The approach of liberal political philosopher John Rawls on the issue of abortion relied on his construct of “public reason,” in which citizens in a pluralistic democracy restrict the use of deliberative arguments and reasons that are drawn from their “irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines,” including their religious worldviews. From this reasoning, Rawls concludes that a just society is one that includes the legal right to abortion. However, the author contends that the use of another of Rawls’s theories—“justice as fairness”—leads to an (...) alternative conclusion: that legally sanctioned abortion represents the unjust persecution of a specific population—the unborn. Further, this same theoretical approach supports the egalitarian application of Catholic social thought to protect the fetus as a uniquely vulnerable position in society. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.4 (Winter 2010): 677–686. (shrink)

In an increasingly complex military operating environment, next generation wargaming platforms can reduce risk, decrease operating costs, and improve overall outcomes. Novel Artificial Intelligence enabled wargaming approaches, based on software platforms with multimodal interaction and visualization capacity, are essential to provide the decision-making flexibility and adaptability required to meet current and emerging realities of warfighting. We highlight three areas of development for future warfighter-machine interfaces: AI-directed decisional guidance, computationally informed decision-making, and realistic representations of decision spaces. Progress in these areas (...) will enable development of effective human-AI collaborative decision-making, to meet the increasing scale and complexity of today’s battlespace. (shrink)

The essays in this volume illuminate a central topic in ethical theory: moral dilemmas. Some contemporary philosophers dispute the traditional view that a true moral dilemma -- a situation in which a person has two irreconcilable moral duties -- cannot exist. This collection provides the historical background to the ongoing debate with selections from Kant, Mill, Bradley, and Ross. The best recent work on the question is represented in essays by Donagan, Foot, Hare, Marcus, Nagel, van Fraassen, Williams, and (...) others. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept that ought implies can (OIC), but it is not obvious that we have a good argument for that principle. I consider one sort of argument for it, which seems to be a development of an Aristotelian idea about practical deliberation and which is endorsed by, amongst others, R. M. Hare and James Griffin. After briefly rehearsing some well-known objections to that sort of argument (which is based on the supposed pointlessness of impossible obligations), I present a (...) further objection, based on a maximally charitable reading of the argument, and conclude that nobody ought to think that it gives them a reason to accept OIC. (shrink)

How does our understanding of what it means to be rational affect our interpretation of the world around us? ... Essayists discuss the nature and extent of rationality - its content, focus, and the intrinsic guidelines for using the term "rational" when describing persons or actions. The distinguished contributors to this collection include Max Black, Steven J. Brams, James H. Bunn, Christopher Cherniak, Murray Clarke, Marjorie Clay, Paul Diesing, Antony Flew, John T. Kearns, D. Mark Kilgour, Hilary Kornblith, Charles (...) H. Lambros, Duncan MacIntosh, Alistair MacLeod, Robert G. Meyers, Erwin Segal, Zeno G. Swijtink, Brice R. Wachterhauser, and Paul Weirich. (shrink)

