In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Saving Honor:The Ideology of Equal Esteem and the Good of Honor, Friendship, and Glory according to St. ThomasDominic Verner O.P.In his book Natural Law and Human Rights, Pierre Manent assesses and critiques a practical ideology that he finds pervasive within the European academy and sees increasingly informing the practical sensibilities of much of the Western world. "Our governing doctrine," as Manent calls it, is chiefly characterized by the (...) primacy of right over law and the rejection of any objective principle by which actions and persons might be judged.1 It is "the plasticity of the human form" itself which demands respect.2 The only non-constructed and thus normative characteristic of equal human nature is the power of being an "individval-conatus," the power to be one's own rule and reason for acting.3 And the only generally recognized purpose of this "individual-conatus" is to satisfy the desire for power, which is the sole universal motive of human action.4 Such an individual can be legitimately ruled and governed only by himself, a claim reflected in the ideal of the autonomous subject and representative government.5 In sum, Manent characterizes this ideology in terms of a thoroughgoing [End Page 335] rejection of any objective rule, "any law of God or of nature," according to which man is defined and judged.6Manent warns that this ideology is opposed to the very wellsprings of action, since an operation is rightly called an action only when it is performed according to some deliberate choice, which requires some rule and reason. If all rules and reasons are entirely self-generated, then there is no principle according to which deliberation might occur. Such a so-called autonomous subject purports to command himself, but in fact he is more patient than agent: the subject is moved by desires and preferences which cannot be weighed according to any discriminatory rule or principle, since the desires and preferences themselves are the only rule the subject acknowledges. Aside from submitting to the movement of the inexplicably strongest preference, the only positive reason for acting that remains is to destroy any vestiges of objective rules or reasons for acting—that is, the law—that might hinder the realization of individual preference: "The acting animal is now the prisoner of the very audacious and ingenious arrangement that he once devised to escape the urgency and to avoid the difficulty of the practical question. Caught in the realm of inaction, he seeks out, in a kind of terminal fever, the last corners of social existence that still escape the laissez-faire idea and where the very idea of the law might suffer its final defeat."7What is a Christian to make of this practical ideology? What natural inclinations does it privilege and how might the goods it seeks be sought rightly? Manent argues that the sole universal motive for action explicitly recognized by this practical ideology is a certain kind of power: the power of self-determination. According to the governing doctrine, this power is the only universal human motive that can be relied upon to construct common life and political order. Manent's response to this ideology is therefore to propose a recovery of a natural law account of the heterogeneity of universal human motivations to include useful, pleasing, and honorable goods. In this article, I will argue that Manent's own account of the ideology he critiques suggests a more fundamental motive driving the ideology, namely, a desire for an unassailable esteem. And since it is a desire for esteem that best explains the attractiveness of the ideology of modern freedom, an alternative vision of practical life will need to address the desire for esteem and articulate its proper bases. In advancing this argument, I will first show that Manent's own analysis highlights the importance of the desire for esteem in motivating the ideology of modern freedom. I will then turn to the anthropology of Thomas [End Page 336] Aquinas to show that the desire for esteem is manifested in the desire for honor and for friendship and is rooted in a fundamental inclination to have certain knowledge of one's... (shrink)

In this article, I defend Thomistic eudaimonism against John Hare's Kantian charge of unacceptable self-regard, and argue that Hare's own Scotistic-Kantian double-source theory of motivation introduces a problematic conception of beatitude. Hare argues that the beatitude which motivates the will in Thomistic eudaimonism is a self-indexed good, which cannot motivate truly altruistic action. Hare fails to recognize that the beatitude that ultimately motivates the human will according to Thomas can be an ‘ourself-indexed’ rather than merely a ‘myself-indexed’ good, as the (...) love of friendship brings other selves into the will's self-intention, facilitating a truly intersubjective and communal beatitude. Rejecting beatitude as the sole motivation of the will, Hare proposes a Scotistic double-source theory of motivation where the beatitude of another and the agent's own beatitude can never be loved with one and the same affection of the will, rendering beatitude unacceptably exclusive and proprietary. By making this argument, I hope to show that contemporary debates concerning moral motivation should carefully consider whether they can account for the intersubjective beatitude that bolsters human solidarity and forms the object of hope given by Christ who wills that his joy may be in us. (shrink)

