This ar ti cle has as ob jec ti ve for mu la tes a cri tic to Ri chard Rorty`s an ti mar xism and his de fen se of the po li ti cal li be ra lism. The ar ti cle tries to do it, in first pla ce, des cri bing the phi lo sop hi cal cri tic of Rorty to Marx; in se cond pla ce iden tif ying two in t..

Review Essay of Stephen P. Turner, Explaining the Normative, 2010.

Fotografien können als paradigmatische Instanzen des Bildbegriffs aufgefasst werden. Sie finden umfangreiche Verwendung in den Wissenschaften. Die kausale Relation zum abgebildeten Objekt sowie die vermeintliche Ähnlichkeit des Bildes mit seinem Gegenstand scheinen ihren Gebrauch als Belege im Forschungsprozess zu legitimieren. Anhand einer Fallstudie zur Oberflächenerfassung des Planeten Mars mit Hilfe einer digitalen Spezialkamera soll in diesem Beitrag untersucht werden, inwiefern Fotografien der Status eines wissenschaftlichen Datums tatsächlich zugesprochen werden kann oder nicht.

“No one can serve two masters.” This Bible quotation highlights an irreducible contradiction, which echoes numerous organizational settings. This article considers the under-explored ethical implications of paradoxical injunctions created by such a contradiction at the managerial level. Contradictory organizational constraints turn into paradoxant systems , where the organization structurally settles paradoxical injunctions which challenge managerial ethics in practice. We then ask what managerial responsibility means in such contexts and find that managers have then to reshape their practice as a situated (...) construction through constant mediation between different “masters” and bricolage (i.e., tinkering with concepts). An ethnographic case study of an anti-money laundering service in an investment bank illuminates this phenomenon from a practice perspective. The possibility to enact an actual ethical practice within the contradictory organization relies on a new role of the manager. This implies drawing on an approach of responsible management as an enactment of ethics in practice which is situated within the framework of a new conception of both the organization, as a structurally “paradoxant system,” and the manager as a mediator in charge of enacting coherence. (shrink)

