In “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical,” John Rawls suggests an approach to a public conception of justice that eschews any dependence on metaphysical conceptions of justice in favor of a political conception of justice. This means that if there is a metaphysical conception of justice that actually obtains, then Rawls’ theory would not be sensitive to it. Rawls himself admitted in Political Liberalism that “the political conception does without the truth.” Similarly, in Law of Peoples, Rawls endorses a political (...) conception of justice to govern the society of peoples that is not concerned with truth, but instead concerned with being sufficiently neutral so as to avoid conflict with any reasonable comprehensive doctrines. The odd result is that this neutrality excludes any conception of truth at all. Therefore, in times of crisis that demand incisive decision making based on scientific, economic or moral considerations, public reason will stall because it can contain no coherent conception of truth. (shrink)

In this thought experiment, I provide a philosophical reading of the “Karen call” to explain its persistence and impact. I argue the call is an act of shepherding in the twenty-first century—fulling the ethical responsibility and duty of Dasein, as Heidegger presents it in his philosophy. Every call performs ontological labor—a guarding and surveillance of Being—requiring a vigilant policing of ontological boundaries and a marshaling of violence (state sanctioned) to prevent black encroachment (the violation of ontological interdiction). The cell phone, (...) as modern technology, is the nexus between “the call of Being” and the “call to law enforcement” (Karen call). This guarding relies on the cell phone as an indispensable technology of surveillance. The Karen call is a response to an ontological emergency. (shrink)

Following the outbreak of what would become the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing measures were quickly introduced across East Asia—including drastic shelter-in-place orders in some cities—drawing on experience with the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome almost two decades ago. “Smart City” technologies and other digital tools were quickly deployed for infection control purposes, ranging from conventional thermal scanning cameras to digital tracing in the surveillance of at-risk individuals. Chatbots endowed with artificial intelligence have also been deployed to shift part of (...) healthcare provision away from hospitals and to support a number of programmes for self-management of chronic disease in the community. With the closure of schools and adults working from home, digital technologies have also sustained many aspects of both professional and social life at a pace and scale not considered to be practicable before the outbreak. This paper considers how these new experiences with digital technologies in public health surveillance are spurring digitalization in East Asian societies beyond the conventional public health context. It also considers some of the concerns and challenges that are likely to arise with rapid digitalization, particularly in healthcare. (shrink)

Potential military applications of nanotechnology will evolve in the next few decades. The implications for both defense and offense should be carefully assessed. Nanotechnology can push major changes in stability, and shape the consequences of future conflict.

There is growing recognition of the need to understand societal impacts of nanotechnology. Global interest in nanotechnology implies many nations will see a need to seek out advantages for military use. Militarization will inevitably include consideration of both offensive and defensive goals. This presents emerging implications for military forces in the near future, and will greatly influence the nature of warfare and peacekeeping in the distant future. The development of nanotechnology creates possibilities for both beneficial opportunities and adverse consequences as (...) a result of application to the military strategies of both large and small nations.The promise of nanotechnology for military and security roles derives from several innate characteristics. For example, further improvements in sensors are expected and already there are numerous reports of successful developments in research and development. Material properties can be tailored on a fine scale through nanomachining, scanning force microscopy, molecular self-assembly, and other techniques. (shrink)

What is 'legal' about bioethics? What are the ideas and artefacts that bioethics encompasses, and how are they related to law? What is the role of law in bioethics? In this work, Calvin Ho attempts to address these questions in the context of the governance of human pluripotent stem cell research. In essence, he argues that the hybridization of law, through processes, devices and techniques of juridification, has helped to constitute bioethics as a public sphere and an emergent civic (...) epistemology. Drawing on his multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork and on Actor-Network-Theory, Ho explains how the law has, through bioethics, contributed to the scientific and public understanding of human pluripotent stem cell research and its artefacts, particularly the embryo and human-animal combinations. Although the focus of his work is on bioethical developments in Singapore over a period of more than 15 years, parallel developments in key jurisdictions (especially the United States of America and the United Kingdom) and in international science policy are also evaluated. It is through appreciating how it has progressed that bioethics will be better able to engage with future challenges presented by advances in human embryo research and gene editing techniques, among others. (shrink)

