According to color realism, object colors are mind-independent properties that cover surfaces or permeate volumes of objects. In recent years, some color scientists and a growing number of philosophers have opposed this view on the grounds that realism about color cannot accommodate the apparent unitary/binary structure of the hues. For example, Larry Hardin asserts, the unitary-binary structure of the colors as we experience them corresponds to no known physical structure lying outside nervous systems that is causally involved in the perception (...) of color. This makes it very difficult to subscribe to a color realism that is supposed to be about red, green, blue, black, and white—that is, the colors with which we are perceptually acquainted.1 Similarly, Evan Thompson says. (shrink)

Developing Deontology consists of six new essays in ethicaltheory by leading contemporary moral philosophers. Each essayconsiders concepts prominent in the development of deontologicalapproaches to ethics, and these essays offer an invaluablecontribution to that development. Essays are contributed by Michael Smith, Philip Stratton-Lake,Ralph Wedgewood, David Owens, Peter Vallentyne, and ElizabethHarman - all leading contemporary moral philosophers Each essay offers an original and previously unpublishedcontribution to the subject A significant addition to the field for anyone with an interestin the development of (...) deontology The collection is edited by a leading philosophicalscholar. (shrink)

Consider the following causal exclusion principle: For all distinct properties F and F* such that F* supervenes on F, F and F* do not both cause a property G. Peter Menzies and Christian List have proven that it follows from a natural conception of causation as difference-making that this exclusion principle is not generally true. Rather, it turns out that whether the principle is true is a contingent matter. In addition, they have shown that in a wide range of (...) empirically ordinary cases, it follows that F* causes G and F does not. These cases plausibly include instances where F* is a mental property and F and G are physical properties. If this is the right conception of causation, it therefore turns out that the physical world is not causally closed. In this paper I show that there is an alternative conception of causation as difference-making that does not have the same consequences. Whether the physical world is causally closed therefore turns out to depend, inter alia, on which conception of difference-making is correct. I give a number of arguments for the alternative conception of difference-making. (shrink)

Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer’s wonderful book, The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics, contains a wealth of intriguing arguments and compelling ideas. The present paper focuses on areas of continuing dispute. The paper first attacks LazariRadek’s and Singer’s evolutionary debunking arguments against both egoism and parts of common-sense morality. The paper then addresses their discussion of the role of rules in utilitarianism. De Lazari-Radek and Singer concede that rules should constitute our moral decision (...) procedure and our public morality. This paper argues that, if no one should be blamed for complying with the optimal decision procedure and optimal public rules, there are strong reasons to accept that these same rules determine what is morally permissible from what is morally wrong. (shrink)

Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer’s wonderful book, The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics, contains a wealth of intriguing arguments and compelling ideas. The present paper focuses on areas of continuing dispute. The paper first attacks LazariRadek’s and Singer’s evolutionary debunking arguments against both egoism and parts of common-sense morality. The paper then addresses their discussion of the role of rules in utilitarianism. De Lazari-Radek and Singer concede that rules should constitute our moral decision (...) procedure and our public morality. This paper argues that, if no one should be blamed for complying with the optimal decision procedure and optimal public rules, there are strong reasons to accept that these same rules determine what is morally permissible from what is morally wrong. (shrink)

_Developing Deontology_ consists of six new essays in ethical theory by leading contemporary moral philosophers. Each essay considers concepts prominent in the development of deontological approaches to ethics, and these essays offer an invaluable contribution to that development. Essays are contributed by Michael Smith, Philip Stratton-Lake, Ralph Wedgewood, David Owens, Peter Vallentyne, and Elizabeth Harman - all leading contemporary moral philosophers Each essay offers an original and previously unpublished contribution to the subject A significant addition to the field for (...) anyone with an interest in the development of deontology The collection is edited by a leading philosophical scholar. (shrink)

