Hotel websites display textual and non-textual strategies with the aim of turning online visitors into customers. This article focuses on two related textual aspects: how consumers are discursively construed and how conditional constructions are used in order to persuade and convince consumers of the adequacy of the hotel. The framework adopted for the analysis combines Stern’s notion of ‘implied consumer’ with a corpus-driven approach. The corpus data comprises 114 British hotel websites and totals half a million words. This is a (...) subcorpus of COMETVAL, a database compiled at the University of València. The results reveal the importance of a number of words that address consumers directly or indirectly. These words intertwine with others to form patterns that help establish a bond between hoteliers and their clients. Further exploration of the corpus confirmed that some conditional sequences such as if you and should you are used by advertisers to speculate about the needs and wishes of consumers that the hotel can fulfil for them. The analysis suggests that conditional structures are a distinctive discursive characteristic strongly associated with the dialogic nature of the discourse hotel websites. (shrink)

This research focuses on the paintings preserved on an unusual element: a raft of water for irrigation in Bédar. Along with an Arabic text that dates the painting, one can see two four-legged animals perhaps representing a hunting scene and an ornamental top. It also preserves other highly degraded graphic signs that it has not been possible to fully decipher. As until now its chronology has not been determined, in this study, I have followed the usual method in Arabic epigraphy: (...) to draw the visible strokes and then to restore the missing or very obliterated parts of the painting. We can say that the raft and the elements that compose it were built in that rural area under Caliph al-Ḥakam II rule in the year 355/966. As a result of this study, the value of this outstanding document of Andalusian popular culture is highlighted: a pool of similar size to those that have been found in other sites of the Caliphate period. It is urgent to proceed to a professional excavation of the monument. (shrink)

What really makes the concepts of obligation or permission so important for practical philosophy? What if we could find a better concept, one that, despite the simplicity, could show itself as intuitive and rich as possible? Could justifications be used in common language and practice as a sign of ethical judgment and as a strong motive for action? In most scenarios, for example, it really doesn’t matter if a given action is obliged, permitted or forbidden, one may perform the action (...) as long as a justification for doing it is present. In this sense, the notion of justification seems to be more basic and powerful than other concepts used in the philosophical discourse. The existence of formal systems based on the epistemological side of justification, created by Artemov, led us primarily to think that justification could make the formal discourse much more accurate for ethics than the ones using deontological concepts. In the semantical and syntactical aspects, almost all of Artemov’s systems directly proved to be fruitful for ethical purposes. We also developed combinations between the standard deontic logic and logics of justification, resulting in what whe called the Logics of Normative Justification. These systems were able to change the object of the justification formulas and shed some light in ethics as a whole, normative and metaethics. Metaethics were a forgotten subject in formal ethics. We were also able to deal with some known problems in deontic logic, like the famous Ross’s paradox and the expressiveness of prima facie and all-things-considered obligations. (shrink)

Philosophical questions about the arts go naturally with other kinds of questions about them. Art is sometimes said to be an historical concept. But where in our cultural and biological history did art begin? If art is related to play and imagination, do we find any signs of these things in our nonhuman relatives? Sometimes the other questions look like ones the philosopher of art has to answer. Anyone who thinks that interpretation in the arts is an activity that leaves (...) the intentions of the author behind needs to explain how and why this differs so fundamentally from ordinary conversational interpretation, where the only decent models we have are ones that depend crucially on the recovery of intention. Anyone who thinks that imaginative literature has anything to tell us about time had better have a position on how earlier and later relate to past and future. Anyone who thinks that empathy plays a role in literary engagement had better have a psychologically plausible account of what empathy is. Philosophical questions about the arts also go naturally with other kinds of philosophical questions: we can't think constructively about representation in art without thinking about representation; text, meaning, reference and existence get similarly drawn into the conversation. Some ideas that philosophers of art deal with emerge from other disciplines. In literary theory an enormous amount of attention has been lavished on tracing the sources of unreliability in narrative. Is the result adequate to the details of the particular works we call unreliable? Contemporary film theory is generally hostile to the fiction/documentary distinction. Are there in fact any grounds for this? This book of thirteen connected essays examines questions of all these kinds. It ranges from the semantics of proper names, through the pragmatics of literary and filmic interpretation, to the aesthetic function of stone age implements. Some of the essays have not been published before; some that have are here substantially revised. (shrink)

