Are liberalism and perfectionism compatible? In this study Steven Wall presents and defends a perfectionist account of political morality that takes issue with many currently fashionable liberal ideas but retains the strong liberal commitment to the ideal of personal autonomy. He begins by critically discussing the most influential version of anti-perfectionist liberalism, examining the main arguments that have been offered in its defence. He then clarifies the ideal of personal autonomy, presents an account of its value and shows that (...) a strong commitment to personal autonomy is fully compatible with an endorsement of perfectionist political action designed to promote valuable pursuits and discourage base ones. (shrink)

Jerry L. Walls aims to demonstrate in his book Hell: The Logic of Damnation that some traditional views of hell are still defensible and can be believed with intellectual and moral integrity. Focusing on the issues from the standpoint of philosophical theology, Walls explores the doctrine of hell in relation to both the divine nature and human nature. He argues, with respect to the divine nature, that some traditional versions of the doctrine are compatible not only with God's omnipotence and (...) omniscience, but also with a strong account of His perfect goodness. The concept of divine goodness receives special attention since the doctrine of hell is most often rejected on moral grounds. (shrink)

Editors provide a substantive introduction to the history and theories of perfectionism and neutrality, expertly contextualizing the essays and making the collection accessible.

In Moral Creativity, John Wall argues that moral life and thought are inherently and radically creative. Human beings are called by their own primordially created depths to exceed historical evil and tragedy through the ongoing creative transformation of their world. This thesis challenges ancient Greek and biblical separations of ethics and poetic image-making, as well as contemporary conceptions of moral life as grounded in abstract principles or preconstituted traditions. Taking as his point of departure the poetics of the will (...) of Paul Ricoeur, and ranging widely into critical conversations with Continental, narrative, feminist, and liberationist ethics, Wall uncovers the profound senses in which moral practice and thought involve tension, catharsis, excess, and renewal. In the process, he draws new connections between sin and tragedy, practice and poetics, and morality and myth. Rather than proposing a complete ethics, Moral Creativity is a meta-ethical work investigating the creative capability as part of what it means, morally, to be human. This capability is explored around four dimensions of ontology, teleology, deontology, and social practice. In each case, Wall examines a traditional perspective on the relation of ethics to poetics, critiques it using resources from contemporary phenomenology, and develops a conception of a more original poetics of moral life. In the end, moral creativity is a human capability for inhabiting tensions among others and in social systems and, in the image of a Creator, creating together an ever more radically inclusive moral world. (shrink)

This volume will be the primary resource for students, scholars, and others interested in questions of our ultimate existence.

Three enduring models -- What constitutes human being? -- What is the ethical aim? -- What is owed each other? -- Human rights in light of childhood -- The generative family -- The art of ethical thinking.

Examines the notion of passivity in the work of Levinas, Blanchot, and Agamben.

In this study I defend an account of 'dispositional coercion' and coercive offers which hinges primarily on the intentions of both the coercer and the victim. In doing so I argue against various baseline accounts of coercion. ;Baseline accounts center on the victim's estimation of a proposal's effect, the determination of coercive threats and offers primarily hinging on the victim's beliefs and preferences. I believe that it is the intended action of the individual making the proposal that provides the core (...) consideration for defining coercive threats and offers. ;The following is my set of jointly necessary and sufficient conditions for 'dispositional coercion' wherein X coerces Y to do A: X threatens Y, that is, X intentionally attempts to create the belief in Y that X will be responsible for harm coming to Y should Y fail to do A. X's motive for attempting to create this belief is his desire to bring about a state of affairs in which Y's recognition of this possible harm to himself influences Y to do A. X successfully creates the belief in Y that Y may be harmed if he fails to do A, that is, X is successful in causing Y to recognize that harm may come to him should he fail to do A. Y intends to do A, and Y's motive for intending to do A is Y's desire to avoid harm to himself. Y does A. ;I also argue that X makes Y a coercive offer if and only if: ; X either intentionally attempts to create the following beliefs in Y, or for cases in which X believes that Y already holds beliefs and , attempts to create belief in Y: X is able to prevent some harm from coming to Y. Y needs X's assistance in preventing this harm. X will not assist Y in preventing this harm if Y does not do A. ; X's motive for attempting to create beliefs - in Y, or for cases in which Y already holds beliefs and , to attempt to create belief in Y is his desire to bring about a state of affairs in which Y's recognition of this possible harm to himself influences Y to do A. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century the wonders of science show its magnificent potential for good. The scientific successes we enjoy are rooted in the modern way of thinking about physics. But success has fostered a myth that the dialectic of physics should be used in other areas; thus contributing to global calamities, such as Dialectical Materialism in politics and Behaviorism in psychology. In the opening paragraph of The Modern Mind the author proclaims-and indeed others agree-a crisis has been reached in our (...) evolving Western worldview. So the first requirement is a clear understanding of this development! In this work Kevin Wall illuminates this development in the light of philosophy, theology, science, art, and with reference to Greek and Scholastic minds-showing the real-world implications of Western speculative thought. (shrink)

