Core indexicals like ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’ sometimes appear to refer to an object, place, or time other than the speaker, location, or time of utterance. This presents well-known problems for Kaplan's view, which treats reference shifting as a violation of the character rules that give the meaning of indexicals. I propose a view according to which indexical reference is essentially a matter of the mutually-accepted perspective of interlocutors. It follows that contexts need not be ‘proper’ in Kaplan's sense, and (...) a successful convergence of perspectives is needed for indexical reference to succeed. I provide reasons for embracing these conclusions. (shrink)

Heras-Escribano argues against the normative character of affordances from a framework that relies on a Wittgensteinian notion of normativity and the incompatibility of direct perception, ….

According to “disjunctivist neo-Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is entirely successful. For if a proposition can be known, it can (...) also be claimed to be known. If the latter is not possible, this is not because certain propositions are either “intrinsically” conversationally inappropriate or else “rationally groundless”, but rather that we are dealing with something that merely presents us with the appearance of being an epistemic claim. (shrink)

The violation of editorial independence by the CMA seriously damaged trust in CMAJ and raises questions whether the CMA can operate a truly independent journalOn February 20, 2006, John Hoey and Anne Marie Todkill, the two most senior editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal were fired by the journal’s publisher, Graham Morris. At first, CMA spokespersons said that the firing had been planned for some time based on a desire to “refresh” the journal. Later they refused to offer any (...) explanation, and weeks later they declared that there had been “irreconcilable differences,” without specifying anything more. After the journal’s editorial board tried fruitlessly to convince the Canadian Medical Association to reinstate the dismissed editors, I resigned from the editorial board. I had been a member since 1999. My letter of resignation to the CMA’s president made these points:" “By interfering with the editorial autonomy of two outstanding editors and firing them without explanation, you have provoked a scandal that will be long remembered as a blot on Canadian Medicine. … Despite the acknowledged success of the CMAJ, you gave no cause for the editors’ dismissals. … You caused the editors to be fired without consultation with major members of the Journal Oversight Committee. … In your public comments, you were even disingenuous about whether the editors were fired. … In answering to the issue of the editors’ departure, you have hidden behind a veil of bureaucratic legalisms, and by arguing that the Editorial Board knows only “one side,” you have left the impression that the editors have done something nefarious. Thereby, you have besmirched the good names and reputations of the editors. … You have mounted a PR campaign to “spin” public opinion at the expense of honest, respectable and hard working … ". (shrink)

This paper analyzes ethical issues relating to lawyer mobility.

Even though he serves the people of Earth as Superman, Clark Kent is still the one who pays income taxes to the US government, who renews his driver's license in Metropolis, and who is (sometimes) married to Lois Lane. In giving up his American citizenship, Superman appears to be denying exceptionalism, the belief that one nation ‐ in this case, the United States ‐ is qualitatively superior in some way to other nations. Superman is inescapably an American icon in that (...) he is deeply embedded in American society. Superman can affect the world in ways that far exceed Appiah's examples of interconnectedness, so the argument for cosmopolitanism is much more compelling for Superman. The question one needs to consider is whether Superman should feel morally obligated to avoid the appearance of impropriety. (shrink)

Impropriety due to lack of a particular epistemic feature suffices for epistemic impropriety; and (2) Having justification to believe P suffices for having warrant to assert P. I present and defend arguments against both claims. These arguments undermine (among other things) (a) the main counterexamples to the view that knowledge suffices for warrant to assert; (b) a main argument that justified belief suffices for knowledge; and (c) a promising defense of the Credit Requirement on knowledge.

The loss of the federally protected constitutional right to an abortion is a threat to the already tenuous autonomy of pregnant people, and may augur future challenges to their right to refuse unwanted obstetric interventions. Even before Roe’s demise, pregnancy led to constraints on autonomy evidenced by clinician-led legal incursions against patients who refused obstetric interventions. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that the right to liberty espoused in the Constitution does not extend to a (...) pregnant person’s right to an abortion. With Roe’s demise, the right to request specific types of care has been vitiated. The same argument underpinning that holding may now become ballast for attacks on the traditionally more robust right, the right to refuse. Here we discuss how the elevation of fetal and embryonic rights may lead to a cascade of medical intrusions and deprivations of liberty against pregnant persons, and offer an argument opposing these improprieties. (shrink)

