The concept of cultural capital has been increasingly used in American sociology to study the impact of cultural reproduction on social reproduction. However, much confusion surrounds this concept. In this essay, we disentangle Bourdieu and Passeron's original work on cultural capital, specifying the theoretical roles cultural capital plays in their model, and the various types of high status signals they are concerned with. We expand on their work by proposing a new definition of cultural capital which focuses on cultural and (...) social exclusion. We note a number of theoretical ambiguities and gaps in the original model, as well as specific methodological problems. In the second section, we shift our attention to the American literature on cultural capital. We discuss its assumptions and compare it with the original work. We also propose a research agenda which focuses on social and cultural selection and decouples cultural capital from the French context in which it was originally conceived to take into consideration the distinctive features of American culture. This agenda consists in 1) assessing the relevance of the concept of legitimate culture in the U.S.; 2) documenting the distinctive American repertoire of high status cultural signals; and 3) analyzing how cultural capital is turned into profits in America. (shrink)

Principles of distributive justice are normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity.

Many have argued that individuals should receive income in proportion to their contribution to society. Others have believed that it would be fairer if people received income in proportion to the effort they expend in so contributing, since people have much greater control over their level of effort than their productivity. I argue that those who believe this are normally also committed, despite appearances, to increasing the social product — which undermines any sharp distinction between effort- and productivity-based distributive proposals. (...) However, effort-based proposals do emphasise more the importance of people having control over factors affecting their income. The second set of problems I consider is how to implement policies which hold true to this emphasis. I show that there are major problems with the accuracy of using any objective criteria to measure the level of effort a person is expending. Moreover, once any such criteria are employed the problem of ‘moral hazard’arises because people modify their behaviour in such a way as to maximise their income while minimising their effort. This violates the original motivation for using effort. Because of this and other empirical considerations, I argue that productivity may well be a better criterion on which to distribute income even if one is motivated by the same concerns which have prompted effort-based proposals. (shrink)

Real and Personal Rights.—In different systems of legal nomenclature the term “right” has different meanings, some writers applying it in a restricted, and others in a wider, sense. I shall use it in its wider sense as including “personal rights,” “proprietary rights,” “powers,” “liberties,” “licences,” and so on. The precise meaning of these various kinds of right need not be discussed here, because all legal rights can be broadly divided into two main classes—“personal rights” and “real rights.” As reference will (...) occasionally be made to this broad distinction, a brief explanation of its character is necessary. According to Gloag and Henderson, the difference between real rights and personal rights is correlative to the distinction between duties and obligations. Thus, if I have the full proprietary right in a certain article, including possession and use, this is called a Real Right; and I can make the demand against men in general, or “the world at large,” that my possession and use should not be interfered with. The world at large owes me the Duty of non-interference. I may, however, lend my property to someone for a stated period; and at the end of this period I have the right that he in particular should perform the specific act of returning my property to me. Here it is said that I have a Personal Right against him, and that he has an Obligation to perform this specific act. (shrink)

1. Aim and Scope of this Paper.—In this paper I shall try to show that “duty” derives its significance from its relation to “interest,” and that the former concept cannot be understood when taken apart from its relation to the latter. Such a doctrine is, I am aware, rejected by some contemporary philosophers; and I shall, I trust, make it sufficiently clear in the sequel why I am unable to accept their view.I am not, however, concerned primarily with criticism of (...) other theories. This paper represents an attempt to interpret a particular province of “the common moral consciousness” and to elicit the principles there implied. I begin by accepting the view that, like natural science, ethics has its data, and that it is the business of ethics to interpret these data which are the contents of the “moral consciousness.” In Section A I discuss various methods which may be used for the discovery of the relevant data, and suggest that initial enquiries can most fruitfully be pursued in the field of law and custom. In Section B I undertake an analysis of the principles of the law relating to promise-keeping. As a result of what is there found, it becomes necessary, in Section C, to discuss the nature of rights and their relation to interests, and, in Section D, the nature of duties and their relation to rights. (shrink)

