In this paper, I address the issue of whether the evil demon could have caused the idea of God. In order to determine the capabilities of the evil demon, I perform a thought experiment in which I reaffirm the con-clusion that an imperfect being could have never caused an idea of perfection and infinitude, i.e., the idea of God. The article is divided into five sections and a conclusion. While the first section is introductory, the second looks at the problem (...) of God and knowledge certainty. Elucidating how reality is gradual according to Descartes, in the third section I address the distinction between objective, formal and eminent reality. In turn, in the fourth section, I argue that if the objective reality of God exists, that is, an idea of perfection, the imperfect evil demon could have never caused it. The last section examines the reverse argument of the fourth section, viz, whether God could have caused the existence of evil and imperfection. (shrink)

The way we experience, investigate and interact with reality changes drastically in the course of history. Do such changes occur gradually, or can we pinpoint radical turns, besides periods of relative stability? Building on Oswald Spengler, we zoom in on three styles in particular, namely Apollonian, Magian and Faustian thinking, guided by grounding ideas which can be summarised as follows: “Act in accordance with nature”, “Prepare yourself for the imminent dawn and “Existence equals will to power”. Finally, we reach the (...) present. How to characterise the new era we entered round the year 2000? (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation and transplantation medicine covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to transplant tourism and organ trade. Over the past decades, this discourse evolved into a stream of documents of bewildering proportions, encompassing thousands of books, papers, conferences, blogs, consensus meetings, policy reports, media debates and other outlets. Beneath the manifest level of discourse, however, a more latent dimension can be discerned, revolving around issues of embodiment, the moral status (...) of the human body and the concept of bodily integrity. This publication aims to bring these “deeper” questions to the fore. What is envisioned is a “depth” ethics (the moral equivalent of a depth psychology) focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities at work in bioethical deliberations on organ transplantation, fuelling the viewpoints articulated on the more manifest levels of discourse. Organ donation reopens the question of the status of the body as something which we have, but at the same time are, and as something which constitutes a whole, while at the same time being a set of replaceable elements or parts. (shrink)

In recent years, Nietzsche’s views on (natural) science attracted a considerable amount of scholarly attention. Overall, his attitude towards science tends to be one of suspicion, or ambivalence at least. My article addresses the “Nietzsche and science” theme from a slightly different perspective, raising a somewhat different type of question, more pragmatic if you like, namely: how to be a Nietzschean philosopher of science today? What would the methodological contours of a Nietzschean approach to present-day research areas (such as neuroscience, (...) astrophysics, synthetic biology or climate studies) amount to? In other words, my paper reflects a shift of focus from author studies to extrapolation. The design of my article is as follows. I will start with the question (already widely discussed in the expert literature) to what extent Friedrich Nietzsche (a classical philologist by training) managed to familiarise himself with the natural sciences of his epoch. Subsequently, I will outline some basic methodological and conceptual ingredients of Nietzsche’s philosophy of science, focussing on core issues such as “genealogy”, “interpretation”, “enhancement” and “truth”. Next, I will elucidate Nietzsche’s genealogical methodology with the help of three case studies (three representative samples if you will) taken from Nietzsche’s writings and dealing with physiology, astronomy and neuro-psychology respectively. Finally, I will present the methodological contours of a Nietzschean understanding of contemporary technoscience. (shrink)

This book promotes the research of present-day women working in ancient and medieval philosophy, with more than 60 women having contributed in some way to the volume in a fruitful collaboration. It contains 22 papers organized into ten distinct parts spanning the sixth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE. Each part has the same structure: it features, first, a paper which sets up the discussion, and then, one or two responses that open new perspectives and engage in further reflections. (...) Our authors’ contributions address pivotal moments and players in the history of philosophy: women philosophers in antiquity, Cleobulina of Rhodes, Plato, Lucretius, Bardaisan of Edessa, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Peter Abelard, Robert Kilwardby, William Ockham, John Buridan, and Isotta Nogarola. The result is a thought-provoking collection of papers that will be of interest to historians of philosophy from all horizons. Far from being an isolated effort, this book is a contribution to the ever-growing number of initiatives which endeavour to showcase the work of women in philosophy. (shrink)

The standard view in social science and philosophy is that lying does not require the liar’s assertion to be false, only that the liar believes it to be false. We conducted three experiments to test whether lying requires falsity. Overall, the results suggest that it does. We discuss some implications for social scientists working on social judgments, research on lie detection, and public moral discourse.

