We submit this brief in support of the Nonhuman Rights Project’s efforts to secure habeas corpus relief for the elephant named Happy. We reject arbitrary distinctions that deny adequate protections to other animals who share with protected humans relevantly similar vulnerabilities to harms and relevantly similar interests in avoiding such harms. We strongly urge this Court, in keeping with the best philosophical standards of rational judgment and ethical standards of justice, to recognize that, as a nonhuman person, Happy should be (...) released from her current confinement and transferred to an appropriate elephant sanctuary, pursuant to habeas corpus. (shrink)

The Socrates of Plato's Apology is typically depicted as a brilliant ironist whose behavior at his trial contributed to his conviction and sentence. Beginning with Xenophon, commentators have often characterized Socrates' speeches as adopting a prideful tone that was bound to offend even reasonable people. Some suggest that Socrates' arrogant conduct is exemplified by his own proposed sentence of meals in the Prytaneum. C. D. C. Reeve disputes this rather traditional reading of Plato's Socrates in his sensible and cogent book. (...) On his view, Socrates is fundamentally non-ironic when he claims not to have knowledge or to teach. Furthermore, Socrates mounts a plausible defense against his accusers, which can be understood only in terms of his substantive philosophical positions. Thus, Reeve has much to say about such topics as the nature of the elenchos, Socratic irony, the profession of ignorance and whether Socrates is a teacher, moral virtue and happiness, Socratic religion, and Socratic politics. Here I shall focus on the following parts of Reeve's discussion: the charges against Socrates and the religious basis of his mission, the nature of "human wisdom" and expert knowledge, and questions about Socratic eudaimonism. (shrink)

Geoffrey Rose’s prevention paradox points to a tension between two prima facie plausible moral principles: that we should save the greater number and that weshould save the most at risk. This paper argues that a novel moral theory, ex-ante contractualism, captures our intuitions in many prevention paradox cases, regardless of our interpretation of probability claims. However, it goes on to show that it might be impossible to square ex-ante contractualism with all of our moral intuitions. It concludes that even if (...) ex-ante contractualism cannot furnish an entire ethics of risk, it does identify important considerations for any such theory. (shrink)

The relationship between place and remembering has been a long-standing matter of phenomenological concern. The role of the 'lived body' in mediating acts of remembering in context is clearly crucial. In this paper we contribute to an 'expanded view of memory' by describing how remembering difficult or problematic events -- 'vital memories' -- draws upon inter-subjective and inter-objective relations. We discuss two conceptual tools that provide an analytic framework -- the concept of 'life space' drawn from Kurt Lewin and the (...) idea of the 'setting specificity' of remembering. From this perspective we can see that the 'lived body' does not constitute a singular unity but rather a 'plurality' of potential bodies that have 'operative solidarity' with the material relations in which they are constituted. Drawing on the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, we argue that 'body memories' need to be analysed from within the embodied material-relational perspective wherein they are afforded. (shrink)

The moral status accorded to an individual (or class of individuals) helps to account for the weight of the moral obligations considered due to an individual (or class of individuals). Strong arguments can be given to indicate that the moral status accorded, justly or unjustly, to individuals with intellectual disabilities is less than that accorded to those considered intellectually able. This paper suggests that such a view of the moral status of intellectually disabled individuals derives from individualism. Ontological and normative (...) components of individualism are identified. It is shown that individualistic, ontological criteria for personhood compromise the integrity of “dependent” individuals. And it is shown that the normative component of individualism further compromises the integrity of intellectually disabled individuals. An alternative view of the self is outlined in which dependence features centrally. It is tentatively suggested that such a view of the self may prove more congenial to enhancing the moral status of individuals with intellectual disabilities. (shrink)

The practice of prenatal screening for disability is sometimes objected to because of the hurt and offence such practices may cause to people currently living with disabilities. This objection is commonly termed “the expressivist objection”. In response to the objection it is standardly claimed that disabilities are analogous to illnesses. And just as it would be implausible to suppose reduction of the incidence of illnesses such as flu sends a negative message to ill people, so it is not plausible to (...) suppose prevention of disability sends a negative message to disabled people. The expressivist objection hinges, however, upon a view of the relationship between disability and self identity which sees disability as part of the identity of the disabled person, in a way in which illnesses such as flu cannot be. This possibility is generally not considered in critiques of the expressivist objection. In this paper, an “identity claim” to the effect that disabilities can be identity constituting is accepted and the force of the expressivist argument is reconsidered in the light of its acceptance. It is concluded that even when such an identity claim is accepted, the expressivist objection is still not morally compelling. (shrink)

