In the context of nationalizing, secularizing or Kemalist states, analyses of Islamist movements are often thrown back on notions of traditionalism or atavism. In a related vein, for certain social theorists writing on modernity, the uniqueness of the West is clarified through an imaginative [mis]interpretation of other cultures or civilizations. Too often, however, the apparent gains in Western self-insight reflect an ‘inability to constitute oneself without excluding the other’ (Cornelius Castoriadis). Ironically Castoriadis himself, in a project we might term an (...) ethnography of the West (see his writings on ecology, capitalism, rationality, contemporary culture, racism, Greek philosophy/history, and the environment) is prone to the same vice, especially in his identification of the West as the sole autonomous society. This article argues that in the shariainstitution of a legal autonomy, Islam and Islamism alike demonstrate an affinity with modernity as defined by Castoriadis. In the light of this Islamist autonomy, it concludes that Castoriadis’ vision of modernity as a struggle between opposed imaginaries of autonomy and rational mastery needs reformulating. (shrink)

In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that "Google intends to develop an automated car", "the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people", or that "the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners". We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally (...) intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction Deborah Tollefsen offers a careful survey of contemporary philosophers? answers to these questions, and argues for the unorthodox view that certain groups should, indeed, be treated as agents and deserve to be held morally accountable. Tollefsen explores the nature of belief, action and intention, and shows the reader how a belief in group agency can be reconciled with our understanding of individual agency and accountability. _Groups as Agents_ will be a vital resource for scholars as well as for students of philosophy and the social sciences encountering the topic for the first time. (shrink)

The choroid plexuses (CPs) are involved in the most-basic aspects of neural function including maintaining the extracellular milieu of the brain by actively modulating chemical exchange between the CSF and brain parenchyma, surveying the chemical and immunological status of the brain, detoxifying the brain, secreting a nutritive “cocktail” of polypeptides and participating in repair processes following trauma. This diversity of functions may mean that even modest changes in the CP can have far-reaching effects. Indeed, changes in the anatomy and physiology (...) of the CP have been linked to aging and several CNS diseases. It is also possible that replacing diseased or transplanting healthy CP might be useful for treating acute and chronic brain diseases. This review focuses on the wide-ranging and under-appreciated functions of the CP, alterations of these functions in aging and neurodegeneration, and recent demonstrations of the therapeutic potential of transplanted CP for neural trauma. BioEssays 27:262–274, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In “Group Testimony” (2007) I argued that the testimony of a group cannot be understood (or at least cannot always be understood) in a summative fashion; as the testimony of some or all of the group members. In some cases, it is the group itself that testifies. I also argued that one could extend standard reductionist accounts of the justification of testimonial belief to the case of testimonial belief formed on the basis of group testimony. In this paper, I explore (...) the issue of group testimony in greater detail by focusing on one putative source of testimony, that of Wikipedia. My aim is to the answer the following questions: Is Wikipedia a source of testimony? And if so, what is the nature of that source? Are we to understand Wikipedia entries as a collection of testimonial statements made by individuals, some subset of individuals, or is Wikipedia itself (the organization or the Wikipedia community) the entity that testifies? If Wikipedia itself is a source of testimony, what resources do we have for assessing the trustworthiness of such an unusual epistemic source? In answering these questions I hope to further elucidate the nature of collective epistemic agency (Tollefsen 2006), of which group testimony is a paradigm example. When a mans Discourse begineth…at some saying of another, of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth not; and then the Discourse is not so much concerning the Thing, as the Person; and the Resolution is called Beleefe, and Faith: Faith in the man. (1651/1991, Ch. 7; p. 48). (shrink)

In everyday discourse and in the context of social scientific research we often attribute intentional states to groups. Contemporary approaches to group intentionality have either dismissed these attributions as metaphorical or provided an analysis of our attributions in terms of the intentional states of individuals in the group.Insection1, the author argues that these approaches are problematic. In sections 2 and 3, the author defends the view that certain groups are literally intentional agents. In section 4, the author argues that there (...) are significant reasons for social scientists and philosophers of social science to acknowledge the adequacy of macro-level explanations that involve the attribution of intentional states to groups. In section 5, the author considers and responds to some criticisms of the thesis she defends. (shrink)

