The Multidimensional Religious Ideology (MRI) scale is a new 43-item measure that quantifies conservative versus liberal aspects of religious ideology. The MRI focuses on recurring features of ideology rooted in innate moral instincts while capturing salient differences in the ideological profiles of distinct groups and individuals. The MRI highlights how religious ideology differs from political ideology while maintaining a robust grounding in the social psychology of ideology generally. Featuring three major dimensions (religious beliefs, religious practices, and religious morality) and eight (...) subdimensions, the MRI is sensitive enough to generate novel insights into religious ideology across demographic groups and individual differences. The MRI is also summative, yielding a single quantitative measurement of left–right religious ideology with good scale and test–retest reliability. Analysis of 839 respondents across two studies confirmed the widespread assumption that religious ideology is a parallel construct to political ideology, emerging from similar foundations but following a distinct set of rules. The MRI shows the importance of conceptualizing ideology in ways that access the full spectrum of real-world ideological convictions—an important reminder, given the salience of religious factors for influencing ideology generally. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

Expanding on his 1976 study of the bearing of Christian faith on the practice of scholarship, Wolterstorff has added a substantial new section on the role of faith in the decisions scholars make about their choice of subject matter.

This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the ...

The two great philosophical figures at the culminating point of the Enlightenment are Thomas Reid in Scotland and Immanuel Kant in Germany. Reid was by far the most influential across Europe and the United States well into the nineteenth century. Since that time his fame and influence have been eclipsed by his German contemporary. This important book by one of today's leading philosophers of knowledge and religion will do much to reestablish the significance of Reid for philosophy today. Nicholas (...) Wolterstorff has produced the first systematic account of Reid's epistemology. Relating Reid's philosophy to present-day epistemological discussions the author demonstrates how they are at once remarkably timely, relevant, and provocative. No other book both uncovers the deep pattern of Reid's thought and relates it to contemporary philosophical debate. This book should be read by historians of philosophy as well as all philosophers concerned with epistemology and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In the target article, Christie, Brusse, et al. argue that selected effect functions do not, in general, explain why a trait exists in a population and, therefore, theories of representational content should not rely on selected effect functions. This response focuses on the claim about functions-for-representation. The role of evolutionary functions in a theory of content is to pick out outcomes that have been systematically stabilized by natural selection. Correctness conditions are conditions involved in explaining how that happened. Selected effect (...) functions can play that role in the complex equilibria that Christie, Brusse, et al. identify. Non-equilibrium cases are also discussed. (shrink)

Francis Fukuyama's controversial new book, Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, has elicited varied reactions, but like it or not, it seems likely to be influential. Here are three opinions. —Ed.

In one of his many defenses of rhetoric, Aristotle states that "even if we were to have the most exact knowledge, it would not be very easy for us in speaking to use it to persuade [some audiences] … it is necessary for pisteis and speeches [as a whole] to be formed on the basis of common [beliefs]". Dana Cloud's Reality Bites advances a similar position, suggesting that the political left needs to reclaim rhetorical appeals as a form of argumentation (...) if it is to defeat the conservative forces that have taken control of the public sphere. Focusing on what she calls the "big five", Cloud argues that the American left is losing political ground to the right... (shrink)

The rapid developments in technologies -- especially computing and the advent of many 'smart' devices, as well as rapid and perpetual communication via the Internet -- has led to a frequently voiced view which Nicholas Agar describes as 'radical optimism'. Radical optimists claim that accelerating technical progress will soon end poverty, disease, and ignorance, and improve our happiness and well-being. Agar disputes the claim that technological progress will automatically produce great improvements in subjective well-being. He argues that radical optimism (...) 'assigns to technological progress an undeserved pre-eminence among all the goals pursued by our civilization'. Instead, Agar uses the most recent psychological studies about human perceptions of well-being to create a realistic model of the impact technology will have. Although he accepts that technological advance does produce benefits, he insists that these are significantly less than those proposed by the radical optimists, and aspects of such progress can also pose a threat to values such as social justice and our relationship with nature, while problems such as poverty cannot be understood in technological terms. He concludes by arguing that a more realistic assessment of the benefits that technological advance can bring will allow us to better manage its risks in future. (shrink)

I hope I have convinced the reader that DR theory offers at least some exciting potential when applied to the semantics of belief reports. It differs considerably from other approaches, and it makes intuitively acceptable predictions that other theories do not. The theory also provides a novel approach to the semantics of other propsitional attitude reports. Further, DR theory enables one to approach the topic of anaphora within belief and other propositional attitude contexts in a novel way, thus combining the (...) semantics developed here with one of the theory's original motivations (Kamp, 1981a). However, these are unfortunately topics that I must reserve for another time. (shrink)

