I compare Sellars’s criticism of the ‘myth of the given’ with Quine’s criticism of the ‘two dogmas’ of empiricism, that is, the analytic–synthetic distinction and reductionism. In Sections I to III, I present Quine’s and Sellars’s views. In IV to X, I discuss similarities and differences in their views. In XI to XII, I show that Sellars’s arguments against the ‘myth of the given’ are incompatible with Quine’s rejection of the analytic–synthetic distinction.

In this chapter, we examine the key moral issues for the intelligence community with regard to the use of robots for intelligence collection. First, we survey the diverse range of spy robots that currently exist or are emerging, and examine their value for national security. This includes describing a number of plausible scenarios in which they have been (or could be) used, including: surveillance, attack, sentry, information collection, delivery, extraction, detention, interrogation and as Trojan horses. Second, we examine several areas (...) in which spy robots present serious ethical and legal challenges. We conclude by examining some moral concerns with shifting from intelligence collection to action, as enabled by robotics technology. (shrink)

The relation between peace-oriented politics and theology will be discussed from a philosophical point of view by approaching the problem in five steps. In a first step, I will focus on logic as one of the most powerful and simultaneously misleading forces in our thinking. Utilising the results of this step will, secondly, enable a clarification of the misunderstanding implied in an idea such as eternal peace. Thirdly, the article will unveil the paradoxical character of violence inherent in the notion (...) of political power as well as the antinomy of war and peace. This will open the space for accepting second-best solutions. In so doing at least some of the problems implied in any philosophical contribution to a political theology of pacifism may be solved. (shrink)

This paper applies a very traditional position within Natural Law Theory to Cyberspace. I shall first justify a Natural Law approach to Cyberspace by exploring the difficulties raised by the Internet to traditional principles of jurisprudence and the difficulties this presents for a Positive Law Theory account of legislation of Cyberspace. This will focus on issues relating to geography. I shall then explicate the paradigm of Natural Law accounts, the Treatise on Law, by Thomas Aquinas. From this account will emerge (...) the structure of law and the metaphysics of justice. I shall explore those aspects of Cyberspace which cause geography to be problematic for Positive Law Theory and show how these are essential, unavoidable and beneficial. I will then apply Aquinas’s structure of law and metaphysics of justice to these characteristics. From this will emerge an alternative approach to cyberlaw which has no problem with the nature of Cyberspace as it is but treats it as a positive foundation for new legal developments. (shrink)

I defend the view that a significant ethical distinction can be made between justified killing in self-defense and police use of lethal force. I start by opposing the belief that police use of lethal force is morally justified on the basis of self-defense. Then I demonstrate that the state’s monopoly on the use of force within a given jurisdiction invests police officers with responsibilities that go beyond what morality requires of the average person. I argue that the police should primarily (...) be concerned with preserving public safety. As a consequence, police have additional moral permissions to use lethal force. But this also means that the principle of restraint is inherent to the policing function and therefore police are obliged to go to greater lengths to avoid killing. I concede that the just use of police force can be made difficult in extreme situations such as a mass riot. In such cases, police should take proportionate actions necessary to protect the lives of inhabitants by restoring order, which might include calling on military support. I conclude with a cautionary note opposing militarization of the policing role. (shrink)

