This paper sought to test whether student demographics (gender, age, religion, type of degree and number of courses done containing ethics) influenced the likelihood of engaging in unethical business practices. The study involved the use of a questionnaire being administered to a sample of 231 undergraduate students in Barbados. It was found that gender, religiousness, type of degree and number of courses taken containing ethics significantly impacted on the intentions to engage in unethical behaviour. It was also found that the (...) impact of age was not conclusive. The study has several limitations including low generalisability due to the use of a non-probability sampling method, and the possibility of social desirability bias. The study informs educators about the need to integrate ethics into the curriculum as an essential component of professional training for future managers and business people. This study makes an important contribution to the ethics literature on small island developing states, since the study was done in the country of Barbados. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Josiah Royce in FocusDwayne A. TunstallJosiah Royce in Focus Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008.Josiah Royce in Focus reads like a sequel to Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley’s earlier book on Royce’s public philosophy, Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities. As she did in Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities, Kegley does a remarkable job of interpreting Royce’s philosophy such that it has [End Page 127] contemporary (...) relevance for academic philosophy, conflict resolution, psychology, and the religion-science dialogue. Yet, unlike with her earlier book, Kegley devotes over two-thirds of this book to the task of weaving together Royce’s life and educational experiences with his thought. This integration of Royce’s life with his thought allows the reader to glimpse just how Royce is “a model philosopher: a scholar and a committed teacher, as well as a philosopher much concerned about public issues and basic human concerns” (xiv). Kegley does this while introducing the reader to many dimensions of Royce, including Royce the son, Royce the father, Royce the first-generation Californian, Royce the first-rate historian of California, Royce the amateur novelist, and Royce the world traveler. Amazingly, she uses Royce’s life to illuminate his philosophical thought without psychologizing Royce and hence avoids the all-too-common urge to reduce people’s philosophical ideas to mere rationalizations of their own preferences and desires. This is to be applauded in the age of Oprah, the proliferation of memoirs, and the apparent glut of self-help books.The first five chapters constitute Kegley’s portrait of Royce the person and Royce the thinker. In chapter 1, “Royce as a Frontier Californian and Intellectual Pioneer: Forging Self and Thought in a New and Developing Land,” she introduces the reader to Royce the first-generation Californian and intellectual pioneer. Here she persuasively links his California frontier upbringing; his early educational experiences in California at the Lincoln School (San Francisco) and the University of California, Berkeley; his studies in Germany; and his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins to his concerns about social conflicts and his lifelong attempt to resolve those conflicts to better the communities in which they occur (7–12).Indeed, she persuasively argues that Royce had already formulated the central insights of his philosophy by the time of his arrival at Harvard University in 1882. Kegley’s interpretation of Royce’s intellectual development owes much to Randall Auxier’s recent work on Royce’s thought. In Auxier’s interpretation of Royce’s thought, Royce had formulated the central intellectual insights of his philosophy—especially his ethics, philosophy or religion, and public philosophy—years before The Religious Aspect of Philosophy was published in 1885. This account of Royce’s intellectual development differs somewhat from Frank M. Oppenheim’s account. Oppenheim’s account depicts Royce’s intellectual development as a series of interrelated yet momentous “maximal intellectual insights.” Each of these insights marks a noticeable shift in his intellectual development. Oppenheim thinks that, of all the maximal intellectual insights Royce had throughout his career, the [End Page 128] most momentous one is the 1912 Peircean insight. This insight leads Royce to convert to Peircean semiotics and clarify his moral philosophy and philosophy of religion with Peirce’s theory of interpretation. In Oppenheim’s account, The Sources of Religious Insight (1912) and The Problem of Christianity (1913) are the glorious fruits of his Peircean insight. What Kegley has done in chapter 1 is to provide an account of Royce’s intellectual development that supersedes Oppenheim’s account. Indeed, her account of Royce’s intellectual development could possibly change how scholars study Royce’s thought, much in the same way that John E. Smith’s Royce’s Social Infinite did from the early 1950s until recently.In chapter 2, “The Self,” Kegley depicts Royce as a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century psychologist whose ideas are still relevant today. She reminds the reader throughout this chapter that Royce is a pioneer in psychology, given that his book Outlines of Psychology (1903) advances an approach to psychology that sidesteps faculty psychology and that he is one of the first psychologists, along with William James... (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the redundancy of Whitehead’s Platonic notion of the extensive continuum, counterposing it to his related notion of an atomic “ether of events.” I argue that Whitehead’s atomic ether is more compatible with orthodox general relativity than generally supposed and remarkably close to the contemporary idea of a discrete manifold in the causal set theory of quantum gravity. I argue that the method of extensive abstraction complements Whitehead’s atomic hypothesis by demonstrating the ultimately fictive nature (...) of any continuum. (shrink)

