People who report believing in God fear death. They also experience grief when someone they love dies. Philosophers and social scientists sometimes claim that this can only be plausibly explained by the hypothesis that people who claim to believe in God do not really believe in God. I show that this is mistaken. I identify three independently plausible explanations of why people who genuinely believe in God would have these behaviors and attitudes. First, there is an evolutionary explanation of why (...) the fear of death would be resilient even if one genuinely believes God has good things in store for us after death. Second, people often fear low probability outcomes. It may be that religious people are afraid of hell or the cessation of existence even if they judge those outcomes to have a low probability. Third, belief in God is typically combined with views according to which death is accompanied by the permanent loss and radical transformation of important relationships. (shrink)

Objectives: To explore how subjects in a placebo-controlled vitamin A supplementation trial among Ghanaian women aged 15–45 years perceive the trial and whether they know that not all trial capsules are the same, and to identify factors associated with this knowledge.Methods: 60 semistructured interviews and 12 focus groups were conducted to explore subjects’ perceptions of the trial. Steps were taken to address areas of low comprehension, including retraining fieldworkers. 1971 trial subjects were randomly selected for a survey measuring their knowledge (...) that not all trial capsules are the same. The subjects’ fieldworkers were also interviewed about their characteristics and trial knowledge. Factors associated with knowledge were explored using multi-level modeling.Results: Although subjects knew they were taking part in research, most thought they were receiving an active and beneficial medication. Variables associated with knowledge were education and district of residence. Radio broadcasts benefited those with some schooling. Fieldworkers’ characteristics were not associated with subjects’ knowledge.Conclusions: Research and debate on new or improved consent procedures are urgently required, particularly for subjects with little education. (shrink)

In this article I defend a new definition of what it is to commit suicide:(D) A commits suicide by performing an act x if and only if A intends that he or she kill himself or herself by performing x (under the description ‘I kill myself’), and this intention is fully satisfied.The definition has some surprising implications: various real-life examples often referred to as ‘suicides’ (e.g. ‘suicide bombers’) may well turn out not to be suicides after all.1.

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

Some legal theorists say that legal entrapment to commit a crime is incoherent. So far, there is no satisfactorily precise statement of this objection in the literature: it is obscure even as to the type of incoherence that is purportedly involved. (Perhaps consequently, substantial assessment of the objection is also absent.) We aim to provide a new statement of the objection that is more precise and more rigorous than its predecessors. We argue that the best form of the objection asserts (...) that, in attempting to entrap, law-enforcement agents lapse into a form of practical incoherence that involves the attempt simultaneously to pursue contrary ends. We then argue that the objection, in this form, encompasses all cases of legal entrapment only if it is supplemented by appeal to the premise that law-enforcement agents have an absolute duty never to create crimes. (shrink)

Nous examinons les conditions de vérité pour des attributions de savoir dans le cas des connaissances mathématiques. La disposition d’une démonstration formalisable semble être un critère naturel :(*) X sait que p est vrai si et seulement si X en principe dispose d’une démonstration formalisable pour p.La formalisabilité pourtant ne joue pas un grand rôle dans la pratique mathématique effective. Nous présentons des résultats d’une recherche empirique qui indiquent que les mathématiciens n’employent pas certaines spécifications de (*) quand ils attribuent (...) du savoir. De plus, nous montrons que le concept de savoir mathématique qui est à la base de l’emploi effectif du mot « savoir » de la pratique mathématique est tout à fait compatible avec certaines intuitions philosophiques mais apparaît comme différent des concepts philosophiques formant la base de (*). (shrink)

In ethics, ‘probabilism’ refers to a position defended by a number of Catholic theologians, mainly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They held that, when one is uncertain which of a range of actions is the right one to perform, it is permissible to perform any which has a good chance of being the right one—even if there is another which has a better chance. This paper considers the value of this position from the viewpoint of modern ethical philosophy. The (...) unusual nature of probabilism as a theory focusing upon permissibility, rather than right-making properties, is explored and related to some modern attempts to set out ‘satisficing’ and ‘hybrid’ ethical theories. Such theories try to distinguish between what is best and what is permissible, and probabilism can be understood as an alternative way of supplementing a theory of right-making properties by adding to it a theory of permissibility. But a more radical version is also possible, where one abandons any attempt to identify right actions or right-making properties, and instead considers permissibility alone. Accordingly, a ‘multi-account theory’ of permissibility is proposed and defended as a model of how many people actually make moral decisions. (shrink)

