This study locates Aquinas's theory of infused and acquired virtue in his foundational understanding of nature and grace. Aquinas holds that all the virtues are bestowed on humans by God along with the gift of sanctifying grace. Since he also holds, with Aristotle, that we can create virtuous dispositions in ourselves through our own repeated good acts, a question arises: How are we to understand the relationship between the virtues God infuses at the moment of grace and virtues that are (...) gradually acquired over time? In this important book, Angela McKay Knobel provides a detailed examination of Aquinas's theory of infused moral virtue, with special attention to the question of how the infused and acquired moral virtues are related. Part 1 examines Aquinas's own explicit remarks about the infused and acquired virtues and considers whether and to what extent a coherent "theory" of the relationship between the infused and acquired virtues can be found in Aquinas. Knobel argues that while Aquinas says almost nothing about how the infused and acquired virtues are related, he clearly does believe that the "structure" of the infused virtues mirrors that of the acquired in important ways. Part 2 uses that structure to evaluate existing interpretations of Aquinas and argues that no existing account adequately captures Aquinas's most fundamental commitments. Knobel ultimately argues that the correct account lies somewhere between the two most commonly advocated theories. Written primarily for students and scholars of moral philosophy and theology, the book will also appeal to readers interested in understanding Aquinas's theory of virtue. (shrink)

Although it is well known that Aquinas holds that infused versions of prudence and the other acquired virtues are bestowed on man along with habitual grace, there is no uniform and widely accepted account of how the infused and acquired virtues are related: some scholars interpret Aquinas to mean that the acquired virtues are ‘taken up’ into the infused virtues, while others credit him with the view that the infused and acquired virtues somehow coexist. This paper explores one common way (...) of maintaining that the Christian’s infused and acquired virtues ‘coexist’. I argue that while such an interpretation is able to accommodate some of Aquinas’s most fundamental claims about the infused and acquired virtues, it is also problematic in important respects. (shrink)

Although scholars agree that Aquinas believed the pagan could possess “true but imperfect” virtues, there is deep disagreement over the question of how these “true but imperfect” virtues should be understood. Some scholars argue that Aquinas believed the pagan’s imperfect virtues are nonetheless ordered to a genuinely good end (his natural good) and are connected by acquired prudence. Other scholars argue that Aquinas believed that any virtues that the pagan possesses are considerably more limited: they are more akin to dispositions (...) than habits, and they are not connected. This paper argues that this latter position is incoherent. If one is willing to concede that the pagan can perform genuinely good actions, then one must concede that the pagan can possess genuine (albeit imperfect) virtues that are connected by acquired prudence. (shrink)