Given a countable model of set theory, we study the structure of its generic multiverse, the collection of its forcing extensions and ground models, ordered by inclusion. Mostowski showed that any finite poset embeds into the generic multiverse while preserving the nonexistence of upper bounds. We obtain several improvements of his result, using what we call the blockchain construction to build generic objects with varying degrees of mutual genericity. The method accommodates certain infinite posets, and we can realize these embeddings (...) via a wide variety of forcing notions, while providing control over lower bounds as well. We also give a generalization to class forcing in the context of second-order set theory, and exhibit some further structure in the generic multiverse, such as the existence of exact pairs. (shrink)

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

Despite the fact that psychedelics were proscribed from medical research half a century ago, recent, early-phase trials on psychedelics have suggested that they bring novel benefits to patients in the treatment of several mental and substance use disorders. When beneficial, the psychedelic experience is characterized by features unlike those of other psychiatric and medical treatments. These include senses of losing self-importance, ineffable knowledge, feelings of unity and connection with others and encountering ‘deep’ reality or God. In addition to symptom relief, (...) psychedelic experiences often lead to significant changes in a patient’s personality and worldview. Focusing on the case of psilocybin, we argue that the peculiar features of psychedelics pose certain novel risks, which warrant an enhanced informed consent process–one that is more comprehensive than what may be typical for other psychiatric medications. We highlight key issues that should be focused on during the consent process and suggest discussion prompts for enhanced consent in psychedelic psychiatry. Finally, we respond to potential objections before concluding with a discussion of ethical considerations that will arise as psychedelics proceed from highly controlled research environments into mainstream clinical psychiatry. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available for (...) humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

It may soon be possible to generate human organs inside of human-pig chimeras via a process called interspecies blastocyst complementation. This paper discusses what arguably the central ethical concern is raised by this potential source of transplantable organs: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs risks perpetrating a serious moral wrong because the moral status of human-pig chimeras is uncertain, and potentially significant. Those who raise this concern usually take it to be unique to the creation of chimeric animals with (...) ‘humanised’ brains. In this paper, we show how that the same style of argument can be used to critique current uses of non-chimeric pigs in agriculture. This reveals an important tension between two common moral views: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs is ethically concerning, and that farming non-chimeric pigs for food or research is ethically benign. At least one of these views stands in need of revision. (shrink)

While nothing justifies atrocity, many perpetrators manifest cognitive impairments that profoundly degrade their capacity for moral judgment, and such impairments, we shall argue, preclude the attribution of moral responsibility.

Pautz has argued that the most prominent naive realist account of hallucination—negative epistemic disjunctivism—cannot explain how hallucinations enable us to form beliefs about perceptually presented properties. He takes this as grounds to reject both negative epistemic disjunctivism and naive realism. Our aims are two: First, to show that this objection is dialectically ineffective against naive realism, and second, to draw morals from the failure of this objection for the dispute over the nature of perceptual experience at large.

Cudmore, Dominic Ecclesial movements, inspired by a desire to live the Gospel more intensively and to announce it to others, have always been manifest in the midst of the People of God. ... In our day and particularly during recent decades, new movements have appeared that are more independent of the structures and style of the religious life than in the past.

Our awareness of the boundedness of the spatial sensory field—a paradigmatic structural feature of visual experience—possesses a distinctive epistemic role. Properly understood, this result undermines a widely assumed picture of how visual experience permits us to learn about the world. This paper defends an alternative picture in which visual experience provides at least two kinds of non-inferential justification for beliefs about the external world. Accommodating this justification in turn requires recognising a new way for visual experience to encode information about (...) the world. Reflection upon the epistemic contribution of sensory experience's structural features thus forces us to revise our understanding of how perception, cognition, and the world fit together. (shrink)

Perception of a property (e.g. a colour, a shape, a size) can enable thought about the property, while at the same time misleading the subject as to what the property is like. This long-overlooked claim parallels a more familiar observation concerning perception-based thought about objects, namely that perception can enable a subject to think about an object while at the same time misleading her as to what the object is like. I defend the overlooked claim, and then use it to (...) generate a challenge for a standard way of thinking about the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. Put informally, that view holds that just as we can mislead others by saying something false, illusory experience misleads by misrepresenting how things stand in the world. I argue that we ought to abandon this view in favour of some radical alternative account of the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. (shrink)

