Parental Justice and the Kids Pay View

In a just society, who should be liable for the significant costs associated with creating and raising children? Patrick Tomlin has recently argued that children themselves may be liable on the grounds that they benefit from being raised into independent adults. This view, which Tomlin calls ‘Kids Pay’, depends on the more general principle that a beneficiary can incur an obligation to share in the cost of an essential benefit that the benefactor is responsible for her requiring. I argue in this paper that this principle is both generally false and particularly suspect in the kinds of cases that Tomlin needs it to be true, namely, cases in which a benefactor has created the need to be benefitted to satisfy a self-regarding interest in providing the benefit. In a nutshell, I argue that because parents (a) electively put their children into a needy circumstance for the purpose of (b) satisfying a self-regarding interest in meeting their children’s needs, they lack a legitimate claim against their children to share in its associated costs.     

Reciprocity,Vulnerability, and the Moral Significance of Herd Immunity

This article proposes a novel defense of vaccine mandates: such policies are justifiable because they protect the capabilities of individuals who cannot cultivate individual immunity against infection. We begin by considering a nearby argument that has recently enjoyed popularity, which claims individuals have an enforceable obligation to get vaccinated because they have benefited from community protection (often referred to as ‘herd immunity’), and thus they ought to do their fair share in sustaining that public good by getting vaccinated. We object, however, that this kind of argument misstates the ethical basis for vaccine mandates because community protection primarily protects unvaccinated people. We contend that the duty to vaccinate is not fundamentally an obligation to make a fair contribution to a public good from which vaccinated people benefit, but a duty to protect the wellbeing of otherwise vulnerable third parties. We flesh out our view by drawing on Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach.     

‘Ought’, ‘Can’, and Fairness

According to the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, it is never the case that you ought to do something you cannot do. While many accept this principle in some form, it also has its share of critics, and thus it seems desirable if an argument can be offered in its support. The aim of this paper is to examine a particular way in which the principle has been defended, namely, by appeal to considerations of fairness. In a nutshell, the idea (due to David Copp) is that moral requirements we cannot comply with would be unfair, and there cannot be unfair moral requirements. I discuss several ways of spelling out the argument, and argue that all are unsatisfactory for a variety of reasons.     

Libertarianism,Climate Change,and Individual Responsibility

Much has been written about climate change from an ethical view in general, but less has been written about it from a libertarian point of view in particular. In this paper, I apply the libertarian moral theory to the problem of climate change. I focus on libertarianism’s implications for our individual emissions. I argue that (i) even if our individual emissions cause no harm to others, these emissions cross other people’s boundaries, (ii) although the boundary-crossings that are due to our ‘subsistence emissions’ are implicitly consented to by others, there is no such consent to our ‘non-subsistence emissions’, and (iii) there is no independent justification for these emissions. Although offsetting would provide such a justification, most emitters do not offset their non-subsistence emissions. Therefore, these emissions violate people’s rights, which means that they are impermissible according to libertarianism’s non-aggression principle.

     

Fission,Fusion and Intrinsic Facts1

Closest‐continuer or best‐candidate accounts of persistence seem deeply unsatisfactory, but it is hard to say why. the standard criticism is that such accounts violate the ‘only a and b’ rule, but this criticism merely highlights a feature of the accounts without explaining why the feature is unacceptable. Another concern is that such accounts violate some principle about the supervenience of persistence facts upon local or intrinsic facts. But, again, we do not seem to have an independent justification for this supervenience claim. Instead, I argue that closest continuer accounts are committed to unexplained correlations between distinct existences, and that this is their fundamental flaw. We can have independent justification for rejecting such correlations, but what the justification is depends upon much broader issues in ontology. There is no one‐size‐fits all objection to closest‐continuer accounts of persistence.     

