According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (‘PSR’), every fact has an explanation for why it obtains. If the PSR is true, there must be a sufficient reason for why God chose to create our world. But a sufficient reason for God’s choice plausibly necessitates that choice. It thus seems that God could not have done otherwise, and that our world exists necessarily. We therefore appear forced to pick between the PSR, and the contingency of creation and (...) divine choice. I show that a third option remains open, and thus that it is possible to preserve the contingency of creation and divine choice even while endorsing the PSR. My solution depends on the coherence of a restricted modal realism. On this modal realism, there is more than one possible morally optimal created world, and for each such world there is an existing possibility in which God creates that world. (shrink)

Sociological, economic and evolutionary paradigms of human agency have often seen social agents either as the rational controllers of their fate or as marionettes on the strings of historical, functional or adaptive necessity. They found it therefore difficult to account for the variability, intentionality and creativity of human behaviour and for its frequently redundant or harmful results. This paper argues that human agency is a product of evolution, but that genetic variation and inheritance can only provide a limited explanation of (...) its complex nature. The primary evolutionary problem which human agents face while they are alive is not to adapt to stable environments, but to respond flexibly and creatively to a contingent, uncertain world. Variation and selection therefore take two connected but distinct forms, one external, genetic, and inherited across generations, the other internal and cognitive, and operating during the lifetime of individuals. An examination of this lived part of evolution provides a better understanding of key properties of agency. (shrink)

It is pointed out that a slight variation on the Wheeler Delayed Choice Experiment presents the same challenge to orthodox quantum mechanics as Maudlin-type contingent absorber experiments present to the Transactional Interpretation. Therefore, the latter cannot be used as a basis for refutation of TI.

This book demonstrates that the state-contingent approach provides the best way to think about all problems in the economics of uncertainty, including problems...

In the last book of The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius develops his solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge and free choice. Interpreters standardly hold that this problem and his solution to it presuppose causal indeterminism. In this paper, I argue that Boethius, following a Neoplatonist view found in Proclus, is a causal determinist and compatibilist and maintains that God’s providential knowledge ensures the occurrence of all the events he knows. This alternative interpretation offers a better fit with Boethius’s (...) text and its historical antecedents and provides resources to address the main criticisms of his solution. (shrink)

In this study John Bowlin argues that Aquinas's moral theology receives much of its character and content from an assumption about our common lot: the good we desire is difficult to know and to will, in particular because of contingencies of various kinds - within ourselves, in the ends and objects we pursue, and in the circumstances of choice. Since contingencies are fortune's effects, Aquinas insists that it is fortune that makes good choice difficult. Bowlin then explicates Aquinas's (...) treatment of a number of topics in light of this difficulty: the moral and theological virtues, the first precepts of the natural law, the voluntariness of virtuous action, and the happiness available to us in this life. By noting that Aquinas proceeds with an eye on fortune's threats to virtue, agency, and happiness, Bowlin places him more precisely in the history of ethics, among Aristotle, Augustine, and the Stoics. (shrink)

A variety of recent work in epistemology employs a notion of normality to provide novel theories of knowledge or justification. While such theories are commonly advertised as affording particularly strong epistemic logics, they often make substantive assumptions about the background notion of normality and its logic. This article takes recent normality-based defences of the KK principle as a case study to submit such assumptions to scrutiny. After clarifying issues regarding the natural language use of normality claims, the article isolates a (...) number of choice points regarding the role of contingency, context-sensitivity and similarity in our theorizing with normality. It turns out that both weaker and stronger logics of normality can be motivated depending on how such choices are resolved. And yet securing logics of normality strong enough for normality to play its envisaged role in epistemology may have unwelcome downstream consequences for the resultant theories of knowledge or justification. (shrink)

Does a free agent have the power to will otherwise even at the very moment she is making a particular free choice? That is, when one is freely making some choice at a time T, does one also have the power to refrain from so choosing at T? The diachronic account of contingency and freedom says “no,” while the synchronic account says “yes.” In this paper I first address William Hasker’s criticisms of my earlier presentation of the (...) synchronic account, and then present an argument against the diachronic account. If successful, my arguments offer support for the compatibility of human freedom and divine foreknowledge. (shrink)

