The abuse of history is common and quite possibly once more on the rise. Although this is well documented, there is no general theory that enables historians to identify, prove, explain, and evaluate the many types of abuse of history. In this book, the author presents such a theory. Reflecting on the responsible use of history, the author identifies the duties that the living has toward the dead and analyzes the rights to memory and history necessary (...) to fulfill these duties. He concludes his argument by proposing a code of ethics as a guide for responsible historians. This work is vital for any historian who wants to oppose and prevent the abuse of history."-- Book jacket. (shrink)

To what extent should an analysis of an agent’s being morally responsible for an action that he performed—especially a compatibilist analysis of this—be sensitive to the agent’s history? In this article, I give the issue a clearer focus than it tends to have in the literature, I lay some groundwork for an attempt to answer the question, and I motivate a partial but detailed answer.

Compatibilists about determinism and moral responsibility disagree with one another about the bearing of agents’ histories on whether or not they are morally responsible for some of their actions. Some stories about manipulated agents prompt such disagreements. In this article, I call attention to some of the main features of my own “history-sensitive” compatibilist proposal about moral responsibility, and I argue that arguments advanced by Michael McKenna and Manuel Vargas leave that proposal unscathed.

Using an Item response theory (IRT) analysis, this study examined ethnic and gender groups differences in exposure to content material (i.e. access to curriculum) assessed on the 12th grade NAEP US History 2010 exam. Employing multi-step data analysis procedures, authors examined race and gender using the NAEP Item Mapping Tool available through NCES. Results revealed item-level patterns, which suggest that females and Black students are more likely to answer questions, related to social history, particularly the Civil Rights, when (...) accounting for student achievement. While instructional exposure matters, how students of similar performance differentiate themselves on item response is related to demographics. These findings have substantial implications for social studies, which include the need to develop a more democratic curriculum that reflects the cultural identities of students in order to make history and history knowledge meaningful. Additionally, results have implications for tests. Assessments should be mindful of cultural validity of items and become more inclusive; perhaps aligning with a more culturally relevant curriculum. (shrink)

Is moral responsibility essentially historical, or does an agent's moral responsibility for an action depend only on their psychological structure at that time? In previous work, I have argued that the two main (non‐skeptical) views on moral responsibility and agents’ histories—historicism and standard structuralism—are vulnerable to objections that are avoided by a third option, namely history‐sensitive structuralism. In this paper, I develop this view in greater detail and evaluate the view by comparing it with its three (...) dialectical rivals: skepticism about moral responsibility, historicism, and standard structuralism. Each comparison includes discussion of new work on moral responsibility and agents’ histories, and along the way I offer new arguments for preferring history‐sensitive structuralism, paying special attention to the view's explanatory power. (shrink)

Australia's policy of mandatory indefinite detention of those seeking asylum and arriving without valid documents has led to terrible human rights abuses and cumulative deterioration in health for those incarcerated. We argue that there is an imperative to research and document the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of the Australian government and its agents. However, the normal tools available to those engaged in health research may further erode the rights and well being of this population, requiring (...) a rethink of existing research ethics paradigms to approaches that foster advocacy research and drawing on the voices of those directly affected, including those bestowed with duty of care for this population. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that contemporary non-Aboriginal Australians can collectively be held responsible for past injustices committed against the Aboriginal peoples of this land. An examination of the role played by history in determining the nature of the present reveals both the temporal extension of the Australian community that confronts the question of responsibility for historical injustice and the ways in which we continue to participate in those same injustices. Because existing injustices suffered by indigenous Australians (...) are essentially continuous with the racist history of the invasion of the Australian continent and dispossession of the Australian Aboriginal peoples, we may be held responsible for the wrongs committed in the course of that history. (shrink)

To what extent should an analysis of an agent’s being morally responsible for an action that he performed—especially a compatibilist analysis of this—be sensitive to the agent’s history? In this article, I give the issue a clearer focus than it tends to have in the literature, I lay some groundwork for an attempt to answer the question, and I motivate a partial but detailed answer.

