What do we mean when we talk about human rights? This is the question at the core of an ongoing philosophical debate between advocates of naturalistic and political theories on human rights. Discussing both strengths and weaknesses of these positions, the author proposes an alternative understanding of fundamental rights: Human rights should be understood as membership rights in a political society. This book thus not only offers the first profound discussion in the German language of one of the most important (...) contemporary debates in political philosophy, but also proposes a novel interpretation of one of the defining concepts of modern normative thinking. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 11 Heft: 1 Seiten: 69-100.

This paper aims at proposing a criterion to analyze the concept of subjectivity by surveying and classifying the theories of some major figures in the history of the western philosophy: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Bentham, Kant, and Hegel. As proceeding in this work, I reveal two approaches which confront each other, self-centered viewpoint and system-centered viewpoint, and arrange Descartes, Hobbes, and Bentham into the former, and Aristotle and Kant into the latter. Also, I assign Plato and Hegel to an alternative, (...) say, unified viewpoint. In this project, the subjectivity is defined as the fundamental status of a man. When dealing with it, two kinds of viewpoint present and distinguish themselves from each other by two factors as follows: one is whether or not it allows mediation with others to be involved in the configuration of subjectivity, and the other is whether it is determined by its formal features or by its contents. The self-centered viewpoint gets married with the no allowance of mediation and the contents-determining, and the system-centered one does with the allowance and theformality-determining. And the unified viewpoint is suggested as an overcoming account of those two. The significance of this attempt would be these three: one is that it can provide a clue to create new spectrum through which theories in the history of the philosophy are looked out over. Secondly, it can be groundwork to seek for a source of normative ethics by a way of re-determining personal identity. Finally, criticizing the self-centered viewpoint, a dominant account in present moral discourse, it can propose a footstone for an alternative theory of it. (shrink)

Weaving together her most influential writings of the 1990s, Bronwyn Davies offers a unique engagement with poststructuralism that defies the boundaries between theory and embodied practice. Whereas poststructuralists are often accused of excessive abstraction, Davies' sophisticated and nuanced discussions of subjectivity, agency, epistemology, feminism, and power are embedded in vital depictions of lived experience and empirical research. A renowned scholar of education and gender formation, Davies shows the importance of poststructural perspectives for her own research in classrooms, on playgrounds, (...) with literary texts, and her own life history. Lucid prose—accessible for students and refreshing for researchers and theorists alike—makes postructural concepts usable as conceptual frameworks for interpreting and analyzing the social world. (shrink)

The Buddha taught that there is no self. He also accepted a version of the doctrine of karmic rebirth, according to which good and bad actions accrue merit and demerit respectively and where this determines the nature of the agent’s next life and explains some of the beneficial or harmful occurrences in that life. But how is karmic rebirth possible if there are no selves? If there are no selves, it would seem there are no agents that could be held (...) morally responsible for ‘their’ actions. If actions are those happenings in the world performed by agents, it would seem there are no actions. And if there are no agents and no actions, then morality and the notion of karmic retribution would seem to lose application. Historical opponents argued that the Buddha's teaching of no self was tantamount to moral nihilism. The Buddha, and later Buddhist philosophers, firmly reject this charge. The relevant philosophical issues span a vast intellectual terrain and inspired centuries of philosophical reflection and debate. This article will contextualise and survey some of the historical and contemporary debates relevant to moral psychology and Buddhist ethics. They include whether the Buddha's teaching of no-self is consistent with the possibility of moral responsibility; the role of retributivism in Buddhist thought; the possibility of a Buddhist account of free will; the scope and viability of recent attempts to naturalise karma to character virtues and vices, and whether and how right action is to be understood within a Buddhist framework. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical overview of some of the central Buddhist positions and argument regarding animal welfare. It introduces the Buddha's teaching of ahiṃsā or non-violence and rationally reconstructs five arguments from the context of early Indian Buddhism that aim to justify its extension to animals. These arguments appeal to the capacity and desire not to suffer, the virtue of compassion, as well as Buddhist views on the nature of self, karma, and reincarnation. This article also considers how versions (...) of these arguments have been applied to address a practical issue in Buddhist ethics; whether Buddhists should be vegetarian. (shrink)

