Within the last decade those familiar with environmental ethics have witnessed a resurgence of environmental virtue ethics. According to Louke van Wensveen, ecological virtue language is “rapidly growing” and “represents a distinct moral discourse with an internal unity and logic”—what she calls “an integral discourse.” Does the modern Catholic rights tradition have anything to contribute to this ethical discourse? Grounded historically in neo-Thomistic natural law and virtue ethics, Catholic social teaching originated as a response to late ninteenth- and early twentieth-century (...) social and economic crises. Out of this application emerged the virtue of solidarity. However, an analysis of recent discourse in environmental virtue ethics shows that the treatment of solidarity as an environmental virtue is rather thin in the literature. Nevertheless, with the development of solidarity and the expanding notion of the common good, inclusive of the planetary commons, in recent Catholic documents, solidarity is “translatable” into the realm of ecological virtue ethics. As an environmental virtue, solidarity should be interpreted as “biophilic solidarity” grounded in the genetic homology of evolutionary speciation, and defined as the consistent habit of character expressed in the recognition of our fundamental interrelatedness with the human and nonhuman. As a virtue biophilic solidarity takes explicit shape in determined active engagement to create, promote, and restore the universal common good of creation. In relation to the human-centered Catholic rights tradition, the status of nature is examined drawing on an axiological analysis of nature indicating that the natural world holds a spectrum of values including utilitarian and intrinsic value. The concluding reflection points to the shortfall of environmental virtue ethics without an accompanying social ethic in the interest of an ecological vision for a sustainable society. (shrink)

In recent years official Roman Catholic documents have addressed the ecological crisis from the perspective of Catholic social teaching. This expansion of Catholic social thought addresses the social and ecological question. This paper links environmental and human ecology with the concept of sustainability and proposes an interpretation of the common good and a definition of sustainability within Catholic social teaching. Our treatment of sustainability and Catholic social teaching includes: an analysis of the ecological processes that sustain nature; insights from human (...) ecology, and an examination of models of sustainability as a foundation for re-structuring society to promote the common good. The paper provides a summary of the historical expansion of the common good within modern Catholic social thought, and concludes with an ecological interpretation of the common good and a definition of sustainability within the Catholic understanding of justice. (shrink)

The model of major transitions in evolution devised by Maynard Smith and Szathmáry has exerted tremendous influence over evolutionary theorists. Although MTE has been criticized for inconsistently combining different types of event, its ongoing appeal lies in depicting hierarchical increases in complexity by means of evolutionary transitions in individuality. In this paper, we consider the implications of major evolutionary events overlooked by MTE and its ETI-oriented successors, specifically the biological oxygenation of Earth, and the acquisitions of mitochondria and plastids. By (...) reflecting on these missed events, we reveal a central philosophical disagreement over the explanatory goals of major transitions theory that has yet to be made explicit in the literature. We go on to argue that this philosophical disagreement is only reinforced by Szathmáry’s recent revisions of MTE in the form of MTE 2.0. This finding motivates us to propose an alternative explanatory strategy: specifically, an interactionist metabolic perspective on major transitions. A metabolic framework not only avoids many of the criticisms that beset classic and revised MTE models, but also accommodates missing events and provides crucial explanatory components for standard major transitions. Although we do not provide a full-blown alternative theory and do not claim to achieve unity, we explain why foregrounding metabolism is crucial for any attempt to capture the major turning points in evolution, and why it does not lead to unmanageable pluralism. (shrink)

The precautionary principle (“the Principle”) has been widely embraced as the new paradigm for contending with biological and environmental risk in the context of emerging technologies. Increasingly, it is being incorporated into domestic, supranational, and international legal regimes as part of a general overhaul of health and environmental regulation.1 Codifications of the Principle typically are vague, with their content intentionally left for scholars to debate, decision makers to interpret, and the courts to flesh out through case law. Generally speaking, the (...) Principle holds that scientific uncertainty will not be a bar to preventive regulatory action, and that decision makers should err on the side of .. (shrink)

