We investigated the causes and impact of procrastination on “slippery deadlines,” where the due date is ill-defined and can be autonomously extended, using the unique applied setting of grievance arbitration across two studies. In Study One, using 3 years of observed performance data derived from Canadian arbitration cases and a survey of leading arbitrators, we examined the effect of individual differences, self-regulatory skills, workloads and task characteristics on time delay. Observed delay here is a critical criterion, where justice is emphasized (...) to be swift and sure. Multilevel Modeling established trait procrastination as a substantive predictor of observed delay, equivalent to the environmental contributors of expediting the arbitration procedure or grievance complexity. Also, despite substantive negative consequence of delay for both arbitrators and their clients, arbitrators who scored one standard deviation above the mean in procrastination took approximately 83 days to write their decisions compared to the 26 days for arbitrators one standard deviation below the mean. In Study Two, we conducted a replication and extension survey with a much larger group of American arbitrators. Consistent with Temporal Motivation Theory, trait procrastination was largely explained by expectancy, value, and sensitivity to time related traits and skills, which together accounted for majority of the variance in trait procrastination, leaving little left for other explanations. For example, perfectionism connection to procrastination appears to be distal, being largely mediated by each of TMT’s core variables. Finally, procrastination was largely synonymous with a deadline pacing style, indicating that observed delay can be used as a proxy for procrastination as long as little or no prior work was done. In all, our results indicate that procrastination is rampant in the workplace and has seriously detrimental effects. (shrink)

As a stress test of experimenter demand effects, we run an experiment where subjects can physically destroy coupons awarded to them. About one subject out of three does. Giving money back to the experimenter is possible in a separate task but is more consistent with an experimenter demand effect than an explanation based on altruism towards the experimenter. A measure of sensitivity to social pressure helps predict destruction when social information is provided.

The study of biodiversity spans many disciplines and includes data pertaining to species distributions and abundances, genetic sequences, trait measurements, and ecological niches, complemented by information on collection and measurement protocols. A review of the current landscape of metadata standards and ontologies in biodiversity science suggests that existing standards such as the Darwin Core terminology are inadequate for describing biodiversity data in a semantically meaningful and computationally useful way. Existing ontologies, such as the Gene Ontology and others in the Open (...) Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry library, provide a semantic structure but lack many of the necessary terms to describe biodiversity data in all its dimensions. In this paper, we describe the motivation for and ongoing development of a new Biological Collections Ontology, the Environment Ontology, and the Population and Community Ontology. These ontologies share the aim of improving data aggregation and integration across the biodiversity domain and can be used to describe physical samples and sampling processes (for example, collection, extraction, and preservation techniques), as well as biodiversity observations that involve no physical sampling. Together they encompass studies of: 1) individual organisms, including voucher specimens from ecological studies and museum specimens, 2) bulk or environmental samples (e.g., gut contents, soil, water) that include DNA, other molecules, and potentially many organisms, especially microbes, and 3) survey-based ecological observations. We discuss how these ontologies can be applied to biodiversity use cases that span genetic, organismal, and ecosystem levels of organization. We argue that if adopted as a standard and rigorously applied and enriched by the biodiversity community, these ontologies would significantly reduce barriers to data discovery, integration, and exchange among biodiversity resources and researchers. (shrink)

This draft entry is a brief overview of John Stuart Mill's moral and political philosophy, with an emphasis on his views on religion, for the Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion (Wiley-Blackwell).

A comprehensive draft overview of John Stuart Mill's public life and philosophy, including discussion of: 1. A System of Logic. – 2. The Greatest Happiness Principle. – 3. Progress, Liberty, and Democracy. – 4. Equality. – 5. India and Empire. – 6. Distribution, Socialism, and Sustainability.

My aim in this chapter is to place John Stuart Mill’s distinctive utilitarian political philosophy in the context of the debate about luck, responsibility, and equality. I hope it will reveal the extent to which his utilitarianism provides a helpful framework for synthesizing the competing claims of luck and relational egalitarianism. I attempt to show that when Mill’s distributive justice commitments are not decided by direct appeal to overall happiness, they are guided by three main public principles: an impartiality (...) principle, a sufficiency principle, and a merit principle. The question then becomes how luck and relational considerations figure into his articulation of these public principles. I argue that relational egalitarianism is more fundamental than considerations of luck and responsibility in Mill’s thought, but I also hope to show that any fleshed out picture of Mill’s reform proposals must recognize his condemnation of the role luck plays in determining the distribution of opportunities and outcomes. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's defense of freedom of discussion in On Liberty remains a major influence on philosophical and public debates about free speech. By highlighting underappreciated textual evidence and key distinctions, this introduction attempts to show how the contributions of the symposium authors – Melina Constantine Bell, Rafael Cejudo, Christopher Macleod, and Dale E. Miller – point toward a more complete account of Mill's views.