In this article I try to answer the question posed by History and Theory’s “call for papers”; namely, “do historians as historians have an ethical responsibility, and if so to whom and to what?” To do this I draw mainly on three texts: Alain Badiou’s Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, J. F. Lyotard’s The Differend, and Edward Said’s Representations of the Intellectual; Jacques Derrida and Richard Rorty have a presence too, albeit a largely absent one. (...) Together, I argue that these theorists enable me to draw a portrait of an ethically responsible intellectual. I then consider whether historians qua historians have some kind of ethical responsibility—to somebody or to something—over and above that of the intellectual qua intellectual; I reply negatively. And this negative reply has implications for historians. For if historians are to be intellectuals of the type I outline here, then they must end their present practices insofar as they do not fulfill the criteria for the type of ethical responsibility I have argued for. Consequently, to be “ethical” in the way suggested perhaps signals—as the subtitle of my paper suggests—the possible end of a history “of a certain kind” and, as the inevitable corollary, the end of a historian “of a certain kind” too. (shrink)

This article contributes to the literature on national varieties of socially responsible investment (SRI) by demonstrating how Scandinavian SRI developed from the 60s and onwards. Combining findings on Scandinavian SRI with insights from previous research and institutional theory, the article accounts for the role of changes in societal values and norms, the mechanisms by which SRI practices spread, and how investors adopt and transform practices to suit their surrounding institutional contexts. Especially, the article draws attention to how different categories of (...) investors act as institutional entrepreneurs during specific historical periods, and how these roles come to shift as institutional rule systems of varying societal levels change. Thus, the insights gained are useful in the future research agenda concerned with advancing knowledge on idiosyncrasies and commonalities of national SRI manifestations, and to understand the reasons underlying such characteristics. (shrink)

Two types of lying in history and in politics are the "direct lie" method and the "blank pages" method. "Direct lying" is morally more blameworthy than the "blank pages" method. Distortions on the level of semi-theoretical, general, historical statements are ethically more justifiable than distortions on the level of concrete, factual, empirical statements. Historians are morally responsible for lying even when their false account is due to a lack of talent, or when they know the truth but do not (...) make it publicly known, especially if they are one of the few who has access to direct evidence. Historians are possibly excepted from moral responsibility for lying in the case of sanctions imposed upon them, including the martyr and hostage situations, where either their own or their family's property or life are threatened. Sanctions force some historians into an escapist strategy, such that they attempt to study other topics where their cognitive activities are not so heavily restricted by taboos. (shrink)

(2003). History in place: A response to Thomas Alexander and Woody Holton. Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 247-262.

In this article I propose a resolution to the history issue for responsible agency, given a moderate revisionist approach to responsibility. Roughly, moderate revisionism is the view that a plausible and normatively adequate theory of responsibility will require principled departures from commonsense thinking. The history issue is whether morally responsible agency – that is, whether an agent is an apt target of our responsibility-characteristic practices and attitudes – is an essentially historical notion. Some have maintained (...) that responsible agents must have particular sorts of histories, others have argued that no such history is required. Resolution of this contentious issue is connected to a wide range of concerns, including the significance and culpability of different forms of manipulation, the plausibility of important incompatibilist criticisms of compatibilism, and of course, a satisfactory account of moral responsibility. As it turns out, history matters sometimes, but less frequently than we might think. (shrink)

Habermas has alleged: (1) that Hegel has given a social theory that is abstract and technical, separating theory from practice ; and (2) that the criticism Hegel exercises at times is compromised by his uncritical acceptance of modern western culture. Both allegations amount to the claim that in some way Hegel proscribes internal critique, a citizen’s critique of her own nation-state. However, this charge is based on a misunderstanding of the role that history plays in Hegel’s account, and the (...) difference as Hegel understands it between nations of antiquity and those modernity. Once these are properly understood, it is clear that Hegel advocates identification with a supranational modern culture for which national particularity is necessarily an object of criticism. (shrink)

"Human dignity" has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term--like love, hope, and justice--that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an urgently needed, nonideological, and (...) thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics. Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights. Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law. (shrink)

