Standard defences of preservationism, and of the intrinsic value of nature more generally, are vulnerable to at least three objections. The first of these comes from social constructivism, the second from the claim that it is incoherent to argue that nature is both 'other' and something with which we can feel unity, whilst the third links defences of nature to authoritarian objectivism and dangerously misanthropic normative dichotomies which set pure nature against impure humanity. I argue that all these objections may (...) be answered by recasting the relationship between man and nature into a tripartite spectrum of ontological form between nature and artifact, with the key question being the extent to which nature has been humanised in accordance with certain modes of strongly instrumental rationality, these in turn being defined by reference to the split between abstract reason and natural feeling which was exacerbated by specific elements in the Enlightenment period. This new model may grant normative force by linking external nature to a broader conception of human psychological wellbeing than that offered by the quantitatively orientated models of human rationality and agency. (shrink)

Previous studies showed that when reading a scenario depicting a harmless moral violation in the domain of purity, people nevertheless implicitly infer that harm was involved. In this study, we assessed whether this “implicit completion” process found in the perception of immoral actions is also present in people with autism spectrum disorder. In two experiments, we found an implicit activation of harm representations in response to all kinds of moral violations in neurotypical adults as well as in adults (...) with autism. These results suggested that the perception of moral violations is relatively preserved in people with autism. (shrink)

The Matthean parable of the wheat and the weeds appears across the spectrum of writings of early Christians in north Africa. Given that the parable seems to advocate a non-judgemental acceptance of sinners within the community in the present age, while north African Christianity is known for its emphasis on membership purity and the exclusion of sinners, how was this parable handled in that context? This article argues that an author like Tertullian avoided the ecclesiological dimensions of the (...) parable, and that Cyprian never applied the parable so as to reject the excommunication of the lapsed. Tyconius and Optatus made only passing reference to the parable. Augustine found the parable helpful in arguing against the Donatist practice of excommunicating traditores. Contra litteras Petiliani is considered in some detail. Yet even Augustine, who stands outside the north African tradition, believed in the excommunication. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 483-500 [Access article in PDF] Greek Origins and Organic Metaphors: Ideals of Cultural Autonomy in Neohumanist Germany from Winckelmann to Curtius Brian Vick That the educated classes of late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany were increasingly captivated by images of both nationality and Greek antiquity is a fact long noted and long puzzled over. This seemingly strange confluence of cultural tendencies does, (...) however, help explain why studying the drawn-out debates among German neohumanist scholars on the cultural origins of the Greeks ultimately offers a fresh perspective on certain problems of German national identity—in this case, on the ambivalent relationship to things foreign in that period of German history.Scholarly attention has recently been drawn to this question as part of the conflict over Martin Bernal's Black Athena, the first volume of which argued that nineteenth-century German classicists' denial of an Egyptian contribution to early Greek cultural development revealed their xenophobic tendencies. While Bernal pointed to racism as the prime motive for this repudiation of African and later of Semitic influence on the Greeks, he also invoked several of the other "-isms" that have proven so fruitful yet confusing for efforts to understand the intellectual and cultural climate of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Germany: romanticism, historicism, organicism, and of course neohumanism. 1 [End Page 483]The present essay is not intended to be another of the past decade's many responses to Bernal. Attention must be paid to that discussion, but it is important to recognize the extent to which this debate reflects a much broader disagreement about German attitudes in the romantic and nationalist eras. Some scholars portray the more cosmopolitan side of the romantic inheritance and stress its continued fascination with foreign literatures and cultures. Others, however, seem more like Bernal in citing the historicist turn to nature and nationality either to illustrate or to explain an alleged German xenophobia and hypersensitivity to issues of ethnic and cultural purity. 2It is to this wider question of the cultural legacy of German classicism and romanticism, historicism and organicism, that I would like to direct attention in this essay. Rather than invoking these "-isms" in an effort to explain the various positions taken in the debate about Greek origins, I hope to reverse the process and examine the relevant texts in an effort to clarify the broader implications of these issues of cultural purity and cultural borrowing, from the time of Winckelmann's first assertion of Greek originality through the rise of new kinds of nationalism and racism in the Wilhelmine era. 3 I shall show that belief in the importance of Greek civilization's Asian and even Egyptian cultural heritage remained strong for decades, even after Karl Otfried Müller's seemingly definitive rejection of such a connection in the 1820s. Moreover, most of the figures engaged on both sides of the debate made remarkably similar use of historicizing organic metaphors to help reconcile the twin values of national autonomy and cultural transmission, both so central to the self-conception and national identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum in this period. Continuity and connection with the environment, not purity and isolation from it, were the hallmarks of such organicist thinking across a wide spectrum of romantic, neohumanist, and idealist commentators. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century, with the passing of romantic values, the transformation of historicism into historicist positivism, and the development of new meanings attached to images of biology and race, would this situation slowly begin to change. The Greeks, History, and Culture: Foundational Perspectives Many of the considerations central to discussions about the origins of the Greeks and about the role of cultural mixing generally can be seen in the debate's [End Page 484] two most important early statements, the denial of Egyptian influence by Johann Joachim Winckelmann in his History of Ancient Art of 1764 and the successive sharp critiques of this view by an otherwise admiring Johann Gottfried... (shrink)