Stereotypes as justifications for prior intergroup discrimination: Studies of Scottish national stereotyping

Two studies provide support for the group‐justification approach to stereotyping (Tajfel, 1981 ; Huici, 1984 ). This approach contends that stereotypes not only serve cognitive functions for individuals but also provide a means of justifying prior intergroup discrimination. Study 1 investigated whether the content of the Scottish ingroup stereotype changes due to the prior expression of intergroup discrimination. Scottish students were primed with either a ‘differentiation’ or a ‘fairness’ ingroup norm and completed two intergroup judgement tasks. Other Scottish students were primed only with a ‘differentiation’ ingroup norm, while a control group received no prime or judgement tasks. Only participants who experienced the ‘differentiation’ ingroup norm prime and the intergroup judgement tasks changed the content of their ingroup stereotype as an attempt to justify their discriminatory behaviour. Study 2 examined whether Scottish students would use both positive ingroup and negative outgroup stereotypes to rationalize intergroup discrimination. Students who experienced a ‘differentiation’ ingroup norm prime and intergroup judgement tasks showed the highest level of superior recall for positive ingroup and negative outgroup stereotype‐consistent words compared to stereotype‐neutral words. This finding suggests that the expression of intergroup discrimination activates the use of both positive ingroup and negative outgroup stereotypes. Together the findings of these two studies provide empirical support for the notion that stereotypes serve social as well as cognitive functions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

III. Professor Frankena's rendezvous with the absolute

In his presidential address (American Philosophical Association, Western Division), William Frankena sets himself against the relativist and irrationalist drift of our time in asserting that ‘It is of the essence of a normative judgment to claim that it is justified, rational or valid’, and that fully informed men of reason will ultimately agree about value questions. Applauding the return to reason, this note finds a need for further clarification on the definition of normative terms, the justification of normative judgments, the basis of obligation to be rational, and on the promise of agreement among men of reason in axiology.     

POLITICAL OBLIGATION,FAIRNESS, AND INDEPENDENCE

In the first section the problem of political obligation is motivated, and in Section 2 the core structure of the problem is laid bare. A recognition of this structure prompts reflection that the problem will appear very different to different thinkers, depending on their moral theories. It also invites the speculation that the problem will be incapable of solution on some moral theories while trivial on others. This polarity does reflect the state of much of the literature until fairly recently. However this picture is seen to be too crude, and in the third section it is shown how an interesting solution has been proposed by advocates of the ‘theory of fairness’. In Section 4 this theory is evaluated, concentrating particularly on George Klosko's version, which is, in part, rejected. However it is argued that no version of the theory is able to guarantee universal political obligations. In Section 5 it is argued that this is an unnoticed advantage of the theory, for it may well be that, morally at least, we should allow those who do not benefit from the existence of the state to escape political obligations. The consequences of this view are examined and found not to be as threatening as they might first have appeared.     

Is Hume's shade of blue a red herring?

The existence of an idea of a missing shade of blue contradicts Hume's first principle that simple ideas all derive from corresponding simple impressions. Hume dismisses the ‘exception’ to his principle as unimportant. Why does he do so? His later account of distinctions of reason suggests a systematic way of dealing with simple ideas not derived from simple impressions. Why does he not return to the problem of the missing shade, having offered that account? Several suggestions as to Hume's solution of the problem of the missing shade (not all appealing to distinctions of reason) are explored with an eye both to their adequacy as Humean solutions and their value as clues to his dismissal of the problem. Hypotheses concerning the latter perplexity are formulated and discussed as well. Senses in which the missing shade of blue is or may be a red herring are identified. In course, this author names Hume's missing shade ‘marjorie grene’. Historians of philosophy will want to adopt this nomenclature.     

The criminalization of money laundering and terrorism in global contexts: a hybrid solution

What obligations do global actors have to prevent terrorism? Is consent required to create an international obligation, or does the correctness of its goals ground its legitimacy? In this paper, I consider these questions with respect to a subset of international law often overlooked: anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). AML/CFT comprises peaceful response to violence and terrorism, making it a significant component of international justice and diplomacy. First, I present the current legal framework for AML/CFT institutions and identify two conflicting sources of justification: objective value and consent. The fix for this problem, I argue, does not come from either component alone. Objective value cannot provide the sole source of justification because it cannot settle the choice between multiple competing norms that would achieve the same objective goods were we to follow them (‘the choice problem’). Consent cannot provide the sole source of justification (‘the constraint problem’) for two reasons: some contracts that people agree to are morally abhorrent and others are morally required but people do not agree to them. But objective value and consent can be combined consistently, and I articulate this hybrid as a sound basis for evaluating and reforming AML/CFT laws and institutions.     

