'100 Conversations You Need to Have' is an accessible and thought-provoking collection of life's big questions and corresponding answers from some of history's greatest philosophers. Readers are provided with the opportunity to answer each question, turn the page and receive a short piece of advice from thinkers on topics that include happiness, friendship, discipline, patience, the meaning of life and death, and other essential topics. The list of philosophers that are featured in each notebook is very multicultural. It includes both (...) men and women and spans across time, including, among others, Aristotle, Seneca, Simone de Beauvoir, Lao Tzu, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Alfarabi, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pema Chodron. These notebooks duplicate the Socratic dialogue method and embody the idea of philosophy being a pathway to a more fulfilling life by creating 100 meaningful dialogues between the reader and a diverse array of interlocutors who will guide them on their journey to crafting a good life. (shrink)

The Soviet government showed evidence of poor linearity in its policies towards nationalities. Not only does this policy appear to have been contradictory in several places, but has undergone changes and transformations over the years, so as to make it almost unreadable. Meanwhile, in order to attract the nationalities that were part of the Russian Empire and in accordance with the principle enunciated by Lenin, namely that the Empire was a “prison of peoples”, in the first decade of Soviet power (...) an ambiguous policy of enhancement of nationalities was passed that received the name of indigenization or korenizacija; ambiguous, because the aim was also to categorize and control the population, according to a typical perspective of colonial power. The Soviet constitution of 1924 gave the center many powers; the Republics had the same powers as the Russian regions, while the party remained centralized; the use of national languages in the educational system was increased, but not in universities. In Ukraine, the Bolshevik Party was dominated by the Russians and it was thanks to Lenin, who rejected the proposal, that the emergence of an autonomous republic in Donbas was prevented. Stalin, on the other hand, favoured korenizacija especially for the alliances with the local Bolshevik leaders, given the centralist tendencies of Trockij and his other opponents. The formal cancellation of korenizacija in Ukraine was ratified by two secret decrees of the Politbjuro on the 14th and 15th of December 1932, at the height of the grain requisition campaign. In many regards, korenizacija is still considered a “golden age” of Ukrainian culture and language, but its ambiguity and tragic end are little known. The article uses published or archival primary sources and the main secondary sources on the topic. It is part of a broader research project on the contemporary history of Ukraine conducted by the author at the University of Brussels. (shrink)

In cases in which we must choose between either (i) preventing a woman from remaining unwillingly pregnant or (ii) preventing a fetus from being killed, we should prevent the fetus from being killed. But this suggests that in typical cases abortion is wrong: typical abortions involve preventing a woman from remaining unwillingly pregnant over preventing a fetus from being killed. And so abortion is typically wrong—and this holds whether or not fetuses are persons.

Say theism is the view that an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly loving, and perfectly good being exists. And say pointless atheism occurs just in case there’s an atheist who isn’t resistant to belief in God, and no greater good comes about on account of this atheist’s non-belief. In this article, I show that if two prominent views about evil and divine hiddenness are accepted, theism is compatible with pointless atheism—a result hitherto unnoticed. Furthermore, not only is theism compatible with pointless atheism, (...) it entails pointless atheism. This is significant because many objections to the argument from divine hiddenness have tried to show that all instances of non-resistant atheism are required for a greater good. But if I’m right, given theism, there need not be a point to non-resistant atheism. Indeed, we should expect there to be pointless atheism. (shrink)

Abortion restrictions are particularly good for black women—at least in the United States. This claim will likely strike many as outlandish. And numerous commentaries on abortion restrictions have suggested otherwise: many authors have lamented the effects of abortion restrictions on women, and black women in particular—these restrictions are bad for them, these authors say. However, abortion restrictions are clearly good for black women. This is because if someone is prevented from performing a morally wrong action, it’s good for her. For (...) example, it’s good for Sarah if she’s prevented from driving home drunk. However, since abortion is morally wrong, it follows that it’s good for women when they are prevented from getting an abortion. And since black women get abortions at disproportionately high rates, abortion restrictions are good in particular for black women. Indeed, this is an example of a positive effect of intersectionality. [lightly updated in light of it being rescinded.]. (shrink)

This article reflects on a survey carried out at a non-profit organization that deals with health care for oncological terminally ill in order to find out for those who are involved in this project each worker's time projection and well-being class. The survey has pointed out each single team member's time perspective and well-being class and allowed building a pedagogical path for work orientation that has involved the same team members.

