Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and (...) presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. -/- Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world. (shrink)

Über die weitreichende Bedeutung von Briefwechseln für die Formierung der frühneuzeitlichen Gelehrtenrepublik besteht seit längerem ein für geisteswissenschaftliche Verhältnisse ungewöhnlicher Konsens. Die großen Briefwechsel von Grotius, Leibniz oder Haller machen deutlich, dass die Innovationsdynamik der Gelehrtenkultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert im Wesentlichen auf Kommunikationsstrukturen zurückzuführen ist, die durch Korrespondenzen und durch die damit verbundenen Netzwerke etabliert wurden. Obwohl der in Halle lehrende Jurist und Philosoph Christian Thomasius (1655-1728) zu den,,schlechthin zentralen Persönlichkeiten" der deutschen und - über deren Rezeption (...) - auch der europäischen Aufklärung gehört, ist eine Edition seiner Korrespondenz zwar verschiedentlich als Desiderat benannt, tatsächlich aber noch nie in Angriff genommen worden. Die hier vorgelegte Ausgabe will diesem Desiderat abhelfen und bietet eine vollständige und kommentierte Edition der aktiven und passiven Korrespondenz von Christian Thomasius. Damit soll bislang unbekanntes Quellenmaterial erschlossen und über die Kommentierung ausgewertet werden, das einerseits der Erforschung des Oeuvre von Christian Thomasius und seinem Umfeld neue Impulse geben wird und andererseits geeignet ist, wichtige Aufschlüsse über die frühaufklärerische Gelehrtenkultur im Übergang vom 17. zum 18. Jahrhundert zu verschaffen. Hierbei ist sowohl an die Veränderungen innerhalb der Kommunikationsstrukturen der Res publica litteraria zu Beginn der Aufklärung als auch - und zwar in erster Linie - an die Rekonstruktion der Genese und der Lösung von einzelnen theoretischen wie praktischen Problemen im Kontext der im ausgehenden 17. Jahrhundert sich vollziehenden sozialen und politischen Veränderungen zu denken. (shrink)

I argue that free will and determinism are compatible, even when we take free will to require the ability to do otherwise and even when we interpret that ability modally, as the possibility of doing otherwise, and not just conditionally or dispositionally. My argument draws on a distinction between physical and agential possibility. Although in a deterministic world only one future sequence of events is physically possible for each state of the world, the more coarsely defined state of an agent (...) and his or her environment can be consistent with more than one such sequence, and thus different actions can be “agentially possible”. The agential perspective is supported by our best theories of human behaviour, and so we should take it at face value when we refer to what an agent can and cannot do. On the picture I defend, free will is not a physical phenomenon, but a higher-level one on a par with other higher-level phenomena such as agency and intentionality. (shrink)

The problem of distinguishing between willing and wishing and their significance for both the constitution of our consciousness as well as the constitution of our practical life runs all the way through the history of philosophy. Given the persuasiveness of the problem, it might be helpful to draw a sharp distinction between a metaphysical and a psychological or phenomenological approach to the problem. The first approach may be identified with the positions that Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche held, which (...) involved an identification of the will with reality/actuality in general, and which Heidegger tried to analyze in his later writings on the basis of his confrontation with Nietzsche. In this paper, however, I will not consider the metaphysical approach to the distinction; rather, I will focus on the second approach to distinguishing wishing and willing, which was initiated by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics, and of which as we will see soon – Husserl and the early Heidegger are ultimately still heirs. Hence I will begin my consideration by recalling briefly the main claim in Aristotle’s discovery of the central position of will within our life. (shrink)

While there has been much discussion of whether AI systems could function as moral agents or acquire sentience, there has been very little discussion of whether AI systems could have free will. I sketch a framework for thinking about this question, inspired by Daniel Dennett’s work. I argue that, to determine whether an AI system has free will, we should not look for some mysterious property, expect its underlying algorithms to be indeterministic, or ask whether the system is unpredictable. Rather, (...) we should simply ask whether we have good explanatory reasons to view the system as an intentional agent, with the capacity for choice between alternative possibilities and control over the resulting actions. If the answer is “yes”, then the system counts as having free will in a pragmatic and diagnostically useful sense. (shrink)

