This volume is devoted entirely to exploring the role of animals in the thought of Immanuel Kant. Leading scholars address questions regarding the possibility of objective representation and intentionality in animals, the role of animals in Kant's scientific picture of nature, the status of our moral responsibilities to animals' welfare, and more.

In the last two decades, interest in narrative conceptions of identity has grown exponentially, though there is little agreement about what a "life-narrative" might be. In connecting Kierkegaard with virtue ethics, several scholars have recently argued that narrative models of selves and MacIntyre's concept of the unity of a life help make sense of Kierkegaard's existential stages and, in particular, explain the transition from "aesthetic" to "ethical" modes of life. But others have recently raised difficult questions both for these readings (...) of Kierkegaard and for narrative accounts of identity that draw on the work of MacIntyre in general. While some of these objections concern a strong kind of unity or "wholeheartedness" among an agent's long-term goals or cares, the fundamental objection raised by critics is that personal identity cannot _be_ a narrative, since stories are artifacts made by persons. In this book, Davenport defends the narrative approach to practical identity and autonomy in general, and to Kierkegaard's stages in particular. (shrink)

This book examines Aristotle's critical reaction to the mathematical cosmology of Plato's Academy, and traces the aporetic method by which he developed his own ...

The 1990s saw a revival of interest in Kierkegaard's thought, affecting the fields of theology, social theory, and literary and cultural criticism. The resulting discussions have done much to discredit the earlier misreadings of Kierkegaard's works.

Towards the conclusion of the First Section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant describes a process whereby a subject can undergo a kind of moral corruption. This process, which he calls a “natural dialectic”, can cause one to undermine one’s own or¬dinary grasp of the demands of morality. Kant also claims that this natural dialectic is the basis of the need for moral philosophy itself, since first-order moral reasoning is insufficient to protect against it. I show that (...) this passage is closely related to another in the First Section, one where Kant warns against the threat of “misology”, or the hatred of reason. I argue that both these passages must be read as engaging with specific claims from Rousseau’s writings. Uncovering the historical context and rhetorical function of Kant’s account of moral self-deception can re-orient the reader to his ambitions for the Groundwork itself. (shrink)

Pragmatism, Postmodernism and the Future of Philosophy is a vigorous and dynamic confrontation with the task and temperament of philosophy today. In this energetic and far-reaching new book, Stuhr draws persuasively on the resources of the pragmatist tradition of James and Dewey, and critically engages the work of Continental philosophers like Adorno, Foucault, and Deleuze, to explore fundamental questions of how we might think and live differently in the future. Along the way, the book addresses important issues in public policy, (...) university administration, spirituality, and the notion of community and its meaning in a global world of difference. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of philosophy, and the ways in which philosophical thinking can help us live better, more fulfilling lives. (shrink)

This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on key terms and ...

Cleary discusses the origin, development, and use of the many senses of priority as a central thesis in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Cleary contends that one of the most revealing problems for the ambiguity of Aristotle’s relationship to Platonism is that of the ontological status of mathematical objects. In support of his claim, Cleary analyzes a curious passage from Aristotle’s _Topics, _where he appears to accept a schema of priorities that makes mathematical entities more substantial than sensible things. How does Aristotle try (...) to reconcile the ordering of things dictated by sciences like mathematics and dialectic with the ordering of sense experience upon which his own physics and metaphysics are based? To find the answer, Cleary reviews three different outlines of the many senses of priority given by Aristotle himself and found in _Categories _12-13, _Metaphysics _Delta 11, and _Metaphysics _Theta 8. Cleary suggests there is an implicit hierarchy for Aristotle that leads him to posit the Prime Mover at its apex as complete actuality and, therefore, as the focus for the concept of priority. Having reviewed Aristotle’s treatment of the many uses of priority, Cleary demonstrates how the concept is used in some typical arguments by Aristotle for his mature metaphysical positions. (shrink)

This article argues for a social proviso concerning capital endowments that is analogous to Locke's original proviso on access to productive natural capital.