In her excellent and comprehensive article, Friesen argues that utilising personal responsibility in healthcare is problematic in several ways: it is difficult to ascribe responsibility to behaviour; there is a risk of prejudice and bias in deciding which behaviours a person should be held responsible for; it may be ineffective at reducing health costs. In this short commentary, I will elaborate the critique of personal responsibility in health but suggest one way in which it could be used (...) ethically. In doing so, I will introduce the concepts of reasonable risk and golden opportunity. I previously argued that it is both difficult to disentangle responsibility and that we risk prejudice and bias in singling out behaviours that are socially disapproved of.1 So I am sympathetic to Friesen’s concerns. I also discussed another way in which ascribing personal responsibility for health is problematic which Friesen does not discuss and which, in my view, is the most concerning and further supports her arguments. It represents a back door assault on liberalism and neutrality towards concepts of the good life. Even if one were to accurately and in an unbiased way divine the personal contribution to disease, the greatest problem would remain: those who voluntarily take on risk would be penalised. That is, such a system would be risk-averse. Those lives which avoided risk would be prioritised, while those who chose to take on risky activities in their conception of the good life would be penalised. Yet risk is necessary, both for the good life, and social progress. Columbus, Edmund Hilary, Florence Nightingale, Ernest Hemingway and countless monumental figures in human history took risks in order to achieve something great. Should we aim for a society of trembling, teetotalling health nuts? Surely that prospect is horrific. It is horrific because it elevates health …. (shrink)

In “The Trouble with Tracing,” Manuel Vargas argues that tracing-based approaches to moral responsibility are considerably more problematic than previously acknowledged. Vargas argues that many initially plausible tracing-based cases of moral responsibility turn out to be ones in which the epistemic condition for moral responsibility is not satisfied, thus suggesting that contrary to initial appearances the agent isn’t morally responsible for the action in question. In the present paper, I outline two different strategies for responding to Vargas’s (...) trouble with tracing. I then show how further consideration of the epistemic condition for moral responsibility renders tracing significantly less problematic than Vargas claims. (shrink)

Aristotle's Ethics develops a complex theory of the qualities which make for a good human being and for several decades there has been intense discussion about whether Aristotle's theory of voluntariness, outlined in the Ethics, actually delineates what modern thinkers would recognize as a theory of moral responsibility. Javier Echeñique presents a novel account of Aristotle's discussion of voluntariness in the Ethics, arguing - against the interpretation by Arthur Adkins and that inspired by Peter Strawson - that he developed (...) an original and compelling theory of moral responsibility and that this theory has contributed in important ways to our understanding of coercion, ignorance and violence. His study will be valuable for a wide range of readers interested in Aristotle and in ancient ethics more broadly. (shrink)

This article examines the nonhistoricist higher-order compatibilist theory of moral responsibility devised and defended by Harry G. Frankfurt. Intuitions about certain kinds of cases of moral responsibility cast significant doubt on the wide irrelevancy clause of the nonhistoricist feature of Frankfurt’s theory. It will be argued that, while the questions of the nature and ascription of moral responsibility must be separated in doing moral responsibility theory, the questions of whether or not and the extent to which (...) an agent is morally responsible for performing certain kinds of actions cannot be settled without also answering the question of the history of that agent’s attitudes, preferences, etc. which may have contributed to the agent’s performing such actions. Thus Frankfurt’s repeated claim that the history of an agent’s action is “irrelevant” to the question of that agent’s moral responsibility for it is rendered dubious, thereby rendering problematic the strongly nonhistoricist component of his theory. The methodological difference between my challenge to Frankfurt’s nonhistoricism and those of others is that, while others have challenged Frankfurt’s nonhistoriciams by way of thought experiments involving hyper-manipulation, mine presents a set of counter-examples to his nonhistoricism which emanate from morality and the law. Indeed, if my counter-example is plausible, then Frankfurt’s nonhistoricism cannot make good sense of some standard instances of racism. Furthermore, while many believe that racist hate crimes ought to be punished more heavily than crimes committed absent hate, the argument herein provides reasons for mitigating, rather than increasing, the responsibility and punishments of many such crimes. What matters in such cases is the extent to which the hatred accompanying said crimes has a history in the agent’s life, one which makes it significantly difficult for her to do other than what she did in committing the racist crime. (shrink)

