There is a growing consensus in Britain on the importance of character, and on the belief that the virtues that contribute to good character are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing modern society. Parents, teachers and schools understand the need to teach basic moral virtues to pupils, such as honesty, self-control, fairness, and respect, while fostering behaviour associated with such virtues today. However, until recently, the materials required to help deliver this ambition have been missing in (...) Britain. The Knightly Virtues Programme, devised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, aims to help solve this challenge. The programme, designed for 9 to 11 year olds, draws on selected classic stories to help teach moral character in schools. This approach has proved to be popular with children and teachers, with more than 5,000 pupils from one hundred schools having participated in the programme so far. Fifty-five of these schools and 3,272 pupils were directly involved in different stages of the research. Based at the University of Birmingham, the Jubilee Centre houses leading academics dedicated to researching the various ways in which good character, which underpins the building blocks of society, can be developed. Recent research from the Centre has shown that the qualities that make up character can be learnt and taught, and suggests that we need a new emphasis on their importance in schools and in professional education. This report from the Centre into the use of classic literature within schools sets out the ways in which the Knightly Virtues Programme is able to develop the virtue literacy of school pupils, and the extent to which an understanding and awareness of good moral character can make positive changes to behaviour. The impact of the programme has been tested using several rigorous research methods, detailed in this report alongside their findings, which provide substantial empirical evidence for the effectiveness of using stories to develop virtue literacy. (shrink)

The aim of the My Character project was to develop a better understanding of how interventions designed to develop character might enhance moral formation and futuremindedness in young people. Futuremindedness can be defined as an individual’s capacity to set goals and make plans to achieve them. Establishing goals requires considerable moral reflection, and the achievement of worthwhile aims requires character traits such as courage and the capacity to delay gratification. The research team developed two new educational interventions – a website (...) and a hard-copy journal – with the specific aim of developing future-mindedness. After development, the website and journal were piloted over a one-year period by over 1,000 11–14 year olds in six schools across England. Various research methods, including group interviews and case studies, were implemented to assess impact. In addition, a pilot RCT was conducted to assess the feasibility of using experimental methods to measure character. The main findings from the research are that: - Students benefit from opportunities in school to think about future-mindedness; this can be successfully taught through character education. - Harnessing new technology, such as the Internet, offers exciting opportunities for character education. - It is beneficial to investigate the impact of new character education resources in order to bring greater clarity about ‘what works’. The most useful approach is a mixed methods one that allows for triangulation of evidence. - It is possible to run RCTs and other experimental research in schools to assess developmental projects of this kind, but applying the method in schools and creating suitable outcome measures present challenges for researchers. - A positive indicator of the success is that five out of the six pilot schools have embedded My Character into their curriculum. In addition, many new schools, both in Britain and internationally, have started to use the website and / or journal. This report describes the research, analyses the impact of My Character and concludes with recommendations for policy makers, practitioners and researchers embarking on similar projects. These recommendations include: i) advocating that schools create space in the curriculum to teach future-mindedness through character education; ii) enhancing traditional character education teaching methods with opportunities brought by Internet technologies; iii) evaluating character education interventions using triangulated evidence drawn from a mixture of research methods. (shrink)

