A persistent problem in the dominant agricultural development model is the imposition of technologies without regard to local processes and cultures. Even with the recent shift towards sustainability and agroecology, initiatives continue to overlook local knowledge. In this article we provide analysis of agroecological soil management in the Maya-Achi territory of Guatemala. The Achí, subject to five decades of interventions and development, present an interesting case study for assessing the complementarities and tensions between traditional, generally preventative practices and external initiatives (...) which tend to be curative. Our findings reveal a complex farming system that continues to rely on ancestral knowledge and practices, many of which display a high potential for sustainability and are deeply embedded in local culture. While some new practices have been incorporated into the traditional system, abandonment rates are high, and some extension methods have been paternalistic. The Achí are thirsty for new ideas to help them confront their current, unprecedented challenges. However, future collaborations should be built on existing local knowledge, which has contributed to the development of preventative and restorative practices still in use. Introduced technologies must coincide with local needs and socioecological context in a manner that encourages beneficial synergies, as well as horizontal learning/teaching processes. (shrink)

While valuable work has been done addressing clinical ethics within established healthcare systems, we anticipate that the projected growth in acquisitions of community hospitals and facilities by large tertiary hospitals will impact the field of clinical ethics and the day-to-day responsibilities of clinical ethicists in ways that have yet to be explored. Toward the goal of providing clinical ethicists guidance on a range of issues that they may encounter in the systematization process, we discuss key considerations and potential challenges in (...) implementing system-wide ethics consultation services. Specifically, we identify four models for organizing, developing, and enhancing ethics consultation activities within a system created through acquisitions: train-the-trainer, local capacity-building, circuit-riding, and consolidated accountability. We note each model’s benefits and challenges. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to consider the broader landscape of issues affected by consolidation. We anticipate that clinical ethicists, volunteer consultants, and hospital administrators will benefit from our recommendations. (shrink)

Two purported proofs of the incoherence of vague identity are considered. First gareth evans's attempt is criticized and reformulated to overcome certain formal difficulties. Despite the reformulation, However, Evans's proof is demonstrated invalid in accord with a supervaluational approach. Next nathan salmon's attempt is evaluated. Here the problem is salmon's implicit assumption of a version of leibniz's law which is stronger than that strictly guaranteed by the law as it is given in classical logic. The question is raised on (...) what grounds this stronger version is to be considered a logical law: without it the proof fails. (shrink)

I argue that our general disposition to make moral judgments and our core moral intuitions are likely the product of social selection—a kind of gene–culture coevolution driven by the enforcement of collectively agreed-upon rules. Social selection could potentially track mind-independent moral truth by a process that I term realist social selection: our ancestors could have acquired moral knowledge via reason and enforced rules based on that knowledge, thereby creating selection pressures that drove the evolution of our moral psychology. Given anthropological (...) evidence that early humans designed rules with the conscious aim of preserving individual autonomy and advancing their collective interests, the theory of realist social selection appears to be attractive for moral realists. The goal of evolutionary debunking arguments should be to show not that our moral beliefs are the product of natural selection, but that realist social selection did not occur. (shrink)

Another version of this theory, which is based on both naturalistic and psychological premisses, states that the specific characteristic of the self consists in reflected appraisals. According to this view, the adult's appraisal of the child is reflected in, and is eventually the source of, its self-appraisal. In other words, self-consciousness is engendered by the social-cultural environment. It is worthwhile to note that the term "reflected appraisals" is ambiguous, and intentionally employed as such, for "to reflect" means both "to mirror" (...) and "to be self-conscious." This version of the genetic approach is also open to question, for it fails to explain how culture, i.e., personal interrelationships, or more precisely the relations between the child and the adult environment, miraculously intervenes in the course of the organism, creating in it a new dimension, that of the Ego. For this intervention is not a simple one. In order to enable the creation of consciousness as a reflected appraisal, the Ego must first acknowledge the existence and bearing of the adult environment, the estimation of which is valuable, worthy of being reflected in, and the consequent source of a newly created self. Is the child aware of the estimation of those estimating it? Is this awareness itself derived from the adult environment and its appraisal? If not, there can be no appraisal of the environment in the absence of an evaluative activity on the part of the child. It follows that only on the basis of evaluating the adult environment can the child identify himself with its appraisal of him. In other words, the genesis of consciousness cannot possibly be traced to external appraisals, for awareness and consequent reflection of appraisal presupposes consciousness. (shrink)

