Tristan J. Rogers ABSTRACT: What might a Stoic approach to politics look like? David Goodhart aptly describes the political divide pervading Western societies in terms of the ‘somewheres,’ who are communitarian, rooted in particular places, and resistant to social and political change, versus the ‘anywheres,’ who are cosmopolitan, mobile, and enthusiastic embracers of change. Stoicism ….

Political philosophy was once dominated by discussion of the virtues of character and their importance to the good life and the good society. Contemporary political philosophers, however, following the towering influence of John Rawls, have primarily focused on a single virtue of institutions: justice, while largely avoiding controversial claims about the good life. As a result, political philosophy lacks a unified account of the virtues of institutions and the virtues of character. More importantly, we lack an understanding of the connection (...) between the just society and the good life. This book begins to mend this broken seam, which, on reflection, lies at the heart of our deepest political problems. The book’s central argument is that the virtues of character require institutions, while good institutions enable persons to live together virtuously. Political institutions are a necessary precondition for the moral agency exhibited by the virtues. But good institutions enable virtue to grow, while helping to constrain the excesses of vice. On this view, justice emerges primarily as a virtue of character, not institutions. The just person balances conformity to existing institutional norms with practically wise reforms. Ultimately, this book concludes that the just society and the good life are linked through the common good of virtuous activity within the shared institutions of a political community. (shrink)

The question of man -- Time and the will -- Receptivity and spatiality -- Distance and concealment -- Art and difference -- The 'speaking' of language -- Human nature and sensus communis -- Inspiration and genius -- Thought and expression -- A history of truth and truthfulness -- Being and the hidden God.

There is a line of thought, neglected in recent philosophy, according to which a priori knowable truths such as those of logic and mathematics have their special epistemic status in virtue of a certain tight connection between their meaning and their truth. Historical associations notwithstanding, this view does not mandate any kind of problematic deflationism about meaning, modality or essence. On the contrary, we should be upfront about it being a highly debatable metaphysical idea, while nonetheless insisting that it be (...) given due consideration. From this standpoint, I suggest that the Finean distinction between essence and modality allows us to refine the view. While liberal about meaning, modality and essence, the view is not without bite: it is reasonable to suppose that it is able to ward off philosophical confusions stemming from the undue assimilation of a priori to empirical knowledge. (shrink)

Viewing emotion from an evolutionary perspective, researchers have argued that simple responses to affective stimuli can be triggered without mediation of cognitive processes. Indeed, findings suggest that positively and negatively valenced stimuli trigger approach and avoidance movements automatically. However, affective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena share so many central characteristics with nonaffective stimulus–response compatibility phenomena that one may doubt whether the underlying mechanisms differ. We suggest an “affectively enriched” version of the theory of event coding (TEC) that is able to account for (...) both affective and nonaffective compatibility, and that can account for the observation that both types of compatibility seem to be modulated by goals and intentions. Predictions from the model are tested in an experiment where participants carried out approach and avoidance responses to either the valence or the orientation of emotionally charged pictures. Under affective instruction the positive-approach/negative-avoid mapping yielded faster responses than the positive-avoid/negative-approach mapping, but no such effect was observed under spatial instruction. Conversely, spatial compatibility effects were obtained under spatial, but not under affective instruction. We conclude that affective and nonaffective compatibility effects reflect the same mechanism. (shrink)

This paper is a conceptual study in the philosophy of logic. The question considered is 'How may formulae of the propositional calculus be brought into a representational relation to the world?'. Four approaches are distinguished: (1) the denotational approach, (2) the abbreviational approach, (3) the truth-conditional approach, and (4) the modelling approach. (2) and (3) are very familiar, so I do not discuss them. (1), which is now largely obsolete, led to some interesting twists and turns in early analytic philosophy (...) which will come as news to many contemporary readers, so I discuss it in some detail. The modelling approach is, to the best of my knowledge, newly introduced here. I am not presenting it as a rival to the other approaches, but as a philosophically interesting possibility. (shrink)

