Is God happy? In the tradition of classical theism, the answer has long been “Yes.” And, just as God is not merely powerful, but all-powerful, so too God is not merely happy, but all-happy or infinitely happy. Far from being empty praise, God’s happiness does important work, in particular, in explaining both human existence and human destiny. This essay is an attempt to give divine happiness the serious philosophical treatment it deserves. It turns out that, as with many divine traits, (...) ascribing all-happiness to God is not without potential problems. I raise and attempt to address what I take to be the most serious problem, which I call “The Subjective Problem of Evil.”. (shrink)

One vexed philosophical question that once enjoyed great esteem is this: in the Beatific Vision that the saints enjoy in heaven, does happiness (beatitudo) consist in the vision of God, in delight in God, or in a combination of the vision and the delight? The answer that one gives to this question apparently commits one to a view about what happiness is ultimately about. It has long been thought that Aquinas holds that happiness consists in the vision of God alone. (...) In this essay, I argue that, on this important issue, Aquinas actually maintains that happiness consists both in the vision of God and delight in God, but that—unlike some of his contemporaries—Aquinas unequivocally affirms that the vision is more important in happiness than the delight. After arguing for this interpretation, I consider the quite compelling account of perfect and imperfect happiness that seems to follow from it. (shrink)

In two separate experiments, we examined 17-month-olds’ imitation in a third-party context. The aim was to explore how seeing another person responding to a model’s novel action influenced infant imitation. The infants watched while a reliable model demonstrated a novel action with a familiar (Experiment 1) or an unfamiliar (Experiment 2) object to a second actor. The second actor either imitated or did not imitate the novel action of the model. Fewer infants imitated the model’s novel behavior in the non-imitation (...) condition than in the imitation condition in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, infants’ likelihood of imitating was not influenced by whether they had watched the second actor imitating the model’s novel action with the unfamiliar object. The findings indicate that infants take into account a second adult’s actions in a third party context when infants receive information that contradicts their existing knowledge and when it corresponds with their own experiences. If infants do not have prior knowledge about how to handle a certain object, then the second adult’s actions do not seem to matter. (shrink)

Collaboration for nursing is a core competence and therefore educational interventions are essentials for collaborative skills. To identify such interventions, we carried out a study to understand nursing students' collaborative process. A narrative inquiry method was used to explore the collaborative process of first‐year undergraduate nursing students. The analysis was conducted on field notes from 70 h of observation of 87 nursing students' collaboration during skills lab activities. It also included transcriptions of four focus group discussions with 11 students. The (...) results are presented as a sequential process of (1) navigating in unfamiliar territory, (2) navigating together to cope, and (3) navigating together towards independency and the future nursing profession. We identified a transition from teacher‐led assistance and guidance to student interdependency and reciprocal learning, ending with student‐led assistance supporting independency. In line with Vygotsky's theory of zone of proximal development, different scaffolding interventions are needed depending on where the students are in the collaborative process. (shrink)

Christian Platonism and Divine Simplicity remain the most commonly discussed views with respect to the way in which Christians ought to conceive of God’s nature and properties. In this essay, I suggest that we ought to consider seriously two versions of a quite different view, namely, what I call “the Nominalized Composite God View.” Both versions of the Nominalized Composite God View share two features: (1) they treat God as metaphysically composite, in opposition to Divine Simplicity, and (2) they deny (...) that God has God’s properties in virtue of instantiating abstractly existing universals, in opposition to Christian Platonism. (shrink)

The current study examined whether infants use previous encounters for maintaining expectations for adults’ contingent responding. An unfamiliar adult responded contingently or non-contingently to infant signaling during an initial play situation and 10 min later presented an ambiguous toy while providing positive information (Experiment 1; forty-two 12-month-olds). The infants in the contingent group looked more at the adult during toy presentation and played more with the toy during the concluding free-play situation than the infants in the non-contingent group. When the (...) parent had responded contingently or non-contingently to infant bids (Experiment 2; forty 12-month-olds), the infants in the contingent group tended to look more at the parent and tended to play more with the toy than did the infants in the non-contingent group. The results indicate that from just a brief exposure, infants form expectations about adults’ responsiveness and maintain these expectations of contingent/non-contingent responding from one situation to another. (shrink)

Four studies examined 15- to 16-month-olds’ imitation of a model’s novel action with a familiar or an unfamiliar object. The infants observed a reliable or an unreliable model demonstrating a novel action with the object in a solitary observational or in an interactive context. The model’s reliability was manipulated by having the model acting competently or incompetently with different familiar objects. In two out of four studies infants imitated the model’s behavior when the model had previously shown to be reliable (...) than when the model had been unreliable. The infants’ motivation to imitate was related to whether the reliable model interacted with the infants during object demonstration. More infants imitated the reliable model, who demonstrated the objects while interacting with the infants, than the reliable model who behaved in a disinterested manner during object demonstration. (shrink)

