We make some remarks on the mathematics and metaphysics of the hole argument, in response to a recent article in this journal by Weatherall ([2018]). Broadly speaking, we defend the mainstream philosophical literature from the claim that correct usage of the mathematics of general relativity `blocks' the argument.

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss in detail two of the earliest such documentaries: Death Mills (1945), directed by Billy Wilder; and Nazi Concentration Camps (1945), directed by George Stevens. Both film-makers were able to get direct footage of the newly-liberated concentration camps from the U.S. Army. Wilder served as a Colonel in the U.S. Army’s Psychological Warfare department in 1945 and was tasked with producing a documentary on the death camps as well as helping to restart Germany’s film industry. I (...) next review the great French Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1955), directed by Alain Resnais. This was a widely acclaimed film, winning the Prix Jean Vigo in 1956. Resnais employed a camp survivor (Jean Cayrol) to write the dialogue, and it is powerful, indeed, truly lyrical in places. The last film I review in the essay is a generally overlooked British Thames Television documentary, Genocide: 1941-1945 (1974), directed by Michael Darlow (and narrated by Sir Laurence Oliver). It was the first of the major Holocaust documentaries to focus on the point that the Nazi genocide targeted first and foremost the Jewish people, and to explore the development of Nazi racial theory, and the rise of the SS. (shrink)

This paper reviews the hole argument as an argument against spacetime substantivalism. After a careful presentation of the argument itself, I critically review possible responses.

I argue that notions of relative fundamentality need to be invoked if there is to be something substantive at stake in the debate between proponents of Harvey Brown's dynamical approach to relativity and defenders of a more traditional interpretation of spacetime. I will review some problems that stand in the way of the advocate of the dynamical approach making good on their claim that dynamical symmetries are more fundamental than spacetime symmetries.

Experimental philosophy brings empirical methods to philosophy. These methods are used to probe how people think about philosophically interesting things such as knowledge, morality, and freedom. This paper explores the contribution that qualitative methods have to make in this enterprise. I argue that qualitative methods have the potential to make a much greater contribution than they have so far. Along the way, I acknowledge a few types of resistance that proponents of qualitative methods in experimental philosophy might encounter, and provide (...) reasons to think they are ill-founded. (shrink)

Recent empirical work on folk moral objectivism has attempted to examine the extent to which folk morality presumes that moral judgments are objectively true or false. Some researchers report findings that they take to indicate folk commitment to objectivism (Goodwin & Darley, 2008, 2010, 2012; Nichols & Folds-Bennett, 2003; Wainryb et al., 2004), while others report findings that may reveal a more variable commitment to objectivism (Beebe, 2014; Beebe et al., 2015; Beebe & Sackris, 2016; Sarkissian, et al., 2011; Wright, (...) 2018; Wright, Grandjean, & McWhite, 2013; Wright, McWhite, & Grandjean, 2014). However, the various probes that have been used to examine folk moral objectivism almost always fail to be good direct measures of objectivism. Some critics (Beebe, 2015; Pölzler, 2017, 2018) have suggested that the problems with existing probes are serious enough that they should be viewed as largely incapable of shedding any light on folk metaethical commitments. Building upon the work of Justin Khoo and Joshua Knobe (2018), I argue that many of the existing probes can be seen as good measures of the extent to which people think that the truth of one moral judgment excludes the possibility that a judgment made by a disagreeing party is also true and that the best explanation of the findings obtained using these measures is significant folk support for indexical moral relativism—the view that the content of moral judgments is context-sensitive. If my thesis is correct, many contemporary moral philosophers are deeply mistaken about the metaethical contours of folk morality in one very important respect. (shrink)