We argue for asymmetries between positive and negative partiality. Specifically, we defend four claims: i) there are forms of negative partiality that do not have positive counterparts; ii) the directionality of personal relationships has distinct effects on positive and negative partiality; iii) the extent of the interactions within a relationship affects positive and negative partiality differently; and iv) positive and negative partiality have different scope restrictions. We argue that these asymmetries point to a more fundamental moral principle, which we call (...) Morality’s Harmonious Propensity. According to this principle, morality has a propensity toward preserving positive relationships and dissolving negative ones. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I defend a Russellian form of descriptivism. The main supporting argument invokes a relation between meaning and thought. I argue that the meanings of sentences are the thoughts people use them to express. This is part of a Gricean outlook on meaning according to which psychological intentionality is prior to, and determinative of, linguistic intentionality. The right approach to thought, I argue in Chapter 1, is a type of functionalism on which thoughts have narrow contents. On this (...) view, the attitude ascriptions of a regimented psychology capture what people really believe and desire. These attitude ascriptions have content clauses that are what David Lewis calls ‘modified Ramsey sentences.’ I then conclude that, since the meanings of sentences are the narrow contents of the thoughts speakers use them to express, the meanings of sentences can also be represented with such descriptive sentences. I extend the view so that it applies to individual words. The resulting view is a form of descriptivism. Referring, I claim in Chapter 2, is the expression of a de re attitude. I argue that the non-psychological, de re individuation of thoughts captures only contingent features of these thoughts. Furthermore, whether a thought counts as de re depends on the attributor’s context. These two characteristics carry over to reference. The referential properties of speech acts and expressions are merely contingent features. Furthermore, whether a speech act or expression counts as referring depends upon the attributor’s context. In Chapter 3, I apply this version of descriptivism to indexicals, demonstratives and names. Indexicals turn out to have non-descriptive, context-insensitive, semantically determined meanings. Demonstratives have descriptive, context-sensitive, pragmatically determined meanings. Names, finally, have descriptive, context-insensitive, semantically determined meanings. In the final chapter, I address Putnam's model-theoretic argument, the most formidable obstacle to the form descriptivism outlined here. I criticize Lewis's ‘magnetist’ solution that invokes primitive naturalness because it is committed to the existence of incorrigible error about the external world. I suggest an empiricist approach on which psychological intentionality, and so ultimately linguistic intentionality as well, is anchored in experience. (shrink)

I defend a modified rights-based unjust threat account for morally justified killing in self-defense. Rights-based moral justifications for killing in self-defense presume that human beings have a right to defend themselves from unjust threats. An unjust threat account of self-defense says that this right is derived from an agent’s moral obligation to not pose a deadly threat to the defender. The failure to keep this moral obligation creates the moral asymmetry necessary to justify a defender killing the unjust threat in (...) self-defense. I argue that the other rights-based approaches explored here are unfair to the defender because they require her to prove moral fault in the threat. But then I suggest that the unjust threat account should be modified so that where the threat is non-culpable or only partially culpable, the defender should seek to share the cost and risk with the threat in order for both parties to survive. (shrink)

This article aims to introduce some features of the literary output of Gling-ras-pa Padma rdo-rje, who was the teacher of the ‘Brug-pa bKa’-brgyud-pa school’s founder, gTsan-pa rGya-ras Ye-shes rdo-rje in Tibet. The work that I draw upon here is titled A Torch of Crucial Points. A Condensation and Presentation of all Dharmas that are to be Practiced, a presentation of the entire outline of Buddhist practice that resembles the doctrinal stages literary genre. Based on an edition and translation of the (...) fifth chapter of the 17 that comprise the work, here I focus on several concepts, such as the three natures and the allground consciousness, that pertain to the system of Yogācāra and the terminology related to it. These are shown as they appear in the framework of the work, which is heavily influenced by the tradition of Mahāmudrā and the background of its author’s life as a wandering yogin in the lineage of Mi-la ras-pa. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the importance of ethics education for senior military officers with responsibilities at the strategic level of government. One problem, as I see it, is that senior commanders might demand “ethics” from their soldiers but then they are themselves primarily informed by a “morally skeptical viewpoint” (in the form of political realism). I argue that ethics are more than a matter of personal behavior alone: the ethical position of an armed service is a matter of the (...) collective responsibility of the people who constitute it, and senior military officers, having authority to give the orders, have a particularly important role. First, I discuss the continued prominence of a neorealist mindset in strategic thinking. Neorealist theory assumes that ethics is a largely irrelevant concern for strategic decision-makers. In contrast, I argue that consideration of moral values should be at the center of strategic theory and practice. Then, in the second section, I explore the “professional ethics” of senior military officers in order to develop an appreciation of the shared values and expectations regarding required conduct within any professional military service. I argue that senior military leaders should be concerned with what it means to be “good” and that this concept of the good can, and should, be applied across cultures and national boundaries. In the final section, I examine armed conflict and briefly discuss the moral reasoning involved to justify deliberate killing and destruction. I conclude that senior military officers require an understanding of sound moral reasoning to implement effective strategy. (shrink)