This article examines Leon Kass's contention that a choice for physician-assisted suicide is “undignified.” Although Kass is Jewish rather than Christian, he argues for positions that most Christians share, and he argues for these positions without presupposing the truth of specific religious claims. I argue that although Kass has some important intuitions, he too readily assumes that these intuitions will be shared by his audience, and that this assumption diminishes the force of his argument. An examination of the limitations of (...) Kass's argument is helpful insofar as it illustrates the real challenge faced by religious believers who wish to defend their beliefs in the “public forum.” For it illustrates that what needs to be made “accessible” is the Judeo-Christian understanding of man and his place in the world. While I do not wish to claim that this task is impossible, I do think that it is far more difficult than most realize. Like all important tasks, however, unless we wrestle with the difficulties it raises, our arguments will strike many as unconvincing. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine two different ways of understanding Aquinas’s account of the infused and acquired virtues. I argue that one of these ways, at least asit is commonly described, is unable to accommodate one of Aquinas’s most central claims about the difference between the infused and acquired virtues.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues by Angela McKay KnobelThomas M. Osborne Jr.KNOBEL, Angela McKay. Aquinas and the Infused Moral Virtues. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021. 214 pp. Cloth, $65.00This book is the first substantial English monograph on Aquinas's account of the infused virtues in many years, and the most significant treatment of the issue since Gabriel Bullet, Vertus morales (...) infuses et vertus morales acquises selon Saint Thomas d'Aquin (Fribourg: Éditions Universitaires, 1958). The infused virtues are about, or they are intrinsically ordered to, the supernatural end of human beings. Aquinas was among the first to argue that the infused virtues include not only the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, but also supernatural counterparts to the acquired virtues, which are proportionate to the natural end of humans. These infused moral virtues are infused with charity and lost with mortal sin. Aquinas never addressed at length the relationship between acquired [End Page 144] and infused moral virtues, and many theologians rejected Aquinas's position that there are infused moral virtues.Knobel's book has two parts. The first part of the book consists of three chapters about Aquinas's own views. Chapter 1 is on natural virtue, which can be acquired through the agent's own efforts. Knobel emphasizes the way in which this virtue is proportionate to the natural end and abilities of humans. She correctly notes that Aquinas thinks that humans can perform such virtuous acts without grace. However, since she does not distinguish between morally good acts and morally good agents, she does not adequately address Aquinas's view of how sinners without grace might possess acquired virtue. Additionally, although she correctly notes the way in which moral virtue orders the agent to the end, it is often unclear whether she is discussing the proximate end of the will (which is an object), a further end (as when someone steals to commit adultery), or the ultimate end (which is God as the object of charity or the self as an object of disordered love). For example, she writes, "[I]f an act is not sinful, it cannot be ordered to an evil end." She might be making the uncontroversial claim that good acts are made evil when directed to a bad end, but in her argument she seems to be making the stronger claim that someone with a disordered ultimate end cannot habitually order good acts to such an end.Chapter 2 is on the infused virtues. Knobel notes that for Aquinas synderesis, which is a habit of grasping first practical principles, is a seed of the natural virtues, and that faith, which grasps revealed principles, plays this role in infused virtue. She shows how infused moral virtues, which share the same matter as the acquired moral virtues, have different ends and rules than the acquired virtues. Chapter 3 concerns Aquinas's account of the relationship between the acquired and infused virtues, and in particular the infused moral virtues. Knobel draws attention to texts in which Aquinas argues that the two coexist in someone who has grace, but she states that this coexistence is contradicted in the discussion of Macrobius's fourfold division of virtue in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 61, a. 5). In this article, she thinks, acquired virtue is political virtue, and a stage toward infused virtue. She does not address how Aquinas uses the term "political virtue" differently in different texts, and how the schema of four virtues in this text might be read as describing both four stages of acquired virtue and four stages of infused virtue. Knobel supports her view—that those with grace lack acquired virtue—by claiming that Aquinas consistently states that there is no acquired virtue in heaven. This view only tenuously (at best) supports her point that acquired virtue does not exist in this life among those in a state of grace. Moreover, Aquinas seems to suggest that acquired virtue persists in the next life in ST I-II, q. 67, a. 1-2.The second part of the book is a criticism of contemporary interpretations of Aquinas, and an exposition of... (shrink)

David Papineau’s _The Metaphysics of Sensory Experience_ is deep, insightful, refreshingly brisk, and very readable. In it, Papineau argues that sensory experiences are intrinsic and non-relational states of subjects; that they do not essentially involve relations to worldly facts, properties, or other items (though they do happen to correlate with worldly items); and that they do not have truth conditions simply in virtue of their conscious (i.e., phenomenal) features. I am in enthusiastic agreement with the picture as described so far. (...) But Papineau also argues that sensory experiences are in no interesting sense essentially representational and that what is responsible for their truth conditions is their correlations with the environment. Here, I disagree. Indeed, I think Papineau does not follow his arguments to their proper conclusions. For if sensory experiences are intrinsic, non-relational, and only contingently correlated with worldly conditions (as Papineau and I agree they are), then the phenomenal features of sensory states are representational in an important sense: they constitute what we think, perceptually experience, or otherwise entertain, making up how things seem to us from a first-person perspective. Because of this, the truth conditions of perceptual experiences cannot be entirely independent of their phenomenal features. They cannot merely be a matter of environmental correlations. If we follow Papineau’s arguments to their proper conclusions, we end up with a view much closer to a version of representationalism that Papineau dismisses, a view he calls “pure phenomenal intentionalism”. (shrink)

