When everyone can be a publisher, what distinguishes the journalist? This article considers contemporary challenges to institutional roles in a digital media environment and then turns to three broad journalistic normative values - authenticity, accountability, and autonomy - that affect the credibility of journalists and the content they provide. A set of questions that can help citizens determine the trustworthiness of information available to them emerges from the discussion.

The aim of the My Character project was to develop a better understanding of how interventions designed to develop character might enhance moral formation and futuremindedness in young people. Futuremindedness can be defined as an individual’s capacity to set goals and make plans to achieve them. Establishing goals requires considerable moral reflection, and the achievement of worthwhile aims requires character traits such as courage and the capacity to delay gratification. The research team developed two new educational interventions – a website (...) and a hard-copy journal – with the specific aim of developing future-mindedness. After development, the website and journal were piloted over a one-year period by over 1,000 11–14 year olds in six schools across England. Various research methods, including group interviews and case studies, were implemented to assess impact. In addition, a pilot RCT was conducted to assess the feasibility of using experimental methods to measure character. The main findings from the research are that: - Students benefit from opportunities in school to think about future-mindedness; this can be successfully taught through character education. - Harnessing new technology, such as the Internet, offers exciting opportunities for character education. - It is beneficial to investigate the impact of new character education resources in order to bring greater clarity about ‘what works’. The most useful approach is a mixed methods one that allows for triangulation of evidence. - It is possible to run RCTs and other experimental research in schools to assess developmental projects of this kind, but applying the method in schools and creating suitable outcome measures present challenges for researchers. - A positive indicator of the success is that five out of the six pilot schools have embedded My Character into their curriculum. In addition, many new schools, both in Britain and internationally, have started to use the website and / or journal. This report describes the research, analyses the impact of My Character and concludes with recommendations for policy makers, practitioners and researchers embarking on similar projects. These recommendations include: i) advocating that schools create space in the curriculum to teach future-mindedness through character education; ii) enhancing traditional character education teaching methods with opportunities brought by Internet technologies; iii) evaluating character education interventions using triangulated evidence drawn from a mixture of research methods. (shrink)