This chapter discusses different perspectives and trends in social decision making, especially the actual processes used by humans when they make decisions in their everyday lives or in business situations. The chapter uses cognitive psychological techniques to break down these processes and set them in their social context. Most of our decisions are made in a social context and are therefore influenced by other people. If you are at an auction and bidding on a popular item, you will try to (...) guess how long the others will keep in the bidding race. Likewise, when you and another person have to coordinate your decision to win a card game you will also try to think about what the other person know and what s/he will do, so you can adjust your choice. In other words, you are trying to come up with a model of the person and his decision-making process. This involves the capability to think about the thoughts and intentions of others, to put yourself in another person's shoes (perspective taking), and to think recursively about your and another person's over several steps (like in a game of chess). Especially, recursive social reasoning is one of the hallmarks of social decision-making. Whereas observational, competitive and cooperative decision-making can all be seen as trying to maximize the own reward or profit, altruistic decision-making blatantly violates this axiomatic principle of behavioral economics. Yet, altruistic behavior is quite common throughout human society. -/- . (shrink)

Schelling’s middle period works have always been a source of fascination: they mark a break with the idealism (in both senses of the word) of his early works and the Fichtean and then Hegelian tradition; while they are not weighed down by the reactionary burden of his late lectures on theology and mythology. But they have been equally a source of perplexity. The central work of this period, the Essay on Human Freedom (1809) takes as its topic the moral problem (...) of freedom, but spends much of its time telling a mystical-metaphysical story about the creation of the world that attempts to paint a picture of a kind of irreducible metaphysical contingency in nature. What is the relation between the moral and the metaphysical elements of the Freedom essay? It has never been obvious. But some recent Anglophone scholarship suggests an answer. In her Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard (2006) Michelle Kosch presents a strong case for the view that Schelling’s Freedom essay is motivated by a critique of Kant’s conception of autonomy in ethics. The idea is that Kant’s problems start not if he fails to show that it is rational to be moral, but if he succeeds. For if he does, then it is irrational to be immoral, and hence it is impossible for a rational agent to act immorally: an act not in conformity with duty is evidence of irrationality (perhaps one’s rational agency has been thwarted by pathological inclinations). This is broadly the Socratic position: evil, as a knowing immoral act, is not possible. Officially Kant rejects the classical view, most explicitly in his 1793 Religion with the Bounds of Mere Reason, for a Christian position in which freedom is understood as the freedom to choose between good and evil without thereby abandoning one’s agency. But he has no obvious means for doing so. Kosch attempts to show that Schelling comes, by 1809, to identify his early work with something like this Kantian dilemma: we are as badly off when it comes to our freedom if we are pushed around by reasons as if we are pushed around by causes: the Hegelian ruse of reason is as inimical to our agency as phenomenal determinism. The Freedom essay is the result of Schelling’s attempt to defend a muscular, Christian conception of the possibility of evil. Nevertheless, for Kosch, Schelling’s move to the metaphysical level is still problematic: just where one would expect an account of norms that does not infer them from our rational autonomy, we get, puzzlingly, a cosmology. I will argue that Kosch’s matrix for interpreting Schelling in fact does give us a way of understanding Schelling’s metaphysics of contingency. In broad outline, Schelling’s argument is that our choice of metaphysical schema is constrained by a correct understanding of agency: the world cannot be causally determined because that is inconsistent with our understanding of ourselves as agents; but equally the world cannot be rationally determined, and for the same reason. Schelling’s metaphysics of contingency is an unpacking of the consequences of this inference, and not a botched attempt to ground values outside of rational autonomy. (shrink)

