This article discusses the contribution of the Capability Approach within the theoretical framework of moral philosophy, political theory and political philosophy. Starting from delineating the contours to properly interpret this contemporary political doctrine, the A. recognises its primary roots in the human emotional development, as outlined by the American political philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Then the A. offers a comparative review of the Nussbaumean conception of emotions in Upheavals of Thought as well as in the most recent contributions on the (...) topic. The concepts of fear and security prompted us to the discussion, a posteriori from the cognitive development and the ‘securisation’ of human rights as promoted by education (especially in lifelong learning of children and women). (shrink)

This research article uses the theoretical framework of doctrine as believer's security to critique the theological framework behind the controversial activities reported amongst some South African neo-Pentecostal prophets, which include feeding congregants with grass, spraying them with insecticides and sexual violation of women congregants. The framework of the article falls within the discipline of systematic theology by raising the importance for South African Christians to develop a critical doctrinal framework for protecting themselves from controversial NPPs. The following main (...) question is answered by the article: from a systematic theological perspective, how can we evaluate the theological framework, which leads to the recent controversial activities reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa? Consequently, the article, firstly, describes the critical theological framework of the protective role of Christian doctrine. Secondly, it describes the South African NPPs and their controversial practices. Thirdly, this article analyses some of the theological problems in the current operative framework of NPPs. Fourthly, it argues for the need for doctrinally informed critical thinking as a safety measure against controversial NPPs. Finally, some steps that must be taken by NPPs to develop critical theological thinking in order to overcome doctrinally vacuous experientialism that promotes controversial religious activities are provided.CONTRIBUTION: From a systematic theological approach, this article attempts to demonstrate the importance of critical doctrinal thinking as a defence mechanism for protecting Christians from falling prey to harmful religious practices, such as those recently reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa. (shrink)

If the United States were subject to a terrorist nuclear attack, its president would face overwhelming political pressure to respond decisively. A well-prepared response could help both to prevent additional attacks and to bring the perpetrators to justice. An instinctive response could be cataclysmically ineffective, inflicting enormous collateral damage without achieving either deterrence or justice. An international security doctrine of Mutually Assured Support can make the response to such attacks more effective as well as less likely—by requiring preparations (...) that reduce the threat. The doctrine requires all subscribing nations to mobilize fully in support of the attacked nation, in return for a promise of nonretaliation. It provides a vehicle for domestic and international leadership, allowing the president to engage the American people, from a position of strength, around an issue that has had little public discussion. The authors describe its rationale, implications, and implementation. (shrink)

In the Centuries of Theology I.48–50, Maximus states that there are two kinds of works that belong to God: one which corresponds to beings having a temporal, finite beginning, and one which corresponds to perfections of beings which have no beginning and are therefore eternal. Maximus labels the latter as participated beings (ὄντα μεθεκτά) and the former as participating beings (ὄντα μετέχοντα), with God transcending both as their cause. The structure of God-as-cause, participated beings, and participating beings matches Proclus’ three-fold (...) structure of participation with the ontological categories of unparticipated, participated, and participating. While Maximus borrows the basic language and structure from Proclus, he makes certain minor but significant differences, particularly in how the participated beings both relate to their source in God and in their status of existence. This paper thus sets out to analyze I.48–50 in the general context of the Centuries of Theology, considering how Maximus conceives of the ontological distinctions between God and God’s works. A comparison with Proclus’ understanding of participation follows, particularly from Proclus’ Elements of Theology Prop. 23, which succinctly states the three-term distinction of participation. The resulting comparison shows that Proclus’ framework of participation is flattened for Maximus, where the participated works represent multiple properties distinct in kind from the unparticipated, while God fits analogously in the status of the unparticipated. The underlying ontology supports Maximus’ implicit denial that such participated entities represent distinct divinities, as they do for Proclus, while Maximus’ assertion of God’s transcendence is still secured with the ontological distinction between the participated works and their unparticipated cause. (shrink)

Congress's national-security legislation will often require clear and specific congressional authorization before the executive can undertake certain actions. The War Powers Resolution, for example, prohibits any law from authorizing military hostilities unless it "specifically authorizes" them. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 required laws to amend FISA or repeal its "exclusive means" provision before they could authorize warrantless electronic surveillance. But efforts to legislate clear-statement regimes in national-security law have failed to induce compliance. The Clinton Administration (...) inferred congressional "authorization" for the 1999 Kosovo War from an appropriations statute that failed to specifically authorize the conflict. And the Bush Administration inferred congressional "authorization" for the NSA surveillance program from ambiguous language in the post-September 11th Authorization to Use Military Force. In both situations, executive-branch lawyers employed expansive theories of implied repeal and constitutional avoidance to evade the codified clear-statement requirements, and Congress and the courts acquiesced to the President's actions. Recent proposals to strengthen the clear-statement requirements in Congress's national-security framework legislation are unlikely to be effective without institutional mechanisms, such as points of order, that can deter future legislators from enacting vague or ambiguous legislation from which the executive might claim implicit congressional "authorization," and that can induce Congress to confront Presidents that act without specific congressional authorization. Simply enacting more narrow or explicit clear-statement requirements, or adding funding restrictions to Congress's framework legislation, fails to counter the aggressive interpretive doctrines that executives of both political parties have used to concoct congressional "authorization" from vague or ambiguous statutory language. (shrink)

The present article discusses a well-known religious philosophical and partially legal doctrine of the “Just war”, developed in the Christian tradition by St. Augustine, St. Tomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vittoria, Francisco Suarez, Hugo Grotius and many other thinkers. The main thesis of the doctrine is that war will be just only if it corresponds to certain criteria, such as autoritas principi (waged by the sovereign), justa causa (on just aim) and with recta intentio (animus) or the aim and (...) will to wage war in order to restore justice and not because of personal hate, revenge, lust for glory, etc. However, the impact of the doctrine was not limited by the Middle Ages and the Christian philosophic discourse. This doctrine shaped both emerging international law and international humanitarian law in one or another way. Even though it did not survive intact through the changing reality of the world, it is not so hard to trace the reflections of this doctrine even in contemporary international law. For example, while evaluating the armed conflict we still use the autoritas principi principle (armed conflicts may be fought only by defined subjects such as states or militarily - politically organised dissidents), moreover, when we are dealing with the concept of combatancy, the same principle applies in establishing whether a person is a legal fighter in the conflict or not, because his status directly stems from his belonging to the party of the conflict. With its strictly limited possibilities to use force, the contemporary jus contra bellum also somewhat resembles the doctrine, not only in the sense of justa causa (such as a possibility of unilateral use of force by the state only in self-defence) but also in recta intentio (e.g. the United Nations Security Council may order the use of force only with the intention to re-establish peace). Therefore, even though the doctrine is the product of the Middle Ages thought, it is not forgotten in our days. The possible military strike against Iran in order to stop it from developing nuclear weapon is already discussed in the light of this doctrine. Moreover, authors (though mainly not lawyers) discussing inadequacies of current international legal framework for the use of force (e.g. the need for humanitarian intervention) find their inspiration in the doctrine. (shrink)

This special issue of Science and Engineering Ethics is devoted to the ethical, societal and political implications of new and emerging technologies in the area of Human Security. Its aim is to address the wider implications of an altered security landscape. Specifically, and in accordance with SEE’s main area of interest, contributions to this special issue focus on those ethical considerations warranted by scientific and technological advances in the field of human security. This includes, but is not (...) restricted to, issues of privacy and data protection, control, trust, surveillance, authority, and freedom. Papers consider some of the ethical and societal challenges related to new and emerging technologies in the context of the Human Security Doctrine (HSD), as it has been initially formulated by the United Nations Commission on Human Security (UNCHS 2003). The HSD argues for a paradigm shift from understanding security based on tangible assets (e.g., national borders, goo .. (shrink)

