Law's article begins by restating the classical ANT position that objects do not exist `in themselves' but are the effect of a performative stabilization of relational networks. In addition, these material enactments inevitably have a spatial dimension; they simultaneously establish spatial conditions for objectual identity, continuity, and difference. Space must not be reified as a natural, pre-existing container of the social and the material, but is itself a performance. Moreover, there are multiple forms of spatiality beyond the Euclidean space of (...) regions, and objects may exist and achieve homeomorphism within several different spatial systems. Technologies such as the Zimbabwe Bush Pump present a fluid object which is able to exist and cohere without the presence of fixed boundaries or the permanence of a particular functional definition. The network logic, however, which gravitates towards stability and functionality, tends to exclude and silence this spatial Other. An alternative political ontology is needed which goes beyond the reification of network space in order to give voice to the fluid objects which escape its unidimensional functionality. (shrink)

From Descartes to designer babies, The Philosophy Gym poses questions about some of history's most important philosophical issues, ranging in difficulty from pretty easy to very challenging. He brings new perspectives to age-old conundrums while also tackling modern-day dilemmas -- some for the first time. Begin your warm up by contemplating whether a pickled sheep can truly be considered art, or dive right in and tackle the existence of God. In this radically new way of looking at philosophy, Stephen Law (...) illustrates the problem with a story, then lets the argument battle it out in clear, easily digestible and intelligent prose. This perfect little mental health club is sure to give each reader's mind a great workout. (shrink)

This essay examines the theology of the nineteenth century Danish theologian and churchman Hans Lassen Martensen, focusing on the disputed question of the kenotic character of Martensen's Christology. A survey of the scholarship on this question is followed by discussions of Martensen's doctrine of God and his Christology, giving particular attention to his controversial notion of the double life of the Logos, i. e. the view that the Logos continued to enjoy an unlimited divine existence in the sphere of (...) eternity while simultaneously living a limited, earthly human existence for the duration of the incarnation. The essay concludes by arguing that Martensen has developed a form of Nestorianism and that his Christology can best be classified as ‘Nestorian kenoticism,’ i. e. an eccentric and problematic form of Christology which affirms the abandonment by the logos ensarkos of the divine attributes during the incarnation, while at the same time insisting that the logos asarkos remains unaffected and in full possession of his powers. (shrink)

A spectre is haunting legal positivists – and perhaps legal philosophers more generally – the spectre of the normativity of law. Whatever else law is, it is sometimes said, it is normative, and so whatever else a philosophical account of law accounts for, it should account for the normativity of law. Of the many different possible ways of understanding "the" problem of the normativity of law, I focus here on the one insisting on the need to explain the reason-giving (...) force of the law. But, I argue, once we are clear on just what reason-giving consists in, and on what claims about the reason-giving force of the law are at all plausible, accommodating the fact that the law gives reasons for action can be seen to be a pseudo-problem. In particular, not only doesn't legal positivism face an especially serious challenge here, but it can be seen to have a (modest) advantage over its competitors in accommodating one way in which the law can (perhaps) give reasons for action. (shrink)

This collection of prize-winning essays addresses the controversial question of how meaning and goals can emerge in a physical world governed by mathematical laws. What are the prerequisites for a system to have goals? What makes a physical process into a signal? Does eliminating the homunculus solve the problem? The three first-prize winners, Larissa Albantakis, Carlo Rovelli and Jochen Szangolies tackle exactly these challenges, while many other aspects feature in the other award winning contributions. All contributions are accessible to non-specialists. (...) These seventeen stimulating and often entertaining essays are enhanced versions of the prize-winning entries to the FQXi essay competition in 2017.The Foundational Questions Institute, FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources. (shrink)