Published within weeks of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, Isabelle Duncan's Pre-Adamite Man (1860) is the first full-length treatment of preadamism by an evangelical. Intended as a reconciliation of Genesis and geology, Duncan's work gained immediacy when it was published shortly after the September 1859 revelations that men had walked among the mammoths. Written in the tradition of evangelical 'Christian philosophy', Pre-Adamite Man deploys innovative biblical hermeneutics and recent trends in geology to set out both a biblical preadamite theory, and (...) an unorthodox angelology. Duncan responded to contemporary secular interpretations of geology by pushing evangelical concordist strategies to new frontiers, filling out an acceptance of an ancient earth with new biblically informed catastrophist proposals and extensions of salvation history, while simultaneously retaining a firm commitment to plenary inspiration. The product is a highly readable book that operates both as an accessible treatment of geology and a theological discourse. Running through six printings between 1860 and 1866, the book was reviewed by many of the period's leading journals and created a minor controversy among evangelicals. This study both brings to life this previously neglected episode in scriptural geology, and adds to recent work on Victorian popular science writing. (shrink)

This article begins from the assumption that what was once an integral dimension of progress—the development of literature and of art more generally—now lies outside its scope. The essay falls into three parts that juxtapose French with German intellectual history. The first part examines the notion of literary progress developed by Charles Perrault and Fontenelle, as well as the opposition to it by Boileau and other antiquarians, during the querelle des Anciens et des Modernes in the later seventeenth century. The (...) second part treats the reception of those arguments during the eighteenth century by J. C. Gottsched, J. J. Bodmer, and J. J. Breitinger. Special attention is given to the paradox that Gottsched, the leader of the German antiquarians, and Bodmer, the leader of the German progressives, were equally devoted to the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophical system and thus that German Romanticism, heavily indebted to Bodmer's poetics, had roots in rationalist philosophy. The essay's third part discusses ideas of literary progress in the writings of the early Romantics J. G. Herder and Friedrich Schlegel. As these discussions show, the conception of general progress was formed in a field that has since dissociated itself from progress's march. (shrink)

P¯an.ini’s grammar includes several types of metarules which determine how its operational rules apply. Among them are “traffic rules” which constrain how rules interact with each other in grammatical derivations. These are typically formulated as designating a rule or class of rules asiddha “not effected” (or asiddhavat “as if not effected”) with respect to another rule or class of rules. For economy, the rules so designated are grouped into several sections, whose headings collectively declare them to be asiddha(vat). The biggest (...) such section, under the famous heading 8.2.1 p ¯urvatr¯asiddham, extends from 8.2.1 through the end of the grammar (8.4.68), and is hence called the Trip¯ad¯ı ‘Three Sections’. (shrink)

This paper discusses the predicament of Oscar Pistorius. He is a Paralympic gold medallist who wishes to participate in the Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Following a brief introductory section, the paper discusses the arguments that could be, and have been, deployed against his participation in the Olympics, should he make the qualifying time for his chosen event (400m). The next section discusses a more hypothetical argument based upon a specific understanding of the fair opportunity rule. According to this, there (...) may be a case for allowing Pistorius to compete even if he should fail to make the official qualifying time. The final part of the paper reviews the situation at the time of writing and offers some assessment of the strategy of the IAAF in responding to it. It is argued below that the proper focus for assessment of Pistorius's eligibility to compete should not be on whether his blades lead to his having an unfair advantage over his competitors, but instead should focus on whether what he does counts as running. (shrink)

Over twenty years since the influential revisionist studies of Roussel and Bourriot, agreement on a satisfactory theory of the Attic genos seems as elusive as ever. Although they differed on details, these two scholars were agreed in their rejection of the old monolithic account of the genos as aristocratic family whose institutionalized control over state cults and phratry admissions in the historical period was a relic of a wider political dominance. Roussel and Bourriot instead proposed a tripartite model according to (...) which the formal genos-kome—a more or less localized community similar to the later deme, with hereditary but socio-economically diverse membership, and enjoying, as a tighter community well placed to regulate its own admissions, automatic access to the wider phratry—was distinguishable both from aristocratic families, such as the Peisistratidai or Alkmeonidai, and priestly houses, such as the Kerykes and Eumolpidai of Eleusis. Subsequent discussion has moved in several directions. My analysis of the relationship between phratry and genos followed a broadly revisionist line. I found no good evidence for gene controlling the access to phratries of persons who were not genos members and presented a new interpretation of the crucial Demotionidai decrees in which, contrary to prevailing theories, neither of the two groups mentioned in them—the Demotionidai and the House of the Dekeleieis—was a privileged subgroup dominating the whole. Rather, I suggested that the Demotionidai were a phratry in process of fission, the Dekelean House a product of this process. Others, however, have taken the debate in the other direction, as it were reprivileging the genos. (shrink)

An investigation into some of the literary features of the book of Malachi reveals that each unit is structured in a twofold way. The macrostructure of the book also shows that the book can be divided into two parts. The results of this investigation strengthens the recent trend in the research of Malachi that it is unlikely that the book underwent an extensive redactional process over a period of time and that it is rather more likely that the book was (...) written in a relatively short period of time. (shrink)