Philosophers writing on the subject of human action have found it tempting to introduce their subject by raising Wittgenstein's question, 'What is left over if you subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?' The presumption is that something of particular interest is involved in an action of raising an arm that is not present in a mere bodily movement, and the philosopher's task is to specify just what this is. Unfortunately, such (...) an approach does not take us very far, since a person could properly be said to raise his (or her) arm while asleep or hypnotized even though he (or she) would not be performing an action in the sense of 'action' with which philosophers are particularly concerned. To avoid this kind of difficulty I shall approach the subject of human action is a more academic way: I shall expound some important rival theories of human action, and introduce the relevant issues by commenting critically on those theories. One of the issues I eventually introduce is a metaphysical one. A theory of action makes sense, I contend, only on the assumption that there are such 'things' as actions (or events). After considering some key arguments bearing on the issue I conclude that, as matters currently stand in philosophy, a metaphysically noncommittal attitude toward actions and events seems justified. (shrink)

In his recent article Perry Hendricks presents what he calls the impairment argument to show that abortion is immoral. To do so, he argues that to give a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome is immoral. Because killing the fetus impairs it more than giving it fetal alcohol syndrome, Hendricks concludes that killing the fetus must also be immoral. Here, I claim that killing a fetus does not impair it in the way that giving it fetal alcohol syndrome does. By examining the (...) reason why giving a fetus this condition is wrong, I conclude that the same reasoning, on common pro‐choice accounts, does not apply to killing the fetus. Accordingly, Hendricks's argument does not succeed in showing abortion is immoral. (shrink)

In his recent article, Ben-Moshe offers an account of conscientious objection in terms of the truth of the underlying moral objections, as judged by the standards of an impartial spectator. He seems to advocate for the view that having a valid moral objection to X is the sole criteria for the instantiation of a right to conscientiously object to X, and seems indifferent to the moral status of the prevailing moral attitudes. I argue that the moral status of the prevailing (...) moral attitudes is relevant, and that a good faith disagreement between those who condone the relevant act and those who object to it is a criterion for CO. In this light, I suggest that CO is a sociopolitical device for managing differing ethical perspectives, particularly in the context of collective moral change. Thus, it is misguided to equate having a valid moral objection with the recognition of a CO. (shrink)

I begin by distinguishing four different versions of the argument from evil that start from four different moral premises that in various ways link the existence of God to the absence of suffering. The version of the argument from evil that I defend starts from the premise that if God exists, he would not allow excessive, unnecessary suffering. The argument continues by denying the consequent of this conditional to conclude that God does not exist. I defend the argument against Skeptical (...) Theists who say we are in no position to judge that there is excessive, unnecessary suffering by arguing that this defense has absurd consequences. It allows Young Earthers to construct a parallel argument that concludes that we are in no position to judge that God did not create the earth recently. In the last section I consider whether theists can turn the argument from evil on its head by arguing that God exists. I first criticize Alvin Plantinga’s theory of warrant that one might try to use to argue for God’s existence. I then criticize Richard Swinburne’s Bayesian argument to the same conclusion. I conclude that my version of the argument from evil is a strong argument against the existence of God and that several important responses to it do not defeat it. (shrink)

How do the arts inform and cultivate our service to God? In this addition to an award-winning series, distinguished philosopher Bruce Ellis Benson rethinks what it means to be artistic. Rather than viewing art as practiced by the few, he recovers the ancient Christian idea of presenting ourselves to God as works of art, reenvisioning art as the very core of our being: God calls us to improvise as living works of art. Benson also examines the nature of liturgy (...) and connects art and liturgy in a new way. This book will appeal to philosophy, worship/liturgy, art, music, and theology students as well as readers interested in engaging issues of worship and aesthetics in a postmodern context, including Christian artists and worship leaders. (shrink)

Considered a classic in the philosophy of language movement known variously as the New Theory of Reference or the Direct-Reference Theory, as well as in the metaphysics of modal essentialism that is related to this philosophy of language. This award-winning book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation.