We have a reason to pursue good patterns of reasoning in the determination of the means to the satisfaction of our desires. To deny this, it seems, would be to turn our backs on rationality. Furthermore, we would agree that we all have the same reason to do so. Is this reason internal or external? If external reasons are incoherent, as Bernard Williams claims, what choice do we have but to assume that it is internal? ;If we assume that (...) it is internal, however, we run into difficulties. How does the internalist explain the fact that all individuals have the same reason to pursue good patterns of reasoning? She could argue as Williams does, and claim that every rational deliberator, by virtue of being a rational deliberator, has a desire to be rationally and factually correctly informed. If she is right, all rational deliberators have an internal reason to strive towards soundness and completeness. I show that this argument fails. There are other arguments available to the internalist. I argue, however, that they all result in the necessity of acknowledging a third class of reasons, non-contingent reasons. ;Non-contingent reasons are a bit like external reasons and a bit like internal reasons. On the one hand, they resemble external reasons, for they recommend actions independently of the particular desires that we happen to have. On the other hand, however, non-contingent reasons resemble internal reasons, for neither non-contingent reasons nor internal reasons recommend actions independently of the efficacy of those actions to satisfy our desires. Even so, non-contingent reasons are very different from internal reasons. Internal reason statements ten us what we ought to do in order to satisfy a particular desire; their truth therefore depends upon the content of an individual's desires. Non-contingent reasons ten us what we ought to do in order to be a reliable and efficient desire satisfier; their truth depends upon whether the recommended action is a means to the satisfaction of all of our desires. (shrink)

‘Contingent Valuation ’ is a method often used to make decisions about environmental issues. It is used to elicit citizens’ preferences at the location of a specific facility, new road and the like. I argue that even if we could elicit a truly informed and ‘free’ choice, the method would remain flawed, as 1) all ‘local’ activity also has far-reaching environmental consequences; 2) majority decisions may support chices that adversely affect minorities; 3) even with full information, consenting to harms (...) like significant alterations of our normal functioning or health, or genetic mutations, may not be morally acceptable. (shrink)

Argument for fatalism attempts to prove that free choice is a logical or conceptual impossibility. The paper argues that the first two premises of the argument are sound: propositions are either true or false and they have their truth-value eternally. But the claim that from the fatalistic premises with the introduction of some innocent further premise dire consequences follow as regards to the possibility of free choice is false. The introduced premise, which establishes the connection between the first (...) two premises (which are about the nature of propositions) and the concept of free choice is not innocent. It creates the impression that the truth of certain propositions can somehow determine the occurrence of certain events. But no proposition can have such an effect since the counterfactuals If proposition P were true, event E would happen does not say anything about determination. The argument for fatalism is, however, not a boring sophism. It does reveal something about the nature of propositional representation. It shows that each proposition represents necessarily the fact what it represents, i.e. it shows that propositions have their truth conditions non-contingently. But from this nothing follows as regards to the contingent nature of the facts represented. On the bases of the first two premises of the argument for fatalism we cannot infer to the impossibility of free choice. The argument for fatalism should not be interpreted as an attempt to prove on purely logical or conceptual grounds that we do not have the ability to influence future events by our choices. But it could be used to show something about the nature of propositional representation. (shrink)

The paper argues that the philosophical underpinnings of rational choice theory are vitiated by consideration of the phenomenon of backward-looking motives, such as gratitude, fidelity, and many forms of honesty. Attempts to describe the actions and decisions of those acting from such motives in the terms of rational choice theory fail, and the model of human conduct which is implicit in the theory is both inadequate in itself and pernicious in its general influence. A picture may emerge of (...) the human person as a repository of atomistic ‘experiences’, inhabiting a present from the vantage-point of which his relations to past and future ‘selves’ are contingent, and his responsibilities and commitments correspondingly fluid. And in economics, a supposedly ‘neutral’ account of rational choice in fact encourages and sustains a simple-minded utilitarian ethic. (shrink)

We used 7,415 advertisements published in Spain to analyze traits sought/offered by men and women from different age groups. Findings regarding age, socioeconomic status, and physical attractiveness requirements support evolutionary predictions about mate preferences. However, changes in trait preferences among women under 40 appear to be contingent on Spain’s socioeconomic transformation. Women under 40 seek mainly physical attractiveness in men, whereas those over 40 seek mainly socioeconomic status. The trait most sought by men in all age groups is physical attractiveness. (...) Traits sought and offered by advertisers may be conditioned by the personal situation of the advertiser. Mean age of advertisers (around their forties) and Spain’s social indicators suggest that the majority of advertisers have been unsuccessful in the mating arena at the conventional age. (shrink)