“Just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony” (Kierkegaard The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, pg.6, thesis XV) What has proportion to do with humor or irony? And what do either of these have to do with being human? Jokes, laughter, and funniness connote excess, exaggeration, incongruity, dissonance, etc., the opposite of proportion--balance, symmetry, Aristotle’s golden mean. Yet, The Philosopher maintains, the wit has found the ideal moderate (...) position between the deficient boor who seems constitutionally incapable of laughing, and the excessive buffoon who doesn’t know how to laugh at the right time, in the right way, or for the right reasons--buffoonish laughter is indiscriminate. The title, paraphrasing Hume, is consistent with Kierkegaard’s valorization of irony, as philosophical doubt and the confusion induced through Socratic Irony both call for a special sort of proportion: ontological proportion. Put simply, one ought to proportion one’s being, as well as others’, as though along a shifting spectrum rather than essentially and hierarchically. The latter fosters a serious attitude that takes polarities as the rule with no exceptions; black or white, good or evil, with us or against us, one of us or one of them, always seeking the ideal of purity. We see this disproportion in authoritarians who manifestly lack a sense of humor--Hitler’s joke courts, Turkey’s president Erdoğan attempting legal punishment against a comedian who mocked him, and Trump’s thin-skinned inability to laugh at his own expense, a monumental character flaw for the most powerful person in the world. Their views are serious, rigid, closed, and dogmatic about themselves, others, and for each of them excepting Trump, the presumed absolute nature of values--Trump’s unironic pretense toward any value is merely a means to service his own absolute end, himself. The playfully ironic person can cope with reality, with ambiguity and, borrowing from Maria Lugones, “ontological confusion,” the not-fully-settled identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Theology.After Wittgenstein. By FERGUS KERR. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. xii + 202. Fergus Kerr's Theology.After Wittgenste,in is written in the spirit of Wittgenstein's remark: "I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own!' If Kerr's book stimulates theologians to read Wittgenstein with sympathy and to reassess their practices in light (...) of his philosophical enterprise, his impact will not end with the waning of the fruitless wrangling over "Wittgensteinian fideism." Kerr offers a three-fold argument: (1) that Wittgenstein's life and philosophical practice evinced a religious sensibility deeply opposed to the Platonic and Cartesian substructures of modern theology; (2) that these substructures involve an " indifference to community and... antipathy to the body" (vii) which Wittgenstein strives to overcome; and (3) that with our liberation from the grip of the myth of the ·self as a private mental ego, we can set ·a new agenda for rearticulating the doctrines and problems of Christian theology. Kerr's approach is distinguished by two factors. First, he is entirely free of the disciple-like awe which has led many commentators to wrestle something profound and true out of every Wittgensteinian pronouncement. He writes: "Wittgenstein had thoughts that were deep, together with others that seem tentative, and even, to my mind, quite idiotic" (35). The fact that a writer sympathetic with -Wittgenstein can now feel free to acknowledge this opinion shows that with Kerr we are well beyond hagiography. Second, Kerr plunges into Wittgenstein from a review of the Cartesianism of modern theology. He reviews a wide spectrum of 20th century theologians and finds them infested with views about the self that stem from Plato and Descartes. Hence he comes at Wittgenstein with an interest in developing "a non-metaphysical understanding of the place of the self in nature and history," in overcoming antipathies toward the body and toward communities, and in " renouncing a certain nostalgia for spiritual purity " in the interest of tiaking a new look at theological issues (52). In remarks reminiscent of Keynes's unmasking of the origins of common sense, Kerr assures the reader that unless theologians explore the metaphysical substructures of their practiee and discourse, they will "remain prisoners of whatever philosophical school was in the ascendant 30 years earlier,... or 350 years earlier" (3). To make good on this claim he sketches " the modern view of the self in Descartes, Kant, James, and 837 338 BOOK REVIEWS Moore, and then traces this view in Rahner, and more briefly, Kiing, Cupitt, Ogden, and several other theologians. The main lineaments of this view are that the self is a privately, introspectively mental entity only unessent~ally related to the human body, that the self's epistemic. function consists in knowing an external reality, and that its moral role consists in an intensely private individualism. Correlated with each of these functions are, respectively, what Kerr calls "the absolute conception of reality" (the view that objectivity is the condition of valid knowl.edge and that objectivity requires the transcendence of every contingent, bodily, or community-based aspect of one's viewpoint), and the implication that the individual consciousness approximates "the actus purus of apophatic theology, i.e., God " (20). To clear the ground for a portrayal of "Wittgenstein's religious sensibility, Kerr offers a brief, accurate account of the mistake committed by apologists who have wished to deploy the concepts "language-game " and " form of life" to show that " religious talk supposedly constitutes a distinctive and autonomous 'language-game' which outsiders could not understand, let alone expose as incoherent or erroneous " (28). Kerr rig·htly argues that it is impossible to apply these central analytic tools to a large-scale phenomenon like religion. He finds Wittgenstein's own attitude towards religions far richer and subtler than "Wittgensteinian fideism." Was Wittgenstein religious~ Kerr concludes that he was: "While one cannot dispute Georg von Wright's judgment that he did not have a Christian faith, many passages in Culture and Value disclose a sympathetic and penetrating understanding of the matter that few Christians... could match" (36). That this understanding was at... (shrink)

