This essay considers whether the just war tradition is compatible with Christian theologically grounded conceptions of mercy. After considering and rejecting positions that pit mercy and war against each other, the essay mines the work of Walter Kasper and James Keenan on Christian mercy to develop a position that reimagines mercy as compatible with traditional just war criteria. In particular, this analysis leads to the conclusion that Christians may endorse just war in the form of humanitarian intervention. By doing so, (...) they allow mercy to temper the aspects of warfare that diminish the humanity of others. (shrink)

This collection of essays on policing and the use of force, while written over the course of the last twenty-five years, remains relevant and timely. Although issues in policing and questions about excessive force and brutality have been addressed by criminologists, sociologists, philosophers, and criminal justice ethicists, only a handful of theological ethicists treat this pressing matter. While the Christian moral tradition has a voluminous record of theological attention to violence and nonviolence, war and peace, there is a dearth of (...) references to policing. And most considerations of criminal justice issues by Christians and their churches concentrate on prison reform, or abolition, and the death penalty, but not policing. These essays, authored by a theological ethicist possessing professional experience in law enforcement, seek to fill this curious gap. They offer a framework for moral reasoning concerning the justification for police use of force and the just application of such force, and they propose just policing as a model that is consonant with promoting a just peace in communities and society. In addition, they explore the implications of such an approach for wider, international questions about just war, terrorism, the responsibility to protect, and post-war justice. (shrink)

. The perpetrator as person: Theological reflections on the just war tradition and the use of force by police. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 37-56.

Consensus among human rights groups and churches in recent years about cluster bombs has culminated in the Convention on Cluster Munitions. While there is apparent agreement that cluster bombs ought to be illegal, no substantive ethical treatment of this issue exists. In statements, references are typically made to the danger cluster munitions pose to civilians; it is alleged that these weapons are inherently immoral, and appeal is given only implicitly or in a cursory fashion to traditional just war reasoning. Taking (...) its cue from Jesuit moral theologian John C. Ford's influential article appearing in 1944 on `The Morality of Obliteration Bombing', and drawing on the more recent work of Oliver O'Donovan on `immoral weapons', this essay offers a critical moral assessment of cluster bombs and their use through attention to the principles of discrimination, proportionality, and the framework of double effect reasoning. (shrink)

ETHICISTS HAVE CRITICIZED THE GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S INvocation of "war" language as a response to the threat of terrorism in the post—September 11, 2001, world. Calling instead for a "police" model, these ethicists are found among both the pacifist and the just war traditions. This essay explores what a policing model might entail. First, it highlights some expressions of interest by just war ethicists in a police approach for tackling terrorism. Second, it critically surveys some representative examples of pacifist (...) appeals to such a paradigm. Third, it evaluates the call for a just-policing approach, showing how this model actually remains consonant with just war reasoning. Finally, the essay draws on the discipline of police ethics and examines what just cause, especially with respect to preemptive strikes, might look like in a just-policing approach to dealing with terrorism. (shrink)

The T&T Clark Handbook of Christian Ethics provides an ecumenical introduction to Christian ethics, its sources, methods, and applications. With contributions by theological ethicists known for their excellence in scholarship and teaching, the essays in this volume offer fresh purchase on, and an agenda for, the discipline of Christian ethics in the 21st century. The essays are organized in three sections, following an introduction that presents the four-font approach and elucidates why it is critically employed through these subsequent sections. The (...) first section explores the sources of Christian ethics, including each of the four fonts: scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. The second section examines fundamental or basic elements of Christian ethics and covers different methods, approaches, and voices in doing Christian ethics, such as natural law, virtue ethics, conscience, responsibility, narrative, worship, and engagement with other religions. The third section addresses current moral issues in politics, medicine, economics, ecology, criminal justice and other related spheres from the perspective of Christian ethics, including war, genetics, neuroethics, end-of-life decisions, marriage, family, work, sexuality, nonhuman animals, migration, aging, policing, incarceration, capital punishment, and more. (shrink)