In The Beast and The Sovereign Volume 2, a collection of ten lectures focused on the “odd couple” of Heidegger and Robinson Crusoe, Jacques Derrida devotes a substantial portion of his second lecture to one of the most well-known scenes in Defoe’s novel: Robinson’s discovery of “the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore” (Derrida 31, Defoe 162). Having lived alone on his island for fifteen years, Robinson is “thunder-struck,” as if having “seen an apparition” (162). After running (...) up and down the shore in a failed effort to find additional prints, Robinson flees in terror to his “castle,” observing that “never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mine than I to this retreat” (162). .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52 Reviews  HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS C P Philosophy / Purdue U. West Lafayette,  ,  @. Scott Soames. Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Vol. : The Dawn of Analysis; Vol. : The Age of Meaning. Princeton: Princeton U. P., . Pp. xix, ; xxii, . . (hb), . (pb) for each volume. he last twenty years have seen (...) an explosion in books and papers on RusTsell ’s philosophy and its contemporary significance. There is good reason to think that this will continue as the contents of the Collected Papers are digested by Russell scholars and as more specialists contribute to the history of analytic philosophy more generally. Given all this good news, it is disconcerting to find a -page discussion of Russell, in a well-reviewed book by a first-rate philosopher, repeating many of the errors and misconceptions about Russell that scholars have worked so hard against. Soames’ discussion of Russell in the volumes under review is in fact so distressing that it alone compromises the book as a suitable introduction to the history of analytic philosophy. After briefly reviewing the outline of the two volumes, I discuss the errors concerning Russell, and conclude by drawing some lessons for Russell scholarship. Soames’ focus is on what he takes to be the most important and influential work of analytic philosophers, beginning with Moore’s Principia Ethica and ending in  with Kripke’s Naming and Necessity lectures. Kripke, in fact, marks the culmination of one of the two great achievements of analytic philos- _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52  Reviews ophy that Soames sees in this period: … the two most important achievements that have emerged from the analytic tradition in this period are (i) the recognition that philosophical speculation must be grounded in pre-philosophical thought, and (ii) the success achieved in understanding, and separating one from another, the fundamental methodological notions of logical consequence, logical truth, necessary truth, and apriori truth. (: xi) Moore is credited with the methodological innovation required by (i), as once we accept that what we think we know prior to philosophical reflection is a constraint on our epistemology, Moore’s response to scepticism, which Soames endorses, inevitably follows. But even Moore, and nearly every other figure that Soames discusses, is guilty of confusing necessity, analyticity and apriority. Soames endorses Kripke’s basic point that necessity is a metaphysical concept that can come apart from the epistemic notion of apriority and the semantic category of analytic propositions. Volume  repeats this charge several times, using it to undermine Moore’s views on ethics in Part One, Russell’s conception of analysis in Part Two, and logical positivism in Part Three. It is noteworthy that Soames takes Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic as representative of logical positivism, ignoring contemporary scholarship on the Vienna Circle just as much as he ignores Russell scholarship. Part Four reconstructs Wittgenstein’s views in the Tractatus and Volume  ends with a discussion of Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”. The second volume begins with a part on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. This paves the way for Soames’ discussion of ordinary language philosophy in Parts Two and Three, which Soames sees as closely tied to the later Wittgenstein. Ryle’s Concept of Mind, Strawson’s early views on truth, Hare’s theory of goodness as well as Malcolm’s paradigm-case argument and Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia are investigated in these chapters. Part Four presents Grice’s theory of conversational implicature as the final nail in the coffin of ordinary language philosophy. In Part Five, Soames returns to Quine, this time discussing the ambitious arguments of Word and Object and the more general project of naturalized epistemology. Part Six articulates Davidson’s program for constructing a theory of meaning for natural languages along the lines of a Tarskistyle theory of truth, and Volume  ends with an extended discussion of the promise and limitations of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity. The material on Russell is entirely confined to four chapters in Volume : Chapter : “Logical Form, Grammatical Form, and the Theory of Descriptions ”, Chapter : “Logic and Mathematics: The Logicist Reduction”, Chapter : “Logical Constructions and... (shrink)

The Buddhist Jātaka tells the tale of a hare lounging under a palm tree who becomes convinced the Earth is coming to an end when a ripe bael fruit falls on its head. Soon all the hares are running; other animals join them, forming a stampede of deer, boar, elk, buffalo, wild oxen, rhinoceros, tigers and elephants, loudly proclaiming the earth is ending.1 In the American retelling, the hare is ‘chicken little,’ and the exaggerated fear is that the (...) sky is falling. The story offers a cautionary tale for considering the trend towards calamity thinking in artificial intelligence (AI). A growing chorus of tech leaders has warned that AI poses existential risk (X-Risk) that could result in the extinction of the human species, the collapse of civilisation, or a colossal decline in human potential and culture. In 2014, Hawking told the Washington Post that AI, ‘could spell the end of the human race’.2 Musk has repeatedly warned about AI’s perils, calling AI, ‘more dangerous than nukes’, recommending colonising Mars to ensure ‘a bolt-hole if AI goes rogue and turns on humanity’,3 and donating 10 million dollars to the Future of Life Institute to jumpstart research on AI’s X-Risk. Gates has stated, ‘I am in the camp…concerned about super intelligence…I agree with … Musk and some others on this and don’t understand why some people are not concerned’.4 Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has fretted that technologies OpenAI was building could endanger humanity—‘even destroying the world as we know it’.5 This paper offers a critical appraisal of the rise of calamity thinking in the scholarly AI ethics literature. It cautions against viewing X-Risk in isolation and highlights ethical considerations sidelined when X-Risk takes centre stage. Section I introduces a working definition of X-Risk, considers its likelihood and …. (shrink)