"Human dignity" has been enshrined in international agreements and national constitutions as a fundamental human right. The World Medical Association calls on physicians to respect human dignity and to discharge their duties with dignity. And yet human dignity is a term--like love, hope, and justice--that is intuitively grasped but never clearly defined. Some ethicists and bioethicists dismiss it; other thinkers point to its use in the service of particular ideologies. In this book, Michael Barilan offers an urgently needed, nonideological, and (...) thorough conceptual clarification of human dignity and human rights, relating these ideas to current issues in ethics, law, and bioethics. Combining social history, history of ideas, moral theology, applied ethics, and political theory, Barilan tells the story of human dignity as a background moral ethos to human rights. After setting the problem in its scholarly context, he offers a hermeneutics of the formative texts on Imago Dei; provides a philosophical explication of the value of human dignity and of vulnerability; presents a comprehensive theory of human rights from a natural, humanist perspective; explores issues of moral status; and examines the value of responsibility as a link between virtue ethics and human dignity and rights. Barilan accompanies his theoretical claim with numerous practical illustrations, linking his theory to such issues in bioethics as end-of-life care, cloning, abortion, torture, treatment of the mentally incapacitated, the right to health care, the human organ market, disability and notions of difference, and privacy, highlighting many relevant legal aspects in constitutional and humanitarian law. (shrink)

This article addresses Franklin Gamwell's critique of Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the nature of rational justification. I argue that MacIntyreans have good reasons to take seriously Gamwell's critique, and thus to reformulate MacIntyre's position to make clear that that position does not rest on a denial of all a priori claims. The author outlines such a reformulation, drawing heavily on MacIntyre's account (in his 1990 Aquinas Lecture) of the place of a priori claims within the development of rational traditions of (...) inquiry. When thus rethought, MacIntyre's position grounds a twofold response to Gamwell's critique. (shrink)

An emerging body of research recognizes the importance of the past and history for corporate social responsibility scholarship and practice. However, the meanings that scholars and practitioners can ascribe to the past and history differ fundamentally, posing challenges to the integration of history and CSR thinking. This essay reviews diverse approaches and proposes a broad conceptualization of the relationship between the past, history, and CSR. We suggest historical CSR as an umbrella term that comprises three (...) distinct theoretical perspectives. The “past-of-CSR” perspective is concerned with the history of CSR and business ethics as a set of concepts and practices. The “past-in-CSR” perspective involves employing empirical historical research to substantiate and elaborate CSR concepts and theories. Finally, the “past-as-CSR” perspective seeks to understand the past as a living, yet contested, facet of current organizations, influencing contemporary perceptions of corporate and managerial responsibility. We then elaborate on conceptual issues and paths that may prove useful for future research. In all, this essay and the thematic symposium it precedes strive to deepen and broaden the salience of the past and history for thinking about business ethics and business responsibilities. (shrink)

The recent increased prevalence of diseases related to unhealthy lifestyles raises difficulties for healthcare insurance systems traditionally based on the principles of risk-management, solidarity, and selective altruism: since these diseases are, to some extent, predictable and avoidable, patients seem to bear some responsibility for their condition and may not deserve full access to social medical services. Here, we investigate with objective criteria to what extent it is warranted to hold patients responsible for their illness and to sanction them accordingly. (...) We ground our analysis on a series of minimal conditions for ‘practical’ and for ‘moral’ responsibility attribution. By applying these criteria consistently, we highlight that individual responsibility applies to risk-taking life choices rather than stigmatized sickness. We explain that responsibility is a matter of degree, that it varies across life-history, and can be affected by factors beyond the patients’ grasp. We point out that scientific knowledge about the effect of these factors generates responsibilities for other parties such as public health agencies and private industry. The upshot of our analysis is that health policies targeting the ‘liable’ undeserving sick are mostly unwarranted, and tend to increase unequal treatment of already vulnerable groups: the unlucky sick. (shrink)