I do not for a moment question the fact that many people have experiences of a special type which may be termed “religious”, The extent to which religious experience may be regarded as a reasonably common phenomenon in present-day Britain is shown clearly by David Hay in his Exploring Inner Space, Harmondsworth 1982. that such experiences often involve reference to something which appears to display a radical unlikeness to all else and that they are therefore in some sense inexpressible. Doubtless (...) the ideas I have put forward about the possible source of such unlikeness and ineffability might suggest models of God which would not find much theological approval, at least within any mainstream theistic tradition, since some sort of pantheism seems inevitably to be implied. But however this might be, the concept of radical unlikeness as it has been analyzed here can, I think, help us towards understanding certain problematic areas in religion quite apart from the issue of intelligibility, which has been the focus of this discussion. To begin with, radical unlikeness suggests a way in which the historical continuity of concepts of the transcendent might be upheld against the discontinuity suggested by the diversity of interpretations through which they have moved. Ancient and modern outlooks on, say, God differ enormously, as indeed do the range of co-temporal accounts at many particular moments. But, by and large, theologians firmly maintain that it is a single and unchanging phenomenon which is being dealt with. Unless we can point to some common element which is both specific enough to create a binding sense of common tradition, yet never completely expressed by any attempt at understanding it within that tradition (thus persistently demanding new attempts to apprehend it), then given the widely differing views of God within, for example, the Christian community, it is difficult to see how we could assume that in fact they all stemmed from the same source and were talking about the same thing. The idea of radical unlikeness could provide an element with just these required characteristics: it could be seen as what all the accounts attempt to net, with varying degrees of adequacy, within their offered interpretations. It could be seen as what remains constant, constantly elusive yet constantly generative of fresh attempts to apprehend it, throughout a history of intra-religious diversity. This sort of explanation could, presumably, be applied to the intra-religious diversity of the non-Christian traditions too.Secondly, radical unlikeness might suggest a possible way of understanding inter-religious diversity in a way which allows that whilst such diversity exists, whilst the differences between religions are real, they are grounded in a similar root-experience. It may, at first sight, seem difficult to continue thinking of the various religious traditions as truly separate phenomena if they are taken as being grounded on experiences whose ineffability stems from the unlikeness of experiencing things as a whole. Here we must stress again that if they are to be considered intelligible, radically unlike experiences cannot be considered completely so - or putting this another way, we cannot more than approach experience of totality. Sense can be given to religious claims of ineffability by suggesting experience of near totality, where we reach the last point on the scale of inclusiveness which complies with the logical criteria demanded of something for it to be possible for us to be aware of it. We might thus attempt an explanation of inter-religious diversity based on the view that Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam etc. acquire their differences from the different elements included in their experience of near totality. Taking totality to be represented by the scale of one to ten, Hinduism might be seen as grounded on experience of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10, Buddhism on experience of 1-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 and so on. The resulting dissimilarities are thus centred not on different types of experience, but on different areas of inclusiveness. This is, of course, to suppose that the various religious traditions are all based on the same degree (as opposed to the same elements) of inclusiveness, but it is by no means clear that such a supposition is justified. Continuing with our decimal analogy, might it not be suggested that whilst Christianity stemmed from experience of 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10, Jainism was founded on a less extensive encounter with the divine (say 4-5-6-7-8-9-10)? It is, however, uncertain how we can compare and evaluate different religious traditions in such a way as to be able to comment on such claims. A definite danger of comparative religion is that by concentrating on establishing and exploring inter-religious likenesses, it may obscure the radical unlikeness of religious phenomena. It should be borne firmly in mind that such likenesses as may be established within comparative studies may not win religious phenomena a place within our understanding comparable to objects of more everyday concern. Statements found in the Old Testament, the Qur'an and the Vedas, for example, may, on occasion, be alike, but at the end of the day such things are often alike only, or chiefly, in so far as they display the same radical unlikeness in relation to the non-religious elements in our outlook.The analysis of radical unlikeness and ineffability which has been advanced might also suggest a way in which certain passages in religious writings could be understood, passages which at first sight can be seriously perplexing. If, for example, to return to the quotation given in the introductory section of this paper, we continue to think of accounts of the nature of Shiva as being attempts to describe some discrete, objective entity, then it is inevitable that either we will share the Puranic writer's puzzlement or that much of what we read about Shiva will appear as the muddled and extravagant thinking thrown up by an uncritical and over-fertile mythological imagination, consisting of little more than a hotch-potch of contradictory elements. But if we see such accounts as attempting to say something about everything, as symbols of near totality stemming from experiences which verge on the holistic, then what we read - with all its ambiguities - may become somewhat more meaningful. Thus W.D. O'Flaherty comments that Shiva “embodies all of life in all its detail at every minute” (Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Shiva, London 1973, p. 315). Similarly Alain Dani41ou sees Shiva, ultimately, in terms of his being "the supreme state of reality" beyond whom there is only "non-existence" (Hindu Polytheism, London 1964, p. 190).This analysis of ineffability and intelligibility seeks to introduce for debate a possible way of understanding the radical unlikeness which accounts of religious experience apparently attempt to speak about. It does not, however, claim to present an exhaustive treatment of the issues raised, on the contrary, I am conscious of many shortcomings and omissions. For instance, it remains to be seen under precisely what conditions something counts as being an elucidating likeness (presumably all experiences are, for example, temporal, yet temporality alone would not seem to offer a particularly elucidating comparison). Moreover, the degree to which appeal to likeness is allowed operation in actual accounts of religious experience needs to be explored. In addition, the notion of categorizing experiences according to the extent to which they approach a point of total inclusion requires careful clarification. To begin with, according to what criteria could we establish that one experience was more inclusive than another? However, such issues can only be mentioned here, any adequate consideration of them would require a separate paper.In conclusion, I would suggest that to use radical unlikeness and/or ineffability simply as devices by which to halt any process of investigation, proclaiming that the thing in question is not like anything and so is beyond all words, risks making unintelligible and placing beyond all further inquiry an important and extensive area of human experience. As William Alston put it, to label something ineffable in an unqualified way is to shirk the job of making explicit the ways in which it can be talked about. William P. Alston, “ineffability”, Philosophical Review 65 (1956), 522. It is surely more accurate to take ineffability as a “qualifier”I.T. Ramsey, Models and Mystery (Oxford 1964), p. 60. which “multiplies models without end”Ibid. than as an absolute which prevents the construction of any elucidating models. (shrink)

There is a growing consensus in Britain on the importance of character, and on the belief that the virtues that contribute to good character are part of the solution to many of the challenges facing modern society. Parents, teachers and schools understand the need to teach basic moral virtues to pupils, such as honesty, self-control, fairness, and respect, while fostering behaviour associated with such virtues today. However, until recently, the materials required to help deliver this ambition have been missing in (...) Britain. The Knightly Virtues Programme, devised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, aims to help solve this challenge. The programme, designed for 9 to 11 year olds, draws on selected classic stories to help teach moral character in schools. This approach has proved to be popular with children and teachers, with more than 5,000 pupils from one hundred schools having participated in the programme so far. Fifty-five of these schools and 3,272 pupils were directly involved in different stages of the research. Based at the University of Birmingham, the Jubilee Centre houses leading academics dedicated to researching the various ways in which good character, which underpins the building blocks of society, can be developed. Recent research from the Centre has shown that the qualities that make up character can be learnt and taught, and suggests that we need a new emphasis on their importance in schools and in professional education. This report from the Centre into the use of classic literature within schools sets out the ways in which the Knightly Virtues Programme is able to develop the virtue literacy of school pupils, and the extent to which an understanding and awareness of good moral character can make positive changes to behaviour. The impact of the programme has been tested using several rigorous research methods, detailed in this report alongside their findings, which provide substantial empirical evidence for the effectiveness of using stories to develop virtue literacy. (shrink)

