The topic of mixed emotions has received considerable attention in recent years. However, two limitations in this research are the lack of (a) theoretical prediction regarding the types of conditions likely to cause one emotion to yield to another, and (b) attention given to the moment-to-moment (MTM) experience of mixed emotions. Using the empirical context of competitive contests, the mixed emotions state of suspense was manipulated in a series of studies designed to address these shortcomings. The results indicate that the (...) most appropriate emotion pair to describe suspense is hope and fear. In addition, we find that the juxtaposition of these two emotions over the temporal sequence relies on viewers’ interpretation of observed events relative to a preferred outcome. The results indicate a prevalence of bipolarity between hope and fear at lower levels of suspense and bivariance at higher levels. Given a high-suspense episode, both hope and fear are activated; whereas when suspense is low, hope (fear) is ascendant and fear (hope) declines when it becomes obvious a preferred competitor will ultimately win (lose). (shrink)

Many countries have attempted to transition to democracy following conflict or repression, but the basic meaning of transitional justice remains hotly contested. In this book, Colleen Murphy analyses transitional justice - showing how it is distinguished from retributive, corrective, and distributive justice - and outlines the ethical standards which societies attempting to democratize should follow. She argues that transitional justice involves the just pursuit of societal transformation. Such transformation requires political reconciliation, which in turn has a complex set of (...) institutional and interpersonal requirements including the rule of law. She shows how societal transformation is also influenced by the moral claims of victims and the demands of perpetrators, and how justice processes can fail to be just by failing to foster this transformation or by not treating victims and perpetrators fairly. Her book will be accessible and enlightening for philosophers, political and social scientists, policy analysts, and legal and human rights scholars and activists. (shrink)

Colleen Glenney Boggs puts animal representation at the center of the making of the liberal American subject. Concentrating on the formative and disruptive presence of animals in the writings of Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson, Boggs argues that animals are critical to the ways in which Americans enact their humanity and regulate subjects in the biopolitical state. Biopower, or a politics that extends its reach to life, thrives on the strategic ambivalence between who is considered human (...) and what is judged as animal. It generates a space of indeterminacy in which animal representations intervene to define and challenge the parameters of subjectivity. The renegotiation of the species line produces a tension that is never fully regulated. Therefore, as both figures of radical alterity and the embodiment of biopolitics, animals are simultaneously exceptional and exemplary to the biopolitical state. An original contribution to animal studies, American studies, critical race theory, and posthumanist inquiry, Boggs thrillingly reinterprets a long and highly contentious human-animal history. (shrink)

In their article “Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs,” Earp, Lewis, and Hart argue for the end of our War on Drugs in order to alleviate our reliance on mass incarceration, harm...

Research on moral distress has paid limited attention to nurses’ responses and actions. In a survey of nurses’ perceptions of moral distress and ethical climate, 292 nurses answered three open-ended questions about situations that they considered morally distressing. Participants identified a range of situations as morally distressing, including witnessing unnecessary suffering, being forced to provide care that compromised values, and negative judgments about patients. They linked these situations to contextual constraints such as workload and described responses, including feeling incompetent and (...) distancing themselves from patients. Participants described considerable effort to effect change, calling into question the utility of defining moral distress as an “inability to act due to institutional constraints” or a “failure to pursue a right course of action.” Various understandings of moral distress operated, and action was integral to their responses. The findings suggest further conceptual work on moral distress and effort to support system-level change. (shrink)

Several recent studies indicate that cheating has become both more prevalent and more socially acceptable. In this article I draw parallels between market values and student attitudes about cheating. They include: (1) reduction of a broad range of goods to their economic value, (2) use of non-reciprocity as a guiding principle, (3) valuing the appearance of virtue over real virtue, and (4) reframing dishonesty in a positive light. I posit two ways that market culture influences the willingness to cheat, and (...) discuss the media's role in transmitting this influence. The article concludes with the suggestion that attempts to curtail cheating by further policing students may only exacerbate the problem in the long run. The same contextual factors that help mitigate undesirable market behavior, when cultivated in the classroom, can help to curb student cheating. (shrink)

