This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'affirming a disjunct' (AAD). It presents a few examples of fallacies in arguments caused by an ambiguity in the English word or. Because context makes the meaning clear in everyday usage, we might never have thought about this ambiguity before, but we actually use the word or in two very distinct ways. One type of or is known as “inclusive”, and the other type is known as “exclusive”. (...) AAD occurs when someone mistakenly believes that an inclusive or is an exclusive or. Importantly, not every or statement can fall prey to AAD. The argument known as a disjunctive syllogism sets out two possibilities that are mutually exclusive. When someone is dead, she/he is not alive, and when someone is alive, she/he is not dead. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the conjunction fallacy. It discusses a case of Linda who was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. The chapter applies the concept the present fallacy to the Linda Problem by using a Venn diagram. When one needs to determine the relative probability of different scenarios, one way to prevent himself/herself from making the conjunction fallacy is to determine whether (...) any of the options is a subset of any other. If so, he/she can conclude that the subset option is not more probable. This rule works because a specific event can never be more likely than a general event that encompasses the specific event. The chapter explains why people are so frequently drawn in by the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

There is a growing sentiment that federal student loans should be allocated according to students’ expected earning potential. If federal student loans were given so that the government could make a profit, then such a system would make sense. But this is not so. Instead, the US government issues student loans with the goal of benefiting society—and, in particular, of benefitting the loan recipients themselves. Although some of this benefit is expressed in higher earning potential, much of it is not. (...) In this chapter, we argue that the federal student loan system should be structured to account for the intrinsic values that accrue to individuals both from increased education and from certain occupational choices. (shrink)

Hobbits and hooligans -- Ignorant, irrational, misinformed nationalists -- Political participation corrupts -- Politics doesn't empower you or me -- Politics is not a poem -- The right to competent government -- Is democracy competent? -- The rule of the knowers -- Civic enemies.

Recently, debate over whether health care providers should have a protected right to conscientiously refuse to offer legal health care services—such as abortion, elective sterilization, aid in dying, or treatments for transgender patients—has grown exponentially. I advance a modified compromise view that bases respect for claims of conscientious refusal to provide specific health care services on a publicly defensible rationale. This view requires health care providers who refuse such services to disclose their availability by other providers, as well as to (...) arrange for referrals or facilitate transfers of care. This requirement raises the question of whether providers are being forced to be complicit in the provision of services they deem to be morally objectionable. I conclude by showing how this modified compromise view answers the most significant objections mounted by critics of the right to conscientious refusal and safeguards providers from having to offer services that most directly threaten their moral integrity. (shrink)

Although Eugen Fink often reflected upon the role religion, these reflections are yet to be addressed in secondary literature in any substantive sense. For Fink, religion is to be understood in relation to “play,” which is a metaphor for how the world presents itself. Religion is a non-repetitive, and entirely creative endeavor or “symbol” that is not achieved through work and toil, or through evaluation or power, but rather, through his idea of play and “cult” as the imaginative distanciation from (...) a predictable lifeworld. This paper describes Fink’s understanding of religion and its most relevant aspects found in Spiel als Weltsymbol. The paper is organized into five sections—1: An introduction to his phenomenological approach in general, and description of the role of “play”; 2: investigations into the relation between play and world; 3: a description of his phenomenology of religion; 4: engagements in the idea of cult-play and the sacred sphere, and 5: reflection on his idea of the play of God. (shrink)

Recent debate among bioethicists concerns the potential to enhance human beings’ physical or cognitive capacities by means of genetic, pharmacological, cybernetic, or surgical interventions. Between “transhumanists,” who argue for unreserved enhancement of human capabilities, and “bioconservatives,” who warn against any non-therapeutic manipulation of humanity’s natural condition, lie those who support limited forms of enhancement for the sake of individual and collective human flourishing. Many scholars representing these views also share a concern over the status and interests of human beings with (...) various types of cognitive and physical disabilities, some of which may be ameliorable by enhancement interventions. The question addressed in this paper is whether valuing the enhancement of human capabilities may be reconciled with valuing the existence and phenomenological experiences of human beings with various disabilities. Can we value enhanced capabilities without disvaluing those whose capabilities fall below a defined threshold of “normal function”? Furthermore, if certain forms of disability, particularly cognitive disabilities, negatively impact one’s flourishing, could the enhancement of one’s cognitive capacities through biotechnological means enhance one’s flourishing. (shrink)

