The loss of the federally protected constitutional right to an abortion is a threat to the already tenuous autonomy of pregnant people, and may augur future challenges to their right to refuse unwanted obstetric interventions. Even before Roe’s demise, pregnancy led to constraints on autonomy evidenced by clinician-led legal incursions against patients who refused obstetric interventions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that the right to liberty espoused in the Constitution does not extend to a (...) pregnant person’s right to an abortion. With Roe’s demise, the right to request specific types of care has been vitiated. The same argument underpinning that holding may now become ballast for attacks on the traditionally more robust right, the right to refuse. Here we discuss how the elevation of fetal and embryonic rights may lead to a cascade of medical intrusions and deprivations of liberty against pregnant persons, and offer an argument opposing these improprieties. (shrink)

In ‘Induction and Natural Kinds’, I proposed a solution to the problem of induction according to which our use of inductive inference is reliable because it is grounded in the natural kind structure of the world. When we infer that unobserved members of a kind will have the same properties as observed members of the kind, we are right because all members of the kind possess the same essential properties. The claim that the existence of natural kinds is what grounds (...) reliable use of induction is based on an inference to the best explanation of the success of our inductive practices. As such, the argument for the existence of natural kinds employs a form of ampliative inference. But induction is likewise a form of ampliative inference. Given both of these facts, my account of the reliability of induction is subject to the objection that it provides a circular justification of induction, since it employs an ampliative inference to justify an ampliative inference. In this paper, I respond to the objection of circularity by arguing that what justifies induction is not the inference to the best explanation of its reliability. The ground of induction is the natural kinds themselves. (shrink)

A brief article on faith as a psychological attitude.

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues to (...) do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

The new awareness of limits profoundly challenges dominant habits of mind and styles of life. Although Christians have largely adopted these now inappropriate habits and styles, the Christian tradition has resources for a more appropriate response. Among these resources are Christian realism, the eschatological attitude, the discernment of Christ, the way of the cross, and prophetie vision. Finally, faith offers freedom from the burden of guilt of failing to live in a way appropriate to our newly perceived reality.

Published in 1982 by CUP (pb. 2009) it discusses the forms of materialism then current, including Davidson, early Rorty, but concentrating on Smart and Armstrong, and arguing that central state materialism fails to give a better 'occurrent' account of conscious states than does behaviourism/functionalism, as Armstrong claims. The book starts with a version of the 'knowledge argument' and ends with a chapter claiming that our conception of matter/the physical is more problematic than our conception of mind.

Background: Current practice frequently fails to provide care consistent with the preferences of decisionally-incapacitated patients. It also imposes significant emotional burden on their surrogates. Algorithmic-based patient preference predictors (PPPs) have been proposed as a possible way to address these two concerns. While previous research found that patients strongly support the use of PPPs, the views of surrogates are unknown. The present study thus assessed the views of experienced surrogates regarding the possible use of PPPs as a means to help make (...) treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. -/- Methods: This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews to determine the views of experienced surrogates [n=26] who were identified from two academic medical centers and two community hospitals. The primary outcomes were respondents’ overall level of support for the idea of using PPPs and the themes related to their views on how a PPP should be used, if at all, in practice. -/- Results: Overall, 21 participants supported the idea of using PPPs. The remaining five indicated that they would not use a PPP because they made decisions based on the patient’s best interests, not based on substituted judgment. Major themes which emerged were that surrogates, not the patient’s preferences, should determine how treatment decisions are made, and concern that PPPs might be used to deny expensive care or be biased against minority groups. -/- Conclusions: Surrogates, like patients, strongly support the idea of using PPPs to help make treatment decisions for decisionally-incapacitated patients. These findings provide support for developing a PPP and assessing it in practice. At the same time, patients and surrogates disagree over whose preferences should determine how treatment decisions are made, including whether to use a PPP. These findings reveal a fundamental disagreement regarding the guiding principles for surrogate decision-making. Future research is needed to assess this disagreement and consider ways to address it. (shrink)

