This book was undertaken before the terms 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' were coined and the further escalation of America's ideological civil war. It was prompted by deep wonderment at the way people tend to be wholly enclosed within their ideological frames and deaf to claims about reality that come from the opposite camp, no matter how valid they might be. Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative (...) vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book does not focus on the normative aspect of ideology, which is largely subjective, but on its factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, the normative commitment. After theorists around 1960 proclaimed the 'death of ideology', ideological divides and clashes have reemerged with renewed intensity throughout the world, including in the liberal democracies. In the United States they have become particularly venomous. The other side is widely viewed as malicious, irrational or downright stupid, and, often, as barely legitimate. The zeal of the opposing sides is often scarcely less than that which characterized the religious ideologies of old. Indeed, historical religious ideologies have largely been replaced by 'secular religions' or 'religion substitutes'. The book is not another survey of past and present ideologies. It is an attempt to understand the cognitive, emotional and social roots of ideology and ideological fixation. It combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities with a broad sweep through history. It proceeds from the Stone Age to the rise of civilization, the great religions and modernity, to a critique of fundamental factual premises that underlie some of the major debates dominating today's liberal democracies. (shrink)

The Seville Statement on Violence rejected the view that violence and war were in any way rooted in human nature and proclaimed that they were merely a cultural artifact. This paper points out both the valid and invalid parts of the statement. It concludes that the potential for both war and peace is embedded in us. The human behavioral toolkit comprises a number of major tools, respectively geared for violent conflict, peaceful competition, or cooperation, depending on people’s assessment of what (...) will serve them best in any given circumstance. Conflict is only one tool—the hammer—in our diverse behavioral toolkit. However, all three behavioral strategies are not purely learned cultural forms. This naive nature/nurture dichotomy overlooks the heavy and complex biological machinery that is necessary for the working of each of them and the interplay between them. They are all very close under our skin and readily activated because they have all been very handy during our long evolutionary past. At the same time, they are variably calibrated to particular conditions through social learning, which means that their relative use may fluctuate widely. Thus, state authority has tilted the menu of human choices in the direction of the peaceful options in the domestic arena, and changing economic, social, and political conditions may be generating a similar effect in the international arena. (shrink)

1. Ḥidushe sugyot -- 2. Sheʼelot u-teshuvot -- 3. Sugyot derushim.

The debate over group selection shows no signs of abating. If existent, group selection is likely to have significantly reinforced prosocial and altruistic behavior. This article is theoretical and argues that there have been some major lacunae in the debate as concerns humans. The traits that are most uniquely and universally human—such as prolonged rearing of dependent offspring, the family, large-scale, tribal networks, and cultural-linguistic diversity and exclusivity—have been largely overlooked. These most salient and mutually reinforcing human specifics vastly increased (...) individuals' stake in and commitment to ancestral tribal groups. Tribal members were in the same boat, and risked massive fitness loss if it were sunk. This suggests that group selection existed and was much stronger among humans than among any other animal species. (shrink)

This article argues that contrary to its humanitarian semblance, state-controlled refugee protection is a project of substantial violence, and that the violence of refugee protection is continuously disseminated through and across a wide range of unlikely actors and institutions. Drawing on Avery Gordon and Franz Fanon, I show that the violence of refugee protection makes itself known in its haunting effects on those who come in contact with it in various capacities: those who carry through the work of refugee protection, (...) such as refugee claim decision makers, lawyers and support workers, are plagued by psychological ailments that manifest in periodical burnouts, anxiety, melancholy, alcohol abuse, and unrelenting moral and emotional dilemmas. These ailments reveal the violence of refugee protection not just in relation to refugees, who are often construed as the exclusive subjects of violence, but also towards non-refugees who come into contact with “protection” work. (shrink)

This article explore the limitations of progressive and feminist legal change through a study of the development of gender-based refugee policy in Canada. I argue that the actual impact of feminist and progressive legal change is determined in interaction with the wider bureaucratic and administrative contexts of its implementation; administrative strategies and bureaucratic procedures may, in fact, capably undermine the potentially expansive effects of progressive jurisprudence. As I will show, feminist legal interventions in Canada’s refugee policy did not increase actual (...) access to refugee protection. Not only were these interventions delivered in a decidedly limited administrative form, they occurred simultaneously with highly innovative and coordinated bureaucratic practices that limited the access of large groups of refugee claimants to protection. Thus, while the Canadian refugee system expanded jurisprudentially, access to this system was tightly restricted through administrative and bureaucratic measures. (shrink)

