The media, perhaps more than any other slice of culture, influence what we think and talk about, what we take to be important, what we worry about. And this was especially true when news of Dolly hit the airwaves and newstands. Most Americans received training in the ethics of cloning before they knew what cloning was. Media coverage fixed the content and outline of the public moral debate, both revealing and creating the dominant public worries about cloning humans. The primary (...) characterization of cloning as an ethical issue centers around three connected concerns: the loss of human uniqueness and individuality, the pathological motivations of a cloner, and the fear of out‐of‐control scientists. (shrink)

Many religious critics argue that biotechnology (such as cloning and genetic engineering) intrudes on God's domain, or plays God, or revolts against God. While some of these criticisms are standard complaints about human hubris, I argue that some of the recent criticism represents a “Promethean” concern, in which believers unreflectively seem to fear that science and technology are actually replicating or stealing God's special deity–defining powers. These criticisms backfire theologically, because they diminish God, portraying God as an anthropomorphic superbeing whose (...) relevance and special nature are increasingly rivaled by human power. (shrink)

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the use of the term “hero” has been widespread. This is especially common in the context of healthcare workers and it is now unremarkable to see large banners on hospital exteriors that say “heroes work here”. There is more to be gleaned from the rhetoric of heroism than just awareness of public appreciation, however. Calling physicians and nurses heroes for treating sick people indicates something about the concept of medicine and medical professionals. In this essay, I (...) will examine three aspects of the social role of medicine exposed by the language of heroism. One, if a hero is someone who goes above and the call of duty, then does that mean exposing oneself to risk of infection is no longer a duty of physicians? If so, does that mean the “profession” of medicine is much like any other business? Two, physicians and nurses are not the only “heroes” this go-around. Anyone deemed essential to the US “infrastructure” is designated by the US government as having “special responsibilities” to remain at their posts for the public good, which explicitly puts physicians in the same category as sewage workers and grocery store cashiers. Three, what does it mean to belong to a profession that does have self-sacrifice and risk-taking as part of its mission—especially a profession that rarely gets called upon to practice these obligations? (shrink)

In reexamining the "sex war" debates between radical feminists and lesbian feminist sadomasochists, I find that the actual practice of sadomasochism provides the basis for a philosophically more complex position than has been articulated. In response to the anti-SM radical perspective, I develop a distinction between simulation and replication of patriarchal dominant/submissive activities. In light of this important epistemological and ethical distinction, I claim that the radical feminist opposition to SM needs reassessment.

The distinction between “passive” and “active” euthanasia, though problematic and highly criticized, retains a certain intuitive appeal. When a patient is allowed to die, nature appears simply to be taking its course. Yet when a patient is killed by, say, a lethal injection, humans appear to be causing his or her death. Guilt seems to follow naturally from the latter act while not from the former. Yet this view only holds up if age‐old and vague ideasabout “nature” and “artifice” go (...) unscrutinized. Once examined more closely the functional relevance of particular machines to particular bodies becomes evident. And the innocence and guilt less clear. (shrink)

An illuminating and often unsettling picture of the ethical, moral, and legal issues that shape experience, culture, and identity in the late twentieth century emerges from this thought-provoking collection.

The abortion controversy as a cultural phenomenon is itself socially troublesome. However, current biotechnology research programs point to a possible technological fix. If we could harmlessly remove fetuses from women’s bodies and transfer them to other women, cryonic suspension, or ectogenetic devices, this might mitigate the controversy. Pro-lifers’ apparent minimal requirement would be met—fetuses would not be killed. Pro-choicers’ apparent minimal requirement would be met—women could end pregnancies and control their bodies. This option has been optimistically anticipated by some ethicists, (...) but some people reject this fix because they are averse to being genetically related to a child they are not raising, insisting on the right to destroy the fetus as well as have it removed. Inthis paper I examine these issues, asking what the real issues in abortion rights are, whether technology can help, what the scope of reproductive autonomy is, and how technology will change the abortion debate. (shrink)

