Dans son livre American Philosophy and the Future, Michael Novak nous rappelle que nous vivons sous la menace des conflits nucléaires. Si nous n'y prenons garde, nous dit-il, nous serons bientôt dans l'impossibilité de philosopher. Cet avertissement a de quoi nous étonner. Y aurait-il des bombes atomiques sans une philosophie de la bombe?Il y aurait bien d'autres objets, les uns plus extraordinaires que les autres, que nous apporte à un rythme toujours plus accéléré la nouvelle technologic et sur lesquels il (...) nous faudrait aussi philosopher et même davantage. Ainsi, un éditorial de Journal of the American Medical Association nous fait part des craintes que provoquent, chez médecins et biologistes, les expériences faites en vue de la fabrication des bébés-éprouvette — ‘test-tube babies’. (shrink)

This site has been developed by the Center for Mental Health Services to "promote the development of healthy behaviors, competence, and resilience in school-aged children and youth," in the hopes of reducing violence in schools. Included is information about model programs and links to resources on topics such as safe and drug free schools, emergency services, and the influence of the media.

This is the first volume to apply insights from the material turn in philosophy to the study of play and games. At a time of renewed interest in analogue gaming, as scholars are looking beyond the digital and virtual for the first time since the inception of game studies in the 1990s, Material Game Studies not only supports the importance of the turn to the analogue, but proposes a materiality of play more broadly. Recognizing the entanglement of physical materiality with (...) cultural meaning, the authors in this volume apply a range of theoretical approaches, from material eco-criticism to animal studies, to examine games and play as existing within worlds of matter. Different chapters focus on the material properties of board, card and role-playing games, how they are designed and made, how they are touched and played with, and how they connect with other human and nonhuman things. Bringing together international scholars, Material Game Studies defines a new field of material game studies and demonstrates how it is a valuable addition to wider debates about the material turn and the place of embodied humans in a material world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"EVERY MARITAL ACT OUGHT TO BE OPEN TO NEW LIFE'': TOWARD A CLEARER UNDERSTANDING I. INTRODUCTION NE FREQUENTLY encounters misinterpretations of the statement " Every marital act ought to be open to new life " and similar statements in recent Catholic teaching concerning contraception.1 There are two common misinterpretations. One is: No couple may engage in marital intercourse without the intention to procreate. The other is: No couple may (...) engage in marital intercourse at times when they think procreation is impossible. As interpretations of the Church's teaching, these must be mistaken. For the Church teaches that contraception is always wrong and that natural family planning (NFP) is not always wrong. But NFP facilitates intercourse without the intention to procreate at times when procreation is thought to be impossible. Moreover, the Church has never taught that marital intercourse is good only if the couple desires to procreate; indeed, couples known to be sterile have never been forbidden to marry. We think that the only plausible interpretation of "Every marital act ought to be open to new life" is: It is wrong for those who engage in marital intercourse to attempt to impede the transmission of life which they think their act otherwise might bring about. For if they do try to impede that to which their act of itself might lead, they choose to close it to new life. 1 The proposition is formulated somewhat differently by Paul VI, Humanae vitae, 11, AAS 60 (1968), 488 (with references to Gasti connubii and to Pius XII's.Allocution to the Society of Italian Catholic Midwives); and by John Paul II, Familiaris consortia, 29, AAS 74 (1982), 115, following proposition 22 of the 1980 session of the Synod of Bishops. Moreover, the different formulations also are translated diversely. We do not think these differences matter for our present purpose. 365 366 GRISEZ, BOYLE, FINNIS AND MAY Un.derstood in this way, "Every marital act ought to be open to new life" expresses the same proposition as " Contraception is always wrong." Nevertheless, the affirmative formulation helps to clarify what contraception is, for it indicates the precise object of the contraceptive act. "Contraception" signifies only the prevention of conception, but the contraceptive act seeks to impede the beginning of the Zife of a possible person. The distinction is only conceptual, but we think it important, for the explicit reference to new life calls attention to the fact that contraception is a contralife act. The characterization of contraception as a oontralife act is one major element of the unbroken Christian tradition condemning contraception as always wrong. For example, a canon, Si aliquis, concerning contraception was included in the Church's universal law from the thirteenth century until 1917: " I£ anyone for the sake of fulfilling sexual desire or with premediated hatred does something to a man or to a woman, or gives something to drink, so that he cannot generate, or she cannot conceive, or offspring be born, let it be held as homicide." 2 This canon does not say that contraception is homicide ; the tradition made no such mistake. The canon rather says that contraception sihould be regarded as homicide is regarded. To regard contraception as homicide is regarded is not only to make it clear that.contraception is wrong, but also to point to its being contralife as the reason why it is wrong. When contraception is regarded as contralife, it is seen as evil outside marriage as well as within. Historically, contraception probably was more common among the unmarried than the married, and much of the tradition condemned contraception without distinguishing between its uses in and outside mar2 Deoret. Greg. IX, lib. V, tit. 12, cap. v; Oorpus iuris oanonioi, ed. A. L. Richter and A. Friedberg (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1881), 2, 794: "Si aliquis causa explendae libidinis vel odii meditatione homini aut mulieri aliquid fecerit, vel ad potandum dederit, ut non possit generare, aut concipere, vel nasci soboles, ut homicida. tenea.tur." Some transla.te "ca.usa explendae libidinis," which is broad enough to cover all motivation by sexual impulse, "to satisfy lust," which unnecessarily limits the motive to habitual vice. " OPEN TO NEW LIFE " 367 riage. But. Casti oonnubii dealt with contraception... (shrink)