This paper argues that knowledge of what it’s like varies along a spectrum from more exact to more approximate, and that phenomenal concepts vary along a spectrum in how precisely they characterize what it’s like to undergo their target experiences. This degreed picture contrasts with the standard all-or-nothing picture, where phenomenal concepts and phenomenal knowledge lack any such degreed structure. I motivate the degreed picture by appeal to (1) limits in epistemic abilities such as recognition, imagination, and inference, (...) and (2) the semantics of ‘knows what it’s like’ expressions. I argue that approximate phenomenal knowledge cannot be explained merely via determinable or vague phenomenal concepts. I develop a framework for systematizing approximate knowledge of phenomenal character. And I explain how my view challenges some standard assumptions about the acquisition conditions, requirements for mastery, and referential mechanisms of phenomenal concepts. (shrink)

In Against Purity, Alexis Shotwell proposes a powerful new conception of social movements as custodians for the past and incubators for liberated futures. Against Purity undertakes an analysis that draws on theories of race, disability, gender, and animal ethics as a foundation for an innovative approach to the politics and ethics of responding to systemic problems.

Purity is known as an ideal of proof that restricts a proof to notions belonging to the ‘content’ of the theorem. In this paper, our main interest is to develop a conception of purity for formal (natural deduction) proofs. We develop two new notions of purity: one based on an ontological notion of the content of a theorem, and one based on the notions of surrogate ontological content and structural content. From there, we characterize which (classical) first-order (...) natural deduction proofs of a mathematical theorem are pure. Formal proofs that refer to the ontological content of a theorem will be called ‘fully ontologically pure’. Formal proofs that refer to a surrogate ontological content of a theorem will be called ‘secondarily ontologically pure’, because they preserve the structural content of a theorem. We will use interpretations between theories to develop a proof-theoretic criterion that guarantees secondary ontological purity for formal proofs. (shrink)

Purity is the principle that fundamental facts only have fundamental constituents. In recent years, it has played a significant role in metaphysical theorizing—but its logical foundations are underdeveloped. I argue that recent advances in higher-order logic reveal a subtle ambiguity regarding Purity’s interpretation; there are stronger and weaker versions of that principle. The arguments for Purity only support the weaker interpretation, but arguments that employ it only succeed if the stronger interpretation is true. As a result, nearly (...) every metaphysician who has appealed to Purity has made a mistake—in that the inferences that they make are not justified by the arguments that they provide. (shrink)

Various ideals of purity are surveyed and discussed. These include the classical Aristotelian ideal, as well as certain neo-classical and contemporary ideals. The focus is on a type of purity ideal I call topical purity. This is purity which emphasizes a certain symmetry between the conceptual resources used to prove a theorem and those needed for the clarification of its content. The basic idea is that the resources of proof ought ideally to be restricted to those (...) which determine its content. (shrink)

Larry Temkin famously argues that what he calls spectrum arguments yield strong reason to reject Transitivity, according to which the ‘all-things-considered better than’ relation is transitive. Spectrum arguments do reveal that the conjunctions of independently plausible claims are inconsistent with Transitivity. But I argue that there is very strong independent reason to reject such conjunctions of claims, and thus that the fact that they are inconsistent with Transitivity does not yield strong reason to reject Transitivity.

Throughout history, mathematicians have expressed preference for solutions to problems that avoid introducing concepts that are in one sense or another “foreign” or “alien” to the problem under investigation. This preference for “purity” (which German writers commonly referred to as “methoden Reinheit”) has taken various forms. It has also been persistent. This notwithstanding, it has not been analyzed at even a basic philosophical level. In this paper we give a basic analysis of one conception of purity—what we call (...) topical purity—and discuss its epistemological significance. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I consider paradoxical spectrum arguments involving transitive relations like ‘better than’. I argue that, despite being formally different from sorites arguments, at least some spectrum arguments arise from vagueness, and that vagueness might often be the most natural diagnosis.

Wilber's groundbreaking synthesis of religion, philosophy, physics, and psychology started a revolution in transpersonal psychology. He was the first to suggest in a systematic way that the great psychological systems of the West could be integrated with the noble contemplative traditions of the East. Spectrum of Consciousness, first released by Quest in 1977, has been the prominent reference point for all subsequent attempts at integrating psychology and spirituality.

This article shows that introducing the positive comparative relation parity only helps one block so‐called “Spectrum Arguments” in order to avoid their unsavoury implications if one specifies parity in a specific way with respect to its persistence. The article illustrates how parity must both admit of persistency and be weakly non‐persistent for parity to block Spectrum Arguments, and identifies some consequences of that discovery for the general debate on Spectrum Arguments, value theory and comparability problems.