Language is the species-specific human version of the animal system of communication. In contrast to non-human animals, language enables humans to invent a plurality of possible worlds; reflect upon signs; be responsible for our actions; gain conscious awareness of our inevitable mutual involvement in the network of life on this planet; and be responsibly involved in the destiny of the planet. The author looks at semiotics, the study of signs, symbols, and communication as developing sequentially rather than successively, more synchronically (...) than diachronically. She discusses the contemporary phenomenon that people in today's society have witnessed and participated in, as part of the development of semiotics. Although there is a long history preceding semiotics, in a sense the field is, as a phenomenon, more "of our time" than of any time past. Its leading figures, whom Petrilli examines, belong to the twentieth and twenty-first century. Semiotics is associated with a capacity for listening. This capacity is also the condition for reconnecting to and recovering the ancient vocation of semiotics as that branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs or symptoms. The pragmatic aspect of global semiotics studies the impact of language or signs on those who use them, and looks for consequences in actual practice. In this respect, Petrilli theorizes that the task for semiotics in the era of globalization is nothing less than to take responsibility for life in its totality. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the forms of response that scientists make when confronted with anomalous data. We postulate that there are seven ways in which an individual who currently holds a theory can respond to anomalous data: (1) ignore the data; (2) reject the data; (3) exclude the data from the domain of the current theory; (4) hold the data in abeyance; (5) reinterpret the data; (6) make peripheral changes to the current theory; or (7) change the theory. (...) We analyze psychological experiments and cases from the history of science to support this proposal. Implications for the philosophy of science are discussed. (shrink)

I argue that, each of the following, appropriately clarified to yield a noteworthy thesis, is true. Moral obligation can affect moral responsibility. Obligation succumbs to changes in responsibility. Obligation is immune from changes in responsibility.

The paper studies Livy's account in Book 45 of the aftermath of Aemilius Paullus' conquest of Macedon employing two interpretative methods, both common in recent studies of historians. The first is “metahistory,” in other words interpreting events within a historical narrative as commenting covertly on the genre of history and on the work as an example of that genre. The second is seeing how internal audiences provide a guide for the reader's interpretation. These, though theoretically independent, are in practice (...) often related, with internal audiences being used as a trigger for wider reflections on the text and the genre. Four linked passages from Livy 45 are discussed in detail. One invites a systematic metahistorical reading without the use of an internal audience, partly to endorse Livy's own manner of “secondary” history, partly to promote a moral reading of the text. The other three employ internal audiences to similar effect: first, Aemilius' meeting with the defeated Perseus, and the lesson which he draws about the mutability of fortune; second, the spectacular games he organizes at Amphipolis; and third, his eventual triumph in Rome, along with the speech that Servilius gives in its support. The understanding of the genre of history that Livy promotes through these passages is, however, astonishingly narrow and didactic, ignoring even central aspects of his own work which do not conform to that understanding. The paper concludes by considering why Livy would wish to present himself and his genre as single-mindedly moralistic when neither he nor it actually was. (shrink)

Natural history collections are typically studied in terms of how they were formed rather than how they were received. This gives us only half the picture. Visiting accounts can increase our historical understanding of collections because they can tell us how people in the past understood them. This essay examines the responses of visitors to Walton Hall in West Yorkshire, home of the traveller-naturalist Charles Waterton and his famous taxidermic collection. Waterton’s specimens were not interpreted in isolation. Firstly, they (...) were experienced as components of a larger visiting experience, in which travelling to the Hall, being admitted to the grounds, viewing the park, and meeting the owner, were all just as significant as seeing the specimens themselves. Secondly, they were interpreted in conjunction with familiar stories and images relating to Waterton’s adventurous collecting activities. Visiting accounts can help us begin to recover what people thought about Waterton and his collection in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, in so far as they were responsible for a large part of his subsequent reputation, they can help us better understand our own, present-day conceptions of Charles Waterton and Walton Hall. (shrink)

Argues that the explanation of man's social and cultural differences is best defined by history, not human biology, maintaining that humans shape their social lives by their historical activities.