I critically examine the claim that modal collapse arguments against the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) are in general fallacious. In a recent paper, Christopher Tomaszewski alleges that modal collapse arguments against DDS are invalid, owing to illicit substitutions of nonrigid singular terms into intensional contexts. I show that this is not, in general, the case. I show, further, that where existing modal collapse arguments are vulnerable to this charge the arguments can be repaired without any apparent dialectical (...) class='Hi'>impropriety. I conclude that the genuine debate over modal collapse and divine simplicity and modal collapse is substantially a controversy over the metaphysics of divine action, and that this constitutes a fruitful direction in which to take future discussions of the subject. (shrink)

In this paper I shall define a thesis I shall call ' determinism ', and argue that it is incompatible with the thesis that we are able to act otherwise than we do. Other theses, some of them very different from what I shall call ' determinism ', have at least an equal right to this name, and, therefore, I do not claim to show that every thesis that could be called ' determinism ' without historical impropriety is incompatible (...) with free will. I shall, however, assume without argument that what I call ' determinism ' is legitimately so called. In Part I, I shall explain what I mean by ' determinism '. In Part II, I shall make some remarks about 'can'. In Part III, I shall argue that free will and determinism are incompatible. In Part IV, I shall examine some possible objections to the argument of Part III. I shall not attempt to establish the truth or falsity of determinism, or the existence or nonexistence of free will. (shrink)

In this study, we present data on graduate students' actual experiences in dealing with impaired peers and faculty predictions of how students would deal with such situations. A total of 29 faculty and 73 graduate students responded to a survey of 40 randomly selected clinical psychology training programs. Student respondents were almost universally (95%) aware of peers whom they regarded as impaired in their professional functioning, and half (49%) the sample reported being aware of a peer's ethical impropriety. Faculty (...) overestimated the number of students who said they "did nothing" when confronted with the resulting ethical dilemma and underestimated the degree of conflict and turmoil (i.e., anger, frustration, dismay) that students reported experiencing. Faculty also estimated that students would be more concerned with peer loyalty issues, whereas students indicated that they were strongly motivated by ethical considerations. Ethics curricula ought more thoroughly to address affective concerns through experiential learning vehicles such as faculty modeling, simulation exercises, and small-group discussion. (shrink)

Individuals who would blow the whistle by making public disclosure of impropriety in their own organizations face choices of public v private good. These dilemmas, along with institutional and professional standards that might ease the way of whistleblowers, are explored.

Proponents of the view which I call ‘moral antitheodicy’ call for the theistic discourse of theodicy to be abandoned, because, they claim, all theodicies involve some form of moral impropriety. Three arguments in support of this view are examined: the argument from insensitivity, the argument from detachment, and the argument from harmful consequences. After discussing the merits of each argument individually, I attempt to show that they all must presuppose what they are intended to establish, namely, that the set (...) of premises advanced in any given theodicy will be untenable. I conclude by discussing what uses there might be for the moral critique of theodicy, if it cannot be used to ground a global rejection of theodical practice. (shrink)

We argue that, under the usual assumptions for sufficiently strong arithmetical theories that are subject to Gödel’s First Incompleteness Theorem, one cannot, without impropriety, talk about *the* Gödel sentence of the theory. The reason is that, without violating the requirements of Gödel’s theorem, there could be a true sentence and a false one each of which is provably equivalent to its own unprovability in the theory if the theory is unsound.

As George Boole saw it, the laws of logic are the laws of thought, and by this he meant, not that human thought is actually governed by the laws of logic, but, rather, that it should be. Boole’s view that the laws of logic have normative implications for how we ought to think is anything but an outlier. The idea that violating the laws of logic involves epistemic impropriety has seemed to many to be just obvious. It has seemed (...) especially obvious to those who see propositional justification as more fundamental than doxastic justification. Whatever other principles are required for defining propositional justification, the laws of logic seem indispensable. The idea that violation of the laws of logic involves some sort of epistemic impropriety—whatever the peculiarities of our psychology may be—has served as a fixed point around which defenders of the fundamentality of propositional justification are united, whatever their other differences. This paper challenges that common thread in defenses of the fundamentality of propositional justification. It is argued that the laws of logic have no bearing whatever on epistemic justification. Once we see why this should be so, the way is paved for seeing why it is that doxastic justification is more fundamental than propositional justification. (shrink)