The Natural Law Reader features a selection of readings in metaphysics, jurisprudence, politics, and ethics that are all related to the classical Natural Law tradition in the modern world. Features a concise presentation of the natural law position that offers the reader a focal point for discussion of ancient and contemporary ideas in the natural law tradition Draws upon the metaphysical and ethical categories put forth and developed by Aristotle and Aquinas Points to the historical significance and contemporary relevance of (...) the Natural Law tradition Reflects on a revival of interest in the tradition of virtue ethics and human rights. (shrink)

In book 3 of his Republic, Plato has Socrates undertake an assessment of the educational curriculum that the city (which is being constructed by him in speech) will implement for its youth. Consequently we see that Socrates assigns to poetry a crucial importance; by their imitation of it, poetry shapes the citizens with an initial formation, casts them within a certain orientation, and places them on a path leading in an already conceived direction, toward some unarticulated good. Thus, in forming (...) this city and the souls of its citizens, Socrates first conducts a censorship of the content of the formative myths of the city in an attempt to orchestrate a certain fail-safe against ambiguity and against falling off .. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch offers a distinctive conception of moral psychology. She suggests that to develop a moral psychology is to develop what she calls a soul-picture; different philosophical moral psychologies are, as she puts it, “rival soul-pictures.” In this paper I clarify Murdoch’s generic notion of “soul-picture,” the genus of which, for example, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Murdoch’s constitute rival species. Are all philosophical moral psychologies soul-pictures? If not, what are the criteria that a moral psychology must meet in order to (...) qualify as a soul-picture? I propose five key dimensions. A soul-picture provides a picture of the soul or self that is 1) holistic, 2) value-rich and psychologically realistic (for Murdoch these are intertwined), 3) reflexive, 4) therapeutic and 5) the articulation of which makes use of imaginative language. (shrink)

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare and research introduces sophisticated diagnostic and treatment capabilities but also raises significant ethical challenges from development to deployment and evaluation, requiring comprehensive ethical training and interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure the responsible use of AI technologies. The “CONNECT with AI”- Collaborative Opportunity to Navigate and Negotiate Ethical Challenges and Trials with Artificial Intelligence) workshop was a three-day event, engaging multi-institutional interdisciplinary and interprofessional participants (both industry professionals and academicians) from diverse fields such as (...) Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Engineering, Law, and Allied Health Sciences from India. There was equal distribution of participants from diverse fields. A mixed-method approach utilizing pre- and post-workshop assessments, confidence level surveys and thematic analyses of small group discussions and open-ended questions to evaluate the impact of the workshop on participants’ ethical understanding and decision-making skills regarding AI. Post-workshop evaluations indicated a significant improvement in both theoretical knowledge and practical application of AI ethics, with assessment scores rising markedly from pre-workshop levels (p < 0.0001). Confidence in handling ethical dilemmas related to AI saw substantial increases across all domains, particularly in ensuring patient privacy and data security (p < 0.0001). Qualitative feedback highlighted diverse perceptions and sector-specific concerns about AI, emphasizing the importance of customized ethical guidelines and the integration of AI into healthcare practices. The workshop effectively enhanced participants’ competence and confidence in addressing AI-related ethical issues, demonstrating the critical role of interprofessional education in fostering an ethical AI implementation framework. Continuous, interdisciplinary and interprofessional training is essential to navigate the evolving ethical landscape of AI in healthcare, ensuring safe, effective, and responsible technology use. (shrink)

This essay pursues an interpretation of epagôgê in Aristotle in order to challenge the current claims in the scholarship that Aristotle’s method of discovery is, on the one hand, empirical or, on the other hand, a priori. In contrast to these claims, this essay offers a reading of the Analytica in conjunction with the Physics in order to propose the following: if we are to think through Aristotle’s method of discovery, we must first unhinge ourselves from the oppositional paradigm of (...) empirical contra conceptual. Through the example of Aristotle’s inquiry into nature, it is shown that Aristotle’s method of discovery is, at once, one intimately betrothed to “conceptual” (or, more properly, “dialogical”) resources, while also subtended by a comportment itself wakeful and perceptive of the being undergoing inquiry. (shrink)