In this timely study, Dawes defends the methodological naturalism of the sciences. Though religions offer what appear to be explanations of various facts about the world, the scientist, as scientist, will not take such proposed explanations seriously. Even if no natural explanation were available, she will assume that one exists. Is this merely a sign of atheistic prejudice, as some critics suggest? Or are there good reasons to exclude from science explanations that invoke a supernatural agent? On the one hand, (...) Dawes concedes the bare possibility that talk of divine action could constitute a potential explanation of some state of affairs, while noting that the conditions under which this would be true are unlikely ever to be fulfilled. On the other hand, he argues that a proposed explanation of this kind would rate poorly, when measured against our usual standards of explanatory virtue. (shrink)

To suppose the possibility of dialogue between theology and science is to suppose that theology is an intellectually worthy partner to engage in dialogue with science. The status of theology as a discipline, however, remains contested, one sign of which is the absence of theology from the university. I argue that a healthy theology-science dialogue would benefit from the presence of theology as an academic discipline in the university. Theology and theologians would benefit from the much closer contact with university (...) disciplines, including the sciences. The university and the sciences would benefit from the presence of theology, providing a department of ultimate concern, where big questions may be asked and ideologies critiqued. A university theology would need to meet standards of academic integrity. (shrink)

Abstract.To suppose the possibility of dialogue between theology and science is to suppose that theology is an intellectually worthy partner to engage in dialogue with science. The status of theology as a discipline, however, remains contested, one sign of which is the absence of theology from the university. I argue that a healthy theology‐science dialogue would benefit from the presence of theology as an academic discipline in the university. Theology and theologians would benefit from the much closer contact with university (...) disciplines, including the sciences. The university and the sciences would benefit from the presence of theology, providing a department of ultimate concern, where big questions may be asked and ideologies critiqued. A university theology would need to meet standards of academic integrity. (shrink)

we have recently seen the publication of several books on the narrative and identity of Pragmatism. Perhaps this is a sign that, after the first decade of the twenty-first century, scholars of Pragmatism now have the required distance or historical perspective to be confident about the history of Pragmatism in the twentieth century. In this paper, I examine the narratives of Pragmatism in Richard Bernstein’s The Pragmatic Turn and Colin Koopman’s Pragmatism as Transition.1 In spite of their differences, these scholars (...) argue for an inclusive “big-tent” Pragmatism.2 Their view of Pragmatism in America is optimistic and reconciliatory about the past, present, and future tensions that exist between pragmatist .. (shrink)

Through a free reading of Heidegger's Zur Seinsfrage, we propose - with the help of the reader - to scribe into being the space of an opening; in fact, to transcribe it with the drawing of an ×. The point of this writing and thinking "Over the Line" is neither to draft a new structure nor to mark a new center but, as a sign of nothing, to inscribe a hole in the text of philosophy. In view of a topological (...) sketch of the original opening of Western ontology, the unfolding of a complete nihilism may finally be described, in a thinking that marks its own vanishing point. (shrink)

While Žižek is right to assert both that Heidegger’s political engagement must be confronted as a genuine philosophical challenge and that our modern predicament demands new thinking, I argue that Žižek is wrong to claim that Heidegger made the right step in 1933, even if in the wrong direction. Using the same story as Žižek, G. K. Chesterton’s “The Sign of the Broken Sword,” I argue that Žižek’s sword is also broken, because in the absence of a “big Other,” it (...) is not possible to give an orientation or direction for political action. Furthermore, given that absence, I claim that Žižek’s call for an enthusiastic politics that merges self with society is particularly dangerous: rather than fulfill a Dionysian moment in politics, it threatens to unleash what I call a priapic politics. I end by suggesting that Žižek’s argument heralds the death of the binary distinction between “Left” and “Right,” and I argue for a return to a politics of prudence. (shrink)