All worldviews have some sort of moral vision for why and how they pursue their goals, though these moral visions may be more or less explicitly stated. Transhumanism is no different, though sometimes people forget that transhumanism is not the alien dream of a posthuman mind but is instead a very human ideology driven by very human interests and moral ideals. In this paper, I lay out some of those ideals in very general terms, advocating a high-minded moral vision for (...) transhumanism that is born of and extends the desire for human flourishing. Though taken to new heights, transhumanism coheres with age-old views of ourselves as our own projects. What the end and direction and scope of those projects can be, however, is generated by, but not limited to, human nature. (shrink)

Melinda Vadas rejects my claim that there are morally relevant differences between simulations of unjust events and actual unjust events on the ground that I overlook the connection between simulations and that which they simulate. I argue that this purported moral connection can only be understood as either the result of a necessary psychological disposition or as a "magical," metaphysical attachment, neither of which is defensible or satisfactory.

Between people who unabashedly support eating meat and those who adopt moral vegetarianism, lie a number of people who are uncomfortably carnivorous and vaguely wish they could be vegetarians. Opposing animal suffering in principle, they can ignore it in practice, relying on the visual disconnect between supermarket meat and slaughterhouse practices not to trigger their moral emotions. But what if we could have the best of both worlds in reality—eat meat and not harm animals? The nascent biotechnology of tissue culture, (...) originally researched for medical applications, holds out just such a promise. Meat could be grown in vitro without killing animals. In fact, this technology may not just be an intriguing option, but might be our moral obligation to develop. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the process of entanglement at the 25th International Philosophy of Nursing Conference (IPNC) at University of California at Irvine held on August 18, 2022. Representing collective work from the US, Canada, UK and Germany, our panel entitled ‘What can critical posthuman philosophies do for nursing?’ examined critical posthumanism and its operations and potential in nursing. Critical posthumanism offers an antifascist, feminist, material, affective, and ecologically entangled approach to nursing and healthcare. Rather than focusing on (...) the arguments of each of the three distinct but interrelated panel presentation pieces, this paper instead focuses on process and performance (per/formance) and performativity as relational, connected and situated, with connections to nursing philosophy. Building upon critical feminist and new materialist philosophies, we describe intra‐activity and performativity as ways to dehierarchise knowledge making practices within traditional academic conference spaces. Creating critical cartographies of thinking and being are actions of possibility for building more just and equitable futures for nursing, nurses, and those they accompany—including all humans, nonhumans, and more than human matter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Josiah Royce in FocusDwayne A. TunstallJosiah Royce in Focus Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008.Josiah Royce in Focus reads like a sequel to Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley’s earlier book on Royce’s public philosophy, Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities. As she did in Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities, Kegley does a remarkable job of interpreting Royce’s philosophy such that it has [End Page 127] contemporary (...) relevance for academic philosophy, conflict resolution, psychology, and the religion-science dialogue. Yet, unlike with her earlier book, Kegley devotes over two-thirds of this book to the task of weaving together Royce’s life and educational experiences with his thought. This integration of Royce’s life with his thought allows the reader to glimpse just how Royce is “a model philosopher: a scholar and a committed teacher, as well as a philosopher much concerned about public issues and basic human concerns” (xiv). Kegley does this while introducing the reader to many dimensions of Royce, including Royce the son, Royce the father, Royce the first-generation Californian, Royce the first-rate historian of California, Royce the amateur novelist, and Royce the world traveler. Amazingly, she uses Royce’s life to illuminate his philosophical thought without psychologizing Royce and hence avoids the all-too-common urge to reduce people’s philosophical ideas to mere rationalizations of their own preferences and desires. This is to be applauded in the age of Oprah, the proliferation of memoirs, and the apparent glut of self-help books.The first five chapters constitute Kegley’s portrait of Royce the person and Royce the thinker. In chapter 1, “Royce as a Frontier Californian and Intellectual Pioneer: Forging Self and Thought in a New and Developing Land,” she introduces the reader to Royce the first-generation Californian and intellectual pioneer. Here she persuasively links his California frontier upbringing; his early educational experiences in California at the Lincoln School (San Francisco) and the University of California, Berkeley; his studies in Germany; and his graduate studies at Johns Hopkins to his concerns about social conflicts and his lifelong attempt to resolve those conflicts to better the communities in which they occur (7–12).Indeed, she persuasively argues that Royce had already formulated the central insights of his philosophy by the time of his arrival at Harvard University in 1882. Kegley’s interpretation of Royce’s intellectual development owes much to Randall Auxier’s recent work on Royce’s thought. In Auxier’s interpretation of Royce’s thought, Royce had formulated the central intellectual insights of his philosophy—especially his ethics, philosophy or religion, and public philosophy—years before The Religious Aspect of Philosophy was published in 1885. This account of Royce’s intellectual development differs somewhat from Frank M. Oppenheim’s account. Oppenheim’s account depicts Royce’s intellectual development as a series of interrelated yet momentous “maximal intellectual insights.” Each of these insights marks a noticeable shift in his intellectual development. Oppenheim thinks that, of all the maximal intellectual insights Royce had throughout his career, the [End Page 128] most momentous one is the 1912 Peircean insight. This insight leads Royce to convert to Peircean semiotics and clarify his moral philosophy and philosophy of religion with Peirce’s theory of interpretation. In Oppenheim’s account, The Sources of Religious Insight (1912) and The Problem of Christianity (1913) are the glorious fruits of his Peircean insight. What Kegley has done in chapter 1 is to provide an account of Royce’s intellectual development that supersedes Oppenheim’s account. Indeed, her account of Royce’s intellectual development could possibly change how scholars study Royce’s thought, much in the same way that John E. Smith’s Royce’s Social Infinite did from the early 1950s until recently.In chapter 2, “The Self,” Kegley depicts Royce as a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century psychologist whose ideas are still relevant today. She reminds the reader throughout this chapter that Royce is a pioneer in psychology, given that his book Outlines of Psychology (1903) advances an approach to psychology that sidesteps faculty psychology and that he is one of the first psychologists, along with William James... (shrink)