This article presents a remarkable cache of five Attic curse tablets, four of which are published here for the first time. Excavated in situ in a pyre-grave outside the Athenian Long Walls, the texts employ very similar versions of a single binding curse. After situating the cache in its archaeological context, all texts are edited with a full epigraphic commentary. A discussion then follows, in which the most striking features of the texts are highlighted: in addition to the peculiar “first (...) four-year period” that the curses were meant to outlast, and the unparalleled term κυνωτόν, these texts are unusual in that they preserve over a full line of dactylic hexameter. The metrical formulae, combined with the presence of deictic language, may suggest that parts of the archetype curse underpinning these texts once circulated orally, in performative ritual contexts. The cache affords a singular glimpse into the process of curse-creation around 400 BCE, especially the ways in which a curse-writer could customize a fixed template spell to suit a client’s needs and circumstances. These tablets illuminate the shadowy process behind the creation of Athenian curse tablets, and the growing traffic in “magic” by the end of the fifth century BCE. (shrink)

The paper corrects misrepresentations of Aquinas's understanding of divine simplicity, argues that the reasons he gives for divine simplicity are persuasive ones, and suggests how Aquinas's account of the Trinity can be used to explain how God can be said to exist necessarily. It gives an account of Aquinas's conception of form and individualised form, and shows how Plantinga's criticism of Aquinas's position on divine simplicity rests on a misunderstanding of Aquinas's notion of form. It describes and makes the case (...) for Aquinas's argument that God must be absolutely simply because he is the uncaused cause of all effects, and any real composition in things constitutes an effect. It shows that Brian Davies is mistaken in claiming that Aquinas does not hold God's existence to be logically necessary. It applies Frege's conception of existence to Aquinas's account of God's simplicity and his psychological analogy for the Trinity, in order to explain how God's existence can coherently be said to be logically necessary. (shrink)

Jennifer Bird-Pollan has recently argued that Nozickians are wrong to oppose the estate tax. Promising to argue from within the Nozickian framework, she presses the fundamental point that the estate tax does not violate anyone’s rights: neither the deceased nor their would-be heirs can claim a right to any holdings subject to the estate tax. This paper shows that Bird-Pollan’s discussion fails on three fronts. First, she frequently misinterprets Nozick, and thus does not defend the estate tax from a Nozickian (...) perspective. Second, even if Bird-Pollan is correct in denying that the deceased and their potential heirs have a right to the holdings in question, it does not follow that the estate tax is licit, because Nozickians can oppose it on other grounds. For example, Nozickians may hold that the enforcement of the estate tax will violate other rights people have. The government’s preemptive claims to holdings subject to estate taxes, along with the force required to enforce those claims, are unjustified. The crucial premise motivating these conclusions is the Nozickian denial that our current state possesses the authority to enforce the estate tax. This is the third front on which Bird-Pollan’s argument fails: she must show that Nozickians ought to believe government has the moral authority to enforce the estate tax, yet she makes no effort to do so. (shrink)

Using philosophical and theological reflection, this book explores the rational grounding for Christian faith, inquiring into the basis for believing the Christian revelation, and using the answers to give an account of Christian faith itself. Setting the discussion in the context of the history of views on revelation, Divine Faith makes an original contribution to historiography and draws out hitherto unnoticed affinities between Catholic and Protestant thought. Re-examining the question from the beginning by asking how it is that the Christian (...) revelation is made, Lamont then looks at the fundamental philosophical issues concerning the nature of knowledge and the reasonableness of belief in testimony that are crucial to an understanding of Christian belief. Through theological considerations on the relations of grace and the church, and new advances in the philosophy of belief in testimony and how God speaks to communicate the Christian religion, this book offers an original and powerful account of the nature of Christian belief. (shrink)