Should judgments of beauty play a guiding role in theoretical science even if beauty is not a sign of truth? In this paper I argue that they should in certain cases. If we analyze the rationality of theoretical pursuit using decision theory, a theory’s beauty can influence the utilities of the various options confronting the researcher. After considering the views of Pierre Duhem and Thomas Kuhn on aesthetics in science, I suggest that because we value freedom of inquiry we rightly (...) allow scientists some choice in how they value aesthetic properties of theories and thus some freedom to use beauty to guide their research program. (shrink)

The language of quantification theory does not seem to adequately reflect the logic of mass terms in ordinary english. Mass terms are treated as though they are true of objects which can be counted. In this paper, It is argued that by placing certain restrictions upon formulas which contain the identity sign it is possible to arrive at a formalization of mass term sentences which avoids this difficulty. The proposed restrictions are defended against charges that certain mass term sentences seem (...) to be rendered inexpressible. (shrink)

In his Particles and Waves, Peter Achinstein gives a precise probabilistic version of theoretical coherence inspired by William Whewell's somewhat vague notion of coherence. Whewell believed that as theoretical science proceeds, it becomes more coherent and rejects false incoherent theories. Achinstein offers a challenge: try to make Whewell's idea more precise while maintaining the properties that Whewell claimed coherence to have. This chapter argues (1) that Achinstein's probabilistic rendition of coherence fails to capture Whewell's notion since the probabilistic rendition of (...) coherence is not an a priori sign of truth and (2) that Achinstein's approach is better seen as a critique of Whewell's central methodological claims than as an interpretation of Whewell's ideas. (shrink)

