The “right intention” requirement, in the form of a requirement that the agent must have a justified true belief that the mind-independent conditions of the justification to use force are fulfilled, is not an additional criterion, but one that constrains the interpretation of the other criteria. Without it, the only possible interpretation of the mind-independent criteria is purely objectivist, that is, purely fact-relative. Pure objectivism condemns self-defense and just war theory to irrelevance since it cannot provide proper action guidance: it (...) is impractically demanding. This means that “revisionist” just war theories which base their doctrine of the moral inequality of combatants on the idea that objective justification defeats liability are irrelevant for the real world, where objective justification is virtually inaccessible. Moreover, only the right intention requirement in the form of a knowledge requirement, as opposed to requiring “good intentions” or “acceptable motivations,” can solve this problem. (shrink)

Anna Stilz claims that citizens of democratic states bear “task responsibility” to repair unjust harms done by their states. I will argue that the only situation in which Stilz’s argument for such “task responsibility” is not redundant, given her own premises, is a situation where the state leaves it up to the citizens whether to indemnify others for the harms done by the state. I will also show that Stilz’s “authorization view” rests on an unwarranted and implausible assumption (which I (...) call “the authorization principle”) about authorization and political obligation, and that this problem cannot be remedied by limiting the account to democratic states. I will then briefly turn to Pasternak’s account of citizen responsibility for state action and argue that it suffers from two deficiencies: first, she equates group membership with collective action, and second, she does not provide any explanation as to why citizens should incur liability for the acts of their state under the four conditions she highlights. I conclude that neither Stilz nor Pasternak succeed in showing that at least citizens of democratic states are liable (barring very special circumstances) for the acts of their states. (shrink)

Massimo Renzo has recently offered a theory of legitimacy that attempts to ground the state’s right to rule on the assumption that people in the state of nature pose an unjust threat to each other and can therefore, in self-defense, be forced to enter the state, that is, to become subject to its authority. I argue that depending on how “unjust threat” is interpreted in Renzo’s self-defense argument for the authority of the state, either his premise that “those who pose (...) an unjust threat to others can be justifiably coerced in self-defense, at least when they are morally responsible for posing the threat,” or his premise that “would-be independents pose an unjust threat to those living next to them in the state of nature,” or both of them are wrong. I further argue that his premise that would-be independents pose an unjust threat by refusing to enter the state is also mistaken. Refusing to enter the state, that is, refusing to be subject to the authority of the state, is no threat at all, and hence coercing people into entering the state is no means of self-defense and incapable of enhancing security. Renzo’s deduction of state authority from the right to self-defense fails. (shrink)

According to the dominant position in the just war tradition from Augustine to Anscombe and beyond, there is no "moral equality of combatants." That is, on the traditional view the combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war - but not vice versa (barring certain qualifications). I shall argue here, however, that in the large number of wars (and in practically all modern wars) where the combatants on the justified side violate the (...) rights of innocent people ("collateral damage"), these combatants are in fact liable to attack by the combatants on the unjustified side. I will support this view with a rights-based account of liability to attack and then defend it against a number of objections raised in particular by Jeff McMahan. The result is that the thesis of the moral equality of combatants holds good for a large range of armed conflicts while the opposing thesis is of very limited practical relevance. (shrink)

I argue that rights-forfeiture by itself is no path to permissibility at all (even barring special circumstances), neither in the case of self-defense nor in the case of punishment. The limiting conditions of self-defense, for instance – necessity, proportionality (or no gross disproportionality), and the subjective element – are different in the context of forfeiture than in the context of justification (and might even be absent in the former context). In particular, I argue that a culpable aggressor, unlike an innocent (...) aggressor, forfeits rights against proportionate defense, including unnecessary defense (as well as rights against the infliction of proportionate non-defensive harm). Yet, I demonstrate that this stance need not lead to the abandonment of the necessity condition of justified self-defense in the case of a culpable aggressor. Since justification and liability are not the same, there is no reason to assume that the necessity condition of justified self-defense must be explained under an appeal to the aggressor’s rights. Parallel arguments apply to the other limiting conditions of permissible self-defense as well as to the limiting conditions of permissible punishment. Accordingly, I also sketch alternative explanations of the proportionality requirement and the subjective element. All these alternative explanations appeal to a principle of precaution: instead of explaining the unjustifiability of unnecessarily harming a culpable attacker or wrongdoer by an appeal to the rights of the attacker or wrongdoer himself, one can also, and better, explain it by a requirement to take reasonable precautions against violating the rights of innocent people. (shrink)

