These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions.

A consideration of the full dimensions of humanism and of the humanist dimension of law invites two questions: is “humanism” compatible with theocentric religion, and therefore, is the Renaissance compatible with the “otherworldly” Middle Ages, and, has law any humanist dimension at all? The answer to the first question provides the insights that answer the second. Fully integrated humanism includes bath the Classical immanence of humanity in the world and the value accorded to the human being by the declaration in (...) Genesis that all creation is “very good”, a principle reinforced by the Incarnation of the Logos as a man. Understood in the full range of its human relevance, from the quotidian to the transcendent, law too bas a humanist dimension. (shrink)

Internalism about epistemic justification (henceforth, ‘internalism’) says that a belief B is epistemically justified for S only if S is aware of some good-making feature of B, some feature that makes for B’s having positive epistemic status: e.g., evidence for B. Externalists with respect to epistemic justification (‘externalists’) deny this awareness requirement. Michael Bergmann has recently put this dilemma against internalism: awareness admits of a strong and a weak construal; given the strong construal, internalism is subject to debilitating regress troubles; (...) given the weak construal, internalism is unmotivated; either way, internalism is in serious trouble. I argue for two claims in this article. First, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unmotivated: he’s given no good reason for accepting one of its crucial premises. And second, Bergmann’s dilemma argument is unsound: the crucial premise in question is false. (shrink)

i began my “eleatic descartes” with a reminder of, what nobody denies, that Descartes is a convinced mechanist. Therefore, he must, in some sense, recognize motion. No less widely accepted is that Descartes is a plenum theorist. The main argument of the Eleatic interpretation is that given his articulation of the corporeal plenum in part two of the Principles, he cannot recognize motion by conceiving of it as real. And, because motion is what individuates bodies, there cannot be a multiplicity (...) of real bodies. Thus, as far as the material world is concerned, the two Eleatic elements are in place: as for Parmenides, so for Descartes, there is but one thing, and it does not change.For Descartes, that one thing.. (shrink)

Time-limited trials of intensive care have arisen in response to the increasing demand for intensive care treatment for patients with a low chance of surviving their critical illness, and the clinical uncertainty inherent in intensive care decision-making. Intensive care treatment is reported by most patients to be a significantly unpleasant experience. Therefore, patients who do not survive intensive care treatment are exposed to a negative dying experience. Time-limited trials of intensive care treatment in patients with a low chance of surviving (...) have both a small chance of benefiting this patient group and a high chance of harming them by depriving them of a good death. A ‘rule of rescue’ for the critically unwell does not justify time-limiting a trial of intensive care treatment and overlooks the experiential costs that intensive care patients face. Offering time-limited trials of intensive care to all patients, regardless of their chance of survival, overlooks the responsibility of resource-limited intensive care clinicians for suffering caused by their actions. A patient-specific risk–benefit analysis is vital when deciding whether to offer intensive care treatment, to ensure that time-limited trials of intensive care are not undertaken for patients who have a much higher chance of being harmed, rather than benefited by the treatment. The virtue ethics concept of human flourishing has the potential to offer additional ethical guidance to resource-limited clinicians facing these complex decisions, involving the balancing of a quantifiable survival benefit against the qualitative suffering that intensive care treatment may cause. (shrink)

Thomas M. Izbicki - Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 660-661 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Thomas M. Izbicki Rutgers University Nancy J. Hudson. Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007. Pp. xiii + 218. Cloth, $59.95. Students of the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (...) know that he used the Greek term theosis and identified it with the Latin filiatio, becoming a "son." Nancy Hudson has given us in this volume a thoughtful, well-written study of what Cusanus meant by the term and how this enters into his thought on God and humanity. The book covers the Greek.. (shrink)

Nicolas Malebranche is now recognised as a major figure in the history of philosophy, occupying a crucial place in the Rationalist tradition of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. The Search after Truth is his first, longest and most important work; this volume also presents the Elucidations which accompanied its third edition, the result of comments that Malebranche solicited on the original work and an important repository of his theories of ideas and causation. Together, the two texts constitute the complete expression of (...) his mature thought, and are written in his subtle, argumentative and thoroughly readable style. They are presented in the distinguished translations by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp, together with a historical introduction, a chronology of Malebranche's life, and useful notes on further reading. (shrink)

