Very few scholars discuss the moral basis of the right of persons accused of crimes to be supplied with attorneys if they cannot afford them. More discussion of the topic is needed, in particular because political theorists who prefer a minimal state deny that indigent persons have such a moral right. This article addresses their contentions by developing three arguments for supplying poor persons accused of crimes with defense attorneys. First, doing so will prevent state officials from becoming (...) emboldened in their dealings with the poor, such that they might come to pose a threat to the non-poor. Second, poor persons who believe that the state does not treat them fairly will have reduced incentives to abide by the law, which will, in turn, increase the cost of the minimal state. Third, the better off should show solidarity with the poor in demanding that the minimal state honor all citizens’ rights to life, liberty, and property. Crucial to these arguments is the claim that a right of indigent defense is unlike other welfare rights in that securing it protects other basic moral rights that minimal statists acknowledge. (shrink)

Scientific evidence is often more reliable than other types of evidence commonly used in criminal trials – i.e., eyewitness identifications, confessions, and informant testimony. Nevertheless, despite its obvious value, forensic science has not always merited the term “science.” Three developments in the 1990s focused attention on its shortcomings: the advent of DNA profiling, the Supreme Court's “junk science” decision, and a number of wellpublicized crime laboratory scandals. In light of these developments, and in order to take full advantage of the (...) power of forensic science to aid in the search for truth, a number of reforms are needed: Crime laboratories should be accredited, lab procedures should be standardized, and basic research needs to be conducted on many commonly used techniques. Court procedures also require improvement: Defense experts should be more readily available to indigent defendants, and more comprehensive pretrial disclosure of the substance of expert testimony should be provided. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend and develop a stakeholder pragmatism advanced in some of the work by Edward Freeman and colleagues. By positioning stakeholder pragmatism more in line with the democratic and ethical base in American pragmatism (as developed by William James, John Dewey and Richard Rorty), the article sets forth a fallibilistic stakeholder pragmatism that seeks to be more useful to companies by expanding the ways in which value is and can be created in a contingent world. A dialogue (...) between a defence company and peace and arbitration society is used to illustrate the main plot of this article. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine what is to be said in defence of Machamer, Darden and Craver’s (MDC) controversial dualism about activities and entities (Machamer, Darden and Craver’s in Philos Sci 67:1–25, 2000). We explain why we believe the notion of an activity to be a novel, valuable one, and set about clearing away some initial objections that can lead to its being brushed aside unexamined. We argue that substantive debate about ontology can only be effective when desiderata for an (...) ontology are explicitly articulated. We distinguish three such desiderata. The first is a more permissive descriptive ontology of science, the second a more reductive ontology prioritising understanding, and the third a more reductive ontology prioritising minimalism. We compare MDC’s entities-activities ontology to its closest rival, the entities-capacities ontology, and argue that the entities-activities ontology does better on all three desiderata. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

J Martin Stafford; In Defence of Sensualism: a reply to M. J. Newby, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 123–128, https:/.

According to the extended cognition hypothesis (henceforth ExC), there are conditions under which thinking and thoughts (or more precisely, the material vehicles that realize thinking and thoughts) are spatially distributed over brain, body and world, in such a way that the external (beyond-the-skin) factors concerned are rightly accorded fully-paid-up cognitive status.1 According to functionalism in the philosophy of mind, “what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way (...) it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part” (Levin 2008). The respective fates of these two positions may not be independent of each other. The claim that ExC is in some way a form of, dependent on, entailed by, or at least commonly played out in terms of, functionalism is now pretty much part of the received view of things (see, e.g., Adams and Aizawa 2008; Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2005, 2008, this volume a, b, forthcoming; Menary 2007; Rupert 2004; Sprevak manuscript; Wheeler forthcoming). Thus ExC might be mandated by the existence of functionally specified cognitive systems whose boundaries are located partly outside the skin. This is the position that Andy Clark has recently dubbed extended functionalism (Clark 2008, forthcoming; see also Wheeler forthcoming). (shrink)

Kevin Williams; In Defence of Compulsory Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 285–294, https://doi.org/10.1111/.