A característica mais notável da filosofia renascentista foi também o que tornou sua assimilação pela história da filosofia tão difícil: a interação entre forma e conteúdo, entre ideia e sua expressão. Tal resulta da tentativa de realizar outra inter-relação que lhe é ainda mais essencial: aquela entre teoria e prática, pensamento e ação. Nos Ensaios de Montaigne, o método constitui antes de tudo um estilo de vida: a linguagem é aí o meio pelo qual a implicação entre mundos externos e (...) internos, o eu e a realidade - assim entre intelecto e sensibilidade, arte e natureza, fato e valor, identidade e alteridade etc. - busca tornar-se evidente, permitindo a percepção de seu permanente remodelar recíproco. The most remarkable characteristic of Renaissance philosophy was also what made its assimilation by History of Philosophy so difficult: the interaction between form and content, between idea and its expression. This results from trying to achieve another inter-relationship which is even more essential: that between theory and practice, thought and action. In Montaigne's Essays the method is primarily a lifestyle: there the language is the means by which the implication between external and internal worlds, self and reality - and so between intellect and sensibility, art and nature, fact and value, identity and otherness, etc - seeks to become apparent, allowing the perception of its permanent reciprocal remodeling. (shrink)

Euthanasia and physician assisted-suicide are terms used to describe the process in which a doctor of a sick or disabled individual engages in an activity which directly or indirectly leads to their death. This behavior is engaged by the healthcare provider based on their humanistic desire to end suffering and pain. The psychiatrist's involvement may be requested in several distinct situations including evaluation of patient capacity when an appeal for euthanasia is requested on grounds of terminal somatic illness or when (...) the patient is requesting euthanasia due to mental suffering. We compare attitudes of 49 psychiatrists towards euthanasia and assisted suicide with a group of 54 other physicians by means of a questionnaire describing different patients, who either requested physician-assisted suicide or in whom euthanasia as a treatment option was considered, followed by a set of questions relating to euthanasia implementation. When controlled for religious practice, psychiatrists expressed more conservative views regarding euthanasia than did physicians from other medical specialties. Similarly female physicians and orthodox physicians indicated more conservative views. Differences may be due to factors inherent in subspecialty education. We suggest that in light of the unique complexity and context of patient euthanasia requests, based on their training and professional expertise psychiatrists are well suited to take a prominent role in evaluating such requests to die and making a decision as to the relative importance of competing variables. (shrink)

In the course of examining the origin of evil in the De malorum subsistentia, Proclus reproduces a position that considers the maleficent (world-)soul as cause of evil. The same entity is held to co-govern the material realm alongside the beneficent world-soul. While scholarship tends to associate the testimonium with Plutarch (and Atticus), this survey shows why Numenius of Apamea is a much more probable candidate. The discussion concludes with further proposals for a new edition of Numenius, including possible traces of (...) Numenius in Iamblichus’ On Soul and Porphyry's On the Faculties of Soul. (shrink)

Did Man Get Here by Evolution or by Creation? is a book whose publication date, 1967, indicates that the doctrine of evolution is still being rejected today by at least some segments of the intellectual community. As reverberations of the nationally famous Scopes trial continue, it may be profitable to inquire into the principles which contemporary biologists utilize in explaining the general course of evolution. For it would seem that, if these scientific principles were sufficiently cogent, there could be no (...) valid reason for questioning the doctrine. (shrink)

Para el realismo nomológico, la mejor explicación del mundo afirma la existencia de leyes naturales que lo fundamentan. Si el estatuto de estas es controvertido, sus partidarios coinciden en que implican una adición de ser con respecto a las regularidades de Hume. Se busca mostrar cómo el argumento nomológico, que todos ellos utilizan de alguna forma, se asemeja en su estructura a diversos argumentos teístas, como el de la quinta vía de Tomás de Aquino. Ante el carácter no conclusivo del (...) argumento, se sostiene que la adopción de un realismo nomológico proviene de una mera preferencia subjetiva. According to nomological realism, the best explanation of the world is one that appeals to the existence of natural laws which ground it. Althought there are controversies regarding the status of such laws, those who defend this position agree they involve a plus of being regarding Hume's regularities. In this paper we show how the nomological argument, which they all use somehow, has a structural similarity with various theistic arguments such as Thomas Aquina's fifth way. Finally, in the absence of conclusiveness of the argument, we hold that the adoption of a nomological realism comes from a mere subjective preference. (shrink)