A standard view in social science and philosophy is that a lie is a dishonest assertion: to lie is to assert something that you think is false in order to deceive your audience. We report four behavioral experiments designed to evaluate some aspects of this view. Participants read short scenarios and judged several features of interest, including whether an agent lied. We found evidence that ordinary lie attributions can be influenced by aspects of audience uptake, are based on judging that (...) the agent made an assertion (assertion attributions), and, at least in some contexts, are not based on attributions of deceptive intent. The finding on assertion attributions is predicted by the standard view, but the finding on intent attributions is not. These results help to further clarify the ordinary concept of lying and shed light on the psychological processes involved in ordinary lie attributions and related judgments. (shrink)

We tend to identify “real” knowledge of nature with science, and for good reasons. The sciences have developed unique ways of disclosing and modifying the intricate workings of nature, building on quantitative, experimental and technologically advanced styles of thinking. Scientific research has produced robust and reliable forms of knowledge, using methodologies that are often remarkably transparent and verifiable. At the same time, laboratories and other research settings are highly artificial environments, constituting drastically modified versions of reality, allowing nature to emerge (...) in a particular way. This book starts from the conviction that there are other ways of knowing about nature besides science. Notably, literary documents (novels, plays, poems) on nature and natural entities (landscapes, animals, plant forms) often convey careful analyses and observations, quite elaborate and true to life. Comparative epistemology is the discipline that tries to assess, in a critical manner, the relative validity and value of various knowledge forms. This volume presents a series of case studies in comparative epistemology, critically comparing the works of prominent representative of the life sciences (such as Aristotle, Darwin, Mendel and many others) with the writings of their literary counterparts (such as Andersen, Melville, Verne, Ibsen, and many others). The book aims to contribute to the expanding field of Science and Literature Studies, allowing basic insights from the sciences and the humanities to mutually challenge and enlighten one another. (shrink)

This paper explores and defends an institutional metaphysics for the Trinity as providing us with an inherently interpersonal reality, and provides general and specific methodological arguments in that direction in the first section. The actual argumentation is then first of all directed against Augustine’s rejection of the family as a suitable analogy for the Trinity. It is instead argued that the family does in fact offer an interesting and suitable analogy. Next, several more general and historic precursors to such an (...) institutional analogy are explored and fleshed out, relying on the legal and economic meaning of the term ‘substance’ as an estate, such as the shared inheritance between a father and a son. The main section further develops the outlines and main features of such an institutional metaphysics, relying on both analogies to result in three persons in one numerically identical substance. The final section returns to the methodological issue but now in an explicitly Marian key, culminating in the Holy Family as a key exemplar for the family analogy. (shrink)

This paper develops a dialectical methodology for assessing technoscience during the Anthropocene. How to practice Hegelian dialectics of technoscience today? First of all, dialectics is developed here in close interaction with contemporary technoscientific research endeavours, which are addressed from a position of proximity and from an ‘oblique’ perspective. Contrary to empirical research, the focus is on how basic concepts of life, nature and technology are acted out in practice. Notably, this paper zooms in on a synthetic cell project called BaSyC (...) as a concrete instantiation of converging views of life, nature and technology currently at work in technoscience. While dialectics is used to explore the significance of this project, the synthetic cell as a case study also allows us to demonstrate the remarkable relevance of dialectics for understanding contemporary research, notably because it incites us to see the synthetic cell project as a concrete exemplification of life under Anthropocenic conditions. Should we assess the synthetic cell as the ultimate realisation of the technoscientific will to control and optimise life, or rather as an effort to bridge the disruptive collision between technoscience and nature, or both? (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to ‘transplant tourism’ and ‘organ trade’. This paper presents a ‘depth ethics’ approach, notably focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities concerning the status of the human body. These will be addressed from a psychoanalytical angle. First, I will outline Lacan’s view on embodiment as such. Subsequently, I will argue that, for organ recipients, the donor organ becomes what Lacan refers to (...) as an object a, the ‘partial object’ of desire, the elusive thing we are deprived of, apparently beyond our grasp. Within the recipient’s body an empty space emerges, a kind of ‘vacuole’, once occupied by a faltering organ. This space can only be filled by a ‘gift’ from the other, by an object a. Once implanted, however, this implant becomes an ‘extimate’ object: something both ‘external’ and ‘intimate’, both ‘embedded’ and ‘foreign’, and which is bound to remain an object of concern for quite some time, if not for life. A Lacanian analysis allows us, first of all, to address the question what organ transplantation has in common with other bodily practices involving bodily parts procured from others, such as cannibalism. But it also reveals the basic difference between the two, as well as the distance between the ‘fragmented body’ of Frankenstein’s ‘monster’—as an aggregate of replaceable parts—and the multiple organ recipients of today. (shrink)

