This paper appeals to certain popular doctrines about human welfare and morality to offer a new response to the problem of hell. In particular, I contend that the combination of desire satisfactionism, a subjective theory about welfare, with an objective theory of morality leads to a surprisingly intuitive and compelling argument for the consistency of the post-mortem punishment of people in hell with the existence of an omniperfect God. In fact, under these conditions, the existence of such a divine being (...) may actually require that there be at least some type of hell/post-mortem punishment. Finally, I suggest that positing the existence of hell can strengthen desire satisfactionism against an objection tied to base or immoral desires. (shrink)

Eugene Marshall presents an original, systematic account of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, in which the mind is presented as an affective mechanism that, when rational, behaves as a spiritual automaton. He explores key themes in Spinoza's thought, and illuminates his philosophical and ethical project in a striking new way.

Der Band vereinigt die Vorträge der internationalen Vorlesungsreihe “Tierrechte” an der Universität Heidelberg im Sommersemester 2006. Herausgegeben von der Interdisziplinären Arbeitsgemeinschaft Tierethik (IAT) mit ihren gegenwärtigen und früheren Mitgliedern Katharina Blesch, Alexandra Breunig, Stefan Buss, Guillaume Dondainas, Rainer Ebert, Florian Fruth, Nils Kessler, Matthias Müller, Uta Panten, Anette Reimelt, Bernd Schälling, Jürgen Schneele, Adriana Sixt-Sailer, Manja Unger und Alexander Zehmisch, setzt er die mit der Vorlesungsreihe begonnenen Bemühungen um eine unvoreingenommene Vermittlung der tierethischen Forschung fort. Der Band will es Lesern (...) und Leserinnen ermöglichen, von verschiedenen Seiten Einblick in den modernen Tierrechtsdiskurs zu erhalten. Beiträge lieferten: Silke Bitz, Gieri Bolliger, Carl Cohen, Raymond Corbey, Eugen Drewermann, Mylan Engel Jr., Antoine F. Goetschel, Helmut F. Kaplan, Eisenhart von Loeper, Jörg Luy, Renate Rastätter, Tom Regan, Kurt Remele, Hanna Rheinz, Peter S. Wenz, Markus Wild, Hanno Würbel. (shrink)

Linguistics. Artificial intelligence. Related fields. Computation.

Equally important, he offers much insight into why our own environmental policies have failed and what we can do to better manage our resources.

What is the good life? Posing this question today would likely elicit very different answers. Some might say that the good life means doing good—improving one’s community and the lives of others. Others might respond that it means doing well—cultivating one’s own abilities in a meaningful way. But for Aristotle these two distinct ideas—doing good and doing well—were one and the same and could be realized in a single life. In Confronting Aristotle’s Ethics, Eugene Garver examines how we can (...) draw this conclusion from Aristotle's works, while also studying how this conception of the good life relates to contemporary ideas ofmorality. The key to Aristotle’s views on ethics, argues Garver, lies in the Metaphysics or, more specifically, in his thoughts on activities, actions, and capacities . For Aristotle, Garver shows, it is only possible to be truly active when acting for the common good, and it is only possible to be truly happy when active to the extent of one’s own powers. But does this mean we should aspire to Aristotle’s impossibly demanding vision of the good life? In a word, no. Garver stresses the enormous gap between life in Aristotle’s time and ours. As a result, this book will be a welcome rumination on not only Aristotle, but the relationship between the individual and society in everyday life. (shrink)

The wide variety of blame presents two difficult puzzles. Why are instances of blame categorized under so many different mental kinds, such as judgment, belief, emotion, action, intention, desire, and combinations of these? Why is “blame” used to describe both interpersonal reactions and mere causal attributions, such as blaming faulty brakes for a car crash? I introduce a new conception of blame, on which blame is attention to something as a source of badness. I argue that this view resolves both (...) puzzles and offers an independently appealing conception of blame. (shrink)