Numerous philosophical theories of joint agency and its intentional structure have been developed in the past few decades. These theories have offered accounts of joint agency that appeal to higher-level states that are?shared? in some way. These accounts have enhanced our understanding of joint agency, yet there are a number of lower-level cognitive phenomena involved in joint action that philosophers rarely acknowledge. In particular, empirical research in cognitive science has revealed that when individuals engage in a joint activity such as (...) conversation or joint problem solving, they become aligned at multiple levels. We argue that this phenomenon of alignment is crucial to understanding joint actions and should be integrated with philosophical approaches. In this paper, we sketch a possible integration, and draw out its implications for understanding of joint agency and collective intentionality. The result is a process-based, dynamic account of joint action that integrates both low-level and high-level states, and seeks to capture the separate processes of how a joint action is initiated and sustained. (shrink)

According to many, joint intentional action must be understood in terms of joint intentions. Most accounts of joint intention appeal to a set of sophisticated individual intentional states. The author argues that standard accounts of joint intention exclude the possibility of joint action in young children because they presuppose that the participants have a robust theory of mind, something young children lack. But young children do engage in joint action. The author offers a revision of Michael Bratman’s analysis of joint (...) intention that reflects the socio-cognitive abilities young children do have. This revision makes sense of joint action among young children and equally well explains simple joint actions involving adults. Key Words: collective intentionality • joint action • child’s theory of mind • joint attention. (shrink)

The fact that much of our knowledge is gained through the testimony of others challenges a certain form of epistemic individualism. We are clearly not autonomous knowers. But the discussion surrounding testimony has maintained a commitment to what I have elsewhere called epistemic agent individualism. Both the reductionist and the anti-reductionist have focused their attention on the testimony of individuals. But groups, too, are sources of testimony - or so I shall argue. If groups can be testifiers, a natural question (...) to ask is whether our beliefs based on the testimony of groups are ever justified and whether such a justification is to be conferred inferentially or non-inferentially. I consider and dismiss the possibility of extending an anti-reductionist account of justification to our group testimonial beliefs. I also argue against a version of reductionism that would have our group testimonial beliefs justified only in so far as we were able to monitor the trustworthiness of members of the group. However, there are forms of reductionism that can be extended to make sense of the justification of our group testimonial beliefs. There are mechanisms for monitoring the trustworthiness and competency of a group (rather than its members) and, further, a variety of background beliefs allow us to assess the testimony of a group for reliability. (shrink)

Although there have been a number of recent discussions about the emotions that we bring with us to our epistemic endeavors, there has been little, if any, discussion of the emotions we bring with us to epistemic appraisal. This paper focuses on a particular set of emotions, the reactive attitudes. As Peter F. Strawson and others have argued, our reactive attitudes reveal something deep about our moral commitments. A similar argument can be made within the domain of epistemology. Our "epistemic (...) reactive attitudes" reveal our epistemic commitments. Reflection on the role they play in our practice of epistemic appraisal can contribute to a number of different debates in contemporary epistemology, including the nature of epistemic norms and epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

Research on linguistic interaction suggests that two or more individuals can sometimes form adaptive and cohesive systems. We describe an “alignment system” as a loosely interconnected set of cognitive processes that facilitate social interactions. As a dynamic, multi-component system, it is responsive to higher-level cognitive states such as shared beliefs and intentions (those involving collective intentionality) but can also give rise to such shared cognitive states via bottom-up processes. As an example of putative group cognition we turn to transactive memory (...) and suggest how further research on alignment in these cases might reveal how such systems can be genuinely described as cognitive. Finally, we address a prominent critique of collective cognitive systems, arguing that there is much empirical and explanatory benefit to be gained from considering the possibility of group cognitive systems, especially in the context of small-group human interaction. (shrink)

Tollefsen investigates the image-doctrine of St Theodore the Studite with particular attention to his three refutations of the iconoclasts, the Antirrhetici tres adversus iconomachos.