Anglophone philosophers are often associated with rejecting philosophy’s moral guidance function after 1945. This article builds on existing work on Jean-Paul Sartre’s reception in universities to show that, actually, many British and U.S. philosophers embraced moral guidance roles by engaging with his work and that they promoted creativity and choice in society as a result. Sartre first came to philosophers’ attention in the context of post-war Francophilia, but interest in him quickly went beyond the fact that he was French (...) and expanded to include the wider existentialist movement that he was a part of. Sartre had enduring popularity among English-speaking philosophers because his philosophy resonated with the older British and U.S. philosophies of idealism and pragmatism that, like his, were inspired by Hegel. Sartre’s respondents also valued existentialism because, to them, it made certain Judeo-Christian principles relevant, thus protecting religion at a time when they believed it was threatened with decline and by the advance of specialisation. Anglophone philosophers who were interested in Sartre spread their responses to him through teaching an expanding student population, but also reached the wider public through activism, journalism, broadcasting, and government advisory roles. In doing so, philosophers integrated their interpretations of existential ideas into several aspects of culture in post-war Britain and U.S.A. (shrink)

Article Paul Géhin/Michel Cacouros/Christian Förstel/Marie-Odile Germain/Philippe Hoffmann/Corinne Jouanno/Brigitte Mondrain avec la collaboration de Dominique Grosdidiers de Matons. Les manuscrits datés des XIIIe et XIVe siècles conservés dans les bibliothèques publiques de France was published on April 1, 2007 in the journal Byzantinische Zeitschrift (volume 100, issue 2).

This first volume in a series entitled Founders of Modern Political and Social Thought, by John Finnis, Professor of Law and Legal Philosophy at Oxford, is the most comprehensive and detailed treatment in print of Aquinas’s political and ethical thought. Finnis is already well known for his 1980 book, Natural Law and Natural Rights, his Thomistic-inspired theory of “basic human goods” in Fundamentals of Ethics, and his attack on the morality of nuclear deterrence, written with Joseph Boyle and Germain (...) Grisez. The present work is an effort to understand and critique Aquinas’s political and ethical thought as philosophy rather than theology, to correct what Finnis considers “one-sided or wrong” beliefs about his thinking, and to see how well it stands up as “a critical theory” today. Thanks to modern technology, Finnis is able to draw upon the full sixty volumes of Aquinas’s works, over 8.5 million words, rather than restricting the discussion as earlier works have done, to the early Commentary on the Sentences, the two Summas, and his advice to the King of Cyprus. (shrink)

