Public reason liberals argue that coercive social arrangements must be publicly justified in order to be legitimate. According to one model of public reason liberalism, known as convergence liberalism, this means that every moderately idealized member of the public must have sufficient reason, of her own, to accept the arrangement. A corollary of this Principle of Public Justification is that a coercive social arrangement fails to be legitimate so long as even one member of the public fails to have sufficient (...) reason to endorse the arrangement. This high bar for justification has led many critics, most notably David Enoch, to argue that convergence models are incapable of vindicating liberalism. They argue that in a sufficiently diverse society, there will always be someone for whom an arrangement is not justified, and therefore convergence liberalism leads to anarchy – the view that no law or coercive social arrangement is legitimate. Other critics accept that convergence liberalism could vindicate core liberal institutions but nothing more, and thus argue that the view makes libertarians effective “dictators”. In either case, critics hold that this objection is sufficient to reject convergence liberalism, either in favor of alternative public reason views or as a means of rejecting all public reason views. In this paper I argue that convergence liberalism can overcome this anarchy objection. I show that the objection largely rests on misinterpretations of convergence liberalism, and thus clarify aspects of the theory. However, I also show that internal debate over the scope of public justification – what stands in need of justification – must be resolved in favor of a wide scope, encompassing both State-based and non-State-based coercion, in order to overcome the anarchy objection. Therefore, my response to the anarchy objection has implications for how convergence liberalism should be developed going forward. (shrink)

By many accounts, CRISPR gene-editing technology is revolutionizing biotechnology. It has been hailed as a scientific game changer and is being adopted at a break-neck pace. This hasty adoption has left little time for ethical reflection, and so this paper aims to begin filling that gap by exploring whether CRISPR is as much an ethical game changer as it is a biological one. By focusing on the application of CRISPR to non-human animals, I argue that CRISPR has and will continue (...) to result in significant shifts in the ethical debate landscape. For instance, the fact that many CRISPR edits are non-transgenic has important implications for the ethical debate, particularly the popular objection to genetic engineering that it objectionably involves “crossing species boundaries,” as well as the regulatory debate in the United States, where currently only transgenic organisms are officially genetically modified organisms. I also explore various impacts CRISPR may have on animal welfare, suggesting that although the improved precision of CRISPR suggests fewer unintended welfare problems in comparison to past techniques, the greater versatility means that more animals than ever will be engineered. Finally, I end my discussion of animal welfare issues by exploring the possibility of using CRISPR to directly improve animal welfare, for instance through introducing disease resistance. (shrink)

The meteoric rise of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology has ignited discussions of engineering agricultural animals to improve their welfare. While some have proposed enhancing animals, for instance by engineering for disease resistance, others have suggested we might diminish animals to improve their welfare. By reducing or eliminating species-typical capacities, the expression of which is frustrated under current conditions, animal diminishment could reduce or eliminate the suffering that currently accompanies industrial animal agriculture. Although diminishment could reduce animal suffering, there is a (...) widespread intuition that it would be wrong. One attempt to justify this intuition has been to claim that inhibiting the development of species-typical functions is wrong, even if it improves welfare. This has often been couched in terms of violating an animal’s dignity. I argue that the dignity objection to diminishment fails. In the first place, it fails to apply to some of the most troubling cases of diminishment, the creation of so-called animal microencepahlic lumps. In the second place, dignity views misplace the normative relevance of species norms; I argue that considerations from evolutionary biology should lead us to treat species norms - such as the possession of typical capacities - as merely a heuristic for rendering judgments about welfare. But diminishment cases are precisely the cases where the heuristic breaks down, and becomes a bias. I close my discussion with a sketch of my Historical Injustices Approach to animal ethics, and how it may help us vindicate our intuition that diminishment is wrong without appeal to species norms. (shrink)