The target article by Christopher Meyers concerning justification of deception for clinical ethicists is both well-reasoned and plausible. Clearly grounded in utilitarian considerations, its...

What would it look like for researchers to take non-human animal rights seriously? Recent discussions foster the impression that scientific practice needs to be reformed to make animal research ethical: just as there is ethically rigorous human research, so there can be ethically rigorous animal research. We argue that practically little existing animal research would be ethical and that ethical animal research is not scalable. Since animal research is integral to the existing scientific paradigm, taking animal rights seriously requires a (...) radical, wholesale reimagining of science.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05340426. (shrink)

Synthetic biology has immense potential to ameliorate widespread environmental damage. The promise of such technology could, however, be argued to potentially risk the public, industry, or governments not curtailing their environmentally damaging behaviour or even worse exploit the possibility of this technology to do further damage. In such cases, there is the risk of a worse outcome than if the technology was not deployed. This risk is often couched as an objection to new technologies, that the technology produces a moral (...) hazard. This paper describes how to navigate a moral hazard argument and mitigate the possibility of a moral hazard. Navigating moral hazard arguments and mitigating the possibility of a moral hazard will improve the public and environmental impact of synthetic biology. (shrink)

Catholic thinkers generally agree that artificial womb technology (AWT) would be permissible in cases of partial ectogenesis to assist severely premature infants, but there is substantially more debate concerning whether AWT could be used to save frozen embryos, which are the result of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In many cases, these embryos have been abandoned and left in a permanently cryogenic state, which is an affront to their human dignity. While AWT would allow people to adopt these embryos and give (...) them an opportunity to develop, it gives rise to serious concerns over the possibility of scandal and the potential for cooperation in evil. Therefore, the author argues that even though AWT may one day represent a solution to this tragedy, it is currently not a morally licit answer, given the widespread use and approval of IVF in our culture. (shrink)

What does Wittgenstein say about the learning child? In the Philosophical Investigations, he writes, ‘An important part … will consist in the teacher’s pointing to the objects, directing the child’s attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word.’ Here Wittgenstein is describing what is called ‘joint attention’ which is agreed to be a rich resource for learning in children. In this essay, I explore the developmental significance of this passage particularly with regards the learning that occurs in (...) the pre-linguistic child during joint attention. I refer to critical remarks elsewhere in the PI which can help further convey what Wittgenstein means when he talks about attentional capacities and how they develop, including the relevant ability for responsiveness required for the learning to proceed. These considerations should motivate a defence of the social initiation model of learning contra Luntley’s mentalist-individualist account, this despite conceding that certain prior capacities do play a role, though not a central one since these do not pick out the relevant ability (responsiveness) required for learning to take place in the child. (shrink)

This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a (...) broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally. (shrink)

Psychological dualism (or dualism herein) purports that there is a complementary, non-material/physical, mind-active component associated with a living organism. Thus mind would not simply be an expression of brain function as confidently believed by neuroscience (and science in general). As earlier work has suggested that confidence can be brushed aside by considering some accepted unusual behaviors. One simple dualism-consistent example is terminal lucidity in which people return to psychological coherence shortly before death despite having been lost to “dull, unconscious, or (...) mentally ill” conditions, in some cases for years. Arguably framing these challenges to materialism, though, is genetics’ unfolding “missing heritability” crisis in which many expected DNA origins have not been found despite extensive searches. An associated soul-consistent explanation is that instead of DNA origins these innate characteristics reflect continuity associated with the earlier lives of incarnating souls (and of course with this some other particular explanations). Herein arguments for the existence of souls are considered for the very surprising case of multiple soul residency in a single organism. Discussions on this possibility focus on the stunning experiences of some heart transplant patients, and also the very difficult condition of Multiple Personality (or Dissociative Identity) Disorder. These two phenomena pose very difficult challenges for materialism (and brain function), and on the other hand are suggestive of the influences of additional souls. Finally, some of the implications of these extraordinary possibilities are briefly considered. (shrink)

In Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that those who seek to defend the moral permissibility of punishment should shift their focus from general justifying aims to moral side constraints. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment.

First published in 2005, A Theory of Secession: The Case for Political Self-Determination offers an unapologetic defense of the right to secede. Christopher Heath Wellman argues that any group has a moral right to secede as long as its political divorce will leave it and the remainder state in a position to perform the requisite political functions. He explains that there is nothing contradictory about valuing legitimate states, while permitting their division. Once political states are recognized as valuable because (...) of the functions that they are uniquely suited to perform, it becomes apparent that the territorial boundaries of existing states might permissably be redrawn as long as neither the process, nor the result of this reconfiguration, interrupts the production of the crucial political benefits. Thus, if one values self-determination, then one has good reason to conclude that people have a right to determine their political boundaries. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the view that it is metaphysically impossible for an entity to have a property, or stand in a relation, and not exist. Fine (1985) and Pollock (1985) influentially argue that this view is false. In short, there are properties like the property of nonexistence, and it is metaphysically possible that some entity both exemplifies such a property and does not exist. I argue that such arguments are indeed successful against the standard formulation of serious actualism. However, I (...) also argue that we should distinguish a weaker formulation of serious actualism using the actualist distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. This weaker formulation is then shown to be consistent with the existence and possible exemplification of properties like the property of nonexistence. I end with a novel argument for the truth of the weaker formulation. (shrink)

This essay seeks to illuminate the ethical concerns that animate Richard Rorty's philosophy. I argue that Rorty's ethics foregrounds as its central priority the issue of responsibility and frame Rorty's work as offering us a picture of ethical comportment in a postfoundational, pluralistic milieu, where citizens not only recognize the contingency of their own deepest beliefs but give up any sense of responsibilities owed to nonhuman authorities. To paraphrase Rorty, from any number of occasions, all we have to be responsible (...) to is each other. Yet Rorty goes even further than antiauthoritarianism in ethics. He not only shifts to thinking about ethics in terms of our relations to others; he specifically attunes this ethics to those who are suffering or excluded or merely previously unnoticed. What emerges is an alternative Rorty to the smirking gadfly blithely shrugging off criticism and incapable of inhabiting a position of moral seriousness. (shrink)

In Moral Knowledge?: New Readings in Moral Epistemology, editors Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Mark Timmons bring together eleven newly written essays by distinguished moral philosophers exploring the nature and possibility of moral knowledge. Each essay represents a major position within the exciting field of moral epistemology in which a proponent of the position presents and defends his or her view and locates it vis-a-vis competing views. The first chapter, written by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, provides a framework for understanding the basic concepts and (...) viewpoints in moral epistemology and presents a limited skeptical challenge to the justification of moral beliefs. The following essays represent various options in response to moral skepticism. Peter Railton and Simon Blackburn take different stances on moral truth and realism, Robert Audi defends a version of intuitionism, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord adopts coherentism, while R.M. Hare combines elements of both foundationalism and coherentism. Richard Brandt discusses the relevance of empirical science to moral knowledge, Christopher Morris develops a contractarian account of moral justification, and David Copp bases moral knowledge on rational choices by societies. Margaret Urban Walker aruges for a feminist perspective on moral knowledge, and Mark Timmons expounds contextualism in moral epistemology. The lively and clear selections do not presuppose specialized knowledge of philosophy, and the philosophical vocabulary used throughout the anthology is uniform, in order to facilitate understanding by those not familiar with the field. The first chapter includes a sustained critical discussion of the major views represented in the following chapters, thereby furnishing beginning students with appropriate background to understand the selections. The volume is further enhanced by an index and an extensive bibliography, which is divided into sections corresponding to the chapters of the book. Moral Knowledge provides the most up-to-date work on moral knowledge and justification and serves as an excellent text for undergraduate and graduate courses. (shrink)

Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it. These include such prominent figures as Gilbert Harman, Jesse J. Prinz, J. David (...) Velleman and David B. Wong. The term ‘moral relativism’ is understood in a variety of ways. Most often it is associated with an empirical thesis that there are deep and widespread moral disagreements and a metaethical thesis that the truth or justification of moral judgments is not absolute, but relative to the moral standard of some person or group of persons. Sometimes ‘moral relativism’ is connected with a normative position about how we ought to think about or act towards those with whom we morally disagree, most commonly that we should tolerate them. (shrink)

This insightful book uniquely charts the events, experiences and challenges faced by teachers during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic including periods of national lockdowns and school closures. Research-based and evidence informed, this key title explores the multiple media outputs created by teachers in a variety of different socio-economic contexts. The authors reflect on their stories through a series of themed analyses, as well as describe and discuss key issues related to the enactment of teacher professionalism in challenging times. With fascinating (...) vignettes and interview extracts that reinforce the idea that teachers can manage rather than survive, this book unveils a strong sense of moral purpose, professional identity, commitment, care, and resilience. It will be of interest to teachers, headteachers and teacher educators internationally. (shrink)

Plotinus, following certain Platonic cues, maintains that ‘we’ and ‘the true human being’ correspond to the rational part of the embodied human soul. This view is counterintuitive because it is natural to see ourselves and our humanity as including parts of the human organism additional to reason. In this paper, I propose that Plotinus’ view that we are our rational part is best understood as expressing a teleological claim. Since our proper end is an activity of the rational part of (...) soul, it is appropriate to identify our nature with that part of the organism alone. (shrink)

Between Sickness and Health is about illness rather than disease, and recovery rather than cure. The book argues that illness is an experience, represented by the feeling that 'I am not myself'. From the book's phenomenological point of view, feelings of illness cannot be 'unreal' or 'fake', whatever their biological basis, nor need they be categorised as 'physical', 'psychosomatic' or 'psychiatric'. The book challenges the disease-centred ethos of medicine and medical education. It demonstrates that a clearer conception of illness, as (...) distinct from disease, is therapeutic. The feeling that 'I am once again myself' can return, in some degree, whatever state the body is in. Resilience becomes more available when it is seen as a set of personal skills that can be developed, rather than as an inborn trait. Possibilities of wellness are enhanced by recognising that medical and other therapies can either support or impede recovery, as can human relationships and the socio-political environment. The book's many clinical examples are drawn from the author's broad experience as a neurologist, rehabilitation physician and systemic family therapist. Between Sickness and Health will be useful for students, practitioners and academics, and also for anyone who has been or might one day be ill. (shrink)

Any meaningful investigation into the potential validity of religious beliefs—including God—should prominently include their innate presence in children. That presence offers an enormous challenge to the scientific perspective and appears to be more relevant than established arguments. As an initial backdrop to discussions here, I begin with some quotes conveying the import of the contemporary scientific vision of life, as well as quotes conferring that vision’s underlying DNA reliance. The article will then briefly argue that that confident vision—and in particular, (...) its DNA reliance—is clearly flawed. The main discussions then consider the mysterious phenomenon of terminal lucidity before moving on to a focus on the plausibility of a DNA-based evolutionary explanation for the fact that “[t]he universal themes of religion are not learned” since they arrive as our natural religion. As an example of our increasingly secular era, the paper pauses to note Western Buddhism’s divorce from religious and/or deeper perspectives. Subsequent closing discussions critically consider the questionable state of neuroscience and the limitations of the existing approaches to supporting religious perspectives. For those wondering about deeper aspects of life—with or without an affiliation to an official religion—then I suggest digging in for yourself. Hubris aside, the natural sciences do not have a monopoly on understanding life, and the contrary assumption has caused big problems. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also to (...) create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

