Eighteen Christian theologians and ethicists offer a rich engagement with the theological ethics of Glen Stassen (1936-2014).

Glen Stassen has approached his life and work "as if Jesus mattered," and this new collection of essays in his honor demonstrates that the contributors share that commitment, each in her or his own way. Ethics as if Jesus Mattered will introduce Stassen's work to a new generation, advance dialogue and debate in Christian ethics, and inspire more faithful discipleship just as it honors one whom the contributors consider a mentor.

What is forgiveness? When is it appropriate? Is it to be earned or can it be freely given? Is it a passion we cannot control, or something we choose to do? Glen Pettigrove explores the relationship between forgiving, understanding, and loving. He examines the significance of character for the debate, and revives the long-neglected virtue of grace.

Why do political philosophers shy away from politics? Glen Newey offers a challenging and original critique of liberalism, the dominant political philosophy of our time, tackling such key issues as state legitimacy, value-pluralism, neutrality, the nature of politics, public reason, and morality in politics. Analyzing major liberal theorists, Newey argues that liberalism bypasses politics because it ignores or misunderstands human motivation, and elevates academic systembuilding over political realities of conflict and power.

Toleration is becoming an increasingly questioned issue in modern democratic and multicultural societies and is debated within the academic disciplines of politics, history and cultural and literary studies. In this book Glen Newey systematically analyses toleration in relation to broader issues in meta-ethical theory and offers a new, rigorous philosophical theory of toleration as a virtue. A wide range of questions in ethical theory is addressed, including ethical responsibility, character and virtue, the nature of reasons for action, the acts/omissions (...) doctrine, and the nature of normativity itself. This analysis offers a new understanding of the limits of moral theory, and reveals problems with understanding toleration philosophically and with implementing it politically. As a unique contribution to the toleration debate, this book will be of importance to all those with an interest in political theory, philosophy and ethics.* An original and highly sophisticated analysis of toleration* Unique in applying toleration to meta-ethical theory* Covers a broad range of questions in ethical theory* Toleration is a key issue in political theory and also outside the academy - issues of censorship and political correctness, etc. remain strongly to the fore. (shrink)

Political disputes over toleration are endemic, while toleration as a political value seems opposed to those of civic equality, neutrality and sometimes democracy. Toleration in Political Conflict sets out to understand toleration as both politically awkward and indispensable. The book exposes the incoherence of Rawlsian reasonable pluralist justifications of toleration, and shows that toleration cannot be fully reconciled with liberal political values. While raison d'état concerns very often overshadow debates over toleration, these debates – for example about terrorism – need (...) not be framed as a conflict between toleration and security. Framing them in this way tends to obscure objectionable behaviour by tolerators themselves, and their reliance on asymmetric power. Glen Newey concludes by sketching a picture of politics as dependent on free speech which, he argues, is entailed by the demands of free association. That in turn suggests that questions of toleration are inescapable within the conditions of politics itself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In virtually every corner of ethics—including discussions of value, practical reasoning, moral psychology, and justice—it is common for theorists to suggest that our actions, attitudes, or emotions should be proportional to the degree of value present in the objects or events to which they are responding. I argue that there is a fundamental problem with these approaches: they overlook the character of the agent and what it adds to the equation. I show that a commitment to proportionality is at (...) odds with both ordinary and admirable instances of love, ambition, and forgiveness. To make room for disproportional attitudes and actions, I introduce a novel account of virtue and its relation to value. (shrink)

In the philosophical literature on forgiveness it is almost universally assumed that only the victim of a wrong has the standing to forgive. This paper challenges that assumption and argues for the possibility of meaningful second- and third-party forgiveness.