In the wake of Brexit and Trump, the debate surrounding post-truth fills the newspapers and is at the center of the public debate. Democratic institutions and the rule of law have always been constructed and legitimized by discourses of truth. And so the issue of "post-truth" or "fake truth" can be regarded as a contemporary degeneration of that legitimacy. But what, precisely, is post-truth from a theoretical point of view? Can it actually change perceptions of law, of institutions and political (...) power? And can it affect our understanding of society and social relations? What are its ideological premises? What are the technical conditions that foster it? And most importantly, does it have anything to teach lovers of the truth? Pursuing an interdisciplinary perspective, this book gathers both well-known and newer scholars from a range of subject areas, to engage in a philosophical interrogation of the relationship between truth and law. (shrink)

Positing levels of explanation has played an important role in philosophy of science. This facilitated the advocacy of antireductionism of explanations, which, at its most basic, is the idea that scientific explanations citing large (i.e. non-microphysical) entities will persist. The idea that explanations come in levels captures important features of explanatory practices, and it also does well at helping to define different positions one might take regarding explanatory reductionism or antireductionism. Yet the idea that explanations come in levels has also (...) led philosophers astray. This systematically misconstrues the relationship different explanations bear to one another, suggests candidate explanations are less numerous than they in fact are, and occludes recognition of how the selection of explanations can vary across research projects. Antireductionists about explanation should move on from talk of levels. Or so I will argue. (shrink)

Mesoudi et al. overlook an illuminating parallel between cultural and biological evolution, namely, the existence in each realm of a continuum from intelligent, mindful evolution through to oblivious, mindless evolution. In addition, they underplay the independence of cultural fitness from biological fitness. The assumption that successful cultural traits enhance genetic fitness must be sidelined, as must the assumption that such traits will at least be considered worth having. (Published Online November 9 2006).

When we evaluate artworks, we often point to what an artist could have done or what a work could have been in order to say something about the work as it actually is. Call this counterfactual reasoning in art criticism. On my account, counterfactual claims about artworks involve comparative aesthetic judgments between actual artworks and hypothetical variations of those works. The practice of imagining what an artwork could have been is critically useful because it can help us understand how artworks (...) achieve specific aesthetic effects. I conclude by responding to an objection to my account on the basis that it violates the widely accepted acquaintance principle in aesthetics, on which aesthetic judgments must be based on firsthand perceptual encounters with their objects. (shrink)

Introducción: Se presenta un análisis cualitativo del acompañamiento psicosocial a jóvenes en condiciones de vulnerabilidad desde la ecología humana durante 12 meses entre 2010 a 2011; utilizando técnicas pedagógicas evaluativas participativas. Éstas, son una alternativa para crear espacios reflexivos con el propósito de potenciar la resiliencia en las relaciones comunicativas y formar en el respeto. Objetivo: Generar bienestar, prevenir la farmacodependencia y contribuir a la promoción de la salud. Material y Métodos: Se revisaron los antecedentes temáticos, fueron seleccionados 100 estudiantes (...) entre 11 y 19 años de dos instituciones educativas públicas en condiciones vulnerables;se desarrollaron cuatro talleres reflexivos y cuatro prácticas lúdicas y se realizaron tres grupos focales con estudiantes, profesores y padres de familia. Resultados y Discusión: El contexto social de la población intervenida, revela problemas de abuso sexual, violencia intrafamiliar y eventos violentos en el vecindario por grupos armados ilegales, entre otros, que constituyen factores de riesgo importantes para la farmacodependencia. Conclusión: Se infiere que lo psicosocial incide en la farmacodependencia, afectando la convivencia de la población estudiada por múltiples causas del orden psicoafectivo, sociocultural, económico y político que van desde el consumo cultural hasta la seguridad alimentaria. Introduction: A qualitative analysis of the psycho-social support to young people in situations of vulnerability from human ecology is presented for 12 months between 2010 to 2011; using participatory evaluative pedagogical techniques. These are an alternative to create reflective spaces with the purpose of enhancing resilience in communicative relationships and working in respect. Objective: to generate well-being, prevent drug abuse and contribute to the health promotion. Material aids and methods: the thematic background was reviewed, 100 students between 11 and 19 years of two public schools in vulnerable conditionswere selected; four reflective workshops and four playful practices were developed and three focus groups with students, teachers and parentswere conducted. Results and discussion: the social context of the manipulated population reveals sexual abuse problems, domestic violence and violent events in the neighborhood by illegal armed groups, among others, which constitutemajor risk factors for drug abuse. Conclusion: It can be inferred that the psychosocial factors impact on drug dependence, affecting the coexistence of the population studied by multiple causes of the psychological, socio-cultural, economic and political order, ranging from cultural consumption to food security. (shrink)