This paper selected Vanke as the case to study the governance problems of Vanke and the protection of the interests of small and medium shareholders under the situation of equity disputes. At the same time, the study further explored the advantages and disadvantages of the dispersed ownership structure, the long-term impact on the company’s development and the choice of the involved corporate governance methods under the current Chinese capital market conditions. This paper adopted the event research method and selected the (...) period from June 2015 to June 2017 as the observation period to analyze the market performance impact of Vanke in the equity disputes. At the same time, this paper also measured Vanke’s individual stock rate of return and market rate of return, and calculated Vanke’s normal rate of return [E], abnormal rate of return, and cumulative abnormal rate of return during different event windows. Vanke’s shareholding was too dispersed and the stock price had been sluggish for a long time, which had greatly reduced the acquisition difficulty and cost of Baoneng, thus triggering the “barbarian invasion” of Baoneng. In the struggle for control, whether it was Vanke’s anti-takeover measures or China Resources, Baoneng, and Evergrande’s competition for equity, their actions had harmed the interests of small and medium shareholders. The market supervision department was too lenient to supervise and punish the interests of small and medium shareholders, and opportunism made behaviors that infringe on the interests of others more reckless. However, small and medium shareholders cannot actively participate in the company’s management decision-making to safeguard their legitimate rights and interests, which intensifies the violations of all parties in the equity disputes, thus forming a vicious circle. Therefore, the protection of the interests of small and medium shareholders required the joint efforts and consciousness of regulators, small and medium shareholders, and acquirers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion by Daniel C. FoukeAllison P. CoudertDaniel C. Fouke. The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997. Pp. xi + 257. Cloth, $93.75.In this detailed examination of Henry More’s psychological explanation of enthusiasm, Daniel C. Fouke persuasively argues that previous discussions of seventeenth-century attitudes toward (...) enthusiasm have been marred by misplaced attempts to categorize them in terms of “rationalism,” “empiricism,” and the “new science.” As he says, “a central problem in every account is that anti-enthusiasts and their targets simply refuse to ally themselves according to commitments which, to our eye, should sort them into well-defined genealogies, neat schools, and clear enmities. Clear battle-lines fail to emerge, and any portrait of the typical ‘enthusiast’ never gets so far as a bare outline” (122). The ample evidence he offers to support this point appears in the three main sections of his book, in which he analyzes More’s attack on two types of scientific “enthusiasm,” alchemy, represented by Thomas Vaughan, and the mechanical philosophy, and on the religious and political enthusiasm of radical sects, represented primarily by the Quakers.Fouke points out how similar More’s own views are in many respects to the enthusiasts he excoriates, and he illustrates how tendentious and often unfair his criticisms are. For example, More viciously attacks Thomas Vaughan for his vitalistic, organic view of the natural world when he himself holds similar views. And he later attacks the mechanical philosophers for rejecting the kind of vitalism he had earlier attacked in Vaughan, while chiding them for ignoring the sympathetic effects he had detected with such repugnance in Vaughan.The same inconsistencies and misrepresentations hold true of More’s attack on the Quakers. He criticizes them for relying on the “Inner Light,” when he himself had used the same expression and adhered to the same conviction that religion was a matter of inner experience not outward observance.In both his attack on scientific and religious enthusiasm, More descends, as Fouke amply shows, to a level of ad hominem vituperation at odds with his professed tolerance and good manners. By attributing all enthusiasm to physical disorders, which, in More’s view, arise primarily from carnality and lust, More effectively stigmatized and even demonized his opponents (since the devil was masterful at using physical disorders for his nefarious purposes).What accounts for More’s harshness and inconsistencies? Fouke argues, again persuasively, that one must view More’s attacks on enthusiasm in the context of the political and religious upheavals of the time and in terms of his own metaphysical and cultural outlook. As Fouke points out, all attacks on enthusiasm involved the larger issue of authority. Where should one look for guidance—to the State, the Church, the individual? More was a traditionalist, who deplored the political and religious anarchy of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. But although he was a political conservative and traditionalist, he too had been influenced by religious radicals and believed that an individual’s religion must be heartfelt and not a matter of ritual compliance. In essence More’s attack on enthusiasm was basically an attempt to legitimize his own theology, anthropology, and natural philosophy in the name of an indisputable, higher, religious [End Page 467] authority. The irony of More’s position was that in vilifying enthusiasm and attributing it to insanity, More’s writings became a useful resource in the armory of the deists, materialists and atheists, who were his real targets.Fouke is especially interested in analyzing what he describes as the “poetic source” of More’s attack on enthusiasm. As he says at the beginning of his book:I will argue that More and his “enthusiastical” opponents were offering competing ideals of religious meaning which they expressed by singling out particular kinds of experience as types of religious and moral cognition. I will also show that they differed in their account of the “crisis” experience which provides entry to the spiritual life, grounding this experience in competing theoretical, narrative, and poetical contexts. I will... (shrink)

ExcerptIn 1938, when anti-Jewish Racial Laws were passed in Italy, Pope Pius XI and Mussolini went through a long confrontation on the racial problem: for the Duce of Fascism, anything related to racial policies fell within the competence of the Italian government and had nothing to do with religion, hence the Vatican had no authority to intervene; conversely, for the Pope, racism was a dangerous heresy and, as such, had to be condemned by the Catholic Church. This confrontation was (...) harsh and would continue until the death of Pius XI in February 1939. But did the Italian Church sustain the…. (shrink)

本书受教育部2004年哲学社会科学研究重大课题攻关项目“当代科学哲学的发展趋势研究”(04JZD0004)、国家社会科学基金项目“测量难题的模态解释——量子力学前沿中的哲学问题”(05CZX008)和 教育部人文社会科学重点研究基地——山西大学科学技术哲学研究中心基金资助.