Following extended periods of conflict or repression, political reconciliation is indispensable to the establishment or restoration of democratic relationships and critical to the pursuit of peacemaking globally. In this book, Colleen Murphy offers an innovative analysis of the moral problems plaguing political relationships under the strain of civil conflict and repression. Focusing on the unique moral damage that attends the deterioration of political relationships, Murphy identifies the precise kinds of repair and transformation that processes of political reconciliation ought to (...) promote. Building on this analysis, she proposes a normative model of political relationships. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation delivers an original account of the failure and restoration of political relationships, which will be of interest to philosophers, social scientists, legal scholars, policy analysts, and all those who are interested in transitional justice, global politics, and democracy. (shrink)

There has been a great deal of interest in medieval action theory in recent years. Nonetheless, relatively little work has been done on figures prior to the so-called High Middle Ages, and much of what has been done has focused on better-known thinkers, such as Augustine and Anselm. By comparison, Bernard of Clairvaux's treatise, De gratia et libero arbitrio has been neglected. Yet his treatise is quoted widely by such important scholars as Philip the Chancellor, Alexander of Hales, and Albertus (...) Magnus. Some historians of philosophy argue that his writings inspired the voluntarist movement that developed in the 1270s. Thus, Bernard must be seen as an important influence upon later medieval theories of action. In this paper, I examine the basic structure of his interesting account of human action and its freedom and conclude by raising some further issues connected to his work. /// Nos últimos anos assistiu-se a uma retoma do interesse pela teoria medieval da acção. Apesar disso, poucos estudos têm versado sobre os pensadores anteriores à assim chamada Alta Idade Média, para além de que esses estudos se debruçam sobretudo sobre os filósofos mais conhecidos, como é o caso de Agostinho e de Anselmo. Comparativamente, o tratado de S. Bernardo de Claraval, De gratia et libero arbítrio, não tem suscitado muita atenção crítica. Contudo, numerosos pensadores citaram este tratado, entre eles Filipe o Chanceler, Alexandre de Hales, e Alberto Magno. Vários histonadores da filosofia têm avançado a tese de que os escritos de Bernardo influenciaram o movimento voluntarista que se desenvolveu nos anos 1270. Nesse sentido, as ideias de Bernardo de Claraval tiveram um certo impacto sobre as teorias da acção que haveriam de aparecer mais tarde. No presente artigo, a autora examina as ideias do pensador medieval sobre a acção humana e a sua liberdade, terminando com o levantar de algumas novas questões sobre o tratado de Bernardo de Claraval. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a Capabilities -based Approach to the acceptability and the tolerability of risks posed by natural and man-made hazards. We argue that judgments about the acceptability and/or tolerability of such risks should be based on an evaluation of the likely societal impact of potential hazards, defined in terms of the expected changes in the capabilities of individuals. Capabilities refer to the functionings, or valuable doings and beings, individuals are able to achieve given available personal, material, and (...) social resources. The likely impact of a hazard on individuals’ capabilities should, we argue, be compared against two separate thresholds. The first threshold specifies the minimum level of capabilities attainment that is acceptable in principle for individuals to have in the aftermath of a hazard over any period of time. This threshold captures the level that individuals’ capabilities ideally should not fall below. A risk is acceptable if the probability that the attained capabilities will be less than the acceptable level is sufficiently small. In practice, it can be tolerable for some individuals to temporarily fall below the acceptable threshold, provided this situation of lower capabilities attainment is temporary, reversible, and the probability that capabilities will fall below a tolerability threshold is sufficiently small. This second, tolerable threshold delimits an absolute minimum level of capabilities attainment below which no individual in a society should ever fall, regardless of whether that level of capabilities attainment is temporary or reversible. In this paper, we describe and justify this Capabilities -based Approach to the acceptability and tolerability of risks. We argue that the proposed theoretical framework avoids the limitations in current approaches to acceptable risk. The proposed approach focuses the attention of risk analysts directly on what should be our primary concern when judging the acceptability and the tolerability of risks, namely, how risks impact the well-being of individuals in a society. Also, our Capabilities -based Approach offers a transparent, easily communicable way for determining the acceptability and the tolerability of risks. (shrink)