We offer a critical assessment of the “exclusion argument” against free will, which may be summarized by the slogan: “My brain made me do it, therefore I couldn't have been free”. While the exclusion argument has received much attention in debates about mental causation (“could my mental states ever cause my actions?”), it is seldom discussed in relation to free will. However, the argument informally underlies many neuroscientific discussions of free will, especially the claim that advances in neuroscience seriously challenge (...) our belief in free will. We introduce two distinct versions of the argument, discuss several unsuccessful responses to it, and then present our preferred response. This involves showing that a key premise – the “exclusion principle” – is false under what we take to be the most natural account of causation in the context of agency: the difference-making account. We finally revisit the debate about neuroscience and free will. (shrink)

Technologies of “artificial intelligence” and machine learning are increasingly presented as solutions to key problems of our societies. Companies are developing, investing in, and deploying machine learning applications at scale in order to filter and organize content, mediate transactions, and make sense of massive sets of data. At the same time, social and legal expectations are ambiguous, and the technical challenges are substantial. This is the introductory article to a special theme that addresses this turn to AI as a technical, (...) discursive and political phenomena. The opening article contextualizes this theme by unfolding this multi-layered nature of the turn to AI. It argues that, whereas public and economic discourses position the widespread deployment of AI and automation in the governance of digital communication as a technical turn with a narrative of revolutionary breakthrough-moments and of technological progress, this development is at least similarly dependent on a parallel discursive and political turn to AI. The article positions the current turn to AI in the longstanding motif of the “technological fix” in the relationship between technology and society, and identifies a discursive turn to responsibility in platform governance as a key driver for AI and automation. In addition, a political turn to more demanding liability rules for platforms further incentivizes platforms to automatically screen their content for possibly infringing or violating content, and position AI as a solution to complex social problems. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that the “will to power” remains one of Nietzsche’s most controversial philosophical concepts. Leaving aside its colorful and controversial political history in the first half of the twentieth century, the will to power poses considerable problems for any serious reconstruction of Nietzsche’s project. This is particularly the case for analytic reconstructions, which view Nietzsche’s philosophical naturalism largely through the lens of metaethical concerns that are themselves grounded in a psychological reading of will, affect, value, or (...) ressentiment.1 The will to power, though, defies interpretations that are schooled in contemporary philosophy of mind, or cognitive psychology. Even.. (shrink)

Due largely to the work of Mark Murphy and Philip Quinn, divine will theory has emerged as a legitimate alternative to divine command theory in recent years. As an initial characterization, divine will theory is a view of deontological properties according to which, for instance, an agent S‟s obligation to perform action A in circumstances C is grounded in God‟s will that S A in C. Characterized this abstractly, divine will theory does not specify which kind of mental state is (...) supposed to ground S‟s obligation; it could be God‟s desires, beliefs, intentions, or emotions. My purpose here is not to challenge this view. Rather, I want to examine the decision by Murphy and Quinn to base their version of divine will theory on God‟s intentions, and argue that this may have been an unwise move. As an alternative, I suggest that those who are initially attracted to divine will theory would be better served to develop the view with a focus on God‟s desires rather than intentions. (shrink)

In recent centuries Christians of various denominations have endorsed many different political philosophies that they see as being truly biblical in their approach. Over this time there has been an increasing hostility, by some Christians, towards free markets and political philosophies that hold human liberty as the highest goal such as libertarianism and classical liberalism. This criticism is unwarranted and misplaced as libertarianism and free markets are not only compatible with Christianity, they are also the most biblically sound of all (...) economics systems and political philosophies endorsed by Christians today. Therefore, this paper will argue that Christians of all denominations should endorse free markets and libertarianism if they wish to create a world that follows biblical principles and the teachings of Jesus. (shrink)

Debate on free will with Christian List, Gregg Caruso, and Cory Clark. The exchange is focused on Christian List's book Why Free Will Is Real.