A spectre is haunting legal positivists – and perhaps jurisprudes more generally – the spectre of the normativity of law. Whatever else law is, it is sometimes said, it is normative, and so whatever else a philosophical account of law accounts for, it should account for the normativity of law[1]. But law is at least partially a social matter, its content at least partially determined by social practices. And how can something social and descriptive in this down-to-earth kind of way (...) be normative?[2] This is presumably a problem for any theory of law, but it is especially acute for legal positivism, according to which (roughly speaking) all there is to facts about legality are such descriptive social facts. If this is so, the thought goes, the task of accommodating the law’s normativity immediately becomes both more daunting, and more urgent[3]. Unfortunately, though, it is entirely unclear what the problem of the normativity of law is supposed to be. Indeed, I suspect that there is no one problem here, as different people seem to have in mind different problems when they use this unhelpful phrase[4]. At least one family of issues people seem to have in mind when they talk about the normativity of law is a host of issues pertaining to the reason-giving force of the law. The law, it is sometimes said, gives reasons for action, and a theory of law should accommodate this obvious fact. But even when we focus just on questions regarding the reason-giving force of the law (and from now on I will restrict myself to just those, leaving other things people may have in mind when they talk about the normativity of law for another occasion), it is still not clear what the problem is. Indeed, my main purpose in this paper is to make some progress in understanding the relevant question here. And my conclusion is going to be somewhat skeptical: Once we are clear on what reason-giving in general consists in, and on what reason-giving powers the law actually has, there is not much by way of a problem here that needs to be solved, not a deep and interesting phenomenon here that theories of law need to accommodate, and that therefore places adequacy constraints on plausible theories of the nature of law.. (shrink)

Sexual and reproductive health is a challenge worldwide, and much progress is needed to reach the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals. This paper presents cross-sectional data collected in Sierra Leone on sexual and gender-based violence, family planning, child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation using an innovative method of measurement: situational judgment tests, as a subset of questions within a larger survey tool. For the SJTs, respondents saw hypothetical scenarios on these themes and had to indicate how they (...) would react. The objective is to give an impression of beliefs and norms on specific behaviors, which provide insights for social and behavior change interventions. Data was collected by enumerators traveling to villages randomly selected in six districts of the country. The sample is composed of 566 respondents. Results show that FGM in particular seem to be a priority topic, in comparison to the other topics for which the norms seem to be stronger against those practices. Age differences emerged and suggest priority groups to be targeted. In terms of validity of the measurement methods, situational judgment test answers correlated positively with other items in the survey, but the magnitude of the association is often small, and sometimes not significant. Thus, more studies are needed to further explore the validity of this measure by comparing against a reference value. Using SJTs could complement other data collection tools to perform community assessment, and orient the direction of the program in its planning phase. (shrink)

Humans are becoming increasingly dependent on the ‘say-so' of machines, such as computers, smartphones, and robots. In epistemology, knowledge based on what you have been told is called ‘testimony' and being able to give and receive testimony is a prerequisite for engaging in many social roles. Should robots and other autonomous intelligent machines be considered epistemic testifiers akin to those of humans? This chapter attempts to answer this question as well as explore the implications of robot testimony for the criminal (...) justice system. Few are in agreement as to the ‘types' of agents that can provide testimony. The chapter surveys three well-known approaches and shows that on two of these approaches being able to provide testimony is bound up with the possession of intentional mental states. Through a discussion of computational and folk-psychological approaches to intentionality, it is argued that a good case can be made for robots fulfilling all three definitions. (shrink)

This article presents a critical examination of Igor Soikhedbrod’s Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism: Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights. We argue that the book presents an important criticism of antinomian forms of critical theory, which underplay the extent to which Marx engaged in an imminent critique of liberal societies, including the rule of law, and upheld that progressive advances enshrined in this rule should be carried over or sublated in a communist dispensation.