This essay addresses two growing edges of the just war tradition. First, theorists have been accused of focusing narrowly on justifying war and governing its conduct, neglecting wider considerations that encompass justice during the years prior to and after war. Second, calling a war "just" allegedly makes it seem "good" so that it is easier to fight a war and to bend or set aside the rules. Based on "imperfect justice," we argue for a "justified" war theory, taking all criteria (...) and categories seriously, including jus ante bellum and jus post bellum. (shrink)

In Fides et Ratio, Pope John Paul II commends the way in which the Church Fathers engaged philosophical schools, including those considered erroneous: “Faced with the various philosophies, the Fathers were not afraid to acknowledge those elements in them that were consonant with Revelation and those that were not. Recognition of the points of convergence did not blind them to the points of divergence”. Similarly, Kuipers seeks to provide a “serious, meaningful engagement with the positive elements and the constructive suggestions” (...) in—rather than simply to echo the standard criticisms of—Richard Rorty’s work. In the first half of the book, Kuipers identifies what he regards as the positive features of Rorty’s work. Focusing on Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, he brings into relief the contours of his postmodern critique, respectively, of the Western philosophical tradition and of the traditional role of the philosopher. The book opens with a succinct account of Rorty’s critique of Western philosophy, an examination of Rorty’s variant of pragmatism, and an insightful discernment of “the emergence of an ethical concern for justice and human flourishing” in Rorty’s writing. Kuipers approves Rorty’s criticisms of philosophy-as-epistemology, with its emphasis on ontological, ahistorical foundationalism, and shares Rorty’s fear that the realist’s claim of correspondence to truth may lead to a substitution of coercion for conversation, which would thereby silence other voices. Because the human faculty for rationality is a limited tool, given our historical and linguistic contingencies, Rorty advocates instead an “edifying philosophy” with ad hoc, cultural criticism that inclusively seeks to find solutions for current social problems. This pragmatic shift from theory to practice, rather than leading to a loss of touch with the world, actually entails a sense of responsibility. Kuipers applauds how Rorty thus “gives us a heightened, ethical awareness of the responsibility involved in the intellectual task”. In contrast to fellow nonfoundationalist Joseph Margolis, who still affirms the role of the philosopher as someone possessing knowledge that others do not, Rorty holds that the responsibility for imaginatively and poetically redescribing ourselves belongs not only to the philosopher but to all members of society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Can War Be Just in the 21st Century? Ethicists Engage the Tradition ed. by Tobias Winright, Laurie JohnstonMyles WerntzCan War Be Just in the 21st Century? Ethicists Engage the Tradition Edited by Tobias Winright and Laurie Johnston Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2015. 