What is perhaps most remarkable in regard to both Socialism and Anarchism is the association of a widespread popular movement with ideals for a better world. The ideals have been elaborated, in the first instance, by solitary writers of books, and yet powerful sections of the wage-earning classes have accepted them as their guide in the practical affairs of the world. In regard to Socialism this is evident; but in regard to Anarchism it is only true with some qualification. Anarchism (...) as such has never been a widespread creed, it is only in the modified form of Syndicalism that it has achieved popularity. Unlike Socialism and Anarchism, Syndicalism is primarily the outcome, not of an idea, but of an organization: the fact of Trade Union organization came first, and the ideas of Syndicalism are those which seemed appropriate to this organization in the opinion of the more advanced French Trade Unions. But the ideas are, in the main, derived from Anarchism, and the men who gained acceptance for them were, for the most part, Anarchists. Thus we may regard Syndicalism as the Anarchism of the market-place as opposed to the Anarchism of isolated individuals which had preserved a precarious life throughout the previous decades. Taking this view, we find in Anarchist-Syndicalism the same combination of ideal and organization as we find in Socialist political parties. It is from this standpoint that our study of these movements will be undertaken. (shrink)

Nancy Cartwright's 1983 book How the Laws of Physics Lie argued that theories of physics often make use of idealisations, and that as a result many of these theories were not true. The present paper looks at idealisation in logic and argues that, at least sometimes, the laws of logic fail to be true. That might be taken as a kind of skepticism, but I argue rather that idealisation is a legitimate tool in logic, just as in physics, and recognising (...) this frees logicians up to use false laws where these are helpful. (shrink)

This paper considers the question of “atheism” as it arises in Hume’s _Dialogues_. It argues that the concept of “atheism” involves several signficiant ambiguities that are indicative of philosophical and interpretive disagreements of a more substantial nature. It defends the view that Philo’s general sceptical orientation accurately represents Hume’s own “irreligious” and “atheistic” commitments, both in the _Dialogues_ and in his other (“earlier”) writings. While Hume was plainly a “speculative atheist”, his “practical atheism” was targeted more narrowly against “superstition” - (...) as opposed to deism or religion of a more “philosophical” kind. (shrink)

Recent work on the early development of episodic memory in my laboratory has been fuelled by the following assumption: if episodic memory is re-experiential memory then Kant’s analysis of the spatiotemporal nature of experience should constrain and positively influence theories of episodic memory development. The idea is that re-experiential memory will “inherit” these spatiotemporal features. On the basis of this assumption, Russell and Hanna (Mind and Language 27(1):29–54, 2012) proposed that (a) the spatial element of re-experience is egocentric and (...) (b) that the temporal element of re-experiencing involves order/simultaneity. The first of these assumptions is immediately problematic for two reasons. In the first place, if we assume that early episodic recall mediated by processing in the hippocampus, then (a) is clearly in tension with the fact that spatial coding in the hippocampus is allocentric/environment-centred. Second, two of our own recent experiments (described here) show that when only egocentric cues are available in a What/When/Where episodic memory task it is not possible to distinguish young children’s performance from semantic memory. I argue that this tension should be resolved by recognising that the egocentric coding of the original experience as being of an objective scene relies upon allocentric representations and these are preserved in re-experiential memory, allowing a recollection of the objective nature of the scene on which one takes a subjective view. (shrink)

Since early 1997, when the creation of Dolly the sheep by somatic cell nuclear transfer was announced in Nature, numerous government reports, essays, articles and books have considered the ethical problems and policy issues surrounding human reproductive cloning. In this article, I consider what response a modern liberal society should give to the prospect of human cloning, if it became safe and practical. Some opponents of human cloning have argued that permitting it would place us on a slippery slope to (...) a repugnant future society, comparable to that portrayed in Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World.I conclude that, leaving aside concerns about safety, none of the psychological or social considerations discussed in this article provides an adequate policy justification for invoking the state’s coercive powers to prevent human cloning. (shrink)

