The proliferation of emergency food programs in the United States over the past decade and a half has created a dilemma for advocates and others who approach issues of social provision from the standpoint of a commitment to social justice. While the soup kitchens, food pantries, food banks, and food rescue programs that comprise the emergency food system may be able to meet some of the urgent, immediate needs of poor people, they do so in ways that may further undermine (...) rights and entitlements and erode the cultural basis of support for the welfare state. Should advocates of distributive justice work to improve such emergency programs, ignore them, or call for their abolition? This paper explores the history of advocates' involvement with emergency food, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of emergency food programs from a social justice standpoint, and offers some guidelines for action. (shrink)

This paper analyses recent calls for so called “neurorights”, suggested novel human rights whose adoption is allegedly required because of advances in neuroscience, exemplified by a proposal of the Neurorights Initiative. Advances in neuroscience and technology are indeed impressive and pose a range of challenges for the law, and some novel applications give grounds for human rights concerns. But whether addressing these concerns requires adopting novel human rights, and whether the proposed neurorights are suitable candidates, are a different matter. This (...) paper argues that the proposed rights, as individuals and a class, should not be adopted and lobbying on their behalf should stop. The proposal tends to promote rights inflationism, is tainted by neuroexceptionalism and neuroessentialism, and lacks grounding in relevant scholarship. None of the proposed individual rights passes quality criteria debated in the field. While understandable from a moral perspective, the proposal is fundamentally flawed from a legal perspective. Rather than conjuring up novel human rights, existing rights should be further developed in face of changing societal circumstances and technological possibilities. (shrink)

The analytic movement advertised its 'linguistic turn' as a radical break from the two-thousand-year-old substance tradition. But this is an illusion. On the fundamental level of ontology, there is enough reformulation and presupposition of traditional 'no entity without identity' themes to analogize Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine to Aristotle as paradigmatic of modified realism. Thus the pace of ontology is glacial. Frege and Russell, not Wittgenstein and Quine, emerge as the true analytic progenitors of 'no entity without identity,' offering between (...) them at least twenty-nine private language arguments and sixty-four 'no entity without identity' theories. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers of science have recently called for an extension of evolutionary theory. This so-called ‘extended evolutionary synthesis’ seeks to integrate developmental processes, extra-genetic forms of inheritance, and niche construction into evolutionary theory in a central way. While there is often agreement in evolutionary biology over the existence of these phenomena, their explanatory relevance is questioned. Advocates of EES posit that their perspective offers better explanations than those provided by ‘standard evolutionary theory’. Still, why this would be the case (...) is unclear. Usually, such claims assume that EES’s superior explanatory status arises from the pluralist structure of EES, its different problem agenda, and a growing body of evidence for the evolutionary relevance of developmental phenomena. However, what is usually neglected in this debate is a discussion of what the explanatory standards of EES actually are, and how they differ from prevailing standards in SET. In other words, what is considered to be a good explanation in EES versus SET? To answer this question, we present a theoretical framework that evaluates the explanatory power of different evolutionary explanations of the same phenomena. This account is able to identify criteria for why and when evolutionary explanations of EES are better than those of SET. Such evaluations will enable evolutionary biology to find potential grounds for theoretical integration. (shrink)

What do we owe to the lower animals, if anything? The issues raised by this question are among the most fascinating and fundamental in ethical theory. They provide a real watershed for the moral philosopher and, on perhaps the most widely professed view, a trenchant test of consistency in ethical practice. Among the virtues of these two challenging books is that they make painfully clear that there has been a paucity of clear and plausible argument in support of the nearly (...) universal tendency of humans to eat animal flesh, and to visit varying degrees of pain, discomfort, and unfreedom on the animals in question in the process.When we are asked why it is all right to do this, given our strong belief that it is not all right for us to eat other humans, we tend to give answers that won't readily wash. We may say, for example, that animals are stupid; but we don't think it all right to eat stupid people, including people less apparently competent than many of the higher animals. Or we may say things that are patently untrue, such as that the other animals don't really feel pain anyway. (shrink)

Why act when the effects of one’s act are negligible? For example, why boycott sweatshop or animal products if doing so makes no difference for the better? According to recent proposals, one may still have a reason to boycott in order to avoid complicity or participation in harm. Julia Nefsky has argued that accounts of this kind suffer from the so-called “superfluity problem,” basically the question of why agents can be said to participate in harm if they make no difference (...) to it. This paper develops and responds to Nefsky’s challenge. (shrink)

This article examines the political perspective of corporate social responsibility from the standpoint of normative Islam. We argue that large firms within Muslim majority countries have the moral obligation to assist governments in addressing challenges related to sustainable socioeconomic development and in advancing human rights. In substantiating our argument, we draw upon the Islamic business ethics, stakeholder theory, and corporate governance literatures, as well as the concepts of Maqasid al Shariah (the objectives of Islamic law) and fard al ‘ayn (obligation (...) upon all individuals within society) versus fard al kifayah (obligation upon some individuals within society) to introduce a normative model elucidating critical Islamic precepts. Finally, we propose an Islamic “political” corporate governance framework, which democratizes firm decision making by embedding “core” stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and Shariah scholars in the corporate board, thereby enhancing the ability of businesses to respond to stakeholder concerns and priorities, while mitigating interstakeholder and intraboard power asymmetries. (shrink)