Courtship conventions are premised on widespread and deeply held cultural beliefs that men and women need and want different things from their romantic relationships. Yet queer relationships challenge the notion of distinct gendered behaviors in romantic relationships, and queer people often explicitly seek to undermine conventional relationship practices. Using interview data from 40 LGBTQ-identified respondents, I examine how queer people negotiate culturally dominant gendered dating and courtship practices. My findings show that, rather than replicate heterosexual norms, respondents actively reject them, (...) seeking new and more egalitarian ways of building romantic relationships. Significantly, the narratives drawn on to justify egalitarian dating practices are similar to those used in their committed relationships. Respondents emphasized egalitarian, flexible, and non-gendered care work in committed relationships, indicating that how people date may potentially set the stage for the dynamics in their relationships. The importance placed on these alternative norms in queer communities, however, contradicts respondents’ assertions that they can create relationships free from cultural constraints, demonstrating how emerging norms can breed their own pressures for conformity. (shrink)

Epistemological differences fuel continuous and frequently divisive debates in the social sciences and the humanities. Sociologists have yet to consider how such differences affect peer evaluation. The empirical literature has studied distributive fairness, but neglected how epistemological differences affect perception of fairness in decision making. The normative literature suggests that evaluators should overcome their epistemological differences by ‘‘translating’’ their preferred standards into general criteria of evaluation. However, little is known about how procedural fairness actually operates. Drawing on eighty-one interviews with (...) panelists serving on five multidisciplinary fellowship competitions in the social sciences and the humanities, we show that Evaluators generally draw on four epistemological styles to make arguments in favor of and against proposals. These are the constructivist, comprehensive, positivist, and utilitarian styles; and Peer reviewers define a fair decision-making process as one in which panelists engage in ‘‘cognitive contextualization,’’ that is, use epistemological styles most appropriate to the field or discipline of the proposal under review. (shrink)

Introduction: Healthcare practitioners have a legal, ethical and professional obligation to obtain patient consent for all healthcare treatments. There is increasing evidence which suggests dissonance and variation in practice in assessment of decision-making capacity and consent processes. Aims: This study explores healthcare practitioners’ knowledge and practices of assessing decision-making capacity and obtaining patient consent to treatment in the acute generalist setting. Methods: An exploratory descriptive cross-sectional survey design, using an online questionnaire, method was employed with all professional groups invited via (...) email to participate. Data were collected over 3 months from July to September 2015. Survey content and format was reviewed by the liaison psychiatry team and subsequently contained five sections (demographics, general knowledge and practice, delirium context, legal aspects and education/training). Descriptive, univariate and bivariate analysis of quantitative data and qualitative content analysis of qualitative data were undertaken. Ethical considerations: The study was approved by the institutional Human Research and Ethics Committee and informed consent was taken to be provided by participants upon completion and submission of the de-identified survey. Results: In total, 86 participants engaged the survey with n = 24, exiting at the first consent question. Almost two-thirds of respondents indicated that all treatments required patient consent. Knowledge of consent and decision-making capacity as legal constructs was deficient. Decision-making capacity was primarily assessed using professional judgement and perceived predominantly as the responsibility of medical and psychology staff. A range of patient psychological and behavioural symptoms were identified as indicators requiring assessment of decision-making capacity. Despite this, many patients with delirium have their decision-making capacity assessed and documented only sometimes. Uncertain knowledge and inconsistent application of legislative frameworks are evident. Many participants were unsure of the legal mechanisms for obtaining substitute consent in patients with impaired decision-making capacity and refusing treatment. Conclusion: The legal context of decision-making capacity and consent to treatment appears complex for healthcare practitioners. Professional, ethical and legal standards of care in this context can benefit from structured education programmes and supportive governance processes. An understanding of why ‘duty of care’ is being used as a framework within the context of impaired decision-making capacity is warranted, alongside a review of the context of Duty of Care within health policy, guidance and faculty teaching. (shrink)

In this paper I shall explain what I take to be the nature of justice; and the method which I shall follow is that of attempting to infer the essential nature of justice from an examination of its actual practical operation. Perhaps the reader will be able to follow the drift of the argument more easily, and be more on his guard against possible misstatements of fact or erroneous inferences, if I mention at the outset the main conclusions to which (...) I hope to lead him. (shrink)

In this article, the author diagnoses the cause of Rand's problematic position on intellectual property. He argues that Rand treats credit as a very thick concept. Rand sees crediting a person with inventing something as granting that person a right to the money embodied in the invention, its sale, and the profits related to licensing reproduction. The author shows that this thick notion of credit leads Rand to make several questionable claims in her arguments for intellectual property rights.