Critiques of liberalism are a dime a dozen. With every generation they come in and out of fashion like changing lipstick colors. This does not mean, however, that all is well in a context of perennial cyclic crisis alternating liberalism and conservatism. As Siegel shows in his account of liberalism's recent authoritarian involution, the latest developments mark a sharp departure from some of the better American political traditions. Specifically, the disintegration of pragmatism as a result of the Vietnam fiasco and (...) racial strife in the 1960s contributed to the concretization of what were at least latent anti-democratic tendencies into a procedural elitism oblivious to substantive realities and the human dimension. (shrink)

Bernard Williams identifies Hume as “in some ways an archetypal reconciler” who, nevertheless, displays “a striking resistance to some of the central tenets of what [Williams calls] ‘morality’”. This assessment, it is argued, is generally correct. There are, however, some significant points of difference in their views concerning moral responsibility. This includes Williams’s view that a naturalistic project of the kind that Hume pursues is of limited value when it comes to making sense of “morality’s” illusions about responsibility and blame. (...) It is, Williams maintains, only when we consider moral responsibility in genealogical terms, which gives attention to the importance of culture and history, that we can find a way of exposing the various prejudices and illusions of “the morality system”. Nevertheless, despite these differences, what Hume and Williams share is a fundamental commitment to provide a more “truthful” and “realistic” understanding of moral responsibility and our human ethical predicament. (shrink)

Malebranche held that God acts only by general volitions and so is not constantly interfering in the world. The content of God's volitions appears to include the general laws of nature and the particular initial configuration of the created world, so that occasional or natural causes have an important explanatory role. It is clear that at the least Malebranche meant by a 'general volition' the willing of events which followed general laws. Steven Nadler argued that this is all we should (...) understand by a 'general volition', and so we should think that general volitions are simply particular volitions which follow a general law. I argue that this view is not the correct interpretation of Malebranche's general volitions, for it does not do justice to the theological doctrine of the Treatise, masks the genuine difference between Arnauld and Malebranche, and conflicts with what Malebranche says about practical volitions. I then argue that despite Malebranche's view of general volitions, there is still an important difference between his view and Leibniz's. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) is widely regarded as the greatest and most significant English-speaking philosopher and often seen as having had the most influence on the way philosophy is practiced today in the West. His reputation is based not only on the quality of his philosophical thought but also on the breadth and scope of his writings, which ranged over metaphysics, epistemology, morals, politics, religion, and aesthetics. The Handbook's 38 newly commissioned chapters are divided into six parts: Central (...) Themes; Metaphysics and Epistemology; Passion, Morality and Politics; Aesthetics, History, and Economics; Religion; Hume and the Enlightenment; and After Hume. The volume also features an introduction from editor Paul Russell and a chapter on Hume's biography. (shrink)

We are grateful for the thoughtful attention the commentators and editors have given our paper. They raise many substantive points that warrant a response, but for reasons of journal space our reply must be brief. In our paper, we argue for an amended hybrid account of ‘disease’ in human medicine that takes normative ethics seriously, guards against pernicious classifications of disease and reconnects the concept with the goals of healthcare institutions in which disease diagnosis is embedded. Carel and Tekin, in (...) their respective pieces, raise issues about the objectivity and effective operationalisation of our account, Agar makes an ‘evolutionary’ case for disease concept eliminativism in mental health, and Wakefield and Conrad contend that our proposed modification to the harmful dysfunction account is unnecessary and undesirable. We will respond to each in turn. The rational moral justification component of our account raises difficult moral epistemological questions regarding which reasons are the weightiest ones and who should be allowed to participate in the rational justification process (though so too, we would note, does much bioethical inquiry). Carel suggests that inevitable disagreement on this point undermines the alleged objectivity of our proposal. We agree with Tekin, however, that this is a feature of our account rather than a bug. What constitutes a good reason in moral deliberation is a question that goes to the very philosophical foundation of ethics (see1 for a recent discussion); but disagreement over which reasons are the weightiest ones does not prevent ethicists and policy makers from objectively assessing the strength of moral arguments by evaluating their empirical adequacy and logical structure, and this can take us a long way toward adjudication. The fact that rational justification has been used to support immoral practices and institutions does not warrant abandoning a reason-based approach to ethics any more than …. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on an internal tension within James’s Principles and suggest that its formal structure provides useful insight into James’s subsequent evolution. Specifically, through a close reading of James’s account of ‘conceptions’ in the Principles, I examine the tension between these ‘conceptions’ construed as discrete and self-identical and James’s famous phenomenological description of consciousness as a continuous stream. Such a tension primarily involves the intersection of an epistemic need (or condition of possibility) with a quasi-metaphysical intuition or (...) postulate (continuity). Importantly, this tension is intensified by the methodological constraints of bracketing metaphysical questions which James sets for himself in the Principles. James’s decision to deny the cogency of this methodological bracketing can therefore be read as his response to the tension I examine and his speculative turn to “radical empiricism” as an attempt to resolve epistemological difficulties by going more radical ontologically. Doing so raises questions about the status of speculative metaphysics in intersection with empirical inquiry. (shrink)