Möbian Nights: Literary Reading in a Time of Crisis develops a new understanding of literary reading: that in the wake of disasters like the Holocaust, death remains a premise of our experience rather than a future. Challenging customary "aesthetic" assumptions that we write in order not to die, Sandor Goodhart suggests (with Kafka) we write to die. Drawing upon analyses developed by Girard, Foucault, Blanchot, and Levinas (along with examples from Homer to Beckett), Möbian Nights proposes that all literature works (...) "autobiographically", which is to say, in the wake of disaster; with the credo "I died; therefore, I am"; and for which the language of topology (for example, the "Möbius strip") offers a vocabulary for naming the "deep structure" of such literary, critical, and scriptural sacrificial and anti-sacrificial dynamics. (shrink)

Ben shu zhu yao lun shu ru,Mo liang jia fa zheng si xiang,Bing fu lu xian dai xing fa dui bi fo jiao jie lü lun wen yi pian.Xie zuo te se yao fen wei er:yi,Zai yan jiu fang fa shang,Cai qu bi jiao fa xue yan jiu jin lu,Jian shi chuan tong si xiang yu xian dai jia zhi ti xi xian zhuan gong gou zhi ke neng.Shi gu wen zhang lun shu zhong xin bu zai chan shu ru,Mo (...) nei sheng dao de gong fu lun mian xiang,Er geng ce zhong qi yu xian dai fa li nian ji xian xing fa zhi du zhi dui bi fen xi.Er,Zai lun shu nei rong fang mian,Chuan tong yan jiu zhu yao tong guo jia zhi xi tong nei,Ji ken ding chuan tong wen hua zhi zhuan ye yan jiu zhe li chang chu fa,Zhang xian zhong guo zhe xue shi dai he li xing. (shrink)

Traditionally, Zhu Xi’s Mencius-interpretation had enjoyed for a long time an authoritarian status. However, it is challenged by Mou Zongsan in modern scholarship. Mou revolutionarily identifies Lu Xiangshan instead as the authentic follower of Mencius. Given the significance of the famous debate between Zhu and Lu in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism in history of Chinese philosophy, it is especially of interest to explore the essential difference between these two Confucians’ Mencius-interpretations. In sum, this paper aims to show that in contrast to Lu’s (...) subjectivistic approach, Zhu opts for a communitarian and anti-idealistic understanding of Mencius’ philosophy. Whereas Lu’s image of Mencius is volitionistic, Zhu’s picture of Mencius is rationalistic. Methodologically, Zhu’s bottom-up orientation is more concrete. In term of a reconstruction of Zhu’s epistemology, it will develop a new defence of Zhu’s Mencius-interpretation against Mou’s misunderstanding. (shrink)

It is most tempting to think of Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future in utopian terms, as a contribution to the history of utopian philosophy represented by Theodor Adorno, Louis Marin and Herbert Mar- cuse, if not Hegel, Marx and Jameson himself. To trace the line of utopian ideas in their works is to be seduced by Jameson’s own project, which has, 1 since Marxism and Form , mapped the utopian continuities that exist between an assortment of Marxist writers. Marxism (...) and Form stands as a seminal beginning to Jameson’s utopian project, introducing the work of un- 2 translated German writers, including Walter Benjamin and Herbert Marcuse, to a generation of Anglophonic scholars. One reviewer went so far as to recommend the book to English-speaking Germans to clear up the muddy phrases of Gyorgy LukÆcs and Ernst Bloch, claiming that Jameson presented a much more articulate version of their ideas! There is no better demonstration of the recognition effected upon the Marxist corpus by 3 Jameson’s intellectual clarity than the conclusion to Aesthetics and Politics , in which the hostility between LukÆcs and Bloch is transformed into two sides of the same politics. Indeed, the very meaning of Jameson’s Marxism comes about from just such theoretical sublimations as these, as 4 disparate European projects are unified both intellectually and politically. The sheer synthetic power of Jameson’s writing makes it difficult to think about his writing in terms that aren’t Jamesonian, the range of his project transforming Marxist literary criticism into a totality. (shrink)

The inscribed stone, of which an illustration is here given, was found in a wall composed of large blocks, which had all formed part of some other construction. This wall, which had certainly formed no part of the original building, separated the eastern portion of House XI into two rooms numbered 5 and 6 in our plan. The text of the inscription as given by Dr. Ashby in the report published in Archaeologia is as follows.