This paper presents my personal convictions, as an Evangelical, regarding the absolute impropriety of doctor-assisted suicide for Christians. They have been “bought with a price” and are owned by Another. Hence, they must always strive to glorify God in their bodies, both in life and in death. Although they crave the well-being of temporal health, when they are ill seek healing or relief, and may well recoil even from the thought of suffering and dying, they should realize that their (...) values and priorities must be rooted in biblical truths and that their well-being is eternal and not temporal, spiritual and not material. As Christians, their attitudes and responses to suffering and dying must be molded by the reality that their Creator and Sovereign will cause all things to work together for their good and that their Lord has called them into a fellowship of His suffering in which they are sustained by dependence upon Him. Hence, for Christians to take their lives in order to escape from the trials and testings ordained by Him would be a failure of love and a breach of trust. (shrink)

It has been suggested that a reporting channel administered by a third-party may represent a stronger procedural safeguard of anonymity and avoids the appearance of impropriety. This study examines whistleblowing intentions among lower-tier employees, specifically examines whether an externally-administered reporting channel increases whistleblowing intentions compared to an internally-administered one. In contrast to the findings of an earlier study by Kaplan et al. :273–288, 2009), our results suggest that whistle-blowing intentions are higher when the reporting channel is administered externally than (...) when it is administered internally. We also find that an externally-administered reporting channel mitigates the negative effect of bystanders on whistleblowing intentions. Implications are discussed. (shrink)

This thesis addresses philosophical problems concerning improper assertions. The first part considers the issue of defining lying: here, against a standard view, I argue that a lie need not intend to deceive the hearer. I define lying as an insincere assertion, and then resort to speech act theory to develop a detailed account of what an assertion is, and what can make it insincere. Even a sincere assertion, however, can be improper (e.g., it can be false, or unwarranted): in the (...) second part of the thesis, I consider these kinds of impropriety. An influential hypothesis maintains that proper assertions must meet a precise epistemic standard, and several philosophers have tried to identify this standard. After reviewing some difficulties for this approach, I provide an innovative solution to some known puzzles concerning the permissibility of false assertions. In my view, assertions purport to aim at truth, but they are not subject to a norm that requires speakers to assert a proposition only if it is true. (shrink)

Ethics practice is both relative and situational. Perhaps there is an area of no greater demonstration of these realities than where an organization, be it a public governmental entity and/or a quasi-governmental entity with government contracts has the duty of care owed to a vulnerable constituency as well as to other community stakeholders. These agencies have the public trust as well as the ethical caretaking concerns to master. In the following fact scenario and discussion, one would consider a situation where (...) the care of the vulnerable constituency is the paramount concern and the facilitation of that care is also in question. Human Resource and leadership teams need to be cognizant of not only impropriety of members within their organization but also the appearance of impropriety as well. The following case study attempts to put into perspective the need for managers and HR representatives to monitor practice and perception of ethical behavior. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;In 'Justice as Fitness' I have argued that a unifying and coherent account of the concept of justice can be given. Injustice, I have suggested, is to be understood in terms of the notion of treating someone unfittingly, that is, by treating them as if they were less, or lower, than they are. This account of justice suggests that desert is central to justice; to treat someone as less than they are (...) is to treat them in a manner in which they deserve not to be treated. It is intended that this account of the concept of justice be consistent with the various conceptions of justice, that is, with the various conceptions of what is and is not just, and that these various conceptions be illuminated by being viewed as interpretations of the 'justice as fitness' concept of justice. ;In the course of defending this view, rule-relative and nonrule-relative justice are compared and contrasted, an attempt is made to place the concept of justice in relation to such concepts as authority, merit and worthiness, degradation and value, and the view that justice is always a matter of desert is defended against the charge that considerations, irreducible to desert without conceptual impropriety, are relevant. The problematic character of people being said to deserve compensation and treatment in accordance with their contribution are explored. Accounts of the obligation to keep a promise, and the political obligation, are offered. It is argued that there is reason to believe that reasons for action are incommensurable. (shrink)

This paper provides a model on repairing re-establishing stakeholder relationships after a firm engages in a moral indiscretion. Depending upon their nature, indiscretions can be classified as mistakes, misconduct, or improprieties. After committing an indiscretion, firms can attempt to reestablish positive stakeholder relationships by strengthening their technical competency (for mistakes), improving their reputation (for misconduct), and enhancing their goodwill with relevant stakeholders (for improprieties). However, a firm’s cultural orientation may result in the misapplication of the stakeholder repair mechanism (competency, reputation, (...) and goodwill) with the applicable indiscretion (mistakes, misconduct, and improprieties). (shrink)