William James’s radical empiricism and pragmatism constitutes a philosophy that can reconcile the split between intrinsic value theorists, who stress the development and relevance of theoretical axiology, and pragmatists who have favored a more direct emphasis on environmental policy and application. By distinguishing James’s emphasis on direct personal experience from John Dewey’s more socialized approach, James’s distinctive emphasis on the transformative possibilities of pure experience and his links to romantic sensibility enable us to articulate and validate the noninstrumental aspects (...) of experienced environmental values that anti-pragmatists habitually regard pragmatism as unable to speak for. Using James’s framework to explicate and support Anthony Weston’s radically noninstrumental “immediate values” better expresses the felt noninstrumental worth of nature than intrinsic value theory can. Nonetheless, a rapprochement between the two sides is possible: although James’s pragmatic naturalism is the framework that can best capture nature’s experienced noninstrumental worth and link it to wider human values, intrinsic value theory has real practical application in the realm of law, and pragmatists can support it in that domain, thus upholding the primary emphasis on practicality and policy that is usually seen as pragmatism’s main strength. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on John Stuart Mill’s moral theory has settled on the view that he is committed to a form of rule utilitarianism. I argue that this consensus is mistaken. Mill’s explicit account of practical rules is incompatible with rule utilitarianism but consistent with sophisticated act utilitarianism. I also examine the direct, textual evidence cited by rule utilitarian interpreters, arguing that it is consistent with the act utilitarian account of practical rules. Finally, I argue that two systematic considerations cited (...) by rule utilitarian interpreters—Mill’s analysis of “wrong” in terms of the appropriateness of punishment, and his account of supererogation—also do not require a rule utilitarian reading. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Pragmatist Philosophy of History by Marnie BinderPiers H. G. StephensA Pragmatist Philosophy of History Marnie Binder. Lexington Books, 2023.Looking at current scholarship and opinion in American philosophy, one can easily conclude that there has been much more work done on studying the history of pragmatist philosophy than there has been on what pragmatist philosophy can give to the study of history. Ever since the resurrection of interest (...) in pragmatism in the late twentieth century, we have seen a range of publications offering new interpretations for the ideas of the classical pragmatists, as well as important new applications for philosophical pragmatism and the moving to center stage of historically sidelined individuals and groups. What we have seen relatively little of, however, aside from a 2016 symposium in the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, is sustained engagement with the question of what a classically pragmatist approach to historical inquiry might contribute, entail, or imply. It is this important niche in the ecosystem of American philosophy that Marnie Binder's A Pragmatist Philosophy of History seeks to partially fill in.Binder, who is perhaps best known for her past writings on José Ortega y Gasset, is at pains from the start to indicate both the humility and the utility of her project. As befits the tradition, there are no grandiose philosophical pretensions here, with the "goal in presenting a pragmatist philosophy of [End Page 112] history" merely being "to add another apparatus to the toolkits of the philosopher and the historian," an extra perspective that is "meant to complement other methodologies" (xi; emphasis in original), as she explains in her introduction. At the same time, pragmatism can offer something distinctive, firstly through asking the pragmatic question of what difference is meant by the accepting of particular presumed facts as being true, and secondly, being able to better understand why certain historical details have relevance, value, and meaning for us as a result of answering the first question. A pragmatist philosophy of history is helpful then, Binder maintains, as it "is in a unique position to bridge the speculative analytic divide" (xiii), and her approach to doing this is to draw upon the resources found in the works of a succession of the familiar classical pragmatists, building toward a synthesis and a cashing out of insights in her concluding reflections.Structurally the work consists of an explanatory introduction followed by six chapters, each dedicated to a particular pragmatist and their insights, leading finally to an extended concluding section drawing the component parts together and answering possible objections to the project. Pragmatism, as Binder recognizes, is seldom thought of as a historically orientated philosophy, but she argues that for each of these thinkers—William James, John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller, Charles Sanders Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and Jane Addams—there is at least the germ of a philosophy of history that can be unearthed and developed, eventually helping to inform understanding of what is needed to bring a pragmatist ethics into practical reality, the last of which is manifested primarily by Addams. Thus, the treatment of William James in chapter 1 homes in on James's psychological insights into the way that experienced reality forms a temporal continuum; our consciousness necessarily selects from the experiences of the past, ascribing interpretations and assuming levels of facticity and relevance, since no individual can know all the facts or select among them with perfect impartiality. The continuum will be one that speaks to the inquirer's concerns with accuracy, practicality, meaningfulness, and coherence, as all knowledge comes about through temporal processes, and since past events are continuously added to and can be continuously reinterpreted, it can have no real or ultimate beginning or end. Accordingly, for a Jamesian pragmatist account, the "continuum of history is the way in which we construct a meaning for history of the connected past experiences with the present and in view of the future—this is what we call 'history'" (7; emphasis in original), and Binder draws upon José Medina's recent work to further illuminate how such history can and will be continuously critically reconstructed. In addition, she observes, such reconstruction [End Page... (shrink)