BackgroundMoral distress (MD) is an emotional and psychological response to morally challenging dilemmas. Moral distress is experienced frequently by nurses in the intensive care unit (ICU) and can result in emotional anguish, work dissatisfaction, poor patient outcomes, and high levels of nurse turnover. Opportunities to discuss ethically challenging situations may lessen MD and its associated sequela.ObjectiveThe purpose of this project was to develop, implement, and evaluate the impact of nursing ethics huddles on participants’ MD, clinical ethics knowledge, work satisfaction, and (...) patient care among ICU nurses.Sample and SettingThe sample, 32 nurses from three ICU settings in an 800-bed tertiary academic medical center, participated in six nursing ethics huddles over a two-month period.MethodsAlvita K. Nathaniel’s Theory of Moral Reckoning guided development of the nursing ethics huddle process.1 The Moral Distress Thermometer was administered at three data points: baseline level of MD, and pre- and post-huddle to determine changes in the subjects’ level of MD.2 Focused content analysis was used to analyze qualitative responses from questionnaires about the subjects’ perception of the effect of the huddles on work satisfaction and patient care. Knowledge attainment was evaluated via open-ended short-answer questions.ResultsOverall, use of nurse-ethicist-led nursing ethics huddles was associated with improved quality of work life, patient care, and clinical ethics knowledge. The change in pre- and post-nursing ethics huddles MD scores was statistically significant (p < 0.0001). (shrink)