Cette note devait introduire à un public anglophone la traduction de la « Lettre de Louis Althusser datée du 18 mars 1966 et adressée au Comité central du PCF », elle est ici enrichie dans une version livrée au public français. Elle apporte le contexte historique et théorique nécessaire à la compréhension des interventions « anti-humanistes » de Louis Althusser qui questionne les choix politiques opérés par le PCF au cours des années 1960. Nulle part ailleurs, dans les écrits (...) publiés d’Althusser, nous ne voyons aussi clairement les enjeux politiques imbriqués dans son projet philosophique, ni comment ce projet évolua progressivement d’une entreprise « théoriciste » à la recherche d’une philosophie en lien plus étroit avec la pratique. Cette lettre nous paraît de la plus haute importance pour les spécialistes de l’œuvre d’Althusser, les historiens de la pensée marxiste, mais aussi plus largement à tous ceux qui s’intéressent à l’importance que peut revêtir le travail d’Althusser dans les débats actuels dans le champ de la philosophie marxiste. (shrink)

Chu tu wen xian yu ru dao guan xi " nei rong jian jie: ru dao guan xi shi yi xiang gui mo hong da de yan jiu ke ti, ta she ji daozheng ge Zhongguo si xiang shi de nei zai jie gou he fa zhan guo cheng, she ji dao Zhongguo wen hua jin hou de zou xiang, yi yi zhong da. Er shi shi ji yi hou, yi huo de le shu liang ke guan de yan jiu (...) cheng guo. Zui jin chu tu wen xian de da liang yong xian you wei zhe ge wen ti de tao lun ti gong le xu duo xin cai liao, xin shi ye, xin guian dian."Chu tu wen xian yu ru dao guan xi " shou ji le 30 duo pian you dai biao xing de lun wen, tong guo "Kong Lao Meng Zhuang zhi bian", "Ru dao hu bu yu ying xiang", "Chu tu wen xian xin shi ye" san ge ban kuai jia yi cheng xian, xi wang du zhe jie ci dui yi wang ru dao guan xi yan jiu de fa zhan mai luo yu kuang jia you zong ti de ba wo, bing you ci kai chu xin de yan jiu tian di. (shrink)

Yablo’s Paradox, an infinite-sentence version of the Liar Paradox, aims to show that semantic paradox can emerge even without circularity. I will argue that the lack of meaning/content of the sentences involved is the source of the paradoxical outcome.I will introduce and argue for a Moderate Antirealist approach to truth and meaning, built around the twin principles that neither truth nor meaning can outstrip knowability. Accordingly, I will introduce a MAR truth operator that both forges an explicit connection between truth (...) and knowability and distinguishes between truth and factuality. I will also argue that the meaning/content of propositions should be identified not with the set of possible worlds in which the propositions are true/factual, but rather in which they are known.I will show that our MAR framework dissolves Yablo’s Paradox and also confirms our intuition that these sentences are all devoid of content/meaning. (shrink)

In Marc. gr., classis XI,18 an anonymous florilegium consisting of selected paragraphs of the Second Part of the Fifth Division of the 3rd book of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa contra Gentiles is extant. These paragraphs were excerpted from the Greek translation of the Latin text by Demetrios Cydones and 106 ; ch. 101, § 2 partim; 103; ch. 94, § 3-5; 12-15). The main topic of this text is «fate». An edition of it is offered, and it is argued, on the (...) basis of its similarity with another florilegium Thomisticum of the professed Byzantine Thomist Georgios Scholarios - Gennadios II as well as with some of his writings, that it must be attributed to the same author. It should be probably placed in 1444/53 and regarded as part of Scholarios’ preparation for refuting Georgios Gemistos - Plethon’s Laws II,6, which from 1439 onwards was circulated independently as De fato. (shrink)

In this article, I will introduce the idea of mental anti-representationalism (MAR) that I defended. According to MAR, psychological sentences are not representational. The article has four sections. I will first clarify MAR (“Three Clarifications about the Thesis of MAR”) and explain it with the help of the view of noncognitivism or expressivism in metaethics (“Metaethical Noncognitivism, Expressivism and MAR”). Like noncognitivism, MAR is a negative thesis. However, the positive thesis of MAR is not that psychological sentences express some (...) non-cognitive or desire-like attitudes, but that they are a type of rationality sentence. I will then compare MAR with other views of mind on the market, such as mental eliminativism and mental fictionalism (“Mental Eliminativism, Fictionalism and MAR”). MAR rejects eliminativism and improves fictionalism. Finally, I will outline my main argument for MAR and address some challenges (“My Master Argument Outline and Some Challenges”). My argument relies on the uncodifiability thesis of rationality and my view can avoid what I will call the Question-Begging Problem. (shrink)

