This article aims to provide a response to the problem of suffering through an explication of a new theodicy termed the Exemplarist Theodicy. This specific theodicy will be formulated in light of the moral theory provided by Linda Zagzebski, termed the Exemplarist Moral Theory, the notion of transformative experience, as explicated by L.A. Paul, Havi Carel and Ian James Kidd, and the virtue-theoretic approach to suffering proposed by Michael Brady, which, in combination with some further precisifying philosophical concepts—namely, compensation, total (...) empathy, and infinitely valuable connections—will provide us with a possible, morally sufficient reason for why God allows individuals to experience suffering. (shrink)

Since its publication, the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and its revision (Lilien- feld & Andrews, 1996; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) have become increasingly popular such that it is now among the most frequently used self-report inventories for the assessment of psychopathy. The current meta-analysis examined the relations between the two PPI factors (factor 1: Fearless Dominance; factor 2: Self-Centered Impulsivity), as well as their relations with other validated measures of psychopathy, internalizing and externalizing forms of psychopathology, general personality traits, and antisocial (...) personality disorder symptoms. Across 61 samples reported in 49 publications, we found support for the convergent and criterion validity of both PPI factor 2 and the PPI total score. Much weaker validation was found for PPI factor 1, which manifested limited convergent validity and a pattern of correlations with central criterion variables that was inconsistent with many conceptualizations of psychopathy. (shrink)

The selected effects or ‘etiological’ theory of Proper function is a naturalistic and realist account of biological teleology. It is used to analyse normativity in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of medicine and elsewhere. The theory has been developed with a simple and intuitive view of natural selection. Traits are selected because of their positive effects on the fitness of the organisms that have them. These ‘selected effects’ are the Proper functions of the traits. Proponents argue that this (...) analysis of biological teleology has the unique advantage that the selected effect function of a trait is also a causal explanation of the trait: the trait exists because it performs this function. We show, however, that selected effect functions as currently defined explain the existence of traits only under highly restrictive assumptions about evolutionary dynamics. In many common scenarios in which traits evolve by natural selection, selected effect functions do not explain those traits. This is because definitions of selected effect function extract from any evolutionary scenario only the information that would be explanatorily relevant in the simple evolutionary scenario implicit in those definitions. When applied to more complex scenarios selected effect functions omit the key information that is explanatorily relevant in those scenarios. The assumptions required for selected effect functions to be explanatory are particularly unlikely to hold in the domain that its proponents care most about - the evolution of representation. A more adequate selected effects theory of Proper functions may be possible, but will require much greater attention to the structure of actual evolutionary explanations. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a metaphysical elucidation of a specific model of the doctrine of the Trinity: Monarchical Trinitarianism, within the formal, neo–Aristotelian ontological and metaphysical framework of Jonathan Lowe (i.e. his four–category ontology and serious essentialism). Formulating the model through this ontological and metaphysical framework will enable us to explicate it in a clear and consistent manner, and the important 'multiple–natures' problem raised against the proposed model will be shown to be ineffective.

This article aims to provide an elucidation of the doctrine of the Incarnation. A new ‘reduplication strategy’ and ‘compositional model’ is formulated through the utilisation of certain concepts and theses from contemporary metaphysics, which will enable the doctrine of the Incarnation to be explicated in a clear and consistent manner, and the oft-raised objections against it being fully dealt with.

ABSTRACT Setting specific, challenging goals motivates employees to exert greater effort in their jobs. However, goal-setting may have unintended consequences of also motivating unethical behavior. The present study explores these consequences in the context of other features of goal-setting in organizations, how goals are framed and rewarded, to determine the tradeoff between performance and ethical behavior. Undergraduate students were incentivized to complete math problems using different outcome frames and incentive structures and were also provided an opportunity to cheat. Findings demonstrate (...) that when goals rewarded with piece-rate incentives are framed as a loss, performance increased, though cheating behavior increased as well. (shrink)