This article examines contemporary Buddhist defences of the idea that consciousness is reflexively aware or self-aware. Call this the Self-Awareness Thesis. A version of this thesis was historically defended by Dignāga but rejected by Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika Buddhists. Prāsaṅgikas historically advanced four main arguments against this thesis. In this paper I consider whether some contemporary defence of the Self-Awareness Thesis can withstand these Prāsaṅgika objections. A problem is that contemporary defenders of the Self-Awareness Thesis have subtly different accounts with different assessment (...) criteria. I start by providing a fourfold taxonomy of these different views and then progressively show how each can withstand Prāsaṅgika objections. And I conclude by giving reasons to think that even some Prāsaṅgikas can accept some version of the Self-Awareness Thesis. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the most influential Buddhist arguments in defense of idealism. It begins by clarifying the central theses under dispute and rationally reconstructs arguments from four major Buddhist figures in defense of some or all of these theses. It engages arguments from Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā and Triṃśikā; Dignāga’s matching-failure argument in the Ālambanaparīkṣā; the sahopalambhaniyama inference developed by Dharmakīrti; and Xuanzang’s weird but clever logical argument that intrigued philosophers in China and Japan. It aims to clarify what is (...) being argued and motivate these arguments in terms of their presuppositions. These presuppositions range from views about the nature of mind and metaphysics to epistemology and logic. By making this context explicit, this article introduces central ideas in Buddhist philosophy and suggests ways in which they were mobilized in support of an idealist conclusion. (shrink)

Introduction Bronwyn Davies We began this book at a collective biography workshop that Susanne and I convened in a house at Bombo on the south coast of New ...

There are two main loci of contemporary debate about the nature of Madhyamaka ethics. The first investigates the general issue of whether the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness is consistent with a commitment to systematic ethical distinctions. The second queries whether the metaphysical analysis of no-self presented by Śāntideva in his Bodhicaryāvatāra entails the impartial benevolence of a bodhisattva. This article will critically examine these debates and demonstrate the ways in which they are shaped by competing understandings of Madhyamaka conventional truth (...) or reality and the forms of reasoning admissible for differentiating conventional truth from falsity and good from bad. (shrink)

The Buddhist Nikāya Suttas frequently mention the concept of fear (bhaya) and related synonyms. This concept does not receive much scholarly attention by subsequent Buddhist philosophers. Recent scholars identify a ‘paradox of fear’ in several traditions of classical Indian Buddhism (Brekke 1999, Finnigan 2019, Giustarini 2012). Each scholar points out, in their respective textual contexts, that fear is evaluated in two ways; one positive and the other negative. Brekke calls this the “double role” of fear (1999: 443). Each also identify (...) fear as purposely elicited to motivate acts aimed at achieving fearlessness, where freedom from fear is characteristic of nibbāna. They all find this puzzling. Finnigan asks: “Why would one purposefully incite fear if one’s goal is its elimination?” (2019: 221). Giustarini says that fear has a “contradictory nature” (2012: 513); Brekke calls it “the paradox of fear” (1999: 442). This article introduces the ‘paradox of fear’ as it appears in the Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva and the Nikāya suttas. It then critically examines Brekke and Giustarini’s proposed solutions. It argues that they get some things right in ways that are both supported by the Nikāyas and relevant to Śāntideva but that they leave some important questions unanswered. The article contends that these questions are best answered if fear is analysed as appropriate when its objects are related to karma and rebirth. (shrink)

