In this article, we aim to map out the complexities which characterise debates about the ethics of vaccine distribution, particularly those surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. In doing so, we distinguish three general principles which might be used to distribute goods and two ambiguities in how one might wish to spell them out. We then argue that we can understand actual debates around the COVID-19 vaccine – including those over prioritising vaccinating the most vulnerable – as reflecting disagreements (...) over these principles. Finally, we shift our attention away from traditional discussions of distributive justice, highlighting the importance of concerns about risk imposition, special duties, and social roles in explaining debates over the COVID-19 vaccine. We conclude that the normative complexity this article highlights deepens the need for decision-making bodies to be sensitive to public input. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that if you care about how much goodness your actions generate, or how good the state-of-affairs you actions bring about are, then your attention should be directed towards the very far future. But many don’t care about how much goodness their actions generate, nor do they care about things like “states-of-affairs”. Amongst a multitude of things, many people care about how their actions impact individuals. And they also care about the sorts of justifications they (...) are able to offer for those actions. One moral theory which captures this moral viewpoint is contractualism. In this chapter, I argue that contractualism is, in large part, incompatible with longtermism – the view that, in many contexts, we ought to do that which will most improve the prospects of future people. I then discuss what advice, if any at all, contractualism can offer to the longtermist. (shrink)

Advocates of longtermism point out that interventions which focus on improving the prospects of people in the very far future will, in expectation, bring about an astronomical amount of good (or agent-neutral value). As such, longtermists claim we have compelling moral reason to engage in long-term interventions. In this paper, I show that longtermism is in conflict with plausible deontic scepticism about aggregation. I do so by demonstrating that, from both the ex-ante and ex-post perspectives, longtermist interventions generate extremely weak (...) claims of assistance from future people. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Poetics is the first philosophical account of an art form and is the foundational text in the history of aesthetics. The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Poetics is an accessible guide to this often dense and cryptic work. Angela Curran introduces and assesses: Aristotle’s life and the background to the Poetics the ideas and text of the Poetics , including mimēsis ; poetic technē; the definition of tragedy; the elements of poetic composition; the Poetics’ recommendations for (...) tragic plot patterns; catharsis ; epic and comedy; the nature of our emotional response to drama; the proper pleasure of tragedy; and the role that art plays in a human life the relevance of Aristotle’s work in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and philosophical psychology to the Poetics a comparison of Plato and Aristotle on the value of mimetic art the continuing importance of Aristotle’s Poetics to contemporary philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of film. (shrink)

This is the first English scholarly edition of this pivotal essay, accompanied by the first comprehensive commentary on it.

'There are no substantive rights for subjects in Hobbes's political theory, only bare freedoms without correlated duties to protect them'. This orthodoxy of Hobbes scholarship and its Hohfeldian assumptions are challenged by Curran who develops an argument that Hobbes provides claim rights for subjects against each other and (indirect) protection of the right to self-preservation by sovereign duties. The underlying theory, she argues, is not a theory of natural rights but rather, a modern, secular theory of rights, with something (...) to offer current discussions in rights theory. (shrink)

This article conducts a mixed-method content analysis of Chinese and American news media coverage of Google DeepMind’s Go playing computer program, AlphaGo. Drawing on humanistic approaches to artificial intelligence, combined with an empirically rigorous content analysis, it examines the differences and overlap in coverage by the Chinese and American press in their accounts of AlphaGo, and its historic match with Korea’s Lee Sedol in March, 2016. The event was not only followed intensely in China, but also made the front page (...) of The New York Times. This article finds that the Chinese press was more likely than the American press to frame AlphaGo as non-threatening, which the authors attribute to cultural differences and the two countries' different understandings of Go. In addition to quantitatively identifying similarities and differences in the framing of AlphaGo, this paper also investigates the underlying and evolving contestations over what constitutes the “human” and the “machine.” It concludes by discussing the implications of the study’s findings as well as outlining avenues for further research. (shrink)

