardized assessment instrument. Recommendations for policies include a dual consent procedure, including both child as well as parents, for children from the age of 12 until they reach majority. For children between 10 and 12 years of age, and in case of children older than 12 years in special research populations of mentally compromised patients, we suggest a case-by-case assessment of children’s competence to consent. Since such a dual consent procedure is fundamentally different from a procedure of parental permission and child assent, and would imply a considerable shift regarding some current legislations, practical implications are elaborated. (shrink)

I discuss Ruth Marcus' conception of beliefs as dispositional states related to possible states of affaires. While I agree with Marcus that this conception accounts for the necessary distinction between belief and linguistic assent, I argue that the relationship between dispositional beliefs and our assent attitudes is more complex, and should include other mental states, such as acceptances, which, although they contain voluntary elements, are further layers of dispositional doxastic attitudes.

BackgroundDeep brain stimulation is approved for treating refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder in adults under the US Food and Drug Administration Humanitarian Device Exemption, and studies hav...

Stoics and Sceptics distinguish belief (doxa) from a representationally and functionally similar but sub-doxastic state: passive yielding to appearance. Belief requires active assent to appearances, that is, affirmation of the appearances as true. I trace the roots of this view to Plato's accounts of doxa in the Republic and Theaetetus. In the Republic, eikasia and pistis (imaging and conviction) are distinguished by their objects, appearances versus ordinary objects; in the Theaetetus, perception and doxa are distinguished by their objects, proper (...) perceptibles versus ‘commons’, including being. But underlying these ontological distinctions is a psychological one: the lower mental states are confined to their lower objects because they are passive; the higher mental states have access to higher objects because they result from questioning appearances and making active affirmations about how things are. This doctrine of doxa anticipates both the Hellenistic one and modern accounts of belief as ‘aiming at truth’; it also shows Plato's views of doxa to have more in their favour philosophically and to cohere better with one another than generally thought. (shrink)

Abstract:The propositional attitude account of belief holds that belief involves a favorable mental attitude borne by an agent toward a proposition. On what the authors term the "Inner Assent" account of belief, such a mental attitude has been characterized in such terms as inner assent, inner affirmation, inner acceptance, or inner agreement. As such, the Inner Assent account can be seen as an effort to characterize the phenomenology of belief in terms of a phenomenology of (...) inner assent or kindred notions. Focusing on the notion of inner assent, counterexamples are presented to show that inner assent to a proposition is neither necessary nor sufficient to confer belief. The second part of the paper questions the ontological status of such purported attitudinal cognitive qualia. The authors argue that scenarios corresponding to assenting to p, affirming that p, accepting that p, agreeing that p, and so on are not identified and individuated by reference to proprietary coinciding attitudinal cognitive qualia. They include discussion of so-called phenomenal contrast cases where sensory phenomenal states had by two individuals are alike but differ in intentional content. In the case of belief, arguments against the Inner Assent account serve to preclude recourse to a phenomenology of inner assent and point to a significant disanalogy between reading a sentence and understanding it and reading a sentence that is believed to be true. (shrink)

The Mental Capacity Act received Royal Assent on 7 April 2005, and it will be implemented in 2007. The Act defines when someone lacks capacity and it supports people with limited decision-making ability to make as many decisions as possible for themselves. The Act lays down rules for substitute decision making. Someone taking decisions on behalf of the person lacking capacity must act in the best interests of the person concerned and choose the options least restrictive of his (...) or her rights and freedoms. Decision making will be allowed without any formal procedure unless specific provisions apply, such as a written advance decision, lasting powers of attorney or a decision by the court of protection. (shrink)

Abortions are legally permitted in most Western societies if there is a reasonable expectation that the child, if born, would be physically or mentally disabled. Even late-term abortions, which would not be allowed in the case of healthy fetuses, are accepted on the basis of foreseen disability.

The Mental Capacity Act, which received Royal Assent in April 2005, will come into force in April 2007. The Act puts into statute the legality of interventions in relation to adults who lack capacity to make decisions on their own behalf. The aim of this paper is to outline the main features of the legislation and its impact on those health care professionals who provide care and treatment for incapacitated adults. The paper sets out the underlying ethical principles (...) that govern interventions under the Act's powers and briefly explores the legal definition of incapacity and the process by which capacity is assessed. It looks at the governing notion of 'best interests' and at the legal indemnity provided by the Act for interventions that are in the best interests of an incapacitated adult. It contains sections on the Act's main innovations, including research involving incapacitated adults, lasting powers of attorney and the new Court of Protection. It also provides information on advance decisions to refuse treatment. (shrink)

Abortions are legally permitted in most Western societies if there is a reasonable expectation that the child, if born, would be physically or mentally disabled. Even late-term abortions, which would not be allowed in the case of healthy fetuses, are accepted on the basis of foreseen disability.

Legal frameworks are in place to protect those who lack the capacity to consent to research, such as the Mental Capacity Act in the UK. Assent is sought instead from a proxy, usually a relative. However, the same legislation may, perversely, affect the welfare of those who lack capacity and of others by hindering the process of recruitment into otherwise potentially beneficial research. In addition, the onus of responsibility is moved from those who know most about the study (...) (ie, the scientific community) to those who know less (the proxies). In this paper, we describe the characteristics of a sample at different stages of the recruitment process of an influenza vaccine-based randomised control trial in elderly care home residents (the FEVER study). 62% (602/968) of potential subjects lacked capacity but only 29% (80/277) of those actually randomised. Older age, being female and living in an Elderly Mentally Ill care home were the only variables associated with lacking capacity. Considering this was a study based in a care home setting where the prevalence of dementia approximates 80%, the trial, like many others, was thus significantly biased. We believe that difficulties seeking proxy assent contributed significantly to this problem. Further thought should be given to how assent to enter research for those who lack capacity should be provided, and we suggest avenues for further discussion such as independent risk/benefit expert panels. (shrink)

It is now a widely shared opinion in the Western countries that a child's disability would probably place an unexpected burden on her parents, a burden that the parents have not committed themselves to dealing with. A child with a physical or mental disability is not, so to speak, a part of the package the parents ordered. This line of reasoning has recently been supported by Rosamond Rhodes in her article.