I examine the responses to John Caiazza's “Athens, Jerusalem, and the Arrival of Techno‐Secularism” as part of Zygon's forty‐year anniversary symposium. The responses reveal that issues of modernism and postmodernism are central to understanding the dynamic of the current science‐religion/theology dialogue and that the resistance of many of the participants to the influences of postmodernism is a sign not of its backwardness but rather of some of the weaknesses inherent in the postmodern project. This does not mean that the many (...) insights of postmodernism should be rejected. Rather, the science‐religion/theology dialogue may be in an intellectually opportune place to construct successors to the worn label of postmodernism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity by Roberto Di CeglieGregory StaceyDI CEGLIE, Roberto. Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity. New York: Routledge, 2022. x + 196 pp. Cloth, $160.00Suppose one wishes to argue that Christian faith (that is, supernatural belief in propositions insofar as they are divinely revealed) is compatible with the proper exercise of reason (that is, forming beliefs through natural cognitive processes). Two strategies suggest themselves. (...) First, one could argue that faith is itself a natural cognitive process or else meets criteria by which natural beliefs are considered rational or appropriate. Alternatively, one might contend that faith can meet its own, independent criteria for rationality or propriety. Thomas Aquinas, whose natural theology and discussion of public evidence that God has revealed himself in Christ are famously robust, may appear to be an exponent of the former strategy. Yet in this volume, Roberto Di Ceglie advances a reading of Thomas that illustrates how faith can support rational enquiry, while remaining independent of it. On this view, faith is "caused mainly by God" and is therefore "at least partly unresponsive to rational criteria."Part 1 begins Di Ceglie's case obliquely, by criticizing both efforts to argue (following Gilson and Maritain) that philosophy can be influenced by Christian faith and recent attempts to explain Aquinas's account of faith and reason. Reviewing the work of commentators including Anthony Kenny, Richard Swinburne, and Eleonore Stump, the author objects that many philosophers hold that for Thomas, faith is primarily a form of propositional belief that should be evaluated for propriety in the same way as natural beliefs. He alleges that this understanding of faith is inherited from Locke, who endorsed "methodological naturalism": the view that appropriate "religious belief can only be taken as the outcome, if any, of a rational exploration of our experience." While this material usefully outlines views which Di Ceglie means to oppose, readers unfamiliar with scholarship on Aquinas and Locke may find these initial chapters difficult to follow.The argument becomes easier to follow in part 2, which provides Di Ceglie's own interpretation of Aquinas. The key third chapter explores Aquinas's definition of faith as "an act of the intellect assenting to the Divine Truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God" (ST II-II, q. 2, a. 9). It demonstrates that while for Aquinas faith involves firm propositional belief, its certitude derives not from believers' assessment of signs that God has revealed the articles of faith but from their free choice—itself a gift of grace—to embrace those articles. More precisely, in cases of "formed" faith, this choice is motivated by supernatural love for God (charity). Charity's role in Aquinas's religious epistemology is [End Page 547] highlighted in two subsequent chapters. Inter alia, Di Ceglie charges that faith is meritorious principally due to its grounds in charity rather than because the articles of faith are not evidently true. He further claims that Aquinas understood "unformed" faith as merely "faith commonly so called"—that is, natural belief in propositions because one judges that they are testified to by a competent authority. Accordingly, unformed faith lacks perfect confidence because it is merely based on probabilistic evidence that God has revealed the articles of faith, rather than on a strong, loving will to trust God. More generally, the certitude of one's faith is proportionate to the perfection of one's charity.Having developed a reading of Aquinas's religious epistemology that stresses the distinction between faith and reason, in part 3 Di Ceglie considers their positive relationship. First, he attempts to reconcile the apparently opposing views that Aquinas's philosophy is purely an exercise of natural reason, and that his philosophical work was influenced by his Christian faith. Broadly, the charity that grounds formed faith also inspires and enhances rational investigation, although philosophical arguments cannot presume faith's truth. Believers with formed faith, however, should reject positions that contradict faith and seek to revise their philosophical reasoning accordingly. The final chapter argues that Christian faith affords a better position from which to engage in rational reflection than atheism or agnosticism. Among other advantages, faith... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gregory Currie TEXT WITHOUT CONTEXT: SOME ERRORS OF STANLEY FISH "Intuition told him that the vast ineptitude of the venture would serve as proof that no fraud was afoot." —Jorge Luis Borges, "Tom Castro, the Implausible Imposter," in A Universal History ofInfamy There are those of us who seek unity, universality, patterns of invariance in any diverse multitude of particulars. With the interpretation of texts, the diversity is evident, (...) the unity, universality and invariance less so. Still, we have the text itself, a sequence of determinately meaningful signs, independent of, and a constraint on, the activities of interpreters. We universalists might want more than that, but it's a start. It's a start some people are not prepared to give us. Stanley Fish is one of them. According to him we are looking for something which does not exist, and which we do not need. I shall argue that Fish is wrong on both counts. According to Stanley Fish, there are no constraints on interpretation that transcend particular, local interpretive communities. Indeed, there is no truth or validity that is community transcendent, no standard of lightness, proof or confirmation that has any warrant other than community approval. Intellectual ascendency is always ultimately a matter of rhetorical power, and the locus of power shifts as the norms of the community change. Yet we need not worry that this implies any dangerous kind ofrelativism or subjectivism. Each ofus is deeply immersed Philosophy and Literature, © 1991, 15: 212-228 Gregory Currie213 in his or her own community. Our thoughts, intentions, and actions gain their very identity from the structure of public, communitarian relations we enter into, and the community imposes on us a tight structure of norms and intellectual options that "situate" us (a favored word in the Fish vocabulary) in such a way that it is always clear what interpretive move is appropriate.1 Fish is no epistemological anarchist in the style of Feyerabend: it is not the case, for him, that "anything goes." There is always a clear distinction between what goes and what does not; it is just that the rules, the structure, the hierarchy of options are not invariant across time or communities.2 Now we do it like this, tomorrow we may do it like that; we do it this way, they do it that way. Wherever you are, the rules are always clear, but the rules depend on where you are. I shall call this thesis "internalism." It bears some resemblance to views of the later Wittgenstein, and rather closely parallels Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific paradigms. It has a negative and a positive aspect. The negative aspect is that community-specific constraints on interpretation are all we have. The positive aspect is that they are all we need. Is internalism correct? I say it is not. I say that the positive claim is false, because internal constraints alone can never answer the relativist's challenge, when that challenge is properly understood; more about that in a moment. But this merely serves to highlight the importance of the negative thesis: if that is correct then relativism carries the day. So my primary concern here is with the negative thesis. Fish's main argument for the negative thesis is that what seems to most of us to be an obvious external constraint on interpretation—the literal meaning of the text in question—is no such thing. And he bases this claim on some arguments which purport to show that there L· no such thing as literal meaning. So my aim, it emerges at last, is to defend the idea of literal meaning. But first, I shall say something about the question of relativism. II Fish's answer to relativism, it will be remembered, is that interpretive communities constrain the interpretive choices of their members in such away that there can always be seen tobe nonarbitrary ways ofproceeding when it comes to formulating and choosing between interpretive hypotheses. This claim, the positive claim of Fish's internalism, raises two questions: Is Fish right, as a matter of fact, about the ways in which interpretive, and more generally intellectual communities constrain the 214Philosophy and Literature thoughts and actions... (shrink)