I examine challenges to images of a personal god definitive for normatively policed theism (often called “traditional theism”), questioning whether a subject can be conscious of a transcendent being. I examine the challenges to show that disappointment with such images calls for rethinking terms like “transcendence” in horizontal rather than vertical registers. Through this, I indicate an irony in yearning for transcendence, one in which there is movement toward—rather than beyond—the utterly ordinary. We will see that such un-extra-ordinary transcendence makes (...) a difference once difference is no longer determined under the hegemony of what Levinas calls “the atheistic I.” I bring together resources from feminist philosophies and Asian religions both to elaborate on the nature of the atheistic I and to rehabilitate a redeeming appreciation of the ordinary. My hope is to ameliorate disempowered estrangement by indicating ways the ordinary generates, not inhibits, becoming. However, my broader intent is to contribute to shifting sands in contemporary philosophy of religion due to recent calls for diversifying the field by including multiple religions, questioning the centrality of belief, and engaging multiple methods relevant in religious studies. (shrink)

This article offers an interpretation of a controversial aspect of Frege’s The Foundations of Arithmetic, the so-called Julius Caesar problem. Frege raises the Caesar problem against proposed purely logical definitions for ‘0’, ‘successor’, and ‘number’, and also against a proposed definition for ‘direction’ as applied to lines in geometry. Dummett and other interpreters have seen in Frege’s criticism a demanding requirement on such definitions, often put by saying that such definitions must provide a criterion of identity of a certain kind. (...) These interpretations are criticized and an alternative interpretation is defended. The Caesar problem is that the proposed definitions fail to well-define ‘number’ and ‘direction’. That is, the proposed definitions, even when taken together with the extra-definitional facts, fail to fix unique semantic extensions for ‘number’ and ‘direction’, and thereby fail to fix unique truth-values for sentences like ‘Caesar is a number’ and ‘England is a direction’. A minor modification of the criticized definitions well-defines ‘0’, ‘successor’ and ‘number’, thereby avoiding the Caesar problem as Frege understands it, but without providing any criterion of number identity in the usual sense. (shrink)

Many despair at trying to understand something’s meaning and express dissatisfaction with language wholesale. What if some things simply are not understandable? Thich Nhat Hanh coined interbeing to name the fundamental principle of interdependence defining Buddhist ontologies, and uses interbeing to dislodge despair resulting from rigid expectations of how things must be. Thich also criticized a standard view of language as generating those rigid expectations. Drawing upon classical humanist traditions, Hans-Georg Gadamer promoted a hermeneutics whereby interpreters overcome existential alienation. In (...) his theory of understanding meaning, Gadamer rehabilitated language as having its being in revealing aspects of truth. By situating Gadamer’s hermeneutics within Thich’s interbeing, I develop limits of understanding that facilitate freedom from despair about meaning and language. Thich and Gadamer both taught that the quest for stability within change is misguided. This requires rigorous attention to the limits of understanding. Attention to these limits serves to liberate people from clinging to the illusion that all things are understandable and despair accompanying the incapacity to understand some things. (shrink)

Disorders of sexual differentiation lead to what is often referred to as an intersex state. This state has medical, as well as some legal, recognition. Nevertheless, the question remains whether intersex persons occupy a state in between maleness and femaleness or whether they are truly men or women. To answer this question, another important conundrum needs to be first solved: what defines sex? The answer seems rather simple to most people, yet when morphology does not coincide with haplotypes, and genetics (...) might not correlate with physiology the issue becomes more complex. This paper tackles both issues by establishing where the essence of sex is located and by superimposing that framework onto the issue of the intersex. This is achieved through giving due consideration to the biology of sexual development, as well as through the use of a teleological framework of the meaning of sex. Using a range of examples, the paper establishes that sex cannot be pinpointed to one biological variable but is rather d... (shrink)