What is the meaning of life? Does anything really matter? In the past few decades these questions, perennially associated with philosophy in the popular consciousness, have rightly retaken their place as central topics in the academy. In this major contribution, Nicholas Waghorn provides a sustained and rigorous elucidation of what it would take for lives to have significance. Bracketing issues about ways our lives could have more or less meaning, the focus is rather on the idea of ultimate meaning, (...) the issue of whether a life can attain meaning that cannot be called into question. Waghorn sheds light on this most fundamental of existential problems through a detailed yet comprehensive examination of the notion of nothing, embracing classic and cutting-edge literature from both the analytic and Continental traditions. Central figures such as Heidegger, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Nozick and Nagel are drawn upon to anchor the discussion in some of the most influential discussion of recent philosophical history. In the process of relating our ideas concerning nothing to the problem of life's meaning, Waghorn's book touches upon a number of fundamental themes, including reflexivity and its relation to our conceptual limits, whether religion has any role to play in the question of life's meaning, and the nature and constraints of philosophical methodology. A number of major philosophical traditions are addressed, including phenomenology, poststructuralism, and classical and paraconsistent logics. In addition to providing the most thorough current discussion of ultimate meaning, it will serve to introduce readers to philosophical debates concerning the notion of nothing, and the appendix engaging religion will be of value to both philosophers and theologians. (shrink)

After discussing the nature of toleration, giving a brief history of the emergence of religious toleration in the West, and presenting my understanding of religion, I develop what I call ‘the dignity argument’ for religious toleration: to fail to tolerate a person’s religion is to treat that person in a way that does not befit their dignity. And to treat them in a way that does not befit their dignity is to wrong them, to treat them unjustly.

Often created by colonial societies characterized by violence and oppression, historical artefacts such as monuments are increasingly under criticism for perpetuating violent attitudes. While the links between artefacts and society are well understood, there has been little work that finds the opportunity for resistance to violence in these artefacts themselves. Developing a ‘spectrum of violence’ for artefacts, I argue that ambiguous artefacts move us towards non-violence by provoking critique, while absolute artefacts move us away from it by stilling critique. Applying (...) this spectrum to a discussion of a graffitied New York monument in 2020, I propose that the act of ‘refacement’ can turn absolute artefacts into ambiguous ones. In so doing, the artefacts that once upheld colonial values might be transformed to resist them. This paper offers a timely exploration of monuments and violence, and seeks to better understand how cultural artefacts can lay the foundations for a non-violent future. (shrink)

Skoyles’s case against human brain size being related to IQ is strong; but his case in favor of its being related to expertise is weak. I propose that the explanation for the evolutionary expansion of the human brain in fact lies far away, in the need to have a brain that could continue to function into old age.

This book is a survey of key issues in the theory of evaluation aimed at exhibiting and clarifying the rational nature of the thought-procedures involved. By means of theoretical analysis and explanatory case studies, this volume shows how evaluation is-or should be-a rational procedure directed at appropriate objectives. Above all, it maintains the objectivity of rational evaluation.

In diesem Aufsatz versuche ich, die innere Kohärenz der Cartesischen Lehre von der Wechselwirkung zwischen Leib und Seele nachzuweisen. Ich versichte jedoch darauf, das Prinzip, daß die Ursache ebenso viel Realität enthalten muß wie die Wirkung, selbst und erst recht Descartes' Anwendung derselben auf die Ideen zu verteidigen. Mein Bemühen um die innere Kohärenz der Cartesischen Position erklärt die ausschließliche Blickrichtung auf nur eine Richtung der Wechselwirkung. Unter der Voraussetzung der Cartesischen Prinzipien kann sich durch die Annahme von durch Wollen (...) verursachter physischer Veränderung kein Problem ergeben; denn hier kommt das Augustinische Prinzip Descartes zur Hilfe. Nach Augustins Prinzip ist nämlich das Geistige vollkommener und daher realer als das Physische. Heutige Philosophen mögen Descartes' Auffassung der willentlichen Bewegungen geheimnisvoll finden, doch geschieht das aus Gründen, die außerhalb des Cartesischen Systems liegen. (shrink)