The debate surrounding the issue of collective moral responsibility is often steeped in metaphysical issues of agency and personhood. I suggest that we can approach the metaphysical problems surrounding the issue of collective responsibility in a roundabout manner. My approach is reminiscent of that taken by P.F. Strawson in "Freedom and Resentment" (1968). Strawson argues that the participant reactive attitudes - attitudes like resentment, gratitude, forgiveness and so on - provide the justification for holding individuals morally responsible. I argue that (...) the framework of the reactive attitudes extends to collectives and provides the justification for holding collectives morally responsible. (shrink)

The debate surrounding the issue of collective moral responsibility is often steeped in metaphysical issues of agency and personhood. I suggest that we can approach the metaphysical problems surrounding the issue of collective responsibility in a roundabout manner. My approach is reminiscent of that taken by P.F. Strawson in “Freedom and Resentment” (1968). Strawson argues that the participant reactive attitudes – attitudes like resentment, gratitude, forgiveness and so on – provide the justification for holding individuals morally responsible. I argue that (...) the framework of the reactive attitudes extends to collectives and provides the justification for holding collectives morally responsible. (shrink)

This book defends the controversial 'absolute view' of lying, which maintains that an assertion contrary to the speaker's mind is always wrong, regardless of the speaker's intentions. Whereas most people believe that a lie told for a good cause, such as protecting Jews from discovery by Nazis, is morally acceptable, Christopher Tollefsen argues that Christians should support the absolute view. He looks back to the writings of Augustine and Aquinas to illustrate that lying violates the basic human goods of (...) integrity and sociality and severely compromises the values of religion and truth. He critiques the comparatively permissive views espoused by Cassian, Bonhoeffer, and Niebuhr and argues that lies often jeopardize the good causes for which they are told. Beyond framing a moral absolute against lying, this book explores the questions of to whom we owe the truth and when, and what steps we may take when we should not give it. (shrink)

In this article, we first give a normative account of the doctor–patient relationship as: oriented to the good of the patient’s health; motivated by a vocational commitment; and characterized by solidarity and trust. We then look at the difference that Christianity can, and we believe, should, make to that relationship, so understood. In doing so, we consolidate and expand upon some claims we have made in a forthcoming book, Ethics and the Healing Profession (Curlin and Tollefsen, 2021).1.

Contemporary analytic epistemology exhibits an individualistic bias. The standard analyses of knowledge found in current epistemological discussions assume that the only epistemic agents worthy of philosophical consideration are individual cognizers. The idea that collectives could be genuine knowers has received little, if any, serious consideration. This individualistic bias seems to be motivated by the view that epistemology is about things that go on inside the head. In this paper I challenge this type of epistemic individualism by arguing that certain groups (...) are intentional agents and that cognition occurs at the level of groups. In section I, I extend a plausible and well-defended account of individual intentionality to organizations. In section II, I appeal to research on distributed cognition in order to challenge the view that cognition occurs exclusively in the individual mind-brain. Having established that groups can be believers and cognizers, I turn to the issue of the justification of group belief. In section III, consider whether a reliabilist account of justification can be extended to groups. (shrink)

The basic approach to understanding shared agency has been to identify individual intentional states that are somehow “shared” by participants and that contribute to guiding and informing the actions of individual participants. But, as Michael Bratman suggests, there is a problem of stability and depth that any theory of shared agency needs to solve. Given that participants in a joint action might form shared intentions for different reasons, what binds them to one another such that they have some reason for (...) continuing to participate in the joint action in the face of conflicting reasons? This is particularly pressing in cases of joint actions that unfold over long periods of time. There are a variety of ways that the problem of stability and depth of shared intention might be addressed. We review some of those ways in section 1. We do not intend to challenge these approaches. Instead, in this article, we want to suggest that narrative is an additional, perhaps in some cases a predominant, way in which stability and depth are achieved. According to some theories, narrative plays a crucial role in the development of the self. Our suggestion is that the narratives we tell about our joint projects contribute to the development of a stable and deep “we.”. (shrink)

Christopher Tollefsen; Non-Ecumenical Ecumenism, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 5, Issue 3, 1 January 1999, Pages 238–2.

Recent discussions of rational deliberation in science present us with two extremes: unbounded optimism and sober pessimism. Helen Longino (1990) sees rational deliberation as the foundation of scientific objectivity. Miriam Solomon (1991) thinks it is overrated. Indeed, she has recently argued (2006) that group deliberation is detrimental to empirical success because it often involves groupthink and the suppression of dissent. But we need not embrace either extreme. To determine the value of rational deliberation we need to look more closely at (...) the practice and practitioners of science. I offer a closer look here by exploring the joint agency of small research teams. Although there are factors that contribute to the suppression of dissent in group contexts, a closer look at the literature on group dynamics suggests that there are ways to mitigate the effects of groupthink. Thus, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic about the value of rational deliberation within certain scientific contexts. (shrink)