At the level of the individual, current research suggests that most of our daily actions are done out of habit. At the same time, individuals are part of larger social units, and their behavior gives rise to customs and institutions. Hume recognized the indispensable role of custom and habit in human life in his science of the mind, a science which aims to form the most general principles possible. Custom and habit are singled out by Hume as particularly potent general (...) principles of human nature, describing them as the “great guide of life” and essential to human affairs. The aim of this paper is to explore the role custom and habit play in Hume’s work, especially as it concerns his political philosophy and experimental method, while considering intersections with contemporary discussions in political science. (shrink)

This book examines the collection of prayers known as the Qumran Hodayot (= Thanksgiving Hymns) in light of ancient visionary traditions, new developments in neuropsychology, and post-structuralist understandings of the embodied subject. The thesis of this book is that the ritualized reading of reports describing visionary experiences written in the first person "I" had the potential to create within the ancient reader the subjectivity of a visionary which can then predispose him to have a religious experience. This study examines how (...) references to the body and the strategic arousal of emotions could have functioned within a practice of performative reading to engender a religious experience of ascent. In so doing, this book offers new interdisciplinary insights into meditative ritual reading as a religious practice for transformation in antiquity. (shrink)

Anthony Kwame Appiah is an internationally renowned philosopher who has worked on the philosophy of language, political and moral theory, African intellectual history and cosmopolitanism, with a particular interest in the theme of identity. He has held prominent positions and received numerous important awards; he has also dedicated himself to an intense activity of dissemination, giving countless lectures and collaborating with a number of newspapers, such as the BBC at which in 2016 he gave the Reith Lectures on the theme (...) of identity and the New York Times Magazine where, as a columnist, he reasons about the ethical dilemmas that can arise in everyday life. In Italy he has published Cosmopolitismo. L’etica in un mondo di estranei (2007), Il codice d’onore. Come cambia la morale (2011), La menzogna dell’identità (2019). In this interview, given in July 2021, he explains his conception of cosmopolitanism, which he named “rooted or patriotic”, and from this perspective addresses the topics of migration, cosmopolitan education and practice, ‘cancel culture’ and freedom of expression. (shrink)

Scientific realism is a thesis about the success of science. Most traditionally: science has been so successful at prediction and guiding action because its best theories are true (or approximately true or increasing in their degree of truth). If science is in the business of doing its best to generate true theories, then we should turn to those theories for explanatory knowledge, predictions, and guidance of our actions and decisions. Views that are popular in contemporary philosophy of science about scientific (...) modeling and the centrality of idealization create several challenges for this traditional form of scientific realism. Yet the basic idea behind scientific realism that science has been and will continue to be epistemically successful is deeply appealing. This chapter explores the challenges posed by idealization and scientific modeling to motivate a scientific realism fully divorced from the idea that science is in the business of generating true theories. On the resulting view, the objects of scientific knowledge are causal patterns, so this knowledge only ever provides partial, simplified accounts of a complex reality. This variety of selective realism better accommodates the nature of our present-day scientific successes and offers an interpretation of scientific progress that resists the antirealist’s pessimism. (shrink)

In his chapter in this volume, Christopher Pincock develops an argument for scientific realism based on scientific understanding, and he argues that Giere’s (2006) and my (2017, 2020) commitment to the context-dependence of scientific understanding or knowledge renders our views unable to account for an essential step in how scientists come to know. Meanwhile, in my chapter in this volume, I motivate a view that I call "causal pattern realism." In this response to Pincock's chapter, I will sketch a revised (...) version of Pincock’s argument for realism that is consistent with causal pattern realism. Then I will respond to Pincock’s concern that the context-dependence of understanding on my view would interfere with the scientific community’s ability to extrapolate from specific experimental and observational contexts as needed to develop knowledge. My goal is not to convince anyone to be a causal pattern realist but rather to create the space for such a view, taking into account the concerns motivating Pincock. (shrink)

This article is a review of the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of Russian Philosophy, the result of the work of a team of Russian specialists in philosophy and human sciences, edited by M. A. Maslin, professor of History of Russian Philosophy at Moscow University. However, it is also intended to be an assessment of the conditions that legitimate the denomination ‘Russian philosophy’, and a reflection on the character and orientations of Russian thought, especially in the period before and after (...) the Revolution of 1917. (shrink)