Georges Palante, figure oubliée de la sociologie naissante, fut le théoricien d'une révolte intransigeante de l'individu face aux mécanismes oppressifs déployés par la société. Lecteur de Nietzsche et de Schopenhauer, ennemi déclaré des durkheimiens, socialiste non marxiste, farouche défenseur de l'individu, Georges Palante est un penseur iconoclaste qui n'a eu de cesse de développer une éthique individualiste et libertaire en vue du plein épanouissement des facultés et des potentialités individuelles. Cependant, par un étrange paradoxe, l'éthique palantienne prend sa source dans (...) une philosophie pessimiste qui offre à la révolte un caractère tragique et indompté : elle doit avoir lieu et ce, malgré la certitude de sa défaite. C'est précisément ce paradoxe que cet ouvrage entend questionner tout en offrant une introduction à l'oeuvre de Georges Palante. Interroger la possibilité d'une révolte pessimiste, c'est interroger ce moment de l'insoumission et de la désobéissance propre à la condition humaine. Palante ouvre la voie qui inscrit la révolte et le mouvement du refus dans la constitution même de l'homme. Avec Albert Camus, Palante pourrait affirmer : "Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté? Un homme qui dit non. Mais s'il refuse, il ne renonce pas : c'est aussi un homme qui dit oui dès son premier mouvement.". (shrink)

Relying on more expansive criteria for defining “mass shootings” than much existing research, we examine a subset of a unique dataset incorporating 7,048 news documents covering 2,170 shootings in the United States between 2013 and 2019. We analyze the descriptive language used to describe incidents and perpetrators and discover significant racial disparities in representation. This research enables a critical examination of the explanatory frames utilized by news media to tell the public who mass shooters are and journalistic attempts to explain (...) why they occur. Data were analyzed utilizing a mixed methods approach, relying on content analysis to inductively code emergent categories of descriptions of shooters and binary logistic regressions to analyze the preponderance of descriptive categories when comparing news articles reporting on shootings committed by differently racialized shooters. Our results confirm some recent research showing that mass shooters racialized as white are more likely to be described with kind and compassionate language. With our larger sample, however, we also find that mass shooters racialized as white are additionally more likely to be described with negative language as “bad” or “evil” in comparison to shooters of color. We discuss how these data demonstrate that media reports present a more complex picture of white mass shooters for the public than shooters of color. (shrink)

Hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking') has enabled the recovery of previously inaccessible resources and rendered new areas of the underground ‘productive’. While a number of studies in the US and UK have examined public attitudes toward fracking and its various impacts, how people conceptualise the deep underground itself has received less attention. We argue that views on resources, risk and the deep underground raise important questions about how people perceive the desirability and viability of subterranean interventions. We conducted day-long deliberation workshops (two (...) in each country), facilitating discussions among diverse groups of people on prospective shale extraction in the US and UK. Themes that emerged in these conversations include seeing the Earth as a foundation; natural limits (a greater burden than the subsurface can withstand versus simply overuse of natural resources); and ideas about the fragility, instability and opacity of the deep underground. We find that concerns in both countries were not limited to specific, localised impacts but also addressed ecosystem links between surface and subsurface environments and broader questions about the use, identification and value of natural resources. (shrink)

What is the relationship between justice as an individual virtue and justice as an institutional virtue? The latter has been exhaustively explored by political philosophers, whereas the former remains underexplored in the literature on virtue ethics. This article defends the view that individual justice is logically prior to institutional justice, and argues that this view requires a conception of individual justice I call ‘justice as lawfulness’. The resulting view consists of three claims. First, just institutions are composed of the relations (...) between just persons. Second, the just person has a disposition to act in accordance with the legal and social norms (collectively, thenomoi) of the existing political tradition. Third, departures from thenomoirequire that the just person act with practical wisdom to reform thenomoiaccording to an implicit standard of justice in the political tradition. (shrink)

Résumé Ni le présentisme, ni l’éternalisme ne peuvent rendre compte de l’ensemble des modalités du temps. La théorie dite du « Growing Block Universe », qui nie la réalité du futur mais concède le même degré de réalité au passé qu’au présent, n’est pas non plus entièrement satisfaisante. Nous proposons donc de distinguer des intensités de présence : l’avenir a une absence maximale et le présent une présence maximale. Il en résulte que, à mesure que le temps passe, nous nous (...) éloignons de l’avenir. (shrink)