The aim of this expository paper is to give an informal overview of a plausible naturalistic case for free will. I will describe what I take to be the main naturalistically motivated challenges for free will and respond to them by presenting an indispensability argument for free will. The argument supports the reality of free will as an emergent higher-level phenomenon. I will also explain why the resulting picture of free will does not conflict with the possibility that the fundamental (...) laws of nature are deterministic, and I will address some common objections. (shrink)

This paper argues that decision theory presupposes free will. Although decision theorists seldom acknowledge this, the way decision theory represents, explains, or rationalizes choice behaviour acquires its intended interpretation only under the assumption that decision-makers are agents capable of making free choices between alternative possibilities. Without that assumption, both normative and descriptive decision theory, including the revealed-preference paradigm, would have to be reinterpreted in implausible ways. The hypothesis that decision-makers have free will is therefore explanatorily indispensable for decision theory. If (...) we regard explanatory indispensability as an indicator of reality in science, decision theorists should embrace the idea of free will. (shrink)

This handbook article reviews the situationist movements in psychology and philosophy, before turning to possible implications for issues about free will and moral responsibility. Particular attention is paid to possible threats to reasons-responsiveness and to agency.

We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent ‘canonical (...) icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations. (shrink)

It is common to ascribe agency to some organized collectives, such as corporations, courts, and states, and to treat them as loci of responsibility, over and above their individual members. But since responsibility is often assumed to require free will, should we also think that group agents have free will? Surprisingly, the literature contains very few in-depth discussions of this question. The most extensive defence of corporate free will that I am aware of (Hess [2014], “The Free Will of Corporations (...) (and Other Collectives)”, Philosophical Studies 168 (1): 241–260) rests on a compatibilist understanding which takes reasons-responsiveness and acting from one’s own ‘actional springs’ as key conditions for free will but says little about a condition that free-will libertarians emphasize: the possibility of doing otherwise. In this paper, I will argue that group agents can have free will not only in a (less demanding) compatibilist sense, but also in a recognizably libertarian sense, which includes the possibility of doing otherwise. In developing this account of corporate free will, I will bring together recent work on group agency and recent work on free will. (shrink)

In this piece, Wenzel explores how the ancient Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, approaches issues of freedom and moral responsibility. Zhuangzi’s writings are very different in form from traditional Western philosophy, but there is significant overlap in the treatment of freedom and moral responsibility. Distinctive of Zhuangzi’s approach is the method of “fasting of the mind,” where one is less focused on extensive practical deliberations and is more attuned to the environment and task at hand. In this way, acting and deciding are (...) more like skills such as woodworking or swimming, as opposed to more theoretical activities. And while Wenzel thinks that approaching freedom and moral responsibility as Zhuangzi suggests does have some appealing features, he also argues that it faces some important difficulties, particularly when it comes to understanding moral responsibility. (shrink)

This collection provides the first in-depth introduction to the theory of the religious imagination put forward by renowned philosopher Douglas Hedley, from his earliest essays to his principal writings. Featuring Hedley's inaugural lecture delivered at Cambridge University in 2018, the book sheds light on his robust concept of religious imagination as the chief power of the soul's knowledge of the Divine and reveals its importance in contemporary metaphysics, ethics and politics. Chapters trace the development of the religious imagination in (...) class='Hi'>Christian Platonism from Late Antiquity to British Romanticism, drawing on Origen, Henry More and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before providing a survey of alternative contemporary versions of the concept as outlined by Karl Rahner, René Girard and William P. Alston, as well as within Indian philosophy. By bringing Christian Platonist thought into dialogue with contemporary philosophy and theology, the volume systematically reveals the relevance of Hedley's work to current debates in religious epistemology and metaphysics. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of the historical contribution of imagination to religious understanding and, as such, will be of great interest to philosophers, theologians and historians alike. (shrink)

