In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 695 Salvation Outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response. By FRANCIS A. SULLIVAN. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1992. Pp. i + 224. $12.95 (paper). The subtitle of the volume describes well its purpose and content. The author surveys in chronological order, beginning with the earliest ecclesiastical writers and ending with John Paul II, the various interpretations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus. (...) What prompted Sullivan to undertake a historical rather than systematic approach in his volume is the conviction that without taking into account the historical and cultural factors that conditioned the formulation of this axiom it is impossible to make sense of the shift from the exclusivism of the pre-Vatican II Church to the inclusiveness of Vatican II and post-Vatican II theology with regard to the salvation of those who are not members of,the Roman Catholic Church. The principle that guides Sullivan's attempt to disclose the meaning embodied in the manifold formulations of the axiom " there is no salvation outside the Church" is Pope John XXHI's distinction between " the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith " and " the way in which it is presented," and the more recent emphasis of the Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973) on the historical condition affecting the expression of divine revelation. As a historical study, Salvation Outside the Church? is an excellent continuation of Louis Caperan's two-volume work Le probleme du salut des infideles, which is still unavailable in English. Obviously an over· view of almost two thousand years of theological discussion of this problem has to be highly selective if one is not to miss the forest for the trees, and Sullivan's choice of authors as well as of historical periods for discussion is judiciously made. If a complaint is to be made in this regard, it is that he has focused too much attention on magisterial documents, and Roman documents at that, and not enough on contemporary theology. True, he devotes a chapter to the theory of " anonymous Christians," espoused mainly by Karl Rahner (chapter 10), and defends it against criticisms by Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Kiing, and Max Seckler. He is well aware that Rahner's theory has become the position of mainstream Catholic theology and cites authors who support it in one way or another (p. 181). However, a book that claims to present " the Catholic response " to the problem posed by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus should, one would expect, have discussed in greater detail the various positions of contemporary Catholic theologians on this issue. It is to be fervently hoped that Sullivan will take up this task in his next book. 696 BOOK REVIEWS Sullivan's basic thesis is that the substance underlying the various negative formulations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus is the positive belief ithat " God has assigned to the church a necessary role in the accomplishment of his plan for the salvation of humanity " (p. 12). Such a thesis is, of course, neither new nor startling. Hans Kling had already said that much in his 1967 Die Kirche (English translation, p. 318). What is helpful in Sullivan's account is his explanation of both the intent of those who affirmed this axiom with its apparent exclusiveness and the limitations that prevented them from perceiving the universality of God's saving grace. With regard to intent, Sullivan shows con· vincingly that the patristic usage of the axiom is intended as a warning for those Christians who had separated themselves from the catholica either by schism or by heresy that they must remain within it in order to be saved, whereas ithe medieval usage is intended to warn pagans and Jews that they should accept the message of the Gospel now that it had been announced to them. With regard to limitations, Sullivan singles out two: the geographical and the psychological. On the one hand, there was before the discovery of America the conviction that the world was identical with Christian Europe. This belief led theologians to postulate that the Gospel had been spread throughout the world. On the other hand, their ignorance... (shrink)

This article examines Peter Singer’s animal ethic’s theory and argues that the utilitarian calculus’ inherent process of abstraction and homogenisation is epistemically violent because it erases animals’ singularities. I also argue that considering the sentience we can know of as the only characteristic that marks animals as worthy of moral considerability, as Singer does, can lead to violent actions towards animals because this logic erases all the violence that escapes sentientist logics. I show that key to this critique is (...) Singer’s misunderstanding of human sovereignty, and the relationship between human sovereignty and subjectivity. Further, I examine Singer’s conception of the “I”, and find that it is a lifeless and static one that leads his theory to foreclose ethical judgements. This article shows that animals’ irreducibility, vulnerabilities and otherness are sufficient to regard animals as worthy of moral considerability. Finally, I examine some practical implications of the arguments I advance. (shrink)

What does the idea of taking 'the point of view of the universe' tell us about ethics? Lazari-Radek and Singer defend objectivism in ethics, and hedonistic utilitarianism, following Henry Sidgwick's lead. They explore how to justify an ethical theory; conflicts of self-interest and universal benevolence; and whether we should discount the future.

One of the world’s most influential philosophers here considers the ethical issues surrounding globalization. Peter Singer discusses climate change, the role of the World Trade Organization, human rights and humanitarian intervention, and foreign aid, showing how a global ethic rather than a nationalistic approach can provide illuminating answers to important problems. The book encompasses four main global issues: climate change, the role of the World Trade Organization, human rights and humanitarian intervention, and foreign aid. Singer addresses each vital issue (...) from an ethical perspective and offers alternatives to the state-centric approach that characterizes international theory and relations today. Posing a bold challenge to narrow or nationalistic views, Singer presents a realistic, new way of looking at contemporary global issues—through a prism of ethics. (shrink)

This is a short review of Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer's book The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics.

