A four-factor model of spiritual intelligence is first proposed. Supportive evidence is reviewed for the capacities of critical existential thinking, personal meaning production, transcendental awareness, and conscious state expansion. Based on this model, a 24-item self-report measure was developed and modified across two consecutive studies . The final version of the scale, the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory , displayed excellent internal reliability and good fit to the proposed model. Correlational analyses with additional measures of meaning, metapersonal self-construal, mysticism, religiosity, and (...) social desirability offer support for construct and criterion-related validity. According to both intelligence criteria and current psychometric standards, findings validate the proposed model and measure of spiritual intelligence. Future directions are discussed. (shrink)

Is the ancient Confucian ideal of he 和, ‘harmony,’ a viable ideal in pluralistic societies composed of people and groups who subscribe to different ideals of the good and moral life? Is harmony compatible with accepting, even encouraging, difference and the freedom to think differently? I start with seminal characterizations of harmony in Confucian texts and then aim to chart ways harmony and freedom can be compatible and even mutually supportive while recognizing the constant possibility of conflict between them. I (...) shall point out how the Confucian notion of harmony resonates with the Indian King Asoka's project of promoting religious pluralism. Along the way, I will make some comments of a ‘meta’ nature about the kind of interpretation I am offering of harmony in the Confucian texts and the use to which I am putting this interpretation by setting it in the context of societies that in important respects are quite different from the ones from which concepts of harmony originally emerged. (shrink)

Epictetus was born a slave. His master, Epaphroditus, allowed him to attend the lectures of the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus and later gave him his freedom. From numerous references in his Discourses it is clear that Epictetus valued freedom as a precious possession. He would have been on the side of the many people living now who, while not actually enslaved, are denied true freedom by the harsh circumstances of their lives. Epictetus's teachings about freedom and human dignity have echoed (...) through the millennia-in the writings of Spinoza, Thomas Paine and Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few. He was much concerned with human behavior. His advice to not worry about what is not in our control is pointedly relevant to our busy modern society-which is often fraught with anxiety. Some people might argue that what Epictetus taught is not serious philosophy, more like self-help. But the range of topics addressed by the essays in this book clearly indicates that the teachings of Epictetus provide strong incentive to present day philosophical thinking. "Epictetus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance" is the title of a conference on Epictetus held at Rochester Institute of Technology in April 2012, when many of the ideas in these essays were first presented. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Frederick J. Streng Book Award:An Interview with Paul Ingram and Sallie KingSallie B. King and Paul O. IngramSallie King and Paul Ingram have been named winners of the 2003 Frederick J. Streng Book Award for their edited collection The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng (Curzon, 1999). Sallie King is professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison University (...) in Harrisonburg,Virginia. Paul Ingram is professor of religion at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma,Washington. Both are past presidents of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. There is some irony that they have won this award named after Fred Streng, one of the founders of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, for a volume that is a essentially a festschrift honoring the work of Fred Streng. Following is an edited interview with both of the winners.Buddhist-Christian Studies: What made each of you want to put together this collection of essays?Paul Ingram: Before I met Fred at the first "East-West Religions in Encounter" meeting organized by David Chappell in 1980 in Hawai'i, I was well acquainted with his work in history of religions. Fred by this time was recognized as one of the most important scholars in the field, and I deeply admired his work, particularly his book on Nagarjuna. As it turns out, he had read some of my work on Pure Land Buddhism and was as interested in meeting me as I was in meeting him. We became friends and colleagues. Because of our mutual interest in interreligious dialogue in general and in Buddhism in particular, he suggested that we should co-edit a volume of selected papers from the 1980 conference. This volume, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Mutual Renewal and Transformation, was subsequentlypublishedby the Universityof Hawai'i Press in 1986 and is still in print.Sallie King: I had long admired Fred's book on Nagarjuna, which uniquely and powerfullyopenedup the religiousmeaningof Nagarjuna'swork.I later metFred through the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies and discovered that this admirable scholar was also a most admirable human being. We had lengthy, in-depth conversations when our paths crossed at various conferences. After Fred died, David Chappell, who had become the president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, suggested to Paul and me that we edit a volume of this kind in honor of Fred. Neither Paul nor I hesitated. For my part, I felt such a loss when Fred died that I was very happy [End Page 313] and honored to have this opportunity to make a gesture of respect and gratitude toFred.Besides his obvious scholarly achievements, what were Fred Streng's other gifts?PI: Fred was always generous in his support of colleagues. Many of us in the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies are where we are professionally because of Fred's celebration of our work in all its diversity. He was one of the founding members of the Society, and he worked long and hard to make it a place for not only scholarly Buddhist-Christian encounter, but also a venue for nonspecialists to engage in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. All of us have been creatively transformed by Fred's work. After Fred's death in 1993, David Chappell invited Sallie and me to co-edit a volume of essays to honor Fred's memory and celebrate his work. We did so gladly and without reservation.SK: Fred was a very balanced person who had seriously engaged with all the important areas of human life. He was profoundly spiritual, seriously concerned about social issues, unfailingly kind and generous to others. Though he was at the top of his field, he remained straightforward and natural and always met even far-junior scholars as equals; he could not have been more encouraging and supportive. His spirituality, his scholarship, his engagement with social issues and his caring for others were all interdependent, mutually constructive of who he was and of his various projects.Were assignments for the book difficult to make?PI: The most difficult problem was selecting who to invite. Sallie and I identified five themes in Fred's scholarship, and we needed... (shrink)