This book presents the latest research, conducted by leading philosophers and scientists from various fields, on the topic of top-down causation. The chapters combine to form a unique, interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon George Ellis's extensive research and novel perspectives on topics including downwards causation, weak and strong emergence, mental causation, biological relativity, effective field theory and levels in nature. The collection also serves as a Festschrift in honour of George Ellis' 80th birthday. The extensive and interdisciplinary scope of this book (...) makes it vital reading for anyone interested in the work of George Ellis and current research on the topics of causation and emergence. (shrink)

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to (...) the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions. (shrink)

In "De malorum subsistentia" chs 30-7, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. I,8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good, because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter-evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does (...) not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that to posit a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism, or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to be able to escape the latter consequence, if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian tenets. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his "Commentary on the Categories." It is possible that lamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. (shrink)

Much of present-day epistemology is divided between internalists and externalists. Different as these views are, they have in common that they strip justification from its dialectical component in order to block the skeptic’s argument from disagreement. That is, they allow that one may have justified beliefs even if one is not able to defend it against challenges and resolve the disagreements about them. Lammenranta (2008, 2011a) recently argued that neither internalism nor externalism convinces if we consider the argument in its (...) most interesting format. In this paper I zoom in on this debate, and fix further details of Lammenranta’s lead. Specifically, I will side with skepticism that justification is dialectical, yet only if certain conditions are in place. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore links between the phenomenology-inspired philosophy of emotion, especially discussions of affective intentionality and situated affectivity, and those strands of work in the field of cultural affect studies that take their inspiration fromSpinoza and Deleuze. As bridges between these fields, I propose the concepts ‘disclosive posture’ and ‘affective arrangement’. ‘Disclosive posture’ condenses insights from phenomenological work on affectivity, especially those pertaining to what Heidegger calls Befindlichkeit. ‘Affective arrangement’ is a descendant of Deleuze and Guattari’s term agencement. (...) It refers to heterogeneous ensembles of elements coalescing into a sphere of heightened affective intensity in a local setting. I develop this notion into a tool for analyzing situated affectivity. As it does not yet figure prominently within debates in the philosophy of emotion, I will outline what is meant by ‘affective arrangement’ in some detail. Throughout, I discuss a productive tension between these two conceptual strands. (shrink)

In this paper I fix a typical regress argument, locate a typical gap in the argument, and try to supply a number of gap-filling readings of its first premise.

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

Discussions in sociological theory often focus on ontological questions on the nature of social reality. Against the underlying epistemological realism, I argue for a constructivist notion of theory: Theories are webs of concepts that we use to guide empirical observations and to make sense of them. We cannot know the real features of the social world, only what our theoretical perspectives make us see. Theories therefore represent social phenomena by highlighting certain features and relating them in a logical system. In (...) this system, theoretical sentences can be considered true if they meet two conditions: They are consistent with the theory at hand and adequately map empirically observable relations between objects denoted by theoretical constructs. Truth is therefore relative to a perspective; it is not objectively determinable. Theories should be assessed not for their ontologies but for what they allow us to see and how they connect to empirical observations. (shrink)

This volume weaves together a variety of perspectives aimed at confronting a spectrum of ethico-political global challenges arising in the Anthropocene which affect the future of life on planet earth. In this book, the authors offer a multi-faceted approach to address the consequences of its imaginary and projective directions. The chapters span the disciplines of political economy, cybernetics, environmentalism, bio-science, psychoanalysis, bioacoustics, documentary film, installation art, geoperformativity, and glitch aesthetics. The first section attempts to flesh out new aspects of current (...) debates. Questions over the Capitaloscene are explored via conflations of class and climate, revisiting the eco-Marxist analysis of capitalism, and the financial system that thrives on debt. The second section explores the imaginary narratives that raise questions regarding non-human involvement. The third section addresses ’geoartisty,’ the counter artistic responses to the speculariztion of climate disasters, questioning eco-documentaries, and what a post-anthropocentric art might look like. The last section addresses the pedagogical response to the Anthropocene. (shrink)

If an argument can be reconstructed in at least two different ways, then which reconstruction is to be preferred? In this paper I address this problem of argument reconstruction in terms of Ryle’s infinite regress argument against the view that knowledge-how requires knowledge-that. First, I demonstrate that Ryle’s initial statement of the argument does not fix its reconstruction as it admits two, structurally different reconstructions. On the basis of this case and infinite regress arguments generally, I defend a revisionary take (...) on argument reconstruction: argument reconstruction is mainly to be ruled by charity (viz. by general criteria which arguments have to fulfil in order to be good arguments) rather than interpretation. (shrink)