The mechanism of emotions in Stoicism has been presented by Graver a decade ago as relying on a “pathetic syllogism” having as its premises a judgment about the goodness of a certain type of object and a judgment that it is proper to have a certain emotional response to that object. It is true that each emotion is an irrational impulse resulting not only from the opinion that something is good but also from the opinion that it is appropriate to (...) have a certain type of emotional response to that object, as shown by Graver. However, the present paper intends to present an alternative to Graver’s view by reducing the mechanism of emotion to the mechanism of all impulses: each impulse is an assent given to the impression that it is befitting for me to accomplish certain actions, and what Cicero and Stobaeus describe is not the combination of two premises resulting in an emotion as a conclusion, but the idea that it is necessary to give one’s assent to the impulsive impression to produce an emotion. Likewise, in Seneca, it is in such a way that a preliminary form of impulse is transformed into an emotion. A universal judgment about an object being good or a reaction being appropriate is certainly involved in certain emotions, but not in all of them, since many emotions depend on a fresh impression that overwhelms the general rational judgments of someone due to one’s insufficient mental preparation and to the weakness of one’s mind. In those cases, an emotion may involve the impression that a behaviour or a feeling is appropriate without endorsing the idea that it is universally good or appropriate, since the mechanism of the emotion relies on the vividness of one particular impression even against one’s system of beliefs. (shrink)

This study aims to develop guidelines of key concepts and specific considerations to make the research more ethical when conducting neurological examinations and treatment interventions in mentally ill patients. We analyzed guideline development theory and literature, previous issues, and discussions with specialists of philosophy, medicine, sociology, and bioethics. The selection of research participants, drafting of intervention plans, and informed consent process were examined with reference to the dual burden; the minimal risk as a general rule of ethical allowance levels, (...) class='Hi'>assent and dissent to assess the individual’s judgment capacity for consent, relational autonomy for personal consent with assistance by the proxy, and risk/benefit assessments. When conducting studies, this guideline requires that these three processes be set up appropriately on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

With the recent expansion of child mental health research, more attention is being paid to the process of informed consent for research participation. For the consent to be truly informed, it is necessary that the relevant information be both disclosed and actually understood. Traditionally, much effort has gone to ensuring the comprehensiveness of consent/assent documents, which have progressively increased in length and complexity, whereas less attention has been paid to the comprehensibility of these documents. Available data indicate that (...) many parent and children have difficulties appreciating the research nature of treatment studies and that a higher level of formal education among the parents is associated with a greater degree of understanding. Promising approaches to achieving truly informed research participation have emerged, such as additional time for parents to meet with the researchers and using postexplanation questionnaires for identifying issues in need of further clarification. Research is needed to develop and test strategies for improving the effectiveness of the informed consent process in child mental health. (shrink)

The standard view in epistemology is that propositional knowledge entails belief. Positive arguments are seldom given for this entailment thesis, however; instead, its truth is typically assumed. Against the entailment thesis, Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel (Noûs, forthcoming) report that a non-trivial percentage of people think that there can be propositional knowledge without belief. In this paper, we add further fuel to the fire, presenting the results of four new studies. Based on our results, we argue that the entailment thesis does not (...) deserve the default status that it is typically granted. We conclude by considering the alternative account of knowledge that Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel propose to explain their results, arguing that it does not explain ours. In its place we offer a different explanation of both sets of findings—the conviction account, according to which belief, but not knowledge, requires mental assent. (shrink)

This paper assesses J. L. Schellenberg’s account of propositional faith and, in light of that assessment, sketches an alternative that avoids certain objections and coheres better with Schellenberg’s aims.

According to unconditional motivational internalism, there is an a priori constraint on an agent's forming a sincere moral judgement, namely that she is, at least to some minimal extent, motivated to act as it dictates. In order to undermine this internalist position, proponents of motivational externalism typically appeal to the possibility of the amoralist—i.e. an individual who makes sincere moral judgements, but who is completely unmoved to act accordingly. This strategy is known as the challenge of amoralism. Against this strategy, (...) I will argue that in order to represent a genuine case of amoralism, and a credible counterexample to unconditional motivational internalism, an agent would have to simultaneously satisfy an epistemically inconsistent set of conditions. Thus, the conclusion I will attempt to defend in this paper is that the challenge of amoralism does not succeed in posing a legitimate threat to unconditional motivational internalism. (shrink)

Recent years have seen increasing attacks on the "deontological" conception (or as we call it, the guidance conception) of epistemic justification, the view that epistemology offers advice to knowers in forming beliefs responsibly. Critics challenge an important presupposition of the guidance conception: doxastic voluntarism, the view that we choose our beliefs. We assume that epistemic guidance is indispensable, and seek to answer objections to doxastic voluntarism, most prominently William Alston's. We contend that Alston falsely assumes that choice of belief requires (...) the assent to a specific propositional content. We argue that beliefs can be chosen under descriptions which do not specify their propositional content, but instead specify the mental actions by which they are formed and maintained. We argue that these actions partially constitute the beliefs and that is it in virtue of resulting from and being partially constituted by such actions that the beliefs are subject to epistemic appraisal,. (shrink)

The paper states a hypothesis concerning Thomas Reid's moderation in his reply to skepticism. It is initially argued that commonsense beliefs, though due to reliable faculties, are doubtful, fallible, and correctable. They are not completely immune to skeptical attack. It is further argued that Reid intends to reply only to one form of skepticism, the partial one – the skepticism of authors who accept at least one mental faculty as a reliable source of knowledge. Reid does not intend to (...) argue with the skeptic who equally denies his assent to the reliability of all faculties – that is, the radical skeptic. This radical form of skepticism is harmless to practical life and philosophy and, for that reason, is not a threat. Finally, the hypothesis advanced is discussed considering other interpretations of Reid’s reply to skepticism. (shrink)

The paper defends the view that there is a constitutive relation between believing something and believing that one believes it. This view is supported by the incoherence of affirming something while denying that one believes it, and by the role awareness of the contents one’s belief system plays in the rational regulation of that system. Not all standing beliefs are accompanied by higher-order beliefs that self-ascribe them; those that are so accompanied are ones that are “available” in the sense that (...) their subjects are poised to assent to their contents, to use them as premises in reasoning, and to be guided by them in their behavior. The account is compatible with the possibility of negative self-deception—mistakenly believing that one does not believe something—but the closest thing to positive self-deception it allows is believing falsely that a belief with a certain content is one’s dominant belief on a certain matter through failure to realize that one has a stronger belief that contradicts it. The view has implications about Moore’s paradox that contradict widely held views. On this view self-ascriptions of beliefs can be warranted and grounded on reasons—but the reasons are not phenomenally conscious mental states (as held by Christopher Peacocke) but rather available beliefs. (shrink)

Here we describe how more important findings were obtained in a delirium study by using an informal assessment of mental capacity, and, in those who lacked capacity, obtaining consent later when or if capacity returned or a proxy was found. From a total of 233 patients 23 patients lacked capacity as judged by our informal capacity judgment and 210 did not. Of those who lacked capacity, 13 agreed to enter in the study. Six of them regained capacity later. When (...) these 13 participants were excluded from analysis, significant findings were no longer evident. These results show that by the inclusion of subjects who lacked capacity the results of analyses of the condition from whish they suffer are altered. We suggest that this approach to the study of delirium is more ethical than the usual system of strict exclusion of people who lack capacity to give consent and for whom assent is not available. (shrink)

As children and adolescents receive increased research attention, ethical issues related to obtaining informed consent for pediatric intervention research have come into greater focus. In this article, we conceptualize parent permission and child assent within a goodness-of-fit framework that encourages investigators to create consent procedures “fitted” to the research context, the child's cognitive and emotional maturity, and the family system. Drawing on relevant literature and a hypothetical case example, we highlight four factors investigators may consider when constructing consent procedures (...) that best reflect participants' rights, concerns, and well-being: (a) the child's current assent capacity and the likely impact of study information on the child's mental and physical development, (b) parents' understanding of their child's treatment needs and distinctions between treatment and clinical trials research, (c) the family's history of shared decision making, and (d) the child's strivings for autonomy within the context of their parents' duty to make decisions in the child's best interest. (shrink)