Singer’s ethics assume an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner. Nonhuman animals, like human animals, have an interest in not suffering; so we all agree on an impartial, rational, consistent minimum standard of treatment that we see must extend to nonhuman animals. While I think this kind of argument works well in the “liberal” context of countries based on social contract reasoning, I am not convinced it goes far enough in achieving the desired attitude shift. We are still encouraged to think in (...) terms of the self-interest of an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner, and thus there are many instances in which it is perfectly “reasonable” to harm nonhuman animals. To challenge Singer I use views of the individual proposed by socialist feminist and radical feminist theories. Both of these theories (in all their variety) propose a substantial revisioning of the individual and thereby shift the focus from rights talk to issues of responsibility and care. While there are clear dangers in these approaches as well, I believe there is a fruitful combination of Singer’s argument with these feminist approaches that will help us see the deep nature of our connectedness to nonhuman animals and make us realize that the eating of meat is really a form of cannibalism. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophy has different approaches to provide justice and equality to groups that are traditionally discriminated on the grounds of gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, etc. On the other hand, functionally diverse (disabled) people have had a parallel approach to their discrimination, excluded from mainstream diversities. Including functional diversity and the diversity model in modern recognition and redistribution theories, as another human diversity, provides an extended ethical approach: diversity ethics. This general framework also includes other fundamental ideas for (...) equality such as human fragility, social domination logics, self-respect and auto-recognition. Diversity ethics provides sound foundations to defend justice and equality for all human diversities and an alternative to other approaches that broaden the moral community, excluding some humans, like Peter Singer’s ethics. (shrink)

Robert Nozick's book is a major event in contemporary political philosophy. There has, in recent years, been no sustained and competently argued challenge to the prevailing conceptions of social justice and the role of the state. Political philosophers have tended to assume without argument that justice demands an extensive redistribution of wealth in the direction of equality; and that it is a legitimate function of the state to bring about this redistribution by coercive means like progressive taxation. These assumptions (...) may be correct; but after Anarchy, State, and Utopia they will need to be defended and argued for instead of being taken for granted. (shrink)

This paper criticizes Peter Singer‟s position on euthanasia. Singer uses two versions of utilitarianism in order to deal with the issue of the morality of killing: preference-utilitarianism for persons, classical utilitarianism for sentient beings that are not persons (in Singer‟s sense). I try to show that Singer‟s back and forth between preference-utilitarianism and classical utilitarianism raises difficulties in regard to his arguments for the permissibility on non-voluntary euthanasia in the case of severely handicapped children. In the last section of (...) the paper I address the sharp objections to Singer‟s views in German-speaking countries, arguing that these reactions – though in some forms clearly unacceptable – are understandable. (shrink)

Bill Anglin has an ingenious argument in support of the classical utilitarian view that there is an obligation to create extra people if the people thus created will, on balance, be happy, and creating them will not reduce the happiness of others by a comparable amount. Ingenious as it is, I believe the argument is fallacious.Anglin's argument rests on a case in which a woman has a choice between having a child whose expected level of happiness is zero or undergoing (...) a minor operation, involving only a tiny amount of unhappiness for herself, and then having a child certain to be very happy. Anglin assumes that the woman ought to have the operation, and I do not think we should quarrel with this assumption.The remainder of the argument is swiftly stated. First Anglin claims that for a utilitarian it must be morally indifferent whether one brings into existence an extra person who would experience neither happiness nor unhappiness at any time in his life, or does not bring anyone into existence. (shrink)

Many utilitarians accept Bentham's view that to argue for the principle of utility is as ‘impossible as it is needless'. They take utilitarianism as a first principle which one either accepts or does not. They do, of course, defend utilitarianism against objections, and make objections to other ethical positions; but the principle of utility itself, they hold, must stand on its own merits. In this article we use a different approach. We introduce a principle, which we call ‘Weak Majority Preference', (...) which we believe likely to be accepted by many who do not consider themselves utilitarians. We then show that from this principle it is possible to derive the general principle of utility. (shrink)

In 1984, Irving Singer published the first volume of what would become a classic and much acclaimed trilogy on love. Trained as an analytical philosopher, Singer first approached his subject with the tools of current philosophical methodology. Dissatisfied by the initial results, he turned to the history of ideas in philosophy and the arts for inspiration. He discovered an immensity of speculation and artistic practice that reached wholly beyond the parameters he had been trained to consider truly philosophical. In his (...) three-volume work The Nature of Love, Singer tried to make sense of this historical progression within a framework that reflected his precise distinction-making and analytical background. In this new book, he maps the trajectory of his thinking on love. It is a "partial" summing-up of a lifework: partial because it expresses the author's still unfolding views, because it is a recapitulation of many published pages, because love--like any subject of that magnitude--resists a neatly comprehensive, all-inclusive formulation. Adopting an informal, even conversational, tone, Singer discusses, among other topics, the history of romantic love, the Platonic ideal, courtly and nineteenth-century Romantic love; the nature of passion; the concept of merging ; ideas about love in Freud, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Dewey, Santayana, Sartre, and other writers; and love in relation to democracy, existentialism, creativity, and the possible future of scientific investigation. Singer's writing on love embodies what he has learned as a contemporary philosopher, studying other authors in the field and "trying to get a little further." This book continues his trailblazing explorations. (shrink)