What one is ultimately interested in with regard to ‘just cause’ is whether a specific war, actual or potential, is justified. I call this ‘the applied question’. Answering this question requires knowing the empirical facts on the ground. However, an answer to the applied question regarding a specific war requires a prior answer to some more general questions, both descriptive and normative. These questions are: What kind of thing is a ‘just cause’ for war (an aim, an injury or wrong (...) suffered, or something different altogether)? I call this ‘the formal question’. Then there is what I call the ‘the general substantive question’. Depending on the previous answer to the formal question, the general substantive question can be formulated as: ‘Which causes are just?’ or as ‘Under what conditions is there a just cause?’ A final question, which has recently elicited increased interest, is what I call ‘the question of timing’: does the ‘just cause’ criterion only apply to the initiation of a war or also to the continuation of a war, that is, can a war that had a just cause at the beginning lose it at some point in its course (and vice versa)? I argue that a just cause is a state of affairs. Moreover, the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied; and this account has certain theoretical and practical advantages. As regards the general substantive question, I argue that all kinds of aims can, in principle, be legitimately pursued by means of war, even aims that might sound dubious at first, like vengeance or the search for glory. Thus, the pursuit of such aims does not make the war disproportionate or deprive it of just cause. As regards the question of timing, I argue that the criteria of jus ad bellum apply throughout the war, not only at the point of its initiation. While starting a war at t1 might be justified, continuing it at time t2 might be unjustified (and vice versa), and this insight does not require an addition to jus ad bellum but is already contained in it. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge claims "that, by shaping and enforcing the social conditions that foreseeably and avoidably cause the monumental suffering of global poverty, we are harming the global poor ... or, to put it more descriptively, we are active participants in the largest, though not the gravest, crime against humanity ever committed." In other words, he claims that by upholding certain international arrangements we are violating our strong negative duties not to harm, and not just some positive duties to help. I (...) shall argue that even if Pogge were correct in claiming that certain rich states or at least the rich states collectively violate certain negative duties towards the poor and harm the poor, he is far too hasty in concluding that "we," the citizens of those states, are thus harming the global poor or violating our negative duties towards them. In fact, his conclusion can be shown to be wrong not least of all in the light of some of his own assumptions about collective responsibility, the enforceability of human rights, and terrorism. In addition, I will also argue that his view that we share responsibility for the acts of our political "representatives," who allegedly act "on our behalf," is unwarranted. (shrink)

In a recent paper, McMahan argues that his ‘Responsibility Account’, according to which ‘the criterion of liability to attack in war is moral responsibility for an objectively unjustified threat of harm’, can meet the challenge of explaining why most combatants on the unjustified side of a war are liable to attack while most civilians (even on the unjustified side) are not. It should be added, however, that in the light of his rejection of the ‘moral equality of combatants’, McMahan would (...) also have to explain why combatants on the justified side of a war are not liable to attack. I will argue here that McMahan does not succeed in meeting these challenges. (shrink)

David Rodin denies that defensive wars against unjust aggression can be justified if the unjust aggression limits itself, for example, to the annexation of territory, the robbery of resources or the restriction of political freedom, but would endanger the lives, bodily integrity or freedom from slavery of the citizens only if the unjustly attacked state actually resisted the aggression. I will argue that Rodin's position is not correct. First, Rodin's comments on the necessity condition and its relation to an alleged (...) "duty to retreat" misinterpret the law, and a correct interpretation of the law is not only compatible with, but implies a permission to resist the "bloodless invader," and this is also the correct view from the perspective of morality. Second, Rodin's remarks on the proportionality of self-defense against conditional threats focus on physical or material harm but implausibly ignore the severity of the violations of autonomy and of the socio-legal or moral order that such conditional threats involve. Third, I will address Rodin's claim that defensive wars against "political aggression" are disproportionate because they risk the lives of those defended in an attempt to secure lesser interests. I will argue that this take on proportionality misses the point in an important respect, namely by confusing wide and narrow proportionality, and makes unwarranted assumptions about the alleged irrationality or impermissibility of incurring or imposing lethal risks to safeguard less vital interests. Next, I will also show that while Rodin talks of a "myth of national self-defense" and of the necessity of moving beyond traditional just war theory and international law, it is actually his interpretation of just war theory and international law that weaves myths. Finally, I will argue that Rodin's views on national self-defense on the one hand, and "war as law enforcement" on the other, are incoherent. (shrink)

In the tradition of just war theory two assumptions have been taken pretty much for granted: first, that there are quite a lot of justified wars, and second, that there is a moral inequality of combatants, that is, that combatants participating in a justified war may kill their enemy combatants participating in an unjustified war but not vice versa. I will argue that the first assumption is wrong and that therefore the second assumption is virtually irrelevant for reality. I will (...) also argue, primarily against Jeff McMahan, that his particular thesis about the moral inequality of “just” and “unjust combatants” is an analytical truth which, however, does hardly apply to anything (there are few if any “unjust combatants” as he defines them). If one takes his thesis less literally, namely in the sense of a thesis about combatants participating in a justified war and combatants participating in an unjustified war, it is correct in principle, but still of little practical relevance even if one disregarded the fact that there are virtually no justified wars. One of the reasons for this is that, contrary to McMahan’s claims, justification does not defeat liability. (shrink)

