This is a collection of sixteen essays by a diverse group of international scholars that offers a wide-ranging and contemporary perspective on the major aspects of Christian Wolff’s ethics. The volume focuses on Wolff’s German Ethics, arguably his most important and influential text on moral philosophy, but many of the chapters also consider the development of the basic tenets of Wolff’s moral theory in his later Latin writings. The contributions cover a range of topics, including the systematic structure of the (...) text itself and the relation between Wolff’s ethics and the preceding natural law tradition. Many chapters pay special attention to the core concepts of Wolff’s moral philosophy, such as obligation, perfection, the highest good, and happiness. Other notable topics include Wolff’s conception of moral judgment and moral education, as well as the role of psychology and anthropology in his ethical thought. The volume also contains discussion of the influence of Wolff’s ethics on subsequent figures such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, and Kant. As a whole, the volume seeks to establish the importance of Wolff’s German Ethics within the history of ethics as well as inspire others to engage with his thought. (shrink)

In Ockham's Assumption of Mental Speech: Thinking in a World of Particulars, Sonja Schierbaum offers a detailed philosophical reconstruction of William Ockham's (1287-1349) conception of mental speech. Ockham's conception provides a rich account of cognition and semantics that binds together various philosophical issues and forms a point of departure for many later and even contemporary debates. The book analyses the role of mental speech for the semantics and the use of linguistic expressions as well as its function within Ockham's (...) cognitive theory and epistemology. Carefully balancing Ockham's position against contemporary appropriations in the light of Fodor's LOTH, it allows us to understand better Ockham's view on human thought and its relation to language. (shrink)

Original tales inspired by Native American and Norwegian folklore that highlight the wisdom of the divine natural world.

The thesis addresses the question of human consciousness in its oscillation between conditioning and transcendence: the impact of cultural worldviews on the individual's lifeworld and their gradual transcendence as a form of spiritual practice. At the centre of attention is a group of individuals and their unfolding life-stories as they move through a journey of transformation, seeking to explore and understand the complexity of their own consciousness. The emphasis is on the embodiment of belief systems and the individuals' inherent existential (...) power to transcend cultural precepts. Methodologically, the study is based in phenomenological anthropology. It thus employs the first-person perspective and includes subjective personal experience as primary data. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

Counters the long-standing, solemn interpretation of Plato’s dialogues with one centered on the philosophical and pedagogical significance of Socrates as a comic figure. Plato was described as a boor and it was said that he never laughed out loud. Yet his dialogues abound with puns, jokes, and humor. Sonja Madeleine Tanner argues that in Plato’s dialogues Socrates plays a comical hero who draws heavily from the tradition of comedy in ancient Greece, but also reforms laughter to be applicable to (...) all persons and truly shaming to none. Socrates introduces a form of self-reflective laughter that encourages, rather than stifles, philosophical inquiry. Laughter in the dialogues—both explicit and implied—suggests a view of human nature as incongruous with ourselves, simultaneously falling short of, and superseding, our own capacities. What emerges is a picture of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Socrates’ own, laughable depiction, one inspired by Dionysus, but one that remains ultimately intractable. The book analyzes specific instances of laughter and the comical from the Apology, Laches, Charmides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, and the Symposium to support this, and to further elucidate the philosophical consequences of recognizing Plato’s laughter. Sonja Madeleine Tanner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and the author of In Praise of Plato’s Poetic Imagination. (shrink)

Ernesto Grassi (1902-1991) was one of the most ambivalent and at the same time most influential professors of philosophy in Western Germany after World War II. Not only his philosophical works on humanism but also his role as a university teacher and editor of the first paperback textbooks on philosophy and theory in general made him to leading figure in post-war academic debates. Mit Ernesto Grassi widmet sich der Band einem schillernden Gelehrten der Nachkriegszeit, der als bedeutender Stichwortgeber in den (...) intellektuellen Debatten der jungen Bundesrepublik gelten darf. Die Beiträge leuchten verschiedene Aspekte seines Werkes, aber auch Grassis Rolle als akademischer Lehrer und Herausgeber aus. Der Philosoph Ernesto Grassi (1902-1991) gehörte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg zu den bekanntesten und einflussreichsten Professoren der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Der Band arbeitet verschiedene Aspekte seiner intellektuellen Biographie heraus und leistet damit einen Beitrag zum akademischen Selbstverständnis der jungen Bundesrepublik. Im Vordergrund stehen Grassis Wirken in München, seine Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Philosophie, seine Versuche zur Neukonstituierung einer bürgerlichen Öffentlichkeit im Nachkriegsdeutschland und seine internationale Ausstrahlung. (shrink)

Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit und sogar rechtsextreme Einstellungen finden sich auch unter Christen; sie werden in manchen christlichen Milieus mit bestimmten religiosen und theologischen Denkmustern begrundet und verschmelzen mit deren Frommigkeitsstilen. Nach der Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Phanomen in dem Buch Rechtsextremismus als Herausforderung fur die Theologie (Verlag Herder, 2015) geht die Herausgeberin mit dem vorliegenden Buch einen Schritt weiter und umreisst Konturen christlicher Theologie, die Gruppenbezogener Menschenfeindlichkeit aktiv entgegenzuwirken vermag. Das Buch untergliedert sich in funf Kapitel: Selbstkritische Reflexionen/Das Zweite Vatikanum leben und (...) vollenden/Abwertungen uberwinden: Das Wagnis Beziehung eingehen/Pluralitat, Ambivalenz, Fragilitat: theologisch wertschatzen - emotional aushalten/Komplexitatstoleranz und Konfliktfahigkeit als spirituelle Aufgaben. Mit Beitragen namhafter Theolog/innen wie Eberhard Schocken hoff, Saskia Wendel, Margit Eckholt, Monika Scheidler, Roman Siebenrock, Willibald Sandler u. a. (shrink)

Population-level biomedical research offers new opportunities to improve population health, but also raises new challenges to traditional systems of research governance and ethical oversight. Partly in response to these challenges, various models of public involvement in research are being introduced. Yet, the ways in which public involvement should meet governance challenges are not well understood. We conducted a qualitative study with 36 experts and stakeholders using the World Café method to identify key governance challenges and explore how public involvement can (...) meet these challenges. This brief report discusses four cross-cutting themes from the study: the need to move beyond individual consent; issues in benefit and data sharing; the challenge of delineating and understanding publics; and the goal of clarifying justifications for public involvement. The report aims to provide a starting point for making sense of the relationship between public involvement and the governance of population-level biomedical research, showing connections, potential solutions and issues arising at their intersection. We suggest that, in population-level biomedical research, there is a pressing need for a shift away from conventional governance frameworks focused on the individual and towards a focus on collectives, as well as to foreground ethical issues around social justice and develop ways to address cultural diversity, value pluralism and competing stakeholder interests. There are many unresolved questions around how this shift could be realised, but these unresolved questions should form the basis for developing justificatory accounts and frameworks for suitable collective models of public involvement in population-level biomedical research governance. (shrink)

What is astro-culture? In The Babylonian Planet it is unfolded as an aesthetic, an idea, a field of study, a position, and a practice. It helps to engineer the shift from a world view that is segregated to one that is integrated - from global to planetary; from distance to intimacy and where closeness and cosmic distance live side-by-side. In this tour de force, Sonja Neef takes her cue from Edouard Glissant's vision of multilingualism and reignites the myth of (...) the Tower of Babel to anticipate new forms of cultural encounter. For her, Babel is an organic construction site at which she fuses theoretical analysis and case studies of artists, writers and thinkers like William Kentridge, Orhan Pamuk and Immanuel Kant. Her skilful interrogations then allow her to paint a portrait of art and culture that abolishes the horizon as a barrier to vision and reclaims it as a place of contact and relation. By combining the Babylonian concept of the encounter and the planetary concept of the whole-earth, Neef creates a space - an astro-culture - in which she can examine topics as varied as language, translation, media, modernity, migration and the moon. In doing so, she instigates a renewed cultural understanding receptive to the kinder forms of cultural encounter and globalisation she hopes will come. (shrink)