I recently argued that reductive physicalist versions of libertarian free will face a physical indeterminism luck objection. John Lemos claims that one potential advocate of reductive physicalist libertarianism, Robert Kane, avoids this physical indeterminism luck objection. I here show how the problem remains.

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy’s decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or (...) not: Maddy’s reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent’s lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent’s lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up. (shrink)

Modern logicians have sought to unlock the modal secrets of Aristotle's Syllogistic by assuming a version of essentialism and treating it as a primitive within the semantics. These attempts ultimately distort Aristotle's ontology. None of these approaches make full use of tests found throughout Aristotle's corpus and ancient Greek philosophy. I base a system on Aristotle's tests for things that can never combine (polarity) and things that can never separate (inseparability). The resulting system not only reproduces Aristotle's recorded results for (...) the apodictic syllogistic in the Prior Analytics but it also generates rather than assumes Aristotle's distinctions among 'necessary', 'essential' and 'accidental'. By developing a system around tests that are in Aristotle and basic to ancient Greek philosophy, the system is linked to a history of practices, providing a platform for future work on the origins of logic. (shrink)

This article is an exploration of the problem of identity in Whitehead. Both the Platonic and the nominalistic tendencies in Whitehead are analyzed. His theory of eternal objects is criticized and a process view of identity based on tropes is defended.

The healthcare systems of the United States and United Kingdom are vastly different. The former relies primarily on private sector incentives and market forces to allocate medical care services, while the latter is a centrally planned system funded almost entirely by the public sector. Therefore, each nation represents divergent views on the relative efficacy of the market or government in achieving social objectives in the area of medical care policy. Since its inception in 1948, the National Health Services of the (...) United Kingdom has consistently emphasized equity in the allocation of medical services. It has done so by creating a system whereby services are universally free of charge at the point of entry. Conversely, the United States has relied upon the evolution of a perplexing array of public and private sector insurance schemes centered more around consumer choice than equity in allocation. (shrink)

This review discussion outlines Justin Barrett’s Preparedness Model. This evolutionary model for belief in God is shown to posit a maladaptive mind for infants. Questions about its implications and the supporting data are considered.

This article is an attempt to analyze and criticize, both positively and negatively. Whitehead's concept of progress. Whitehead's progressive cosmology is critically examined, as is the relationship between technology and moral progress. The fragility of progress is emphasized.

Nonreductive physicalism states that actions have sufficient physical causes and distinct mental causes. Nonreductive physicalism has recently faced the exclusion problem, according to which the single sufficient physical cause excludes the mental causes from causal efficacy. Autonomists respond by stating that while mental-to-physical causation fails, mental-to-mental causation persists. Several recent philosophers establish this autonomy result via similar models of causation :1031–1049, 2016; Zhong, J Philos 111:341–360, 2014). In this paper I argue that both of these autonomist models fail on account (...) of the problem of Edwards’s Dictum. However, I appeal to foundational principles of action theory to resuscitate mental-to-mental causation in a manner that is consistent with the models of causation endorsed by these autonomists. (shrink)

Qualia Epiphenomenalism is the view that qualitative events lack causal efficacy. A common objection to qualia epiphenomenalism is the so-called Self-Stultifying Objection, which suggests that justified, true belief about qualitative events requires, among other things, the belief to be caused by the qualitative event—the very premise that qualia epiphenomenalism denies. William Robinson provides the most sustained response to the self-stultification objection that is available. In this paper I argue that Robinson's reply does not sufficiently overcome the self-stultification objection.