Many approaches to dignity endorse the Human Scope Thesis (HST), according to which almost all humans and almost only humans have dignity. I argue that justifications for this thesis are doomed to fail. Proponents of the HST can be broadly divided into two camps, according to how they defend this thesis against the Scope Challenge. This challenge states that there is no non-arbitrary way of restricting the scope of dignity that includes almost all and almost only humans. Naturalistic Accounts attempt (...) to find a property which roughly matches the HST, while Conventionalist Accounts attempt to explain why endorsing the HST is necessary to achieve coherence with the human rights project. I argue that neither strategy overcomes the Scope Challenge. I then draw out the important implications of this. Even as dignity retains relevance to all humans, it must move beyond the mere human, so as to include nonhuman animals. (shrink)

I’ve argued that those who endorse the argument from divine hiddenness must give up all pure de jure objections to theism, and this means that endorsing the argument is costly for atheists. Benjamin Curtis claims that this isn’t a significant cost for atheists. I show that—contrary to Curtis—there is a significant cost, and spell out why this is so. Furthermore, I show that my argument functions as a new argument for affirming reformed epistemology—the view that if theism is true, belief (...) in God is probably rational. (shrink)

Nurses have moral obligations incurred by membership in the profession to participate knowingly in health policy advocacy. Many barriers have historically hindered nurses from realizing their potential to advance health policy. The contemporary political context sets additional challenges to policy work due to polarization and conflict. Nursing education can help nurses recognize their role in advancing health through political advocacy in a manner that is consistent with disciplinary knowledge and ethical responsibilities. In this paper, the authors describe an exemplar of (...) Elizabeth Barrett's “Power as Knowing Participation in Change” theory as a disciplinary lens within a doctoral nursing health policy course. Barrett (radically) emphasizes “power as freedom” instead of “power as control.” This approach is congruent with nursing disciplinary values and enhances awareness of personal freedom and building collaborative relationships in the policy process. The theory was used in concert with other traditional policy content and frameworks from nursing and other disciplines. We discuss the role of nursing ethics viewed as professional responsibility for policy action, an overview of Barrett's theory, and the design of the course. Four student reflections on how the course influenced their thinking about policy advocacy are included. While not specific to policymaking, Barrett's theory provides a disciplinary grounding to increase students' awareness of freedom and choices in political advocacy participation. Our experience suggests that Barrett's work can be fruitful for enhancing nurses' awareness of choices to participate in change across settings. (shrink)

P-zombies are creatures that are physically (functionally, behaviourally) like you and I and yet lack phenomenal consciousness. If such creatures are possible, it’s (typically) taken to show property dualism is true: phenomenal consciousness isn’t reducible to – nor does it supervene on – physical states. If inverted qualia are possible, it’s possible that you and I have identical physical states and yet you see tomatoes as green and I see tomatoes as red. If this is the case, then (again) property (...) dualism is (typically) taken to be true. In this article, I???ll show that p-zombies and inverted qualia – if they are actually possible – prove more than previously thought: if one thinks p-zombies or inverted qualia are possible, then one should endorse one of the four following theses: (i) substance dualism, (ii) we have even more reason to reject p-zombies and inverted qualia since they entail an even more radical conclusion than previously thought (i.e. substance dualism), (iii) eliminativism about selves, or (iv) friends of p-zombies and inverted qualia have homework: they need to show a relevant, plausible disanalogy between arguments for p-zombies and inverted qualia as traditionally stated and my parallel arguments that entail substance dualism. My purpose here isn’t to defend any of these particular options. Instead, my purpose is to highlight that these are the four options available to take. (shrink)

