The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God

Books reviewed: D. Z. Phillips, The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (London: SCM Press, 2004). xxiii + 280 , price £19.99 pb.
Reviewed by Patrick Sherry, Lancaster University
Religious Studies Department
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YG     

信用环境的伦理探析

从伦理意义上讲,信用环境是指由市场经济主体的信用道德观念和信用道德行为在市场的生产、交换、分配、消费等各个经济环节中所表现出来的履行信用契约的伦理状况.优化信用环境,挖掘其伦理价值,是市场经济良性运行的基础.     

藏区宗教现状概述--藏区宗教现状考察报告之一

为了完成中国社会科学院重点课题“宗教与社会主义社会相适应的理论与实践”和我的博士后工作报告,我于2002年7月至9月间,先后在青海、西藏、四川三省区对我国藏区宗教与社会现状进行了调研,走访了所到各地省、地(市)、县的民宗局、统战部及重要寺院20余座,采取参观、访谈、座谈和问卷调查等形式,搜集到大量资料。现据此写成几篇内容相关的考察报告,就教于方家。     

The Generality Problem for Reliabilism

Philosophical Studies -     

目前医疗执业环境对临床实习带教的影响和对策

现有的医师执业制度和不完善的医疗保障体制使医疗环境复杂化,为临床实习带教带来新的问题和挑战。探索新的教学意识和带教模式是提高临床实习质量的关键。文章分析了目前医疗执业环境对临床实习带教的影响,提出加强带教意识,在建构主义教学理论指导下,应由“教”转为“学”,采用“互动式”教学模式提高临床实习水平。     

The Exclusion Problem Meets the Problem of Many Causes

In this paper I develop a novel response to the exclusion problem. I argue that the nature of the events in the causally complete physical domain raises the “problem of many causes”: there will typically be countless simultaneous low-level physical events in that domain that are causally sufficient for any given high-level physical event (like a window breaking or an arm raising). This shows that even reductive physicalists must admit that the version of the exclusion principle used to pose the exclusion problem against non-reductive physicalism is too strong. The burden is on proponents of the exclusion problem to provide a reason to think that any qualifications placed on the exclusion principle will solve the problem of many causes while ruling out causation by irreducible mental events.     

The Problem of Agency and the Problem of Accountability in Kant's Moral Philosophy

Abstract: This paper discusses the function and scope of incompatibilist or transcendental freedom in Kant's moral philosophy. The prevailing view among scholars, most notably Allison, is that the function of transcendental freedom is to enable us to articulate a first‐person conception of ourselves as rational agents involved in deliberation and choice. Thus, the scope of transcendental freedom is rational agency in general. In order to perform this function, freedom has to be merely conceivable. Pace Allison, I argue that our first‐person conception is neutral with respect to causal determinism, and that the function of transcendental freedom is to provide the metaphysical conditions of the possibility of genuine moral responsibility and perfect justice, and to get rid of moral luck. In order to perform this function, transcendental freedom has to be not just conceivable, but metaphysically real. My view suggests that we only have reason to attribute freedom to ourselves in situations in which we are aware that the moral law commands us categorically. We do not have a similar reason to believe we are free in purely prudential choices. Thus, the scope of transcendental freedom is not rational agency in general, but only moral agency.     

新形势下医院药学的困境与发展

全面分析在当前新的形势下医院药学发展处在转型期所面临的实际困难.正确认识目前医院药剂科在人才队伍建设和知识结构上存在的不足,以及自身拥有的专业技术优势等.明确今后工作的重点在于深入临床贴近患者,向临床药学服务方向发展,同时不断提高临床药学科研水平,促进医院药学事业更高、更快发展.     

The Problem of Ethical Vagueness for Expressivism

Ethical vagueness has garnered little attention. This is rather surprising since many philosophers have remarked that the science of ethics lacks the precision that other fields of inquiry have. Of the few philosophers who have discussed ethical vagueness the majority have focused on the implications of vagueness for moral realism. Because the relevance of ethical vagueness for other metaethical positions has been underexplored, my aim in this paper is to investigate the ramifications of ethical vagueness for expressivism. Ultimately, I shall argue that expressivism does not have the resources to adequately account for ethical vagueness, while cognitivism does. This demonstrates an advantage that cognitivism holds over expressivism.     

The Epistemic Regress Problem,the Problem of the Criterion,and the Value of Reasons

There are important similarities between the epistemic regress problem and the problem of the criterion. Each turns on plausible principles stating that epistemic reasons must be supported by epistemic reasons but that having reasons is impossible if that requires having endless regresses of reasons. These principles are incompatible with the possibility of reasons, so each problem is a paradox. Whether there can be an antiskeptical solution to these paradoxes depends upon the kinds of reasons that we need in order to attain our epistemic goals. This article explains the problems and considers the ways in which two different conceptions of human flourishing support the value of different kinds of reasons. One conception requires reasons that allow an easy solution to these paradoxes. The other—rational autonomy—requires reasons that depend upon endless regresses. So we cannot have the kinds of fully transparent reasons required for rational autonomy.     

The Supervenience Argument and the Generalization Problem

This paper tries to show that Kims strategy of preventing the problem of generalization of mental causation is not successful and that his original supervenience argument can be applied to cases of nonmental macrolevel causation, with the effect that nonmental macroproperties which only supervene on, but are not identical with, configurations of microproperties turn out to be epiphenomenal after all.     

The Logical Problem and the Theoretician's Dilemma

The theory‐theory of human uniqueness posits that the capacity to theorize, in a way strongly analogous to theorizing in scientific practice, was a key innovation in the hominid lineage and was responsible for many of our unique cognitive traits. One of the central arguments that its proponents have used to support the claim that animals are not theorists, the logical problem, bears strong similarities to Hempel's theoretician's dilemma, which purports to show that theories are unnecessary. This similarity threatens to undermine both the claim that theorizing serves a unique, adaptive role in human cognition and our ability to test for the presence of theories. I examine two historical responses to the theoretician's dilemma and argue that they open up strategies for experimentally testing for theoretical ability in other animals.     

The Apology Paradox and the Non-Identity Problem

Janna Thompson has outlined 'the apology paradox', which arises whenever people apologize for an action or event upon which their existence is causally dependent. She argues that a sincere apology seems to entail a wish that the action or event had not occurred, but that we cannot sincerely wish that events upon which our existence depends had not occurred. I argue that Thompson's paradox is a backward-looking version of Parfit's (forward-looking) 'non-identity problem', where backward- and forward-looking refer to the perspective of an agent apologizing for or contemplating an action. The temporal perspective of the agent gives us the tools with which to dissolve the air of paradox which surrounds these problems. Each is best grasped from one temporal perspective, but the paradoxes arise when we attempt to examine it simultaneously from another. The evaluations appropriate to the apology paradox and the non-identity problem are therefore time-indexed.     

The Generalization Problem and the Identity Solution

For some time now, Jaegwon Kim has argued that irreducible mental properties face the threat of causal inefficacy. The primary weapon he deploys to sustain this charge is the supervenience/exclusion argument. This argument, in a nutshell, states that any mental property that irreducibly supervenes on a physical property is excluded from causal efficacy because the underlying physical property takes care of all of the causal work itself. Originally intended for mental properties alone, it did not take long for his critics to suggest the argument generalizes across all of the special science properties as well. Kim responds in two different ways to the generalization problem. The first response, which I call the higher-level solution, is ably dismissed by numerous critics. The second response, which I call the identity solution, has not faced comparable scrutiny. In this paper I argue that the identity solution faces numerous problems of its own.