Marxists claim capitalists unjustly exploit workers, and this exploitation is to show that workers ought to hold more than they do. This paper presents two accounts of exploitation. The Theft Account claims that capitalists steal some of the value to which workers are entitled. The Underpayment Account holds that capitalists are not entitled to pay workers as little as they do, even if the workers are not entitled to the full value they produce. This paper argues that only the Theft (...) Account can explain why workers ought to hold more than they do. The Underpayment Account cannot yield this conclusion. The Theft Account is superior to the Underpayment Account insofar as exploitation is to be an injustice—a wrong that requires the exploited party to hold more. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is a fairly prominent theory of justice. While there are many versions of LE, they all agree that, at least to some extent, it is unjust for individuals to lose the opportunity for welfare at least when that loss occurs through no fault of the individual’s own. Many writers take LE to have direct political implications; they write as if the truth of LE entails that resources should be taken from some – perhaps those who enjoy lots of (...) unearned welfare – and delivered to those who suffer through no fault of their own. I argue that luck egalitarians should refocus their thinking on what I call a “Systemic Model” of compensation. This model holds that what matters most to offsetting bad brute luck is that individuals have opportunities to make up for losses of welfare and political systems should be designed to prevent some individuals from capturing resources in a manner that frustrates the ability of others to offset their own losses due to unearned bad luck and political systems should aim to maximize the opportunities individuals have to make up for their own bad luck. (shrink)

Eric Mack defends a version of John Locke’s proviso. Mack applies his proviso to original appropriations, uses, and systems of private property. His proviso precludes severely disabling the world-interactive powers of others. Mack specifically warns against using concrete features of the natural world as a baseline for determine whether the proviso has been violated. While his proviso is plausible, I argue that he cannot. eschew employing the receptivity of the natural, unowned world to the extent that he suggests. We cannot (...) determine whether one’s powers are disabled or diminished without knowing how receptive the world would be to those powers had a system of private property not arisen. The upshot of this paper is that the requirements of a well-formulated proviso is an empirical matter. (shrink)

: Fabian Wendt proposes combining libertarian foundations with a proviso that requires a just system of private property to ensure that everyone has a sufficient amount of resources to pursue projects. He calls this proviso a sufficiency proviso. This proviso is said to have advantages over all rival provisos “because it better coheres with the […].