Luck skepticism is the view that no one is ever morally responsible for anything because of the nature and ubiquity of luck. One acclaimed argument in favor of this view is Neil Levy’s luck pincer. The luck pincer holds that all morally significant acts or events involve either present luck, constitutive luck, or both and that present and constitutive luck each negate moral responsibility. Therefore, no one is ever morally responsible for any action or event. I argue that this argument (...) is unsound as both of its premises are false. First, not all morally significant events involve present or constitutive luck. Some morally significant events are non-lucky. Second, present and constitutive luck do not always negate moral responsibility. Luck – independent of ontological concerns – is not as threatening to free will as is often thought. (shrink)

Paul Virilio passed away on the 10th of September 2018. This article surveys his considerable legacy to cultural theory in order to locate a largely dormant contribution to questions of moral respo...

This book offers the first fully documented and historically contextualised account of the origins and implications of the concept of community in the work of Nancy and Blanchot. It analyses in detail the underlying philosophical, political, literary, and religious implications of the often misrepresented debate between Blanchot and Nancy.

Critics frequently argue that nudges are more covert, less transparent, and more difficult to monitor than traditional regulatory tools. Edward Glaeser, for example, argues that “[p]ublic monitoring of soft paternalism is much more difficult than public monitoring of hard paternalism”. As one of the leading proponents of soft paternalism, Cass Sunstein, acknowledges, while “[m]andates and commands are highly visible”, soft paternalism, “and some nudges in particular[,] may be invisible”. In response to this challenge, proponents of nudging argue that invisibility for (...) any given individual in a particular choice environment is compatible with “careful public scrutiny” of the nudge. This paper offers the first of its kind experimental evidence that tests whether nudges are, in fact, compatible with “careful public scrutiny”. Using three sets of experiments, the paper argues that, even when entirely visible, nudges attract less scrutiny than their “hard law” counterparts. (shrink)

Tento článek se zastává skepticko-realistického tzv. novo- humovského, výkladu Humovy teorie kauzality navzdory kritice ze strany Zuzany Parusnikové. Autor však v souladu se svou vývojovou interpretací hájí tzv. „nového Huma" pouze pro pozdní tvorbu tohoto skot- ského filosofa.

Some philosophers worry that if modal realism is true, you have no reason to prevent evils. For if you prevent an evil, you’ll have a counterpart somewhere that allows a similar evil. And if you refrain, your counterpart will end up preventing the relevant evil. Either way one evil is prevented and one is allowed. Your act makes no difference. I argue that this is mistaken. If modal realism is true, you are in a variant of Newcomb’s Problem. And if (...) Lewis’ view about Newcomb’s Problem is true, then your act does make a difference and you should prevent the evil. (shrink)

Like the majority of established publishers, Cambridge University Press is in the middle of a major transformation, shifting from pay-to-read to pay-to-publish models; and it has embraced transformative agreements as a key lever to support this journey. Importantly, they are seen as a key stepping stone, not a destination or the only route, to full open access. Implementing TA s has required huge change internally and necessitated a new kind of collaboration with librarians. As a publisher with a strong emphasis (...) on humanities and social sciences publishing, CUP sees TA s as providing a route to OA for all of its journals and as ensuring no subject area is disadvantaged by the transformation. The shift to OA does come with challenges; a key one is author equity and how to ensure that in eliminating the financial barriers to read content, no new barriers to publication are created. (shrink)

Given any simply consistent formal theory F of the state complexity L(S) of finite binary sequences S as computed by 3-tape-symbol Turing machines, there exists a natural number L(F ) such that L(S) > n is provable in F only if n L(F ). The proof resembles Berry’s..