Locke has been accused of endorsing a theory of kinds that is inconsistent with his theory of individuation. This purported inconsistency comes to the fore in Locke’s treatment of cases involving organisms and the masses of matter that constitute them, for example, the case of a mass constituting an oak tree. In this essay, I argue that this purported problem, known as ‘The Kinds Problem’, can be solved. The Kinds Problem depends on the faulty assumption that nominal essences include only (...) features observable at a time t. Once this assumption is rejected, new candidates open up for the relevant difference in the world that is included in the nominal essence of e.g. mass but not oak tree. And I argue that there is at least one good candidate for the extrinsic feature observable only over time in which the mass differs from the oak it constitutes, namely its persistence conditions. The Kinds Problem can be solved. (shrink)

Aquinas may seem profligate in defining ‘happiness’ (beatitudo). He says, “by the name ‘happiness’ is understood the ultimate perfection of a rational or of an intellectual nature” (ST Ia q.62 a.1 co.). He also says, “‘happiness’ names the attainment of the ultimate end” (ST IaIIae q.2 pro.). He further says the following “definition of happiness” is “good and adequate”: “Happy is the one who has all that he desires” (ST IaIIae q.5 a.8 ad 3). So which expresses what happiness really (...) is? Which gives us the quid est of happiness? In this essay, I argue that his quid est definition of happiness is put in terms of “the attainment of the ultimate end.” I further argue that, once that definition is properly understood, it becomes clear that Aquinas thinks happiness just is intimately knowing and enjoying God. I close by focusing on one downstream interpretive effect that this interpretation could plausibly have; it may influence our understanding of the relationship between virtue and happiness in Aquinas. (shrink)

The present study examined 17-month-olds’ imitation in a third-party context. In four experiments, the infants watched while a reliable or an unreliable model demonstrated a novel action with an unfamiliar (Experiments 1 and 3) or a familiar (Experiments 2 and 4) object to another adult. In Experiments 3 and 4, the second adult imitated the model’s novel action. Neither the familiarity of the object or whether or not the second adult copied the model’s behavior influenced the likelihood of infant imitation. (...) Findings showed that the infants in the reliable model condition were more willing to imitate the model’s action with the unfamiliar object. The results suggest that infants take into account the reliability of a model even when the model has not directly demonstrated her reliability to the infant. (shrink)

Globalization; Islamic countries; Arab countries.

This anthology takes a broad approach to ethics, incorporating traditional topics and texts while bringing in voices and themes that are too often excluded. A substantial section on ethical theory is provided, as are readings on topics such as oppression, sex, identity, the environment, life and death, war and terror, and caring for others. Accessible introductions and discussion questions are included throughout to contextualize material for the student reader without playing favorites among the positions at issue.

The ArgumentBlood tests developed at the turn of the century could in some cases discern genetic relations. While such tests could never prove that a given individual had fathered a child in question, men of certain blood types could be exonerated from paternity of children with other blood types. Starting in the 1930s, scientists and lawmakers attempted to introduce such evidence into paternity or bastardy trials to attest to a man's innocence. Evidence from blood tests soon came to be used (...) in divorce cases.Blood tests appeared to be ideal for providing relevant information in cases when divorcing men claimed as a part of their suit that they had not fathered their ex-wife's child or children. Nevertheless, the courts remained reluctant to intro duce such evidence in divorce cases. This paper will argue that reluctance derived not from a distrust of the science, but from the courts' clinging to a definition of paternity that was not rooted in genetic connection.Many judges and juries fell back on the pre-industrial assumption that once a man married a woman he was automatically the father of any children she bore. While this assumption flew in the face of scientific evidence, it did have the advantage of ensuring that the children of married women could not be bastard ized. The changing manner in which courts handled the tension between genetic paternity and traditional paternity in divorce cases reveals how society's views on paternity have evolved over the course of this century. (shrink)

Islamic law; interpretation and construction; Shiites.

While Ralph Waldo Emerson has been increasingly acknowledged as an American thinker influential in the evolution of nineteenth-century philosophy, his essays have largely failed to escape the charges of quietism and political apathy bestowed upon them in his lifetime. Yet if Emerson insisted on the importance of silence to the antislavery movement, it was perhaps due to his theory that one's deepest obligations become involuntarily part of the self and thus refuse to withstand representation in direct speech. My article reads (...) Emerson's writing in this light, suggesting more broadly that the common notion that silence and politics are antithetical be reconsidered with regard to the possibility that what constitutes political speech need not be explicit — or even vocal. (shrink)

It is widely held that the Experience Machine is the basis of a serious objection to Hedonistic theories of welfare. It is also widely held that Desire Satisfactionist theories of welfare can readily avoid problems stemming from the Experience Machine. But in this paper, we argue that if the Experience Machine poses a serious problem for Hedonism, it also poses a serious problem for Desire Satisfactionism. We raise two objections to Desire Satisfactionism, each of which relies on the Experience Machine. (...) The first is very much like the well-known Experience Machine objection to Hedonism. The second asks whether someone who accepts Desire Satisfactionism should want to form a desire to plug into the Experience Machine. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 7, Page 21-23, July 2012.