Reformed Christianity's qualified embrace of freedom of conscience is per- haps best represented by William Ames (1576-1633). This essay explores Ames's interpretation of conscience, his understanding of its relationship to natural law, Scripture, and civil authority, and his vacillation on the sub- ject of conscientious freedom. By rooting his interpretation of conscience in natural law, Ames provided a foundation for conscience as an authority whose convictions are binding and worthy of some civil respect and free- dom. At the same time, (...) his Puritan worldview ultimately required the deference of conscience to the superior manifestations of divine law in Scripture and civil institutions. As a result, Ames provided raw ingredients for a theological doctrine of freedom of conscience despite his unwillingness to commend the idea himself consistently. In this way, Ames symbolizes an ambiguity on freedom of conscience characteristic of the broader Reformed tradition. (shrink)

The general perception of how innovative assisted reproductive technologies are introduced is through a carefully controlled series of experiments in an animal model, such as the mouse. Only after the technique has been proven can one consider confirmatory studies on mammals closely related to humans, such as rhesus monkeys or other nonhuman primates. With this background of a peer-reviewed body of well-established published data, there is sufficient foundation and rationale to propose a clinical investigation to a responsible human subjects institutional (...) review board. IRBs weigh the benefits and risks of the new methods to human subjects, and then consider the appropriate informed consent procedures for the particular case. Only after a large number of clinical studies are performed at multiple sites and are peer reviewed can the efficacy and safety of the innovative approach be clearly evaluated. At that time, the potential therapy can be responsibly offered to suitable beneficiaries. (shrink)

The general perception of how innovative assisted reproductive technologies are introduced is through a carefully controlled series of experiments in an animal model, such as the mouse. Only after the technique has been proven can one consider confirmatory studies on mammals closely related to humans, such as rhesus monkeys or other nonhuman primates. With this background of a peer-reviewed body of well-established published data, there is sufficient foundation and rationale to propose a clinical investigation to a responsible human subjects institutional (...) review board. IRBs weigh the benefits and risks of the new methods to human subjects, and then consider the appropriate informed consent procedures for the particular case. Only after a large number of clinical studies are performed at multiple sites and are peer reviewed can the efficacy and safety of the innovative approach be clearly evaluated. At that time, the potential therapy can be responsibly offered to suitable beneficiaries. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the Protestant contribution to the modern concept of autonomy on the basis of an analysis of John Calvin's moral theology. I show that Calvin affirms our incapacity to know and want what is morally good, as expressed by natural law. Such incapacity is compensated for by the biblical mandates that, according to Calvin, should be incorporated into the positive legislation of Christian republics. In view of all this, I conclude that Calvin (...) is far from the Kantian idea of autonomy which defines our Modernity. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to understand the significance of Barth's redefinition of the "law/gospel" rubric for political theology. Barth's thought is exposited at length, and illumined by comparison with Luther and Calvin. Luther emphasizes the distance between gospel and the law, distinguishing between serving God in the secular regiment, and serving Christ in the spiritual regiment. He thereby challenges the improper relation of state and church, but does so in a manner that can lead to a passive dualism. (...) Calvin holds that preaching the law to the state includes preaching the gospel; thus, the church has a positive vision against which it can evaluate the state's service to God in Christ. This leads, however, to the danger of a 'clerical guardianship' of the state. Barth finds a positive connection between the two governments in the fact that both communities are based in Christ, in whom the gospel is their law. This grounds his high view of the state as predecessor to the heavenly kingdom, as well as a prophetic mission of the church to the state. This does not lead to a new Christendom, however, first, because Barth hopes not for a kingdom wrought by human hands, but for the Theocracy of God, and second, because Barth sees the fallen reality of both church and state, the state pagan and violent, and the church a poor witness. In the end, though Barth makes a strong case for supporting theological critique of the state, while avoiding Constantinianism, he is unable to solve the problem of how to connect the gospel and the law in the civil community. (shrink)