In the svārthānumāna chapter of his Pramāṇavārttika, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti presented a defense of his claim that legitimate inference must rest on a metaphysical basis if it is to be immune from the risks ordinarily involved in inducing general principles from a finite number of observations. Even if one repeatedly observes that x occurs with y and never observes y in the absence of x, there is no guarantee, on the basis of observation alone, that one will never observe (...) y in the absence of x at some point in the future. To provide such a guarantee, claims Dharmakīrti, one must know that there is a causal connection between x and y such that there is no possibility of y occurring in the absence of x. In the course of defending this central claim, Dharmakīrti ponders how one can know that there is a causal relationship of the kind necessary to guarantee a proposition of the form “Every y occurs with an x.” He also dismisses an interpretation of his predecessor Dignāga whereby Dignāga would be claiming non-observation of y in the absence of x is sufficient to warrant to the claim that no y occurs without x. The present article consists of a translation of kārikās 11–38 of Pramānavārttikam, svārthānumānaparicchedaḥ along with Dharmakīrti’s own prose commentary. The translators have also provided an English commentary, which includes a detailed introduction to the central issues in the translated text and their history in the literature before Dharmakīrti. (shrink)

When certain formal symbol systems (e.g., computer programs) are implemented as dynamic physical symbol systems (e.g., when they are run on a computer) their activity can be interpreted at higher levels (e.g., binary code can be interpreted as LISP, LISP code can be interpreted as English, and English can be interpreted as a meaningful conversation). These higher levels of interpretability are called "virtual" systems. If such a virtual system is interpretable as if it had a mind, is such a "virtual (...) mind" real? This is the question addressed in this "virtual" symposium, originally conducted electronically among four cognitive scientists: Donald Perlis, a computer scientist, argues that according to the computationalist thesis, virtual minds are real and hence Searle's Chinese Room Argument fails, because if Searle memorized and executed a program that could pass the Turing Test in Chinese he would have a second, virtual, Chinese-understanding mind of which he was unaware (as in multiple personality). Stevan Harnad, a psychologist, argues that Searle's Argument is valid, virtual minds are just hermeneutic overinterpretations, and symbols must be grounded in the real world of objects, not just the virtual world of interpretations. Computer scientist Patrick Hayes argues that Searle's Argument fails, but because Searle does not really implement the program: A real implementation must not be homuncular but mindless and mechanical, like a computer. Only then can it give rise to a mind at the virtual level. Philosopher Ned Block suggests that there is no reason a mindful implementation would not be a real one. (shrink)

Context The attitudes of medical professionals towards physician assisted dying have been widely discussed. Less explored is the level of agreement among physicians on the possibility of ‘rational suicide’—a considered suicide act made by a sound mind and a precondition of assisted dying legislation. Objective To assess attitudes towards rational suicide in a representative sample of senior doctors in England and Wales. Methods A postal survey was conducted of 1000 consultants and general practitioners randomly selected from a commercially available database. (...) The main outcome of interest was level of agreement with a statement about rational suicide. Results The corrected participation rate was 50%; 363 questionnaires were analysed. Overall 72% of doctors agreed with the possibility of rational suicide, 17% disagreed, and 11% were neutral. Doctors who identified themselves as being more religious were more likely to disagree. Some doctors who disagreed with legalisation of physician assisted suicide nevertheless agreed with the concept of rational suicide. Conclusions Most senior doctors in England and Wales feel that rational suicide is possible. There was no association with specialty. Strong religious belief was associated with disagreement, although levels of agreement were still high in people reporting the strongest religious belief. Most doctors who were opposed to physician assisted suicide believed that rational suicide was possible, suggesting that some medical opposition is best explained by other factors such as concerns of assessment and protection of vulnerable patients. (shrink)