Violence, domination, inégalité, tyrannie et insurrections : la réflexion de Spinoza sur le droit et la politique ne se limite pas au pacte social, ni à la liberté de philosopher. Il ne s'agit pas seulement de dresser la liste des droits respectifs du souverain et des sujets, dans le sillage des théories du droit naturel. Déjà Althusser avait rapproché Spinoza de Marx et Alexandre Matheron avait montré le rôle essentiel des passions dans la Cité et ses transformations. Toute une génération (...) de chercheurs s'est interrogée ensuite sur les notions par lesquelles se pense ce devenir : foule, peuple, nation, mais aussi multitude. C'est ce dernier terme surtout qui concentre le mieux une pensée de l'initiative historique des citoyens et de leur puissance collective. Il restait à en tirer les conséquences sur les rapports entre individu et multitude, sur les relations de la pensée spinoziste avec Machiavel, Grotius et Hobbes, sur l'attitude de Spinoza envers révolution et conservation, résistance, assimilation et intégration, citoyenneté, désobéissance et révolte. Autant de thèmes qui sont développés ici, à travers la lecture renouvelée de L'Ethique, du Traité théologico-politique, et du Traité politique. Le volume s'achève par un entretien avec Toni Negri, qui fut le premier, dans son livre L'Anomalie sauvage, à mettre en lumière l'importance et le rôle de ce concept. Il y fait le bilan de son propre itinéraire et des discussions qu'il a suscitées."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

As humans, we frequently engage in mental time travel, reliving past experiences and imagining possible future events. This study examined whether similar factors affect the subjective experience associated with remembering the past and imagining the future. Participants mentally “re-experienced” or “pre-experienced” positive and negative events that differed in their temporal distance from the present , and then rated the phenomenal characteristics associated with their representations. For both past and future, representations of positive events were associated with a greater feeling of (...) re-experiencing than representations of negative events. In addition, representations of temporally close events contained more sensorial and contextual details, and generated a stronger feeling of re-experiencing than representations of temporally distant events. It is suggested that the way we both remember our past and imagine our future is constrained by our current goals. (shrink)

Die Anforderungen an das ethisch-professionelle Handeln Pflegender und somit auch die Forderungen an die professionelle Ethikkompetenz Pflegender im praktischen Berufsfeld wandeln sich sowohl qualitativ als auch quantitativ. Dies wird auch in den veränderten normativen Rahmungen der Pflegebildung deutlich. Der Lernort Praxis als ein zentraler Ort pflegebezogener Bildungsprozesse rückt somit nochmals stärker in den Fokus der Ethikkompetenzentwicklung professionell Pflegender. Der Beitrag konturiert zentrale Anforderungen und veränderte Bezüglichkeiten für die Ethikbildung im beruflichen Handlungsfeld professioneller Pflege und formuliert davon ausgehend zentrale Prämissen an (...) organisationsethische Rahmenbedingungen mit dem Ziel, eine ethisch fundierte professionelle pflegerische Handlungspraxis zu unterstützen. (shrink)

Die Anforderungen an das ethisch-professionelle Handeln Pflegender und somit auch die Forderungen an die professionelle Ethikkompetenz Pflegender im praktischen Berufsfeld wandeln sich sowohl qualitativ als auch quantitativ. Dies wird auch in den veränderten normativen Rahmungen der Pflegebildung deutlich. Der Lernort Praxis als ein zentraler Ort pflegebezogener (Aus‑)Bildungsprozesse rückt somit nochmals stärker in den Fokus der Ethikkompetenzentwicklung professionell Pflegender. Der Beitrag konturiert zentrale Anforderungen und veränderte Bezüglichkeiten für die Ethikbildung im beruflichen Handlungsfeld professioneller Pflege und formuliert davon ausgehend zentrale Prämissen an (...) organisationsethische Rahmenbedingungen mit dem Ziel, eine ethisch fundierte professionelle pflegerische Handlungspraxis zu unterstützen. (shrink)

It has been claimed that the ability to remember the past and the ability to project oneself into the future are intimately related. We sought support for this proposition by examining whether individual differences in dimensions that have been shown to affect memory for past events similarly influence the experience of projecting oneself into the future. We found that individuals with a higher capacity for visual imagery experienced more visual and other sensory details both when remembering past events and when (...) imagining future events. In addition, individuals who habitually use suppression to regulate their emotions experienced fewer sensory, contextual, and emotional details when representing both past and future events, while the use of reappraisal had no effect on either kind of events. These findings are consistent with the view that mental time travel into the past and into the future relies on similar mechanisms. (shrink)