Objective Ethical standards state research participation must be voluntary and free of coercion and undue influence, but what if a third party appears to engage in research-relevant coercion, without the researchers’ knowledge? This case study describes this type of situation and its resolution. Methods We are engaged in a randomized clinical trial evaluating pedestrian safety with 7- and 8- years old. Depending on children's rate of learning, families receive up to $1275 for their time. We recently learned a third-party “talent (...) agency,” a firm placing children in modeling and acting jobs, was referring families to our research with the expectation that families would share 20% of study reimbursements. Results We sensed clear impropriety, but identified no ethical violations on our part as researchers. Once paid a study reimbursement, participants can spend funds how they wish. We were concerned, however, that the third-party was exploitatively coercing families to participate. Conclusions We pursued four avenues to resolve the issue. First, we documented the situation to our university Institutional Review Board. Second, we contacted the talent agency and requested they stop referring families to our research. They agreed. Third, we retained children engaged in our study who were referred from the talent agency; removing them partway through the clinical trial could impact study results. In doing so, we explained that we were unaware of the talent agency referral and that they were not obligated by us to offer a portion of the study reimbursement to the talent agency. Last, we asked newly enrolled families about their referral source. (shrink)

Criminal juries make decisions of great importance. A key criticism of juries is that they are unreliable in a multitude of ways, from exhibiting racial or gendered biases, to misunderstanding their role, to engaging in impropriety such as internet research. Recently, some have even claimed that the use of juries creates injustice on a large-scale, as a cause of low conviction rates for sexual criminality. Unfortunately, empirical research into jury deliberation is undermined by the fact that researchers are unable (...) to study live juries. The indirect sources of evidence used by researchers suffer from various problems, the most important of which is dubious levels of ecological validity. Real jury research—studying live jury deliberation—is controversial. However, as I argue, the objections to it are unconvincing. There is in fact a moral imperative to facilitate real jury research. (shrink)

Is self-knowledge a requirement of rationality, like consistency, or means-ends coherence? Many claim so, citing the evident impropriety of asserting, and the alleged irrationality of believing, Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form < p, but I don't believe that p>. If there were nothing irrational about failing to know one's own beliefs, they claim, then there would be nothing irrational about Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs. This article considers a few ways the data surrounding Moore's paradox might be marshaled to support (...) rational requirements to know one's beliefs, and finds that none succeed. (shrink)

This paper has two main parts. In the first part, I argue that prominent moves in two related current debates in epistemology—viz., the debates over classical invariantism and the knowledge first movement—depend on one or the other of two claims about epistemic propriety: (1) Impropriety due to lack of a particular epistemic feature suffices for epistemic impropriety; and (2) Having justification to believe P suffices for having warrant to assert P. In the second part, I present and defend (...) novel arguments against both claims. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an increased awareness with regards to ethics in business. More specifically, the abundance of well-publicized examples of cheating, greed, and hypocrisy has created some alarm about the general state of personal ethics. Recent examples include the Oliver North, Ivan Boesky, and Jimmy Swaggart cases. The tax practitioner probably has little direct concern for matters of misconduct and ethical improprieties as mentioned above. Adherence to a code of conduct appears to circumvent the ethical conflict typically (...) found in the business environment. The tax practitioner's ultimate goal is tax minimization for clients. This goal has the blessings of the courts and the writers of tax law.The present day dynamic global economic system includes organizations which have extensive international activity. In an effort to enhance the performance of these organizations, there is typically decentralization of operations. When decentralization exists it is necessary to evaluate the decentralized units. Profit centers are commonly used for this purpose. With profit centers comes the need for transfer pricing between profit centers. The transfer price should be determined in some objective fashion. However, tax minimization often is the driving force in the transfer price decision. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether analytic philosophers who are non-native English speakers are subject to linguistic injustice and, if yes, what kind of injustice that is and whether it is different from the general disadvantage that non-native English speakers meet in a world where English is rapidly becoming the lingua franca. The paper begins with a critical review of the debate on linguistic justice, with a particular focus on the emergence of a lingua franca and the related questions of justice, both (...) in terms of the disadvantages suffered by those groups who bear the cost of learning another language and in terms of forms of discrimination due to accents and language improprieties. We argue that being at a relative disadvantage compared to others does not necessarily translate in a proper injustice if fundamental civil, political and social provisions are in place. We suggest that a circumstance of injustice arises when such disadvantage affects those who are not yet members of such academic community such as prospective students, thus contributing in keeping the non-native group a minority. We qualify this case of disadvantage as a matter of structural injustice. (shrink)