1.1 Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Tangent Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...) . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Vector Fields, Integral Curves, and Flows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Tensors and Tensor Fields on Manifolds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.5 The Action of Smooth Maps on Tensor Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 1.6 Lie Derivatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 1.7 Derivative Operators and Geodesics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 1.8 Curvature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 1.9 Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 1.10 Hypersurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 1.11 Volume Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96.. (shrink)

It is worthwhile comparing Hylomorphic and Animalistic accounts of personal identity since they both identify the human animal and the human person.The topics of comparison will be three: The first is accounting for our intuitions in cerebrum transplant and irreversible coma cases. Hylomorphism, unlike animalism, appears to capture “commonsense” beliefs here, preserves the maxim that identity matters, and does not run afoul of the Only x and y rule. The next topic of comparison reveals how the rival explanations of transplants (...) and comas are both at odds with some compelling biological assumptions. The third issue deals with our practical concerns, most notably, the possibility of an afterlife. It turns out that the hylomorphic treatment of Purgatory raises the spectra of the “too many thinkers” problem and some considerable unfairness. Contrary to expectations, an animalist insistence on uninterrupted bodily continuity between this life and the next does not involve deceptive body snatching. (shrink)

We become ill in ways our parents and grandparents did not, with diseases unheard of and treatments undreamed of generations ago. This text tells the story of the modern experience of illness, linking ideas of illness, health, and postmodernism.

In _Speech and Phenomena,_ Jacques Derrida situates the philosophy of language in relation to logic and rhetoric, which have often been seen as irreconcilable criteria for the use and interpretations of signs. His critique of Husserl attacks the position that language is founded on logic rather than on rhetoric; instead, he claims, meaningful language is limited to expression because expression alone conveys sense. Derrida's larger project is to confront phenomenology with the tradition it has so often renounced--the tradition of Western (...) metaphysics. (shrink)

Ethics in Mental Health-Substance Use aims to explore the comprehensive concerns and dilemmas occurring from mental health and substance use problems, and to inform, develop, and educate by sharing and pooling knowledge, and enhancing expertise, in this fast developing region of ethics and ethical care and practice. This volume concentrates on ethical concerns, dilemmas, and concepts specifically interrelated, as a collation of problem(s) that directly or indirectly affect the life of the individual and family. Whilst presenting a balanced view of (...) what is ethically best practice today, this title challenges concepts and stimulates debate, exploring all aspects of the development in treatment, intervention and care responses, and the adoption of research-led best practice. (shrink)

Eros and Illness explores the place of desire in illness. We urgently need such an exploration because illness is no longer simply a natural feature of the human condition. Most people fall ill, but illness now falls under the supervision of biomedicine, a science-based, state-regulated system dominated by the new molecular gaze. The use of a person's distinctive genetic data to guide treatment and to forestall disease--called "personalized medicine"-- reflects how the molecular gaze can produce valuable advances in biomedical healthcare. (...) What does this indispensable super-vision, however, tend to overlook? Eros and Illness proposes that biomedicine ignores, in clinical practice and in bench science, the powerful role of desire in illness. Desire, always double-edged, requires attention because it can do both great harm and great good. Patients, caregivers, family members, and physicians, as they recognize the role of desire, gain access to a power that can make the passage through illness much less onerous and far more healing: truly "personalized. (shrink)

In Playing Politics with Science, David B. Resnik explores the philosophical, political, and ethical issues related to the politicalization of science and ...