The role of analogy appears in surprisingly different areas of the first Critique. On the one hand, Kant considered the concept to have a specific enough meaning to entitle the principle concerned with causation an analogy; on the other hand we can find Kant referring to analogy in various parts of the Transcendental Dialectic in a seemingly different manner. Whereas in the Transcendental Analytic, Kant takes some time to provide a detailed (if not clear) account of the meaning of the (...) term ‘analogy’ and his reasons for his employment of it, in the Transcendental Dialectic on the other hand, Kant’s employment of the term seems far less technical. It would seem on the face of it, that Kant has two senses of ‘analogy’: one technical sense reserved for those constitutive principles of the understanding as laid out in the Analytic, and another casual and commonplace use of the term. This picture, although it contains elements of truth, is ultimately misleading. I argue for three claims in this paper. Firstly, I suggest that there can be found in the first Critique a unified conception of analogy. Secondly, I argue that Kant self-consciously differentiated his employment of analogy from the employment that can be found in many early modern philosophers, e.g. Locke. Thirdly, I will tentatively suggest that this interpretation of analogy can aid us in addressing certain contentious areas of transcendental idealism, most notably the account of causation. (shrink)

From the "New York Times" bestselling author of "If I Stay" Allyson Healeys life is exactly like her suitcase--packed, planned, ordered. Then on the last day of her three-week post-graduation European tour, she meets Willem. A free-spirited, roving actor, Willem is everything shes not, and when he invites her to abandon her plans and come to Paris with him, Allyson says yes. This uncharacteristic decision leads to a day of risk and romance, liberation and intimacy: 24 hours that will transform (...) Allysons life. A book about love, heartbreak, travel, identity, and the "accidents" of fate, "Just One Day" shows us how sometimes in order to get found, you first have to get lost... and how often the people we are seeking are much closer than we know. The first in a sweepingly romantic duet of novels. Willems story--"Just One Year"--is coming soon. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy, the will is often regarded as a sheer philosophical fiction. In Will as Commitment and Resolve , Davenport argues not only that the will is the central power of human agency that makes decisions and forms intentions but also that it includes the capacity to generate new motivation different in structure from prepurposive desires. The concept of "projective motivation" is the central innovation in Davenport's existential account of the everyday notion of striving will. Beginning with the contrast (...) between "eastern" and "western" attitudes toward assertive willing, Davenport traces the lineage of the idea of projective motivation from NeoPlatonic and Christian conceptions of divine motivation to Scotus, Kant, Marx, Arendt, and Levinas. Rich with historical detail, this book includes an extended examination of Platonic and Aristotelian eudaimonist theories of human motivation. Drawing on contemporary critiques of egoism, Davenport argues that happiness is primarily a byproduct of activities and pursuits aimed at other agent-transcending goods for their own sake. In particular, the motives involved in virtue and in its practice as understood by Alasdair MacIntyre are projective rather than eudaimonist. This theory is supported by analyses of radical evil, accounts of intrinsic motivation in existential psychology, and contemporary theories of identity-forming commitment in analytic moral psychology. Following Viktor Frankl, Joseph Raz, and others, Davenport argues that Harry Frankfurt's conception of caring requires objective values worth caring about, which serve as rational grounds for projecting new final ends. The argument concludes with a taxonomy of values or goods, devotion to which can make life meaningful for us. (shrink)

This essay argues for a new conception of bad faith based partly on Harry Frankfurt's famous account of personal autonomy in terms of higher‐order volitions and caring, and based partly on Sartre's insights concerning tacit or pre‐thetic attitudes and “transcendent” freedom. Although Sartre and Frankfurt have rarely been connected, Frankfurt's concepts of volitional “wantonness” and “bullshit” (wantonness about truth) are similar in certain revealing respects to Sartre's account of bad faith. However, Sartre leaves no room for Frankfurt's central point that (...) people can volitionally commit themselves to develop certain motives and reduce others, thereby shaping an authentic identity through volitional “identification” and “alienation” of motives. Frankfurt in turn minimizes the role that a sense of liberty to form and alter higher‐order volitions plays in experiences of autonomy, which Sartre recognizes in the transcendence of the “for‐itself.” When these points are combined, we get a tri‐level theory of intrasubjective volitional stances that explains Sartre's cases better than his own theory can, and also clarifies how sincere or procedurally autonomous self‐relation is possible. (shrink)

I argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism and Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics are both examples of what I call methodological conservativism. Methodological conservativism involves the claim that a subset of common first-order beliefs is immune to revision. I argue that there are striking differences between their respective commitments to this position, however. For Kant, his conservativism is based upon a commitment to the reliability of particular results of the sciences of his day. For Strawson, in contrast, his conservativism is based upon his (...) attempted liberation of arguments for the necessity of a certain conceptual scheme from any particular scientific commitments. In fact, for Strawson, no change in scientific commitments could displace the conceptual scheme employed to navigate the manifest world of ordinary perceptual experience. Each approach brings with it challenges with regard to how to accommodate potential scientific theory change. (shrink)

It is often maintained that one insight of Kant's Critical philosophy is its recognition of the need to distinguish accounts of knowledge acquisition from knowledge justification. In particular, it is claimed that Kant held that the detailing of a concept's acquisition conditions is insufficient to determine its legitimacy. I argue that this is not the case at least with regard to geometrical concepts. Considered in the light of his pre-Critical writings on the mathematical method, construction in the Critique can be (...) seen to be a form of concept acquisition, one that is related to the modal phenomenology of geometrical judgement. (shrink)

It is quite common when explicating the nature of Kant's break with the preceding Early Modern tradition to cite his attitude towards the acquisition and deployment of concepts. It is claimed that Kant sought to distinguish two tasks that had become unfortunately intertwined and conflated — explaining how we come to acquire our concepts on the one hand and showing how we are justified in deploying them in judgement on the other. This conflation can be expressed in terms of a (...) conflation of the natural and the normative, of descriptive and prescriptive questions. The topic of the conditions ofconcept-possession, i.e. how we have come to possess the concepts that we do, is an entirely psychological inquiry, involving ‘natural’ descriptive inquiries. The topic ofconcept-deployment, the story about how we use our concepts in veridical judgements about the world, is an entirely philosophical question, since it involves the question of how weoughtto deploy those concepts in judgement. The fundamental distinction between the natural and the normative is drawn by Kant, it is claimed, in order to distinguish these two practices of acquisition and deployment.The manner in which this claim is expressed is through Kant's distinction between the question of fact (quaestio facti) and the question of right (quaestio juris). I want to claim that a proper understanding of this distinction doesn't support this notion of Kant's ‘normative turn’. In fact, the distinction is best understood within an interpretation whereby Kant is understood as continuing to endorse the Early Modern conviction that the provision of a concept's possession-conditionsissufficient to determine that concept's deployment-conditions, and that the task of the Transcendental Deduction is to determine thepossession-conditions for the Categories. (shrink)

It took nearly two thousand years for society to recognize the Hippocratic insistence that “the doctor knows best”1 was an inadequate approach to medical decisionmaking. Today, patient-centered medicine has come to understand that the individual patient has a significant role in the decisionmaking process.2.

The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the "Continental" school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the "analytic" school derived from Frege-is finally closing.