This is a paper on a type of purity of proof I call topical purity. This is purity which, practically speaking, enforces a certain symmetry between the conceptual resources used to prove a theorem and those needed for the clarification of its content. The basic idea is that the resources of proof ought ideally to be restricted to those which determine its content. -/- For some, this has been regarded as an epistemic ideal concerning the type of (...) knowledge that proof ought to or at least might ideally provide. -/- For others, including many working mathematicians, it has been largely a strategic or pragmatic ideal. Even these, however, see it (i.e. the ideal of purity) as serving generally epistemic ends. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen’s purity thesis is the basic methodological principle of the Pure Theory of Law. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that virtually everything that is peculiar to Kelsen’s legal theory stems from the purity thesis. This includes Kelsen’s normativism or non‐naturalism and his polemic against various dualisms in legal science. I set out Kelsen’s position on these issues after looking at the nomenclature of purity in his writings as well as the philosophical and contextual sources (...) of purity as he understands them. (shrink)

Our recent review demonstrates that “purity” is a messy construct with at least nine popular scientific understandings. Cultural beliefs about self-control help unify some of these understandings, but much messiness remains. The harm-centric theory of dyadic morality suggests that purity violations can be comprehensively understood as abstract harms, acts perceived by some people (and not others) to indirectly cause suffering.

Turning to the question of morality's content, Scheffler undertakes a defense of the view that morality is moderate – that it makes demands and imposes constraints but still allows people, under favorable circumstances, to do as they please within broad limits. Those who oppose this view and see morality as stringent are, according to Scheffler, attributing a kind of purity to the moral point of view, and so he presents the contrast between the stringent and moderate views as a (...) contrast between an Ideal of Purity and an Ideal of Humanity. Scheffler considers and rejects two argumentative strategies that are frequently used in defense of the Ideal of Purity, one that derives stringency from an allegedly uncontroversial property of morality, such as universality or impartiality and another that derives it from ordinary moral language and ordinary moral concepts. Scheffler suggests that, because the claims of stringency and moderation each have a place in our moral consciousness, neither claim can be adequately defended by appealing either to formal properties of morality or to facts about ordinary usage. (shrink)

Over the years many mathematicians have voiced a preference for proofs that stay “close” to the statements being proved, avoiding “foreign”, “extraneous”, or “remote” considerations. Such proofs have come to be known as “pure”. Purity issues have arisen repeatedly in the practice of arithmetic; a famous instance is the question of complex-analytic considerations in the proof of the prime number theorem. This article surveys several such issues, and discusses ways in which logical considerations shed light on these issues.

In his 1978 paper “Mathematical Explanation”, Mark Steiner attempts to modernize the Aristotelian idea that to explain a mathematical statement is to deduce it from the essence of entities figuring in the statement, by replacing talk of essences with talk of “characterizing properties”. The language Steiner uses is reminiscent of language used for proofs deemed “pure”, such as Selberg and Erdős’ elementary proofs of the prime number theorem avoiding the complex analysis of earlier proofs. Hilbert characterized pure proofs as those (...) that use only “means that are suggested by the content of the theorem”, a characterization we have elsewhere called “topical purity”. In this paper we will examine the connection between Steiner’s account of mathematical explanation and topical purity. Are Steiner-explanatory proofs necessarily topically pure? Are topically pure proofs necessarily Steiner-explanatory? Answers to these questions will shed light on the general question of the relation between purity and explanatory power. (shrink)

A fundamental fact is “pure” just in case it has no grounded entities—ex. Tokyo, President Biden, the River Nile, {Socrates}, etc.—among its constituents. Purity is the thesis that every fundamental fact is pure. I argue that Purity is false. My argument begins with a familiar conditional: if Purity is true, then there are no fundamental “grounding facts” or facts about what grounds what. This conditional is accepted by virtually all of Purity’s defenders. However, I argue that (...) it is also the first step toward Purity’s undoing. For, if every grounding fact has a ground, then some grounded entities have “groundmates” or distinct grounded entities that share their full grounds. But, if there are groundmates, then Purity is false. So Purity leads to a contradiction. Therefore, it is false. I close by noting that my argument against Purity also gives us a powerful reason to think that some grounding facts are fundamental. (shrink)

Through a reinterpretation of publications, interviews with long-term activists, and an analysis of change in the social environment, this article explains why feminist ideology failed to create unity among feminist women in the United States during the period 1966-1975, the years when contemporary feminism emerged. In spite of the desire to create a community of women to challenge the existing sociocultural structure, schisms within the movement often created divisive and antagonistic feminist group relations. In contrast to earlier research that attributed (...) this lack of unity to competing ideologies, this article argues that, in many cases, feminist leaders used ideology and theory to promote radical self-identities that maintained existing social structural divisions. Thus, while feminism established a principle of unity for women as a group, disputes over ideological purity created divisions within the movement based on differences among women. (shrink)

Fitouchi et al. claim that seemingly victimless pleasures and nonproductive activities are moralized because they alter self-control. Their account predicts that: (1) victimless excesses are negatively moralized because they diminish self-control, and (2) restrained behaviors are positively moralized because they enhance self-control. Several examples run contrary to these predictions and call into question the general relationship between self-control and cooperation.