In this paper I argue, based on a comparison of Spinoza's and Descartes‟s discussion of error, that beliefs are affirmations of the content of imagination that is not false in itself, only in relation to the object. This interpretation is an improvement both on the winning ideas reading and on the interpretation reading of beliefs. Contrary to the winning ideas reading it is able to explain belief revision concerning the same representation. Also, it does not need the assumption that I (...) misinterpret my otherwise correct ideas as the interpretation reading would have it. In the first section I will provide a brief overview of the notion of inherence and its role in Spinoza‟s discussion of the status of finite minds. Then by examining the relation between Spinoza‟s and Descartes‟ distinction of representations and attitudes, I show that affirmation can be identified with beliefs in Spinoza. Next, I will take a closer look at the identification of intellect and will and argue that Spinoza's identification of the two is based on the fact that Spinoza sees both as the active aspect of the mind. After that, I analyze Spinoza‟s comments on the different scopes of will and intellect, and argue that beliefs are affirmations of the imaginative content of the idea. Finally, through Spinoza‟s example of the utterance of mathematical error, I present my solution to the problem of inherence of false beliefs. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Hume’s account of an important class of causal belief which he calls “general rules”. I argue that he understands general rules, like all causal beliefs, as lively ideas which are habitually associated with our impressions or memories. However, I argue, he believes that they are unlike any reflectively produced causal beliefs in that they are produced quickly and automatically, such that they occur independently of any other processes of reasoning. Given this, I argue, Hume appears (...) to understand general rules as relatively simple beliefs, expressible only via generic sentences, like “birds lay eggs”. (shrink)

This paper uses a schema for infinite regress arguments to provide a solution to the problem of the infinite regress of justification. The solution turns on the falsity of two claims: that a belief is justified only if some belief is a reason for it, and that the reason relation is transitive.

Aesthetic internalism claims a link between judgement and motivation: aesthetic judgements bring with them motivations to act in characteristic ways. Critics object that there is a difference between merely liking something and judging it to be aesthetically good, and that it is our likings, not our aesthetic judgements, that motivate us. This paper develops a version of aesthetic internalism that can respond to this criticism. Wholehearted aesthetic judgements are characterized by stability, attention, and motivation. Making such judgements is an important (...) part of a good life, and so at least some aesthetic judgements are motivating. So we have reason to think that this version of aesthetic internalism is true. This paper defends wholehearted aesthetic internalism against objections, and assesses an argument from aesthetic internalism to aesthetic non-cognitivism. While wholehearted aesthetic internalism can only offer qualified support to non-cognitivism, it nonetheless offers a number of fruitful avenues for further work. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an argument against one important version of panentheism, that is, mereological panentheism. Although panentheism has proven difficult to define, I provide a working definition of the view, and proceed to argue that given this way of thinking about the doctrine, mereological accounts of panentheism have serious theological drawbacks. I then explore some of these theological drawbacks. In a concluding section I give some reasons for thinking that the classical theistic alternative to panentheism is preferable, all (...) things considered. (shrink)

I argue, through appeal to the distinction between analysis and decomposition described by Dummett, that Wittgenstein employs both of those notions in the Tractatus. I then bring this interpretation to bear upon the issue of propositional unity, where I formulate an objection to the views of both Leonard Linksy and José Zalabardo. I show that both Linsky and Zalabardo fail to acknowledge the distinction between analysis and decomposition present in the Tractatus, and that they consequently mischaracterise Wittgenstein’s position with respect (...) to propositional unity. (shrink)

A state-based reason for one to intend to perform an action F is a reason for one to intend to F which is not a reason for one to F. Are there any state-based reasons to intend? According to the Explanatory Argument, the answer is no, because state-based reasons do not satisfy a certain explanatory constraint. I argue that whether or not the constraint is correct, the Explanatory Argument is unsound, because state-based reasons do satisfy the constraint. The considerations that (...) undermine the Explanatory Argument also generate a strong, positive case for the existence of state-based reasons to intend. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism is the political theory which holds that coercive laws and policies are justified when and only when they are grounded in reasons of the public. The standard interpretation of public reason liberalism, consensus accounts, claim that the reasons persons share or that persons can derive from shared values determine which policies can be justified. In this paper, I argue that consensus approaches cannot justify fair educational policies and preserving cultural goods. Consensus approaches can resolve some controversies about (...) teaching values in the educational system, such as curriculum choice. But they cannot determine which culture goods, e.g., architecture, artwork, or language ought to be preserved in the education system. Consensus approaches cannot fairly resolve competing claims about these kinds of disputes. -/- I propose that convergence accounts of public reason, which allow individuals to draw on their own comprehensive doctrines in limited ways, can remedy these weaknesses in the mainline public reason tradition. The convergence approach can justify a pluralist state that can advance valuable community goods. John Henry Newman’s advocacy of liberal arts education finds resonance in other cultures, notably among Confucians, illustrating that there can be a shared moral vision and inquiry into the good life across deep substantive disagreements about educational values and policies, once we expand our notion of justification to be more inclusive. (shrink)