The development of the curriculum for engineering education should be based on a comprehensive understanding of engineers’ responsibilities. The responsibilities that are constitutive of being an engineer include striving to fulfill the standards of excellence set by technical codes; to improve the idealized models that engineers use to predict, for example, the behavior of alternative designs; and to achieve the internal goods such as safety and sustainability as they are reflected in the design codes. Globalization has implications for these responsibilities (...) and, in turn, for engineering education, by, for example, modifying the collection of possible solutions recognized for existing problems. In addition, international internships can play an important role in fostering the requisite moral imagination of engineering students. (shrink)

Abstract Medical futility is commonly understood as treatment that would not provide for any meaningful benefit for the patient. While the medical facts will help to determine what is medically appropriate, it is often difficult for patients, families, surrogate decision-makers and healthcare providers to navigate these difficult situations. Often communication breaks down between those involved or reaches an impasse. This paper presents a set of practical strategies for dealing with cases of perceived medical futility at a major cancer center. Content (...) Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s10730-011-9168-3 Authors Colleen M. Gallagher, Section for Integrated Ethics in Cancer Care, Unit 1430, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, P.O. Box 301402, Houston, TX 77230-1402, USA Ryan F. Holmes, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA Journal HEC Forum Online ISSN 1572-8498 Print ISSN 0956-2737. (shrink)

This purpose of this qualitative study was to gather detailed information about student perceptions of self-plagiarism and the perceived effectiveness of a brief self-plagiarism video tutorial. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and health sciences doctoral students were queried regarding their knowledge and perceptions of self- plagiarism. The population for this study was new doctoral students, as well as students who had committed self-plagiarism during the semester. Overall, participants reported a specific self-plagiarism intervention was more helpful in preventing self- plagiarism than a (...) traditional plagiarism intervention and that the intervention should be included in initial program orientation. Overwhelmingly, students did not believe self- plagiarism was a serious academic offense and think they own their intellectual property and unpublished works. (shrink)

Medieval thinkers were both puzzled and fascinated by the capacity of human beings to do what is morally wrong. In this book, Colleen McCluskey offers the first comprehensive examination of Thomas Aquinas' explanation for moral wrongdoing. Her discussion takes in Aquinas' theory of human nature and action, and his explanation of wrong action in terms of defects in human capacities including the intellect, the will, and the passions of the sensory appetite. She also looks at the notion of privation, (...) which underlies Aquinas' account of wrongdoing, as well as his theory of the vices, which intersects with his basic account. The result is a thorough exploration of Aquinas' psychology which is both accessible and illuminating, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers in Aquinas studies, medieval philosophy, the history of theology, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

In this work, Colleen Clements presents her case for the need to subject the field of bioethics to a critical external analysis apart from the current postmodern assumptions. Clements argues that, since the 1970s, bioethics has refuted human values in favour of political consensus building. This failure to recognize basic human values in the ethical critique of modern medicine has lead to a dehumanization of the medical system by the field. Clements proceeds to advocate a naturalistic theory of bioethics (...) that reinstates primary human values. (shrink)

My critical commentary focuses on Victor Tadros’ analysis of accountability for violations of the (revised) laws of armed conflict (LOAC) that he lays out (Tadr.