Transhumanism is an ideology that embraces the use of various forms of biotechnology to enhance human beings toward the emergence of a “posthuman” kind. In this article, I contrast some of the foundational tenets of Transhumanism with those of Christianity, primarily focusing on their respective anthropologies—that is, their diverse understandings of whether there is an essential nature shared by all human persons and, if so, whether certain features of human nature may be intentionally altered in ways that contribute toward how (...) each views human flourishing. A central point of difference concerns Transhumanists’ aim of attaining “substrate independence” for the human mind, such that one’s consciousness could be uploaded into a cybernetic environment. Christian anthropology, on the other hand, considers embodiment, with its characteristics of vulnerability and finitude, to be an essential feature of human nature—hence, Christians’ belief in bodily resurrection. Despite Christianity and Transhumanism having fundamental differences, I contend that Christians may support moderate forms of enhancement oriented toward supporting our flourishing as living, sentient, social, and rational animals. (shrink)

The above-mentioned article was published online with an incorrect title. The correct title reads “Does the Demographic Objection to Epistocracy Succeed?”.

Debate over whether health care institutions or individual providers should have a legally protected right to conscientiously refuse to offer legal services to patients who request them has grown exponentially due to the increasing legalization of morally contested services. This debate is particularly acute for Catholic health care providers. We elucidate Catholic teaching regarding the nature of conscience and the intrinsic value of being free to act in accord with one’s conscience. We then outline the primary positions defended in this (...) debate and respond to critics of Catholic teaching. In so doing, we show how Catholic health care providers’ claims to conscientiously refuse to offer specific health care services are not essentially faith-based, but are founded upon publicly defensible reasons. We also address the question of whether conscientiously refusing health care providers may become complicit in moral wrongdoing or potentially cause scandal by means of disclosure or referral to another provider. (shrink)

Commonsense moral thinking holds that people have doxastic, contemplative, and expressive duties, that is, duties to or not to believe, seriously consider, and express certain ideas. This paper argues that moral and political philosophers face a high risk of violating any such duties, both because of the sensitivity and difficult of the subject matter, and because of various pernicious biases and influences philosophers face. We argue this leads to a dilemma, which we will not try to solve. Either philosophers should (...) reduce their risk by avoiding sensitive issues where they are likely to violate such duties or, for one reason or another, philosophers are to some degree exempt from such duties when doing their work. Either horn of the dilemma, we argue, has unpalatable implications. (shrink)

The “participatory turn” cutting across technical approaches for appraising environment, risk, science, and technology has been accompanied by intense debates over the desired nature, extent, and quality of public engagement in science. Burgeoning work evaluating the effectiveness of such processes and the social study of science in society more generally is notable, however, for lacking systematic understanding of the very actors shaping these new forms science-society interaction. This paper addresses this lacuna by drawing on United Kingdom based in-depth empirical research (...) that made space for participatory appraisal experts to reflect on effective practice and novel questions of competence, expertise, and citizen-specialist relations within analytic-deliberative processes. Emerging practitioner principles warn that existing participatory models have not sufficiently considered constructivist perspectives on knowledge, analysis, and deliberation. Effective participatory appraisal under uncertainty needs to guard against the “technocracy of participation” by opening up to diversity, difference, antagonism, and uncertainties/indeterminacies. (shrink)

Research on firm initial public offering (IPO) performance has primarily utilized an economics of information perspective, which assumes that publicly available information is incorporated into a stock’s price when it is issued. However, the valuation process associated with IPOs remains manifest with considerable uncertainty for the prospective investor. This study argues that corporate political activity undertaken prior to the firm’s IPO acts as a signal to investors, reducing the uncertainty the market places on the value of the firm’s equity. Utilizing (...) a sample of 180 IPOs, we show that the more a firm invests in corporate political activity prior to its IPO, the better its IPO performance. These findings provide evidence that corporate political activity acts as a nonmarket signal, influencing investor behavior by reducing the information asymmetries between investors and the target firm. (shrink)

:This essay argues for what may be called the parity thesis: Whenever it would be morally permissible to kill a civilian in self-defense or in defense of others against that civilian's unjust acts, it would also be permissible to kill government officials, including police officers, prison officers, generals, lawmakers, and even chief executives. I argue that in realistic circumstances, violent resistance to state injustice is permissible, even and perhaps especially in reasonably just democratic regimes. When civilians see officials about to (...) commit certain severe injustices — such as police officers engaging in excessive violence — they may sometimes act unilaterally and kill the offending officials. I consider and rebut a wide range of objections, including objections against vigilantism, objections based on state legitimacy, and objections that violence can produce bad fallout. 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.WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Your 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. WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Available 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. WHEN MAY WE KILL GOVERNMENT AGENTS? IN DEFENSE OF MORAL PARITYVolume 32, Issue 2Jason Brennan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052516000108Available 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)