According to the metaethics of R. M. Hare, we determine morality objectively by making a moral judgment, committing to the moral principle underlying that judgment, and then logically extending that moral principle to all relevantly similar cases. This metaethical system called universal prescriptivism had a major impact on Peter Singer, whose arguments for radically improving animal welfare and alleviating global suffering frequently rely on Hare-ian appeals to logical consistency. Hare’s work in metaethics is largely rejected now, but Singer’s popularity (...) has kept Hare’s prescriptivism alive through the many animal welfarists and effective altruists who have borrowed Singer’s style in their own logic-based calls for the obligation to reduce suffering impartially. In this paper, I will describe Hare’s metaethics, show how this has served as Singer’s own metaethics for most of his academic career, and then I will describe a problem for Hare’s system that is particularly relevant to effective altruists who have been influenced by Singer’s early writings and may be repeating the mistakes that Hare bequeathed to Singer. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present an outline of the views of the contemporary Australian ethicist, Peter Singer, on utilitarian ethics. It is the intention of the author the show that he ponders with great commitment over contemporary bioethical issues, including those connected to euthanasia. From the point of view of the impartial observer, he also attempts to test our deep-rooted beliefs. He emphasizes the aspect that the principle of the sacrosanct value of human life (...) is subject to be questioned in the course of everyday life, due to the fact that nowadays attempts to assign a disparate value to human beings are no longer arbitrary. Attention is drawn to the fact that the consequences of Singer’s ethics may cause controversy. (shrink)

Peter Spader has written a magisterial study on Max Scheler, one of phenomenology’s earliest and greatest figures, whose theory of ethical personalism has become a major voice in the formulation of phenomenological ethics today. Spader follows Scheler’s use of the classic phenomenological approach, by means of which he presented a fresh view of values, feelings, and the person, and thereby staked out a new approach in ethics. Spader recreates the logic of Scheler’s quest, revealing the basis of his (...) thought and the reasons for his dramatic changes of direction. This remarkable study provides a framework that allows us to understand Scheler’s insights in the context of their dynamic evolution of his thought. It corrects imbalances in the presentation of his ideas and defends Scheler against key misunderstandings and criticisms. In short, Spader’s work continues the process of developing Scheler’s pioneering theory of ethical personalism. (shrink)

This article assesses the value of Karl Popper's situational analysis for contem porary sociology We maintain that this element of Popper's social science methodology has been largely neglected by sociologists and suggest that this is because it is borrowed from economics. As such, situational analysis has much in common with recent attempts to introduce rational choice in sociology. Our main question is this: What is the contribution of situational analysis to the current debate about rational choice in sociology? Our answer (...) is that Popper has little to add to this debate. His formulation of situational analysis is too general and too vague to be much of a guide to research. Among other things, situational analysis fails to pay due attention to interests and to social interaction in the explanation of social phenomena. On the positive side, we notice that Popper does include social institutions as the most important element in individuals' situations. (shrink)

There are good moral reasons to support euthanasia, and these reasons are fundamentally of a utilitarian root. There are few moral reasons to oppose euthanasia in its strict sense, and they are clearly outweighed by the reasons argumented from a utilitarian perspective. Such teleological and consequentialist good reasons were originally advanced by David Hume in his brief and brilliant essay "Of Suicide" (1757), the true source for current Bioethics. Hume's arguments have been expanded in scope by some contemporary utilitarians, (...) especially by Peter Singer. Both the classical arguments of Hume as the most current by Sin­ger (and by some other utilitarian thinkers) are evaluated here, holding, in conclusion, that, regardless of specific criticisms, and of some important discrepancies between the different kinds of utilitarianists, however, the utilitarian ethical position is a strong and solid support for the defense of the "good voluntary death" as an individual right (in fact, a legitimate interest that demands legal protection) with a dominant force over other rights or interests, both individual or collective. (shrink)

In _The Moral of the Story,_ Peter and Renata Singer draw on some of the best works of fiction, playwriting, and poetry in order to shed light on the perennial questions of ethics. A vivid montage of literature that touches on a broad range of ethical subjects and themes Offers a unique contribution to the study of moral philosophy and literature Demonstrates how literary sources can add richness to discussions of real-life moral questions and dilemmas Brings together selections and (...) excerpts from the world’s most celebrated short stories, novels, plays, and poetry Features substantive section introductions by Peter and Renata Singer Peter Singer is a leading moral philosopher, widely credited with triggering the modern animal-rights movement. His collection of essays, _Unsanctifying Human Life,_ edited by Helga Kuhse, was published by Blackwell Publishing in 2001. (shrink)

Embedded in the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi is a unique concept that lends itself to the formulation of a distinct system of ethics. The distinctiveness that wu-wei infuses into the realm of ethics resides in its principal constituent, spontaneity. Implicit in wu-wei is spontaneity and its dialectical opposite, the nonspontaneous elements that are essential to the integrity of any system of ethics. This paper attempts to bring to the fore this implicit dialectic of spontaneity and non spontaneity through wu-wei's relation (...) to the Dao as harmony of opposites, its imperative of enlightened response, and its congeniality to the case for libertarianism. (shrink)

In German-speaking countries, there have been concerted and successful attempts to prevent any discussion of euthanasia from taking place. Both the present writers have been invited to give lectures on this topic, and had these lectures cancelled at short notice because of this opposition. Against that background, we welcome Pauer-Studer’s airing of these issues, and her clear statement that attempts to prevent advocates of euthanasia from speaking are “definitely unacceptable.” Nevertheless, we find much that Pauer-Studer says to be in error.