It has been a couple of years now since debate erupted over the study known as the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial, which sought to gauge the risks and benefits of different blood oxygen levels currently targeted in the care of premature infants. Both articles in this issue of the Hastings Center Report try to take the debate to a new level, but as expressed in the title of one of three commentaries on the articles, the controversy shows (...) no signs of abating. (shrink)

Since the late 1960s, philosophy for children has become a global, multi-disciplinary movement involving innovations in curriculum, pedagogy, educational theory, and teacher education; in moral, social and political philosophy; and in discourse and literary theory. And it has generated the new academic field of philosophy of childhood. Gareth B. Matthews (1929-2011) traced contemporary disrespect for children to Aristotle, for whom the child is essentially a pre-intellectual and pre-moral precursor to the fully realized human adult. Matthews Matthews dubbed this the “deficit (...) conception of childhood” and wrote extensive critiques of its perpetuation in Jean Piaget’s stage model of cognitive development and in Lawrence Kholberg’s stage model of moral development. He published the first book (1994) in the field of philosophy of childhood and wrote a column of reviews of philosophically-oriented children’s books. He argued that even academic philosophers can benefit from the freshness and directness of children’s thinking. For Matthew Lipman (1923-2010) and Ann Margaret Sharp (1942-2010), the child is only potentially a philosophical agent and grows into becoming such by means of a philosophical education. Lipman invented the literary genre of children’s philosophical fiction, which systematically reconstructs key philosophical issues and positions in language accessible by children, attempts to help children recognize philosophical dimensions of their own experience, and models philosophical dialogue. Lipman and Sharp developed a protocol for a “community of philosophical inquiry,” in which people with diverse experiences, ideas and concerns dialogue together around a shared philosophical question, with the aim of forming reasonable, meaningful judgments about the matter. The early success of philosophy for children was due in part to its coincidence with the critical thinking movement in education, in which Lipman was an important figure. Its emphasis on ethics has justified its use as a program of ethics, character, and even religious education. It has also been used for civics education, because of how it instantiates democratic deliberation and power-sharing. At the same time, philosophy for children has been criticized by religious and social conservatives, developmental psychologists, and philosophers. Today, the diversity of approaches, aims, materials, and grounding theories of philosophy for children signifies different understandings of philosophy, childhood and education, which have become “essentially contested concepts” within the movement. Philosophy for children is no longer unified by an identifiable theory, purpose, pedagogy, method or curriculum, but is now used to further a number of disparate educational agendas. Shaun Gallagher’s (1992) heuristic of four schools of hermeneutics is helpful in understanding these competing agendas. Conservative hermeneutics is the attempt to devise methods of interpretation that uncover and preserve truth or original meaning without distortion or bias. This is consonant with the use of philosophy for children to help young people appropriate the fundamental questions, ideas and skills of (Western) philosophy as a resource for understanding the world and managing their own experience, and with the understanding critical thinking as a way of avoiding prejudice and approaching truth. Critical hermeneutics approaches interpretation—including teaching and learning—as a method of liberating the interpreter from the racist, sexist, homophobic, capitalist, religiously fanatical, and other kinds of ideologies that commonly distort thinking, feeling and behavior. This is consonant with those who argue that the attributes of mutual criticism, inclusion, solidarity, self-regulation, and distributed power make the community of philosophical inquiry an ideal site for recognizing and overcoming ideology. Others find philosophy for children politically ineffectual due to the limited role of students and teachers in co-constructing the curriculum and its lack of an explicit component of political critique and action. Radical hermeneutics suggests that because every text is open to a plurality of meanings, the purpose of interpretation is not to artificially constrain that plurality but to play with the signs that constitute the text in order to achieve fresh insights. A radical hermeneutical strand is identifiable in the philosophy for children literature when scholars resist the idea that the aim of philosophical dialogue is to find consensus or to narrow down on the most reasonable conclusions. Moderate hermeneutics holds that the work of interpretation is the attempt to reach meaning or shared understanding in a process modeled on dialogue between the familiar and the strange. This is consonant with those who argue that philosophical traditions can still give meaning to (young) people’s lives, but that those traditions must be continually reinterpreted (including by children) in order to survive and flourish. Fifty-odd years since its inception, philosophy for children has deepened and diversified, both theoretically and as a field of practice. Perhaps the only point of agreement among (most) everyone in the movement is that children’s philosophical thinking, variously understood, is necessary for the realization of the intellectual, moral, and political agency the movement attributes to them. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