John Stuart Mill’s defense of free discussion in On Liberty includes the claim that silencing discussion implies an “assumption of infallibility.” This claim is often dismissed as absurd on the ground that a censor might attempt to silence an opinion he believes to be true but pernicious, or because rational assurance short of infallibility is obviously sufficient to justify censorship. This paper argues that Mill is concerned about the epistemic position one assumes with regard to future persons and circumstances (...) as a result of attempting to settle some matter irremediably. The irrationality of this "assumption" sets an important authority-limiting constraint on both social authority and individuals in matters that otherwise would fall under their rightful control. For individuals, in particular, it explains Mill's restriction on selling oneself into irrevocable slavery. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether all that unites the main parts of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty—the liberty principle, the defense of free discussion, the promotion of individuality, and the claims concerning individual competence about one’s own good—is a general concern with individual liberty, or whether we can say something more concrete about how they are related. I attempt to show that the arguments of On Liberty exemplify Mill’s institutional design approach set out in Considerations of Representative (...) Government and related works. Mill’s approach reflects both his debt to Bentham and his own progressive development of the utilitarian tradition. The paper proceeds by setting out the elements of Mill’s institutional designs and then showing that On Liberty neatly applies them, thereby clarifying the structure of the arguments of On Liberty. (shrink)

Joseph Persky's excellent book, The Political Economy of Progress: John Stuart Mill and Modern Radicalism, shows that J. S. Mill's support for socialism is a carefully considered element of his political and economic reform agenda. The key thought underlying Persky's argument is that Mill has an ‘evolutionary theory of justice’, according to which the set of institutions and practices that are appropriate to one state of society should give way to a new set of institutions as circumstances change and (...) the people themselves improve. However, Persky does not spend a great deal of time discussing Mill's theory of reform, in particular the principles he believes should guide our reform efforts. Reflecting on these principles – notably his principle of impartiality or equal treatment – shows the consistency of Mill's thought over time. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine the three main arguments of On Liberty: first, a largely epistemic argument that individual and social improvement, because they depend so much on intellectual development, require social conditions allowing for free discussion and “experiments of living;” second, an argument that individuality, or self‐directedness, is itself a key constitutive part of the individual human good; third, the introduction of a principle – the liberty principle – according to which only considerations of nonconsensual “harm to others” may (...) justify social or political interference. I then consider whether Mill, as a liberal utilitarian, has anything to offer the public reason tradition that dominates contemporary liberal thought. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill is known as the first canonical Western philosopher to espouse a stationary state of economic growth, and as such he can be seen as an important totemic figure for reformist strategies in environmental ethics. However, his reputation among environmental thinkers has been rendered more ambiguous in recent years by increased attention to his essay “Nature.” The “Nature” essay has been much used lately by critics to oppose claims that independent nature may properly be seen as important (...) in any way as an ethical guide or inspiration, and that Mill’s philosophy may feasibly be viewed as pro-environmentalist. This use of Mill’s essay is mistaken, and has undermined appreciation of the potential significance of Mill’s thought for environmental philosophy. When examining the most detailed of the critical treatments of the essay, reading “Nature” as an anti-environmentalist text badly distorts the essay’s meaning by ripping it from the context of Mill’s intentions as well as from the very specific and significant historical circumstances and biographical conditions of its production. Attending properly to these factors shows that the essay is unrepresentative of Mill’s general position and rather philosophically weaker than its reputation. Reading the text as a definitive statement of Mill’s supposed anti-naturalism is thus mistaken and fails to recognize different modes and significances in “following nature,” some of which Mill supported. The “Nature” essay is an aberrant outlier in the Mill canon, and one which should no longer be allowed to undermine Mill’s strong and important environmentalist credentials. (shrink)