There is a small, but growing, number of philosophers who acknowledge the existence of plural subjects – collective agents that act in the world and are the appropriate subject of intentional state ascriptions. Among those who believe in collective agency, there are some who wish to limit the types of intentional state ascriptions that can be made to collectives. According to rejectionists, although groups can accept propositions, they cannot believe them. In this paper I argue that, given the centrality of (...) belief and the similarities between individual belief and collective attitudes, we ought to reject rejectionism. If one believes in collective agency, one must also believe in collective belief. (shrink)

Recent work done at the intersection of classical American pragmatism and bioethics promises much: a clarified self-understanding for bioethics, a modus vivendi for progress, and liberation from misguided and misguiding theories and principles. The revival of pragmatism outside bioethics in the past twenty years, however, has been of a distinctly anti-realist orientation. Richard Rorty, for example, has urged that there is no objective truth or good for philosophy to be concerned with. I ask whether the work in Pragmatic Bioethics follows (...) this perilous Rortyan trend. It will move towards anti-realism if its account of the good abandons any notion of truth or objectivity, and if, in its discussion of specific problems, it divides these problems into public and the private, urging consensus as the goal of the one, and an unconstrained notion of happiness as the goal of the other. In a final section, I suggest that bioethics done in the spirit of Royce's Philosophy of Loyalty might have much to offer to those dissatisfied with anti-realism. (shrink)

An investigation into two basic concepts of ancient pagan and early Christian thought, activity and participation, through detailed discussion of the writings of Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory Palamas.

: This paper focuses on Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's philosophical views as exhibited in her early correspondence with René Descartes. Elisabeth's criticisms of Descartes's interactionism as well as her solution to the problem of mind-body interaction are examined in detail. The aim here is to develop a richer picture of Elisabeth as a philosophical thinker and to dispel the myth that she is simply a Cartesian muse.

Maximus the Confessor was an important Byzantine thinker, the 'father of Byzantine theology'. This study describes his metaphysical world-view. The discussion covers Maximus' doctrine of creation, the Logos and the logoi, the cosmic order, the activities or energies of God, and how created beings may participate in God.

This paper asks whether investigation into the ontology of the extended family can help us to think about and resolve questions concerning the nature of the family’s decision-making authority where organ donation is concerned. Here, “extended family” refers not to the multigenerational family all living at the same time, but to the family extended past its living boundaries to include the dead and the not yet living. How do non-existent members of the family figure into its ontology? Does an answer (...) to this question help to resolve questions about the distribution of authority within the extended family? (shrink)

There are two perspectives available from which to understand an agent's intention in acting. The first is the perspective of the acting agent: what did she take to be her end, and the means necessary to achieve that end? The other is a third person perspective that is attentive to causal or conceptual relations: was some causal outcome of the agent's action sufficiently close, or so conceptually related, to what the agent did that it should be considered part of her (...) intention? Recent goods based views in ethics are divided as to whether only the first person perspective, or a mix of both perspectives, are necessary to understand intention and action. But resolution of the issue is necessary if goods based views are to be able to deploy to principle of double effect; for that principle requires an account of how to distinguish what is genuinely a matter of intention in human action from what is not. I argue that the pure first person account is better than the mixed account. (shrink)

One strategy for arguing that it should be legally permissible to create human embryos, or to use of spare human embryos, for scientific research purposes involves the claim that such embryos cannot be persons because they are not human individuals while twinning may yet take place. Being a human individual is considered to be by most people a necessary condition for being a human person. I argue first that such an argument against the personhood of embryos must be rationally conclusive (...) if their destruction in public places such as laboratories is to be countenanced. I base this argument on a popular understanding of the role that the notion of privacy plays in abortion law. I then argue that such arguments against personhood are not rationally conclusive. The claim that the early embryos is not a human individual is not nearly as obvious as some assert. (shrink)

The author focuses on the potential for many healthcare institutions currently called ‘Catholic’ to lose their genuine Roman Catholic identity, and he offers suggestions for the future of the Catholic identity of Catholic healthcare institutions. The author then considers one particular task of the Catholic hospital, that of showing a preferential option for the poor. Some of the threats to this task are highlighted. The author concludes with some suggestions for the renewal of Catholic identity in Catholic healthcare institutions.

The gap between Christian and secular bioethics appears to be widening, and inevitably so. In this essay, I identify four areas in which the differences between Christian and secular bioethics are significant, and in light of which secular bioethics, by its inability to attend to key concerns of Christian thought, will inevitably continue to marginalize the latter. How Christian bioethicists should view this marginalization will be the subject of the final section of this paper.