It has been repeatedly argued, most recently by Nicholas Maxwell, that the special theory of relativity is incompatible with the view that the future is in some degree undetermined; and Maxwell contends that this is a reason to reject that theory. In the present paper, an analysis is offered of the notion of indeterminateness (or "becoming") that is uniquely appropriate to the special theory of relativity, in the light of a set of natural conditions upon such a notion; and reasons (...) are given for regarding this conception as (not just formally consistent with relativity theory, but also) philosophically reasonable. The bearings upon Maxwell's program for quantum theory are briefly considered. (shrink)

The idea that our economic institutions should be designed meritocratically is back as a hot topic in western academic circles. At the same time political meritocracy is once again a subject of philosophical discussion, with some Western philosophers embracing epistocracy and Confucianism being revived among Eastern philosophers. This survey has the ambition, first, of putting differing strands of this literature into dialogue with each other: the economic with the political, and the Western with the Eastern. Second, we seek here to (...) impose order on the debates over meritocracy by carefully separating out the four steps that must be traversed on the journey to a meritocratic conclusion. Third we want to promote a more productive debate moving forward by cleanly pulling apart three kinds of purported merit base. (shrink)

It is common for young Christians to go off to college assured in their beliefs but, in the course of their first year or two, they meet what appears to them to be powerful defenses of scientific naturalism and crushing critiques of the basic Christian story (BCS), and many are thrown into doubt. They think to themselves something like this: "To be honest, I am troubled about the BCS. While the problem of evil, the apparent cultural basis for the diversity (...) of religions, the explanatory breadth of contemporary science, naturalistic explanations of religious experience and miracle reports, and textual and historical criticism of the Bible, among other things, don’t make me believe the BCS is false , I am in serious doubt about it, so much so that I lack belief of it. In that case, how can I have Christian faith? And if I don’t have faith, how can I keep on praying, attending church, affirming the creed, confessing my sins, taking the sacraments, singing the hymns and songs, and so on? I can’t, unless I’m a hypocrite. So integrity requires me to drop the whole thing and get out." Of course, our student is not alone. Many Christians find themselves for some portion of their lives somewhere on the trajectory from doubt to getting out. Indeed, Christians in the West struggle with intellectual doubt more than they used to, especially university-educated Christians. What should we say to them? Some will say “Get out!,” welcoming the development as a path to liberation. We explore a different response in this essay. (shrink)

This chapter starts by restating the causal-hallucinatory argument against naive realism. This argument depends on the possibility of “philosophers' hallucinations.” It draws attention to the role of what the chapter refers to as the nonarbitrariness of philosophers' hallucinations in supporting this argument. The chapter then discusses three attempts to refute the argument. Two of them, those associated with John McDowell and with Michael Martin, are explicitly forms of disjunctivism. The third, exemplified by Mark Johnston, has, the chapter claims, disjunctivist features. (...) None of these responses to the argument is plausible. (shrink)

The idea that science is objective, or able to achieve objectivity, is in large part responsible for the role that science plays within society. But what is objectivity? The idea of objectivity is ambiguous. This paper distinguishes between three basic forms of objectivity. The first form of objectivity is ontological objectivity: the world as it is in itself does not depend upon what we think about it; it is independent of human thought, language, conceptual activity or experience. The second form (...) of objectivity is the objectivity of truth: truth does not depend upon what we believe or justifiably believe; truth depends upon the way reality itself is. The third form of objectivity is epistemic objectivity: this form of objectivity resides in the scientific method which ensures that subjective factors are excluded, and only epistemically relevant factors play a role in scientific inquiry. The paper considers two problems that arise for the notion of epistemic objectivity: the theory-dependence of observation and the variability of the methods of science. It is argued that the use of shared standard procedures ensures the objectivity of observation despite theory-dependence. It is argued that the variability of methods need not lead to epistemic relativism about science. The paper concludes with the realist suggestion that the best explanation of the success of the sciences is that the methods employed in the sciences are highly reliable truth-conducive tools of inquiry. The objectivity of the methods of the sciences leads to the objective truth about the objective world. (shrink)

Whereas traditional nominalists accept the realist's challenge to solve a 'Problem of Universals', the Ostrich Nominalist responds that there is no such Problem to answer. I suggest that Ostrich Nominalist arguments expose a genuine flaw in the realist project. However, I argue, Ostrich Nominalism is ultimately defeated by a problem about the analysis of qualitative sameness and difference. Qualitative sameness and difference are adequately understood only as sameness or difference in some respect. The need to say what these respects of (...) sameness and difference are (if not universals) constitutes a genuine Problem of Universals; consequently—I claim—the Ostrich Nominalist is mistaken. (shrink)

A critique of Plantinga's free will defense. For an updated version of this critique, with a reply to objections from William Rowe and Alvin Plantinga, see my "The logical problem of evil: Plantinga and Mackie," in Justin P. McBrayer & Daniel Howard‐Snyder (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Problem of Evil, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 19-33.