A great need for systematic evaluation of ethics training programs exists. Those tasked with developing an ethics training program may be quick to dismiss the value of training evaluation in continuous process improvement. In the present effort, we use a case study approach to delineate how to leverage formative and summative evaluation measures to create a high-quality ethics education program. With regard to formative evaluation, information bearing on trainee reactions, qualitative data from the comments of trainees, in addition to empirical (...) findings, can ensure that the training program operates smoothly. Regarding summative evaluation, measures examining trainee cognition, behavior, and organization-level results provide information about how much trainees have changed as a result of taking the ethics training. The implications of effective training program evaluation are discussed. (shrink)

Significant disagreement remains in ethics about the duties we have towards wild animals. This paper aims to mediate those disagreements by exploring how they are supported by, or diverge from, the common-sense ethical principles of non-maleficence, beneficence, autonomy and justice popular in medical ethics. We argue that these principles do not clearly justify traditional conservation or a ‘hands-off ’ approach to wild-animal welfare; instead, they support natural negative duties to reduce the harms that we cause as well as natural positive (...) duties to promote the welfare of wild animals. (shrink)

Educational undertakings are subject to disjunctures at three separate stages: in the creation of curricular programmes, in the implementation of these curricula in practice and in their effects on students. These disjunctures are the result of complex ‘leaps’ between ends and means, and between ideal and real. This article proposes a response in the form of ‘seamless enactment’, applied here to citizenship education. Seamless enactment involves, first, the harmonisation of the principles underlying the different stages in the passage of the (...) curriculum, avoiding problematic tensions between, for example, democratic aims and undemocratic teaching practices. Second, it requires the involvement of teachers and students in the design and development of the educational initiative, as well as in its implementation. Taken to its fullest extent, seamless enactment involves a unification of the separate stages, leading to the collapsing of the curricular transposition framework onto a single point. Finally, some possible justifications for and potential objections to the notion are considered. (shrink)

Heidegger argues that for being x to count as ‘alive’ it must satisfy three metaphysical conditions. It must be capable of engaging in active behaviour with a form of intentional directedness that offers to us a “sphere of transposition” into which we can intelligibly “transpose ourselves.” Heidegger’s discussion of these conditions, as they apply to the being of animals, is well-known. But, if his argument is sound, they ought also to apply to the being of plants. Heidegger, unfortunately, does not (...) supply this part of his ontology of life in any systematic detail. However, my thesis is that it is possible to interpret the nature and activities of plants, along the lines of –, and thus to make good on Heidegger’s omission. The key to this reconstruction is a reconceptualization of plant movements as constituted by a form of representationally blind, motor-intentionality. (shrink)

Gillian Russell has recently proposed counterexamples to such elementary argument forms as Conjunction Introduction and Identity. These purported counterexamples involve expressions that are sensitive to linguistic context—for example, a sentence which is true when it appears alone but false when embedded in a larger sentence. If they are genuine counterexamples, it looks as though logical nihilism—the view that there are no valid argument forms—might be true. In this paper, I argue that the purported counterexamples are not genuine, on the grounds (...) that they equivocate. Having defused the threat of logical nihilism, I argue that the kind of linguistic context sensitivity at work in Russell’s purported counterexamples, if taken seriously, far from leading to logical nihilism, reveals new, previously undreamt-of valid forms. By way of proof of concept I present a simple logic, Solo-Only Propositional Logic, designed to capture some of them. Along the way, some interesting subtleties about the fallacy of equivocation are revealed. (shrink)

What is a thing? What is an object? Tristan Garcia decisively overturns 100 years of Heideggerian orthodoxy about the supposedly derivative nature of objects to put forward a new theory of ontology that gives us deep insights into the world and our place in it."e.