The US-Australia strategic relationship has evolved from more or less an adversarial position in the 19th century to an Australia largely dependent on the US during the Cold War to the interdependent partnership we see today. Strategic interdependence means that the US-Australia relationship is not merely a one-sided affair; that Australia has something of substance to offer the strategic relationship. Part of the reason that the relationship is strong is because of a shared language, similar social values, and compatible political-legal (...) systems. Moreover, the relationship has been thoroughly institutionalised via intelligence cooperation, defence science collaboration, and extensive personal relationships. But what the US really seems to value is Australia’s reliability as an ally. I argue that Australia best demonstrates its reliability as an ally, however, when it follows US strategic decision-making for the right reasons. This sense of reliability is more akin to trustworthiness than it is to loyalty. History demonstrates that Australia has not always agreed with the US. But agreeing doesn’t matter so much when Australia has established a track record of consistently applying sound reasoning to its strategic decisions and it has made substantive contributions to jointly sought after strategic outcomes. (shrink)

I argue for an account of know‐how as a capacity for practical judgment—a view I derive from Gilbert Ryle. I begin by offering an interpretation of Ryle and by correcting a number of widespread misconceptions about his views in the current debate. I then identify some problems with Ryle's account and finally present my own view which, I argue, retains Ryle's insights while avoiding his mistakes.

In this chapter, I argue that the notion which Michael Walzer calls jus ad vim might improve the moral evaluation for using military lethal force in conflicts other than war, particularly those situations of conflict short-of-war. First, I describe his suggested approach to morally justifying the use of lethal force outside the context of war. I argue that Walzer’s jus ad vim is a broad concept that encapsulates a state’s mechanisms for exercising power short-of-war. I focus on his more narrow (...) use of jus ad vim which is the state’s use of lethal force. Next I address Tony Coady’s critique of jus ad vim. I argue that Coady highlights some important problems with jus ad vim, but these concerns are not sufficient to dismiss it completely. Then, in the final section, I argue that jus ad vim provides an appropriate “hybrid” moral framework for judging the ethical decision-making outside of war by complementing other conventional just war distinctions. A benefit of jus ad vim is that it stops us expanding the definition of war while still providing the necessary ethical framework for examining violent conflict outside that context. (shrink)

At the outset of the Republic, Polemarchus advances the bold thesis that “justice is the art which gives benefit to friends and injury to enemies”. He quickly rejects the hypothesis, and what follows is a long tradition of neglecting the ethics of enmity. The parallel issue of how friendship affects the moral sphere has, by contrast, been greatly illuminated by discussions both ancient and contemporary. This article connects this existing work to the less explored topic of the normative significance of (...) our negative relationships. I explain how negative partiality should be conceptualized through reference to the positive analogue, and argue that at least some forms of negative partiality are justified. I further explore the connection between positive and negative relationships by showing how both are justified by ongoing histories of encounter. However, I also argue that these relationships are in some important ways asymmetrical. (shrink)

This paper is a defense of the “representative theory of perception” in general, and Locke's views about perception in particular. It is intended only as a limited defense, but one against those objections which recently have been taken thoroughly to discredit both the general theory and Locke's particular position. The chief of these objections is that the representative theory leads inevitably to skepticism about the existence of objective material things. George Pitcher finds this objection to the representative theory completely persuasive (...) and so well established that it scarcely requires discussion:It is just here [in the area of justifying perceptual knowledge of the world] that the most serious and notorious deficiencies of sense-datum theories are encountered. If the sense-datum theorist maintains the existence of physical objects, … as ordinarily conceived, then his claim that sense-data are metaphysically distinct from anything in the physical world commits him to a version of representative realism. The enormous epistemological difficulties [due to their skeptical consequences] faced by theories of this kind are well known, and I shall not say anything about them, except that I regard them as insuperable …. (shrink)