In recent decades, several attempts have been made to characterize Buddhism as a systematically unified and consistent normative ethical theory. This has given rise to a growing interest in meta-ethical questions. Meta-ethics can be broadly or narrowly defined. Defined broadly, it is a domain of inquiry concerned with the nature and status of the fundamental or framing presuppositions of normative ethical theories, where this includes the cognitive and epistemic requirements of presupposed conceptions of ethical agency.1 Defined narrowly, it concerns the (...) justificatory status of fundamental moral claims or judgments, i.e., claims or judgments of the form ‘x is good, right, virtuous’ and ‘x is bad, wrong, vicious.’.. (shrink)

Amazon’s projects for future automation contribute to anxieties about the marginalization of living labor in warehousing. Yet, a systematic analysis of patents owned by Amazon suggests that workers are not about to disappear from the warehouse floor. Many patents portray machines that increase worker surveillance and work rhythms. Others aim at incorporating workers’ activities into machinery to rationalize the labor process in an ever more pervasive form of digital Taylorism. Patents materialize the company’s desire for a technological future in which (...) workers act and sense on behalf of machinery, becoming its living and sensing appendages. In this new relationship, humans extend machinery and its reach. Through the work-in-progress process of reaching increasing levels of automation, Amazon develops new technical foundations that consolidate its power in the digital workplace. (shrink)

Do animals have thoughts and feelings? Could robots have minds like our own? Can we ever know, or will the answer be forever out of our reach? David McFarland explores the answers to these questions, drawing not only on the philosophy of mind, but also on developments in artificial intelligence, robots, and the science of animal behaviour.

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

Buddhists consider fear to be a root of suffering. In Chapters 2 and 7 of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva provides a series of provocative verses aimed at inciting fear to motivate taking refuge in the Bodhisattvas and thereby achieve fearlessness. This article aims to analyze the moral psychology involved in this transition. It will structurally analyze fear in terms that are grounded in, and expand upon, an Abhidharma Buddhist analysis of mind. It will then contend that fear, taking refuge, and fearlessness (...) are complex intentional attitudes and will argue that the transition between them turns on relevant changes in their intentional objects. This will involve analyzing the object of fear into four aspects and 'taking refuge' as a mode of trust that ameliorates these four aspects. This analysis will also distinguish two modes of taking refuge and show the progressive role each might play in the transition from fear to fearlessness. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain aims to introduce secular-minded thinkers to Buddhist thought and motivate its acceptance by analytic philosophers. I argue that Flanagan provides a compelling caution against the hasty generalizations of recent “science of happiness” literature, which correlates happiness with Buddhism on the basis of certain neurological studies. I contend, however, that his positive account of Buddhist ethics is less persuasive. I question the level of engagement with Buddhist philosophical literature and challenge Flanagan's central claim, that a Buddhist (...) version of eudaimonia is a common core conception shared by all Buddhists. I argue that this view is not only a rational reconstruction in need of argumentation but is in tension with competing Buddhist metaphysical theories of self, including the one Flanagan himself endorses. (shrink)

Over 50% of the world population will develop a psychiatric disorder in their lifetime.1 In the realm of psychiatric treatment, two primary modalities have been established: pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. Yet, pharmacological interventions often take precedence as the initial treatment choice despite their comparable outcomes, severe side effects and disputed evidence of their efficacy. This preference for medication foregrounds a vital re-examination of what it means to be invasive in medical treatments, namely in psychiatric care. De Marco et al challenge the (...) standard account of invasiveness, presenting considerations that transcend the traditional criteria of physical intrusion.2 Through case studies centred on treatments for schizophrenia and depression, we aim to (1) reinforce De Marco et al ’s challenge to the standard account of invasiveness and (2) extend the dialogue to the moral imperative of redefining mental invasiveness. Our aims are to broaden the definition of mental invasiveness, aligning with De Marco et al ’s emphasis on context sensitivity, and to include the severity of side effects as a critical factor in this assessment. Redefining what is considered invasive in psychiatric treatment has profound implications for patient care and medical decision-making. Labelling treatments, namely medications, as invasive encourages both patients and healthcare providers to approach these options with a heightened level of scrutiny and care. This is …. (shrink)