Just as burnout is manifested through changes in behavioural and communication patterns, it is important to examine whether certain aspects of communication can affect student burnout development. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between communication and academic burnout. To achieve this, the study proposes an integrated model examining the effects of three communication dimensions – support from academic staff, support from colleagues, and participation in decision-making – on four different dimensions of academic burnout, as well as students’ overall (...) burnout. The model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis. High coefficients of determination regarding particular burnout dimensions validate the strength of the proposed model. The results show that support from academic staff and support from fellow students significantly and negatively influence academic burnout, and might be instrumental in its reduction. Unexpectedly, participation in decision-making is shown to be positively related to academic burnout. (shrink)

In recent years, discourses around “personalized,” “stratified,” and “precision” medicine have proliferated. These concepts broadly refer to the translational potential carried by new data-intensive biomedical research modes. Each describes expectations about the future of medicine and healthcare that data-intensive innovation promises to bring forth. The definitions and uses of the concepts are, however, plural, contested and characterized by diverse ideas about the kinds of futures that are desired and desirable. In this paper, we unpack key disputes around the “personalized,” “stratified,” (...) and “precision” terms, and map the epistemic, political and economic contexts that structure them as well as the different roles attributed to patients and citizens in competing future imaginaries. We show the ethical and value baggage embedded within the promises that are manufactured through terminological choices and argue that the context and future-oriented nature of these choices helps to understanding how data-intensive biomedical innovations are made socially meaningful. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Research suggests that ethical leadership affects employee behavior and organizational functioning. This study aimed to determine the relationship between EL and productive energy, as mediated by person-organizational fit. The study used assumptions of the social learning and social exchange theories that posit that leadership has a direct impact on employee behavior, mainly through role modeling and the reciprocal nature thereof. An empirical paradigm using a cross sectional quantitative design was used. The PE instrument was assessed for construct validity within (...) the South African context. The analysis included a comparison between the private and public sectors, emphasizing the importance of context as differentiator. Relatively high, statistically significant correlations were found between the variables for both sectors and the combined sample. The hierarchical regression analysis indicated that 18% of the variance in PE is explained by EL. This model was improved by the inclusion of POF. The conceptual model was confirmed with structural equation modeling. The findings of this study suggest that EL has a significantly positive effect on PE and POF, which mediates the relationship between EL and PE. Sectoral differences were reported. (shrink)

Alternative food networks (AFN) are argued to provide platforms to re-socialize and re-spacealize food, establish and contribute to democratic participation in local food chains, and foster producer–consumer relations and trust. As one of the most recent examples of AFN, Participatory Guarantee Systems (PGS) have gained notable traction in attempting to redefine consumer-producer relations in the organic value chain. The participation of stakeholders, such as consumers, has been a key element theoretically differentiating PGS from other organic verification systems. While research on (...) farmer participation in PGS is attracting interest, consumer participation is still widely overlooked. Using a mixed methods approach, this paper describes five PGS markets in Mexico, Chile and Bolivia. A survey was conducted with consumers in the PGS markets to explore their awareness of the PGS, how consumers participate in the PGS, and their level of trust in the respective PGS and its certified products. Results showed a low level of awareness of PGS among market consumers, few participation possibilities, and minimal consumer participation overall. Nevertheless, trust in organic quality was generally high. Consumers primarily relied on the direct relationship with producers and the PGS market itself as sources of trust. These results provide novel insight into PGS consumer-market interactions, and contribute to discussions concerning social embeddedness, awareness and participation within AFN. (shrink)

In three experiments, picture quality between test items was manipulated to examine whether subjects’ expectations about the fluency normally associated with these different stimuli might influence the effects of fluency on preference or familiarity-based recognition responses. The results showed that fluency due to pre-exposure influenced responses less when objects were presented with high picture quality, suggesting that attributions of fluency to preference and familiarity are adjusted according to expectations about the different test pictures. However, this expectations influence depended on subjects’ (...) awareness of these different quality levels. Indeed, imperceptible differences seemed not to induce expectations about the test item fluency. In this context, fluency due to both picture quality and pre-exposure influenced direct responses. Conversely, obvious, and noticed, differences in test picture quality did no affect responses, suggesting that expectations moderated attributions of fluency only when fluency normally associated with these different stimuli was perceptible but difficult to assess. (shrink)