This paper offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche’s criticisms of Kant’s account of freedom and renders these criticisms in such a way as to pose a serious challenge to Kantian ethics. My first aim is to explain Nietzsche’s challenge to the principle that being free means acting as a free agent ought to act, which I call Kant’s universalism. My second aim is to show that Kant’s accounts of self-respect is a particularly unconvincing account of how we can make room (...) for virtues within a universalistic framework, and thereby persuade the Kantian that there is something wrong with the underlying universalism principle. (shrink)

Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light (...) on how our ethical ideals and ideas of natural order can still be valuably integrated. Early modern intellectualists valued the law-governed order of nature as a sign of divine Reason. In turn, Reason traditionally ascribed to God has now been partly reclaimed for humans, reframing the value of natural order anthropocentrically, in terms of the value of our own intelligence. Alternatively, Reason may be reclaimed for nature itself, as in an ‘objective’ idealism or metaphysical rationalism. However, beyond divine Reason, an influential voluntarist tradition in theology stressed a connection between laws of nature and God’s Power or free Will. Tracking how divine Power has been reinvested in human beings provides a broader context for instrumentalism and related lineages of empiricism. But secularization can also transfer Power from God to the impersonal natural world. In this light, current scientific interest in lawlike order may also reflect the inherent value of brute necessity or inhuman causal power in nature: this is a deeper way to reject anthropocentrism and to show our respect for the environment. (shrink)

The phrase of ceteris paribus , i.e., other things being equal, is widely employed to state laws in non-basic sciences, such as economics, medicine, geography, biology, and psychology. However, what the phrase in question says is highly unclear, which results in severe philosophical problems calling into question the status of special sciences. The main purpose of this paper is to critically examine a lexicographic study of cp proposed by Michael Morreau , who tries to provide an adequate semantic analysis of (...) cp-laws through this study. It is argued that, despite Morreau’s attempt to excavate meanings possibly contained in a cp-phrase, his proposal is very limited in the progress it makes. Toward the end of this paper, an alternative approach is sketched, in which the pragmatic role played by cp in the sciences is emphasized. (shrink)

Natural Law Today gives a strong voice to classical natural law theory as the best answers to the fundamental questions of ethics and as the best framework for political and social life. It explains various aspects of that theory and defends it against common misperceptions and criticisms.

Non-Humean accounts of the metaphysics of nature posit either laws or powers in order to account for natural necessity and world-order. We argue that such monistic views face fundamental problems. On the one hand, neo-Aristotelians cannot give unproblematic power-based accounts of the functional laws among quantities offered by physical theories, as well as of the place of conservation laws and symmetries in a lawless ontology; in order to capture these characteristics, commitment to governing laws is indispensable. On the other hand, (...) ontologies that entirely exclude some kind of power ascription to worldly entities face what we call the Governing Problem: such ontologies do not have the resources to give an adequate account of how laws play their governing role. We propose a novel dualist model, which, we argue, has the resources to solve the difficulties encountered by its two dominant competitors, without inheriting the problems of either view. According to the dualist model, both laws and powers are equally fundamental and irreducible to each other, and both are needed in order to give a satisfactory account of the nomological structure of the world. The dualist model constitutes thus a promising alternative to current monistic views in the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

This chapter considers whether legal requirements can constitute reasons for action independently of the merits of the requirement at hand. While jurisprudential opinion on this question is far from uniform, sceptical views are becoming increasingly dominant. Such views typically contend that, while the law can be indicative of pre-existing reasons, or can trigger pre-existing reasons into operation, it cannot constitute new reasons. This chapter offers support to a somewhat less sceptical position, according to which the fact that a legal requirement (...) has been issued can be a reason for action, yet one that is underpinned by bedrock values which law is apt to serve. Notions discussed here include a value-based conception of reasons as facts ; a distinction between complete and incomplete reasons ; and David Enoch’s idea of triggering reason-giving. Following a discussion of criticism against the view adopted here, the chapter concludes by considering some more ‘robust’ conceptions of law’s reason-giving capacity. (shrink)