On the heels of the advance since the twentieth-century of wholly physicalist accounts of human persons, the influence of materialist ontology is increasingly evident in Christian theologizing. To date, the contemporary literature has tended to focus on anthropological issues (e.g., whether the traditional soul / body distinction is viable), with occasional articles treating physicalist accounts of such doctrines as the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus cropping up, as well. Interestingly, the literature to date, both for and against this influence, is (...) dominated by philosophers. The present volume is a collection of philosophers and theologians who advance several novel criticisms of this growing trend toward physicalism in Christian theology. The present collection definitively shows that Christian physicalism has some significant philosophical and theological problems. No doubt all philosophical anthropologies have their challenges, but the present volume shows that Christian physicalism is most likely not an adequate accounting for essential theological topics within Christian theism. Christians, then, should consider alternative anthropologies. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a response to the Aloneness Argument Against Classical Theism proposed by Joseph C. Schmid and Ryan T. Mullins. This response focuses on showing the unsoundness of the argument once the Doctrine of Divine Simplicity is reformulated within the essentialist aspectival framework provided by the Aspectival Account. Formulating a response to this argument will thus also serve the further purpose of providing an extension of the Aspectival Account and a needed revision of the Doctrine of Divine (...) Simplicity, which can aid others in their quest to further clarify the nature of this doctrine. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to assess the extent to which Theism, the claim that there is a God, can provide a true fundamental explanation for the existence of certain entities within the layered structure of reality. More precisely, I assume the cogency of Swinburne’s explanatory framework and seek to resituate it within a new philosophical context-that of the field of contemporary metaphysics-which will enable me to develop a true fundamental explanation for the existence of the non-fundamental entities that fill (...) up the various levels of the layered structure of reality. And thus, given the truth of this type of explanation, we will have one more good reason to believe in the existence of God. (shrink)

Previous examinations of the scope of moral concern have focused on aggregate attributions of moral worth. However, because trade‐offs exist in valuing different kinds of entities, tabulating total amounts of moral expansiveness may conceal significant individual differences in the relative proportions of moral valuation ascribed to various entities. We hypothesized that some individuals (“tree‐huggers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to animals and ecosystems than to humans from marginalized or stigmatized groups, while others (“human‐lovers”) would ascribe greater moral worth to outgroup (...) members than to the natural world. Additionally, because moral valuation is often treated as being zero‐sum, we hypothesized that there would be no difference in aggregate levels of moral concern between tree‐huggers and human‐lovers. Finally, because attributions of mental capacities substantially contribute to moral valuation, we predicted that tree‐huggers and human‐lovers would show different patterns of mind attribution for animals versus humans. Three studies (N = 985) yielded evidence in support of our hypotheses. First, over one‐third of participants valued nature over outgroups. Second, extending moral value to animals and nature was not indicative of more expansive moral concern overall; instead, tree‐huggers and human‐lovers were identical in their aggregate ascriptions of moral worth. Third, tree‐huggers had relatively amplified tendencies to attribute mental capacities to animals and relatively reduced tendencies to attribute mental capacities to outgroup members—thus having elevated rates of both anthropomorphism and dehumanization. These findings necessitate a reconceptualization of both the extension of moral worth and the attribution of minds. (shrink)

"The goal of this volume is to revise Hans Urs von Balthasar's theology of divine suffering, that is, his disputed discourse on the descent of Christ into hell and its implications for the Triune God, according to a robust contemporary Catholic theology. In order to accomplish such an appropriation, I have recourse not only to twentieth-century Thomistic theology, but also to the thought of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope St. John Paul II. I seek to engage the best of (...) the vast relevant secondary literature on Balthasar and to offer a balanced assessment of his work on the topic of divine suffering, both critical and appreciative in different respects. I argue for a peculiar interpretation of Balthasar's take on Holy Saturday and for a more refined use of language in theological discourse than is typical of his sometimes-hyperbolic style. Recognizing his laudable attempt to integrate mystical spirituality and systematic theology, I seek to distinguish valid insights from confused mixtures of metaphorical, meta-symbolic, and philosophical discourse on God, particularly, with respect to the classical problem of how the Creator who willed to become incarnate may be said to suffer. Truly, "One of the Trinity has suffered," and yet this is mystery of faith that ought to be carefully explained and understood in conformity with sustained Catholic reflection on divine immutability and simplicity, the dual nature and unique personhood of Christ, the Trinity of divine subsistent relations, the freedom of God in creating and becoming man, the analogy of being, the problem of evil, and the immensity and infinite value of Christ's redemptive suffering"--. (shrink)

The so-called ontological argument has a complex and controverted history, rising to particular prominence in contemporary analytic philosophy. Against this backdrop I will present a non-analytic interpretation of ontological argumentation for God’s existence by attempting to fuse Anselmian and Gödelian perspectives. I defend ontological argumentation in a number of slightly variant forms as neither a priori nor a posteriori, but ab actu exercito. Kantian and especially Thomistic critiques are confronted in the course of explaining how ontological argumentation may be logically (...) valid without depending on or yielding to subjectivist epistemologies. Hence, post-Gödelian ontological argumentation ought to be acceptable to realists. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a defense of the coherence of the doctrine of middle knowledge against the Grounding Objection. A solution to the Grounding Objection is provided by utilising the metaphysical thesis of Modal Realism proposed by David K. Lewis (as further developed by Kris McDaniel and Philip Bricker). Utilising this metaphysical thesis will enable the Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom, that are part of God’s middle knowledge, to have pre-volitional truthmakers, and thus, ultimately, we will have a means to (...) finally deal with this problematic issue that has often been raised against this doctrine. (shrink)