One of HLA Hart's main contributions to jurisprudence is his theory of social rules. Hart said, essentially, that a social rule exists if the members of a society act in some way and have a certain attitude. Most legal philosophers think that Hart's account of this attitude is too general, however, and that his theory is overinclusive as a result. In this article, I draw on recent work in the philosophy of action to propose a more precise account of the (...) relevant attitude, and a revised version of Hart's theory. I claim that a social rule exists if the members of a society act in some way and ‘accept’ they ought to act this way, independent of their beliefs about the matter. One of the implications of this idea is that the attitude that underlies a social rule is closely analogous to a presumption or fiction about what ought to be done. -/- . (shrink)

This book provides a general survey of the main concepts, questions and results that have been developed in the recent interactions between quantum information, quantum computation and logic. Divided into 10 chapters, the books starts with an introduction of the main concepts of the quantum-theoretic formalism used in quantum information. It then gives a synthetic presentation of the main “mathematical characters” of the quantum computational game: qubits, quregisters, mixtures of quregisters, quantum logical gates. Next, the book investigates the puzzling entanglement-phenomena (...) and logically analyses the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox and introduces the reader to quantum computational logics, and new forms of quantum logic. The middle chapters investigate the possibility of a quantum computational semantics for a language that can express sentences like “Alice knows that everybody knows that she is pretty”, explore the mathematical concept of quantum Turing machine, and illustrate some characteristic examples that arise in the framework of musical languages. The book concludes with an analysis of recent discussions, and contains a Mathematical Appendix which is a survey of the definitions of all main mathematical concepts used in the book. (shrink)

Inspired by a 1988 trip to El Salvador, Michael J. Perry's new book is a personal and scholarly exploration of the idea of human rights. Perry is one of our nation's leading authorities on the relation of morality, including religious morality, to politics and law. He seeks, in this book, to disentangle the complex idea of human rights by way of four probing and interrelated essays. * The initial essay, which is animated by Perry's skepticism about the (...) capacity of any secular morality to offer a coherent account of the idea of human rights, suggests that the first part of the idea of human rights--the premise that every human being is "sacred" or "inviolable"--is inescapably religious. * Responding to recent criticism of "rights talk", Perry explicates, in his second essay, the meaning and value of talk about human rights. * In his third essay, Perry asks a fundamental question about human rights: Are they universal? In addressing this question, he disaggregates and criticizes several different varieties of "moral relativism" and then considers the implications of these different relativist positions for claims about human rights. * Perry turns to another fundamental question about human rights in his final essay: Are they absolute? He concludes that even if no human rights, understood as moral rights, are absolute or unconditional, some human rights, understood as international legal rights, are--and indeed, should be--absolute. In the introduction, Perry writes: "Of all the influential--indeed, formative--moral ideas to take center stage in the twentieth century, like democracy and socialism, the idea of human rights is, for many, the most difficult. It is the most difficult in the sense that it is, for many, the hardest of the great moral ideas to integrate, the hardest to square, with the reigning intellectual assumptions of the age, especially what Bernard Williams has called 'Nietzsche's thought': 'There is not only no God, but no metaphysical order of any kind....' For those who accept 'Nietzsche's thought', can the idea of human rights possibly be more than a kind of aesthetic preference? In a culture in which it was widely believed that there is no God or metaphysical order of any kind, on what basis, if any, could the idea of human rights long survive?" The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries will appeal to students of many disciplines, including law, philosophy, religion, and politics. (shrink)