Voltaire called fanaticism the "monster that pretends to be the child of religion". Philosophers, politicians, and cultural critics have decried fanaticism and attempted to define the distinctive qualities of the fanatic, whom Winston Churchill described as "someone who can't change his mind and won't change the subject". Yet despite fanaticism's role in the long history of social discord, human conflict, and political violence, it remains a relatively neglected topic in the history of philosophy. In this outstanding inquiry into the philosophical (...) history of fanaticism a team of international contributors examine the topic from antiquity to the present day. Organised into four sections, topics covered include: Fanaticism in ancient Greek, Indian and Chinese philosophy; Fanaticism and superstition from Hobbes to Hume, including chapters on Locke and Montesquieu, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson; Kant, Germaine de Stael, Hegel, Nietzsche, William James, and Jorge Portilla on fanaticism; Fanaticism and terrorism; and extremism and gender, including the philosophy and morality of the 'manosphere'; Closed-mindedness and political and epistemological fanaticism. Spanning themes from superstition, enthusiasm and misanthropy to the emotions, purity and the need for certainty, Fanaticism and the History of Philosophy is a landmark volume for anyone researching and teaching the history of philosophy, particularly ethics and moral philosophy. It is also a valuable resource for those studying fanaticism in related fields such as religion, the history of political thought, sociology, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

"Bernard Groethuysen (1880-1946), philosophe d'origine allemande, partage, dès 1904, sa vie entre Berlin et Paris où il étudie la Révolution française et rencontre, grâce à Bergson, Alix Guillain (1876-1951), traductrice et journaliste à L'Humanité. Vivant avec leurs compagnes dans le phalanstère de la rue Campagne-Première, Groethuysen et Paulhan, devenus amis, oeuvrent à partir de 1920 à La Nouvelle Revue francaise, dont ce dernier prend la direction cinq ans plus tard : ils font découvrir Hôlderlin, Kassner, Kafka, Büchner, Musil... En 1927, (...) ils inaugurent leur collection "Bibliothèque des Idées" par l'essai majeur de Groethuysen, Origines de l'esprit bourgeois en France, "notre premier enfant", écrit-il à Paulhan. Dans son ultime lettre d'Allemagne, de 1931, il s'inquiète : "L'Histoire devrait nous donner des vacances. On en profiterait pour reprendre la vie." En août 1932, devant l'essor du nazisme, Groethuysen s'exile en France. Quant à Paulhan, le Front populaire le voit s'engager aux côtés de Jean Longuet, maire socialiste de Châtenay-Malabry. Arrive la guerre : Germaine et Jean Paulhan quittent leur maison, leur jardin, leurs animaux, dont Alix Guillain et Groethuysen, naturalisé en 1938, prennent soin. Après la défaite de l'Allemagne, le philosophe rêve encore d'utopie, mais il meurt le 17 septembre 1946. Les travaux de Groethuysen m'intéressaient, il s'intéressait aux miens", confiera Paulhan à Ponge. Ce volume prouve leur affectueuse amitié, fondée sur le travail en commun pour la NRF. Mais c'est également un document sur les réseaux intellectuels et politiques de l'entre-deux-guerres: Maria Van Rysselberghe et les amis de Gide, la princesse de Bassiano et la revue Commerce, Paul Desjardins et les Décades de Pontigny, Henry Church et la revue Mesures, Alix Guillain et le Parti communiste, Aline Mayrisch et le groupe de Colpach... "Je n'ai pas connu d'autre homme, écrira Paulhan, pour qui une idée, fût-elle évidemment fausse ou absurde, dès l'instant qu'un homme l'avait inventée, eût un tel prix. Il disait: "C'est une idée" d'un ton de gourmet. C'est qu'il pensait que la vérité ayant été une fois dans la suite des temps atteinte (par Hegel et - pour ce qui concernait son application au monde moderne - par Marx), il ne nous restait qu'à former des idées - plus ou moins agréables, curieuses, attendrissantes de faiblesse." (Mort de Groethuysen à Luxembourg, rédigé en 1946)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is the author of possibly the most notorious one-liner of twentieth-century philosophy: 'Hell is other people'. Albert Camus was The Outsider. The two men first came together in Occupied Paris in the middle of the Second World War, and quickly became friends, comrades, and mutual admirers. But the intellectual honeymoon was short-lived. In 1943, with Nazis patrolling the streets, Sartre and Camus sat in a café on the boulevard Saint-Germain with Simone de Beauvoir and began a (...) discussion about life and love and literature that would pull them all together and finally tear them apart. They ended up on opposite sides in a war of words over just about everything: women, philosophy, politics. Their fraught, fractured friendship culminated in a bitter and very public feud that was described as 'the end of a love-affair' but which never really finished. Sartre was a boxer and a drug-addict; Camus was a goalkeeper who subscribed to a degree-zero approach to style and ecstasy. Sartre, obsessed with his own ugliness, took up the challenge of accumulating women; Camus, part-Bogart, part-Samurai, was also a self-confessed Don Juan who aspired to chastity. Sartre and Camus play out an epic struggle between the symbolic and the savage. But what if the friction between these two unique individuals is also the source of our own inevitable conflicts? The Boxer and the Goalkeeper: Sartre vs Camus reconstructs the intense and antagonistic relationship that was (in Sartre's terms) 'doomed to failure'. Weaving together the lives and ideas and writings of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, Andy Martin relives the existential drama that still binds them inseparably together and remixes a philosophical dialogue that speaks to us now. (shrink)