Arthur Norman Prior (1914-69) was a logician and philosopher from New Zealand who contributed crucially to the development of ‘non-standard’ logics, especially of the modal variety. His greatest achievement was the invention of modern temporal logic, worked out in close connection with modal logic. However, his work in logic had a much broader scope. He was also the founder of hybrid logic, and he made important contributions to deontic logic, modal logic, the theory of quantification, the nature of propositions and (...) the history of logic. In addition, he discussed questions of ethics, free will, and general theology. Prior’s philosophical works comprise about 200 titles. His earliest articles center on philosophical theology and historical studies of Scottish Reformed Theology. This led on to the publication of his first influential work on ethics: Logic and The Basis of Ethics (1949). With the invention of tense-logic in the early 1950s, his focus shifted to investigations into the syntax of tempo-modal logic leading to his seminal Time and Modality (1957), a volume derived from his John Locke Lectures in Oxford in 1956. Furthermore Prior, together with the Irish mathematician and logician C.A. Meredith (1904-76), made important early contributions to the semantics of possible worlds. Prior’s tense-logic provided a strong conceptual framework for problems pertaining to the philosophy of time. In Time and Modality, Prior discussed the philosophical implications of Ruth Barcan’s famous formulae for tense-logic, and in the 1960s he worked on the notion of the present. The most persistent problem running through Prior’s work is his study of the questions surrounding human freedom and divine foreknowledge, and more general philosophical problems emerging from this classical theological question. His thorough analysis of this problem, with the conceptual tools of tense-logic, received a crucial impetus from his correspondence with the young Saul Kripke, when the latter suggested the semantic tool of branching time to Prior. Prior’s development of two solutions based on branching time for the problem of future contingency, the Peircean and the Ockham solution, was most thoroughly developed in Past, Present and Future (1967), the most important work published by Prior. Characteristically for Prior’s methodological approach, the development of these two solutions were at the same time a development of two new systems of tense logic, and vice versa. One of Prior’s significant contributions to logic was his work on world propositions and instant propositions. In the course of developing these notions he also made one of the earliest formulations of hybrid logic. In Papers on Time and Tense (1968), he presented this idea in a more detailed manner in the context of his four grades of tense-logical involvement. (shrink)

Peter Singer is one of the most widely known and most controversial contemporary philosophers. He is a true practical philosopher, combining significant academic achievement with efforts to bring about real change in the world. He has made substantial contributions to the animal liberation movement and to the battle against global poverty. "The Singer Solution to World Poverty", published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, led to more than $600,000 of donation to Oxfam and UNICEF. Singer argues that (...) common moral thinking vastly underestimates our moral obligations to animals suffering at human hands and to human beings dying in far away places. Put simply, Singer claims that the pain of the animals gives us conclusive reason to stop participating in practices like factory farming and animal experimentation. Equally, the suffering of people in the third world means that we have a moral obligation to donate most of our income to aid organisations. Even though many resist some of the more counterintuitive conclusions of these arguments, when it comes to preventing animal torture and encouraging efforts to end poverty, it is hard to deny that Singer is on the side of the angels. Although the actions he urges may not be morally obligatory, they are at the very least morally admirable. However, some other aspects of Singer's views come in for serious moral censure. His advocacy of infanticide, in particular the infanticide of disabled infants, has led to fierce opposition and even violent attack. The phrase "moral iconoclast" is apt. (shrink)

In the eighteenth century the category of the aesthetic sought to bridge the gap between the prevalent dualities of Cartesian thought: art and science, history and science, prejudice and truth. This special issue of _boundary 2_ addresses current debates about the status of art in the context of global modernity. The range of arguments represented here cover a broad historical scope—from Cartesianism to present-day global modernity—of cultural discourse on the aesthetic to bring a focus to contemporary discussions of the (...) corollary concepts of beauty, virtue, taste, and truth. These essays present a rich and provocative account of the place of the aesthetic in late-twentieth-century culture. Included in this volume are considerations of the relation between theories of art and the avant-garde; art’s relation to cognition; the aesthetic as history; the aesthetic as a unique access to modernity; and its impact on problems of identity formation, ideology, and resistances to the institutional powers inherent in dominant social formations. _Contributors. _Charles Altieri, Peter Burger, David Carroll, Anthony J. Cascardi, Howard Caygill, Allen Dunn, Eric Gans, Agnes Heller, Ronald A. T. Judy, Marie-Rose Logan, Daniel T. O’Hara, Donald E. Pease, Alan Singer. (shrink)