An exploration of Immanuel Kant's account of war and the controversies that have arisen from its interpretation. This book brings the ideas of Kant's critical philosophy to bear on one of the leading political and legal questions of our age: under what circumstances, if any, is recourse to war legally and morally justifiable?

The problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ is the problem of explaining the difference between a content-expressing declarative sentence and a ‘mere list’ of referents. The prevailing view is that such a problem is to be solved metaphysically, either by reducing our ontology to exclude propositions or universals, or by explaining how it is possible for a certain kind of complex entity – the ‘proposition’– to ‘unify’ its constituents. I argue that these metaphysical approaches cannot succeed; instead the only (...) viable approach is linguistic, identifying features of the (type–) sentence itself that enable it to express a content. Thus the problem of the ‘Unity of the Proposition’ (distinguishing sentences from lists) is distinct from the problem of ‘propositional unity’ (explaining how the constituents of propositions form a unified content). I suggest that, while the latter problem is not pressing, the former does not permit of an answer which applies in generality in all languages; we can only fully explain the Unity of the Proposition for single languages or groups of similar languages. (shrink)

in eds. Yujin Nagasawa and Erik Wielenberg, New Waves in Philosophy of Religion (Palgrave MacMillan 2008).

This is a response to Dragan Jakowljewitsch's 'The Successes of Science and Scientific-Theoretical Realism: A Less Than Direct Connection'.

The paper takes off from the suggestion of Jouni-Matti Kuukkanen that Kuhn’s account of science may be understood in coherentist terms. There are coherentist themes in Kuhn’s philosophy of science. But one crucial element is lacking. Kuhn does not deny the existence of basic beliefs which have a non-doxastic source of justification. Nor does he assert that epistemic justification only derives from inferential relationships between non-basic beliefs. Despite this, the coherentist interpretation is promising and I develop it further in this (...) paper. I raise the question of whether Kuhn’s account of science can deal with the input objection to coherentism. I argue that the role played by problems in Kuhn’s theory of science ensures that there is input from the external world into scientists’ belief-systems. I follow Hoyningen-Huene in pointing to the causal role played by the external world in determining perceptual states. I next turn to the question of whether Kuhn’s rejection of foundationalism implies coherentism. I argue that Kuhn’s rejection of the one-to-one relation between object and experience is compatible with a foundationalist account of justification. Nor does Kuhn’s rejection of the given entail the same coherentist implications as Sellars’ critique of the myth of the given. (shrink)

This is a comment on Professor Holm Tetens' paper, 'Scientific Objectivity with a Human Face'.

The seminal work on Restorative Justice by one of the founders of the movement, now fully revised and updated. In a time of bitter differences and deep division, how should we as a society respond to wrongdoing? When a crime occurs or an injustice is done, what needs to happen? What does justice require? Howard Zehr is the father of Restorative Justice and is known worldwide for his pioneering work in transforming understandings of justice. Here he proposes workable Principles (...) and Practices for making Restorative Justice possible in this revised and updated edition of his bestselling, seminal book on the movement. Our legal system's approach to justice has some important strengths, but also some deep failings. Victims, offenders, and community members often feel that justice does not adequately meet their needs. Justice professionals--judges, lawyers, prosecutors, probation and parole officers, prison staff--are frustrated with the system's shortcomings, too. Many feel that the process of justice deepens the wounds and conflicts in our society rather than bringing healing and peace. Restorative Justice, with its emphasis on identifying the justice needs of everyone involved in a crime, is a worldwide movement of growing influence that is helping victims and communities heal, while holding criminals accountable for their actions. This is not a soft-on-crime, feel-good philosophy, but rather a concrete effort to bring justice and healing to everyone involved in a crime. In The Little Book of Restorative Justice, Zehr first explores how restorative justice is different from criminal justice. Then, before letting those appealing observations drift out of reach into theoretical space, Zehr presents Restorative Justice Practices. Zehr undertakes a massive and complex subject and puts it in graspable form, without reducing or trivializing it. This is a handbook, a vehicle for moving our society toward healing and wholeness. This is a sourcebook, a starting point for handling brokenness with hard work and hope. This resource is also suitable for academic classes and workshops, for conferences and trainings, as well as for the layperson interested in understanding this innovative and influential movement. (shrink)