At the heart of Kant’s legal-political philosophy lies a liberal, republican ideal of justice understood in terms of private independence (non-domination) and subjection to public laws securing freedom for all citizens as equals. Given this basic commitment of Kant’s, it is puzzling to many that he does not consider democracy a minimal condition on a legitimate state. In addition, many find Kant ideas of reform or improvement of the historical states we have inherited vague and confusing. The aim of this (...) paper is to untangle both puzzles by exploring Kant’s idea of self-governance. I argue that Kant’s idea of self-governance gives us a very good starting point for thinking about how to leave room for a variety of political systems—different ideals—that have grown out of and responding to different contingent historical and cultural circumstances. It also helps us identify those areas where we want to take extra care to build in safeguards to secure stability and to take sufficiently seriously humankind’s truly nasty sides. (shrink)

While current doctrines try to separate conflicts within two distinct categories – conventional versus irregular, there are, however, a series of contemporary conflicts that challenge this western view on war showing that the disjunctive manner of classification in ‘big and conventional’ versus ‘small and irregular’ is limited and simplistic. The military strategists as well as the academics used a series of concepts in order to describe the main shifts in the character of war – from the Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) (...) and ‘new wars’ to hybrid wars. This article aims to identify these mutations in war evolution in the new, post-Cold War international context. The traditional image we have on this well-known ‘labor division’ within the military field no longer reflects reality. (shrink)

When the U.S. conducts warfare, elements of a force are drawn from different services and work together as a single team to accomplish an assigned mission. To achieve such unified action, it is necessary that the doctrines governing the actions of members of specific services be both consistent with and subservient to joint Doctrine. Because warfighting today increasingly involves not only live forces but also automated systems, unified action requires that information technology that is used in joint warfare must (...) be aligned with joint doctrine. It requires also that the separate information systems used by the different elements of a joint force must be interoperable, in the sense that data and information that is generated by each element must be usable (understandable, processable) by all the other elements that need them. Currently, such interoperability is impeded by multiple inconsistencies among the different data and software standards used by warfighters. We describe here the on-going project of creating a Joint Doctrine Ontology (JDO), which uses joint doctrine to provide shared computer-accessible content valid for any field of military endeavor, organization, and information system. JDO addresses the two previously mentioned requirements of unified action by providing a widely applicable benchmark for use by developers of information systems that will both guarantee alignment with joint doctrine and support interoperability. (shrink)

Peirce’s anti-psychologism hinges on two main assumptions. First, logic and psychology belong to two separate disciplines – respectively, the normative sciences and the experimental sciences. Second, externalism must be understood as a crucial and inescapable epistemological criterion. The introspectionist illusion, according to which individuals have direct and epistemologically flawless access to their own internal states, should be dismissed. As Colapietro (2003) and Calcaterra (2006) observe, Peirce’s standpoint is far different from the Kantian classical account of anti-psychologism. This original take on (...) anti-psychologism leaves room for a functional distinction between logic and psychology, emerging from a semiotic and communicative continuity. This means that psychology, unlike logic as a formal doctrine of signs, will be epistemologically appropriate for dealing with internal psychological states, on the condition that this inquiry be focused on the communicative processes through which these internal states are expressed and conveyed. Such a Peircean account of anti-psychologism forms the epistemological background of this paper. My goal is to show how Peirce’s approach to communication and semiosis can be applied in order to discuss a specific psychological theory, in this case, attachment theory. Specifically, I propose employing Giovanni Maddalena’s Peircean distinction between complete and incomplete gestures (Maddalena 2015) to account for the distinction between secure, dismissing and preoccupied attachment patterns. To this end, I will be discussing three different measurements of attachment: the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI, George, Kaplan & Main 1985), the Adult Attachment Projection (AAP, George & West 2006), and the Patient Attachment Coding System (PACS, Talia, Miller-Bottome & Daniel 2015). Throughout this discussion, I will examine the connection between the semiotic and phenomenological category of completeness, and the psychological category of security. This connection involves an interesting normative import, which I briefly discuss in the conclusions. (shrink)

Aquinas claims that sacred doctrine is a science, or scientia. All scientiae involve demonstrations containing principles which yield conclusions that are necessary and certain. The principles leading to sacred scientia are the articles of faith. Those articles are contained in Scripture and constitute the premises of demonstrations the conclusions of which form sacred doctrine's content. Because of those articles' divine origin, we can expect them to yield conclusions the truth of which is guaranteed. According to William Abraham, however, (...) Aquinas must demonstrate Scripture's divine origin as a condition for achieving a sacred scientia. In the absence of such a demonstration, we cannot be certain that the articles contained in Scripture are God‐breathed, nor can we be certain that the conclusions deduced from them belong to sacred doctrine. Abraham argues that Aquinas's putative demonstration of Scripture's divine origin fails and—consequently—so does his attempt to establish a sacred scientia. In this paper, I will show that Aquinas never intended to provide such a demonstration, nor does he need to in order to secure sacred doctrine's status as a scientia. Furthermore, I will show that achieving sacred scientia is not, pace Abraham, an epistemological undertaking but a spiritual discipline that eventuates in knowledge of and love for God. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, (...) alter the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

I criticize two ways of interpreting Kant's claim that property rights are merely ‘provisional’ in the state of nature.Weak provisionalityholds that in the state of nature agents can make rightful claims to property. What is lacking is the institutional context necessary to render their claims secure. By contrast,strong provisionalityholds that making property claims in the state of nature wrongs others. I argue for a third view,anticipatory provisionality, according to which state of nature property claims do not wrong others, but anticipate (...) a condition in which the authority to make such claims can no longer be unilaterally determined. (shrink)

It is well known that in India, over the last two thousand five hundred years or more, there has been a pervasive belief in the doctrine of Karma. Various forms and variants in which this doctrine has found expression in the multifarious texts and metaphysical systems have drawn a good deal of attention. The present paper, however, is an attempt at analysing the function of this doctrine, in the sustenance of the traditional social system, and particularly the (...) scheme of social stratification. As we shall see, an unshakable faith in this doctrine by people belonging to all strata of society provided tremendous strength to the caste hierarchy based on birth, and ensured a secure place for the Brāhmanas and their progeny on the top of the social pyramid. (shrink)

Many individuals domestically and internationally who strive for peace and justice are concerned about the new National Security Strategy issued by the George W. Bush Administration in September 2002. 1 William Galston, for example, writes in a recent issue of Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly: A global strategy based on the new Bush doctrine of preemption means the end of the system of international institutions, laws and norms that we have worked to build for more than a half (...) a century. To his credit, Kissinger recognizes this; he labels Bush’s new approach “revolutionary” and declares, “Regime change as a goal for military intervention challenges the international system.” 2 Does the new Bush doctrine end the international legal system? Is the new Bush doctrine making policy declarations that are unprecedented in United States history? While I share many of the concerns critics are expressing about the new national security strategy, I contend that the more serious issue is not the ways in which this strategy represents a departure from those of prior United States presidential administrations but the actual practices of the Bush administration that appeal to this strategy. I will indicate how this new national security strategy does not represent much of a shift in policy, capability, or practice. Instead, this strategy Bush is using the strategy as an enabling device for a disturbing resurgence of United States global imperialism that serves interests that are actually opposed to the political rhetoric of the value of nations aiming for democracy and a market economy. I conclude by commenting on pursuing genuinely democratic values. I suggest that if the United States were truly committed to democratic values, then any military interventions would require the prior consent of the people. Otherwise what the United States refer to as “bringing democracy” to a people will be more like a militarily enforced authoritarianism that too closely resembles old-style exploitive imperialism. (shrink)