The assumption that coercion is largely responsible for our legal systems’ efficacy is a common one. I argue that this assumption is false. But I do so indirectly, by objecting to a thesis I call “(Compliance)”, which holds that most citizens comply with most legal mandates most of the time at least partly in virtue of being motivated by legal systems’ threats of sanctions and other unwelcome consequences. The relationship between (Compliance) and the efficacy of legal systems is explained in (...) section 1. There I also show that (Compliance) must be rejected for it relies on unsubstantiated empirical assumptions. In section 2, I claim that an alternative, and more refined, formulation of (Compliance) also lacks adequate support. I conclude with a few general remarks about the centrality of coercion in our thought and talk about legal systems. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Christ’s second love command implies not only that people’s volitions and actions be Christ-like, but also that their affective-motivational dispositions be Christ-like. More specifically, I argue that the command implies that people have aretaic obligations to strive to cultivate a merciful heart with the kind of affective depth described by St. Isaac of Syria in his 71st ascetical homily—i.e., one that is disposed to becoming inflamed, such that it is gripped by “strong and vehement (...) mercy.”. (shrink)

Beauty is evil, a surreptitious diversion of earthly delights planted by the devil, according to the third century theologian-philosopher Tertullian. Beauty is a manifestation of the divine on earth, according to another third century philosopher, Plotinus. Could these two really be talking about the same thing? That beauty evokes an experience of pleasure is probably the only point on which all participants in the continuing debate on beauty agree. But what kinds of pleasure one considers relevant to an experience of (...) beauty, is the crux of the problem of beauty. In ancient, medieval and eighteenth century philosophy, the problem of beauty was framed by the larger concern of what constituted a good life. The question regarding the nature of beauty was answered with a view to its role in achieving the good life for those who cultivated its apprehension. In the twentieth century, philosophers framed the problem of beauty as a problem for conceptual analysis. The questions asked were: Is beauty subjective or objective? Are there properties in the object that count towards beauty in all cases; that are sufficient or necessary for an object to be judged beautiful? What kind of pleasure is the pleasure we experience of beauty? I will examine how these questions can be seen to have been answered by earlier philosophical traditions and then I will use these questions as a guide to developing an explanatory theory of beauty based on contemporary theories of perception. (shrink)

Both through his own work and that of his students, Franz Clemens Brentano had an often underappreciated influence on the course of 20 th - and 21 st -century philosophy. _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ offers full coverage of Brentano’s philosophy and his influence. It contains 38 brand-new essays from an international team of experts that offer a comprehensive view of Brentano’s central research areas—philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and value theory—as well as of the principal (...) figures shaped by Brentano’s school of thought. A General Introduction serves as an overview of Brentano and the contents of the volume and three separate bibliographies point students and researchers on to further avenues of inquiry. Systematic and detailed, _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ provides readers with a valuable reference to Brentano’s work, and to his lasting importance in the history of philosophy and in contemporary debates. (shrink)

Scholarship on the philosophy of the Late Middle Ages has tended to overlook certain subject matters, especially some pertaining to ethics and political philosophy. My object of study in this paper is one of these overlooked notions, the idea of craft (ars) as an intellectual virtue. While recent publications have focused on sapientia and scientia, this paper aims to rehabilitate ars as a virtue, in particular John Buridan’s understanding of craft as an intellectual virtue in his Quaestiones super decem libros (...) Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum. My goal is to examine Buridan’s analysis of craft as expounded in this commentary. Once the Picardian master’s theses have been presented, and the objections he raises have been reviewed along with the solutions proposed to those objections, I briefly suggest why craft might have been overlooked as a virtue. (shrink)