I have argued that like Harry Frankfurt, Augustine implicitly distinguishes between first-order desires and higher-order volitions; yet unlike Frankfurt, Augustineheld that the liberty to form different possible volitional identifications is essential to responsibility for our character. Like Frankfurt, Augustine recognizes that we can sometimes be responsible for the desires on which we act without being able to do or desire otherwise; but for Augustine, this is true only because such responsibility for inevitable desires and actions traces (at least in part) (...) to responsibility for our volitional identifications, which in turn has leeway-libertarianconditions. However, David Hunt has interpreted Augustine’s account of divine foreknowledge as implying a type of source-incompatibilism that does not require alternative possible actions or intentions. Moreover, while Eleonore Stump’s account of Augustine on sanctification supports my interpretation, Augustine’s position on predestination in his latest writings may be incompatible with liberty of the higher-order will. I will argue against Hunt’s interpretation but admit that the leeway-libertarian has to reject the ‘no autonomy’ model in some of Augustine’s late writings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:From Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ by Patrick S. ChengJohn J. AndersonFrom Sin to Amazing Grace: Discovering the Queer Christ PATRICK S. CHENG New York: Seabury Books, 2012. 192 pp. $24.00The Christian doctrines of sin and grace are often avoided by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) Christians today because of the ways that community has been harmed by the label “sinner.” Yet, Patrick Cheng (...) argues, these doctrines remain important to discuss. What is needed is not an avoidance of [End Page 241] these doctrines but rather a reframing of them. Writing from his perspective as a gay Asian American, Cheng offers new ways to understand sin and grace within the framework of a queer understanding of Christ.The book is organized into two parts. In part 1, Cheng argues that theologies of sin and grace are problematic because they have been defined in the West by a “crime-based” model. In this view, he argues, sin is a crime against God requiring punishment, and grace is acquittal and rehabilitation from that crime. Cheng outlines the development of this model from Augustine to John Calvin and argues that such a model is “inadequate and maybe even dangerous for LGBT people” (36). He rejects the crime-based model in favor of what he calls a “Christ-centered” model. In this view, sin is “immaturity” and grace is theosis or “becoming more like God” (54).In part 2, the fruitfulness of Cheng’s Christ-centered approach becomes apparent as he outlines how LGBT persons can interpret sin and grace in light of the Queer Christ. Cheng presents seven different models for understanding Christ offered by various queer theologians. Sin and grace are then understood in light of each particular model. For example, one Christ model that Cheng offers is the “Out Christ.” Here, the person of Jesus Christ is understood as God’s “coming out” to humanity; God reveals Godself most fully through Christ. Through this lens, sin is the “closet” and grace becomes the “courage” to come out. Thus, coming out of the closet is understood as part of theosis: by sharing one’s most authentic self with others, one becomes more like the God who desires authenticity and openness.One of the strengths of Cheng’s work is his analysis of the history of the doctrines of sin and grace and how they have had an impact on the LGBT community. Of particular note is his argument that the crime-based model is rooted in “a deep-seated fear of collective punishment” by God and that same-sex and gender variant acts have often been considered the cause of such punishment (40). Nonetheless, Cheng’s engagement of various theologians is often not deep enough. His chapters read at times like short summaries of one theologian after another. To be sure, this tendency demonstrates Cheng’s encyclopedic knowledge of the field, but it also does not permit enough critical depth to satisfy some scholars. This is perhaps due to the fact that he intends the book to be accessible to a lay audience—which it is. Each chapter ends with discussion questions that make it a good fit for undergraduate courses and church education classes. Furthermore, Cheng’s definitions of sin and grace tend to be presented as polar opposites. For example, in one Christ model, he defines sin as shame and grace as pride. Yet recent work in queer theory has criticized this dichotomy, revealing the limits of discourse about pride and the creative potential of shame. For many LGBT Christians, of course, it can be powerful to think of shame itself as a sin rather than feeling shame for being [End Page 242] called sinner, but Cheng’s discussion of this could be more nuanced. All in all, however, Cheng succeeds in providing a fresh vocabulary for discussing sin and grace, and his work will help a wide audience of Christians find new value in these classic doctrines.John J. AndersonMerrimack CollegeCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

