The extreme-right and enfranchisement of immigrants: Main issues in the public “debate” on integration in Belgium

In Belgium, the issue of (local) enfranchisement of foreign residents has without any doubt become the most salient topic of public debate on integration of immigrants and their descendants. Although debate about the issue dates back to the early 1970s, at the start of the 21st century it is still one of the hottest topics in Belgian politics. A second salient topic concerns the strategy against the Flemish extreme-right wing party the Vlaams Blok, or the debate about the so-called ‘cordon sanitaire’ since the 1990s. This contribution wants to discuss the public debate on voting rights for non-Belgians and the strategy against the Vlaams Blok as the most contentious issues in the wider debate about (the future of) immigrant incorporation in Belgian society. Thus, we hope to be able to clarify the (absence of) debate on integration and multiculturalism in Belgium.     

Back to the self and the future

The thought-experiment presented by Bernard Williams in ‘The self and the future’ continues to draw the attention of writers in the debate about personal identity. While few of them agree on what implications it has for the debate, almost all agree that those implications are significant ones. Some have even claimed that it has consequences not only for personal identity, but also concerning the viability of thought-experiment as a method. This paper surveys what these consequences might be at both levels—as a substantive contribution to the debate on identity, and as to what it shows about the usefulness of thought-experiments. It argues ultimately that thought-experiments like Williams's do provide a useful philosophical tool as long as we temper our expectations of them, and that it offers some support to a view of personal identity but one which is at odds with Williams's own view.     

Why Naturalize Consciousness?

This paper examines the relevance of philosophical work on consciousness to its scientific study. Of particular concern is the debate over whether consciousness can be naturalized, which is typically taken to bear on the prospects for its scientific investigation. It is not at all clear that philosophers of consciousness have properly identified and evaluated the assumptions about scientific activity made by both naturalization and antinaturalization projects. I argue that there is good reason to think that some of the assumptions about physicalism and explanation made by the parties to the debate are open to serious doubt. Thus this paper is an invitation for those inquiring into whether consciousness can be naturalized to more carefully consider the expected payoff of such efforts.     

Meaning,Expression, and the Interpretation of Literature

I argue that when we interpret a literary work, we engage with at least two different kinds of meaning, each requiring a distinct mode of interpretation. These kinds of meaning are literary varieties of what Paul Grice called nonnatural and natural meaning. The long‐standing debate that began with Beardsley and Wimsatt's attack on the intentional fallacy is, I argue, really a debate about nonnatural meaning in literature. I contend that natural meaning has been largely neglected in our theorizing about literary interpretation and that this comes at a serious cost, resulting in an inadequate account of what interpretation involves. I argue, first, that by recognizing that literary meaning includes both nonnatural and natural meaning, we are better placed to understand the interpreter's relationship with the author, and, second, that recognition of the distinction between nonnatural and natural meaning advances the established debate about literary meaning, offering support for actual intentionalism. The more inclusive view of literary meaning helps resolve an apparent difficulty raised by Noël Carroll.     

The crisis of medicine: philosophy and the social construction of medicine

During the past decade there has been a debate about the field of philosophy of medicine. The debate has focused on fundamental questions about whether the field exists and the nature of the field. This article explores the debate and argues that it has paid insufficient attention to the social dimensions of both philosophy and medicine. The article goes on to argue that by exploring this debate one can better understand some of the difficult questions facing contemporary medicine and health care.     

Why logical pluralism?

This paper scrutinizes the debate over logical pluralism. I hope to make this debate more tractable by addressing the question of motivating data: what would count as strong evidence in favor of logical pluralism? Any research program should be able to answer this question, but when faced with this task, many logical pluralists fall back on brute intuitions. This sets logical pluralism on a weak foundation and makes it seem as if nothing pressing is at stake in the debate. The present paper aims to improve this situation by looking at a promising case study and drawing general lessons about the kind of evidence that would support logical pluralism. I argue that the best motivation for logical pluralism will ultimately be rooted in certain kinds of performative data.

     

Evangelicals in Defense of Hell—An Annotated Bibliography with Extended Introduction

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, debate about hell among evangelicals has increased significantly. This paper summarizes that debate as it has taken place over the past decade and particularly in the last six years. It furnishes an annotated bibliography of items by evangelicals, at least partly about evangelicals, dealing with the eternal destiny of unbelievers. It defines the four alternatives, briefly traces the developing history of the debate, notes the leading participants, summarizes the issues which they raise, and calls attention to the major arguments used for and against the various positions. Since the major contenders at the moment are the traditional view of eternal conscious punishing and conditional immortality, they will receive the bulk of the attention.     

Must we measure what we mean?