_ Source: _Volume 28, Issue 1, pp 35 - 49 Three influential interpreters – Michael Oakeshott, Leo Strauss, and Carl Schmitt – note that Hobbes’s sovereign is tasked with containing the natural wills of subjects for the sake of civil peace. Yet Hobbes’s sovereign also has a mandate to govern or use his subjects for collective defence, and each suggest that the political-psychological means to ensure submission preclude and prevent the contribution of subjects towards collective ends, which would render Hobbes’s (...) commonwealth near indefensible. This paper will argue instead that Hobbes does envision a way his sovereign could harness potentia publica: the sovereign must also instil an artificial will through civil honour, an artificial will that is necessary for the defence of the commonwealth. (shrink)

John White; In Defence of State-Controlled Curricula, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 255–259, https://doi.org/10.111.

Although Oakeshott's philosophy has received considerable attention, the vision which underlies it has been almost completely ignored. This vision, which is rooted in the intellectual debates of his epoch, cements his ideas into a coherent whole and provides a compelling defence of modernity. The main feature of Oakeshott's vision of modernity is seen here as radical plurality resulting from 'fragmentation' of experience and society. On the level of experience, modernity denies the existence of the hierarchical medieval scheme and argues that (...) there exist independent ways of understanding our world, such as science and history, which cannot be reduced to each other. On the level of society, modernity finds expression in liberal doctrine, according to which society is an aggregate of individuals each pursuing his or her own choices. For Oakeshott, to be modern means not only to recognise this condition of radical plurality but also to learn to appreciate and enjoy it. Oakeshott did not think that it was possible to find a comprehensive philosophical justification for modernity, therefore the only way to preserve modern civilisation seemed to be an appeal to sentiment. As a consequence he was a passionate defender of liberal education as the best way to underwrite the 'conversation of mankind.'. (shrink)

In 1879, Wilhelm Marr coined the term ‘Antisemitismus’, which aroused extensive discussion in academic circles. With the deepening of research, scholars’ research on anti-Semitism gradually traced back to the ancient world. Texts with anti-Semitic thought appeared as early as Ptolemaic Egypt. Essentially, the main purpose of these words were self-justification, a response to the sinful image of the Egyptians in the narrative of Exodus. The early Ptolemaic Egyptian writers got rid of the charges against the Egyptians by rewriting the narrative (...) of Exodus and shifting responsibility for the entire event to the Jews. It is obvious that in the process, the image of the Jewish people has been severely vilified. Although the writers did not express a strong anti-Semitic tendency subjectively, they all expressed a certain degree of anti-Semitic thought objectively. The anti-Semitic thought was inherited by later writers in the Roman world and had a profound impact. This article focuses on the works of three Ptolemaic Egyptian writers and discusses their reasons and influences for rewriting the narrative of the Exodus in combination with their historical background. Contribution: This article discusses the origin and spread of anti-Semitic thought in the ancient world. It has important reference value for the study of ancient writers’ understanding of the Old Testament. At the same time, it has important academic value for the study of Jewish history. (shrink)

The defence of necessity has had a long, though confused, legal career. Like self-defence, consent, duress, insanity and mistake of law, necessity is rooted in moral intuitions about when conduct which causes harm to another's person or property is not wrong, or should be tolerated, permitted or praised. If a man is literally starving to death and steals a loaf of bread, we are reluctant to say that his extreme circumstances should make no difference at all to the way we (...) treat him at trial. And if two men, adrift at sea, are clinging to a log which can only support the weight of one, we are once again reluctant to say that if one pushes the other off the log, it is just a case of murder. These intuitions are deepseated; but it is extremely difficult to articulate the defence they seem to support, or to isolate the circumstances which mark the difference between a situation where the defence ought to apply and where it ought not. (shrink)

The Just War principle of jus ad bellum explicitly requires a reasonable prospect of success; the prevailing view about personal self-defence is that it can be justified even if the prospect of success is low. This chapter defends the existence of this distinction and goes on to explore the normative basis of this difference between defensive war and self-defence and its implications. In particular, the chapter highlights the rationale of the ‘success condition’ within Just War thinking and argues that this (...) condition is grounded in assumptions about the nature of political authority and responsibility that do not apply to personal self-defence. This important difference is commonly ignored or side-lined by contemporary theorists who regard the principles of these two types of conflict as very closely aligned and the moral differences between them as matters of degree only. (shrink)