Over 60% of all epidemics have a zoonotic origin, that is, they result from the transmission of infectious diseases from animals to humans. The spill-over of diseases often happens because humans exploit and use animals. In this article, I outline the four most common interfaces that favour the emergence and spread of zoonotic infectious diseases: wildlife hunting, small-scale farming, industrialised farming practices and live animal markets. I analyse which practices serve human food security – and thus have a non-trivial purpose (...) – and which predominantly have an economic purpose or serve as a symbol of wealth. I conclude that many practices that increase the risk for zoonotic infectious disease outbreaks actually do not contribute to the survival and food security of humans. I make two arguments in turn. First, I argue that in cases where the consumption and use of animal products does not contribute to the food security of a population, then this population has a duty to abstain from them, since they impose a grave and avoidable risk to themselves as well as to innocent third-parties. However, some communities must sometimes rely on practices that increase the risk of emergence and transmission of zoonotic infectious diseases, because they have no healthy alternatives. That is, the food security of the local population depends on the consumption and use of risky animal products. The second argument I advance is that, in such scenarios, the international community has a duty to provide the communities concerned with alternative food options, as well as economic and educational opportunities and technologies, in order to reduce the spill-over risk of infectious diseases. Given that abstention from such practices contributes signifcantly to the public good and benefits the international community, the latter has a corresponding duty to provide local communities which abandon such practices with alternatives. (shrink)

This book discusses 'how' to respectfully and responsibly include pregnant women in clinical research. In sharp contrast, the existing literature predominantly focuses on the reasons 'why' the inclusion of pregnant women in clinical research is necessary - viz., to develop effective treatments for women during pregnancy, to promote fetal safety, to reduce harm to women and fetuses from suboptimal care, and to allow access to the benefits of research participation. This book supports the shift to a new default position, whereby (...) pregnant women are included in clinical research unless researchers argue convincingly for their exclusion. This shift raises many as yet unexplored ethical and policy questions about existing barriers to the equitable inclusion of pregnant women in research. This book is original in three key ways. First, it presents an unparalleled depth of analysis of the ethics of research with pregnant women, bringing together many of the key authors in this field as well as experts in research ethics and in vulnerability who have not previously applied their work to pregnant women. Second, it includes innovative theoretical work in ethics and disease specific case studies that highlight the current complexity and future challenges of research involving pregnant women. Third, the book brings together authors who argue both for and against including more pregnant women in formal clinical trials. (shrink)

En este artículo se desarrolla una reflexión acerca del suicidio hetero-referido o no-personal. Se lo analiza en tanto forma de voluntad e instrumento de presión política que tensiona críticamente los modos en que se organiza la vida en nuestras sociedades. Se indaga en el potencial de contra-soberanía que supone en tanto intenta desactivar el poder al que se enfrenta. Se tematiza cierta ética de la pasividad que surge en esta acción y se examina la lógica que recorre el acto de (...) darse muerte. Finalmente, el artículo contribuye a complejizar el debate en torno al suicidio hetero-referido en tanto se destacan sus límites y potencialidades, así como las paradojas que plantean a nuestras democracias liberales las diversas demandas de grupos minorizados. (shrink)

Lawyers in many jurisdictions are ageing, and yet there is little information concerning the age profile of the legal profession. This paper presents the first consideration of the age profile of lawyers outside of the US, showing that Australian lawyers are ageing and delaying retirement. These findings have serious implications. Problems associated with a growing proportion of older lawyers include an increasing risk of lawyers suffering from age-related cognitive and physical impairment, and the related rise of complaints and malpractice claims (...) against older lawyers. It is also clear that the Australian legal profession is unprepared to address these problems. The legal profession has ignored important gender-specific implications of ageing, such as female lawyers experiencing menopause and the lower savings of female lawyers moving into retirement. Regulatory regimes have not considered the impact of the profession's ageing profile, and there is no mandatory reporting of lawyers suffering from age-related impairment or provisions should a lawyer die. The profession also has not provided strategies to positively transition lawyers into retirement, and there is a lack of flexible working arrangements and succession planning, especially in firms located outside urban centres. (shrink)