Charles Mills claims that there are specific “civic and political duties” which individuals have a responsibility to fulfil because of the racial social roles they occupy. However, even those generally sympathetic to Role Ethics resist the idea that such nonvoluntary and morally problematic roles could ground genuine normativity. I argue that we should take the felt normativity of nonideal social roles seriously. Further, I argue that we should agree with Mills that one’s race constitutes a social role with normative force. (...) However, I claim that Mills is wrong to seek to ground this normativity in an actual social contract and I argue instead that Margaret Gilbert’s account of joint commitment, and its accompanying notion of collective intentionality, can be developed so as to provide a more promising proposal. I conclude that the responsibility to abide by the norms in question is better understood as grounded in the individual role holder’s involvement in the collective intentionality of the relevant racial class. (shrink)

Andrea Westlund's account of love involves lovers becoming a Plural Subject mirroring Margaret Gilbert's Plural Subject Theory. However, while for Gilbert the creation of a plural will involves individuals jointly committing to pool their wills and the plural will directly normatively constraining those individuals, Westlund, in contrast, sees the creation of a plural will as a continual process thus rejecting the possibility of such direct normative constraint. This rejection appears to be required to explain the flexibility that allows for a (...) central place for reciprocity in loving relationships. However, this paper argues against the existence of such flexibility and presents instead the case that variance in the normative pain of rebelling against the collective will can be accommodated by replacing Gilbert's notion of all-or-nothing pooling of wills with an account that see wills as becoming entangled through levels of identification with the plural subject. (shrink)

In this second edition, Joseph Rychlak has retained his analysis of the philosophical antecedents of psychology and, at the same time, has considerably revised more complicated material illustration rigorous humanism to make the book more accessible for students. Rychlak here offers an analysis of the philosophical traditions underlying the social sciences and shows how functionalism came to dominate the modern science of psychology in America.

One vexed philosophical question that once enjoyed great esteem is this: in the Beatific Vision that the saints enjoy in heaven, does happiness (beatitudo) consist in the vision of God, in delight in God, or in a combination of the vision and the delight? The answer that one gives to this question apparently commits one to a view about what happiness is ultimately about. It has long been thought that Aquinas holds that happiness consists in the vision of God alone. (...) In this essay, I argue that, on this important issue, Aquinas actually maintains that happiness consists both in the vision of God and delight in God, but that—unlike some of his contemporaries—Aquinas unequivocally affirms that the vision is more important in happiness than the delight. After arguing for this interpretation, I consider the quite compelling account of perfect and imperfect happiness that seems to follow from it. (shrink)

Originally published in 1942, this book examines Plato's later dialogues, particularly Timaeus, in terms of their dependence on pre-Socratic philosophy and other aspects of ancient thought and life. Skemp assesses Plato's views on reality and how it could be more than his idealized Forms. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the Socratic and Platonic philosophies and the circumstances of their development.

This paper is a contribution to a symposium on Michael Otsuka’s book, How to Pool Risk Across Generations. Following Otsuka, one may distinguish three distinct systems of cooperation within a standard pension arrangement: the retirement system, the longevity risk pool and the investment risk pool. It is important to observe, however, that only the retirement system constitutes a genuine system of intergenerational cooperation, the other two are essentially intragenerational, in that they pool risks among members of a cohort. Otsuka is (...) faulted for being occasionally less than clear on these distinctions. (shrink)

In the characterization of the ArCl2 'van der Waals complex', a recognizable pattern of well-defined peaks is observed in the microwave absorption spectrum. In the control of chaos in a chemical oscillatory reaction the power spectrum progressively becomes simpler, at length yielding a single peak. Since both of these cases generate coherences that are centers of agency, they should be considered to produce new chemical entities. Applicability of this ontological approach to coherences of wider societal interest is suggested.

In this paper I focus on John Locke as a representative figure of English Enlightenment theorizing about the legitimacy of cognitive authority and examine the way in which a greater attention to the cultural milieu in which Locke worked can lead to a profound reexamination of his writings on cognitive authority. In particular, I suggest that an inattention to the rise of a culture of reading and the growing availability of books in Early Modern England has led historians of philosophy (...) largely to misrepresent Locke's theory of testimonial justification. At the core of my paper are two interrelated claims. First, with respect to the history of ideas, I argue that the Locke's interest in testimony as a source of justification was in fact greater than that of his Scholastic forebears, and that this fact has a simple, if as yet unacknowledged, cultural cause -- viz., the rise of the book as a mass commodity in the late 17th century. Second, with respect to the history of philosophy more particularly, I argue that this failure to acknowledge the cultural movements that led to a consideration of testimony as a topic of interest to epistemologists in the Modern era has led to a misreading of Locke's work on the subject. Indeed, Locke, though usually read as having attempted to denigrate testimony as a legitimate source of justification, in fact sought to devise an epistemology that would do justice to the centrality of testimony in the intellectual lives of growing numbers of his contemporaries in 17th and 18th century England and Scotland. (shrink)