Contingent valuation surveys have tended to yield results that seem to go contrary to what is standardly seen as 'rational choice'. We argue that some of the inconsistencies arise because bids for public environmental goods in contingent valuation surveys are often motivated by moral considerations and ethical beliefs. We analyse the expected results of CV surveys given the existence of such ethical motivations, including the valuation of actions as well as states. It is found that we cannot expect bids (...) made on this basis to reveal preferences which obey the rules commonly assumed in the theory of consumer choice. The two standard reactions to these anomalies have been to attack the validity of the method, or to urge greater rigour in survey design and application. By contrast, we conclude that the usefulness of the method for evaluating options concerning environmental public goods depends critically on the problem definition. The method should be used for the direct evaluation of realistic policy packages, rather than to try to extract abstract values for invaluable goods. The conclusion accords with current trends, including the move towards the use of deliberative methodologies. (shrink)

This paper discusses the main lines of medieval Latin approaches to future contingents with some remarks on Marcin Tkaczyk’s paper “The antinomy of future contingent events.” Tkaczyk’s theory shows some similarity with the general frame of the views of Ockham and Scotus, the difference being that while medieval authors argued for the temporal necessity of the past, Tkaczyk is sceptical of the general validity of this necessity. Ockham’s theological view was that God eternally has an intuitive and immutable knowledge of (...) all possibilities as well as whether they are ever actualized or not (PANACCIO & PICHÉ 2010). The content of God’s past knowledge attitude remains contingent before the free choice takes place because God’s knowledge could be different similarly as the truth-value of the proposition. While Ockham held that no past or present thing follows from future things as an effect follows from its cause, this causal link is defended by Tkaczyk. Later thinkers thought that the doctrine of the scientia media sheds light on this question; perhaps it is easier to understand than the retroactive model which is not contradictory but difficult to imagine, as Tkaczyk concludes his paper. (shrink)

Medieval authors generally agreed that we have the freedom to choose among alternative possibilities. But most medieval authors also thought that there are situations in which one cannot do otherwise, not even will otherwise. They also thought when willing necessarily, the will remains free. The questions, then, are what grounds the necessity or contingency of the will’s acts, and – since freedom is not defined by the ability to choose – what belongs to the essential character of freedom, the (...) ratio libertatis. This article studies medieval theories of freedom without choice from William of Auxerre to William of Ockham and their background in Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Bernard of Clairvaux. (shrink)

In this paper, we have analyzed a number of solutions to the antinomy between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. If we assume that God is temporal, then a sort of backwards causation of past divine beliefs by future human acts must be acknowledged. Since this solution runs into difficulties, we consider the prospects of the view according to which God is outside time. A timeless and omniscient God seems to imply a B-theory of time and, at least at first glance, (...) seems to jeopardize human freedom. Therefore, we have examined what happens when a non-standard A-theory of time like Fragmentalism is assumed. We demonstrate that in this case the prospects of a timeless view of God are much better: both human freedom and divine knowledge of the results of human choices are preserved if this metaphysics of time is adopted. The costs of this solution are, however, very high. From the logical point of view, it rejects bivalence; from the metaphysical point of view, the world is regarded as fragmentary and incoherent. However, if one is ready to accept these costs, this solution is one of the most successful in the search for a solution to the centuries-old problem of the conciliation between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. (shrink)

This paper presents a personal view of the interaction between the analysis of choice under uncertainty and the analysis of production under uncertainty. Interest in the foundations of the theory of choice under uncertainty was stimulated by applications of expected utility theory such as the Sandmo model of production under uncertainty. This interest led to the development of generalized models including rank-dependent expected utility theory. In turn, the development of generalized expected utility models raised the question of whether (...) such models could be used in the analysis of applied problems such as those involving production under uncertainty. Finally, the revival of the state-contingent approach led to the recognition of a fundamental duality between choice problems and production problems. (shrink)