Empirical evidence shows that people have multiple time-biases. One is near-bias, another is future-bias, and a third is present-bias. Philosophers are concerned with the normative status of these time-biases. They have argued that, at least in part, the normative status of these biases depends on the extent to which they tend to promote, or frustrate, wellbeing, where “wellbeing” is taken to be of fundamental value. Since near-bias is thought to be associated with impulsivity, lack of self-control, and poor long-term health (...) and financial outcomes, it has often been supposed that it is associated with lower wellbeing. On those grounds, philosophers have argued that near-bias is rationally impermissible. By contrast, philosophical views about the normative status of future-bias have been mixed, with some arguing that future-bias is impermissible because, they think, it frustrates wellbeing, and others arguing that it is at least permissible (and perhaps obligatory) because it is the product of mechanisms whose functioning can be expected to promote wellbeing. However, to date there are no studies that have directly probed how time-biases correlate with wellbeing. Since it's not a settled matter which psychological mechanisms underlie time-biases, it is not uncontroversial which things serve as proxies for these preferences. We directly empirically investigate the connection between time-biases and measures of wellbeing, to see which of these biases is associated with promoting, or frustrating wellbeing. Contrary to expectation, we found no evidence that near-bias or present-bias are associated with frustrating wellbeing on any of the constructs we measured. On the other hand, and contrary to what some philosophers have supposed, we found that future-bias was associated with higher measures of wellbeing on several measures. We consider the implications of these findings for the evaluation of the normative status of these time biases. (shrink)

Life and the living (on Aristotelian biohorror) -- Supernatural horror as the paradigm for life -- Aristotle's De anima and the problem of life -- The ontology of life -- The entelechy of the weird -- Superlative life -- Life with or without limits -- Life as time in Plotinus -- On the superlative -- Superlative life I: Pseudo-Dionysius -- Negative vs. affirmative theology -- Superlative negation -- Negation and preexistent life -- Excess, evil, and non-being -- Superlative life II: (...) Eriugena -- Negation in the periphyseon -- The quaestio de nihilo: on nothing -- The quaestio de nihilo: superlative nothing -- Dark intelligible abyss -- Apophasis -- The apophatic logic -- Negation in Frege and Ayer -- Negation vs. subtraction in Badiou -- Negation and contradiction in Priest -- The dialetheic vitalism of negative theology -- Ellipses: Suhraward and the luminous void -- Univocal creatures -- On spiritual creatures -- Life as form in Aristotle -- The concept of the creature -- Univocity I: Duns Scotus vs. Aquinas -- Univocity in Aquinas' Summa theologica -- Univocity in Duns Scotus' Opus oxoniense -- The common nature of the creature -- Univocity II: Duns Scotus vs. Henry of Ghent -- Univocity in Henry of Ghent -- Negative vs. privative indetermination -- Absolute indetermination -- Univocity III: Deleuze's scholasticism three variations -- Spinoza et le problème de l'expression -- Différence et répétition -- Cours de Vincennes -- Univocal creatures -- Ellipses: Dgen and uncreated univocity -- Dark pantheism -- Everything and nothing -- Life as spirit in Aquinas -- The concept of the divine nature -- Immanence I: Eriugena's periphyseon -- Natura and the unthought -- Universal life -- Four statements on pantheism -- Immanence II: Duns Scotus' reportatio Ia -- Univocal immanence -- Actual infinity -- The pathology of the triple primacy -- Immanence III: Nicholas of Cusa's De docta ignorantia -- The coincidence of opposites -- The folds of life -- Absolute vs. contracted pantheism -- Speculative pantheism (Deleuze's interlocutors) -- Pantheism and pure immanence -- The insubordination of immanence in Deleuze -- Scholia I: the isomorphism of univocity and immanence -- Scholia II: the vitalist logic of common notions -- Scholia III: the life of substance -- Dark pantheism -- Ellipses: Wang Yangming and idealist naturalism -- Logic and life (on Kantian teratology) -- The wandering line from Aristotle to Kant -- Critique of life -- Spectral life and speculative realism -- Ontotheology in Kant, atheology in Bataille -- The night land. (shrink)

This essay examines a hidden link in biopolitical thinking after Foucault — the relation between biology and theology. The result is a turn away from the dichotomy of life/death and towards a life-after-life, an afterlife that is vitalist, networked and immanent. The model for this, however, is not in postmodernity but in the pre-modernity of medicine, plague and demonology.