I argue that a notorious passage from Utilitarianism concerning the relationship between morality and blameworthiness need not be an obstacle to a consistent act-utilitarian interpretation of Mill's moral theory. First, the Art of Life provides a framework for reconciling Mill's evaluation of conduct in terms of both expediency and blameworthiness. Like contemporary sophisticated act-utilitarians, Mill treats expediency as the more fundamental category of evaluation. Second, textual evidence suggests that, on Mill's view, evaluations of blameworthiness are not strictly bound by rules, (...) despite rule-ish considerations about punishment and discretion. Third, Mill's own jurisdictional account in terms of competent decision-making remains consistent with the act-utilitarian interpretation. (shrink)

A leading classical utilitarian, John Stuart Mill is an unlikely contributor to the public reason tradition in political philosophy. To hold that social rules or political institutions are justified by their contribution to overall happiness is to deny that they are justified by their being the object of consensus or convergence among all those holding qualified moral or political viewpoints. In this chapter, I explore the surprising ways in which Mill nevertheless works to accommodate the problems and insights of (...) the public reason tradition, and the extent to which he makes arguments that can help those working within that tradition. Mill’s utilitarian theory incorporates the claim that the demands of social life require a publicly accepted set of normative expectations to govern judgments about when one has met one’s obligations and, relatedly, about the appropriateness of blame or punishment. (shrink)

This article examines John Stuart Mill's position as the principal historical opponent of legal moralism. I argue that inattention to the particular form of his opposition to legal moralism has muddied the interpretation of his liberty principle. Specifically, Mill does not endorse what I call the illegitimacy thesis, according to which appeals to harmless wrongdoings, whether or not they exist, are illegitimate in the justification of legal interference.

When people of good faith and sound mind disagree deeply about moral, religious, and other philosophical matters, how can we justify political institutions to all of them? The idea of public reason―of a shared public standard, despite disagreement―arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the work of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant. At a time when John Rawls’ influential theory of public reason has come under fire but its core idea remains attractive to many, it is important not (...) to lose sight of earlier philosophers’ answers to the problem of private conflict through public reason. -/- The distinctive selections from the great social contract theorists in this volume emphasize the pervasive theme of intractable disagreement and the need for public justification. New essays by leading scholars then put the historical work in context and provide a focus of debate and discussion. They also explore how the search for public reason has informed a wider body of modern political theory―in the work of Hume, Hegel, Bentham, and Mill―sometimes in surprising ways. The idea of public reason is revealed as an overarching theme in modern political philosophy―one very much needed today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ethics of Surgical Interventions for Body Integrity Identity Disorder and Gender DysphoriaNicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P.IntroductionOn May 20, 2009, Fox News featured a report that described the life of a man named "John" who had spent his life struggling with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID).1 In a phone interview, John admitted that he remembers wanting to amputate his leg when he was between seven and (...) eleven years of age, by sticking his leg under the rear wheel of a bus. He never went through with it but continued to experience an intense desire to amputate his healthy limb for the following fifty-plus years. Described for the first time in 1977 as apotemnophilia, BIID was originally thought to be a psychological disorder characterized by sexual arousal associated with the desire to be an amputee. However, it was renamed when Dr. Michael First, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, proposed that the primary motivation behind the condition was an issue of identity rather than of sexual desire.2 This proposal is controversial.3 Despite much [End Page 1003] debate, BIID was not included in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which was published on May 18, 2013.In this essay, we will consider the ethics of surgical interventions for BIID and Gender Dysphoria (GD).4 We begin with a discussion of the principle of totality that distinguishes ethical from unethical modifications of the body. We will refer specifically to the latter category of surgical interventions as "mutilations," though the Catholic moral tradition's use of the term is itself ambiguous.5 This is followed by an extensive moral discussion of (1) amputations of healthy limbs for patients struggling with BIID and (2) sex reassignment surgeries for those who identify themselves as transgender persons. I will propose that an ethical argument can be made to justify the former but not the latter.The Principle of TotalityBecause of the goodness of the human body, its integrity is a good that has to be protected and preserved. The ethical principle that is used to judge the morality of bodily interventions that impinge upon this bodily integrity is the principle of totality.6 It was articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae as follows:Since a member is part of the whole human body, it is for the sake of the whole, as the imperfect for the perfect. Hence a member of the human body is to be disposed of according as it is expedient for the body.... If, however, the member be decayed and therefore a source of corruption to the whole body, then it is lawful with the consent [End Page 1004] of the owner of the member, to cut away the member for the welfare of the whole body.7Over the centuries, Catholic moral theologians appealed to the principle of totality to justify three different scenarios that involved the sacrifice of a bodily organ for the sake of the whole human organism. The first case involves a diseased organ that has to be removed to save the life of the soldier wounded on the battlefield—say a gangrenous, decaying limb as in the example of Aquinas. The second case involves the healthy foot of a man who is trapped on a railroad track that has to be amputated to save his life from a collision with a train, and the third case involves the healthy limb of an individual that has to be amputated in response to a tyrant who orders him to cut off his own hand or lose his head to the executioners instead. In these cases, the sacrifice of the part would be morally permitted as a necessary means of preserving the life of the individual. As Fr. Gerald Kelly, S.J., points out, this final case is particularly significant because it involves a healthy limb whose very presence—and not its diseased or trapped condition—becomes a source of vital harm for the organism.8How does one justify the principle of totality? In 1944, Pope Pius XII explained it this way: "Man's power over his... (shrink)