Little attention has been paid to the importance of social media in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. This deficit is redressed in the present paper through utilizing the notion of ‘citizenship arenas’ to identify three dynamics in social media-augmented corporate–society relations. First, we note that social media-augmented ‘corporate arenas of citizenship’ are constructed by individual corporations in an effort to address CSR issues of specific importance thereto, and are populated by individual citizens as well as (functional/formally organized) stakeholders. Second, (...) we highlight that, within social media-augmented ‘public arenas of citizenship’, individual citizens are empowered, relative to corporations and their (functional/formally organized) stakeholders, when it comes to creating, debating, and publicizing, CSR-relevant issues. Third, we posit that information and communication technology corporations possess specific, and potentially very important, capacities, when it comes to creating, or helping construct, public arenas of citizenship from within which individual citizens can influence their broader political–economic environment. Following this, we discuss how social media can contribute to ‘dysfunctions’ as well as ‘progressions’ in corporate–society relations, and conclude with a number of suggestions for future research. (shrink)

If asked to generate a list of virtues, most people would not include meekness. So it is surprising that Hume not only deems it a virtue, but one whose 'tendency to the good of society no one can doubt of.' After explaining what Hume and his contemporaries meant by "meekness", the paper proceeds to argue that meekness is a virtue we, too, should endorse.

Over the last 30 years, the self-determination efforts and objectives of Indigenous peoples in Canada have increasingly been cast in the language of ‘recognition’ — recognition of cultural distinctiveness, recognition of an inherent right to self-government, recognition of state treaty obligations, and so on. In addition, the last 15 years have witnessed a proliferation of theoretical work aimed at fleshing out the ethical, legal and political significance of these types of claims. Subsequently, ‘recognition’ has now come to occupy a central (...) place in our efforts to comprehend what is at stake in contestations over identity and difference in colonial contexts more generally. In this paper, I employ Frantz Fanon's critique of Hegel's master–slave dialectic to challenge the now hegemonic assumption that the structure of domination that frames Indigenous–state relations in Canada can be undermined via a liberal politics of recognition. Against this assumption, I argue that instead of ushering in an era of peaceful coexistence grounded on the Hegelian ideal of reciprocity, the contemporary politics of recognition promises to reproduce the very configurations of colonial power that Indigenous demands for recognition have historically sought to transcend. (shrink)

Thomas Hurka, Simon Keller, and Julia Annas have recently argued that virtue ethics is self-effacing. I contend that these arguments are rooted in a mistaken understanding of the role that ideal agency and agent flourishing (should) play in virtue ethics. I then show how a virtue ethical theory can avoid the charge of self-effacement and why it is important that it do so.

1. This is the second in a two-part investigation of the relationship between virtue and value. It focuses principally on two questions that part 1 [Pettigrove 2022] left readers asking.1 First, is...

This article is on political normativity. It urges scepticism about attempts to reduce political normativity to morality. Modern liberalism leaves a question about how far morality can be accommodated by the form of normativity characteristic of politics. The article casts doubt on whether individual moral norms carry over to collective, for example, political, action, and whether the former ‘trump’ other kinds of reasons in politics. It then sketches an alternative view of politics as an irreducibly collective enterprise. Reasons for acting (...) politically, including the understandings on which perceptions of legitimacy rest, are largely artefacts of the political culture and thus only marginally subject to generic conditions of validity: this is true in particular of liberal acceptability-conditions. Thus legitimacy, though not a redundant notion, must be geared to local political norms. (shrink)

Although theorists disagree about precisely how to characterize the link between anger and moral judgment, that they are linked is routinely taken for granted in contemporary metaethics and philosophy of emotion. One problem with this assumption is that it ignores virtues like patience, which thinkers as different as Cassian, Śāntideva, and Maimonides have argued are characteristic of mature moral agents. The patient neither experience nor plan to experience anger in response to (at least some) wrongs. Nevertheless, we argue, they remain (...) capable of judging such actions to be wrong. This indicates that a different account of the relationship between anger and moral judgment is required. We conclude by proposing one such account, showing how a metaethicist who was more attentive to the normative ethics of anger might set about reconstructing her position. (shrink)

What are we doing when we say "I forgive you"? This paper employs Austin's notion of illocutionary force to analyze three different kinds of acts in which we might engage when saying "I forgive you." We might use it (1) to disclose an emotional condition, (2) to declare a debt cancelled, or (3) to commit ourselves to a future course of action. I suggest that the forgiving utterances we seek possess qualities of both the first and the third types of (...) speech-acts. (shrink)