Rosalind Hursthouse wrote in 1999 (On Virtue Ethics, pp. 5-7) of a gap in virtue ethics in the shape of the virtue of justice. Many years on, that gap persists. Our aim is to make a beginning on that virtue, but here we find an obstacle in its treatment by Aristotle, whose thinking about the virtues we otherwise find so rich. Whereas Aristotle took the virtue of justice to be concerned exclusively with one’s treatment of others, we begin instead with (...) the idea that justice also concerns how one treats oneself. Like Hursthouse, we think virtues are corrective of human failings. We argue, first, that being unjust to oneself is a failing that is not only perilous but all too frequent in human experience. The idea that justice is strictly other-regarding gets going only on the assumption that the way humans are prone to fail in their dealings with others is in taking too much interest in their own welfare. Taking inspiration from the work of Jean Hampton, we argue that a pernicious type of self-abnegation—what Hampton called “the loss of self”—is also a common failing among humans, both in their relations with others and in their own practical reasoning about their lives. This failing—a failing of giving persons their due—is a failing for the virtue of justice to correct. We then examine Aristotle’s rejection of the possibility of being unjust to oneself, in Nicomachean Ethics V. Aristotle’s arguments rest on demonstrating the impossibility of committing injustice against oneself in any of the forms characteristic of strictly interpersonal injustice. Rather than arguing that Aristotle begs the question, though, we argue that his approach rests on its starting assumption that the failings for the virtue of justice to correct are failures to give others their due. But considering the human proneness also to self-abnegation, we heirs of Aristotle’s should hope for an understanding of the virtue of justice that is rich enough to include giving oneself one’s due as well. Lastly, we outline the virtue of justice understood as correcting the failure of not giving persons their due, including oneself. Our approach centers on the idea of advocacy, focusing on the duty that parents have to advocate for the fair treatment of their children and, as those children mature, the transference of this duty to those children to be advocates for themselves. We conclude by exploring the extent to which such an account would fit an otherwise broadly Aristotelian approach: the sense in which such a virtue is a “mean,” the emotions and desires with which it is concerned, and its status as a particular virtue as opposed to virtue as a whole. We hope to honor Rosalind Hursthouse by continuing in her philosophical spirit, confronting Aristotle where we are surprised to find ourselves disagreeing considerably with a philosopher we generally find insightful, on an issue we find deeply important. -/- . (shrink)

The question of substance in the philosophy of physics has three branches: logical, physical, and epistemological. The first is a problem in pure philosophy: is the notion of “ substance ” in any sense a “ category,” i.e. forced upon us by the general nature either of facts or of knowledge? The second is a question of the interpretation of mathematical physics: is it necessary, or convenient to interpret our formulae in terms of permanent entities with changing states and relations? (...) The third concerns the relation of perception to the physical world. (shrink)