Consider the idea that moral rules must be suitable for public acknowledgement and acceptance, i.e., that moral rules must be suitable for being ‘widely known and explicitly recognized’, suitable for teaching as part of moral education, suitable for guiding behaviour and reactions to behaviour, and thus suitable for justifying one’s behaviour to others. This idea is now most often associated with John Rawls, who traces it back through Kurt Baier to Kant.[1] My book developing ruleconsequentialism, Ideal Code, Real World, accepted (...) the ‘publicity requirement’ on moral rules.[2] Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer attack my moral theory on precisely this matter.[3] Here I reply to their attack. The question under discussion is whether moral rightness is a matter of the application of principles or rules that must be suitable for public acceptance. No, answered Henry Sidgwick, holding that perhaps the principles that determine moral right and wrong should be kept secret, because publicizing these principles would not maximize utility.[4] Since I think not-purely utilitarian forms of consequentialism may be more plausible than purely utilitarian forms, let me make the point in terms of consequentialism instead of utilitarianism. The standard form of act-consequentialism is maximizing and ‘global’, i.e., direct about everything.[5] This act-consequentialism includes, among the acts to be evaluated by their consequences, instances of espousing principles, teaching morality, blaming, feeling indignation, feeling guilt, and punishing. On this form of act-consequentialism, an act that maximizes good consequences might be one that others should blame and even punish, since blaming and punishing the agent of the good-maximizing act might also for some reason maximize good consequences. Likewise, on this standard form of act-consequentialism, it may be right to do what it would be right neither to advocate openly nor even to recommend privately. All these ideas are entailed by the kind of act-consequentialism that evaluates, by their consequences, all ‘acts’—in a very broad sense of the term that takes in not only acts of doing or allowing but also acts of blaming, punishing, and recommending. De Lazari-Radek and Singer accept that there are strong consequentialist considerations in support of ‘board support for transparency in ethics’ and avoiding esoteric morality in most circumstances.. (shrink)

The anti-realist argument from underconsideration focuses on the fact that, when scientists evaluate theories, they only ever consider a subset of the theories that can account for the available data. As a result, when scientists judge one theory to be superior to competitor theories, they are not warranted in drawing the conclusion that the superior theory is likely true with respect to what it says about unobservable entities and processes. I defend the argument from underconsideration from the objections of (...) class='Hi'>Peter Lipton. I argue that the inconsistency that Lipton claims to find in the argument vanishes once we understand what the anti-realist means when she claims that scientists are reliable. I also argue that collapsing the distinction between relative and absolute evaluations, as Lipton recommends, has its costs. Finally, I briefly examine Richard Boyd's influential defence of realism. (shrink)

This is a reply piece to a series of book symposium contributions to my book, Resisting Scientific Realism. The contributions were by Steven French, Peter Vickers, Stathis Psillos, and Kyle Stanford.

Against the reason holists (e.g. Dancy 2014), it has been contended by many reason atomists that while many features might well change their reason statuses or valences in different contexts in the way suggested by reason holists, they are merely secondary rather than primary reasons. In these atomists’ scheme of things, there are features that function as primary reasons whose reason statuses remain invariant across contexts. Moreover, these features provide the ultimate source of explanations for why some features, qua secondary (...) reasons, are variable in their reason statuses. Against the background of reason holism, this two-level picture of moral reason has been highly influential as an alternative theory of how moral reasons behave, and has been championed by several eminent philosophers such as Roger Crisp, Brad Hooker, David McNaughton and Piers Rawling. Call this theory ‘primary reason atomism’ (or PRA). Since its advancement, it has been met with lots of challenges, yet most, if not all, of these challenges remain unaddressed, insofar as I could see. This article will pick up the slack, and argues that none of its existing powerful criticisms works that can be derived from Swanton’s target-center view of the virtues, Stangl’s virtue variabilism, Dancy’s bottom-up holism, and coverage challenge, McKeever & Ridge, and Väyrynen’s double-counting objection, and Scanlon’s buck-passing account of values. This may not prove PRA to be right, but at least shows PRA to be a serious contender for the right theory of how moral reason behaves. (shrink)