We argue against Christopher Meyers’s call for clinical ethicists to participate in deceiving patients, surrogate decision-makers, or family members. While we acknowledge that some forms of deception may be ethically appropriate in highly circumscribed situations, the type of case Meyers describes as involving justifiable deception differs in at least two important ways. First, Meyers fails to distinguish acts of deception based on the critical feature of who is being deceived—patient, surrogate, or family member—and the overarching duty to respect the autonomy (...) of relevant decision-makers to make rationally-informed decisions. Second, Meyers’s analysis relies on an assessment of harm, a value-laden concept which health care professionals and ethicists should not presumptively assess without considering how the patient, surrogate, or family might assess specific harms. (shrink)

The standard argument for the causal theory of action is "Davidson's Challenge": explain the connection between reasons and actions without appealing to the idea that reasons cause actions. I argue that this is an argument to the best contrastive explanation. After examining the nature of contrastive explanation in detail, I show that the causalist does not yet have the best explanation. The best explanation would appeal further to the motivational strength of reasons. Finally, I show how this undermines the argument (...) for causalism, since noncausalists, too, can meet Davidson's Challenge by appealing to motivational strength to explain the cases at issue. (shrink)

‘When did I, a human person, begin to exist?’ In developing an answer to this question, I utilize a Thomistic framework, which holds that the human person is a composite of a biological organism and an intellective soul. Eric Olson and Norman Ford both argue that the beginning of an individual human biological organism occurs at the moment when implantation of the zygote in the uterus occurs and the ‘primitive streak’ begins to form. Prior to this point, there does not (...) exist an individual human organism, but a cluster of biological cells which has the potential to split and develop as one or more separate human organisms (identical twinning). Ensoulment (the instantiation of a human intellective soul in biological matter) does not occur until the point of implantation. This conception of the beginning of human personhood has moral implications concerning the status of pre‐implantation biological cell clusters. A new understanding of the beginning of human personhood entails a new understanding of the morality of certain medical procedures which have a direct affect on these cell clusters which contain human DNA. Such procedures discussed in this article are embryonic stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, procured abortion, and the use of abortifacient contraceptives. (shrink)

One alleged advantage of credit theories of knowledge is that they are capable of explaining why knowledge is essentially more valuable than mere true belief. I argue that credit theories in fact provide grounds for denying this claim and therefore are incapable of overcoming the ‘value problem’ in epistemology. Much of the discussion revolves around the question of whether true belief is always epistemically valuable. I also consider to what extent, if any, my main argument should worry credit theorists.

ABSTRACTJason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works intends to offer a novel account of what propaganda is, how it works, and what damage it does inside a democratic culture. The book succeeds in showing that, contrary to the stereotype, propaganda need not be false or misleading. However, Stanley offers contradictory definitions of propaganda, and his theory, which is both over- and under-inclusive, is applied in a dismissive, highly ideological way. In the end, it remains unclear how much damage propaganda does. Voters in (...) modern democracies would be ignorant and irrational even without propaganda. (shrink)

This article explores the possibility of moving beyond the apparent incapacity of Karl Barth's theological anthropology to accommodate gender equality. Barth's theological anthropology is read by critics and appreciative readers alike as confining the basic form of humanity to a binary opposition from which he then derives a gender‐specific, hierarchical account of man and woman, and finally, of husband and wife as a paradigmatic ethical relationship. I first forward a close reading of Barth's account of I and Thou in order (...) to explicate the nature of the normative form that is basic to his account of human being‐in‐relation. I apply this reading as a lens through which to re‐read and re‐orient his account of Man and Woman/Husband and Wife. I argue that the inequalities that appear intrinsic to Barth's formal ordering of Man and Woman/Husband and Wife owing to the absence of a standard concept of “equal regard” might be re‐oriented, and limitations of his account surpassed, by grasping with greater precision and enunciating the orientational implications of Barth's christologically‐anchored conception of freedom as the “root and crown” of human being‐in‐relation generally, and gendered relationship in particular. (shrink)

Contemporary arguments concerning the permissibility of physician-assisted suicide [PAS], or suicide in general, often rehearse classical arguments over whether individual persons have a fundamental right based on autonomy to determine their own death, or whether the community has a legitimate interest in individual members’ welfare that would prohibit suicide. I explicate historical arguments pertaining to PAS aligned with these poles. I contend that an ethical indictment of PAS entails moral duties on the part of one’s community to provide effective means (...) of ameliorating physical and existential suffering. I further elucidate how such duties have been affirmed by the Roman Catholic Church. My aim is to provide reasons why the expanding legalization of PAS should not preclude social investment in effective palliative care and providing a communal presence to the dying as they confront their subjectively experienced suffering. (shrink)

Response to human head transplant proposal and pertinent personal identity questions.