It is widely thought that Robert Nozick’s views on rectification of past injustices are of critical importance to his theory of distributive justice, even perhaps justifying wholesale redistributive taxes in the present because of the undoubted injustices that have pervaded much past history. This essay undertakes to correct this impression—not mostly by disagreeing with Nozick’s claims, but nevertheless proceeding on basic libertarian theory. Of enormous importance is the role of putative innocents, who are defrauded by miscreants carefully covering their tracks (...) so that these recipients have no reason to think they are buying stolen property. But of equal importance is simply that the duty to rectify past injustices is not comparable to the original duty to respect property rights in the first place. (shrink)

Generally speaking, philosophical reflection can assume two extreme forms: it can either be based on metaphysical reflection which gives it the traits of a universalistic philosophy, or empiricism, in which case it can be called philosophical minimalism. There are no others alternatives, and the above categories apply to all philosophical systems. Smolikowski’s philosophy is maximalistic and metaphysical, hence he was right to call the system universalism philosophy. As W. Tyburski writes, Smolikowski’s universalism philosophy has two main goals: to provide firmer (...) ground for metaphysics and stand in opposition to both positivism and German pessimism philosophy. (shrink)

‘Kijk. Mijn kasteel heeft het overleefd!’ roept mijn zoon enthousiast. We zijn hier gisteren ook aan het strand geweest en er is inderdaad nog iets te herkennen van het bouwwerk dat hij hier toen gemaakt heeft. Het hoge water heeft nog niet alle sporen uitgeveegd, maar om nu te zeggen dat de vage contouren in het zand de uitroep rechtvaardigen dat ‘het kasteel’ het ‘overleefd’ heeft… Dat rekt óf het begrip kasteel óf het begrip overleven toch een heel eind verder (...) op dan we normaal gesproken acceptabel zullen vinden. Maar op vakantie zijn we niet zo streng en al zeker niet over de woorden van een kind. Ik begrijp heel goed wat hij bedoelt en ik zie het zelf ook. Inderdaad, hier waren we gisteren en het kasteel van mijn zoon heeft de nacht overleefd. (shrink)

In the context of the current discussion about the ethical boundaries of humor, the study attempts to show that an approach based on Mukařovský’s functional theory is not only applicable to the discussion but also competitive. In the first part of the article, the author tries to answer the question of inserting a joke into the field of functions. He understands a joke as a sign that has in its most typical version a dominant f ictive-communicative function. It is precisely (...) in the dominance of the fictive-communicative function of the joke that he sees the reason for the borderline position of the joke between art and life. The fictiveness of jokes creates, on the one hand, the impression that they have as fictitious statements greater independence from nonaesthetic norms, similar to what works of art have. On the other hand, because of the communicative moment jokes have more potential to offend us than do artifacts with a dominant aesthetic function. The second part of the study is dedicated to the relationship between the joke and the listener and attempts to describe other forms in which the semantic energy of the joke can reveal itself. (shrink)

The main thesis of this monograph, and its novelty, is the attempt to read Newman's work not only as a defence of the author's life, but as a defence of individual life in general. This reading is done against the background of his profound personalism based on two foundations: truth and responsibility.

The Republic of Fiji Islands has been under military rule since December 2006. Yet, the regime of Frank Bainimarama is not really like any other military regime in the world, nor does the 2006 coup resemble the earlier military interventions in the country. It is attempting development without freedom, but can it succeed? It is important to recognize that dictatorships can be of very different kinds. What happens with the Bainimarama regime will have a major impact upon the Pacific scene, (...) not only for the Fiji Islands but also for the Pacific Forum and the role of China in regional integration. And the course of future events will depend much upon what strategy Fiji's strongman chooses and what kind of constitution is put in place. (shrink)

Traditional studies of literature have developed approaches ranging from historical, hermeneutic, critical, close reading and author studies perspectives. The present volume shows that there is much, much more to analysing literary texts, their readers, the literary system, movies, their structure and their effects. These diverse new ways of looking at literature are exemplified in this volume. The volume shows how these various approaches can be carried out in concrete projects in the area of literary studies. Twenty-three chapters encompass research on (...) literary studies from perspectives of psychology, linguistics, anthroplogy, history, sociology, computer science. The contributors demonstrate in non-technical language the amplitude of detail and insight that can be gained from such a wider perspective on the study of literary texts. The interdisciplinary diversity of the study of literature may launch itself as a New Beginnings in Literary Studies indeed. (shrink)

Philip Pettit's ethocentric account of rule-following is elaborated and defended in this paper as basically a story about the capacity to reason organized around largely implicit assumptions about what is and what is not normal. It is argued that this account can be insightfully used to elucidate the practical reasoning of agents confronted with the normative indeterminacy that seems to be characteristic of radically new situations. It is shown that practical reasoning consists to a large extent in the capacity to (...) articulate, specify, and evaluate implicit assumptions about what is and what is not normal. One corollary of this account of practical reason is investigated in some detail: the predominant role of intrapersonal divergence of habits in reasoning about an apparent normative indeterminacy and the related, merely criteriological role of convergence with respect to determining the right rules to follow. (shrink)