This essay proposes a simple way to incentivize states not to develop pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential (PEPPs) as bioweapons: to tip all state actors that all of them stand to lose from developing such highly lethal, highly transmissible bioweapons. Being highly transmissible, a PEPP used as a weapon could easily spread, infecting a state’s own citizens and leaders. Therefore, no state concerned for its own citizens or leaders can afford to use a PEPP weapon, even having developed or acquired (...) it. We then show that when this is commonly known between states, having PEPPs provides no useful deterrent to a state, and there is no point getting into an arms race. Developing and stockpiling PEPP weapons gives states no gain, only risk. We end by assessing three objections to our thesis. (shrink)

My chapter aims to advance the debate on a problem often raised by philosophers who are skeptical of implied narrators in movies. This is the concern that positing such elusive narrators gives rise to absurd imaginings (Gaut 2004: 242; Carroll 2006: 179-180). -/- Friends of the implied cinematic narrator reply that the questions critics raise about the workings of the implied cinematic narrator are "silly ones" to ask. -/- I examine how the "absurd imaginings" problem arises for all the central (...) arguments for the elusive cinematic narrator and discuss why the questions critics pose about this narrator are legitimate ones to ask. (shrink)

A vivacious biography of the prophetic and sympathetic philosopher who along with Voltaire and Rousseau built the foundations of the modern world, and travelled as far as Russia to enlighten the Tsarina Catherine the Great. Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopédie into existence. But his most compelling and personal writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his most daring books (...) for posterity-for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings that he left behind after his death, Diderot dreamed of natural selection before Darwin, the Oedipus complex before Freud, and genetic manipulation centuries before Dolly the Sheep was born. Even more audaciously, the writer challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of slave trade, to the limits of human sexuality. He was also keenly aware of the dangers of absolute power, about which he wrote so persuasively that it led Catherine the Great not only to support him financially but also to invite him to St. Petersburg. In this thematically organized biography, Andrew Curran vividly describes Diderot's tormented relationship with Rousseau, his feud with Voltaire, his tortured marriage, his passionate affairs, and his often-paradoxical stand on art, morality, and religion. But what this book brings out most brilliantly is how a man's character flaws and limitations are often the flip side of his genius and his ability to break taboos, dogmas, and conventions. (shrink)

In Curran's latest book, Diverse Voices in Modern US Moral Theology, he presents the twelve leading voices of Catholic Moral Theology (CMT) from the early twentieth century to the present. (One could argue that Curran, himself, should be in this book.) The book discusses key individuals, and one movement that included multiple people, in the development of the field to show how it has evolved. The New Wine, New Wineskins movement was included because the movement was led by (...) lay people, showing how dramatically the face of CMT changed. The book provides overviews of the major figures in CMT without offering critique in order to foster a dialogue between liberal and conservative approaches to MT, and demonstrates that one's approach to CMT is very rooted in one's historical circumstances--called Sitz-im-Leben in the field. It is the last aim that provides the main argument for the book; that CMT has changed and each of these theologians have shifted thinking largely because of the historical context in which they wrote. Curran also shows that those on opposing sides of the debates in moral theology have become more divided and urges in his conclusion that they have more conversations with each other and not just discussions within each side. (shrink)

The turbulence of Charles Curran's academic career in the past decade stands in sharp contrast to the equanimity and intellectual balance of his writings during that strained-filled period. Here is a collection of the most important of those writings.

This book takes a new look at the history of individual rights, focusing on how philosophers have written that history. Eleanor Curran argues that the turn to jurisprudence, after the philosophical rejection of natural rights, has resulted in an impoverished notion of rights as no more than claims and entitlements.

After a run of over forty years, the series Readings in Moral Theology comes to a close with this retrospective volume by one of the original editors, Charles E. Curran.

