This Handbook covers the most urgent, controversial, and important topics in the philosophy of sex. It is both philosophically rigorous and yet accessible to specialists and non-specialists, covering ethics, political philosophy, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language, and featuring interactions with neighboring disciplines such as psychology, bioethics, sociology, and anthropology. The volume's 40 chapters, written by an international team of both respected senior researchers and essential emerging scholars, are divided into eight parts: I. What is Sex? (...) Is Sex Good? II. Sexual Orientations III. Sexual Autonomy and Consent IV. Regulating Sexual Relationships V. Pathologizing Sex and Sexuality VI. Contested Desires VII. Commercialized Sex VIII. Technology and the Future of Sex The broad scope of coverage, depth in insight and research, and accessibility in language make The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality a comprehensive introduction for newcomers to the subject as well as an invaluable reference work for those advanced students and researchers in the field. (shrink)

In democracies around the world, the rich exercise a disproportionate share of political power. Democratic theorists universally condemn this. The current paper brings balance to this conversation by mustering a defense of limited oligarchy. I have two goals. First, I shall argue that we need not be overly despondent about the wealthy's outsized influence, for overrepresentation of the wealthy performs some good for us—good which might not be entirely obvious at first glance. Second, I hope to temper reform efforts that (...) seek to limit the wealthy's influence. While the people should have a greater say than they currently do, the wealthy's influence should still be greater than what their numbers suggest. I ultimately embrace oligarchic bicameralism, an old idea that proposes ordinary persons be represented in the lower chamber of the legislature, and property be represented in the upper. This is accomplished through a combination of sortition and elections. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What Is Equality? From the Fact of Inequality to the Fact of Pluralism The Difference Principle Ideals Latent in Public Political Culture How Egalitarian Are We? Outside of the Bounds of Public Reason References.

Is democracy worth saving? Responding to the erosion of democracy, philosophical debates have pivoted from analyzing the best forms of democracy to questioning what is so valuable about democracy to begin with, how we can save it, and whether it is indeed worth saving. Contemporary Democratic Theory charts this pivot and surveys the most important new developments in the philosophical, theoretical, and normative examination of the concept of democracy. Comparisons that dominated 20th century democratic theory - between direct democracy, participatory (...) democracy, deliberative democracy, and agonistic democracy - are in the 21st century giving way to comparisons between democracy and its challengers: epistocracy, technocracy, meritocracy, oligarchy, and autocracy. Philosophical interest in the canonical figures of democratic theory like Aristotle, Rousseau and Mill is being eclipsed by damage control in the face populism, sinking trust in democratic institutions, failing political parties, and the spread of misinformation. (shrink)

In this article I argue that justice often requires that candidates who are sufficiently qualified for jobs be hired via lottery on the basis that this is the best way to recognise each candidate's equal moral claim to access meaningful work. In reaching this conclusion I consider a variety of potential objections from the perspectives of the employer, of the most qualified candidate, and of third parties, but ultimately reject the idea that a person's status as the most qualified candidate (...) can explain why they ought to be appointed over other sufficiently qualified candidates. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest Western philosphers and one of the greatest theologians of the Christian church. In this book we at last have a modern, comprehensive presentation of the total thought of Aquinas. Books on Aquinas invariably deal with either his philosophy or his theology. But Aquinas himself made no arbitrary division between his philosophical and his theological thought, and this book allows readers to see him as a whole. It introduces the full range of Aquinas' thinking; (...) and it relates his thinking to writers both earlier and later than Aquinas himself. (shrink)

Newton's heretical yet equation-incisive writings on theology, spirituality, alchemy, and prophecy, written in secret alongside his Principia Mathematica.

The view that phenomenally conscious robots are on the horizon often rests on a certain philosophical view about consciousness, one we call “nomological behaviorism.” The view entails that, as a matter of nomological necessity, if a robot had exactly the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as a phenomenally conscious being, then the robot would be phenomenally conscious; indeed it would have all and only the states of phenomenal consciousness that the phenomenally conscious being in question has. We experimentally (...) investigate whether the folk think that certain (hypothetical) robots made of silicon and steel would have the same conscious states as certain familiar biological beings with the same patterns of dispositions to peripheral behavior as the robots. Our findings provide evidence that the folk largely reject the view that silicon-based robots would have the sensations that they, the folk, attribute to the biological beings in question. (shrink)

In this article I argue that we should understand some forms of hypocritical behaviour in terms of epistemic injustice; a type of injustice in which a person is wronged in their capacity as a knower. If each of us has an interest in knowing what morality requires of us, this can be undermined when hypocritical behaviour distorts our perception of the moral landscape by misrepresenting the demandingness of putative moral obligations. This suggests that a complete theory of the wrongness of (...) hypocrisy must account for hypocrisy as epistemic injustice. (shrink)