Activist artists often face a difficult question: is striving to change the world undermined when pursued through difficult and experimental artistic means? Looking closely at Adrian Piper's 'Four Intruders plus Alarm Systems' (1980), I will consider why this is an important concern for activist art, and assess three different responses in relation to Piper’s work. What I call the conciliatory stance recommends that when activist artists encounter misunderstanding, they should downplay their experimental artistry in favor of fitting their work to (...) their audience's appreciative capacities. What I call the steadfast stance recommends that activist artists have reason to use their privilege of artistic exceptionalism to challenge their audience's expectations, even if this leads to misunderstanding. I claim that a middle position that I call liberal conciliation best balances the demands for actual change placed on activism and the experimental means that artists bring to activism. (shrink)

Using the available data and literature on pandemics, this investigation looks into the COVID-19 crisis from an economic as well as social aspect, and elaborates the political and moral implications of the outbreak. The paper argues that globalization and consumerism contribute to the impact of the pandemic to the millions of lives around the world. It counters the idea of property rights to address issues related to the affordability of future vaccines and access of the poor to modern medicine and (...) advanced treatments. While strong leadership and draconian measures appear necessary to ensure the safety of the public, the analysis indicates that human solidarity is crucial to overcome the existential threat of this pandemic. Democracy, it will be argued, remains important as opposed to measures that violate the rights of people as societies try to contain the spread of the virus. (shrink)

Ectogestation involves the gestation of a fetus in an ex utero environment. The possibility of this technology raises a significant question for the abortion debate: Does a woman’s right to end her pregnancy entail that she has a right to the death of the fetus when ectogestation is possible? Some have argued that it does not Mathison & Davis. Others claim that, while a woman alone does not possess an individual right to the death of the fetus, the genetic parents (...) have a collective right to its death Räsänen. In this paper, I argue that the possibility of ectogestation will radically transform the problem of abortion. The argument that I defend purports to show that, even if it is not a person, there is no right to the death of a fetus that could be safely removed from a human womb and gestated in an artificial womb, because there are competent people who are willing to care for and raise the fetus as it grows into a person. Thus, given the possibility of ectogestation, the moral status of the fetus plays no substantial role in determining whether there is a right to its death. (shrink)

The mounting pressures of the climate -and ecological crisis organising politics under a “new climatic regime” (Latour 2017, 3). The epistemic and affective interference of Holocene collapse (author 2022) mobilises Minority-world liberal and far-right resistance, driving feedbacks that undercut democratic capacities for mitigation and adaptation (IPCC 2022). This paper proposes approaching such resistance through an “ecology of practices” (Stengers 2005, 2010), thereby delineating a shared modern timespace linked to affordances of whiteness. In response, the paper proposes a ‘politics of life’ (...) that displaces humanistic agency as the bearer of historical progress and territorial integrity. (shrink)

Of the different modes that characterize Michael Gilbert’s multi-modal theory of argumentation, the kisceral is in many ways the most challenging to understand and employ. It appears to bypass the processes of reason that have dominated accounts in the Western tradition, diverting us toward the private worlds of hunches and gut reactions. This paper explores the nature of kisceral arguments, comparing them to the way intuition operates in William James’ examination of mystical experience. Having provided an account of kisceral arguments (...) and their operation, the discussion turns to the even more challenging issue of how such arguments should be evaluated. (shrink)

Of the different modes that characterize Michael Gilbert’s multi-modal theory of argumentation, the kisceral is in many ways the most challenging to understand and employ. It appears to bypass the processes of reason that have dominated accounts in the Western tradition, diverting us toward the private worlds of hunches and gut reactions. This paper explores the nature of kisceral arguments, comparing them to the way intuition operates in William James’ examination of mystical experience. Having provided an account of kisceral arguments (...) and their operation, the discussion turns to the even more challenging issue of how such arguments should be evaluated. (shrink)