Free will is widely thought to require (i) the possibility of acting otherwise and (ii) the intentional endorsement of one’s actions (“indeterministic picking is not enough”). According to (i), a necessary condition for free will is agential-level indeterminism: at some points in time, an agent’s prior history admits more than one possible continuation. According to (ii), however, a free action must be intentionally endorsed, and indeterminism may threaten freedom: if several alternative actions could each have been actualized, then none of (...) them is necessitated by the agent’s prior history, and the actual action seems nothing more than the result of indeterministic picking. We argue that this tension is only apparent. We distinguish between actions an agent can possibly do and actions he or she can do with endorsement. One can consistently say that someone who makes a choice has several alternative possibilities, and yet that, far from merely indeterministically picking an action, the agent chooses one he or she endorses. An implication is that although free will can consistently require (i) and (ii), it cannot generally require the possibility of acting otherwise with endorsement. (shrink)

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social ThoughtCharles W. ChristianBonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought Edited by Willis Jenkins and Jennifer M. McBride Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. 304 pp. $25.00Countless books have been written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr., assessing their individual leadership in the areas of social justice and theology in the twentieth century. (...) Relatively few works have brought these two individuals together in comparative analysis. This book, edited by Willis [End Page 216] Jenkins (assistant professor of social ethics at Yale Divinity School) and Jennifer M. McBride (visiting lecturer at Candler Divinity School), seeks to do that; it brings together a wide array of scholars in the fields of ethics, theology, pastoral ministry, political theory, African American studies, and feminist theology.As McBride points out in her introduction, the “significant differences in their historic, sociopolitical contexts” can present challenges in comparing the work of these two men and in seeking to contemporize them (8). However, the thought and life of both martyrs “demand[s] action”; in other words, the “thought” of both Bonhoeffer and King remains incomplete without “courageous, constructive, redemptive social engagement” (3). It is in this spirit that the book unfolds.The book is divided into four parts. The first four chapters compose part 1 (titled “Critical Distance”), which takes a broader look at the legacies, key concepts, and limitations or critiques of the thought of Bonhoeffer and King. For example, the second chapter by Stephen R. Haynes (“King and Bonhoeffer as Protestant Saints”) reminds us of the perils of the larger-than-life legacies of both these individuals. When noteworthy persons become personalities or cultural heroes, key aspects of their legacies can be minimized or overlooked. This is particularly important in contemporary American settings where politicians and commentators tend to reduce the legacies of both Bonhoeffer and King to fit their own political agendas.Part 2 pays specific attention to the influence of Bonhoeffer and King on matters related to social justice, such as poverty, racism, and violence. Among the notable contributions in this section is the chapter by Craig J. Slane that deals with the “unexpected turn toward violence” (112) for Bonhoeffer during his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler during World War II. Part 3 looks at the ways in which the lives and teaching (and especially preaching, in King’s life in particular) of Bonhoeffer and King are instruments of social redemption. In addition to noting the influence of Niebuhr’s emphasis on social sin and social redemption on King’s preaching and leadership, it points out that both Bonhoeffer and King were deeply influenced by the economic and social upheavals of their time; their preaching, teaching, and writing sought to address, in concrete ways, the racial, economic, and political realities of their contexts. In part 4, “Peacemaking,” four authors highlight the contributions King and Bonhoeffer have made to peacemaking and the influence these contributions continue to have. They discuss both men’s commitment to nonviolence and pacifism and the particular challenges this commitment created for them (especially for Bonhoeffer, given his participation in a plot to overthrow Hitler).The essays in this book do not present these two martyrs as unblemished. The book contains rich discussions that honestly assess their personal struggles [End Page 217] of conscience as well as their contextual struggles with such issues as the role of women. Furthermore, the reader will find a solid introduction to the lives and thought of both men while at the same time sitting in on a diverse conversation about how their influential interpretations of the Christian faith can continue to be fleshed out. May this kind of conversation (and action) continue!Charles W. ChristianMount Vernon Nazarene UniversityCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and (...) a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical. (shrink)

Few studies have considered in detail the ethical issues surrounding research in which investigators ask community members to engage in research subject recruitment within their own communities. Peer-driven recruitment and its variants are useful for accessing and including certain populations in research, but also have the potential to undermine the ethical and scientific integrity of community-based research. This paper examines the ethical implications of utilizing community members as recruiters of human subjects in the context of PDR, as well as the (...) authors' experience with a variant of PDR in a research project in South Africa. The importance of situating PDR in a comprehensive community engagement process that is responsive to the constraints of science and local needs and interests is emphasized. The paper will have relevance to bioethicists, health researchers, and research regulators concerned about the appropriate use of peer-driven recruitment strategies in health research. (shrink)

This paper sketches a new version of the multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics, the clustered-minds multiverse, that has been presented in detail elsewhere. It briefly shows why it grants us with free will and reflects upon the possibilty of singular-universe explanations of free will. It also critically comments upon S. Sarasvathy's 'choice matters,' one of the other contributions to this mini symposium.