This paper excavates a debate concerning the claims of ordinary language philosophers that took place during the middle of the last century. The debate centers on the status of statements about ‘what we say’. On one side of the debate, critics of ordinary language philosophy argued that statements about ‘what we say’ should be evaluated as empirical observations about how people do in fact speak, on a par with claims made in the language sciences. By that standard, ordinary language philosophers were not entitled to the claims that they made about what we would say about various topics. On the other side of the debate, defenders of the methods of ordinary language philosophy sought to explain how philosophers can be entitled to statements about what we would say without engaging in extensive observations of how people do in fact use language. In this paper, I defend the idea that entitlement to claims about what we say can be had in a way that doesn’t require empirical observation, and I argue that ordinary language philosophers are (at least sometimes) engaged in a different project than linguists or empirically minded philosophers of language, which is subject to different conditions of success.     

Cloning: revisiting an old debate.

The debate about cloning that took place 25 years ago, although directed toward a different sort of cloning, elucidates fundamental issues currently at stake in reproductive technologies and research. Paul Ramsey and Joseph Fletcher were participants in this early debate. The differences between Ramsey and Fletcher about the meaning and sufficiency of freedom, the understanding and weighing of good and evil, the connection between embodiment and personhood, the relationship of humans with nature, and the meaning of parenthood suggest both a broader agenda for the debate about cloning and a cautious move forward in the development of embryo-splitting.     

Half the village

In 1947 India became independent and at the same time lost a large part of its territory to the newly created state of Pakistan. This new political arrangement was achieved at a terrible cost in terms of human life and suffering. The years up to and immediately following 1947 provoked a debate about national and human identity. Pakistan was founded on the grounds that Muslims could not be safe or prosperous under majority Hindu rule in newly independent India. The new India insisted that she was a secular democracy in which all religious communities could enjoy equal status. The debate is reflected in a number of Hindi‐language novels which deal with this period. The present article is about one of them, written by a member of India's small Shi'ite Muslim community who was also a Marxist. The debate raises issues about human identity which we can now see as being tragically and importantly relevant for contemporary Europe. These issues are not only political but also religious in that they go to the heart of our understanding of what it means to be human beings. The article points to some of these issues and at the same time argues that the novel as a literary form provides a valuable and significant vehicle for their discussion.     

Towards a Richer Debate on Tissue Engineering: A Consideration on the Basis of NEST-Ethics

In their 2007 paper, Swierstra and Rip identify characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation in the debate about the ethics of new and emerging science and technologies (or “NEST-ethics”). Taking their NEST-ethics structure as a starting point, we considered the debate about tissue engineering (TE), and argue what aspects we think ought to be a part of a rich and high-quality debate of TE. The debate surrounding TE seems to be predominantly a debate among experts. When considering the NEST-ethics arguments that deal directly with technology, we can generally conclude that consequentialist arguments are by far the most prominently featured in discussions of TE. In addition, many papers discuss principles, rights and duties relevant to aspects of TE, both in a positive and in a critical sense. Justice arguments are only sporadically made, some “good life” arguments are used, others less so (such as the explicit articulation of perceived limits, or the technology as a technological fix for a social problem). Missing topics in the discussion, at least from the perspective of NEST-ethics, are second “level” arguments—those referring to techno-moral change connected to tissue engineering. Currently, the discussion about tissue engineering mostly focuses on its so-called “hard impacts”—quantifiable risks and benefits of the technology. Its “soft impacts”—effects that cannot easily be quantified, such as changes to experience, habits and perceptions, should receive more attention.     

Deliberative Democracy and "Human Nature": An Empirical Approach

The idea of deliberative democracy is based upon an implicit and questionable assumption that the ability for a meaningful participation in deliberation is a common characteristic of citizens of democratic countries. This paper discusses that assumption and describes the results of empirical research aimed at finding out (1) whether ordinary people are able to solve important ideological and moral controversies by means of deliberation, (2) what factors may facilitate this process, and (3) what are the effects of the deliberation. The research consisted in studying 20 small groups of parents of school-aged children who were asked to participate in a debate about sex education in Polish schools (N  =  195). The debates were conducted by a facilitator. Before and after the debate participants filled out questionnaires testing their attitudes and some psychological variables. The debates were recorded on videotapes. We found that it is possible to conduct a debate on ideologically contentious issues that meets some criteria of the deliberative functioning and such a debate may have some of the effects postulated by deliberative theorists.     