Buddhists point to the soteriological value not only of the dispelling of ignorance, but the arising of insight or wisdom which constitutes the salvific goal of practice. Madhyamaka’s unique conception of the ultimate nature of reality makes this cognition of what is metaphysically ultimate distinct from other kinds of knowledge, as these soteriologically valuable cognitive states aim at something unlike anything else so known: the lack of ‘own- being,’ or emptiness, of all reality. After considering and rejecting some popular interpretations (...) of the Madhyamaka Buddhist tradition regarding this soteriologically valuable epistemological state, I propose that a Thomistic conception of the Gift of Wisdom might provide a model that explains the unique nature of such insight into ultimate reality and its soteriological value. In short, wisdom involves a direct nonjudgmental veridical self-awareness arising from a good moral character, which is therefore also indirectly a direct nonjudgmental awareness of what ultimate reality is like. The final part will address the obvious dissimilarities between Christian and Buddhist metaphysics which might be thought to undermine these epistemological parallels and show, by contrast, that Christians are uniquely placed among theists in sharing many relevant features of Madhyamaka metaphysics that undergird parallels even in soteriological aims. (shrink)

Buddhism is a tradition that set itself decidedly against theism, with the development of complex arguments against the existence of God. I propose that the metaphysical conclusions reached by some schools in the Mahayana tradition present a vision of reality that, with some apparently small modification, would ground an argument for the existence of God. This argument involves explanation in terms of natures rather than causal agency. Yet I conclude not only that the Buddhist becomes a theist in embracing such (...) explanations as legitimate, but also ipso facto abandons their metaphysical project and ceases to be a Buddhist. (shrink)

Objections to the orthodox doctrine of an eternal hell often rely on arguments that it cannot be a person’s own fault that she ends up in hell. The paper summarizes and addresses three significant arguments which aim to show that it could not be any individual’s fault that they end up in hell. I respond to these objections by showing that those who affirm a classical picture of sin have Moorean reasons to reject these objections. That classical perspective holds that (...) all (serious) sin involves choosing eternal destiny apart from God and that no sin could possibly be caused by God. Consequently, it is necessary for ending up in hell that someone commit a serious sin, and it is sufficient for ending up damned that one persists forever in sin. Since the objections conflict with Moorean commitments central to the classical perspective, those who hold to such a classical perspective on sin would have good reason to reject all these arguments, which involve assumptions that would entail that such a perspective is false. (shrink)

From the invention of the alphabet to the explosion of the internet, Dominic Wyse takes us on a unique journey into the process of writing. Starting with seven extraordinary examples that serve as a backdrop to the themes explored, it pays particular attention to key developments in the history of language, including Aristotle's grammar through socio-cultural multimodality, to pragmatist philosophy of communication. Analogies with music are used as a comparator throughout the book, yielding radically new insights into composition processes. (...) The book presents the first comprehensive analysis of the Paris Review interviews with the world's greatest writers such as Louise Erdrich, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Ted Hughes, and Marilynne Robinson. It critically reviews the most influential guides to styles and standards of language, and presents new research on young people's creativity and writing. Drawing on over twenty years of findings, Wyse presents research-informed innovative practices to demonstrate powerfully how writing can be learned and taught. (shrink)

Jonathan Kvanvig has proposed a non-cognitive theory of faith. He argues that the model of faith as essentially involving assent to propositions is of no value. In response, I propose a Thomistic cognitive theory of faith that both avoids Kvanvig’s criticism and presents a richer and more inclusive account of how faith is intrinsically valuable. I show these accounts of faith diverge in what they take as the goal of the Christian life: personal relationship with God or an external state (...) of affairs. For this reason, more seriously, the non-cognitivist project likely requires rejecting traditional Christianity and its picture of salvation. (shrink)

As bioethics matures, a number of voices have called for a narrowing of what officially “counts” as bioethics. Bioethics defined broadly, they argue, creates a space that lacks objectivity and rigor, jeopardizing the credibility of the profession. Although a variety of proposed solutions exist, most advance a definitional narrowing of bioethics. In doing so, they mimic the siloed nature of the academy writ large, an institution that organizes itself through the logic of atomization, the belief that knowledge is generated through (...) the process of isolation, examination, theorization, and ultimately reintegration. Borrowing language from Isaiah Berlin's essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” I argue that bioethics has thrived precisely because it stands distinct from other departments of learning, constituting one of the few places within the academy where true inter, multi, and cross-disciplinary scholarship can thrive. Reducing bioethics to an internally defined set of axiomatic rationales does violence to this vision, eroding, in the process, one of the field's greatest assets. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is a metaphysical theory that accounts for the unity of the material parts of composite objects by appeal to a structure or ‘form’ characterizing those parts. I argue that hylomorphism is not merely a plausible or appealing solution to problems of material composition, but a position entailed by any coherent metaphysics of ordinary material objects. In fact, not only does hylomorphism have Aristotelian defenders, but it has had independent lives in both East and West. -/- I review three contemporary (...) hylomorphic theories appeal to ‘structure’ to explain the unity of material objects. Each, however, accepts a controversial principle: that substances can have other substances as proper parts. Such a principle is implausible and severely threatens the coherence of the theory. -/- I begin by showing that Thomas Aquinas’ account of form, which does not accept that substances can have other substances as parts, gives us a more coherent version of hylomorphism. Then I argue Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty Confucian thinker, developed a non-Aristotelian hylomorphism. Unlike Aristotelians, Zhu Xi’s metaphysics was formed in opposition to Buddhist versions of skepticism and gives us reasons to think that anyone who holds a view of objects stronger than Buddhists is committed to forms. In conclusion, I show directly, by appeal to some of those same considerations from Zhu Xi, why it is that all those who believe there are unified material objects will appeal to something like a substantial form. The traditional hylomorphic picture of material composition, then, remains a plausible framework for contemporary metaphysicians – and for good reason. (shrink)