In this essay I to do three things. First, I discuss a statement from the Tractatus which says that our free will consists in our ignorance of future actions: “The freedom of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future. We could know them only if causality were an inner necessity like that of logical inference.” (5.1362) I think this statement might well be inspired by a claim Moore made in connection with free (...) will in his 1912 book Ethics: “We can hardly ever know for certain beforehand, which choice we actually shall make”. But I think Moore’s claim in favor of free will is not convincing. Second, I discuss a question raised in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein asks what remains if we “subtract” the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm, and he adds in brackets: “Are the kinaesthetic sensations my willing?” (621) This added reflection is a reaction to ideas put forward by William James. Wittgenstein opposes these ideas. He argues that we should not think of the will as a cause at all, kinaesthetic or not, but rather as something embedded in, and constituted by, certain contexts of learning, expectation, practice, and lack of surprise. This is a strong claim. He also returns to the question about the predictability of the future: “When people talk about the possibility of foreknowledge of the future they always forget the fact of the prediction of one’s own voluntary movements” (629). The question is whether Wittgenstein has solved, or dissolved, the problem of free will. Some think that this is the case. I doubt it is. This is the third point I wish to discuss. (shrink)

In this paper, I will present an argument against Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness. Husserl’s analysis of picture consciousness (as it can be found primarily in the recently translated volume Husserliana 23) moves from a theory of depiction in general to a theory of perceptual imagination. Though, I think that Husserl’s thesis that picture consciousness is different from depictive and linguistic consciousness is legitimate, and that Husserl’s phenomenology avoids the errors of linguistic theories, such as Goodman’s, I submit that his (...) overall theory is unacceptable, especially when it is applied to works of art. Regarding art, the main problem of Husserl’s theory is the assumption that pictures are constituted primarily as a conflict between perception/physical picture thing and imagination/picture object. Against this mentalist claim, I maintain, from a hermeneutic point of view, that pictures are the result of perceptual formations [Bildungen]. I then claim that Husserl’s theory fails, since it does not take into account what I call “plastic perception” [Bildliches Sehen], which plays a prominent role not only within the German tradition of art education but also within German art itself. In this connection, “plastic thinking” [Bildliches Denken] was prominent especially in Klee, in Kandinsky, and in Beuys, as well as in the overall doctrine of the Bauhaus. Ultimately, I argue that Husserl’s notion of picture consciousness and general perceptive imaginary consciousness must be replaced with a more dynamic model of the perception of pictures and art work that takes into account (a) the constructive and plastic moment, (b) the social dimension and (c) the genetic dimension of what it means to see something in something (Wollheim). (shrink)

This thought-provoking book discusses the concept of progress in economics and investigates whether any advance has been made in its different spheres of research. The authors look back at the history, successes and failures of their respective fields and thoroughly examine the notion of progress from an epistemological and methodological perspective. The idea of progress is particularly significant as the authors regard it as an essentially contested concept which can be defined in many ways – theoretically or empirically; locally or (...) globally; or as encouraging or impeding the existence of other research traditions. The authors discuss the idea that for progress to make any sense there must be an accumulation of knowledge built up over time rather than the replacement of ideas by each successive generation. Accordingly, they are not concerned with estimating the price of progress, reminiscing in the past, or assessing what has been lost. Instead they apply the complex mechanisms and machinery of the discipline to sub-fields such as normative economics, monetary economics, trade and location theory, Austrian economics and classical economics to critically assess whether progress has been made in these areas of research. -/- Bringing together authoritative and wide-ranging contributions by leading scholars, this book will challenge and engage those interested in philosophy, economic methodology and the history of economic thought. It will also appeal to economists in general who are interested in the advancement of their profession. (shrink)