The main conclusion of Nigel Hiscock's important but ill‐arranged book is that the ground plans of abbeys and cathedrals of the tenth and eleventh centuries incorporate Platonic wisdom—hence the “wise” in the title catchwords, which come from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians . There Paul likens himself to a sapiens architectus who lays the foundations on which others erect the building. In three of the four translations in The Complete Parallel Bible, however, Paul does not declare himself wise but, (...) rather, “skilled” or “trained.” The discrepancy makes an emblem for Hiscock's investigation: Did the architects deliberately express geometrical ratios significant in Platonic philosophy in their designs or did they proceed by applying their practical skill and training to the lie of the land and the resources available? A subsidiary question is also symbolized in Paul's verse: Was the designer a wise cleric who set the proportions and left the heavy work to someone else?Hiscock builds his answers in two ways. For one, he delivers a chrestomathy of Platonic snippets known in the tenth century and a few telling quotations from wise clerics—the latter concern the expression of significant numbers in the church fabric: a baptistery is octagonal because of an association between creation and the number eight, and a church with a half‐dozen altars is complete because of the perfection of the number six. But, Hiscock emphasizes, numerology does not account for floor plans, and to test the wisdom of the designers he scrutinizes plans of two dozen churches, especially those associated with monastic reformers. He expresses his results in color‐coded lines superposed on the plans, some one hundred of which comprise a valuable appendix.An example will indicate the interest of the findings and the riskiness of the business. The crossing of the transept at St. Michael's Abbey, Hildesheim, makes a square ABCD, proceeding clockwise from A in the northeast corner. AD and BC prolonged give the line of nave piers, AB and DC prolonged that of the arms of the transept. Lines drawn from B at angles of 54° and 60° with BC cut CD extended in E and F, respectively, locating the end piers in the side aisles. Now 60°, as the invariable angle of a three‐sided figure all of whose parts are equal, carries a cornucopia of Platonic and Christian symbolism. Also 54°, because derivable from a pentagon, has the pregnant significance of the figure five, which is the sum of the first male and first female numbers. Repetition of the transept square fixes the nave piers. Then lines between piers, pillars, and pilasters make the special angles with the north‐south and east‐west lines of the grid all over the plan.How much of this construction is mere coincidence? Requiring the intervals between piers in the same line to be equal, we have DE = FE = FD/2. And so it is: / = 0.51. Otherwise put, if angle FBC is 60° and E divides FD equally, angle EBC must be 54° without reference to a pentagon. Against such arguments, Hiscock observes that his analysis has uncovered previously unknown relations between churches confirmed by documents and that his technique, when applied to large nineteenth‐century buildings with repeated bays such as the Crystal Palace, picks out relatively few structurally significant elements.Hiscock is senior lecturer on the design, theory, and history of architecture at Oxford Brookes University and a master craftsman. His scrupulously prepared color‐coded drawings contain much of interest and pleasure for a geometer. Has he definitively answered the old vexed question whether the sapiens architectus intended to express ancient wisdom in his plans? If the architect thus proposed, did his builder faithfully dispose? Paul again may give guidance. “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Afterword to the Polish Edition of Thomistic EvolutionA Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith by Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Thomas Davenport, O.P., and John Baptist Ku, O.P.