This paper critically explores the path of some of the controversies over public reason and religion through four distinct steps. The first part of this article considers the engagement of John Finnis and Robert P. George with John Rawls over the nature of public reason. The second part moves to the question of religion by looking at the engagement of Nicholas Wolterstorff with Rawls, Robert Audi, and others. Here the question turns specifically to religious reasons, and their permissible use by (...) citizens in public debate and discourse. The third part engages Jürgen Habermas's argument that while citizens must be free to make religious arguments, still, there is an obligation of translation, and a motivational constraint on lawmakers. The final section argues that even though Habermas's proposal fails, nevertheless he recognizes a key difficulty for religious citizens in contemporary liberal polities. Restoration of a full role for religiously grounded justificatory reasons in public debate is one part of an adequate solution to this problem, but a second plank must be added to the solution: recognition that religious reasons can enter into public deliberation not just as first-order justifications of particular policies, but as second-order reasons, to be considered by any polity that respects its religious citizens and, more broadly, the good of religion. (shrink)

Two hard cases have generated controversy regarding the application of the principle of double effect in recent years. As regards the first, the case of the conjoined twins of Malta, there has been considerable convergence: most natural law ethicists seem to agree that separation of the twins was morally permissible. By contrast, the so-called “Phoenix case,” involving an abortion at a Catholic hospital for a woman with pulmonary arterial hypertension, has become a touchstone of disagreement between defenders of the so-called (...) “new” natural law theory, and more “traditional” Thomists. I argue in this essay that, contrary to widespread opinion, the two cases were alike in the following respect: in neither need the principal agents have intended the death of anyone. (shrink)

In Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake: The Birth of the Medical Profession, Thomas Cavanaugh focuses on performative aspects of the taking of the oath which bear upon the formation of that community we identify as the medical profession. In this paper, I suggest that we can go further than Cavanaugh does in identifying what the Hippocratic oath makes possible. Given its particular content and what it communicates, the oath makes possible, to a degree few other oaths could, and in a (...) way which might be significantly impaired by the absence of an oath, the form of community we have come to call the physician-patient relationship. In Section I, I will discuss Cavanaugh’s treatment of the oath’s relationship to the community of medical professionals. In Section II, I discuss at a relatively abstract level the relationship between communication and community. In Section III I show how the oath can additionally constitute the primordial moment in the existence of the physician-patient relationship. (shrink)

Robert Koons and Matthew O’Brien have leveled a number of objections against the New Natural Law account of human action and intention. In this paper, I discuss five areas in which I believe that the Koons-O’Brien criticism of the New Natural Law theory is mistaken, or in which their own view is problematic. I hope to show, inter alia, that the New Natural Law approach is not committed to a number of theses attributed to it by Koons and O’Brien; that (...) their own view suffers from many ambiguities and difficulties; that passages from St. Thomas on which they draw to support their own view are in fact fully compatible with the New Natural Law account; and that neither the New Natural Law account of the controversial Phoenix abortion case, nor their account of the casuistry surrounding the acceptance of side-effects, is deficient in the ways asserted by Koons and O’Brien. (shrink)

This paper has three parts; in the first, I look at the question, recently dis­cussed by Mark Murphy, of the role that God plays as an explainer of moral­ity. I argue for a form of explanation that is different from Murphy’s, though I wonder whether there is disagreement here, or simply difference of empha­sis. In the second part, I ask what difference Christianity—and specifically the idea that the Kingdom of heaven is our natural ultimate end—makes to us, as practical and (...) moral agents. I will argue that it makes both a moti­vational and a substantive difference. In the third part I will ask about the way normativity is related to God’s communication of normative matters to us, and I will do this specifically by asking what kinds of speech acts God engages in in communicating normative matters to us. The standard view is that God communicates to us in commands; however, I will suggest some other possibilities. (shrink)

The New Natural Law theory offers a distinctive account of the nature of intention and human action and, accordingly, of what aspects and consequences of a human agent’s performance should be considered outside the intention. In part, the distinctive features of the account follow from a methodological decision to consider human action from the perspective of the agent of that action, the first-person agential standpoint. This theory of action and intention has nevertheless been subject to considerable criticism. The view is (...) held by many to be too first-personal and to provide inadequate “constraints” on what an agent intends when his performance will inevitably and foreseeably be accompanied or followed by states of affairs in which individuals are harmed. (shrink)