1. Overview -/- 1.1 Main Divisions When, if ever, is it morally permissible to end the life of a human embryo or fetus, and why? As regards the first of these questions, there are extreme anti-abortion views, according to which abortion is prima facie seriously wrong from conception onwards – or at least shortly thereafter; there are extreme permissibility views, according to which abortion is always permissible in itself; and there are moderate views, according to which abortion is sometimes permissible, (...) and sometimes not. -/- Moderate views appeal to a variety of considerations in support of the view that abortion is sometimes justified, but these fall into four main categories. First, there are cases where the developing human is seriously defective in some way – perhaps such that it will not have a life that is worth living. Secondly, there are cases where continuation of pregnancy would involve serious risks to the life or health of the woman. Thirdly, there are moderate positions according to which the developing human initially does not have serious moral status, or a right to life, but acquires such status at some point before birth. Finally, it is often held that abortion is justified in the case of rape. -/- With the exception of the last consideration, moderate views assume that the moral status of the developing human is crucial with respect to the permissibility of abortion. Moreover, this is a natural assumption that was shared by all sides until the publication in 1971 of Judith Jarvis Thomson’s article “A Defense of Abortion,” in which she argued that abortion is permissible even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that human embryos and fetuses have a right to life. Thus we have one of the great divides in the philosophical discussion of abortion: Is the moral status of the developing human generally decisive with regard to the moral permissibility of abortion or not? -/- 1.2 The Moral Status of the Developing Human: Thomson and Boonin Thomson’s article evoked many critical responses, along with some defenses, which I have described elsewhere (2013; “Thomson’s Attempt to Defend Abortion in General”). Crucial, however, is David Boonin’s defense (2003), which contains responses to all of the important objections directed against the attempt to show that one can defend abortion while granting that human embryos and fetuses have a right to life fully on a par with that of normal adult human beings. -/- Boonin’s impressive efforts notwithstanding, I do not think that this way of defending an extreme permissibility view is successful. The crucial issue is whether it is morally permissible intentionally to bring into existence an entity with a right to life in a situation where one knows that it will not survive without one’s assistance, and then to refrain from providing that assistance. An especially forceful way of arguing that this is not permissible is found in an article by Richard Langer (1993, 351-2), who argues that if this were permissible, it would follow not only that abortion was justified, but also that it is permissible to allow one’s children to die, some years after birth, simply because one no longer wishes to care for them. -/- 1.3 Moderate Views Moderate positions on abortion raise a number of issues that, for reasons of space, I cannot address here. Some of these depend on the issue of the moral status of the developing human, and defending a moderate view requires showing that both extreme anti-abortion and extreme moral permissibility views concerning the moral status of humans before birth are incorrect. I have argued elsewhere (1983, 285-302, and 2009, 59-63) that the prospects of doing this are not promising. -/- As regards permissibility in the case of rape, everything depends upon whether, as Thomson contends (1971), there is no obligation to be a good Samaritan, rather than merely a minimally decent one, and so no obligation for a woman to remain pregnant to save the life of a being that she was not responsible for bringing into existence. Finally, on the one hand, in cases where the woman will die if an abortion is not performed, virtually all moral philosophers, with the exception of those who embrace the moral view advanced by the Catholic Church in encyclicals by Pope Pius XI (1930) and Pope Paul VI (1968), agree that abortion is morally permissible, while, on the other hand, if the situation is one where there is only some risk that the woman will die if an abortion is not performed, or where the threat is not to the woman’s life, but only to her health, then the situation does seem clear-cut if one assumes that the embryo or fetus has a right to life. -/- 1.4 Extreme Anti-Abortion Views Very different arguments are offered for the view that abortion is in itself never permissible. First of all, in popular discussions, appeal is frequently made to the mere fact of membership in the biologically defined species Homo sapiens, but among those who are philosophically knowledgeable, this line of argument is almost invariably rejected, for reasons that I have set out elsewhere (Tooley, 2009, 21-35). -/- Secondly, appeal is also made to the idea that humans have immaterial minds, or souls – for example, by Stephen Schwartz (1990), J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae (2000), Norman Ford (2002), and Francis J. Beckwith, (2005). The postulation of immaterial minds or souls is, however, open to strong objections, since there is excellent evidence that human psychological powers have their categorical bases in neural structures, rather than in an immaterial substance (Tooley, 2009, 15-19). In addition, the postulation of an immaterial soul, conceived of along Thomistic lines, is on a collision course with biology, since such an immaterial soul is held to govern a human’s life processes and biological development. -/- Thirdly, there is the ‘substantial identity’ argument, advanced for example by Patrick Lee (2004), and which claims that an entity possesses a right to life by virtue of the type of substance it is. This view is exposed to a number of strong objections, however, among them the fact that it leads to the unacceptable consequence that a human that has suffered upper brain death still has a right to life (Tooley, 2009, 51-9). -/- The upshot is that most philosophers do not find any of the preceding three lines of argument for an extreme anti-abortion position promising. The focus, accordingly, has been elsewhere – namely, on arguments claiming that human embryos and fetuses have serious moral status, or a right to life, because they have the potentiality for developing those psychological capacities – for thought, self-consciousness, rationality, and so on – that seem clearly relevant to a being’s moral status. -/- In what follows, then, I shall confine my discussion to what seems to me the most crucial issue bearing upon the moral status of abortion, namely, that between, on the one hand, a potentiality account of moral status, and, on the other, the type of approach most commonly appealed to in support of an extreme permissibility position on abortion, namely, a personhood account of the right to life. -/- One of the earliest defenders of the view that potentialities give something a right to life was Jim Stone in his article, “Why Potentiality Matters,” where Stone argues for the conclusion, “we have a prima facie duty not to deprive them of the conscious goods which it is their nature to realize” (1987, 821). Stone’s discussion, however, attracted much less attention than an article published two years later by Don Marquis, entitled “Why Abortion is Immoral.” The latter is one of the most interesting articles on abortion, as well as one of the most discussed––and deservedly so. In what follows, then, I shall focus upon it. -/- My discussion is organized as follows. In section 2, I summarize Marquis’s account of the wrongness of killing. Then, in section 3, I set out an alternative account, one in which the concept of a neo-Lockean person is central. Sections 4, 5, and 6 are then devoted to criticisms of Marquis’s approach, all of which also support the alternative, rights-based, neo-Lockean personhood account. (shrink)