*Mariusz Tabaczek O.P.Translated by Monika Metlerska-Colerick[End Page 225]Thomistic Evolution: A Catholic Approach to Understanding Evolution in the Light of Faith, by Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Thomas Davenport, O.P., (...) and John Baptist Ku, O.P., is an intriguing attempt at a comprehensive approach to the question of theistic evolutionism from the perspective of Thomistic tradition. The breadth of the approach offered by the authors, starting with the problem of the relationship between reason and faith and subsequently reaching to the foundations of the philosophy of nature, natural theology, and theology of creation, as well as biblical exegesis, provides an appropriate introduction and background for the analysis of a thesis suggesting that it is possible for God to create new species of living organisms (including the Homo sapiens sapiens species) through the processes of evolution. The comprehensible manner in which the discussed questions are presented renders the book accessible to a wide audience.Although one should agree with the main thesis formulated by the authors of Thomistic Evolution regarding the possibility of God expressing his creative power through the emergence of new species of living beings by way of evolution, it also has to be noticed that the arguments they present do not always take fully into consideration certain significant difficulties that arise along the way and the resulting necessity to broaden and adjust the ideas of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to present-day standards in order for it to engage in a dialogue with contemporary science. In the absence of such broadening and adjusting, one might arrive at an overly simplified view of things in which St. Thomas himself would easily come to agree with the main assumptions of theistic evolutionism. Our aim, thus, is to reveal a more profound level of the complexity of the debate regarding the Thomistic view of creation and evolution.St. Thomas and EvolutionismOn the one hand, Brent's intuition seems justified that the Thomistic definition of creation as being dependent on God in existence (depicted in chapter 7) is compatible with both the image of the world in which various kinds of species are immutable and the image of the world in which they are subject to change. On the other hand, we cannot forget that St. Thomas himself perceived forms of species as permanently fixed in the moment of the first member of a given species coming into existence and—consequently—not being subject to any future alterations. Hence, reproduction, according to Aquinas, serves as a continuation of species without the introduction of any significant variations: "Nature produces like from like. Now the thing generated is like its generator in [End Page 226] species and form. Therefore the form is produced by the action of the generator and not by creation" (De pot., q. 3, a. 8, sc 4).This quotation from Questiones disputatae de potentia points us towards the theological question of creation. Here, we must emphasize that, according to St. Thomas, at its origin, the world was perfect as to the number of created species. Hence, "something can be added every day to the perfection of the universe, as to the number of individuals, but not as to the number of species" (ST I, q. 118, a. 3, ad 2).1 It is true that Aquinas allowed for the arising of new animal species through putrefaction caused by the power of the sun, as well as through the crossbreeding of already existing species (see ST I, q. 73, a. 1, ad 3, a portion of which is quoted by Austriaco in chapter 24). However, the emergence of new forms of animal organisms in this way by no means implies or anticipates the theory of their descent from a common ancestor by way of evolutionary transformation. Nor is it a manifestation or expression of the most basic rules governing nature, but rather an exception and a departure from their regularity... (shrink)