Thirty years ago, Alvin Plantinga gave a lecture called "Two Dozen (or so) Theistic Arguments," which served as an underground inspiration for two generations of scholars and students. In it, he proposed a number of novel and creative arguments for the existence of God which have yet to receive the attention they deserve. In Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God, each of Plantinga's original suggestions, many of which he only briefly sketched, is developed in detail by a wide variety (...) of accomplished scholars. The authors look to metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, ethics, aesthetics, and beyond, finding evidence for God in almost every dimension of reality. Those arguments new to natural theology are more fully developed, and well-known arguments are given new life. Not only does this collection present ground-breaking research, but it lays the foundations for research projects for years to come."--Back cover. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:This article provides an in-depth ethical analysis of living donor uterus transplantation, incorporating clinical, psychological, and qualitative study data into the discussion. Although the concept of living organ donors as patients in their own right has not always been present in the field of transplantation, this conceptualization informs the framework for living donor ethics that we apply to living uterus donation. This framework takes root in the principles of research ethics, which include respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. It incorporates (...) an analysis based on eight potential vulnerabilities of living donors: capacitational, juridic, deferential, social, medical, situational, allocational, and infrastructural. Finally, it recognizes that special relationships—such as that of the living donor advocate with the potential donor—require special responsibilities, including identifying vulnerabilities and engaging donors in a shared decision-making process. Directed and non-directed uterus donors require separate ethical analyses because their different relationships with recipients will influence the types of vulnerabilities, they are subject to as well as the potential benefits they may gain from donation. (shrink)

This essay examines play as an ontological dimension of human being. It asks in particular how children’s experiences of play offer critiques and expansions of traditional adult frames that have dominated philosophies of play in the West. This “childist” approach suggests that human playfulness is not reducible to irrationality, spontaneity, or use for work. Rather, as childhood studies combined with post-modern thinking suggests, human being involves play in its fundamental capacity for creating meaning.

Some think of art as opposed to philosophy and science, and indeed sometimes opposed to morality. Here, Wall explores the fundamental ways of pursuing aesthetics, speculation, science, mathematics, and morality. Conceptually these are not opposed. He illustrates the ideas with reference to an array of ancient and modern thinkers.

Having visited Ireland regularly during the 1930s, Ludwig Wittgenstein resigned his Cambridge philosophy professorship in 1947 and moved there, living in a fishing village on the Atlantic coast and hotels in Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains. Although Wittgenstein spent some time out of the country, Ireland was effectively his base for three very productive years during which he worked on what would become one of his key books, the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein in Ireland represents the first sustained account (...) of Wittgenstein's time in Ireland, placing it in its historical context. Wall pays a good deal of attention to the representation of the Irish landscape in which the Austrian philosopher found himself able to work; a large part of his writings were produced in the bleak landscapes of Ireland and Norway. (shrink)

Walling and Hicks make a direct assault on the "Everest" of scientific mysteries. The authors trace the first glimmerings of consciousness in evolution and during emergence from anesthesia. There are no formulae or equations; all the difficult concepts have been presented as allegories and pictures. Unlike many philosophical books about consciousness, they have evidence to back up their ideas. This book is also an attempt to bridge the chasm between science and religion which the authors believe to be largely unnecessary.