201 PP. + XXVII. $36.00One of the most common complaints surrounding the just war tradition is, ironically, the antiquity of many of its (...) arguments. The tradition has largely been built over the last millennium and a half on a number of interlocking assumptions, such as national sovereignty and the inherent limits of weapons, which have been called into question by the presence of nonstate actors, weapons that cannot be easily limited, and sovereigns whose power is dubious. Beyond this, recent scholarship has pointed out the ways in which just war reflections ignore issues of gender, race, and political inequity. In the face of so many challenges, are the categories of just war even workable, much less desirable? In this erudite and broad-ranging collection, the authors argue for a qualified “yes”: there are many new challenges to be addressed, but the tradition is up for the challenge.Some chapters cover the expected political territory for a volume centered around the question of the just war tradition’s political viability. Contributions from luminaries such as Lisa Cahill (the development of the just war tradition) and Kenneth Himes (humanitarian intervention) serve to bring the reader up to speed on basic, albeit well-worn, issues surrounding just war. The volume’s focus, however, centers more on surveying and addressing emerging edges of the just war tradition. Whereas past conversations surrounding just war have been rooted in political theory, the contributions here gratefully bring the tradition into more interdisciplinary spaces that have been sorely lacking in conversations of the ethics of war. Of particular note are excellent chapters on just war and environmental degradation (Laurie Johnston), on nuclear testing (Rachel Hart Winter), and on the relationship between women in combat and civilian immunity (Christina Richie). By bringing other disciplines such as environmental studies, ethnography, and gender studies to bear on a question traditionally dominated by political theory, the chapters of this volume shed fresh light on a perennial topic.Unlike some edited volumes, there is no single concern that binds the essays together. But in this case, the lack of a single topical thread (apart from a contemporary evaluation of just war thinking) proves to be a strength for the volume. Because the challenges to morally prosecuting war are so manifold, the myriad directions the chapters take allow for a rich set of starting points [End Page 222] that will hopefully be taken by future works. As one who finds the rigor and clarity of just war arguments compelling (though not convinced by their application), I found myself indebted to the editors for their desire to bracingly face some of the most vexing moral questions surrounding war. As such, the editors and contributors should be commended for their trenchant evaluation of the many aspects of this topic that have often not (but should) be considered theologically.Myles WerntzBaylor UniversityCopyright © 2016 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The article introduces and defends the Nomological Account of ground, a reductive account of the notion of metaphysical explanation in terms of the laws of metaphysics. The paper presents three desiderata that a theory of ground should meet: it should explain the modal force of ground, the generality of ground, and the interplay between ground and certain mereological notions. The bulk of the paper develops the Nomological Account and argues that it meets the three desiderata. The Nomological Account relies on (...) two central notions: the notion of a ‘law of metaphysics’ and the notion of ‘determination via the laws’. The paper offers the constructional conception of the laws of metaphysics, on which the metaphysical laws are general principles that characterize construction–operations such as composition, constitution, or set-formation. The role of determination in the account is explained and some reductive approaches to the notion are sketched. The case for the Nomological Account presented in this article is also a case for the laws of metaphysics. Since the Nomological Account offers a promising approach to metaphysical explanation we should take the laws of metaphysics seriously. (shrink)

