There are two traditional ways to read Kant's claim that every event necessarily has a cause: the weaker every-event some-cause and the stronger same-cause same-effect causal principles. The focus of the debate about whether and where he subscribes to the SCP has been in the Analogies in the Critique of Pure Reason and in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. By analysing the arguments and conclusions of both the Analogies and the Postulates as well as the two Latin principles non (...) datur casus and non datur fatum that summarise their results, I will argue for the novel thesis that the SCP is actually demonstrated in the Postulates of the First Critique. (shrink)

Dr Erskine's 'embedded cosmopolitanism' embraces the perspective of local loyalties, communities and cultures in the theory of why we have duties to 'strangers' and 'enemies' in world politics. Taking examples from the 'war on terror', she examines duties to 'enemies' through norms of non-combatant immunity and the prohibition against torture.

Background Escalating levels of obesity place enormous and growing demands on Health care provision in the (U.K.) United Kingdom. Resources are limited with increasing and competing demands upon them. Ethical considerations underpin clinical decision making generally, but there is limited evidence regarding the relationship between these variables particularly in terms of treating individuals with obesity. Research aim To investigate the views of National Health Service (NHS) clinicians on navigating the ethical challenges and decision making associated with obesity management in adults (...) with chronic illness. Research design A cross-sectional, multi-site survey distributed electronically. Participants A consensus sample of nurses, doctors, dietitians and final year students in two NHS Trusts and two Universities. Ethical considerations Ethical and governance approvals obtained from a National Ethics Committee (11NIR035), two universities and two teaching hospitals. Results Of the total ( n = 395) participants, the majority were nurses (48%), female (79%) and qualified clinicians (59%). Participants strongly considered the individual to have primary responsibility for a healthy weight and an obligation to attempt to maintain that healthy weight if they wish to access NHS care. Yet two thirds would not withhold treatment for patients with obesity. Discussion While clinicians were clear about patient responsibility and obligations, the majority prioritised their duty of care and would not invoke a utilitarian approach to decision making. This may reflect awareness of obesity as a multi-faceted entity, with responsibility for support and management shared amongst society in general. Conclusions The attitudes of this sample of clinicians complemented the concept of the health service as being built on a principle of community, with each treated according to their need. However limited resources challenge the concept of needs-based decisions consequently societal engagement is necessary to agree a pragmatic way forward. (shrink)

v. 1. Science.--v. 2. Ethics and politics.--v. 3. Metaphysics.--v. 4. Psychology & aesthetics.

: According to Kant, the arguments of rational psychology are formal fallacies that he calls transcendental paralogisms. It remains heavily debated whether there actually is any formal error in the inferences Kant presents: according to Grier and Allison, they are deductively invalid syllogisms, whereas Bennett, Ameriks, and Van Cleve deny that they are formal fallacies. I advance an interpretation that reconciles these extremes: transcendental paralogisms are sound in general logic but constitute formal fallacies in transcendental logic. By formalising the paralogistic (...) inference, I will pinpoint the error as an illegitimate existential presupposition. Since - unlike transcendental logic - general logic abstracts from all objects, this error can only be detected in transcendental logic. (shrink)

The conventional historical account of the concept of brain death credits developments and discoveries of the twentieth century with its inception, emphasizing the role of technological developments and professional conferences, notably the 1968 Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death. This essay argues that the French physician Eugène Bouchut anticipated the concept of brain death as early as 1846. Correspondence with Bouchut’s understanding of brain death and one important contemporary concept of brain (...) death is established then contrasted with current trends of defining death as the death of the brain. The philosophical factors that influenced Bouchut and the later developments of concepts of brain death are considered, with special reference to mechanistic philosophy and vitalism. (shrink)

According to what Jonathan Bennett calls the Kant–Frege view of existence, Frege gave solid logical foundations to Kant’s claim that existence is not a real predicate. In this article I will challenge Bennett’s claim by arguing that although Kant and Frege agree on what existence is not, they agree neither on what it is nor on the importance and justification of existential propositions. I identify three main differences: first, whereas for Frege existence is a property of a concept, for Kant (...) it is a relational property pertaining between the concept and intuition of an object. Second, whereas for Frege truth about individuals presupposes their existence, for Kant truth is in many cases independent of the existence of objects. Third, whereas Frege binds logic to existence and removes modalities from logic, for Kant existence is a modal category that is emphatically removed from the domain of logic and set in the core of metaphysics. Due to these differences in Kant’s and Frege’s theories of existence, Frege cannot be seen as giving logical clarity to Kant’s view. (shrink)