At first glance, atheism seems simple to define. If atheism is the negation of theism, and if theism is the view that at least one god exists, then atheism is the negation of this view. However, the common definitions that follow from this insight suffer from two problems: first, they often leave undefined what “god” means, and, second, they understate the scope of the disagreement between theists and atheists, which often has as much to do with the fundamental character of (...) reality as with the existence of one being in it. Some writers address the second problem by reinterpreting atheism as the logical consequence of particular metaphysical views, such as naturalism or physicalism, which are then taken as the true meaning of atheism. These interpretations, though more satisfactory in some respects, can result in concepts of atheism that are unclear or too narrow, and they often still leave “god” undefined. In this paper, I propose that atheism be defined as the proposition that reality is solely an impersonal order. Theism is the proposition that reality is not solely an impersonal order, being either a personal order, that is, an order founded by at least one person, or an impersonal order plus at least one transcendent person. A god is a person who is not subject to the laws governing that order and thus transcends it. I explain these definitions and briefly discuss some of their implications. First I survey prior definitions of atheism to display the problems they raise. (shrink)

Arguments are nowadays often presented as soundbites: as slogans, tweets, memes and even gifs. Arguments developed in detail often meet the response TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read). This is unfortunate—especially when tackling the topic of abortion. Soundbites make many pro-life arguments seem stronger than they really are, while the complexities of pro-choice arguments can’t be readily reduced to soundbites.

This book argues that Hume is a radical epistemic skeptic who gives only practical reasons for retaining belief in sensory beliefs and the deliverances of reason. He advises us to take a moderate approach to the demands of philosophy, since they sometimes diverge from the demands of life.

In light of recent doctrinal changes, we examine the confused state of U.S. insider trading law, identifying gaps that permit certain market participants to trade on the basis of material nonpublic information, and contrast U.S. insider trading doctrine with the European approach. We then explore the ethical implications of the status quo in the U.S., explaining why the dominant legal justifications for prohibiting classical insider trading and misappropriation—the fiduciary duty and property rights theories—fail to account for the wrongfulness of insider (...) trading by eavesdroppers and certain tippees. We refute common arguments for legalizing insider trading, including arguments that insider trading is a victimless crime and that the practice promotes efficiency. We explain why insider trading constitutes the moral wrong of cheating, grounding our theory in the legitimate expectations of market participants. Having considered Kantian deontology in other work, we find that virtue ethics theory offers a helpful albeit rough framework for assessing the morality of insider trading independent of its legality. We also find that social contract theories, with norms of equality of opportunity and moral desert, provide a compelling ethical basis for retaining, clarifying and broadening current legal prohibitions against insider trading. (shrink)

The expression "Thy heavens" included for him that universe whose existence was demonstrated by the "Moon and the stars." Evidently it was a song composed..

Lange has argued that contingencies lack the modal strength to be necessity-makers. Here, I argue that Lange’s case turns upon a faulty premise, and that there is no obvious fixes he might pursue. The general upshot is that his argument gives us no reason to think that contingencies could not be necessity-makers after all.

Experts play an important role in society, but there has been little investigation about the nature of expertise. I argue that there are two kinds of experts: those whose expertise is a function of what theyknow (epistemic expertise), or what theydo (performative expertise). Epistemic expertise is the capacity to provide strong justifications for a range of propositions in a domain, while performative expertise is the capacity to perform a skill well according to the rules and virtues of a practice. Both (...) epistemic and performative experts may legitimately disagree with one another, and the two senses are conceptually and logically distinct. (shrink)