The paper explores a deductive-nomological account of metaphysical explanation: some truths metaphysically explain, or ground, another truth just in case the laws of metaphysics determine the latter truth on the basis of the former. I develop and motivate a specific conception of metaphysical laws, on which they are general rules that regulate the existence and features of derivative entities. I propose an analysis of the notion of ‘determination via the laws’, based on a restricted form of logical entailment. I argue (...) that the DN-account of ground can be defended against the well-known objections to the DN-approach to scientific explanation. The goal of the paper is to show that the DN-account of metaphysical explanation is a well-motivated and defensible theory. (shrink)

A new edition of the classic introduction to mathematics, first published in 1930 and revised in the 1950s, explains the history and tenets of mathematics, ...

Obtaining informed consent from patients is a moral and legal duty and, thus, a key legitimation for medical treatment. The pivotal prerequisite for valid informed consent is decision-making capacity of the patient. Related to the question of whether and when consent should be morally and legally valid, there has been a long-lasting philosophical debate about freedom of will and the connection of freedom and responsibility. The scholarly discussion on decision-making capacity and its clinical evaluation does not sufficiently take into account (...) this fundamental debate. It is contended that the notion of free will must be reflected when evaluating decision-making capacity. Namely, it should be included as a part of the appreciation-criterion for decision-making capacity. The argumentation is mainly drawn on the compatibilism of Harry Frankfurt. A solution is proposed which at the same time takes the notion of free will seriously and enriches the traditional understanding of decision-making capacity, strengthening its justificatory force while remaining clinically applicable. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the social sciences cannot be reduced to a lower-level individualistic science. The standard argument for this position is the Fodorian multiple realizability argument. Its defenders endorse token–token identities between “higher-level” social objects and pluralities/sums of “lower-level” individuals, but they maintain that the properties expressed by social science predicates are often multiply realizable, entailing that type–type identities between social and individualistic properties are ruled out. In this paper I argue that the multiple realizability argument for explanatory (...) holism is unsound. The social sciences are indeed irreducible, but the principled reason for this is that the required token–token identifications cannot in general be carried through. In consequence, paradigmatic social science predicates cannot be taken to apply to the objects quantified over in the lower-level sciences. The result is that typical social science predicates cannot even be held to be co-extensive with individualistic predicates, which means type–type identifications are ruled out too. Multiple realizability has nothing to do with this failure of co-extensiveness, because the relevant social science predicates are not multiply realized in the sense intended by the explanatory holists, a sense which presupposes reductive token–token identifications. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant famously claims that we have an a priori intuition of space as an ‘infinite given magnitude’. Later on, in the Transcendental Analytic, he seems to add that the intuition of space presupposes a synthetic activity of the transcendental imagination. Several authors have recently pointed out that these two claims taken together give rise to two problems. First, it is unclear how the transcendental imagination of a finite mind could (...) ever result in the intuition of an entity that is infinitely large. Second, Kant claims that our intuition of space has a ‘whole-prior-to-its-parts’ structure, such that its parts are given only as limitations of the whole, while synthesis is compositional and has a ‘parts-prior-to-their-whole’ structure, because it consists in first running through and then taking together the parts of a sensible manifold. I will solve these two problems by showing that Kant thought that synthesis does not always have a compositional structure but that there is also a form of ‘decomposing’ synthesis, which has a whole-prior-to-its-parts structure. Building on similarities between Kant, Edmund Husserl and G. W. F. Hegel, I will argue that infinite space is given to us in intuition by precisely such an activity of decomposition, one that allows us to differentiate between finite spatial objects and the unlimited phenomenal horizon in which they appear. (shrink)

Realists about laws of nature and their Humean opponents disagree on whether laws ‘govern’. An independent commitment to the ‘governing conception’ of laws pushes many towards the realist camp. Despite its significance, however, no satisfactory account of governance has been offered. The goal of this article is to develop such an account. I base my account on two claims. First, we should distinguish two notions of governance, ‘guidance’ and ‘production’, and secondly, explanatory phenomena other than laws are also candidates for (...) governance. My goal is to develop a unified account which captures both guidance and production as well as the governance of phenomena, such as essence and logical consequence. The account of governance I develop belongs to the family of modal accounts, which was popularized by David Armstrong, but it also employs essentialist resources. If successful, this modal-essentialist account not only reveals the costs that proponents of governance incur, but it also puts that important notion on a solid theoretical foundation. (shrink)

The potential for biases being built into algorithms has been known for some time, yet literature has only recently demonstrated the ways algorithmic profiling can result in social sorting and harm marginalised groups. We contend that with increased algorithmic complexity, biases will become more sophisticated and difficult to identify, control for, or contest. Our argument has four steps: first, we show how harnessing algorithms means that data gathered at a particular place and time relating to specific persons, can be used (...) to build group models applied in different contexts to different persons. Thus, privacy and data protection rights, with their focus on individuals, do not protect from the discriminatory potential of algorithmic profiling. Second, we explore the idea that anti-discrimination regulation may be more promising, but acknowledge limitations. Third, we argue that in order to harness anti-discrimination regulation, it needs to confront emergent forms of discrimination or risk creating new invisibilities, including invisibility from existing safeguards. Finally, we outline suggestions to address emergent forms of discrimination and exclusionary invisibilities via intersectional and post-colonial analysis. (shrink)