In the following article I intend to examine the problem of the unity of the proposition in Russell, Frege, and Wittgenstein. My chief aim will be to draw attention to the distinction between Russell’s conception of propositional constituents, on the one hand, with Frege and Wittgenstein’s on the other. My focus will be on Russell’s view of terms as independent, propositions being built up out of these building blocks, compared with Frege and Wittgenstein’s ‘top down’ approach. Furthermore, I will argue (...) that, contra certain other commentators, Frege’s metaphor of saturation and unsaturation does not serve as a solution to the problem of unity, and that the extension of this metaphorical language to Wittgenstein is, therefore, inappropriate. (shrink)

Experimental philosophers have investigated various ways in which non‐epistemic evaluations can affect knowledge attributions. For example, several teams of researchers (Beebe and Buckwalter 2010; Beebe and Jensen 2012; Schaffer and Knobe 2012; Beebe and Shea 2013; Buckwalter 2014b; Turri 2014) report that the goodness or badness of an agent’s action can affect whether the agent is taken to have certain kinds of knowledge. These findings raise important questions about how patterns of folk knowledge attributions should influence philosophical theorizing about knowledge.

The ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas is typically associated with a punishing conception of responsibility rather than freedom. In this chapter, our aim is to explore Levinas’s often overlooked theory of freedom. Specifically, we compare Levinas’s account of freedom to the Kantian (and Fichtean) idea of freedom as autonomy and the Hegelian idea of freedom as relational. Based on these comparisons, we suggest that Levinas offers a distinctive conception of freedom—“finite freedom.” In contrast to Kantian autonomy, finite freedom constitutively involves (...) standing in certain social relations with others. And in contrast to Hegelian relational freedom, the social relations involved in finite freedom are not defined by mutual recognition, but by feelings of separation and even antagonism. Along the way, we promote a reading Levinas’s Totality and Infinity as a Hegel-style story of Bildung (development), and show how, on Levinas’s view, freedom can develop or mature in the life of the individual. (shrink)

In this paper, through a close reading of Spinoza's use of common notions I argue for the role of experiential and experimental knowledge in Spinoza's epistemology.

This chapter considers possible moral grounds for recognizing and realizing economic and social rights (ESRs) as human rights. It begins by suggesting that ESRs fall into three families: (1) welfareoriented ESRs, which protect adequate income, education, health, and safe and healthful working conditions; (2) freedom-oriented ESRs, which prohibit slavery, ensure free choice of employment, and protect workers’ freedoms to organize and strike: and (3) fairness-oriented ESRs, which require nondiscrimination and equal opportunity in the workplace along with fair remuneration for one’s (...) work. To accommodate the normative diversity found in these three families, the chapter suggests a pluralistic justicatory framework that appeals to three kinds of moral reasons: human welfare, freedom, and fairness. A final section considers the possibility of subsuming all three of these approaches to justication under the idea of human dignity or the associated idea of equal respect for persons. (shrink)

Amie Thomasson’s work provides numerous ways to rethink and improve our approach to metaphysics. This chapter is my attempt to begin to sketch why I still think the easy approach leaves room for substantive metaphysical work, and why I do not think that metaphysics need rely on any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge. After distinguishing two possible forms of deflationism, I argue that the easy ontologist needs to accept (implicitly or explicitly) that there are worldly constraints on what sorts of entities could (...) exist, and could co-exist. I argue this leaves room for a substantive role for metaphysics if (following the work of E.J. Lowe) we take metaphysics to be concerned with the possible ways that reality could be. I explain how this conception does not need to appeal to any ‘epistemically metaphysical’ knowledge, and need only make use of conceptual and/or empirical means to arrive at views on what could exist (and co-exist). Thus, the answer I propose to the question posed in the title, at least in my view, is no-one. Or, at least, no-one should be afraid of conceptual analysis. Not even metaphysicians. (shrink)