According to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal (...) exclusion problem. (shrink)

Jacoby Adeshei Carter has done an invaluable service in editing this critical edition of Alain Leroy Locke’s series of six lectures in Haiti delivered “from April 9 to July 10, 1943, when he was the Inter-American Exchange Professor to Haiti under the joint auspices of the American Committee for Inter-American Artistic and Intellectual Relations and the Haitian Ministry of Education”. African American Contributions to the Americas’ Cultures consists of two parts. The first part is Locke’s series of six lectures entitled (...) “The Negro’s Contribution to the Culture of the Americas.” The second part is Carter’s critical interpretative essay on Locke’s lectures entitled “‘Like Rum in the Punch’: The Quest for Cultural... (shrink)

Qualia epiphenomenalism is the view that qualitative properties of events, such as the raw feel of tastes or painfulness, lack causal efficacy. One common objection to qualia epiphenomenalism is the epistemic argument, which states that this loss of causal efficacy undermines our capacity to know about these epiphenomenal qualitative properties. A number of rejoinders have been offered up to insulate qualia epiphenomenalism from the epistemic argument. In this paper I consider and ultimately reject two such replies, namely, the common underlying (...) cause reply and the appeal to physical-effect epiphenomenalism. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Physical-Effect Epiphenomenalism and Common Underlying CausesVolume 51, Issue 3DWAYNE MOORE DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0012217312000674Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation Request permission. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Josiah Royce's "Enlightened" Antiblack Racism?Dwayne A. TunstallThis article has not been written by some ideal Roycean mediator whose interpretive acts can help heal the deep-seated racial and ethnic divisions of contemporary American society. Nor has it been written by an impartial judge adjudicating a dispute. Rather this article has been written by a Roycean scholar and a philosopher of race who feels compelled to examine Royce's social philosophy (...) in order to determine whether his positions on race in the United States of America and on racialized colonialism in the British Caribbean presuppose the legitimacy of antiblack racism. What has compelled me to examine Royce's social philosophy critically are the presentations made by Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley and Tommy J. Curry at the joint Josiah Royce Society and Personalist Discussion Group session for the 2008 American Philosophical Association (APA) Central Division meeting.For those readers who might be familiar with Royce's philosophy, this entire article may seem pointless. I can imagine quite a few readers asking themselves the following questions: Why should we waste our time reading an article investigating whether Royce's social philosophy presupposes antiblack racism? Do we not already know that Royce's philosophy is an antiracist one? This response has been nurtured by those Roycean scholars who have interpreted his philosophy to be antiracist. Indeed, this has apparently been the standard approach to interpreting Royce's philosophy since the publication of his 1905 address to the Chicago Ethical Society, "Race Questions and Prejudices," in Race Questions, Provincialism and Other American Problems. These scholars have included American pragmatists, African-American philosophers, theologians, ethicists, and philosophers of race. Over the last forty years alone, these scholars have included William T. Fontaine, Cornel West, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Alain Locke, Shannon Sullivan, and Jacquelyn Kegley. [End Page 39]In this article I argue that the standard antiracist interpretation of Royce's philosophy is a mistaken one. This is an understandable mistake, though, given that many of those who interpret Royce this way presuppose that (1) one can analyze certain concepts and principles from Royce's ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics (e.g., his theory of interpretation) apart from his concrete social philosophy and (2) one can ignore his tacit acceptance of early twentieth-century, British-style racialized colonialism. I think Kegley's writings on Royce and race are paradigmatic examples of this reading of Royce.Kegley's recent APA presentation can be read as a further articulation of one of the central contentions in her 2005 article, "Is a Coherent Racial Identity Essential to Genuine Individuals and Communities?": "… Royce advocates and provides the foundation for an anti-essentialist and nonracialist understanding of race" (216). Following her earlier analysis, Kegley's presentation takes these two contentions for granted: First, when one criticizes an essentialist conception of race (that is, regarding race as a natural kind), that person is not racist. Second, when one regards the concept of race as a social kind, one is antiracist, if not an outright nonracist. However, I think that it is possible for one to criticize an essentialist conception of race and regard race as a social kind and still accept a form of cultural antiblack racism. Moreover, I think that Royce's social philosophy is a paradigmatic example of this phenomenon, with him being a nonessentialist with regards to the concept of race but yet being a cultural antiblack racist.Here, the significance of Curry's presentation for Royce scholars is obvious. In it he asks us Royce scholars if Royce's social philosophy, with regards to race issues, is an accomplice for the cultural perpetuation of white supremacy. I think that the answer to that question hinges on whether Royce's acceptance of British-style racialized colonialism in the West Indies is based on a misguided ethnocentrism or on a form of cultural antiblack racism.I take it for granted that Royce's recommendation that Southern Euro-Americans learn from the British colonial rule of Jamaica and Trinidad in "Race Questions and Prejudices" is evidence that he had accepted the legitimacy of British-style racialized colonialism. What I would like to do now is explain how Royce's... (shrink)