Organizational misconduct (white collar, corporate and occupational crime, unethical behavior, rule violations, etc.) is an increasingly important social concern. This paper proposes that a necessary step toward preventing and treating such misconduct is the understanding of the explanations, called accounts, given by the actor. We argue that the theorizing and findings in the literature on accounts can be organized into a 2×2 matrix framework. The first dimension centers on whether or not the actor admits that some net harm is done (...) by the act, and the second consists of whether or not the actor admits responsibility. When both are admitted (cell 1), the account is a concession, while denial of both constitutes a refusal (cell 4). Admitting responsibility but not harm equates to a justification (cell 2), and the opposite condition is an excuse (cell 3). Building on this matrix, we specify a typology of explanations within each cell which will highlight inter-cell differences. Finally, we explore the implications of this analysis for managers, regulators, and the public. (shrink)

The most compelling arguments for ethical veganism hinge on premise-pairs linking the serious wrongness of factory farming to that of buying its products: one premise claiming that buying those products stands in a certain relation to factory farming itself, and one claiming that entering into that relation with a seriously wrong practice is itself wrong. I argue that all such “linkage arguments” on offer fail, granting the serious wrongness of factory farming. Each relevant relation is such that if it holds (...) between factory farming and buying its products, then it holds between some seriously wrong practice and economic transactions of an absurd number and breadth. Hence, all these premise-pairs would, if true, generate unacceptable moral overreach; each premise-pair contains at least one unacceptable member, and the linkage arguments for ethical veganism fail. (shrink)

In Nuu-chah-nulth, the word tsawalk means "one." It expresses the view that all living things - humans, plants, and animals - form part of an integrated whole brought into harmony through constant negotiation and mutual respect for the other. Contemporary environmental and political crises, however, reflect a world out of balance, a world in which Western approaches for sustainable living are not working. In Principles of Tsawalk, hereditary chief Umeek builds upon his previous book, Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview, to elaborate (...) an alternative framework for responding to global environmental and political crises and to indigenous peoples' poverty, dispossession, and displacement in the realms of education and politics. These problems, Umeek argues, stem from an historical and persistent failure to treat all peoples and life forms with respect and accord them constitutional recognition. By contrast, the Nuu-chah-nulth principles of recognition, consent, and continuity, embodied in songs, language, and ceremonies, hold the promise of achieving sustainable lifeways in this shared struggle for balance. By weaving together Nuu-chah-nulth and Western worldviews, hereditary chief Umeek creates a new philosophical foundation for building more equitable and sustainable communities. Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), a hereditary Nuu-chah-nulth chief, is a research liaison at the University of Manitoba and an associate adjunct professor at the University of Victoria. He is the author of Tsawalk: A Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview. (shrink)

A number of philosophers claim that realism about dark matter in cosmology is unwarranted because there has been no empirical confirmation of a dark matter particle. This demand is misguided. I argue that we should take the theoretical concept of dark matter as described in our best cosmological model (ΛCDM) at face value. Since there is no theoretical or nomological requirement that dark matter be a particle, we should better assess the implications of dark matter detection via gravitational lensing. The (...) result is that realism about dark matter is a viable position. (shrink)

What role should it play? And are claims to rationality liberating or oppressive? For the Sake of Argument addresses questions such as these to consider the relationship between thought and character.