Spinoza’s account of memory has not received enough attention, even though it is relevant for his theory of consciousness. Recent literature has studied the “pancreas problem.” This paper argues that there is an analogous problem for memories: if memories are in the mind, why is the mind not conscious of them? I argue that Spinoza’s account of memory can be better reconstructed in the context of Descartes’s account to show that Spinoza responded to these views. Descartes accounted for the preservation (...) of memories by holding that they are brain states without corresponding mental states, and that the mind is able to interpret perception either as new experience or as memory. Spinoza has none of these conceptual resources because of his substance monism. Spinoza accounts for memories as the mind’s ability to generate ideas according to the order of images. This ability consists in the connection of ideas, which is not an actual property, but only a dispositional one and thus not conscious. It is, however, grounded in the actual property of parts of the body, of which ideas are conscious. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate whether Spinoza theory of intellect can be considered as an Averroistic, Themistian or Alexandrian theory of intellect. I identify key doctrines of these theories that are argumentatively and theoretically independent from Aristotelian hylomorphism and thus can be accepted by someone rejecting hylomorphism. Next, I argue that the textual evidence is inconclusive: depending on the reading of Spinoza's philosophy accepted, Spinoza's theory of intellect can or cannot be considered as an Averroistic theory.

The immediate occasion for this special issue was Christia Mercer’s influential paper “The Contextualist Revolution in Early Modern Philosophy”. In her paper, Mercer clearly demarcates two methodologies of the history of early modern philosophy. She argues that there has been a silent contextualist revolution in the past decades, and the reconstructivist methodology has been abandoned. One can easily get the impression that ‘reconstructivist’ has become a pejorative label that everyone outright rejects. Mercer’s examples of reconstructivist historians of philosophy are deceased (...) (P. F. Strawson, Margaret J. Osler, Richard Watson, and Bernard Williams), anonymous (the fans of philosopher* mentioned by Lisa Downing), or authors whose more recent work followed a contextualist methodology (Jonathan Bennett). The reconstructivist camp seems to have turned into a shadowy group, largely extinct by now, not unlike the Death Eaters in the fictional universe of Harry Potter. There are some figures who previously belonged to this group, but they have since reformed their ways – or so it seems. Sometimes it is rumoured that certain people may still have secret allegiance to it, but no one dares to fly its banner openly. We decided to create this special issue because we believe that reconstructivist methodology does not deserve this shadowy existence. (shrink)

Empirical philosophers of science aim to base their philosophical theories on observations of scientific practice. But since there is far too much science to observe it all, how can we form and test hypotheses about science that are sufficiently rigorous and broad in scope, while avoiding the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity in our methods? Part of the answer, we claim, lies in the computational tools of the digital humanities, which allow us to analyze large volumes of scientific literature. Here (...) we advocate for the use of these methods by addressing a number of large-scale, justificatory concerns—specifically, about the epistemic value of journal articles as evidence for what happens elsewhere in science, and about the ability of DH tools to extract this evidence. Far from ignoring the gap between scientific literature and the rest of scientific practice, effective use of DH tools requires critical reflection about these relationships. (shrink)

Kant was engaged in a lifelong struggle to achieve what he calls in the 1756 Physical Monadology (PM) a “marriage” of metaphysics and geometry (1:475). On one hand, this involved showing that metaphysics and geometry are complementary, despite the seemingly irreconcilable conflicts between these disciplines and between their respective advocates, the Leibnizian-Wolffians and the Newtonians. On the other hand, this involved defining the terms of their union, which meant among other things, articulating their respective roles in grounding Newtonian natural science. (...) In this paper, consider how Kant’s project of marrying metaphysics and geometry evolves from the pre-Critical to the Critical period and how key discussions in the Prolegomena are related to the lifelong marriage project. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the question whether Spinoza can account for the necessity of death. I argue that he cannot because within his ethical intellectualist system the subject cannot understand the cause of her death, since by understanding it renders it harmless. Then, I argue that Spinoza could not solve this difficulties because of deeper commitments of his system. At the end I draw a historical parallel to the problem from medieval philosophy.

Binding specificity is a centrally important concept in molecular biology, yet it has received little philosophical attention. Here I aim to remedy this by analyzing binding specificity as a causal property. I focus on the concept’s role in drug design, where it is highly prized and hence directly studied. From a causal perspective, understanding why binding specificity is a valuable property of drugs contributes to an understanding of causal selection—of how and why scientists distinguish between causes, not just causes from (...) noncauses. In particular, the specificity of drugs is precisely what underwrites their value as experimental interventions on biological processes. (shrink)

This chapter moves from the most fundamental parts of Aquinas’s metaphysics to Aquinas’s thought about the created world, and especially the way in which things in the created world are able to act as beings in their own right, without altering their dependence on the creator. The result is an account of the causality of creatures that does not impugn their connection to the more basic causality of the Deity and that allows this part of Aquinas’s account to be compatible (...) with accounts of causality in modern science. (shrink)