If God’s choice to create the universe is an unnecessary choice, then, Oppy argues, something contingent is ultimately at the origin of the universe, and as long as “brute contingency” is the basis for the universe’s existence, why bother with the additional postulate of a necessary being? Bergson’s work on free will, however, coupled with traditional trinitarian theology, suggests that it is more rationally satisfying, and certainly more in keeping with a viable principle of sufficient reason, to (...) stop searching for causes/explanations at the free choice of the Christian God instead of at the universe itself. (shrink)

The article examines the ethical and socio-political rationales behind France’s decision to sign the armistice with Nazi Germany in June 1940. Subsequent to the defeat, France confronted a binary choice: capitulation or armistice. Capitulation would have entailed responsibility falling on the military; in contrast, in the case of the armistice, it fell on civilian authority. Unlike capitulation, which did not bind civilian governance and remained an exclusively military action, the armistice extended the suspension of hostilities across territories under French (...) sovereignty. In practical terms, capitulation would have allowed France’s legal government to continue the war from other locations, whereas the armistice strictly prohibited such actions. Despite these constraints, France chose the armistice in an attempt to shield its populace from Nazi atrocities. However, this protection ultimately proved illusory. The article contends that the subsequent delegation of full constituent powers to Marshal Pétain deepened societal divisions between collaborationists and members of the Resistance. Contrary to popular belief, General de Gaulle mythologized the Resistance after the war not merely to glorify it but also to alleviate national tensions and position France among the victors of World War II. Reflecting upon the experience of French history, the article concludes on the political and social consequences of decisions regarding war and peace, contingent upon whether political or military leadership assumes the responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct David Foster Wallace’s argument against fatalism in his undergraduate honors thesis, “Richard Taylor’s ‘Fatalism’ and the Semantics of Physical Modality”. My goal is to present the argument in a clear and concise way, so that it is easy to see its main line of reasoning and potential power. A secondary goal is to offer clarificatory and critical notes on some of the issues at stake. The reconstruction reveals interesting connections between Wallace’s argument and John MacFarlane’s (...) recent work on relative truth. (shrink)

The literature on antecedents of corporate social responsibility strategies of firms has been predominately content driven. Informed by the managerial sense-making process perspective, we develop a contingency theoretical framework explaining how political ideology of managers affects the choice of CSR strategy for their firms through their CSR mindset. We also explain to what extent the outcome of this process is shaped by the firm’s internal institutional arrangements and external factors impacting on the firm. We develop and test several (...) hypotheses using data collected from 129 Chinese managers. The results show that managers with a stronger socialist ideology are likely to develop a mindset favouring CSR, which induces the adoption of a proactive CSR strategy. The CSR mindset mediates the link between socialist ideology and CSR strategy. The strength of the relationship between the CSR mindset and the choice of CSR strategy is moderated by customer response to CSR, industry competition, the role of government, and CSR-related managerial incentives. (shrink)