While parents have traditionally provided proxy consent for minors to participate in research, this has proven inadequate for adolescents who are mentally and emotionally capable of making their own decisions. Research has proven that even young children, and certainly most adolescents, are developmentally prepared to make such decisions for themselves. The author challenges the assumption that both consent and assent are static concepts, and proposes that a sliding scale of competence be created to ascertain the adolescent's comprehension of the (...) proposed research by shifting the burden of proof to those who believe a particular adolescent is unable to provide informed consent. (shrink)

Externalism is the thesis that the contents of intentional states and speech acts are not determined by the way the subjects of those states or acts are internally. It is a widely accepted but not entirely uncontroversial thesis. Among such theses in philosophy, externalism is notable for owing the assent it commands almost entirely to thought experiments, especially to variants of Hilary Putnam's famous Twin Earth scenario. This paper presents a thought experiment-free argument for externalism. It shows that externalism (...) is a deductive consequence of a pair of widely accepted principles whose relevance to the issue has hitherto gone unnoticed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:122 HUME ON CURING SUPERSTITION In the first volume of his masterful treatment of the Enlightenment Peter Gay says that "David Hume proclaimed philosophy the supreme, indeed the only, cure for superstition." The context suggests that Hume had great "confidence" in this project and that he shared Diderot's view of the philosopher as the apostle of truth who would teach all mankind. Certainly Hume, in common with his philosophical (...) compatriots, thought that superstition was a great evil. He may also have thought that philosophy was the best weapon with which to oppose superstition. But did he think that it was a "cure" and that the philosopher was a pathfinder for a new and glorious dawn of universal enlightenment? He seems rather to have held a somewhat more modest and circumspect view of what philosophy can accomplish by way of liberating humanity from superstition than did some of his more optimistic contemporaries — a view 2 worthy of closer examination. The purpose of this paper is to explain just what he did think by examining those texts where he writes about the curative virtues of philosophy. So that any shifts in Hume's views may be more apparent, the relevant passages will be considered according to their chronological order. In the conclusion to Book I of the Treatise (1738) Hume characterizes the results of his reasoning as a "forelorn solitude" in which he is separated, not only from the crowd, and from "metaphysicians, logicians, mathematicians, and even theologians," but also from philosophers, who, like all others, follow the inconsistent dictates of imagination in alternating between belief in the continual existence of sensible matter and the 123 reliability of causal reasoning, which teaches us that sensible objects are in us, rather than in external nature (T 265-6). His own philosophical reflections have led to the realization that even the causal "connexion, tie, or energy lies merely in themselves," as certainly as do sensed qualities. Thus the philosophical quest itself, which seeks a knowledge of "the ultimate and operating principle... which resides in the external object," is revealed as a contradictory or meaningless enterprise. We are left with a "very dangerous dilemma, whichever way we answer it," whose horns are precisely superstition and philosophy. That is, we may either "assent to every trivial suggestion of the fancy... often contrary to each other... [which will] lead us into such errors, absurdities, and obscurities, that we must at last become asham'd of our credulity;" or we may "take a resolution to reject all the trivial suggestions of the fancy, and adhere to the understanding" which will lead us to the conclusion that there is "not the lowest degree of evidence in any proposition, either in philosophy or common life" (T 266-8). He believes that philosophy has come to an impasse which he does not know how to escape, and which we commonly deal with by simply ceasing to think about the problem, finding ourselves "absolutely and necessarily determin'd to live, and talk, and act like other people in the common affairs of life" (T 269). Observation of the actual effects of philosophy upon conduct warrants the conclusion that "refin'd reflections have little or no influence upon us," excepting, of course, for that brief time in which those reflections leave us quite agitated and confounded by our inability to provide answers to the questions which most trouble us. 124 Philosophy is here characterized, not as a cure for superstition, but as an equal and opposite mental disposition, whose reflections ultimately undermine its own rational credentials, so that they seem no more valid than those of superstition. He does indeed resort to the therapeutic metaphor, but only to make nature the physician which "cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium" by applying that "carelessness and inattention" which he earlier identified as that which "alone can afford us any remedy" for philosophical despair (T 218). So philosophy is itself in need of the cure afforded by amusement and the various "common affairs of life" with which gentlemen occupy themselves. When engaged in those pursuits, philosophy seems individually and socially useless, in effect "an abuse of time" (T 270). If one returns to... (shrink)

In book 10 of the Republic we find a new argument for the division of the soul. The argument’s structure is similar to the arguments in book 4 but, unlike those arguments, it centres on a purely cognitive conflict: believing and disbelieving the same thing, at the same time. The argument presents two interpretive difficulties. First, it assumes that a conflict between a belief and an appearance—e.g. disbelieving that a stick partially immersed in water is, as it appears, bent—entails a (...) conflict between beliefs. Prima facie, there is only one belief, the belief that contradicts the appearance. Second, it is unclear what parts of the soul Plato intends to divide between: some argue that it is, as in book 4, a partition between a rational and a non-rational part; others argue that it is a new partition between a higher and a lower subdivision of the rational part. This paper offers solutions to both difficulties through an analysis of what Plato means by φαινόμενα, ‘appearances’, and δόξαι, ‘beliefs’. It is argued, first, that the relevant appearances are entirely sensory but nonetheless sufficiently belief-like to (a) warrant being called δόξαι and (b) oppose, by themselves, our beliefs; there is no need for a third mental state, a belief that assents to the appearance. A second claim concerns a central line in the argument, 602e4–6, that has served as the primary evidence that the partition is within the rational part of the soul. Those who wish to avoid this conclusion generally resort to alternative, and less natural, translations of 602e4–6. It is argued that this is unnecessary: once we have correctly understood sensory appearances, we see that the standard translation of 602e4–6 in fact entails a division between a rational and a non-rational part of the soul. (shrink)