Memory, funerals, and the communion of the saints: growing old and practices of remembering / M. Therese Lysaught -- God bends over backward to accommodate humankind...while the Civil Rights Acts and the Americans with Disabilities Act require [only] minimum effort / Mary Jo Iozzio -- Radical solidarity: migration as challenge ofr contemporary Christian ethics / Kristin E. Heyer -- Catholic lesbian feminist theology / Mary E. Hunt -- Theology of whose body? Sexual conplementarity, intersex conditions, and La Virgen de Guadalupe (...) / Katie M. Grimes -- Social conscience and politics in the United States of America: reflections / Mary Jo Bane -- Pope Francis, women, and the church for the poor / Lisa A. Fullam -- Floodwaters and the ticking clock: the systematic oppression and stigmatization of poor, single mothers in American and Christian theological responses / Julie A. Mavity Maddalena --What causes inequity? / Dean Baker -- Engaging the U.S. Bishops' pastoral on crime and criminal justice: from atomism to community justice / Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon -- Reconstructing the moral claim of racially unjust mass incarceration / Alison Benders -- The systemic erasure of the Black/dark-skinned body in Catholic ethics / Bryan Massingale -- Anti-blackness and white supremacy in the making of American Catholicism / M. Shawn Copeland -- White privilege / Charles E. Curran -- The Black Lives Matter Movement: justice and health equity / Michael P. Jaycox -- Mujerista theology: a challenge to traditional theology / Ada María Isasi-Díaz -- Faith of our mothers; Catholic womanist God-talk / Diana L. Hayes. (shrink)

Curran F. Douglass ABSTRACT: This paper confronts two questions: How is it possible to be free if causal determinism is true?; and relatedly, How then is the practice of holding persons responsible for their actions to be justified? On offer here is a compatibilist account of freedom, tying it to control; the relation – argued ….

Nissen and Bullemer's serial reaction time task has proven to be a useful model task for exploring implicit sequence learning. Neuropsychological research indicates that SRT learning may depend on the integrity of the basal ganglia, but not on medial temporal and diencephalic structures that are crucial for explicit learning. Recent neuroimaging research demonstrates that motor cortical areas , prefrontal, and parietal cortex also may be involved. This paper reviews this neuropsychological and neuroimaging research, but finds it lacking specific links between (...) structure and function. In order to promote better functional hypotheses, the second part of the paper examines the function of these brain areas from a broader perspective. Neuroimaging and neuropsychological research with human subjects, as well as neurophysiological and lesion research with animals, suggests a number component operations that these brain mechanisms may contribute to learning in the SRT task. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the debate over two central claims regarding cinematic narration: the claim that there are implicit cinematic narrators and the thesis that when we watch movies, we imagine seeing the events and characters in the film fiction. I examine what a consideration of the indeterminate nature of fictional narration, that is, what is specified by the fiction about how we come to imagine the story events, can contribute to the debate on these issues. It is argued that (...) consideration of fictional indeterminacy can be used to show that positing an implicit cinematic narrator is not only unnecessary, but is also incompatible with appreciating the film fiction. While the opposite result is reached regarding the claim about imagined seeing: considerations of indeterminacy suggest that we can suppose, without absurdities, that audiences at the movies sometimes engage in imagined seeing. (shrink)

Hobbes, in his political writing, is generally understood to be arguing for absolutism. I argue that despite apparently supporting absolutism, Hobbes, in Leviathan, also undermines that absolutism in at least two and possibly three ways. First, he makes sovereignty conditional upon the sovereign’s ability to ensure the safety of the people. Second and crucially, he argues that subjects have inalienable rights, rights that are held even against the sovereign. When the subjects’ preservation is threatened they are no longer obliged to (...) obey the sovereign. Third, there is also a possible limitation on the absolute power of the sovereign in the form of restrictions Hobbes puts in place on what laws he may legitimately make. Finally, Hobbesian absolutism is compared to the absolutism of Carl Schmitt. This exercise demonstrates the limitations that Hobbes places on the power and authority of the sovereign. (shrink)

This book examines the reception of the works of the baron d'Holbach throughout francophone Europe. It insists that d'Holbach's historical importance has been understated, argues the case for the existence of a significant 'Christian Enlightenment', and much more.

Traditional methods of detection may no longer be wholly successful in fully preventing cheating in examinations. New strategies need to be considered and employed to better manage the advancement of technology use for illegitimate purposes. This paper investigates technology used to cheat in examinations, how such cheats are carried out, and how to prevent such methods of cheating. To show the full extent of the progression of cheating over the years, this report also documents some of the traditional methods of (...) cheating. The devices which are used to cheat are investigated to see how they can provide an advantage to those who are taking examinations. (shrink)

Preface -- Which risk society, and for whom? -- The sociology of risk and the ineliminability of realism -- Risk society and systematic social theory -- Thinking with Bourdieu, Marx, and Weber to analyse contemporary inequalities and class -- Risk society and the distribution of bads -- Risk illusion and organized irresponsibility in contemporary finance -- Conclusion: beyond the quiet politics of risk.