This article considers the development of the idea of universal moral principles in the work of Thomas Aquinas and his predecessors in the thirteenth century. Like other medieval authors who sought to place the principles of moral practice on a foundation more secure than on the choices of the good person, as described by Aristotle, Thomas chooses to introduce a measure of ethical certitude through the concept of the innate habit of synderesis. This idea, introduced by Jerome in his commentary (...) on Ezekiel, locates an inextinguishable spark of conscience in all humans. Thomas, influenced by Philip the Chancellor and Albert the Great, locates the principles of natural law in this innate habit of synderesis. By so doing he can claim that all human beings have the ability to recognize universally binding moral imperatives, regardless of their background and societal influences. Through this natural ability the human basis for moral action found in Aristotle's Ethics yields to one based upon the eternal immutable laws of a divine being. (shrink)

Revolutions and aborted revolutions and bitter civil and "local" wars in the 1980s and since have raised new questions about national security, its definition, and its implementation. Nevertheless, a number of basic philosophical and political issues remain constant at a level deeper than tactical considerations. These are what eight accomplished philosophers, political scientists, Christian ethicists, and policymakers came together to discuss. They ask the fundamental and perduring questions of pacifism, war, intervention, and political negotiation. They focus on such problems (...) as ascertaining the role of the churches in the quest for peace, defining "national interest" and "national purpose," and construing intervention in other that strictly unilateral terms. (shrink)

We live in a time of significant change in the world. The end of XX century. marked by the gradual expansion of the globalization process through closer economic and information links, which also leads to different levels of interdependence between countries and regions. Instead of the state, transnational forces act as units of political discourse. The threat to the national interests of individual states comes precisely from transnational forces. Significant changes in the world make it imperative that global security (...) strategies be revised in the light of cultural factors. (shrink)

In Belgium the legal conditions to practise euthanasia are governed by the act on euthanasia of 28 May, 2002 that entered into force on 23 September, 2002. There is no relevant jurisprudence and no guidance is offered by self-regulation made up by the medical profession itself before or after the enactment of the act. Thoughtful comments on the act are, understandably, lacking up to now while the discussions in parliament have been often unclear, contradictory and sometimes even misleading. In other (...) words, the law on euthanasia in Belgium almost coincides with the act on euthanasia.In this respect the situation in the Netherlands is totally different. The law on euthanasia is first of all governed by the "Termination of life on request and assisted suicide act" of 10 April, 2001 that entered into force on 1 April, 2002. This act is generally considered as the codification of the norms and procedures that have governed the practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands for almost three decades. These norms and procedures have largely emerged from within the medical profession itself and were later adopted by the courts in the context of criminal prosecutions. There also exists a very important legal doctrine that offers guidance in understanding this act. In other words, studying the law on euthanasia in the Netherlands is more than merely studying the act on euthanasia. The act is only the ‘tip of the iceberg’.While the Dutch act aims to codify existing practices, the Belgian act mainly aims to modify the behaviour of physicians when ending the life of their patients. It is hoped that a law that pretends to offer legal security to physicians and patients will stimulate patients to express a voluntary and explicit request and that physicians will abandon their practice of ending the lives of patients without their request. Research indeed had pointed out that Belgian physicians frequently 'forget' to obtain the patient’s request before ending his life.Is should be made clear from the outset that a comparison of the Belgian and the Dutch law regulating the practice of euthanasia is a hazardous undertaking. Just comparing both acts — at first sight the Belgian act, although much more detailed, could be considered a 'clone' of the Dutch act — will lead to misleading and even incorrect results. Not only the acts, but also medical practice and legal practice have to be considered when we try to compare the law on euthanasia in both countries. In this article I will make an attempt to do this. Lack of space requires omitting many details from the comparison. (shrink)

Equity is clearly central to Hobbes’s theory of the laws of nature, and it has an important place in his doctrine of the duties and exercise of sovereignty. It is also prominent in his general theory of law, especially as it is articulated in the late Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England. Still, it is not more central to Hobbes’s ethics, politics and legal philosophy than his concept of justice, or even as (...) central. On the contrary, his theory of justice is presupposed by his views about equity – in the sense that fidelity to a social contract is a condition of adjudication and definitive interpretation of law. Nor does equity contribute to a genuinely anti-authoritarian strand in Hobbes’s political philosophy. It is not as if, between the lines of that philosophy, Hobbes is a liberal. He does not think that the sovereign should exercise self-restraint because liberty and autonomy are good and sovereign self-restraint creates a space for both. Rather, he thinks that heavy-handed rule saps initiative, wealth and other resources from the people, making them less able to participate in or finance military action or internal state security. In other words, heavy-handed rule can make it harder for the sovereign to discharge the principal duty of sovereignty – ensuring public safety. (shrink)

A sense of malaise and uncertainty surrounds the so-called war on terror. This volume offers a bold rethinking of the central challenge in that conflict: the rise of radical Islamism. Mazarr argues that this movement represents the latest in a series of anti-modern political and philosophical rebellions: in its causes, the shape of its ideology, and its social consequences, the movement shares much in common with German fascism, Russian revolutionary doctrines, and Japanese imperialist nationalism. The book builds a model of (...) how anti-modern movements arise and suggests broader truths about the changing character of world politics and the psychological basis of national security in a globalized world. It concludes with a critique of the war on terror as currently pursued and a wide-ranging proposal for a strikingly different approach to the challenge of this latest challenge to modernity. (shrink)

In June 1979, Congress passed the Espionage Act, the first act of the three secrecy-defining statutes that have shaped so much of the last hundred years of modern American secrecy doctrine. Together with two other statutes that followed in later decades-the Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954, and the Patriot Act of 2001-these three Acts picked out inflection points in the great ratcheting process that has expanded secrecy from the protection of troop positions and recruitment stations through an (...) entire field of the physical sciences to almost the whole of government and civil society. Along with a surround of orders, directives, laws, and policies, these three Acts ground the modern world of national security secrecy. Necessarily schematic, my aim here is to follow the long term history of secrets over the last hundred years, using the debates and cases that that encircled them to understand better the governing principles of what information had to be hidden. What dangers did each period identify among things that should be secret? What were the properties and assumed power of these secrets? What kind of thing could, in the end, properly be declared secret? In short, I am interested in using the Acts to fix what it is that secrets were: An historically changing ontology of secrets from World War I through the Long War , and finally into the Terror Wars, our unbounded conflict. (shrink)

In the name of Husserl: nursing in pursuit of the things‐in‐themselves A perceived contradiction between the tenets of humanism and positivism secures phenomenology’s endorsement in nursing as an alternative methodology to the natural sciences. Nursing’s humanistic doctrine of valuing the individual is aligned with phenomenology in the belief that both projects investigate the subjective experiences of others. However, the belief that phenomenology opposes objectifying methods does not account for the different understandings of subjectivity that underpin various philosophic positions, such (...) as humanism, phenomenology, hermeneutics and positivism. What is not recognised in nursing inquiry is that the same characteristics which belong to humanism and are subsequently attributed as belonging to phenomenology are grounded, philosophically, in a view that separates the person from her world. But rather than examining the premises on which phenomenology and humanism are based, nurse‐phenomenologists have simply yoked them together in a mutual alliance against a common enemy — Cartesian dualism. This paper focuses on Husserl and argues that the conceptual link between nursing as a humanistic discipline and Husserlian phenomenology cannot be sustained on philosophic and methodologic grounds. Far from being mutual allies, the philosophic underpinnings of humanism and Husserlian phenomenology offer two incommensurable views on the nature of subjectivity. (shrink)