Philosophical Papers, Volume 40, Issue 3, Page 421-438, November 2011.

Although the predominant view is that vagueness is due to our language being imprecise, the alternative idea that objects themselves do not have determinate borders has received an occasional hearing. But what has failed to be appreciated is how this idea can avoid a puzzle Peter Unger named “The Problem of the Many.”[i].

Ivan Boh affirms and Robert Pasnau denies that William Heytesbury holds merely true belief to be sufficient for knowledge in the broad sense. I argue that Boh is correct and Pasnau is mistaken, and that there is a long-running orthodox medieval tradition agreeing with Heytesbury about the conditions for knowledge. I offer a hypothesis about the origins, continuance and demise of that medieval tradition, and some remarks about the tradition's significance.

In this collection, Stations on the Journey of Inquiry, David Burrell launches a revolutionary reinterpretation of how any inquiry proceeds, boldly critiquing presumptuous theories of knowledge, language, and ethics. While his later publications, Analogy and Philosophical Language (1973) and Aquinas: God and Action (1979), elucidate Aquinas's linguistic theology, these early writings show what often escapes articulation: how one comes to understanding and "takes" a judgment. Although Aquinas serves as an axial figure for Burrell's expansive corpus of scholarship spanning more (...) than fifty years, this selection of essays presents other positions and counterpositions to whom his own philosophical theology is beholden: Plato, Aristotle, Cajetan, Kant, Peirce, Moore, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Weiss, Ross, McInerny, and Lonergan. With renewed interest in philosophy of language by postmodern thinkers as well as in the wake of Mulhall's Stanton Lectures on Wittgenstein and "Grammatical Thomism," the publication of these formative writings proves timely for the academy at large. Burrell invites us to reconsider not only the way in which we conduct an inquiry, but what it is we take language to be and how we take responsibility for what we say. (shrink)

Essays on the History and Philosophy of Science by David B. Levy.

I raise issues concerning Jones' Seneca analysis, its relationship to analyses of Dravidian-, Crow-, and Omaha-type systems. These affect the convincingness of his kinship study, and thus the wider conclusions that he wants to draw regarding human cognition and language.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:53 HUME ON ARTIFICIAL LIVES with a Rejoinder to A.C. Maclntyre The variety of human cultures fascinated Enlightenment thinkers and evoked certain problems for philosophical discussion. Wide experience of other societies, as well as the study of history, disclosed moral systems interestingly different from modern European mores. Also a student of other cultures, historical and contemporary, David Hume is a moderate pluralist on the matter of alternative moral (...) systems. He acknowledges that there are systems of values other than that shared by his readers which qualify as moralities; but more interestingly, he also holds that there are some such systems which, despite the claims of their adherents, fail to qualify as moralities. Thus Hume opposes forms of relativism that allow any system which a community deems to be a moral code has to be acknowledged as constituting a genuine morality. In this paper I address the question of how Hume can discriminate among value systems and declare some to be moralities, some not. Given the design of his philosophical approach to morals, addressing this question is a matter of some importance for Hume, since he maintains that moral reflection takes its departure from everyday moral beliefs and sentiments. This being the case, we might expect that what should count as 'everyday moral beliefs and sentiments' would be whatsoever any individual or group puts forward as a morality, and that Hume's pluralism impedes him from raising a critical challenge to any system advanced, no matter how strange it might be. But Hume holds that certain systems advanced for the guidance of life which are sharply opposed to 54 everyday beliefs and sentiments do not constitute a morality, even if they number many as adherents. It is instructive to observe that A.C. Maclntyre believes that Hume's position is deeply flawed. He asserts that the treatment of rival tables of the virtues constitutes a most serious weakness in Hume's 2 theory of morals. Maclntyre contends that Hume's spurning of the monkish virtues, for instance, or his preference of Cicero's Offices over the Christian Whole Duty of Man, is devoid of theoretical justification and amounts to a matter of personal idiosyncrasy and eighteenth-century class elitism. Thus this seems a problem worthy of discussion. In what follows I shall: (a) lay out the problem of artificial lives as it arises in A Dialogue; (b) describe five points of differentiation between artificial lives and nonartificial lives; (c) review some less than fully satisfactory solutions to the problem; (d) introduce what I take to be the chief considerations supporting Hume's rejection of artificial lives; and finally (e) discuss whether Maclntyre 's objections to Hume's treatment of artificial lives are sustainable. 1. The Context of the Problem Hume deals with diversity of morals most expressly in A Dialogue, the short work appended to the second Enquiry. The essay records an exchange between one Palamedes, a lover of the novel and the striking, and his interlocutor, referred to merely as "I". Palamedes confounds the interlocutor by narrating a story about a distant people (the inhabitants of 'Fourli") whose mores include practices, apparently deemed moral by them, which sharply offend his, and presumably our, moral A sensibilities. Having elicited the interlocutor's 55 felt disapproval of those practices, Palamedes delights in revealing that the people of whom he has been speaking in cloaked terms are none other than the interlocutor's beloved Greeks of classical antiquity. Not satisfied with astonishing the interlocutor, he goes on to draw a strongly relativist conclusion about morals in general. The interlocutor confronts the choice of either abandoning his moral admiration of the civilization of the Greeks or of accepting some measure of the relativism in morals that Palamedes is advocating. The interlocutor does neither. He distinguishes between the principles of moral approbation or disapprobation and specific examples of approval or disapproval (E 333). He grants that there are examples of practices of which the ancients apparently approved and contrariwise we disapprove, but he denies that the existence of some such instances warrants the serious sort of relativism that Palamedes would foist on him. Obviously the number of such discrepancies cannot be overwhelming, otherwise the... (shrink)