Charles Avison's Essay on Musical Expression, first published in 1752, is a major contribution to the debate on musical aesthetics which developed in the course of the 18th century. Considered by Charles Burney as the first essay devoted to 'musical criticism' proper, it established the primary importance of 'expression' and reconsidered the relative importance of harmony and melody. Immediately after its publication it was followed by William Hayes's Remarks (1753), to which Avison himself retorted in his Reply. Taken together (...) these three texts offer a fascinating insight into the debate that raged in the 18th century between the promoters of the so-called 'ancient music' (such as Hayes) and the more 'modern' musicians. Beyond matters of taste, what was at stake in Avison's theoretical contribution was the assertion that the individual's response to music ultimately mattered more than the dry rules established by professional musicians. Avison also wrote several prefaces to the published editions of his own musical compositions. This volume reprints these prefaces and advertisements together with his Essay to provide an interesting view of eighteenth-century conceptions of composition and performance, and a complete survey of Avison's theory of music. (shrink)

Like most religions, the Buddhist tradition is rich in stories that are designed to illustrate key principles and values. Stories of the Buddha himself offer a verbal portrait of an ideal human being that followers of the tradition can aspire to emulate; his story offers a picture of a person with a perfectly healthy mind. Stories of other people (and of gods, ghosts and ghouls) portray a wide range of beings from the nearly perfect to the dreadfully imperfect, all presented (...) as models of what one could eventually become oneself through gradual transformations from one’s present mentality. In what follows, I shall first tell a brief story about myself and will then recount the stories of two men who were cousins with similar but importantly different mentalities. And I shall conclude with a few observations about what I see as the significance of the difference between these two cousins. (shrink)

This introduction explores the relationship between Europe and its Christianities. It analyses different diagnostic and evaluative approaches to Europe's Christian or post-Christian identity. These are grouped around the concepts of diverse traditional, and, on the other hand, post-Enlightenment Christianities. While the first revolves around a liturgical and mystical account of the church, a Christ-centred humanism, an emphasis on man's future life, noetic theology and a foundationalist claim to universal truth, the second endorses a moralization of the “Christian message,” political implementation (...) of “Christian goals,” rationalism, a this-worldly humanism, and tolerance for religious diversity. Since even the concepts of “traditional” and “post-Enlightenment” Christianity turn out to be deeply ambiguous, the essay concludes with exploring the different ways in which the Christianity of the Apostolic Church, the Enlightenment (along with the “Western” Christianities it shaped), and contemporary liberalism each conceive of their respective endorsements of human freedom as either normative, that is obligatory, value-laden, or contingent, and arbitrary. In each case, a different notion of “tradition” (as well as familial and church authority) is placed either in harmony or in opposition to such freedom. As a result of this conceptual analysis, the deeply fractured identity of Europe, as exemplified by the diverse bioethical positions adopted by the authors in this issue, becomes visible. (shrink)

Paternal authority is recommended as a valid Christian resource for conflict resolution in biomedical (and other inner-familial) decision making. Its bases are explored in view of the two-fold creation account in Genesis, interpreted in the light of the Pauline theology. In addition, a theological account is proposed that portrays the taxis between husband and wife as a condition under which humans can seek to emulate the inner-Trinitarian love. The relationship between that love (as portrayed in St. Basil’s On the Holy (...) Spirit), the love between God and man, and the love between the sexes (as further extended to the children in a family that constitutes a “small church”), is described in terms of an interplay between the Divine offer of grace and the human response of obedience. In framing their marital love according to the model of Christ and His Church, couples can also profit from the ascetical therapy predicted for their fallen nature in the “curse” that drove our forefathers from Paradise. (shrink)

At a time when monuments are falling, learning processes and discourses accelerating, it seems apposite to pay attention also to artworks commissioned by established institutions in order to give form to good intentions. This essay focuses on a commissioned portrait of female professors, on art education, Dutch art policy / politics and the former colonial site that the University of Amsterdam occupies, in order to aide this institution’s desired process to become more inclusive. It proposes Art Research as a realm (...) that can contribute a differentiated and thoughtful positioning of research and universities in visual and public domains: a necessary ally. Since the essay was written in Summer 2019, much has happened: the Faculty in question has been found to be the locus of ongoing sexual harassment. The student victims did not feel that the complaints procedures were safeguarding them sufficiently. They went to the media. The university’s ombudsperson asked to investigate found no systemic deficiencies. Since George Floyd’s death, such a conclusion is no longer possible, and the Board of the university has admitted shameful and systemic failures.[1] We now know better what “systemic” means. This essay’s case study is meant to show that art and philosophy can jointly analyze systems and organizations as a basis for necessary conversations, followed by a broad range of people taking responsibility and acting accordingly. In Covid lock-down times, it became deceptively obvious how unimportant art is. Through an essay such as this, it is hopefully also evident how art can be an indicator of institutional culture: e.g. in relation to how embedded the principle to consult specialists is, even if this seems to be unimportant. And that is a matter of life and death. [1] https://www.folia.nl/actueel/138876/fred-weerman-en-geert-ten-dam-dit-is-ongehoord-beschamend. (shrink)

Harnad accepts the picture of computation as formalism, so that any implementation of a program - thats any implementation - is as good as any other; in fact, in considering claims about the properties of computations, the nature of the implementing system - the interpreter - is invisible. Let me refer to this idea as 'Computationalism'. Almost all the criticism, claimed refutation by Searle's argument, and sharp contrasting of this idea with others, rests on the absoluteness of this separation between (...) a computational system and its implementation. (shrink)

Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes; The Spiritual Claim of a Dying Mother – A Complement to Paul's Report, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality.