Can computer systems ever be considered moral agents? This paper considers two factors that are explored in the recent philosophical literature. First, there are the important domains in which computers are allowed to act, made possible by their greater functional capacities. Second, there is the claim that these functional capacities appear to embody relevant human abilities, such as autonomy and responsibility. I argue that neither the first (Domain-Function) factor nor the second (Simulacrum) factor gets at the central issue in the (...) case for computer moral agency: whether they can have the kinds of intentional states that cause their decisions and actions. I give an account that builds on traditional action theory and allows us to conceive of computers as genuine moral agents in virtue of their own causally efficacious intentional states. These states can cause harm or benefit to moral patients, but do not depend on computer consciousness or intelligence. (shrink)

Kantian constructivists accord a constitutive, justificatory role to the issue of scope: they typically claim that first-order practical thought depends for its authority on being suitably acceptable within the right scope, or by all relevant others, and some Kantian constructivists, notably Onora O'Neill, hold that our views of the nature and criteria of practical reasoning also depend for their authority on being suitably acceptable within the right scope. The paper considers whether O'Neill-type Kantian constructivism can coherently accord this key role (...) to the issue of scope while adhering to the universalist, ‘cosmopolitan’ commitments at its core. The paper argues that this is not so. On the one hand, it shows that O'Neill's attempt to ‘fix’ the scope of practical reasoning supposes, rather than establishes, a view of ethical standing and the scope of practical reasoning. On the other hand, the paper argues that Kantian constructivism should endorse a non-constructivist, perfectionist view of the good to determine that scope. The paper thereby supports the perfectionist conjecture that Kantian constructivism, in order to defend its universalist commitments, should take refuge in non-constructivist, perfectionist considerations, and that Kantian constructivism should therefore construe perfectionism as a partial, though uneasy, ally. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Dualism in the Western Tradition Anti‐dualism in Peirce and James Anti‐dualism in Dewey: Early Criticisms Dewey's Anti‐dualistic Naturalism: Experience and Nature.

Incompatibilism about freedom and causal determinism is commonly supported by appeal to versions of the well known Consequence argument. Critics of theConsequence argument have presented counterexamples to the Consequence argument’s central inference principle. The thesis of this article is that proponents of the Consequence argument can easily bypass even the best of these counterexamples.

Despite the popularity of research on intrapersonal communication across many disciplines, there has been little attention devoted to the factors that might account for individual differences in talking to oneself. In this paper, I explore two possible explanations for who people might differ in the frequency of their self-talk. According to the “social isolation” hypothesis, spending more time alone or having socially-isolating experiences will be associated with increased self-talk. According to the “cognitive disruption” hypothesis, having self-related experiences that are cognitively (...) disruptive will be associated with increased self-talk frequency. Several studies using the Self-Talk Scale (Brinthaupt, Hein, & Kramer, 2009) are pertinent to these hypotheses. Results indicate moderate support for the social isolation hypothesis and strong support for the cognitive disruption hypothesis. I conclude the paper with a wide range of implications for future research on individual differences in self-talk and other kinds of intrapersonal communication. (shrink)

In this article, I explain and critique J. L. Schellenberg's atheological argument from horrors. I raise an epistemic objection, arguing that no one could be justified in believing its conclusion on the basis of its premises. Then I adumbrate a notion of the divine which is different in various ways from the God of classical theism and argue that Schellenberg's argument makes no trouble for belief in the existence of God so construed.

