Call generalism about children’s and adults’ wellbeing the thesis that the same theory of wellbeing applies to both children and adults. Our goal is to examine whether generalism is true. While this question has not received much attention in the past, it has recently been suggested that generalism is likely to be false and that we need to elaborate different theories of children’s and adults’ wellbeing. In this paper, we defend generalism against the main objections it faces and make a (...) positive case for it. (shrink)

Many of our ideological, political, moral, religious, aesthetic, scientific beliefs, as well as those concerning everyday life, are controversial; other people do not share them. As a rule, that does not bother us much: we tend to retain our contestable beliefs even if we ascribe no less skill and well-informedness to those who represent other points of view than to ourselves. But is that really reasonable? Shouldn't we often admit that we might be as wrong as others? And if we (...) do, shouldn't this consequently lead us to give up many of our beliefs in favor of agnostic attitudes? Marc Andree Weber argues that in the face of disagreement with equally competent and well-informed interlocutors we should almost always refrain from insisting on our controversial beliefs – with the few exceptions being all the more remarkable. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that the phenomenon of predation is the source of several problems for Donaldson and Kymlicka's account of our duties towards wild and liminal animals. According to them, humans should adopt a general policy of non-intervention with respect to predatory behaviour involving wild and liminal animals. They justify this recommendation by appealing to the status of those animals as, respectively, members of sovereign communities and denizens of human-animal societies. Our goal is not to question their recommendation, (...) but to challenge the reasons given in its support. On the one hand, we argue that, insofar as wild animal communities are incapable of dealing with massive predation, they do not possess the competence required for sovereignty. Moreover, we argue that, even if we leave the issue of competence aside, attributing sovereignty rights to communities including both predators and preys may not be the best way to protect wild animals’ fundamental interests. On the other hand, we argue that there exist two important disanalogies between human denizens and liminal animals, which render Donaldson and Kymlicka's denizenship framework problematic. We suggest that the ultimate justification for a general policy of non-intervention lies in the significant risk of causing greater harm by acting otherwise, due to our limited knowledge and resources. (shrink)

During the past 25 years, the words “theory of action” and “agency theory” have become key-terms in a new branch of philosophy. The themes appear to gain a centrality and influence such that one is led to think that they should cover most of philosophy, including the foundation for all of the human sciences. The number of treatises on human action and on philosophical and special-scientific theories of action is staggering. For the most part inspired by analytic philosophy, the new (...) approach threatens to take over that school’s central place on the stage of international philosophical concern. Having ousted theory of science from that position with an avalanche of analytic studies, analytic philosophy, in turn, is now being overrun by philosophy of action as supposedly suitable basis for the sciences. (shrink)

Museums are safe spaces for the objects they hold and for the persons that visit them, providing environments that can function in therapeutic ways. Within the wide range of objects, there is enough diversity to help guests discover what similarities they have with others as well as what makes them unique as individuals. Within exhibits, individuals can explore themselves through the reactions they have to particular pieces, through the observation of what holds their attention within the environment, and through the (...) awareness and development of their contemplative mind. Museums can introduce transpersonal information, add information to previous transpersonal experiences, and even promote expanded states of awareness. With direction, guests can use museums to learn about themselves, thus optimizing the therapeutic potentials of these institutions. (shrink)

Robert Rosen has proposed several characteristics to distinguish “simple” physical systems (or “mechanisms”) from “complex” systems, such as living systems, which he calls “organisms”. The Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) introduced by the authors in preceding papers are shown to provide a mathematical model, based on category theory, which satisfies his characteristics of organisms, in particular the merger of the Aristotelian causes. Moreover they identify the condition for the emergence of objects and systems of increasing complexity. As an application, the cognitive (...) system of an animal is modeled by the “MES of cat-neurons” obtained by successive complexifications of his neural system, in which the emergence of higher order cognitive processes gives support to Mario Bunge’s “emergentist monism.”. (shrink)

