Theodicy: The Solution to the Problem of Evil,or Part of the Problem?

Theodicy, the enterprise of searching for greater goods that might plausibly justify God’s permission of evil, is often criticized on the grounds that the project has systematically failed to unearth any such goods. But theodicists also face a deeper challenge, one that places under question the very attempt to look for any morally sufficient reasons God might have for creating a world littered with evil. This ‘anti-theodical’ view argues that theists (and non-theists) ought to reject, primarily for moral reasons, the project of ‘justifying the ways of God to men’. Unfortunately, this view has not received the serious attention it deserves, particularly in analytic philosophy of religion. Taking my cues from such anti-theodicists as Kenneth Surin, D.Z. Phillips and Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov, I defend several reasons for holding that the way of thinking about God and evil enshrined in theodical discourse can only add to the world’s evils, not remove or illuminate them.

The Problem of Self‐Torture: What's Being Done?

We commonly face circumstances in which the cumulative negative effects of repeatedly acting in a certain way over time will be significant, although the negative effects of any one such act, taken on its own, are insubstantial. Warren Quinn's puzzle of the self‐torturer presents an especially clear example of this type of predicament. This paper considers three different approaches to understanding the rational response to such situations. The first focuses on the conditions under which it is rational to revise one's prior intentions. The second raises the possibility of a fundamental disconnect between the rational assessment of an extended pattern of choices and the assessment of the individual choices that make up that pattern. I show that neither adequately addresses the underlying issues. I propose a third approach, according to which the rational assessment of the “self‐torturer's” choices is guided, not by any plan or intention the he has actually adopted, but by the plan or plans it would have been reasonable for him to adopt from the outset. The larger significance of this conclusion is brought out through the identification of conditions under which one's past choices can non‐derivatively constrain the rational response to one's present circumstances.     

The Proportion of Women Managers: Where Is the Critical Mass?1

This study examined the impact of proportions of women in management on attitudes of coworkers from two theoretical perspectives. According to Kanter (1977), women's competence, contribution to organizational culture, and status would be better appreciated as their proportion increased. According to Blalock (1967), men would react adversely. Data were collected from 453 managers in Canadian federal departments where the proportions varied from 9%, 20%, 35%, to 45%. Findings did not support either theory. Men made significantly more positive evaluations of women's participation in the organization and of their status in conditions above 20% than in the token condition. In the 45% sample, they recognized women's managerial talents significantly better. Women displayed confidence in their talents, irrespective of proportions. Results are discussed in the light of the influence of individual factors taken into account.     

The Ethics of Accident-Algorithms for Self-Driving Cars: an Applied Trolley Problem?

Self-driving cars hold out the promise of being safer than manually driven cars. Yet they cannot be a 100 % safe. Collisions are sometimes unavoidable. So self-driving cars need to be programmed for how they should respond to scenarios where collisions are highly likely or unavoidable. The accident-scenarios self-driving cars might face have recently been likened to the key examples and dilemmas associated with the trolley problem. In this article, we critically examine this tempting analogy. We identify three important ways in which the ethics of accident-algorithms for self-driving cars and the philosophy of the trolley problem differ from each other. These concern: (i) the basic decision-making situation faced by those who decide how self-driving cars should be programmed to deal with accidents; (ii) moral and legal responsibility; and (iii) decision-making in the face of risks and uncertainty. In discussing these three areas of disanalogy, we isolate and identify a number of basic issues and complexities that arise within the ethics of the programming of self-driving cars.     

Experiencing Things Together: What Is The Problem?

Suppose someone hears a loud noise and at the same time sees a yellow flash. It seems hard to deny that the person can experience loudness and yellowness together. However, since loudness is experienced by the auditory sense whereas yellowness is experienced by the visual sense it also seems hard to explain how – given the difference between the senses – loudness and yellowness could possibly be experienced together. What is the solution to this problem? I start with some short remarks about what is not the problem (Section 2) and continue to argue that, given one sense of “experiencing two qualities together”, there is no philosophical problem at all (Section 3). An objection against this (Section 4) says that all this only concerns one kind of consciousness, “access consciousness”, while what is relevant here is a different kind of consciousness, namely “phenomenal consciousness”. I answer this objection by presenting another aspect of the unity of consciousness (Section 5). This case raises puzzling further questions (Section 6) but it can help to answer the objection presented in Section 4. I will end with some brief general speculation in a Kantian spirit (Section 7). The main upshot of this paper is a deflationary one: Where we thought to be confronted with a serious philosophical problem there really is none. What will emerge through the argument is a graded and functional view of the unity of consciousness.     