Debt Resistance and Satisfaction? Notes from Catherine of Siena toward a Theology of Redemption against Neoliberal Capitalism

Adding to recent concerns about resonances between debt in Christian soteriologies and in capitalism, Hollis Phelps has argued that Anselm’s satisfaction theory provides subjective reinforcement for neoliberalism’s biopolitical use of debt, and thus calls for an abandonment of the idea that humans must be redeemed from debt to God. Without advocating mere retrieval of satisfaction theory, I submit that such a concept of debt can have the opposite effect by analyzing how it plays out in Catherine of Siena’s mystical theology and the way she articulates satisfaction in her writings. Catherine’s doctrine of creation casts humanity’s unremittable debt as an obligation to love God, self, and neighbor that is divinely designed to benefit all. This concept of debt determines what satisfaction signifies for Catherine, fostering an “indebted subjectivity” incompatible with that of neoliberalism. Her theology thereby suggests a productive way to leverage the language of a prominent Western atonement theory against the neoliberal concepts of debt that discipline Western society—namely, by rooting debt in a doctrine of creation that emphasizes relationships of mutuality and interdependence that benefit all.     

The logic of epistemic justification

Theories of epistemic justification are commonly assessed by exploring their predictions about particular hypothetical cases—predictions as to whether justification is present or absent in this or that case. With a few exceptions, it is much less common for theories of epistemic justification to be assessed by exploring their predictions about logical principles. The exceptions are a handful of ‘closure’ principles, which have received a lot of attention, and which certain theories of justification are well known to invalidate. But these closure principles are only a small sample of the logical principles that we might consider. In this paper, I will outline four further logical principles that plausibly hold for justification and two which plausibly do not. While my primary aim is just to put these principles forward, I will use them to evaluate some different approaches to justification and (tentatively) conclude that a ‘normic’ theory of justification best captures its logic.     

‚Was Ist Begründung?’ Schwierigkeiten durch den Primat der Pragmatik vor der Semantik am Beispiel des Erlanger/Konstanzer Konstruktivismus

‘What is justification?’-Constructivism of Erlangen/Constanceschool as an example for problems resulting from priority of pragmatics to semantics. - R. Brandom's ‘Making it explicit’ is an attempt to work out how semantics is rooted in pragmatics: meaning in use and conceptual content in social functional roles. A philosophy that also focuses on reconstructing those norms that are implicit in pragmatics and constitutive to semanticsis developed by Constructivism of Erlangen/Constance school. This enquiry tries to work out that a discussion of constructivism might be useful for a comprehension of Brandom's ‘theory of expression’, because both philosophical positions meet themselves in a pragmatic way of justification that makes it impossible to justify claims to all rational beings but only to members of those communities that share the same interests and institutions.     

What we talk about when we talk about epistemic justification

Stewart Cohen argues that much contemporary epistemological theorizing is hampered by the fact that ‘epistemic justification’ is a term of art (rather than something we all pretheoretically understand) and one that is never given any serious explication in a non-tendentious, theory-neutral way. He suggests that epistemologists are therefore better off theorizing in terms of rationality, rather than in terms of ‘epistemic justification’. Against this, I argue that even if the term ‘epistemic justification’ is not broadly known, the concept it picks out is quite familiar, and partly because it’s a term of art, justification talk is a better vehicle for philosophical theorizing. ‘Rational’ is too unclear for our philosophical purposes, and the fact that ‘epistemic justification’ gets fleshed out by appeal to substantive, controversial theses is no obstacle to its playing the needed role in epistemological theorizing.     