Essential to moral epistemic intuitionism of the sort proposed by W. D. Ross in the 1930s is the claim that there are self-evident moral propositions that we can be justified in believing solely on the basis of understanding them. Recently, intuitionism in this sense is enjoying something of a renaissance. It is receiving considerable sympathetic attention from such prominent ethicists as Robert Audi, Jonathan Dancy, Brad Hooker, and David McNaughton. ;Of particular interest, I think, is Audi's claim that the most (...) plausible intuitionisms will be what he calls "reflectionist" intuitionisms. By this he means that they will take advantage of what is most plausible in John Rawls's reflective-equilibrium-style moral epistemology, namely, the claim that the extent to which our moral beliefs approach reflective equilibrium---a kind of multi-level integration or coherence---determines, at least in part, how justified we are in holding them. ;In this dissertation I explore the possibility and plausibility of a moral epistemology that is both intuitionist and reflectionist. I develop an objection to Audi's reflectionist intuitionism, and I propose a response in terms of a new account of the relation between intuitive justification and self-evidence. I then consider the implications of this new account concerning whether intuitive justification should be conceived in generalist or particularist, apriorist or aposteriorist, internalist or externalist terms. Finally, I consider whether the resulting sketch of intuitive justification is consistent with any plausible theory of the structure of epistemic justification. In doing so, I say more than has so far been said about the respective roles of both reflectionism and intuitionism in a plausible reflectionist intuitionism. I take the view that the reflectionist intuitionism that emerges from these trials is a new theory built on old foundations which merits consideration in the moral epistemic field. (shrink)

Scanlon's distinction between well-being and other personal values cannot be made out clearly if well-being is understood, as it commonly is, to consist in whatever is intrinsically good for a person. Two other accounts of well-being, however, might be able to explain this distinction. One is a version of the rational care view proposed by Stephen Darwall; another is a rational sympathy view suggested by some of Brad Hooker's work.

Sidgwick's defence of esoteric morality has been heavily criticized, for example in Bernard Williams's condemnation of it as 'Government House utilitarianism.' It is also at odds with the idea of morality defended by Kant, Rawls, Bernard Gert, Brad Hooker, and T.M. Scanlon. Yet it does seem to be an implication of consequentialism that it is sometimes right to do in secret what it would not be right to do openly, or to advocate publicly. We defend Sidgwick on this issue, and (...) show that accepting the possibility of esoteric morality makes it possible to explain why we should accept consequentialism, even while we may feel disapproval towards some of its implications. (shrink)

Theories of individual well‐being fall into three main categories: hedonism, the desire‐fulfilment theory, and the list theory (which maintains that there are some things that can benefit a person without increasing the person's pleasure or desire‐fulfilment). The paper briefly explains the answers that hedonism and the desire‐fulfilment theory give to the question of whether being virtuous constitutes a benefit to the agent. Most of the paper is about the list theory's answer.

This paper starts by characterising moral requirements and everyday thought. Then ways in which moral requirements shape everyday thought are identified, including the way internalised moral requirements prevent some possible actions from even being considered. The paper then explains that everyday moral thought might be structured by dispositions to which there are corresponding principles even if these principles do not usually appear in the conscious thoughts of agents while they are engaged in everyday moral decision-making. Nevertheless, especially when conflicts between (...) moral considerations arise, alternative possible resolutions are typically framed in terms of principles. The paper pushes on to discuss how everyday moral thought is pushed to consider principles, engage in moral theorising, and even consider abstract moral theories. (shrink)

This paper starts by juxtaposing the normative ethics in the final part of Parfit's final book, On What Matters, vol. 3, with the normative ethics in his earlier books, Reasons and Persons and On What Matters, vol. 1. The paper then addresses three questions. The first is, where does the reflective-equilibrium methodology that Parfit endorsed in the first volume of On What Matters lead? The second is, is the Act-involving Act Consequentialism that Parfit considers in the final volume of On (...) What Matters as plausible as Rossian deontology? The third is, how is the new argument that Parfit puts forward for Rule Consequentialism supposed to work? (shrink)

The non-reductive physicalist would like to believe that mental properties are not identical to physical properties; that there are complete causal explanations of all events in terms of physical properties; and that there are sometimes explanations of events in terms of mental properties. However, some have argued that these claims cannot all be true, since they are collectively inconsistent with a principle of causal exclusion. In this paper I argue that the best formulation of the interventionist theory of causation entails (...) the falsity of the exclusion principle. However, I argue that it does so at the cost of revealing a weakness in the interventionist theory itself. (shrink)