Evidence of risk aversion in laboratory settings over small stakes leads to a priori implausible levels of risk aversion over large stakes under certain assumptions. One core assumption in statements of this calibration puzzle is that small-stakes risk aversion is observed over all levels of wealth, or over a â sufficiently largeâ range of wealth. Although this assumption is viewed as self-evident from the vast experimental literature showing risk aversion over laboratory stakes, it actually requires that lab wealth be varied (...) for a given subject as one evaluates the risk attitudes of the subject. We consider evidence from a simple design that tests this assumption, and find that the assumption is strikingly rejected for a large sample of subjects from a population of college students. We conclude that the implausible predictions that flow from these assumptions do not apply to one specialized population widely used to study economic behavior in laboratory experiments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Original Sin and the Problem of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe Peter Harrison It is not the philosophy received from Adam that teaches these things; it is that received from the serpent; for since Original Sin, the mind of man is quite pagan. It is this philosophy that, together with the errors of the senses, (...) made men adore the sun, and that today is still the universal cause of the disorder of men's minds and the corruption of men's hearts. Nicolas Malebranche 1In his Éloge du Pere Malebranche, delivered to the Parisian Academy of Sciences on 22 April 1716, Bernard Fontenelle recounted the story of Nicolas Malebranche's somewhat controversial conversion to Cartesianism. When friends and colleagues had taken him to task over his new-found commitment to the doctrines of Descartes, Malebranche responded with this question: "Did Adam have the perfect science?" It was agreed that this was the common view. Malebranche responded that he, too, aspired to the perfect science, and that his quest for this knowledge could not be satisfied by following the historical or critical pursuits of his colleagues, but by adopting the procedures set out by Descartes. 2 For Malebranche, the Cartesian method offered a means of overcoming the limitations of the fallen intellectual faculties of Adam's seventeenth-century descendents, and thus of restoring the fabled encyclopedic knowledge of the first man. [End Page 239]Aspirations to recover the science of Adam provided a common motivation for a number of early-modern philosophical projects. Earlier in the seventeenth century Francis Bacon had famously observed in his Novum Organum (1620) that the human dominion over nature which Adam had lost at the Fall could be restored in some measure by the sciences: "For man by the fall fell at the same time from this state of innocency and from his dominion over creation." The moral losses of the human race were to be restored in some measure by "religion and faith"; Adam's lost knowledge, and the dominion which it made possible, by "arts and sciences." 3 Bacon's vision of a reconstructed knowledge of nature during the period which he regarded (somewhat prematurely) as "the last times" clearly played an important role in legitimizing the goals and methods of the new natural philosophy. Indeed the program of the Royal Society of London from its inception in 1660 explicitly relied upon a Baconian rhetoric of the restoration of that human knowledge and dominion over nature which Adam had once enjoyed.While historians such as Charles Webster have alluded to the ways in which the myth of an original perfect philosophy motivated projects for the advancement of learning in a rather general way, little attention has been paid to the manner in which early-modern views of the nature of the original fall from knowledge directly informed the methods of the new sciences, determined the scope of their enquiry, and provided ammunition for use against traditional learning. 4 Moreover, most commentators, following Webster's lead, have restricted their attention to Francis Bacon, and to the Baconian aspirations of subsequent reformers of knowledge in seventeenth-century England. In this paper I shall suggest that the biblical narrative of the Fall played a far more direct role in the development of early modern knowledge—both in England and on the Continent—than has often been assumed, and that competing strategies for the advancement of knowledge in the seventeenth century were closely related to different assessments of the Fall and of its impact upon the human mind. While confirmation of this claim would require a more comprehensive study than space here permits, this paper will set out a number of preliminary considerations which establish the plausibility of such a thesis, showing how the biblical narrative of the Fall directly informed the epistemological projects of the seventeenth century, and prompted various rationalist and empiricist solutions. [End Page 240] The Mind of Adam There was an almost universal consensus in the sixteenth... (shrink)