R. M. Hare argues that moral reasoning about the environment requires the setting out of the various interests at stake and adjudication between them, strength for strength. Though there are possible objections to some aspects of his programme, it is clearly intended to be fair. However, it is not clear that in his concluding discussion, of the building of new roads, the interests at stake are set out with total impartiality. Some further relevant interests are listed, in an attempt to (...) redress the balance. (shrink)

Should psychology of religion undergo a disciplinary renaissance and, if so, what might it look like? In this paper we explore that question by discussing the benefits of a better grounding of the field within mid-level theories from general psychology that provide it with greater conceptual depth. Such discussion will focus on three already existing and variously productive lines of research as case studies: attribution processes, attachment styles, and religious coping. These case studies represent lines of research at three developmental (...) stages: 1) infancy, with little visible return but with signs of promise , 2) adolescence, with dividends already yielded but also with promise not yet fully realized , and 3) maturity, where a fruitful harvest has already been experienced but yet without decline . Regardless of developmental position, it is argued that research in psychology of religion will be enhanced to the extent that it achieves conceptual depth by being framed in terms of mid-level theories. (shrink)

Philosophies of Difference engages with the concept of difference in relation to a number of fundamental philosophical and political problems. Insisting on the inseparability of ontology, ethics and politics, the essays and interview in this volume offer original and timely approaches to thinking nature, sexuate difference, racism, and decoloniality. The collection draws on a range of sources, including Latin American Indigenous ontologies and philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Immanuel Kant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Mills, and Eduardo Viveiros (...) de Castro. -/- The contributors think embodiment and life by bringing continental philosophy into generative dialogue with fields including plant studies, animal studies, decoloniality, feminist theory, philosophy of race, and law. Affirming the importance of interdisciplinarity, Philosophies of Difference contributes to a creative and critical intervention into established norms, limits, and categories. Invoking a conception of difference as both constitutive and generative, this collection offers new and important insights into how a rethinking of difference may ground new and more ethical modes of being and being-with. Philosophies of Difference unearths the constructive possibilities of difference for an ethics of relationality, and for elaborating non-anthropocentric sociality. -/- The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Australian Feminist Law Journal. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to take a step toward the resolution of the problem of finding an analytic sequent calculus for the logic of proofs. For this, we focus on the system Ilp, the intuitionistic version of the logic of proofs. First we present the sequent calculus Gilp that is sound and complete with respect to the system Ilp; we prove that Gilp is cut-free and contraction-free, but it still does not enjoy the subformula property. Then, we enrich (...) the language of the logic of proofs and we formulate in this language a second Gentzen calculus Gilp∗. We show that Gilp∗ is a conservative extension of Gilp, and that Gilp∗ satisfies the subformula property. (shrink)

What is it that guarantees the truth of literary theory? And what is it that testifies to its survival into the future? This paper, intended primarily as a tribute to the work of Malcolm Bowie, examines some of the implications of Bowie's view that literary theory, rigorously applied, as in the case of psychoanalysis, was inseparable from its status as creative, productive, futural, perhaps even fictional performance. The paper considers these questions further in the context of that shared commitment to (...) the neuter or the undecidable that is a striking feature of the writing on literature of Roland Barthes, Maurice Blanchot and Jacques Derrida, and which is also a way of thinking the futural possibilities and possible futures of theory. (shrink)

The admiration of the Soviet Union amongst Britain's interwar scientific left is well known. This article reveals a parallel story. Focusing on the biologists Julian Huxley and Lancelot Hogben and the scientific journalist J.G. Crowther, I show that a number of scientific thinkers began to look west, to the US. In the mid- to late 1930s and into the 1940s, Huxley, Crowther and Hogben all visited the US and commented favourably on Roosevelt's New Deal, in particular its experimental approach to (...) politics (in the form of planning). Huxley was first to appreciate the significance of the experiment; he looked to the Tennessee Valley Authority as a model of democratic planning by persuasion that could also be applied in Britain. Crowther, meanwhile, examined the US through the lens of history of science. InFamous American Men of Science(1937) and in lectures at Harvard University, he aimed to shed light on the flaws in the Constitution which were frustrating the New Deal. Finally, Hogben's interest in the US was related to his long-standing opposition to dialectical materialism, and when he finally saw the US at first hand, he regarded it as a model for how to bring about a planned socialist society through peaceful persuasion. (shrink)