The two contrasting theoretical approaches to visual perception, the constructivist and the ecological, are briefly presented and illustrated through their analyses of space and size perception. Earlier calls for their reconciliation and unification are reviewed. Neurophysiological, neuropsychological, and psychophysical evidence for the existence of two quite distinct visual systems, the ventral and the dorsal, is presented. These two perceptual systems differ in their functions; the ventral system's central function is that of identification, while the dorsal system is mainly engaged in (...) the visual control of motor behavior. The strong parallels between the ecological approach and the functioning of the dorsal system, and between the constructivist approach and the functioning of the ventral system are noted. It is also shown that the experimental paradigms used by the proponents of these two approaches match the functions of the respective visual systems. A dual-process approach to visual perception emerges from this analysis, with the ecological-dorsal process transpiring mainly without conscious awareness, while the constructivist-ventral process is normally conscious. Some implications of this dual-process approach to visual-perceptual phenomena are presented, with emphasis on space perception. Key Words: constructivist; dual-process approach; ecological; size perception; space perception; two visual systems; visual perception theories. (shrink)

Over-enthusiastic newborn screening has often caused substantial harm and has been imposed on the public without adequate information on benefits and risks and without parental consent. This problem will become worse when genomic screening is implemented. For the past 40 years, there has been broad agreement about the criteria for ethically responsible screening, but the criteria have been systematically ignored by policy makers and practitioners. Claims of high benefit and low risk are common, but they require precise definition and documentation, (...) which has often not occurred, undermining claims that involuntary testing is justified. Even when the benefits and risks are well established, it does not automatically follow that involuntary testing is justified, a position supported by the widespread tolerance for parental refusal of immunizations and newborn screening. (shrink)

Chapter I: The Geometry of Visibles 1 . The N on- Euclidean Geometry of Visibles In the chapter "The Geometry of Visibles" in Inquiry into the Human Mind, ...