In her many articles on the subject, Trudy Govier has made a substantial contribution to the recent philosophical literature on trust—not only to the discussion kindled by Annette Baier's provocative article "Trust and Anti-Trust", but to the larger, much older, low-intensity discussion among social scientists and philosophers about the relation between trust and effective government, stable social relationships, and psychological health. This book is devoted to the varieties and uses of trust in various largely non-intimate social relationships, ranging from (...) the mundane, casual, or routine interactions of daily life to international affairs. The book is primarily expository, though there are occasional passages of conceptual analysis and some criticism of the work of others. Govier says, in her Preface, that. (shrink)

This author provides a great service to modern and postmodern philosophers of science who are held at somewhat of a distance by the writing styles of their counterparts. Against Relativism surveys a huge corpus of important texts from both camps, showing many places where they converge and diverge. The most surprising theme of the work is that leading figures of postmodern thought, such as Der and de Man, are neither committed to, nor support, any variant of the relativist, anti-realist, (...) or social-constructivist interpretations of science. Norris also holds that progeny of modern thought, such as Wittgenstein and Quine, who embrace such “relativist” interpretations, are mistaken. (shrink)

In this paper I defend anti-realism about race and a new theory of racialization. I argue that there are no races, only racialized groups. Many social constructionists about race have adopted racial formation theory to explain how ‘races’ are formed. However, anti-realists about race cannot adopt racial formation theory, because it assumes the reality of race. I introduce interactive constructionism about racialized groups as a theory of racialization for anti-realists about race. Interactive constructionism moves the discussion away (...) from the dichotomous (social vs. biological) metaphysics that has marred this debate, and posits that racialized groups are the joint products of a broad range of non-racial factors, which interact. (shrink)

A Moderate Anti-realist approach to truth and meaning, built around the concept of knowability, will be introduced and argued for in this essay. Our starting point will be the two fundamental anti-realists principles that claim that neither truth nor meaning can outstrip knowability and our focus will be on the challenge of adequately formalizing these principles and incorporating them into a formal theory. Accordingly, the author will introduce a MAR truth operator that is built on a distinction between (...) being true and being factual. He will show then that this approach partitions propositions into eight classes, on the basis of their knowability. We will then ask the following question: Given the anti-realist principles, what kind of theory of propositional meaning can properly explain the meaninglessness of fully unknowable propositions? This question will lead us to the claim that the meaning/content of propositions should be identified not with the set of possible worlds in which the propositions are true/factual, but rather in which they are known. This modified approach will then be used to analyze both the Liar Paradox and the Strengthened Liar. To anticipate the conclusion of this essay, it will be shown that a MAR framework can render definite truth and factuality values to the Liar sentence and it will also confirm our intuition that such paradoxical sentences are devoid of proper meaning. (shrink)

Examines Nietzsche's anti‐essentialism in the context of the metaphysics of the will to power, which posits an ontology of interactive and causally efficacious quanta of force characterized exclusively by relational properties. It is argued that this ontological model is marred by a fundamental incoherence. The concluding remarks touch upon the problem of relativism of truth and self‐reference. An attempt is made to situate the metaphysics of the will in the context of Nietzsche's whole philosophy.