P.J. Markie tries to solve the so-called particularity problem of natural duty accounts of political obligation, a problem which seems to make natural duty accounts implausible. I argue that Markie at best “dissolves” the problem: while his own natural duty account of political obligation still does not succeed in ensuring particularity, this is not an implausible but an entirely plausible implication of his account, thanks to the weakness of his concept of political obligation. The price for this, however, is that (...) his approach has little to do with political obligation and the particularity problem as discussed in the literature. (shrink)

Practically all modern definitions of war rule out that individuals can wage war. They conceive of war as a certain kind of conflict between groups. In fact, many definitions even restrict the term “war” to sustained armed conflicts between states. Instead of taking such definitions as points of departure, the article starts from scratch. I first explain what an explication of the concept of “war” should achieve. I then introduce the fundamental, and frequently overlooked, distinction between war as an historical (...) event and war as an action. It is war as action—which, unlike events, can be right or wrong—that I explicate. Testing our linguistic intuitions with different examples of conflict I isolate several criteria that a war proper has to fulfill and try to demonstrate that not only collectives but individuals, too, can wage war. In conclusion I examine alternative definitions of war and show that in comparison to them mine fares rather well. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

The paper by Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2014) is to be commended for providing a comprehensive discussion of the compatibility issues arising from the integration of mindfulness – a 2,500-year-old Buddhist practice – into research and applied psychological domains. Consistent with the observations of various others (e.g., Dunne, 2011; Kang & Whittingham, 2010), Monteiro and colleagues have not only highlighted that there are differences in how Buddhism and contemporary mindfulness interventional approaches interpret and contextualize mindfulness, but there are also differing (...) interpretations of mindfulness within Buddhism. These apparent differences within Buddhism are arguably more noticeable when making comparisons across Buddhist vehicles (i.e., Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), but to a lesser extent intra-vehicular differences can also be said to exist (i.e., differences between Buddhist traditions of the same vehicle). This commentary investigates the validity of some of these different Buddhist constructions of mindfulness, and then discusses how a better understanding of their scriptural and conceptual soundness (or lack thereof) may help to reconcile some of the actual and perceived incompatibility between Buddhist practice and contemporary secular mindfulness-based approaches. (shrink)

Helen Frowe has recently offered what she calls a “practical” account of self-defense. Her account is supposed to be practical by being subjectivist about permissibility and objectivist about liability. I shall argue here that Frowe first makes up a problem that does not exist and then fails to solve it. To wit, her claim that objectivist accounts of permissibility cannot be action-guiding is wrong; and her own account of permissibility actually retains an objectivist (in the relevant sense) element. In addition, (...) her attempt to restrict subjectivism primarily to “urgent” situations like self-defense contradicts her own point of departure and is either incoherent or futile. Finally, the only actual whole-heartedly objectivist account she criticizes is an easy target; while those objectivist accounts one finds in certain Western European jurisdictions are immune to her criticisms. Those accounts are also clearly superior to hers in terms of action-guidingness. (shrink)

McMahan’s own example of a symmetrical defense case, namely his tactical bomber example, opens the door wide open for soldiers to defend their fellow-citizens (on grounds of their special obligations towards them) even if as part of this defense they target non-liable soldiers. So the soldiers on both sides would be permitted to kill each other and, given how McMahan defines “justification,” they would also be justified in doing so and hence not be liable. Thus, we arrive, against McMahan’s intentions, (...) at a moral equality of combatants. In addition, his own account of liability cannot deal adequately with symmetrical defense cases in the first place. This undermines his presupposition that justification defeats liability, which is central to his defense of the moral inequality of combatants. I shall argue that McMahan’s attempts to counter these objections fail and that therefore his general claim of the moral inequality of combatants remains unpersuasive. (shrink)

Like Lewis, many philosophers hold reductionist accounts of chance (on which claims about chance are to be understood as claims that certain patterns of events are instantiated) and maintain that rationality requires that credence should defer to chance (in the sense that under certain circumstances one's credence in an event must coincide with the chance of that event). It is a shortcoming of an account of chance if it implies that this norm of rationality is unsatisfiable by computable agents. This (...) shortcoming is more common than one might have hoped. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge labels the idea that each person owes each other person equal respect and concern ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ and correctly states that it is a ‘non-starter’. He offers as an allegedly more convincing cosmopolitan alternative his ‘social justice cosmopolitanism’. I shall argue that this alternative fails for pretty much the same reasons that ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ fails. In addition, I will show that Pogge's definition of cosmopolitanism is misleading, since it actually applies to ethical cosmopolitanism and not to social justice cosmopolitanism. (...) This means that cosmopolitanism as defined by Pogge is wrong in the light of his own arguments and that Pogge is not even a cosmopolitan in the sense of his own definition. I will further show that he is also not a cosmopolitan if cosmopolitanism is defined as a philosophical position involving the claim that state borders have no fundamental moral significance. (shrink)