To understand how small business entrepreneurs respond to government policy one has to know their risk and time preferences. Are they risk averse, or have high discount rates, such that they are hard to motivate? We have conducted a set of field experiments in Denmark that will allow a direct characterization of small business entrepreneurs in terms of these traits. We build on experimental tasks that are well established in the literature. The results do not suggest that small business entrepreneurs (...) are more or less risk averse than the general population under the assumption of Expected Utility Theory. However, we generally find an S-shaped probability weighting function for both small business entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs, with entrepreneurs being more optimistic about the chance of occurrence for the best outcome in lotteries with real monetary outcomes. The results also point to a significant difference in individual discount rates between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs: entrepreneurs are willing to wait longer for certain rewards than the general population. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Virtues of Animals in Seventeenth-Century ThoughtPeter HarrisonDiscussions about animals—their purpose, their minds or souls, their interior operations, our duties towards them—have always played a role in human self-understanding. At no time, however, except perhaps our own, have such concerns sparked the magnitude of debate which took place during the course of the seventeenth century. The agenda had been set in the late 1500s by Montaigne, who had made (...) the remarkable (if somewhat rhetorical) claim that animals were both moral and rational, and moreover, more moral and rational than humans. In the century which followed, Descartes, not to be outdone, put forward the even more contentious counter-proposal that animals were not only neither rational nor moral, but that they were not even conscious. The Cartesian hypothesis fueled a debate which continued until well into the eighteenth century. 1 While in recent years much attention has been given to issues of animal consciousness and cognition in seventeenth-century thought, the related question of the moral capabilities of animals has been by comparison neglected. In this paper I shall explore the converse side of the better known arguments about the rational capabilities of the beasts, focusing on seventeenth-century discussions concerning the behaviors and passions of the beasts and the extent to which animals were thought to participate in the moral universe of human beings.I. During the first sixteen hundred years of the common era, those thinkers who directed their attention to the natural world had tended to be preoccupied neither with questions of how animals came into being nor with the direct [End Page 463] causes of their various operations but rather with the question of why they existed at all. Almost without exception responses to this question were variations on a single theme: animals had been placed in the world to provide for the physical needs of human beings. 2 While this response proved to be satisfactory in general terms, there were acknowledged deficiencies. Many living things seemed to have been rather extravagantly designed for their putative purpose. Others seemed blatantly to contradict it. Why were our meat supplies, for example, not more conveniently presented, like the fabled Scythian lamb which grew on a tree? Why was it that a significant number of creatures appeared to be useless or even downright harmful to those whom they were designed to serve? And why, finally, were human beings created such that they were dependent upon lesser creatures for their survival?Responses to these difficulties generally took one of three forms, each of which was influential throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. First, it could be asserted that as a result of the Fall, human beings had forfeited their dominion over the creatures, many of which now served as instruments for their punishment and correction. Augustine observed that “there are many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts and so forth, which do not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment.” 3 In the seventeenth century this view still attracted many supporters. Thus Godfrey Goodman, in The Fall of Man (1616), wrote that “all the creatures, forsaking their first and naturall use, did serve for mans punishment, and rebelled against him.” 4Second, an appeal could be made to the Platonic principle of plenitude and the related idea of the chain of being. The principle of plenitude taught that more is better and that variety is preferable to uniformity. God, wrote the third-century Christian apologist Lactantius, “wished to display His providence and power by a wonderful variety of many things.” 5 It followed that all existing things could be ranged in a vast scale from non-existence to God himself, with each link in the chain separated from its neighbor by a small difference. Again, this view found many adherents in the early modern period. Thomas Robinson declared that “it was necessary that there shou’d be a variety of Natures, and [End Page 464] different Degrees of Life and Perfection.” Thus “every Creature even of the lowest Degree of Life, is Good and Perfect in its Kind.” 6 Important for our... (shrink)

An old conservative criticism of egalitarianism is that it is nothing but the expression of envy. Egalitarians respond by saying envy has nothing to do with it. I present an alternative way of thinking about the relation of envy to distributive justice, and to Rawlsian justice in particular. I argue that while ideals of justice rightly distance themselves from envy, envy plays a role in facing injustice. Under nonideal circumstances, less attractive features of human nature may play a role in (...) motivating the action necessary to push an unjust society in a more just direction. (shrink)

In a recent essay in this journal, Tom O’Shea defends socialist republicanism, marrying the value of freedom as nondomination to public ownership of the means of production. In this reply, I argue that the efficiency costs that often attach to public ownership may undercut the ability of the socialist republic to combat domination by public agents. I provide two reasons in support of this claim. First, the economic gains provided by efficiency can insulate individuals from the discretionary power of other (...) agents. Put briefly, the more wealth you have, the less the discretionary power threatens your basic interests. Second, the efficiency costs of public ownership also make it more difficult to hold accountable the managers of economic organizations. This shortcoming of O’Shea’s argument reveals a point hitherto neglected in the republican literature—caring about nondomination implies caring about efficiency. (shrink)

Martine argues that "the relation between the determinate and indeterminate dimensions of our experiences precludes any attempt to restrict our conceptions of intelligibility to the determinately biased models that we have used in the past". Consider the world we experience in our daily lives. We come into contact with all sorts of things. What these things are and what we know of them is determined as much by what they are not as by what they are. This suggests there are (...) boundaries to be drawn, but not eternal, unchanging, absolutely clear and distinct boundaries, between what is determinate and what is not. Yet our Western bias is for the absolutely clear, the certain. Such clarity, however, is found only in our maps of reality which, divorced from the phenomenal world, we confuse with that world. (shrink)

What are the relations, if any, between philosophy and literary style? Lang asserts "that the 'literariness' of philosophical writing is not accidental or ornamental but unavoidable--imbedded in that discourse and so also in its substantive questions and proposed solutions". Lang attempts to clarify and support his thesis in discussions of philosophy as literature and philosophy of literature.