Mereological Composition and Plural Quantifier Semantics

Mereological universalists and nihilists disagree on the conditions for composition. In this paper, we show how this debate is a function of one’s chosen semantics for plural quantifiers. Debating mereologists have failed to appreciate this point because of the complexity of the debate and extraneous theoretical commitments. We eliminate this by framing the debate between universalists and nihilists in a formal model where these two theses about composition are contradictory. The examination of the two theories in the model brings clarity to a debate in which opponents frequently talk past one another. With the two views stated precisely, our investigation reveals the dependence of the mereologists’ ontological commitments on the semantics of plural quantifiers. Though we discuss the debate with respect to a simplified and idealized model, the insights provided will make more complex debates on composition more productive and deflationist criticisms of the debate less substantial.     

THE THEOLOGICAL DEBATE OVER HUMAN ENHANCEMENT: AN EMPIRICAL CASE STUDY OF A MEDIATING ORGANIZATION

For most theologians, theology should ultimately be used by the laity and/or the public. However, the religion and science debate has not focused on the divide between theologians and the laity. In this case study I examine the debate among theologians about human enhancement. I focus on the extent to which the structure of the debate in a “mediating organization” between the theologians and the public coincides with the structure of the debate among the theologians. I conduct a survey of participants in the organization, and find that the basic divides among the theologians are largely replicated. These results, when combined with studies of the theologians themselves and the laity, provide a more holistic understanding of the future debate about human enhancement.     

Philosophy of Science in the Twenty‐First Century

Philosophy of science in the past half century can be seen as a reaction against logical empiricism's focus on modern logic as the format in which debates should be expressed and on physics as the canonical science. These reactions have resulted in a fragmentation of the field. Although this provides ways forward for disparate philosophies of various sciences, it threatens the very possibility of general philosophy of science. The debate that most obviously continues to be conducted at the general level—the debate about scientific realism—only does so because of a dangerous naïveté. Nevertheless, this article suggests that there is a place for general work not by starting at the highest level of abstraction but instead by abstracting general lessons from actual science.     

Abduction by Philosophers: Reorienting Philosophical Methodology

A reorientation is needed in methodological debate about the role of intuitions in philosophy. Methodological debate has lost sight of the reason why it makes sense to focus on questions about intuitions when thinking about the methods or epistemology of philosophy. The problem is an approach to methodology that focuses almost exclusively on questions about some evidential role that intuitions may or may not play in philosophers’ arguments. A new approach is needed. Approaching methodological questions about the role of intuitions in philosophy with an abductive model of philosophical inquiry in mind will help ensure the debate doesn't lose sight of what motivates the debate.     

Gay rights,the devil and the end times: public religion and the enchantment of the homosexuality debate in Zambia

This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which the international pressure to recognise gay rights is considered a sign of the end times, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN and other international organisations are associated with the Antichrist and the Devil. Here, the debate about homosexuality becomes eschatologically enchanted through millennialist thought. Building on discussions about public religion and religion and politics in Africa, this article avoids popular explanations in terms of fundamentalist religion and African homophobia, but rather highlights the political significance of this discourse in a postcolonial African context.     

A(nother) Cosmic Wager: Pascal,METI, and the Barn Door Argument

There is growing debate about whether we should attempt to message extraterrestrials (METI). Much of the debate has focused on the level of risk posed and in particular, the barn door argument (BDA), holds that aliens would already know about us and thus there is little harm that could come from messaging. In this article, I examine the basic logic of BDA by comparing it with Pascal's Wager. These are both intuitive appeals that try to sidestep the empirical debate, but on critical examination they are seen to fall prey to a number of similar problems.     

Argumentation,Adversariality, and Social Norms

Janice Moulton's “The Adversary Method: A Philosophical Paradigm” articulated several criticisms of the popular idea of philosophy as adversarial debate. Moulton criticizes it on epistemic grounds, arguing that philosophy's overreliance on adversarial debate is to the detriment of its goals. Some, notably Trudy Govier, have argued in favor of at least a minimal adversariality, governed by norms of respectful argumentation. This paper suggests that Govier's faith in these norms is misplaced, because it neglects the social circumstances of the arguers. While some authors have argued that politeness and aggression apply differently to those of different genders, this paper extends that analysis to social identities other than gender. In fact, given certain assumptions about the philosophy of language, engagement in polite adversarial debate may not even be possible for people occupying certain social locations.     

The political incorporation of South Asian elites in Britain

The article centres on the debate about the political importance of ethnic minorities and focuses on, first, the political participation of British South Asians at large and, second, the political activities of Asian elites specifically. Following a review of the evidence relating to mass electoral-based participation, the article then highlights the role played by Asian political elites in both setting and responding to the terms of the evaluative debate. A third section deals with the question of how Asian elites—political and other—respond to the key ideological positions of Britain's main political parties. This reopens the question of Asian political distinctiveness and how elites may contribute to debates about so-called Asian values in politics. The artcile concludes with a brief discussion of elite-based versus mass electoral-based strategies for achieving enhanced political leverage in the British system.