Christopher J. Finlay claims “that a principle of moral or legitimate authority is necessary in just war theory for evaluating properly the justifiability of violence by non-state entities when they claim to act on behalf of the victims of rights violations and political injustice.” In particular, he argues that states, unlike non-state actors, possess what he calls “Lesser Moral Authority.” This authority allegedly enables states to invoke “the War Convention,” which in turn entitles even individual soldiers on the aggressive side (...) to use military violence against soldiers defending the victim state. Non-state actors, in contrast, have to fulfill more stringent requirements. If they do not, then even their attacks on military personnel can properly be called "terrorist." In the following I will argue that Finlay’s attempt to show the importance of the legitimate authority criterion of just war theory and to demonstrate that non-state violence has to satisfy heavier burdens of justification than state violence fails for a number of reasons: his claim that defenders would wrong victims if they defended them against their will is mistaken, he overlooks the fact that non-state agents need not claim to fight on someone’s behalf, the full moral authority he mentions is redundant, the powers he ascribes to “Lesser Moral Authority” are, depending on interpretation, either morally irrelevant or nonexistent, and his claim that granting states “Lesser Moral Authority” is beneficial from a “moral pragmatic” point of view while granting the same authority to non-state actors is not, is unwarranted. (shrink)

In a recent article Yvonne Chiu argues that nonuniformed combat is impermissible. However, her argument that by fighting without uniforms nonuniformed guerillas coerce civilians into participating in the armed conflict and thus into surrendering their immunity (their right not to be attacked) fails: there is no coercion, no participation, and no surrendering of immunity. Yet even if this argument of hers were correct, it would still not show that such “coercion” would amount to a rights infringement. Moreover, even if it (...) did, there are examples that show that such an infringement would sometimes be perfectly justified. Finally, if she were right that forcing civilians into a moral position that they have not accepted or chosen is absolutely wrong, then this would affect the moral status of uniformed combatants no less than it would affect the moral status of nonuniformed ones. (shrink)

Psychological approaches to treating mental illness or improving psychological wellbeing are invariably based on the explicit or implicit understanding that there is an intrinsically existing ‘self’ or ‘I’ entity. In other words, regardless of whether a cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic, or humanistic psychotherapy treatment model is employed, these approaches are ultimately concerned with changing how the ‘I’ relates to its thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and/or to its physical, social, and spiritual environment. Although each of these psychotherapeutic modalities have been shown to have (...) utility for improving psychological health, there are inevitably limitations to their effectiveness and there will always be those individuals for whom they are incompatible. Given such limitations, research continuously attempts to identify and empirically validate more effective, acceptable and/or diverse treatment approaches. One such approach gaining momentum is the use of techniques that derive from Buddhist contemplative practice. Although mindfulness is arguably the most popular and empirically researched example, there is also growing interest into the psychotherapeutic applications of Buddhism’s ‘non-self’ ontological standpoint (in which ontology is basically the philosophical study of the nature or essence of being, existence, or reality). (shrink)

This essay revisits some classic problems in the philosophy of space and time concerning the counting of possibilities. I argue that we should think that two Newtonian worlds can differ only as to when or where things happen and that general relativistic worlds can differ in something like the same way—the first of these theses being quaintly heterodox, the second baldly heretical, according to the mores of contemporary philosophy of physics.

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to conduct the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention (SG-MBI) for treating fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Compared to first generation mindfulness-based interventions, SG-MBIs are more acknowledging of the spiritual aspect of mindfulness. Design. A RCT employing intent-to-treat analysis. Methods. Adults with FMS received an 8-week SG-MBI known as meditation awareness training (MAT; n = 74) or an active control intervention known as cognitive behaviour theory for groups (...) (n = 74). Assessments were performed at pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up phases. Results. Meditation awareness training participants demonstrated significant and sustained improvements over control group participants in FMS symptomatology, pain perception, sleep quality, psychological distress, non-attachment (to self, symptoms, and environment), and civic engagement. A mediation analysis found that (1) civic engagement partially mediated treatment effects for all outcome variables, (2) non-attachment partially mediated treatment effects for psychological distress and sleep quality, and (3) non-attachment almost fully mediated treatment effects for FMS symptomatology and pain perception. Average daily time spent in meditation was found to be a significant predictor of changes in all outcome variables. Conclusions. Meditation awareness training may be a suitable treatment for adults with FMS and appears to ameliorate FMS symptomatology and pain perception by reducing attachment to self. (shrink)

The problem of divine impassibility, i.e., of whether the divine nature in Christ could suffer, stands at the center of a debate regarding the nature of God and his relation to us. Whereas philosophical reasoning regarding the divine nature maintains that the divine is immutable and perfect in every respect, theological needs generated an ever-growing demand for a passionate God truly able to participate in the suffering of his creatures. Correlating with the different approaches of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns (...) Scotus, the paper develops an incarnation model that aims, on the one hand, to solve the dualistic problem between the divine and human natures, and on the other hand to make room for both impassible and passible elements in God, and so to make room within the patristic impassible model for genuine suffering in God. The discussion, though centered around Christ's im/passibility and passions, can easily be modified to approach the body-mind problem since the essence of the problems is the same. (shrink)