Fires burn around the world. Systemic discrimination persists, precarity is increasing, and the modern democratic project faces challenges from all sides. Art writing helps us to understand art which in turn helps us to understand such crises. But art writing itself is in crisis. Newspapers and magazines offer fewer channels than ever for independent art criticism, persistent institutional biases exclude the positions of many, and a proliferation of platforms presents opportunities and challenges in equal measure. This volume presents contributions from (...) a broad range of authors who address the social and political dimensions of art and art writing in the contemporary context, and the ways in which new writing and publishing practices promote critical engagement among readerships as never before"-- Publisher's website. (shrink)

The earliest philosophers thought deeply about ethical questions, but Aristotle founded ethics as a well-defined discipline. Brad Inwood focuses on the reception of Aristotelian ethical thought in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds and explores the thinker's influence on the philosophers who followed in his footsteps from 300 BCE to 200 CE.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Peter McGehee and the Erotics of Gay Self-RepresentationRaymond-Jean Frontain (bio)Novelist Peter McGehee was a beautiful man who—at the height of what Brad Gooch terms “the Golden Age of Promiscuity”—knew he was a beautiful man.1 Coming of age in the early 1970s when American gay men consciously set about refashioning their image, Peter’s dress was always striking, whether he was playing the slut or the dandy. Members (...) of his close circle of friends, dubbed “the Quinlan Family,” regularly twitted him for preening in the mirror, and one close friend reports that Peter could not pass a reflective surface without stopping to examine his image.2 Peter’s narcissism was further empowered by his talent as a photographer. He began taking pictures while in high school when his mother, an English teacher who advised both the school newspaper and yearbook, recruited him to serve as the staff photographer for both publications. And he continued taking photos—in particular, making self-portraits—until at least his early thirties (see Illustration 1).3 Click for larger view View full resolution1.Self-portrait by Peter McGehee. The hairstyle is identical to the one in the portrait that appears on the cover of the Stubblejumper Press edition of Beyond Happiness, suggesting that this photo was taken around 1985 when Peter was twenty-nine or thirty years old. Courtesy of the Estate of Peter McGehee.[End Page 115] Click for larger view View full resolution2.Self-portrait by Peter McGehee in mascara and woman’s top, circa 1981. Courtesy of Fiji Robinson.It should not come as a surprise that McGehee’s life and career are characterized by an ongoing and extraordinarily rich experimentation with modes of self-presentation. Peter was adept at making wacky collages that employ photographs and images culled from newspapers or magazines to serve as invitations, announcements to friends, and handbills for his performance activities. Under carefully controlled circumstances, Peter and his male friends donned female drag with Peter fashioning for himself a persona, “Princess Marie,” and signing himself as the same in letters to friends written in the royal first-person plural (see Illustration 2). When performing as the only male with two female partners in the Quinlan Sisters, a musical revue that he founded and for which he wrote the songs, he was generally identified in the program as “Marie Quinlan, the Sister with the Difference” (see Illustration 3).Peter experimented with personae even in his journals, where one might expect to find a less theatricalized self. Beginning in 1986, however, numerous entries are composed as letters that begin “Dear Winsome” (a word defined by the American Heritage College Dictionary as “charming, often in a childlike or naive way”—a manner that Peter liked to adopt), “Dear Winnie” (which is most likely a familiarization of the former), “Dear Timmy” (a name synonymous with naive wholesomeness for American baby boomers who were raised watching the television drama Lassie on Sunday evenings), and the matronly and delightfully dowdy “Dear Mrs. Hackensack.”4 Like Joe Orton, McGehee apparently even wrote letters to the local newspaper under a matronly female pseudonym in which he commented wryly on public matters that concerned him.5 [End Page 116] Click for larger view View full resolution3.Publicity photograph of Peter with Wendy Coad and Fiji Robinson as the Quinlan Sisters, circa 1982. Courtesy of Fiji Robinson.But clearly it was his fiction that offered McGehee the most satisfying opportunity for creative self-fashioning. It is the first rule of the creative writing class that a writer must write from, and of, what he knows if his writing is to have authority. But in his blurring of the line between fiction and autobiography Peter followed the lead established by Christopher Isherwood in The Berlin Stories (1935–39) and, more importantly, Christopher and His Kind (1976)—and pursued by Peter’s senior contemporaries Edmund White and Felice Picano—in which the autobiographer writes of himself in the third person in order to study himself with an almost brutal detachment, or in which the fictional protagonist is a barely disguised version of the writer’s self to the point of... (shrink)