The story of The Expanse is inseparable from the Inners’ oppression of the Belters. This chapter focuses on the relationship between the Inners and the Belt. It provides insight into the colonial relationship between them. Emphasizing the colonial relationship between the Inners and the Belt gives us insight into why attempts to forge a peaceful alliance between Earth, Mars, and the Belt fail time and time again. If we understand the Belt's attack as transcending mere bloodthirst and demolishing the unquestioned (...) colonial system that denies their very humanity, the case for anti‐colonial violence becomes much more compelling. Marco's vision of the future, in which Earth and Mars keep to their planets and a self‐determining Belt can finally live free of persecution, is juxtaposed against Avasarala's vision of peace in Luna Station. (shrink)

Entre meados do século XI e meados do XVI circularam no Ocidente cristão vários relatos sobre uma suposta papisa Joana, cuja condição feminina foi revelada ao parir em plena procissão pelas ruas de Roma. História à primeira vista anti-eclesiástica, contudo aceita pela Igreja medieval. Por quê? A hipótese aqui defendida é de que o mito de Joana expressava a androginia simbólica dos papas, daí ter sido censurado só com o advento do Protestantismo e sua constestação à própria existência da (...) instituição papal. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Quelle sera la fonction d'une logique si le formalisme l'oblitère? On l'a caractérisée sur deux états disjoints : la phénoménologie catégoriale, dont Kant avait épuisé les ressources, et le formulaire quantificationnel. « Copyright Electre » Pages de (...) début Avant-propos - Des dimensions intelligibles Première partie - La seconde navigation Présentation Chapitre premier - Le prix de l'expérience Chapitre II - Logique, histoire formalisation Chapitre III - La logique stoïcienne et la construction du récit Chapitre IV - La dissidence des preuves Deuxième partie - Mises au point Chapitre V - Catégories, apophantique, énonciation Chapitre VI - La vérité d'Aristote et la vérité de Tarski Chapitre VII - Port-Royal et la géométrie des modalités subjectives Chapitre VIII - La philosophie critique et l'énigme du jugement de gout Troisième partie - Perspectives Chapitre IX - De l'expression et de ses recommencements Chapitre X - Le roman grec. Du protreptique à l'éducation sentimentale Chapitre XI - Ce que dit le « menteur crétois », cet agent double Chapitre XII - Entre logique naturelle et intelligence artificielleChapitre XIII - Logique, grammaire, style Index nominum Pages de fin. (shrink)