In _Discrimination Against the Dying_, Philip Reed argues, among other things, that ‘right to die laws (euthanasia and assisted suicide) also exhibit terminalism when they restrict eligibility to the terminally ill’. 1 Additionally, he suggests ‘the availability of the option of assisted death only for the terminally ill negatively influences the terminally ill who wish to live by causing them to doubt their choice’. 1 I argue that on scrutiny, neither of these two points hold. First, we routinely limit a (...) course of treatment to only those for whom we believe the treatment might provide a benefit. Typically, we do not think hastening death provides benefit when an individual is not experiencing a terminal illness. Thus, I conclude, either all treatments are discriminatory, or medical aid in dying is not. Second, I argue that permitting individuals to refuse or remove life sustaining care may very well cause... (shrink)

"Is higher education a right, or a privilege? This author argues that all citizens in a free and open society should have an unconditional right to higher education. Such an education should be costless for the individual and open to everyone regardless of talent. A readiness and willingness to learn should be the only qualification. It should offer opportunities that benefit citizens with different interests and goals in life. And it should aim, as its foundational moral purpose, to help citizens (...) from all walks of life live better, freer lives. Using concepts and ideas from liberal political philosophy the author argues that access to educational goods and services is something to which all citizens have a right over a full life. Such goods, it is argued, play a key role in helping citizens realize self-determined goals. Higher education should therefore be understood a basic social institution responsible for ensuring that all citizens can access such 'autonomy-supporting' goods. The book examines the implication of this justification of the right to higher education for questions of educational justice, political authority, distributive justice, civic education, and personal autonomy"--. (shrink)

A central dispute in the ethics of belief concerns what kinds of considerations can be reasons for belief. Nishi Shah has recently argued that the correct explanation of transparency in doxastic deliberation—the psychological phenomenon that only considerations taken to bear on the truth of p can be deliberated from to conclude in believing that p—settles this debate in favor of strict evidentialism, the view that only evidence can be a reason for belief. I argue that Shah’s favored explanation of transparency (...) fails to imply this result—that it leaves open the possibility that there can be non-evidential reasons for belief. The upshot is that practical non-evidentialists—those who hold that there are at least some non-evidential, practical reasons for belief—can happily accept the fact of transparency, and Shah’s explanation of it, without having to abandon their view. (shrink)

How does good combine with bad? Most creatures are neither so blessed as to only enjoy good nor so cursed as to only suffer bad. Rather, the good and bad they receive throughout their lives combine to produce their overall quality of life. But it’s not just whole lives that have combined good and bad. Many stretches within contain both positive and negative occurrences whose value is joined to form the overall quality of that span of time. In a single (...) morning someone might wake up, brush their teeth, stub their toe groggily lumbering down the stairs, and have a sip of coffee that’s tasty but so hot they burn their tongue. These events are good and bad for them to various degrees, and their value comes together to form an overall value for them of that morning. A single moment, even, can have combined value from distinct pockets of good and bad that occur simultaneously. The tastiness of the coffee is good, but the pain of the heat is bad. They combine to form an overall value of the sipping moment – negative if the pain outweighed the flavor. Thus, wellbeing and illbeing combine. But how? How can someone rightly chastise themselves for sipping the overly hot coffee when it was, in fact, good because it was tasty? To pose the question starkly, a life can be bad, even so bad to not be worth living, and yet it can have many instances of good, where these goods are, in themselves, pure of any negativity. But how can good make something bad? (shrink)

Can moral disagreements be rationally resolved? Can universal human rights be defended in face of moral disagreements? The problem of moral disagreement is one of the central problems in moral thinking. It also provides a stimulating stepping-stone to some of the perennial problems of philosophy, such as relativism, scepticism, and objectivity. _Moral Disagreements_ is the first anthology to bring together classic and contemporary readings on this key topic. Clearly divided into five parts; The Historical Debate; Voices from Anthropology; Challenges to (...) Moral Objectivity; Defenses of Moral Objectivity; and New Directions, the anthology presents readings from the following key thinkers: * Sextus, Empiricus, Chagnon, Wong, MacIntyre * Aquinas, Shweder, Brink, Rawls * Montaigne, Turner, Nussbaum, Narayan * Hume, Mackie, Gewirth * Nietzsche, Williams, Berlin. A distinctive feature of the anthology is that it brings philosophers into dialogue with well-known anthropologists. Also included is a comprehensive introduction by Christopher Gowans, introducing the problem of moral disagreement to those coming to the topic for the first time. (shrink)

We commonly explain the distinctive prudential and moral status of persons in terms of our mental capacities. I draw from recent work to argue that the common explanation is incomplete. I then develop a new explanation: We are ethically important because we are the object of a pattern of self-concern. I argue that the view solves moral problems posed by permissive ontologies, such as the recent personite problem.