Attributer contextualists maintain that the verb 'knows' is context-sensitive in the sense that the truth conditions of a sentence of the form "S knows that p" can be dependent upon the ascriber's context. One natural objection against attributer contextualism is that it confuses the impropriety of certain assertions which ascribe knowledge to agents with the falsity of those assertions. In an influential article, Keith DeRose has defended attributer contextualism against this charge by proposing constraints on what he calls "warranted (...) assertibility manoeuvres" of this sort. This paper argues that, contra DeRose, the warranted assertibility manoeuvre directed at attributer contextualism is able to meet the constraints that DeRose lays down. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Heidegger’s Craving Being-on-SchellingDavid L. Clark (bio)What we call spirit exists by virtue of itself, a flame that fuels itself. However, because as something existing, it is opposed by Being, the spirit is consequently nothing but an addiction to such Being, just as the flame is addicted to matter. The most base form of the spirit is therefore an addiction, a desire, a lust.—Friedrich Schelling, Stuttgart Private Lectures1. Just Say (...) NoHow not to speak of addiction? We know from Derrida that in talking this way we are always asking two overlapping questions, 1 both of which remind us that what is still confusedly called “addiction”—and with it, a host of related concepts ranging from “drugs” and “toxicity” to “dependence” and “simulation”—is perhaps best held open as a question or, rather, in the strange space between two questions, quite possibly more. First, an interrogative: a query that calls for a certain vigilance and responsibility when it comes to thinking about addiction, and that draws attention to the ways in which addiction is figured, the rhetorics or tropologies as well as the knowledges of addiction. Like mourning and longing, Schellingian philosophemes to which it is closely related and to which I will return in this essay, addiction is among other things a figure of understanding, to use Tilottama Rajan’s evocative phrase. 2 As a figure, so the first question goes, “addiction” deserves to be written and to be read slowly, not only for what might be called “political” reasons, which is to say, reasons having to do with the normalizing efficiency that comes of speaking the word too quickly, of claiming to know “who” the addict is as such and “what” it means to be addicted, but also because when it comes to addiction—again, like mourning and longing—we are dealing with a term that is irreducibly allegorical in nature, a term that inevitably says more than it says. One could almost say that “how not to speak of addiction” means “let us try to speak well or properly of addiction, even and especially if this means speaking properly of addiction’s multiple improprieties.” One could almost say this, if “addiction,” understood as a fundamental structure of desire that “holds valid for all possible contents of the world” [Slawney 42], were not precisely that which displaces and disorganizes firm oppositional limits between [End Page 8] propriety and impropriety, as it does between responsibility and irresponsibility, voluntarity and compulsion, delinquency and productivity, sickness and health, the very limits that the medical, juridical, and criminal discourses of addiction often seem most in the service of inscribing and enforcing. But of course the inability unequivocally to speak well (or, for that matter, unwell) of “addiction” in no way suggests that we have nothing to say about it—the collection of papers of which this one forms a small part is proof of that—and this goes to the heart of my second question, not interrogative but rhetorical in kind. “How not to speak of addiction?” also means that there is no way not to speak of it; insofar as addiction names a structure that precedes and exceeds the knowing subject (and is thus “older” than it), that subject is always “speaking” of it, as if answering and answerable to an imperious law, the law of addiction that amounts to an addiction to the law. Addiction there is: that is the strange, anonymous, and always anterior logic of craving, a craving no longer necessarily in thrall to the thought of self-possession and sobriety that Schelling scandalously evokes and explores, and that Heidegger directly pursues in his lectures on Schelling. More: where the human is, so too is “the deepest self-craving [der tiefsten Eigensucht]” [Heidegger, ST 140; 42, 244]. 3 Under these maximally habituated conditions, “how not to speak of addiction?” means that we are not unwilling but incapable of just saying no to a form of radical intoxication. Instead we find ourselves, as ourselves, whether speaking specifically about addiction or not, responding in a kind of passive affirmative to an originary craving, saying yes to addiction even when, in the name of an... (shrink)