I present an argument for the view that laws ground their instances. I then outline two important consequences that follow if we accept the conclusion of this argument. First, the claim that laws ground their instances threatens to undermine a prominent recent attempt to make sense of the explanatory power of Humean laws by distinguishing between metaphysical and scientific explanation. And second, the claim that laws ground their instances gives rise to a novel argument against the view that grounding relations (...) are metaphysically necessary. (shrink)

It has become a popular view in jurisprudence that the law exists to guide us. I argue in this article that it is plausible to think that the law does not necessarily exist to guide us. I do this while accepting that the law is necessarily normative. The upshot of the argument is significant. Viewing an attempt to provide guidance as a necessary feature of the law gives rise to a distinctive mode of operating that some think has inherently valuable (...) qualities. We get to say, for example, that the rule of law provides some necessary constraints on how laws should be designed. These valuable aims and constraints become external aims and constraints once guidance is jettisoned from the concept of law. It would not, for example, be true just in virtue of the very nature of law that it should not be secret or oppress people into conformity. (shrink)

Proponents of the dispositional theory of properties typically claim that their view is not one that offers a realist, governing conception of laws. My first aim is to show that, contrary to this claim, if one commits to dispositionalism then one does not automatically give up on a robust, realist theory of laws. This is because dispositionalism can readily be developed within a Platonic framework of universals. Second, I argue that there are good reasons for realist dispositionalists to favour a (...) Platonic view. This is because the alternative Aristotelian version of dispositionalism, on which universals are immanent entities, is unstable for various reasons. My final aim is to address a common criticism facing Platonic theories of laws, which is the problem of how external entities can play an explanatory role where the world’s law-like patterns of behaviour are concerned. I argue that the Platonists’ response to the one over many problem can help to shed light on this matter, and a possible solution is sketched, one which makes use of the notions of essence, constitution and ontological dependence. (shrink)

During the last half of the twentieth century, legal philosophy (or legal theory or jurisprudence) has grown significantly. It is no longer the domain of a few isolated scholars in law and philosophy. Hundreds of scholars from diverse fields attend international meetings on the subject. In some universities, large lecture courses of five hundred students or more study it. The primary aim of the Law and Philosophy Library is to present some of the best original work on legal philosophy from (...) both the Anglo-American and European traditions. Not only does it help make some of the best work avail able to an international audience, but it also encourages increased awareness of, and interaction between, the two major traditions. The primary focus is on full-length scholarly monographs, although some edited volumes of original papers are also included. The Library editors are assisted by an Editorial Advisory Board of internationally renowed scholars. Legal philosophy should not be considered a narrowly circumscribed field. (shrink)

This chapter develops an account of the meaning and use of various types of legal claims, and uses this account to inform debates about the nature and normativity of law. The account draws on a general framework for implementing a contextualist theory, called 'Discourse Contextualism' (Silk 2016). The aim of Discourse Contextualism is to derive the apparent normativity of claims of law from a particular contextualist interpretation of a standard semantics for modals, along with general principles of interpretation and conversation. (...) Though the semantics is descriptivist, it avoids Dworkin’s influential criticism of so-called “semantic theories of law,” and elucidates the nature of “theoretical disagreements” about the criteria of legal validity. The account sheds light on the social, interpersonal function of normative uses of language in legal discourse. It also gives precise expression to Hart’s and Raz’s intuitive distinctions among types of legal claims (internal/external, committed/detached), while giving them a uniform type of analysis. The proposed semantics and pragmatics of legal claims provides a fruitful framework for further theorizing about the nature and metaphysics of law, the relation between law and morality, and the apparent practical character of legal language and judgment. Discourse Contextualism provides a solid linguistic basis for a broader account of legal discourse and practice. (shrink)

This book focuses on the unity, diversity, and centrality of the notion of law as it is employed in Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. Eric Watkins argues that, by thinking through a number of issues in various historical, scientific, and philosophical contexts over several decades, Kant is able to develop a univocal concept of law that can nonetheless be applied to a wide range of particular cases, despite the diverse demands that these contexts give rise to. In addition, Watkins shows (...) how Kant comes to view both the generic conception of law which he develops and its different particular instances as crucial components of his systematic philosophy as a whole. This volume's new and unified account of a major current running through Kant's work will be important for scholars interested in numerous aspects of his philosophy, from the theoretical and abstract to the practical and empirical. (shrink)