1. If Taylor's first two proposals are accepted, we must introduce a term to replace "know" in a familiar, but weaker, sense of the word. In ordinary speech it is correct to say that I know that p, even if my conviction that p might be somewhat increased by further evidence. In Taylor's stronger sense of "know" and "knowledge," it is doubtful that we have much, if any, knowledge. For even if we sometimes have evidence which is conclusive, and which (...) therefore might be said to "justify" complete conviction, it can still be doubted that in such cases we are as fully convinced as we could be. (shrink)

How do people survive under extreme conditions? Will selfish, non-cooperating free-rider types – the solo players – have the best chances of surviving? Or would cooperating, hard-working types – the team players – have higher chances? All morale put aside, it is interesting to know whether non-cooperation or cooperation pays off in a game characterized by scarcity and hard competition for survival. A study of people in such a Hobbesian state of nature can also teach us important lessons about social (...) dynamics in contemporary, prosperous societies. An interesting case of ‘The survival game’ can be found in Solzhenitsyn’s (1963 [1962]) self-biographical book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, depicting life in a Soviet Gulag prison camp in Siberia January 1951. We use Solzhenitsyn’s work as evidence of the interplay between five player types among prisoners: Cooperative blind-riders (BRs), hard-riders (HRs) and tough-riders (TRs), i.e. the so-called ‘toilers’; non-cooperative easy-riders (ERs), looked upon by the toilers as ‘bastards’, ‘screws’ and ‘errand boys’; and finally Low-riders (LRs), comprising ‘goners’ and ‘jackals’. The main research question addresses the successfulness of the survival strategies of the five player types. Apart from a Multiple Player Approach (MPA) that may be seen as a further development of second-generation theory of collective action (Ostrom & Ahn, 2009), we apply Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical theory on our case. Hence, we argue that impression management at two different ‘stages’ – the Brigade stage and the Camp stage – is crucial for survival for hard-riding as well as for easy-riding players, in particular strategic masking. Seeking to unite Goffman and game-theoretic MPA, our overall purpose is to make a theoretical contribution to “game-related sociology” (Swedberg, 2001). (shrink)

Virtually all philosophers now agree that human beings - and possibly the higher animals - have moral rights in some sense, both special rights against individuals to whom they stand in a special relation, and general rights, against everybody or against the government, just in virtue of their human nature. Some philosophers also think, however, that anyone who is a utilitarian ought not to share this view: there is a fundamental incompatibility between utilitarinism and human rights. Most utilitarians, of course, (...) have not thought there is such an incompatibility. John Stuart Mill, for instance, espoused utilitarianism at the same time that he defended rights to free speech and freedom of action except where it injures others. In what follows I wish to explore some reasons recently put forward to show that the utilitarian who wishes to affirm that there are moral rights faces a serious logical problem; and I shall argue that further analysis shows the alleged difficulty is unreal. (shrink)

In this article I reject the claim that the responsibilities acquired by gamete providers can be transferred to their biological children's intending parents. I defend this position by first showing that arguments in defence of the transferability of responsibilities in gamete provision cases fail to distinguish between the transfer and delegation of responsibility. I then provide an argument against the transferability of responsibilities in gamete provision cases that differs from the ones offered by James Lindemann Nelson and Rivka Weinberg. Though (...) I conclude that gamete providers have inalienable responsibilities towards their biological offspring, I note that the precise ethical and policy implications this has for gamete provision remain somewhat unclear. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper examines the role of metaphors in science on the basis of a historical case study. The study explores how metaphors of “genetic information,” “genetic code,” and scripture representations of heredity entered molecular biology and reshaped experimentation during the 1950s and 1960s. Following the approach of the philosopher Hans Blumenberg, I will argue that metaphors are not merely a means of popularization or a specific kind of modeling but rather are representations that can unfold an operational force of their (...) own.While the influence of cybernetics and information theory on molecular biology is well documented in historical analysis throughout recent years, this paper offers new insights into the metaphysical and religious resonances of textual metaphors in the life sciences. The main focus will be on developments in Germany, in particular on the work of the German biochemist Gerhard Schramm. In this historical case study the interaction between metaphors and experimental practices will be discussed. The paper analyzes different phases in the use of metaphors during the 1950s and 1960s: it will explore how the metaphors of a “genetic alphabet” or of “genetic code” developed into a new research program and eventually attained ontological status in the early 1960s. At that time Schramm's use of textual metaphors was reminiscent of nineteenth-century German natural philosophy. In this case, the metaphorical shift shows how the metaphor of a “genetic text” or a “genetic code,” which were central for the emerging molecular biology, drew on older cultural traditions with all of their metaphysical and religious preoccupations. (shrink)