Though there is a vast literature on performances of drag, performances of gender and sexual transgressions outside of drag clubs are less studied. This case study of men’s marches protesting violence against women—“Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” marches— examines the politics of such transgressions. Cross-dressing to various degrees is strategically utilized at these events in an attempt to encourage men to become empathetic allies. This article suggests, however, that context is critical to the political potential of performances of drag. (...) The author’s observations of the interactions at the marches suggest that drag at “Walk a Mile” marches often symbolically reproduces gender and sexual inequality despite good intentions. At these marches, feminism is gendered when performances of politics and protest are contextually framed as gender and/or sexual transgressions when “feminism” is understood as “feminine.”. (shrink)

Sound-producing movements in percussion performance require a high degree of fine motor control. However, there remains a relatively limited empirical understanding of how performance level abilities develop in percussion performance in general, and marimba performance specifically. To address this issue, nine percussionists performed individualised excerpts on marimba within three testing sessions spaced 29 days apart to assess early, intermediate, and late stages of motor learning. Motor learning was quantified via analyses of both the temporal control of mallet movements, and the (...) spatial variability of upper-limb movements. The results showed that temporal control of mallet movements was greater in the intermediate compared to the early learning session, with no significant additional improvements revealed in the late learning session. In addition, spatial variability in the left and right elbows decreased within the intermediate compared to the early learning session. The results suggest that temporal control of mallet movements may be driven by reductions in spatial variability of elbow movements specifically. As a result, this study provides novel evidence for kinematic mechanisms underlying motor learning in percussion which can be applied towards enhancing musical training. (shrink)

Heidegger’s ‘serious idealism’ aims at capturing the realist impulses of our natural consciousness whilst avoiding a collapse into metaphysical realism. This idealism is best conceived as a form of transcendental empiricism. But we need to distinguish two varieties of transcendental empiricism, corresponding to Heidegger’s early and later work. The latter, transcendental empiricism2, is superior. Here, Heidegger’s ontology of gift gives full, conceptual shape to the two-way dependency between man and world characteristic of transcendental empiricism as a whole. In exemplary forms (...) of inspired experience, marked by the 'animation' of our conceptually-structured natural powers, things call on us in a speech that is their very own. This moves us decisively beyond not only early Heidegger’s transcendental empiricism1 but also the picture of experience presented in McDowell’s Mind and World. (shrink)

This paper suggests a new emendation to the text of the final passage of Pliny's Panegyric, where a small lacuna has long been suspected after substiti.

This article defends Baehrens’ reading cenam for caelum at Catullus 6.17 as more sensible than scholars have thought, based on allusions to Meleager, AP 5.175. It then proposes a new emendation to the line that is suggested by this Greek source.

Justice under Law Law and justice are near synonyms in common speech. We expect the law to deliver justice, and we cannot imagine justice absent some system of law. In his recent book, Justice before the Law, Michael Huemer challenges this traditional view of law and justice. Given the prevalence of unjust laws and legal practices in the United States, and the deference shown to law by agents of the American legal system, Huemer argues that we ought to affirm the (...) primacy of justice over the law. This article argues that Huemer is right about the primacy of justice, but he errs in his understanding of what justice is, and the means through which it is best achieved. Law operates as a form of enquiry that seeks to discover what justice is. Law is a necessary means to justice. True justice must be justice under law. (shrink)

Criteria of historical assessment are applied to the Turin Shroud to determine which hypothesis relating to the image formation process is the most likely. To implement this, a ‘Minimal Facts’ approach is followed that takes into account only physicochemical and historical data receiving the widest consensus among contemporary scientists. The result indicates that the probability of the Shroud of Turin being the real shroud of Jesus of Nazareth is very high; historians and natural theologians should therefore pay it increased attention.

This article demonstrates how instructors of professionalism and ethics training programs can integrate a professional decision-making tool in training curricula. This tool can help trainees understand how to apply professional decision-making strategies to address the threats posed by a variety of psychological and environmental factors when they are faced with complex professional and ethical situations. We begin by highlighting key decision-making frameworks and discussing factors that may undermine the use of professional decision-making strategies. Then, drawing upon findings from past research, (...) we present the “SMART” professional decision-making framework: seeking help, managing emotions, anticipating consequences, recognizing rules and context, and testing assumptions and motives. Next, we present a vignette that poses a complex ethical and professional challenge and illustrate how each professional decision-making strategy could or should be used by characters in the case. To conclude, we review a series of educational practices and pedagogical tools intended to help trainers facilitate trainee learning, retention, and application of “SMART” decision-making strategies. (shrink)