It is often argued that the rule of law is only instrumentally morally valuable, valuable when and to the extent that a legal system is used to purse morally valuable ends. In this paper, I defend Lon Fuller’s view that the rule of law has conditional non-instrumental as well as instrumental moral value. I argue, along Fullerian lines, that the rule of law is conditionally non-instrumentally valuable in virtue of the way a legal system structures political relationships. The rule of (...) law specifies a set of requirements which lawmakers must respect if they are to govern legally. As such, the rule of law restricts the illegal or extra-legal use of power. When a society rules by law, there are clear rules articulating the behavior appropriate for citizens and officials. Such rules ideally determine the particular contours political relationships will take. When the requirements of the rule of law are respected, the political relationships structured by the legal system constitutively express the moral values of reciprocity and respect for autonomy. The rule of law is instrumentally valuable, I argue, because in practice the rule of law limits the kind of injustice which governments pursue. There is in practice a deeper connection between ruling by law and the pursuit of moral ends than advocates of the standard view recognize. The next part of this paper outlines Lon Fuller’s conception of the rule of law and his explanation of its moral value. The third.. (shrink)

Femininity and whiteness dominate Western nursing, silencing ontologies and epistemologies that do not align with these dominant norms while perpetuating systemic racism and discrimination in nursing practice, education, research, nursing activism, and sociopolitical structures. We propose Black feminist thought as a praxis to decenter, deconstruct, and unseat these ideologies and systems of power. Drawing from the work of past and present Black feminist scholars, we examine the ontological and epistemological perspectives of Black feminist thought. These include (i) the uniqueness and (...) particular experiences of people, (ii) the acceptance of ontological and epistemological pluralism of truths and ways of knowing, and (iii) the mandate for equity in the health, social, political, and environmental structures of society. By focusing our attention on lived experiences and voices of those systematically excluded in nursing practice, education, research, and society, Black feminist thought offers an anticolonial, antiracist, and antidiscriminatory foundation for more effectively upholding nursing's disciplinary mandate for social justice and equity. (shrink)

Zenons Politeia, der Entwurf eines idealen Staates aus G ttern und Weisen, erf hrt in der vorliegenden Studie eine neue Deutung als Gesellschaftsform, in der das Leben nach dem Gesetz der Natur verwirklicht ist.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Moral ScienceColleen McCluskeyDenis J. M. Bradley. Aquinas on the Twofold Human Good: Reason and Human Happiness in Aquinas's Moral Science. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997. Pp. vii-xiv + 610.In this book, Bradley examines whether one can construct an autonomous Thomistic philosophical ethics from Thomas Aquinas's theologically flavored moral writings. In order (...) to answer this question, Bradley provides a comprehensive analysis not only of Aquinas's moral psychology, but also of the Aristotelian doctrines which to a certain extent provide its foundation. Bradley begins with a look at Aristotle's concept of a science, his notion of practical reasoning, and his accounts of deliberation, choice, and the ultimate end for human beings. Bradley also discusses Aquinas's interpretations of those theories and the extent to which Aquinas's views follow and diverge from Aristotle's writings. The metaphysical principles grounding the notions of a science, of being, and of goodness and their connections to Aquinas's ethics are noted and explained. In his discussion of the moral theory itself, Bradley frames his presentation around Aquinas's theory of action (especially its volitional aspects and the workings of practical reason) and the role of natural law, although the virtues are not neglected. Bradley's treatment throughout the book is meticulous (although in my view somewhat repetitive).The most interesting aspect of this book is Bradley's discussion of the paradoxical nature of Aquinas's ethical theory. As he notes, Aquinas's theory has a teleological orientation; his system is structured around the idea that human beings have a particular ultimate end. Aquinas argues that due to their nature, all human beings desire to attain their ultimate end. As is also well-known, Aquinas specifies that this end is the beatific vision and that only the vision of the divine essence is able to satisfy completely [End Page 118] all human desires. However, this end is not only inaccessible to human beings in this life, but one that they are unable to obtain without the aid of God's grace. But it follows from this that human beings have a natural desire that cannot be satisfied naturally, a paradoxical position, especially for an Aristotelian. For according to Bradley, Aquinas argues that although one can establish through philosophical arguments that human beings have a natural desire which only God can satisfy, no philosophical argument can establish that God, in fact, ever satisfies this desire. That God chooses to do so is a matter of faith and revelation. Thus, as far as philosophy is concerned, human beings may have been structured with an unsatisfiable desire. This violates an important Aristotelian notion about teleology, the idea that there can be no futile natural desire. The inability to satisfy a natural desire for an ultimate end renders a teleologically based system incoherent. It follows that. given his characterization of the ultimate end, a characterization that Aquinas thinks he can establish on philosophical grounds alone, his purely theological commitments are integral and necessary components of his moral system. Thus, Bradley's answer to the question he raises in the book is no, one cannot construct an autonomous Thomistic philosophical ethics from Aquinas's moral writings.In the process of arriving at this conclusion, Bradley critiques the work of two philosophers, Jacques Maritain and Santiago M. Ramirez, both of whom argue that a purely philosophical ethics can be built out of Aquinas's writings, although both maintain that Aquinas himself did not do so. Maritain and Ramirez take Thomistic philosophical ethics to retain basic Christian beliefs but to be established on the basis of natural reasoning processes alone, independently of revelation. Bradley raises a number of objections against their characterizations of Thomistic ethics, among them the worry that, ultimately, such philosophical systems are not truly independent of a theological ethics (pace Maritain) and the charge that Aquinas's characterizations of the supernatural nature of the human ultimate end is not taken seriously (Ramirez).Space permits only a cursory examination of some general concerns over Bradley's position. Bradley argues that what is fundamental to... (shrink)