The city of Cork experienced a political odyssey between Easter 1916 and the end of 1918. Wartime policies conceived in London manifested themselves unexpectedly in Cork--The Defence of the Realm Act was used to repress political speech; deficit spending generated massive inflation; mandatory arbitration encouraged workers to join trade unions; food rationing panicked a country scarred by the Potato Famine; and military conscription generated virtual rebellion. As a result, the Cork public increasingly turned against the war. The book examines the (...) political situation in Cork prior to the Easter Rising; local reactions to the rebellion; the rapid creation of the Republican mass movement; the dramatic decline of the Irish Party; the explosion of anti-authority street rioting; the mobilization of women in the independence struggle; disturbances against venereal disease treatments and visiting American sailors; the emergence of radical trade unionism; agitation over the retention of local food supplies; the nationalist mobilization during the Conscription Crisis; and Sinn Féin's triumph in the 1918 General Election. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a vision of rhetoric as metaphysical enactment. This position contrasts with traditionally accepted views of rhetoric as phenomenological practice, evidenced prominently in contemporary rhetorical theory. I advance a framework that employs metaphorical accommodation and indicates a way that rhetoric can be situated as a perpetually productive force. The analytic tradition affords a method and vocabulary that when placed in conversation with rhetorical studies offers an alternative for viewing rhetoric as metaphysical enactment. I determine that rhetorical theory (...) should engage with rhetoric as a measure of action, activity, and vitality that raises our awareness and connects us. (shrink)

It is argued that certain individuals can and should be considered 'morally exemplary' with respect to the environment. This can be so even where there is no universally applicable ethical principle they employ, and no canonical set of virtues they exhibit. The author identifies Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey as potential 'environmental exemplars,' focusing for the purposes of the essay on individuals who have written compelling autobiographical works in defense of a way of life that (...) is both attuned to the values of a particular place and attentive to the humanistic concerns that have more traditionally been the locus of ethical thought. (shrink)

Although they take different approaches, both Taede A. Smedes and Kevin Sharpe have challenged the theology-and-science enterprise and raised important questions about theological and scientific assumptions behind this work. Smedes argues that theology should be taken more seriously, and Sharpe believes that theology should be more scientific. A proposed middle way involves engaging in the dialogue itself and exploring the questions and methodological implications that arise in the context of problem-focused interactions.

Aging brings about the ordeal of coping. Younger people also cope, but for those in old age, the ordeal is so often elegiac, forced upon the self by changing functions within the body and by the outside social world, with its many impediments to the continuity of former roles, pursuits, and self‐identities. Coping with change can be affirming, but when what is being forgone seems more valuable than what lies ahead, it is travail. For most, the coping is managed more (...) moderately by a sense of resignation. This is especially true for those who survive into profound old age, when one is viewed as if being old is one’s essential identity and nature. We must recognize and affirm difference and change without stigmatizing or losing sight of the specific capabilities and circumstances of the individual. This is what I think the often‐used, but less often clearly defined, notion of a “person‐centered” orientation should signify.Individuals age, but so do societies, not simply because they have a large population over age sixty‐five, but in the sense that societies as a whole are also buffeted by significant disruption in orders of meaning. Aging has a public as well as a private manifestation, a social as well as a personal embodiment, and how it is paid attention to in culture, politics, and policy makes a great difference to how aging is concretely experienced in human lives. In this essay, I explore how the moral imagination nurtured by the practices of solidarity and care—and nurturing them in turn—can come of age—and how these practices can take their rightful place in an ethically mature political culture. (shrink)

I critique one recent argument for theological fatalism as confusing bringing about with altering the past. Questions remain concerning the basis for God's beliefs about the future. I evaluate two. One, which appeals to middle knowledge, faces several problems, including specifying how propositions of middle knowledge are true and how God can have this knowledge. The other, which contends that one can in certain cases bring about the past, I clarify and defend. Finally, I explore the implications of both views (...) for the theological claims that God's goodness is compatible with evil and that foreknowledge can provide the basis for God's own actions. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 61 Heft: 3 Seiten: 333-353.

In the course of his readings, Krajewski explores the complex relationship between truth-telling and lying, being and non-being, clarity and obscurity, the fixed and the unstable, the extraordinary and the commonplace. Underlying these dichotomies is an even more fundamental opposition between two approaches to language and discourse. One is the way of philosophy and linguistics, where the objective is to reduce language to its purest logical form. The other is the way of hermeneutics and rhetoric, where the aim is to (...) preserve the multifariousness of discourse as it occurs concretely in everyday life. Krajewski's goal throughout is to underscore the extent to which understanding is not a private but a social act. (shrink)