Through a series of exquisite encounters with children, and through a lucid opening up of new aspects of poststructuralist theorizing, Bronwyn Davies opens up new ways of thinking about, and intra-acting with, children. This book carefully guides the reader through a wave of thought that turns the known into the unknown, and then slowly, carefully, makes new forms of thought comprehensible, opening, through all the senses, a deep understanding of our embeddedness in encounters with each other and with the (...) material world. This book takes us into Reggio-Emilia-inspired Swedish preschools in Sweden, into the author's own community in Australia, into poignant memories of childhood, and offers the reader insights into:new ways of thinking about children and their communities; the act of listening as emergent and alive; ourselves as mobile and multiple subjects; the importance of remaining open to the not-yet-known.Defining research as diffractive, and as experimental, Davies' relationship to the teachers and pedagogues she worked with is one of co-experimentation. Her relationship with the children is one in which she explores the ways in which her own new thinking and being might emerge, even as old ways of thinking and being assert themselves and interfere with the unfolding of the new. She draws us into her ongoing experimentation, asking that we think hard, all the while delighting our senses with the poetry of her writing, and the stories of her encounters with children. (shrink)

Neuropsychiatric disorders such as drug addiction, depression and schizophrenia are often centrally implicated in public health challenges. These conditions impact the individuals affected and have widespread implications, contributing to related crises such as opioid epidemic, rising suicide rates and homelessness. Despite their influence, public health interventions frequently emphasise individual responsibility, overlooking the complex interplay of neurobiological and systemic factors that underpin these disorders. Current public health frameworks, such as the Nuffield Council on Bioethics’ intervention ladder, prioritise efforts that encourage individual (...) behaviour change. Paetkau critiques this emphasis on individual responsibility, emphasising the need to consider more systemic factors, such as social determinants of health, as targets of necessary intervention.1 We aim to reinforce Paetkau’s critique of the intervention ladder by introducing three neuropsychiatric case studies, each highlighting the limitations of an individual-based framework in addressing psychopathology-involved public health issues. We argue that conditions like addiction, depression and serious mental illness undermine the emphasis on individual responsibility in public health and policy interventions. To this end, neuroscience demonstrates that effective public health interventions necessitate a shift from the long-standing emphasis on individual responsibility towards more comprehensive, systems-level interventions. Opioid overdose deaths in the USA have sextupled since 1999, with over 100,000 deaths in 2023 alone.2 The opioid crisis has since remained one of the most pressing public …. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the importance of pursuing Buddhist Meta-Ethics. Most contemporary studies of the nature of Buddhist Ethics proceed in isolation from the highly sophisticated epistemological theories developed within the Buddhist tradition. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that an intimate relationship holds between ethics and epistemology in Buddhism. To show this, I focus on Damien Keown's influential virtue ethical theorisation of Buddhist Ethics and demonstrate the conflicts that arise when it is brought into dialogue (...) with a contemporary exposition of two prominent Buddhist epistemological theories; namely, Dunne´s exposition of the views of Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti. I highlight certain points of conflict between these ethical and epistemological theories and will argue that the resolution of this conflict requires revision (either in interpretation of theories or in the theories themselves) by all parties. I shall conclude by arguing for substantive revision to these theories via an engagement with this conflict and, in so doing, hope to exemplify some of the virtues of engaging with a meta-ethical methodology for the advancement of the respective domains of inquiry. (shrink)