Proponents of “broad scope” theories of intention argue that agents cannot intend to achieve given ends without intending certain inevitable or probable consequences. I shall argue that some Thomistic variants of these theories collapse into the Expectation View (EV), i.e., that we intend to produce all of the consequences that we expect to result from our actions. I shall then raise four objections to EV. First, EV falsely implies that we intend to produce all of the expected beneficial consequences of (...) our actions. Second, EV falsely renders altruistic self-sacrifice a species of suicide. Third, EV falsely implies that medical interventions with probable fatalities must involve intentional killing even when, of the available options, they offer the most likely prospects of long-term survival. Fourth, EV falsely implies that foreseeably fatal actions must involve intentional killing even when they will foreseeably prolong the agent’s life before killing him. (shrink)

:A common justification offered for unequal pay is that it encourages socially beneficial productivity. G. A. Cohen famously criticizes this argument for not questioning the behaviour and attitudes that make those incentives necessary. I defend the communal status of incentives against Cohen's challenge. I argue that Cohen's criticism fails to appreciate two different contexts in which we might grant incentives. We might grant unequal payment to someone because they demand it. However, unequal payment might be an offer instead. I claim (...) that incentives as offers promote the ideal of society as a cooperative venture for mutual advantage. (shrink)

Gallant hero of romantic film, who has just killed his equally gallant antagonist in a duel: ‘Was I wrong, father?’ Father : ‘You were both wrong; and you were both right, too.’ David Hume, speaking of moral sceptics, once said ‘And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder opinions‘. I am guilty of an (...) inconsistency of some kind in quoting the above passage from Hume with approval for, though everything Hume wrote ought to be quoted with approval, it is inconsistent to approve of advice, and then immediately to disregard it. I am also guilty of an inconsistency of another kind. Once upon a time I myself defended a version of moral scepticism, but I can say in mitigation of this deplorable act that my tongue was partly in my cheek at the time, which is where one's tongue should be on the occasion of addressing the Joint Session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society. (shrink)

After a preliminary discussion of the extent to which belief is voluntary, The author goes on to consider whether it can be our duty to induce belief. He considers the question whether we have a duty to believe that there is a God in relation to the more general question whether we have a duty to do what is right (what is objectively right), Or a duty to do merely what we think is right (what is subjectively right). He concludes (...) that we cannot have a duty to believe either what is true, Or to believe what we think is true, And so that we do not have a duty to believe that there is a god. (shrink)

I argue social and political freedom is not primarily about the absence of constraints, whether those constraints be in the form of interference or domination. Instead, social freedom is centrally about what makes us free. That is, the question of social freedom is first and foremost about determining the positive preconditions of being a free person within society. Social freedom is about what I call the social bases of freedom, or those features of our social world that we have a (...) reason to rely on in making plans or going about our business. (shrink)

Untangling the relationship of law and liberty is among the core problems of political theory. One prominent position is that there is no freedom without law. This article challenges the argument that, because law is constitutive of freedom, there is no freedom without law. I suggest that, once properly understood, the argument that law is constitutive of freedom does not uniquely apply to law. It also applies to social norms. What law does for freedom, social norms can do too. Thus, (...) I claim the question facing us is not the easy one of either law or social norms. Respecting this draws attention to the unique risks to our freedom introduced by both sets of norms. (shrink)

This essay argues that online public shaming can be productively understood as a problem of technology. In particular, the technology of public shaming is ambiguous between two senses. On the one hand, public shaming depends on various technologies, such as social media posts or, more historically, pillories. These are the artifacts of shame. On the other hand, public shaming itself is a social technology. In particular, public shaming is a way for communities to promote cooperation. Ultimately, I claim there is (...) a mismatch between the artifacts of shame and this important social technology of shame. Social media drifts toward disintegrative shame, which tends to corrode cooperation. This suggests that we must either realign the technology of public shame or reject shame as a legitimate option. (shrink)