The troubling ethics and politics of philanthropy Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today’s democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society’s benefit, Just Giving shows how such generosity not only isn’t the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice. Big philanthropy is often an exercise of power, the conversion of private assets into public influence. And it is (...) a form of power that is largely unaccountable, often perpetual, and lavishly tax-advantaged. The affluent—and their foundations—reap vast benefits even as they influence policy without accountability. And small philanthropy, or ordinary charitable giving, can be problematic as well. Charity, it turns out, does surprisingly little to provide for those in need and sometimes worsens inequality. These outcomes are shaped by the policies that define and structure philanthropy. When, how much, and to whom people give is influenced by laws governing everything from the creation of foundations and nonprofits to generous tax exemptions for donations of money and property. Rob Reich asks: What attitude and what policies should democracies have concerning individuals who give money away for public purposes? Philanthropy currently fails democracy in many ways, but Reich argues that it can be redeemed. Differentiating between individual philanthropy and private foundations, the aims of mass giving should be the decentralization of power in the production of public goods, such as the arts, education, and science. For foundations, the goal should be what Reich terms “discovery,” or long-time-horizon innovations that enhance democratic experimentalism. Philanthropy, when properly structured, can play a crucial role in supporting a strong liberal democracy. Just Giving investigates the ethical and political dimensions of philanthropy and considers how giving might better support democratic values and promote justice. (shrink)

Can laws of nature be universal regularities and nevertheless have exceptions? Several answers to this question, in particular the thesis that there are no laws outside of fundamental physics, are examined and rejected. It is suggested that one can account for exceptions by conceiving of laws as strictly universal determination relations between (instances of) properties. When a natural property is instantiated, laws of nature give rise to other, typically dispositional properties. In exceptional situations, such properties manifest themselves either in an (...) unusual way or not at all. (shrink)

In 2001, Le Bars proved that there exists an existential monadic second-order sentence such that the probability that it is true on [Formula: see text] does not converge and conjectured that, for EMSO sentences with two first-order variables, the zero–one law holds. In this paper, we prove that the conjecture fails for [Formula: see text], and give new examples of sentences with fewer variables without convergence.

This paper reviews the history of AI & Law research from the perspective of argument schemes. It starts with the observation that logic, although very well applicable to legal reasoning when there is uncertainty, vagueness and disagreement, is too abstract to give a fully satisfactory classification of legal argument types. It therefore needs to be supplemented with an argument-scheme approach, which classifies arguments not according to their logical form but according to their content, in particular, according to the roles that (...) the various elements of an argument can play. This approach is then applied to legal reasoning, to identify some of the main legal argument schemes. It is also argued that much AI & Law research in fact employs the argument-scheme approach, although it usually is not presented as such. Finally, it is argued that the argument-scheme approach and the way it has been employed in AI & Law respects some of the main lessons to be learnt from Toulmin’s The Uses of Argument. (shrink)

Much has been written on Newton’s concept of matter, as well as Newton’s laws. Meanwhile, the metaphysical and epistemological relationships between these two principal features of Newtonian philosophy are relatively unexplored. Among the existing accounts of the relationship between bodies and laws, two are especially compelling: the “law-constitutive” approach from Katherine Brading and the “formal-cause” approach from Zvi Biener and Eric Schliesser. Both accounts argue that Newton’s bodies are (at least partially) metaphysically dependent on the laws. That is, according to (...) Brading, Biener, and Schliesser, Newtonian laws are ontologically prior to the bodies they govern. In this article, I reply to Brading, Biener, and Schliesser. I develop negative arguments against their approaches by closely examining three features of Newton’s ontology—forms, particles, and active principles—and their relationship to the laws. I also offer an explanation as to why “law-first” approaches have (understandably) dominated recent Newtonian exegesis. Finally, I present a positive argument for what I believe to be a superior alternative: Newton’s law-first approach is purely pragmatic. It is a feature of his experimental philosophy that we should begin our inquiry into the metaphysical constituents of the universe with the laws that arise from them. This does not entail, however, that Newton views laws as constituting or forming physical bodies. Newton’s metaphysics should be interpreted as “matter-first,” with bodies giving rise to laws, whereas his epistemology should be interpreted as “law-first,” with knowledge of laws giving rise to knowledge of bodies. (shrink)