Although people generally agree that innocent targets of culpable aggression are justified in harming the aggressors in self-defence, there is considerable disagreement regarding whether innocents are justified in defending themselves when their doing so would harm other innocent people. I argue in this essay that harming innocent aggressors and active innocent threats in self-defence is indeed justified under certain conditions, but that defensive actions in such cases are justified as permissions rather than as claim rights. This justification therefore differs from (...) that of self-defence against culpable aggressors, since defensive acts of the latter type are justified as claim rights rather than mere permissions. I argue, however, that the two justifications are alike in that both rest on considerations of distributive justice. (shrink)

Every single day, every newspaper in the world carries some further evidence as to how limited the Earth’s resources are. Every single day, therefore, we should grow more deeply convinced that the notion of abundance has become hopelessly irrelevant and can safely be shelved forever. Or so it seems. In the final section of this paper, I shall defend the opposite view: that growing awareness of the limits of our resources should make the notion of abundance, suitably defined, more and (...) not less relevant to our pursuits. Whether or not this defence turns out to be successful, I hope this paper will go some way towards clarifying this notoriously elusive notion, as well as its no less elusive and no less important antonym: scarcity. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialists maintain that the epistemically right (e.g., the justified) is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to the epistemic good (e.g., true belief). Given the wide variety of epistemological approaches that assume some form of epistemic consequentialism, and the controversies surrounding consequentialism in ethics, it is surprising that epistemic consequentialism remains largely uncontested. However, in a recent paper, Selim Berker has provided arguments that allegedly lead to a ‘rejection’ of epistemic consequentialism. In the present paper, it is shown (...) that reliabilism—the most prominent form of epistemic consequentialism, and one of Berker’s main targets—survives Berker’s arguments unscathed. (shrink)

Traces women's defence of their moral and spiritual equality with men, from the works of Christine de Pizan, through Marguerite of Navarre, Madeleine de Scudéry, Arcangela Tarabotti, to Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft, arguing that although she appears not to have been aware of these precursors, the arguments they developed paved the way for her feminism.

In Defence of Christianity is a short book of Christian apologetics. Acknowledging that reason is not the basis of faith, Brian Hebblethwaite sets out some of the main reasons that can be advanced in support of the Christian faith. He defends the view that belief in God makes most sense of a world that has come up with moral and creative persons and communities, including all that they have produced in the way of culture, mysticism, and sainthood. He also argues (...) that the history of religions, and in particular the history of Israel and the story of Christ and his Church, offers the best diagnosis and solution of the problems that afflict humanity and the most hopeful picture of the ultimate future of creation. (shrink)

Against the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even while it is tragic and morally flawed. Recovering the early Christian tradition of just war thinking, Nigel Biggar argues in favour of aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice.

When is it right to go to war? The most persuasive answer to this question has always been 'in self-defense'. In a penetrating new analysis, bringing together moral philosophy, political science, and law, David Rodin shows what's wrong with this answer. He proposes a comprehensive new theory of the right of self-defense which resolves many of the perplexing questions that have dogged both jurists and philosophers. -/- Winner of the American Philosophical Association Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize.

I defend pretence hermeneutic fictionalism against the Autism Objection. The objection is this: since people with autism have no difficulty in engaging with mathematics even if they cannot pretend, it is not the case that engagement with mathematics involves pretence. I show that a previous response to the objection is inadequate as a defence of the kind of pretence hermeneutic fictionalism put forward as a semantic thesis about the discourse in question. I claim that a more general response to the (...) Autism Objection is to deny the premise that people with autism cannot pretend. To motivate this response, I appeal to psychological studies suggesting that people with autism can understand pretence and they can pretend under certain conditions. Finally, I provide explanations for why it is the case that people with autism do not have a problem with engaging in mathematics whereas they have so much difficulty with other kinds of figurative language and pretence. (shrink)

Against the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even while it is tragic and morally flawed. Recovering the early Christian tradition of just war thinking, Nigel Biggar argues in favour of aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice.

J Martin Stafford; In Defence of Sensualism: a reply to M. J. Newby, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 23, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 123–128, https:/.