Huemer's text:The confusion of the MSS is well justified; something has gone very wrong here. Even if ‘horrendis... profundis’ could be plausibly construed, the repetition ‘horrendis... horrendi’ is impossibly clumsy, and it seems obvious that one or the other does not belong here. I suggest that the interloper is the ‘horrendis’ of line 286, which probably derives from a simple eye-skip to ‘;horrendi.sociis’ below. The likely corollary is that the correct reading at the end of the line is ‘profundi’, later (...) altered in an attempt to accommodate the intrusive ‘horrendis’. This approach would seem to be confirmed by the frequency of the clausula ‘stagna profundi’ in the Latin hexameter. (shrink)

Reprinted in Colin Murray Turbayne, ed., 'A Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge / George Berkeley, with Critical Essays' (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970): 37-46.

Commemorating the life and work of Dr John Bennett; his lifelong contribution to Early Childhood Education and Care, and his ongoing influence on policy, research and practice in this field, In Search of Social Justice is a tribute to a preeminent scholar and his vision for an equitable and high-quality start for all children. Working tirelessly to raise the profile of Early Childhood Education and Care, and prioritise the rights and well-being of children and families in national and international policy, (...) John Bennet played an invaluable role in improving the position of young children globally. In Search of Social Justice takes John's legacy as a starting point for critical examination of the changing discourse on Early Childhood Education, and argues for the continued relevance of his approach. Drawing on personal reflections, vignettes and testimonials from eminent authors who shared their professional lives with him, the book foregrounds John's insistence that we must continue to shape policy and provision through inquiry, high-quality evidence, passion and persistence, improving the early experiences of all young children. As much a celebration of John's work and achievements, as a call to collective action towards achieving his vision for equitable, quality early childhood education and care, this is a fascinating read for students, researchers and activists in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care. (shrink)

Schmidt and Egler's critique of Christianity's exclusivist claim to truth rests on two suppositions: (a) that inter-religious pastoral care for dying patients requires a respect for their cultural backgrounds which necessitates accepting the equal validity of their respective (non-Christian) religions, and (b) that exclusivism is incompatible with the Christian love-of-neighbor commandment. In opposition to this critique, (a) the authors' own “pluralist” understanding of Christianity is refuted on two levels. First, it leads to inconsistencies in the authors' own (and very adequate) (...) understanding of pastoral care, especially with regard to their notion of intolerance, and second, it is irreconcilable with explicit New and Old Testament claims to absoluteness. In addition, (b) the authors' understanding of the way in which “exclusivism” justifies intolerance and missionary violence is shown to rest, first, on a secularized reduction of Christianity, i.e., of Christians' own “religious identity” as well as of the Christian way of “helping those in need,” and second, on a merely theoretical (rather than also practical) view of Christians' commitment to God. As a corollary to that refutation, a reconsideration of the truly Christian sources of obedience and charity is recommended. (shrink)

Belgium's policy of not permitting Catholic hospitals to refuse euthanasia services rests on ethical presuppositions concerning the secular justification of political power which reveal the paradoxical character of European liberalism: In endorsing freedom as a value (rather than as a side constraint), liberalism prioritizes first-order intentions, thus discouraging lasting moral commitments and the authority of moral communities in supporting such commitments. The state itself is thus transformed into a moral community of its own. Alternative policies (such as an explicit moral (...) diversification of public healthcare or the greater tolerance for Christian institutions in the Netherlands) are shown to be incompatible with Europe's liberal concern with securing social and material freedom resources, as well as the concern with equality of opportunity, as embodied in the European Union's anti-discrimination labor law. The essay's argument for the preferability of a libertarian solution closes with the challenge that only if the provision of public healthcare can be shown to be rationally indispensable for a morally justified polity, could the exposed incoherence of modern European liberalism be generously discounted. (shrink)