One of the most widely studied texts of ancient philosophy and politics, Plato's Laws is his last and most substantial dialogue, debating crucial questions on the subject of law-giving and education. This two-volume edition of 1921 was prepared by the classicist Edwin Bourdieu England, who describes the dialogue as 'the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left … as his last legacy to humanity'. Generally held to have been written after Plato's failed attempt to influence (...) Syracusan politics, it concerns the just city and its constitution, including discussions of divine revelation, the role of intelligence in the creation of laws, and natural law itself. This edition comprises a short introduction, England's helpful analyses, the Greek text of the dialogue, and extensive notes. Volume 1 is devoted to Books 1–6. (shrink)

One of the most widely studied texts of ancient philosophy and politics, Plato's Laws is his last and most substantial dialogue, debating crucial questions on the subject of law-giving and education. This two-volume edition of 1921 was prepared by the classicist Edwin Bourdieu England, who describes the dialogue as 'the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left … as his last legacy to humanity'. Generally held to have been written after Plato's failed attempt to influence (...) Syracusan politics, it concerns the just city and its constitution, including discussions of divine revelation, the role of intelligence in the creation of laws, and natural law itself. This edition comprises a short introduction, England's helpful analyses, the Greek text of the dialogue, and extensive notes. Volume 1 contains Books 1–6. Volume 2 contains Books 7–12. It also includes indexes of subjects and Greek words. (shrink)

One of the most widely studied texts of ancient philosophy and politics, Plato's Laws is his last and most substantial dialogue, debating crucial questions on the subject of law-giving and education. This two-volume edition of 1921 was prepared by the classicist Edwin Bourdieu England, who describes the dialogue as 'the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left … as his last legacy to humanity'. Generally held to have been written after Plato's failed attempt to influence (...) Syracusan politics, it concerns the just city and its constitution, including discussions of divine revelation, the role of intelligence in the creation of laws, and natural law itself. This edition comprises a short introduction, England's helpful analyses, the Greek text of the dialogue, and extensive notes. Volume 1 is devoted to Books 1–6. (shrink)

One of the most widely studied texts of ancient philosophy and politics, Plato's Laws is his last and most substantial dialogue, debating crucial questions on the subject of law-giving and education. This two-volume edition of 1921 was prepared by the classicist Edwin Bourdieu England, who describes the dialogue as 'the treasury of pregnant truths which Plato in extreme old age left … as his last legacy to humanity'. Generally held to have been written after Plato's failed attempt to influence (...) Syracusan politics, it concerns the just city and its constitution, including discussions of divine revelation, the role of intelligence in the creation of laws, and natural law itself. This edition comprises a short introduction, England's helpful analyses, the Greek text of the dialogue, and extensive notes. Volume 2 is devoted to Books 7–12. It also includes indexes of subjects and Greek words. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin’s new book, Justice for Hedgehogs, covers an extremely broad range of philosophical issues. However, its central thesis—the ‘unity of value thesis’—is that conflicts between moral or ethical values are merely apparent and that those values are, in fact, integrated and mutually supporting. Dworkin offers several arguments in support of this thesis, but, in this review, I focus on his attempt to illustrate the unity of value thesis by showing that the best account of certain key values reveals them (...) to be integrated and mutually supporting. I contend that this strategy is more promising than one might initially think, but that it breaks down when we consider the relationship between law and justice. For Dworkin, law is a value and his account of law entails that it can conflict with justice. Moreover, he seems precluded from developing an alternative account of law that does not give rise to such conflicts. However, while these conclusions weaken Dworkin’s case for the unity of value thesis, they do not suffice to refute it. (shrink)