Edmund Burke was an Irish-born British statesman and political philosopher who is best known as the father of modern conservatism. Developed in response to the French Revolution, Burke's conservatism aims to preserve and promote the existing (or traditional) institutions of society, including the rule of law, property, the family, and religion. Burke himself sought to defend these things, as embodied in the British Constitution, against the revolutionary spirit sparked in France. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke develops (...) the idea of society as an inheritance that must be conserved before it can be improved upon. In this piece, we examine Burke’s arguments, which draw on tradition, observable cause and effect, and a mix of moral and religious sentiments. Contrary to expectations, Burke insists that the principles of conservation and change are not opposed. (shrink)

The seven articles included in the AJOB Neuroscience special issue map important ethical issues that have and will continue to emerge with advances in neuroscience and neurotechnology. A critical c...

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In Conservatism Past and Present: A Philosophical Introduction, Tristan J. Rogers argues that philosophical conservatism is a coherent and compelling set of historically rooted ideas about conserving and promoting the human good. Part I, "Conservatism Past," presents a history of conservative ideas, exploring themes, such as the search for wisdom, the limits of philosophy, reform in preference to revolution, the relationship between authority and freedom, and liberty as a living tradition. Major figures include Aristotle, Saint Aquinas, Edmund Burke, G.W.F. (...) Hegel, and Roger Scruton. Part II, "Conservatism Present," applies philosophical conservatism to contemporary conservative politics, focusing on issues such as nationalism, populism, the family, education, and responsibility. Rogers shows that conservatism has been defined differently at different times: as a loose set of connected ideas reacting against the French Revolution; as a kind of disposition or instinct in favor of the status quo; and more recently as any ideas opposed to the political left. But he also allows a set of questions to guide his argument for conservatism's merits: What is conservatism? Is it a coherent and attractive philosophy? What are conservatives for? And how is today's conservatism related to its past? In his answers, Rogers paints a compelling and coherent picture of an aligned and attractive set of ideas. (shrink)

À partir de la différence entre les frontières naturelles dites « bona fide », et les frontières artificielles, dites « fiat », cet article tâche de montrer qu’une frontière n’est jamais un résultat mais processus, qui fait passer l’homogène dans l’hétérogène et inversement. On en conclut que la pensée sépare ce que la vie confond en variétés intensives, et que la vie dégrade ce que la pensée sépare, « frontière » étant le nom de ce qu’opère toute vie pensante et (...) toute pensée vivante. (shrink)

A filosofia francesa até Brunschvicg e Bergson está saturada de obras - do ensaio sobre a contingência de Boutroux até a questão das causas e da possibilidade de ação em Maurice Blondel - igualmente atormentadas pela questão da perfuração da vontade livre no cerne dos sistemas científicos e filosóficos ingleses e alemães. A própria França surge como a esperança de encarnar algum nicho de exceção na universalidade anglo-saxónica e germânica, entre as novas ciências da Natureza ou da cultura, de qual (...) ela não é mais o principal fornecedor. As obras espiritualistas francesas são frequentemente feitas de inversões de Kant ou Hegel, que encontram nas margens desses sistemas seu próprio centro. Portanto, eles se apegam à liberdade, à vontade da pessoa como a uma exceção de seus pensamentos, em torno do qual as filosofias francesas tentam reconstruir outra universalidade, nem a do conhecimento e da ciência, mas muitas vezes da ação. (shrink)

A oposição às taxas universitárias e a outras barreiras de acesso é, muitas vezes, encarada como uma defesa do ensino superior como um “direito”, ao invés de um “privilégio”. No entanto, a base e a natureza desse direito não são claras. Este artigo apresenta uma exploração conceitual da questão a partir de uma análise inicial do direito internacional. Apresenta um argumento a favor do direito à educação superior, visto como uma das várias formas possíveis de educação pós-escolar, restrito apenas por (...) uma exigência de um nível mínimo de preparação acadêmica. Palavras-chave: Acesso à educação superior. Ação afirmativa. Política de educação superior. Direitos humanos. Direito à educação. (shrink)