Although there are many studies on John Calvin’s teaching on natural law, the relation between natural law and Roman law has received relatively less attention. This essay examines the relation between natural law and Roman law in Calvin’s exegetical writing on the Mosaic law. I argue that Calvin regarded Roman law as an exemplary, albeit imperfect, witness to the natural law, and he used Roman law to aid in his interpretation of the Mosaic law. Since he assumed (...) that Roman law embodies principles of natural law, Calvin drew on Roman law as an aid in order to distinguish natural from positive law within the Mosaic law. He also broadened the scope of commandments in the second table of the Decalogue by comparison with natural and Roman law. Yet although Calvin drew many continuities between Mosaic and Roman laws, he remained critical of the Roman system due to various failings in comparison with Scripture and principles of natural law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Calvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Calvin's Two Kingdoms by Matthew J. TuiningaGuenther ("Gene") HaasCalvin's Political Theology and the Public Engagement of the Church: Calvin's Two Kingdoms Matthew J. Tuininga CAMBRIDGE: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2017. 258 PP. £69.99 / £27.99In recent years, a vigorous debate has arisen within Reformed circles concerning the nature of the two kingdoms theology of John (...) class='Hi'>Calvin. Although all recognize that Calvin articulated a distinction between the spiritual kingdom of the church and the political kingdom of the state, there is disagreement over [End Page 211] the nature of the engagement of Christians with the temporal kingdom and over what should guide the state in enacting civil justice and order.The Kuyperian Neo-Calvinist movement holds a transformationalist understanding of the engagement of members of the spiritual kingdom with all vocations and spheres of life. Alternatively, two kingdoms Reformed theologians, such as David VanDrunen and Michael Horton, argue that the Reign of Christ is confined to the spiritual kingdom and must not be brought to bear directly on the temporal kingdom. Matthew Tuininga's book supports the latter view in his exposition of Calvin's political theology. Tuininga argues that Calvin articulated a sharp distinction between church and political society, such that politics is seen not as "a means of transforming society into the kingdom of God according to the dictates of Christian scripture, but as an endeavour to secure temporal order and civil righteousness in accord with reason, natural law, and the virtues of charity and prudence" (1).Tuininga begins by situating Calvin and his two kingdoms theology in their historical and political context, indicating Calvin's concern for the autonomy of church contra government interference. The central chapters (3–6) present the eschatological basis for Calvin's two kingdoms doctrine and detail the development of this theme in Calvin's thought. The Kingdom of God is identified with the church and its spiritual authority. It is distinct from the state's temporal authority, whose role is to maintain civil righteousness and order. To support this distinction between the mandate of the two kingdoms, Tuininga presents in chapter 7 the novel, and debatable, claim that Calvin holds to two covenants of God with Israel: the covenant of grace made with Abraham and confirmed at Sinai and the narrower covenant of the law for Israel's national life, in which God's blessings and punishments were conditional on Israel's obedience and disobedience. Although this legal covenant—with its earthly and temporal character—is embedded in the broader covenant of grace, it is abolished with the fulfillment of the covenant of grace in the coming of Christ. Only the covenant of grace—with its heavenly, inward, and spiritual character—remains in force for God's people today.Chapter 8 argues that Calvin's views on the mandate of the magistrate to protect religion and enact public justice is based not on appeals to scripture but to reason, the evidence of national laws, and natural philosophy. In chapter 9 Tuininga unfolds the implications of Calvin's two kingdoms theology for Christian political involvement in society. And in his conclusion, Tuininga unfolds numerous ways that this two kingdoms theology can guide contemporary Christians' engagement with modern liberal democracies.This work is a welcome exposition of Calvin's political theology to support the two kingdoms theology. However, in addition to the novel, and debatable, claim that God made two covenants with Israel, this reviewer finds that Tuininga's exposition fails to incorporate key points in Calvin's thought: the failure of civil rulers' to enact natural law faithfully and consistently (2.2.13, 23; 3.14.2), [End Page 212] the description of the calling of civil authority as "holy and lawful before God … the most sacred and by far the most honorable of all callings" (4.20.4), and Calvin's claim that the best rulers are those governing according to both tables of the Decalogue (4.20.9–11). Nevertheless, this book is an important contribution to the ongoing debate and should be widely read.Guenther ("Gene") HaasRedeemer University CollegeCopyright © 2018... (shrink)

During the 16th century, Europe underwent fundamental sociopolitical changes, which challenged theologians and the church to respond theologically. In light of the celebration of the Reformation and the theme of this conference, this contribution presents Calvin as a ‘public theologian’. To this purpose it is necessary to define ‘public theology’, describe the sociopolitical changes which challenged theologians during the 16th century, and lastly to focus on Calvin’s contribution to the discourse. Because of the vast amount of material that (...) is available, this contribution is limited to Calvin’s first publication, his ‘Commentary on Seneca’s De Clementia’. Calvin’s fundamental understanding of law and justice, as well as his theological engagement with sociopolitical issues, made him a public theologian par excellence. Calvin’s legal training surfaced whenever he addressed the authorities, for instance, when pleading the case of persecuted Protestants. He had a fundamental understanding of issues such as justice and freedom. The rights, responsibilities and obligations of government and people should always remain in balance. Sociopolitical transformation, as experienced in South Africa during the last three decades, requires of theologians to engage theologically with relevant issues. In this, Calvin set a remarkable example. (shrink)