Ontologies, as the term is used in informatics, are structured vocabularies comprised of human- and computer-interpretable terms and relations that represent entities and relationships. Within informatics fields, ontologies play an important role in knowledge and data standardization, representation, integra- tion, sharing and analysis. They have also become a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) research. In what follows, we outline the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), which covers multiple areas in the domain of coronavirus diseases, including etiology, transmission, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, (...) prevention, and treatment. We emphasize CIDO development relevant to COVID-19. (shrink)

The following four theses all have some intuitive appeal: (I) There are valid norms. (II) A norm is valid only if justified by a valid norm. (III) Justification, on the class of norms, has an irreflexive proper ancestral. (IV) There is no infinite sequence of valid norms each of which is justified by its successor. However, at least one must be false, for (I)--(III) together entail the denial of (IV). There is thus a conflict between intuition and logical possibility. This (...) paper, after distinguishing various conceptions of a norm, of validity and of justification, argues for the following position. (I) is true. (II) is false for legislative justification and true for epistemic justification. (III) is true for legislative and false for epistemic justification. (IV) is true for legislative justification; for epistemic justification (IV) is true or false depending on the conception taken of a norm. Our intuition in favour of (II) must therefore be abandoned where justification is conceived legislatively. Our intuition in favour of (III) must be abandoned, and our intuition in favour of (IV) qualified, where justification is conceived epistemically. (shrink)

I argue that if minds supervene on the intrinsic physical properties of things like brains, then typical human brains host many minds at once. Support comes from science-nonfiction realities that, unlike split-brain cases, have received little direct attention from philosophers. One of these realities is that some patients are functioning (albeit impaired) and phenomenally conscious by all medical and commonsense accounts despite the fact that they have undergone a hemispherectomy: an entire brain hemisphere has been fully detached. Another is the (...) Wada test, in which a patient has each hemisphere anesthetized, one after the other, while the other hemisphere is awake and functioning—again, phenomenally conscious by any standard. I will argue that hemispherectomies, Wada tests, and related procedures each present cases in which the minds that exist after the detachment (or anesthetization) of a hemisphere are surviving minds which must be associated with the surviving (or un-anesthetized) hemisphere. I will argue that such surviving minds existed before the medical procedure, instantiated by the then-intact hemisphere that was due to survive the loss of its complementary hemisphere. If so, then the typical subject has at least three minds: a “left hemisphere mind”, a “right hemisphere mind”, and a “whole brain mind”. But the argument generalizes to cases in which smaller portions of the brain are lost, yielding a great number of additional minds, some overlapping. Some important ethical implications are raised and briefly examined. (shrink)

In this paper I describe a novel application of contemplative techniques to software engineering with the goal of augmenting the intellectual capabilities of knowledge workers within the field in four areas: flexibility, attention, creativity, and trust. The augmentation of software engineers’ intellectual capabilities is proposed as a third complement to the traditional focus of methodologies on the process and environmental factors of the software development endeavor. I argue that these capabilities have been shown to be open to improvement through the (...) practices traditionally used in spiritual traditions, but now used increasingly in other fields of knowledge work, such as in the medical profession and the education field. Historically, the intellectual capabilities of software engineers have been treated as a given within any particular software development effort. This is argued to be an aspect ripe for inclusion within software development methodologies. (shrink)

The chapter examines fifty years of philosophers working on lying - from the 1970s to the current day – focusing on how lying is defined (descriptively and normatively), whether lying involves an intention to deceive (Deceptionists) or not (Non-Deceptionists), why lying is wrong, and whether lying is worse than other forms of deception, including misleading with the truth. Philosophers discussed include Roderick Chisholm and Thomas Feehan, Alan Donagan, Sissela Boy, Charles Fried, David Simpson, David Simpson, Bernard Williams, Paul Faulkner, Thomas (...) Carson, Roy Sorensen, Don Fallis, Jennifer Saul, Andreas Stoke, Jonathan Webber and Clea Rees. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explain why creativity is an artistic merit. Artworks and non-artworks can both be creative. But creativity does not help make many other creative things good of their kind. A creative explanation is not a better explanation in virtue of being creative. Why, then, is a creative artwork a better artwork in virtue of being creative? Understanding this will give us a better understanding of the nature of artistic merit. The approach adopted in this (...) paper is as follows. First, I say what creativity is and what an artistic merit is. Second, I identify reasons to doubt that creativity is an artistic merit. A good explanation of the merit of creativity should address these doubts. Third, I develop a theory of artistic merit that appeals to the final value of acting excellently – for example, virtuously or skilfully. Finally, I argue that this enables us to explain why creativity is an artistic merit. This account also enables us to argue that artistic merits give some things final value, and not merely instrumental value. It also provides reason to believe that ethical qualities of artworks enhance their artistic merit for the same reason creativity does. (shrink)