Dans les premières lignes du compte-rendu substantiel qu’il fournit de l’ouvrage de Mikel Dufrenne paru en 1963 sous le titre Le Poétique, Paul Ricœur écrit : Le dernier livre de Mikel Dufrenne n’est pas seulement le fruit mûr d’une œuvre qui pousse comme une plante – les images végétales conviennent à merveille à une philosophie qui se veut fidèle aux voix de la Nature! –, il est aussi l’un des signes de la mue de la philosophie française : celle-ci, (...) de multiples façons, se rebelle comme l... (shrink)

Languages use predicates and arguments to express events and event participants. In order to establish generalizations concerning the variety languages show regarding the strategies for discerning some arguments from the others, the concept of roles—and, particularly, macroroles, mesoroles, and microroles—associated with participants provides a widely studied starting point. In this article, the formal properties in the arguments of a set of 14 verb meanings in Spanish Sign Language have been analyzed. Arguments have been studied by considering their microroles, and a (...) quantitative method for measuring distances from a plurality of properties has been adopted. The novelty of this analysis is that it focuses on how arguments group in terms of these properties. Subsequently, some generalizations justifying why some verb meanings have a tendency to associate with certain forms of argument expression are highlighted in this study. (shrink)

The aim of this research was to delimit the predictive and mediational model of resilience between character strengths to predict flourishing, in a sample of undergraduate students. After signing their informed consent, 642 university students completed three validated scales. Using an ex post facto design, regression, structural modeling, and mediation analyses were carried out, in order to construct a multi-causal predictive model. Results indicated a consistent predictive direct effect of character strengths on resilience and flourishing and of resilience on flourishing. (...) As hypothesized, resilience also showed a mediating effect on the relationship between character strengths and flourishing. Additionally, results also revealed that the reactive and proactive factors of resilience were explained by different character strengths, reinforcing the idea that the two directions are complementary and necessary. Finally, several implications were established for the practice of positive psychology. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue for the continuous influence of Gregory Bateson’s Communicology on the field of family therapy. My argument is based on a re-examination of Bateson’s Palo Alto research period. More specifically, I suggest that family therapy saw its genesis in Bateson’s work on the double bind paradox, which has become the matrix for the family’s communication system approach. In this essay I closely examine the paradox’s structure from two perspectives: systemic and semiotic. I show how several main (...) elements of the problem posed by Bateson translated into various approaches to family therapy thus constituting it as a self-sustaining paradigm. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue for the continuous influence of Gregory Bateson’s Communicology on the field of family therapy. My argument is based on a re-examination of Bateson’s Palo Alto research period. More specifically, I suggest that family therapy saw its genesis in Bateson’s work on the double bind paradox, which has become the matrix for the family’s communication system approach. In this essay I closely examine the paradox’s structure from two perspectives: systemic and semiotic. I show how several main (...) elements of the problem posed by Bateson translated into various approaches to family therapy thus constituting it as a self-sustaining paradigm. (shrink)

The book delves into mathematical mindsets, a current approach to understanding mathematical identities, as well as success and failure in mathematics.