The “DNA is a program” metaphor is still widely used in Molecular Biology and its popularization. There are good historical reasons for the use of such a metaphor or theoretical model. Yet we argue that both the metaphor and the model are essentially inadequate also from the point of view of Physics and Computer Science. Relevant work has already been done, in Biology, criticizing the programming paradigm. We will refer to empirical evidence and theoretical writings in Biology, although our arguments (...) will be mostly based on a comparison with the use of differential methods (in Molecular Biology: a mutation or alike is observed or induced and its phenotypic consequences are observed) as applied in Computer Science and in Physics, where this fundamental tool for empirical investigation originated and acquired a well-justified status. In particular, as we will argue, the programming paradigm is not theoretically sound as a causal(as in Physics) or deductive(as in Programming) framework for relating the genome to the phenotype, in contrast to the physicalist and computational grounds that this paradigm claims to propose. (shrink)

It is hardly difficult to imagine writing about critical phenomenology and walking. One might pause over the method of critical phenomenology as a meta-odos, a thinking of the path. Or consider the steps critical phenomenology takes and the unique pitch of its gait as it traverses the borderlands between phenomenology and critical theory. One might query how these two have the capacity to walk so well side by side, so much so that they can become as one, barely distinguishable against (...) an open sky. Such an inquiry would no doubt track how it is that phenomenology walks toward things, through things, into things, suspending the eye of the natural attitude and proceeding ever so carefully and yet bluntly in search of what springs toward it. But such an inquiry would also track how that very process is a scripted processual, notwithstanding all the suspensions upon which it steps. Who and what writes and rewrites the script of what appears, when, and how? What inscriptions define appearances in advance and diaeretically cut them clean from one another? And what are the unscripted forces still at work? Ferreting out the work of scripts and inscriptions, such an inquiry would pause over the hidden structures that constrict what might feel like a free flight of the mind, a bit of unfettered rambling in the fields of consciousness. Thinking critical phenomenology as walking, then, means tracking the two moving in tandem. Phenomenology pulls toward the horizon of experience, while critical theory veers toward structural analyses. Together, they tread a uniquely illuminating path. (shrink)

Prisons are a feminist issue. This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical work on prisons, examples of important contributions, and future directions for feminist work in the field. It does so, however, in a way that consciously deploys a feminist methodology that resists the replication of hierarchical norms and structural violence in the very doing of theory and history. In this spirit, it emphasizes the record of struggle across the prison’s history, the resistance efforts (...) that live behind individual academic theories, the conceptual frameworks generated by groups bearing the brunt of carcerality, and it investigates alternative strategies of harm reduction developed across those communities. The chapter closes with an explicit exploration of prison abolitionism, which works not only to radically rethink punishment but also to shift the locus of voice and leadership. In so doing, the chapter aims to review, as much as to create anew, a feminist theoretical analysis of prisons. (shrink)

It is fairly commonplace to think that the capacity for sentience need not be the only basis of moral status. Pluralists contend that moral status is grounded in several other valuable capacities as well as, or instead of, sentience, such as agency, empathy, or sociality. However, this contention contrasts with a standard assumption in animal ethics: that sentience should be the only basis of moral status. This article vindicates that assumption. Whilst classical utilitarians have defended a similar claim about sentience (...) in relation to ultimate value, the merits of this view have gone relatively unnoticed in contemporary debates about moral status and animal ethics. An account based on sentience alone avoids conceptual redundancy and has greater explanatory power than pluralist alternatives. An account of moral status based exclusively on sentience also yields two significant and revisionary implications that have not been recognised. First, the distinction between persons and nonpersons cannot hold, so all moral patients, including nonhuman animals, should feature as primary subjects in ethical theories, public policies, and research agendas. Second, we ought to favour nonhuman interests far more often than we tend to suppose. (shrink)