In "Making Sense of Animal Disenhancement" Adam Henschke provides a framework for fully understanding and evaluating animal disenhancement. His conclusion is that animal disenhancement is neither morally nor pragmatically justified. In this paper I argue that Henschke misapplies his own framework for understanding disenhancement, resulting in a stronger conclusion than is justified. In diagnosing his misstep, I argue that the resources he has provided us, combined with my refinements, result in two new avenues for inquiry: an application of concepts from (...) political theory to disenhancement, and an inquiry in to the mode of valuation that underlies industrial animal agriculture and disenhancement proposals. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 2, pp 148 - 167 Thomas Hobbes’s attempt to resolve the problem of commanded blasphemy in _Leviathan_ results in a dilemma for his theory. According to what I call the _Authority Dilemma_, Hobbes is simultaneously committed to subjects being the authors of all that the sovereign does and commands as well as to the sovereign being the sole author of commanded blasphemy, meaning the subjects are _not_ the authors of that command. I review a variety (...) of ways Hobbes and various commentators have attempted to resolve this tension, but ultimately suggest that the tension persists. I spell out the implications of both horns of the authority dilemma: if subjects authorize all actions and commands, then the possibility of commanded blasphemy risks the stability of the commonwealth; if subjects do not authorize all actions and commands, then the commonwealth is not properly unified and thus cannot be stable. Thus, either way, Hobbes fails to establish how individuals can form a stable commonwealth. I conclude with a Hobbesian inspired solution that accepts that subjects authorize all actions and commands, including blasphemy. However, I leverage two recent lines of scholarship – one regarding the inalienable right of self-preservation and the other regarding the fear of eternal damnation – to provide a means for disobedience without the risk of instability. (shrink)

Abstract This paper explores gender and mental health with particular reference to the emerging philosophical field of critical realism. This philosophy suggests a shared ontology and epistemology for the natural and social sciences. Until recently, most of the debate surrounding gender and mental health has been guided either implicitly or explicitly within a positivist or constructivist philosophy. With this in mind, key areas of critical realism are explored in relation to gender and mental health, and contrasted with the positions of (...) positivism and constructivism. It is argued that critical realism offers an alternative philosophical framework for the exploration of gender issues within mental health care. (shrink)

In this paper I critique two popular, non-scientific attitudes toward genetically engineered foods. In doing so, I will be employing the concepts of ambiguity, purity/impurity, control/resistance, and unity/diversity as developed by Latina feminist metaphysicians. I begin by casting a critical eye toward a specific anti-biotech account of transgenic food crops, an account that I will argue relies on an anti-feminist metaphysics. I then cast that same critical eye toward a specific pro-biotech account, arguing that it also relies on such an (...) anti-feminist metaphysics. I will argue further that this metaphysics yields a less accurate account of genetics. I end by arguing that if we adopt a Latina feminist metaphysics we can more accurately understand plants, genetics, and genetic engineering. (shrink)

Bergin, Mary As an Australian it is a great honour to receive this award as Australian Humanist of the Year. It is often thought, mistakenly, that Humanism is somehow contrary to or opposed to religion, but of course it is not. It is simply a belief in rational and humane tolerance, and it holds that people should not be made miserable by cruel politicians or primitive moralists or superstitious beliefs. Humanists have succeeded to some considerable extent in the West (...) in removing ancient prejudices - for example against the LGBT community. We don't seem to have succeeded, to judge from the latest appointments in the NSW government, in refuting the strange idea that Christian politicians are less corrupt than atheists. (shrink)

Bergin, Helen Review of: Priest, poet and theologian: Essays in honour of Anthony Kelly CSSR, by Neil Ormerod and Robert Gascoigne, eds,, pp. 253, $36.95.