In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema presents a philosophical approach to the moral issues involved in complicity. Starting with a taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas, according to whom there are nine ways for one to become complicit in the wrongdoing of another, Mellema analyzes each kind of complicity and examines the moral status of someone complicit in each of these ways. Mellema's central argument is that one must perform a contributing action to qualify as an accomplice, and that it is (...) always morally blameworthy to perform such an action. Additionally, he argues that an accomplice frequently bears moral responsibility for the outcome of the other's wrongdoing, but he distinguishes this case from cases in which the accomplice is tainted by the wrongdoing of the principal actor. He further distinguishes between enabling, facilitating, and condoning harm, and introduces the concept of indirect complicity. Mellema tackles issues that are clearly important to any case of collective and shared responsibility, yet rarely discussed in depth, always presenting his arguments clearly, concisely, and engagingly. His account of the nonmoral as well as moral qualities of complicity in wrongdoing--especially of the many and varied ways in which principles and accomplices can interact--is highly illuminating. Liberally sprinkled with helpful and nuanced examples, Complicity and Moral Accountability vividly illustrates the many ways in which one may be complicit in wrongdoing. "In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema has made an immensely important contribution to the discussion of group morality and collective responsibility both within and far beyond professional academic philosophy. His clearly written book will be essential reading." --Fergus Kerr, Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

Empathy is an integral aspect of human existence. Without at least a basic ability to access others’ affective life, social interactions would be well-nigh impossible. Yet, recent studies seem to show that the means we have acquired to access others’ emotional life no longer function well in what has become our everyday business – technologically mediated interactions in digital spaces. If this is correct, there are two important questions: (1) What makes empathy for frequent internet users so difficult? and (2) (...) What can we do to alleviate the negative consequences? Correspondingly, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, we identify structural differences between offline and technologically mediated interactions that can explain why digital empathy is harder to achieve. Second, drawing on the literature on ‘situated affectivity,’ we consider the idea of modifying digital spaces in ways specifically designed to ‘scaffold’ empathy where our evolved mechanisms fail. Section 2 argues that empathy is requires interpreting the behavior of embodied subjects. Section 3 identifies three factors that are crucial for this interpretative endeavor: the empathizer’s affective repertoire, their perceptual input, and their background knowledge. Section 4 argues that technologically mediated interactions differ from face-to-face interactions with regard to these factors in ways which render our evolved empathy mechanisms less effective in the digital world. Section 5 introduces the idea that situational factors can serve as ‘empathic scaffolds,’ i.e., as ‘tools’ that can ‘shape’ people’s empathic reactions. Section 6 wraps up the main line of reasoning, responds to objections and invites further scholarship. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain the curious role played by the Argument from Absolute Terms in Peter Unger's book Ignorance, I provide a critical presentation of the argument, and I consider some outstanding issues and the argument’s contemporary significance.

The use of private security companies by national governments is met with widespread skepticism. Less understood is the role these companies can play in international humanitarian interventions in the service of international organizations. I argue here that despite valid concerns about the use of such private entities, we should nonetheless see them as legitimate participants in efforts to secure human rights protection around the globe. In order to assess their legitimacy, we need to ensure, among other things, that they can (...) adhere to ethical standards when serving in humanitarian missions, that they can be held accountable when they fail to uphold the standard of justice enshrined in international law, and that their for-profit status does not have implications detrimental to humanitarian concerns. (shrink)

Now in its twentieth year of publication, this rich collection, popular among teachers and students alike, provides an in-depth look at major cases that have shaped the field of medical ethics. The book presents each famous (or infamous) case using extensive historical and contextual background, and then proceeds to illuminate it by careful discussion of pertinent philosophical theories and legal and ethical issues.