Even if spectrum inversion of various sorts is possible, spectrum inversion without a difference in representation is not. So spectrum inversion does not pose a challenge for the intentionalist thesis that, necessarily, within a given sense modality, if two experiences are alike with respect to content, they are also alike with respect to their phenomenal character. On the contrary, reflection on variants of standard cases of spectrum inversion provides a strong argument for intentionalism. Depending on one’s (...) views about the possibility of spectrum inversion, the impossibility of spectrum inversion without a difference in representation can also be used as an argument against a variety of reductive theories of mental representation. (shrink)

Using the concept of purity to reflect on the relationship between chemical practice and the philosophy of science, this article considers the philosophical significance of the chemical manipulations that aim to purify or otherwise transform matter. Starting from a consideration of the nature and role of pure (or idealised) examples in philosophy of science, the article underlines the temptation towards abstraction and theory for both scientists and philosophers. The article goes on to argue that chemistry, despite its increasing theoretical (...) sophistication, is a science that remains particularly close to laboratory manipulations. This point is made in reference to the work of Gaston Bachelard on the production of purity and with the aid of historical examples, notably exploring the interplay between techniques of purification and the definition of elements, with special attention paid to Lavoisier’s definition of elements as the final limit of analysis. The closing section concerns the manufacture of steel from iron ore in the eighteenth century, illustrating this process using texts by Pierre-Joseph Macquer and Denis Diderot. Steel production is used to illustrate the kinds of philosophical question that are raised by paying attention to the details of chemical practice rather than jumping straight to chemical theory and also suggests how scientific theory can emerge from this practice itself. (shrink)

This chapter examines the spectrum inversion hypothesis as an argument against certain kinds of account of what it’s like to be conscious of color. The hypothesis aims to provide a counterexample to accounts of what it’s like to be conscious of color in non-qualitative terms, as well as to accounts of what it’s like to be conscious of color in terms of the representational content of conscious visual states (which, according to some philosophers, is in turn given an account (...) in non-qualitative terms). I explain the hypothesis’s reasoning in sections 1 and 2. I then take up background issues: since the counterexample provided by the hypothesis is typically given as a possibility rather than an actuality, I briefly discuss the kind of possibility involved in section 3, and the methodologies used to evaluate the plausibility of possibilities in section 4. In section 5, I describe some general considerations that are commonly used against the spectrum inversion hypothesis. I take up attempts to support the hypothesis with findings from color science in section 6. I end with comments skeptical of both the motivation for the spectrum inversion hypothesis and the methodology used to support it. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s relationship to his contemporaries, as expressed in his writings, was often figured by corporeal imagery evocative of disgust. For instance, in On the Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche declared himself to suffer from mankind—which he then proceeds to describe as “maggot”—or worm-like. Nietzsche’s philosophical project can be interpreted as a visceral protest against, and attempt to overcome, humanity. This paper argues that Nietzsche attempted through his writings to create a future community of like-constituted companions in his readers through a transmission (...) of affect and education in taste. This would-be "community" is premised on a curious affective dialectic that seeks to transform disgust for humanity into a pure movement of self-creation. The socio-political effects of this dialectic of disgust will be examined alongside Nietzsche's co-option of images of purity, in order to evaluate his response to modern nihilism. (shrink)

To Korean people by the end of the 19th century who had previously enjoyed only traditional music genres, the music introduced by the hands of the missionaries must have been very new and unfamiliar. One hundred and a few decades since the meagre beginning of the meeting between the two has now passed, Korea has transformed into a modernized society where all kinds of music are performed and enjoyed, among which Western classical and popular music exist with considerable weight. In (...) the course of the development, there were constant exchanges between Korean traditional music and Western music. Korean traditional music has been subject at one end to defensive modification under the motto of transmission and at another end to aggressive destruction of some core aspects of the tradition under the motto of re-creation. This phenomenon creates important aesthetic issues in this study deals with the spectrum between the two ends drawn up by the traditional vocal genre, gagok. (shrink)

Medical assistance in dying was legalized by the Supreme Court of Canada in June 2016 and became a legal, viable end of life care option for Canadians with irremediable illness and suffering. Much attention has been paid to the balance between physicians’ willingness to provide MAiD and patients’ legal right to request medically assisted death in certain circumstances. In contrast, very little attention has been paid to the challenge of making MAiD accessible to vulnerable populations. The purpose of this paper (...) was to examine the extant literature and resources that are available on the provision of MAiD in Canada. We found that the provision of EOLC in Canada offers insufficient access to palliative and EOLC options for Canadians and that vulnerable Canadians experience disproportional barriers to accessing these already limited resources. Consequently, we argue that palliative care, hospice care and MAiD must be considered a spectrum of EOLC that is inclusive and accessible to all Canadians. We conclude by imploring Canadian healthcare professionals, policy makers and legislators to consider MAiD as a viable EOLC option for all Canadians. (shrink)