The present study investigates the importance of emotional disclosure and vulnerability in the production of hegemonic masculinities. Of particular interest is the role that silence and invisibility play in how men talk about recent stressful life events. One-on-one interviews with men who experienced a stressful life event in the past year illustrate how men often talk about these events in simultaneously visible and invisible ways. We use the term “cloudy visibility” to describe this engagement, identified both in terms of what (...) men articulate in relation to their past stressful experiences and how they articulate these experiences within the present moment of the interview. The conversational consequences of these linguistic devices are analyzed to illustrate how men obscure their inner emotional lives, thus reproducing hegemonic masculine ideals of staying strong and stoic in the face of adversity, while they also seek to make aspects of their inner lives seen and heard to an interviewer. (shrink)

Plural quantification, often used to evade Russell paradoxes, will lead back to them, given certain assumptions about propositions. This chapter provides a more generalized version of the path to paradox by showing that any theory that makes possible the construction of an appropriate packaging relation falls prey to a Russell paradox. It gives examples of widely-held metaphysical theories that require such a relation. It shows that the paradoxes that can result from plural quantification are more widely damaging, and harder to (...) tame, than has been recognized. It also displays formal requirements that any metaphysical framework with a packaging relation must meet if it is to have a chance of escaping self-contradiction. The chapter first gives the general paradox-generating setup, and then shows how three families of metaphysical assumptions allow one to instantiate it. It concludes by assessing the aftermath of the arguments presented. (shrink)

Medical missions to provide cardiac surgical procedures in developing and technologically less advanced countries is a great challenge. It is also immensely gratifying, personally and professionally. Such missions typically present significant ethical dilemmas, especially making difficult choices, given limited time and resources, and the inability to help all children in need of cardiac surgery. We describe some of these issues from our perspective as visiting cardiologists.

In the recent history of philosophy few works have appeared which favorably portray Idealism as a plausible philosophical view of the world. Considerably less has been written about Idealism as a viable framework for doing theology. While the most recent and significant works on Idealism, composed by the late John Foster (Case for Idealism and A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism), have put this theory back on the philosophical map, no such attempt has been made to re-introduce (...) Idealism to contemporary Christian theology. Idealism and Christian Theology is such a work, retrieving ideas and arguments from its most significant modern exponents (especially George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards) in order to assess its value for present and future theological construction. As a piece of constructive philosophical-theology itself, this volume considers the explanatory power an Idealist ontology has for contemporary Christian theology. (shrink)

In recent scholarship there is an emerging interest in the integration of philosophy and theology. Philosophers and theologians address the relationship between body and soul and its implications for theological anthropology. In so doing, philosopher-theologians interact with cognitive science, biological evolution, psychology, and sociology. Reflecting these exciting new developments, The Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology is a resource for philosophers and theologians, students and scholars, interested in the constructive, critical exploration of a theology of human persons. Throughout this collection (...) of newly authored contributions, key themes are addressed: human agency and grace, the soul, sin and salvation, Christology, glory, feminism, the theology of human nature, and other major themes in theological anthropology in historic as well as contemporary contexts. (shrink)

"The influence of materialist ontology largely dominates philosophical and scientific discussions. However, there is a resurgent interest in alternative ontologies from panpsychism to idealism and dualism. The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism is an outstanding reference source and the first major collection of its kind. Historically grounded and constructively motivated, it covers the key topics in philosophy, science, and theology, providing students and scholars with a comprehensive introduction to idealism and immaterialism. Also addressed is post-materialism developments, with explicit attention (...) to variations of idealism and immaterialism. Comprising forty-four chapters written by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors, the Handbook is organised into five clear parts: Idealism and the History of Philosophy Important Figures in Idealism Systematic Assessment of Idealism and Science Idealism, Physicalism, Panpsychism, and Substance Dualism. Essential reading for students and researchers in metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of mind, The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism will also be of interest to those in related discplines where idealist and immaterialist ontology impinge on history, science, and theology"--. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to provide a philosophical elucidation of the thesis of open theism. This task will be performed by utilising the conception of open theism, Generic Open Theism, provided by Alan Rhoda (and precisified in part by William Hasker). This conception will then be further elucidated through the employment of the notion of libertarianism, as proposed by Robert Kane, which will enable the thesis of Generic Open Theism to be shown to not be subject to two important (...) challenges: the Prophecy Challenge and the Divine Bodgery Challenge—which are challenges that focus on showing the incompatibility of perfect being theism, scripture and providence with the central tenets of Open Theism. Thus, in the end, one will be able to affirm the veracity of Open Theism within a scripturally grounded, perfect being theistic framework. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a new philosophical explication of the doctrine of the Incarnation. A compositional model of the doctrine is formulated within the Dispositional Personhood account of Lynne Rudder Baker and the Composition as Identity framework of Donald L.M. Baxter. Formulating the doctrine of the Incarnation within this account and framework will enable it to be explicated in a clear and consistent manner, and the oft‐raised objections against this type of model can be answered.