As the patient drew her last breaths, with her daughter at her bedside, and the curtain closed across the room, my resident, whom I will call Emma, talked me through what was happening. She explained that the patient's only hope for survival had been surgery, yet surgery would surely have killed her. Emma talked about the different ways different families approach withdrawing the level of care provided in the intensive care unit, allowing a loved one's death. She talked about how (...) hard it is to leave behind everything that happens in this job when she goes home. An intern arrived to make the declaration of death, and Emma encouraged me to go back into the patient's room for this. I placed my stethoscope on the patient's still chest, confirming what we already knew to be true. Death was palpable in that room, and my response was visceral. I did my best to leave the ICU calmly and then ran down five flights of stairs to the hospital chapel and sobbed. When I returned, Emma could see that I was shaken. “It's human,” she told me. In the afternoon, I felt the deep tiredness that I always feel after really crying. In that haze of emotion, I wasn't sure quite how to respond when Emma's next activity for us was to find a patient who needed an arterial blood gas. (shrink)

It is easy to call for public engagement (or dialogue) around difficult, morally fraught policy topics such as synthetic biology, but it is quite another thing to make sure that the deliberation is meaningful, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray aptly insist it should be. The surveys, focus groups, and public dialogues that have been held about synthetic biology to date show a very low level of public knowledge about it. Focus group findings also suggest that the in­herent uncertainty and complexity (...) surrounding synthetic biology give rise to greater ambivalence moving forward. The Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Hart Research Associates presented respondents with a “balanced description” of synthetic biology in nation­wide phone surveys and eight sessions of focus groups and found that, after respondents received information, the percentage saying that the risks outweighed the ben­efits consistently increased.In my view, the Hart research suggests three very im­portant conclusions about how best to structure public deliberation. First, information about uncertainty may not inform the public in any meaningful way. Second, the purpose of assessing public opinion and conduct­ing public deliberation is crucially important. Third, as Kaebnick, Gusmano, and Murray point out, the type and framing of the information given and the timing of the discussion matters a great deal for shaping the content. (shrink)