In June 1979, Congress passed the Espionage Act, the first act of the three secrecy-defining statutes that have shaped so much of the last hundred years of modern American secrecy doctrine. Together with two other statutes that followed in later decades-the Atomic Energy Acts of 1946 and 1954, and the Patriot Act of 2001-these three Acts picked out inflection points in the great ratcheting process that has expanded secrecy from the protection of troop positions and recruitment stations through an (...) entire field of the physical sciences to almost the whole of government and civil society. Along with a surround of orders, directives, laws, and policies, these three Acts ground the modern world of national security secrecy. Necessarily schematic, my aim here is to follow the long term history of secrets over the last hundred years, using the debates and cases that that encircled them to understand better the governing principles of what information had to be hidden. What dangers did each period identify among things that should be secret? What were the properties and assumed power of these secrets? What kind of thing could, in the end, properly be declared secret? In short, I am interested in using the Acts to fix what it is that secrets were: An historically changing ontology of secrets from World War I through the Long War, and finally into the Terror Wars, our unbounded conflict. (shrink)

In Hobbes scholarship, interpretations of his political philosophy as a liberal one have been substantiated with the argument that it contains a doctrine of toleration and defends the subjects’ liberty of conscience. I will argue that this argument is wrong. While Hobbes does accept a (limited) possibility of inner dissent, he rejects any right of citizens to openly declare their dissenting opinions and suggests means to influence these opinions and beliefs. While according to Hobbes the state should secure and (...) use a monopoly of public and political education this paper argues, drawing on recent scholarship, that this does not account for an unlicensed call to indoctrinate. Yet it also does not account for a doctrine of toleration, even if a limited liberty of conscience is granted. (shrink)

Present era can be categorized due to its speed of changes. Pakistani society got affected by worst kind of terrorism and extremism in last fifteen years. The root causes of prevailing security environment in Pakistan are multifaceted, complex and are derived from structural, as well as micro-level conditions. Objective of this research is to highlight the gaps in security doctrine of Pakistan. Both qualitative and quantitative methodology in the format of Knowledge Attitude and Practice is selected. Primary (...) question of this research was to find the gaps in national internal security policy of Pakistan. This primary question is further sub divided into ten sub questions. Implementation modalities and the impediments of National Internal Security Policy 2014 are also discussed. This research finds out that national internal security policy 2014 was a vibrant document and right step in the domain of policy formulation but demanded non-pragmatic results from security operators. Majority of its drawbacks are removed in in its later version of 2018-23. Survey and questionnaire based analysis is also made part of this article along with recommendations as submitted by respondents. (shrink)

What has come to be known as ‘the Bush Doctrine’ is an idealistic approach to international relations that imagines a world transformed by the promise of democracy and that sees military force as an appropriate means to utilize in pursuit of this goal. The Bush Doctrine has been described in various ways. It has been called ‘democratic realism,’ ‘national security liberalism,’ ‘democratic globalism,’ and ‘messianic universalism’.1 Another common claim is that this view is ‘neoconservative’.2 In what follows (...) I will employ the term ‘neoconservative’ as a convenient and commonly accepted name for the ideas that underlie the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine has been expressed in numerous speeches by President Bush and members of his administration.3 It is stated in the policy of the National Security Strategy of the United States.4 And it was employed in the invasion of Iraq. The hopeful aspiration of the Bush Doctrine is that democratization will result in peace. (shrink)

What has come to be known as ‘the Bush Doctrine’ is an idealistic approach to international relations that imagines a world transformed by the promise of democracy and that sees military force as an appropriate means to utilize in pursuit of this goal. The Bush Doctrine has been described in various ways. It has been called ‘democratic realism,’ ‘national security liberalism,’ ‘democratic globalism,’ and ‘messianic universalism’.1 Another common claim is that this view is ‘neoconservative’.2 In what follows (...) I will employ the term ‘neoconservative’ as a convenient and commonly accepted name for the ideas that underlie the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine has been expressed in numerous speeches by President Bush and members of his administration.3 It is stated in the policy of the National Security Strategy of the United States.4 And it was employed in the invasion of Iraq. The hopeful aspiration of the Bush Doctrine is that democratization will result in peace. (shrink)

The iconography of the Communion of the Apostles, a theme well established in Byzantine art after Iconoclasm, first appears in a securely dated context in the silver patens from Riha and Stuma. These silver plates were produced in Constantinople sometime between 575 and 578. The iconography with the twofold depiction of Christ is usually explained as a reflection of the liturgical practice of the Eucharist, namely, as a reflection of the two actors in the Eucharistic rite, the priest and a (...) deacon distributing bread and wine. I argue instead that during the early Byzantine period the twofold depiction of Christ is an expression of the two natures of Christ directed against the Miaphysites. I propose that the exceptional appearance of the scene in the two early Byzantine silver patens from church treasures from northern Syria is likely to be explained by its Christological significance with regard to Chalcedonian Eucharistic doctrine during the persecution of the Miaphysites in the 570s. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Love Against Revenge in Shelley's Prometheus David Bromwich I THE MODERNIST PREJUDICE AGAINST SHELLEY has almost disappeared, but when I talk to friends I discover that few have ever cared for his poetry, and if they go back now to read him sometimes they reinvent the prejudice. This resistance is not indifference. Shelley can disturb one's self-knowledge and even (...) one's idea of what self-knowledge may be; and in reaction against the unheard-of demand he routinely makes, one is apt to dismiss him as extravagant. Much of Shelley continues to be outside my range, and occasionally I feel him pulling farther away, as if his starting point were my outermost limit. The fact is shaming enough to prompt a decorous defensiveness. Yet in many of his most far-fetched poems, it seems to me, he justifies his procedures as one looks for a great artist to do. The main reason we find his poetry difficult is its difficulty.Shelley was a member of the first generation to accept the French Revolution as an accomplished change in the world. It was, he thought, a change for the better; he considered himself a revolutionary, though the Terror and the Napoleonic wars left their chastening mark on him. A sentence from the Preface to The Revolt of Islam, of 1817, states most clearly an intuition he held as deeply a year later when he wrote the first act of Prometheus Unbound: "There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past." 1 Humanity, by the adaptive work of thoughts and feelings, will prove to have readied itself for any great mutation that occurs in society; so that the violence of a revolution is likely to be [End Page 239] extrinsic and unnecessary. The reasons for the assurance implicit here are brought forward in the two great prose works of his last years, A Defence of Poetry and A Philosophical View of Reform. By the time any revolution happens in life, Shelley believes, it has already happened in language, with causes that are as visible as the difference between a living and a dead metaphor. Poetry—by which he means anything imaginative and man-made whose good survives the defects of its maker—"redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man." He thinks that poets (including some lawgivers and social critics) are "the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." The last phrase, from the closing paragraph of A Defence of Poetry, seemed to Shelley important enough to be used also in A Philosophical View of Reform. For him, the principle of reform in language is identical with the principle of reform in thought and action.His doctrine belongs to the high Enlightenment, and he had accepted, more complacently, I believe, in his poetry than in his prose, the idea of the poet or thinker or man-of-mind as a bringer of light to humanity. That ideal was strong in Wordsworth too, with his conception of the poet as "the rock of defence for human nature," but in Shelley it exists in tension with another belief: that the instinct for acting and suffering at the bidding of a nature "not our own" may become as general as the appeal of the revolution now accomplished. Only in having a language for thoughts and feelings does the poet differ from other men and women. This, for Shelley, is a difference not (as it was for Wordsworth) between a speaker and a listener, but rather like that between a translator and a reader. If the poet were unique in the way a revolutionary leader is unique, he would be the protagonist of a fable of revenge that needs likewise its antagonist. Our thoughts about change go along these lines because they tend to be thoughts about contest. But in his later poetry, and in Prometheus Unbound above all, Shelley was looking at... (shrink)