In this essay, Denike assesses the appropriation of international human rights by humanitarian law and policy of "security states." She maps representations of the perpetrators and victims of "tyranny" and "terror, " and their role in providing a "just cause" for the U.S.–led "war on terror. " By examining narratives of progress and human rights heroism Denike shows how human rights discourses, when used together with the pretense of self-defense and preemptive war, do the opposite of what they claim—entrenching the (...) sovereignty of Western imperialist states while eroding the conditions necessary for the recognition of the human rights of others. (shrink)

In this essay, Denike assesses the appropriation of international human rights by humanitarian law and policy of “security states.” She maps representations of the perpetrators and victims of “tyranny” and “terror,” and their role in providing a “just cause” for the U.S.-led “war on terror.” By examining narratives of progress and human rights heroism Denike shows how human rights discourses, when used together with the pretense of self-defense and preemptive war, do the opposite of what they claim—entrenching the sovereignty of (...) Western imperialist states while eroding the conditions necessary for the recognition of the human rights of others. (shrink)

: This paper traces the political economy of the Christian concept of "evil" incarnate and its concomitant operations of sexual abjection and the repudiation of femininity, beginning with the early church's inaugural struggles to impose its monotheistic Law against maternal paganism. With attention to how "evil" has been deployed to sanction and sanctify the persecution of scapegoats, and particularly of heretics and witches, I examine the masculinist struggles for jurisdiction and control over women.

This paper traces the political economy of the Christian concept of “evil” incarnate and its concomitant operations of sexual abjection and the repudiation of femininity, beginning with the early church's inaugural struggles to impose its monotheistic Law against maternal paganism. With attention to how “evil” has been deployed to sanction and sanctify the persecution of scapegoats, and particularly of heretics and witches, I examine the masculinist struggles for jurisdiction and control over women.

I try to lay bare some of the conceptual space in which one may be a Social Trinitarian. I organize the paper around answers to five questions. These are: (1) How do the three Persons of the Trinity relate to the Godhead? (2) How many divine beings or gods are there? (3) How many distinct centers of consciousness are there in the Godhead? (4) How many omnicompetent beings are there? (5) How are the Persons of the Trinity individuated? I try (...) to make clear costs and benefits of various answers to these questions. (shrink)

Virtue and deontological ethics are now commonly contrasted as rival approaches to moral inquiry. However, I argue that neither metaethical party should seek complete, solitary domination of the ethical domain. Reductive treatments of the right or the virtuous, as well as projects that abandon the former or latter, are bound to leave us with a sadly diminished map of the moral territories crucial to our lives. Thus, it is better for the two parties to seek a more cordial and equal (...) relationship, one that permits metaethical pluralism, and acknowledges mutual dependence. I do not seek to prescribe how that relationship should look: this essay offers less a positive metaethical position than a prolegomenon to such a position, one that attempts to head off harmful attempts to reduce the territory of the aretaic to that of the deontic, or that of the deontic to the aretaic. (shrink)

Christians who affirm standard science and the biblical doctrine of creation often endorse theistic evolution as the best approach to human origins. But theistic evolution is ambiguous. Some versions are naturalistic (NTE)—God created humans entirely by evolution—and some are supernaturalistic (STE)—God supernaturally augmented evolution. This article claims that NTE is inadequate as an account of human origins because its theological naturalism and emergent physicalist ontology of the soul or person conflict with the Christian doctrine that God created humans for everlasting (...) life. Both the traditional Christian account of the afterlife and its modern Christian alternatives involve God's supernatural action and a separation (dualism) of person and body at death. STE can combine with several philosophical accounts of the body-soul relation to provide an adequate Christian account of original human nature. (shrink)

Spies, like soldiers, do a job and employ tactics that need justifying. I offer an argument for how Christian ethics may handle the moral problems of spying and do so by looking at the morally troubling tactics used by spies through the eyes of those who played an important role in shaping Christian theology and philosophy and have become normative in Christian moral thinking on the use of force. I argue that spying may be justifiable when we conceive the profession (...) as a kind of use of force that is governed by the just war criteria. Spying is a particular kind of use of force that takes its moral character from those who authorize it, with what justification, to what ends, and with what methods. Particular attention is given to the tactics of disregarding the rules of war, the telling and living of lies, running covert operations, and assassinating military and political leaders. (shrink)