It is the aim of my paper to explore the chances of a decidedly historical approach to Eugen Fink's involvement in Edmund Husserl's mature philosophy. This question has been subject to much debate recently; but I think that the recently published early notes of Fink have not been sufficiently evaluated by Husserl scholarship. I embed the investigation of Fink's ideas in the contemporaries reactions to them, and argue that Fink's very specific methodological ideas was already formulated in details before he (...) has composed the Sixth Cartesian Meditation and his other much researched assistant writings. Furthermore, I argue that, although it is not possible to draw a clear dividing line between Husserl's own position and the alleged influences by Fink, it is still possible to delineate a specifically Husserlian understanding of the methodology of phenomenological philosophy, especially in the light of Husserl's discussions of the circularity of phenomenological philosophy, which antedate his encounter with Fink. I think that the approach and results outlined here could serve as the basis of a larger investigation of Fink's involvement in the formation of Husserl's notion of philosophy. (shrink)

Contemporary Foucauldian research assimilates the political with governance. This formulation dates to Foucault's emphasis on the significance of the anti-Machiavellians in introducing the concept of governance into political theory. Returning to Machiavelli, we argue that early modern political theory was instead characterized by the simultaneous problematization of ruler and ruled, and the co-constitution of sovereignty and governance. We then outline the relation of ruler and ruled in the political structure of the democratic sovereign. Concepts of both sovereignty and governance (...) are necessary to theorize the political in modernity, including the dangers that arise from fusing sovereignty and governance, as occurred during the Nazi period in Germany, when the distinction between the sovereign people and the governed population was conflated. (shrink)

The difficulties have arisen because of the claim Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa. Already in October, 2002, a secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document, the "National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq," said that "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in [the assessment of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] highly dubious."1 That month, the CIA sent two mcmos to the White House (...) voicing doubts about the claims. One went to Bush's deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, and the other to his chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson. CIA Director George J. Tenet also phoned Hadley before the president was to make a speech in Cincinnati, on October 7, asking that the allegation be removed.2 Nevertheless, three months later the claim made its way into the most solemn speech that the president gives each year. By making the claim, Bush misled Congress, the people of the United States, and the world about a central issue in the case he was making for going to war with Iraq. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is the writer who gave the most trenchant formulation of existentialism and tried to do the same for a version of Marxism, and as a philosopher of history who got it wrong about history and then, in his last "philosophical manifesto" - volume III of the Idiot - got it brilliantly right. But Sartre did not write the second volume of the Critique. Or, more exactly, he wrote it but he did not publish it. The Critique, as Sartre (...) himself admitted, grew like a hernia on the body of the book on Flaubert, so that it had to be surgically removed and given a life of its own; but a sort of symbiosis persisted, and when it came to the continuation of the argument, Sartre seems to have sensed that volume II was a dead end, and that the route to the alternative would prove to lie after all in the Flaubert project itself. In order to understand Sartre's position, the author analyzes his conception of history, especially of the intelligibility of history by mean of the dialectical reason as a movement of totalization of practical seriality, and shows its actuality. (shrink)

Hegemony is one of the most widely diffused concepts in the contemporary social sciences and humanities internationally, interpreted in a variety of ways in different disciplinary and national contexts. However, its contemporary relevance and conceptual coherence has recently been challenged by various theories of ‘posthegemony’. This article offers a critical assessment of this theoretical initiative. In the first part of the article, I distinguish between three main versions of posthegemony – temporal, foundational and expansive – characterized by different (...) understandings of the temporal and logical implications of hegemony. I then offer a critical assessment of the shared presuppositions of these theories, including their ‘pre-Gramscianism’, their indebtedness to Laclau and Mouffe’s formulation of hegemony, and their characterization of hegemony in terms compatible with modern theories of sovereignty. I conclude by arguing that the contradictions and oversights of the debate on posthegemony encourage us to undertake a reassessment of the real historical complexity of hegemonic politics and its different traditions of conceptualization. (shrink)

This is a philosophical and historical study of the German Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. It is argued that Rosenzweig's thought is best understood within the horizon of German interwar philosophy alongside the thought of his contemporary, Martin Heidegger. The two philosophers are presented as offering divergent articulations of a larger, shared project; and they are understood as participants within a philosophical movement that the author calls "philosophical expressionism" after the various other expressionist movements of the 1920s. The affinity between (...) Rosenzweig and Heidegger is traced from Rosenzweig's earliest study of Hegel's statist theory through his engagement with Hermann Cohen's neo-Kantianism as well as the Bible-translation. The dissertation culminates in a detailed reconstruction of the famous Davos disputation between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger, which Rosenzweig interpreted as a symbolic encounter between the older, idealist mode of philosophy and his own "new thinking" . It is argued that the affinities between Heidegger and Rosenzweig are far deeper than has been formerly acknowledged. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss how Nietzsche’s critique of nihilism concerns the complicity between Christian morality and modern atheism. I unpack in what sense Schopenhauer’s ascetic denial of the will signifies a return to nothingness, what he calls the nihil negativum. I argue that Nietzsche’s formulation of nihilism specifically targets Schopenhauer’s pessimism as the culmination of the Western metaphysical tradition, the crucial stage of its intellectual history in which the scientific pursuit of truth finally unveils the ascetic will to nothingness (...) that motivates it. I contend that Nietzsche’s critique of Schopenhauer anticipates current scholarly debates around the significance of the nihil negativum and offers a compelling objection against contemporary proponents of philosophical nihilism such as Eugene Thacker and Ray Brassier. (shrink)