Processes of transitional justice deal with large-scale wrongdoing committed during extended periods of conflict or repression. This paper discusses three common moral objections to processes of transitional justice, which I label shaking hands with the devil, selling victims short, and entrenching the status quo. Given the scale of wrongdoing and the context in which transitional justice processes are adopted, compromise is necessary. To respond to these objections, I argue, it is necessary to articulate the conditions that make a compromise principled. (...) I defend three criteria that distinguish principled from unprincipled compromises. (shrink)

During his long and continuing scholarly career, Patrick Suppes contributed significantly both to the sciences and to their philosophies. The volume consists of papers by an international group of Suppes colleagues, collaborators, and students in many of the areas of his expertise, building on or adding to his insights. Michael Friedman offers an overview of Suppes accomplishments and of his unique perspective on the relation between science and philosophy. Paul Humphreys, Stephen Hartmann, and Tom Ryckman present essays in the philosophy (...) of physics. Jens-Erik Fenstad, Harvey Friedman, and Jaako Hintikka consider problems in the foundations of mathematics, while the late Duncan Luce, Jean-Claude Falmagne, Brian Skyrms, and Hannes Leitgeb have contributed essays in theory of measurement, decision theory and probability. Foundations of economics and political theory are addressed by Adolfo Garcia de la Sienra, Russell Hardin, and Kenneth Arrow. Psychology, language, and philosophy of language are addressed by Elizabeth Loftus, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Willem Levelt, Dagfinn Follesdal, and Marcos Perreau-Guimares and some of Suppes most recent research in neurobiology is addressed in essays by Colleen Crangle, Acadio de Barros and Claudio Carvalhes. Finally Nancy Cartwright and Alexandre Marcelles consider the alignment (or misalignment) of method and policy. Each of the essays is accompanied by a response from Suppes.". (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to assess student perceptions of self-plagiarism. Students at three university campuses offering graduate and undergraduate classes in a residential and online format were queried; 284 students responded. Overwhelmingly, students perceived they owned their own previous published works and over half reported they believed self-plagiarism should not be considered an academic honesty offense. Most faculty members did not provide information about self-plagiarism to their students. Only about one-fourth of the students reported recycling parts of an (...) assignment in the past. Students who took online courses were more likely to have been educated about self-plagiarism than those who took residential courses. Understanding students’ perceptions about academic honesty offenses such as plagiarism can help institutions develop effective policies and interventions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Avner de Shalit’s central claim in “Political Philosophy and What People Think” is that political philosophers should take seriously the views of the public, but in practice philosophers do not do this. Moreover, philosophers lack adequate justifications for this lack of consideration. In my commentary, I first discuss de Shalit’s rebuttal of arguments that claim political philosophy searches for the truth and the truth is not empirical, which overlooks, in my view, a central debate among contemporary political philosophers as (...) to whether theorizing about principles of justice ought to be based on a consideration of empirical facts. I then articulate what I see as critical impediments to analytically trained political philosophers realizing the contributions to politics that de Shalit envisions, specifically in the form of identifying and constructively critiquing actual injustice. Finally, I suggest that even if the methodology of political philosophy is sufficiently revised to overcome methodological and training limitations, the notion of public will need to be complicated and the scope of critical examination expanded beyond the explicit arguments in favor of or against particular policies. (shrink)

In evidence-based medicine (EBM), methodology has become the central means of determining the quality of the evidence base. The “gold standard” method, the randomised, controlled trial (RCT), imbues medical research with an ethos of disinterestedness; yet, as this essay argues, the RCT is itself a rhetorically interested construct essential to medical-professional boundary work. Using the example of debates about methodology in EBM-oriented research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), practices not easily tested by RCTs, I frame the problem of method (...) as a fundamentally rhetorical problem, situated within a boundary drama, and deeply rooted in the discursive practices of science and medicine. The genre of the RCT report, for example, idealises the research process and can tilt the course of arguments about CAM, while the notion of efficacy can function as a rhetorically mobile boundary object that can redefine the very terms of debate. I suggest herein that arguments about method in CAM debates can productively be read, metonymically, as expressions of more general anxieties in medicine about knowledge and evidence, community values, and professional boundaries; as such, these debates can illuminate some of the rhetorical dimensions of EBM. (shrink)