My purpose in this dissertation is to delineate and evaluate William James's new psychology in The Principles of Psychology. James's avowed aim in his text is to divorce psychology from metaphysics and to treat psychology like a natural science. Psychology is to become more scientific, and is thus to become more conscious of its own goals and its limits. James's aim, in short, is to help psychology become the science of the human mind--of "finite individual minds." ;What James does is (...) to single out a new starting point for psychology by connecting consciousness with life and not with certain metaphysical hypotheses. Indeed, it is through the ordinary manifestations of consciousness that we may renew a contact with consciousness that a more cerebral psychology has lost. Such, in any case, is the revolt that James initiated against the spiritualist and associationist theories, the biological conceptions, and the experimental methods in psychology of his day; and with that revolt he launched a mode of thought that has also escaped the neat formulae of contemporary philosophy. To be sure, he came to be claimed by prominent philosophers as one of the pioneering spirits in the existential, phenomenological, and British analytic modes of thought in philosophy. ;Despite these honorific readings of James, I do not think them sound, for they do not take appropriate notice of the avowed aim and the central message of the pioneer. On the contrary, as I shall show, existentialism, phenomenology, and British analytic philosophy of Wittgenstein and Russell, have moved in an altogether opposite direction from James; in doing so, they have thereby served to foster the disintegration of the finite individual mind. (shrink)

This article defends the Responsibility to Protect doctrine against critiques by Fabrice Weissman in this journal, and against similar criticisms of humanitarian intervention and human rights norms made by postmodern thinkers in the Nietzschean tradition, such as Alain Badiou and Anne Orford. I argue against Weissman that R2P can be effective in stopping or preventing mass atrocities, and in particular that opposition to military intervention in Syria during the 2013 debates was a terrible mistake. Moreover, the moral ground for humanitarian (...) aid efforts is the same as the basis for forceful rescue from mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, and persecution. Weissman's critiques misinterpret just war theory on key points and rely on inflated rhetorical strategies inspired by extreme forms of cultural and moral relativism that are intellectually bankrupt—both in blaming “Western imperialism” for most crimes against humanity committed by tyrants, and in leaving hundreds of thousands without the only protection that could prevent their murder and exile. These extreme positions and the strained rhetorical devices used to defend them do not deserve the wide respect they command in some parts of academia. (shrink)

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I (...) consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self-defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth-century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the "just authority" of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near-unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions. (shrink)

This article evaluates Emmanuel Levinas's novel "ethical metaphysics" of interpersonal relations from a religious perspective. Levinas presents a unique version of agape ethics that can be evaluated in terms of a number of the dilemmas that have traditionally attended Christian discussions of neighbor-love. Because Levinas's analysis makes our responsibility for other persons depend on their eschatological significance, it has the same problems that hamper all theories of neighbor-love that lack a sufficient role for reciprocity.

Many Protestant denominations have or recently had policies that prohibit “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained. By only prohibiting “practicing” homosexuals, proponents of these policies claim that they do not discriminate against homosexuals as a group since, technically, a homosexual can still be ordained as long as she is “non-practicing.” In other words, a condemnation of homosexual practice is not the same as a condemnation of homosexual persons. I argue that this is not the case; the rhetoric of homosexual practice (...) does, in fact, amount to a condemnation of gays and lesbians. It does so by conflating the two things it claims to keep separate—homosexual conduct and homosexual identity. I demonstrate this conflation by analyzing the history of this rhetoric and how it has been adjudicated in church court decisions from the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA). (shrink)

THE most prevalent interpretation of Hegel’s political philosophy charges him with a glorification and even a divinization of the Prussian State of his day at the expense of the freedom of the individual. This interpretation has its origins in the existentialist critique of Hegel. Kierkegaard, for example, in his evaluation of Hegel’s philosophy of history abhors the apparent deification of the existing State as the manifestation of the Objective Spirit since it robs the individual of his freedom, responsibility, and dignity. (...) ‘The derelict Hegelian ethics, with its desperate attempt to make the State the court of last resort, is a most unethical attempt to reduce the individual to finitude.…’ Karl Popper has helped to perpetuate this interpretation by the existentialists by claiming that according to Hegel ‘the State is everything and the individual nothing’. William Shirer has claimed that one can trace the rise of the second and third Reichs to Hegel’s ‘ringing glorification of the State as supreme in human life’. In determining the validity of this interpretation we shall examine Hegel’s statements on the nature of the ideal State, his evaluations of existing States and ancient States, and his detailed position on the rights of citizens within his ideal State. (shrink)