This book uses computer modeling to investigate trends in what is published in leading philosophy journals over the last century and a half. The notable trends include the rise of realism from a fringe view to the mainstream metaphysical outlook, the increase in specialization, and the increasing depth of integration between philosophy and physical sciences. It also contains a guide to how to do similar investigations, and discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

This chapter explores a way in which visual processing may involve innate constraints and attempts to show how such processing overcomes one enduring challenge to nativism. In particular, many challenges to nativist theories in other areas of cognitive psychology have focused on the later development of such abilities, and have argued that such development is in conflict with innate origins. Innateness, in these contexts, is seen as antidevelopmental, associated instead with static processes and principles. In contrast, certain perceptual models demonstrate (...) how the very same mental processes can both be innately specified and yet develop richly in response to experience with the environment. This process is entirely unmysterious, as shown in certain formal theories of visual perception, including those that appeal to spontaneous endogenous stimulation and those based on Bayesian inference. (shrink)

Infallibilism leads to skepticism, and fallibilism is plagued by the threshold problem. Within this narrative, the pragmatic turn in epistemology has been marketed as a way for fallibilists to address the threshold problem. In contrast, pragmatic versions of infallibilism have been left unexplored. However, I propose that going pragmatic offers the infallibilist a way to address its main problem, the skeptical problem. Pragmatic infallibilism, however, is committed to a shifty view of epistemic certainty, where the strength of a subject’s epistemic (...) state can vary depending upon the practical context. Pragmatic views of epistemic strength are quite radical so the argumentative goal of my discussion is to argue for its plausibility, thereby arguing for the plausibility of pragmatic infallibilism. To do so, I discuss the role that the framing of decision problems and the construction of our deliberative attitudes have in our theories of rational choice. And I explore a way in which these necessary components of a normative theory of rationality can be used to motivate pragmatic views of evidential support. Finally, since the plausibility of our pragmatic account will depend upon the plausibility of a constructive account of rational choice, I conclude by comparing the adequacy of the constructive account with orthodox Bayesian and knowledge-based accounts. (shrink)

The popularity of direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry services has exploded over the past five years, with as many as 250 direct-to-consumer genetic ancestry testing companies currently operating and estimates that 1 in 5 Americans are customers of one or more of those companies. Marketing of genetic ancestry testing has consistently linked the results of DNA testing to a consumer’s racial and ethnic identity, and, because of that, can help consumers find out “who they really are.” We argue that the “biologization” of (...) race and ethnicity promoted in such marketing violates norms of marketing ethics. In particular, we show that this marketing technique violates a number of the core commitments and values of the American Marketing Association Statement of Ethics. (shrink)

This book examines John Locke as a theorist of migration, immigration, and the movement of peoples. It outlines the contours of the public discourse surrounding migration in the seventeenth century and situates Locke's in-depth involvement in these debates. The volume presents a variety of undercurrents in Locke's writing - his ideas on populationism, naturalization, colonization and the right to withdrawal, the plight of refugees, and territorial rights - which have great import in present-day debates about migration. Departing from the popular (...) extant literature that sees Locke advocating for a strong right to exclude foreigners, the author proposes a Lockean theory of immigration that recognizes the fundamental right to emigrate, thus, catering to an age wrought with terrorism, xenophobia and economic inequality. A unique and compelling contribution, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political theory, political philosophy, history of international politics, international relations, international political economy, public policy, seventeenth century English history, migration and citizenship studies, and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Would God's existence be a good thing for us? According to anti-theism, the answer is No. Probably, many theists will want to reject anti-theism. But it isn’t obvious why. After all, whether p is good for us is logically independent from whether p is true. So anti-theism seems entirely compatible with theism. In this essay, however, I argue this seeming compatibility is mistaken. If anti-theism is true, then the theism of most practicing believers is false. And if I am right (...) about this, then anti-theism presents a serious challenge to traditional theistic belief, notably theistic belief anchored in the Bible. (shrink)