This article contributes to conversations about the “Hitler problem” in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien’s fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft, or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom’s ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of a triadic account of (...) human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I argue that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models. (shrink)

People of faith, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, worship corporately at least as often, if not more so, than they do individually. Why do they do this? There are, of course, many reasons, some having to do with personal preference and others having to do with the theology of worship. But, in this paper, we explore one reason, a philosophical reason, which, despite recent work on the philosophy of liturgy, has gone underappreciated. In particular, we argue that corporate worship enables (...) a person to come to know God better than they would otherwise know him in individual worship. (shrink)

People of faith, particularly in the Judeo-Christian tradition, worship corporately at least as often, if not more so, than they do individually. Why do they do this? There are, of course, many reasons, some having to do with personal preference and others having to do with the theology of worship. But, in this paper, we explore one reason, a philosophical reason, which, despite recent work on the philosophy of liturgy, has gone underappreciated. In particular, we argue that corporate worship enables (...) a person to come to know God better than they would otherwise know him in individual worship. (shrink)

In response to evaluations of On Animals: Volume 1, Systematic Theology by Margaret Adams, Christopher Carter, David Fergusson, and Stephen Webb, this article argues that the theological reappraisals of key doctrines argued for in the book are important for an adequate theological discussion of animals. The article addresses critical points raised by these authors in relation to the creation of human beings in the image of God, the doctrine of the incarnation, the theological ordering of creatures, anthropocentrism, and the doctrine (...) of God. It concludes that, given previous neglect, much more discussion by theologians is required in order to think better concerning the place of animals in Christian theology, but acting better toward fellow animal creatures is an important next step toward this goal. (shrink)

Recent literature on the relationship between knowledge and justice has tended to focus exclusively on the social and ethical dimensions of this relationship (e.g. social injustices related to knowledge and power, etc.). For the purposes of this article, I am interested in examining the virtue of justice and its effects on the cognitive faculties of its possessor (and, correspondingly, the effects of the vice of injustice). Drawing upon Thomas Aquinas’s account of the virtue of justice, I argue that in certain (...) cases justice can be a criterion of epistemic evaluation and that it deserves more attention than it has been given among virtue epistemologists. More precisely, the virtue of justice may become a criterion of epistemic evaluation in cases when a belief is formed on the basis of testimony. It would seem that there are cases when A’s assent to proposition p is something that is owed to B on the basis of B’s testimony; or there may be instances when A is culpable for declining to let B’s testimony have any effect on A’s belief. I briefly sketch four distinct scenarios in which this bears out. (shrink)

This article will examine McCormick's moral epistemology both at the level of how human persons know values and disvalues, which hereinafter will be referred to as synderesis, and at the level of how human persons know the rightness and wrongness of an action, which hereinafter will be referred to as normative moral judgment. On the one hand, from this investigation it appears that McCormick operates with a dual moral epistemology, at least at the level of synderesis. This means that at (...) one point in time it appears that a significant shift may have occurred in his moral epistemology at the level of synderesis. This may also be true at the level of normative moral judgment. On the other hand, McCormick's moral epistemology may in fact be a synthesis, which is the product of development and maturity in his thought process. This article will articulate, examine, and analyse both moral epistemologies. The first moral epistemology is operative in McCormick's writing up until 1983. The second moral epistemology corresponds to McCormick's decision in 1983 to write primarily in the area of bioethics from a theological perspective. Since the year 1983 seems to be the pivotal time when these two moral epistemologies converge, I will refer to the first moral epistemology as “prior to 1983” and I will refer to the second moral epistemology as “after 1983.” Because of the numerous criticisms that surround McCormick's moral epistemology, and the ambiguity that it entails, McCormick needed to articulate his theoretical foundations clearly and develop them systematically and coherently. Numerous moral theologians called for him to do this, yet he never responded. A systematic understanding of McCormick's moral epistemology is not only necessary but crucial in examining various issues in bioethics. It is necessary because it is the basis of moral decision making. It is crucial because the life and death of individuals may hang in the balance. (shrink)