According to truth-conditional semantics, to explain the meaning of a statement is to specify the conditions necessary and sufficient for its truth. This book develops a more radical mentalist semantics by shifting the object of semantic inquiry. Classical semantics analyzes an abstract sentence or utterance such as "Grass is green"; in attitudinal semantics the object of inquiry is a propositional attitude such as "Speaker so-and-so thinks grass is green".

This volume brings together Paul Williams's previously published papers on the Indian and Tibetan interpretations of selected verses from the eighth and ninth chapters of the Bodhicaryavatara. In addition, there is a much longer version of the paper 'Identifying the Object of Negation', and nearly half the book consists of a wholly new essay, 'The Absence of Self and the Removal of Pain', subtitled 'How Santideva Destroyed the Bodhisattva Path'. This book will be of interest to those concerned with (...) the history and interpretation of Indian and Tibetan philosophy. (shrink)

This one-of-a-kind collection contains portraits of some of the most significant theological voices in modern medical ethics, including Paul Ramsey, James M. Gustafson, Richard McCormick, Bernard Haring, and Germain Grisez, about whom the authors and other contributors have written essays that point the way to a recovery of creative and faithful religious reflection on medical ethics.

Best known as a moralist and one of the founders of the Scottish Common Sense school of philosophy, Thomas Reid was also an influential scientific thinker. Here his work on the life sciences is studied in detail, bringing together unpublished transcripts of his most important papers on natural history, physiology, and materialist metaphysics. Part I provides the first published account of Reid's reflections on the highly controversial theories surrounding muscular motion and the reproduction of plants and animals and relates them (...) to the broader Enlightenment debates on these issues. It also contains the first systematic reconstruction of Reid's opposition to materialism and views his polemics against the noted Dissenter Joseph Priestley in terms of their differing interpretations of the Newtonian legacy, their conflicting philosophical assumptions, and the cultural politics of Common Sense philosophy in the 1770s. Part II reproduces a selection of Reid's most significant papers on the life sciences, including his Glasgow Literary Society discourses on muscular motion and on Priestley's materialism, as well as other manuscripts that document the development of his scientific ideas. (shrink)