This Q methodological study explored the ways preservice and in-service social studies teachers engaged with a collection of social media posts about the Black Lives Matter movement. The study asked participants to share their reactions to the posts as well as how they would determine which posts they might present to their students in the classroom. The analysis of the Q sorts identified three subject positions available to these social studies teachers—labeled the Context Provider, the Data Debater, and the Critical (...) Confronter. Notably, each of these subject positions was underscored by a prevalent discourse of teachers working as a Guide on the Side. These findings suggest that social studies teachers’ pedagogical imaginings of engaging students with social media content and in the analysis of current social and political movements for justice are significantly informed by dominant discourses of teacher “neutrality.”. (shrink)

There is now a robust literature on the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) that pertains largely to non-military issues – issues of, among other things, bias, fairness, and unintended consequences. There is less published work, however, on how these lessons from industry and academia might inform the ethics of AI in the military context. In this article, I take small steps to demonstrate the ways in which the field of AI ethics might be relevant to military applications. Ultimately, I argue (...) that even though the outcomes of AI failures might look very different in the non-military context versus in the military context, the causes of those failures can be very similar; and addressing those potential causes of AI failures in the development of military AI systems will result in fewer ethical failures after deployment. (shrink)

Two recent practice-based conceptions of linguistic communication challenge the dominant “content-delivery” models. Beaver and Stanley’s The Politics of Language (2023) and Rouse’s Social Practices as Biological Niche Construction (2023) have different aims. Beaver and Stanley develop an account of linguistic meaning as affective and politically engaged. Rouse starts from evolutionary accounts of human ways of life to situate language within a more general, naturalistic account of social practices as forms of biological niche construction. Despite their different orientations, the two books (...) can work together as a more compelling challenge to standard accounts of linguistic meaning and communication. (shrink)

The audit profession’s technical and ethical standards require the application of professional skepticism throughout the financial statement audit process, as auditor skepticism is essential for detecting financial statement fraud and protecting the investing public. However, recent research suggests that audit supervisors often punish staff for exercising skepticism, presenting auditors with an ethical conflict between acting in their own self-interest and acting in a way that improves audit quality and protects the public. This research also suggests that supervisors who reward appropriate (...) skeptical behavior, regardless of the outcome, appear to develop staff that are more likely to detect and convey fraud red flags to their superiors. Building on this research, we use a case-based survey to identify the characteristics of audit supervisors (audit seniors and managers) who are more likely to reward appropriate skepticism, even if it ultimately does not identify a misstatement. We find that trait skepticism, especially suspending one’s judgment, positively drives the evaluations of professional skepticism in our setting. Also, we observe that when supervisors believe that their own audit partner will view the skepticism favorably, they “pay it forward” by rewarding their own staff who engage in skepticism. Our findings identify the characteristics that audit firms may want to develop and foster in auditors rising to supervisory levels. (shrink)

There is now a robust literature on the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) that pertains largely to non-military issues – issues of, among other things, bias, fairness, and unintended consequences. There is less published work, however, on how these lessons from industry and academia might inform the ethics of AI in the military context. In this article, I take small steps to demonstrate the ways in which the field of AI ethics might be relevant to military applications. Ultimately, I argue (...) that even though the outcomes of AI failures might look very different in the non-military context versus in the military context, the causes of those failures can be very similar; and addressing those potential causes of AI failures in the development of military AI systems will result in fewer ethical failures after deployment. (shrink)

This article investigates how Gabriele D’Annunzio’s The Triumph of Death brings together Nietzsche’s ideas and Wagner’s music and interweaves them with the motifs of literary Decadence and the author’s own particular sexual politics. The novel is an experimental text striving to be a Gesemtkunstswerk, an integrated work that incorporates music, painting, poetry, regional folklore, and private thoughts about personal and national power. I discuss the novel’s themes of violent sexuality and the anxiety of powerlessness and explore their implications for the (...) fascist political aesthetics in which D’Annunzio played a pioneering role. (shrink)

The Trikaranos, a work of Varro's preserved only by title in Appian's Bellum Civile, has usually been considered a satirical attack on the alliance of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus in 59 b.c.e. as a "three-headed monster." However, a re-examination of the evidence reveals that the Trikaranos was instead a pseudonymous satire directed not at the political alliance of the three men, but at Caesar alone, who was attacked as the single autocrat who spoke for all three members of the so-called (...) "first triumvirate.". (shrink)

The question is how do Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs) give us access to the nano world? The images these instruments produce, I argue, do not allow us to see atoms in the same way that we see trees. To the extent that SEMs and STMs allow us to see the occupants of the nano world it is by way of metaphorical extension of the concept of “seeing”. The more general claim is that changes in scientific instrumentation effect changes in the (...) concepts central to our understanding of scientific results. (shrink)