1. Overview -/- 1.1 Main Divisions When, if ever, is it morally permissible to end the life of a human embryo or fetus, and why? As regards the first of these questions, there are extreme anti-abortion views, according to which abortion is prima facie seriously wrong from conception onwards – or at least shortly thereafter; there are extreme permissibility views, according to which abortion is always permissible in itself; and there are moderate views, according to which abortion is sometimes (...) permissible, and sometimes not. -/- Moderate views appeal to a variety of considerations in support of the view that abortion is sometimes justified, but these fall into four main categories. First, there are cases where the developing human is seriously defective in some way – perhaps such that it will not have a life that is worth living. Secondly, there are cases where continuation of pregnancy would involve serious risks to the life or health of the woman. Thirdly, there are moderate positions according to which the developing human initially does not have serious moral status, or a right to life, but acquires such status at some point before birth. Finally, it is often held that abortion is justified in the case of rape. -/- With the exception of the last consideration, moderate views assume that the moral status of the developing human is crucial with respect to the permissibility of abortion. Moreover, this is a natural assumption that was shared by all sides until the publication in 1971 of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s article “A Defense of Abortion,” in which she argued that abortion is permissible even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that human embryos and fetuses have a right to life. Thus we have one of the great divides in the philosophical discussion of abortion: Is the moral status of the developing human generally decisive with regard to the moral permissibility of abortion or not? -/- 1.2 The Moral Status of the Developing Human: Thomson and Boonin Thomson’s article evoked many critical responses, along with some defenses, which I have described elsewhere (2013; “Thomson’s Attempt to Defend Abortion in General”). Crucial, however, is David Boonin’s defense (2003), which contains responses to all of the important objections directed against the attempt to show that one can defend abortion while granting that human embryos and fetuses have a right to life fully on a par with that of normal adult human beings. -/- Boonin’s impressive efforts notwithstanding, I do not think that this way of defending an extreme permissibility view is successful. The crucial issue is whether it is morally permissible intentionally to bring into existence an entity with a right to life in a situation where one knows that it will not survive without one’s assistance, and then to refrain from providing that assistance. An especially forceful way of arguing that this is not permissible is found in an article by Richard Langer (1993, 351-2), who argues that if this were permissible, it would follow not only that abortion was justified, but also that it is permissible to allow one’s children to die, some years after birth, simply because one no longer wishes to care for them. -/- 1.3 Moderate Views Moderate positions on abortion raise a number of issues that, for reasons of space, I cannot address here. Some of these depend on the issue of the moral status of the developing human, and defending a moderate view requires showing that both extreme anti-abortion and extreme moral permissibility views concerning the moral status of humans before birth are incorrect. I have argued elsewhere (1983, 285-302, and 2009, 59-63) that the prospects of doing this are not promising. -/- As regards permissibility in the case of rape, everything depends upon whether, as Thomson contends (1971), there is no obligation to be a good Samaritan, rather than merely a minimally decent one, and so no obligation for a woman to remain pregnant to save the life of a being that she was not responsible for bringing into existence. Finally, on the one hand, in cases where the woman will die if an abortion is not performed, virtually all moral philosophers, with the exception of those who embrace the moral view advanced by the Catholic Church in encyclicals by Pope Pius XI (1930) and Pope Paul VI (1968), agree that abortion is morally permissible, while, on the other hand, if the situation is one where there is only some risk that the woman will die if an abortion is not performed, or where the threat is not to the woman’s life, but only to her health, then the situation does seem clear-cut if one assumes that the embryo or fetus has a right to life. -/- 1.4 Extreme Anti-Abortion Views Very different arguments are offered for the view that abortion is in itself never permissible. First of all, in popular discussions, appeal is frequently made to the mere fact of membership in the biologically defined species Homo sapiens, but among those who are philosophically knowledgeable, this line of argument is almost invariably rejected, for reasons that I have set out elsewhere (Tooley, 2009, 21-35). -/- Secondly, appeal is also made to the idea that humans have immaterial minds, or souls – for example, by Stephen Schwartz (1990), J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae (2000), Norman Ford (2002), and Francis J. Beckwith, (2005). The postulation of immaterial minds or souls is, however, open to strong objections, since there is excellent evidence that human psychological powers have their categorical bases in neural structures, rather than in an immaterial substance (Tooley, 2009, 15-19). In addition, the postulation of an immaterial soul, conceived of along Thomistic lines, is on a collision course with biology, since such an immaterial soul is held to govern a human’s life processes and biological development. -/- Thirdly, there is the ‘substantial identity’ argument, advanced for example by Patrick Lee (2004), and which claims that an entity possesses a right to life by virtue of the type of substance it is. This view is exposed to a number of strong objections, however, among them the fact that it leads to the unacceptable consequence that a human that has suffered upper brain death still has a right to life (Tooley, 2009, 51-9). -/- The upshot is that most philosophers do not find any of the preceding three lines of argument for an extreme anti-abortion position promising. The focus, accordingly, has been elsewhere – namely, on arguments claiming that human embryos and fetuses have serious moral status, or a right to life, because they have the potentiality for developing those psychological capacities – for thought, self-consciousness, rationality, and so on – that seem clearly relevant to a being’s moral status. -/- In what follows, then, I shall confine my discussion to what seems to me the most crucial issue bearing upon the moral status of abortion, namely, that between, on the one hand, a potentiality account of moral status, and, on the other, the type of approach most commonly appealed to in support of an extreme permissibility position on abortion, namely, a personhood account of the right to life. -/- One of the earliest defenders of the view that potentialities give something a right to life was Jim Stone in his article, “Why Potentiality Matters,” where Stone argues for the conclusion, “we have a prima facie duty not to deprive them of the conscious goods which it is their nature to realize” (1987, 821). Stone’s discussion, however, attracted much less attention than an article published two years later by Don Marquis, entitled “Why Abortion is Immoral.” The latter is one of the most interesting articles on abortion, as well as one of the most discussed––and deservedly so. In what follows, then, I shall focus upon it. -/- My discussion is organized as follows. In section 2, I summarize Marquis’s account of the wrongness of killing. Then, in section 3, I set out an alternative account, one in which the concept of a neo-Lockean person is central. Sections 4, 5, and 6 are then devoted to criticisms of Marquis’s approach, all of which also support the alternative, rights-based, neo-Lockean personhood account. (shrink)