Maya in Physics in a synthesis of modern physics and the Advaita Vedanta with an integral thesis emerging out of the confluence. In the exposition of the Advaita Vedanta its philosophy has been reinterpreted in the light of modern science. In this process the vedanta has been demystified and physics dematerialized Instead of being confined to inter school parallelism only this book tries ot present a total vision of the entire cosmos and its dependence on Brahman the transcendental being which (...) is the non dual reality Maya the power of Brahman or the Primordial Unmanifest Nature has been assigned a metaphysical status without violating the traditionality of the Vedanta. Part I of the book deals with classical Newtonian physics, thermodynamics, relativity, quantum physics, particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. Part II is a presentation of the Advaita Vedanta, in a modern format. Part III is a confluence of the Advaita Vedanta and modern science (especially physics). An integral thesis emerges out of the confluence. There has been an amalgam of spirituality and science. The whole approach is holistic, synthetic, and integral. (shrink)

More than two hundred cities in the United States have now declared themselves to be sanctuary cities. This declaration involves a commitment to non-compliance with federal law; the sanctuary city will refuse to use its own juridical power – including, more crucially, its own police powers – to assist the federal government in the deportation of undocumented residents. We will argue that the sanctuary city might be morally defensible, even if deportation is not always wrong, and even if the federal (...) government is legally permitted to demand that states participate in the process of deportation. We defend this conclusion with reference to a simple, but powerful, norm of international law: that of non-refoulement. As we will discuss, this norm articulates the idea that no state may rightly use its coercive power to move a person into a position in which their basic rights are at risk. We take this norm as a morally defensible principle, and ask what could follow from its acceptance. We argue that this norm has implications for a variety of actors – especially when we notice that those who are facing unjust risks of death are, in general, entitled to use defensive violence against their aggressors. This simple fact, we argue, can help offer a novel defense of the sanctuary city. (shrink)

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1. Among the most striking features of the political arrangements on this planet is its division into sovereign states.1 To be sure, in recent times, globalization has woven together the fates of communities and individuals in distant parts of the world in complex ways. It is partly for this reason that now hardly anyone champions a notion of sovereignty that would entirely discount a state’s liability the effects that its actions would have on foreign nationals. Still, state sovereignty persists as (...) a political fact. The number of states has increased enormously due to upheavals of the 20th century, and there is nothing in principle morally wrong with the existence of states - or so we will assume.2 What must be explored, then, are the limits of normatively plausible sovereignty. How bad does a government have to be for outsiders to be allowed to interfere? What responsibilities does a country incur because of its contribution to global warming? What obligations arise through trading? In this paper, we explore another pertinent question: to what extent is a country allowed to influence who lives on its territory by regulating immigration? The angle from which we approach this question continues to be neglected even now that questions of global justice are receiving much attention. Immigration amounts to a change in political relationships as immigrants alter their standing within one community and acquire a status elsewhere. Yet it also amounts to an alteration in physical relationship, since they acquire a relationship to a territory, making a life for themselves with the resources offered by a part of the earth.3 We base our exploration of.. (shrink)

Little work has been done to explore the moral foundations of the state’s right to territory.1 In modern times, the state has mostly been assumed to be a territorial unit, and no need was perceived to reflect on precisely what justifies its territorial jurisdiction. The state’s territoriality is related to another topic that has remained under-theorized: immigration. There is, moreover, an obvious relationship between these topics: the more powerful a state’s rights over its territory, the more powerful the right to (...) constrain access to that territory might become – or so, at any rate, we might suppose. Rights to territory and rights to immigration are usefully theorized together.2 Our starting point is a Lockean analysis of the moral foundations of territoriality offered by Simmons (2001). This is a natural starting point not only because Simmons is one of the very few contemporary writers who have taken up philosophical questions about territoriality in the first place, but also because Locke’s thought, as Simmons makes clear, actually allows for the development of a sophisticated account of territoriality. This makes Locke stand out simply because generally modern political.. (shrink)