Freud's core interest in the psyche was the dynamic unconscious: that part of the psyche which is unconscious due to conflict (Freud, 1923/1961 ). Over the course of his career, Freud variously described conflict as an opposition to the discharge of activation (Freud, 1950 ), opposition to psychic activity due to the release of unpleasure (Freud, 1990/1991 ), opposition between the primary principle and the reality principle (Freud, 1911/1963 ), structural conflict between id, ego, and superego (Freud, 1923/1961 ), and (...) ambivalence (Freud, 1912/1963 ). Besides this difficulty of the shifting description of conflict, an underlying question remained the specific shared terrain in which emotions, thoughts, intentions or wishes could come into conflict with one another (the neuronal homolog of conflict), and most especially how they may exist as quantities in opposition within that terrain. Friston's free-energy principle (FEP henceforth) connected to the work of Friston (Friston et al., 2006 ; Friston, 2010 ) has provided the potential for a powerful unifying theory in psychology, neuroscience, and related fields that has been shown to have tremendous consilience with psychoanalytic concepts (Hopkins, 2012 ). Hopkins ( 2016 ), drawing on a formulation by Hobson et al. ( 2014 ), suggests that conflict may be potentially quantifiable as free energy from a FEP perspective. More recently, work by Friston et al. ( 2017a ) has framed the selection of action as a gradient descent of expected free energy under different policies of action. From this perspective, the article describes how conflict could potentially be formalized as a situation where opposing action policies have similar expected free energy, for example between actions driven by competing basic prototype emotion systems as described by Panksepp ( 1998 ). This conflict state may be avoided in the future through updating the relative precision of a particular set of prior beliefs about outcomes: this has the result of tending to favor one of the policies of action over others in future instances, a situation analogous to defense. Through acting as a constraint on the further development of the person, the defensive operation can become entrenched, and resistant to alteration. The implications that this formalization has for psychoanalysis is explored. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Proceedings of the ALSC (1995 Convention)Patrick HenryGiven the oppressively politicized character of academic literary studies today, it took courage and conviction to found a new literary society in 1994. The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics is dedicated to the study of literature as a source of pleasure and insight. This would be banal were it not for the way in which culture wars, identity politics, and race (...) and gender issues have come to dominate university literature departments. More than merely a handful of scholars wish to reverse this trend: in less than two years, the ALSC has grown to 1800 members and its first conference, held in Minneapolis, September 22–24, 1995, was a notable success.Because we favor a true pluralism, and like many others are tired of the predictable posturing that permeates so much literary scholarship today, we invited the ALSC to publish its first conference proceedings in our pages. The meeting offered much variety, with classicists and modernists, poets, fiction writers, and critics trading ideas on literature and aesthetics. Despite worries by its detractors that the ALSC represents reaction or blind traditionalism, there was a refreshing openness to the proceedings, with lucid examples of critical reading and topics from metaphor in Dickens and Auden’s Alcaic stanza in “In memory of Sigmund Freud,” to the Islamic influence on Dante’s Commedia—a connection that belies the charge that the Western canon is inevitably Eurocentric. If the ALSC can revive a sense of wonder before the greatest works of literary art and provide an alternative to the complacency and pretentiousness of contemporary theory, it deserves support from us all.For twenty years it has said on our inside back cover that Philosophy and Literature “owes allegiance to no particular school or style of criticism or philosophy.” Our only loyalty is to literature and philosophy; they constitute our field of interest. It has never been our aim to adopt the correct ideology. We remain skeptical of ideological commitments and will continue to publish exciting jargon-free articles representative of the entire spectrum of approaches to literature and philosophy.Copyright © 1996 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Fred S. Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine --Book Jacket.

Patrick Hopkins has claimed that SM is compatible with feminist principles. I argue that his account relies on both mistaken analogies and an untenable account of the allegedly changed meaning of SM scenes.

In "Rethinking Sadomasochism," Patrick Hopkins challenges the "radical" feminist claim that sadomasochism is incompatible with feminism. He does so by appeal to the notion of "simulation." I argue that Hopkins's conclusions are generally right, but they cannot be inferred from his "simulation" argument. I replace Hopkins's "simulation" with Kendall Walton's more sophisticated theory of "make-believe." I use this theory to better argue that privately conducted sadomasochism is compatible with feminism.