Interest in the foundations of the theory of choice under uncertainty was stimulated by applications of expected utility theory such as the Sandmo model of production under uncertainty. The development of generalized expected utility models raised the question of whether such models could be used in the analysis of applied problems such as those involving production under uncertainty. Finally, the revival of the state-contingent approach led to the recognition of a fundamental duality between choice problems and production problems.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.4 (2000) 479-502 [Access article in PDF] Possible Worlds in the Tahâfut al-Falâsifa Al-Ghazâlî on Creation and Contingency Taneli Kukkonen University of Helsinki 1. This article is the second half in an inquiry into the debate between al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111) and Averroes (1126-1198) on the metaphysical basis of modalities. The first article focused on Averroes' exposition of the Arabic Aristotelian position on the (...) eternity of the world and the modalities, as found in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut, the "Incoherence of the Incoherence [of the Philosophers]" from ca. 1180.1 In this paper I propose to sketch the outlines to a very different conception suggested by al-Ghazâlî in the Tahâfut al-falâsifa (1095) and quoted verbatim and commented upon by Averroes in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut.2 In contrast to the naturalistic model of modalities propounded by [End Page 479] Averroes, al-Ghazâlî develops an interpretation of possibility in which conceivability and co-assertability are central. In several key respects al-Ghazâlî's approach mirrors that of John Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century: it makes possible, for instance, a distinction between conceptual and natural possibilities in a manner reminiscent of later Latin medieval theory, and, reflecting this, a distinction between the (non-temporal) moments of conception and causation in the divine mind. The parallels between al-Ghazâlî's and Augustine's basic conceptions, meanwhile, highlight the theological motives lying at the heart of the new thinking.As in the previous article, the dialectical form of Averroes' later Tahâfut al-tahâfut is used for critical insight. Averroes' criticism of al-Ghazâlî's modal theoretical innovations gives rise to an important question about the lengths to which al-Ghazâlî's proposals could be taken. The issue is to an extent unresolveable; one would do well to note why. Whereas Averroes' formulations in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut are made readily understandable against the backdrop of his Aristotelian commentaries and wider systematic teaching, it is less easy to determine how far al-Ghazâlî is willing to develop his own ideas. The materials given in the Tahâfut al-falâsifa leave the impression of being inconclusive and open-ended—perhaps deliberately so—and the ambiguities are mirrored in al-Ghazâlî's other texts.3Taken as they stand, al-Ghazâlî's formulations retain a substantial Avicennian residue, for better or for worse. This makes for a curious mixture of old and new in his overall scheme, a feature which Averroes can exploit by criticizing al-Ghazâlî from a strict Aristotelian viewpoint (just as he criticized Avicenna), while all the time maintaining that his adversary's proposals do not add up to a coherent and full-bodied alternative to that venerable tradition. But Averroes' criticisms do not touch on the way al-Ghazâlî's suggestions, vague as they may be, do represent a genuine breakthrough. Al-Ghazâlî's interpretation of the modal terms bypasses the connection traditionally made between true possibility and temporal instantiation. This allows for a freer handling of counterfactual possibilities, an important feature in any refiguring of the limits of possibility. 2. Al-Ghazâlî's innovations have their root in the idea of God freely choosing (arbitrating) between alternatives equal to him. This simple kernel of an idea, seated in the kalâm conception of possibility, allows for a recognition of the genuineness of synchronic alternatives: a seemingly small shift, but all-important [End Page 480] to the ensuing debate. Al-Ghazâlî has defended the notion of God's genuine choice earlier,4 but in refuting "the third proof of the philosophers for the world's eternity," he begins to make systematic use of the notion of possibility. A brief recapitulation of the philosophers' argument will serve to recall the reasoning from which al-Ghazâlî takes his cue. The philosophers, in al-Ghazâlî's words, had... (shrink)

The discussions of these past twenty years have significantly improved our knowledge about the foundation of bioethics and the meaning of the four bioethical principles with concern to at least three different points: that they are organised hierarchically, and therefore not “prima facie” of the same level; that they have exceptions, and consequently lack of absolute character; and that they are neither strictly deontological nor purely teleological. The only absolute principle of moral life can be the abstract and unconcrete respect (...) of human beings. But when determining the material content of this respect, principles become contingent and relative. Therefore, moral reasoning must have necessarily no less than three moments, one absolute but merely formal, namely respect for all human beings, and the other two relative and material. The first material moment is comprised of the four bioethical principles, divided into two levels, one private, including the principles of autonomy and beneficence, and the other one public, including those of nonmaleficence and justice. The second material moment deals with specific cases, and requires analysis of their context, including their circumstances and consequences. Only when following these steps, and therefore balancing principlism and contextualism, can moral reasoning be correct and complete. (shrink)