Music is an inescapable part of social, cultural and political life, and has played a powerful role in mobilising support for popular movements demanding social justice. The impact of David Bowie, Prince and Bob Dylan, for example, on diversity awareness and legislative reform relating to sexuality, gender and racial equality respectively is still felt; with the latter receiving a Nobel Prize in 2016 for ‘having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition’. The influence of these composers and (...) performers reached far beyond the concert hall. Conversely, musical propaganda has been a common feature of many dictatorships, most notably Nazism’s Adolf Hitler and Communism’s Joseph Stalin, and is still instrumental in the election campaigns of political parties. US President Donald Trump’s winning retro classic rock campaign playlist conveyed an idealised version of the past which aligned with the tastes and interests of his core constituency, and evoked feelings of nationalistic pride and patriotism. The eclectic selection of upbeat music effectively masked the underlying capitalist initiatives, corporate greed and allegations of financial impropriety that characterised both the Democrat and Republican campaigns. Although unable to impart meaning with the same level of precision as language, music has a potentially broader semantic capacity due to its greater elasticity. It constitutes a common language which has the ability to create a community of people that sings, speaks, reasons, votes and even feels the same way. Accordingly, this article explores the symbiotic relationship between music and law, identity politics and social justice, via the lens of musical semiosis. (shrink)

The stock market crash of 1987 had a profound effect on corporate Australia and the Australian community in general. The fall-out revealed that some of our most respected business figures had not been as ethical, or even as lawful, as we would have hoped. This impropriety produced in Australia an awakening to business ethics. Whilst many companies endeavoured to introduce ethical practices into their corporations, they perceived ethics as a way of minimising damage to the corporation and in some (...) cases as a means of competitive advantage. What was lost was the reason that one should embark on business ethics; and that is to make the society and corporate Australia a more ethical place in which to exist.This paper proposes a model based on 2 factors: commitment and partnerships, as a means of enabling corporate Australia to refocus attention on the main purpose of being inherently ethical in all that we do. This ethical model requires a commitment to partnerships with all stakeholders both internal and external in an attempt to enhance the level of ethical business practices that are contemplated and pursued within corporate Australia. Whilst the research agenda and the information collected is Australian-based, it is hoped that the ideas contained within this paper will have a wider appeal to corporations in similar cultural settings. (shrink)

Forgiveness seems especially apt in cases where the wrongdoer first performs some act of reparation. Suppose Valerie betrays Madison's trust out of careerist self-interest. The betrayal is serious, no excusing or exempting conditions obtain, and Madison responds with justified resentment. In one world, Valerie never acknowledges the impropriety of her past act and continues on as before. In another world, Valerie apologizes and sends Madison a beautiful bouquet of flowers. All else being equal, forgiveness seems called for or apt (...) in the second case in a way that it does not in the first. Reparative activities have a certain power, and forgiving in response to the wrongdoer's reparation strikes many as especially apt. (shrink)