A commonly neglected feature of the so-called Equal Weight View, according to which we should give our peers’ opinions the same weight we give our own, is its prima facie incompatibility with the common picture of philosophy as an armchair activity: an intellectual effort to seek a priori knowledge. This view seems to imply that our beliefs are more likely to be true if we leave our armchair in order to find out whether there actually are peers who, by disagreeing (...) with us, force us to revise our beliefs. This article argues that the Equal Weight View should be spelled out in such a way that not only actual peer disagreement requires us to revise our beliefs, but also merely possible peer disagreement. This result is not a reductio ad absurdum of the view. Quite the opposite: it shows that the view is, contrary to appearance, compatible with our common way of doing philosophy. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse explore the question of whether there are good reasons for schools to try and produce citizens disposed to use, and practiced in, civil discourse and behavior, and if so, what this implies for schools. First, the authors propose an account of the value (and disvalue) of civility, drawing on Cheshire Calhoun’s conception. They argue that civility is good in many circumstances, but not always. In some circumstances, it is neither beneficial nor morally required. Second, they (...) elucidate the reasons for teaching civility in schools and what they think that doing so would involve, what demands it would make on teachers, and how the aim of promoting civility would shape the structure of schools. Finally, they identify some reasons for pessimism that schools can be very successful in promoting civility. They do not think that these are conclusive reasons against teaching civility in schools, but they suggest that civility can only be taught well if educators are clear-eyed about the hurdles they will have to overcome. (shrink)

This chapter argues that school should cease to be compulsory at age 16 and that an education resource account (ERA) should be established for students who leave school at that age. The ERA would be sufficient to cover three years of full-time education. It could be linked to inflation and early school leavers could use it in accredited non-profit educational institutions at any later point in their lives. Two sets of arguments are discussed in support of the proposal. The first, (...) building on the empirical literature, focuses on efficiency and highlights the advantages of an ERA with respect to the ‘disruptive’ students issue in particular. The second set of arguments is anti-paternalistic. The chapter distinguishes three anti-paternalistic arguments: the view that individuals are the best judges of their own welfare, the idea that autonomous decision-making is a component of well-being, and a respect-based view of what renders anti-paternalism wrong. (shrink)

This article explores the question of whether it is morally permissible for the liberal state to require schools to teach religions “neutrally” to children. I examine this question through the normative analysis of Canadian Supreme Court case Loyola High School v. Quebec. I argue that it is in principle morally impermissible for the liberal state to oblige all schools to adopt a neutral approach to teaching children about religious diversity. I propose a normative framework for evaluating the legitimacy of such (...) an imposition and identify a strategy in support of accommodating schools like Loyola that does not appeal to the existence of a strong parental right to control their children’s education. (shrink)

We comment on the preceding reviews of our book “ Memory Evolutive Systems ”, discussing the improvements proposed by some of the reviewers and answering to critics of others, in particular on the use of category theory for modeling living systems.

Cicero distinguishes between two forms of divination: natural and artificial divination. Most contemporary scholars assume that Cicero presents a Stoic division and some even draw far-reaching conclusions about the scientific status of divination based on this distinction. However, his justification for the division is apparently contradictory and neither fits with Stoic nor Peripatetic claims that are found elsewhere. This paper examines the exact meaning of the division and sheds light on its Stoic and Peripatetic origin. In this way, we will (...) not only be able to better understand the overall argument of Cicero’s De divinatione, but also to assess his real achievement as a philosophical author. (shrink)

With their landmark architectures, exhibitions and museums of science and technology partake in the spatial inscription of science in twentieth century landscapes. Unlike other beacons of progress, exhibitions and museums of science and technology double up, inside, as material arrangements of objects, visuals and texts aiming to confer meaning onto the modern world. They both embody and seek to order the spectacle of modernity while often being deployed with the aim of promoting particular visions of social and material progress. An (...) approach sensitive to the material, spatial, and experiential dimensions of displaying science and technology suggests that exhibitions and museums were in the twentieth century crucial sites for reflecting upon and promoting particular futures. (shrink)