In the presentation I will analyse Kant’s conception of modalities and consider its relevance to his critical metaphysics. With his Tables of Judgements and of Categories Kant makes an important division between two kinds of modality, of which the former is only logical and the latter transcendental, i.e., objective. Only judgements that are necessary in both ways are properly metaphysical. This distinction is important for Kant’s distinction between Transcendental Analytic and Transcendental Dialectic, i.e., between acceptable and unacceptable metaphysics. I submit (...) that not only is Kant’s theory of modality useful for properly understanding his arguments in the Dialectic, but that only by distinguishing between the two types of modality can one can make sense of his theory that the ideas of reason are simultaneously inevitable and erroneous. This modal analysis thus offers a new and important point of view to Kant’s metaphysics and its critique. (shrink)

In 1995, in his seminal paper introducing the abstract argumentation framework, Dung has also established the first relationship between this framework and a logical framework (in this case: logic...

In this paper, I appeal to the notion of practical identity in order to defend the possibility of synchronic duties to the self—that is, self-directed duties focused on one's present self as opposed to one's future self. While many dismiss the idea of self-directed duties, I show that a person may be morally required to act in ways that advance her present interests and autonomy by virtue of her occupying multiple practical identities at a single moment.

Determining who, or indeed what, is to respond to prescriptions for action in cases of international crisis is a critical endeavor. Without such an allocation of responsibilities, calls to action–whether to protect the environment or to rescue distant strangers–lack specified agents, and, therefore, any meaningful indication of how they might be met. A fundamental step in arriving at this distribution of duties is identifying moral agents in international relations, or, in other words, identifying those bodies that can deliberate and act (...) and thereby respond to ethical guidelines. Often, the most effective and relevant moral agents in international relations are not individuals but institutions. However, it is necessary to qualify any claim that institutions can bear duties in international relations. Not only must they possess capacities for decision-making and purposive action, they must also enjoy the conditions under which specific duties can be discharged. The importance of this latter stipulation can be usefully illustrated by examining the disparate circumstances within which states–those that exercise positive sovereignty and those that are sovereign only in name–are expected to act. (shrink)

The article examines the role played by policy advice institutions in the governance of ethically controversial new and emerging science and technology in Europe. The empirical analysis, which aims to help close a gap in the literature, focuses on the evolution, role and functioning of national ethics advisory bodies (EABs) in Europe. EABs are expert bodies whose remit is to issue recommendations regarding ethical aspects of new and emerging science and technology. Negative experiences with the impacts of science and technology (...) in the past have resulted in calls for increased transparency and broader participation and pluralism in expert advice and policy decision-making. Do national EABs function as inclusive, anticipatory “hybrid forums”? Or do they resemble more “classical” expert-oriented bodies, inspired by technocratic or decisionist approaches? As part of the empirical analysis of the role and functioning of institutional ethical advisory structures in 32 European countries, an extensive analysis of EAB websites and the content of publicly available documents on such institutions has been carried out, supplemented by an online survey of representatives of the EABs. One major finding of the empirical analysis is the very uneven distribution of “hybrid forum” features of EABs across Europe. (shrink)

In the course of his philosophy, in various contexts, Kant comes to reject three theses about existence: (i) that the thoroughgoing determination of a thing implies its existence, (ii) that existence is a real predicate or determination of a thing, and (iii) that existence is the complement of inner possibility or essence. Kant’s target here is Baumgarten, who advocates these theses as the criterion, classification, and definition of existence. In this article I seek to clarify Kant’s elusive theory of existence (...) through its opposition to Baumgarten. I will show that Kant’s refutation of (i)–(iii) does not stand alone but is grounded on his own definition of existence as (absolute) positing. Thus contrary to common practice, Kant’s negative claims about what existence is not cannot be understood in isolation but must be taken as jointly dependent on Kant’s positive claim of what existence is. I will show that the theses (i)–(iii) fail because they presuppose that existence contributes to the intension or content of a concept, whereas according to Kant existence in fact posits a (non-empty) extension to the concept. (shrink)