One of the signal developments in contemporary criticism over the past several years has been the ascendancy of the colonial paradigm. In conjunction with this new turn, Frantz Fanon has now been reinstated as a global theorist, and not simply by those engaged in Third World or subaltern studies. In a recent collection centered on British romanticism, Jerome McGann opens a discussion of William Blake and Ezra Pound with an extended invocation of Fanon. Donald Pease has used Fanon to open (...) an attack on Stephen Greenblatt’s reading of the Henriad and the interdisciplinary practices of the new historicism. And Fanon, and published interpretations of Fanon, have become regularly cited in the rereading of the Renaissance that have emerged from places like Sussex, Essex, and Birmingham.1My intent is not to offer a reading of Fanon to supplant these others, but to read, even if summarily, some of these readings of Fanon. By focusing on successive appropriations of this figure, as both totem and text, I think we can chart out an itinerary through contemporary colonial discourse theory. I want to stress, then, that my ambitions here are extremely limited: what follows may be a prelude to a reading of Fanon, but does not even begin that task itself.2 1. See Jerome McGann, “The Third World of Criticism,” in Rethinking Historicism: Critical Readings in Romantic History, ed. Marjorie Levinson et al., pp. 85-107, and Donald Pease, “Toward a Sociology of Literary Knowledge: Greenblatt, Colonialism, and the New Historicism,” in Consequences of Theory, ed. Barbara Johnson and Jonathan Arac.2. A properly contextualized reading of Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, the text to which I most frequently recur, should situate it in respect to such germinal works as Jean-Paul Sartre’s Réflexions sur la question Juive, Dominique O. Mannoni’s Psychologie de la colonisation, Germaine Guex’s La Névrose d’abandon, as well as many lesser known works. But this is only to begin to sketch out the challenge of rehistoricizing Fanon. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is coeditor of Transition, a quarterly review, and the author of Figures in Black and The Signifying Monkey, which received an American Book Award. (shrink)

In this paper I will set out my understanding of Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, some of the difficulties which I believe beset the current version, and, very briefly, some valuable lessons I believe are nonetheless to be learned by considering this view.We’ll need to begin with a review of how van Fraassen conceives of this kind of discussion.

_Criticism and Conviction_ offers a rare opportunity to share personally in the intellectual life and journey of the eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Internationally known for his influential works in hermeneutics, theology, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, until now, Ricoeur has been conspicuously silent on the subject of himself. In this book--a conversation about his life and work with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay--Ricoeur reflects on a variety of philosophical, social, religious, and cultural topics, from the paradoxes of political power to (...) the relationship between life and art, and life and death. In the first of eight conversations, Ricoeur traces the trajectory of his life, recounting the origins of his convictions and the development of his intellect against the tragic events of the twentieth century. Declaring himself the "son of a victim of the First World War," Ricoeur, an orphan, sketches his early years in the house of stern but loving grandparents, and the molding of his intellect under the tutelage of Roland Dalbiez, Gabriel Marcel, and André Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, where he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and where he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research. Elegantly interweaving anecdotal with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the twentieth century's greatest figures, such as Heidegger, Jaspers, and Eliade. He also shares his views on French philosophers and explains his tumultuous relationship with Jacques Lacan. And while expressing his deepest respect for the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Michel Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algirdas Julien Greimas. Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. And readers who have struggled with Ricoeur's work will be grateful for these illuminating discussions that provide an invaluable key to his writings on language and narrative, especially those on metaphor and time. Spontaneous and lively, _Criticism and Conviction_ is a passionate confirmation of Ricoeur's eloquence, lucidity, and intellectual rigor, and affirms his position as one of this century's greatest thinkers. It is an essential book for anyone interested in philosophy and literary criticism. (shrink)