This article considers the proportionality requirement of the self-defense justification. It first lays bare the assumptions and the logic—and often illogic—underlying very strict accounts of the proportionality requirement. It argues that accounts that try to rule out lethal self-defense against threats to property or against threats of minor assault by an appeal to the supreme value of life have counter-intuitive implications and are untenable. Furthermore, it provides arguments demonstrating that there is not necessarily a right not to be killed in (...) defense against theft or minor assaults. While there is a general moral right of self-defense and a general right to life, the scope of these rights depends on certain social facts that—even within a liberal framework—can differ from one society to another. Moreover, the proportionality of self-defense does not depend on the rights of the aggressor alone, but also on a precautionary rule, shaped by the balance of interests of the society in question and aimed at protecting innocent people and other social interests. This rule can protect an aggressor even in cases where he does not have the right to such protection. (shrink)

This paper is not so much concerned with the question under which circumstances self-defense is justified, but rather with other normative features of self-defense as well as with the source of the self-defense justification. I will argue that the aggressor’s rights-forfeiture alone – and hence the liberty-right of the defender to defend himself – cannot explain the intuitively obvious fact that a prohibition on self-defense would wrong victims of attack. This can only be explained by conceiving of self-defense also as (...) a claim-right. However, I will also argue that a claim-right cannot ground the self-defense justification either. Rather, what grounds the self-defense justification and its particular strength and scope is the fact that self-defense is an act-specific agent-relative prerogative: a defender is allowed to give particularly grave weight to his interest in engaging in self-defense, which distinguishes self-defense from most other acts. This is not the same as saying that he has a right or a liberty to engage in self-defense. Thus, self-defense, understood as a normative concept, is a claim-right, a liberty-right, and an act-specific agent-relative prerogative. (shrink)

I argue that the criterion of just cause is not independent of proportionality and other valid jus ad bellum criteria. One cannot know whether there is a just cause without knowing whether the other (valid) criteria (apart from ‘right intention’) are satisfied. The advantage of this account is that it is applicable to all wars, even to wars where nobody will be killed or where the enemy has not committed a rights violation but can be justifiably warred against anyway. This (...) account also avoids the inefficiency of having proportionality considerations come up at two different points: in a separate criterion of just cause and in the criterion of proportionality proper. ‘Right intention’, the subjective element of the justification of a war, on the other hand, is not to be subsumed under the criterion of just cause: there can be a just cause without anybody knowing it. Conversely, however, the subjective element requires that those responsible for waging the war do know that the justifying objective conditions are fulfilled. This is in one sense more demanding than traditional just war theory; in another sense, however, it is less demanding: nobody needs to intend to fight for a ‘just aim’. (shrink)

Victor Tadros thinks the idea that in a conflict both sides may permissibly use force should (typically) be rejected. Thus, he thinks that two shipwrecked persons should not fight for the only available flotsam (which can only carry one person) but instead toss a coin, and that a bomber justifiably attacking an ammunitions factory must not be counterattacked by the innocent bystanders he endangers. I shall argue that Tadros’s claim rests on unwarranted assumptions and is also mistaken in the light (...) of the moral reasoning that he himself offers in support of his ‘means principle’. (shrink)

Under so-called primitive ontology approaches, in fully describing the history of a quantum system, one thereby attributes interesting properties to regions of spacetime. Primitive ontology approaches, which include some varieties of Bohmian mechanics and spontaneous collapse theories, are interesting in part because they hold out the hope that it should not be too difficult to make a connection between models of quantum mechanics and descriptions of histories of ordinary macroscopic bodies. But such approaches are dualistic, positing a quantum state as (...) well as ordinary material degrees of freedom. This paper lays out and compares some options that primitive ontologists have for making sense of the quantum state. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger devotes extensive discussion to medieval philosophers, particularly to their treatment of Truth and Being. On both these topics, Heidegger accuses them of forgetting the question of Being and of being responsible for subjugating truth to the modern crusade for certainty: ‘truth is denied its own mode of being’ and is subordinated ‘to an intellect that judges correctly’. Though there are some studies that discuss Heidegger’s debt to and criticism of medieval thought, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas, there is (...) no constructive reply to his assertions. As a result, Heidegger’s critique had an unprecedented effect on the credibility of medieval philosophy, whereby great portions of the philosophical community dismiss it altogether as an illegitimate Onto‐Theology. It is the aim of this study to offer a constructive reply that will fundamentally grapple with these allegations. By constructive reply we mean not only a reply that avoids the problems Heidegger raises regarding existence, essence and truth, but more importantly, one that uses Heidegger’s criticism in order to present a more insightful account of these notions. The present study is composed of two parts where the second serves as a sort of addendum. The first part, the core of this study, is an attempt to develop an understanding of the distinction between essence and existence that, on the one hand, accords with Heidegger’s criticism while on the other hand advances our understanding of how we think and understand reality. After presenting Heidegger’s depiction of Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence (esse) as a real distinction, the study will present several views propounded by scholars of Aquinas regarding the status of this distinction. It will be argued that it is not clear whether the distinction is real, formal or conceptual, and that different types of distinction are applied in different places, particularly in regard to the phantasm that Aquinas considers essential to the human act of thinking. The second part diverges from the first part and focuses on Heidegger’s criticism of Aquinas’s conception of truth as adequation, i.e., what it is that grounds the possibility of truth as adequation. This divergence is necessary in order to present a full metaphysical response to Heidegger’s criticism. Since the aim of the present study is to argue that Aquinas’s philosophical system can contend with Heidegger’s criticism, a partial reply would greatly diminish its effectiveness. (shrink)