The thesis that practical and epistemic justification can diverge-that it can be reasonable to believe something, all things considered, even when believing is epistemically unjustified, and the reverse-is widely accepted. I argue that this acceptance is unfounded. I show, first, that examples of the sort typically cited as straightforwardly illustrative of the "divergence thesis" do not, in fact, support it. The view to the contrary derives from conflating the assessment of acts which cause one to believe with the assessment of (...) believing itself. I argue, too, that the divergence thesis cannot be rescued by appeal to the possibility of doxastic voluntarism. Finally, I argue that the general acceptance of the divergence thesis rests on a conception of justification, both practical and epistemic, which is seriously flawed. (shrink)

The present discussion arose from the desire to explain, to an audience of non-physicists, the epistemology to which one is forced if one pursues the quantum mechanical theory of observation to its ultimate consequences. However, the conclusions will not be derived from the aforementioned theory but obtained on the basis of a rather general analysis of what we mean by real. Quantum theory will form the background but not the basis for the analysis. The concept of the real to be (...) arrived at shows considerable similarity to that of the idealist. As the title indicates, it is formulated as a dualism. It is quite possible that it will soon be rejected not only by the community of the philosophers but also by that of the scientists. If this should be the case, the attempt to derive an epistemology from physics will prove to have been premature. Naturally, the author hopes that this will not be the case because, quite apart from the quantum theoretical background, the concepts to be presented appear natural also as an outgrowth of common sense considerations. They have been arrived at by many who did not accept the epistemology of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

_Nomad Citizenship_ argues for transforming our institutions and practices of citizenship and markets in order to release society from dependence on the state and capital. It changes Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of nomadology into a utopian project with immediate practical implications, developing ideas of a nonlinear Marxism and of the slow-motion general strike. Responding to the challenge of creating philosophical concepts with concrete applications, Eugene W. Holland looks outside the state to analyze contemporary political and economic development using the (...) ideas of nomad citizenship and free-market communism. Holland’s nomadology seeks to displace capital-controlled free markets with truly free markets. Its goal is to rescue market exchange, not perpetuate capitalism—to enable noncapitalist markets to coordinate socialized production on a global scale and, with an eye to the common good, to liberate them from capitalist control. In suggesting the slow-motion general strike, Holland aims to transform citizenship: to renew, enrich, and invigorate it by supplanting the monopoly of state citizenship with plural nomad citizenships. In the process, he offers critiques of both the Clinton and Bush regimes in the broader context of critiques of the social contract, the labor contract, and the form of the state itself. (shrink)

A family of arguments for black hole evaporation relies on conservation laws, defined through symmetries represented by Killing vector fields which exist globally or asymptotically. However, these symmetries often rely on the idealizations of stationarity and asymptotic flatness, respectively. In non-stationary or non-asymptotically-flat spacetimes where realistic black holes evaporate, the requisite Killing fields typically do not exist. Can we ‘de-idealize’ these idealizations, and subsequently the associated arguments for black hole evaporation? Here, I critically examine the strategy of using ‘approximately Killing’ (...) fields to de-idealize black hole spacetimes and approximately extend conservation laws to non-idealized cases. I argue that this approach encounters significant challenges, undermining the use of these idealizations to justify the evaporation of realistic – rather than idealized – black holes, and raising questions about the justified use of such idealizations. (shrink)

We are beings endowed with “personal capacities”—the capacity for reason, for a concept of self, perhaps more. Among ontologically salient views about what else we are, I focus on the “Big Three.” According to animalism, we are animals that have psychological properties only contingently. According to psychologistic materialism, we are material beings; according to substance dualism, we are either immaterial beings or composites of immaterial and material ones; but according to both psychologistic materialism and substance dualism, we essentially have some (...) psychological properties. I argue that—contrary to what has been argued and is natural to think—none of the Big Three yields different assignments of moral status to early fetuses from any of the others, and consequently the moral status of early abortion doesn’t depend on which (if any) of these views of personal ontology is correct. (shrink)

Psychologist Eugene C. Goldfield offers an exciting new theoretical framework--based, in part, on the concept of self-organization--that promises to aid researchers in their quest to discover the underlying origins and process of behavioral development.