By the early 80s, kids were already trawling the message boards of the Internet for perverse kicks. Well before Star Ways Kid or "flash mobs," one of the first online fads was the "Purity Test," a series of questions to rate your moral purity, from the raunchy to the absurd.The tests would be printed out, brought to school, and pored over with friends in the back of the gym during recess. Then kids would modify the original with their (...) own prurient additions before sending it along. Eventually, the tests became bloated thousand-question Franken-tests that took hours to complete.Doing the test with friends was like playing an endless, filthy, wildly enlightening game of "Did You Ever?"--and because it was a standardized test, you could compare your scores. Assuming everyone was being honest--which they weren't. The Purity Test will offer both a humorous history and analysis of the Purity Test as well as several versions of the test to take at home. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Purity and Pollution: Resisting the Rehabilitation of a VirtueAmy Mullin“Purity” is a term used infrequently in contemporary academic literature. A survey of periodical indexes for the past ten years shows that references to purity occur predominantly in metallurgy. Purity is an increasingly important topic in anthropology, religious studies, and history, but it is a decidedly rare concern in philosophy. In my most recent search I (...) found three references.Yet “purity” was once a recurrent term in the philosophical tradition ranging from Plato through Augustine and Kant to Kierkegaard. Today when we encounter the many references to purity in the history of philosophy we too often filter them out. We assume either that “pure” is a generic term for good, or, in what seems a more knowing and sophisticated response, we read “pure” as a code term for chastity or sexual morality, the elimination, suppression or control of sexual desire. In both cases purity is written off either as a generic or as an old fashioned and rather embarrassing virtue. Hence it seems there is little reason for contemporary philosophical investigation into the rhetorical use of the language of purity and pollution.Three assumptions account for the lack of contemporary philosophical interest in the topic. First, it is assumed that purity is no longer a concern in twentieth-century philosophy. Second, purity in historical discourse is considered to be limited to a prudish or downright misogynist hostility to sex. Third and finally, it is assumed that the work historians and anthropologists have done recently into connections between purity beliefs and practices and social cohesion is irrelevant for philosophy. This is because purity in philosophy is supposed to be a resolutely individualist virtue, having little or nothing to do with unified and coherent communities.There are elements of truth to all three beliefs, but they also contain important distortions of the truth. As regards the first assumption, purity remains a concern in contemporary aesthetics, where it often means roughly something like a priori and apolitical; but I am interested in whether the concern with purity has survived in philosophies with ethical implications. [End Page 509] Here it is my contention that authenticity is the twentieth-century descendant of the virtue of purity.Second, there is much more to the rhetoric and practices of purity than concern with the sexual dimension of life, though this is a key aspect of most, and the beliefs and practices are often misogynist. There have been numerous anthropological documentations of ways in which purity beliefs, particularly an emphasis on sexual purity, are used to control women. Santi Rozario’s work, for instance, makes this point in her analysis of contemporary Bengali village life. 1 The connection between the language of purity and the practice of female circumcision, which I will not discuss in this paper, is in itself evidence enough of connections between purity beliefs and practices harmful to women. 2 However, I hope to show that there is more to purity than misogyny. Purity most basically is about order, both social and personal. 3My response to the second assumption, that purity masks an obsession with sexual control, indicates the source of my disagreement with the third, the contention that purity in philosophy is exclusively an individual virtue. Communal beliefs and practices associated with the language of purity and pollution are relevant to the philosophical treatment of purity because of the presence in both the practices and the philosophies of an interplay between social and personal order. As a result I believe an understanding of the dynamics of beliefs about purity in social practice can inform a philosophical concern with purity.First I investigate shifts in beliefs and practices concerning purity and pollution. I will concentrate on three models: ancient Greek (from the eighth to the third century BC), biblical to Talmudic Judaism (from the third century BC to the third century AD), and early Christian (from the first to the fifth century AD). These represent three traditions which have played a very significant role in shaping western civilization, theology, and philosophy. 4 They were also frequently interrelated in this period, as Christian and Jewish Platonists writing in Greek attest and of course as... (shrink)

"Moore's provocative conclusion is that monotheism - with its monopoly on virtue and failure to provide supernatural scapegoats - is responsible for some of the most virulent forms of intolerance and is a major cause of human nastiness and suffering.