The discussions of these past twenty years have significantly improved our knowledge about the foundation of bioethics and the meaning of the four bioethical principles with concern to at least three different points: that they are organised hierarchically, and therefore not “prima facie” of the same level; that they have exceptions, and consequently lack of absolute character; and that they are neither strictly deontological nor purely teleological. The only absolute principle of moral life can be the abstract and unconcrete respect (...) of human beings. But when determining the material content of this respect, principles become contingent and relative. Therefore, moral reasoning must have necessarily no less than three moments, one absolute but merely formal, namely respect for all human beings, and the other two relative and material. The first material moment is comprised of the four bioethical principles, divided into two levels, one private, including the principles of autonomy and beneficence, and the other one public, including those of nonmaleficence and justice. The second material moment deals with specific cases, and requires analysis of their context, including their circumstances and consequences. Only when following these steps, and therefore balancing principlism and contextualism, can moral reasoning be correct and complete. (shrink)

The perspective of deliberative choice is constitutively from here. This simple truth carries significant implications for our agency and integrity, some of which are the focus of Wallace's thought-provoking essay. Wallace is concerned with the discrepancy between our present attachments and the rational justification of past decisions, which threatens our personal and moral integrity. In what follows, I raise some questions about Wallace's claim that attachments make us immune to regret and, ultimately, about his account of the impact of (...) contingency in our practical thought. My argument revolves around two cases of immunity to regret, due to the agent's attachment to a ground project. Contrary to Wallace, I argue that in these cases the agent's inability to regret that things had not gone otherwise is neither unreasonable nor morally objectionable. (shrink)

This article outlines the struggle between the power of the health care professional and the rights of the individual to choose freely a modality of treatment. Nurses are instrumental in assisting patients in making the best decision for a therapy they will have to assume for the rest of their lives. In guiding patients' decision, nurses must take into account these unavoidable contingencies: changes in lifestyle, nutritional restrictions, level of acceptance, compliance issues, ease of training and availability of support/facilities. Ensuring (...) that the patient makes an informed decision is therefore an ongoing challenge for nurses as they are taking part in a delicate balancing act between not directly influencing the patient's decision while making sure the patient is accurately informed. (shrink)

This article argues that Oakeshott's theory of freedom possesses a greater degree of coherence than is often perceived. Freedom in Oakeshott's philosophy may be defined as `recognized contingency', combining the notions of a genuine choice of action and of an agent's awareness of having such a choice. Oakeshott employs his notion of freedom in two different contexts. One is the context in which freedom is understood as a concept distinguishing what is conceived as `human' from what is (...) conceived as `non-human'. The other context is that of membership in societies, which under certain circumstances can be characterized either by the presence or the lack of freedom. The article argues that, while at first glance Oakeshott's ideas look counter-intuitive, at a deeper level this understanding of freedom is akin to that prevalent in the consciousness of modern liberal societies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The list of proposed addictions has recently grown to include television, videogames, shopping, day trading, kleptomania, and use of the Internet. These activities share with a more established entry, gambling, the property that they require no delivery of a biological stimulus that might be thought to unlock a hardwired brain process. I propose a framework for analyzing that class of incentives that do not depend on the prediction of physically privileged environmental events: people have a great capacity to coin (...) endogenous reward; we learn to cultivate it, and, where it is entrapping, to minimize it, by managing internally generated appetites for it. The basic method of cultivating endogenous reward is to learn cues that predict when best to harvest the reward that has been made possible by the growth of these appetites. This hedonic management occurs in the same motivational marketplace as the instrumental planning that seeks environmental goods in the conventional manner, and presumably obeys the same laws of temporal difference learning; but these laws are no longer limiting. Furthermore, instrumental contingencies often provide the most productive structure for hedonic management as well, for reasons that I discuss; but the needs of hedonic management create incentives both to pursue instrumental goals in a suboptimal manner and to avoid noticing how the hedonic incentive affects this pursuit. The result is the apparent irrationality that is often observed in process addictions. (shrink)