The focus of this paper is to further a discussion of codes of ethics as institutionalized organizational structures that extend some form of legitimacy to organizations. The particular form of legitimacy is of critical importance to our analysis. After reviewing various theories of legitimacy, we analyze the literature on how legitimacy is derived from codes of ethics to discover which specific form of legitimacy is gained from their presence in organizations. We content analyze a sample of codes to consider the (...) question of whether a strategic, self-interested rationale lies behind the adoption of a code of ethics. We propose that the process of employing codes of ethics in this strategic manner has become, through isomorphism, an institutionalized practice that itself confers a cognitive form of legitimacy to the organization and further distances the codes from their moral foundation. (shrink)

An essential introduction to post-war critical thought on the problem of violence.

Sequel to Armendt 1986, ‘A Foundation for Causal Decision Theory.’ The representation theorem for causal decision theory is slightly revised, with the addition of a new restriction on lotteries and a new axiom (A7). The discussion gives some emphasis to the way in which appropriate K-partitions are characterized by relations found among the agent’s conditional preferences. The intended interpretation of conditional preference is one that embodies a sensitivity to the agent’s causal beliefs.

What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just a philosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our own individual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue, fundamental to the new doctrine of 'resilience' that is becoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21st Century. No longer should we think in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we are told, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from (...) which we have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as a reality of human existence. In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reid explore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilience turn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue, is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangered populations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent a profound assault on the human subject whose meaning and sole purpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal the nihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to terms with its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crises that are catastrophic unto the end. (shrink)

In his "intimate, funny, conversational style" (Library Journal), Brad Warner stage dives into the Sam Harris, Karen Armstrong, Christopher Hitchens mosh pit of the God or no God debate - and body surfs up with a typically provocative perspective. Warner was initially interested in Zen because he wanted to find God, but Zen Buddhism is usually thought of as godless. Warner travels around the world looking for insight and what he finds, in chapters like "Sam Harris Believes in God," "God (...) Doesn't Have to Be Real to Exist," and "What God Wants," and through visits to places including Israel, Mexico, and Northern Ireland, is the belief that Buddhism "is a way to approach and understand God without dealing with religion." The fact that the book's title is Warner's mis-remembrance of a Zen monk's quote is emblematic of his profoundly engaging and idiosyncratic take on the ineffable power of the "ground of all being.". (shrink)

This paper considers the question of whether impartiality and predictability are illusory to the extent that every consequentialist ethical theory must be hopeless.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.

The present study, “Learning to Cope With Ambiguity: Reflections on the Terri Schiavo Case” looks at the many complexities of dealing with Persistent Vegetative State (PVS). By its very nature PVS is ambiguous. It is difficult to diagnose and, even when the diagnosis appears to be certain, there is a multiplicity of ethical issues and treatment options to consider. There are four high profile PVS court cases that can help us understand the Schiavo situation. They are Karen Ann Quinlan, Nancy (...) Kruzan, Helga Wanglie, and Daniel Fiori. These cases share many common features with each other and with Schiavo. In the final analysis, the judicial decisions inevitably point us to the ongoing need to live and cope with ambiguity. (shrink)

Although retribution for past human rights violations has its place in post-conflict processes of transition and reconciliation, there are many present and foreseeable circumstances in which the case may be made for immunity, amnesty, or sheer forbearance.

A longtime practitioner of Zen Buddhism discusses how the Zen concept of nonduality - the essential unity of all things - forms the basis of Buddhist ethics. The author describes key Buddhist doctrines such as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, showing their relevance to modern problems.