This article investigates the anthropology of Spinoza as a strategy for happiness, political, as well as individual. Inspired by the readings, comments, and perspectives of Matheron, Deleuze, and Balibar, I will analyze Spinoza’s theory of the affects as the basis for this strategic anthropology. These authors all share an ontological and political vision organized around the concepts of multitude and the transindividual which result directly from Spinoza’s analysis of the human affects in books III and IV of the Ethics, and (...) his theory of political dynamics developed in the Political treatise. They consider Spinoza a contemporary and share with him the idea of a relational ontology and an inextricable and mutual interdependence of the individual and the community which is captured in the concept of the transindividual. With Matheron/Spinoza I will focus on the question of anthropology and the structure of thought, with Deleuze/Spinoza on the kinds of knowledge in relation to the human mind and body, and with Balibar/Spinoza on the transindividual, productive, active, and thus strategic nature of our thinking. These three analyses of human thought and affects all proceed from the hypothesis of conatus/desire as human essence and aim not just at theoretical knowledge but rather at the effective improvement of our well-being and lives, that is, at happiness. (shrink)

Although many people seem to share the intuition that multinational companies carry a responsibility for the working conditions in their supply chains, the justification offered for this assumption is usually rather unclear. This article explores a promising strategy for grounding the relevant intuition and for rendering its content more precise. It applies the criteria of David Miller's connection theory of remedial responsibility to different forms of supply chain governance as characterized by the Global Value Chains framework. The analysis suggests that (...) the criteria for identifying MNEs as remedially responsible for bad working conditions in their direct suppliers are fulfilled in many cases, even though differentiations are required with regard to the different supply chain governance structures. MNEs thus have a duty to make sure currently bad working conditions in their suppliers are changed for the better. Moreover, since production in supply chains for structural reasons continuously generates remedial responsibility of MNEs for bad working conditions in their suppliers, it puts the prospective responsibility on them to make sure that their suppliers offer acceptable working conditions. Further, it is suggested that the remedial responsibility of MNEs might require them to make financial compensation to victims of bad working conditions and in grave cases initiate or support programs to mitigate disastrous effects suffered by them. (shrink)

Third-party certification, the most common organic certification system, has faced growing criticism in recent years. This has led to the development of alternative certification systems, most of which can be classed as Participatory Guarantee Systems. PGS have been promoted as a more suitable, cheaper and less bureaucratic alternative to TPC for local markets and are associated with additional benefits such as empowering smallholder farmers, facilitating farmer-to-farmer learning and enhancing food security and sovereignty. PGS have spread rapidly in the past few (...) years, but studies suggest that they are facing numerous challenges that, if not addressed, may jeopardise these benefits. Using the example of three Mexican PGS initiatives, this paper explores the main challenges faced by PGS, specifically those predominantly found in producer-run PGS initiatives. Based on producer and consumer surveys, semi-structured and informal interviews, and participant and non-participant observation, the key challenges that emerged were continuous implementation of the certification process, time constraints, personal conflicts and conflict avoidance. The paper further argues that the requirements for PGS recognition under the Mexican Law for Organic Products may also threaten the continued existence of PGS and suggests that mechanisms for managing conflicts, incentivising PGS participation and mitigating opportunity costs are key if PGS are to continue to develop. (shrink)

This paper derives hypotheses on how dyadic social support is affected by heterogeneity of the actors. We distinguish heterogeneity with respect to three parameters. First, the likelihood of needing support; second, the benefits from support relative to the costs for providing support; and, third, time preferences. The hypotheses are based on a game theoretic analysis of an iterated Support Game. We predict that, given homogeneity in two of these parameters, the prospect for mutual support is optimal if actors are homogeneous (...) with respect to the third parameter as well. Second, under heterogeneity with respect to two of the parameters, support is most likely if there is a specific heterogeneous distribution with respect to the other parameter that ‘compensates’ for the original heterogeneity. Third, under weak conditions, the overall optimal condition for mutual support is full homogeneity of the actors. (shrink)