Problem Drinking: A Problem for the Theory of Reasoned Action?1

The present study examined the sufficiency of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) to predict intention and behavior with respect to problem drinking, as well as the ability of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict intention and behavior over and above the TRA. The role of perceived control in the TPB was also examined. A 12-year longitudinal study on alcohol and drug use attitudes and behavior provided the context for this investigation. Two criterion variables were examined: intention to get drunk and frequency of getting drunk. It was hypothesized that heavier drinkers would perceive less control over their drinking. Coincidentally, the TRA, which assumes the behavior being predicted is volitional, would become less predictive as drinking became heavier. Furthermore, the TPB, which extends the TRA to include perceived (volitional) control over the behavior would be more predictive of intention and behavior than the TRA. All three hypotheses were supported. In addition, perceived control proved to be differentially predictive for nonproblem and problem drinkers. Specifically, perceived control contributed to the prediction of intention to get drunk for nonproblem drinkers, but to the prediction of behavior (frequency of getting drunk) for problem drinkers. Implications of these results for theory development and application are discussed.     

‘Truths that Set Us Free?’: The Use of Rhetoric in Mind-Body-Spirit Books

This article provides a critical qualitative analysis of popular mind-body-spirit books. Typically, these books present a hybrid combining spirituality with self-help and popular psychology. They promise to soothe, heal, and liberate the reader from what is construed as a mundane, desolate life and an environmental and social context of despair. Constructions of transformation and liberation are pervasive in these books. The analysis attends to meaning and rhetoric. Three discourses are delineated, each of which constructs transformation and liberation. In addition, while it is assumed that the authors produce a particular version of spirituality in these books rather than present the truth in a value-neutral way, this analysis attends to the rhetorical strategies that can work to make the authors’ message appear as literal and factual to the reader.     

The Impact of Covariates on Statistical Power in Cluster Randomized Designs: Which Level Matters More?

Field experiments with nested structures are becoming increasingly common, especially designs that assign randomly entire clusters such as schools to a treatment and a control group. In such large-scale cluster randomized studies the challenge is to obtain sufficient power of the test of the treatment effect. The objective is to maximize power without adding many clusters that make the study much more expensive. In this article I discuss how power estimates of tests of treatment effects in balanced cluster randomized designs are affected by covariates at different levels. I use third-grade data from Project STAR, a field experiment about class size, to demonstrate how covariates that explain a considerable proportion of variance in outcomes increase power significantly. When lower level covariates are group-mean centered and clustering effects are larger, top-level covariates increase power more than lower level covariates. In contrast, when clustering effects are smaller and lower level covariates are grand-mean centered or uncentered, lower level covariates increase power more than top-level covariates.     

Forcing and the Universe of Sets: Must We Lose Insight?

Journal of Philosophical Logic - A central area of current philosophical debate in the foundations of mathematics concerns whether or not there is a single, maximal, universe of set theory....     

Right to Die or Duty to Live? The Problem of Euthanasia

Argument about euthanasia in Australia intensified following the world's first legal euthanasia death of Bob Dent under the Northern Territory's short-lived Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995. This paper takes stock of the implacably opposed positions on euthanasia following Bob Dent's death, which provides a focus for the controversy, and identifies the key doctrines which separate adversaries in the euthanasia debate and their associated incommensurable intuitions.     

Happiness in a Flux? The Instability Problem

In the recent discussion of happiness it has become popular to claim that being happy means having a certain positive attitude towards your life. This attitude involves both a judgement that your life measures up to your standards and a feeling of satisfaction with your life. In this paper, I am going to discuss a serious problem inherent in this account that has important ramifications for the normative question of how we ought to pursue happiness. If happiness is in part determined by your standards, how shall we determine whether you are happier in one life than in another when your standards change across these lives? Perhaps you will judge a life as a parent as better than a childless life, if you were to become a parent, but judge a childless life as better than a parenting life, if you were to remain childless. Which standard should determine the comparative happiness of the two lives? In this paper, I shall argue that some innocent-looking answers to this question will generate inconsistencies. To find an acceptable resolution, we need to make a difficult choice between what on the face of it look like two equally valid principles of happiness.     

Three Meanings of Equality: The ‘Arab Problem’ in Israel

If justice means equal participation and inclusion, as authors such as Axel Honneth or Nancy Fraser have argued, the question still remains: inclusion in what, and of whom? This question has not been investigated with sufficient attention. Drawing on the example of the experience of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, I address this issue by distinguishing different meanings of equality which correspond to different types of political struggles. In so doing, I re-examine Honneth’s claim that the critical theory of recognition has no room for cultural groups as referents of a potential ‘fourth principle of recognition’ beyond legal equality, the merit principle, and love. It is argued that Honneth’s critique of collective rights neglects crucial differences between the types of groups that exist in modern states, and between the different kinds of struggles for equality waged by those groups.