Do psychological traits predict philosophical views? We administered the PhilPapers Survey, created by David Bourget and David Chalmers, which consists of 30 views on central philosophical topics (e.g., epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language) to a sample of professional philosophers (N = 314). We extended the PhilPapers survey to measure a number of psychological traits, such as personality, numeracy, well-being, lifestyle, and life experiences. We also included non-technical ‘translations’ of these views for eventual use (...) in other populations. We found limited to no support for the notion that personality or demographics predict philosophical views. We did, however, find that some psychological traits were predictive of philosophical views, even after strict correction for multiple comparisons. Findings include: higher interest in numeracy predicted physicalism, naturalism, and consequentialism; lower levels of well-being and higher levels of mental illness predicted hard determinism; using substances such as psychedelics and marijuana predicted non-realist and subjectivist views of morality and aesthetics; having had a transformative or self-transcendent experience predicted theism and idealism. We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creativity in Teaching and Building a Meaningful Life as a TeacherDavid T. HansenMy point of departure in this essay is the idea that creativity in teaching often has less to do with inventiveness per se than it does with responsiveness. To draw on terms from John Dewey, creative teachers "rise to the needs of the situation" presented in the educational setting.1 They respond well to circumstances not because they (...) necessarily have the pedagogical equivalent of Twyla Tharp's talent for choreography or B.B. King's brilliance on the blues guitar; rather, I want to suggest that creative teachers, at least in many cases, "rise" and do what is needed because they have learned to pay attention both to students and to the subject(s) at hand. In other words, I propose that we consider the idea that creativity in teaching often manifests itself most vividly, if also subtly, in a kind of ongoing attentiveness, by which I mean a dynamic combination of patience, listening, and initiative.I will begin the discussion by first sketching a conception of creativity in teaching centered around the idea of attentiveness. Then I address two [End Page 57] consequences of this conception. The first is that the most suitable models of good practice for new teachers to start with are not the profession's versions, presuming such exist, of Pablo Picasso, Marie Curie, or Michael Jordan. I do not mean that it is uniformly inappropriate to place such models in front of teacher candidates, any more than it would be wrong to put before art students the work of a Cassatt or Rembrandt. However, I will argue that among the best and most consequential initial models are those experiences in which teacher candidates themselves truly listened to the doings of the world around them and heeded what was said, whether the latter "spoke" in the form of a work of art, a human voice or gesture, or the play of wind in the trees. If new teachers take seriously this kind of experience, they can gain a valuable perspective for approaching the long and often difficult process of appreciating teaching's details and engaging them in educational settings. I illustrate these claims by examining a field-based activity that was part of a teacher education program I used to direct.The second consequence of the conception of creativity in teaching I will put forward points to the title of this essay. If new teachers deepen their ability to pay attention and to engage in creative work, they position themselves to receive one of teaching's primary offerings to its practitioners, namely, a life of meaning."Ordinary" Pedagogical CreativityCreativity in teaching can take many forms. We witness it in the structuring of an artful lesson plan; in the logic, flow, and pacing of a dynamic lecture; or in a timely and evocative example or illustration the teacher employs to clinch a point in the midst of a class. All of this is familiar and an important, indeed indispensable, way to think about good teaching. Creativity in practice is associated here, among other things, with notions of expertise and of knowledge gained through experience.However, I want to add to this portrait the notion that creativity in practice can also spring from responsiveness. Rather than issuing solely from what the teacher brings to the educational setting — consider again terms such as expertise and knowledge — creativity can point to what the teacher is capable of deriving or drawing from it. Creativity as responsiveness denotes a form of openness to the setting, which may or may not complement or fit harmoniously with what is preset, prefigured, or anticipated. Experienced teachers would be the first to say that there are times when it becomes educationally vital to shelve a preset plan. There are times when one form of creativity in teaching, embodied in a well-wrought lesson plan, must give way to another form, embodied in what I am calling responsiveness. The art of teaching consists, in part, of balancing these expressions of pedagogical creativity.Let me share the following vignette as a basis for elucidating this point. One morning in March 2002, during which... (shrink)