Standpoint epistemologies are based on two central theses: the situated knowledge thesis and the thesis of epistemic privilege. The bias paradox suggests that there is a tension between these two notions, in the sense that they are self-contradictory. In this paper, I aim to defend standpoint epistemologies from this challenge. This defense is based on a distinction between subjective and objective justifications. According to the former, a subject S is subjectively justified in believing a proposition P iff S's belief in (...) P coheres with S's pre-existing beliefs. According to the latter, a subject S is objectively justified in believing a proposition P iff S's subjective justification is truth-conducive. I argue that, if the situated knowledge thesis is spelled out in terms of subjective justification, and if the thesis of epistemic privilege is spelled out in terms of objective justification, then there is no contradiction. If this line of thought is correct, then the bias paradox does not show that standpoint epistemologies are self-contradictory. (shrink)

Debates in animal cognition are frequently polarized between the romantic view that some species have human-like causal understanding and the killjoy view that human causal reasoning is unique. These apparently endless debates are often characterized by conceptual confusions and accusations of straw-men positions. What is needed is an account of causal understanding that enables researchers to investigate both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities in an incremental evolutionary framework. Here we outline the ways in which a three-dimensional model of causal (...) understanding fulfills these criteria. We describe how this approach clarifies what is at stake, illuminates recent experiments on both physical and social cognition, and plots a path for productive future research that avoids the romantic/killjoy dichotomy. (shrink)

Appraisal theories have described elaborate mechanisms underlying the elicitation of emotion at the psychological-cognitive level, but typically do not integrate neuroscientific concepts and findings. At the same time, theoretical developments in appraisal theory have been pretty much ignored by researchers studying the neuroscience of emotion. We feel that a stronger integration of these two literatures would be highly profitable for both sides. Here we outline a blueprint of the “appraising brain.” To this end, we review neuroimaging research investigating the processing (...) of major appraisal variables, and sketch a neuro-cognitive process model of appraisal with a special emphasis on the chronometry and the recursive aspect of emotional evaluation. We hope that this contribution will stimulate more hypothesis-driven research on the neuroscience of appraisal. (shrink)

Some argue that robots could never be sentient, and thus could never have intrinsic moral status. Others disagree, believing that robots indeed will be sentient and thus will have moral status. But a third group thinks that, even if robots could never have moral status, we still have a strong moral reason to treat some robots as if they do. Drawing on a Kantian argument for indirect animal rights, a number of technology ethicists contend that our treatment of anthropomorphic or (...) even animal-like robots could condition our treatment of humans: treat these robots well, as we would treat humans, or else risk eroding good moral behavior toward humans. But then, this argument also seems to justify giving rights to robots, even if robots lack intrinsic moral status. In recent years, however, this indirect argument in support of robot rights has drawn a number of objections. In this paper I have three goals. First, I will formulate and explicate the Kant-inspired indirect argument meant to support robot rights, making clearer than before its empirical commitments and philosophical presuppositions. Second, I will defend the argument against a number of objections. The result is the fullest explication and defense to date of this well-known and influential but often criticized argument. Third, however, I myself will raise a new concern about the argument’s use as a justification for robot rights. This concern is answerable to some extent, but it cannot be dismissed fully. It shows that, surprisingly, the argument’s advocates have reason to resist, at least somewhat, producing the sorts of robots that, on their view, ought to receive rights. (shrink)

The Snowden revelations and the emergence of ‘Big Data’ have rekindled questions about how security practices are deployed in a digital age and with what political effects. While critical scholars have drawn attention to the social, political and legal challenges to these practices, the debates in computer and information science have received less analytical attention. This paper proposes to take seriously the critical knowledge developed in information and computer science and reinterpret their debates to develop a critical intervention into the (...) public controversies concerning data-driven security and digital surveillance. The paper offers a two-pronged contribution: on the one hand, we challenge the credibility of security professionals’ discourses in light of the knowledge that they supposedly mobilize; on the other, we argue for a series of conceptual moves around data, human–computer relations, and algorithms to address some of the limitations of existing engagements with the Big Data-security assemblage. (shrink)