In their article Little, Jordens, and Sayers developed the notion of “discourse communities”—as groups of people who share an ideology and common “language”—with the support of seminal ideas from M.M. Bakhtin. Such communities provide benefits although they may also impose constraints. An ethical community would open to others’ discourse and be committed to critique. Those commitments may counter the limitations of discourse communities. Since their paper was published in 2003, the notion of “discourse communities” has been widely adopted and applied (...) in healthcare and beyond. Their ideas were influential in the founding of an ethics centre in Sydney and contributed to articulating the values which underpin this journal. This commentary notes that an ethical community is fragile in responding to current onslaughts on truth and meaning—potencies inherent in discourse communities. The essay takes Bakhtin’s ideas further to explore intrinsic forces at play in dialogue, language, and art. This leads to discussing the centrality of ethics in Bakhtin’s thought. For him, the essence of discourse is a dialogic exchange which comprises both art and ethics. It is art in that self and other are created in the exchange. It is ethical in that “I” am answerable to the other, as a phenomenological reality, in the moment of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

The author uses the central insight of the principle of double effect—that the distinction between intended effects and foreseen side effects is morally significant—to distinguish contraception from natural family planning. After summarizing the contralife argument against contraception, the author identifies limitations of arguments presented by Pope John Paul II and by Martin Rhonheimer. To show that the contralife argument does not apply to NFP, the author argues that agents do not intend every effect that motivates their actions. This argument (...) supplements the action theory of Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and other proponents of new natural law theory. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.1 : 83–97. (shrink)

What Numbers Could Not Be’) that an adequate account of the numbers and our arithmetic practice must satisfy not only the conditions usually recognized to be necessary: (a) identify some w-sequence as the numbers, and (b) correctly characterize the cardinality relation that relates a set to a member of that sequence as its cardinal number—it must also satisfy a third condition: the ‘<’ of the sequence must be recursive. This paper argues that adding this further condition was a mistake—any w-sequence (...) would do, no matter how undecidable its ‘<’ relation. (shrink)

Recent work in the history of philosophy of science details the Kantianism of philosophers often thought opposed to one another, e.g., Hans Reichenbach, C.I. Lewis, Rudolf Carnap, and Thomas Kuhn. Historians of philosophy of science in the last two decades have been particularly interested in the Kantianism of Reichenbach, Carnap, and Kuhn, and more recently, of Lewis. While recent historical work focuses on recovering the threatened-to-be-forgotten Kantian themes of early twentieth-century philosophy of science, we should not elide the differences between (...) the Kantian strands running throughout this work. In this paper, I disentangle a few of these strands in the work of Reichenbach and Lewis focusing especially on their theories of relativized, constitutive a priori principles in empirical knowledge. In particular, I highlight three related differences between Reichenbach and Lewis concerning their motivations in analyzing scientific knowledge and scientific practice, their differing conceptions of constitutivity, and their relativization of constitutive a priori principles. In light of these differences, I argue Lewis’s Kantianism is more similar to Kuhn’s Kantianism than Reichenbach’s, and so might be of more contemporary relevance to social and practice-based approaches to the philosophy of science. (shrink)

A framework is presented for studying ethical conduct in public accounting practice. Four levels of analysis are distinguished: individual, local office, multi-office firm and professional institute. Several propositions are derived from the framework and discussed: (1) The effects of ethical vs. unethical behavior on an accountant's prospects for advancement are asymmetrical in nature; (2) the way individuals perceive or frame the decision problem at hand will make an ethical response more or less likely; (3) the economic incentives present in competitive (...) markets influence the work goals of firms and offices, and lead to ethical dilemmas for individuals; and (4) initiatives at the firm or institute level aimed at compliance with professional ethical standards will by themselves have little effect on individual ethical behavior. Research into ethical behavior of practitioners will capture self-conscious and biased responses unless it is designed so as to permit indirect observation and recording of spontaneous comments. To assure valid research findings, practitioners should be interviewed and their motives assessed indirectly. A longitudinal approach is recommended, beginning with students who are choosing an accounting career. Two types of questions for use in these interviews are described. (shrink)