Examines Adam Smith's main principles in Wealth of Nations as the basis for effective policymaking. Adam Smith proposed several principles that would help mitigate or eliminate some of the problems we face as a nation today. Many assume that our current laissez-faire capitalism applies his principles. But, in contrast to the libertarianism of the United States, Smith's recipe to increase everyone's wealth and happiness was justice, liberty, and equality. This book examines Adam Smith's main principles in Wealth of Nations as (...) the basis for effective policymaking. Adam Smith wanted to increase happiness through this formula for a good life: equality, liberty, and justice. Free market interpretations of Smith, the book argues, grossly misrepresent his thought, emphasizing only liberty and not also equality and justice. This book suggests policies that combine all three in order for happiness to be maximized. (shrink)

The "natural law" worldview developed over the course of almost two thousand years beginning with Plato and Aristotle and culminating with St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. This tradition holds that the world is ordered, intelligible and good, that there are objective moral truths which we can know and that human beings can achieve true happiness only by following our inborn nature, which draws us toward our own perfection. Most accounts of the natural law are based on a God-centered (...) understanding of the world. After the Natural Law traces this tradition from Plato and Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas and then describes how and why modern philosophers such as Descartes, Locke and Hobbes began to chip away at this foundation. The book argues that natural law is a necessary foundation for our most important moral and political values – freedom, human rights, equality, responsibility and human dignity, among others. Without a theory of natural law, these values lose their coherence: we literally cannot make sense of them given the assumptions of modern philosophy. Part I of the book traces the development of natural law theory from Plato and Aristotle through the crowning achievement of Thomas Aquinas. Part II explores how modern philosophers have systematically chipped away at the only coherent foundation for these values. As a result, our most important moral and political ideals today are incoherent. Modern political and moral thinkers have been led either to dilute the meaning of such terms as freedom or the moral good – or abandon these ideas altogether. Thus, modern philosophy and political thought are leading us either toward anarchy or totalitarianism. The conclusion, entitled "Why God Matters", shows how even the philosophical assumptions of the natural law depend on a personal God. (shrink)

Recent cases have found factual disclosure requirements to be constitutional when imposed on abortion providers but unconstitutional when imposed on crisis pregnancy centers. This paper argues that the outcomes in both kinds of cases can be explained by courts' perception of abortion as an ideological, political, or moral act rather than as health care.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the last decade, a number of studies in the behavioural sciences, particularly in psychology and economics, have explored the complexity of individual risk behaviour and its underlying factors. Most previous studies have examined the influences of various socio-economic, cognitive, biological and psychological factors on human decision-making however, the relationship between the decision-makers’ risk preferences and occupational background has not received much empirical attention. Accordingly, in the current study, we investigated how occupational background, together with decision-making framing (e.g., variations in (...) decision domain, context, presentation of risk and utility ratios), influence participants’ risk preferences for decision options with equivalent expected utility. Our novel findings indicate that risk preferences may vary among individuals from different occupational backgrounds. As such, when the task was framed in gain terms, participants who mostly deal with health/safety-related risks on a day-to-day basis (high-risk occupations) were predominantly risk-averse (avoiding risky options), while participants who mostly deal with financial/social risks (white-collar occupations) were prone to risk-seeking behaviour (avoiding certain options). Specifically, in “high-risk” occupations, participants’ pattern of choices changed from risk-averse in gain scenarios to risk-seeking in loss scenarios. However, the opposite pattern of risk preferences was found in participants with “white-collar” occupations. Our findings indicate that decision-makers’ occupational backgrounds influence risk preferences under some circumstances. (shrink)

[What does ”to think” mean in Descartes' Second. Meditation? ].