We argue that the causal theory of memory and the simulation theory of memory are not as straightforwardly incompatible as they are usually taken to be. Following a brief review of the theories, we describe alternative normative and descriptive perspectives on memory, arguing that the causal theory aligns better with the normative perspective and the simulation theory with the descriptive perspective. Taking explanatory contextualism about perception as our starting point, we then develop a form of explanatory contextualism about memory, arguing (...) that, depending on the context in which we find ourselves, either the normative perspective or the descriptive perspective may be appropriate. It follows that, while the causal theory and the simulation theory cannot both be right with respect to a given perspective, and while it is necessary to choose one perspective or the other in a given context, there an important sense in which we need not choose between causalism and simulationism. We conclude by differentiating our position from and critiquing a related position developed by Craver (2020) and defending our position against objections. (shrink)

The ever-present possibility of death forces upon us the question of life's meaning and for this reason death has been a central concern of philosophers throughout history. From Socrates to Heidegger, philosophers have grappled with the nature and significance of death. In "Annihilation", Christopher Belshaw explores two central questions at the heart of philosophy's engagement with death: what is death; and is it bad that we die? Belshaw begins by distinguishing between literal and metaphorical uses of the term and (...) offers a unified and biological account of death, denying that death brings about non-existence. How our death relates to the death of the brain is explored in detail. Belshaw considers the common-sense view that death is often bad for us by examining the circumstances that might make it bad as well as the grounds for thinking that one death can be worse than another. In addition, Belshaw explores whether we can be harmed after we die and before we were born. The final chapters explore whether we should prevent more deaths and whether, via cryonics, brain transplants, data storage, we might cheat death. Throughout Belshaw shows how questions of personhood and life's value are bound up with our views on the sense and significance of death. "Annihilation's" in-depth analysis and insightful exposition will be welcomed not only by philosophers working on the metaphysics of death but also by students and scholars alike looking for a foundation for discussions of the ethics of abortion, euthanasia, life-support and suicide. (shrink)

Political epistemology is the intersection of political philosophy and epistemology. This paper develops a political 'hinge' epistemology. Political hinge epistemology draws on the idea that all belief systems have fundamental presuppositions which play a role in the determination of reasons for belief and other attitudes. It uses this core idea to understand and tackle political epistemological challenges, like political disagreement, polarization, political testimony, political belief, ideology, and biases, among other possibilities. I respond to two challenges facing the development of a (...) political hinge epistemology. The first is about nature and demarcation of political hinges, while the second is about rational deliberation over political hinges. I then use political hinge epistemology to analyze ideology, dealing with the challenge of how an agent's ideology 'masks' or distorts their understanding of social reality, along with the challenge of how ideology critique can change the beliefs of agents who adhere to dominant ideologies, if agents only have their own or the competing ideology to rely on (see Haslanger 2017). I then explore how political hinge epistemology might be extended to further our understanding of political belief polarization. (shrink)

This important book is the first serious philosophical examination of the modern state. It inquires into the justification of this particular form of political society. It asks whether all states are 'nation-states', what are the alternative ways of organizing society, and which conditions make a state legitimate. The author concludes that, while states can be legitimate, they typically fail to have the powers that they claim. Many books analyze government and its functions but none focuses on the state as a (...) distinctive form of political organization or examines critically the claims states make for themselves. In filling this lacuna Christopher Morris has written a book that will command the attention of political philosophers, political scientists, legal theorists, and specialists in international relations. (shrink)