Peter Singer’s famous and influential article is criticised in three main ways that can be considered libertarian, although many non-libertarians could also accept them: 1) the relevant moral principle is more plausibly about upholding an implicit contract rather than globalising a moral intuition that had local evolutionary origins; 2) its principle of the immorality of not stopping bad things is paradoxical, as it overlooks the converse aspect that would be the positive morality of not starting bad things and also (...) thereby conceptually eliminates innocence; and 3) free markets—especially international free trade—have been cogently explained to be the real solution to the global “major evils” of “poverty” and “pollution”, while “overpopulation” does not exist in free-market frameworks; hence charity is a relatively minor alleviant to the problem of insufficiently free markets. There are also various subsidiary arguments throughout. (shrink)

For the modern-day jihadist, the digital self-portrait or, more specifically, battlefield selfie is a popular tool for identity building. Similarly to the selfies taken by non-violent practitioners of self-capture culture, the jihadist selfie represents an alternative to the Cartesian formulation of a unitary and indivisible self. Rather, it is a product of social relations and performative actions, constituted in dialogue with others through very specific socio-cultural frameworks and expectations. However, unlike its non-violent Doppelganger, the expectations of this dialogue are centred (...) around a larger political agenda which actively seeks to reformat collective memories of imperial Islamic conquests and co-opt religion as a way to impose a moral order on its violence. Importantly, the battlefield selfie allows the jihadist easily to traverse the boundaries between two seemingly opposing belief systems. Although there exists a wealth of scholarship of self-capture culture, image sharing sites and micro-celebritism, their pervasive influence and practice on battlefield is understudied. This article draws from the personal histories of key Islamic extremists who were both lionized and demonized as a result of their battlefield micro-influencer practices. Today, however, the same individuals can achieve internet fame by participating in self-capture culture – posting selfies, videos or blogging. In other words, never before has a soldier’s public communication been so personal yet collective. (shrink)

Peter Singer is probably the best-known and most controversial ethicist in the world today. He rigorously applies utilitarian moral theory to issues such as world poverty, the environment, abortion, euthanasia and, most famously, animal welfare. He has also written a book about his grandfather, David Oppenheim, who died in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

An ethical theory is axiological just in case it makes the permissibility of actions depend solely on considerations of goodness. Act utilitarianism is the paradigm axiological theory. An ethical theory is a pure rights theory just in case it judges an action permissible if and only if it violates no one’s rights. Libertarianism is a paradigm pure rights theory. I shall formulate and defend a type of axiological theory that, unlike act utilitarianism, is sensitive in a new and interesting way (...) to whether rights are violated.Let us start by briefly considering the strengths and weakness of act utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism judges an action permissible just in case it maximizes social welfare. It has many attractive features. It is a clearly formulated theory that draws on the machinery of decision theory. It takes a tough minded approach to morality: always focusing on the outcomes of actions. And it takes human welfare very seriously. The axiological theory I shall defend will have all these features. (shrink)

Part I presents a model of interactive computation and a metric for expressiveness, Part II relates interactive models of computation to physics, and Part III considers empirical models from a philosophical perspective. Interaction machines, which extend Turing Machines to interaction, are shown in Part I to be more expressive than Turing Machines by a direct proof, by adapting Gödel's incompleteness result, and by observability metrics. Observation equivalence provides a tool for measuring expressiveness according to which interactive systems are more expressive (...) than algorithms. Refinement of function equivalence by observation of outer interactive behavior and inner computation steps is examined. The change of focus from algorithms specified by computable functions to interaction specified by observation equivalence captures the essence of empirical computer science. Part II relates interaction in models of computation to observation in the natural sciences. Explanatory power in physics is specified by the same observability metric as expressiveness in interactive systems. Realist models of inner structure are characterized by induction, abduction, and Occam's Razor. Interactive realism extends the hidden-variable model of Einstein to hidden interfaces that provide extra degrees of freedom to formulate hypotheses with testable predictions conforming with quantum theory. Greater expressiveness of collaborative computational observers (writers) than single observers implies that hidden-interface models are more expressive than hidden-variable models. By providing a common foundation for empirical computational and physical models we can use precise results about computational models to establish properties of physical models. Part III shows that the evolution in computing from algorithms to interaction parallels that in physics from rationalism to empiricism. Plato's cave metaphor is interactively extended from Platonic rationalism to empiricism. The Turing test is extended to TMs with hidden interfaces that express interactive thinking richer than the traditional Turing test. Interactive (nonmonotonic) extensions of logic such as the closed-world assumption suggest that interactiveness is incompatible with monotonic logical inference. Procedure call, atomicity of transactions, and taking a fixed point are techniques for closing open systems similar to "preparation" followed by "observation" of a physical system. Pragmatics is introduced as a framework for extending logical models with a fixed syntax and semantics to multiple-interface models that support collaboration among clients sharing common resources. (shrink)

Creative change characterizes the nature of god, And a temporalistic form of personalistic theism can illuminate human experience. To establish this thesis, The author first discusses the logical, Metaphysical, And religious bases for the traditional view that ultimate being must be perfect and unchanging. He then proposes an alternate model of reason, Presents a concept of persons as active unities capable of maintaining their self-Identity through change, And argues for the possibility of creation ex nihilo. Finally, After discussing valid classical (...) emphases, The author formulates his personalistic notion of God as creator and considers god's relation to human beings. (staff). (shrink)