Proposals for a universal basic income have reemerged in public discourse for a variety of reasons. Marx’s critique of exploitation suggests two apparently opposed positions on a basic income. On the one hand, a basic income funded from taxes on labor would appear to be exploitative of workers. On the other hand, a basic income liberates everyone from the vulnerable condition in which one is forced to sell one’s labor in order to survive, and so seems to be one way (...) of abolishing exploitation at its root. This paper will develop a conception of exploitation that resolves the conflict in favor of basic income. The conception of exploitation is grounded in a liberal egalitarian conception of justice rather than in Marx’s labor theory of value or an exclusive focus on the worker-capitalist relation. This position is not premised on an acceptance of the basic institutions of capitalism, but rather is a standpoint from which to evaluate them. It is not necessary to downsize our ideas of freedom and equality. But it is less obvious than it appeared in classic Marxist formulations that socialism is necessary for social justice. To quote the title of a famous article, there could be a ‘capitalist road to communism’, if a substantial basic income is feasible in a capitalist society. (shrink)

The word ‘meritocracy’ was coined by Michael Young in 1958 in his book The Rise of the Meritocracy (Young [1958] 2017]), and philosophical discussions under tha.

Alex John London’s new book, For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics highlights the fact that establishing just social arrangements is not only a matter of incentivizing popular will to act for the common good; it also requires filling in informational gaps about which policies, arrangements, and interventions will advance the basic interests of members in an equitable, effective and efficient manner. Promoting justice requires, in part, acquiring the knowledge for how to do so. In developing this point, (...) London carefully traces these missteps in the main philosophical debates and then resuscitates the importance of questions of justice at the heart of research ethics. In doing so, it provides a transformative corrective for the field. This review critically examines one of the central pillars of London’s egalitarian research imperative approach: the way in which the social value of research is closely linked with minimizing uncertainty among reasonable experts. (shrink)

From the scorched-earth works of action-movie provocateurs Seijun Suzuki and Sam Peckinpah to the cargo cult soundscapes of Pere Ubu and the Czech dissidents ...

This chapter contains sections titled: A Historical Survey with Interviews Moral Skepticism and the Serial Killer A Brief History of Serial Killers Serial Killers of the Ancient World Serial Killers of the Renaissance Serial Killers of the Nineteenth Century Serial Killers of the Early Twentieth Century The Golden Age of Serial Killers Serial Killers Today: Conversations on Motivation.

The history of physics ranges from antiquity to modern string theory. Since early times, human beings have sought to understand the workings of nature--why unsupported objects drop to the ground, why different materials have different properties, and so forth. The emergence of physics as a science, distinct from natural philosophy, began with the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries when the scientific method came into vogue. Speculation was no longer acceptable; research was required. The beginning of the 20th (...) century marks the start of a more modern physics. Physicists began to study the atom, with its electrons and its nucleus. Then they began to look at the fundamental question of the forces that hold the nucleus together and the particles that account for the natural forces. This book approaches the history of physics from a biographical point of view, considering people to be more interesting than things, and the combination of the two more interesting than the sum of the individual parts. After a brief overview of classical and modern physics, 336 one-page biographies of individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of physics are presented. (shrink)