Augustine’s insights into the will and its free decision have long been a focus of controversy since his lifetime. Nonetheless, in modern scholarship, little effort has been made to clarify the actual function of the will as a psychological force in the life of mind. It has often been taken for granted that the will is an independent faculty which underlies our moral responsibility by its free choice. Accordingly, much ink has been spilled over issues such as necessity and freedom, (...) grace and free will, sin and evil will etc. This philosophical inquiry distinguishes itself from its antecedents by adopting a psychological focus on the function of the will. It attempts to explicate why uoluntas, and not other psychological activities, is the locus of moral responsibility in Augustine’s philosophical psychology. The work is thus split into two parts, each consisting of four chapters: the first part devoted to the will’s operation as a psychological dynamism, and the second to the traditional consideration of the will as a moral faculty. In the first part, the dissertation systematically investigates the psychological phenomenon of the will in its relationship to other psychological activities, from irrational affection to intellectual cognition. This phenomenological approach starts with Augustine’s unusual conception of concupiscentia carnis in his debates with Julian of Eclanum. According to Augustine’s philosophical interpretation of this biblical term, concupiscentia carnis as an uncontrollable tendency defines the essential infirmity of the will and forms the starting-point of further affective expressions of the soul. Then, the analysis advances to the role of the will in the formation of affection. It reveals the implicit approval that is entailed in the unvoluntary pre-volitional movements of the soul. This explains the superficial discrepancy between Augustine’s accounts of affection as can be found in Books IX and XIV of De ciuitate Dei. This general account of Augustine’s theory of emotion is followed by an in-depth examination of the feeling of shame so as to display the will’s actual contribution in a reflective affection. Augustine convincingly proves that shame reflects the powerlessness of the will in confrontation with concupiscentia carnis as well as the will’s effort to regain its dignity. To complete the foray into Augustine’s philosophy of the soul, his reflections on intellect and will in the process of moral decision are called into question. By reconsidering Augustine’s account of his own conversion and his reflections on our journey to the happy life, my analyses show that neither intellectualitic nor voluntaristic interpretations do justice to his understanding of moral decision. The voluntaristic interpretation overlooks the intellectual perspective of happy life and Augustine’s emphasis on the necessity of a knowledge of the good for our moral behaviour. On the other hand, the intellectualistic account unjustly ignores Augustine’s insights into the severe destructiveness of the failure of the will and the dilemma of two wills at war. To summarize, the phenomenological approach in Part I reveals the omnipresent feature of the will in mental life. The implications of this psychological feature of the will are twofold. It indicates the independence of the will as well as the limitations of the will by its actual conditions. The second part of this work investigates the moral significance of Augustine’s psychological insights into the function of the will. What bridges the gap between uoluntas as a psychological power and uoluntas as a moral faculty is Augustine’s most controversial conception of freedom. The dissertation first scrutinizes Augustine’s arguments for the independence of the will as reconstructed and assumed in the first part. By metaphysical arguments, Augustine reveals that nothing external, neither inferior nor superior being, can force the will to attain a particular disposition. For this cannot happen in a world governed by the divine order. In his analyses of the phenomenon of two contradictory wills, Augustine shows that the will is conditioned but not compelled by other internal forces. However, this merely represents the negative aspect of the will’s freedom, or libertas a coactione. At the same time, the positive aspect of Augustinian uoluntas has frequently been misinterpreted as a faculty of choice, or libertas indifferentiae. A careful reading shows that the free decision of the will is essentially a capacity to pursue one’s own happiness. In accord with this eudemonistic emphasis, the genuine freedom is the freedom to will and to accomplish the good, which alone guarantees the happy life. This original interpretation of freedom offers powerful support to Augustine’s account of moral agency. One is not only held responsible for his voluntary evildoings which he could have avoided, but also for the necessary conditions of life, i.e., ignorantia and difficultas as effects of original sin. For as argued earlier, even the presence of concupiscentia carnis as the inherent infirmity of the will contains the least assent of the will. This assent establishes the moral agency in evil willing. To account for our agency in the good will, the dissertation addresses the problem of compatibility between divine grace and freedom of will. My analysis shows that Augustine’s rigid position in the last years of his life is also philosophically defensible. An internal function of the grace upon the faculty of the will will not destroy its freedom to attain its own disposition. This philosophical analysis concludes by highlightling the close affiliation between the will and the self in Augustinian uoluntas. “I know nothing I could call my own if the will by which I’m willing or unwilling is not my own.”. By consent or dissent of the will, we identify ourselves with mental images, affective movements, practical reasoning and other psychological activities, either implicitly or explicitly. Augustine’s realistic conceptions of the will and its conditioned freedom provide a subtle and rich picture of human nature, which is still relevant to our own theoretical reflections on the self. 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For al-Urmawī, the soul is an essence that governs the parts of our body to move both naturally and voluntarily. Cognitive actions in the body is also by means of the soul. This essence is the same in each of us. Every one of us necessarily knows he or she is one person. This is what referred as 'I' or 'you'. al-Urmawī argues that the thing that consists of the soul and body must be one single living being. If not, (...) then it would be necessary to talk about two separate substances that do not have any relation between them. According to al-Urmawī, the reasoning soul (al-nasf al-nāṭiqah) continues to exist and reason after the degeneration of the body. According to him, perceptions about sensibles are in three parts; sensory perception, imaginary perception, and intellectual perception. For him, the perceiving faculty perceives either particulars or universals. The faculty that perceives the particulars consists of the external senses. According to al-Urmawī, inner senses either only perceive or both perceive and govern what is perceived together. Sirājuddīn al-Urmawī also asserts that knowledge consists of concepts (tasawwur) and assents (tasdīq). So, knowledge occurs either as in the form of a concept or a judgement (ḥukm). According to al-Urmawī, the imaginative faculty is also active in the formation of knowledge. He mentions intuition as an alternative way of obtaining knowledge. He states that any information that human beings do not possess can be obtained through pre-possessed information. This can only happen by transferring from a ready mind. This mental transfer and leap occur in two directions. The first manifests itself as an effort to reach more information by navigating between meanings using the imaginative faculty. The goal is to reach the middle term. First, what to be reached is determined, and then the mind is directed to the hidden antecedent. He explains that knowledge must be in harmony with the extramental world. According to him, information must be in complete harmony with the perceived object outside. He stipulated that the extramental object must be in a state of complete conformity with its image in the mind to be able to speak of that particular knowledge. He thinks like Ibn Sīnā that knowledge is generated in the mind as a form. He indicates that the shape-giver, Gabriel, who gives the forms clearly, plays an active and dominant role in the production of knowledge in the soul. Sirājuddīn al-Urmawī mentions necessary (ḍarūrī) and acquired (kasbī) knowledge in many passages in his commentary on Ishārāt; and accepted both these types of knowledge. According to him, necessary prime knowledge (awwaliyāt) are the means that lead to acquired knowledge. He shows that the abstraction of mental existence is brought about by reason as a result of complete abstraction and he, following Ibn Sīnā, separates sense perception from the inner perception with precise lines. Since, according to him, external senses cannot perform abstraction. Al-Urmawī thinks that the definition i.e. conception must precede the assent and syllogism and each of these is either necessary or acquired. Acquired knowledge is also derived from the necessary knowledge as a result of intellectual effort. Otherwise, there will be either infinite regression or vicious circle. As Sirājuddīn al-Urmawī’s also holds the idea that, al-‘ārif al-mutanazzih (a knowledgeable purified person) who mature himself with meditation and purification (riyāḍah), can reach knowledge as well through inspiration and unveiling (ilhām and kashf). This particular ‘ārif has a bright rank and higher degree that is unique to them, which also is free and isolated from bodily interests, bonds and situations. Over and above, this happens before the ultimate disconnection between the body and the soul. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Extramarital Contraception in the Catholic Faith:A Call to Action from a Physician and EthicistCara BuskmillerIntroductionDefinitionsBefore proceeding to a discussion of extramarital contraception, it is relevant to lay a foundation of definitions and limitations of this essay. Here, "sex" and "sexual act" will refer to acts of penile–vaginal intercourse and acts meant to lead to such intercourse, respectively. Other acts which are rightly called "sexual" are not relevant to this (...) essay, as the focus here is on encounters that could result in fertilization.The traditional natural law theory with its analysis of object, intention, and circumstances is at play in this essay, with a hylomorphic understanding of nature and ethics. In this understanding of ethics, the names of many acts include not only an object but an intention and circumstances (e.g., murder specifies an illegal type of killing with premeditation). Likewise, "contraception" here refers to the use of any drug or device which temporarily lowers fertility (object), to prevent fertilization (intention) due to presumed-fertile sex (circumstance). Such drugs or devices are called "contraceptives" in this essay. In this essay, "contraception" is not committed solely by intending to avoid fertilization, so acts such as trying to avoid fertilization by timing sex during infertile parts of a menstrual cycle are not contraception, and the pastoral term "contraceptive mindset" does not apply. "Contraception" is also not solely defined by the use of particular medical products, since the intention to avoid fertilization is part of the definition in this essay. Thus, [End Page 1245] prescribing or taking a birth control pill for polycystic ovarian syndrome, in the words of Pope St. Paul VI in his 1968 landmark encyclical Humanae Vitae (HV), is not at all illicit, here because such treatment is not contraception, and the problems of contraception do not apply (§15)."Marriage" in this essay refers principally to sacramental matrimony, made by the consent of a baptized man and a baptized woman.1 Civil marriage, cohabitation, long-term affairs, sex in dating, short-term hookups, prostitution, and sexual assault represent a spectrum of falling away from matrimony. This essay assumes that matrimony is God's one true plan for sex, fertilization, and childrearing. This essay also makes heavy use of the Scholastic-personalist perspective of HV on the unitive and procreative dimensions of sex. As sexual relationships "fall away" from matrimony, they lose resemblance to these dimensions."Consent" is here defined as a free act in which a person agrees to do, accept, or reject something.2 Consent is an act of the will, and it may be partial or total. Only when consent is total is a person held fully responsible for his or her actions; for example, only when consent is total can a person commit a mortal sin. Consent is different from assent, which is not of the will, but of the mind.3 In this paper, sex without consent is termed "sexual assault"—the status of the act as an assault is solely determined by consent. These definitions allow for a sexual assault in which a victim withholds consent and yet does not resist an attack,4 which is different from past legal and colloquial definitions.5 This definition also allows for assault victims that have positive emotional responses to or physical arousal from an attack. These responses from a victim do not make the assault consensual or desired, [End Page 1246] and in fact make post-traumatic recovery more difficult.6 Simply put, consent is of the will, and this is not diminished by whether the body follows suit; this differs from some legal definitions of consent in canon law, where the will of the person agreeing to a contract is signified by externals, even if there was no intention to fulfill the duties of the contract.7 Consent will be central to this essay, since it helps make the spectrum of relationships that "fall away" from marriage intelligible in two sets: one with consent, and one without."Intellectual disability" in medical and ethical literature refers to a large spectrum of differences in mental and behavioral performance, but this essay is only considering intellectually disabled persons who would be unable to... (shrink)