In this paper, I draw on the principles of Aristotelian ethics, the work of modern virtue ethicists, and previous feminist critiques of purity balls to interrogate the effects of this practice on moral development. I argue that purity balls discourage young women from making autonomous, informed, and virtuously motivated decisions regarding their sexuality. While most critiques of purity balls are rooted in the explicitly patriarchal structure of these events, my analysis emphasizes the negative impact they have on (...) moral agency. I conclude that purity balls are unethical because of the detrimental effects they have on the becoming of virtuous agents. (shrink)

This paper compares the incidence of the diagnosis of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) among White and Asian children with reference to data obtained from thirteen local education authorities (LEAs) in England. It begins by outlining some of the theoretical debates associated with the definition, diagnosis and prevalence of ASD. The empirical component underpinning this work uses logistic modelling to ascertain whether the proportion of children with a statement of special educational need (SEN) for ASD is different for Asian and (...) for White children and whether the proportion of children with a statement of SEN for ASD varies between LEAs. The discussion speculates as to possible reasons for the differences found and identifies areas for further research. (shrink)

In Purity and Danger, Douglas theorizes purity and impurity in terms of the instantiation and disruption of a shared symbolic order. Purity/impurity discourses act, according to Purity and Danger, as a homeostatic system which ensures the preservation of this social whole, generally encoding that which threatens social equilibrium as impurity. There have been calls for new social theory on this ‘under-theorized’ topic. Presenting such further reflections, I argue that Douglas’ account is less a full explanation than (...) a regularity. Representations of purity are only secondarily symbols of the social order. Rather, purity/impurity discourses are only associated with ‘matter out of place’ when phenomena are assessed for their relative deviation from an imputed state of ‘self-identity’: qualitative homogeneity and correspondence with their essence. Purity and impurity do more than judge self-identity, however. They can play a fundamental role in its performative construction; they are well adapted for smuggling assumptions into our discourses regarding the essence of particular phenomena and forms of subjectivity, simplifying a complex world into a stark contrast between the dangerous and the innocent, the valuable and the valueless, the necessary and the contingent, the originary and the prosthetic, the real and the apparent, and the unitary and the fragmented. (shrink)

In this paper I will be concerned primarily with purity in morals. I will begin by considering an analysis of the pure person offered by Nicolai Hartmann. While I think there is much that is correct in his discussion, I will criticize it for focusing on naive innocence. I will then suggest some components of what I refer to as “mature purity,” and contrast it with Hartmann’s conception. I will also consider whether mature purity involves certain sorts (...) of attitudes and feelings, or merely conscientious action. I go on to discuss forms of impurity, and finally to discuss the relation of purity to other virtues. (shrink)

Recall that a subset X of a Boolean algebra A is independent if for any two finite disjoint subsets F , G of X we have ∏ x∈F x ∏ y∈G −y≠0. The independence of a BA A , denoted by Ind, is the supremum of cardinalities of its independent subsets. We can also consider the maximal independent subsets. The smallest size of an infinite maximal independent subset is the cardinal invariant i , well known in the case A= P (...) / fin . In this article we consider the collection of all cardinalities of infinite maximal independent subsets of a BA A ; we call this set the spectrum of infinite maximal independent subsets , denoted by Spind. Note that infinite maximal independent subsets exist in any BA which is not superatomic. The main result is that any set of infinite cardinals can occur as Spind for some infinite BA A . Beyond this we give results concerning the way that Spind changes under various algebraic operations. However, the basic components of most algebras that we deal with are free algebras. (shrink)

In her account of a debate held at Princeton University between herself and Peter Singer, the lawyer and disability rights activist Harriet McBryde Johnson criticizes the ‘terrible purity of Singer's vision’. Although she certainly disagrees with the substance of Singer's arguments concerning disability and infanticide, this remark is best understood as a critique of their form. In this paper, I attempt to make sense of this critique. I argue that Singer's characteristic mode of argument, with its appeal to a (...) universal, neutral point of view, makes it impossible for McBryde Johnson to give voice to her particular experience and thus obscures her humanity. In order to clarify the positive contribution that an appeal to particular experience may make to moral reasoning, I draw a parallel with the transformative effects of the experience of beauty, arguing that McBryde Johnson's writing ought to be regarded as both morally and philosophically instructive. (shrink)

As an artist I am interested in creative states of consciousness and the direct expression of altered states of consciousness in forms such as musical improvisation and the automatic writings and drawings of the Surrealist Artists. I have been investigating a particular spectrum of altered states characterized by an enhanced experience where out-of-the-ordinary information is accessed or an enhanced ability is realized beyond what would ordinarily be possible. Within this realm we would find the ‘peak performance’ state of athletes (...) and musicians, as well as a state of intellectual inspiration where a complex problem is solved and also the phenomenon of premonition. It is related to the ‘flow state’ as described in Flow, The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Mihályi Csíkszentmihályi, 1990) and the experience of the American clairvoyant Edgar Cayce who resolved complex medical ailments when in a self-induced hypnotic trance. Additional examples include Haitian Vodou ritualized possession and all experiences where healing and foretelling of the future takes place through a communion with spirits. It is a broad spectrum that has been described in various ways throughout history and within all cultures. But though the descriptions vary, this spectrum of consciousness shares the common characteristic of accessing extraordinary information or demonstrating extraordinary skill or ability. This article is an attempt to help clarify and define this particular spectrum of consciousness. (shrink)

Larry Temkin and Stuart Rachels have argued that the “_ is better than _” relation need not be transitive. In support of this claim, they have presented several spectrum cases towards which our actual preferences appear not to be transitive. In this paper I examine one of them, and explain that there are several solutions we may give to the problem of what is the best global option within the spectrum. I point out that these solutions do not (...) depend on whether we reject or accept the transitivity of the “_ is better than _” relation. This reduces the strength of the challenge that spectrum cases pose to transitivity in axiology. (shrink)