The article underlines the significance of social rights as important constitutional rights of a human being and emphasises the peculiarities of their nature from the point of view of not only national, but also international law. The article presents an analysis of the constitutional doctrine of the protection of guarantees of social rights, which has been formulated by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania in the course of considering the issues of reduction of social guarantees—pensions and remuneration, (...) which were determined by the economic crisis. In the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence the personal right to social security has been construed in the most broad and comprehensive terms. The human rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution have been treated as constituting an integrated and harmonious system, and social rights have been interpreted not only as certain obligations of the state to the public, which inter alia are determined by the social purpose of the state, but also as a person’s individual rights, for which judicial defence is guaranteed. Such concept of the said rights has also been influenced by international law, inter alia the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Social rights, while being an object of regulation of international law, have been forming the European doctrine of guarantees of these rights and have influenced the concept of these rights in national law. The main attention in the article is devoted to the analysis of the doctrine formulated in the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence in relation to the correction (limitation) of social rights (payment of pensions and remuneration) under the conditions of economic crisis. In the article the period of formation of this doctrine is divided into two stages: the period of 2002–2006, when the Constitutional Court had to decide regarding the compliance of the legal acts whereby social guarantees had been constricted with the Constitution, and which was caused by the consequences of the so-called Russian economic crisis for the economic development of the state of Lithuania; and the period from 2009 to date, during which the Constitutional Court has been forming the constitutional doctrine of limitation of social rights, which was conditioned by the outcomes of the global economic crisis for the economy of the state of Lithuania. The article raises a question as to whether the constitutional doctrine being formed by the Constitutional Court in relation to the limitation of social rights under the conditions of economic crisis may be assessed as an independent one or whether it still remains to be a separate case of limitation of rights within the general doctrine of limitation of human rights. On the basis of the analysis of the Constitutional Court’s jurisprudence, a conclusion is drawn that the criteria established in the Constitutional Court’s doctrine of limitation of social rights under the conditions of economic crisis are even stricter than the universally recognised criteria for the limitation of human rights in the law of human rights, therefore, it is possible to assess the doctrine of limitation of social rights under the conditions of economic crisis, as formulated by the Constitutional Court during 2009–2012, which is the continuation of the previous doctrine, as an independent doctrine, the basis of which, undoubtedly, remains to be formed by the general principles of limitation of human rights recognised in the law of human rights. The article is not only confined to the analysis of the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, it also provides examples of construction of the doctrine of social rights (inter alia those influenced by the economic crisis) by certain other constitutional courts. (shrink)

As global governance institutions proliferate and become more powerful, their legitimacy is subject to ever sharper scrutiny. Yet what legitimacy means in this context and how it is to be ascertained are often unclear. In a previous paper in this journal, we offered a general account of the legitimacy of such institutions and a set of standards for determining when they are legitimate. In this paper we focus on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council as an institution for (...) making decisions concerning the use of military force across state borders. The context for this topic has changed over the last decade as a result of the ongoing development of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) doctrine and extensive discussions about it in the United Nations. Yet the mostly widely accepted proposals for RtoP still require Security Council authorization for forceful intervention, and strictly limit the conditions under which such intervention may take place. (shrink)

According to the fox koan, the second case in the Wu-men kuan koan collection, Zen master Pai-chang encounters a fox who claims to be a former abbot punished through endless reincarnations for denying the efficacy of karmic causality. In the end he is liberated by Pai-chang's turning word, which asserts the inexorability of cause-and-effect. Most traditional interpretations of the koan focus on the philosophical issue of causality in relation to earlier Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent origination and emptiness. Dogen, the (...) founder of the Japanese Soto school, devoted two fascicles of the Shobogenzo exclusively to the fox koan. One fascicle supports a paradoxical view of causality and non-causality, the two being "two sides of the same coin"; the second strongly attacks this interpretation and defends a literal reading that asserts causality and denies non-causality. Dogen's apparent change of heart on this topic has inspired scholars of the recent Critical Buddhist methodology to evaluate the merits and weaknesses in Zen's attitude toward ethical issues and social affairs. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan. Steven Heine integrates his own philological analysis of the koan, textual analysis of koan collections and related literary genres in T'ang and Sung China, folklore studies, recent discourse theory, Dogen studies, and research on monastic codes and institutional history to craft an original and compelling work. More specifically, he illuminates a fascinating dimension of the entire Ch'an/Zen tradition as he carefully lays out the philosophical issues in the koan concerning causality/karma and enlightenment, the ethical issues contained therein, the bearing that certain interpretations of causality had on the creation of monastic codes and institutional security in China, the relation between Zen and folk religion as revealed by the koan, and the issue of possible antinomianism in Zen, especially as grappled with by later thinkers such as Dogen and contemporary representatives of Critical Buddhism. Finally he applies theories of "high" and "low" religion and contemporary discourse and in the process rethinks the theories and their applicability across cultures. Far-reaching yet rigorous, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text will not only attract the interest of Ch'an/Zen specialists, but also those studying folklore, popular religion, and issues concerning the nature of discourse and the relation between "high" and "low" religions. (shrink)

According to the fox koan, the second case in the Wu-men kuan koan collection, Zen master Pai-chang encounters a fox who claims to be a former abbot punished through endless reincarnations for denying the efficacy of karmic causality. In the end he is liberated by Pai-chang's turning word, which asserts the inexorability of cause-and-effect. Most traditional interpretations of the koan focus on the philosophical issue of causality in relation to earlier Buddhist doctrines, such as dependent origination and emptiness. Dogen, the (...) founder of the Japanese Soto school, devoted two fascicles of the Shobogenzo exclusively to the fox koan. One fascicle supports a paradoxical view of causality and non-causality, the two being "two sides of the same coin"; the second strongly attacks this interpretation and defends a literal reading that asserts causality and denies non-causality. Dogen's apparent change of heart on this topic has inspired scholars of the recent Critical Buddhist methodology to evaluate the merits and weaknesses in Zen's attitude toward ethical issues and social affairs. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text examines the fox koan in relation to philosophical and institutional issues facing the Ch'an/Zen tradition in both Sung China and medieval and contemporary Japan. Steven Heine integrates his own philological analysis of the koan, textual analysis of koan collections and related literary genres in T'ang and Sung China, folklore studies, recent discourse theory, Dogen studies, and research on monastic codes and institutional history to craft an original and compelling work. More specifically, he illuminates a fascinating dimension of the entire Ch'an/Zen tradition as he carefully lays out the philosophical issues in the koan concerning causality/karma and enlightenment, the ethical issues contained therein, the bearing that certain interpretations of causality had on the creation of monastic codes and institutional security in China, the relation between Zen and folk religion as revealed by the koan, and the issue of possible antinomianism in Zen, especially as grappled with by later thinkers such as Dogen and contemporary representatives of Critical Buddhism. Finally he applies theories of "high" and "low" religion and contemporary discourse and in the process rethinks the theories and their applicability across cultures. Far-reaching yet rigorous, Shifting Shape, Shaping Text will not only attract the interest of Ch'an/Zen specialists, but also those studying folklore, popular religion, and issues concerning the nature of discourse and the relation between "high" and "low" religions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Love Against Revenge in Shelley's Prometheus David Bromwich I THE MODERNIST PREJUDICE AGAINST SHELLEY has almost disappeared, but when I talk to friends I discover that few have ever cared for his poetry, and if they go back now to read him sometimes they reinvent the prejudice. This resistance is not indifference. Shelley can disturb one's self-knowledge and even (...) one's idea of what self-knowledge may be; and in reaction against the unheard-of demand he routinely makes, one is apt to dismiss him as extravagant. Much of Shelley continues to be outside my range, and occasionally I feel him pulling farther away, as if his starting point were my outermost limit. The fact is shaming enough to prompt a decorous defensiveness. Yet in many of his most far-fetched poems, it seems to me, he justifies his procedures as one looks for a great artist to do. The main reason we find his poetry difficult is its difficulty.Shelley was a member of the first generation to accept the French Revolution as an accomplished change in the world. It was, he thought, a change for the better; he considered himself a revolutionary, though the Terror and the Napoleonic wars left their chastening mark on him. A sentence from the Preface to The Revolt of Islam, of 1817, states most clearly an intuition he held as deeply a year later when he wrote the first act of Prometheus Unbound: "There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past." 1 Humanity, by the adaptive work of thoughts and feelings, will prove to have readied itself for any great mutation that occurs in society; so that the violence of a revolution is likely to be [End Page 239] extrinsic and unnecessary. The reasons for the assurance implicit here are brought forward in the two great prose works of his last years, A Defence of Poetry and A Philosophical View of Reform. By the time any revolution happens in life, Shelley believes, it has already happened in language, with causes that are as visible as the difference between a living and a dead metaphor. Poetry—by which he means anything imaginative and man-made whose good survives the defects of its maker—"redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man." He thinks that poets (including some lawgivers and social critics) are "the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present." The last phrase, from the closing paragraph of A Defence of Poetry, seemed to Shelley important enough to be used also in A Philosophical View of Reform. For him, the principle of reform in language is identical with the principle of reform in thought and action.His doctrine belongs to the high Enlightenment, and he had accepted, more complacently, I believe, in his poetry than in his prose, the idea of the poet or thinker or man-of-mind as a bringer of light to humanity. That ideal was strong in Wordsworth too, with his conception of the poet as "the rock of defence for human nature," but in Shelley it exists in tension with another belief: that the instinct for acting and suffering at the bidding of a nature "not our own" may become as general as the appeal of the revolution now accomplished. Only in having a language for thoughts and feelings does the poet differ from other men and women. This, for Shelley, is a difference not (as it was for Wordsworth) between a speaker and a listener, but rather like that between a translator and a reader. If the poet were unique in the way a revolutionary leader is unique, he would be the protagonist of a fable of revenge that needs likewise its antagonist. Our thoughts about change go along these lines because they tend to be thoughts about contest. But in his later poetry, and in Prometheus Unbound above all, Shelley was looking at... (shrink)