Many social scientists and philosophers have counted themselves moral relativists in some sense or other. We cannot deal with all the various views which are properly called forms of “moral relativism”; so I propose to explain a form of moral relativism which seems to me an interesting, and somewhat plausible theory. This theory comprises the following three affirmations: The basic moral principles of different individuals or groups sometimes are, or can be, in some important sense conflicting. When there is such (...) fundamental conflict of basic principles or standards, there is either always, or at least sometimes, no way to show that one view is better justified even in the presence of ideally complete factual information; in that sense the principles are equally justified or “valid.” But there is a sense in which a particular moral belief may be mistaken or unjustified, if it is a misapplication of the basic principles of the individual or group, e.g., if the basic principles plus statements of known or knowable facts entail a moral proposition incompatible with it. As stated, moral relativism could be true even though in fact, accidentally, all individuals agree in their basic moral principles. (shrink)

Forgiveness has traditionally been characterized an affective response to a wrongdoing, i.e. a psychological process that involves ridding oneself of resentment or other negative reactive attitudes. In contrast to the prevailing model, this paper advocates for the emerging position that forgiveness should be understood as a normative power akin to a promise. In particular, I argue that forgiveness involves surrendering the right to discount the interests of a perpetrator (a special permission the victim acquires in virtue of having been wronged). (...) I argue that this model fits and/or explains important features of forgiveness, such as the idea that forgiveness is a personal response to a blameworthy wrong, that forgiveness re-establishes a relation of equality, and that forgiveness is ‘normatively significant’. I further develop the position by showing how it can provide a unified case of paradigmatic forgiveness, self-forgiveness, and third-party forgiveness—this explanatory power distinguishes the view from previous articulations of the idea that forgiveness is a normative power. The final section further explores these distinctions by delimiting the scope of forgiveness to exclude powers related to apologies, compensation, or ‘redemption’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Significant Interests and the Right to KnowReuven Brandt (bio)1. IntroductionDaniel Groll's book Conceiving People (2021) attempts a novel and insightful defence of why individuals ought to choose open over anonymous gamete donation, barring any special circumstances. In broad strokes, the overall argument proceeds by defending three main claims: (1) that failing to disclose to children that they are donor-conceived is morally problematic, (2) that children who are informed (...) that they are donor-conceived (either intentionally by their social parents or otherwise) are likely to have a worthwhile, significant, subjective interest1 in having knowledge about their gamete donor(s), and (3) that parents have a duty to advance their children's worthwhile subjective significant interests. Groll's account departs from other criticisms of anonymous gamete donation in that it does not rest on the view that knowledge about one's genetic progenitors is essential to self-knowledge, identity formation, or other elements of wellbeing for creatures like us. The view thus attempts to avoid the pitfalls plaguing other criticisms of anonymous gamete donation, which tend to rely on controversial (and likely false) claims of genetic essentialism and/or genetic exceptionalism.Groll's thesis rests on the much more modest (and likely correct) claim that seeking information about one's genetic progenitors is one of many permissible, fruitful, and valuable routes to identity formation. According to Groll, it just so happens that a large portion of donor-conceived individuals aware of the absence of biological ties to one or more social parents choose this route to identity formation. And this empirical fact combined with plausible views about parents' obligations to promote their offspring's wellbeing gives prospective pro-creators strong reason to choose open donors over anonymous donors.Although many aspects of the picture Groll paints are attractive, I remain unconvinced that the overall argument succeeds. My criticism of the argument is multipronged. I am skeptical that failing to disclose to a child that they were donor-conceived and/or failing to disclose information to a child that they are [End Page 201] likely to find important violates the parental duty to build intimate relationships with one's offspring. This shifts the force of Groll's argument to the empirical claim that donor-conceived children are likely to have a significant subjective interest in knowing information about their biological relations. As I will show, the empirical evidence for this claim is not as strong as Groll presumes. In the absence of a deontic argument for disclosure, Groll must provide more robust empirical evidence that anonymous gamete donation is likely to result in off-spring with their weighty interests frustrated, or else argue that the risk is not worth taking. These are not fatal flaws but show that more empirical and normative work needs to be done to defend this line of argument.A more serious set of worries arise in response to Groll's claim that the interest that donor-conceived individuals have in genetic information is likely to be significant. Little is said about what constitutes a significant interest, except that interests fall along a linear spectrum and that the significance of an interest is a factor of "the space, so to speak, it takes up in a person's mental economy (do they think about it a lot?) and the extent to which they organize their lives around it" (2021, 63). My worries here are three-fold. First, it is unclear whether the empirical data support the claim that donor-conceived individuals are likely to have an interest in genetic knowledge that is significant in the sense that it occupies a large portion of their mental energy and is a locus around which they organize their lives. Second, there is scant discussion about whether an interest can become morally problematic (and so no longer worthwhile on Groll's account) if it is given too much weight. I will argue that a plausible reading of Groll's account requires that we treat overvalued interests as no longer worthwhile. Consequently, Groll's argument risks presuming the kind of genetic chauvinism—the view that genetic knowledge is essential to wellbeing—that he seeks to reject. Third, if... (shrink)