What should the Buddhist attitude be to rebirth if it is believed to be inconsistent with current science? This chapter critically engages forms of Buddhist agnosticism that adopt a position of uncertainty about rebirth but nevertheless recommend ‘behaving as if’ it were true. What does it mean to behave as if rebirth were true, and are Buddhist agnostics justified in adopting this position? This chapter engages this question in dialogue with Mark Siderits’ reductionist analysis of the Buddhist doctrine of the (...) two truths, conventional and ultimate. Richard Hayes (1998) characterises talk of rebirth as a useful fiction. Siderits characterises talk of persons as a useful fiction and explains and justifies statements that involve it as conventionally true despite persons not featuring in our final or ultimate ontology. Does rebirth satisfy the same criteria to count as conventionally true, and does thinking of it in these terms help explain and justify what it might mean to behave as if rebirth were true? This chapter will defend a conditional yes to these questions. In the process, it will clarify what is distinctive about the traditional Buddhist approach to rebirth, provide an analysis of how the concept of rebirth might relate to practical outcomes, and address some limitations of this approach. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:Theory competition and intercultural articulation: methodological reflections on Louts and Legends: Essay reviewSeeking a rationale for schooling: A review of Why go to school?:James Marshall.Positivism or pragmatism: Philosophy of education in New Zealand. Marshall, James D.Educating reason.Hobbes and….

This collection examines the question of nonhuman animal agency by shifting emphasis from the human perspective toward that of other animals, exploring modes of ...

The Apaṇṇaka Sutta, one of the early recorded teachings of the Buddha, contains an argument for accepting the doctrines of karma and rebirth that Buddhist scholars claim anticipates Pascal’s wager. I call this argument the Buddha’s wager. Does it anticipate Pascal’s wager and is it a good bet? Contemporary scholars identify at least four versions of Pascal’s wager in his Pensées. This article demonstrates that the Buddha’s wager anticipates two versions of Pascal’s wager, but not its canonical form. Like Pascal’s (...) wager, the Buddha’s wager presents a decision problem between two opposing theses in an epistemic context that lacks evidence of their truth or falsity. Like Pascal, the Buddha also tries to solve this problem using dominance, superdominance or ‘superduperdominance’ reasoning. The Apaṇṇaka Sutta likely provides the earliest textual example of such reasoning. While the Buddha’s wager does not exhibit the expected utility reasoning of the best-known form of Pascal’s wager, the article suggests a reformulation that parallels Alan Hájek’s (2018) vector-value reformulation. Is it a good bet? This article argues that it is not if this means we are rationally required to accept its recommendation. This is because, while it avoids two of the major objections levelled against Pascal’s wager, it succumbs to one and has at least two problems of its own. (shrink)

The intersection of language, stigma, and neuropsychiatry is an integral area of concern for limited english proficiency (LEP) communities, demanding a greater focus in U.S. healthcare systems. Lan...

This article critically responds to Evan Thompson's book, Why I Am Not a Buddhist.

Is there a ‘common element’ in Buddhist ethical thought from which one might rationally reconstruct a Buddhist normative ethical theory? While many agree that there is such an element, there is disagreement about whether it is best reconstructed in terms that approximate consequentialism or virtue ethics. This paper will argue that two distinct evaluative relations underlie these distinct positions; an instrumental and constitutive analysis. It will raise some difficulties for linking these distinct analyses to particular normative ethical theories but will (...) give reasons to think that both analyses may be justified. It will close with some reflections on the complexity involved in trying to establish a single and homogeneous position on the nature of Buddhist ethics. (shrink)

Some philosophers have claimed that kinds can be construed as mereologically complex structural properties. This essay examines several strategies aimed at construing a certain class of natural kinds, namely isomeric chemical kinds, in accordance with this view. In particular, the essay examines views which posit structural proper parts in addition to micro-constitutive parts to individuate isomeric chemical kinds. It then goes on to argue that the phenomenon of chirality in stereochemistry gives the proponent of kinds-as-complex-properties evidence for positing the existence (...) of causal-cum-dispositional individuating proper parts, in addition to structural parts, for chemical enantiomeric kinds. (shrink)

This book chapter provides a Buddhist response to Ankur Barua's (forthcoming) account of how Śaṃkara’s Advaita Vedanta is consistent with morality.