This paper takes as its point of departure Merleau-Ponty’s assertion: “everything will have to begin again, in politics as well as in philosophy”. In pursuing his later work, Merleau-Ponty signalled the need for a reconfiguration of his philosophical vision, so it was no longer caught in Cartesianism and the philosophy of consciousness. This required a turn towards ontology through which he consolidated two key ideas: firstly, a pervasive interdependence articulated in his reversibility thesis and the ontology of ‘flesh’; secondly, a (...) radical contingency at the heart of existence. This paper interrogates the political implications of these ideas, and specifically regarding humanism and human progress. Relatedly, I address the question – how might recognitions of ontological interdependence and radical contingency support a flourishing democracy? Merleau-Ponty’s early political work concerned the issues of his day – Nazism, Marxism and the status of humanism – and did not engage extensively with these emerging onto-political concerns. Nonetheless, there are indicative reflections in the writings and interviews; the political implications of his ontological interrogations become more thematic in the later works. There is no rupture between the earlier and later works regarding his philosophical vision, although he later distanced himself from Marxism with revelations of the gulags under Stalin and the Korean War. The overarching claim of this paper – we need to rethink politics from the ground up beginning with ontology; ontology is political and the political is intrinsically ontologically informed. Getting the ontology ‘right’ is a matter of discovery and not theory choice. (shrink)

Treatments of God's goodness almost always appeal to the traditional Christian doctrine that God is necessarily good, but this introduces the question whether God's goodness properly can be understood as necessary. After considering an ontological conception of God's goodness, I propose that God's goodness is better understood as satisfying six criteria involving moral virtue, intellectual virtue, right actions, right motives, freedom of choice, and freedom of choice with respect to the rightness of the action. I defend the result (...) -- that God's goodness must be understood contingently, not necessarily -- against recent critics of this view. (shrink)

The response of academic intellectuals and political elites to populism is very often characterized by a mixture between outright disgust and helpless perplexity. This cannot come as a surprise, since the one thing that left and right populism have in common is that they consider the elites their enemy. The essay argues that the choice the elites have is either to openly voice their contempt for the uneducated masses, or to help educate them. However, as the contributions of Ernesto (...) Laclau and Jacques Rancière on the topic show, this is more easily said than done. Moreover, to simply discard right-wing populism on the basis of its racist tendencies often simply serves to deflect the focus away from the legitimate grievances of those who follow – or ‘fall for’ – populist parties. (shrink)

Historically, cognitivists considered moral choices to be determined by analytic processes. Recent theories, however, have emphasized the role of intuitive processes in determining moral choices. We propose that the engagement of analytic and intuitive processes is contingent on the type of tradeoff being considered. Specifically, when a tradeoff necessarily violates a moral principle no matter what choice is made, as in tragic tradeoffs, its resolution should result in greater moral conflict and less confidence in choice than when the (...) tradeoff offers a moral escape route, as in taboo tradeoffs. We manipulated tradeoff type in between subjects design and confirmed the prediction that tragic tradeoffs prompt more conflict and less confidence than taboo tradeoffs. The findings further revealed that moral conflict mediated the effect of tradeoff type on confidence. The study sheds light on the manner in which human minds resolve moral problems involving social agents. (shrink)

Makin argues that doctors1 should defer to each patient’s attitude to risk, over and above standard, utility-based and outcome-focussed medical decision-making models, in selecting treatment options for that patient.1 Although Makin articulates the problem as a dilemma of whether ‘to give the treatment or to withhold it’, it can be assumed that his question is whether the doctor should offer a certain treatment; because both the General Medical Council and law require doctors to engage patients in shared decision-making (SDM) and (...) to obtain consent before ‘giving’ any treatment. Yet, Makin is correct in asserting that doctors ‘make choices on behalf of their patients on a daily basis’ insofar that doctors do have to make certain a priori decisions. SDM requires a starting point—a range of clinically appropriate or reasonable options—on which patients and doctors can collaboratively deliberate in order to reach a treatment decision; and the doctor has to set out this starting point.2 Thus, Makin’s reductive claim is that doctors should take each patient’s risk attitude into account in setting out the starting points for SDM. In this commentary, I will explore UK case law in response to Makin’s proposal; because, ultimately, doctors have to work within the legal framework. Makin relies on the bioethical principles of respect …. (shrink)