Hobbes is one of the most important figures in the history of ideas and political thought and his book _Leviathan_ is widely recognized as one of the greatest works of political philosophy. In this _GuideBook_ Glen Newey offers a balanced guide to this key text that explores both its historical and philosophical aspects. The author introduces: the relevance of Hobbes' ideas to modern political thought the major interpretations of _Leviathan_ Hobbes' life and the background of _Leviathan_ _The Routledge Philosophy (...) GuideBook to Hobbes and Leviathan_ is the ideal introduction for students who wish to understand more about this important philosopher and this classic work of philosophy. (shrink)

Brings into conversation research in two separate disciplines, offering readers a comprehensive guide to current forgiveness research. Its 42 chapters are divided into five sections: I. Religious Traditions; II. Historic Treatments; III. The Nature of Forgiveness; IV. Normative Issues; V. Empirical Findings.

The paper addresses the question of the appropriateness of a Congressional apology for American slavery. After offering an account of what an apology entails, I consider the claim that today's Congress fails to stand in the right relation to the guilt of American slavery to apologize for it. I argue that, while the current Congress and the constituency it represents do not bear a guilt that would permit it to apologize FOR slavery, it has inherited a guilt RELATED TO slavery (...) for which it is appropriate for it to apologize. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions of apologies have focused on apologizing for wrong actions. Such a focus overlooks an important dimension of moral failures, namely, failures of character. However, when one attempts to revise the standard account of apology to make room for failures of character, two objections emerge. The first is rooted in the psychology of shame. The second stems from the purported social function of apologies. This paper responds to these objections and, in so doing, sheds further light both on why (...) we apologize (when we are in the wrong) and on why we accept apologies (when others are). (shrink)

Most contemporary variants of virtue ethics have a neo-Aristotelian timbre. However, standing alongside the neo-Aristotelians are a number of others playing similar tunes on different instruments. This chapter highlights the four most important virtue ethical alternatives to the dominant neo-Aristotelian chorus. These are Michael Slote’s agent-based approach, Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarism, Christine Swanton’s target-centered theory, and Robert Merrihew Adams’s neo-Platonic account. What these four approaches showcase is the range of possible theoretical structures available to virtue ethicists. A virtue ethicist might attempt (...) to define other normative qualities like goodness or rightness in terms of virtuous traits. But she need not. Instead, she might develop a theory in which virtue is fundamental but other normative qualities obey a logic that is at least partially independent of virtue. This chapter draws attention to an exciting range of possibilities for virtue ethics that both critics and advocates alike will want to explore. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing (...) so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. (shrink)

Central to the argument of the book are Charles Taylor's perspectives on authenticity and expressivism, which the author reads as a radical reworking of our understanding of being in the world and a starting point for rethinking the way individuals and communities ought to be dealing politically with ecological crises. Glen Lehman uses Taylor's work on liberalism, interpretivism and socialism to construct a bridge between democratic, ethical and ecological perspectives. The bridge developed involves a fusion between liberal and interpretivist (...) ideas, establishing a common ground through which different values are addressed. Such a fusion of perspectives acts in a spirit that moderates the dominant anthropocentric attitude toward the natural environment"--From publisher's website. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between understanding and forgiving. A number of people have argued against the old adage that to understand is to forgive, for in many instances understanding leads to excusing rather than forgiving. Nonetheless, there is an interesting connection to be found between forgiving and understanding. I identify three ways in which understanding can lead to forgiveness ofunexcused wrongdoing: It can do so by changing our interpretation of the actor, by changing our interpretation of the action, and (...) by engaging self-Iove. (shrink)