This essay seeks to start a dialogue between two traditions that historically have interpreted the economy in opposing ways: the individualism of classic economic liberalism (CEL), represented by Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, and the communitarianism of Catholic social teaching (CST), interpreted primarily through the teachings of popes and secondarily the U.S. Catholic bishops. The present authors, an economist and a moral theologian who identify with one or the other of the two traditions, strive to clarify objectively their similarities and (...) differences with the opposing perspective. Section one focuses on each position''s perspective of love of self and love of others. We find both CEL and CST saying that self-love, rightly understood, constitutes a moral good and that the love of others serves as an important principle in the political economy. We find less agreement in section two regarding justice and rights, but even here, we discover a few surprises. Both traditions uphold justice (giving to each party what is due) as essential to the political economy, and recognize some similarity in that type of justice called commutative. We note, however, substantial differences regarding a second type of justice that we call "public justice." First, they differ over the extent to which government should be involved. Here the meaning of rights, especially that of individual freedom, arises. Secondly, the traditions diverge over whether benevolence as a motivator ought to serve as a partner for public justice. Thirdly, CEL in general opposes CST''s emphasis on social justice that calls upon institutions to be proactive in helping citizens and groups to become active participants in the economy. We conclude our essay by summarizing our discoveries and by suggesting areas for further dialogue. (shrink)

After resolving the dreaming doubt at the end of the Sixth Meditation, Descartes concedes to Hobbes that one could apply the criterion for waking experience in a dream and thus be deceived, but he no longer considers this possibility to have skeptical force. I argue that this is a legitimate response by Descartes since 1) the dreaming doubt in the Sixth Meditation is no longer a global skeptical hypothesis as it is in the First, and 2) the level of certainty (...) that sensory experience must meet in the Sixth Meditation is lower than it must meet in the First. (shrink)

This essay provides an interpretation of Jonathan Edwards's moral thought that calls attention to the motif of perception in his conception of true virtue. The aim is to illumine the extent to which Edwards's virtue ethics can be included in and contribute to prevailing approaches to virtue in contemporary theological ethics. To advance this proposal, this essay attends to the question of moral agency that Edwards's reflections on charity, the new spiritual sense, and religious affections raise. This procedure offers an (...) acute sense of the significance of perception for Edwards's virtue ethics, which in turn allows for a constructive Edwardsean entry into current theological discussions on the narrative character of virtue. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Kant’s critical discussions of the topic of miracles (including the important but neglected fragment from the 1780s called “On Miracles”) in an effort to answer the question in the title. Along the way I discuss some of the different kinds of “laws” in Kant’s system, and also the argument for his claim that, even if empirical miracles do occur, we will never be in a good position to identify instances of them. I conclude with some (...) tentative remarks about the notorious suggestion that intelligible finite agents, too, might have some sort of influence over the laws of nature. The goal throughout is to show that exploring Kant’s answer to a traditional question in philosophical theology can deepen our understanding of his metaphysics and epistemology of nature generally. (shrink)

The view that the subject matter of epistemology is the concept of knowledge is faced with the problem that all attempts so far to define that concept are subject to counterexamples. As an alternative, this article argues that the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Moreover, knowledge is not merely a state of mind but rather a certain kind of response to the environment that is essential for survival. In this perspective, the article (...) outlines an answer to four basic questions about knowledge: What is the role of knowledge in human life? What is the relation between knowledge and reality? How is knowledge acquired? Is there any a priori knowledge? (shrink)

Many Guatemalan women suffered extreme sexual violence during the latter half of the twentieth century. Learning of this violence can evoke hatred in persons who love and respect women—hatred for the men who perpetrated the violence and also for other men around the world who victimize women in this way. Hatred is a common response to a perceived evil, and it might in some cases be a fitting response, but it is important to subject one's emotions to critical moral reflection. (...) A key task of ethics is to encourage persons to cultivate good habits of being moved. This essay analyzes the way in which two different texts manage, through the skillful presentation of experiential narratives, to help readers acknowledge the hatred they might feel, but also to think twice about the hatred to which they consent. (shrink)