Evidence suggests that psychedelics bring about their therapeutic outcomes in part through the subjective or qualitative effects they engender and how the individual interprets the resulting experiences. However, psychedelics are contraindicated for individuals who have been diagnosed with certain mental illnesses, on the grounds that these subjective effects may be disturbing or otherwise counter-therapeutic. Substantial resources are therefore currently being devoted to creating psychedelic substances that produce many of the same biological changes as psychedelics, but without their characteristic subjective effects. (...) In this article, we consider ethical issues arising from the prospect of such potential “nonsubjective” psychedelics. We are broadly supportive of efforts to produce such substances for both scientific and clinical reasons. However, we argue that such nonsubjective psychedelics should be reserved for those special cases in which the subjective effects of psychedelics are specifically contraindicated, whereas classic psychedelics that affect subjective experience should be considered the default and standard of care. After reviewing evidence regarding the subjective effects of psychedelics, we raise a number of ethical concerns around the prospect of withholding such typically positive, meaningful, and therapeutic experiences from most patients. (shrink)

The argument for metaethical relativism, the view that there is no single true or most justified morality, is that it is part of the best explanation of the most difficult moral disagreements. This Element discusses the latest arguments in ethical theory in an accessible manner, with many examples and cases.

In the Summer of 2020, a couple of months after the start of the Covid-19 crisis, the Franciscan Study Center at Tilburg University and the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University started a new partnership called Franciscan Connections. The aim of this new international Franciscan blog was to connect, communicate, and convey the best of Franciscan learning in the twenty-first century. We decided that we wanted to make contemporary and applied Franciscan scholarship available to a wider world of scholars, educated (...) professionals, and communities of practice and to make a new generation of readers aware of the contribution that Franciscan scholarship can make on contemporary issues in politics, society, ethics, and church. Now, almost two years and 200 blog posts later, we notice an increasing involvement from people around the world that seem to really appreciate this new platform as a means for establishing all kinds of Franciscan-inspired connections. Grafted on a way of life inspired by a vision of equality and justice, the Franciscan ethos displays a wealth of values and virtues that are conducive to moral goodness and concern for the common good. As a gift of the Highest Good, Franciscan goodness becomes both a social good and a personal virtue. It is inextricably bound to other social goods like charity, poverty, and peace, which, unsurprisingly, are personal virtues as well. They are also evangelical goods and virtues. Their evangelical rootedness and interconnectedness should therefore be borne in mind, when the Franciscan way of life is to be presented as a primary example of "the good life.". (shrink)

This book is a novel synthesis of the philosophy and practice of science, covering its diverse theoretical, metaphysical, logical, philosophical, sociological, and practical elements. Students, philosophers and practicing scientists will learn how to think more deeply and holistically about their work, i.e., how to know how to know.