Professor Körner's Experience and Conduct , like many other notable entities, is divided into three parts. Part I contains accounts of what Körner calls factual and constructive logic, some remarks on the logic of maxims and their consistency and adequacy, a chapter on probabilistic thinking, and another on preference theory. Part II contains chapters on the logic of action, on attitudes, upon the distinction between regulative and evaluative standards of conduct, on morality, justice, welfare, prudence, legality, and what Körner calls (...) ‘idealizations’. Part III, on the epistemology and metaphysics of practical thinking, contains chapters on rationality, evidence, moral pluralism and a final chapter on moral guidance. The amount of guidance one gets from this last chapter is, as one might expect, small. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bernard Harrison THE TRUTH ABOUT METAPHOR GOTTLOB frece introduced into philosophy two doctrines whose subsequent influence, on analytic philosophers at least, has been momentous. One is the doctrine that to understand a sentence is to know how to set about establishing die trudi-value of an assertion couched in those words. The other is the doctrine that a word has meaning only in the context of a sentence. These (...) doctrines make it hard to understand metaphor. They create difficulties, especially, for any theory of metaphor which assumes the intelligibility of talk about two kinds of meaning, literal and metaphorical. Frege's doctrines allow only one kind of meaning: one connected essentially with the issue of truth and falsity. But it is only when we take them literally that metaphorical sentences acquire a truth value: usually false. Two obvious suggestions offer ways of getting around this. The first is the suggestion diat metaphors are condensed or disguised similes: true or (sometimes) false statements about similarity. The second is the suggestion that a term used in a metaphorical context just has a different literal meaning from the one it has in a sentence intended to be taken literally. Neither is very plausible. The first reduces a metaphorical comparison, "Man is a wolf," to a literal statement of similarity, "Men are like wolves." But what similarity, exactly, is the statement supposed to be asserting? Perhaps that men prey upon one anodier, as wolves are supposed to do. But dien "prey" can only be meant metaphorically, at which point die puzzle revives. As Goodman says of die attempt to find a simile in the metaphorical assertion diat a picture is sad, "What die simile says in effect is that person and picture are alike in being sad, die one literally and the odier metaphorically. Instead of metaphor reducing to simile, simile reduces to metaphor; or radier, the difference between simile and metaphor is negligible." ' 38 Bernard Harrison39 An equally fatal objection to the second suggestion is diat it is only ifwe take die terms which compose a metaphor in their plain everyday senses that they compose a metaphor. As R. M. J. Dammann puts it, "IfGod is a rock in a different sense from that in which Gibraltar is one, then both are really, literally, rocks, just as what one buys in a sweetshop is rock, though a dissatisfied customer might call it such metaphorically."2 It cannot, in odier words, be literally true diat die process of understanding a metaphor involves changing the sense ofits constituent expressions, odierwise metaphor would evaporate in die reader's grasp into literality. What this suggests is diat what makes a sentence metaphorical is not any change in the meaning of its constituent expressions, but the way in which those expressions, with dieir plain everyday meanings, are combined in the sentence. What we need, perhaps, ifwe are to begin to understand metaphor, is not a dieory ofmetaphorical meaning, but an account of what it is to assert metaphorically: an account, diat is, which would operate at the level of die sentence rather than at diat of die word. But this returns us to Frege's two doctrines. If the meaning of a word is to be wholly identified with die contribution it makes to die determination of a truth value for each sentence in which it occurs, dien it is difficult to see how the constituents of a sentence could determine anything odier than a plain, literal meaning for the sentence as a whole. What I shall try to show in this essay is that this difficulty can be overcome : that we can give a satisfactory account of the semantic mechanisms of metaphor without giving up either of Frege's doctrines. As Frege thought, understanding a sentence is knowing how to set about establishing the truth or falsity ofassertions couched in diose words. But to say what, exacdy, someone knows in knowing diat demands, I shall argue, a more complicated story than Fregeans have supposed. First, diough, I want to consider a more radical strategy dian mine for squaring Frege's doctrines with our experience of metaphor, proposed by Donald Davidson.3 Davidson holds widi Frege that the... (shrink)

ABSTRACTNoncompete clauses, or agreements by employees to not work for a competitor or start a competing business, have recently faced increased public scrutiny and criticism. This article provides a qualified defense of NCCs. I focus on the argument that NCCs should be banned because they unfairly restrict the options of employees. I argue that this argument fails because it neglects the economist Thomas Schelling’s insight that limiting exit options can be beneficial for a person. This employee-based defense of NCCs does (...) not absolve all their uses, but it does give us a rough test for evaluating the permissibility of NCCs. With this test in hand, I turn to some of the more controversial uses of NCCs. For those who weigh heavily the interests of employees, the question is not whether NCCs, but when. (shrink)