The problem of free will is associated with a specific and significant kind of control over our actions, which is understood primarily in the sense that we have the freedom to do otherwise or the capacity for self‐determination. Is Buddhism compatible with such a conception of free will? The aim of this article is to address three critical issues concerning the free will problem: (1) what role should accounts of physical and neurobiological processes play in discussions of free will? (2) (...) Is a conception of mental autonomy grounded in practices of meditative cultivation compatible with the three cardinal Buddhist doctrines of momentariness, dependent arising, and no‐self? (3) Are there enough resources in Buddhism, given its antisubstantialist metaphysics, to account for personal agency, self‐control, and moral responsibility? (shrink)

Hegels Kritik an Kants praktischer Philosophie wurde in der Rezeptionsgeschichte zumeist anhand des Begriffspaares "Moralit t und Sittlichkeit" er rtert. Die Frage, welche Auswirkungen diese Kritik auf die einzelnen Kategorien der Rechtsmetaphysik hat, wurde demgegen ber kaum gestellt. Bestehen Unterschiede zwischen den Ausf hrungen beider Philosophen hinsichtlich der einzelnen Rechtsbegriffe? Lassen sich etwaige Differenzen auf die Verschiedenartigkeit der Freiheitskonzeptionen zur ckf hren? Und l sst sich Hegels allgemein gehaltene Kritik an Kant auf dessen Einzelausf hrungen in den "Metaphysischen Anfangsgr nden (...) der Rechtslehre" bertragen? Das Buch untersucht diese Fragen mit Blick auf die f r Kant wie Hegel zentrale Rechtskategorie des Eigentums. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa MonasticismChristian P. B. HaskettIdentity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism. By Martin A. Mills. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. 404 + xxi pp. with 12 black and white plates.In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a type of teaching called a dmar khrid, a "red instruction," wherein the lama brings students through (...) a teaching as a physician might dissect a corpse, pointing out and explaining the various parts and organs and their places and functions. In Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism, Martin Mills has done very much the same thing, with the exception that the body he examines is still very much alive, and emerges, to my eyes at least, as a new and wholly vital entity. Mills exposes the subcutaneous and sanguine body of Tibetan Buddhism, the bones and muscles that make up its structure, the blood that flows through it, and the organs that keep it alive, in "a plain and open manner," just as in a dmar khrid.1 The value of such a presentation truly cannot be overstated. An attempt to catalog the contents of each chapter would be both impossible and counterproductive, as the wealth of theoretical material and ethnographic detail is a large part of what makes this book so powerful. Instead, I will identify several topics, several of the vital organs alluded to, that are either not commonly noticed in the academic study of Buddhism, or that are given fresh perspective by Mills's anthropological and sociological methodology, and that are so crucial to understanding how it is that Buddhism lives in a typical Himalayan village. The latter portion of this review explains why I place such high value on this book and its potential place in Buddhist-Christian studies.Identity, Ritual and State is an ethnography of Kumbum Monastery in Lingshed, Ladakh (the eastern half of the Kashmir valley, located in Jammu and Kashmir, India), but its concerns are much more far-reaching than a single remote Himalayan village. The central question of the work is "how we are to understand the nature of religious authority in Tibetan Buddhist monasticism" (p. xiii), although it might more properly be the religious authority of Tibetan [End Page 187] Buddhist monastics. This answer is worked out in three overlapping areas of analysis: local ritual activity, ecclesiastical structure of the monastery, and the ritual foundations of Tibetan political thought (p. xvii).Mills convincingly asserts that there is a framework within which Buddhism happens in the Himalayas. The starting point of this framework is birth itself, which establishes the embodied person. The very physicality of personhood has several implications. First, the body is embedded in a very specific local space and place, and personhood is thus not only embodied, but also chthonic—intimately bound up with the earth or soil onto which it is born. At birth, persons are injected into a complex matrix of relations between people and various spirits, such as household gods and protectors, nāga, and itinerant demons. For example, Lingshed is divided into seven subterritories, each under the jurisdiction of a local deity whose physical abode and reign are well known to all in the village.2 These deities are associated with features of the local geography, and they regulate and influence local agricultural and social production, so birth in one area or another signifies a relation with the deity presiding over it. The land itself is imbued with a notion of personhood and agency. The human body is also the repository for pollution (sgrib), which comes about as a result of violating the established hierarchy of space and place and from bringing about changes to the local matrix of embodied persons. Both bodily pollution concerns and the need for proper relations with local spirit numina mandate definite, ongoing ritual attention. Rituals are occasioned in response to births, deaths, spirit possession, unintentional pollution of places or household objects, and movements within the monastic ecclesiastical structure, or happen regularly according to an astrologically and agriculturally influenced calendar.Rituals are performed by monks not only because they are trained specialists, but because... (shrink)