There is more to skillful performance in sport than technical proficiency. How an athlete feels – whether he or she is confident, elated, nervous or fearful – also matters to how they perform in certain situations. Taking stock of this, some sports psychologists have begun to develop techniques for ensuring more robust, reliable performances by focusing on how athletes respond emotionally to situations while, at the same time, training their action-oriented skills. This chapter adds theoretical insight to those efforts, offering (...) reasons to endorse a radically enactivist framework when it comes to thinking about: the basic characteristics of emotions; how emotions are involved in skilled performance; and how they integrate with the sort of intelligence that informs the skilled execution of action exhibited in embodied expertise. (shrink)

Many of the most skilled and educated citizens of developing countries choose to emigrate. How may those societies respond to these facts? May they ever legitimately prevent the emigration of their citizens? Gillian Brock and Michael Blake debate these questions, and offer distinct arguments about the morality of emigration.

The problem of evil is broadly considered to be one of the greatest intellectual threats to traditional brands of theism. And William Rowe’s 1979 formulation of the problem in “The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism” is the most cited formulation in the contemporary philosophical literature. In this paper, we explore how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be brought to bear on Rowe’s seminal formulation, arguing that our empirical findings raise significant questions regarding the ultimate (...) success of Rowe’s argument. Such a result would be quite notable within philosophy of religion, since this is considered one of the most formidable arguments against theism. However, further testing is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. -/- In section 1, we elucidate Rowe’s formulation of the problem of evil and the intuitions that seem to underwrite it. In section 2, we explore how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be brought to bear on Rowe’s formulation, outlining our hypotheses and our methods for testing them before showcasing our results. In section 3, we discuss the philosophical import of our results–arguing that our results, when taken together, pose an initial challenge to Rowe’s seminal argument. (shrink)

The problem of evil is an ideal topic for experimental philosophy. Suffering--which is at the heart of most prominent formulations of the problem of evil--is a universal human experience and has been the topic of careful reflection for millennia. However, interpretations of suffering and how it bears on the existence of God are tremendously diverse and nuanced. We might immediately find ourselves wondering why (and how!) something so universal might be understood in so many different ways. Why does suffering push (...) some people toward atheism while pushing others toward deeper faith? What cultural, psychological, or sociological differences account for this diversity of responses? And, importantly, what light might this diversity of responses shed on the problem of evil and how it has been formulated by philosophers in recent years? The primary aim of this paper is to highlight how the tools and resources of experimental philosophy might be fruitfully applied to the problem of evil. In the first section, we review some recent work in this area and describe the current state of this emergent body of literature. In the second section, we review the broader and more recent theoretical developments on the problem of evil. Finally, in the final section, we outline some potential areas of future empirical research that we see as especially promising given those developments. (shrink)

Many discussions of the moral dimensions of borders emphasize how those borders foster and sustain a national community. In this paper, I discuss three distinct sorts of goods that might be best preserved in the presence of state borders. The first of these is decolonization; I argue that undermining colonial structures might require political institutions with the right to refuse unwanted outsiders. The second of these is social solidarity; we might find that the inability to exclude outsiders could reduce the (...) willingness of insiders to voluntarily comply with political institutions. The final of these is risk and insurance; the border sustains the ability of a political society to internalize the costs and benefits of political decisions about social welfare. All three of these, I suggest, are important additions to our collective discussions about migration, since none of these goods depend upon our attaching any ethical value to nationality itself. (shrink)

Many supporters of open borders argue that restrictions on immigration are unjust in part because they undermine equal opportunity. Borders prevent the globally least-advantaged from pursuing desirable opportunities abroad, cementing arbitrary facts about birth and citizenship. In this paper I advance an argument from equal opportunity to global freedom of movement. In addition to preventing people from pursuing desirable opportunities, borders also create a prone, segregated population that can be dominated and exploited. Restrictions on mobility do not just trap people (...) in bad opportunity sets—they help create bad opportunities by isolating the negative externalities of production and foreign policy. Freedom of movement can play a vital role in spreading risks and burdens, incentivizing their mitigation. Using an analysis of feudalism, segregation, and the transnational economy, I illustrate the centrality of space and mobility, showing why freedom of movement is a necessary tool for preventing political and economic oppression. (shrink)