This paper investigates Hermann Weyl’s reception of philosophical concepts stemming from the German Idealist Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In particular, Weyl’s ‘agens theory’ of matter, which he held around 1925, will be looked at. In the extant literature, the—admittedly also important—influence of Husserl on Weyl has mainly been addressed. Thus, apart from investigating some detailed Fichtean inheritances in Weyl’s concepts of causality, chance and continuity, the general difference which Weyl saw between the philosophies of Fichte and Husserl will also be discussed. (...) For Weyl this is above all a difference between an active constructivism and a rather passive phenomenological seeing. Further, the paper shows in some detail the way Weyl was drawn into a certain reading of Fichte by his Zurich colleague, the philosopher Fritz Medicus. The methodological frame of the paper is that of Konstellationsforschung, a historical and systematic approach which proves to be particularly fruitful when investigating a German Idealist context and which allows special attention to be given to the acting subjects within the constellation under investigation. Conversely, Weyl’s agens theory suggests amendments to this methodology.Keywords: Hermann Weyl; Fritz Medicus; Johann Gottlieb Fichte; Theory of matter; Activity vs. passivity; Konstellationsforschung. (shrink)

Heidegger presciently diagnosed the current crisis in higher education. Contemporary theorists like Bill Readings extend and update Heidegger's critique, documenting the increasing instrumentalization, professionalization, vocationalization, corporatization, and technologization of the modern university, the dissolution of its unifying and guiding ideals, and, consequently, the growing hyper-specialization and ruinous fragmentation of its departments. Unlike Heidegger, however, these critics do not recognize such disturbing trends as interlocking symptoms of an underlying ontological problem and so they provide no positive vision for the future of (...) higher education. By understanding our educational crisis 'ontohistorically', Heidegger is able to develop an alternative, ontological conception of education which he hopes will help bring about a renaissance of the university. In a provocative reading of Plato's famous 'allegory of the cave', Heidegger excavates and appropriates the original Western educational ideal of Platonic paideia, outlining the pedagogy of an ontological education capable of directly challenging the 'technological understanding of being' he holds responsible for our contemporary educational crisis. This notion of ontological education can best be understood as a philosophical perfectionism, a re-essentialization of the currently empty ideal of educational 'excellence' by which Heidegger believes we can reconnect teaching to research and, ultimately, reunify and revitalize the university itself. (shrink)

I was seven or eight years old. In Hebrew school we had just learned the Aleph-Bet and were, haltingly, beginning to sound out words. As we spoke the ancient text, our teacher translated: "... And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. ..."[note 2] Here was magic; here was the supernatural; here was the creation of the universe. I resonated to the story. I was filled with wonder, far more than had ever been elicited by any fairy (...) tale my parents had read to me. I pictured in my imagination the majesty of it: God speaks and Nature obeys. (shrink)

In Questioning Technology, Feenberg accuses Heidegger of an untenable 'technological essentialism'. Feenberg's criticisms are addressed not to technological essentialism as such, but rather to three particular kinds of technological essentialism: ahistoricism, substantivism, and one-dimensionalism. After these three forms of technological essentialism are explicated and Feenberg's reasons for finding them objectionable explained, the question whether Heidegger in fact subscribes to any of them is investigated. The conclusions are, first, that Heidegger's technological essentialism is not at all ahistoricist, but the opposite, an (...) historical conception of the essence of technology which serves as the model for Feenberg's own view. Second, that while Heidegger does indeed advocate a substantivist technological essentialism, he offers a plausible, indirect response to Feenberg's voluntaristic, Marcusean objection. Third, that Heidegger's one-dimensional technological essentialism is of a non-objectionable variety, since it does not force Heidegger to reject technological devices in toto. These conclusions help vindicate Heidegger's ground-breaking ontological approach to the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the role that the concept of the sacred can play in our moral thinking. I accept that the assertion that ‘human life is sacred’ can be one way of articulating the special value of individual human lives as in some sense inviolable. I cautiously allow that the idea of ‘sacred value’ might also apply to other things such as certain kinds of human commitments, uniquely precious art-works, and some other kinds of living things. In conclusion (...) I offer reasons for resisting the claim, made especially by Roger Scruton, that the experience of the sacred, when properly understood, draws us ineluctably into a religious view of the world. (shrink)

Fenton et al. present a Bayesian‐network analysis of the case, using their previously developed set of building blocks (‘idioms’). They claim that these idioms, combined with their opportunity‐based method for estimating the prior probability of guilt, reduce the subjectivity of their analysis. Although their Bayesian model is less cognitively feasible than scenario‐ or argumentation‐based models, they claim that it does model the standard approach to legal proof, which is to continually revise beliefs under new evidence.