Data are lacking with regard to participants' perspectives on return of genetic research results to relatives, including after the participant's death. This paper reports descriptive results from 3,630 survey respondents: 464 participants in a pancreatic cancer biobank, 1,439 family registry participants, and 1,727 healthy individuals. Our findings indicate that most participants would feel obligated to share their results with blood relatives while alive and would want results to be shared with relatives after their death.

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse the presence of Pascal’s thought in the work of the Spanish writer José Jiménez Lozano (1930-2020). In fact, it could be considered that this writer is almost a kind of Pascal come alive, especially in terms of understanding and experiencing Christianity, since, for both Pascal and Jiménez Lozano, the orientation of the human soul towards God is not only a part of the essence of man but also is his most (...) definitory anthropological constituent. (shrink)

Virtually all historical treatments of just war recognize the importance of the account given by Thomas Aquinas in Summa theologiae II-II, q. 40, ?De bello?, where he outlines three conditions ? legitimate authority, just cause, and right intention ? for a justifiable use of armed force. It is, however, less well known that within the same section of the work (q. 50, a. 4) Aquinas extended his reflection on just war into a theory of military prudence. By placing generalship under (...) the category of ?prudence?, rather than ?art? or ?science?, he held that military command involves more than a morally neutral skill with victory as its sole aim. Building on the premise that service to the common good constitutes the overarching purpose of the military profession, Aquinas showed how the virtue of prudence provides an inner compass for decision-making amid the uncertainty and confusion of the battlefield. (shrink)

Death is the destiny we all share, and this will not change. Yet the way we die, which had remained the same for many generations, has changed drastically in a relatively short time for those in developed countries with access to healthcare. For generations, if people were lucky enough to reach old age, not having died in infancy or childhood, in childbirth, in war, or by accident, they would take to bed, surrounded by loved ones who cared for them, and (...) fade into death. Most likely, they would have seen their parents and grandparents die the same way, and so this manner of dying would be familiar: it was part of the natural cycle of life. Now less than 25 per cent of Americans die at home, having reached much older ages than people would have dreamed of in past generations, often after surviving many illnesses and even diseases that would have been terminal for their grandparents. We are fortunate to live (and die) today, supported by myriad scientific, medical, and technological advancements, however we also face new problems as a result of the new way in which we die. We can no longer anticipate a peaceful waning at home with family. We know our lives will likely end in hospitals likely after we have endured grueling treatments to prolong life. We have to decide what decisions we want our loved ones, or care-givers, to make when we cannot choose for ourselves. We have to think about whether in any circumstances we would seek physician-assisted death. We know we face other questions as well, but we may not even know where to start. In the face of these decisions, we can feel daunted and afraid. The best remedy is information and planning. In this book, Gregory Eastwood - a physician who has cared for dying patients, served as an ethics consultant, and taught end of life issues to medical and other health profession students - draws from his substantial experience with patients and families to provide the information that will help us think clearly about the choices and issues we will face at the end of our own lives, and when faced with the deaths of our loved ones. With sensitivity and profound insight, Eastwood guides us through all the important questions about death and dying in straightforward, clear language, enhanced by real-life stories. Throughout, he shows us how we can take ownership of the way we want to die, when we must die, and feel more in control as death approaches. (shrink)

The perception of sensory effects generated by one’s own actions is typically attenuated compared to the same effects generated externally. However, it is unclear whether this specifically relates to self-generation. Recent studies showed that sensory attenuation mainly relies on action preparation, not actual action execution. Hence, an attenuation of sensory effects generated by another person might occur if these actions can be anticipated and thus be prepared for.Here, we compared the perceived loudness of sounds generated by one’s own actions and (...) actions of another person that either could or could not be anticipated. We found an attenuation of the perceived loudness for self- as compared to other-generated sounds. This difference was independent of whether the sound-eliciting actions of the other person could be anticipated or not. Thus, sensory attenuation seems to be specifically tied to self-generation instead of being a secondary effect of agent-independent preparation for an upcoming action. (shrink)