Fichte offers separate analyses of the conditions for the possibility of representing or referring to (i) material objects and (ii) other minds – extra-subjective entities of importantly distinct sorts. These analyses are importantly akin, in that both postulate, as a necessary condition for the mental accomplishment under consideration, some sort of basic incapacity or limitation that is partly constitutive of human rationality. But the two accounts also involve interestingly different understandings of the nature and implications of the basic constraints (...) in question. As a first approximation, we can say that, for Fichte, (i) a rational being posits a putatively mind-independent object only if that being’s self-initiated mental activity encounters a pre- or proto-objective “check” or “affront” (Anstoß), and (ii) a rational being can first become concretely conscious of its own capacity for rational self-determination only as the addressee of a “summons” (Aufforderung) that calls upon it to actuate that very capacity. -/- In this essay I roughly reconstruct the indicated arguments. In the process, I endeavor to show that Fichte does not suppose that either argument firmly backs philosophical assent to the existence of material objects or of other minds. On the contrary: the goal of his professed ‘deductions’ of our everyday ‘convictions’ concerning such things is not to philosophically legitimate those prephilosophical beliefs. Instead, the aim of these arguments is to vindicate Fichte’s transcendental idealism – which, if anything, epistemically undermines said beliefs – by demonstrating that any experience that is putatively ‘of’ such things has, as its necessary and sufficient conditions, nothing but states and activities of the I. Thus, in the case of material objects, a radical difference manifest within the I – self-initiated rational activity versus “simple sensation” – is ‘set forth’ (vorgestellt) in a representation (Vorstellung) of an extra-subjective bearer of sensed qualities. And – much more controversially – in the case of other minds, a demand that the I (qua pure reason, constitutively committed to its own unlimited self-activity and efficacy) makes upon itself (qua rational individual capable of intelligent self-determination) is outwardly depicted as an appeal originating from an extra-subjective source. (shrink)

“There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass. -/- It is a rather common view among philosophers that one cannot, properly speaking, be said to believe, conceive, imagine, hope for, or seek (...) what is impossible. -/- Some philosophers, for instance George Berkeley and the early Wittgenstein, thought that logically contradictory propositions lack cognitive meaning (informational content) and cannot, therefore, be thought or believed. Philosophers who do not go as far as Berkeley and Wittgenstein in denying that impossible propositions or states of affairs are thinkable, may still claim that it is impossible to rationally believe an impossible proposition. On a classical “Cartesian” view of belief, belief is a purely mental state of the agent holding true a proposition p that she “grasps” and is directly acquainted with. But if the agent is directly acquainted with an impossible proposition, then, presumably, she must know that it is impossible. But surely no rational agent can hold true a proposition that she knows is impossible. Hence, no rational agent can believe an impossible proposition. Thus it seems that on the Cartesian view of propositional attitudes as inner mental states in which proposition are immediately apprehended by the mind, it is impossible for a rational agent to believe, imagine or conceive an impossible proposition. -/- Ruth Barcan Marcus (1983) has suggested that a belief attribution is defeated once it is discovered that the proposition, or state of affairs that is believed is impossible. According to her intuition, just as knowledge implies truth, belief implies possibility. -/- It is commonplace that people claim to believe propositions that later turn out to be impossible. According to Barcan Marcus, the correct thing to say in such a situation is not: I once believed that A but I don’t believe it any longer since I have come to realize that it is impossible that A. What one should say is instead: It once appeared to me that I believed that A, but I did not, since it is impossible that A. Thus, Barcan Marcus defends what we might call Alice’s thesis: Necessarily, for any proposition p and any subject x, if x believes p, then p is possible. -/- Alice’s thesis that it is impossible to hold impossible beliefs, seems to come into conflict with our ordinary practices of attributing beliefs. Consider a mathematical example. Some mathematicians believe that CH (the continuum hypothesis) is true and others believe that it is false. But if CH is true, then it is necessarily true; and if it is false, then it is necessarily false. Regardless of whether CH is true or false, the conclusion seems to be that there are mathematicians who believe impossible propositions. -/- Examples of apparent beliefs in impossible propositions outside of mathematics are also easy to come by. Consider, for example, Kripke’s (1999) story of the Frenchman Pierre who without realizing it has two different names ‘London’ and ‘Londres’ for the same city, London. After having arrived in London, Pierre may assent to ‘Londres is beautiful and London is not beautiful’ without being in any way irrational. It seems reasonably to infer from this that Pierre believes that Londres is beautiful and London is not beautiful. But since ‘Londres’ and ‘London’ are rigid designators for the same city, it seems to follow from this that Pierre believes the inconsistent proposition that we may express as ‘London is both beautiful and not beautiful’. (shrink)