The pressure to change our bodies is overwhelming. We strive to defy ageing, build our biceps, cure our disabilities, conceal our quirks. Surrounded by filtered photos and surgically-enhanced features, we must contort our physical selves to prejudiced standards of beauty. Perfection is impossible, and even an acceptable body seems out of reach. In this thought-provoking, original work, acclaimed political philosopher Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key political principle. While defending individuals' right to change their bodies, (...) she argues that the social pressures to modify undermine equality. She shows how the connected ideas of the natural body, the normal body, and the whole body have been used both to disrupt and to maintain social hierarchies - sometimes oppressing, other times liberating. The body becomes a site of political importance- a place where hierarchies of sex, gender, race, disability, age, and class are reinforced. Through a clear-sighted analysis of the power dynamics that structure our society, and with examples ranging widely from bodybuilding to breast implants, deafness to male circumcision, biology to gender identity, Intact stresses that we must break away from the oppressive forces that demand we alter our bodies. Instead, it offers a bold, transformative vision of the human body that is equal without expectation. (shrink)

This commentary on Adam Pautz's excellent book, Perception, explores the consequences of “spatial illusionism,” the view that the spatial properties presented in experience aren't instantiated in the extra-mental world. First, I consider whether spatial illusionism entails that our ordinary beliefs about the physical world are mostly false. I then argue that spatial illusionism threatens to undermine two arguments Pautz's defends in Perception: his argument that sense data theory is incompatible with physicalism, and his central argument against the internal physical state (...) view of perception. (shrink)

Ziran, an idea from ancient Daoism, defies easy translation into English but can almost be captured by the term "spontaneity." It means "self-causation," if "self" is understood as fundamentally plural, and "causation" is understood as sensitivity and responsiveness. Applying ziran to the fields of action theory, attention theory, and aesthetics, Brian Bruya uses easy-to-read, straightforward prose to show, step-by-step, how this philosophical concept from an ancient tradition can be used to advance theory today. Incorporated into contemporary philosophy of action, (...) ziran opens us to the notion of movement and action as self-organizing. Incorporated into contemporary cognitive science, ziran opens us to the possibility of effortless attention, contrary to the reigning paradigm. Incorporated into contemporary aesthetics, ziran opens us to a new category of art--somatic art--and a new, refined understanding of improvisation"-- Back cover. (shrink)

In this work the theories of Marx and Laozi are dialectically combined. The resulting synthesis is a positive materialist negation of Hegel’s idealist dialectics. Syntheses are presented for Marx and Laozi in ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, scientific method, ethics and politics: the full spectrum of their foundational principles. The book is an attempt to reconstruct a materialist interpretation of Laozi, which can be put to work for Marxist theory.

A beautiful gift edition of the supernatural horror cult classic that inspired H.P. Lovecraft and the HBO hit series True Detective The weird tales in this slim volume are all linked by a play, the second act of which reveals truths so terrible and beautiful that it drives all who read it to despair: The King in Yellow. These four macabre, uncanny and unsettling stories are some of the most thrilling ever written in the field of weird fiction, and since (...) their first publication in 1895 have become a cult classic, influencing many writers from the renowned master of cosmic horror H.P Lovecraft to the creators of HBO's True Detective. (shrink)

The Senate filibuster is among the most criticized political institutions in the United States. This paper examines the ethics of filibustering. The way filibustering currently proceeds in the Senate, I argue, is morally indefensible. Yet, there is a way filibustering could proceed that is both defensible and desirable from a normative perspective. This is because filibustering—if it is properly institutionalized—allows minority parties in the legislature to protect and advance their interests in a manner that avoids shortcomings faced by other institutions (...) proposed to accomplish these goals, such as supermajority rule and judicial review. (shrink)

This essay considers the tension between political liberalism and gender equality in the light of social construction and multiculturalism. The tension is exemplified by the work of Martha Nussbaum, who tries to reconcile a belief in the universality of certain liberal values such as gender equality with a political liberal tolerance for cultural practices that violate gender equality. The essay distinguishes between first? and second?order conceptions of autonomy, and shows that political liberals mistakenly prioritise second?order autonomy. This prioritisation leads political (...) liberals to seek to limit state interference in individuals' choices. However, the essay argues that if options, choices and the preferences which lead to them are socially influenced or constructed, it is no longer clear that state non?interference secures autonomy. Instead, it becomes a matter of justice what the content of the social or state influence is, which options are open to people, and political liberalism cannot deal with many forms of injustice. Rather than emphasising state neutrality, liberals should endorse state prohibition of practices which cause significant harm to those who choose them, if they are chosen only in response to unjust norms. (shrink)