Research focusing on Anglo-European languages indicates that children’s acquisition of the subordinate structure of complement-clause constructions and the semantics of mental verbs facilitates their understanding of false belief, and that the two linguistic factors interact. Complement-clause constructions support false-belief development, but only when used with realis mental verbs like ‘think’ in the matrix clause (de Villiers, Jill. 2007. The interface of language and Theory of Mind.Lingua117(11). 1858–1878). In Chinese, however, only the semantics of mental verbs seems to play a facilitative (...) role in false-belief development (Cheung, Him, Hsuan-Chih Chen & William Yeung. 2009. Relations between mental verb and false belief understanding in Cantonese-speaking children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology104(2). 141–155). We argue that these cross-linguistic differences can be explained by variations in availability and usage patterns of mental verbs and complement-clause constructions across languages. Unlike English, Mandarin-Chinese has a verb that indicates that a belief might be false:yi3wei2‘(falsely) think’. Our corpus analysis suggests that, unlike English caregivers, Mandarin-Chinese caregivers do not produce frequent, potentially unanalyzed, chunks with mental verbs and first-person subjects, such as ‘I think’. In an experiment, we found that the comprehension of complement-clause constructions used withyi3wei2‘(falsely) think’, but not withjue2de2‘think’, predicted Mandarin children’s false-belief understanding between the ages of 4 and 5. In contrast to English, whether mental verbs were used with first- or third-person subjects did not affect their correlation with false-belief understanding. (shrink)