The paper offers a new account of the rule of law, revising my previous view, and criticising some alternatives. It focuses on the rule of law's aim to avoid arbitrary government, and on its relation to the essential functions of government. The rule of law requires that government action will manifest an intention to protect and advance the interests of the governed. As such it is almost a necessary condition for the law's ability to meet other moral demands, and it (...) facilitate coordination and cooperation internally and internationally. -/- . (shrink)

War: A Primer for Christians provides a concise introduction to the main approaches that Christians have taken toward war and examines each approach critically. Some Christians have supported their country's wars as crusades of good against evil. Others, as pacifists, have rejected participation in or support for any war. Still others have followed the just-war tradition in holding that it can be justifiable under some conditions to resort to war, but that then Christian love must limit the conduct of war. (...) In an updated preface and new afterword, Allen explores aspects of current international relations that have a special bearing on the context of war. “Joseph Allen’s War: A Primer for Christians is just that: a succinct, fair-minded, wonderfully reasoned, and accessible account of the major Christian traditions on war—Just War, Holy War, and the Pacifist renunciation of violence. His book is also a primer in the further sense, that it will prime the pump for further discussion and debate as to when wars are just and how a nation might keep the means employed under restraints.”—William F. May. (shrink)

Version 1.0 of this paper was delivered orally as an invited paper at a meeting of the American Physical Society, Lubbock, Texas, October 28, 1995. Version 2.0, November 22, 1997, was posted on-line. The present version, 3.1, differs only cosmetically from 3.0, but the latter does involve a substantial expansion from version 2.0.

Placed in a historical context, sexuality was once so prominent in psychoanalytic writing that sexual drive and psychoanalysis were synonymous. The exciting discovery of childhood sexuality filled the literature. Then other discoveries came to the fore until sexuality slipped far in the background. This book evokes the excitement of the original discoveries of childhood sexual experience while linking childhood sensuality and sexuality to adult attachment, romantic, and lustful love. This revised perspective offers the general reader insight into contemporary psychoanalytic thought, (...) and presents clinicians with a perspective for exploring their patients sensuality and sexuality with renewed interest and knowledge. (shrink)

Few theories have influenced Western thought as much as psychoanalysis has, even in the absence of empirically confirmatory evidence. The raw data of psychoanalysis are the words and actions of the patient and their interpretation by the analyst. The psychoanalytic session has excluded other observers and, until very recently, even a tape recorder. The only evidence of what transpired between patient and therapist was supplied by the memories, accounts, and records each of them might have kept. The degree to which (...) each could be objective and veridical in recording the events in treatment is not known, but given the intense, emotional nature of the clinical interaction, it is likely that systematic distortions, omissions, and inventions occurred. Various writers have called attention to the lack of scientific investigation of psychodynamic propositions. This series is intended to describe the best and most current experimental work inspired by psychoanalytic theories. A scientific theory is expected to generate data that will force it to be revised and ultimately discarded. Most of the experiments reported in this series point to instances where the theory must be modified to fit the data more exactly. (shrink)

Thorstein Veblen is perhaps best thought of as America’s answer to Karl Marx. This is sometimes obscured by the rather unfortunate title of his most important work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), which misleading, insofar as it suggests that the book is just a theory of the “leisure class.” What the book provides is in fact a perfectly general theory of class, not to mention property, economic development, and social evolution. It is, in other words, a system of (...) theory that rivals Marx’s historical materialism with respect to scope, generality and explanatory power. Furthermore, it is a system of theory whose central predictions, with respect to the development of capitalism and the possibilities for emancipatory social change, have proven to be essentially correct. When stacked up against Marx’s prognostications, this success clearly provides the basis for what might best be described as an invidious comparison. (shrink)

Arthur Fine has recently argued that standard realist and anti-realist interpretations of science should be replaced by "natural ontological attitude" (NOA). I ask whether Fine's own justification for NOA can meet the standards of argument that underlie his criticisms of realism and anti-realism. Fine vacillates between two different ways of advocating NOA. The more minimalist defense ("why not try NOA?") begs the question against both realists and antirealists. A stronger program, based on Fine's arguments for a "no-theory" of truth, has (...) promise, but the arguments must be developed in a stronger, more general form if they are to justify NOA. (shrink)

This book explores the metaphysical underpinnings of theories of human nature, personhood, and the self. The coverage of the work is broad in scope, moving from the Pre-Socratics to Postmodernism, critically assessing what transpired during the intervening 2500 year period, with a special focus on the contributions of the Aristotelian/Thomistic tradition of inquiry. The work is designed to meet the needs of a wide range of readers, from beginners to more advanced students.

The correlations between distant systems in typical quantum situations, such as Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen experiments, strongly suggest that the quantum realm involves curious types of non-Iocal influences. In this paper, I study in detail the nature of these non-Iocal influences, as depicted by various quantum theories. I show how different quantum theories realise non-Iocality in different ways, whichreflect different ontological settings.

Now with a new preface, Dorman converted the film into this book that includes an overview of the New York Intellectuals and a chapter on the future of the public intellectual.