Social scientific evidence suggests that labor migration can increase resilience to climate change. For that reason, some have recently advocated using labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. This paper engages with the normative question of whether, and under what conditions, states may permissibly use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation. I argue that states may use labor migration policy as a tool for climate adaptation and may even have a duty to do so, subject (...) to two moral constraints. First, states must also provide acceptable alternative options for adaptation so that the vulnerable are not forced to sacrifice their morally important interests in being able to remain where they are. Second, states may not impose restrictive terms on labor migrants to make accepting greater numbers less costly for themselves because doing so unfairly shifts the costs of adaptation onto the most vulnerable. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to get clear about why renewal is needed in philosophy of religion and how to achieve it. We begin with a fundamental distinction between someone’s perspective in the field and the perspective of the field, arguing that any philosopher of religion is responsible to both. Then we identify eight problems that should prevent the status quo in philosophy from appearing acceptable to anyone who takes the perspective of the field, as well as seven practical suggestions (...) which, if implemented, would help to solve these problems. The problems include such things as tribalism, ignorance about religion, and viewing issues exclusively in terms of what is religiously familiar; the mitigations such things as allowing non-Christians to join the Society of Christian Philosophers, broadening the education of philosophers of religion, and paying more attention to the deep history of religion. (shrink)

People who suffer from eating disorders often have to be treated against their will, perhaps by being detained, perhaps by being forced to eat. In this paper it is argued that whilst forcing compliance is generally acceptable, there may be circumstances under which a sufferer's refusal of consent to treatment should be respected. This argument will hinge upon whether someone in the grip of an eating disorder can actually make competent decisions about their quality of life. If so, then the (...) decision to refuse therapy may be on a par with other decisions to refuse life‐prolonging therapy made by sufferers of debilitating chronic, or acute onset terminal illness. In such cases, palliation might justifiably replace aggressive therapy. The argument will also draw heavily on the distinction between competent refusal of therapy and passive euthanasia, and the distinction between incompetent and irrational decisions. Both distinctions will then be applied to decisions to refuse food. The extent to which sufferers from anorexia nervosa can be categorised as either incompetent or irrational will be examined. It is against this background that it will be argued that at least some of those who suffer from eating disorders should have their refusals respected, even if they may die as a result. (shrink)

Birth order has been examined over a wide variety of dimensions in the context of modern populations. A consistent message has been that it is better to be born first. The analysis of birth order in this paper is different in several ways from other investigations into birth order effects. First, we examine the effect of birth order in an egalitarian, small-scale, kin-based society, which has not been done before. Second, we use a different outcome measure, fertility, rather than outcome (...) measures of social, psychological, or economic success. We find, third, that being born late in an egalitarian, technologically simple society rather than being born early has a positive outcome on fertility, and fourth, that number of older siblings and sibling set size are even stronger predictors of fertility, especially for males. (shrink)

Patients have not been entirely ignored in medical ethics. There has been a shift from the general presumption that ‘doctor knows best’ to a heightened respect for patient autonomy. Medical ethics remains one–sided, however. It tends (incorrectly) to interpret patient autonomy as mere participation in decisions, rather than a willingness to take the consequences. In this respect, medical ethics remains largely paternalistic, requiring doctors to protect patients from the consequences of their decisions. This is reflected in a one–sided account of (...) duties in medical ethics. Duties fall mainly on doctors and only exceptionally on patients. Medical ethics may exempt patients from obligations because they are the weaker or more vulnerable party in the doctor–patient relationship. We argue that vulnerability does not exclude obligation. We also look at others ways in which patient responsibilities flow from general ethics: for instance, from responsibilities to others and to the self, from duties of citizens, and from the responsibilities of those who solicit advice. Finally, we argue that certain duties of patients counterbalance an otherwise unfair captivity of doctors as helpers. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the nature of what is perhaps the most widely recognized justification for inflicting harm on human beings: the appeal to defense (self-defense and other-defense). I develop and defend a rights-based account of the appeal to defense that takes into account whether and to what degree both the aggressor and his potential victim are morally responsible for the relevant threat. However, unlike most extant rights-based accounts, mine is not a forfeiture account. That is, I do (...) not attempt to explain the permissibility of defense in terms of the aggressor’s loss of a right not to be harmed. Instead I appeal directly to the fact that defense in the relevant cases prevents the aggressor from infringing upon the rights of his potential victim. Accordingly, I call my account a “prevention account.”. (shrink)