Karl Widerquist has recently argued that libertarians face two dilemmas. The first dilemma arises because, contrary to what Widerquist takes libertarians to suggest, there is no conceptual link between robust property rights and the libertarian state. Private property rights can legitimately yield non-libertarian states. Libertarians must thus remain committed either to robust property rights or the libertarian state. I call this the ‘Conceptual Dilemma’. The second dilemma is empirical in nature. Libertarians can try to undermine state property rights by showing (...) that the means by which all present states came to have their property was unjust. However, doing so would presumably undermine almost all the property claims of private individuals. So the dilemma is that libertarians can undermine state property rights only by undermining individual property rights, on the one hand. On the other, libertarians can vindicate private property rights of individuals only by vindicating state property rights. I call this the ‘Empirical Dilemma’. I attempt to defuse both of these dilemmas here. I argue that the Conceptual Dilemma relies on a misunderstanding of the libertarian’s commitments. In particular, I show that libertarians need not think robust property rights can yield states more extensive than Nozick’s minimal state. I then argue that Widerquist ignores libertarian scholarship aimed at meeting the Empirical Dilemma. Many libertarians have attempted to demonstrate that there are legitimate private property rights which are illegitimately disregarded by current states. The upshot of this discussion is that there are no genuine dilemmas posed by Widerquist’s ‘A Dilemma for Libertarians’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE HISTORICAL CONDITIONING OF CHURCH DOCTRINE* JOHN R. T. LAMONT Winnipeg, Canada I WISH to set out and defend a certain conception of what is involved in accepting the teachings of the Catholic Church. This conception is at odds with some contemporary understandings of the way in which such teachings are historically conditioned. I will argue that these conceptions are mistaken, and state what I think to be (...) the correct understanding of the historical conditioning of dogma. I Possession of the Catholic faith is usually understood to involve belief in the doctrines infallibly taught by the Catholic Church, so that outward profession of, and inward assent to, those doctrines, whether explicit or implicit, is a necessary condition for being a Catholic. I do not intend to discuss which particular doctrines are infallibly taught, or how exactly one determines that a doctrine is infallibly taught. I will simply assume that there are such doctrines, and that it is possible to determine that they are infallibly taught, and go on to ask the question, What does acceptance of these doctrines consist in? (The simpler expression "teachings of the Church" will be used to mean "infallible teachings of the Church" in the rest of this paper.) I propose this answer: • This paper had its origin in the lectures prepared for the author's philosophy of religion course at Chishawasha Seminary, Harare. The author would like to thank Fr. Norman Tanner, S.J., Fr. J.M. R. Tillard, O.P., and his colleagues at the Seminary and the University of Manitoba, for their helpful comments and suggestions. 511 512 JOHN R. T. LAMONT F). To accept the teachings of the Church is to believe that the propositions expressed by the sentences taught by the Church are true. Some comment on F) is necessary in order to make its meaning clear. A) "Propositions" Propositions, according to philosophers and logicians,1 possess the following characteristics. They are i) the bearers of truth or falsity. Whatever can be described as true, or as false, is a proposition. ii) the meanings of meaningful sentences. Different sentences can mean the same thing; for instance, the English sentence "Snow is white" and the French sentence "La neige est blanche" mean the same thing. What these two sentences have in common-what they mean-is a proposition. iii) the objects of cognitive, or propositional, attitudes. Such attitudes include knowing, doubting, wishing, disbelieving, suspending judgment about, expecting. When you know something or disbelieve something, what you know or disbelieve is a proposition. When you hope for something or fear that something might happen, what you hope for or fear is that some proposition might be true. Since the teachings of the Church are things that can be believed or disbelieved, are held to be true (by Catholics) and false (by some non-Catholics), and are expressed by sentences,' it follows that they are propositions.3 B) "Propositions expressed by sentences" Humans communicate propositions to each other by means of sentences. A sentence is a physical object, or a physical happening; ' See, for example, the introduction to Propositions and Attitudes, edited by Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames (Oxford, 1988). I have tried to describe in a previous paper the sort of reasons that have led philosophers to maintain that propositions are the objects of cognitive attitudes such as knowing, believing, or hoping ("The Nature of Revelation," New Blackfriars [July-August 1991]: 335-45). 2 I do not mean to assert here that all the Church's teachings are expressed in sentences, only that the Church does at times express her teachings in sentences (which is undeniable). It is possible for the Church to teach through actions, such as liturgical actions, as well as through sentences. However, since what is taught in such actions will be something that can be known and believed, such teachings will be propositions. 3 The question whether the teachings of the Church are propositions is not the same as the question whether divine revelation is propositional-whether divine revelation consists wholly or partly of propositions communicated by God to humans. I have argued (in "The Nature of Revelation") that revelation is at least partly propositional. However, the THE CONDITIONING... (shrink)

This integrative review aims to provide a synthesis of research findings of health-care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours relating to patient capacity to consent to or refuse treatment within the general hospital setting. Search strategies included relevant health databases, hand searching of key journals, ‘snowballing’ and expert recommendations. The review identified various knowledge gaps and attitudinal dispositions of health-care professionals, which influence their behaviours and decision-making in relation to capacity to consent processes. The findings suggest that there is tension between (...) legal, ethical and professional standards relating to the assessment of capacity and consent within health care. Legislation and policy guidance concerning capacity assessment processes are lacking, and this may contribute to inconsistencies in practice. (shrink)