For some time now, Jaegwon Kim has argued that irreducible mental properties face the threat of causal inefficacy. The primary weapon he deploys to sustain this charge is the supervenience/exclusion argument. This argument, in a nutshell, states that any mental property that irreducibly supervenes on a physical property is excluded from causal efficacy because the underlying physical property takes care of all of the causal work itself. Originally intended for mental properties alone, it did not take long for his critics (...) to suggest the argument generalizes across all of the special science properties as well. Kim responds in two different ways to the generalization problem. The first response, which I call the higher-level solution, is ably dismissed by numerous critics. The second response, which I call the identity solution, has not faced comparable scrutiny. In this paper I argue that the identity solution faces numerous problems of its own. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim argues that unreduced mental causes are excluded from efficacy because physical causes are sufficient in themselves. One response to this causal exclusion argument is to embrace some form of overdetermination. In this paper I consider two forms of overdetermination. Independent overdetermination suggests that two individually sufficient causes bring about one effect. This model fails because the sufficiency of one cause renders the other cause unnecessary. Dependent overdetermination suggests that a physical cause is necessary and sufficient for a given (...) effect, but it necessitates a mental cause of the effect as well. This model fails because the necessity of the mental cause renders the physical cause individually insufficient. (shrink)

Tommy J. Curry’s Another white Man’s Burden is an excellent study of Josiah Royce’s philosophy, particularly his social philosophy, within its historical milieu. I think that Curry is right with respect to his criticism of Royce’s social philosophy. As I read Another white Man’s Burden, I found myself distinguishing between the “good Royce” and the “bad Royce,” along the lines of the simplistic yet fruitful good-bad dichotomy Richard Rorty used to characterize philosophers such as John Dewey. By the “good Royce,” (...) I mean the Royce whose thought is neither necessarily anti-black and racist, nor advances the cause of Anglo-Saxon cultural superiority. By the “bad Royce,” I mean the Royce whose... (shrink)

Ethical personalism is normally associated with three of the central personalist movements in the twentieth century: the Boston personalism of Borden Parker Bowne, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rufus Burrow, Jr.; the French personalism of Emmanuel Mounier; and the personalism of Pope John Paul II. In the twenty-first century, there are a growing number of people living in North America and Europe who are not affiliated with any religious tradition, yet are still sympathetic to the Christian ethical ideas associated with (...) twentieth century personalist movements. This essay attempts to situate the best ideas from ethical personalism, specifically from Boston personalism, in a non-Christian religious humanist context. That way, non-theists who are sympathetic to Boston ethical personalism can still identify themselves as ethical personalists. (shrink)

This paper aims to sever the tie between Josiah Royce's ethico-religious insight and his idiosyncratic absolutistic idealism. The first section of this paper sets the stage for this severance by explaining what it is that Royce's ethico-religious insight needs to be separated from: his absolutistic idealism and its conception of God. This explanation will consist mainly of a concise description of Royce's phenomenology of concept formation in chapter nine of his Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885) and a critical exegesis of (...) his 1895 Berkeley lecture, "The Conception of God." The second section of this paper actually severs the tie between Royce's ethico-religious insight and his absolutistic conception of God via a Marcellian critique of Royce's conception of God. The third section of this paper places Royce's ethico-religious insight in a more hospitable environment — namely, the philosophical orbit of a Marcellian existential phenomenology. (shrink)

Despite differences between Cornel West's prophetic pragmatism and Dewey's pragmatism, they both conceive of “creative democracy” as an ethico-religious ideal. Accordingly, this article examines how Deweyan creative democracy is an ethico-religious ideal, in the sense of being a religious humanist ideal. This article concludes with an explanation of how a contemporary Deweyan democrat living in the United States cannot help but recognize the tragicomic undercurrents of creative democracy.