Two extremely detailed accounts of temporal experience can be found in the work of C. D. Broad. These accounts have been subject to considerable criticism. I argue that, when we look more carefully at Broad’s work, we find that much of this criticism fails to find its target. I show that the objection that ultimately proves troubling for Broad stems from his commitment to two principles: i) the Thin-PSA, and ii) the ‘Overlap’ claim. I use this result to demonstrate that (...) we can learn two extremely important lessons from Broad’s work on temporal experience. -/- The first lesson is that there is a structural problem facing any account that commits to these two principles. This is significant given that a number of recent accounts of temporal experience are so committed. The second lesson is that the problem facing these accounts stems only from commitment to the Thin-PSA and ‘Overlap’, rather than to commitment to a particular conception of how experiences are to be individuated. This, I argue, gives us reason to reject Tye’s recent claim that the problems facing accounts of temporal experience can be dissolved simply by making stipulations about how experiences are to be individuated. (shrink)

Quantity is the first category that Aristotle lists after substance. It has extraordinary epistemological clarity: "2+2=4" is the model of a self-evident and universally known truth. Continuous quantities such as the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle are as clearly known as discrete ones. The theory that mathematics was "the science of quantity" was once the leading philosophy of mathematics. The article looks at puzzles in the classification and epistemology of quantity.

This volume brings together diverse sets of standpoints on liberalism in an era of growing skepticism and distrust regarding liberal institutions. The essays in the volume: - Relate concerns for liberal institutions with classical themes in perfectionist politics, such as the priority of the common good in decision-making or the role of comprehensive doctrines. - Analyse how perfectionist intuitions about the political life affect our concepts of public reason or public justification. - Outline various moral duties we have toward other (...) persons that underlie the liberal institutions or notions of rights functioning across the contemporary political landscape. - Explore various aspects of pluralism from within influential religious or philosophical traditions, applying insights from those traditions to issues in contemporary politics. The comprehensive volume will be of great interest to scholars, students, and researchers of politics, especially those in political philosophy and political theory. (shrink)

The teachings and actions of Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha'Mashiach) and the apostles recorded in the New Testament are analyzed in regard to their ethical and political philosophy, with analysis of context vis-à-vis the Old Testament (Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible) being given. From this analysis, it is shown that Jesus is a libertarian anarchist, i.e., a consistent voluntaryist. The implications this has for the world are profound, and the ramifications of Jesus's anarchism to Christians' attitudes toward government (the state) and its (...) actions are explicated. (shrink)

Jacques Monod (1971) argued that certain molecular processes rely critically on the property of chemical arbitrariness, which he claimed allows those processes to “transcend the laws of chemistry”. It seems natural, as some philosophers have done, to interpret this in modal terms: a biological relationship is chemically arbitrary if it is possible, within the constraints of chemical “law”, for that relationship to have been otherwise than it is. But while modality is certainly important for understanding chemical arbitrariness, understanding its biological (...) role also requires an account of the concrete causal-functional features that distinguish arbitrary from non-arbitrary phenomena. In this paper I elaborate on this under-emphasised aspect by offering a general account of these features: arbitrary relations are instantiated by mechanisms that involve molecular adapters, which causally couple two properties or processes which would otherwise be uncorrelated. Additionally, adapters work by acting as intermediate rather than cooperating causes. (shrink)

This chapter examines the views of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle on lying. It it outlines the differences between different kinds of falsehoods in Plato (real falsehoods and falsehoods in words), the difference between myths and lies, the 'noble' (i.e., pedigree) lie in The Republic, and how Plato defended rulers lying to non-rulers about, for example, eugenics. It considers whether Socrates's opposition to lying is consistent with Socratic irony, and especially with his praise of his interlocutors as wise. Finally, it looks (...) at Aristotle's condemnation of lies, and asks whether lies to enemies, and self-deprecating lies by the magnanimous person, are not base. (shrink)