In order responsibly to decide whether there ought to be an international legal right of secession, I believe we need an account of the morality of secession. I propose that territorial and political societies have a moral right to secede, and on that basis I propose a regime designed to give such groups an international legal right to secede. This regime would create a procedure that could be followed by groups desiring to secede or by states desiring to resolve the (...) issue of secession. It would give territorial political societies a legally recognized liberty to conduct a plebiscite on secession, and, assuming such a plebiscite is won by the secessionist side, a qualified right in international law to create a state without interference. Alan Buchanan has argued that proposals of this sort would create perverse incentives. I argue that there is no good reason to believe this. The point is to allow the legal regulation of secession in cases where there are active secessionist movements with legitimate moral claims, and to attempt to dampen the desire for secession in cases where secessionist sentiment is not well grounded in social and geographic reality. (shrink)

What is the origin of the concept of a law of nature? How much does it owe to theology and metaphysics? To what extent do the laws of nature permit contingency? Are there exceptions to the laws of nature? Is it possible to give a reductive analysis of lawhood, or is it a primitive? -/- Twelve brand-new essays by an international team of leading philosophers take up these and other central questions on the laws of nature, whilst also examining some (...) of the most important intuitions and assumptions that have guided the debate over laws of nature since the concept's invention in the seventeenth century. -/- Laws of Nature spans the history of philosophy and of science, contemporary metaphysics, and contemporary philosophy of science. Contents: 1. Intuitions and Assumptions in the Debate over Laws of Nature, Walter Ott and Lydia Patton 2. Early Modern Roots of the Philosophical Concept of a Law of Nature, Helen Hattab 3. Laws of Nature and the Divine Order of Things: Descartes and Newton on Truth in Natural Philosophy, Mary Domski 4. Leges sive natura: Bacon, Spinoza, and a Forgotten Concept of Law, Walter Ott 5. Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature, Stathis Psillos 6. Laws and Ideal Unity, Angela Breitenbach 7. Becoming Humean, John W. Carroll 8. A Perspectivalist Better Best System Account of Lawhood, Michela Massimi 9. Laws: An Invariance Based Account, James Woodward 10. How the Explanations of Natural Laws Make Some Reducible Physical Properties Natural and Explanatorily Powerful, Marc Lange 11. Laws and their Exceptions, Stephen Mumford 12. Are laws of nature consistent with contingency?, Nancy Cartwright and Pedro Merlussi. (shrink)

This essay concerns two forms of moral non-naturalism according to which general moral principles or laws enter into the grounding explanations of particular moral facts. According to bridge-law non-naturalism, the laws are themselves partial grounds of the moral facts; whereas according to grounding-law non-naturalism, the laws explain the grounding connections that obtain between particular natural facts and particular moral facts. I pose and develop an objection to BLNN concerning moral worth: as compared to GLNN, BLNN has trouble accommodating the common (...) intuition that actions performed out of motivation for rightness de dicto are, at least in paradigm cases, deficient in their moral worth as compared to those performed out of motivation for rightness de re. After presenting the moral worth objection to BLNN, I respond to a possible defense of the view and explain why GLNN is not itself imperiled by an analogous objection. I finally argue that in light of the moral worth objection, a purported analogy between the law and morality fails to give us any reason to prefer BLNN to GLNN. I conclude that non-naturalists who accept the existence of general and explanatory moral principles should adopt GLNN rather than BLNN. (shrink)