Understanding more about how the brain functionsshouldhelp us understand economic behaviour. But some would have us believe that it has done this already, and that insights from neuroscience have already provided insights in economics that we would not otherwise have. Much of this is just academic marketing hype, and to get down to substantive issues we need to identify that fluff for what it is. After we clear away the distractions, what is left? The answer is that a lot is (...) left, but it is still all potential. That is not a bad thing, or a reason to stop the effort, but it does point to the need for a serious reconsideration of what neuroeconomics is and what passes for explanation in this literature. I argue that neuroeconomics can be a valuable field, but not the way it is being developed and “sold” now. The same is true more generally of behavioural economics, which shares many of the methodological flaws of neuroeconomics. (shrink)

I shall define a free action as one a man is able to do. Various things limit a man's freedom. The most unpopular is the government, or other people who have the power of preventing us from doing what we want. But our freedom is also circumscribed by lack of physical and mental strength or skill, including that of knowing how to manage other human beings. Other factors limiting our freedom are our ignorance, our passions and our habits. Some men (...) say they value their freedom from these things, especially their freedom from passion, so much that they would prefer to be in prison or on the rack rather than be a slave to them, but one suspects they exaggerate. (shrink)

Philosophers often assume that folk hold pain to be a mental state – to be in pain is to have a certain kind of feeling – and they think this state exhibits the classic Cartesian characteristics of privacy, subjectivity, and incorrigibility. However folk also assign pains (non-brain-based) bodily locations: unlike most other mental states, pains are held to exist in arms, feet, etc. This has led some (e.g. Hill 2005) to talk of the ‘paradox of pain’, whereby the folk notion (...) of pain is inherently conflicted. Recently, several authors have rejected the paradox view, arguing instead that folk hold a univocal, bodily view (i.e. pains are properties of various body parts, not of minds). This paper presents six objections to the bodily view of the folk concept of pain. We then outline a direction for future research – the ‘polyeidic approach’ – whereby the folk notion of pain is held to encompass various divergent (potentially conflicting) strands and we suggest that certain problems surrounding the treatment and communication of pain might be usefully be viewed through the lens of the polyeidic approach. (shrink)

The Parmenides stood in the way of other inquiries I wanted to pursue in Plato's works not only as an obstacle but as a challenge and necessary testing ground. The other dialogues seemed to be opening up to an interpretative effort that was more and more appropriated and effective, but then there stood the Parmenides, elaborately opaque, defying clarification. The temptation, easily disguisable in some scholarly way, was to formulate some idea of what the dialogue ought to be saying and (...) then stress this or that part of it to confirm one's assumption (the dialogue is, indeed, rich enough to nourish almost any preconceived idea), but once that temptation is detected and resisted, the only course left is to approach the dialogue with as willful an innocence as one can sustain in a determination to let that dialogue open up as it will. And so the attempt was made. -- Preface. (shrink)

A prominent position in the scholarly literature is that there is no duty to obey the law or political obligation. This is in contrast with lay opinion, which suggests widespread acceptance of political obligation. When confronted with this tension, skeptics of political obligation sometimes raise the possibility that lay belief is the product of sinister interests. Against this, I argue that, even if such a belief is false, belief in political obligation may operate as a useful fiction that advances people’s (...) interests. Drawing on empirical work in the social sciences, I suggest a belief in political obligation may contribute to effective governance. Even if political obligation skeptics are correct that there is no such duty to obey the law, lay belief in political obligation may play a valuable ideological function in society. (shrink)

This article explores the effect that communications technology has on hegemonic power. The first section establishes a theoretical framework combining Foucault’s carceral archipelago theory with Chiara Bottici’s concept of the social imaginal describing the medium through which inter- and trans-subjective imagination occurs. The remainder employs this framework to examine how four technological innovations (print media, radio, television and Internet) impact the (re)production of discursive hegemonic ideology, integrating a variety of historical and contemporary theories on public discourse and ideological dominance. I (...) conclude by arguing that each case demonstrates a dialectic pattern that explains the techno-social evolution of the carceral archipelago. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 2, Page 228-244, May 2022. Private property rights involve coercion against non-owners in their enforcement. As critics of private property point out, this coercion involves a restriction on freedom. Sometimes, such critics suggest that collective property expands rights of access, and therefore expands freedom relative to private property. Does this follow? This paper argues no. To make this argument, I look at two particular forms of collective property: open-access commons and closed-access communes. Both (...) may give rise to potential threats to freedom. This does not mean that collective property never expands freedom relative to private property. It only means we cannot infer from the fact that collective property rules extend rights of access that collective property expands freedom. The upshot is a need to pay more attention to how different property rights work in practice. (shrink)