This paper maintains that at the heart of the post-Reformation debates over the extra Calvinisticum lies the question of what it means to name God’s presence in the world – that is, to say where God is. Because the Lutheran position insists that there can be no proper identification of God’s presence in the world that does not take its bearings from talk about Jesus’ presence, it serves as a means of preventing Christian God-talk from becoming detached from the flesh-and-blood (...) realities of human existence. In this way, the denial of the extra Calvinisticum is a corollary of a theology of the cross – that is, the principle that talk about God is normed by the concrete reality of Jesus. At the same time, the Lutheran genus maiestaticum is rejected as making just the sort of move to which Luther himself objected in the doctrine of transubstantiation: a metaphysical explanation of Jesus’ presence in the world rather than a simple appeal to miracle. (shrink)

Technologies for enhancement of the human body historically have taken the form of an apparatus: a technological device inserted in, or appended to, the human body. The margins of these devices were clearly discernible and materially circumscribed, allowing the distinction between the corporeality of the human body and the “machine” to remain both ontologically and materially secure. This dualism has performed some important work for human rights theorists, regulators, and policy makers, enabling each to imagine they can establish where the (...) human ends and the other begins. New regenerative products such as Infuse™ and Amplify™ subsist, as animal-derived scaffolds seeded with growth hormone implanted within a prosthetic device. They are much more materially complex, and their identities thus remain open to contestation. Following Lochlann Jain’s 2006 work, I thus attend closely to their social lives, particularly the stories that are told about them and how these are employed to construct understandings of what kind of a phenomenon they are: systemic drug, biologic, or combinatorial medical device. The significance of this classificatory project is revealed in the final section of this paper, which explores how these stories shape understandings of “product failure,” liability, and causation when such products overflow their material and ontological categorization and their recipients become disturbingly “more than human.”. (shrink)

This chapter provides a Buddhist response to Olla Solomyak's (forthcoming) account of the afterlife from the perspective of Hasidic Judaism.

In the past decade or so there has been a surge of monographs on the nature of ‘Buddhist Ethics.’ For the most part, authors are concerned with developing and defending explications of Buddhism as a normative ethical theory with an apparent aim of putting Buddhist thought directly in dialogue with contemporary Western philosophical debates in ethics. Despite disagreement among Buddhist ethicists concerning which contemporary normative ethical theory a Buddhist ethic would most closely resemble (if any), 1 it is arguable that (...) all Buddhist ethicists (like all Buddhists) embrace and endorse the Four Noble Truths as a framing assumption. That is, a Buddhist ethic will (1) typically assume that we fallible .. (shrink)

In this paper, Bronwyn Hayward, a New Zealander, explores Iris Marion Young's argument for decentered deliberation in the context of climate change debate in the South Pacific. Young's criticisms of a centered approach to local planning are examined. Hayward supports Young's argument for decentered deliberation and her concept of ‘linkage’ as a criterion of good decentered democracy. Local forums are identified as essential sites of struggle against injustice. Decentered democracy is strengthened when multiple linkages connect heal forums across time (...) and space. (shrink)

Monuments and statues are forms of commemoration. They typically pay tribute to people or events and aim to serve as a permanent marker, a link between present and past generations, committing them to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning. While commemorations can be beneficial in terms of recognising a legacy of the past and helping foster relationships between opposing groups, they can also be divisive and painful, failing to acknowledge other dimensions of historical fact and further hardening the (...) boundaries between groups in conflict. Essentially, what we choose to commemorate reflects what we as a society actually value. This paper focuses on the unsettled fates of the Captain Cook statue that stands with prominence in Hyde Park, Warrane, and other colonial monuments in Australia. It also discusses the emotionality surrounding such commemorations. We question whether Cook’s actual achievements constitute the notoriety that has been bestowed upon him. A range of commentators have put forward ideas around what to do about the Cook statue which we discuss while also considering what the future might look like if the truth of colonial history is known and open conversations can be had. (shrink)