Animalism, the view that human persons are human animals in the most straightforward, non-derivative sense, is typically taken to conflict with the intuition that a human person would follow her functioning cerebrum were it to be transplanted into another living human body. Some animalists, however, have recently called into question the incompatibility between animalism and this “Transplant Intuition,” arguing that a human animal would be relocated with her transplanted cerebrum. In this paper, we consider the prospects for this cerebrum transplant-compatible (...) variant of animalism, which we call “Transplanimalism.” After presenting its account of three related thought experiments, and outlining its key advantages over Standard Animalism, we raise two concerns for Transplanimalism. First, we argue that Transplanimalism, like other closest-continuer accounts of the human person, encounters difficulties with symmetrical fission cases. Second, we introduce a new thought experiment that pushes Transplanimalism into surprisingly counterintuitive results. As a result of these concerns, we conclude that, despite its attractiveness, animalists should not endorse Transplanimalism. (shrink)

This article comprises a dialogue between two historians who have attempted, individually, to narrate the life of Lord George Gordon (1751 – 93), the Scottish prophet, revolutionary, and convert to Judaism. For modern cultural historians, Gordon's peregrinations between identities offer a kaleidoscopic view of Britain in the overlooked but crucial interstice between the upheavals of 1776 and 1789. Yet the partial nature of the evidence, the long omission of Gordon from the historiography of eighteenth-century Britain, and the complex, often furtive (...) nature of Gordon's activism create multiple ambiguities in his story. These ambiguities are compounded here by the authors' differing approaches. Marsha Keith Schuchard argues for a Gordon shaped by Scottish origins; Dominic Green, for a Gordon responding to English opportunities. They disagree over the likely date of Gordon's conversion to Judaism and, crucially, over whether he was a religious atavist or a Romantic pioneer. This dialogue is meant to illustrate the utility of a scholarship that acknowledges fuzziness rather than attempting to overclarify it. The article is also meant to show, however, that on the public stage fuzziness can be less benign: Gordon was a religious politician, who reworked his complexities and confusions into a violent, uncompromising critique of eighteenth-century British social order. (shrink)

For centuries, philosophers have identified beauty with what brings pleasure. Dominic McIver Lopes challenges this interpretation by offering an entirely new theory of beauty - that beauty engages us in action, in concert with others, in the context of social networks - and sheds light on why aesthetic engagement is crucial for quality of life.

Everybody assumes (1) that musical performances are sonic events and (2) that their expressive properties are sonic properties. This paper discusses recent findings in the psychology of music perception that show that visual information combines with auditory information in the perception of musical expression. The findings show at the very least that arguments are needed for (1) and (2). If music expresses what we think it does, then its expressive properties may be visual as well as sonic; and if its (...) expressive properties are purely sonic, then music expresses less than we think it does. And if the expressive properties of music are visual as well as sonic, then music is not what we think it is—it is not purely sonic. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was neither the first nor the last philosopher to engage in serious theorizing about propositions. But his work between 1903, when he published The Principles of Mathematics, and 1919, when his final lectures on logical atomism were published, remains among the most important on the subject. And its importance is not merely historical. Russell’s rapidly evolving treatment of propositions during this period was driven by his engagement with – and discovery of – puzzles that either continue to shape (...) contemporary theorizing about propositions, or ought to do so. Russell’s creative responses to these puzzles also laid the foundation for many later accounts (most obviously, contemporary ‘Russellian’ accounts of propositions). In this entry we provide an opinionated overview of Russell’s influential treatment of propositions, with a focus on the evolution of his views from 1903 to 1919. A growing secondary literature is dedicated to Russell’s changing views during this period, and their often complex or opaque motivations. We do not intervene overmuch in this ongoing scholarly discussion. Instead, our aim is to trace some of the central motivations for Russell’s evolving views, and highlight the extent to which these motivations remain relevant to contemporary theorizing about propositions. (shrink)