For a variety of reasons, the AIDS epidemic is forcing a thorough reassessment of many of the standards by which the terminally ill and other medical patients are treated by health-care systems throughout the world. This has generally been a good thing. It has provided needed motivation for public policy-makers to take seriously a range of health-care issues that have often been downplayed, ignored, or debated with vigour only within the relatively mute pages of the academic journals of health-care professionals, (...) philosophers, law professors and others. Issues such as euthanasia, testing for dangerous communicable diseases, palliative care, and even important general questions about the distribution and availability of health-care resources have been pushed toward the front of the public health-care agenda largely because of the impact of AIDS. And it is fair to say that these matters are often being addressed with an urgency and sensitivity that would be absent without the political impetus that was unleashed along with this disease. One of the most controversial issues that has arisen concerns access to experimental therapies by the terminally ill. As is the case in other areas, the political forces generated by the AIDS tragedy have created an opportunity for productive review of policies and practices that undoubtedly deserve scrutiny and reform. However, my aim in this paper is to urge caution on some of the advocates of reform. I will argue that many recent proposals to enhance access to experimental therapies by the terminally ill rest on philosophically unsupportable grounds and pose an unjustifiable threat to the public interest in finding safe and effective therapies for terminal illnesses. (shrink)

FREE WILL. The problem of "free will" has generally been interpreted in modern times in terms of the question of whether or not moral freedom and responsibility are compatible with causality and determinism. Philosophers in the empiricist tradition have defended, with remarkable consistency, a compatibilist position on this issue. Moreover, most of the major figures of the empiricist tradition (i.e. Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Mill, Schlick, and Ayer) are understood to have endorsed and contributed to a single, unified strategy on this (...) subject. The position that these philosophers developed reflects, in large measure, the "antimetaphysical" and naturalistic orientation of empiricist philosophy.... -/- . (shrink)

Dudgeon, William (1705/6–1743), freethinker and philosopher, is of unknown origins. A tenant farmer who resided at Lennel Hill Farm, near Coldstream, Berwickshire, he was one of several philosophers active in the borders area of Scotland during this period. Other figures in this group include Andrew Baxter, Henry Home (Lord Kames), and most importantly David Hume.....

The debate surrounding eliminative materialism, and the role of empiricism more broadly, has been one of the more prominent philosophical debates of the last half-century. But too often what is at stake in this debate has been left implicit. This essay surveys the rhetoric of two participants in this debate, Paul Churchland and Thomas Nagel, on the question of whether or not scientific explanations will do away with the need for nonscientific descriptions. Both philosophers talk about this possibility in language (...) reminiscent of revolutionary politics. These authors do not see eliminative materialism merely as an idea to be evaluated, but a revolution to be welcomed or quashed. After surveying their rhetoric, the paper turns to the work of four philosophers—G.E.M. Anscombe, Peter Winch, Paul Holmer, and G.H. von Wright—to suggest that there is within Wittgensteinian tradition a ‘nonrevolutionary’ approach to the question of eliminative materialism. (shrink)

Tackling a host of myths and prejudices commonly leveled at atheism, this captivating volume bursts with sparkling, eloquent arguments on every page.

Prevailing views of delusional beliefs frame them as pathological and harmful, leaving little room for understanding why delusions may emerge. Lisa Bortolotti’s book, “Why Delusions Matter,” offers a more compassionate perspective on delusions, framing them as adaptive and meaningful responses to crises. Many psychologists and philosophers have asserted that delusions can function as psychological defense mechanisms or adaptive coping strategies that protectively obscure painful realities. However, some delusions, especially those that arise in the context of traumatic experiences and psychosis, can (...) be better understood as the body’s attempt to alert us to sources of harm and reveal, rather than obscure, important information. Drawing from neuroscience literature and the author’s personal encounters with psychosis and trauma, this article explores the ways in which some delusions can help us access interoceptive information from the body, uncovering sources of pathology, as well as previously unconscious information about harmful traumatic experiences. Ultimately, taking an epistemic justice lens to delusions, uplifts their value in revealing very real embodied experiences of the individual expressing them. (shrink)

As a work of philosophically grounded literary criticism in the tradition of Stanley Cavell's ordinary language philosophy, Kenneth Dauber's The Logic of Sentiment: Stowe, Hawthorne, and Melville will be an altogether welcomed book among those for whom it is more instructive to think sentimentality alongside literary authors than to merely historicize—to "archeologize" or "genealogize"—it from an all-too-safe critical distance. Though primarily a book on sentiment, its theoretical through line is to think skepticism outside of the epistemological, to think it in (...) "nonepistemological terms". In line with what he elsewhere calls "ordinary language criticism," Dauber throughout the book follows the example of... (shrink)