As a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the United States is under an obligation to criminalize all state torture. The aim of this article is to show that the United States has failed to fulfill that obligation and should correct that failure by broadening the respective definitions of “torture” in two federal criminal statutes, the War Crimes Act and the Torture Act. The broader definition that is proposed is formulated with an eye to minimizing ambiguity and vagueness, (...) avoiding both overcriminalization and undercriminalization, and facilitating accurate determinations of guilt or innocence. (shrink)

In World Without Design, Michael Rea says that naturalists are disposed to take the methods of science, and those methods alone, as basic sources of evidence. Supernaturalists, he says, share with naturalists the disposition to trust the methods of science in the basic way---that is, in the absence of any epistemic reason to do so. But unlike naturalists, supernaturalists are also disposed to take religious experience as a basic source of evidence. I raise a number of objections to these characterizations (...) of naturalism and supernaturalism. First, they mistakenly presuppose both that the methods of science are all methods of inquiry and that the demarcation problem can be solved. Also, if they are correct, then both naturalism and supernaturalism are committed to an undesirable form of scientism. Finally, they overlook both the fact that most of the methods of science are not basic sources of evidence and the fact that the methods of science include the method of searching only for natural causes of natural phenomena. I close by proposing an alternative characterization of naturalism. (shrink)

One of the fundamental aims of nursing is to safeguard or promote patients' "quality of life." Perspectives on Quality of Life examines existing ways of defining the concept and argues that nurses need to adopt a fresh approach, which more accurately reflects patients' concerns and helps them to develop practical ways of promoting the well-being of people in their care. Part One provides an analysis of statistical approaches to quality of life, including social indicators, the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY), (...) and the medical outcomes literature. Part Two proposes an alternative, qualitative approach to organizing care, which respects the patients' choice and individuality. Part three presents the findings of new research into the quality of life of older people in hospital wards. (shrink)

Drawing on insights of thinkers in the natural rights tradition, Draper analyzes numerous hypothetical cases including those involving a runaway trolley, then seeks to determine if killing civilians in war is ever justified. In his consideration of this issue he avoids appealing to the principle of double effect. Having considered hypothetical cases at length, he leaves it to others to decide if any option to go to war is justifiable. In this regard he himself is sceptical.

This paper assesses two reformulations of Epicurus' argument that "death ... is nothing to us, since while we exist, death is not present; and whenever death is present, we do not exist." The first resembles many contemporary reformulations in that it attempts to reach the conclusion that death is not to the disadvantage of its subject. I argue that this rather anachronistic sort of reformulation cannot succeed. The second reformulation stays closer to the spirit of Epicurus' actual position on death (...) by attempting to reach the conclusion that it is inappropriate to fear or dread or have any other negative affective response towards death. I raise a plausible objection to this argument, suggesting that dissatisfaction is sometimes an appropriate response to the approach of death. I then go on to consider the possibility that Epicurus was partly right in that it may always be inappropriate to dread death. (shrink)

This paper sets out a research agenda for a political theory of climate displacement, by critically examining one prominent proposal—the idea of a normative status for ‘climate refugees’—and by proposing an alternative. Drawing on empirical work on climate displacement, I show that the concept of the climate refugee obscures the complexity and heterogeneity of climate displacement. I argue that, because of this complexity and heterogeneity, approaches to climate displacement that put the concept of the climate refugee at their centre will (...) fail to treat like cases alike and relevantly different cases differently. In response to these failings, I outline an alternative—the pluralist theory of climate displacement—which confronts the specific challenges that climate displacement poses in different practical and institutional contexts, whilst also treating climate displacement as a unified phenomenon at the second-order level of burden-sharing. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications for classical theism of the possibility that God makes “hard choices.” A choice between two actions is hard if the chooser believes that each action is better than the other in some respects, but believes neither that one action is better overall than the other nor that the two actions are equally valuable overall. Even an omniscient God might be forced to make hard choices if, as seems plausible, “better than,” “worse than,” and “equal in (...) value to” do not exhaust the relevant value relations that one action can bear to another. This paper seeks to show that, if God does make hard choices of a certain sort, then God can be essentially perfectly rational and still have morally significant freedom. This is important because maximal praiseworthiness both requires morally significant freedom and, like perfect rationality, is required for divinity in the classical sense. (shrink)