This major addition to Ideas in Context examines the development of natural law theories in the early stages of the Enlightenment in Germany and France. T. J. Hochstrasser investigates the influence exercised by theories of natural law from Grotius to Kant, with a comparative analysis of the important intellectual innovations in ethics and political philosophy of the time. Hochstrasser includes the writings of Samuel Pufendorf and his followers who evolved a natural law theory based on human sociability and reason, fostering (...) a new methodology in German philosophy. This book assesses the first histories of political thought since ancient times, giving insights into the nature and influence of debate within eighteenth-century natural jurisprudence. Ambitious in range and conceptually sophisticated, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment will be of great interest to scholars in history, political thought, law and philosophy. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment has been selected as the winner of the annual Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best book in intellectual history published in 2000. (shrink)

Knowledge of causal laws is expensive and hard to come by. But we work hard to get it because we believe that it will reduce contingency in planning policies and in building new technologies: knowledge of causal laws allows us to predict reliably what the outcomes will be when we manipulate the factors cited as causes in those laws. Or do they? This paper will argue that causal laws have no special role here. As economists from JS Mill to Robert (...) Lucas and David Hendry stress, along recently with philosophers like James Woodward and Sandra Mitchell, they can do the job only if they are invariant under the manipulations proposed. But then, I shall argue, anything that is invariant under the proposed manipulations will do this job equally well. There seems to be nothing special about causal-law knowledge in and of itself that makes it particularly valuable for policy and technology prediction. What seems to matter is invariance alone, not causality. But what guarantees invariance and how do we know when it will obtain? Here certain kinds of causal laws do have a special place – those underwritten either by what I have called ‘nomological machines’ or by what I have called ‘capacities’. Capacities and nomological machines have a double virtue that makes them invaluable for policy planning. First, the causal laws they give rise to will be invariant so long as they obtain; and second, they typically have visible markers we can come to recognize that tell us when they obtain. The markers for nomological machines are shakier than those for capacities, though, since capacities are often tied to markers by well-established empirical laws. Capacities have their own drawback however, which is the final topic of this paper: the causal laws that are guaranteed by a capacity connect the obtaining of a capacity with its exercise. But Hume argued that no distinction can be made between the obtaining of a power and its exercise. (shrink)

The generally agreed upon principle that legality and ethics can come apart is frequently overlooked in our professional ethics education and decision-making procedures. The crux of the issue is that we teach in our philosophy classes that the law can sometimes be unethical, but then clearly state in nursing codes of ethics that students should always follow the law. The law could no doubt give us some reason to choose action A over action B, but in professional contexts we frequently (...) treat the law as a side-constraint that limits the logical space of choices to exclude even consideration of action B. If B is the mandatory action, this in effect forces professionals to do something unethical by preventing them from ever seeing the ethical action as an option. This is a problem. Ultimately we concede that there might be an irresolvable tension in competing normative interests in ethics and the law, though we suggest that a more nuanced approach to ethical code formation could help alleviate the issue somewhat. (shrink)

In this article, I examine what Kant’s Formula of Universal Law requires of an individual agent in situations of great need, e.g.: if you can easily help a drowning child, or if you know of a famine situation in another country. I first explain why I do not simply apply the standard interpretation of how one can derive concrete duties from Kant’s Universal Law formulation of the Categorical Imperative. I then glean an alternative procedure from Kant’s texts and give the (...) reasons for using that interpretation. Finally, I apply the alternative procedure to situations of great need. – According to the interpretation I glean from Kant’s texts, one (i) should not make an exception to (ii) laws that we believe to be objectively necessary, whereby we derive these rules from (iii) universal ends of humankind. Since we take survival as one of the universal ends of mankind, we deem helping someone whose life is in danger as objectively necessary (to achieve the end). The formal Categorical Imperative demands that one does not make an exception to this rule. Applying this interpretation to cases of great need depends on at least three factors: (i) how urgent the need is, (ii) how great the costs are to the one who helps, and (iii) how many people can help. But at one extreme, where you are the only one who can easily save an innocent person’s life, the Kantian procedure generates a strict duty to help the other in need. (shrink)