Moral identity and moral dissonance in business ethics have explored tensions relating to moral self-identity and the pressures for identity compartmentalization in the workplace. Yet, the connection between these streams of scholarship, spirituality at work, and business ethics is under-theorized. In this paper, we examine the Quaker tradition to explore how Quakers’ interpret moral identity and negotiate the moral dissonance associated with a divided self in work organizations. Specifically, our study illuminates that while Quakers’ share a tradition-specific conception of “Quaker (...) morality” grounded in Quaker theology and the Quaker testimonies to truth, integrity, peace, equality, and simplicity, they often foreground the pursuit of an undivided self through seeking work that enables an expression of Quaker moral identity, or by resigning from work organizations that do not. In most cases, however, Quakers’ face moral dissonance at work and engage in either identity compartmentalization and draw upon the metaphor of a ‘spiritual journey’ as a form of self-justification, or reframe, compartmentalize and engage in work tasks that are both subjectively moral and meaningful. We present a model that elaborates these negotiation processes and invite further research that examines how the spiritual traditions influence moral identity construction at work. (shrink)

This paper outlines a heterodox and largely unexplored conception of objecthood according to which the notion of an individual object is a determinable. §1 outlines the view. §2 argues that the view is incompatible with a natural analysis of kind membership and, as a consequence, undermines the Quinean distinction between ontology and ideology. The view is then used to alleviate one source of Quinean hostility towards non-trivial restrictions on de re possibility in §3, and to elucidate Fine’s neo-Aristoteltian, non-modal conception (...) of essence in §4. §5 concludes. (shrink)

David DeGrazia1 offers, to my mind, a decisive response to the bioconservative suggestion that moral bioenhancement threatens human freedom or undermines its value. In this brief commentary, I take issue with DeGrazia's way of defining MB. A different concept of MB exposes a danger missed by his analysis.Two ways to define MBDeGrazia presents MB as a form of enhancement directed at moral capacities. There are, in the philosophical literature, two broad approaches to defining human enhancement. Simplifying somewhat, one account identifies (...) enhancement with improvement. DeGrazia joins other advocates of MB in preferring this type of account, defining a human enhancement as ‘any deliberate intervention that aims to improve an existing capacity, select for a desired capacity, or create a new capacity in a human being.’1An alternative approach relativises enhancement to human norms.2 ,3 In this view, improvements up to levels of functioning properly considered normal for humans are therapy, not enhancement. Improvements beyond those levels are enhancements. The injection of synthetic erythropoietin by someone suffering from anaemia is therapy. When healthy Tour de France competitors inject EPO, it is enhancement.We can minimise philosophical disputes about word meanings by endorsing a conceptual pluralism that acknowledges the need for more than one concept of human enhancement to address the hugely varied ways in which technology may alter humans. In the debate about biomedical moral improvements there would be enhancement as improvement and enhancement beyond human norms.DeGrazia effectively deploys the concept of enhancement as improvement to …. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is to account for the value of species in terms of the value of individual organisms that make them up. Many authors have pointed to an apparent conflict between a species preservationist ethic and moral theories that place value on individuals. I argue for an account of the worth of individual organisms grounded in the representational goals of those organisms. I claim thatthis account leads to an acceptably extensive species preservationist ethic.

This article examines happiness as an activity, modeled on pleasure in NE 10, 1-5. Aristotle is not proposing a choice, but defining the formal nature of happiness. Contemplation, as the activity of wisdom, constitutes happiness in the strict and formal sense. It has all the attributes of happiness, highest, most continuous, most pleasant, most self-sufficient, leisured, and an end in itself. Practical virtues are formally secondary, as including elements outside the activity of the best part and having leisure as their (...) end. Thus, amusements, practical activities and contemplation are integrated in the life of the sage, the contribution of each formally defined. (shrink)

Book VII describes a point at which Plato's future rulers have completed their philosophical education. At that point they have a complete grasp of evaluative concepts (esp. of good), in that they can articulate and defend defi nitions of them against all objections. Immediately, without further training, they are charged with applying these concepts in their city. By contrast, Aristotle's ethical and political writings do not envisage any such point. This difference between Plato and Aristotle is no expository accident, but (...) refl ects a fundamental disagreement between their respective views of the relationship between grasping and applying concepts, especially evaluative concepts. Aristotle's view is importantly similar to Wittgenstein's later view of 'how to go on' using a word 'in the same way'. This paper explores some aspects of this similarity between Aristotle's and Wittgenstein's opposition to platonism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that, though Levine frequently states that "Divine Discourse" is full of fundamental errors, he does little by way of proving his point. In particular, I defend the claim in "Divine Discourse" that divine speech is not a species of revelation. I rebut Levine's account of the significance of Biblical scholarship, defend my interpretation of Ricoeur and my remarks on entitlement.

This is a collection of essays in the history of philosophy, ranging from the cosmic evolution in Anaximander, through Leibniz on creation, to the present state of American philosophy.