In this paper I present two reasons why generalized skill-selection--a policy whereby skill, education, and economic independence are indefinitely prioritized in immigration decisions--is pro tanto unjust. First, such policies feed into existing biases, exacerbating status harms for low-SES citizens. The claim that we prefer the skilled to the unskilled, the educated to the uneducated, and the financially secure to the insecure is also heard by citizens. And there is considerable overlap between this message and the stereotypes and biases that set (...) their social status. Skill-selection can reinforce these biases, offering state support for the claim that they are less desirable as members of the society. -/- Second, the need for skilled immigrants ordinarily depends upon and reinforces failures of fair equality of opportunity (FEO). According to the dependency thesis, the need for skilled migrants stems from a failure to ensure domestic FEO. Many low-SES residents would desire to work, for example, as doctors or nurses. However, unequal education, as well as poverty and debt, have made such opportunities largely inaccessible. According to the reinforcement thesis, skill-selection disincentivizes the pursuit of FEO. A state that can meet domestic labor needs through less costly immigration policies will be disinclined to pursue programs designed to equalize opportunities for low-SES residents. -/- Generalized skill-selection in high-income countries like the US is, therefore, pro tanto unjust. However, this is not an argument for excluding the skilled. Skilled immigrants can be admitted through other policies—open borders, family-reunification, or a lottery—without the state signaling that the skilled are more desirable or perpetuating failures of FEO. And states can, responding to local emergencies, temporarily select for particular professions without contributing to these injustices. These concerns only arise when skill is generally and indefinitely prioritized. (shrink)

The book is an argument about the moral foundations of foreign policy. It argues that the traditional idea of liberal equality can be interpreted so as to give moral guidance to policy leaders in understanding what they ought to seek internationally.

This paper discusses two possible difficulties with Catherine Lu’s powerful analysis of the moral response to our shared history of colonial evil; both of thesedifficulties stem from the rightful place of shame in that moral response. The first difficulty focuses on efficacy: existing states may be better motivated by shame atthe past than by a shared duty to bring about a just future. The second focuses on equity: it is, at the very least, possible that shame over past misdeeds ought (...) to bebrought into the conversation about present duties, in a manner more robust than Lu’s analysis allows. (shrink)

How should we understand the political morality of migration? Are travel bans, walls, or carrier sanctions ever morally permissible in a just society? This book offers a new approach to these and related questions. It identifies a particular vision of how we might apply the notion of justice to migration policy - and an argument in favor of expanding the ethical tools we use, to include not only justice but moral notions such as mercy.

This second paper reports on a small ethnographic study of Argentine psychiatrists. A carefully selected group of six psychiatrists currently practicing in Buenos Aires participated in an in-depth semi-structured interview. The transcripts of the interviews were coded and a thematic analysis method was applied to construct a local theory of the professional values constructed by Argentine psychiatrists, and the circumstances in which such values were constructed. Our analysis indicated that Argentine psychiatrists constructed a number of values, frequently perceived as obligations (...) to their professional group and the needs of their patients. The two main strategies employed by Argentine psychiatrists were the diagnostic act and advocacy. We also identify that these values emerge in the context of recent broad historical and cultural inl uences upon the profession of psychiatry in Argentina, and the Argentine population in general. (shrink)