Bernard Molyneux presents some new arguments against descriptive evidentialism about intuitions. Descriptive evidentialism is the thesis that philosophers use intuitions as evidence. Molyneux's arguments are that: the propositions that intuition putatively supports are treated as having a degree and kind of certainty and justification that they could not have got from being intuited; intuitions influence us in ways we cannot explain by supposing we treat them as evidence; and certain strong intuitions that persuade us of their contents are treated as (...) inadmissible in the context of justification. This article presents a partial defence of descriptive evidentialism against these new arguments. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss certain aspects of Leibniz's theory and practice of 'soft reasoning' as exemplified by his defence of two central mysteries of the Christian revelation: the Trinity and the Incarnation. By theory and practice of 'soft' or 'broad' reasoning, I mean the development of rational strategies which can successefully be applied to the many areas of human understanding which escape strict demonstration, that is, the 'hard' or 'narrow' reasoning typical of mathematical argumentation. These strategies disclose an (...) 'other' reason, i.e. a complementary set of arguments and methods developed by Leibniz in order to deal with crucial issues such as the 'weighting' of probabilities and truths of fact. I will argue that one of the most compelling examples of the importance and fertility of Leibniz's 'other' reason is provided by his solution to the problems posed by the unique epistemological status of theological mysteries. (shrink)

I am very much honoured to have been asked to make the closing speech at this Conference. Since this is the first time for over fifty years that a philosophical congress of this scope has been held in England, I hope that you will think it suitable for me to devote my lecture to the revival of the empiricist tradition in British philosophy during this century. I shall begin by examining the contribution of the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore. Though (...) he first owed his fame to his book Principia Ethica regarded as a work of genius by the Cambridge Apostles and their associates in Bloomsbury, who did not venture to question Moore's mistaken view of ‘good’ as an unanalysable non-natural quality, his reputation now chiefly rests on his subsequent defence of common sense. (shrink)

When is it right to go to war? The most persuasive answer to this question has always been 'in self-defense'. In a penetrating new analysis, bringing together moral philosophy, political science, and law, David Rodin shows what's wrong with this answer. He proposes a comprehensive new theory of the right of self-defense which resolves many of the perplexing questions that have dogged both jurists and moral philosophers. By applying the theory of self-defense to international relations, Rodin produces (...) a far-reaching critique of the canonical Just War theory. The simple analogy between self-defense and national defense - between the individual and the state - needs to be fundamentally rethought, and with it many of the basic elements of international law and the ethics of international relations. (shrink)

In his article, «In Defense of Reason in Religion,» Jones reacts to current trends to minimize the role of reason in religion by attempting to show that if religionists desire their religious beliefs to correspond to knowledge, the noetic tool most likely to achieve this goal is reason. This he does by reviewing the leading epistemological ap- proaches to metaphysical knowledge, and showing that each relies to some extent on reason. He further argues that all of them must utilize (...) reason if they wish to at- tempt to critically verify their findings. Then he argues that religious knowledge is a type of metaphysical knowl- edge. He shows that the leading approaches to obtaining religious knowledge parallel the various approaches to metaphysical knowledge, and have similar reliance on reason. Even in the case of supernatural revelation, rea- son is used in identifying and interpreting the revelation. Therefore, Jones concludes, «reason is the primary mechanism for obtaining religious knowledge.». (shrink)

Zika Rad Prvulovich; In Defence of Competition, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 77–88, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

In his book Slaves of the Passions, Mark Schroeder defends a Humean theory of reasons. Humeanism is the view that you have a reason to X only if X‐ing promotes at least one of your desires. But Schroeder rejects a natural companion theory of the weight of reasons, which he calls proportionalism. According to it, the weight of a reason is proportionate to the strength of the desire that grounds it and the extent to which the act promotes the object (...) of that desire. In this paper, I aim to do three things: (1) to show why Schroeder's arguments against proportionalism do not refute it; (2) to identify the real trouble with proportionalism; and (3) to suggest a better way of understanding it (preferentialism). According to this theory, the overall strength of reasons is determined by the agent's preferences. (shrink)

The ontology of ‘powerful qualities’ is gaining an increasing amount of attention in the literature on properties. This is the view that the so-called categorical or qualitative properties are identical with ‘dispositional’ properties. The position is associated with C.B. Martin, John Heil, Galen Strawson and Jonathan Jacobs. Robert Schroer ( 2012 ) has recently mounted a number of criticisms against the powerful qualities view as conceived by these main adherents, and has also advanced his own (radically different) version of the (...) view. In this paper I have three main aims: firstly, I shall defend the ontology from his critique, arguing that his criticisms do not damage the position. Secondly, I shall argue that Schroer’s own version of the view is untenable. Thirdly, the paper shall serve to clear up some conceptual confusions that often bedevil the powerful qualities view. (shrink)