European Journal of Political Theory, Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 608-614, July 2022. In The Shifting Border, Ayelet Shachar argues that the exercise of sovereign power through border regimes no longer tracks territorial boundaries. In my commentary, I first argue that Shachar’s analysis implicitly calls into question the legitimacy of the international order. I then raise the worry that the logic which severs the link between the exercise of sovereignty and territory is the same logic that can be used to (...) justify injustice and atrocity such as ethnic cleansing. Shachar’s normative proposals do not sufficiently recognize or guard against this risk. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 491-533 [Access article in PDF] Worthy Constraints in Albertus Magnus's Theory of Action Colleen McCluskey Many medieval accounts of action focus upon the interaction between intellect and will in order to explain how human action comes about. What moves agents to act are their desires for certain goals, their deliberations about their goals, and what it will take to accomplish (...) those goals and satisfy their desires. Thus, many medieval philosophers explain human action by referring to the operations of intellect or reason, which accounts for the deliberative aspect, and the will, which accounts for the desiderative aspect. This is not to say that medieval accounts ignored other influences on action such as passions or sensory desires, but that they tended to focus on the intellect and the will. The account of action developed by Albert the Great early in his career is a notable variation on this basic model. 1 Albert examined the nature of action in a number of texts written over the course of his long career, including De homine, De anima, and his commentaries on the Sentences and Nicomachean Ethics. In De homine, which is an early work, he agrees that intellect and will play important roles in the execution of action, but he argues that both the performance of an action and its freedom involve a third capacity that he calls "liberum arbitrium." Albert modified his views of action significantly in his later works, but I shall argue that this early view retains something of philosophical interest and importance.In the medieval philosophical tradition of the Latin West, beginning with Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries and continuing well into the thirteenth century, philosophers used the term "liberum arbitrium," often translated [End Page 491] as "free choice" or "free decision," as a technical term for that power or capacity in virtue of which human beings act freely. 2 In the first half of the thirteenth century, many philosophers identified liberum arbitrium either with the will, or with both intellect and will. In De homine, Albert insists that it is a separate capacity. According to his account, liberum arbitrium is the human capacity for choice and also helps to explain the freedom of those choices. Although Albert ultimately characterizes an act of choosing as an inclination in favor of a particular course of action, a certain cognitive ability plays an important role in his account. Part of what makes human freedom possible is the ability to judge secundum rationem honesti. Literally this phrase means "in accordance with the concept of what has worth." I shall argue that this capacity consists of the ability to evaluate choices in light of one's immediate, intermediate, or ultimate objectives and to forgo lesser goods for the sake of a greater good. It would appear that an ability of this sort is a function of the intellect, since judgments about how to accomplish one's goals and which goods are the better ones require the exercise of certain abstract cognitive skills. But Albert holds that the intellect is determined and concludes that while the intellect is a necessary condition for free action, the constraints placed upon it prevent it from contributing substantially to the freedom of an action. Since the ability to judge secundum rationem honesti plays an integral role in bringing about a free action, Albert cannot argue that this ability is a function of the intellect. Although the will has the requisite freedom, it is an appetitive capacity, not a cognitive one. Therefore, it too is unable to fulfill this role. Given these commitments, it would seem natural for Albert to locate this ability in an independent power.As natural as it may appear, this position is bound to strike many philosophers as implausible and unnecessary. One could argue that the constraints placed upon the intellect need not restrict it in any significant way. I do not plan to defend Albert's account against this objection. Rather, first, I shall [End Page 492] examine Albert's view of... (shrink)

A number of sport philosophers have noted the potential of sport as meaningful narrative and storytelling. While these arguments are convincing, they fail to acknowledge that not all athletes exper...