Prior to the pandemic of 2020, global tourism accounted for over ten percent of global GDP, for a total of $9.6 trillion USD; one in every four jobs created that year, across the globe, was in the travel and tourism sector. And yet the figure of the international tourist is often regarded with an attitude ranging from bemusement to outright contempt so much so that a series of books exists to guide tourists on how to avoid looking or acting like (...) tourists. Why, though, is the figure of the tourist —especially the international tourist— so disreputable? Given the sheer number of such tourists (over 1.4 billion, in 2018 alone) it seems odd to think that there is something shameful or problematic about tourism as a practice. What accounts for our seeming disdain for the tourist, even as so many of us engage in tourism ourselves?There are, of course, many obvious answers to this question. The tourist —especially the international tourist— is often a figure of some wealth and privilege; that tourist is likely to be clumsy, at best, in his or her navigating of a foreign society; and he or she is often likely to be less careful in her caretaking of the physical and social spaces into which she travels, given the fact that she is as it were on vacation. These facts may be enough to engender some antipathy towards the tourist especially one who, as Jarvis Cocker noted thirty years ago, regards the local inhabitants as somehow amusing. Tourists are likely to be —as the British aphorism had it about American GIs— oversexed, overpaid, and over here. In this paper, though, I want to suggest a slightly different story for our ethical disquiet with the figure of the tourist. I will argue that the practice of international tourism raises two distinct sorts of ethical worries —both of which reflect the fact that international tourism requires a local industry in which cultural difference is curated and made consumable by the foreign tourist—. This fact may lead to ethical disquiet, I argue, because it can represent a site at which there is a maldistribution of the benefits and burdens of intercultural conversation; the local who works in the tourism industry must become adept at performing his or her culture for the outsider, while that outsider gains the benefits of intercultural conversation without bearing a similar burden of epistemic labor. A second reason for concern, however, stems from the ways in which this demand for epistemic labor can end up deforming and destabilizing local forms of citizenship and political agency. Those who spend their days performing a debased and simplified version of their cultural identity for outsiders may be, I believe, marked by that effort and their own ability to engage in political conversations with fellow local members may be made more difficult as a result. International tourism, in short, may be a site from which both distributive and political injustices might emerge. These concerns, I should note, may exacerbate already objectionable relationships reflecting colonial legacies of oppression; but they may exist even in the absence of any history of colonialism. The mere fact of a market in the curated experience of cultural difference may be enough to raise these worries; and international tourism, I believe, often involves exactly this form of market. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers have argued that it is inherently illiberal to make citizenship for migrants conditional on a test. On these arguments, liberalism itself demands either that no test be administered, or that the test be so easy as to serve merely a symbolic function. In this paper, I make two claims in response to these ideas. The first is that a citizenship test - even a difficult one - is not inherently illiberal, when what is tested for (...) reflects the actual backdrop of knowledge and history required for responsible participation in political discourse. The second is that we have reason to be suspicious of any existing citizenship test, but for reasons of prudence, rather than liberal principle. Existing political elites can be relied upon to make citizenship tests reflect not what is actually required for political agency, but what those elites would like to see reinforced and rein scribed as part of the national identity. Thus, we are right to be wary of citizenship tests - not because liberalism condemns them, but because of predictable moral failures on the part of those charged with writing such tests. (shrink)

In Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration, Anna Stilz argues that legitimate political authority requires the actual—rather than hypothetical—consent of the governed. I argue, however, that her analysis of that consent is inconsistent, in the weight it ascribes to the felt desire to refrain from doing politics with some particular group of people. In the context of secession and self-determination, the lack of actual consent to shared political institutions is weighty enough to render such institutions presumptively illegitimate. In the context of (...) migration, however, a lack of actual consent to the presence of newcomers is ascribed nearly no weight, and instead is taken as evidence of irrationality or immoral preferences. I argue that this apparent contradiction must be clarified before Stilz's overall account of self-governance can be accepted. (shrink)

Much modern discussion of the morality of migration begins with the concept of coercion, and takes the coercive nature of border enforcement as especially salient in the moral analysis of migration policy. Much migration control, however, begins not with overt coercion, but with what I term manipulations; these are ways of making migration more difficult that do not resemble canonical cases of coercion. Examples include the alteration of the physical pathways between states, attempts to deceive or mislead prospective migrants about (...) what they will discover upon arrival, and the deliberate use of abstract and complex rules to make legal migration difficult or impossible. I argue that these manipulations are worthy of independent moral examination—and that the tradition of classical liberalism has resources with which to undertake this examination. (shrink)