Scholars have long recognized that riddles were part of literary and intellectual culture in late-medieval England, and considerable effort has been expended to ponder a prominent handful of late-fourteenth-century writings in Latin and English that use them, including John Ergome's commentary on the Vaticinium of “John of Bridlington,” the seditious vernacular letters circulated during the Rising of 1381, and most famously Piers Plowman, all notorious for the use of peculiar and difficult riddles that flaunt their interpretative challenges and (...) the social power of their hermeneutical barriers. Comparatively vast gaps, however, remain in our knowledge of the range, distinctive modes, and customary contexts of riddles in this period, so that the isolated uses of them that have been studied seem, in May McKisack's words about Piers Plowman, to speak “to us from a forgotten world, drowned, mysterious, irrecoverable.”. (shrink)

Piers Norris Turner’s recent interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s philosophy transforms Mill into an illiberal utilitarian, against the textual evidence. Mill rejects Turner’s standard utilitarian, or “expansive,” conception of harm, according to which mere displeasure or distress counts as nonconsensual harm. Moreover, Mill is not a radical antipaternalist. He says that society may legitimately consider the individual’s own good as a reason for interference with other-regarding actions that inflict nonconsensual harm on others. But there are no reasons, paternalistic or (...) otherwise, for interference with self-regarding actions that may be displeasing to others without causing them any nonconsensual harm. (shrink)

Derek Parfit takes an externalist and cognitivist view about normative reasons. I shall explore this view and add some arguments that support it. But I shall also raise a doubt about it at the end.

Two medical essays in the hand of John Locke survive amongst the Shaftesbury Papers in the National Archives (National Archives PRO 30/24/47/2, ff. 31r–38v and ff. 49r–56r). Since the 1960s their authorship has been disputed. Some scholars have attributed them to the London physician Thomas Sydenham, others have attributed them to Locke. Detailed analyses of their contents and the context of their composition provide very strong evidence for Lockean authorship. This is reinforced by the application of the most recent (...) techniques of computational stylistics. (shrink)

" The consequences of this article for Adams' thought are nowhere better articulated than in this anthology, which presents his remarkable attempts at ...

Festchrift in honor of John Vattanky, Indian philosopher; Includes contributed articles on Hindu philosophy.

_A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail_ In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers (...) abroad. It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build institutions. This policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has ended up as a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. Mearsheimer tells us why this has happened. (shrink)

In this short monograph, John Horty explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. The book begins by focusing on the psychological constraints governing Frege's notion of sense, or meaning, and argues that, given these constraints, even the treatment of simple stipulative definitions led Frege to important difficulties. Horty is able to suggest ways out of these difficulties that are both philosophically and logically plausible and Fregean (...) in spirit. This discussion is then connected to a number of more familiar topics, such as indexicality and the discussion of concepts in recent theories of mind and language. In the latter part of the book, after introducing a simple semantic model of senses as procedures, Horty considers the problems that definitions present for Frege's idea that the sense of an expression should mirror its grammatical structure. The requirement can be satisfied, he argues, only if defined expressions--and incomplete expressions as well--are assigned senses of their own, rather than treated contextually. He then explores one way in which these senses might be reified within the procedural model, drawing on ideas from work in the semantics of computer programming languages. With its combination of technical semantics and history of philosophy, Horty's book tackles some of the hardest questions in the philosophy of language. It should interest philosophers, logicians, and linguists. (shrink)

Nurses working in outreach capacities frequently encounter disaffiliated or ‘hard to reach’ populations, such as those experiencing homelessness, those who use substances, and those with mental health concerns. Despite best efforts, nurses regularly fail to find meaningful engagement with these populations. Mobilizing the work of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper will critically examine conventional outreach nursing practices as rooted in the royal science of psychiatry, which many ‘survivors’ of psychiatric interventions reject. The field of Mad Studies offers an understanding of (...) patient resistance to outreach nursing interventions. Delueze and Guattari's concepts of packs and sorcerers provide a framework to envision alternative nursing practices as a form of resistance and creativity, where new alliances may be formed outside the coercive confines of traditional practices. In response to patient resistance, outreach nurses themselves must assemble packs and engage in acts of sorcery. (shrink)

John Rawls's transition from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism was driven by his rejection of Theory's account of stability. The key to his later account of stability is the idea of public reason. We see Rawls's account of stability as an attempt to solve a mutual assurance problem. We maintain that Rawls's solution fails because his primary assurance mechanism, in the form of public reason, is fragile. His conception of public reason relies on a condition of consensus (...) that we argue is unrealistic in modern, pluralistic democracies. After rejecting Rawls's conception of public reason, we offer an ‘indirect alternative’ that we believe is much more robust. We cite experimental evidence to back up this claim. (shrink)

John Collins presents a new analysis of the problem of the unity of the proposition-how propositions can be both single things and complexes at the same time. He surveys previous investigations of the problem and offers his own novel and uniquely satisfying solution, which is defended from both philosophical and linguistic perspectives.