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, biofuels were recognized as an important element in the overall strategy to reduce climate-forcing greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. Yet scientific research to more fully realize the potential of agricultural crops for liquid transportation fuel requires the coordination of many separate projects housed in different disciplines. Studies predicting and documenting adverse social impacts of plant-based ethanol and biodiesel led to the inclusion of social science components within research teams seeking to develop biofuels. (...) A 2008 rise in global food prices became a centerpiece of this research, leading to a search for non-food crops that could serve as energy feedstocks. Although coordinated scientific research teams have made significant strides toward incorporating social dimensions and broader impacts into what was originally a purely biophysical research effort, a simplistic diagnosis of the tension between agricultural production for food use and agricultural production intended for energy production continues to prevail. Some of the hard questions in the global development of the agricultural sector have been obscured as a result. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses three aspects of Karen Bennett’s theory of building relations, as articulated in her book Making Things Up: the inclusion of causation among the building relations, the denial that non-fundamental things add to the complexity of a theory, and the claim that building relations are one-sided relations that are themselves built. Section 1 gives a brief overview. Section 2 seeks to motivate a distinction between building relations and making relations, and questions whether the deep structural similarities among (...) building relations has the methodological consequences that Bennett claims. Section 3 argues against the claim that considerations of ontological simplicity in theory choice are restricted to non-fundamental entities. Section 4 raises objections to the idea of a one-sided building relation. (shrink)

The Garden of Leaders explores two related questions: What is leadership? And what sort of education could prepare young people to be leaders? Paul Woodruff argues that higher education--particularly but not exclusively in the liberal arts--should set its main focus on cultivating leadership in students. Woodruff advances a new view of liberal arts education that places leadership at the root of everything it does, so that students will be prepared to lead in their lives and careers--and not necessarily in (...) management roles. Woodruff views the contemporary university as sorely lacking an emphasis on leadership, and presents three core sets of recommendations for how they can and should foster it. First, Woodruff posits co-curricular groups, activities, and projects as essential activities for students to gain confidence and leadership skills. Administrations should encourage students to engage in activities outside the classroom, convert coached sports teams into student-led clubs as far as possible, and discourage social organizations that are segregated by race or sex. Second, Woodruff advocates for a different curriculum for all undergraduates, no matter their major-arguing that they need to be taught leadership in the forms of key skills including communication, as well as exposure to key material in history literature, social science, and ethics. Students should be asked to consider the hardest ethical dilemmas that leaders face, toggling between Machiavelli and great ethical thinkers such as Confucius and Socrates. Third, Woodruff calls for the teaching methods used by instructors to re-orient themselves around the question of leadership, particularly by emphasizing teamwork. Professors should respect their students' independence, avoid tyrannical teaching, and remember that all teachers teach ethics simply by the examples they set in dealing with students. Whether in engineering, music, or classics, The Garden of Leaders advances leadership as a core value that should be at the heart of the educational enterprise-contending that while a college campus can be many things, it should at the very least be a ground upon which new leaders can grow. (shrink)