Is the God of Calvin a fountain of blessing, or a forceful tyrant? Is Calvin's view of God coercive, leaving no place for the human qua human in redemption? These are perennial questions about Calvin's theology which have been given new life by Gift theologians such as John Milbank, Graham Ward, and Stephen Webb.J. Todd Billings addresses these questions by exploring Calvin's theology of `participation in Christ'. He argues that Calvin's theology of `participation' gives a (...) positive place to the human, such that grace fulfils rather than destroys nature, affirming a differentiated union of God and humanity in creation and redemption. Calvin's trinitarian theology of participation extends to his view of prayer, sacraments, the law, and the ecclesial and civil orders. In light of Calvin's doctrine of participation, Billings reframes the critiques of Calvin in the Gift discussion and opens up new possibilities for contemporary theology, ecumenical theology, and Calvin scholarship as well. (shrink)

Christians have long understood grace both as a declaration of acceptance and as a power that transforms. This article illumines two theses while investigating the relationship between these understandings of grace in Luther, Calvin, and Barth's development of the law/gospel dialectic and the doctrines of justification and sanctification. First, though each theologian makes use of both understandings of grace, each also tends to emphasize one over the other. The unity and tension within and between these perspectives help to show (...) that while both pictures are of the greatest importance for each other and cannot be separated, they also exist in tension, as long as they are worked out in the lives of sinners. Second, the author claims that the positions of Luther and Barth are more alike than is generally recognized. (shrink)

Karl Barth and the displacement of natural law in contemporary Protestant theology -- Development of the natural-law tradition through the high Middle Ages -- John Calvin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Peter Martyr Vermigli and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Natural law in the thought of Johannes Althusius -- Francis Turretin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator.

Equity and efficiency -- A society within a society -- Thomas Aquinas : the interplay of natural and positive law -- William of Ockham : repudiation of power and wealth -- Martin Luther's redistributive theology of the Lord's supper -- John Calvin and the challenge of inequality -- Triumph of the economy.

Non-Archimedean population axiologies – also known as lexical views – claim (i) that a sufficient number of lives at a very high positive welfare level would be better than any number of lives at a very low positive welfare level and/or (ii) that a sufficient number of lives at a very low negative welfare level would be worse than any number of lives at a very high negative welfare level. Such axiologies are popular because they can avoid the (Negative) Repugnant (...) Conclusion and satisfy the adequacy conditions given in the central impossibility result in population axiology due to Gustaf Arrhenius. I provide a novel argument against them which appeals to the way that good and bad lives can intuitively outweigh one another. (shrink)

In _Ontological Terror_ Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the "Negro question" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of (...) blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on investing blackness with non-Being—a logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks—Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in Being. (shrink)

This book probes beneath modern scientific and sentimental concepts of the heart to discover its past mysteries. Historical hearts evidenced essential aspects of human existence that still endure in modern thought and experience of political community, psychological mentality, and physical vitality. Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle revises ordinary assumptions about the heart with original interdisciplinary research on religious beliefs and theological and philosophical ideas. Her book uncovers the thought of Aristotle, William Harvey, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Calvinas it relates to the (...) heart. It analyzes Augustine’s outlaw heart in cultural deviance from biblical law; Aquinas’s problematic argument for the permanence of the natural law in the heart; and Calvin’s advocacy for an affective heart re-created by the Spirit from its fallen nature. This book of cultural anatomies is the climax of her dozen years of publications on the heart. (shrink)

I argue against pessimistic readings of the Buddhist tradition on which unawakened beings invariably have lives not worth living due to a preponderance of suffering (duḥkha) over well-being.