Although in everyday life and thought we take for granted that there are norms of rationality, their existence presents severe philosophical problems. Kolodny (2005) is thus moved to deny that rationality is normative. But this denial is not itself unproblematic, and I argue that Kolodny's defence of it—particularly his Transparency Account, which aims to explain why rationality appears to be normative even though it is not—is unsuccessful.

Many debates in arenas such as bioethics turn on questions regarding the moral status of human beings at various stages of biological development or decline. It is often argued that a human being possesses a fundamental and inviolable moral status insofar as she is a “person”; yet, it is contested whether all or only human beings count as persons. Perhaps there are non-human person, and perhaps not every human being satisfies the definitional criteria for being a person. A further question, (...) which will be the primary focus of this paper, concerns what essential features of personhood endow persons, human or otherwise, with their moral status and the inherent rights they concomitantly possess. A survey of the history of philosophical theorizing on what it means to be a person yields a broad consensus upon the key capacities being rational thought, self-consciousness, and autonomous volition. It is not sufficient, however, simply to cite these capacities, but to explain why these particular capacities bear moral import. A more recent concern has developed regarding the possible future existence of so-called “post-persons” who, due to their enhanced cognitive and emotive capacities, may be morally superior to mere persons and thereby possess a higher moral status. This paper will conclude with an analysis of the extent to which this concern is warranted. (shrink)

During the 1970s and 1980s, political psychologists at the State University of New York at Stony Brook focused political scientists’ attention on online processing. Borrowing from the new field of social cognition in psychology, they argued that voters’ evaluations of candidates are the products of a summing up of reactions to happenings during a campaign. Voters might not remember the specific events later on, but their running tallies of reactions over the duration of the campaign would ensure that they take (...) the forgotten information into account when entering the voting booth. Later, these same scholars yet again borrowed from (a very changed) psychology, and argued that many people, especially the most politically sophisticated, try to confirm their current political evaluations—for example, by seeking out confirmatory evidence and dismissing evidence that challenges their attitudes. We ask whether online processing and motivated reasoning have the same or different implications for democratic governance, and whether the two empirical perspectives can be reconciled. (shrink)

Advocates of active euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide argue that a patient’s intractable pain and suffering are a sufficient justification for his life to end if he autonomously so chooses. Others hold that the non-utilization of life-sustaining treatment, the use of pain-relieving medication that may hasten a patient’s death, and palliative sedation may be morally acceptable means of alleviating pain and suffering. How a patient should be cared for when approaching the end of life involves one’s core religious and moral values, (...) particularly concerning whether pain and suffering can have some sort of instrumental value. The author reasons why a patient who is terminally ill can find his suffering valuable for both religious and nonreligious goals. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 12.2 (Summer 2012): 251–261. (shrink)

Recent findings from psychology and behavioral economics suggest that we are “predictably irrational” in the pursuit of our interests. Paternalists from both the social sciences and philosophy use these findings to defend interfering with people's consumption choices for their own good. We should tax soda, ban cigarettes, and mandate retirement savings to make people healthier and wealthier than they’d be on their own. Our thesis is that the standard arguments offered in support of restricting people’s consumption choices for their own (...) good also imply support for “epistocratic” restrictions on people’s voting choices for their own good. Indeed, the philosophical case for paternalistic restrictions on voting choices may be stronger than the case for restricting personal consumption choices. So, paternalists face a dilemma: either endorse less interference with consumption choices or more interference with voting choices. (shrink)

This chapter considers an epistemological argument from disagreement which concludes that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge. Various ways of understanding the argument are considered and it is argued that each relies on an epistemic principle that is under-motivated, overgeneralizes, and is indeed self-incriminating. These problems, it is suggested, infect many conciliationist theses in the epistemology of disagreement. Knowledge, it is argued, can withstand not only acknowledged peer disagreement, but also disagreement with the acknowledged experts. (...) If this is right, then the sort of epistemic principle that is required to move from moral disagreement to the conclusion that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge has landed well off the mark. (shrink)