There is a difficulty about past emotions, motives, etc., especially if they are in the distant past and I have forgotten what I then felt like, or if I was not aware of my feelings at the time. In the case of physical objects or events in the past I need not be the only witness; but in the case of past mental phenomena the corroboration of the supporting evidence is characteristically different. No doubt, here too we can have (...) the evidence of diaries and of other people's testimony; but the subject's report today plays a peculiar role, this peculiarity varying according to the case in question. E.g., I remember now that I was in love with Mary in my youth. I can see now, for the first time, that as a baby I felt envious of my mother for what she could give. The difficulty in grasping properly the detail that is brought together in talking about other people's past unconscious phantasies, the difficulty in grasping how we distinguish between the case of a person finally assenting to such an interpretation because he has genuinely remembered and that of a person who assents under suggestion, have led some people to say that in these cases we only seem to remember, and what we experience belongs solely to the present. (shrink)

Two separate regulatory regimes govern research with adults who lack capacity to consent in England and Wales: the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005 and the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004 (“the Regulations”). A service evaluation was conducted to investigate how research ethics committees (RECs) are interpreting the requirements. With the use of a coding scheme and qualitative software, a sample of REC decision letters where applicants indicated that their project involved adults who lacked mental capacity (...) was analysed. The analysis focuses on 45 letters about projects covered by the MCA and 12 letters about projects covered by the Regulations. The legal requirements for involving incapacitated adults in research were not consistently interpreted correctly. Letters often lacked explicitness and clarity. Neither consent nor assent from third parties is a legally valid concept for purposes of the MCA, yet they were suggested or endorsed in 10 post-MCA letters, and there was evidence of confusion about the consultee processes. The correct terms were also not consistently used in relation to clinical trials. Inappropriate use of terms such as “relative” had the potential to exclude people eligible to be consulted. Unless the correct terms and legal concepts are used in research projects, there is potential for confusion and for exclusion of people who are eligible to be consulted about involvement of adults who lack capacity. Improved clarity, explicitness and accuracy are needed when submitting and reviewing applications for ethical review of research in this area. (shrink)

The role of certitude in our mental lives is, to put it mildly, controversial. Many current epistemologists (including epistemologists of religion) eschew certitude altogether. Given his emphasis on certitude, some have maintained that John Henry Newman was an infallibilist about knowledge. In this paper, we argue that a careful examination of his thought (especially as seen in the Grammar of Assent) reveals that he was an epistemic fallibilist. We first clarify what we mean by fallibilism and infallibilism. Second, (...) we explain why some have read Newman as an infallibilist. Third, we offer two arguments that Newman is at least a fallibilist in a weak sense. In particular, the paradox he seeks to resolve in the Grammar and his dispute with John Locke both indicate that he is at least a weak fallibilist. We close with a consideration of whether Newman is a fallibilist in a much stronger sense as well. (shrink)

This article considers two alternative responses to the question of the motivation behind the suspensive argumentation developed by the Pyrrhonic version of the ancient scepticism and also shows their respective difficulties: a) the therapeutic motivation, that takes the suspension of assent for the condition to reach not only a state of mental tranquillity concerning matters of opinion but also a moderate attitude towards passions; b) the epistemic motivation, which states that the suspension corresponds to the unique possibility to (...) preserve philosophical life in the absence of rational criteria to decide among competing philosophical theories. The latter kind of motivation, which consists in creating propitious conditions for the search for the truth, has nothing to do with the methodic motivation characterizing the modern reception of ancient scepticism. Although this motivation was not present in the Pyrrhonic scepticism, it could not be unknown to the academic sceptics because of their Socratic origins. (shrink)

A recent paper by Teresa Baron and Geoffrey Dierckxsens argues that puberty blockers and hormone therapy should be disallowed before adulthood on prudential and consent-related grounds. This response contends that their argument fails because it is predicated on unsupported premises and misinterpretations of the available evidence. There is no evidence that a large proportion of pubertal and postpubertal youths later discontinue medical transition. Meaningful assent is a viable and commonly accepted alternative to meaningful consent in paediatric bioethics. And finally, (...) the primary purpose of transition-related interventions is to actualise youths’ gendered self-image, not treat an underlying mental illness. (shrink)

Background Genomic research on neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), particularly involving minors, combines and amplifies existing research ethics issues for biomedical research. We performed a review of the literature on the ethical issues associated with genomic research involving children affected by NDDs as an aid to researchers to better anticipate and address ethical concerns. Results Qualitative thematic analysis of the included articles revealed themes in three main areas: research design and ethics review, inclusion of research participants, and communication of research results. Ethical (...) issues known to be associated with genomic research in general, such as privacy risks and informed consent/assent, seem especially pressing for NDD participants because of their potentially decreased cognitive abilities, increased vulnerability, and stigma associated with mental health problems. Additionally, there are informational risks: learning genetic information about NDD may have psychological and social impact, not only for the research participant but also for family members. However, there are potential benefits associated with research participation, too: by enrolling in research, the participants may access genetic testing and thus increase their chances of receiving a (genetic) diagnosis for their neurodevelopmental symptoms, prognostic or predictive information about disease progression or the risk of concurrent future disorders. Based on the results of our review, we developed an ethics checklist for genomic research involving children affected by NDDs. Conclusions In setting up and designing genomic research efforts in NDD, researchers should partner with communities of persons with NDDs. Particular attention should be paid to preventing disproportional burdens of research participation of children with NDDs and their siblings, parents and other family members. Researchers should carefully tailor the information and informed consent procedures to avoid therapeutic and diagnostic misconception in NDD research. To better anticipate and address ethical issues in specific NDD studies, we suggest researchers to use the ethics checklist for genomic research involving children affected by NDDs presented in this paper. (shrink)