The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, two of the most important and influential thinkers in twentieth-century European philosophy. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all their major sole-authored and collaborative works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Deleuze and Guattari's groundbreaking thought. Students and experts alike will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z (...) entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Deleuze and Guattari's writings and detailed synopses of their key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on their major philosophical influences and key contemporaries, from Aristotle to Foucault. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Deleuze and Guattari Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying these seminal thinkers or Modern European Philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Can we who have been touched by the scientific, intellectual, and experimental revolutions of modern and contemporary times still believe with and degree of coherence and consistency that we as individual persons are immortal. Indeed, is there even good cause to hope that we are? In examining the present relationship of reason to faith, can we find justifying reasons for faith? These are the central questions in Self, God, and Immortality, a compelling exercise in philosophical theology. Drawing upon the works (...) of William James and the principles of American Pragmatism, Eugene Fontinell extrapolates carefully from "data given in experience" to a model of the cosmic process open to the idea that individual identity may survive bodily dissolution. Presupposing that the possibility of personal immortality has been established in the first part, the second part of the essay is concerned with desirability. Here, Fontinell shows that, far from diverting attention and energies from the crucial tasks confronting us here and now, such belief can be energizing and life enhancing. The wider importance of Self, God, and Immortality lies in its pressing both immortality-believers and terminality-believers to explore both the metaphysical presuppositions and the lived consequences of their beliefs. It is the author's expressed hope that such explorations, rather than impeding, will stimulate co-operative efforts to create a richer and more humane community. (shrink)

Informed consent is one of the most important ethical and legal principles in the United States, including Texas, and reflects a profound respect for individuals and their ability to make decisions in their own best interest. It is also a critical underpinning of medical practice, although how it is actually carried out has not been well studied. A survey was conducted in the private practices and a hospital in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas to ascertain how physicians, patients (...) and patient's family members perceive and demonstrate the elements of informed consent. In-depth interviews of twelve physicians, three patients and three family members were carried out. For physicians, consent was an explicit and implicit aspect of virtually all medical practice. Physicians would seek patient input concerning medical decisions whenever possible and might also discuss care choices with families. However, they often made decisions based upon what they perceived as the patient's best interests. Patients expected the physician to involve them in the decision process, but whether they turned to family members, or even others to assist them, varied considerably. Although Texas physicians respect the competent patient as the primary decision maker, they may bypass a formal surrogate decision maker to gain input from others, including their own view of what is in the patient's best interest. (shrink)

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are arguably the most important period in philosophy’s history, given that they set a new and broad foundation for subsequent philosophical thought. Over the last decade, however, discontent among instructors has grown with coursebooks’ unwavering focus on the era’s seven most well-known philosophers—all of them white and male—and on their exclusively metaphysical and epistemological concerns. While few dispute the centrality of these figures and the questions they raised, the modern era also included essential contributions from (...) women—like Margaret Cavendish, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Émilie Du Châtelet—as well as important non-white thinkers, such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, Julien Raimond, and Ottobah Cugoano. At the same time, there has been increasing recognition that moral and political philosophy, philosophy of the natural world, and philosophy of race—also vibrant areas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—need to be better integrated with the standard coverage of metaphysics and epistemology. -/- A New Modern Philosophy: The Inclusive Anthology of Primary Sources addresses—in one volume—these valid criticisms. Weaving together multiple voices and all of the era’s vibrant areas of debate, this volume sets a new agenda for studying modern philosophy. It includes a wide range of readings from 34 thinkers, integrating essential works from all of the canonical writers along with the previously neglected philosophers. Arranged chronologically, editors Eugene Marshall and Susanne Sreedhar provide an introduction for each author that sets the thinker in his or her time period as well as in the longer debates to which the thinker contributed. Study questions and suggestions for further reading conclude each chapter. At the end of the volume, in addition to a comprehensive subject index, the book includes 13 Syllabus Modules, which will help instructors use the book to easily set up different topically structured courses, such as "The Citizen and the State," "Mind and Matter," "Education," "Theories of Perception," or "Metaphysics of Causation." -/- And an eresource offers a wide range of supplemental online resources, including essay assignments, exams, quizzes, student handouts, reading questions, and scholarly articles on teaching the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Eugene D. Bronstein; Miss Stebbing's Directional Analysis and Basic Facts, Analysis, Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 1 October 1934, Pages 10–14, https://doi.org/10.1093/a.