The first impacts of climate change have become evident and are expected to increase dramatically over the next decades. Thus, it becomes more and more pressing to decide who has to compensate those people who suffer from negative impacts of climate change but have neither contributed to the problem nor possess the resources to cope with the consequences. Since the frequently invoked Polluter Pays Principle cannot account for all climate-related harm, I will take a closer look at the much more (...) controversial Beneficiary Pays Principle. It is argued that, appropriately qualified, the Beneficiary Pays Principle can help to identify additional duty-bearers. Based on these results, I briefly comment on three different policy options to generate funds for compensation. (shrink)

Christiane Bailey | : Distinguant deux sens de « communauté morale », cet article soutient que certains animaux appartiennent à la communauté morale dans les deux sens : ils sont des patients moraux dignes de considération morale directe et équivalente, mais également des agents moraux au sens où ils sont capables de reconnaître, d’assumer et d’adresser aux autres des exigences minimales de bonne conduite et de savoir-vivre. Au moyen de la notion d’« attitudes réactives » développée par Peter F. Strawson, (...) je soutiens que les animaux sociaux qui sont à la fois objets et sujets d’attitudes réactives forment des communautés morales au second sens, dans la mesure où ils se traitent mutuellement comme des individus ayant des obligations et tenus à des exigences de bonne volonté minimale dans leurs interactions interpersonnelles. Distinguant l’agentivité morale du raisonnement moral, je soutiens que la capacité de raisonner abstraitement sur les principes et les conséquences de nos actions nous imposent plus de responsabilités que n’en ont d’autres animaux, mais que cela ne fait pas nécessairement de nous des agents moraux plus compétents que d’autres animaux sociaux. Je termine en donnant un aperçu de quelques implications de ce changement de perspective en éthique animale. | : This article draws the distinction between two meanings of “moral community” and maintains that certain animals belong to moral communities in both senses of the term: these animals are moral patients worthy of direct and equivalent moral consideration, but also moral agents in the sense that they are capable of recognizing and respecting minimal requirements of good conduct and manners as well as expecting and demanding the same from other members of their community. By way of the notion of “reactive attitudes” developed by Peter F. Strawson, I maintain that social animals who are at once objects and subjects of reactive attitudes constitute moral communities in the second sense of the term, in that they treat each other as individuals who have obligations and who are bound by the demand for a minimum of good-will in their interpersonal interactions. Distinguishing between moral agency and moral reasoning, I maintain that the capacity to reason abstractly about the principles and consequences of our actions gives us more responsibilities than other animals have, but that this does not necessarily make us more competent moral agents than other social animals. I conclude with an overview of some of the implications that this change in perspective has for animal ethics. (shrink)

For centuries, Augustine of Hippo's writings have moved and fascinated readers. With the fresh, keen eye of a writer whose own intellectual analysis has won him a Pulitzer Prize, Garry Wills examines this famed fourth-century bishop and seminal thinker whose grounding in classical philosophy informed his influential interpretation of the Christian doctrines of mind and body, wisdom and God.Saint Augustine explores both the great ruminator on the human condition and the everyday man who set pen to parchment. It challenges (...) many misconceptions - among them those regarding his early sexual excesses. Here, for students, Christians, and voyagers into the new millennium, is a lively and incisive portrait of one who helped to shape our thought. (shrink)