Coherent-ambiguity aversion is defined within the smooth-ambiguity model as the combination of choice-ambiguity and value-ambiguity aversion. Five ambiguous decision tasks are analyzed theoretically, where an individual faces two-stage lotteries with binomial, uniform, or unknown second-order probabilities. Theoretical predictions are then tested through a 10-task experiment. In tasks 1–5, risk aversion is elicited through both a portfolio choice method and a BDM mechanism. In tasks 6–10, choice-ambiguity aversion is elicited through the portfolio choice method, while value-ambiguity aversion comes about through the (...) BDM mechanism. The behavior of over 75 % of classified subjects is in line with the KMM model in all tasks 6–10, independent of their degree of risk aversion. Furthermore, the percentage of coherent-ambiguity-averse subjects is lower in the binomial than in the uniform and in the unknown treatments, with only the latter difference being significant. The most part of coherent-ambiguity-loving subjects show a high risk aversion. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that sceptical theists have too narrow a focus: they consider only God’s axiological reasons, ignoring any non-axiological reasons he may have. But this is a mistake: predicting how God will act requires knowing about his reasons in general, and this requires knowing about both God’s axiological and non-axiological reasons. In light of this, I construct and defend a kind of sceptical theism—Deontological Sceptical Theism—that encompasses all of God’s reasons, and briefly illustrate how it renders irrelevant (...) certain charges of excessive sceptical and how it evaporates equiprobability objections. Furthermore, I put forth a simple argument in favor of Deontological Sceptical Theism, which shows that everyone (at least currently) ought to endorse it. (shrink)

(Wide) pro-theism is the view that the world is better overall if theism is true. (Wide) anti-theism is the view that our world would be better overall if atheism is true. Arguments for pro-theism and anti-theism typically make use of traditional theism (the view that an omni-God exists) and generic atheism (the view that an omni-God doesn’t exist). In my view, when the debate between pro-theists and anti-theists makes use of traditional theism and generic atheism, pro-theism clearly comes out on (...) top. In this paper, I consider whether this result (i.e. pro-theism’s advantage over anti-theism) changes if we bring axiarchism into the mix: I compare axiarchistic theism and axiarchistic atheism. General axiarchism is the view that the world exists because it is good that it exists, and extreme axiarchism is the view that the world exists because it is the best possible world. When we take general axiarchistic theism and general axiarchistic atheism as our worldviews for comparison, I argue that there is no significant change with respect to anti-theism and pro-theism: neither position is able to capture goods that are traditionally associated with the other position, and so pro-theism still wins out. However, if we instead compare extreme axiarchistic atheism with extreme axiarchistic theism there is a significant change: while the case for pro-theism remains the same (because, I argue, it is not able to capture any of the goods of anti-theism), the case for anti-theism is greatly strengthened, because it is able to capture nearly all of the goods of pro-theism (e.g. the good of an afterlife, of cosmic justice, of there being no gratuitous evil). In other words, given extreme axiarchism, atheistic worlds can (and will) house goods that are traditionally associated with theistic worlds (e.g. those listed prior). This means that, given extreme axiarchism, pro-theists can’t appeal to those goods as favoring their position: they obtain whether our world is atheistic or theistic. Thus, they don’t favor pro-theism over anti-theism; the case for anti-theism has been strengthened. (Alternatively, we may say that the case for pro-theism has been weakened.) Ultimately, there is one good that extreme axiarchistic atheism does not enable anti-theism to capture—namely, God’s intrinsic unlimited goodness—and I argue that this shows that there is still a gap between pro-theism and anti-theism; while the gap has been substantially narrowed, it has not been eliminated. Thus, I suggest that the best route forward for anti-theists is to cast doubt on the view that God’s intrinsic goodness is unlimited. (shrink)