The social science approach to risk has matured over the past two decades, with distinct paradigms developing in disciplines such as anthropology, economics, geography, psychology, and sociology. Social Theories of Risk traces the intellectual origins and histories of twelve of the established and emerging paradigms from the perspective of their principal proponents. Each contributor examines the underlying assumptions of his or her paradigm, the foundational issue it seeks to address, and likely future directions of research. Taken together, these essays illustrate (...) that the principal achievement of social sciences has been to broaden the debate about risk beyond the narrow, technical considerations of engineers and the physical and life sciences. The authors conclude that expert knowledge is not value-free, that public perceptions of and attitudes toward risks vary according to a wide range of social, psychological, and cultural variables, and that public opposition to particular risks cannot be assuaged by technical fixes. The essays reveal the circuitous paths that lead people to the study of risk, highlight how these paths have crossed and discuss some of the seminal influences on individuals and the field in general. Social Theories of Risk presents a broad, retrospective view of the state of the theory in the social sciences, written by many who have been on the cutting edge of risk research since its early days. The book includes both established and novel perspectives that address the theoretical foundations of the field and reflect what we know about risk as a psychological, social, and cultural phenomenon. The collection of papers not only informs us of the tributary ideas that spawned the social studies of risk, but also how the field has matured. The biographical flavor of the essays provides fascinating reading for established members of the field, and a valuable entree for newcomers. It is an ideal college text for courses in the history of science, environmental policy, and science, technology, and society, as well as the burgeoning array of more specialized courses in risk assessment and management. (shrink)

The study investigated postgraduate students’ knowledge of plagiarism, forms of plagiarism they commit, the reasons they commit plagiarism and actions taken against postgraduate students who plagiarise at Mzuzu University in Malawi. The study adopted a mixed methods approach. The quantitative data were collected by distributing questionnaires to postgraduate students and academic staff whereas qualitative data were collected by conducting follow-up interviews with some academics, an assistant registrar and assistant librarian. The study found that despite students reporting that they had a (...) conceptual understanding of plagiarism, the majority of them reported that they had intentionally and unintentionally committed plagiarism, mainly due to pressure for good grades (86.7%), laziness and poor time management (84.9%), and lack of good academic writing skills (84.9%). The study also established that prevalent forms of plagiarism admitted (by students) and reported (by academic staff) to have been committed included lack of proper acknowledgement after paraphrasing (69.8%), summarising (64.1%) and using quotation marks (56.6%). The study further found that the common sanctions applied by academics include giving a warning and asking the student to re-write the plagiarised work. The study recommends that Mzuzu University should carry out awareness campaigns about the negative effects of plagiarism, targeting postgraduate students; and should introduce advanced academic writing skills training for postgraduate students. (shrink)

It is a reasonable worry that God would not truly love us and want our salvation if He fixed a definite point after which He will no longer offer us the graces to repent of our sins. I propose that Thomas Aquinas succeeds in showing us that God would not be cruel or arbitrary in setting up a world where embodied agents end up after death in a state where they will inevitably fail to repent of their sins. Aquinas proposes (...) that being disembodied is to be in a state where a person cannot be mistaken about what they want, given that they know themselves perfectly. If the disembodied state were like this, it would not be surprising that being in that state makes repentance impossible, since a soul would become fully integrated around whatever one desired, without any conflicting desires that could prompt repentance. Thus, humans would persist in whatever desires they had at the moment of death and disembodiment. I conclude by arguing that, while this scenario stands in need of fuller theodicy, Aquinas’ scenario is helpful in defending a view that God is not cruel or arbitrary for creating a world in which post-mortem repentance is impossible. (shrink)