The paper considers the objections to Christianity raised by David Lewis, which accuse Christians of immorality on the grounds of their worshipping a monstrous being who punishes finite evils by the infinite punishment of hell. It distinguishes between the objection that God is a monster because such punishment would be unjust, and the objection that even if damnation is just, God is a monster because he wills or allows the dreadful evil of hell by creating beings that can be justly (...) damned. It asserts that Aquinas’s defence of the traditional Christian doctrine of hell provides an answer to this objection. The traditional doctrine is that those who die having committed serious sins for which they have not repented will be punished by endless mental and physical suffering in hell. Aquinas argues that the endless punishment of the damned is just because the damned endlessly and freely choose evil, and that it is good because the punishment of impenitentsinners, while bad for the sinners, is good absolutely speaking. The basis for his claim that the damned freely choose evil forever is his understanding of practical reason as ultimately motivated by a choice of a particular kind of life to live, and his view that all motivations that are independent of practical reason have a physical basis. The basis for his claim that the punishment of the damned is a good thing absolutely considered is his teleological view of good and evil. The paper defends these bases and their application to the question of damnation. (shrink)

Peter Geach has claimed that St. Thomas Aquinas's first and second ways are instances of composition arguments, which argue from the parts of a thing having a property to the whole thing having that property. Such arguments are not universally valid, but are valid fr some properties. The paper examines composition arguments and the literature on them, and argues that a valid composition argument can be given for the existence of an uncaused cause of all effects.

The paper considers the criticisms that Eleonore Stump has made of Richard Swinburne's account of Christian's revelation, as set out in his book "Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy." It argues that Stump's criticisms of Swinburne's theory of biblical interpretation are misguided, but that her criticism of his deistic picture of revelation contains a crucial insight. Direct theories of revelation, which see God as communicating propositions directly to believers, are superior to deistic ones, which see God as communicating propositions only to (...) an original group who then hand on the propositions to everyone else. Stump's suggested alternative to a deistic picture is flawed. A better theory would result from incorporating Swinburne's account of the Church into a direct theory, and holding that God communicates propositions directly to believers in the teaching of the Church. This position combines the insights to be found in Stump and Swinburne, while avoiding their mistakes. (shrink)

In contrast to most literature on cosmopolitanism, which focuses on its elite forms, this article analyzes how ordinary people bridge racial boundaries in everyday life. It is based on interviews with 150 non-college-educated white and black workers in the United States and white and North African workers in France. The comparison of the four groups shows how differences in cultural repertoires across national context and structural location shape distinct anti-racist rhetorics. Market-based arguments are salient among American workers, while arguments based (...) on solidarity and egalitarianism are used by French, but not by American, workers. Minority workers in both countries employ a more extensive toolkit of anti-racist rhetoric as compared to whites. The interviewed men privilege evidence grounded in everyday experience, and their claims of human equality are articulated in terms of universal human nature and, in the case of blacks and North Africans, universal morality. Workers' conceptual frameworks have little in common with multiculturalism that occupies a central place in the literature on cosmopolitanism. We argue that for the discussion and practice of cosmopolitanism to move forward we should shift our attention to the study of multiple ordinary cosmopolitanisms. (shrink)

The paper considers Renee Descartes’ assertion that believing that God exists because the Bible says so, and believing that what the Bible says is true because God says it, involves circular reasoning. It argues that there is no circularity involved in holding these beliefs, and maintains that the appearance of circularity results from an equivocation. It considers a line of argument that would defend the rationality of holding these beliefs, but does not try to prove its soundness.

Norman Rufus Colin Cohn, a Fellow of the British Academy, wrote three major histories around a single theme. The Pursuit of the Millennium related the apocalyptic beliefs of twentieth-century totalitarian movements, whether Nazi or Communist, to their origins in medieval heresy. Warrant for Genocide established that the key document of a Jewish world conspiracy, The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, was a nineteenth-century Tsarist forgery. Europe's Inner Demons argued that the belief in a Satanic pact was at the heart (...) of witch persecution in early modern Europe. Within a year of retiring as Director of the Columbus Centre, Cohn was invited to Concordia University, Montreal, to help launch an Institute for Genocide Studies. He regarded his three books as tied to the Columbus Centre agenda and as such compatible with Lord Dacre's own search for what it was in Germany's myths and history that Adolf Hitler's mind could have been working upon in his lost years in Vienna. (shrink)