Abstract In 2006, the Turkish Harun Yahya Enterprise published and distributed thousands of copies of its anti‐evolutionary text Atlas of Creation to educational institutes in the West. Although this was little more than a publicity stunt, it resulted in Harun Yahya becoming a mainstay in discussions about creationism in Europe. Although Yahya is often presented as the “go to” representative of European Muslim perceptions of evolution, one would be hard pressed to find the literature about Islamic creationism in Europe that (...) does not engage in a discussion of Harun Yahya. However, little evidence exists to support the notion that Harun Yahya warrants such extensive attention, or that Harun Yahya has a substantive influence among European Muslims. This article will explore existing claims about the popularity of Harun Yahya, before drawing on recent research into Muslim perceptions of evolution to argue that Harun Yahya is relatively unknown among Muslims, at least in the British context, and is not influential even among those who are familiar with his work. (shrink)

Hobbes is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of ideas and political thought, and his seminal text Leviathan is widely recognised as one of the greatest works of political philosophy ever written. The Routledge Guidebook to Hobbes’ Leviathan introduces the major themes in Hobbes’ great book and acts as a companion for reading this key work, examining: The context of Hobbes’ work and the background to his writing Each separate part of the text in (...) relation to its goals, meanings and impact The reception the book received when first seen by the world The relevance of Hobbes’ work to modern philosophy, it’s legacy and influence With further reading included throughout, this text follows Hobbes’ original work closely, making it essential reading for all students of philosophy and politics, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Plusieurs libéraux modernes soutiennent que le pluralisme des valeurs a d’importantes conséquences pour l’élaboration des procédures et des institutions politiques. Mais les arguments fondés sur l’incommensurabilité et sur l’indétermination de la rationalité ou de la délibération se révèlent tous compatibles avec le monisme; et certaines formes de pluralisme sont compatibles soit avec une hiérarchisation des valeurs soit avec une hiérarchisation méta-éthique de certains types de concepts normatifs. En outre le «pluralisme» en tant que thèse métaphysique concernant les valeurs est (...) souvent confondu avec la thèse descriptive qu’il existe une pluralité de conceptions du bien dans les sociétés modernes, qui, elle, fournit la véritable justification du libéralisme dans l’organisation politique. Or cette forme de pluralisme est également compatible avec le monisme des valeurs. Le libéral pluraliste se trouve ainsi confronté à un dilemme: soit certaines valeurs sont d’importance prioritaire pour la justification de l’organisation politique, soit les conséquences du pluralisme des valeurs en pareil domaine sont indéterminées. (shrink)

Giovanni Bianchini’s fifteenth-century Tabulae primi mobilis is a collection of 50 pages of canons and 100 pages of tables of spherical astronomy and mathematical astrology, beginning with a treatment of the conversion of stellar coordinates from ecliptic to equatorial. His new method corrects a long-standing error made by a number of his antecedents, and with his tables the computations are much more efficient than in Ptolemy’s Almagest. The completely novel structure of Bianchini’s tables, here and in his Tabulae magistrales, was (...) taken over by Regiomontanus in the latter’s Tabulae directionum. One of the tables Regiomontanus imported from Bianchini contains the first appearance of the tangent function in Latin Europe, which both used as an auxiliary quantity for the calculation of stellar coordinates. (shrink)

Capture unforgettable moments of that special day Professional wedding photographer Glen Johnson knows there's a huge difference between being able to take good pictures and being a good wedding photographer. In this exquisite, full-color book, Glen dispenses sage advice and solutions for taking impressive digital wedding images -- posed or candid, in any weather, in any setting, at any locale. You will also learn the secrets of creating a successful digital wedding photography business, and much more. Whether you're (...) an aspiring professional or an amateur who wants to improve your skills at digital wedding photography, this book will help you succeed. Discover what makes wedding photography a unique specialty * Find out how to make people feel relaxed and comfortable while you're shooting * Explore ways to capture the emotion as well as the moment * Understand different photographic styles and adapt to your client's wishes * Prepare for all types of lighting situations * Learn appropriate etiquette for shooting in dressing rooms and during the ceremony * Know what to take when traveling abroad * Set up the perfect digital studio to process your images * Find out how to price your work realistically * See why your business skills may be more important than your photographic talent Beautifully illustrated with full-color photographs, each showingthe camera settings and other details used to create the image. (shrink)