Richard Penny argues that Rawls’s commitment to self-respect puts him at odds with his endorsement of unequalizing incentives. Penny draws on G.A. Cohen’s distinction between ‘lax’ and ‘strict’ readings of the difference principle to make this point. Given this, Penny concludes that Rawls faces a dilemma: either Rawls weakens his endorsement of unequalizing incentives or weakens his commitment to self-respect. By taking the difference principle in isolation, Penny creates a false dilemma. I will argue that once we place the difference (...) principle in the context of Rawls’s theory as a whole, we find that unequalizing incentives pose no danger to the self-respect of the least advantaged. Moreover, I will argue that a strict reading of the difference principle is incompatible with the self-respect of all citizens in a well-ordered society given the fact of reasonable pluralism. My arguments reveal the importance of seeing self-respect as a threshold good, rather than a relative one. (shrink)

My goal is to explicate the ontological framework of the human self that is required for radical discipleship. I do this through two notions: Christian love and Christian humility. To that end I explore the other- and the self-regarding aspects of humility and love, posing a problem for love and humility rooted in our typical notions of self-interest and phronesis. I then propose a way of rethinking humility and love in the context of a sketch of solidarity and an alternative (...) ontology of the self. (shrink)

If humans are not capable of immortality, then eschatological doctrines of heaven and hell make little sense. On that Christians agree. But not all Christians agree on whether humans are essentially immortal. Some hold that the early church was right to borrow from the ancient Greek philosophers and to bring their sense of immortality to bear on the interpretation of biblical passages about the afterlife. Others, however, suggest that we are inherently mortal, and only conditionally immortal. This latter view is (...) usually associated with an annihilationist interpretation of the doctrine of hell and a rejection of eternal torment. In a philosophical analysis and argument, McLeod-Harrison proposes that humans are, indeed, immortal, but not essentially so. But neither are we immortal accidentally or conditionally. Instead, immortality is an enduring property--a property we cannot lose once created. McLeod-Harrison carefully delineates the sense of immortality he defends and provides a broadly Christian philosophical argument for it. The argument, if correct, leaves the recent suggestion that the unredeemed are annihilated on unsteady metaphysical feet. However, McLeod-Harrison does not defend eternal conscious punishment for the unredeemed, but suggests some ways to think about the possibility of a universal salvation. ""McLeod-Harrison provides an admirably careful metaphysical analysis of the concept of human immortality, ultimately arguing for the impossibility of personal annihilation. Whether or not one finally agrees with his thesis, this work is an immensely valuable resource, especially as regards discussions of philosophical anthropology and the doctrine of hell."" --James S. Spiegel, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Taylor University ""In this fascinating, albeit complicated, argument against conditional immortality (annihilationism), the author makes no claim that the human soul is essentially immortal; he argues instead that, once a human offspring acquires a fully robust free will and thus becomes fully human, it is metaphysically impossible that it should cease to exist altogether. Whether or not one accepts every detail of this argument, it provides an original and intriguing twist to theological discussions of free will."" --Thomas Talbott, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Willamette University, Author of The Inescapable Love of God ""I often say the future of the hell debate is between conditional immortality and universal reconciliation, and it is no secret that I think the biblical case for the former is unassailable. However, while I am not persuaded by this volume's case for enduring and universal human immortality, it nevertheless promises to add precision to the language of immortality and to feature prominently in the philosophical side of that debate moving forward."" --Christopher M. Date, editor of Rethinking Hell: Readings in Evangelical Conditionalism Mark S. McLeod-Harrison is Professor of Philosophy at George Fox University. (shrink)

Christian feminist theory faces many stresses, some due directly to the apparent nature of Christianity and its seeming patriarchy. But feminism can also be thought inherent in Christianity. All people are made in God’s image. Christians should view women and men as equals, just as they should see peopleof all races as equals. The basic question discussed, within a biblical and philosophical framework, is if it possible for Christian feminist theory to hold thatthere is an essence to being a woman, (...) being a man or being human all the while recognizing vast differences among women, among men and among human persons? I propose a beginning solution to this problem. (shrink)

Christian feminist theory faces many stresses, some due directly to the apparent nature of Christianity and its seeming patriarchy. But feminism can also be thought inherent in Christianity. All people are made in God’s image. Christians should view women and men as equals, just as they should see people of all races as equals. The basic question discussed, within a biblical and philosophical framework, is if it possible for Christian feminist theory to hold that there is an essence to being (...) a woman, being a man or being human all the while recognizing vast differences among women, among men and among human persons? I propose a beginning solution to this problem. (shrink)