International treaties, conventions and declarations have been developed in an attempt to establish a world in which people s basic rights and needs are provided for. An increasing number of states have ratified and incorporated them into their national legislations. But are such norms and values truly universal? And with states no longer being the only actors that shape global developments, what can be said about the role of social contracts between state and society for shaping the agenda of international (...) cooperation? And how do these social contracts develop in heterogeneous societies? If people themselves are the main drivers behind development, what does this imply for foreign aid?These and other questions are addressed in "Global Values in a Changing World," the 2010-2011 lecture series organized by the Netherlands Chapter of the Society for International Development. This volume combines views and recommendations by international experts, academics, and activists, and analyzes the connection between internationally agreed norms, standards, goals, and common goods, and the way they can be realized in a world that is both globalized and localized.". (shrink)

Literature on the subject of the menopause, primarily from the past three decades, is selectively reviewed in the form of an annotated bibliography. In order to highlight particular methodological problems, the review is presented in three sections, each preceded by a brief discussion, as follows: the general report of clinical observation or experience, the survey, and the clinical trial. Several recommendations are also made for further research in this field.

Angesichts des Ausbruchs der Corona-Pandemie erfährt Foucaults Konzept der Biopolitik eine verstärkte Aufmerksamkeit innerhalb der politisch- philosophischen Debatten. So lässt sich in Rückgriff auf Foucaults Analyse einer sich seit dem 17. Jh. durchsetzenden „Lebensmacht“ nicht nur zeigen, inwiefern Maßnahmen zum Schutz der Bevölkerung vor einem neuartigen Virus Leben erhalten. Foucaults Beschreibung des Rassismus liefert auch einen ersten Analyseansatz, um die differenzielle Bestimmung von schützenswertem Leben zu problematisieren. Gilt es darüber hinausgehend zu verstehen, durch und innerhalb welcher je spezifischen Rahmendispositive biopolitische (...) Logiken operieren und wie es möglich wird, rassistischen Kalkülen zu widerstehen, stellen Judith Butlers und Donna Haraways Reflexionen über Körperlichkeit, Immunität und Vulnerabilität eine entscheidende Erweiterung dar. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, welche Implikationen biopolitische Strategien angesichts einer globalen Gesundheitskrise haben, und versucht davon ausgehend, eine andere Form der Politik zu denken, die auf eine wechselseitige Verbundenheit bzw. Interdependenz und die daraus resultierende Vulnerabilität als geteilte Bedingung allen Lebens reflektiert. Eine solche Politik bezieht sich nicht auf „das Leben selbst“, sondern auf die ökologischen und sozialen Beziehungen, die ein lebbares Leben erst ermöglichen. (shrink)

On the basis of a reconstruction of legal theory in the tradition of Marx - a current that has been more or less silenced since the end of the 1970s - Subjectivation and Cohesion develops a critical counter-pole to the theories of law that predominate in social theory today. To this end, the works of Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Evgeny Pashukanis, Oskar Negt, Isaac D. Balbus, the so-called 'State-derivation School', Antonio Gramsci, Nicos Poulantzas and Michel Foucault are first analysed for (...) their strengths and weaknesses, and then combined to form a new construction: a materialist legal theory that is up to date and can avoid the shortcomings of existing theories - above all their disregard for gender relations and the reductive consequences of functionalist, economic or politicist approaches to law. (shrink)