This article develops a normative theory of the status of ‘internally displaced persons’. Political theorists working on forced migration have paid little attention to internally displaced persons, but internally displaced persons bear a distinctive normative status that implies a set of rights that its bearer can claim and correlate duties that others owe. This article develops a practice-based account of justice in internal displacement, which aims to answer the questions of who counts as an internally displaced person and what is (...) owed to internally displaced persons (and by whom). The first section addresses the question of who counts as an internally displaced person by offering an interpretation of the conditions of non-alienage and involuntariness. The second section articulates an account of what is owed to internally displaced persons that draws on and refines the idea of ‘occupancy rights’. The third section sets out an account of the role of the international community in supplementing the protection of internally displaced persons by their own states. (shrink)

David Benatar's asymmetry argument in defense of anti-natalism is unconvincing, but not, as most of his critics would have it, because the alleged asymmetry on which it is based does not exist. Rather, the problem is that the existence of that asymmetry does not warrant the conclusion that it is better never to have been. This paper explains Benatar's mistake and identifies the correct conclusions to draw from the axiological asymmetry he identifies. It also sheds light on certain puzzles in (...) population ethics. (shrink)

This article diagnoses a novel problem with gentrification: that it can hinder valuable forms of everyday democratic communication. In order to make this argument, I develop a democratic interpretation of Iris Marion Young's ‘ideal of city life’, according to which social differentiation is valuable because of the epistemic role that it plays in the production and circulation of diverse social perspectives. I then leverage that ideal to examine two kinds of spatial and demographic changes associated with gentrification: community disintegration in (...) enclaves and homogenisation in public spaces. I argue that community disintegration in enclaves can make the production of social perspectives within disadvantaged communities more difficult. I then argue that homogenisation in public spaces can undermine the role of such spaces as sites of democratic performance for the wider circulation of social perspectives in the public sphere. Finally, I reflect on the reach of my argument for broader judgements about the permissibility of policies that foster or permit gentrification. (shrink)

Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PIGD) goes some way to meeting the clinical, psychological and ethical problems of antenatal testing. We should guard, however, against the assumption that PIGD is the answer to all our problems. It also presents some new problems and leaves some old problems untouched. This paper will provide an overview of how PIGD meets some of the old problems but will concentrate on two new challenges for ethics (and, indeed, law). First we look at whether we should always (...) suppose that it is wrong for a clinician to implant a genetically abnormal zygote. The second concern is particularly important in the UK. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990) gives clinicians a statutory obligation to consider the interests of the future children they help to create using in vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques. Does this mean that because PIGD is based on IVF techniques the balance of power for determining the best interests of the future child shifts from the mother to the clinician? (shrink)

The situation of internally displaced persons has long been a matter of international concern. This volume develops a distinctive research agenda for the political philosophy of internal displacement, and highlights the salience of the phenomenon for debates on migration, refugees, territorial rights, state sovereignty, and climate change.

Many find the prospect of death distressing at least partly because they believe that death deprives its subject of life’s benefits. Properly qualified, the belief is surely true. But should its truth lead us to conclude that there is something dreadful or awful about death, something that merits distress?

There has long been theoretical confusion caused by the "gang of four" and the counterrevolutionary clique led by Lin Piao. They are responsible for the rampancy of metaphysics and idealism in handling the question of the criterion of truth. The "gang of four" gave the pragmatist outlook on truth wide publicity, spoke up for the usefulness of truth, negated the criterion of practice in the test of truth, and repudiated the absoluteness of the criterion of practice. The group also carried (...) out absolutism, denied the development of human knowledge to the accompaniment of the development of practice, and negated the absoluteness of the criterion of practice. Therefore, a correct elucidation of the relativity and absoluteness of the criterion of practice is necessary for the elimination of the theoretical confusion caused by the "gang of four" and of its baneful effects. (shrink)