My suggestion that the H.A. was written during the reign of the Emperor Julian and in his interest has had, on the whole, ‘a bad press.’ Reviewers who have not thought it necessary to support with argument their doubts or their rejection of the theory are in a strong position: they remain practically unassailable. ‘The theory seems on a priori grounds improbable:’ a historical student can only reply that so is human nature—distressingly improbable, as he knows to his cost. ‘After (...) reading this book one puts it down “met een zekere onvoldaanheid:”’ what can an author do save express his regret for having caused Dr. Van de Weerd this discomfort? But two stalwart defenders of the conservative position—De Sanctis and Lécrivain’—have sustained with detailed argument their unqualified rejection of my theory; in their cases it is possible to attempt a rejoinder. (shrink)

Those who have views about the relation between aesthetic and ethical value often also have views about the nature of art criticism. Yet no one has paid much attention to the compatibility of views in one debate with views in the other. This is worrying in light of a tension between two popular kinds of view: namely, between critical pluralism and any view in the art and ethics debate that presupposes an invariant relation between aesthetic value and ethical value. Specifically, (...) the tension with invariance arises insofar as critical pluralism accommodates the aesthetic value of interpretive richness, including the aesthetic value of ethically conflicted interpretive richness. Given this tension, a shift of focus is needed in the art and ethics debate; from specifying the criteria for the aesthetic relevance of a work's ethical qualities to defending the fundamental nature of the aesthetic-ethical value relation. (shrink)

The Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts kept in the Otani University Library. Otani University Library, Kyoto 1995. lxxxi, 778 pp. No price given.

Volume 19, Issue 10, October 2019, Page 52-54.

What are thought experiments? How and why do they work? What do they reveal about the nature of rationality? These are the problems that I attempt to solve in my inquiry. ;Regarding the first problem, my preliminary answer can be stated as follows: Thought experiments are our imaginative explorations of new ways to experience and understand our world. It is my conviction that the ability to try out new ways of experiencing and understanding various phenomena is essential to the growth (...) of our knowledge and is constitutive of our sense of meaningfulness in our world. This conviction is the guiding idea of my study. ;This conviction is debatable. It cannot be the starting point of my argument. My tactic, rather, is to select and examine certain kinds of thought experiments, to show how and why they work, and to uncover the rationality that supports their implementation. I will show that the rationality is not specific to thought experimentation but is constitutive of all sorts of human organizing activities. The importance of a proper analysis of thought experiment is that it can give us an insight into human rationality in general. ;Thought experiments have played a central role in scientific development in human history. Yet almost nobody has any insight into how and why they work. But now recent research on cognition, especially research on meaning, imagination, concepts, reasoning, and cognitive development has begun to shed light on the imaginative structure of thought experiments. Therefore, we now have a means to begin to analyze the central mechanism of thought experimentation. My inquiry suggests what such an analysis would look like. (shrink)

This book critically examines the debate on Martin Heidegger's concept of Entscheidung and his engagement and confrontation with Nazism in terms of his broader philosophical thought. It argues that one cannot explain Heidegger's actions without accounting for his idea of "decision" and its connection to his understanding of individual "fate" and national "destiny." The book looks at the relation of biography to philosophy and the ethical and political implications of appropriating Heidegger's thinking in these domains of inquiry. It highlights themes (...) such as Heidegger's differences with the neo-Kantians in Germany; Heidegger on Kant and practical reason; and his reading of Nietzsche and Hegel. It offers a philosophical assessment grounded in Heidegger's own texts, with reference to historical and other philosophical commentaries on the rise of National Socialism in post-Weimar Germany and the philosophical issues associated with the interpretation of Nazi genocide and ideology. An important intervention in Western philosophy, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political philosophy, continental philosophy, German philosophy, philosophy in general, and political studies. (shrink)