In a recent article, John McDowell has criticised Warren Goldfarb for attributing an anti-realist conception of linguistic understanding to Wittgenstein. 1 I argue that McDowell is right to reject Goldfarb's anti- realism, but does so for the wrong reasons. I show that both Goldfarb's and McDowell's interpretations are vitiated by the fact that they do not pay attention to Wittgenstein's positive claims about understanding, in particular his claim that understanding is a kind of ability. The cause of this oversight lies (...) in their endorsement of an excessively anti-systematic or “therapeutic” reading of Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The term “abortion” is conveniently used, for my present discussion, to refer to deliberate removal of a fetus from the womb of a human female, at the request or through the agency of the mother, so as in fact to result in the death of the fetus but with insignificantly small risk to the life or health of the mother. The question I want to raise is roughly whether abortion in that sense is morally wrong. I am not raising the (...) question whether abortion should be prohibited by law. That is a very different question and I am confining myself to the moral issue. There is another question I am not raising; whether a fetus should be removed, irrespective of the preferences of the mother, when there is good reason to think the child will be seriously defective, mentally or physically. Since it is a grave responsibility to bring a human being into the world, I think this latter is an important question; but I here do not propose to discuss it. (shrink)

Den danske filosof Frithiof Brandts doktorafhandling blev udarbejdet i Paris og færdiggjort i 1921, hvorefter han blev professor i filosofi. Den tager udgangspunkt i den engelske filosof Thomas Hobbes hovedtanke om 'bevægelse' som naturens grundfænomen. Brandt leverer i sin bog en grundig gennemgang af Hobbes' ide. Desuden rummer bogen argumenter for Hobbes' autonomi i forhold til tidligere betydningsfulde tænkere som Galilei og Descartes. Frithiof Brandt (1892-1968) var en dansk filosof og forfatter. Han beskæftigede sig i løbet af sin (...) karriere både med filosofi og psykologi. Han udgav blandt andet bøger om Hobbes og Kirkegaard - filosoffer, der på hver deres måde, havde afgørende indflydelse på hans egen tænkning. (shrink)

The Institute of Medicine has recently endorsed arguments put forward by John Appleby calling for mandatory sex selection against female offspring in the initial trials of mitochondrial replacement techniques. In this paper I argue that, despite this endorsement, the reasons offered by Appleby for mandatory sex selection are inadequate. I further argue that plausible revisions to Appleby's arguments still fail to convincingly defend such an intrusive policy. While I remain neutral about whether intending parents making use of mitochondrial replacement techniques (...) ought to have access to sex selection, I conclude that to date the case for mandatory sex selection has not been satisfactorily made. (shrink)

I discuss Aquinas’s view of habit—the genus to which virtue belongs. The first article in both of Aquinas’s sustained treatments of the virtues in general (STh I.II.55-67 and QDV 1) asks whether virtues are habits. Thus, Aquinas’s pedagogical strategy is to elucidate the virtues in terms of their nature as habits. Following this strategy, I explore Aquinas’s discussion of habits in Questions 49-54 of the prima secundae by tracing three important topics: the essence of habits, the cause of habits, and (...) the increase of habits. By the end of this paper, the reader will have a strong grasp of the nature and types of habits and the different ways in which they can increase. (shrink)

I wish to consider what can helpfully be meant by the phrase “rational to believe” as it might appear in the statement “It is rational for the person S in his circumstances at t to place more confidence in p than in q, provided his overriding interest at the time is to place confidence, among any propositions he is considering, in true propositions and not in false ones.” The reference here to the interest of the person is intended to avoid (...) discussing persons for whom it is rational to believe something for extraneous reasons, e.g., for a man to believe his wife is loyal to him irrespective of the evidence. I shall take this term as paradigmatic of “epistemic terms”, examples of which philosophers take to be such terms as “is epistemically justified in believing”, “is warranted in believing”, “is credible”, and so on. I do not claim that all these terms have or should bear the same meaning, but I propose to ignore possible distinctions. (shrink)

In this article I examine a recent approach to regulating assisted reproduction, whereby use of some kind of medical intervention ‘triggers’ laws governing legal parenthood that are more favourable to intending parents and sperm providers. I argue that although perhaps an improvement on the previous legal framework, these laws are problematic for three important reasons. First, they are prone to violating parental rights and unjustly imposing substantial burdens on individuals. Second, they are discriminatory. Third, even if we take a pragmatic (...) approach to the question of parenthood in these cases, these laws fail to properly consider the welfare interests of children. Finally, I conclude by showing that my argument does not entail adopting a laissez-fair attitude to conception using third-party sperm. (shrink)