The literature has shown that different types of moral dilemmas elicit discrepant decision patterns. The present research investigated the role of uncertainty in contributing to these decision patterns. Two studies were conducted to examine participants' choices in commonly used dilemmas. Study 1 showed that participants’ perceived outcome probabilities were significantly associated with their moral choices, and that these associations were independent from the dilemma type. Study 2 revealed that participants had significantly less preference for killing the individual when the outcome (...) probabilities were stated using the modal verb ‘will’ than when they were stated using the numerical phrasing of ‘100%’. Our findings illustrate a discord between experimenter and participant in the interpretation of task instructions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Friedrich Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence has confounded generations of thinkers. This article enters the fray by treating recurrence as an invitation to develop a radically new approach to metaphysics itself. I develop the argument by analyzing the place of recurrence in the work of Heidegger and Deleuze. By framing recurrence as an illustration of Nietzsche's core metaphysical commitment, Heidegger provides the crucial point of entry for this argument. However, while Heidegger regards that return to metaphysics as a weakness, (...) the Deleuzean reading makes clear that it should instead be seen as the final creative possibility. The element of recurrence that makes it the ‘highest formula of affirmation’ is its metaphysics, understood now to be a metaphysics of difference. This reading is essential if we hope to respond to the nihilism of modernity without descending into chaotic despair or defaulting to redemptive violence. (shrink)

John organized a state lottery and his wife won the main prize. You may feel that the event of her winning wasn’t particularly random, but how would you argue that in a fair court of law? Traditional probability theory does not even have the notion of random events. Algorithmic information theory does, but it is not applicable to real-world scenarios like the lottery one. We attempt to rectify that.

The systematic examination of the visual depiction of nonhuman animals by humans, and the representation of nonhuman animal imagery is an opportunity to observe varying degrees of anthropocentrism in the manner in which the nonhuman animal is represented. The investigation we present ventures beyond the traditional scope of post-modern human alterity and suggests that an Otherness status should be extended to encompass both the human animal and the nonhuman animal. An important motivation for seriously considering nonhuman animal experience is the (...) biological similarities shared by human animals and nonhuman animals. Many perspectives toward the nonhuman animal have ignored such similarities, and this in turn results in the infliction of much trauma and injustice on nonhuman animals. We argue that the visual representation of nonhuman animals has the potential, to a substantial degree, to affect the general human understanding of and interactions with all nonhuman animals, and with positive, neutral, and negative implications for all involved. In other words, it really matters how we represent animals. (shrink)

This article uses Ronald Dworkin's argument for the unity of value to explore the redemptive core of modern legal order. Dworkin establishes a formal unity: all legal claims reside within a linked framework of moral justification. However, Jean-Francois Lyotard's concept of the differend exposes a lingering gap. Arguments within a moral universe do inevitably converge, but such unity is only possible due to the formative violence enacted by such orders. Dworkin hopes to provide the definitive statement against moral subjectivity, but (...) in its purest form, he proves precisely the opposite. The lesson to draw from Dworkin's work is that ‘justice’ is ultimately only the means by which political orders categorize and thereby sustain their own formative acts of exclusion under the guise of offering their redemption. (shrink)

This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redempt...

This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redempt...

This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redempt...

This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redempt...

Having previously given us a close study of Vico's New Science, Verene turns his attention in his most recent book not to Vico's "new science" but to his "new art," arguing that as Vico was the founder of the philosophy of history in the New Science, so he may be seen equally to be the founder of the modern art of autobiography in his Life. This should not be taken to mean, however, that Verene has nothing to do with the (...) New Science in his account of the Vichian act of autobiography; on the contrary, his argument is that in the Life Vico contemplates, comprehends, and narrates his own life history according to the same principles, mythic design, and structural schemata as he contemplates, comprehends, and narrates the history of all humanity in the New Science. Thus, "the New Science is the autobiography of humanity," Verene tells us, and. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redemption that lies at the heart of American democracy. In one sense, BLM stands for the integration of black life into the framework of political value, and thus for a redemption of the promise of ‘justice for all’. In another, it is a challenge to the (...) principles themselves, viewing justice as a threat to be managed, rather than as a principle to be redeemed. Exploring the praxis of this movement, organized both against and within the possibility of redemption, will enable us to more effectively characterize the limitations of a politics grounded in the theorization of justice and generate a richer understanding of the possibility for practical political theory to simultaneously employ and critique the politics of redemption. (shrink)

Strengthening the abilities of smallholder farmers in developing countries, particularly women farmers, to produce for both home and the market is currently a development priority. In many contexts, ownership of assets is strongly gendered, reflecting existing gender norms and limiting women’s ability to invest in more profitable livelihood strategies such as market-oriented agriculture. Yet the intersection between women’s asset endowments and their ability to participate in and benefit from agricultural interventions receives minimal attention. This paper explores changes in gender relations (...) and women’s assets in four agricultural interventions that promoted high value agriculture with different degrees of market-orientation. Findings suggest that these dairy and horticulture projects can successfully involve women and increase production, income and the stock of household assets. In some cases, women were able to increase their control over production, income and assets; however in most cases men’s incomes increased more than women’s and the gender-asset gap did not decrease. Gender- and asset-based barriers to participation in projects as well as gender norms that limit women’s ability to accumulate and retain control over assets both contributed to the results. Comparing experiences across the four projects, especially where projects implemented adaptive measures to encourage gender-equitable outcomes, provides lessons for gender-responsive projects targeting existing and emerging value chains for high value products. Other targeted support to women farmers may also be needed to promote their acquisition of the physical assets required to expand production or enter other nodes of the value chain. (shrink)

Within the holdings of The University of Manchesters John Rylands Library is a remarkable collection of 337 letters to and from Baptist ministers and laypersons written between 1741 and 1907. Nearly half can be found among the autograph collections of Thomas Raffles, Liverpool Congregationalist minister and educator, with another 103 letters belonging to the collections of the Methodist Archives. John Sutcliff, Baptist minister at Olney and an early leader within the Baptist Missionary Society, was the recipient of more than (...) seventy of these,letters. Among the correspondents are the leading Baptist and Congregationalist ministers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although largely unknown today, these letters provide important insights into British Baptist history between 1740 and 1900, establishing the John Rylands Library,as a valuable resource for Baptist historians. (shrink)

Recently evangelicals have been discovering the benefits of a formative reading of Scripture. However, eighteenth-century evangelicals consciously practiced both an informational and formational way of reading the Bible. This article raises the question how early evangelicals read Scripture and what was the role of the Holy Spirit in that reading. The hymns of William Cowper from the Olney Hymns serve as the primary text for this exploration. Cowper's experimental piety that was common among evangelicals assured that the Word would (...) be read both with the head for knowledge as well as the heart for experience and transformation. This paper analyzes Cowper's varied use of Scripture in his hymns, as well as the formative nature of Scripture within those hymns. One prominent feature of Cowper's writing is the dynamic intersection between the Word and Spirit. This article concludes by asking the practical question of retrieval of how the contemporary church can learn to read Scripture more formatively through the themes of Cowper's hymns. (shrink)