Science has demonstrated that the universe creates itself through its own history. This history is the result of a probabilistic process, not a deterministic execution of a plan. Science has also documented that human beings are a result of this universal, probabilistic process of general evolution. At first sight, these results seem to contradict Christian teaching. According to the Bible, history is essentially the history of salvation. Human beings therefore are not an “accident of nature” but special creations to be (...) saved. With deeper theological probing, it becomes clearer, however, that creation must create itself. The Christian God is the loving God who enters into a loving relationship with human beings if they desire to reciprocate. If creation could not create itself, human beings could not be free. Without freedom to ignore or reject God's love, the central act of the Christian God, the drama of salvation, would become a parody played by marionettes in the hands of a supernatural manipulator. Christians should welcome the fundamental insight brought forth by science that the universe, including human beings, created itself through its own history. This article will try to show that this scientific insistence is required and confirmed by the intrinsic character of the orthodox, Judeo‐Christian concept of God. That nature has to create itself, including human beings, secures human freedom and with it, the responsibility for human actions. From this perspective one might better understand the Bible in the light of God's revelation through the book of nature. (shrink)

On the same day, 23 September 2003, that President George W. Bush defended his Iraq policy to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan also spoke to the Assembly. Annan reiterated his opposition to the view that states may independently be justified in using military force “preemptively” to avoid the dangers posed by the spread of weapons of mass destruction among states and terrorists, including nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

In his doctrine of right, Kant sketched out the image of a state that secures the freedom and property of its citizens, but excludes questions of the distribution of goods. Therefore, following his basic ideas, attempts are made to incorporate socially balancing mechanisms into the theory of property. By means of some typical argumentation approaches, it is shown which paths to solve the social question are taken by Kant’s interpreters and which are closed according to the internal structural principles (...) of Kant’s legal doctrine. With a view to Kant’s preliminary work, the concept of freedom is expanded to include a positive component of opportunities for freedom and distributive justice is interpreted as an inclusive economic, social and societal system of participatory justice. (shrink)

This article analyzes the origins of the “responsible corporate officer” doctrine: the trial of Joseph Dotterweich. That doctrine holds that an officer may be personally liable for the criminal act of a subordinate if the officer was, in some indefinite way, able to prevent the violation. Applying this doctrine, the prosecution of Dotterweich entailed strict liability for a strict liability offense. The underlying offenses—the interstate sale of one misbranded and adulterated drug and one misbranded drug—were said to (...) be strict liability offenses. And then, with respect to Dotterweich as the corporation’s general manager, the government argued that he was strictly liable because he stood in “responsible relation” to the company’s acts. The government never tried to prove that the company, Buffalo Pharmacal, was negligent, nor did it try to prove that Dotterweich was negligent in his supervision of the employees of Buffalo Pharmacal. The prosecutor and judge were candid about this theory throughout the trial, although the judge conceded that it seemed bizarre and unfair. The defense lawyer repeatedly sought to inject what became known throughout the trial as the “question of good faith,” but was circumvented at almost every turn. What would thus seem to be the crux of any criminal trial—the personal fault of the defendant—was carefully shorn from the jury’s consideration. The government’s theory was so at odds with intuitive notions of liability and blame that, as one probes into the case, and looks at the language used in the government’s appellate briefs, imputations of moral fault inevitably crept in. Yet the government was not entitled to make such accusations, as it had pruned moral considerations from the trial. The article argues that the responsible corporate officer doctrine can never enjoy a secure place in our legal system. First, the doctrine is at a minimum in tension with, and often in direct opposition to, basic principles of the criminal law; and second, the doctrine fails, when followed to its logical conclusions, to accord with basic notions of fair play. The article concludes that the responsible corporate officer doctrine is either unnecessary, in cases in which the evidence establishes personal fault, or unjust, in cases in which it creates liability in the absence of personal fault through the unspecified notion of “responsibility.” The Dotterweich case illustrates what is contemplated by the latter possibility, and why it is problematic in any judicial system that purports, in the words of the Model Penal Code, “to safeguard conduct that is without fault from condemnation as criminal.”. (shrink)

Philosophers have long and skeptically viewed religion as a source of overeasy answers, with a singular, totalizing "God" and the comfort of an immortal soul being the greatest among them. But religious thought has always been more interesting--indeed, a rich source of endlessly unfolding questions. With questions from the 1885 Baltimore Catechism of the Catholic Church as the starting point for each chapter, Karmen MacKendrick offers postmodern reflections on many of the central doctrines of the Church: the oneness of God, (...) original sin, forgiveness, love and its connection to mortality, reverence for the relics of saints, and the doctrine of bodily resurrection. She maintains that we begin and end in questions and not in answers, in fragments and not in totalities--more precisely, in a fragmentation paradoxically integral to wholeness. Taking seriously Augustine's idea that we find the divine in memory, MacKendrick argues that memory does not lead us back in time to a tidy answer but opens onto a complicated and fragmented time in which we find that the one and the many, before and after and now, even sacred and profane are complexly entangled. Time becomes something lived, corporeal, and sacred, with fragments of eternity interspersed among the stretches of its duration. Our sense of ourselves is correspondingly complex, because theological considerations lead us not to the security of an everlasting, indivisible soul dwelling comfortably in the presence of a paternal deity but to a more complicated, perpetually peculiar, and paradoxical life in the flesh. Written out of MacKendrick's extensive background in both recent and late-ancient philosophy, this moving and poetic book can also be an inspiration to anyone, scholar or lay reader, seeking to find contemporary significance in these ancient theological doctrines. (shrink)