Most people do not think to observe geology from the sidewalks of a major city, but all David B. Williams has to do is look at building stone in any urban center to find a range of rocks equal to any assembled by plate tectonics. In Stories in Stone, he takes you on explorations to find 3.5-billion-year-old rock that looks like swirled pink-and-black taffy, a gas station made of petrified wood, and a Florida fort that has withstood three hundred (...) years of attacks and hurricanes, despite being made of a stone that has the consistency of a granola bar. Williams also weaves in the cultural history of stone, explaining why a white fossil-rich limestone from Indiana became the only building stone used in all fifty states; how in 1825, the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument led to America’s first commercial railroad; and why when the same kind of marble used by Michelangelo clad a Chicago skyscraper it warped so much after nineteen years that all 44,000 panels of it had to be replaced. This love letter to building stone brings to life the geology you can see in the structures of every city. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:53 HUME ON ARTIFICIAL LIVES with a Rejoinder to A.C. Maclntyre The variety of human cultures fascinated Enlightenment thinkers and evoked certain problems for philosophical discussion. Wide experience of other societies, as well as the study of history, disclosed moral systems interestingly different from modern European mores. Also a student of other cultures, historical and contemporary, David Hume is a moderate pluralist on the matter of alternative moral (...) systems. He acknowledges that there are systems of values other than that shared by his readers which qualify as moralities; but more interestingly, he also holds that there are some such systems which, despite the claims of their adherents, fail to qualify as moralities. Thus Hume opposes forms of relativism that allow any system which a community deems to be a moral code has to be acknowledged as constituting a genuine morality. In this paper I address the question of how Hume can discriminate among value systems and declare some to be moralities, some not. Given the design of his philosophical approach to morals, addressing this question is a matter of some importance for Hume, since he maintains that moral reflection takes its departure from everyday moral beliefs and sentiments. This being the case, we might expect that what should count as 'everyday moral beliefs and sentiments' would be whatsoever any individual or group puts forward as a morality, and that Hume's pluralism impedes him from raising a critical challenge to any system advanced, no matter how strange it might be. But Hume holds that certain systems advanced for the guidance of life which are sharply opposed to 54 everyday beliefs and sentiments do not constitute a morality, even if they number many as adherents. It is instructive to observe that A.C. Maclntyre believes that Hume's position is deeply flawed. He asserts that the treatment of rival tables of the virtues constitutes a most serious weakness in Hume's 2 theory of morals. Maclntyre contends that Hume's spurning of the monkish virtues, for instance, or his preference of Cicero's Offices over the Christian Whole Duty of Man, is devoid of theoretical justification and amounts to a matter of personal idiosyncrasy and eighteenth-century class elitism. Thus this seems a problem worthy of discussion. In what follows I shall: (a) lay out the problem of artificial lives as it arises in A Dialogue; (b) describe five points of differentiation between artificial lives and nonartificial lives; (c) review some less than fully satisfactory solutions to the problem; (d) introduce what I take to be the chief considerations supporting Hume's rejection of artificial lives; and finally (e) discuss whether Maclntyre 's objections to Hume's treatment of artificial lives are sustainable. 1. The Context of the Problem Hume deals with diversity of morals most expressly in A Dialogue, the short work appended to the second Enquiry. The essay records an exchange between one Palamedes, a lover of the novel and the striking, and his interlocutor, referred to merely as "I". Palamedes confounds the interlocutor by narrating a story about a distant people (the inhabitants of 'Fourli") whose mores include practices, apparently deemed moral by them, which sharply offend his, and presumably our, moral A sensibilities. Having elicited the interlocutor's 55 felt disapproval of those practices, Palamedes delights in revealing that the people of whom he has been speaking in cloaked terms are none other than the interlocutor's beloved Greeks of classical antiquity. Not satisfied with astonishing the interlocutor, he goes on to draw a strongly relativist conclusion about morals in general. The interlocutor confronts the choice of either abandoning his moral admiration of the civilization of the Greeks or of accepting some measure of the relativism in morals that Palamedes is advocating. The interlocutor does neither. He distinguishes between the principles of moral approbation or disapprobation and specific examples of approval or disapproval (E 333). He grants that there are examples of practices of which the ancients apparently approved and contrariwise we disapprove, but he denies that the existence of some such instances warrants the serious sort of relativism that Palamedes would foist on him. Obviously the number of such discrepancies cannot be overwhelming, otherwise the... (shrink)

The philosophers of Canada will long remain indebted to Helier Robinson. In 1969–70 he founded the Canadian Association for Publishing in Philosophy from his Ontarian base at the University of Guelph. Under the aegis of his Association arose the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, edited by the three Universities of Alberta; then a Canadian Monograph Series first administered by David Braybrooke at Dalhousie, and now by R.B. de Sousa at Toronto; more lately the Canadian Library of Philosophy, run by J.A. (...) Brook at Carleton. A native of the Channel Islands, he has shown a strong commitment to bilingualism, reflected in all of c. A.P.P.'s instruments du travail. Since 1971 his efforts have led to considerably more philosophical research being published in this country. (shrink)