To study Judicial determinants of the ordered obstetrical and fertility interventions. Nature, corresponding laws, decisions upon the 37 expounded holdings at the Probate, Trial, District, Appellate, and Supreme Courts are studied in 92 published materials identified through the ACOG, RCOG, SOCG portals, and Legal Scholarship Repository. Hearings are held in the US (83.8 %), Canada (10.8 %) and U.K (5.4 %). Of all the hearings reviewed, 27 % concern mentally impaired, 37.8 %-maternal incompetence, and 21.6 % cases are of criminal (...) nature. The Judicial determinants vary from country to country. In Canada, the ordered medical interventions are effected by the child protection legislation, whereas in the US, by court orders. In majority of cases, orders are obtained by dismissing the patriae petitions for involuntary sterilizations of mentally impaired sui juris adults (57 %); coerced obstetrical interventions (33.3 %), fetal custody (50 %); enforcement of surrogacy contracts (62.5 %) in favor of the Common Humanity Benefit clause; and recognizing the rights to inherit in posthumously conceived children (80 %) pursuant to the Social Security Act, Law of obviousness, Law of inherent anticipation, and Intestacy statute. Current study prioritizes two questions: (1) whether it is justified to override the wishes of a competent patient purportedly in her best interests; and (2) whether the patient’s autonomy and competence is an absolute concept. With the law unsettled as to a woman’s right to assent a treatment and contradict her fetus, parties concerned with fetal rights should consider exercising of screening tools on maternal judgmental fitness jointly developed by medical and legal practitioners. Further, given the advances in gamete conservations, states consider enacting legislation in order to safeguard the orderly administration of estates disrupted by claims from posthumously conceived children. A balance must be struck between the child’s right to inherit, the state’s interest, as well as the interests of prior born children. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spinoza on Self-Preservation and Self-DestructionMitchell GabhartI wish to examine a difficulty that arises in Spinoza’s treatment of selfhood as it pertains to the possibility of self-destruction. The troublesome problem of selfhood is one which I will not solve but which I hope to illuminate. What I hope to do is shed light on Spinoza’s conception of human essence as necessarily self-affirming, and therefore of willful self-destruction as impossible. Yet (...) this issue too is troubling since the accounts Spinoza provides of suicides all have one thing in common: suicide always involves being overcome by the external environment, i.e., the environment operating in a way contrary to the nature of the agent. Thus, all suicide is a sign of an internal weakness in the face of a hostile world. To provide the needed contrast to the suicidal agent, necessarily a state of the utmost bondage or servitude, I will first sketch Spinoza’s theory of the passions, their remedy, the characteristics of the active free agent, and his curious account of immortality. Then I turn to the problem in his account of suicide: I contend that he cannot make meaningful a distinction between suicide and any other form of death.2.I begin with Spinoza’s analysis of human motivation, the elements of which are the affects, which he defines (E3D2) as the body’s power of acting being increased or diminished as well as the idea of those affections.1 Spinoza classifies [End Page 613] emotions, i.e., affects under the attribute of mind, into two types: actions and passions.2 Spinoza does not (contrary to his predecessor Descartes) posit the existence of a separate faculty such as will to transform passions into actions. Rather, “we act when something happens, in us or outside us, of which we are the adequate cause, i.e., (by E3D1) when something in us or outside us follows from our nature, which can be clearly and distinctly understood through it alone.”3 Conversely, we are acted upon “when something happens in us, or something follows from our nature, of which we are only a partial cause.”4 Consequently it is not necessary to oppose will and intellect in order to differentiate action from passion. The mind includes both adequate and inadequate ideas (E3P1) and therefore can be alternately both agent and patient.The departure from Descartes is striking: since (1) ideas either are or are not adequate and (2) each adequate idea carries its own certitude (E2P43), the need for a separate faculty of assent, which is what volition must amount to, is nullified. Instead, volition and appetite are considered by Spinoza to be no more than distinct manifestations of one central striving, the former a purely mental description and the latter an account of both mental and physical aspects of the individual.5Spinoza introduces the key term conatus to characterize the activity of modes but it is a concept which also bears the burden of accounting for the individuality, indeed the essence, of finite modes. The principle of conatus is defined by Spinoza as a striving (E3P7), i.e., “that striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing.”6 This [End Page 614] striving to persevere in one’s existence—a striving which continues for an indefinite time (E3P8)—must, of course, undergo both successes and failures. Modes, such as the human individual, exist conditionally, as finite and temporally changing constituents of the substantial reality which Spinoza refers to as “God or Nature.” So, human beings are entities possessing (1) an essential identity through an indefinite duration and (2) a consciousness of that identity which alternately resists or succumbs to outside forces.Thus, their existence can be thought of as merely adjectival, which poses difficulties in understanding self-identity. Vital, it seems, to an acceptable conception of identity is some principle of individuation—something which makes Peter distinct from Paul.7 Let us first then sketch the account of individuation that Spinoza proposes. It is important to bear in mind first that conatus is a striving of the organism as... (shrink)

This article reconstructs key features of the early stoic analysis of human action from surviving fragmentary reports. Special attention is paid to how the concepts of assent and command (understood as real mental events) and the more general concept of meaning ("lekta") are used to enrich an analysis of action as a response to a stimulative presentation.

The book is a contribution on the early Stoics’ views of action, responsibility and freedom. The central claim, which sets the framework of its three chapters, is that an influential interpretation according to which the Stoics’ concept of responsibility is entirely separate from their concept of freedom (S. Bobzien) is mistaken. The present interpretation does conserve a compatibilist reading but the claim is made that if a person is responsible for an action it is so on the basis of features (...) which make his or her action also (potentially) virtuous and free. Moreover, if responsibility is thought and presented as a kind of paradox, it is the same paradox which is recognizable as a foundaon of virtue and freedom. It is important for this interpretation to see responsibility as based on assent (and not merely on one’s – determined – nature/character) and to see the corresponding compatibilism as a result of a two-sided mental act which is then also to be found in the exercise of virtue. By defending these views, the book offers a unified Stoic theory of action in which psychology (assent) and ethics (virtue and freedom) presuppose similar reflective turns in the soul though on different levels of the soul’s activity. (shrink)

Complexe significabilia are the significate of whole sentences, irreducible to what is signified by categorematic sub-sentential components. It has been propounded firstly by Adam Wodeham. Wodeham construes his argument for the postulation of complexe significabilia as a middle way between William of Ockham and Walter Chatton. According to Wodeham, Ockham’s view implies a reflexive theory of mental acts, which goes against the phenomenology of the act of assent. Moreover, it leads to an anti-realist epistemology. We need therefore things (...) outside the mind to be object of the act of assent, which is also the conclusion reached by Chatton. However, against Chatton, Wodeham argues that things signified by the categorematic component of sentences cannot be the object of assent. In effect, sentences with different syncategorematic structures, but with the same categorematic components, would correspond to the same propositional attitude in Chatton’s framework, which is an unwelcome consequence. The result is that we need to postulate that the objects of assent are outside the mind, contra Ockham, that are not signified by sentential categorematic components, contra Chatton, but are irreducibly signified by the whole sentences. (shrink)