Albert Camus and Rachel Bespaloff had an undeniable influence on the existential thought of the twentieth century. The former, by claiming the world to be silent to our search for meaning, based the concept of happiness in the inherent value of life. The latter grounded her happiness in music and transcendence rather than in the acceptance of the absurd human condition, though the two thinkers seem to agree on the importance of subjective contemplation. In this article, I will offer a (...) reading of Camus’s works that emphasizes his view of happiness in awareness of the absurd. I will then argue for the ethical and political challenges that such happiness causes. Finally, by putting into dialogue the philosophies of Camus and Bespaloff, I wish to show that the two thinkers advocate for the possibility of happiness despite the suffering of the world, and show that this concept, understood as contemplation, can be rooted in the absurd as well as in transcendence. (shrink)

Die Zurückweisung, mit der viele frühneuzeitliche Autoren der aristotelischen Naturphilosophie begegnen, geht häufig mit einer emphatischen Aufnahme der hellenistischen Philosophie einher. Vor diesem Hintergrund fragt die vorliegende Untersuchung nach den prinzipiellen Unterschieden zwischen Aristoteles und seinen hellenistischen Nachfolgern. Ausgangspunkt ist die für die aristotelische Philosophie zentrale Analyse des Phänomens der Bewegung.

In recent years, many scholars have offered innovative accounts of social categories such as gender, race, and disability. By contrast, comparatively little work has been done on the category of children. The goal of our paper is to offer a new account of what children are. We start by discussing the two main accounts that have been put forward so far in the literature: naturalistic accounts and normative accounts. According to the former, to be a child is a matter of (...) possessing, or lacking, some ‘natural’ and ‘objective’ properties. According to the latter, to be a child is to possess a particular normative status. We argue that both naturalistic and normative accounts are subject to a variety of objections. We then propose our own social constructivist account. According to it, to be a child in any given society is to be regarded by the dominant ideology of that society as the target of a set of broadly paternalistic norms, in virtue of the possession of a cluster of natural properties such that, according to the dominant ideology of that society, it is justified to subject that individual to such norms. We conclude our paper by showing that our account meets the criteria of success for an account of what it is to be a child and by addressing some objections. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier | : Cet article explore la question des implications de l’exclusion des animaux de la catégorie des sujets de justice dans le cadre du libéralisme politique de John Rawls. Plus spécifiquement, j’examine et critique les lectures de Ruth Abbey et de Robert Garner. Abbey suggère que le libéralisme politique est incompatible avec la thèse selon laquelle nous avons des devoirs moraux universels envers les animaux. Garner, pour sa part, avance que la théorie de Rawls n’autorise pas l’État libéral (...) à adopter des mesures de protection des animaux. Dans cet article, je démontre que ces lectures sont erronées, car elles sont fondées sur des interprétations du libéralisme politique qui ne sont pas plausibles. Je soutiens, d’une part, que le libéralisme politique est neutre eu égard à la question de la nature de nos devoirs moraux envers les animaux et, d’autre part, qu’il permet de justifier une gamme considérable d’interventions étatiques visant la protection des animaux. Je suggère donc que la tension entre le libéralisme politique et l’éthique animale est moins forte que ne l’affirment ces auteurs. Enfin, j’identifie des stratégies possibles, cohérentes avec le cadre théorique rawlsien, pour élargir la sphère des sujets de justice de manière à y intégrer les animaux. | : What are the implications of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism for animal ethics? In this paper, I examine Ruth Abbey’s and Robert Garner’s answers to this question. Abbey claims that Political Liberalism is incompatible with the view that there exist universal moral duties toward animals. Garner contends that Rawls’s theory cannot justify state interventions designed to protect animals. I show that these readings are based on implausible interpretations of Rawls’s theory. I argue, on the one hand, that Political Liberalism is neutral with respect to the question of the nature of our moral duties toward animals and, on the other hand, that the theory can potentially justify a significant range of state interventions in the interest of animals. This indicates that the tension between Rawls’s theory and animal ethics is less sharp than Abbey and Garner suggest. Finally, I identify possible strategies, consistent with the Rawlsian framework, for including animals among the subjects of justice. (shrink)