In this paper I consider the possibility that failing to fulfill the Kantian obligation to protect one’s rational nature might actually vitiate future instances of this obligation. I respond to this dilemma by defending a novel interpretation of Kant’s views on the relation between the value we have and the respect we are owed. I argue, contra the received view among Kant scholars, that the feature in virtue of which someone has unconditional and incomparable value is not the same feature (...) in virtue of which she is owed the respect that constrains how she may be treated. So, even though someone who fails to attempt to protect her rational nature fails to respect herself in the right way, and even though this moral failing does make her lose a certain kind of value, her obligations to respect herself do not go away. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to argue that pragmatists interested in social justice ought to be committed to certain objective transcultural ethical ideals. In particular, I argue that we need an objective moral account of what counts as harm and flourishing for human beings. Pragmatists are usually characterized as rejecting the tenability of, or the need for, such objective standards. Instead, the question of whether a person's life is going well or badly is supposed to be answered by appealing (...) to the standards of that person's community, appealing to ever-wider communities if necessary. The problem with this approach, I believe, is that it is far too easy to find historical and contemporary examples of communities .. (shrink)

The Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine confuses respect for a person's right to self-determination with concern about protecting human beings generally. In a legal document, this mixture of deontological with utilitarian considerations undermines what it should preserve: respect for human dignity as the foundation of modern rights-based democracies. Falling prey to the ambiguity of freedom, the Convention blurs the dividing line between morality and the law. The document should be remedied through distinguishing fundamental rights from social 'rights', persons as (...) entitled to the right to self-determination from born humans as entitled to the right to life and from members of the human species as entitled to the morally respo-nsible care of voting majorities. For the cultivating of the required responsibility, the conditions for an adequate public debate should be secured. (shrink)

Can proposing a policy of equal access to health care be justified on Christian grounds? The notion of a “Christian justification” with regard to Christians' political activity is explored in relation to the New Testament texts. The less demanding policy of granting “rights to (basic) health care,” the meaning of Jesus' healing activities, early Christian welfare schemes, and Christian grounds for the ascription of “rights” are each discussed. As a result, with some stretching of the neighbor-love and missionary imperatives it (...) is proposed that a basic health care policy can be legitimized. With regard to equal access to health care, however, all attempts to derive an equalizing imperative from the spiritual “equality among humans” or by way of the “love your neighbor as yourself” imperative are shown to fail. Particular attention is given to whether “attending to the least of my brothers' needs” obliges Christians to satisfy those needs optimally, as well as to the personal involvement aspect of the love-commandment in its simultaneously spiritual and temporal orientations. (shrink)

The central idea of the paper is that human thinking consists in a movement through which a person socially interacts with herself. Consequently, thinking does not offer the experience of a private refuge in the intimacy of the individual thinker's self-knowing, but a field where multiple points of view interact by contesting, distancing, approaching, agreeing or disagreeing, one to another. Classical (Isocrates, 1929/1968) and contemporary (Billig, 1987) rhetorical approaches to thinking stress that both “inner” and “social” discourse are addressed to (...) someone else, are determined by the anticipation of this audience, and both are interested in persuading it. In doing so, the discursive, rhetoric, and dialogic aspects of thinking become tied to argumentation. The paper tries to show, following the dialogical notion of discourse of Bakhtin (1986) and Vološinov (1929/1986) that, since every act of thinking consists in the raising of a point of view addressing another one and oriented by a particular interest, every stream of thought involves a rhetorical activity. A distinction between rhetoric and argumentation is proposed. On this basis, the rhetorical nature of thinking is discussed beyond argumentative discourse. Overall, this discussion contributes to a rhetorical approach to dialogism. (shrink)

This essay takes a Traditional Christian, that is, Orthodox look at the integration of psychotherapy into pastoral counseling, as endorsed by many Western mainline Christianities. It examines how the Christian pastor can guide his sheep through the bioethical problems they encounter in their pursuit of salvation. The first part explores whether the turn to psychology and psychotherapy can be welcomed as a return to the Traditional therapeutic understanding of theology and of the Church as a spiritual hospital for fallen souls. (...) The second part examines two typical ways in which non-Orthodox Christianities embrace psychotherapy in pastoral counseling, as directed to unburdening parishioners from their doubts about bioethical decision making in the context of a Christian life. This part highlights the theological assumptions (about the pastor, his care, and the notion of God informing both) framing that embrace and shows them to be incompatible with the Traditional commitment to man's Divine vocation. The turn to psychotherapy here, rather than inaugurating a return to the therapeutic spirit of Traditional theology, offers a secularized substitute. The third part investigates the possibility of a Traditional Christian way of practicing psychotherapy along with its significance for Orthodox pastoral care in bioethical counseling. Here it becomes clear that, even beyond incompatible theological assumptions, already psychotherapy's endorsement of a predominantly discursive approach to healing is alien to Traditional pastoral care. (shrink)