Filial Responsibility and the Care of the Aged

What obligations and responsibilities, if any, do adult children have with respect to their aged parents? This paper briefly considers the socio-historical and legal bases for filial obligations and suggests there is a mismatch between perceptions in the community over what they see as their obligations, what policy makers would like to impose and how philosophers identify and ground these obligations. Examining four philosophical models of filial obligation, we conclude that no one account provides an adequate justification for the types of responsibility that might be assumed in a family relationship.     

Mutuality*

Ferenczi’s striving for mutuality, a call which Freud didn’t take up, let him explore this concept with his analysands. He thus became the originator of mutual analysis, although with caveats, and of the concept of introjection, another important Ferenczian notion. The analyst’s attitude of knowing the ‘objective’ and independent Truth is changing its orientation into that of a co-construction in the analytic work; here the analyst and the analysand build a third internal world, which they share and which remains their own. Clinical vignettes illustrate the implications of these views.     

Exemptions,Sincerity and Pastafarianism

Because Pastafarianism – or the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster – is a parodic religion, common sense suggests its ‘adherents’ should not receive exemptions. However, the prima facie case for excluding Pastafarians is complicated by the fact that many assert their religion is as legitimate as any other religion and that their beliefs are genuine. Indeed, Pastafarians have already obtained exemptions in various countries. Taking the dominant liberal egalitarian, integrity-based approach to exemptions, this article investigates whether there is a principled, objective basis for excluding Pastafarians that accounts for their assertions. To that end, I examine four tests: a religion, seriousness, obligation, and sincerity test. I assess whether each test can actually exclude Pastafarians, and if it could, can it do so in a way that is consistent with liberal egalitarian commitments. I argue that only a sincerity test – based on consistent behaviour and a willingness to bear the costs of one's beliefs – satisfies both of these conditions, but, on a weak and contingent basis.     

From Conceptual Analysis to Serious Metaphysics

Abstract

Habermas’s recent work in epistemology has been marked by a decisive rejection of his earlier epistemic conception of truth in which he understood truth as ‘what may be accepted as rational under ideal conditions’. Arguing that no ‘idealization of justificatory conditions’ can do justice to both human fallibility and the unconditional nature of truth, he has attempted to develop a realistic conception of truth that severs any conceptual link between truth and justification while respecting the epistemic relevance of justification for ascertaining the truth. But realizing this second goal has proved elusive for Habermas because he veers too close to a form of metaphysical realism in his epistemology. By contrast, Hilary Putnam’s recent turn to what he calls ‘natural realism’ is more successful in articulating a form of realism that, in taking its leave of an epistemic conception of truth, still manages to keep its distance from metaphysical realism.     

The Duty to Support Nationalistic Policies

We demonstrate that citizens perceive a duty to support policies that benefit their nation, even when they themselves judge that the consequences of the policies will be worse on the whole, taking outsiders into account. In terms of actions, subjects think they would do their perceived duty rather than violate it for the sake of better consequences. The discrepancy between duty and judged consequences does not seem to result from self‐interest alone. When asked for reasons, many subjects felt an obligation to help their fellow citizens before others, and they also thought that they owed something to their nation, in return for what it did for them. The obligation to help fellow citizens was the strongest predictor of perceived duty. In an experiment with Israeli and Palestinian students, group membership affected both perceived overall consequences and duty, but the effect of group on perceived consequences did not account for the effect on perceived duty. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

DEDUCTIVE CLOSURE,SCEPTICISM AND THE PARADOXES OF CONFIRMATION1

To undermine much of what we ordinarily claim to know, sceptics have often appealed to a principle (known as the principle of closure) according to which knowledge (justification) is closed under known entailment. In this paper after expounding the views of Stein, Klein and others, I shall argue that they all fail to take note of different contexts in which the principle of closure is applied. The relevance of the principle of closure for scepticism is then analyzed in the light of, what I call, the ‘infectious’ character of epistemic contexts. I shall also highlight the similarities in the behaviour of the concepts of justification and confirmation and appeal to certain solutions to the paradoxes of confirmation to provide a comprehensive account of the different instances of the principle of closure.