When part of a person's body is separated from them, or when a person dies, it is unclear what legal status the item of bodily material is able to obtain. A 'no property rule' which states that there is no property in the human body was first recorded in an English judgment in 1882. Claims based on property rights in the human body and its parts have failed on the basis that the human body is not the subject of property. (...) Despite a recent series of exceptions to the 'no property rule', the law still has no clear answer as to the legal status of the body or its material. In this book, Wall examines the appropriate legal status of bodily material, and in doing so, develops a way for the law to address disputes over the use and storage of bodily material that, contrary to the current trend, resists the application of property law. Wall assesses when a person ought to be able to possess, control, use, or profit from, his or her own bodily material or the bodily material of another person. Bodily material may be valuable because it retains a functional unity with the body or is a material resource that is in short supply. With this in mind, Wall measures the extent to which property law can represent the rights and duties that protects the entitlement that a person may exercise in bodily material, and identifies the limits to the appropriate application of property law. An alternative to property law is developed with reference to the right of bodily integrity and the right to privacy. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION Linguists who work within the tradition of transformational generative grammar tend to regard semantics as an intractable, perhaps ultimately ...

This paper articulates and defends a novel hybrid account of well-being. We will call our view a Robust Hybrid. We call it robust because it grants a broad and not subservient role to both objective and subjective values. In this paper we assume, we think plausibly but without argument, that there is a significant objective component to well-being. Here we clarify what it takes for an account of well-being to have a subjective component. Roughly, we argue, it must allow that (...) favoring attitudes that are not warranted by the lights of objective values can ground benefits. Given this understanding, we show that there is an important and unrecognized expansion in the resources available to fully objectivist views: namely that such views can help themselves to the value of warranted love of objective goods. Such a move by the objectivist can help them respond to concerns that, on their view, a person’s well-being can be too alien to them. We next argue that, nonetheless, such objectivist views are still unconvincing due to their lack of a subjective component. This motivates a move from fully objective accounts to hybrid accounts. We show that many prominent hybrid theories in the literature are inadequate because they implausibly minimize the subjective component. This motivates a move to a robust hybrid view that has an expanded subjectivist component. We conclude with some remarks about the interrelation between the subjective and objective components in the hybrid account that we favor and a role for resonance in a theory of well-being other than serving as a hard constraint on any benefit. (shrink)

Plants from a handful of species provide the primary source of food for all people, yet this source is vulnerable to multiple stressors, such as disease, drought, and nutrient deficiency. With rapid population growth and climate uncertainty, the need to produce crops that can tolerate or resist plant stressors is more crucial than ever. Traditional plant breeding methods may not be sufficient to overcome this challenge, and methods such as highOthroughput sequencing and automated scoring of phenotypes can provide significant new (...) insights. Ontologies are essential tools for accessing and analysing the large quantities of data that come with these newer methods. As part of a larger project to develop ontologies that describe plant phenotypes and stresses, we are developing a plant disease extension of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDOPlant). The IDOPlant is envisioned as a reference ontology designed to cover any plant infectious disease. In addition to novel terms for infectious diseases, IDOPlant includes terms imported from other ontologies that describe plants, pathogens, and vectors, the geographic location and ecology of diseases and hosts, and molecular functions and interactions of hosts and pathogens. To encompass this range of data, we are suggesting inOhouse ontology development complemented with reuse of terms from orthogonal ontologies developed as part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. The study of plant diseases provides an example of how an ontological framework can be used to model complex biological phenomena such as plant disease, and how plant infectious diseases differ from, and are similar to, infectious diseases in other organism. (shrink)

John Wesley explained the existence of evil in moral rather than metaphysical terms. His understanding of the fall was fairly typical of western theology and he also enthusiastically embraced a version of the felix culpa theme as essential for theodicy. Unlike many influential western theologians, he also relied heavily on libertarian freedom to account for evil. His most striking proposal for theodicy involves his eschatalogical vision of the future in which he believed the entire world living then will be converted. (...) I argue that his theodicy is implicitly universalist, especially in its eschatalogical speculations, and show that this is in tension with his strong libertariancommitments. (shrink)