Libertarian free will is, roughly, the view that agents cause actions to occur or not occur: Maddy’s decision to get a beer causes her to get up off her comfortable couch to get a beer, though she almost chose not to get up. Libertarian free will notoriously faces the luck objection, according to which agential states do not determine whether an action occurs or not, so it is beyond the control of the agent, hence lucky, whether an action occurs or (...) not: Maddy’s reasons for getting beer in equipoise with her reasons to remain in her comfortable seat do not determine that she will get up or stay seated, so it seems beyond her control, hence lucky, that she gets up. In this paper I consider a sub-set of the luck objection called the Physical Indeterminism Luck Objection, according to which indeterministic physical processes cause actions to occur or not, and agent’s lack control over these indeterministic physical processes, so agent’s lack control over, hence it is lucky, whether action occurs or not. After motivating the physical indeterminism luck objection, I consider responses from three recent event-causal libertarian models, and conclude that they fail to overcome the problem, though one promising avenue is opened up. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Direct Nuclear Reprogramming: Response to Condic, Lee, and GeorgeGerard Magill, Ph.D. and William B. NeavesWe read with great interest the response of Maureen Condic, Patrick Lee, and Robert George (2009) to our essay, “Ontological and Ethical Implications of Direct Nuclear Reprogramming” in the March 2009 issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (Magill and Neaves 2009). Much of their response addressed issues that are not in dispute: (...) somatic cells are not zygotes, neurons and hepatocytes are different, growth-factor signals from the trophoblast influence development of the inner cell mass, membranes derived from the trophectoderm are critically required for embryonic survival, and stem cells cannot produce a fetus “on their own.”The crucial point of disagreement deals with the fact that iPS cells are not totipotent but zygotes are. Zygotes can generate their own placental structures while iPS cells must be given them through tetraploid complementation. Condic, Lee, and George consider totipotency to be crucial to natural potentiality. We present an alternative view in our essay (Magill and Neaves 2009, pp. 28–29). Placental structures make no lasting contribution to the postnatal organism, and the equivalency of iPS cells with the inner cell mass of the blastocyst is apparent from tetraploid complementation experiments.The respondents acknowledge the following:... somatic cells can be “converted” into zygotes by the process of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) or direct reprogramming in combination with tetraploid complementation—just as sperm and egg cells can be “converted” into a zygote by the process of natural fertilization—....(Condic, Lee, and George 2009, p. 35)As the respondents recognize, different ways of manipulating cells can lead to embryogenesis: sperm and egg cells in the process of natural fertilization, the enucleated egg and an ordinary body cell in the process of somatic cell nuclear transfer, and reprogrammed skin cells and a tetraploid blastocyst in the case of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. In each case, different cells are manipulated—or “converted” in the respondents’ terminology—in a process that alters their biological fate within a supportive environment facilitating embryogenesis.The developmental potential that resides in the human genome does not unfold in isolation, not even in a zygote. In all cases, whether involving a zygote or an iPS cell, interaction with a supportive environment is required to express the developmental program residing in the genome. [End Page 201]This biological reality supports what we have described as “early cellular development along the continuum of natural potentiality that can result in the formation of a fetus” (Magill and Neaves 2009, p. 30), and it presents a significant challenge to the natural potentiality argument.Gerard MagillVernon F. Gallagher Chair for the Integration of Science, Theology, Philosophy, and Law, and Professor, Center for Healthcare Ethics Duquesne University Pittsburgh, PA.William B. NeavesPresident and CEO Stowers Institute for Medical Research and Professor of Basic Medical Science University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine Kansas City, MOReferencesCondic, Maureen L.; Lee, Patrick; and George, Robert P. 2008. Ontological and Ethical Implications of Direct Nuclear Reprogramming: Response to Magill and Neaves. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 19: 33–40. Google ScholarMagill, Gerard, and Neaves William B. 2009. Ontological and Ethical Implications of Direct Nuclear Reprogramming. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 19: 23–32. Google ScholarCopyright © 2009 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen CraneDonald PizerThe Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen Crane, by Patrick K. Dooley; xxvi & 212 pp. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993, $34.95 cloth, 17.95 paper.Dooley’s study of Crane’s work and ideas is a brave and on the whole successful venture into the often murky waters of the possible philosophical system underlying the nonphilosophical discourse of a creative writer. Dooley is not content, (...) as have been most critics of Crane, to concentrate on the philosophical cast of ideas in a specific Crane work. Rather, he is inclusive in that he deals with the full range of Crane’s writing—from prose to fiction to poetry, and from early to late expression—and he is systematic in that he finds a close similarity between Crane’s basic beliefs and the formal philosophical system of William James.To the reader well-traveled in Crane criticism, much in Dooley’s account of this similarity has a familiar ring. Crane, like James, posits the absence of God in any traditional sense of a supreme being and therefore the uncertainty of