This article considers the relationship between utilitarianism and the ethics of Early Buddhism and classical Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism. Section 2 discusses normative ethics. I argue (i) that Early Buddhist ethics is not utilitarian and (ii) that despite the many similarities between utilitarianism and Mahāyāna ethics, it is at best unclear whether Mahāyāna ethics is consequentialist in structure. Section 2 closes by reconstructing the Buddhist understanding of well-being and contrasting it to hedonism. -/- Section 3 focuses on applied ethics. I suggest (...) that two major choice-points for the Buddhist are, first, whether to accept the doctrine of rebirth and, second, whether to adopt a pessimistic or tentatively optimistic reading of Buddhist axiology. I assess the implications of the possible resulting views for various topics in applied ethics, including cause prioritization, global health and poverty, animal welfare, existential risk, space colonization, and human biomedical enhancement, comparing Buddhist answers to contemporary utilitarian positions on these issues. Along the way, I also argue against the pessimistic reading of Buddhist axiology and in favor of a moral-patient-affecting, rather than totalist, understanding of Buddhist population ethics. (shrink)

Many accept the following three theses in animal ethics. First, although animal welfare should not be—or at least, need not be—our top moral priority, it is not a trivial one either. Second, if an animal is sentient, then it is a moral patient. Third, the extinction of an animal species is a tragic outcome that we have moral reason to prevent. I argue that a traditional (i.e., pre-modern) Buddhist perspective pushes against the first thesis and that a naturalized Buddhist perspective (...) is inconsistent with the latter two. (shrink)

In a recent poem, Vom Schnee, oder Descartes in Deutschland, German writer Durs Grünbein suggests that a snowy, white landscape inspired the young René Descartes to theoretically define nature. Indeed, Descartes's reduction of nature to extended matter composed of particles in movement and abiding by the laws of nature entails a reduction of all bodies' diversity to a mechanistic system in which all secondary qualities are mathematically framed. The description of colors in the Regulae ad directionem ingenii exemplifies this reduction (...) of nature to a geometrical grid with no differences—Jean-Luc Marion (Sur... (shrink)

Maximize Expected Choiceworthiness (MEC) is a theory of decision-making under moral uncertainty. It says that we ought to handle moral uncertainty in the way that Expected Value Theory (EVT) handles descriptive uncertainty. MEC inherits from EVT the problem of fanaticism. Roughly, a decision theory is fanatical when it requires our decision-making to be dominated by low-probability, high-payoff options. Proponents of MEC have offered two main lines of response. The first is that MEC should simply import whatever are the best solutions (...) to fanaticism on offer in decision theory. The second is to propose statistical normalization as a novel solution on behalf of MEC. This paper argues that the first response is open to serious doubt and that the second response fails. As a result, MEC appears significantly less plausible when compared to competing accounts of decision-making under moral uncertainty, which are not fanatical. (shrink)

Neurobiologist William Calvin explores the human brain, positing that the neurons in the brain operate in an accelerated version of biological evolution, evolving ideas through random variations and selections, and supports his hypothesis with numerous ca.

OpenAI’s Chat Generative Pre-training Transformer (ChatGPT), Google’s Bard and other generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies can greatly enhance the capability of healthcare profess...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reforming the Law of Nature: The Secularization of Political Thought, 1532–1689 by Simon P. KennedyFrancis J. BeckwithKENNEDY, Simon P. Reforming the Law of Nature: The Secularization of Political Thought, 1532–1689. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. ix + 125 pp. Cloth, $110.00In this monograph Simon P. Kennedy offers an account of the desacralization of politics in the West by critically examining the works of five central figures in the (...) Protestant Reformed tradition: John Calvin (1509–64), Richard Hooker (1554–1600), Johannes Althusius (1557–1638), Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), and John Locke (1632–1705). He dedicates a chapter to each thinker. The core of Kennedy's thesis is that desacralization is the result of a shift in the way modern thinkers like Hobbes and Locke reimagined the nature of natural law. The medieval tradition, having found its fullest expression in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, saw natural law as one of four different types of law: eternal law (the eternal plan of creation in the mind of God), natural law (the rational creature's participation in the eternal law), human law (civil laws that are derived from the natural law), and divine law (the Old and New Testaments). According to Kennedy, the eventual desacralization of politics was set in motion with the development of arguments for natural rights that relied on a natural law that was in [End Page 553] practice severed from eternal law. But in that case, our political institutions—which are founded on the natural law—are purely human constructions and thus entirely secular.The usual story is that the Protestant Reformation constituted the decisive break with the medieval tradition and that it was the political theology of the reformers and their immediate successors that made the secularization of politics nearly inevitable. Kennedy wants to push back against that story. He argues, quite convincingly, that Calvin, Hooker, and Althusius, all Reformed Protestants, were in continuity with their medieval predecessors. Although Calvin is often depicted by his contemporary followers—especially among American Evangelicals—as hostile to the natural law tradition, Kennedy marshals an impressive case that shows that classical natural law seemed almost second nature to Calvin. My own sense is that the confusion over Calvin is the result of his contemporary readers expecting him to use the vocabulary of an Aquinas or a Duns Scotus. But not finding that vocabulary, they conclude that he rejected the natural law. Kennedy dispels that confusion by showing that Calvin in fact was fully committed to the four types of law absent the technical jargon of medieval scholasticism.Hooker and Althusius, writes Kennedy, continue in that tradition, though with a bit of a twist that some argue portends to Hobbes and Locke. Hooker and Althusius use the language of contract to account for the origin of certain aspects of political life. But Kennedy insists that it is a mistake to interpret them as proto-contractarians (as one finds in Hobbes and Locke), for they still held that the natural law participates in the eternal law, and that any agreements employed in the service of political life are under the authority of, and guided by, the natural law. One could argue, then, that these "contracts," like constitutions and treaties, are nonstatutory manifestations of the human law, which is perfectly consistent with classical natural law. So like Calvin before them, Hooker and Althusius were, as Kennedy puts it, theistic political naturalists.Hobbes and Locke are a different story. According to Kennedy, they both defended desacralized views of politics, with Hobbes being the more extreme of the two. Although I think he is correct in that assessment, I am not sure he locates the cause of the desacralization in the right place. For example, he says that because for Locke politics is artificial and not natural—that is, it is the result of a social contract to insulate members of society from the instability of a state of nature—politics is desacralized, even though God is the ultimate source of the natural law. But it is not clear how that in and of itself desacralizes politics. After all, Aquinas, the paradigm case of a classical natural lawyer, held... (shrink)