Jerry L. Walls, the author of books on hell and heaven, completes his tour of the afterlife with a philosophical and theological exploration and defense of purgatory, the traditional teaching that most Christians require a period of postmortem cleansing and purging of their sinful dispositions and imperfections before they will be fully made ready for heaven. He examines Protestant objections to the doctrine and shows that the doctrine of purgatory has been construed in different ways, some of which are fully (...) compatible with Protestant theology. In particular, while purgatory has often been understood as matter of punishment in order to make satisfaction for sins that have not been fully remitted, it can also be seen as the completion of the sanctification process, an account of the doctrine that is fully consistent with the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith. Purgatory assumes not only continuity of personal identity but also gradual moral and spiritual growth between death and resurrection. Different theories of personal identity are examined and assessed in light of these assumptions. Walls also shows that the traditional doctrine of purgatory is not understood as a second chance for salvation, but goes on to argue that it should be modified to allow for postmortem repentance. He concludes with an examination of C.S. Lewis's writings on purgatory, and suggests that Lewis can be a model for evangelicals and other Protestants to engage the doctrine of purgatory in a way that is true to their theology. (shrink)

Jerry L. Walls argues that the doctrine of heaven is ripe for serious reconsideration. He contends not only that the orthodox view of heaven can be defended from objections commonly raised against it, but also that heaven is a powerful resource for addressing persistent philosophical problems, not the least of which concern the ground of morality and the meaning of life. Walls shows how heaven is integrally related to central Christian doctrines, particularly those related to salvation, and tackles the difficult (...) problem of why faith in Christ is necessary to save us from our sins. In addition, heaven is shown to illumine thorny problems of personal identity and to be an essential component of a satisfactory theodicy. Walls goes on to examine data from near-death experiences from the standpoint of some important recent work in epistemology and argues that they offer positive evidence for heaven. He concludes that we profoundly need to recover the hope of heaven in order to recover our very humanity. (shrink)

This paper argues that contemporary child and youth experiences of globalization call for retheorizing global justice around a new concept of empowered inclusion. The first part of the paper examines three case studies in globalization – child labour movements, child and youth migration, and young people’s organization around climate change – and shows how, in each case, young people, through their struggles against injustice, are simultaneously disempowered and empowered by their deep global interdependency. The second part proposes new theoretical advances (...) in global justice that better respond to child and youth experiences through a childist concept of the empowered inclusion of both children and other marginalized groups. And the third part advances some preliminary suggestions about how a more child-responsive conception of global power and justice might be operationalized in practice across global policies, institutions, and culture. (shrink)

Many writers claim that democratic government rests on a principled commitment to the ideal of political equality. The ideal of political equality holds that political institutions ought to be arranged so that they distribute political standing equally to all citizens. I reject this common view. I argue that the ideal of political equality, under its most plausible characterizations, lacks independent justificatory force. By casting doubt on the ideal of political equality, I provide indirect support for the claim that democratic government (...) is only instrumentally justified. (shrink)

The Plant Ontology (PO) (http://www.plantontology.org) (Jaiswal et al., 2005; Avraham et al., 2008) was designed to facilitate cross-database querying and to foster consistent use of plant-specific terminology in annotation. As new data are generated from the ever-expanding list of plant genome projects, the need for a consistent, cross-taxon vocabulary has grown. To meet this need, the PO is being expanded to represent all plants. This is the first ontology designed to encompass anatomical structures as well as growth and developmental stages (...) across such a broad taxonomic range. While other ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO) (The Gene Ontology Consortium, 2010) or Cell Type Ontology (CL) (Bard et al., 2005) cover all living organisms, they are confined to structures at the cellular level and below. The diversity of growth forms and life histories within plants presents a challenge, but also provides unique opportunities to study developmental and evolutionary homology across organisms. (shrink)

Some of the ways in which the experience of mothering is shaped by the moral and cultural constructions surrounding breastfeeding discourse are examined using a critical deconstruction of recent Canadian health education material. Connections between the understandings surrounding breastfeeding and cultural constructions of nature and sexuality are raised, as is the overlap between breastfeeding discourse and a number of other social discourses including those surrounding child-centered parenting expertise, the remoralization of pregnancy, and the neoliberal preoccupation with individual responsibility and the (...) cost of social programs. Some of the implications that this understanding poses for mothers are examined. (shrink)