In Wine & Philosophy, philosophers, wine critics, and winemakers share their passion for wine through well-crafted essays that explore wine’s deeper meaning, nature, and significance Joins Food & Philosophy and Beer & Philosophy in in the "Epicurean Trilogy Essays are organized thematically and written by philosophers, wine writers, and winemakers Chapters include, “The Art & Culture of Wine”; “Tasting & Talking about Wine”; “Wine & Its Critics”; “The Beauty of Wine”; “The Metaphysics of Wine”; and “The Politics & Economics of (...) Wine” Accessible to a general audience while at the same time covering some serious philosophical ground Incorporates traditional areas of philosophical study, including philosophy of language, philosophy of perception, aesthetics, metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy A great complimentary text to any guided-tour visit to the Napa Valley or other wineries. (shrink)

While theory and research indicate that top management team (TMT) attributes play a crucial role in shaping responsible practices, how and when TMT faultlines affect environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance remains an open question. This study aims to fill this research gap by integrating social categorization theory with the faultline literature. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms over a 12-year period, our findings indicate that TMT faultlines can significantly inhibit ESG performance, and managerial myopia is the primary channel (...) through which the negative effect operates. In addition, our study reveals that negative attainment discrepancy significantly amplifies the inhibitory effect of TMT faultlines on ESG performance. Intriguingly, this inhibitory effect is mitigated in firms with strong Confucian culture. Our study also reveals variations in the impact of TMT faultlines on ESG performance concerning the type of faultlines and the level of industry competition. These findings not only contribute to the literature on TMT faultlines and upper echelons but also provide valuable guidance for managers in adeptly navigating the dynamics of TMT composition. (shrink)

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated Wigner distribution function. Many advances made in various areas of science during the 50 year period can be attributed to the physical insights that the Wigner distribution function provides when applied to specific problems. In this paper the usefulness of the Wigner distribution function in collision theory is described.

Trajectories along which phase-space points of the Wigner distribution function move are computed for a Gaussian wave packet moving under the influence of a weak perturbative potential. The potentials considered are a potential step, a potential barrier, and a periodic potential. Trajectories computed exhibit the complex, nonlocal nature of quantum dynamics. It is seen that quantum interference, which takes place in the time development of the wave packet, is taken care of in a simple way by the Wigner trajectory method (...) presented here. (shrink)

Three types of cumulative cases for theism are examined: incremental cases (like Richard Swinburne's), distributive cases (like William Lane Craig's), and emergent cases (like Basil Mitchell's).

Scientific debates about the nature of light have nothing to do with the philosophical problem of evil if you focus on the subject matter of those debates, but quite a bit to do with it if you focus on the structure of the reasoning in those debates. Some theories of light have been shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing them to incompatible theories, both with respect to how well they fit certain data and (at (...) least implicitly) with respect to how probable they are intrinsically. Similarly, (a popular form of) theism can be shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing it to the incompatible theory that physical reality is the source of mental reality. This theory of “source physicalism” fits a variety of data about good and evil much better than theism does. Further, primarily because of its modesty, source physicalism is many times more probable intrinsically than theism. It follows that, other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false. (shrink)

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

Work in philosophy of religion exhibits at least four symptoms of poor health: it is too partisan, too polemical, too narrow in its focus, and too often evaluated using criteria that are theological or religious instead of philosophical. Our diagnosis is that, because of the emotional and psychosocial aspects of religion, many philosophers of religion suffer from cognitive biases and group influence. We support this diagnosis in two ways. First, we examine work in psychology on cognitive biases and their affective (...) triggers. This work supports the view that, while cognitive biases are no doubt a problem in all inquiry and in all areas ofphilosophy, they are particularly damaging to inquiry in philosophy of religion. Second, we examine work in social and evolutionary psychology on religious sociality and its attendant emotions. This work establishes that the coalitional features of religion are correlated with group bias, and we contend that this bias is also harmful to inquiry in philosophy of religion. We close by offering both a prognosis and recommendations for treatment. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given certain highly (...) plausible assumptions about evidence and epistemic probability, the proposition which it treats as evidence cannot coherently be regarded as evidence for anything. This raises the question of whether to reject the assumptions or accept that such a proposition cannot be evidence. (shrink)