Taking as its starting point Carr's view that historical narrative reflects the preoccupations of the time in which it is written and Foucault's concept of consensual historical discourse as the outcome of a social struggle in which the victor suppresses or at least diminishes contrary versions of historical events in favour of their own, this paper traces and discusses the historical narrative of British nursing in the Crimean war and, in particular, three competing narratives that have arisen in the latter (...) half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. These are the established narrative surrounding Florence Nightingale, the new narrative surrounding Mary Seacole and an Irish narrative surrounding the role of the Sisters of Mercy. It is argued that the increased vehemence of the debate surrounding these narratives is representative of the changes that have taken place in British society. However, we also argue that the Irish narrative and its critique are reflective of deep‐rooted Anglo‐Protestant attitudes articulated by Nightingale and uncritically accepted by subsequent historians even in modern British historiography. (shrink)

This paper details the experience of planning, orchestrating, teaching, and participating in a writing-intensive, team-taught, introductory philosophy class designed to expand the diversity of voices included in philosophical study. Accordingly, this article includes the various perspectives of faculty, TAs, and students in the class. Faculty authors discuss the administrative side of the course, including its planning and goals, its texts and structure, its working definition of “philosophy,” its balance of canonical and non-canonical texts, the significant resistance met in getting the (...) course approved, the complex pedagogical difficulties that attend teaching non-canonical texts, the motivation and execution of the course’s writing-intensive dimension, and a summary of student evaluations of the course. The TA authors reflect on the high level of student engagement and interest compared to other introductory philosophy courses, the perception that students found the material highly relevant to their own lives, and the capacity of the material to bring about philosophical insight for the instructors in the class. The student author offers a favorable account of the class and remarks on how the structure of the course aided the accessibility and relevance of the texts. (shrink)

Microeconomic Theory is based on lecture notes for a graduate course in microeconomic theory. It covers a broad range of topics, and to some extent the lecture structure is retained in the style of the book. The author provides a clear account of the main ideas in each area concisely, and in some depth of detail. The presentation is at an advanced level and provides succinct coverage of the material in a self contained discussion. Chapters are organized and written independently (...) making it possible to read any chapter without having read earlier material. Each chaper is written on the presumption that the reader has some familiarity with the topics or issues under discussion but would value further discussion, or a second point of view. While much of the material is mainstream, a substantial portion is not available in existing textbooks. The book covers a range of topics appearing in advanced courses in microeconomic theory. Coverage includes such topics as decision theory, strategic and extensive form games, auctions, bargaining, information models, principal- agent problems, signalling and screening games, cooperative games and models of learning. (shrink)

This article addresses the general ethical issues of accessing online personal data for research purposes. The authors discuss the practical aspects of online research with a specific case study that illustrates the ethical challenges encountered when accessing data from Kooth, an online youth web-counselling service. This paper firstly highlights the relevance of a process-based approach to ethics when accessing highly sensitive data and then discusses the ethical considerations and potential challenges regarding the accessing of public data from Digital Mental Health (...) services. It presents solutions that aim to protect young DMH service users as well as the DMH providers and researchers mining such data. Special consideration is given to service users’ expectations of what their data might be used for, as well as their perceptions of whether the data they post is public, private or open. We provide recommendations for planning and designing online research in an ethical manner that includes vulnerable young people as research participants. We emphasise the distinction between public, private and open data, which is crucial to comprehend the ethical challenges in accessing DMH data. Among our key recommendations, we foreground the need to consider a collaborative approach with the DMH providers while respecting service users’ control over personal data, and we propose the implementation of digital solutions embedded within the platform for explicit opt-out/opt-in recruitment strategies and ‘read more’ options. (shrink)

This article addresses the general ethical issues of accessing online personal data for research purposes. The authors discuss the practical aspects of online research with a specific case study that illustrates the ethical challenges encountered when accessing data from Kooth, an online youth web-counselling service. This paper firstly highlights the relevance of a process-based approach to ethics when accessing highly sensitive data and then discusses the ethical considerations and potential challenges regarding the accessing of public data from Digital Mental Health (...) services. It presents solutions that aim to protect young DMH service users as well as the DMH providers and researchers mining such data. Special consideration is given to service users’ expectations of what their data might be used for, as well as their perceptions of whether the data they post is public, private or open. We provide recommendations for planning and designing online research that includes vulnerable young people as research participants in an ethical manner. We emphasise the distinction between public, private and open data, which is crucial to comprehend the ethical challenges in accessing DMH data. Among our key recommendations, we foreground the need to consider a collaborative approach with the DMH providers while respecting service users’ control over personal data, and we propose the implementation of digital solutions embedded within the platform for explicit opt-out/opt-in recruitment strategies and ‘read more’ options. (shrink)