Even among those who find lethal defense against non-responsible threats, innocent aggressors, or justified aggressors justified even in one to one cases, there is a debate as to what the best explanation of this permissibility is. The contenders in this debate are the liability account, which holds that the non-responsible or justified human targets of the defensive measures are liable to attack, and the justified infringement account, which claims that the targets retain their right not to be attacked but may (...) be attacked anyway, even in one to one situations. Given that we normally think that rights are trumps, this latter claim is counter-intuitive and rather surprising, and therefore in need of justification and explanation. So far only Jonathan Quong has actually tried to provide an explanation; however, I will argue that his explanation fails and that Quong’s own account of liability is misguided. I then address Helen Frowe’s critique of the liability account. She makes the important concession that the tactical bomber has to compensate his victims, but she tries to block the conclusion that he must therefore be liable. I will demonstrate that her attempt to explain away liability fails once that concession is made. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with learners who aim to learn patterns in infinite binary sequences: shown longer and longer initial segments of a binary sequence, they either attempt to predict whether the next bit will be a 0 or will be a 1 or they issue forecast probabilities for these events. Several variants of this problem are considered. In each case, a no-free-lunch result of the following form is established: the problem of learning is a formidably difficult one, in that (...) no matter what method is pursued, failure is incomparably more common that success; and difficult choices must be faced in choosing a method of learning, since no approach dominates all others in its range of success. In the simplest case, the comparison of the set of situations in which a method fails and the set of situations in which it succeeds is a matter of cardinality (countable vs. uncountable); in other cases, it is a topological matter (meagre vs. co-meagre) or a hybrid computational-topological matter (effectively meagre vs. effectively co-meagre). (shrink)

In this paper, I will provide a conceptual analysis of the term self-defense and argue that in contrast to the widespread “instrumentalist” account of self-defense, self-defense need not be aimed at averting or mitigating an attack, let alone the harm threatened by it. Instead, on the definition offered here, an act token is self-defense if and only if a) it is directed against an ongoing or imminent attack, and b) the actor correctly believes that the act token is an effective (...) form of resistance or the act token belongs to an act type that usually functions as a means to resist an attack. While resistance is effective in making the attack more difficult, it can often be overcome and therefore does not necessarily stop or mitigate the attack. This concept of self-defense, I shall argue, not only matches ordinary language use and plausible accounts of self-defense in the legal literature but also has important practical implications in helping to avoid confusions about necessity and proportionality. In particular, it avoids the notorious problem of the “knowingly helpless rape victim” whose futile struggle against the rapist (futile in terms of averting or mitigating harm) counter-intuitively could not count as justified self-defense on an instrumentalist account. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the relation between two notions: that of two solutions or models of a theory being related by a symmetry of the theory and that of solutions or models being physically equivalent. A number of authors have recently discussed this relation, some taking an optimistic view, on which there is a suitable concept of the symmetry of a theory relative to which these two notions coincide, others taking a pessimistic view, on which there is no such (...) concept. The present paper arrives at a cautiously pessimistic conclusion. (shrink)

It is widely thought that chance should be understood in reductionist terms: claims about chance should be understood as claims that certain patterns of events are instantiated. There are many possible reductionist theories of chance, differing as to which possible pattern of events they take to be chance-making. It is also widely taken to be a norm of rationality that credence should defer to chance: special cases aside, rationality requires that one’s credence function, when conditionalized on the chance-making facts, should (...) coincide with the objective chance function. It is a shortcoming of a theory of chance if it implies that this norm of rationality is unsatisfiable. The primary goal of this paper is to show, on the basis of considerations concerning computability and inductive learning, that this shortcoming is more common than one would have hoped. (shrink)