Professor Isaiah Berlin has written an extremely lively polemic against those metaphysical theories of history which by regarding all human actions as inevitable, make it morally improper to censure the actors. Such theories attempt to give a comprehensive explanation of historical change in terms of some abstraction such as The Masses, The Absolute Spirit, Tradition, etc. which is supposedly the real dynamism or determinant of human history. What he opposes in these theories is that they seem to entail (...) that individuals are at the mercy of forces they are not aware of, much less understand; they have no choices or alternatives, for their actions are predetermined by the necessity of the fulfillment of some over-all Plan or Realization. Such a view if taken seriously would make it improper for the historian or anyone else to blame, say, Napoleon, or claim that he could have pursued a different policy. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of Mark Bevir's The Logic of the History of Ideas . It focuses on three topics central to Bevir's book: his weak intentionalism; his anthropological epistemology; and his priority claim regarding sincere, conscious, and rational beliefs. It is argued that Bevir's position on these issues is problematic in certain important respects, and that some of his related critical claims against Pocock, Skinner and others are misconceived.

This paper explores the conceptual history of academic freedom and its emergence as a substantive right that pertains to either the academic or the university. It is suggested that historical reconceptualisations necessitated by contingent circumstance may have led to academic freedom being seen as a form of protection for those working within universities whose national legislation recognises the right to teach and research without external interference, rather than as a responsibility to the wider society or to peers in (...) other parts of the world, who do not enjoy the privilege of that right. I explore the value of academic freedom as both right and responsibility, particularly taking into consideration the ethical implications for both at the international level in higher education. (shrink)

This article attempts to answer the question, “What are the most important ideas from serving as Executive Editor of the five‐year history project that culminated in the book, Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience?” The ideas focus on clarifying the phenomenon of tenacity; looking at three foundations of our tenacity; and asking “How fragile is our tenacity?” This article also presents three foundational principles that underlie the American experience of corporate responsibility. First, the Checks & Balances Principle tells (...) us that there are checks and balances in democratic capitalism which give us confidence that the pursuit of economic goals will be moderated for the common good. Second, the Moral Projection Principle shows that there is good reason to consider the corporation not only as a legal person under corporate law but also as a moral person. And, last, the Moral Common Ground Principle reflects that there are shared moral values ascertainable by well‐developed consciences in individuals and in corporations. The article concludes with this argument: The tenacity regarding corporate responsibility that has been so characteristic of American capitalism is fragile—calling for serious vigilance if it is to endure. (shrink)

This Article doDespite obvious differences in the Aristotelian and Stoic theories of responsibility, there is surprisingly a deeper structural similarity between the two. The most obvious difference is that Aristotle is (apparently) a libertarian and the Stoics are determinists. Aristotle holds adults responsible for all our "voluntary" actions, which are defined by two criteria: the "origin" or cause of the action must be "in us" and we must be aware of what we are doing. An "involuntary" action, for which (...) we are not responsible, is one that fails to meet either one of these two criteria. Aristotle is a libertarian insofar as he insists that all voluntary actions are "in our power" to perform or not. As determinists the Stoics cannot admit this sort of freedom, but they still consider the agent to be a vital link in the chain of events, so they redefine what is "in our power" as what comes about "through us." The terminology is different, but I argue that these actions, for which the Stoics hold us responsible, are in fact coextensive with Aristotle's voluntary actions. An "impression" is the first necessary condition for action, and is a sort of visual image of the object stimulating one to act. The right sort of impression activates the agent's "impulse," an internal movement of soul or mind, which is the direct cause of action. But impulse is always accompanied by "assent," which is the mind's affirming the truth of the proposition that we ought to go after the object stimulating our impulse. Thus, since assent is a necessary condition for action, we always act knowing what we are doing. This means that all actions caused by our own impulse and assent are by Aristotle's criteria voluntary, where impulse provides the internal origin of the action and assent provides the awareness of what is being done. I conclude that the Stoic and Aristotelian classes of what one is responsible for are coextensive, their criteria defining responsible actions are nearly identical, and the only substantial difference is that Aristotle claims such actions are in our power to do or not do while the Stoics say that such actions are necessitated (by our internal nature as well as external factors). es not have an abstract. (shrink)