The expressions “now,” “today,” “tomorrow,” “yesterday,” “last month,” “a year ago,” “past,” “future,” “present,” and others like them are temporal indexicals. Temporal indexicals and dates are both quite different from names. Temporal indexicals often play an important part in philosophical arguments about time. An example is this claim of McTaggart's in his famous essay about the unreality of time. Role‐linking is the key to understanding why temporal indexicals are useful. The system of temporal indexicals and system of dates correspond to (...) two different but interconnecting ways people think about things – role‐based and descriptive. Both contrast with a third way, via detached notions. McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time has two sides. According to McTaggart, these two essential properties of time cannot be combined; people's concept of time is incoherent; there is not and could not be anything that fits the conception; time is unreal. (shrink)

Legal discourse consists largely of legal claims. These are claims that there is a legal obligation, legal right, or other legal incident. What is the meaning of “legal obligation”, “legal right” and so on in legal claims? The standard view among philosophers of law is that “legal” indicates that, according to law, there is a moral obligation, moral right or other moral incident. Here I set out a new objection to the standard view. The objection is that the standard view (...) is unable to account for the use of legal claims in some common forms of logically complex arguments. (shrink)

Throughout history, many scholars have offered up definitions of curiosity. These definitions range far and wide. Some attempt to amass all the elements of curiosity, systematize them, and propose a unified theory. Some characterize curiosity as a conceptual unit with two primary dimensions (e.g. epistemic and perceptual), as two distinct kinds of things (e.g. bona et mala curiositas), or as one side of a binary (e.g. curiosity vs. care). What is curiosity? Which characterization is most apt to curiosity itself and (...) which best illuminates its ethical and political stakes? In this essay, I argue that curiosity is best characterized modally. That is, it is best described through its modes rather than defined by its essence. To support this argument, I canvas the history of philosophy and identify three models of curiosity, which I name by their correlative literary figures: the busybody, the hunter, and the dancer. The curious person is repeatedly described as drawn to gossip, hunting down secrets and discoveries, and taking leaps of creative imagination. I develop an account of the unique kinesthetic signatures of each mode. I then close with ethical considerations, interrogating issues of responsibility relevant to each. In doing so, this chapter reimagines both curiosity itself and its role in our political ecology today. (shrink)

Pardon powers are common but difficult to justify. A pardon power is, roughly, a power that is (a) possessed by a non-judicial official, (b) used to cancel legal liability to a criminal sanction in a particular case without thereby altering the law, and (c) unconstrained by law. So defined, pardon powers seem to be at odds with two constitutional principles. Contrary to the separation of powers, the pardon power gives to someone other than a judge a decisive role in determining (...) criminal liability in particular cases. Contrary to the rule of law, the pardon power is neither constrained nor ruled by law. -/- Here I provide a novel defence of pardon powers, in three steps. First, even an optimal legal code requires suboptimal results in some cases. In such cases there is a “gap” between what is required by the code we should have and what we should do absent that code. Adhering to the code in every gap case is undesirable: while it would avoid suboptimal results, it would create too much unpredictability. Deviating from the code in every gap case is also undesirable: while it would ensure predictability, it would produce too many suboptimal results. The best strategy is to adhere in some cases and to deviate in others, that is, to selectively deviate. The most important thing about selective deviation is that it leads to like cases being treated differently. This is the second step in the argument. Third, pardon powers are an appropriate vehicle for selective deviation. Selective deviation calls for a power that can be used to set aside the code without changing it. It calls for a power that can be used inconsistently. Moreover, it calls for a power that is not in the hands of a body institutionally disposed towards consistency in decision-making, such as the judiciary. That is, it requires a power with features (a)-(c) – a pardon power. -/- This argument overcomes the various objections to pardon powers. Contrary to the objection from the separation of powers, selective deviation is a task better carried out by non-judicial officials. Contrary to the objection from the rule of law, a power of selective deviation must be unconstrained to preserve the law’s guiding function. Overall, the features of pardon powers that seemed to be in tension with the separation of powers and the rule of law turn out to be favoured by those same principles. (shrink)