Abstract:In this essay, I respond to Chris Voparil’s reconstruction of Richard Rorty’s engagement with Josiah Royce’s pragmatism in chapter 4 of Reconstructing Pragmatism. I first express my thoughts about Voparil’s three main claims about Rorty’s reconstruction of Royce’s pragmatism. I then mention what I took to be the least interesting part of this chapter. Finally, I propose that Alain Locke’s pragmatism, and more specifically his approach to resolving conflicting loyalties and his appropriation of Royce’s concept of wise provincialism, could function (...) as a bridge between Royce’s absolute pragmatism and Rorty’s pragmatism. Readers should take the last part of this essay as a prolegomenon to a study of Locke’s appropriation of Royce’s concept of wise provincialism. (shrink)

Philosophers often entertain positions that they themselves do not hold. This article is an example of this. While I do not advocate localized acts of violence to combat white supremacy, I think that it is worthwhile to explore why it might be theoretically justifiable for some African Americans to commit such acts of violence. I contend that acts of localized violence are at least theoretical justifiable for some African Americans from the vantage point of racial realism. Yet, I also contend (...) that the likely detrimental consequences of engaging in such violence on economically disadvantaged African Americans outweigh its possible benefits for them; hence, it should not be used by them to combat white supremacy presently. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes: Sid climbs the hill because he wants to. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes: Sid climbs the hill because a complex neural process in his brain triggered his climbing. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of (...) the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing Sid’s behaviour. In this paper I demonstrate how numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in numerous ways. The result: either numerous nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness. (shrink)

Christian List has recently presented a compatibilist libertarian solution to the free will and determinism problem. He proposes the admixture of libertarianism, which endorses agential alternative possibilities, with physical determinism, which endorses the necessity of physical effects. In this paper, we argue that List's innovative proposal ultimately fails.

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that the same agential states can cause different possible actions. Nonreductive physicalism is, roughly, the view that mental states cause actions to occur, while these actions also have sufficient physical causes. Though libertarian free will and nonreductive physicalism have overlapping subject matter, and while libertarian free will is currently trending at the same time as nonreductive physicalism is a dominant metaphysical posture, there are few sustained expositions of a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian (...) free will – indeed some tell against such an admixture. This paper concocts such a blend by articulating and defending, with some caveats, a nonreductive physicalist model of libertarian free will. (shrink)

While there are reasons to believe that both component forces and a resultant force operate on a body in combined circumstances, the threat of overdetermination largely prevents adoption of this view. Accordingly, a lively debate has arisen over which force actually exists and which force is eliminated in combined circumstances, the components or the resultant. In this article I present a non-reductive model of resultant force which ensures the existence of both the resultant force and the component forces without overdetermination. (...) According to the non-reductive model, the resultant force is the summation of component forces, where summation is interpreted as meaning that the component forces, when temporally and spatially overlapping, form a superposed mixture which is the resultant force, but which is not identical to the conjunction of component forces taken with temporal and spatial independence. (shrink)

There is a difference between having reasons for believing and believing for reasons. This difference is often fleshed out via an epistemic basing relation, where an epistemic basing relation obtains between beliefs and the actual reasons for which those beliefs are held. The precise nature of the basing relation is subject to much controversy, and one such underdeveloped issue is whether beliefs can be based on brain processing. In this paper I answer in the negative, providing reasons that the basing (...) relation must be a specific psychological level relation between mental states, rather than being a brain process. (shrink)

In a series of writings, James Sterba introduces several novel arguments from evil against the existence of God (Sterba, 2019; Sterba Sophia 59, 501–512, 2020; Sterba International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87, 203–208, 2020b; Sterba International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87, 223–228, 2020c; Sterba Religions 12, 536, 2021). According to one of these arguments, the problem of natural evil, God must necessarily prevent the horrendous evil consequences of natural evil such as diseases and hurricanes; however, these horrendous evil (...) consequences of natural evils still occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I reply to Sterba’s argument from natural evil by introducing a naturalistic theodicy, and then demonstrating how it overcomes Sterba’s problem of natural evil. This paper is divided into five sections. First, I unpack Sterba’s problem of natural evil into three parts (Section 1), namely, Sterba’s moral obligation claim about humans, Sterba’s moral obligation claim about non-human life, and Sterba’s arguments from analogy. I then introduce a general naturalistic theodicy to the problem of natural evil (Section 2): naturalists grant that natural forces (entropy, evolutionary pressures, tectonic plate movements, etc.) cause horrendous consequences of natural evil, yet still consider human life in the universe a good better than humans are entitled to, so, if God made this naturalistic universe, God made human life in the universe a good better than humans are entitled to. I then use this naturalistic theodicy to reply to Sterba’s moral obligation claim about humans (Section 3), before bolstering the case by appeal to Sterba’s moral obligation claims about non-human life (Section 4). I then reply to Sterba’s arguments from analogy (Section 5). (shrink)