This article explores Charles Taylor's Hegelian and Aristotelian ethic of reconciliation. It comments on the critical work provided by Joel Anderson, Jürgen Habermas, Chandras Kukathas, Morag Patrick, Philip Pettit and Mark Redhead. It is argued that these critical perspectives on Taylor's work have not fully developed the spirit of liberalism which runs like a red thread through his ethic of reconciliation. For Taylor, reconciliation embraces others who are different from us and aims to create a virtuous culture. Taylor's critics overlook (...) the liberal implications of his ethic and also do not recognize his commitment to the plural diversity in modern societies. Taylor's communitarianism (post-liberalism in his mind) aims to create trust, openness and democratic accountability. The article concludes that democratic practice must also engage with others who are different from us, fostering a fusion of horizons that creates reconciliation and understanding. Key Words: communitarianism • ecology • interpretation • liberalism • post-liberalism • public sphere • reconciliation. (shrink)

Effective interprofessional collaboration depends upon establishing understanding that respects differences in values and beliefs, and thus differences in response to the multiplicity of patient/client/user needs. To facilitate the latter, this article suggests that health and social care students need a formal knowledge of the meaning of values and the varieties of systems within which values are expressed. Students need especially to understand the genesis of their own professional value system and to recognize the gap that inevitably develops between the values (...) of the professional and those of the society within which a professional may function. The conceptual framework that underpins the approach to teaching values to health and social care professionals advocated here is derived from key concepts identified from the literature relating to education for, and participation in, a democratic, multicultural, multifaith society. These are: tolerance, compromise and education for dialogue. Finally, it is suggested that professional educators must take seriously the tasks of educating for professional pluralism. (shrink)

The dilemma of divine forgiveness suggests it is unreasonable to be comforted by the thought that God forgives acts that injure human victims. A plausible response to the dilemma suggests that the comfort derives from the belief that God’s forgiveness releases the wrongdoer from punishment for her misdeed. This response is shown to be flawed. A more adequate response is then developed out of the connection between forgiveness and reconciliation.

Minimalism is currently the received deflationary theory of truth. On minimalism, truth is a transparent concept and a deflated property of truth bearers. In this paper, I situate minimalism within current deflationary debate about truth by contrasting it with its main alternative―the redundancy theory of truth. I also outline three of the primary challenges facing minimalism, its formulation, explanatory adequacy and stability, and draw some lessons for the soundness of its conception of truth.

It is sometimes claimed that Aristotle’s doctrine of the Mean is false or unhelpful: moral virtues are not typically flanked by two opposing vices as he claimed. However, an explicit restatement of Aristotle’s view in terms of sufficiency for an objective reveals that the Mean is more widely applicable than has sometimes been alleged. Understood as a special case of sufficiency, it is essential to many judgments of right and wrong. I consider some objections by Rosalind Hursthouse to Aristotle’s theory (...) and argue that they are based on a misunderstanding. However, there is indeed a tension in Aristotle’s view of goodness, hinted at in his claim that the good is "said in many ways". (shrink)

Of the many forgiveness-related questions that she takes up in her novels, the one with which Iris Murdoch wrestles most often is the question, “Is forgiveness possible without God?” The aim of this essay is to show, in the first instance, why the question Murdoch persistently raises is a question worth asking. Alongside this primary aim stands a secondary one, which is to consider how one might glean moral insights from the Christian tradition even if one does not (any longer) (...) endorse its theological commitments. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between our interpretations of another's actions and our readiness to forgive. It begins by articulating an account of forgiveness drawn from the New Testament. It then employs the work of Schleiermacher, Dilthey, and Gadamer to investigate ways in which our interpretations of an act or agent can promote or prevent such forgiveness. It concludes with a discussion of some ethical restrictions that may pertain to the interpretation of actions or agents as opposed to utterances and (...) a look at the significance of these restrictions for forgiveness-promoting interpretation. (shrink)