This essay takes on two challenges to universal pluralistic antirealism (UPA). One of those challenges is successful, so the universality of UPA is not entirely plausible. However, I propose that the best way to remain as close to the spirit of UPA is to be a theist. God is the only thing that needs to be outside the universal claim of UPA. However, even God is what God is partially within human noetic schemes. Since God is “in the mix” with (...) humans in terms of being a concept-user, God’s presence can solve the other challenge to UPA. UPA is thus replaced by nearly universal pluralistic antirealism (NUPA). The difference between UPA and NUPA, in the end, is not very great. (shrink)

Steven Hales defends philosophical relativism by arguing that rational intuition, Christian revelation, and shamanistic use of hallucinogens generate true but conflicting propositions. The alternatives to relativism are naturalistic nihilism and skepticism, both of which he rejects, leaving us with a limited, philosophical relativism. I summarize Hales’s position and undermine its defense by criticizing the handling of skepticism, proposing another way out of the trilemma.

In response to my Make/Believing the World(s), Efird argues that theistic irrealism provides the grounds for solving the problem of the Trinity. I argue that Efird is wrong so long as theistic irrealism is to remain consistent with traditional, orthodox Christianity. On his reading of theistic irrealism, the best he can provide is a modalist version of the Trinity.

Steven Hales’s defense of his philosophical relativism in “What to Do about Incommensurable Doxastic Perspectives” challenges a number of my criticisms made in my “Hales’s Argument for Philosophical Relativism.” I respond to each of these challenges and make a number of further observations about Hales’s position.

Can our caring about truth be rooted in “relaxed” naturalism? I argue that it cannot. In order to care about truth we need the universe to be capable of providing non-adventitious good, which relaxed naturalism cannot do. I use Michael Lynch’s work as a springboard to showing this claim.

Can our caring about truth be rooted in “relaxed” naturalism? I argue that it cannot. In order to care about truth we need the universe to be capable of providing non-adventitious good, which relaxed naturalism cannot do. I use Michael Lynch’s work as a springboard to showing this claim.

Traditional Christianity holds that God is a singular way, not dependent on the conceptual machinations of humans. I argue that God can be plural ways, different in different human conceptual schemes, all the while holding to traditional Christianity. In short, I provide a framework for an ontological pluralism that extends not just to the world being various ways but to God being various ways.

Traditional Christianity holds that God is a singular way, not dependent on the conceptual machinations of humans. I argue that God can be plural ways, different in different human conceptual schemes, all the while holding to traditional Christianity. In short, I provide a framework for an ontological pluralism that extends not just to the world being various ways but to God being various ways.

The high moral tone of Horace's Reguhls ode makes it unsurprising that the poet should employ the traditional imagery of philosophers, both in the speech of Regulus and in the final simile. I should like here to point out some instances which seem to have escaped the notice of commentators.This passage is intended to illustrate the lost ‘virtus’ of the prisoners in Carthage, who, Regulus claims, will be of no greater use to the Romans if ransomed since they were cowardly (...) enough to surrender in the first place. For the first image of dyeing wool Kiessling–Heinze refer the reader to Lucretius 6.1074–7:purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur unacorpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam,non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,non mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.This gives the first hint that the image belongs to the philosophical tradition, though it does not seem to occur in the extant remains of Epicurus. This is confirmed by a passage of Plato, who at Rep. 429d ff. has an elaborate image taken from the dyer's art. The Guardians of the ideal city are to be carefully selected and prepared like wool for the dyeing process of education; then, as good wool keeps its colour after dyeing, so the Guardians will keep right opinions when they are taught them. The image is summarized by Socrates at 430a ff. (shrink)

Simulation relations have been discovered in many areas: Computer Science, philosophical and modal logic, and set theory. However, the simulation condition is strictly a first-order logic statement. We extend modal logic with modalities and axioms, the latter’s modeling conditions are the simulation conditions. The modalities are normal, i.e., commute with either conjunctions or disjunctions and preserve either Truth or Falsity (respectively). The simulations are considered arrows in a category where the objects are descriptive, general frames. One can augment the simulation (...) modalities by axioms for requiring the underlying modeling simulations to be bisimulations or to be p-morphisms. The modal systems presented are multi-sorted and both sound and complete with respect to their algebraic and Kripke semantics. (shrink)