The End(s) of Mercy

In philosophy and in religious ethics, accounts of mercy are typically developed in relation to justice. The essays in this focus issue each insist on an integral connection between mercy and justice, yet each reconfigures that relationship by arguing that mercy is best understood as a normative response to others in their need. Defining mercy as our response to others’ need highlights the value of mercy as an effective public virtue, grounded in realism about the human condition and focused on reparative and restorative action.     

The Limits of Abstraction

Book Information The Limits of Abstraction. The Limits of Abstraction Kit Fine, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 2002, x + 203, £18.99 (cloth). By Kit Fine. Clarendon Press. Oxford. Pp. x + 203. £18.99 (cloth).,     

The Limits of Explication

Part of logic consists in uncovering ways in which logical processes of great universality and utility are over-extended, e.g., in the misguided search for the cause of everything. It is suggested here that the search for missing premises defined as premises that make a deduction out of every argument has its own limits of sense. While often useful, it is sometimes just wrongly used by requiring that the reconstructed argument have the same categorical conclusion as the original one; and sometimes inappropriately used when the argument itself does not rest upon assumptions different from itself.     

The Limits of Photography

Abstract

This paper is about what counts as a photograph and what does not. One way in which this question arises stems from new technologies that keep changing our way of producing photographs, such as digital photography, which not only has now widely replaced traditional film photography but also challenges the very limits of what we count as a photograph. I shall discuss below at some length different aspects of digital photography, but also want to focus here on a new striking type of photographic camera, announced in early 2012 by Lytro, Inc., namely, the so-called ‘Light Field Camera’, which is said to represent a revolution in the photographic world. Indeed, unlike in the case of any previously available cameras, the photographs produced by a Light Field Camera can be re-focused after the photograph has been taken, which harbours many interesting consequences with regard to the resulting image and the way we interact with it. But of course, the initial question also arises in the case of traditional film photography as well as ‘traditional’ digital photography. The question amounts to asking about what the essential features of photographs are – in short, what their nature is.     

The Limits of Consent

This journal has frequently taken the position that consent, or at least informed consent, is all that from a secular viewpoint is necessary for an activity to be ethical. We argue to the contrary, that consent is and only is a political criterion for determining criminality—even for a libertarian. Consensual behavior can be unethical—although it should not be criminalized—if the consent will never be truly revocable in the future or if such revocability is severely compromised. We give three examples, one from common experience, and two from the areas normally covered in this journal.     

Balancing Justice and Mercy

The concept of forgiveness is analyzed as a moral gesture toward the offender designed to help restore that individual's moral standing. Jewish sources on the conditions under which forgiveness is obligatory are explored and two contrasting positions are presented: one in which the obligation to forgive is conditional on the repentance of the offender and another in which people are required to forgive unconditionally. These two positions are shown to represent different ways of framing the offending behavior that rest, in turn, on different ways of balancing the need for justice and for mercy respectively. In the final analysis, Judaism's two contrasting attitudes toward forgiveness are rooted in different theological assumptions and different ways of construing the very goals of the moral life. The author points out the merits and shortcomings of both positions and concludes with the suggestion that the two complement each other in important ways.     

The Limits of Medical Practice

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics - Should medicine be defined as the enterprise in charge of the health problems of society? If so, then any problem (individual, public, social or political) that...     

论信用的道德限度

社会诚信的研究和建设是当前伦理学研究和道德建设的重点,且很多学者都把信用制度的建设作为主要途径和突破口,但这是否抓出了问题的要害,却是需要慎思的。我们通过对这两个概念的反思和比较,发现诚信比信用有更高的立意和更丰富的内涵,而信用有其内在的道德限度,表现为:信用主体是抽象的人,诚信主体是现实的人;信用要实现的是外在利益,诚信则立足于人的内在价值;信用体现的是工具理性,诚信体现一种实践智慧。通过两者的比较,我们就能合理地确定信用制度起作用的性质、范围和程度,认识到它的必要性和局限性,从而摆正它在社会诚信建设中的地位。     

The Limits of Liberal Cosmopolitanism

Res Publica - The essay critically reviews two recent contributions to the debate on global justice made by Darrel Moellendorf and Thomas Pogge respectively. Given both authors’...