Pareto principles are at the core of ethics and decision theory. The Strong Pareto principle says that if one thing is better than another for someone and at least as good for everyone else, then the one is overall better than the other. But a host of famous figures express it differently, with ‘not worse’ in place of ‘at least as good.’ In the presence of parity (or incommensurability), this results in a strictly stronger Pareto principle, which I call Super‐Strong (...) Pareto. Super‐Strong Pareto, however, yields cyclic betterness and is therefore false. I point out a number of influential arguments—concerning population ethics, collective action problems, and decision‐making in the face of parity and uncertainty—that crucially rely on Super‐Strong Pareto and are therefore unsound. I then turn to the most influential argument against the possibility of parity—Broome's collapsing argument—and argue that it likewise relies on Super‐Strong Pareto reasoning and is therefore question‐begging. Finally, I turn to the much‐neglected question of how to justify Strong Pareto. The answer I arrive at, which emphasizes tie‐breaking, yields a striking insight, namely that Super‐Strong Pareto amounts to the denial of insensitivity to mild sweetening. That is what makes it problematic in the presence of parity. (shrink)

This chapter provides a general overview of the issues surrounding so-called semantic monsters. In section 1, I outline the basics of Kaplan’s framework and spell out how and why the topic of “monsters” arises within that framework. In Section 2, I distinguish four notions of a monster that are discussed in the literature, and show why, although they can pull apart in different frameworks or with different assumptions, they all coincide within Kaplan’s framework. In Section 3, I discuss one notion (...) that has spun off into the linguistics literature, namely “indexical shift”. In Section 4, I emphasize the connection between monsters and the compositionality of asserted content in Kaplan’s original discussion. Section 5 discusses monsters and the more general idea of re-interpretation or meaning-shift. Section 6 closes with a brief survey of where monsters may dwell, and pointers to avenues for future research. (shrink)

This book examines a basic problem in critical approaches to political and social inquiry: in what way is social inquiry animated by a practical intent? This practical intent is not external to inquiry as an add-on or a choice by the inquirer, but is inherent to the process of inquiry. The practical intent in inquiry derives from the connection between social inquiry and the participant's perspective. The social inquirer, in order to grasp the sense of those who are the subject (...) of inquiry, has to adopt the perspective of the participant in the social world. Caterino opposes the view that research is an autonomous activity distinct from or superior to a participant's perspective. He argues that since the inquirer is on the same level as the participant, all inquiry should be considered mutual critique in which those who are addressed by inquiry have an equal right and an equal capacity to criticize addressors. Brian Caterino is an independent researcher who works in public media. He is the co-editor of Making Political Science Matter (2006) with Sanford Schram and has published in a variety of journals. His most recent article "Lowering the Basement Floor" appeared in New Political Science. (shrink)

This book extends philosophy's engagement with the double beyond hierarchized binary oppositions. Brian Seitz explores the double as a necessary ontological condition or figure that gets represented, enacted, and performed repeatedly and in a myriad of configurations. Seitz suggests that the double in all of its forms is simultaneously philosophy's shadow, its nemesis, and the condition of its possibility. This book expands definitions and investigations of the double beyond the confines of philosophy, suggesting that the concept is at work (...) in many other fields including politics, cultural narratives, literature, mythology, and psychology. Seitz approaches the double by means of a series of case studies and by engaging loosely in eidetic variation, a methodological maneuver borrowed from phenomenology. The book explores the ways in which wide-ranging instances of the double are connected by the dynamics of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper, I pursue an interpretive goal and a critical goal. My interpretive goal is to offer a clear restatement of Nagel's argument for a requirement of altruism (as found in The Possibility of Altruism). My critical goal is to explain why this argument is unsuccessful, and to make a case for the thesis that any argument of its kind must fail.

"Postsecular Benjamin"explicates Benjamin's engagements with religious traditions as resources for contemporary debates on secularism, conflict, and identity.".

Examines the historical, cultural, and religious context of the life and work of German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin (1892-1940).

Jonathan Swift is best known as a satirist, a poet, and a polemicist, but he was also a historian and his historical vision played a prominent role in his thinking and in his writings. (Marshall 2015) This chapter explains how the experience of ‘loss’ affected Swift’s historical vision. Swift was a loser in many respects. Born Irish, Swift aspired to achieve professional success as a clergyman in the Church of England and as a politician in the service of the Tory (...) party. For the last four years of Queen Anne’s reign, Swift enjoyed privileged access to the machinations of Robert Harley’s ‘great’ ministry. Swift’s service to the crown was not rewarded with preferment but rather with exile back to Ireland. In his later life, Swift would reinvent himself as an Irish patriot and he would continue to work on revising his History of the Four Last Years of the Queen (written 1712-13; published 1758). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Why the Blues will Always be With Us Why Epictetus Never Sang the Blues Akrasia, or ‘I can't help myself’ Objections (‘This Life Sounds Horrible!’) I Can't Get No Satisfaction, and I Like it, I Like it, Yes I Do In Place of a Conclusion.