In Fallibilism Democracy and the Market, Calvin Hayes proposes an original solution to the major meta-theoretical issue in moral philosophy, the is-ought problem, then utilizes it to define and/or solve practical problems in both applied ethics and public policy. The solution and its applications are based on a unified theory of rationality applicable to epistemology, ethics and public policy, predicated on a revised Popperian fallibilism. It is intended as a defense of Karl Popper's political philosophy but only after a (...) substantial revision of its theoretical and meta-theoretical basis. (shrink)

This meditation by an award winning historian calls for a new way oflooking at the natural world and our place in it, while boldly challenging theassumptions that underlie the way we teach and think about both history andtime. Calvin Luther Martin's In the Spirit of the Earth is a provocativeaccount of how the hunter-gatherer image of nature was lost--with devastatingconsequences for the environment and the human spirit. According to Martin, our current ideas about nature emerged during neolithictimes, as humans (...) began to domesticate animals and farm the land. In thehunter-gatherer mind, animals and plants were spiritual beings and the earth areliable provider. But in neolithic innovations Martin finds the roots of ourown curiously alienated relationship with other living things and with theearth itself. This alienation is revealed not only in our artifice--thetechnology that moves us further and further away from nature--but even in theway we speak about the world. It is revealed most dramatically, perhaps, inthe horrific destruction we have visited on animals and landscapes. Martin sees the shift to agricultural economies as a change in spiritual imagination. This new approach to food getting meant a new understanding ofourselves and the world--a new, powerful image of the self relative to plantsand animals. It led to food surpluses, a population boom, the appearance ofcities and ceremonial centers, and the emergence of priestly classes and rulingelites--in short, to all the achievements, follies, and horrors of"civilization." Martin argues that history--his own discipline--and human centered historicalconsciousness lie at the heart of this ultimately destructive ideology.Notions of order and progress, of a chosen people and linear time, fuel oursense that the world is ours to improve, exploit, and even destroy. We need torediscover the wisdom and sanity of less presumptuous ideas of nature--aprocess that demands a much larger narrative than historians have been writingand telling. Without calling for a return to hunting and gathering, Martinasks if some of what we lost--or left behind--in the distant past might bereclaimed and used again. To make peace with the earth. To make peace withourselves. "Many will respond with that oft heard reply, But we cannot go back!To which I respond, But we never left--never left our true, real context, thatis. Homo is still here on this planet earth, abiding in our most fundamentaland necessary nature by its fundamental and necessary terms. We left all ofthat only, really, in our fevered imagination. It all began as an act ofimagination, an illusory image--most fundamentally, an image of fear--and so thecorrective process must likewise begin with an image. Let us re-learn, as hunter-gatherers knew to the core of their being, that this place and itsprocesses (even in our death) always takes care of us--that Homo's citizenship, and errand, rest not with any creed or state, but with 'that star's substancefrom which he had arisen.'"--from In the Spirit of the Earth. (shrink)