The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico is significant both as a source of insight into the influences on the eighteenth-century philosopher's intellectual development and as one of the earliest and most sophisticated examples of philosophical autobiography. Referring to himself in the third person, Vico records the course of his life and the influence that various thinkers had on the development of concepts central to his mature work. Beyond its relevance to the development of the New Science, the Autobiography is also of (...) interest for the light it sheds on Italian culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.Still regarded by many as the best English-language translation of this classic work, the Cornell edition was widely lauded when first published in 1944. Wrote the Saturday Review of Literature: "Here was something new in the art of self-revelation. Vico wrote of his childhood, the psychological influences to which he was subjected, the social conditions under which he grew up and received an education and evolved his own way of thinking. It was so outstanding a piece of work that it was held up as a model, which it still is.". (shrink)

Secular and religious values of psychotherapists influence the process of psychotherapy. The psychologist Allen Bergin has pointed out several major antitheses between values of secular psychotherapists and their religiously oriented clients. The present essay is a response to Bergin's antitheses, on the one hand, and to humanistic psychology, on the other, from the point of view of a Christian humanism. Karl Rahner's theological anthropology is proposed as one possible foundation for an explicit articulation of the relationship between psychotherapy (...) and religion, and as a means to address apparently divergent values of psychotherapists and religious believers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Constructive Postmodernism: Toward Renewal in Cultural and Literary StudiesDavid CarrierConstructive Postmodernism: Toward Renewal in Cultural and Literary Studies, by Martin Schiralli. Westport, CT, and London: Bergin and Garvey, 1999, 165pp., $55 cloth.Concerned with the consequences of Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction for cultural and literary studies, Martin Schiralli's elegantly written book offers, first, a critique of these claims and, then, a constructive alternative analysis. He admires Derrida's (...) brilliantly innovative writing, which as he rightly notes is "serious and philosophical" even if "the most patient reader can easily become disoriented and confused" (24). But even if, as Derrida argues, Ferdinard de Saussure's theory of meaning is flawed, we need not—he urges—become deconstructionists. Looking to the work of Stephen Toulmin, John Dewey, and late Wittgenstein, Schiralli finds suggestive ways of identifying concerns with cognitive value in literary texts. It then is possible, he argues, to offer a more reasonable perspective on recent debates about culture and politics than the recent academic arguments between "postmodern revisionists... [and] often hostile and defensive traditionalists" (73).In the second part of his book Schiralli illustrates the value of this perspective by offering a great deal of productive positive discussion. He discusses how "theoretically pertinent knowledge" (95) may be found in the novels of Jane Austen, Barbara Pym, and Anita Brookner. Appealing to Michael Polanyi's conception of tacit knowledge, he argues that Austen's ability to intuit "the rules governing social meaning... represents the tacit emergence of insight, just as her ability to use those insights explicitly in her fiction marks the emergence of more focal knowledge" (123). In analyzing an emotional response, he claims, we can ask whether it is "warranted or unwarranted in a given circumstance" (31). Using E. M. Forster's Howards End as his model, he develops this claim in an analysis that is brief, clear, and convincing. Finally, in his concluding pages he looks at the studies of character provided by Henry James and Marcel Proust. A proper theory of literary intelligence, he argues, should "treat those forms of cognitive acuity involved imaginatively in miming and representing verbally the intricacies and particularities of all aspects of human sensibility" (150).This bold, far-reaching book avoids the fanaticism that, as Schiralli notes, has marred all too much recent debate in the humanities. At this time, when the influence of Derrida has faded, I think this argumentation about his philosophical position is of less value than the constructive parts of the analysis. Treating Derrida as a theorist whose arguments tell us how to analyze literature is an unpromising project, as Schiralli well shows. Once that point is acknowledged, then we are ready to look seriously at literature as a form of social knowledge. Humanists teaching literature will find much of value in this graceful volume—and along with their colleagues in philosophy, these scholars will benefit from study of this well-argued analysis. [End Page 122]David CarrierCase Western Reserve University and Cleveland Institute of ArtCopyright © 2008 Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois... (shrink)