ascertaining truth. We live in a world of multiple realities and distinctive perspectives in which, however, the individual, despite the flux of both experience and perception, can still assert the humanistic values of compassion and fraternity. The value of Dooley’s reading lies less in its freshness than in the range and rigor of his demonstration of its centrality and pervasiveness in Crane’s work. What was before a body of suggestive insights into this or that work by a wide range of critics is here, in Dooley’s perceptive exploration of every nook and cranny of Crane’s writing and belief, brought into clear and persuasive focus.This is not to say that The Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen Crane is the last word on Crane’s ideas. Dooley’s method of dividing his discussion of Crane’s belief into the traditional philosophical categories of metaphysics, epistemology, and so on produces an impression of uniformity in Crane’s expression of his ideas, whereas there is in fact great variety. Some of Crane’s writing achieves its approximation of Jamesian belief more cogently and with greater literary success than other works containing similar ideas. And Crane’s early work often differs significantly from his later writing in the kind of ideas it engages and in its degree of commitment to specific beliefs. Dooley’s argument that Crane had a coherent system of belief, in other words, tends to obscure the distinctive form which his beliefs took in particular works. But this criticism aside, Dooley, with his judicious review of previous discussions of Crane’s ideas (his notes are especially rich in this regard), his carefully modulated responsiveness to the philosophical implications of fictional scene and action, and his sympathetic identification with James’s beliefs, has made a major contribution both to Crane studies and to an understanding of the dimensions of late nineteenth-century American modes of thought.Donald PizerTulane UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In a series of writings, James Sterba introduces several novel arguments from evil against the existence of God (Sterba, 2019; Sterba Sophia 59, 501–512, 2020; Sterba International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87, 203–208, 2020b; Sterba International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 87, 223–228, 2020c; Sterba Religions 12, 536, 2021). According to one of these arguments, the problem of natural evil, God must necessarily prevent the horrendous evil consequences of natural evil such as diseases and hurricanes; however, these horrendous evil (...) consequences of natural evils still occur, so God does not exist. In this paper, I reply to Sterba’s argument from natural evil by introducing a naturalistic theodicy, and then demonstrating how it overcomes Sterba’s problem of natural evil. This paper is divided into five sections. First, I unpack Sterba’s problem of natural evil into three parts (Section 1), namely, Sterba’s moral obligation claim about humans, Sterba’s moral obligation claim about non-human life, and Sterba’s arguments from analogy. I then introduce a general naturalistic theodicy to the problem of natural evil (Section 2): naturalists grant that natural forces (entropy, evolutionary pressures, tectonic plate movements, etc.) cause horrendous consequences of natural evil, yet still consider human life in the universe a good better than humans are entitled to, so, if God made this naturalistic universe, God made human life in the universe a good better than humans are entitled to. I then use this naturalistic theodicy to reply to Sterba’s moral obligation claim about humans (Section 3), before bolstering the case by appeal to Sterba’s moral obligation claims about non-human life (Section 4). I then reply to Sterba’s arguments from analogy (Section 5). (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse the principle of mental causation, according to which some events have mental causes: Sid climbs the hill because he wants to. Nonreductive physicalists also endorse the principle of physical causal completeness, according to which physical events have sufficient physical causes: Sid climbs the hill because a complex neural process in his brain triggered his climbing. Critics typically level the causal exclusion problem against this nonreductive physicalist model, according to which the physical cause is a sufficient cause of (...) the behavioural effect, so the mental cause is excluded from causally influencing Sid’s behaviour. In this paper I demonstrate how numerous nonreductive physicalists have responded to the causal exclusion problem by weakening the principle of physical causal completeness in numerous ways. The result: either numerous nonreductive physicalist solutions fail on account of the fact that they do not satisfy a robustly defined principle of physical causal completeness, or there is an accelerating trend of solving the causal exclusion problem by suitably weakening the principle of physical causal completeness. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists endorse autonomous mental causation, the view that mental causes, as distinct from physical causes, bring about mental and physical effects. The causal exclusion problem has recently pressured nonreductive physicalists to replace autonomous mental causation with reduced mental causation, the view that mental causes, as physical causes, bring about mental and physical effects. Reduced mental causation, in turn, faces the problem of mental quausation, according to which reduced mental causation only delivers mental‐as‐physical causation, not the requisite mental‐as‐mental causation. Proponents (...) of reduced mental causation have responded by emphasizing the success of reduction in delivering mental causation, while questioning the metaphysical legitimacy of mental quausation (Tiehen, 2019; Gibb, 2017; Robb, 2017; 2013).1 In this paper, I argue that the requirement for mental quausation not only withstands these objections, but that mental quausation is an inevitable problematic for any version of reduced mental causation. (shrink)