We consider how human subjects establish signaling conventions in the context of Lewis-Skyrms signaling games. These experiments involve games where there are precisely the right number of signal types to represent the states of nature, games where there are more signal types than states, and games where there are fewer signal types than states. The aim is to determine the conditions under which subjects are able to establish signaling conventions in such games and to identify a learning dynamics that approximates (...) how they succeed when they do. Our results suggest that human agents tend to use a win-stay/lose-shift with inertia dynamics to establish conventions in such games. We briefly consider the virtues and vices of this low-rationality dynamics. (shrink)

Error theory turns on a particular presupposition about the conceptual commitments of moral realism, namely that the moral facts posited by realists need to be categorical. True moral propositions are said to have an absolute authority in their prescriptions in the sense that an agent, regardless of her own ends, needs or desires, is categorically obligated and has reason to act in accordance with their prescriptions. But, nothing in the world has such a queer property as categoricity, and therefore we (...) ought to be suspect of the enterprise of moral discourse. Some philosophers, like Stephen Finlay, have argued that this categoricity is not a necessary feature of moral language, and in so doing hope to have shown that the error theoretic critique is thus refuted. In this article I offer a survey of the literature on this topic and then contribute independent motivations for siding with those who think moral facts need not be categorical. (shrink)

Abstract:The article interrogates notions of resistance and will against the Black Radical Tradition vis-à-vis a close reading of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Will to Power and through Hortense Spiller’s seminal essay, “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe.” In reading Spillers alongside Nietzsche, the essay argues that black nihilism presents a more severe problem than Nietzsche could anticipate: that the black will is denied active desire and a cosmological body is left to express its “power”—only to highlight (black) resistance as a question.

This article considers the contemporary effective altruism (EA) movement from a classical Indian Buddhist perspective. Following barebones introductions to EA and to Buddhism (sections one and two, respectively), section three argues that core EA efforts, such as those to improve global health, end factory farming, and safeguard the long-term future of humanity, are futile on the Buddhist worldview. For regardless of the short-term welfare improvements that effective altruists impart, Buddhism teaches that all unenlightened beings will simply be reborn upon their (...) deaths back into the round of rebirth (samsāra), which is held to be undesirable due to the preponderance of duhkha (unsatisfactoriness, dis-ease, suffering) over well-being that characterizes unenlightened existence. This is the samsāric futility problem. Although Buddhists and effective altruists disagree about what ultimately helps sentient beings, section four suggests that Buddhist-EA dialogue nonetheless generates mutually-instructive insights. Buddhists – including contemporaries, such as those involved in Socially Engaged Buddhism – might take from EA a greater focus on explicit prioritization research, which seeks knowledge of how to do the most good we can, given our finite resources. EA, for its part, has at least two lessons to learn. First, effective altruists have tended to assume that the competing accounts of welfare converge in their practical implications. The Buddhist conception of the pinnacle of welfare as a state free from duhkha and, correspondingly, the Buddhist account of the path that leads to this state weigh against this assumption. Second, contrasting Buddhist with effective altruist priorities shows that descriptive matters of cosmology, ontology, and metaphysics can have decisive practical implications. If EA wants to give a comprehensive answer to its guiding question – “how can we do the most good?” – it must argue for, rather than merely assume, the truth of secular naturalism. (shrink)

The seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary invention, discovery and revolutions in scientific, social and political orders. It was a time of expansive automation, biological discovery, rapid advances in medical knowledge, of animal trials and a questioning of the boundaries between species, human and non-human, between social classes, and of the assumed naturalness of political inequality. This book gives a tour through those objects, ordinary and extraordinary, which captivated the philosophical imagination of the single most important French philosopher of (...) this period, Rene Descartes. Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore document Descartes' attempt to make sense of the complex, composite objects of human and divine invention, consistent with the fundamental tenets of his metaphysical system. Their central argument is that, far from reducing all the categories of ordinary experience to the two basic categories of substance, mind and body, Descartes' philosophy recognises irreducible composites that resist reduction, and require their own distinctive modes of explanation. (shrink)

The research ethics framework put forward by McCradden et al. to support systematic inquiry in the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies in healt...