"Gender" is a term that refers to the behavioral, social and psychological traits typically associated with being male or female. This article examines some central issues in the study of gender in film, including the link between filmic conventions and social ideology; gender and the viewer's emotional response to film; and challenges by cognitivist philosophers of film to the claim that movies effect the viewer through mobilizing unconscious responses.

The received view in Thomas Hobbes scholarship is that theindividual rights described by Hobbes in his political writings andspecifically in Leviathan are simple freedoms or libertyrights, that is, rights that are not correlated with duties orobligations on the part of others. In other words, it is usually arguedthat there are no claim rights for individuals in Hobbes''s politicaltheory. This paper argues, against that view, that Hobbes does describeclaim rights, that they come into being when individuals conform to thesecond law of (...) nature and that they are genuine moral claim rights, thatis, rights that are the ground of the obligations of others to forebearfrom interfering with their exercise. This argument is defended againstboth Jean Hampton''s and Howard Warrender''s interpretations of rights inHobbes''s theory. The paper concludes that the theory of rightsunderlying Hobbes''s writing is not taken from Natural Law but isprobably closer to a modern interest theory of rights. (shrink)

This article analyzes six ethical principles at work in the Pastoral Letter of the Roman Catholic Bishops on the United States economy. The first three principles derive from the Thomistic tradition with its attempt to avoid the extremes of collectivism and individualism. Human beings are by nature social and called to live in political society. The principle of subsidiarity guides the role of the state. Distributive and social justice furnish the criteria for a just distribution of human goods. The fourth (...) ethical principle which is a later development in the Catholic tradition recognizes human rights including economic rights. In keeping with recent emphases in Catholic teaching the fifth principle insists that the goods of creation exist to serve all and stresses the social aspect of property. The sixth principle enunciates a preferential option for the poor and has come to the fore in the light of recent liberation theology. (shrink)

I explore two accounts of properties within a dispositional essentialist (or causal powers) framework, the pure powers view and the powerful qualities view. I first attempt to clarify precisely what the pure powers view is, and then raise objections to it. I then present the powerful qualities view and, in order to avoid a common misconception, offer a restatement of it that I shall call the truthmaker view. I end by briefly defending the truthmaker view against objections.

Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, (...) properties-based theory of modality and explore several specific ways to flesh the general proposal out, including my favored version, the powers theory. And, fourth, I offer a powers semantics for counterfactuals that each version of the properties-based theory of modality can accept, mutatis mutandis. Together with a definition of possibility and necessity in terms of counterfactuals, the powers semantics of counterfactuals generates a semantics for modality that appeals to causal powers and not possible worlds. (shrink)

It is becoming widely recognized that dissemination of research results to participants is an important action for the conclusion of a research study. Most research institutions have standardized consent documents or templates that they require their researchers to use. Consent forms are an ideal place to indicate that results of research will be provided to participants, and the practice of inserting statements to this effect is becoming more conventional. In order to determine the acceptance of this practice across Canada we (...) conducted an assessment of 121 institutional consent document templates from 65 institutions looking for language that endorsed results dissemination to participants. About half of the documents we examined had language included which stated that results should be made available. In an era where research participation in hospital settings and universities is becoming ubiquitous there should be a reciprocal expectation that results should be provide... (shrink)

The study of digital economies and the sociology of risk have, with few exceptions, a relationship of benign mutual neglect despite possible important connections between the two. This article aims to bridge the gap between these two fields using Beck’s theory of risk society to explore how the digital economy’s momentum of innovation is generating risks and limiting the scope of existing democratic decision-making via the power of the digital economy to create social faits accomplis outside of democratic control. Three (...) specific risks emerging from the dynamics of innovation of digital economies are discussed as vignettes to illustrate these developments: (1) the remaking of interpersonal co-presence and solitary life; (2) the growing threats of AI to intensify unemployment and inequality; and (3) the impact on the environment of an ‘always on’ and ‘always upgrading’ digital communication ecosystem. With the gap between the potential and the actual use value of the digitalization of the infrastructure of life continuing to grow, this article argues that a different relationship between digital innovation and private and public spheres needs to be established to protect the effectiveness of contemporary democracy. (shrink)