Combined oral contraceptives have been demonstrated to have significant benefits for the treatment and prevention of disease. These medications also are associated with untoward health effects, and they may be directly contraceptive. Prescribers and users must compare and weigh the intended beneficial health effects against foreseeable but unintended possible adverse effects in their decisions to prescribe and use. Additionally, those who intend to abide by Catholic teachings must consider prohibitions against contraception. Ethical judgments concerning both health benefits and contraception are (...) approached in this essay through an overview of the therapeutic, prophylactic, untoward, and contraceptive effects of COC and discussion of magisterial and traditional Catholic teachings from natural law. Discerning through the principle of double effect, proportionate reason, and evidence gathered from the sciences, medical and moral conclusions are drawn that we believe to be fully compliant with good medicine and Catholic teaching. (shrink)

Abstract. The modern concept of the inner self containing a private inner world has ancient philosophical and religious roots. These begin with Plato's intelligible world of ideas. In Plotinus, the intelligible world becomes the inner world of the divine Mind and its ideas, which the soul sees by turning “into the inside.” Augustine made the inner world into something merely human, not a world of divine ideas, so that the soul seeking for God must turn in, then up: entering into (...) itself and then looking above itself at the intelligible light of God. In modernity, “ideas” become the immediate object of every act of mental perception, the essential inner objects of the mind's eye. Locke makes the inner space inescapably private, excluding the divine inner light. Postmodern attempts to reconceive the relation of mind and world, rejecting the modern conception of a private inner self, will need to deal with lingering Platonist intuitions about the immediacy of the mind's vision. (shrink)

Avicenna's proof for the existence of God (the Necessary Existent) in the Metaphysics of the Salvation relies on the claim that every possible existent shares a common cause. I argue that Avicenna has good reason to hold this claim given that he thinks that (1) every essentially ordered causal series originates in a first, common cause and that (2) every possible existent belongs to an essentially ordered series. Showing Avicenna's commitment to 1 and 2 allows me to respond to Herbert (...) Davidson's and Richard Swinburne's claim that Avicenna's proof for the Necessary Existent is incomplete and fallacious -/- . (shrink)

Georges Bataille agrees with numerous Christian mystics that there is ethical and religious value in meditating upon, and having ecstatic episodes in response to, imagery of violent death. For Christians, the crucified Christ is the focus of contemplative efforts. Bataille employs photographic imagery of a more-recent victim of torture and execution. In this essay, while engaging with Amy Hollywood's interpretation of Bataille in Sensible Ecstasy, I show that, unlike the Christian mystics who influence him, Bataille strives to divorce himself from (...) any moral authority external to the ecstatic episode itself. I argue that in his attempt to remove external authority he abandons the only resources that could possibly protect his mystical contemplation from engendering sadistic attitudes. (shrink)

In his landmark book on philosophical theology, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry, Mark Johnston develops a panentheistic metaphysic of the divine that he contends is compatible with ontological naturalism. On his view, God is the universe, but the ‘is’ is the ‘is’ of constitution, not identity. The universe and God are coinciding objects that share properties but have different essential modal properties and, hence, different persistence conditions. In this paper, I address the problem of accounting for what it is about (...) the organization or structure of the universe that makes it sufficient to constitute the Divine Mind. Specifically, I consider what kind of unity the universe exhibits in virtue of which it constitutes the Divine Mind. I consider how Johnston’s hylomorphic account of the unity of composite objects might be applied to provide a solution and offer an alternative that emends the Johnstonian proposal I present by exploiting a variant of a neo-Aristotelian ontology of causal powers that takes properties to be powerful qualities. On the framework I defend, we can understand the universe as a constellation of powers that displays the sort of unity sufficient to truthfully described it as a Divine Mind. The approach I recommend will, however, ultimately lend itself to a pantheistic metaphysic of the divine rather than Johnston’s preferred panentheism. (shrink)

Abstract This article lays a theoretical foundation the perspective of international law for applying the principle of proportionality of cause in modern just war theory. It proposes an analytical framework for measuring proportionality based on general tort law, filtered through the international law of state responsibility. It proposes assessing the use of force as a proportionate (or disproportionate) remediation for an injury (present or future) caused by another state that is in breach of its legal obligations. The article then applies (...) this approach to the problems of anticipatory self-defense and humanitarian intervention. (shrink)