Analysts of political culture within the "civil religion" tradition have generally assumed that discourse in civil society is structured by a single set of enduring codes based on liberal traditions that actors draw upon to resolve crises. Based on two case studies of national crises and debate in Brazil during its transition to democracy, I challenge this assumption by demonstrating that not only do actors draw upon two distinct but interrelated codes, they actively seek to impose one or another as (...) dominant. In Brazil this is manifest in actors who defend elements from the code of liberty and its valuation of the freestanding citizen, and those who defend the corporate code and its valuation of the collectivity over the individual. In an earlier debate on crime the corporate code was dominant, but in a later debate surrounding presidential improprieties, the liberal code became dominant. This analysis makes two contributions to the literature: it highlights the importance of nonindividualist cultural codes, such as the corporate code, in animating discourse in the public sphere in democratizing societies, raising attention to the importance of the symbolic contestation between actors seeking to establish one or another code during political transitions. Second, it offers a subtle commentary on the literature on democratization: changes in collective representations in the public sphere may not proceed apace of institutional changes and may be contingent on the kinds of crisis events and actors willing to contest previously dominant codes. (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of “meaning in life” developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of “purposes” that make “human life” meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of “ultimate purpose of man”? Significant points of Metz’ conception of “meaning in life” in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of “ultimate purpose of man.” As it turns out, these conceptions are only superficially similar. (...) In fact, they are profoundly different: Aquinas is talking about the “purpose of man”, which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ “naturalism”, and is not talking about “meaning in life” ; “ultimate purpose of man”, for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life “significant” in this world. Thus, Metz and Aquinas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question. Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of “meaning in life” in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction. The Galileo Affair from Descartes to John Paul II: A Survey of Sources, Facts, and Issues 1. The Condemnation of Galileo 2. Promulgation and Diffusion of the News 3. Emblematic Reactions: Descartes, Peiresc, Galileo’s Daughter 4. Polarizations: Secularism, Liberalism, Fundamentalism 5. Compromises: Viviani, Auzout, Leibniz 6. Myth-making or Enlightenment? Pascal, Voltaire, the Encyclopedia 7. Incompetence or Enlightenment? Pope Benedict XIV 8. New Lies, Documents, Myths, Apologies 9. Napoleonic Wars and Trials 10. The Inquisition on Galileo’s Side? (...) The Settele Affair and Beyond 11. Varieties of Torture: Demythologizing Galileo’s Trial? 12. A Miscarriage of Justice? The Documentation of Impropriety 13. Galileo Right Again, Wrong Again: Hermeneutics, Epistemology, "Heresy" 14. A Catholic Hero: Tricentennial Rehabilitation 15. Secular Indictments: Brecht’s Atomic Bomb and Koestler’s Two Cultures 16. History on Trial: The Paschini Affair 17. More "Rehabilitation": Pope John Paul II Epilogue: Unfinished Business. (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of "meaning in life" developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of "purposes" that make "human life" meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of "ultimate goal of man"? Significant points of Metz’ conception of "meaning in life" in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of "ultimate goal of man." As it turns out, these conceptions are only superficially similar. (...) In fact, they are profoundly different: (1) Aquinas is talking about the "goal of man", which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ "naturalism", and is not talking about "meaning in life" (and even "purpose of life"); (2) "ultimate goal of man", for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life "significant" in this world. -/- Thus, Metz and Thomas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question (about the "meaning in life"). Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of "meaning in life" in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:120 A WORD ON BEHALF OF DEMEA Little attention has been given to the a priori argument for God's existence espoused by Demea in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. This circumstance is neither surprising nor unjustified. Given Hume's well-known theological sympathies, certainly no one would be tempted to regard Demea as Hume's spokesman. Demea's argument plays so small a role in the Dialogues as to suggest that Hume does (...) not take it at all seriously. He may present it only to establish that he is aware of alternative arguments for God's existence, but thinks them even less successful than the design argument and hence undeserving of extensive critique. Yet, if a philosopher criticizes an argument he deems unworthy of respect, he should still provide sound, not spurious, reasons for rejecting it. This is exactly what D. C. Stove has argued that Hume fails to do in Part IX of the Dialogues, assuming, as is generally done, that the speeches of Cleanthes and Philo present reasoning that Hume would personally endorse. Stove argues that most of the criticisms of Demea's argument are "extremely defective, and that they even include an inconsistency" (Stove, p. 300). This contention has been challenged by Donald Stahl, who has published a succinct point by point rebuttal of Stove's contentions.3 The Stove-Stahl controversy only deals with the reasoning presented in paragraphs 5, 6, 7, and 10 of Part IX because those are the contentions Stove attacks. He has "nothing to say against" the criticisms presented in paragraphs 8 and 9, which he assumes will be generally agreed to be 121 less important than the others (Stove, p. 308). He totally ignores the argument of paragraph 11. However, I am not convinced that the criticisms of these paragraphs are less important and I do have something to say against them. Consequently, instead of intervening directly on either side of the dispute between Professors Stove and Stahl, I shall attend principally to the argumentation of paragraphs 8, 9, and 11. I shall (1) summarize Demea's argument, (2) argue for the significance of the criticisms of paragraphs 8-9, (3) examine those criticisms, and (4) assess the role of Philo's concluding remarks in paragraphs 10-11. 1. Demea's Argument Early on Hume has Demea speak so obviously inconsistently as to make the reader wonder whether this character is supposed to think at all about the implications of the claims he espouses. At the beginning of Part II, he proclaims that God's existence is surely not at issue, since no one of common sense... ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so certain and self-evident." The nature of God is the only proper object of theological inquiry, and that is "altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us" (D 141)! Given such a radically apophatic position (Hume calls it "mystical"), it is hardly surprising that the sceptical Philo readily concurs, once he specifies that he takes 'God' to mean just "the original cause of this universe (whatever it be)" (D 142). But Demea immediately buttresses his alleged self-evident truth by appealing to the authority of Father Malebranche and the whole tradition of Christian theology, apparently oblivious to the impropriety of 122 supporting an indubitable truth by citing authorities (D 141-142). Further, scarcely more than a page later, after Cleanthes has sketched out the design argument, this same Demea is horrified that Cleanthes gives no abstract arguments or a priori proofs and calls for a "demonstration of the being of a God" (D 143). When, in Part IX, Demea himself undertakes to provide the "simple and sublime argument a priori" (D 188) he expected from Cleanthes, he characterizes the argument as "the common one," which suggests he is more engaged in paraphrasing authority than in thoughtfully arguing. The argument, in fact, as has been generally recognized, closely follows one given by Samuel Clarke in the Boyle Lectures of 1704. 5 Demea begins by assuming that "whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence," (D 188) since nothing can cause itself to exist. He then states a dilemma: in tracing the... (shrink)