In _ Psychiatry in the Scientific Image, _Dominic Murphy looks at psychiatry from the viewpoint of analytic philosophy of science, considering three issues: how we should conceive of, classify, and explain mental illness. If someone is said to have a mental illness, what about it is mental? What makes it an illness? How might we explain and classify it? A system of psychiatric classification settles these questions by distinguishing the mental illnesses and showing how they stand in relation to one (...) another. This book explores the philosophical issues raised by the project of explaining and classifying mental illness. Murphy argues that the current literature on mental illness -- exemplified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- is an impediment to research; it lacks a coherent concept of the mental and a satisfactory account of disorder, and yields too much authority to commonsense thought about the mind. He argues that the explanation of mental illness should meet the standards of good explanatory practice in the cognitive neurosciences, and that the classification of mental disorders should group symptoms into conditions based on the causal structure of the normal mind. (shrink)

Trust and reciprocity are cornerstones of human nature, both at the levels of close interpersonal relationships and economic/societal structures. Being able to both place trust in others and decide whether to reciprocate trust placed in us is rooted in implicit and explicit processes that guide expectations of others, help reduce social uncertainty and build relationships. This review will highlight neurobehavioral mechanisms supporting trust and reciprocity, through the lens of implicit and explicit social appraisal and learning processes. Significant consideration will be (...) given to the neural underpinnings of these implicit and explicit processes, and special focus will center on the underlying neurocomputational mechanisms facilitating the integration of implicit and explicit signals supporting trust and reciprocity. Finally, this review will conclude with discussion of how we can leverage findings regarding the neurobehavioral mechanisms supporting trust and reciprocity to better inform our understanding of mental health disorders characterized by social dysfunction. (shrink)

Over what is now a period of several decades, green political theorists have attempted to reconcile the political philosophy of John Rawls with impending environmental crises. Despite numerous attempts, the general consensus among those receptive to the idea that Rawls’ notion of “justice as fairness” can indeed be extended to incorporate environmental concerns is that such a theory cannot extend beyond minimal, “light” green notions of environmental justice. However, a theory of Rawlsian environmental stewardship can not only allow for more (...) ecocentric visions of environmental justice, but also complement the “freestanding” nature of his later, specifically political liberalism. (shrink)

David Bentley Hart and Jordan Daniel Wood are part of a movement aiming to overcome any separation between divine and human nature, avoiding what they see as a problematic account of grace. As opposed to radical kenoticism which holds that God only exists or has a given character in relation to creation, Hart and Wood appeal to facts about God such that He could not act otherwise towards human beings, given His character. They thereby ground conclusions that God could not (...) fail to create and that human beings could not be otherwise than divinized. Even though they differ on what it is in virtue of the fact that God could not act otherwise, both authors rest their views on such claims. I will argue such views involve serious theological and metaphysical problems, because this strategy entails – as much as radical kenoticism – that God is constituted by His relation to creation. (shrink)

On the stupidity of oysters -- Divining creaturely love -- Horsing around: the marriage blanc of Nietzsche, Andreas-Salomø, and Røe -- Groping for an opening: Rilke between animal and angel -- Electric caresses:Rilke, Balthus, and Mitsou -- Between perfection and temptation: Musil, Claudine, and Veronica -- The biological travesty -- "The creature whom we love": Proust and jealousy -- The love tone: capture and captivation -- "The soft word that comes deceiving": Fournival's bestiary of love -- The cuckold and the (...) cockatrice: Fourier and Hazlitt -- The animal bride and horny toads -- Unsettled being: Ovid's metamorphoses -- Fickle metaphysics -- Nymphomania and faunication -- Senseless arabesques: Wendy and Lucy -- The goat in the machine (a reprise) -- On cetaceous maidens -- Animal magnetism and alternative currents (or Tesla and the white dove). (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is the political theory which holds that coercive laws and policies are justified when and only when they are grounded in reasons of the public. The standard interpretation of public reason liberalism, consensus accounts, claim that the reasons persons share or that persons can derive from shared values determine which policies can be justified. In this paper, I argue that consensus approaches cannot justify fair educational policies and preserving cultural goods. Consensus approaches can resolve some controversies about (...) teaching values in the educational system, such as curriculum choice. But they cannot determine which culture goods, e.g., architecture, artwork, or language ought to be preserved in the education system. Consensus approaches cannot fairly resolve competing claims about these kinds of disputes. -/- I propose that convergence accounts of public reason, which allow individuals to draw on their own comprehensive doctrines in limited ways, can remedy these weaknesses in the mainline public reason tradition. The convergence approach can justify a pluralist state that can advance valuable community goods. John Henry Newman’s advocacy of liberal arts education finds resonance in other cultures, notably among Confucians, illustrating that there can be a shared moral vision and inquiry into the good life across deep substantive disagreements about educational values and policies, once we expand our notion of justification to be more inclusive. (shrink)