Spanish fascists held power for a lengthy period, yet their antisemitism remains underresearched. This article, drawing on periodicals and archival documentation, specifically examines the early years of the Falange until 1945. The period was characterised by a significant surge in antisemitic sentiment in Spain, accompanied by a growing presence of the alleged ‘Judaeo-Masonic conspiracy’. Representing the first in-depth approach in English, the text is divided into four parts. The first serves as an introduction to the outbreak of antisemitism and conspiracy (...) theories within the political cultures of the Spanish illiberal right following the advent of democracy in 1931. The second focuses on fascism and its four most prominent figures up to 1936. The third analyses the Falange’s pronounced antisemitism during the Spanish Civil War, exploring both its internal and external influences. The fourth and final part addresses the fervently antisemitic stance of the Falange during the decisive years of the Second World War, navigating the tensions between Nazi antisemitic racism and Catholic anti-racist antisemitism. (shrink)

This paper argues that healthcare aims at the good of health, that this pursuit of the good necessitates conscience, and that conscience is required in every practical judgement, including clinical...

Florence Ashley has argued that requiring patients with gender dysphoria to undergo an assessment and referral from a mental health professional before undergoing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is unethical and may represent an unconscious hostility towards transgender people. We respond, first, by showing that Ashley has conflated the self-reporting of symptoms with self-diagnosis, and that this is not consistent with the standard model of informed consent to medical treatment. Second, we note that the model of informed consent involved in cosmetic (...) surgery resembles the model Ashley defends, and that psychological assessment and referral is recognised as an important aspect of such a model. Third, we suggest that the increased prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in the transgender population arguably supports the requirement of assessment and referral from a mental health professional prior to undergoing HRT. (shrink)

Is it possible to be Communist Without Marx ? It is evident that when Marxist communism achieved its actual realization the State became omnipotent and the Public falsified the Common. Do struggles for communism therefore have to start by eliminating Marx’s thought ? The answer is no. Communism needs Marx in order to root itself within Common praxis. Contrary to what a few contemporary philosophers think, without historical ontology there is no communism. Without a logic of production, the communist struggle (...) cannot become an “event”. (shrink)

The debate on how to interpret Kant's transcendental idealism has been prominent for several decades now. In his book Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism (2004) Kenneth R. Westphal introduces and defends his version of the metaphysical dual-aspect reading. But his real aim lies deeper: to provide a sound transcendental proof for (unqualified) realism, based on Kant's work, without resorting to transcendental idealism. In this sense his aim is similar to that of Peter F. Strawson – although Westphal's approach is far (...) more sophisticated. First he attempts to show that noumenal causation – on the reality of which his argument partly rests – is coherent in and necessary for Kant's transcendental idealism. Westphal then aims to undermine transcendental idealism by two major claims: Kant can neither account for transcendental affinity nor satisfactorily counter Hume's causal scepticism. Finally Westphal defends his alternative for transcendental idealism by showing that it solves these problems and thus offers a genuine transcendental proof for realism. In this paper I will show that all the three steps outlined above suffer from decisive shortcomings, and that consequently, regardless of its merits, Westphal's transcendental argument for realism remains undemonstrated. (shrink)

In her paper ‘Cosmetic surgery and conscientious objection’, Minerva rightly identifies cosmetic surgery as an interesting test case for the question of conscientious objection in medicine. Her treatment of this important subject, however, seems problematic. It is argued that Minerva's suggestion that a doctor has a prima facie duty to satisfy patient preferences even against his better clinical judgment, which we call Patient Preference Absolutism, must be regarded with scepticism. This is because it overlooks an important distinction regarding autonomy's meaning (...) and place in clinical practice, and it makes obsolete the important concepts of expert clinical judgment and beneficence. Finally, we discuss two ideas which emerge from consideration of cosmetic surgery in relation to conscientious objection. These are the possible analogy between clinical judgment and conscientious objection, and the possible role the goals of medicine can play in defining the scope of conscientious objection. (shrink)

Dung’s abstract argumentation frameworks have had a very significant role in the rise in interest in argumentation throughout this century. In this paper we will explore the impact of this seminal...

dialectical frameworks (ADFs) are generalizations of Dung argumentation frameworks where arbitrary relationships among arguments can be formalized. This additional expressibility comes wit...