El año 1962 vio la introducción, por parte de Kuhn y Feyerabend, de la tesis de la inconmensurabilidad de las teorías científicas . Desde entonces, la tesis ha sido debatida ampliamente y ha atraído muchos críticos. Su influencia aún es considerable, particularmente en las áreas de la historia y la filosofía de la ciencia interesadas en el cambio y la elección de teorías. Esta influencia se debe, en gran medida, a la inmensa popularidad de la obra maestra de Kuhn, La (...) Estructura de las revoluciones científicas, la cual asegura que la idea de la inconmensurabilidad continúe alcanzando un público amplio. Sin embargo, no es tan ampliamente apreciado que la versión de Kuhn de la inconmensurabilidad ha ido sufriendo, con el tiempo, un proceso continuo de revisión y clarificación. Como resultado de esto, la versión de la tesis por la que Kuhn es mejor conocido difiere notablemente de la versión que él asume en el presente. En este artículo presento un estudio del proceso de cambio, caracterizando las etapas principales por las que transcurre el concepto kuhniano de inconmensurabilidad. (shrink)

Islamic anthropology is relatively seldom treated as a particular concern even though much of the contemporary debate on the modernisation of Islam, its acceptance of human rights and democracy, makes implicit assumptions about the way Muslims conceive of the human being. This book explores how the spread of evolutionary theory has affected the beliefs of contemporary Muslims regarding human identity, capacity and destiny. In his systematic treatment of the impact of evolutionary ideas on modern Islam, Damian Howard surveys several (...) branches of Muslim thought. Muslim responses to the crisis of the religious imagination presented by the evolutionary worldview fall into four different forms, incorporating traditional and modern notions. The book evaluates the content, influence and success of these four forms, asking how Muslims might now proceed to address the profound challenges which evolutionary theory poses to the effective reconstruction of their religious thought. Drawing fascinating parallels with developments in the world of Christian theology which will help understanding between people of the two religions, the author reflects on the question of how Muslims can come to terms with the modern world. A valuable addition to the literature on contemporary Islamic thought, this book will also interest students and scholars of religion and modernity, the history and philosophy of science, and evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Basic concepts -- Identifying arguments -- Logic and language -- Informal fallacies -- Categorical logic: statements -- Categorical logic: syllogisms -- Statement logic: truth tables -- Statement logic: proofs -- Predicate logic -- Induction -- Probability.

This book explores and defends George Saunders’ causal thesis that successful stories are those that establish causation well. The book includes an in-depth discussion of causation’s role in several different key craft elements of fiction writing and examines different theories of causation and their implications for causation in fiction. Other discussions include the role of causation in building suspense, character and causation, causation in dialogue and connections between fiction and counterfactuals (or hypotheticals). The book also considers a number of objections (...) to the causal thesis and offers a reply. (shrink)

The studies comprising this volume, most of them appearing for the first time in English, deal with some of the main topics in Maimonides? philosophy and that of his followers in Provence. At the heart of these topics lies the issue of whether they adopted a completely naturalistic picture of the workings of the world order, or left room for the volitional activity of God in history. These topics include divine law, creation, the Account of the Chariot, prophet and sage, (...) Mosaic prophecy, reasons for the commandments, and prayer. Special attention is paid to three lesser known but highly significant Provenȧl Jewish thinkers: Moses Ibn Tibbon, Levi ben Avraham, and Nissim ben Moses of Marseille. (shrink)

• Explores various aspects of the concept of forward-looking collective responsibility and its application • Presents fifteen articles written by leading philosophers from around the world • Extends the philosophical discussion of collective responsibility and collective morality towards future collective action.

The book is a comparative analysis of all the major social science/political science grand theories. It focuses on developmentalism, dependency theory, the world systems approach, Marxism, institutionalism, rational choice, psychoanalysis, political sociology, sociobiology, environmentalism, neuro-politics, transitions to democracy, and non-Western systems of analysis. To facilitate comparison and analysis, a common framework and outline are employed throughout. An integrating introduction and conclusion help tie the book together.

Critical Reflections on Teacher Education argues that educational philosophy can improve the quality of teacher education programs in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The book documents the ways in which the market model of education propagated by governments and outside agencies hastens the decline of philosophy of education and turns teachers into technicians in hierarchical school systems. A grounding in educational philosophy, however, enables future teachers to make informed and qualified judgements defining their professional lives. In a (...) clear and accessible style, Howard Woodhouse uses a combination of reasoned argument and narrative to show that educational philosophy, together with Indigenous knowledge systems, forms the basis of a climate change education capable of educating students about the central issue of our time. (shrink)