Lockdown measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic involve placing huge burdens on some members of society for the sake of benefiting other members of society. How should we decide when these policies are permissible? Many writers propose we should address this question using cost-benefit analysis, a broadly consequentialist approach. We argue for an alternative non-consequentialist approach, grounded in contractualist moral theorising. The first section sets up key issues in the ethics of lockdown, and sketches the apparent appeal of addressing (...) these problems in a CBA frame. The second section argues that CBA fundamentally distorts the normative landscape in two ways: first, in principle, it allows very many morally trivial preferences—say, for a coffee—might outweigh morally weighty life-and-death concerns; second, it is insensitive to the core moral distinction between victims and vectors of disease. The third section sketches our non-consequentialist alternative, grounded in Thomas Scanlon’s contractualist moral theory. On this account, the ethics of self-defence implies a strong default presumption in favour of a highly restrictive, universal lockdown policy: we then ask whether there are alternatives to such a policy which are justifiable to all affected parties, paying particular attention to the complaints of those most burdened by policy. In the fourth section, we defend our contractualist approach against the charge that it is impractical or counterintuitive, noting that actual CBAs face similar, or worse, challenges. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 7, July 2024, Page 6-12.

The distinction between dimensions and units in physics is commonplace. But are dimensions a feature of reality? The most widely-held view is that they are no more than a tool for keeping track of the values of quantities under a change of units. This anti-realist position is supported by an argument from underdetermination: one can assign dimensions to quantities in many different ways, all of which are empirically equivalent. In contrast, I defend a form of dimensional realism, on which some (...) assignments of dimensions to quantities better describe reality than others. The argument I provide is a form of inference to the best explanation. In particular, the technique of dimensional analysis is explanatory, but it is only successful for certain systems of dimensions. Since these dimensional systems support scientific explanations, we have reason to believe that they are real. (shrink)

This book provides a concise, clear summary of the history of the "free will" vs. determinism controversy and offers a discussion of the basic differences of view.

Pope Francis’s two encyclicals—Laudato si’ and Fratelli tutti—belong to the tradition of Catholic social teaching that began in 1891 with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum. There have been continuities and discontinuities within the tradition of Catholic social teaching, but there has been a tendency to downplay the discontinuities. Francis’s two encyclicals show both discontinuities and continuities with the earlier documents. The final section criticizes these two encyclicals as being too overly optimistic in their approach to solving the problems facing the (...) environment and the social, political, and economic orders. (shrink)

Hobbes says a great deal about the rights of subjects, particularly in Leviathan, and yet, despite his apparent insistence on the importance of the rights of the subject, the prevailing view amongst modern Hobbes scholars has been that rights of Hobbesian subjects are weak. The dominant view of Hobbesian rights as weak and insignificant is the view of modern Hobbes scholarship, which analyses Hobbes's political theory at great distance from his intellectual milieu and from the dramatic political events of the (...) time. Hobbesian absolutism is understood to rule out rights of any strength or significance on the part of Hobbesian subjects and particularly, any rights held against the sovereign. The significance of defining subjects' rights as Hohfeldian liberty rights is that liberty rights lack any correlative duties on the part of others. The sovereign's authority and right to rule are made dependent on his ability and willingness to protect the subjects' aggregate right to self‐preservation. (shrink)

Woking Borough Council in the United Kingdom has long been committed to protecting the environment, a goal explicitly stated as one of the borough's top three priorities. Woking is also known for its pioneering approach in operating an extensive networked electricity and district heating system based on co- and trigeneration, as well as what is understood to be the United Kingdom's first commercially operating 200kWe fuel cell. Its other innovative measures to protect the environment and to reduce pollution include the (...) adoption of energy- and water-saving techniques for council-owned buildings and public places, with revenue savings reinvested back into still additional measures to further improve sustainability. These various initiatives are providing a practical framework for advancing a more equitable, clean, decentralized, and socially cooperative energy system in service to Woking's inhabitants. (shrink)