Necessary Existence breaks ground on one of the deepest questions anyone ever asks: why is there anything? Pruss and Rasmussen present an original defence of the hypothesis that there is a necessarily existing being capable of providing an ultimate foundation for the existence of all things.

With the challenges from science, there has been a shift away from traditional or classical versions of substance dualism toward emergentist accounts of the mind. Of particular importance for those still inclined to make some distinction between the mind and brain, emergent substance dualism provides an attractive option. However, it promises more than it can deliver. In the present article, I show that a version of emergent substance dualism, where the brain produces a soul, lacks the resources to account for (...) the particularity of the soul. I show that, if, in fact, souls have primitive thisness, then physical laws could not produce these souls. That being the case, I show how creationism and emergent substance dualism, rather than being disjunctive options, are compatible. In the end, what I call emergent-creationism or creationist-emergentism provides an attractive theory of the origin of souls. (shrink)

Can exposure to media portrayals of human violence impact an individual’s ethical decision making at work? Ethical business failures can result in enormous financial losses to individuals, businesses, and society. We study how exposure to human violence—especially through media—can cause individuals to make less ethical decisions. We present three experiments, each showing a causal link between exposure to human violence and unethical business behavior, and show this relationship is mediated by an increase in individual hostility levels as a result of (...) exposure to violence. Using observational data, we then provide evidence suggesting that this relationship extends beyond the context of our experiments, showing that companies headquartered in locations marked by greater human violence are more likely to fraudulently misstate their financial statements and exhibit more aggressive financial reporting. Combined, our results suggest that exposure to human violence has significant and real effects on an individual’s ethical decision making. (shrink)

The novel coronavirus and its disease, COVID-19, have revealed how many health systems are ill equipped to respond to a population’s health needs. While the Catholic Church has nearly two thousand years of robust engagement in health care, it has been lacking in the realm of global public health. The Catholic Church’s health care ministries have been preoccupied with responding to illness by offering immediate relief to medical suffering. It is necessary to complement the focus on interpersonal healing by transforming (...) the social structures that perpetuate patterns of illness. By drawing on their social teachings, Catholic health care ministries offer a unique contribution to global public health. This paper will develop four contributions for global public health and analyze them in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

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Currently, there remains an aversion for substance dualism in both philosophical and theological literature. However, there has been a renewed interest in substance dualism within philosophical literature. In the present article, I advance substance dualism as a viable position that persuasively accounts for the Scriptural and theological data within Christian thought. I make a specific argument in favor of a metaphysically simple substance. Along the way, I note the overlap between the philosophical and theological literature and suggest that a simple (...) soul as substance is a metaphysical presupposition grounding the data. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, transitional justice scholars have grappled with whether, and to what extent, post-conflict societies should foster forgiveness. In response to this question, this article argues that forgiveness is a legitimate goal of transitional justice, but that interpersonal forgiveness cannot be mandated by the government. It will look to the example of Guatemala to demonstrate how the recovery of narrative truth through individual and communal acts of remembrance enabled forgiveness while at the same time affirmed the need (...) for justice. The article proceeds in two parts. First, it explores the praxis of forgiveness and the role of narrative truth and the healing of memory as constitutive elements of forgiveness. Second, it argues that Guatemala’s Recovery of Historical Memory Project (REMHI) is an illustration of this praxis. Finally, this article argues against conceptions of forgiveness that promote forgetting the past and forgoing justice. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 286-300, March 2022.

Volume 25, Issue 4, June 2020, Page 486-488.