The original versions of the five papers in this Symposium were delivered and discussed at a workshop at the University of Minnesota Law School on Criminal Responsibility and its History. One of the aims of the workshop was to bring together scholars working on the history of the criminal law and scholars whose main focus is on issues in normative criminal law theory, to explore the ways in which they can learn from each other, and to promote (...) a kind of dialogue between historical and normative theorising that is still too rare. Elizabeth Kamali’s exploration of the idea of felony in early English law, and Thomas A Green’s work on the Anglo-American jury, remind us of the importance of looking at the history of our contemporary institutions and concepts: we can understand the law that we now have only by attending to continuities and discontinuities in thought and practice that have marked its long, complex political and social history. Informed by the institutional and conceptual fram .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 695 Salvation Outside the Church? Tracing the History of the Catholic Response. By FRANCIS A. SULLIVAN. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1992. Pp. i + 224. $12.95 (paper). The subtitle of the volume describes well its purpose and content. The author surveys in chronological order, beginning with the earliest ecclesiastical writers and ending with John Paul II, the various interpretations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus. (...) What prompted Sullivan to undertake a historical rather than systematic approach in his volume is the conviction that without taking into account the historical and cultural factors that conditioned the formulation of this axiom it is impossible to make sense of the shift from the exclusivism of the pre-Vatican II Church to the inclusiveness of Vatican II and post-Vatican II theology with regard to the salvation of those who are not members of,the Roman Catholic Church. The principle that guides Sullivan's attempt to disclose the meaning embodied in the manifold formulations of the axiom " there is no salvation outside the Church" is Pope John XXHI's distinction between " the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith " and " the way in which it is presented," and the more recent emphasis of the Declaration Mysterium Ecclesiae (1973) on the historical condition affecting the expression of divine revelation. As a historical study, Salvation Outside the Church? is an excellent continuation of Louis Caperan's two-volume work Le probleme du salut des infideles, which is still unavailable in English. Obviously an over· view of almost two thousand years of theological discussion of this problem has to be highly selective if one is not to miss the forest for the trees, and Sullivan's choice of authors as well as of historical periods for discussion is judiciously made. If a complaint is to be made in this regard, it is that he has focused too much attention on magisterial documents, and Roman documents at that, and not enough on contemporary theology. True, he devotes a chapter to the theory of " anonymous Christians," espoused mainly by Karl Rahner (chapter 10), and defends it against criticisms by Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Kiing, and Max Seckler. He is well aware that Rahner's theory has become the position of mainstream Catholic theology and cites authors who support it in one way or another (p. 181). However, a book that claims to present " the Catholic response " to the problem posed by the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus should, one would expect, have discussed in greater detail the various positions of contemporary Catholic theologians on this issue. It is to be fervently hoped that Sullivan will take up this task in his next book. 696 BOOK REVIEWS Sullivan's basic thesis is that the substance underlying the various negative formulations of the axiom extra ecclesiam nulla salus is the positive belief ithat " God has assigned to the church a necessary role in the accomplishment of his plan for the salvation of humanity " (p. 12). Such a thesis is, of course, neither new nor startling. Hans Kling had already said that much in his 1967 Die Kirche (English translation, p. 318). What is helpful in Sullivan's account is his explanation of both the intent of those who affirmed this axiom with its apparent exclusiveness and the limitations that prevented them from perceiving the universality of God's saving grace. With regard to intent, Sullivan shows con· vincingly that the patristic usage of the axiom is intended as a warning for those Christians who had separated themselves from the catholica either by schism or by heresy that they must remain within it in order to be saved, whereas ithe medieval usage is intended to warn pagans and Jews that they should accept the message of the Gospel now that it had been announced to them. With regard to limitations, Sullivan singles out two: the geographical and the psychological. On the one hand, there was before the discovery of America the conviction that the world was identical with Christian Europe. This belief led theologians to postulate that the Gospel had been spread throughout the world. On the other hand, their ignorance... (shrink)