This book builds on the vast clinical experience of Joseph L. Henderson, who became interested in initiatory symbolism when he began his analysis with Jung in 1929. Henderson studied this symbolism in patients' dreams, fantasies, and active imagination, and demonstrated the archetype of initiation in both men and women's psychology. After Henderson’s book was republished in 2005 Kirsch, Beane Rutter and Singer brought together this collection of essays to allow a new generation to explore the archetype of initiation. _Initiation: The (...) Living Reality of an Archetype_ demonstrates how the archetype of initiation is seen clinically today. Divided into distinct parts, the book explores the archetype of initiation in Dr Henderson’s own life, as well as suggesting its importance in: clinical practice culture aging and death. The chapters in this book amplify and extend the archetype of initiation from the earliest historical periods up to the present day. The editors argue that initiation symbolism often underlies contemporary phenomena, but is rarely recognized; _Initiation _helps to bring a new understanding to these experiences. This book will be of interest to psychotherapists with an interest in psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, as well as those training at analytic institutes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 273 my judgment, in the fact that he has limited the historical inquiry to the scholarly study of documents and discussions without showing those cultural, social, psychological, and economic motivations which formed an accompaniment to the individual protagonists of the discussions. The motivation for what a philosopher says is not justified by revealing only his most immediate opponent's name and ideas, but by showing, as Goldmann (La (...) communautd humaine chez Kant, Paris, 1948) and, very briefly, Stark (The Sociology of Knowledge) did, the reason for his thinking and his presuppositional needs. In the case of Kant, it is obvious that we cannot leave out his pietist formation, the fears about the French Revolution and Hume's scepticism. The historicity of a study cannot be limited to the history of polemics or to the discovery of documents which, theoretically, add nothing to what an author has already stated in his works. The vast philological material Pupi has gathered, seems to me very good, and it represents, I think, the greatest value of Pupi's work, because of its usefulness in the field of the sociology of knowledge. And to this field I take the liberty of referring Pupi for an example of a method that is historical and not tautological. ANTONELLA GUARALDI Kant und der Friede. By Wilhelm Miiller. (Diisseldorf: Monitor-Verlag, 1962. Pp. 16.) Perpetual Peace records the noble and humane dream of an old man. Such dreams are not without historical precedent, but rarely have they been invested with the earnestness and the conceptual rigor of a Kant--even of a Kant in his declining years. This short essay is at the very least a minor but noteworthy contribution to political theory. Its main thesis call be simply stated. A truly lasting peace can be achieved only through the agency of a world federation of states operating under moral law. The moral law in question is an extension of the guiding principles of Kant's ethics from the private to the public sphere. It is contrary to the dictates of reason as well as of moral conscience to suppose that political order may be conceived or established apart from or even in opposition to moral law. A state or nation, Kant declares, is a free moral person, possessed of an inviolable integrity, not to be exploited as a thing for purposes of aggrandizement on the part of other states. Were that all that Perpetual Peace contained, the essay would stand as testimony to Kant's political idealism. But he pursues with equal seriousness the question of how such an ideal might be realized in practice. Underlying Kant's federalism is his republicanism, his insistence that the only sound civil constitution is one in which each citizen is free, equal, and fully represented under common law publicly promulgated. It is Kant's contention -perhaps less naive today than it might have seemed earlier in this century--that where the consent of the subjects is required, as it is under a republican form of government, to decide whether or not there shall be war, they may be expected to think twice before bringing such sufferings upon themselves. Further, Kant sees in the ever-tightening and expanding web of international relations a natural deterrent to war, since any war will increasingly involve most if not all of mankind. Both considerations appeal, not to the questionable good will of politicians, but to enlightened self-interest. Finally, Kant lays down a series of "preliminary articles" whose purpose is to specify the conditions without which perpetual peace, as things stand, will not even become a real possibility. Among the principles here formulated are that a peace treaty is invalid if made with secret reservations, that the autonomy and constitutional integrity of independent states must be preserved, that standing armies must gradually be abolished, that national debts shall not be contracted externally, and that in the event of war "dishonorable stratagems" such as assassination, 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY poisoning, spying, etc., which would render postwar mutual confidence impossible, shall not be countenanced. It is mainly with an eye to these preliminary articles that Professor Wilhelm Miiller argues for Kant's relevance to contemporary... (shrink)

Both biologists and philosophers often make use of simple verbal formulations of necessary and sufficient conditions for evolution by natural selection (ENS). Such summaries go back to Darwin's Origin of Species (especially the "Recapitulation"), but recent ones are more compact.1 Perhaps the most commonly cited formulation is due to Lewontin.2 These summaries tend to have three or four conditions, where the core requirement is a combination of variation, heredity, and fitness differences. The summaries are employed in several ways. First, (...) they are often used in pedagogical contexts, and in showing the coherence of evolutionary theory in response to attacks from outside biology. Second, they are important in discussions of extensions of evolutionary principles to new domains, such as cultural change. The summaries also have intrinsic scientific and philosophical interest as attempts to capture some core principles of evolutionary theory in a highly concise way. Despite their prominence, both the proper formulation and status of these summaries are unclear. Standard formulations are subject to counterexamples, and their relations to formal models of evolutionary change are not straightforward. Here I look closely at these verbal summaries, and at how they relate to formal models. Are the summaries merely rough approximations that have no theoretical role of their own? Perhaps they could operate as theoretical statements in Darwin's time, but have now been superseded by more exact treatments. (shrink)