Some philosophers hold that rational explanations­—explanations of people’s attitudes and actions that cite their reasons for forming these attitudes or performing these actions—are dispositional. The hold that rational explanations do their explanatory work by representing these attitudes and actions as the product of dispositions on the part of the subject. I challenge arguments to this effect by Barry Stroud and Michael Smith. And I argue that human beings do not possess, and could not possess, the dispositions required for the dispositionalist (...) account. I propose an alternative account of rational explanation, one that exploits the connection between rational explanations and rational deliberation to show how such explanations can be simultaneously normative and causal. (shrink)

It has been 40 years since the seminal papers on pharmacy's status as a profession sparked debate about the pharmacist's role in health care, yet the questions they raised are just as poignant today as they were then. Questions about whether pharmacists are the experts when it comes to drug therapy information can be answered practically by assessing the perception of pharmacists' obligations to patients as being dependent on or independent of physicians' responsibilities. Both options have important implications for pharmacy's (...) status as a profession, the value that pharmacists can add to health care, and a pharmacist's right to deny a patient emergency contraception. (shrink)

This essay demonstrates Ricoeur’s explication of the various roles religion can play especially in regards to acts of collective violence, and also how his conceptions take us beyond the traditional dichotomies of religion as necessarily violent, or necessarily peaceful. It focuses on three essays where his most formidable reflections on religion and violence can be found: “Religion and Symbolic Violence”, “Power and Violence”, and “State and Violence”. First, the essay hermeneutically describes the intricate relationship between violence and religion within these (...) three essays, pointing to three perils of religion especially regarding communities, the figure of the magistrate within some religiously motivated political revolutions, and the danger of ecclesiastical orders demonstrating not only authority but also forms of domination. The essay then phenomenologically ties these three threads together, demonstrating a way of understanding both the promises and perils of religion as it relates to violence, both in the work of Ricoeur and beyond it. (shrink)

How we use our own victimhood and that of others has been changing in recent years. Today it may be used to decry an injustice of violence, to garner attention to our causes, to command a unique moral and ecclesial authority, or even to gain advantage over other groups. The many possible uses of victimhood lead us to study phenomenologically its influence upon our human condition, considering especially its cultural manifestations, and religious underpinnings. The contributions investigate the topic through four (...) sections: 1) Blame, Liability, Ressentiment, 2) Christianity, Atonement, Scapegoating, 3) Trauma, Survivor Guilt, Exile, and 4) Culture, Globalization Media. (shrink)

Sacrifice, solidarity, and social decadence were essential themes not only for Patočka's philosophical work, but also for his personal life. In the "Varna Lectures" sacrifice is characterized uniquely as the privation of a clear telos, as counter-escapist, and as sutured to a comportment of finite life that is non-causal and non-purposive. In his Heretical Essays a similar hope is expressed to extract meaningfulness from use-value, and to deploy a Socratic and Christian "Care for the Soul" that can counteract the decadences (...) of our age. These interests and developments of the practice and notion of sacrifice point to Patočka's double-hereticism, both of the post-industrial age of technological advancement, and of what had become the unthought-through of the Christian tradition. In both senses, his theory of sacrifice is not unlike that of St. Paul, who saw the necessity of counter-acting the decadence and pompousness of the Corinthians by calling them to become "scum of the earth." This helps reveal how sacrifice presumes, in general, an operative notion of waste, and this paper seeks to lend further understanding to the relation between solidarity and sacrifice by developing, from out of Patočka's own work, precisely how waste figures prominently in such a relation. Waste may be refused by merit of being deemed to have no value; waste can mark a layer of expenditure of using "something up" in a way that overlooks its societal surplus; and waste could depict whatever is, like a wasteland, uncultivable and barren. Waste then is employed in the essay as a heuristic tool for understanding how the normalization of the relation between solidarity and sacrifice is in need of being inverted, and how this inversion has consequences also for how solidarity can be considered in relation to atonement. (shrink)

Inconspicuous turns: Heidegger and the "inapparent" theological turn -- Inconspicuous revelation: Marion, Heidegger, and an antinomic phenomenality -- Inconspicuous phenomenology: on Heidegger's unscheinbarkeit or inapparent -- Inconspicuous lifeworld of religion: Henry's "life," Heidegger's "world" -- Inconspicuous liturgy: Lacoste, Heidegger, and the space of godhood -- Inconspicuous adoration: Nancy, Heidegger, and a praise of the ordinary -- Inconspicuous evidence: Janicaud, religious experience, and a methodological atheism -- Inconspicuous faith: Chretien, Heidegger, and forgetting -- Inconspicuous God: Levinas, Heidegger, and the idolatry of (...) incomprehensibility -- The spectacle of God: inverting the sacred/profane paradigm. (shrink)