Conscientious Objection (CO) has become a highly contested topic in the bioethics literature and public policy. However, when CO is discussed, it is almost universally referred to as a single entity. Reality reveals a more nuanced picture. Healthcare professionals may object to a given action on numerous grounds. They may oppose an action because of its ends, its means, or because of factors that lay outside of both ends and means. Our paper develops a taxonomy of CO, which makes it (...) possible to describe the refusals of healthcare professional with greater finesse. The application of this development will potentially allow for greater subtlety in public policy and academic discussions – some species of CO could be permitted while others could be prohibited. (shrink)

Kant’s view that freedom is a “kind of causality” seems to conflict with his claim that the categories of the understanding – including causality – can only be applied objectively to sensible phaenomena, never to supersensible noumena, as freedom is only possible for the latter. I argue that only Kant’s theory of symbolic presentation, according to which the category of cause is applied merely analogically to freedom, can dispel this threatening inconsistency. Unlike it is commonly thought, one cannot here use (...) the category of cause in its unschematised form to think freedom as causality, for its mere logical significance does not suffice for the practical reality of freedom. Symbolic cognition in turn is not unschematised but indirect schematized presentation. Ultimately I will show that symbolic cognition is a necessary condition of moral agency – but not of morality itself – for without it we could not cognize and hence self-consciously use our freedom to act from the moral law. (shrink)

Jacob Viner introduced the term ‘sub-rational’ to characterize the faculties – human instinct, sentiment and intuition – that fall between animal instinct and full-blown reason. The Scots considered sympathy both an affective and a physiological link between mind and body, and by natural history, they traced the most foundational societal institutions – language and law, money and property – to a sub-rational origin. Their ‘social evolutionism’ anticipated Darwin's ‘dangerous idea’ that humans differ from the lower animals only in degree, not (...) in kind. Darwin had the ability to ‘trade places in the imagination’, as Adam Smith would say, with plants and animals, and ‘think’ as they do. The trend today is to ‘positivize,’ ‘behaviorize’ and otherwise reduce the sub-rational to the purely biological. My suggestion is that we trade places in the imagination with the Scottish moral scientists and Darwin, and try thinking as they did. (shrink)

Feminist scholars challenge ahistorical conceptions of the patriarchal state and emphasize the importance of power struggles across class, race, and gender lines in transforming state gender policies. They also unintentionally downplay the ideological power struggles among race- and class-homogeneous patriarchal institutions, especially in relatively monolithic political contexts with little or no independent feminist movement. Our historical case study of the transformations of Polish abortion laws and selected economic policies geared toward women explores how these changing policies were used in, and (...) shaped by, the ideological power struggles between two homogeneous, powerful, male-dominated institutions: the Communist Party and the Catholic Church. We argue that one cannot understand patriarchal state practices without considering the ideological power struggles between patriarchal institutions in homogeneous social contexts as well as in those of a more heterogeneous nature. (shrink)

One type of change that has lurked at the edges of scholarly discussions of international politics—often assumed, invoked, and alluded to, but rarely interrogated—is learning. Learning entails a very particular type of change. It is deliberate, internal, transformative, and peaceful. In this contribution to the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” I ask whether intergovernmental organizations can learn in a way that is comparable to the paradigmatic learning of individual human beings. In addressing this question, I take three steps. First, (...) I explore references to corporate entities “learning” within the discipline of international relations and ask whether what is being proposed is, in fact, genuine learning by the organizations themselves. Second, I attempt to construct a robust account of institutional learning that departs from these conceptions and acknowledges instead the self-reflection and structural transformation that I argue learning at the corporate level requires. Third, for the purpose of illustration, I turn briefly to the UN following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the slaughter of more than eight thousand men and boys outside Srebrenica in 1995 to identify examples of each stage of institutional learning. Finally, I offer three provisional claims about my proposed conception of institutional learning that warrant attention in future work. Namely, I suggest that institutional learning: cannot be equated with moral progress; is possible despite formal organizations being incapable of emotional responses such as shame or regret; and, perhaps most controversially, can occur at the level of the IGO without prior or parallel learning taking place at the level of the state or individual human actor. (shrink)

This article focuses on three key points, which, it argues, will help us to find Marx again in a political and critical way. The three threads of antagonism, the crisis of capitalism and the common are those around which communism could be woven anew. Can we envisage to produce a new theory of value that would be adequate to the common dimension inherent in the production of capital? The article suggests that getting hold of Marx’s Capital once again should make (...) this challenge possible. (shrink)