Contrary to the fairly standard view of Aquinas on temperance according to which this virtue habituates the concupiscible appetite to move in ways that accord with reason spontaneously, that is, independently of any immediate command from reason, the author of this paper argues that temperance is a virtue which "(1) disposes the concupiscible appetite to remain more or less still in the absence of any command from reason to move, thus preventing vehement, spontaneous passions of any sort, ordinate or inordinate, (...) from arising in the concupiscible appetite prior to reason's immediate command; and (2) also disposes the concupiscible appetite to obey reason's command so that a person may incite, increase, decrease, or curb a passion as needed." The paper ends by noting a lacuna in Aquinas's teaching on temperance. (shrink)

The first of the new Theory and History series, Matt Perry's punchy andaccessible volume examines Marxism's enormous impact on the way historians approach their subject. Perry offers both a concise introduction to the Marxist view of history and Marxism historical writing, and a guide to its relevance to students' own work.

The foundation of Mathematics is both a logico-formal issue and an epistemological one. By the first, we mean the explicitation and analysis of formal proof principles, which, largely a posteriori, ground proof on general deduction rules and schemata. By the second, we mean the investigation of the constitutive genesis of concepts and structures, the aim of this paper. This “genealogy of concepts”, so dear to Riemann, Poincaré and Enriques among others, is necessary both in order to enrich the foundational analysis (...) with an often disregarded aspect (the cognitive and historical constitution of mathematical structures) and because of the provable incompleteness of proof principles also in the analysis of deduction. For the purposes of our investigation, we will hint here to a philosophical frame as well as to some recent experimental studies on numerical cognition that support our claim on the cognitive origin and the constitutive role of mathematical intuition. (shrink)

This chapter develops criteria of work and failure implicit within the Prisons Information Group (GIP). Reading the group’s documents in conjunction with the thought of Michel Foucault, the chapter asks: How did the GIP characterize work or attribute failure and how did Foucault understand both in this period? By analyzing these discursive practices together, the essay first identifies five criteria of failure: discursive, structural, systemic, deconstructive, and productive failure. Second, it tests the GIP against each criterion, marking where it does (...) and does not fail. The chapter therefore offers an internal assessment of the GIP, one that is sensitive to the movement’s own discourse and development. In closing, the chapter draws several implications from this analysis of failure for contemporary prison activism and analysis. (shrink)

In this essay I elaborate a particular, and particularly important, morality: the morality of human rights. Next, I ask the ground-of-normativity question about the morality of human rights and go on to elaborate a religious response. Then, after explaining why one might be skeptical that there is a plausible secular response to the ground-of-normativity question, I comment critically on John Finnis's secular response. Finally, I consider what difference it makes if there is no plausible secular response to the ground-of-normativity question.

The proper role of religious faith in the public life of a liberal democracy is one of the most important and controversial issues in the United States today. Since the publication in 1991 of his book Love and Power, Michael J. Perry's important writings on this issue have been among the most insightful. In this new book, Perry argues that political reliance on religious faith violates neither the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution nor, more broadly, the (...) morality of liberal democracy. Nonetheless, Perry argues, religious believers sometimes have good reasons to be wary about relying on religious beliefs in making political decisions. Along the way, Perry thoughtfully addresses three subjects at the center of fierce contemporary political debate: school vouchers, same-sex marriage, and abortion. (shrink)

We informally discuss some recent results on the incompleteness of formal systems. These theorems, which are of great importance to contemporary mathematical epistemology, are proved using a variety of conceptual tools provably stronger than those of finitary axiomatisations. Those tools require no mathematical ontology, but rather constitute particularly concrete human constructions and acts of comprehending infinity and space rooted in different forms of knowledge. We shall also discuss, albeit very briefly, the mathematical intelligence both of God and of computers. We (...) hope in this manner to help the reader overcome formalist reductionism, while avoiding naive Platonist ontologies, typical symptoms of Godelitis which affected many in the last seventy years. (shrink)

What is 'rebirth' in Buddhism? The contribution of hypnotic regression.