Ever since Aristotle, metaphor has been placed in the context of a mimetic theory of language and of art. Metaphors are in some sense about reality. The poet uses metaphor to help reveal what is. He, too, serves the truth, even if his service is essentially lacking in that "Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else."1 Thus it is an improper naming. This impropriety invites a movement of interpretation that can come to rest (...) only when metaphorical has been replaced with a more proper speech. This is not to say, however, that such replacement is possible nor that interpretation can ever come to rest. What metaphor names may transcend human understanding so that our language cannot capture it. In that case, proper speech would be denied to man. But regardless of whether we seek proper speech with man, for example, with the philosopher, or locate it beyond man with God, or think it only an idea that cannot find adequate realization, as long as we understand metaphor as an improper naming, we place its telos beyond poetry. · 1. Aristotle Poetics 21. 1457b. 6-7. Karsten Harries, chairman of the department of philosophy at Yale University, is the author of several works on aesthetics, including The Meaning of Modern Art: A Philosophical Interpretation. He is currently writing a book on the Bavarian rococo church. See also: "On Thinking about Aristotle's 'Thought'" by James E. Ford in Vol. 4, No. 3. (shrink)

This paper proposes a conversation between Jacques Rancière and feminist care ethicists. It argues that there are important resonances between these two bodies of scholarship, thanks to their similar indictments of Western hierarchies and binaries, their shared invitation to “blur boundaries” and embrace a politics of “impropriety”, and their views on the significance of storytelling/narratives and of the ordinary. Drawing largely on Disagreement, Proletarian Nights, and The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, I also indicate that Rancière’s work (...) offers crucial and timely insights for care ethicists on the importance of attending to desire and hope in research, the inevitability of conflict in social transformation, and the need to think together the transformation of care work/practices and of dominant social norms. (shrink)

To the question ‘Why do you try to realize this?’ your answer may be ‘Because I desire that and I think that the realization of this would involve the realization of that.’ Or your answer may be ‘Because I desire this.’ If ‘Why?’ is interpreted as ‘Desiring what?’ the question ‘Why do you desire this?’ is improper. The word ‘desire’ is, however, frequently used in such a way as to countenance the impropriety. It is so used not only when (...) what is pursued only as a means is said to be desired, but also when a desire for what possesses one character is said to be a desire for what possesses a a concomitant character. Strictly, perhaps, an object of desire is describable in terms only of the character immediately relevant to the desire. The expression ‘to desire what is X qua X’ is perhaps redundant; and the expression ‘to desire what is X qua Y’ is perhaps self-contradictory. But those who think, so must admit that such expressions are current among even careful speakers. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that teasing is restricted to encounters among intimates or close acquaintances. As a result of examining initial interactions among speakers of English, however, this article shows that teasing also occurs between persons who are becoming acquainted. Analysis reveals that tease sequences unfold across three actions that constitute the tease as an invitation to intimacy: a teasable action on the part of the target, the tease proper and a moment of interactionally generated affiliation. Given teasing is one (...) way of criticising another, it constitutes a potential breach of tact or interactional propriety. In initial interactions, however, participants can construe this potential impropriety as an invitation to intimacy, as it involves the proposal of a shared ironic stance that may be either accepted or declined by the target of the tease. (shrink)

In this review of Persons and Things, recently translated into English and published by Polity Press, we discuss how this text investigates some of the most important themes of Roberto Esposito’s thought. Specifically, the book continues the process of constructing an idea of community intended as lack, gift and impropriety that the Italian philosopher has been developing since the publication of Communitas. In this case, it is the notion of body that demolishes the metaphysical apparatus that has conditioned the (...) moulding of the philosophical-legal lexicon of the Western tradition. Doomed to constant submission to the rational sphere of the person, hence assimilated to the materiality of a mere thing, the body can win back its full dignity if it is considered as a ‘living body’. Only in this way, according to Esposito, is it possible to move past the ‘proprietary’ and subjectivistic notion that, in philosophy as well as in law, has determined a clear-cut separation between persons (intended as rational beings) and things (conceived as inert objects), as well as between ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ persons. Thus, in Persons and Things, the body becomes an actual vector for a trans-individualization of the individual, for an opening to the common, public, and communitarian dimension. According to Esposito, this process is favoured by the changes brought about by biotechnologies and science in general, not only in medical practices, but also in the legal formulations that follow from them. (shrink)