A collection of newly commissioned papers on themes from David Albert's Time and Chance (HUP, 2000), with replies by Albert. Introduction [Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake, and Eric Winsberg] I. Overview of Time and Chance 1. The Mentaculus: A Probability Map of the Universe [Barry Loewer] II. Philosophical Foundations 2. The Metaphysical Foundations of Statistical Mechanics: On the Status of PROB and PH [Eric Winsberg] 3. The Logic of the Past Hypothesis [David Wallace] 4. In What Sense Is the Early Universe (...) Fine-Tuned? [Sean M. Carroll] 5. The Meta-Reversibility Objection [Christopher J. G. Meacham] 6. Typicality versus Humean Probabilities as the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics [Dustin Lazarovici] 7. The Past Hypothesis and the Nature of Physical Laws [Eddy Keming Chen] 8. On the Albertian Demon [Tim Maudlin] III. Underwriting the Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 9. Reading the Past in the Present [Nick Huggett] 10. Causes, Randomness, and the Past Hypothesis [Mathias Frisch] 11. Time, Flies, and Why We Can’t Control the Past [Alison Fernandes] 12. The Concept of Intervention in Time and Chance [Sidney Felder] Conclusion [David Albert]. (shrink)

As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical caxc. The suffering and death that are occurring there now axe not inevitable, 1101; unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond Lhe capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to (...) very small proportions. The decisions arid actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in any signihczmt way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not written t0 their parliamentaxy representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing thc refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At thc government level, no govcrmmcnt has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive fm: more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, B1~itain’s share of thc nonreccverabla development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,¤00. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as.. (shrink)

The problem of the man who met death in Damascus appeared in the infancy of the theory of rational choice known as causal decision theory. A straightforward, unadorned version of causal decision theory is presented here and applied, along with Brian Skyrms’ deliberation dynamics, to Death in Damascus and similar problems. Decision instability is a fascinating topic, but not a source of difficulty for causal decision theory. Andy Egan’s purported counterexample to causal decision theory, Murder Lesion, is considered; a simple (...) response shows how Murder Lesion and similar examples fail to be counterexamples, and clarifies the use of the unadorned theory in problems of decision instability. I compare unadorned causal decision theory to previous treatments by Frank Arntzenius and by Jim Joyce, and recommend a well-founded heuristic that all three accounts can endorse. Whatever course deliberation takes, causal decision theory is consistently a good guide to rational action. (shrink)

The very idea of humanity seems to be in crisis. Born in the ashes of devastation after the slaughter of millions, the liberal conception of humanity imagined a suffering victim in need of salvation. Today, this figure appears less and less capable of galvanizing the political imagination. But without it, how are we to respond to the inhumane violence that overwhelms our political and philosophical registers? How can we make sense of the violence that was carried out in the name (...) of humanism? And how can we develop more ethical relations without becoming parasitic on the pain of others? Through a critical exploration of violence and the sacred, Ecce Humanitas recasts the fall of liberal humanism. Brad Evans offers a rich analysis of the changing nature of sacrificial violence, from its theological origins to the exhaustion of the victim in the contemporary world. He critiques the aestheticization that turns victims into sacred objects, sacrificial figures that demand response, perpetuating a cycle of violence that is seen as natural and inevitable. In novel readings of classic and contemporary works, Evans traces the sacralization of violence as well as art’s potential to incite resistance. Countering the continued annihilation of life, Ecce Humanitas calls for liberating the political imagination from the scene of sacrifice. A new aesthetics provides a form of transgressive witnessing that challenges the ubiquity of violence and allows us to go beyond humanism to imagine a truly liberated humanity. (shrink)

Possible-worlds talk obscures, rather than clarifies, the debate about haecceitism. In this paper I distinguish haecceitism and anti-haecceitism from other doctrines that sometimes go under those names. Then I defend the claim that there are no non-tendentious definitions of ‘haecceitism’ and ‘anti-haecceitism’ using possible-worlds talk. That is, any definition of ‘haecceitism’ using possible-worlds talk depends, for its correctness, on a substantive theory of the nature of possible worlds. This explains why using possible-worlds talk when discussing haecceitism causes confusion: if the (...) parties to the discussion presuppose different theories of the nature of possible worlds, then they will mean different things by ‘haecceitism’. (shrink)

Dutch Book arguments have been presented for static belief systems and for belief change by conditionalization. An argument is given here that a rule for belief change which under certain conditions violates probability kinematics will leave the agent open to a Dutch Book.