McMahan argues that justification defeats liability to defensive attack (which would undermine the thesis of the "moral equality of combatants"). In response, I argue, first, that McMahan’s attempt to burden the contrary claim with counter-intuitive implications fails; second, that McMahan’s own position implies that the innocent civilians do not have a right of self-defense against justified attackers, which neither coheres with his description of the case (the justified bombers infringe the rights of the civilians) nor with his views about rights (...) forfeiture, is unsupported by independent argument, and, in any case, extremely implausible and counter-intuitive; and third, that his interpretation of the insulin case confuses the normative relations between an agent’s justification and non-liability on the one hand and permissible or impermissible interference with the agent’s act on the other. Similar confusions, fourth, affect his discussion of liability to compensation. (shrink)

A piece of folklore enjoys some currency among philosophical Bayesians, according to which Bayesian agents that, intuitively speaking, spread their credence over the entire space of available hypotheses are certain to converge to the truth. The goals of the present discussion are to show that kernel of truth in this folklore is in some ways fairly small and to argue that Bayesian convergence-to-the-truth results are a liability for Bayesianism as an account of rationality, since they render a certain sort of (...) arrogance rationally mandatory. (shrink)

A standard example of a justified aggressor is the tactical bomber who is about to destroy an ammunitions factory in a proportionate, justified military attack, full well knowing that an innocent civilian bystander will also be killed by his attack (“collateral damage”). Intuitively it seems hard to believe that the innocent bystander threatened by the tactical bomber is morally prohibited from killing him in self-defense. Yet, Stephen R. Shalom indeed endorses such a prohibition. I shall argue that all the examples (...) Shalom offers in support of his view are disanalogous to the case in question, and provide examples that are analogous and strongly suggest that Shalom’s claim leads to counter-intuitive implications. Moreover, I will provide a clear-cut case that demonstrates that Shalom cannot rely on a general principle prohibiting lethal violence against permissible violence. Thus, I conclude that Shalom has failed to provide a convincing argument in support of his case. (shrink)

Intuitively, a classical field theory is background-in- dependent if the structure required to make sense of its equations is itself subject to dynamical evolution, rather than being imposed ab initio. The aim of this paper is to provide an explication of this intuitive notion. Background-independence is not a not formal property of theories: the question whether a theory is background-independent depends upon how the theory is interpreted. Under the approach proposed here, a theory is fully background-independent relative to an interpretation (...) if each physical possibility corresponds to a distinct spacetime geometry; and it falls short of full background-independence to the extent that this condition fails. (shrink)

Is there is a moral obligation to militarily intervene in another state to stop a genocide from happening (if this can be done with proportionate force)? My answer is that under exceptional circumstances a state or even a non-state actor might have a duty to stop a genocide (for example if these actors have promised to do so), but under most circumstances there is no such obligation. To wit, “humanity,” states, collectives, and individuals do not have an obligation to make (...) such promises in the first place or to create institutions that would impose a legal obligation of intervention upon them. Nor do states or persons or humanity “collectively” have – originally, without specifically creating such duties by contracts or promises – any pro tanto or special duties to save strangers at considerable cost to themselves or their own citizens (including their soldiers). That is, these costs do not merely override a duty to intervene, but rather there is no such duty to begin with – as shown by the fact that in such cases of non-intervention agents would not owe those they let die any compensation: if I do not save someone’s life because saving him would have cost me my arm or would have come with a high risk of losing my own life or would have forced me to kill innocent bystanders, I do not owe this person compensation. Thus the point of this chapter is that there is no “natural” or “general” or “original” duty to militarily intervene (or to create a legal obligation) to stop a genocide. I will consider and refute a number of arguments to the contrary, for example by Lango, Tan, and Pattison. (shrink)

I argue that classical theism is in tension with a kind of modal recombination principle known as ‘cut-and-paste’. I develop this tension at length, giving two arguments against theism based on cut-and-paste. I then both lay out and respond to various original proposals for reconciling theism with cut-and-paste. I conclude by measuring the cost of having to deny cut-and-paste. I argue that while there is an intuitive cost to this consequence of theism, theists also have plausible ways of addressing various (...) motivations for cut-and-paste. (shrink)

A discussion of the sense in which reality is mind-dependent for Kant and for David Lewis. Plus a lot about space-aliens (and a bit about pimple-worms).

I shall argue that in some wars both sides are (as a collective) justified, that is, they can both satisfy valid jus ad bellum requirements. Moreover, in some wars – but not in all – the individual soldiers on the unjustified side (that is, on the side without jus ad bellum) may nevertheless kill soldiers (and also civilians as a side-effect) on the justified side, even if the enemy soldiers always abide by jus in bello constraints. Traditional just war theory (...) and self-proclaimed “revisionist” just war theory think otherwise since the former focuses on the law enforcement or public authority justification for inflicting harm and the latter on the self-defense justification. These are both intrinsically asymmetrical justifications: there is no justified self-defense (properly understood) against justified self-defense, nor is there justified law-enforcement against justified law-enforcement. However, there can, as I will show, be justified self-defense against force that is justified by a necessity justification, and there can be force justified by a necessity justification being used against force that is also justified by a necessity justification. The necessity justification is not intrinsically asymmetrical, and it is an indispensable justification in the context of war. Moreover, with regard to some forms of inflicting harm on others one may give special weight to one’s own interests and the interests of those to whom one has special responsibilities when assessing the proportionality of those acts. That is, the proportionality calculation may be agent-relative. This is in particular so in the case of foreseeably preventing innocent and non-threatening people from being saved (for instance, by shooting down a tactical bomber who would have saved them by destroying an ammunitions factory) but less so in the case of the intentional or foreseeable direct harming of innocent and non-threatening people (dropping bombs on people standing near an ammunitions factory). In the light of these considerations, I will then answer the question as to when soldiers may justifiably participate in war (and when not). (shrink)