Educational research is dominated by a particular model: data is gathered and analysed. Much literature on methods concerns either ways of processing data, or ethical issues regarding its collection and handling. The present paper looks beyond these matters to the taken‐for‐granted idea of data itself. What can be meant by ‘data’? How does this connect with ideas of the given? What is the place of giving in education—in teaching and learning, in research itself? These issues are explored in the light (...) of information technology’s impact on research, uncovering ethical dimensions that the seeming naturalness of data otherwise obscures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 155 Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later. By JANET SMITH. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Pp. xvi + 425. $42.95 hardcover; $17.95 paper. This is an ambitious and important study. I will first offer an overview of the volume to indicate its scope and note some of its major features. I will then respond briefly to some of the major criticisms Smith makes of (...) the argument against contraception advanced by Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and myself. The work contains 8 chapters and 4 appendices. Chapters 3 and 4, as Smith says, "provide an analysis of Humanae Vitae itself and thus constitute the heart of the hook" (p. xi). Since this is so I will first summarize briefly Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 and then center atten· tion on the two central chapters and the four appendices. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the context for Humanae Vitae. The first chapter is devoted largely to an account of the so-called " Minority " and "Majority" documents of the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rate, while the second seeks to summarize Catholic teaching on Christian marriage prior to the encyclical. This summary draws principally from Pius XI's Casti Connubii and from nn. 47-52 of Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes. Smith takes up in some detail the issue of the" primacy" of procreation, concluding that Gaudium et Spes " seems to sidestep " this issue which, in her judgment, is irrelevant to the question of contraception. She thinks that this central document of Vatican II sent " mixed signals " on the question of contraception, although she believes that several passages " can very plausibly he read to support the position that contraception is portrayed as a violation not only of the procreative good of marriage hut also of the values of conjugal love" (p. 66). Chapter 5 deals with a wide range of theological issues: the biblical foundations for the teaching found in Humanae Vitae, the relevance of the concept of munus for this teaching, the possibility of acting " in good conscience " in a way contrary to its teaching, and the infallibility of the teaching. Of special value is the extended discussion of the con· cept expressed by the Latin term munus. Smith examines the rich meaning of this term in several magisterial documents, including Gaudium et Spes as well as Humanae Vitae. While a munus implies duties, it is essentially a noble, honor-bringing "gift" or "reward," signifying a vocation and sublime honor. Paul VI, in developing the integral vision of marriage in his encyclical, uses this concept to show that God, in giving to spouses the munus of handing on new life, has conferred on them the honor of sharing with him in the work of bring· 156 BOOK REVIEWS ing new life into the world. Smith shows beautifully how the rich theological meaning of this term helps " illuminate and enrich " the teaching of the encyclical. Chapters 6 and 7 investigate the arguments presented by dissenting theologians after Humanae Vitae to justify their repudiation of its teaching. In Chapter 6 Smith considers the views of Charles Curran and Bernard Haering, while in Chapter 7 she examines the proportionalist approach to moral issues developed by Joseph Fuchs, Richard McCormick and others. She provides intelligent criticism both of Curran and Haering and of proportionalist thought, focusing on the repudiation of specific moral absolutes. In Chapter 8 Smith provides a very helpful summary of Pope John Paul II's understanding of the human person, human sexuality and marriage. In particular, she takes up his notion that in marriage and in the act proper rto it man and woman make a " gift " of themselves to one another. Simultaneously to choose to give themselves to each other in the marital act and to contracept is then seen to involve an inner contradiction, a falsification of the " language of the body " (pp. 230258 ). Smith also takes up some of the major criticisms levelled against John Paul II's thought, in particular Lisa Sowle Cahill's, which charges him with an overromantic view of love and a failure to recognize that... (shrink)

Medical decisions for children are usually justified by the claim that they are in a child's best interests. More recently, following criticisms of the best interests standard, some advocate that the family's interests should influence medical decisions for children, although what is meant by family interests is often not made clear. I argue that at least two senses of family interests may be discerned. There is a ‘weak’ sense of family interests and a ‘strong’ sense. I contend that there are (...) problems with both approaches in making medical decisions for children but that the weak sense is more plausible. Despite this, I argue that claims for family interests are not helpful in making medical decisions for children. (shrink)

Non-reductive Physicalism together with environment-dependence of content has been thought to be incompatible with the claim that beliefs are efficacious partly in virtue of their possession of content, that is, in virtue of their intentional properties. I argue that this is not so. First, I provide a general account of property causation. Then, I explain how, even given the truth of Non-reductive Physicalism and the environment-dependence of content, intentional properties will be efficacious according to this account. I go on to (...) relate my discussion to that concerning whether Anomalous Monism is committed to epiphenomenalism. I close by considering how my proposal suggests we should conceive of different levels of causation in a layered world. (shrink)