This article argues for a version of sacred naturalism within the framework of a processual metaphysics that characterizes the cosmos as an interplay between Chaos (disunity) and Logos (unity). I argue that although creativity is highly valuable from the perspective of life and humanity, at a cosmic scale it is overshadowed by the universal tendencies toward conservation and destruction. Within this metaphysical picture I develop a naturalist notion of the sacred as a phenomenological object inspiring particularly intense feelings of inner (...) harmony but functioning eudaemonically to strengthen mind, body, and soul against forms of Chaos, whether anomie, stress, or personal conflict. After developing some criteria for a sacred but immanent meta-unity in contrast to the transcendental unities of traditional religion, I describe how the unity of the cosmos might be experienced as a sacred object by emphasizing its heterarchical, aesthetic and life-affirming dimensions. (shrink)

I recently argued that reductive physicalist versions of libertarian free will face a physical indeterminism luck objection. John Lemos claims that one potential advocate of reductive physicalist libertarianism, Robert Kane, avoids this physical indeterminism luck objection. I here show how the problem remains.

The healthcare systems of the United States and United Kingdom are vastly different. The former relies primarily on private sector incentives and market forces to allocate medical care services, while the latter is a centrally planned system funded almost entirely by the public sector. Therefore, each nation represents divergent views on the relative efficacy of the market or government in achieving social objectives in the area of medical care policy. Since its inception in 1948, the National Health Services of the (...) United Kingdom has consistently emphasized equity in the allocation of medical services. It has done so by creating a system whereby services are universally free of charge at the point of entry. Conversely, the United States has relied upon the evolution of a perplexing array of public and private sector insurance schemes centered more around consumer choice than equity in allocation. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to analyze and criticize, both positively and negatively. Whitehead's concept of progress. Whitehead's progressive cosmology is critically examined, as is the relationship between technology and moral progress. The fragility of progress is emphasized.

In this article, I argue for the redundancy of Whitehead’s Platonic notion of the extensive continuum, counterposing it to his related notion of an atomic “ether of events.” I argue that Whitehead’s atomic ether is more compatible with orthodox general relativity than generally supposed and remarkably close to the contemporary idea of a discrete manifold in the causal set theory of quantum gravity. I argue that the method of extensive abstraction complements Whitehead’s atomic hypothesis by demonstrating the ultimately fictive nature (...) of any continuum. (shrink)

i find roger ward’s interpretation of Charles Sanders Peirce’s logic, semiotics, and pragmaticism in Peirce and Religion to be not only plausible, but also compelling. What makes Ward’s interpretation of Peirce’s thought compelling, at least to me, is the story he tells about how Peirce’s Trinitarian faith commitments shaped Peirce’s thought from the early 1860s to his death in 1914. Ward’s story accounts for how Peirce’s Trinitarian faith commitments led Peirce to consider his study of logic and semiotics as his (...) vocation. It also accounts for how Peirce’s Trinitarian faith commitments motivated Peirce to transition from being a proponent of a nominalistic pragmatism in the 1870s to being a pragmaticist by the... (shrink)

According to proponents of the causal exclusion problem, there cannot be a sufficient physical cause and a distinct mental cause of the same piece of behaviour. Increasingly, the causal exclusion problem is circumvented via this compatibilist reasoning: a sufficient physical cause of the behavioural effect necessitates the mental cause of the behavioural effect, so the effect has a sufficient physical cause and a mental cause as well. In this paper, I argue that this compatibilist reply fails to resolve the causal (...) exclusion problem. (shrink)