One of the lamentable characteristics of our contemporary age is the way in which abortion has been adopted as a natural part of the culture. This essay describes this adoption as a symptom of that culture’s profound de-Christianization. As that culture sheds its once Christian commitments, persons change the way in which they relate to their body in its sexually differentiated physiology, its physical drives and impulses. They refashion their sense of human flourishing, their vision of women’s social role, the (...) value they place on education, career, and economic well-being, and their understanding of reproductive responsibility. This de-Christianization is not sufficiently appreciated in a nominally still “Christian culture.” Such blindness reflects an inability to distinguish Christian commitments from moral commitments, which, although framed in terms that are compatible with Christian meanings, are equally open to meanings affirming the idolatry informing secular humanism. De-Christianization is not the same as de-moralization. This essay explores the way in which the new moral norms about sexuality, about education and career opportunities for women, authority within marriage, the role of this-worldly well-being and human suffering all contribute to our culture’s complacency in view of abortion. The underlying concern is to illustrate how a morality (even a morality of human sympathy and solidarity) that is not anchored in a genuine Tradition-affirming Christian conduct of life leads away from Christ, and how only a return to that conduct can heal our “culture of death.”. (shrink)

Forty‐nine subjects judged the relevancy of sentence parts of a word problem (the Allsports problem). Patterns of subjects' judgments suggest three problem‐solving heuristics: a SETS heuristic, a TIME heuristic, and a QUESTION heuristic. Presentation of the question before the problem tends to suppress SETS and TIME heuristics. A computer program (ATTEND) is presented to simulate subjects' behavior on the Allsports problem. The program is context‐sensitive in that it can change a relevance judgment upon the acquisition of further information. Averaged subject (...) judgments and ATTEND judgments agree for 87% of the items. (shrink)

Belongingness is a central biopsychosocial system. Challenges to belongingness (i.e. exclusion/ostracism) engender robust negative effects on affect and cognitions. Whether overinclusion – getting more than one’s fair share of social attention – favourably impacts affect and cognitions remains an open question. This pre-registered meta-analysis includes twenty-two studies (N = 2757) examining overinclusion in the context of the Cyberball task. We found that the estimated overall effect size of overinclusion on positive affect was small but robust, and the effect on fundamental (...) needs cognitions (belongingness, self-esteem, meaningful existence and control) was moderate in size and positive in direction. Notably, the effect sizes of overinclusion were smaller than the corresponding effects of exclusion. Finally, the effects of overinclusion on positive affect were greater for high, as compared to low, socially anxious individuals. Exploring the sequelae of the full range of inclusion experiences – from exclusion to overinclusion – may enrich our understanding of the functioning of the belongingness system as well as its interaction with another central biosocial system – the social status system. (shrink)

This essay questions the way in which continental Western Christians welcome political implementation (i.e., integration into the publicly funded welfare network and collaboration with heterodox Christians, members of other religions, or irreligious humanitarians) when offering their diaconic services. Among the theological assumptions underlying such reliance from outside the Church, this essay takes special issue with the idea that Christianity's “ethical” commitment to charity can be separated from its spiritual (e.g., liturgical, ascetical, missionary) concerns. Such separation suggests prioritizing charity recipients’ needs (...) over against the framing character of charity providers’ Christian love. On the philosophical level, this same separation refashions Christian philanthropy in terms of a secularly construed “human dignity.” This dignity, even though nominally endorsed by the welfare bureaucracy, is however shown to get repudiated by the objectifying and depersonalizing implications of publicly funded social services. On the theological level, the potentially anti-Christian implications of secularly implemented “diakonia” are pointed out. The scriptural bases usually invoked for the prioritizing of needs are exposed as unfit to offer the hoped-for justification. As a result, only, and at most, a very limited, reserved, and watchful material cooperation with the secular state and with those outside the Church is recommended for Christian “diakonia.”. (shrink)

This paper attempts to address certain shortcomings in the various accounts of the virtue of integrity that appear in the philosophical literature. Specifically, most analyses of integrity fail to give an adequate account of cases where we might want to attribute integrity to certain aspects of a person’s life but refrain from attributing integrity to his or her life as a whole. They also fail to give an adequate account of what we are to say about the integrity of people (...) with peculiar or arbitrary commitments. Attending to these shortcomings will shed new light on an issue that has received considerably more philosophical attention: the question of how we are to judge the reasonableness of others’ conceptions of the good, particularly when these conceptions are radically different from our own. (shrink)

A number of authors make a seemingly compelling case for holding the victim of a wrong morally obliged to accept the genuine apology of the wrongdoer. This is a crucial issue in questions of reparative justice, since reparation typically requires not just the giving but also the acceptance of an apology. Yet it is a case that we should ultimately reject. If it is credible to think that the victim might suffer anew in exercising any duty of this kind, that (...) suffering must be factored into the moral reckoning from the outset. It is only if we can be sure that the victim will not suffer again by attending to, and ultimately accepting, the wrongdoer’s apology that it would be right to impose upon her any duty of this kind. Yet, in all non-trivial cases, the victim’s burden is unknowable in advance and has the potential to be considerable. In such situations, I argue, the victim has no duty to accept the wrongdoer’s apology. There are limits, too, to the utility of the bipartite victim-wrongdoer account of reparation on which such arguments are typically predicated. For the harm the wrongdoer causes is not exclusively suffered by the immediate victim but also by the community of all potential victims. Genuine reparative justice requires more than a recalibration of the relative moral standing of the wrongdoer and the victim through the giving and receiving of an apology. I consider how this might be achieved without imposing upon the victim a burden that fails to achieve the moral reckoning anticipated. (shrink)