Nanomedicine plays a prominent role among emerging technologies. The spectrum of potential applications is as broad as it is promising. It includes the use of nanoparticles and nanodevices for diagnostics, targeted drug delivery in the human body, the production of new therapeutic materials as well as nanorobots or nanoprotheses. Funding agencies are investing large sums in the development of this area, among them the European Commission, which has launched a large network for life-sciences related nanotechnology. At the same time government (...) agencies as well as the private sector are putting forward reports of working groups that have looked into the promises and risks of these developments. This paper will begin with an introduction to the central ethical themes as identified by selected reports from Europe and beyond. In a next step, it will analyse the most frequently invoked ethical concerns–risk assessment and management, the issues of human identity and enhancement, possible implications for civil liberties (e.g. nanodevices that might be used for covert surveillance), and concerns about equity and fair access. Although it seems that the main ethical issues are not unique to nanotechnologies, the conclusion will argue against shrugging them off as non-specific items that have been considered before in the context of other biomedical technologies, such as gene therapy or xenotransplantation. Rather, the paper will call on ethicists to help foster a rational, fair and participatory discourse on the different potential applications of nanotechnologies in medicine, which can form the basis for informed and responsible societal and political decisions. (shrink)

The concept of nonpropositionality covers the vast field of those aspects of knowledge and experience that cannot be captured by a truth-functional approach or escape conceptual analysis. The book is confined to questions of theoretical philosophy. Its first part provides an orientation within the nonpropositional jungle by critically following a historically beaten track: the philosophy of Gottlob Frege. It not only explains the propositional focus of Frege's epistemology, logic and philosophy of language against the historical background of psychologism but focuses (...) on the limits of this propositional approach. The critical analysis of Frege's logicist project centres on its foundational basis: definitions, logically primitive terms, elucidations of these terms as well as aspects of what Frege calls 'colouring'. The second part of the book echoes many of the central elements which mark the limits of Frege's propositional conception by dealing with the systematically pivotal role that the concept of nonpropositionality plays in contemporary analytical philosophy, especially within epistemology and philosophy of mind. Two main areas stand out: theories of perception and the discussion of inner experience. The focus here is on non-epistemic conceptions of seeing, the non-conceptual content of experience as well as on phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness. The pivotal claim is that the nonpropositional constitutes the basis of and a necessary condition for the propositional. Any attempt to embark on an analysis of the propositional and of propositional knowledge will float in the air unless the nonpropositional grounds are systematically secured. The book aims to close this gap. (shrink)

The aim of this volume is to investigate the topic of Substance and Attribute. The way leading to this aim is a dialogue between Islamic and Western Philosophy. Most of the collected papers in our book are results of contributions to a workshop, organized by the editors of the volume, as an integrated part of the 29th International Ludwig Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, Lower Austria, taking place in August 2006. The general theme of this conference was Cultures: Conflict, Analysis, Dialogue. (...) The organizational frame of the workshop and also of this edition is the partnership between the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria, the first formal high level academic partnership between an Iranian Institution and a European University. Dialogue is our aim, but not speaking about dialogue. Our dialogue shall be a work in practice; and our practice is a philosophical one. Our project is motivated by the observation that the roots of Islamic and of Western Philosophy are very similar. There is a strong consensus among historians of philosophy that these roots are the same in substance, and the differences are only of accidental importance. Some of the articles in this volume are dedicated to the history of philosophy, in Islamic thinking as well as in Western traditions. Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas are authors to whom reference is made in most of the historical contributions. Through their elaborations, these contributions will make clear what is mentioned here roughly. (shrink)

In this essay I closely look at dialogues from the Daoist text Zhuangzi and examine their modes of reasoning. The observations, comments, and dialogues are often witty, surprising, and puzzling. Sometimes they are mystic and difficult to understand. But how “reasonable” are the answers given in these dialogues? I will focus on a dialogue from chapter 17, called “Autumn Floods.” I will closely follow and analyze the arguments and their twists. In particular, I will question the use of the word (...) “Dao.” I will also place this analysis in broader comparative frameworks regarding rationality, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and Western traditions. (shrink)