There would doubtless be some exaggeration in claiming that the modern uses of the term ‘concept’ are all derived from Reid’s discussion of ‘conceptions’, in the fourth of his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. He is, however, undeniably one of the earliest writers in English to make extensive use of this terminology, and his introduction of it was largely responsible for the simultaneous disappearance from British philosophy of the rival term ‘idea’. Not that this was just a (...) matter of substituting one word for another. Reid, in his own opinion, was advancing a quite new account of thinking, perceiving and mental operations generally, and regarded his challenge to the prevailing ‘theory of ideas’ as his chief claim to philosophical fame. A long tradition, originating with Thomas Brown, maintains, however, that this claim was mistaken. Reid’s challenge misfired, it is said, because the views that he assailed were not in fact held by his empiricist opponents, or indeed by anybody of consequence; and his own position, though he did not realize it, was in fact identical with theirs. Another tradition, equally long-standing, avers instead that Reid’s positive theory is so confused, obscure and inconsistent that little or nothing can be made of it. It matters very little to Reid’s reputation, which of these views is taken to be correct. If either can be substantiated, he sinks at once to the level of such philosophasters as Beattie and Oswald, whom history remembers only for their mistakes. But if either is unjust, then Reid has been poorly served by his critics, and deserves both a better hearing, and perhaps a more honorable place. (shrink)

The sources of Singer's moral philosophy -- The origins of ethics -- Reason and ethics -- Key aspects of Singer's ethical system -- Singer's critique of human dignity -- Infanticide a new frontier.

In the aftermath of Peter Singer’s ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, the argument he put forward received significant criticism, largely on the grounds that it demanded too much of moral agents. Several attempts have been made since to formulate moral principles that adequately express the stringency of our duties of beneficence. Richard Miller proposed one such option, which has several advantages over Singer’s principle. In particular, because it concerns our dispositions rather than operating over every possible occasion for beneficence, it (...) avoids problems of iterative demands. However, I argue that Miller’s principle is inadequate, because 1) it seems too weak, 2) it appears to be ambiguous and 3) it can give unduly harsh verdicts on unlucky moral agents. (shrink)

In Peter Singer’s article “The Challenge of Brain Death for the Sanctity of Life Ethic”, he articulates that ethics has always played an important role in defining death. He claims that the demand for redefining death spreads rather from new ethical challenges than from a new, scientifically improved understanding of the nature of death. As thorough as his plea for dismissal of the brain-death definition is, he does not avoid the depiction of the complementary relationship between science and ethics. (...) Quite the opposite, he tends to formulate a stronger, philosophically more consistent argument to help science and medical practitioners to define life, death, and the quality of life. In my commentary, I would like to focus on two issues presented in Singer’s study. Firstly, I will critically analyze the relationship between science and ethics. Secondly, I will follow on from Singer’s arguments differentiating between end of life as an organism and end of life as a person. The latter case is necessarily linked with man’s participation in her/his life, setting life goals, and fulfilling her/his idea of good life. Through the consequential definition of the dignity in ethics of social consequences, I will try to support Singer’s idea. (shrink)

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared (...) animals? Am I doing something wrong if my carbon footprint is above the global average? Other questions confront us as concerned citizens: equality and discrimination on the grounds of race or sex; abortion, the use of embryos for research and euthanasia; political violence and terrorism; and the preservation of our planet's environment. This book's lucid style and provocative arguments make it an ideal text for university courses and for anyone willing to think about how she or he ought to live. (shrink)

For this special issue dedicated to Jonathan Glover, Peter Singer was asked to reflect on the influence that the book Causing Death and Saving Lives had on him, as well as the Glover seminar in Oxford that Peter Singer attended in the late 1960s. One of Peter Singer's recurring arguments is the criticism of the traditional distinction between acts and omissions. But Glover is no stranger to this questioning, even if the two thinkers do not seem (...) to want to draw exactly the same conclusions. What is at stake is this: what are we really responsible for and how demanding should our morality be? (shrink)

In his Axel Hägerström Lectures, given in Sweden in 1991, Dick Hare referred to Hägerström as a pioneer in ethics who had made the most important breakthrough that there had been in ethics during the twentieth century. Although Hägerström's development of a nondescriptivist approach to ethics certainly was pioneering philosophical work, when the history of twentieth century ethics comes to be written, I believe that it is Hare's own work that will be seen as having made the most important contribution.

What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology---especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but (...) has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light or recent research on the evolution of morality.--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Peter Singer is probably the best-known and most controversial ethicist in the world today. He rigorously applies utilitarian moral theory to issues such as world poverty, the environment, abortion, euthanasia and, most famously, animal welfare. He has also written a book about his grandfather, David Oppenheim, who died in Theresienstadt concentration camp. He is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.