The issue of justice after catastrophe is an enormous challenge to contemporary theories of distributive justice. In the past three decades, the controversy over distributive justice has centered on the ideal of equality. One of intensely debated issues concerns what is often called the “equality of what,” on which there are three primary views: welfarism, resourcism, and the capabilities approach. Another major point of dispute can be termed the “equality or another,” about which three positions debate: egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism. (...) On these topics of distributive justice, authors are concerned with the current difference between the better-off and the worse-off or the present situation of the badly-off. By contrast, it is essential to take account of the past distribution of well-being as well as the present situation in order to explore questions of post-catastrophe justice. Without looking at the pre-disaster distribution of income, preference satisfaction, or basic capabilities among affected people, no present assessment of the damage caused by the disaster could be correct and no proposed remedy adequate. It is true that luck egalitarians assess the current distribution among people by referring to the decision that each individual made. Yet they pay scant attention to the situation in which each one stayed in the past. Therefore, we can legitimately say that most theorists of distributive justice, including luck egalitarians, have failed to give consideration to the past state of each person. -/- To fill this gap in the literature, the present article explores philosophical questions that arise when we take account of each person’s past and present situations in discussing distributive justice regarding public compensation and assistance to survivors and families of victims of natural and industrial disasters. In addressing these novel questions, I develop and refine various concepts, ideas, and arguments that have been presented in the study of distributive justice in normal settings. I tackle two tasks, the first of which is to explore the foundation and scope of luck egalitarianism. Despite the moral appeal it has in many cases, luck egalitarianism has attracted the so-called harshness objection. Some luck egalitarians attempt to avoid this objection in a pragmatic way by combining the luck egalitarian doctrine with the principle of basic needs satisfaction. However, they do not provide any systematic rationale for this combination. In contrast with such pragmatic responses, I seek to offer a principled argument for holding individuals responsible for their choices only when their basic needs are met, by invoking the ideas of respect for human voluntariness and rescue of human vulnerability. Based on this argument, I propose a form of responsibility-sensitive theory, which considers the pre-disaster distribution of well-being as a default position. The second task I take on is to refine sufficientarianism in the context of post-catastrophe justice. Luck egalitarianism with boundaries set by the basic needs principle seems to indicate the potential for sufficientarianism. But major proponents of this view conceive the welfarist assumption, a considerably high standard of well-being, and the controversial treatment of persons staying below the threshold, all of which seem problematic in the post-disaster situation. I try to construct a new version of sufficientarianism by replacing these current features with more robust ones. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III by John F. WippelTherese Scarpelli CoryWIPPEL, John F. Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas III. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021. ix + 321 pp. Cloth, $65.00; eBook, $65.00This volume is the third in what can now be considered informally a series of volumes collecting some of John F. Wippel's most important writings. (Two previous volumes, Metaphysical Themes in Thomas (...) Aquinas and Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, were published in 1984 and 2007, respectively, by the same press.) In this volume, Wippel has collected nine of his articles or book chapters, originally published from 2002–2019, on a wide range of topics: (1) "Aquinas on Separatio and Our Discovery of Being as Being," (2) "Thomas Aquinas on Philosophy and the Preambles of Faith," (3) "Cornelio Fabro on the Distinction and Composition of Essence and Esse in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas," (4) "Cornelio Fabro on Participation and Aquinas's Quarta Via," (5) "Aquinas on Creation and Preambles of Faith," (6) "Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form," (7) "Thomas Aquinas on the Separated Soul's Natural Knowledge," (8) "Metaphysical Themes in De Malo I," and (9) "Metaphysical Composition of Angels in Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Godfrey of Fontaines."Such collections provide a valuable opportunity for the author's retrospective on the work thus collected. In this respect, it is especially worth noting the usefulness of the introduction to this volume, in which Wippel has provided a detailed précis for each included chapter. The introduction thus serves as a helpful roadmap to orient new and returning readers of Wippel's work to some of his most important writings.In a book review of this length, it is impossible to summarize adequately the content of each essay. Indeed, it would be redundant to try, given the much more authoritative content of Wippel's own introduction to the volume. Consequently, I will limit myself to highlighting one of the notable inclusions in this collection, namely, chapter 6, "Thomas Aquinas and the Unity of Substantial Form." Despite the modest title, the piece is an extensive and wide-ranging study of the development and fate of Aquinas's controversial doctrine, the anxieties it raised among his contemporaries, and the debate that raged at Paris in the late thirteenth century, and during which the doctrine appears to have narrowly escaped inclusion on the list of condemnations of 1270. Wippel correlates some interesting historical anecdotes and documentary evidence with Aquinas's series of changing formulations in discussions of the unity of substantial form. He is thereby able to document a particularly nuanced case in which Aquinas attempts to make his own thought clearer in the face of a developing controversy, but without giving up on the essentials of his own position.Nonetheless, Wippel points out that Aquinas never fully resolved the theological criticisms lodged against his position. Within the debate over the number of substantial forms in a substance, the identity of Christ's dead body in the tomb between the crucifixion and resurrection ended up becoming a test case: What makes Christ's living body and his dead body in the tomb both be identically the same body? The problem is as follows: [End Page 371] Since substantial form is what secures the identity of a substance across time, if there is just one substantial form in a human substance, and that form (the human soul) departs Christ's body in his death on the cross, then after his death whatever is left can no longer be identified as Christ's body. It must be some new substance with its own substantial form.For opponents, this difficulty was fatal. How did Aquinas respond? Disappointingly, he only asserts that Christ's dead body is numerically identical with his living body, just not "in every way"—but without explaining why he thinks this identity is preserved. It is left to Giles of Rome to fill out a tentative solution: Although the matter of Christ's body does take on a new substantial form, it remains Christ's, because it remains united to the person of the Word.The problem is... (shrink)

The post 9/11 environment has been characterized by domestic policy actors being incorporated into a globalizing defense industrial sector through the concept of civil-military integration. From administration to administration, the push for increased civil-military integration has spread beyond its original boundaries and has reached the frontlines of the American military. This begs the question, can the market-driven logic of the commercial sector be integrated into the objectives and values of the noncivilian, military sector? More precisely, is civil-military integration the appropriate (...) solution to the post 9/11 strategic shift? The purpose of this study is not to address the detailed merits or limitations of the increased reliance on private contractors. Rather, this study’s primary focus is to examine the policies that set into motion and continue to promote the cornerstone of civil-military integration: strategic outsourcing. This study argues that in today’s threat environment, the extent of civil-military integration poses unique challenges for U.S. strategic policy. With contactors on the battlefield, basic doctrinal issues emerge. The most basic of these is the notion that in a war zone military members are asked to risk their lives for their country. But, while people are willing to risk their lives for their country, they may not be willing to risk their lives for their company. (shrink)

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is famous for its extreme skepticism. Louis Loeb argues that Hume's destructive conclusions have in fact obscured a constructive stage that Hume abandons prematurely. Working within a philosophical tradition that values tranquillity, Hume favors an epistemology that links justification with settled belief. Hume appeals to psychological stability to support his own epistemological assessments, both favorable regarding causal inference, and unfavorable regarding imaginative propensities. The theory's success in explaining Hume's epistemic distinctions gives way to (...) pessimism, since Hume contends that reflection on beliefs is deeply destabilizing. So much the worse, Hume concludes, for placing a premium on reflection. Hume endorses and defends the position that stable beliefs of unreflective persons are justified, though they would not survive reflection. At the same time, Hume relishes the paradox that unreflective beliefs enjoy a preferred epistemic status and strains to establish it. Loeb introduces a series of amendments to the Treatise that secures a more positive result for justified belief while maintaining Hume's fundamental principles. In his review of Hume's applications of his epistemology, Loeb uncovers a stratum of psychological doctrine beyond associationism, a theory of conditions in which beliefs are felt to conflict and of the resolution of this uneasiness or dissonance. This theory of mental conflict is also essential to Hume's strategy for integrating empiricism about meaning with his naturalism. However, Hume fails to provide a general account of the conditions in which conflicting beliefs lead to persisting instability, so his theory is incomplete. Loeb explores Hume's concern with stability in reference to his discussions of belief, education, the probability of causes, unphilosophical probability, the belief in body, sympathy and moral judgment, and the passions, among other topics. (shrink)