Ambition is a curiously neglected topic in ethics. It isn’t that philosophers have not discussed it. Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Harrington, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Santayana and a number of others have discussed ambition. But it has seldom received more than a few paragraphs worth of analysis, in spite of the fact that ambition plays a central role in Western politics (one cannot be elected without it), and in spite of the fact that Machiavelli, Harrington, Locke and Rousseau each considered (...) it to be among the greatest threats to political security. The aim of this paper is to provide a long overdue analysis of ambition. The first part of the paper explores what ambition is. The second seeks to answer the question, “Is ambition a virtue or a vice?”. (shrink)

In this article Glen Newey defends the view that freedom of expression, and specifically free speech, enjoys special status because it is a necessary condition of politics itself. The first political question concerns the terms on which people associate with one another. This requires free speech, because in order to associate, people need to think of themselves as entering into unconstrained agreements and this demands full access to information. He considers different ways in which free speech has been understood (...) and argues that underlying classical liberal defences is a concern to protect the content rather than occasions of speech. He then applies this understanding to toleration. He argues that free speech is prior to toleration, rather than a corollary of it and considers the implications of this view for some recent controversies concerning free speech. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of a 1991 survey of the views of a stratified random sample of 1,105 Ontario farmers. Factor analysis, Kruskal—Wallis one-way ANOVA, chi-square and correlations were used to identify differences in farmers' attitudes toward rural environmental issues as a function of their demographic and farm characteristics. Younger, well-educated farmers, especially if female, were most concerned about the seriousness of rural environmental degradation. The largest operators expressed the greatest support for the use of agricultural chemicals, were most (...) opposed to government conservation regulations and were least environmentally oriented. Such differences between Australian and Ontario farmers as the former's greater cautiousness about governmental regulation and receptivity to the Green Movement are a function of differing demographic and farm characteristics between Australia and Ontario. (shrink)

In recent decades, historians of religions have turned to, and developed, entirely new methodologies for the study of religion and human consciousness. Foremost among these are a collection of approaches often termed the “cognitive science of religion” (CSR), typically drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, and contemporary metaphor theory. Although we are still “early” in this enterprise, I hope to show how a meaningful dialogue between religious studies and contemporary neuroscience and cognitive science can help us to better understand some (...) intriguing mystical texts and practices from a tradition of medieval South Asian Hinduism. Known collectively as the Vaiṣṇava Sahajiyās, these followers of transgressive and antinomian Tantric Yoga provide excellent examples for exploring the nature of religion, ritual, consciousness, embodiment, identity, gender, emotions and sexuality. This paper will show how the study of these rich materials from seventeenth through eighteenth century Bengal in northeastern South Asia can be enhanced using insights from the philosopher Shaun Gallagher and the neurologist Patrick McNamara. (shrink)

The paper examines connections between ontology and finance. The ontological debates concerning the role of finance are examined between two opposing schools of thought that can be labelled, very broadly, ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘realist’. These two schools of thought have had momentous repercussions in understanding what is a good society. Each school defines Nature in particular ways which can be explored using ontology and philosophical insight. Our theoretical investigation aims to accommodate Nature in community financial deliberations. A positive role for government (...) is advocated to finance environmental infrastructure initiatives. For example, precautionary strategies to address climate change must be funded. New roles for finance and government are proposed to align human relationships with Nature. Environmental precautionary principles must be developed in conjunction with finance theory to maintain decent standards of living for all. Reliance on impersonal market forces will not be enough to save the planet given the power of some over the many in the neoliberal arena. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical literature on forgiveness has ignored a distinction that has a profound bearing on when we should forgive, namely, the distinction between attitudes and practices. Most of the literature focuses on the attitudes called for in the aftermath of wrongdoing. And it attempts to derive the ethics of forgiving directly from the ethical profile of those attitudes. However, attitudes underdetermine what one ought to do. I argue that assessing what we should do also requires us to consider practices. (...) Although I focus on forgiveness, the argument generalizes to other areas. Taking the distinction between attitudes and practices seriously will change the way we approach not only the question, ‘When should one forgive?’ but also, for example, ‘When should one be grateful?’ ‘When should one blame?’ ‘When should one honour?’ or any other activity that includes an attitude as a defining feature. (shrink)