Kant’s postulate of the immortality of the soul has received strikingly little attention among Kant scholars, and only very few have regarded it positively. This is not surprising given the numerous problems associated with his argument. However, it is not the only argument for immortality that Kant offers in his critical philosophy. There is also a second argument that differs from the one furnished in the Second Critique and can be found both in the Critique of Pure Reason and later (...) texts from the 1790s. Kant also addresses here many of the problems that interpreters have found with his postulate of immortality in both earlier and later texts. This paper considers the main difficulties associated with the postulate and proposes a coherent interpretation of Kant’s argument. I show that despite the apparent change in his approach to immortality Kant did not in fact substantially alter his position during his critical period. (shrink)

In dieser Untersuchung soll gezeigt werden, dass Kant in der Idee einer moralischen Welt, wie sie in der transzendentalen Methodenlehre der Kritik der reinen Vernunft expliziert wird, einen ontologischen Gedankengang aus seinen vorkritischen Schriften aufgreift. Hierbei handelt es sich um einen aposteriorischen Gottesbeweis, den Kant zuerst in seiner Nova dilucidatio formuliert und nahezu unverändert in seine Inauguraldissertation übernommen hat. Auf diese Weise findet der aposteriorische im Gegensatz zu den apriorischen Gottesbeweisen der vorkritischen Schriften Kants in einer kritisch revidierten Form Eingang (...) in sein theoretisches Hauptwerk. This paper wants to show that Kant uses an ontological argument that he formulates in one of his pre-Critical writings in the idea of a moral world as it is demonstrated in the "Transcendental Doctrine of Method" in the Critique of pure Reason. For the first time in his Nova dilucidatio Kant furnishes an a posteriori proof of the existence of God by demonstrating that the reality of the world as a community of substances needs a divine intellect as a common cause of their existence. He takes this argument almost unchanged in his Inauguraldissertation that appeared in 1770. In contrast to the a priori arguments of the existence of God, which Kant refutes at least since the mid 1760's, this a posteriori argument finds a way into his major theoretical work in a critically revised form. (shrink)

Dieser Aufsatz nimmt eine wenig beachtete Passage aus der Kritik der reinen Vernunft zum Anlass, sich der Diskussion bezüglich der einfachen Substanzen in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts zu widmen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass die Frage nach den inneren und äußeren Bestimmungen der Substanz in den Kern der systematischen Substanzanalyse führt. Von welcher Art können die inneren Bestimmungen einer einfachen Substanz sein? Müssen diese von ideeller Natur sein, oder kann es sich auch um eine andere Art von Kraft (...) handeln? Wenn es sich bei dieser Kraft um eine Vorstellungskraft handelt, wie können dann die äußeren Bestimmungen der Substanz, d.h. ihre Beziehung zu den anderen Substanzen aussehen? Durch die Analyse der dogmatischen Vorgänger Kants und der sogenannten vorkritischen Philosophie wird schließlich klar, dass der Substanzbegriff des jungen Kants näher als bisher angenommen werden konnte an Leibniz steht. (shrink)

Already in antiquity the Aristotelian Philosophy was under attack by its philosophical opponents. The Stoics can surely be counted to the most important ones. Furthermore they can be regarded as one of the most influential philosophy schools of the Hellenistic time and in the early Roman Empire and their influenceeven on modern thinkers must not be neglected. It is well known that the Stoics not only advocated a physical monism but can also be described as determinists or, from a modern (...) point of view, even as compatibilists because they were the first who tried to harmonize moral responsibility with the thesis of a causal determinism. Therefore, the stoic concept of causality is of vast importance. In one of Seneca’s books a discussion of the Aristotelian theory of causality has come down to us. Although it is a quite short passage it proves itself to be very illuminating. This paper wants to shed light on the differences between the Aristotelian and the Stoic theory of causality and therefore help to clarify the historical background of the modern concept of causality which is of intense importance for the actual discussion about free will and determinism. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the systematic place and function of divine providence in Kant. The main focus is put on the connection between the highest good as the ultimate object of morality and the different conceptions of providence. The paper is divided into three sections. First, it discusses Kant's critical answer to question of the compatibility of mechanism and teleology. Second, it addresses the role of providence in the context of the highest moral good. Third, it draws attention to (...) the theodicy-problem and asks how providence is connected with the highest political good in the philosophy of history. (shrink)