Uberrima Fides is a legal doctrine that governs insurance contracts and expects all parties to the insurance agreement to act in good faith by declaring all material facts relative to a policy. The doctrine originated in England in 1766 with the case Carter v Boehm ruled by Lord Mansfield. Ever since, it has become, with some differences in interpretation, a cornerstone of insurance relationships around the world. The role that trust plays within it, however, is not simple and (...) should not be taken for granted. While it is expected that an idea of trust represents an order of truth, trust in itself is the outcome of a complex negotiation of moral orders. Semiotically, trust operates here not as a Kantian category for the understanding but as a signifier of an order of truth that upholds the possibility for insurance relationships. Trust, as sign, operates as a condition of possibility for the performance of insurance. In this article, a Foucaultian approach is employed to problematise the idea of trust and its role in insurance relationships. The case of mis-selling of insurance policies in the United Kingdom since the 1980s, which has given rise to numerous legal rulings, is used as the empirical site for the problematisation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Human Nature in Early Franciscan Thought: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance by Lydia SchumacherStephen TomlinsonLydia Schumacher, Human Nature in Early Franciscan Thought: Philosophical Background and Theological Significance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. vii + 343. ISBN: 978-1-009-20111-7. $120.00This latest monograph from Lydia Schumacher is a welcome addition to the growing body of contemporary scholarship on the early Franciscan intellectual tradition. It offers something of a consolidation of (...) Schumacher's recent work, particularly on the Summa Halensis, where she and others have sought to clarify and establish the sources behind many of the fundamental philosophical and theological positions articulated by prominent members of the early Franciscan Order and faculty at the University of Paris in the first decades of the thirteenth century. Success in this endeavor has afforded scholars a more accurate sense of both the diverse array of auctoritates, particularly non-Christian, from whom these theologians freely drew, as well as the subsequent influence of their work upon the later medieval intellectual tradition. In this respect, the present study, which surveys the field of anthropology as developed and articulated by the friars in the early thirteenth century at the University of Paris, aims to deconstruct certain long-standing narratives regarding early Franciscan theology and especially philosophy, particularly its opposition or aversion to Aristotle on the one hand, and its status as a simple reiteration of Augustine on the other. In support of this objective, Schumacher brings forth compelling evidence that suggests a more complex and unique synthesis, one not only between Augustine and other Christian authors, but especially Arabic and Jewish sources, whose ideas were readily received and subsequently transmitted under Augustine's name. The governing logic for this synthesis, as Schumacher argues, was to secure intellectual justification of and rationale for the religious vision set forth by Francis of Assisi. [End Page 249]Following a brief introduction, where Schumacher establishes her principal thesis and reviews pertinent trends in contemporary scholarship, the first two chapters situate the focus of the book by reviewing the tradition of the philosophy of soul as it developed in the ancient world and early Middle Ages, and its subsequent reception in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. We are first introduced to a survey of seminal contributions in the field of psychology, including the medical works of Galen and Avicenna, as well as certain writings of Gregory Nyssa and John Damascene (pg. 13-15). Moving into the twelfth century, attention is given to the Cistercian authors, particularly William of St. Thierry and Isaac of Stella, and the influential De spiritu et anima (pg. 15-21). During this time the Middle Ages also saw the first translations of key anthropological texts from the Islamic and Jewish tradition, including Avicenna's De Anima, Book of the Cure, and Avicebron's Fons Vitae (pg. 21-31). Once into the thirteenth century, Schumacher provides a helpful overview of the reception and early attempts at a synthesis of the foregoing tradition undertaken at the University of Paris by certain secular masters such as William of Auxerre and Philip the Chancellor, as well as John of La Rochelle and the early Franciscan friars involved in the composition and compilation of the Summa Halensis (pg. 31-64).Having established the historical context and background to the intellectual ferment taking place at the University of Paris in the early thirteenth century, the book then shifts to a systematic examination of various topics of interest within the field of anthropology. Here, Schumacher observes that when it comes to the friars, they do intend to adhere to a basic Augustinian framework as it regards certain fundamentals such as the substance and composition of the soul, its various powers, and its relationship to the body, all the while supplementing and integrating this paradigm with material taken from other non-Christian philosophers, especially Avicenna and Avicebron (pg. 65-103). In light of this, the majority of the subsequent chapters examine closely the teaching of the early friars, especially John of La Rochelle, on the various powers of the soul and in particular, cognition and the mechanics of epistemology (pg. 104-227).Additionally, Schumacher traces the doctrine of... (shrink)

The article states that in the "Esprit des Lois" Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu famously proposes a version of the doctrine of the separation of judicial, executive and legislative power as a way of protecting political liberty ("the opinion each has of his security"). Given the context in which he situates his arguments: an immense and theoretically opaque excursus which discusses almost everything known to political theory, anthropology and economics before his time, and essentially descriptive methodology, it is (...) not easy to discern a clear line of argument in support of the doctrine of the separation of powers. (shrink)

This thesis attempts to argue against an influential interpretation of Kant's philosophy of mathematics according to which the role of pure intuition is primarily logical. Kant's appeal to pure intuition, and consequently his belief in the synthetic character of mathematics, is, on this view, a result of the limitations of the logical resources available in his time. In contrast to this, a reading is presented of the development of Kant's philosophy of mathematics which emphasises a much richer philosophical role for (...) intuition, beyond that of filling in deductive gaps in mathematical arguments. This role is largely determined by two factors: on the one hand, the epistemological gap in a traditional account of mathematical certainty, and on the other hand, the metaphysical worry raised by the followers of Leibniz and Wolff regarding the status of mathematics as a science consisting of truths. ;By appreciating how Kant's philosophy of mathematics developed against the background of what he saw as a conflict between the 'metaphysicians' and the 'mathematicians', we can see how the doctrine of pure intuition was required to fill the gaps in the account of the method and certainty of mathematics which Kant presents in the Prize Essay of 1764. This conflict takes its sharpest form between the monadists who uphold the metaphysical necessity of simple elements, and the geometers who uphold the infinite divisibility of space. In the Prize Essay Kant indirectly addresses this conflict by comparing the two disciplines. He asserts that the method of attaining certainty in mathematics is different from the method of metaphysics, and that as a result of this difference--primarily the different roles of definitions in each--mathematics is capable of a higher degree of certainty than metaphysics. He does not, however, explain this difference. Such an explanation seems particularly important in light of Kant's wish to secure geometry against the challenge of metaphysics. This thesis attempts to show that it is to provide such an explanation, to provide a philosophical grounding for the Prize Essay account, that Kant invokes the doctrine of pure intuition in his later account of mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

Bringing together contributors from philosophy, international relations, security studies, and strategic studies, New Wars and New Soldiers offers a truly interdisciplinary analysis reflective of the nature of modern warfare. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to see the broad scope of modern military ethics, and to understand the numerous questions about modern conflict that require critical scrutiny. Aimed at both military and academic audiences, this paperback will be of significant interest to researchers and students in philosophy, sociology, military and (...) strategic studies, international relations, politics, and security studies, acting as an ideal course text or as supplementary reading. (shrink)