A remarkable feature of contemporary political discourse is the dominance of morality. One legacy of logical positivism and analytical philosophy was the reluctance of political theorists during the twentieth century to engage in substantive argument about appropriate social ends or individual rights and values. Philosophers were content to describe the linguistic framework within which related political proposals were discussed without offering any proposals themselves. It was felt that the philosopher was not especially qualified to give political advice or make any (...) recommendations. The technical political theorist was properly confined to the second level of inquiry, that is, explanation of the meaning of concepts, not the first level, which was concerned with questions of how we ought to live, or issues of public policy. Economists and sociologists might have the technical skills appropriate for inquiries into public policy, but as to the big questions—such as the ends and purposes of man and society—almost anybody could make pronouncements. The important point was that reason was incapable of adjudicating between rival versions of the good life. (shrink)

This paper shows how different axiomatic and constructive approaches within quantum field theory can be understood in terms of the so-called ,picture theory' of Heinrich Hertz. Each approach will count as a different picture due to the different status of the various concepts (symbols) they are employing, like observables, gauge invariance, confinement or the space-time continuum. An important difference with the original Hertzian approach is the fact that the different approaches in quantum field theory have partially overlapping, partially supplementing domains (...) of application. This also marks some of the parallels and differences with contemporary debates on structural realism and model-theoretic approaches in the philosophy of physics. The objection that the talk about different pictures just relies on the fact that quantum field theory is unfinished will be countered. Finally, the Hertzian approach will be briefly elaborated and embedded into its philosophical successor projects of Cassirer and Goodman. German Dieser Aufsatz zeigt, wie verschiedene axiomatische und konstruktive Ansätze in der Quantenfeldtheorie mit Hilfe der sogenannten ,,Bildtheorie“ von Heinrich Hertz verstanden werden können. Aufgrund der unterschiedlichen Stellungen der verschiedenen Konzepte (Symbole), die diese Ansätze benutzen - wie etwa Observable, Eichinvarianz, Confinement oder Raum-Zeit-Kontinuum - wird jeder als ein eigenes Bild zu betrachten sein. Ein wichtiger Unterschied zu Hertz' ursprünglicher Fassung der Bildtheorie sind dabei die unterschiedlichen Anwendungsbereiche der Ansätze in der Quantenfeldtheorie. Diese überschneiden sich zum Teil, zum Teil ergänzen sie einander. Dadurch ergeben sich für die bildtheoretische Interpretation wichtige Parallelen und Unterschiede zu anderen Positionen in der Philosophie der Physik, insbesondere zum Strukturrealismus und zur Modell-Theorie. Neben diesen diskutiere ich den Einwand, dass die Redeweise von verschiedenen Bildern in der Quantenfeldtheorie nur deshalb möglich sei, weil die Theorie noch nicht abgeschlossen ist. Schließlich erweitere ich die Hertzsche Bildtheorie und setze sie dabei in Beziehung zu ihren philosophischen Nachfolgeprojekten bei Cassirer und Goodman. (shrink)

This paper aims at closing a gap in recent Weyl research by investigating the role played by Leibniz for the development and consolidation of Weyl's notion of theoretical (symbolic) construction. For Weyl, just as for Leibniz, mathematics was not simply an accompanying tool when doing physics – for him it meant the ability to engage in well-guided speculations about a general framework of reality and experience. The paper first introduces some of the background of Weyl's notion of theoretical construction and (...) then discusses particular Leibnizian inheritances in Weyl's Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft, such as the general appreciation of the principles of sufficient reason and of continuity. Afterwards the paper focuses on three themes: first, Leibniz's primary quality phenomenalism, which according to Weyl marked the decisive step in realizing that physical qualities are never apprehended directly; second, the conceptual relation between continuity and freedom; and third, Leibniz's notion of ‘expression’, which allows for a certain type of (surrogative) reasoning by structural analogy and which gave rise to Weyl's optimism regarding the scope of theoretical construction. (shrink)