The beatific vision is a subject of considerable importance both in the Christian Scriptures and in the history of Christian dogmatics. In it, humans experience and see the perfect immaterial God, which represents the final end for the saints. However, this doctrine has received less attention in the contemporary theological literature, arguably, due in part to the growing trend toward materialism and the sole emphasis on bodily resurrection in Reformed eschatology. As a piece of retrieval by drawing from the Scriptures, (...) Medieval Christianity, and Reformed Christianity, we motivate a case for the Reformed emphasis on the immaterial and intellectual aspects of human personal eschatology and offer some constructive thoughts on how to link it to the contemporary emphasis of the body. We draw a link between the soul and the body in the vision with the help of Christology as reflected in the theology of John Calvin, and, to a greater extent, the theology of both John Owen and Jonathan Edwards. (shrink)

The doctrine of the atonement is a subject of perpetual curiosity for a number of contemporary theologians. The penal substitution theory of atonement in particular has precipitated a great deal of recent interest, being held up by many Protestants as ‘the’ doctrine of atonement. In this essay, we make a defense against the objection to the Anselmian theory of atonement that is often leveled against it by exponents of the Penal Substitution theory, namely, that Christ’s work does not accomplish anything (...) for those whom it appears he undertakes his atoning work, but merely makes provision for salvation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When Our Fathers Fall:A Thomistic-Confudan Approach to Lay Moral Correction of ClergyJoshua R. BrownIn this article, I seek to draw upon the resources of Thomas Aquinas and early Confucian philosophy in order to answer the following question: what are the responsibilities of lay Catholics to our priests and bishops as regards their personal moral rectification? This justifiably provokes two questions in reaction: why is this question worth pursuing, and (...) why pursue it via a comparative reading of Aquinas and Confucian philosophy?As to the first of these, the question I pose here is a specification of the larger responsibilities that fall to Christians according to the Scriptures. Galatians 5:1–2 puts the matter this way: "Brothers, even if a person is caught in some transgression, you who are spiritual should correct that one in a gentle spirit, looking to yourself, so that you may also not be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ."1 In the theological tradition, "bearing one another's burdens" has been neatly and aptly represented in the principle of fraternal correction. The question I am focused on here, then, is how is fraternal correction properly offered from laity to clerics.Ultimately, articulating the shape or form of virtuous lay correction of clergy is actually a rather knotty problem. This is because the manner of the relationship between laity and clergy is not simply understood in terms [End Page 1025] of the bonds of Christian fraternity. Certainly, all Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ, for through His grace we have been adopted into the inheritance of the Kingdom of God as children of God (see Eph 5:1–5; 1 John 3:1–3). Yet the Church also recognizes that priests and bishops possess not simply a fraternal but also a paternal relationship to laity. As St. Paul again puts it to the church in Corinth, "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you, be imitators of me" (1 Cor 4:15–16).I propose here that, although fraternal correction is a still useful concept for understanding how laity can morally correct clergy, it has an obvious weakness in that it corresponds to a particular relational analogy, that of fraternity, within which the difference in authority is not as great as the parent–child bond. Thus, fraternal correction is exceptionally useful for understanding how relationships with more or less equal rank of authority can function in terms of moral remonstration, such as how a lay Christian might fraternally correct another lay Christian, or a cleric fraternally correct a cleric. However, when it comes to clergy–laity relations, the shape of fraternal correction is far less clear, for there is a just and genuine disparity between them in the order of ecclesial, magisterial authority underlying the relationship, even if there is equality in other important respects.I argue here that lay responsibilities for correcting clergy can be fruitfully understood in terms of filial remonstration as understood by the Confucian philosophical tradition. Of course, there is one tremendous dissimilarity between Confucian views on the responsibilities for filial remonstration and those pertaining to the laity–clergy relationship: the former occur within and flow from the natural foundation of the parent–child bond, while the latter are not based on blood relations and natural duties. Yet, the same can be said about the language of fraternal correction, which draws upon the analogous duties of blood-kin applied to the spiritual fraternity of the Christian life. And so, it must be admitted that although the father–child relationship is used only analogously to describe the priest–laity relationship, it also accurately depicts the reality of that relationship. As John Paul II observed, priestly celibacy entails "a singular sharing in God's fatherhood and in the fruitfulness of the Church."2 The call of the priest to the celibate life is thus a call to fatherhood, indeed, a call to imitate and participate in the paternity of the triune God in a special and spiritual way. It seems clear that only a materialistic conception of things that denies the spiritual its proper... (shrink)

“De-Conditioning and Images of the Mind” explores the categories of Stephen Priest as developed in his article, “The Unconditioned Soul.” Through an analysis of historical and contemporary examples of the “conditioned” mode in recent philosophical and scientific discussions of the mind, the article articulates limitations of the proposed methods and advances examples of “de-conditioning” the mind that point in the direction of what Priest calls the “unconditioned.”.