Summary: The paper provides an argument for modal primitivism, the view that necessity is not defined and is therefore part of the structure of reality. It then raises the explanation-challenge for primitivists: how can modal truths be explained by hyper-intensional truths, if necessity is not defined in terms of hyper-intensional phenomena? To address the challenge, the paper introduces 'sophisticated modal primitivism' which gives a substantive analysis of the notion of a 'source of necessity'. The final part of the paper offers (...) some applications of that novel piece of ideology. (shrink)

We discuss various implications of some radical anti-representationalist views of cognition and what they have to offer with regard to the naturalization of intentionality and the explanation of cognitive phenomena. Our focus is on recent arguments from proponents of enactive views of cognition to the effect that basic cognition is intentional but not representational and that cognition is co-extensive with life. We focus on lower rather than higher forms of cognition, namely the question regarding the intentional and representational nature of (...) cognition found in organisms simpler than human beings, because enactivists do not deny that more sophisticated cognitive phenomena are representational and involve content. After introducing the debate on the naturalization of intentionality, we briefly review different varieties of enactivism and introduce their central claims. In Sect. 4 we turn to radical enactivism in order to focus on the arguments for a thoroughly non-representational, enactive account of perception and basic cognition. In particular, we discuss three major issues: First, what is supposed to replace the representational analysis of perception in a radical-enactive explanation of perception? How does the enactive explanation of perception compare to the best scientific work on the neuroscience of perception? Second, what is—on an enactive account—the function of neural processing in the brain for the generation of perception if not to produce representations? This question is especially pressing since one implication of autopoietic enactivism is that even the simplest organisms, i.e. single-celled organisms, have cognitive capacities. Since they lack brains and nervous systems, enactivists must specify the unique contribution of the brain and nervous system in those animals who have them. In Sect. 5, we evaluate the advantages of an autopoietic–enactive approach to the naturalization of intentionality and end with a suggestion how cognition may relate to intentionality and representation. (shrink)

Background: Newer “closed-loop” neurostimulation devices in development could, in theory, induce changes to patients’ personalities and self-perceptions. Empirically, however, only limited data of patient and family experiences exist. Responsive neurostimulation (RNS) as a treatment for refractory epilepsy is the first approved and commercially available closed-loop brain stimulation system in clinical practice, presenting an opportunity to observe how conceptual neuroethical concerns manifest in clinical treatment. Methods: We conducted ethnographic research at a single academic medical center with an active RNS treatment program (...) and collected data via direct observation of clinic visits and in-depth interviews with 12 patients and their caregivers. We used deductive and inductive analyses to identify the relationship between these devices and patient changes in personality and self-perception. Results: Participants generally did not attribute changes in patients’ personalities or self-perception to implantation of or stimulation using RNS. They did report that RNS affected patients’ experiences and conceptions of illness. In particular, the capacity to store and display electrophysiological data produced a common frame of reference and a shared vocabulary among patients and clinicians .Discussion: Empirical experiences of a clinical population being treated with closed-loop neuromodulation do not corroborate theoretical concerns about RNS devices described by neuroethicists and technology developers. However, closed-loop devices demonstrated an ability to change illness experiences. Even without altering identify and self-perception, they provided new cultural tools and metaphors for conceiving of epilepsy as an illness and of the process of diagnosis and treatment. These findings call attention to the need to situate neuroethical concerns in the broader contexts of patients’ illness experiences and social circumstances. (shrink)

We introduce several new variants of the dice experiment by Fischbacher and Föllmi-Heusi :525–547, 2013) to investigate measures to reduce lying. Hypotheses on the relative performance of these treatments are derived from a straightforward theoretical model. In line with previous research, we find that groups of two subjects lied at least to the same extent as individuals—even in a novel treatment where we assigned to one subject the role of being the other’s monitor. However, we find that our participants hardly (...) lied if they do not benefit and only others do, even if they were in a reciprocal relationship. Thus, we conclude that collaboration on lying mostly happens for personal gain. To mitigate selfish lying, an honesty oath which aims to increase moral awareness turned out to be effective. (shrink)