This paper sought to test whether student demographics (gender, age, religion, type of degree and number of courses done containing ethics) influenced the likelihood of engaging in unethical business practices. The study involved the use of a questionnaire being administered to a sample of 231 undergraduate students in Barbados. It was found that gender, religiousness, type of degree and number of courses taken containing ethics significantly impacted on the intentions to engage in unethical behaviour. It was also found that the (...) impact of age was not conclusive. The study has several limitations including low generalisability due to the use of a non-probability sampling method, and the possibility of social desirability bias. The study informs educators about the need to integrate ethics into the curriculum as an essential component of professional training for future managers and business people. This study makes an important contribution to the ethics literature on small island developing states, since the study was done in the country of Barbados. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Josiah Royce's "Enlightened" Antiblack Racism?Dwayne A. TunstallThis article has not been written by some ideal Roycean mediator whose interpretive acts can help heal the deep-seated racial and ethnic divisions of contemporary American society. Nor has it been written by an impartial judge adjudicating a dispute. Rather this article has been written by a Roycean scholar and a philosopher of race who feels compelled to examine Royce's social philosophy (...) in order to determine whether his positions on race in the United States of America and on racialized colonialism in the British Caribbean presuppose the legitimacy of antiblack racism. What has compelled me to examine Royce's social philosophy critically are the presentations made by Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley and Tommy J. Curry at the joint Josiah Royce Society and Personalist Discussion Group session for the 2008 American Philosophical Association (APA) Central Division meeting.For those readers who might be familiar with Royce's philosophy, this entire article may seem pointless. I can imagine quite a few readers asking themselves the following questions: Why should we waste our time reading an article investigating whether Royce's social philosophy presupposes antiblack racism? Do we not already know that Royce's philosophy is an antiracist one? This response has been nurtured by those Roycean scholars who have interpreted his philosophy to be antiracist. Indeed, this has apparently been the standard approach to interpreting Royce's philosophy since the publication of his 1905 address to the Chicago Ethical Society, "Race Questions and Prejudices," in Race Questions, Provincialism and Other American Problems. These scholars have included American pragmatists, African-American philosophers, theologians, ethicists, and philosophers of race. Over the last forty years alone, these scholars have included William T. Fontaine, Cornel West, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Alain Locke, Shannon Sullivan, and Jacquelyn Kegley. [End Page 39]In this article I argue that the standard antiracist interpretation of Royce's philosophy is a mistaken one. This is an understandable mistake, though, given that many of those who interpret Royce this way presuppose that (1) one can analyze certain concepts and principles from Royce's ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics (e.g., his theory of interpretation) apart from his concrete social philosophy and (2) one can ignore his tacit acceptance of early twentieth-century, British-style racialized colonialism. I think Kegley's writings on Royce and race are paradigmatic examples of this reading of Royce.Kegley's recent APA presentation can be read as a further articulation of one of the central contentions in her 2005 article, "Is a Coherent Racial Identity Essential to Genuine Individuals and Communities?": "… Royce advocates and provides the foundation for an anti-essentialist and nonracialist understanding of race" (216). Following her earlier analysis, Kegley's presentation takes these two contentions for granted: First, when one criticizes an essentialist conception of race (that is, regarding race as a natural kind), that person is not racist. Second, when one regards the concept of race as a social kind, one is antiracist, if not an outright nonracist. However, I think that it is possible for one to criticize an essentialist conception of race and regard race as a social kind and still accept a form of cultural antiblack racism. Moreover, I think that Royce's social philosophy is a paradigmatic example of this phenomenon, with him being a nonessentialist with regards to the concept of race but yet being a cultural antiblack racist.Here, the significance of Curry's presentation for Royce scholars is obvious. In it he asks us Royce scholars if Royce's social philosophy, with regards to race issues, is an accomplice for the cultural perpetuation of white supremacy. I think that the answer to that question hinges on whether Royce's acceptance of British-style racialized colonialism in the West Indies is based on a misguided ethnocentrism or on a form of cultural antiblack racism.I take it for granted that Royce's recommendation that Southern Euro-Americans learn from the British colonial rule of Jamaica and Trinidad in "Race Questions and Prejudices" is evidence that he had accepted the legitimacy of British-style racialized colonialism. What I would like to do now is explain how Royce's... (shrink)

This article is an exploration of the problem of identity in Whitehead. Both the Platonic and the nominalistic tendencies in Whitehead are analyzed. His theory of eternal objects is criticized and a process view of identity based on tropes is defended.