This introduction to Christian Bioethics 15/2 focuses on the challenges which secular moral reconstruction and secular political implementation presents for Christian diakonia. It summarises the various Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox ways in which Christians’ loving service to the world have been integrated either into the secular state's provision of social welfare or into the Church's liturgical life by the authors of this issue. This summary centres on questions concerning the political nature of Christian charity, its role within the church, (...) the implication of public funding for the integrity of the Christian service, the relationship between love and justice, and the impact of different kinds of feminism on Christian diaconic work. (shrink)

This introduction supplies further bearing points for the conceptual map, which the introduction to the previous issue on European bioethics (2008/1) had provided for sorting out the various dimension in which the essays collected in these issues resemble and differ from each other. Special attention is devoted to communication, as diverse Christianities attend to different purposes, problems, and opportunities for normatively engaging (persuading, influencing, ruling, opposing, and converting) their surrounding secularized cultures. These differences reflect incompatible ways of conceiving Christ's acts (...) of healing, as these provide a model for His disciples' bioethics. These differences also reflect diversely rationalist and noetic epistemologies. The subtext concerns the haunting question about the enduring sustainability of a specifically Christian bioethics in Europe. As Schotsmans opts for a Roman Catholicism that is not recognized as such by his Magisterium, as Muller transforms Protestantism into a religiously nonhostile laicity, as Messer and Silva da Barbosa hope for the prophetic impact of communal “cities on the hill,” and as the Orthodox pursue the conversion of Western Europe in Greek, Russian, and Rumanian, ongoing Divine miracles present the most realistic hope. (shrink)

In De Caelo III 2, Aristotle observes that each element is determined by an intrinsic principle to move to its proper place: earth downward, fire upward, and water and air to their respective places in the middle. However, how are we to determine the cause of elemental motion? Aristotle admits that this ranks among the most difficult problems (μάλιστα δ’ ἀπορεῖται) as it is directly related to the argument of Physics VIII 4, which defends the view that whatever is in (...) motion is moved by something. The question of how the elements move is not resolved until we are presented with his definition of inclination (ῥοπή) in De Caelo IV 1. Inclination is the nature of each element to move to its proper place. Aristotle concludes that the principle of inclination is a cause of motion continuously orienting the elements toward their proper places by activating that which is potentially heavy or potentially light. In what follows, I shall demonstrate the internal coherence of Aristotle’s natural philosophy by deploying inclination as a principle of motion and rest to define the nature of each element. This account of inclination as a principle of motion is consistent with Aristotle’s definition of nature in Physics II 1. As an active principle of motion, inclination is identified with the activity (ἐνέργεια) of the element enacting and maintaining its own end (ἐντελέχεια) by being at rest in its proper place. As a passive principle of motion, inclination is identified with the passivity of the element to be moved to its proper place by another element insofar as the respective element undergoes generation or substantial change. (shrink)

The aim of the experiments described below was to elucidate aspects of children's mental representations of what they see, through studying their drawings of simple geometric forms when copying from standard models. Two specific questions were studied: (a) Do children produce symbolic representations based, as in machine perception, on decomposition of the visual object into features or properties, subsequently reaggregated to a greater or lesser degree, rather than attempts to copy the visual appearance of the model? The answer was affirmative, (...) though the phenomenon is relatively rare, (b) Does a child's drawings of simple geometric drawings improve if he can watch an adult do the same drawings first? This has been asserted in the literature and bears on the question of static versus procedural representation. In a sample of 499 drawings made by children aged from 2½ to 5 years we showed that such an effect is absent or very small. (shrink)

In the interwar period there was a significant school of thought that repudiated Einstein's theory of relativity on the grounds that it contained elementary inconsistencies. Some of these critics held extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic views, and this has tended to discredit their technical objections to relativity as being scientifically shallow. This paper investigates an alternative possibility: that the critics were right and that the success of Einstein's theory in overcoming them was due to its strengths as an ideology rather than (...) as a science. The clock paradox illustrates how relativity theory does indeed contain inconsistencies that make it scientifically problematic. These same inconsistencies, however, make the theory ideologically powerful. The implications of this argument are examined with respect to Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper's accounts of the philosophy of science. (shrink)