Why do artists, poets, philosophers, writers, and others who are usually classified as intellectuals leave the ivory tower to "dirty their hands" in the political arena? In an effort to illuminate the intellectual's struggle to come to grips with the issues raised by political involvement, David Schalk examines the life and thought of five intellectuels engagés in France during the period between 1920 and 1945. From communist to fascist, these figures—Paul Nizan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Mounier, Julien Benda, and Robert Brasillach—cover (...) the full political spectrum, and Professor Schalk studies their diverse reactions to the social, political, and economic tensions of the interwar period. Broadly defining "engagement" as political involvement that is voluntary, conscious, and freely chosen, usually by intellectuals, the author poses the intellectual's dilemma in the following terms: "When we are engagé," he writes, "we fear that we are debasing our highest values; when we are not, we worry that we have become, in Paul Nizan's trenchant phrase, mere chiens de garde [watchdogs]." He then investigates the origins and the popularization of the concept of engagement in the early 1930s, the arguments used to denounce it and to defend it, its different manifestations, and finally its effects on the socio-political actuality of the world. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In his penetrating and thought-provoking article “What Is Logic?” Ian Hacking flags an issue that he leaves undiscussed.

_Purpose._ The purity of consciousness in European culture has practically been turned into an abstraction. Because of this, there are so many discrepancies in understanding its nature. For Heidegger, the question of the purity of human consciousness remains open. Our purpose is to study the purity of European consciousness in the work of M. Heidegger. _Theoretical basis._ We draw on the deep foundations of existential, phenomenological, hermeneutic, religious-philosophical and postmodern Western and Eastern thought. _Originality._ While the early (...) Heidegger was thinking under the sign of Dasein, he did not hear the nature of the "pure consciousness" of human. Nevertheless, temporality for him was such a fundamental property that it determined the depth of understanding not only of being, but also of human consciousness itself (like Dasein). In this context, we begin to understand that the depth of consciousness in the concept of early Heidegger can be associated with its temporality. In fact, towards the end of "Being and Time", Heidegger, thinking more and more about the understanding of time from the horizon of being, begins to form similar ideas about understanding itself, that is, about human consciousness, in the sense that consciousness itself arises from the horizon of time (and being). What, then, is pure human consciousness the pure time? Does not this mean that the original meaning of consciousness is in its directed temporalizing. This temporalizing of consciousness of human (as a thinking being), which arises from the future, is perceived in three modes and reveals the fundamental nature of the consciousness itself (thinking is a stream of consciousness and, in such a context, directed understanding). Paraphrasing Heidegger, we say that the ontological meaning of pure human consciousness is revealed as temporality. Already after writing _Being and Time_, Heidegger thinks about the origins of the European consciousness, its comprehending from the depths (originality) of the being of European culture. _Conclusions._ The early Heidegger seeks the purity of being and, at the same time, strives more and more to understand the essence of the purity of human thinking. All of Heidegger’s work is a consistent transition from human understanding of the purity of being (Dasein) to the purity of thinking of a human himself. In this sense, there is a transformation of M. Heidegger’s consciousness from fundamental ontology (Dasein) in the early period to existential anthropology (human consciousness) in the late period. (shrink)

How we ought to diagnose, categorise and respond to spectrum disabilities such as autism and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a topic of lively debate. The heterogeneity associated with ADHD and autism is described as falling on various continua of behavioural, neural, and genetic difference. These continua are varyingly described either as extending into the general population, or as being continua within a given disorder demarcation. Moreover, the interrelationships of these continua are likewise often vague and subject to diverse (...) interpretations. -/- In this paper, I explore geneticists' and self-advocates’ perspectives concerning autism and ADHD as continua. These diagnoses are overwhelmingly analysed as falling on a continuum or continua of underlying traits, which supports the notion of “the neurodiversity spectrum”, i.e., a broader swath of human neural and behavioural diversity on which some concentrations of different functioning are diagnosed. I offer a taxonomy of conceptions of the genetic, phenotypic, and endophenotypic dimensionality within and beyond these diagnostic categories, and suggest that the spectrum of neurodiversity is characteristically endophenotypic. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. The first is to defend a recent critique of the leading medical theory of suffering, which alleges too narrow a focus on violent experiences of suffering. Although sympathetic to this critique, I claim that it lacks a counterexample of the kinds of experiences the leading theory is said to neglect. Drawing on recent clinical cases and the longer intellectual history of suffering, my paper provides this missing counterexample. I then answer some possible objections to my (...) defence, before turning to my second aim: an expansion of my counterexample into a spectrum of suffering that varies according to the selves and purposes that suffering affects. Next, I connect this spectrum to the tolerability of suffering, which I distinguish from its affective intensity. I conclude by outlining some applications of this distinction for the psychometric reliability of assessment instruments that measure suffering in clinical contexts. (shrink)