Hai, Peter NV Lay people have always played a vital role in the life and mission of the church but it is only after the Second Vatican Council that the question of the laity has come into focus in a new way in Catholic theological reflection. Indeed, in the wake of Vatican II, the council that introduced a Copernican shift in the Catholic understanding of the laity, lay people have become the theme of a Synod of Bishops, the subject of (...) an Apostolic Exhortation, and the topic of several pastoral statements of national conferences of bishops. This paper begins with a review of the state of the question highlighting the need for a comparative investigation of the theologies of the laity according to John Paul II, the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences, and the Vietnamese Episcopal Conference. It then highlights the differences and convergences in these theologies. As all three theologies draw their inspiration from the teachings of Vatican II, and a prominent element of the council's concerns was the emphasis on the universal call to holiness, we will also provide a detailed comparison of this notable aspect across these theological systems. Our argument is that while some minor points of divergence and disagreement remain there is a greater convergence and agreement between these theologies of the laity. (shrink)

At a time when more corporate employers are using genetic information as a cornerstone of their hiring practices, when workers find their chromosomes considered alongside their resumes, the ramifications of genetic testing demand further examination. Risky Business analyzes health screening in the workplace - three major types of testing are examined: genetic screening in which job applicants and employees are tested for inherited traits that may predispose them to the disease:genetic monitoring that aims to detect genetic damage among current employees (...) that could indicate exposure to dangerous chemicals; and teratogenic risk in which laboratory cultures and animals are used to provide evidence of the effects of chemical exposure on humans. (shrink)

This paper addresses the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. I argue that there is scope for an account of asylum as compensation owed to those displaced by the impacts of climate change which needs only to appeal to minimal normative commitments about the requirements of global justice. I demonstrate the possibility of such an approach through an examination of the work of David Miller. Miller is taken as an exemplar of a broadly ‘international libertarian’ approach to global justice, and his work (...) is a useful vehicle for this project because he has an established view about both responsibility for climate change and about the state’s right to exclude would-be immigrants. In the course of the argument, I set out the relevant aspects of Miller’s views, reconstruct an account of responsibility for the harms faced by climate migrants which is consistent with Miller’s views, and demonstrate why such an account yields an obligation to provide asylum as a form of compensation to ‘climate migrants.’. (shrink)

Climate change is reshaping patterns of displacement around the world. Extreme weather events destroy homes, environmental degradation threatens the viability of livelihoods, sea level rise and coastal erosion force communities to relocate, and risks to food and resource security magnify the sources of political instability. Climate displacement—the displacement of people driven at least in part by the impacts of climate change—is a pressing moral challenge that is incumbent upon us to address. -/- This book develops a political theory of climate (...) displacement. Most work on climate displacement has tended to take an idealized ‘climate refugee’ as its focus. But focusing on the figure of the climate refugee obscures the complexity and heterogeneity of climate displacement. Instead, this book takes the empirical dynamics of climate displacement as its starting point. It examines the moral and political problems raised by the interaction of climate change and displacement in five domains: community relocation, territorial sovereignty, labour migration, refugee movement, and internal displacement. In each context, climate displacement raises distinct questions, which this book explores on their own terms. At the same time, this book treats climate displacement as a unified phenomenon by examining the overarching questions of responsibility and fairness that it raises. The result is an empirically grounded political theory that both maps the conceptual terrain of climate displacement and charts a course for meeting the moral challenge that it raises. (shrink)

In "A Cosmological Argument for a Self-Caused Universe ," one of us (Smith) argued that the universe explains its own existence because (i) its existence is entailed by (and so explained by) the existence of the infinitely many instantaneous universe states that compose it, and (ii) each of those states is caused by (and so explained by) infinitely many earlier universe states.[1] Moreover, (ii) is true even if the universe is finitely old because, given standard Big Bang cosmology (Friedmann cosmology), (...) the universe does not exist at t0 (i.e., the Big Bang singularity is not real) and no matter how close some moment tn (at which the universe does exist) is to t0, there are infinitely many (indeed continuum-many) moments at which the universe exists that are even closer. Thus, even a finitely old universe has no beginning in the sense of a first moment, and hence its state at any moment is (sufficiently) caused by (all of) the universe states that precede it. Further, since this explanation of the existence of the universe is complete despite making no reference to God, and since God by definition is a part of any complete explanation of the universe, it follows that God does not exist. (shrink)