The idea of a human-animal divide as reflective of both differences in kind and in evolutionary progress, has retained its power to produce and maintain racial and other forms of cultural difference. During the colonial period, representations of similarity were used to link subaltern groups to animals and thereby racialize and dehumanize them. In the postcolonial present, however, animal practices of subdominant groups are typically used for this purpose. Using data on cultural conflicts surrounding animal practices collected from media sources, (...) we show that such practices have become a key aspect of the human-animal boundary due to the radically changing time-space relations of postmodernity. Drawing on Spivak's notion of "wild practice, " we propose a radical democracy that includes animals as well as subaltern peoples, and argue for the rejection of dehumanization as a basis for cultural critique, given its role in perpetuating racialization and violence toward both human and non-human animals. (shrink)

The Aldine edition of Galen’s works, prepared by humanists anxious to replace the medieval Latin translations with a purely Greek text, certainly represents an advance in scholarship. However, widespread anti-Arabic prejudices of the time precluded most humanists, including the Aldine editors, from perceiving anything of value in the Latin Galenic textual tradition, which was characterized as representing a Galen that had passed through the corrupting influence of Arabic. This paper considers the cost to the medical tradition of ignoring Arabic in (...) the Aldine edition of 1525, and thereafter. Several examples of passages from the Arabo-Latin Galen are compared with the Aldine, and their differences are considered and evaluated with regard to their impact on medical knowledge. The conclusion is drawn that, although there were some real corruptions in the Arabo-Latin tradition, in the main it contained useful variant readings, which might have been used to the profit of Greek philology, as well as to the advancement of Galenic scholarship. (shrink)

This paper asks whether political justice can be encapsulated by procedures. It examines John Rawls’s tripartite distinction between perfect, pure and imperfect procedural justice, concluding that none gives a satisfactory account of procedural justice. Imperfect procedural justice assumes that there could be an authoritative source of justice other than procedures, while perfect procedural justice takes a double-minded view of procedure-independent standards of justice. That leaves pure procedural justice as an apparently decisionistic mode of deciding which outcomes are just. This at (...) least avoids the confusion between having authoritative procedures and procedure-independent standards that are also purportedly authoritative. However, it is argued that even a political procedure that defines the extension of a term such a ‘justice’ will lack authority over it once its reference is fixed. Since Rawls’s categories of procedural justice are jointly exhaustive, the problem of determining justice via political procedures appears insoluble. (shrink)

McBride, Glen As humanists, we seek to understand our world, without a need to seek guidance from culture. When we humans first began to speak, we quickly discovered the need for questions if we were to understand each other. Then came other questions, thousands of them. There were storms and hail, drought and gales, beloved dead parents came to one's dreams, from where? Always someone asked 'Why? Did those parents still exist somewhere? Answers were found by our ancestors.

G. E. MOORE'S PROOF THAT 'GOOD' CANNOT BE DEFINED IS THE\nANALOGUE OF HUME'S PROOF THAT THE IDEA OF CAUSE HAS NO\nEMPIRICAL CORRELATE. AS A PROOF, IT CANNOT SUSTAIN ETHICAL\nINTUITIONISM, EMOTIVISM, OR THE VARIOUS MODIFICATIONS OF\nETHICAL NATURALISM WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE TO REST UPON IT.\nHOWEVER, IT DOES SUSTAIN THE THEORY THAT VALUES ARE CAUSES\nOF HUMAN RESPONSES, AND THAT, UNDER A METHODOLOGICAL\nINTERPRETATION OF OBJECTIVITY, VALUES HAVE OBJECTIVE\nCOGNITIVE STATUS AS CAUSES OF RESPONSES IN THE\nCONSCIOUSNESS OF A HYPOTHETICAL BEING, AN IDEAL OBSERVER.