Le modèle évaluatif de l’amour est centré sur l’objet et basé sur les raisons : l’amour se fonde sur des raisons dérivées des propriétés appréciables de l’aimé. Le modèle attributif de l’amour est axé sur le sujet et non fondé sur les raisons : l’amour n’est pas basé sur des raisons dérivées des propriétés appréciables de l’aimé, mais provient plutôt de l’amant. Dans cet article, je mélange ces modèles opposés dans le but de préserver leurs vertus et de surmonter leurs (...) difficultés. Je propose un compte rendu de l’amour basé sur des motifs et axé sur le sujet : l’amour éclot chez l’amant mais, en lui, il repose sur les raisons qui motivent l’amant. (shrink)

For the nonreductive physicalist, behavioural effects have a complete physiological explanation and a distinct psychological explanation. In a series of papers Jaegwon Kim argues that there can be no more than a single complete and independent explanation of any one event, thereby excluding the psychological explanation. For his own part, Kim includes psychological explanations through the use of an extensional model of explanatory individuation. Numerous critics have pointed out the counterintuitive results of this extensional model of explanatory individuation. In a (...) recent article in this journal, Neil Campbell suggests that Kim's property exemplification account of events provides the conceptual resources to dodge this objection. In this article I argue that this appeal to the property exemplification account does not work in the crucial case of mental explanation. (shrink)

In recent papers, Lei Zhong argues that the autonomy solution to the causal exclusion problem is unavailable to anyone that endorses the counterfactual model of causation. The linchpin of his argument is that the counterfactual theory entails the downward causation principle, which conflicts with the autonomy solution. In this note I argue that the counterfactual theory does not entail the downward causation principle, so it is possible to advocate for the autonomy solution to the causal exclusion problem from within the (...) counterfactual theory of causation. (shrink)

This book argues that Josiah Royce bequeathed to philosophy a novel idealism based on an ethico-religious insight.This insight became the basis for an idealistic personalism, wherein the Real is the personal and a metaphysics of community is the most appropriate approach to metaphysics for personal beings, especially in an often impersonal and technological intellectual climate. -/- The first part of the book traces how Royce constructed his idealistic personalism in response to criticisms made by George Holmes Howison. That personalism is (...) interpreted as an ethical and panentheistic one, somewhat akin to Charles Hartshorne's process philosophy. The second part investigates Royce's idealistic metaphysics in general and his ethico-religious insight in particular. In the course of these investigations, the author examines how Royce's ethico-religious insight could be strengthened by incorporating the philosophical theology of Dr. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and Emmanuel Levinas's ethical metaphysics. The author concludes by briefly exploring the possibility that Royce's progressive racial anti-essentialism is, in fact, a form of cultural, antiblack racism and asks whether his cultural, antiblack racism taints his ethico-religious insight. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim once refrained from excluding distinct mental causes of effects that depend upon the sufficient physical cause of the effect. At that time, Kim also refrained from excluding distinct mental explanations of effects that depend upon complete physical explanations of the effect. More recently, he has excluded distinct mental causes of effects that depend upon the sufficient cause of the effect, since the physical cause is individually sufficient for the effect. But there has been, to this point, no parallel (...) shift in the explanatory realm, such that distinct mental explanations of effects that depend upon complete physical explanations of the effect are excluded since the physical explanation is objectively complete. In this paper I consider, defend, and apply this update to the principle of explanatory exclusion—an update, which, in the final analysis, demonstrates a significant advantage that non-reductive physicalism has over reductive physicalism. (shrink)

Mind and the Causal Exclusion Problem The causal exclusion problem is an objection to nonreductive physicalist models of mental causation. Mental causation occurs when behavioural effects have mental causes: Jennie eats a peach because she wants one; Marvin goes to Harvard because he chose to, etc. Nonreductive physicalists typically supplement adherence to mental causation with … Continue reading Mind and the Causal Exclusion Problem →.