This paper is reprinted in the book Machine Ethics, eds. M. Anderson and S. Anderson, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Leibniz avait certes raison d'opposer Locke à Descartes et de le situer plutôt dans la lignée de Gassendi et l'atomisme antique. Mais le problème est de distinguer entre Gassendi et ses disciples contemporains de Locke comme source immédiate d'inspiration pour celui-ci. Ses Commonplace Books attestent que Locke avait lu Gassendi avec attention, et son Journal indique que pendant ses séjours à Paris, il fut en contact avec des gassendistes tels Bernier et Launay, dont il acheta les oeuvres pour les emporter (...) en Angleterre. L'analyse que Locke fournit de l'espace est d'un intérêt particulier, car tout en témoignant de l'orientation que Leibniz attribuait à Locke, elle s'écarte nettement des vues de Gassendi sur la question. (shrink)

A cabbage looper's job, in many respects not unlike our own, is to survive its early developmental period and grow up healthy, metamorphose into an adult moth, and beget the next generation of loopers. Given its numerous predators, exposure to the continuous barrage of toxic physical, chemical and biological agents delivered by humans in an effort to eradicate it, as well as nature's own hazards, such as the ultraviolet component of sunlight and hazardous natural chemicals in plants that serve to (...) deter ingestion by the looper, it is not difficult to view the looper as a highly stressed organism. However, the looper and its lepidopteran ancestors have been quite successful at resisting such hazards since the Mesozoic Era. The purpose of this brief review will be to examine some of the potential mechanisms by which the looper and its relatives have been able to be so successful over these past 200 million years. (shrink)

Approaches to programming ethical behavior for computer systems face challenges that are both technical and philosophical in nature. In response, an incrementalist account of machine ethics is developed: a successive adaptation of programmed constraints to new, morally relevant abilities in computers. This approach allows progress under conditions of limited knowledge in both ethics and computer systems engineering and suggests reasons that we can circumvent broader philosophical questions about computer intelligence and autonomy.

ABSTRACT:Many scholars and managers endorse the idea that the primary purpose of the firm is to make money for its owners. This shareholder wealth maximization objective is justified on the grounds that it maximizes social welfare. In this article, the first of a two-part set, we argue that, although this shareholder primacy model may have been appropriate in an earlier era, it no longer is, given our current state of economic and social affairs. To make our case, we employ a (...) utilitarian moral standard and examine the apparent logical sequence behind the link between shareholder wealth maximization and social welfare. Upon close empirical and conceptual scrutiny, we find that utilitarian criteria do not support the shareholder model; that is, shareholder wealth maximization is only weakly linked to social welfare maximization. In view of the dubious validity of this sequential argument, we outline some of the features of a superior corporate objective—a variant of normative stakeholder theory. In the second article, we will advance and defend our preferred alternative and then discuss some institutional arrangements under which it could be implemented. (shrink)

In recent years, two topics have made prominent debuts in the management literature—“virtual” corporations and trust within and among organizations. These two themes are related in that trust is important to the success of the virtual corporation. This article argues that confidence in the development of virtual corporations may be premature because of what we call the Virtual Corporation Paradox. This paradox can be succinctly stated: the short-term, transient deal-making on which the efficiency of the virtual corporation rests greatly impedes (...) the development of the mutually trusting and cooperative relationships on which its success depends. We examine both economic and sociological explanations for the emergence of trust in similar situations and find both deficient. We conclude that the success of virtual corporations will ultimately depend on an ethics-based form of corporate “character” that allows firms to develop trusting relationships without the usual safeguards or social norms. (shrink)

The moral worth of attorneys has traditionally been judged in terms of compIiance with legal codes of ethics. These codes, ostensibly designed to promote smooth and equitable functioning of an adversary system, are manifestations of a rule utiIitarian moral system. This paper argues that ethical attorneys have a higher calling than rule compIiance and that "moral commitment," which combines commitment to "right" solutions and moral courage, is a superior yardstick for measuring their moral worth.

Bei der Interpretation und Bewertung des Gesamtwerkes von Rawls kommt dem Thema Religion eine zentrale Bedeutung zu. Zwei Aspekte sind dafür entscheidend: Zum einen steht die Frage nach der angemessenen politischen Rolle von Religion in der pluralistischen Öffentlichkeit einer demokratischen Gesellschaft in kaum einer anderen politischen Theorie und Philosophie der Gegenwart so stark im Zentrum wie bei Rawls. Religion ist für ihn kein beliebiger Anwendungsfall einer normativen Theorie des Politischen, sondern betrifft als permanentes gesellschaftliches Faktum die methodische Grundstruktur einer Theorie (...) des vernünftigen Pluralismus. (shrink)