Lennan, Richard Review of: From north to south: Southern scholars engage With Edward Schillebeeckx, edited by Helen F. Bergin, OP, Adelaide: ATF Theology, 2013, pp. 163, epub, $31; hardback, $50; paperback, $37.95; pdf, $19.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 273 Verene, Donald Phillip. Vico's Science of Imagination. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1981, Pp. 227. $19.5o. In Chapter 1 (Introduction: Vico's Originality), Verene announces two principal concerns, a two-fold approach, and the predominant contention of his study.. 1. Principal concerns: "to consider the philosophical truth of Vico's ideas themselves, rather than to examine their historical character" (p. 19); to consider "the importance of Vico's conception (...) of barbarism for understanding present society" (p. 28). 2. Two-fold approach: "to interpret the central theses of Vico's thought" from the inside in the spirit of the whole and, at the same time, "to develop the problems of Vico's philosophy themselves" (pp. 19--21 ). 3. Predominant contention: "that Vico's ideas constitute a philosophy of recollective universals which generates philosophical understanding fronl the image, not the rational category. This approach regards imagination as a method of pfiilosophical thought" (p. 19) and the imaginative universal as "a key to his conception of knowledge" (p. 67). Vico's philosophy is depicted and characterized by Verene as fi)llows. Beginning with the imagination (fantasia) as an original and independent power of mind, Vico builds his philosophy on the image, the imaginative universal, thereby creating a position outside Western philosophy as traditionally understood. His New Science is a process of recollective fantasia, a kind of memory, and the system built constitutes a system of memory for all of human reality. By means of his concept of memory, Vico works his way back to the world of original thought, the mythicopoeticfantasia of the first men. His discovery of the imaginative universal as their way of thinking and their kind of knowledge establishes a new genetic origin for philosophical thought. Recollective fantasia constitutes the subject-matter and form of Vico's science itself', i.e., the term designates a type of nlemory through which the New Science is acconlplished as well as the type of thought from which it must be understood. "The New Science is a metaphysical fable, h creates a vera narratio of the recollectire imagination. The storia ideale eterna is an ideal trnth, but not an a priori or fictional one. As the master image of the recollective mind, it precisely contains all of the human event. Metaphysical truth, achieved through the exercise of.[antasia.., is generated out of the mind itself.., as images that actually contain the providential structure of reality" (p. 125). Vico's per|ornlative science "is man's true production of a knowledge of" his own nature" (p. 133). "The proof of the science is found through the reader making it for himself" (p. 156). What is the "recollective imaginative universal"? (a term coined by Verene) as distinguished from the universale fantastico? Vico identifies the latter quite simply. Poetic imagination, he tells us, was active in the first men who, "not being able to form intelligible class concepts of things, had a natural need to create poetic characters ; that is, imaginative class concepts or universals, to which, as to certain models or ideal portraits, to reduce all the particular species that resembled them." (The New Science of Giambattista Vico, trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch. Cornell University Press, 1968; orig. pub. 1948, w ) Thus in the theological age, 274 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY "Jove was born naturally in poetry as a divine character or imaginative universal, to which everything having to do with the auspices was referred by all the ancient gentile nations, which must therefore all have been poetic by nature" (9 381). In the age of heroes, Achilles embodies the idea of valor common to all strong men and Ulysses the idea of prudence common to all wise men (9 403). The myths, fables, and allegories brought to birth by poetic imagination were true stories for their makers. Imaginative universals or genera, "as the human mind later learned to abstract forms and properties from subjects, passed over into intelligible genera, which prepared the way for philosophers.... " (9 934)- Abstracting, categorizing, and predicating on the basis of properties in common, the philosophers in their intelligible class concepts no hmger think in the same manner as the first men did... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Healing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian SocietiesE. N. AndersonHealing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies. Edited by Linda H. Connor and Geoffrey Samuel. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2001. Pp. xiii + 283. Hardcover.Healing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies, edited by Linda H. Connor and Geoffrey Samuel, consists of an Introduction, (...) by the first editor, and eleven case studies. The latter are short ethnographic studies of particular communities or healers in East and South Asian countries. All of these are well-written, detailed accounts of particular healing contexts and behaviors. Several are by first-rate veteran ethnographers, such as Laurel Kendall (writing-as usual-on Korean shamans), Mark Nichter (India), Carol Laderman (Malaya), and Geoffrey Samuel (Tibet). Others are by younger scholars, such as Amanda Harris (the Iban of Sarawak), who are carrying on the great tradition. Other essays by Kalpana Ram (India), Marina Roseman (the Temiar of Malaya), Cynthia Hunter (Indonesia), Sydney White (the Naxi of China), Craig Janes (Tibet), and Vincanne Adams (Tibet) complete the picture. All are fine ethnographic sketches.The unifying theme is a classic anthropological one: traditional, small-scale, indigenous traditions meet international forces of change. Inevitably, the former must accommodate to the overwhelmingly greater wealth and power of the agents of the latter. In the medical arena, nations often push international biomedicine to the exclusion of other modes. In the nations under study here, things are a bit more complex; all have their own elite medical traditions, some much changed by contact with biomedicine (as in the case of China's "Traditional Chinese Medicine," with capital letters; it is a new invention, in spite of the name). So local indigenous healers have to accommodate not only to some much-altered form of biomedicine; they usually have to accommodate also to some much-altered form of their country's elite medicine. They improvise, often with striking success. The spirits of the forest are joined by the spirit of canned sardines (see Roseman's chapter), but spiritual healing practice continues.Naturally, this is confusing, and here the book begins to break down a bit. "Modernity" as a concept is taken over from the writings of Foucault, de Certeau, Homi Bhabha, and the like, which are by no means consistent or clear on its meaning. And the authors of this book are far too sophisticated to think of "modernity" as any one thing or as anything at all simple. They are, perforce, left to say that modernity-especially as written up at enormous length and vagueness in the works of the authorities cited-is too complex to address here. (Someone more irreverent might even suggest that "modernity," if indeed it cannot be tightly defined, is not a concept worthy of much attention.) This leaves the book rather undertheorized.Moreover, the authors follow the aforementioned authorities in leaving out bio-scientific considerations, even from descriptions of local modernizing discourses. One wishes for some biomedical diagnoses of cases, for example, for background data on disease incidence, infant and maternal mortality, nutrition, and other basic health concerns. [End Page 702]A reviewer usually should not complain about what is not treated in a book, but in some cases here, stories really need rounding out. Laurel Kendall speaks of Korean folkloristic interest in shamans, but does not mention the fascinating and hotly debated ideas about shamanism as the fount of Korean morality and fine art. Geoffrey Samuel puts discussion of China's brutal crushing of Tibetans and their culture "beyond the scope of this chapter" (p. 215), which deprives the reader of serious consideration of the most obtrusive force shaping Tibetan medical practice today.Such quibbles are minor. These compelling studies of local healers caught in global currents can stand on their own. [End Page 703]E. N. AndersonUniversity of California, RiversideCopyright © 2006 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

This is the first paperback edition of the unabridged Bergin and Fisch translation of Vico's New Science. This new edition should not be confused with the previous abridged paperback edition also published by Cornell. Those who own this shorter version would do well to abandon it and purchase this new full text.

This is the first paperback edition of the unabridged Bergin and Fisch translation of Vico's New Science. This new edition should not be confused with the previous abridged paperback edition also published by Cornell. Those who own this shorter version would do well to abandon it and purchase this new full text.