In recent decades, economists have played an active role in shaping public policy by publicly recommending the adoption of certain policies. These recommendations are often based on normative assumptions that are not the product of economic analysis; nor are they shared by the laypeople to whom these recommendations are made. Inducing people to adopt public policies for reasons that are neither the product of expertise, nor shared by the people, is a form of manipulation that violates the ideals of a (...) liberal democratic society. Thus, the economists’ recommendations constitute an abuse of their expertise. (shrink)

In general, Confucians have taken a dim view of the law. They have felt warranted in this view by a reading of Confucius’ Analects 2.3 in which the Master apparently disparages law-centered governance. Two great Confucian philosophers, however, Zhu Xi and Jeong Yakyong (widely known by his pen name, Dasan), view the role of law in society differently. Like all Confucians, they teach the cultivation of virtue, but alongside building social harmony through ritual and good character, these two philosophers perceive (...) that social order also requires the penal law. In this paper, I argue that Zhu Xi and Dasan, and Dasan in particular, follow the evidentiary lead of the classical Chinese philosopher Mozi to support their legal philosophy. Mozi offered three standards for establishing truth claims: empirical evidence from common life, authoritative evidence, and evidence of outcomes. Mozi’s empirical standard takes evidence of common life from what ordinary people have seen. Zhu Xi and Dasan take the evidence of common life, not from what the people have seen, but from common understandings contained in the written language. They use this approach to arrive at a different understanding of Analects 2.3 than other Confucians, one that relates the content of that passage to Analects 12.17. They interpret the passage on a philological basis that supports the presence of penal law from a perspective of ordinary life. For authoritative evidence, Zhu Xi and Dasan like Mozi appeal to the authority of the ancient sages, who register their support for penal law. Dasan also follows Mozi’s evidentiary lead in the evidence of outcomes by fully developing a consequential picture of how the absence of law detrimentally affects society. On this point, Dasan establishes a new and revolutionary legal outlook that differs from that of Zhu Xi. I show Dasan taking lessons from the classical Legalists to arrive at this position warranted by the evidence of outcomes. Having satisfied the three evidentiary standards, Dasan thus establishes the importance of the penal law from a Confucian perspective. (shrink)

Garrett Cullity concedes that saving a drowning child from a shallow pond at little cost to oneself is not actually analogous to giving money to a poverty relief organization like Oxfam. The question then arises whether this objection is fatal to Peters Singer's argument for a duty of assistance or whether it can be saved anyway. Cullity argues that not saving the drowning child and not giving money to organizations like Oxfam are still morally analogous, that is, not giving money (...) to organizations like Oxfam is morally nearly as bad as letting the child drown. I argue that Cullity's two arguments for this conclusion, an argument from "transitivity" and an argument from collective responsibility, fail. (shrink)

Recent arguments trying to justify further free speech restrictions by appealing to harms that are allegedly serious enough to warrant such restrictions regularly fail to provide sufficient empirical evidence and normative argument. This is also true for the attempt made by Bonotti and Seglow. They offer no valid argument for their claim that it is wrong to direct “religiously offensive speech” at “unjustly disadvantaged” minorities (thereby allegedly undermining their “self-respect”), nor for their further claim that this is not the case (...) when such speech is directed at “established majorities.” Moreover, their account has either counter-intuitive moral implications or succumbs to logical or pragmatic incoherence. Thus, they have not adduced convincing reasons to further restrict speech. In fact, some of the reasons for this failure provide, in turn, positive reasons in support of free speech. Two important (not new, but newly confirmed) reasons are that restricting free speech undermines both equal civic standing as well as fact-guided (as opposed to blindly ideological) policies. Free speech, in contrast, is indispensable for both. (shrink)

This brief reply to Ferzan shows that her recent review of Self-Defense, Necessity, and Punishment is incoherent and completely misrepresents a central claim of mine (to the point of attributing to me the opposite claim than the one I am actually and quite clearly and explicitly making). Her other criticisms fall flat too.

Schervish (1985b) showed that every forecasting system is noncalibrated for uncountably many data sequences that it might see. This result is strengthened here: from a topological point of view, failure of calibration is typical and calibration rare. Meanwhile, Bayesian forecasters are certain that they are calibrated---this invites worries about the connection between Bayesianism and rationality.