Manipulation arguments for incompatibilism all build upon some example or other in which an agent is covertly manipulated into acquiring a psychic structure on the basis of which she performs an action. The featured agent, it is alleged, is manipulated into satisfying conditions compatibilists would take to be sufficient for acting freely. Such an example used in the context of an argument for incompatibilism is meant to elicit the intuition that, due to the pervasiveness of the manipulation, the agent does (...) not act freely and is not morally responsible for what she does. It is then claimed that any agent's coming to be in the same psychic state through a deterministic process is no different in any relevant respect from the pertinent manner of manipulation. Hence, it is concluded that compatibilists' proposed sufficient conditions for free will and moral responsibility are inadequate, and that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. One way for compatibilists to resist certain manipulation arguments is by appealing to historical requirements that, they contend, relevant manipulated agents lack. While a growing number of compatibilists advance an historical thesis, in this paper, I redouble my efforts to show, in defense of nonhistorical compatibilists like Harry Frankfurt, that there is still life left in a nonhistorical view. The historical compatibilists, I contend, have fallen shy of discrediting their nonhistorical compatibilist rivals. (shrink)

In recent discussions of moral responsibility, two claims have generated considerable attention: 1) a complete account of responsibility cannot ignore the agent’s personal history prior to the time of action; and 2) an agent’s responsibility is not determined solely by whether certain objective facts about the agent obtain (e.g., whether he/she was free of physical coercion) but also by whether, subjectively, the agent views him/herself in a particular way. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza defend these (...) claims and combine them in a novel manner. They argue that responsibility for an action requires that the agent—at some prior time—have taken responsibility for the kind of mechanism, or process, which produced the action (e.g., practical reason). The notion of taking responsibility is then understood subjectively, requiring that the agent believe it appropriate for others to hold him/her responsible for actions produced by that kind of mechanism. I explore how best to understand the role(s) played by the notion of taking responsibility in Fischer and Ravizza’s account and then argue that being responsible for an action does not require that one have taken responsibility in the subjective sense. That is, being responsible is not a matter of believing oneself to be so. This Article does not have an abstract. (shrink)

I wonder why women philosophers, once recognized, too often seem to drop from the intellectual radar screen or, at least, to drop mainly to the land of footnotes and bibliographies. I consider one distinguished moral philosopher, Elizabeth Lane Beardsley, both to highlight her philosophical contributions and as a case study that suggests more widespread problems in recognizing t5he work of female philosophers and ensuring their rightful place in our professional dialogue. I consider sociological and professional factors which might partially explain (...) why work by women philosophers has not always received the attention in the professional dialogue it seems to deserve. I conclude with some modest suggestions about the efforts that we can make to address these problems, including the organization of readings for our own courses, the sources consulted for our own research and writing, and the preservation of rec rods of meetings and other public gatherings that recognize women philosophers. (shrink)

Written in response to Carolyn Lesjak and Stefano Ercolino, this article reconstructs the author’s changing relationship to historical materialism.

In recent discussions of moral responsibility, two claims have generated considerable attention: 1) a complete account of responsibility cannot ignore the agent’s personal history prior to the time of action; and 2) an agent’s responsibility is not determined solely by whether certain objective facts about the agent obtain (e.g., whether he/she was free of physical coercion) but also by whether, subjectively, the agent views him/herself in a particular way. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza defend these (...) claims and combine them in a novel manner. They argue that responsibility for an action requires that the agent—at some prior time—have taken responsibility for the kind of mechanism, or process, which produced the action (e.g., practical reason). The notion of taking responsibility is then understood subjectively, requiring that the agent believe it appropriate for others to hold him/her responsible for actions produced by that kind of mechanism. I explore how best to understand the role(s) played by the notion of taking responsibility in Fischer and Ravizza’s account and then argue that being responsible for an action does not require that one have taken responsibility in the subjective sense. That is, being responsible is not a matter of believing oneself to be so. (shrink)