From the earliest silver-chloride calotypes of inventor of photography William Henry Fox-Talbot to developments in digital photography and the tiny but surprisingly capable cameras that are a component of every smartphone today, photography has changed dramatically over the past 150 years. As technology has advanced, so too has photography as a living, dynamic art form, as evidenced by the innovative techniques and compositions of contemporary photographic artists. Drawing on a diverse collection of historical and contemporary photographs held by Bank Austria (...) and on display at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Focus on Photography provides a rich visual record of the history of photography. The photographs reproduced here date from the 1840s to the 1970s and include works by Julia Margaret Cameron, Lewis Carroll, André Kertész, Josef Sudek, Eadweard Muybridge, Alexander Rodchenko, Lászlo Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, and Arnulf Rainer, among others, and range from landscapes and portraits to cutting-edge modern compositions. Together, they offer readers a series of invaluable reference points for thinking about of the important trends and developments throughout the history of photography. A stunning, kaleidoscopic portfolio featuring nearly two centuries of photographic art with representation from among many major movements and figures, Focus on Photography will be welcomed by all with an interest in this powerful medium. (shrink)

The words ―Rights,‖ ―Trust,‖ ―Human Dignity,‖ and even ―Government‖ have widely varying meanings and connotations, differing across time, languages and cultures. Concepts of rights, trust, and human dignity have been examined for centuries in great depth by ethicists and other philosophers and by religious think-ers, and more recently by social scientists and, especially as related to information, by information scientists. Similarly, discussions of government are well documented in writings back to Plato and Aristotle, with investi-gations of electronic government dating back (...) only to the early 1990s with the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web. At first e-government was described in glowing, positive terms. Little, if any, attention was paid to two critical questions: 1) Will people trust e-government? and 2) How will cultural differences affect individuals‘ trust in government and their perceptions of govern-ment‘s effect of their human dignity? Examinations of trust and distrust by individuals within organizations have addressed questions of motives and intentions, expectations of behavior, protection of interests, confi-dence in accuracy and reliability of information, vulnerability, and reciprocity, among other complex topics. Establishing e-government services often requires going through several phases: 1) publish , 2) interact transact transform . Building and maintaining trust in e-government require developing an understanding both of the many levels of interactions where trust must be earned and of cultural differences. Another challenge in developing such a framework is that e-government, itself, is very dynamic, changing rapidly over time. Trust in content or a system available one day may not carry over when the content and/or system changes dramatically. Components of a framework must include the follow-ing dimensions: conceptual domains, cultural dimensions, information content dimensions, and system di-mensions. Of course, these dimensions must be considered within the context of rapidly changing govern-ments, ICT services, the digital divide, and other factors. This paper provides a very brief overview of some of the notions of trust and distrust, concentrating on those concerning trust as it relates to notions of power, trust in organizations, and trust in information and information systems as one part of a framework to ad-dress the question of trust in e-government. It also makes a few recommendations for how to build citizen-centric e-government to ensure information rights through a focus on human dignity, fundamental human rights, and earning trust. (shrink)

While hedonism has been subjected to much criticism over the years, it is still a widely endorsed axiological view. One objection that appears to be generally recognised as especially troublesome to hedonists is that their central claim, that final value accrues only to experiences of pleasure gives us a narrow view of value. Much more than pleasure is valuable for its own sake. A competing theory, preferentialism, is another widespread theory about value. According to one version of preferentialism, only the (...) objects of preferences carry final value, and since not all of our preferences have pleasure as their object, preferentialists accuse hedonists of overlooking a great deal that is of value. For instance, if someone has a so-called external preference to the effect that, say, the Californian redwood forests should go on existing, then the world contains more value if the forests continue to exist.1 Given this, the possible pleasure someone would experience on learning that his preference is satisfied has nothing to do with this kind of value. Preferentialists therefore conclude that the hedonist perspective is not wide enough. In this work, it is argued that hedonists are entitled to reverse the argument. Preferentialists are restrained by not being able to recognize the object of value that is cherished by hedonists. (shrink)

SUMMARYJeremy Bentham has two very strong commitments in his thought: one is to the principle of utility, or the greatest happiness principle, as the fundamental principle of morality; the other is to truth, as indicated, for instance, in his opposition to falsehood and fiction in the law. How, then, did Bentham view the relationship between utility and truth? Did he think that utility and truth simply coincided, and hence that falsehood necessarily led to a diminution in happiness, and conversely truth (...) led to an increase in happiness? This article addresses this issue through two bodies of material: the first consists of Bentham's writings on religion under the heading of ‘Juggernaut’ and dating from 1811 to 1821; the second consists of the writings on judicial evidence dating from 1803 to 1812 and which appeared in Rationale of Judicial Evidence. (shrink)