Résumé Depuis la publication en français du Léviathan de Carl Schmitt, l’antisémitisme du juriste a constitué, en France, le cœur des débats autour de la pensée du théoricien du politique. Dans cet article, l’auteur tente d’approcher l’aversion du penseur catholique à l’égard du judaïsme en privilégiant un angle bien particulier. Partant des phénomènes bibliques et des thèmes religieux présents dans les écrits du penseur allemand, cet article cherche à évaluer l’intuition d’après laquelle il existerait une affinité intellectuelle entre Schmitt et (...) Marcion ; intuition entendue çà et là, qui réclame un approfondissement spécifique. Pour ce faire, l’auteur formule l’hypothèse d’un « marcionisme théologico-politique » qu’il tente d’appliquer et de tester à travers l’entière trajectoire de l’œuvre de Schmitt. L’enjeu étant de savoir si, pour le juriste catholique, les implications théologiquement politiques du judaïsme seraient, oui ou non, radicalement incompatibles avec celles du christianisme. (shrink)

In this article I revisit earlier stages of the discussion of personal identity, before Neo-Lockean psychological continuity views became prevalent. In particular, I am interested in Bernard Williams’ initial proposal of bodily identity as a necessary, although not sufficient, criterion of personal identity. It was at this point that psychological continuity views came to the fore arguing that bodily identity was not necessary because brain transplants were logically possible, even if physically impossible. Further proposals by Shoemaker of causal relations between (...) mental states in our memory and Parfit’s discussion of branching causal chains created additional complications. My contention in this paper is that psychological continuity views deflected our attention from what should have remained in the spotlight all the time: the intersubjective character (or not) of criteria proposed to decide personal identity in our language game, and ultimately our form of life concerning ourselves as persons. B. Williams’ emphasis on the body was not just common sense. It was also recognition of the importance of giving priority to criteria that could be kept under intersubjective control. (shrink)

In this paper, we prove a definable version of Kirszbraun's theorem in a non‐Archimedean setting for definable families of functions in one variable. More precisely, we prove that every definable function, where and, that is λ‐Lipschitz in the first variable, extends to a definable function that is λ‐Lipschitz in the first variable.

In an influential passage of Naming and Necessity Kripke argues, with the help of a fictional dialogue, that de re metaphysical modal distinctions have intuitive content. In this note I clarify the workings of the argument, and what it does and does not support. I conclude that Kripke’s argument does not, despite possible appearances, support the view that metaphysical modal distinctions are made in common sense discourse. The argument does however support the view that if metaphysical modal distinctions make sense (...) at the level of statements or states of affairs, then they also make sense de re. (shrink)

Cultural capital and hegemonic masculinity are two concepts that have received intense attention. While both have received serious consideration, critique and analysis, the context or field-specificity of each is sometimes ignored. They have been used in a diversity of ways. Using ethnographic and interview data from a US male bodybuilding community, this study highlights one useful employment. Hegemonic masculinity takes different shapes in different fields of interaction, acting as a form of cultural capital: gender capital. Inherent in this discussion are (...) the cultural contradictions apparent among individuals striving for either physical or ideological embodiments of gender capital. Individuals can attempt to embody hegemonic idealizations, but bodies are not only inscribed with gender, inscriptions are read, and read differently by different social actors and in different settings. The capacity of gender capital to remain elusive is precisely what enables gender practices and projects like bodybuilding to retain passionate participation. (shrink)

Les logiciels d’aide à la décision basés sur des techniques d’intelligence artificielle sont de plus en plus utilisés dans le domaine de la justice. Or ces techniques nécessitent souvent d’accéder à de grandes quantités d’informations personnelles afin de réaliser un apprentissage de qualité. En France, le cadre légal semble aujourd’hui favorable à l’ouverture des jugements, pourvu que la vie privée des personnes concernées soit respectée. Cependant, la protection des données personnelles destinées à être publiées reste difficile techniquement. Cet article a (...) pour objectif de décrire une attaque minimaliste qui a été réalisée en 2014 sur un jeu de données protégé par l’application d’un algorithme de pseudonymisation. L’originalité de cette attaque réside dans sa simplicité de fonctionnement – elle ne nécessite pas d’accès à un jeu de données auxiliaire – et dans sa cible – l’algorithme de pseudonymisation. Nous présentons la famille des algorithmes de pseudonymisation, décrivons et analysons l’attaque, et concluons sur la place de la pseudonymisation dans le Règlement Général sur la Protection des Données personnelles. (shrink)