The increased interest in exorcisms and demonology should be moderated by a proper understanding of the relationship between psychology and spirituality. There is an important link between psychological aberrations and possession, but too often and too quickly, a person’s mental health is dismissed or overlooked in favor of a diagnosis of demonic possession. The Church’s ritual of exorcism can be properly used only after psychological discernment, episcopal approval, and personal assent. Most priests are not prepared for the role (...) of exorcist and should spend their time more effectively addressing pastoral needs. The belief in demons is part of biblical witness and Catholic history. At the same time, we must avoid any tendency toward redemption by exorcism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NEWMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOVERY: THE ILLATIVE SENSE (V. Continued) 15. The Universals. A long and vehement dispute once raged about the reality of universals. Are they only mental creations, forged by the human brain, without any reality outside them, or have they some independent existence apart from their mental reality? Anyhow, there was an apparent contradiction between die universal character of our ideas and the individual character of (...) concrete things. The Scholastics solved this problem by drawing clear distinctions. An idea is an abstraction; as soon as it becomes applicable to a number of objects or things in the same sense, it is a universal idea. The "direct universal" (universale directum seu metaphysicum) as such has no existence apart from our minds, because an existing thing is always bound up with concrete, determining, individualizing notes, and it is these very circumstances or accidents which are ignored by the mind as it strips the thing of its individual characteristics. When the mind reflects on this "direct universal," i.e., on the abstract essence of the thing, it sees that this is to be found in many more things and that it is identical in all those things, and in this way the "reflex or logical universal" is formed (universale reflexum seu logicum). This same essence or quiddity is not really different from the thing itself, but the mind makes abstraction of all accidents, and this foundation makes it possible to apply this idea in die same sense to all other beings of the same kind, whether they are actually existing or not. In other words the universal as a universal has only reality in the mind but it has a foundation or a ground in the thing itself. Newman was not so well acquainted with Scholasticism that he knew and mastered the solution of the problem. As a matter of fact he approached it from quite another angle. Hence when scholastically trained minds read some of his statements on universals, they may feel shocked. They sound very curious, they seem incon418 DR. ZENO, O.F.M. CAP.419 sistent with each other, they apparenüy imply a negation of the objective reality of universals. This makes it necessary to compare the texts and to explain his meaning. a. Newman Inconsistent. We should never lose sight of the fact that Newman had no intention at all to enter the province of philosophy in the restricted sense of the word. "I am only contemplating the mind as it moves in fact, by whatever hidden mechanism,"1 that is what could be put as a heading to every page of the Grammar of Assent. And when he virtually deals with metaphysics, he wants us to consider his statements as hypotheses, or as propositions stated only by the way, and in this department he always wishes "to speak under correction." This explains how he could refer to the universale metaphy sicum and the universale directum in a very correct way without realizing he was teaching Scholastic doctrine. As far as I know, it is Professor Walgrave who has first drawn attention to this fact,2 when he dealt with Newman's alleged conceptualism. Newman states that "even one act of cruelty, ingratitude, generosity or justice reveals to us at once intensive the immutable distinction between those qualities and their contraries; that is, in that particular instance and pro bac vice."3 The same holds for the opposites: right and wrong, true and false, just and unjust, beautiful and deformed.4 In one experience, therefore, he sees a thing as an immutable, absolute quiddity, which objectively and in the same sense belongs to all possible things of the same kind, although the mind does not yet explicidy confirm this universal applicability. The contemplated quality remains limited to the particular case; but in its absoluteness it is stripped of all individual, changeable and concrete characteristics. This is the metaphysical universal of the Scholastics. But Newman also mentions the logical universal when he says: "As we form our notion of whiteness from the actual sight of snow, a lily or a cloud, so, after experiencing the sentiment of approbation which arises in us on the sight of certain... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NEWMAN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL DISCOVERY: THE ILLATIVE SENSE (Continued) VI THE FACULTIES OF COGNITION AND APPETITION Since the Grammar of Assent gives us a phenorhenological analysis of the art of thinking and often refers to the influence of other faculties in our reasoning processes, it will be very instructive to examine what the author holds about our faculties of cognition and appetition. This will make us better acquainted with the (...) nature of the illative sense. I. THE SENSES 1. The External Senses and their Objects. We had already arrived at the conclusion that Newman rejects the mere subjectivity of our knowledge. When he writes about this matter he explicitly deals with sensation or sensuous cognition. Although he takes exception to the word "immediate perception," 1 we may nevertheless call him an adherent of direct or immediate realism according to Scholastic terminology, because he emphatically excludes the intervention of a reasoning process from sense perception and uses the term "mediate perception" only to express the instrumentality of experience. In this meaning our perception of external objects is mediate or indirect indeed.2 The fact is that as early as 1839 he wrote in his University Sermons: "Of the material we have direct knowledge through the senses"3 and in 1843: "The senses are direct, immediate, and ordinary informants, and act spontaneously without any will or effort on our part."4 On the importance of sense perception for our mental activities he writes in a series of hitherto unpublished notes, entitled Elements of Thought:6 "I grant or I assume that the soul would not think without some external stimulus; that if it were cut off from all communication from the external world, it would pass this life in a sort of torpor... But then, as soon as it is roused, it reflects upon itself, and thereby gains a number of ideas..." 1. See supra V, 14.2. Supra V, 14.3. P. 205. 4.P. 303 ; cf. Gramm., p. 260. 5.See the unpublished Philosophical Papers, note Fcbr. 24, 1859. 40 DR. ZENO, OJM. CAP.41 Apart from the passages already referred to, Newman nowhere enlarges on the doctrine about the senses. He does not speak about the distinctions between sensible objects; he does not explain the difference between sensation and perception, and uses those terms promiscuously.6 There are no statements on the subject which contradict current Scholastic notions, although sometimes his vague terminology may be an occasion for misunderstandings. For instance, some passages in connection with "images" and "impressions," when read apart from the context, would appear to imply that he identifies them with the Scholastic species a sensibili accepta. However, we shall show further on that. Newman means something quite different. He deals with these species and the so-called sensibilia per acci· dens by the way when describing our knowledge of God7 and teaching that we have evidence of the presence of individuals or substances in the phenomena which occur to our senses. We picture those things to ourselves in those phenomena. They are like pictures, he says, but at the same time "they give us no exact measure or character of the unknown things beyond them." "Therefore when we speak of our having a picture of the things which are perceived through the senses, we mean a certain representation, true as far as it goes, but not adequate." 2. The Internal Senses and their Objects. Newman nowhere gives a distinction between external and internal senses, but nevertheless he speaks about those faculties of the mind which by the Scholastics are called the internal senses. These philosophers distinguish a common sense or rather a central sense (sensus communis), which unites the impressions of the external senses into one whole, makes us conscious of the conditions of our body and notifies to us the sensations of our external as well as internal senses; — the imagination or the faculty which preserves and reproduces things perceived; — the sensuous memory, i. e., the power to retain and to reproduce sense images; — and the vis aestimativa or the instinctive faculty, which discovers without any intellectual means, what is good and what is bad for our welfare. 6.It would seem that he generally... (shrink)