This book considers different forms of voluntarism developed from the 13th to 18th centuries. By crossing the conventional dividing line between the medieval and early modern periods, the volume draws important new insights on the historical development of voluntarism. Voluntarism places a special emphasis on the will when it comes to the analysis and explanation of fundamental philosophical questions and problems. Since the Middle Ages, voluntarist considerations and views played an important role in the development of different theories of action, (...) ethics, metaethics, and metaphysics. The chapters in this volume are grouped according to three distinct kinds of voluntarism: psychological, ethical, and theological voluntarism. They address topics such as the threat of irrationality as the standard objection to voluntarism, incontinent actions and their explanation, the nature of the will as rational appetite, the relationship between intellect and will, the implications of conceptions of the will for political freedom, and the relations between divine freedom and the modal status of eternal truths. The chapters not only consider towering figures of the Middle Ages--Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Gent, William of Ockham, Francisco de Vitoria--and early modern period--René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Samuel Pufendorf--but also engage with less well-known figures such as Peter John Olivi, John of Pouilly, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, and Christian August Crusius. Varieties of Voluntarism in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in medieval philosophy, early modern philosophy, the history of ethics, and philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The article discusses the relation between the concepts of unfair trade, exploitation, and below-subsistence wages with regard to individual economic transactions. Starting from the common notion that exploitation involves some kind of unfair advantage taking, it asks how “unfair” is to be understood, and what it is that is taken advantage of in exploitative exchanges. On this basis it then explores a line of argument for grounding the claim that below-subsistence wages are exploitative, focusing on the condition of morally transformative (...) voluntary consent to transactions. By analyzing the structure of coercion with regard to threats, offers, and circumstances it comes to the conclusion that consent to an offer is morally non-transformative with regard to legitimizing the outcome of a transaction if the person giving the “consent” has only unacceptable options in absolute terms to choose from, since this reduces “consent” to a mere act of rationality devoid of any normative content. Accordingly, it argues that insofar as below-subsistence wages are unacceptable options in absolute terms, they are to be considered exploitative and an instance of unfair trade. (shrink)

This article argues that investigators doing developmental and social research with children have, for the most part, failed to acknowledge the inherent implications of their work for children's rights. The impact of these studies upon children's rights occurs at every stage; from hypothesis formulation to hypothesis testing to dissemination of findings. This paper addresses the issue in the context of developmental research on children's ability to report experienced events accurately. This particular research area has generated data that has been extrapolated (...) to legal contexts and created a foundation for assumptions about the credibility of child witnesses. This in turn has had profound effects on children's right to be heard and the weight given to their testimony. The argument is made that there is a need for social scientists to explicitly articulate how their work may impact upon children's rights and what is in fact the social agenda in this regard underlying their research. (shrink)

We present a conceptual analysis of the notions of actual physical property and potential physical property as used by theoretical physicists/mathematicians working in the domain of operational quantum logic. We investigate how these notions are being used today and what role they play in the specified field of research. In order to do so, we will give a brief introduction to this area of research and explain it as a part of the discipline known as “mathematical metascience”. An in depth (...) analysis of Aristotle’s use of the notions of “actuality” and “potentiality” is presented in order to point out exactly how much of the Aristotelian connotations are embedded in the contemporary use of the concepts under investigation. Although we will not focus in depth on all the drawbacks in the early historical development of physics due to the overwhelming influence of Aristotle’s writings, our analysis does touch upon some aspects of the Aristotelian theory of movement that are often overthrown nowadays. (shrink)

The present essay takes issue with the idea of moral supervenience. It is argued that this idea is subject to fatal objections that can be brought to light by utilizing the resources of a phenomenological approach guided by demands of descriptive authenticity and rational principles. This critical project is carried out by focusing on Robert Audi’s sophisticated moderate ethical intuitionism which has rightly gained prominence recently. The relevant problems are addressed by comparing Audi’s notion of supervenience with Edmund Husserl’s account (...) of foundation. The latter refers to different types of contents and their relatedness in terms of ontological dependence. Husserl’s notion of foundation challenges the view that higher-order complex intentional unities like evaluative acts could be analyzed in terms of ‘adding up’ purely descriptive and non- descriptive contents. Or : in terms of anchoring moral properties in natural properties. My main thesis is that applying the idea of supervenience to the field of morality involves a circularity problem that undermines the taken-for-granted presupposition of a clear-cut distinguishability of natural and moral properties. Appropriately specifying one’s duties in situations of moral conflicts, according to the idea of supervenience, calls for identifying all those natural properties or facts that are relevant for morally assessing the situation in the first place. This practical task of solving the problem of moral salience, however, cannot be met by referring to pure facts that could be determined in an independent manner, that is, as uninfluenced by those moral perceptions or moral assessments whose appropriateness or permissibility, as assumed, is under consideration. Though we may grant that supervenience delivers a plausible general or abstract picture of how morality can be part of the world we experience, it does not help us properly assessing moral issues in concrete situations. Rather, from a moral-practical point of view, it is a thoroughly suspicious idea. (shrink)