Raymund Schwager on the Dramatic Justice and Mercy of God

This article explores and develops Raymund Schwager's understanding of the nature of justice and mercy, especially in the face of the Christian doctrine of hell. Schwager follows Anselm of Canterbury closely in seeing a deep harmony between justice and mercy, finding their unity in an expansive notion of God's goodness, which gives abundantly but always also in a way that respects the dignity of the receiver. This unity can thus only be understood in the context of the dramatic interplay of freedoms. An overview of Schwager's theological project provides the background for then exploring his notions of justice, mercy, freedom, self‐judgement and hell. The article concludes with the exploration of some of the logical consequences of Schwager's thought.     

Looking ahead from age 6 to 13: A deeper insight into the development of planning ability

Planning ability gradually increases throughout childhood. However, it remains unknown whether this is attributable to global factors such as an increased ability and willingness to inhibit premature, impulsive responding, or due to the availability of specific planning operations, such as being able to mentally plan ahead more steps (‘search depth’) or to derive a clear temporal order of goals by the task layout (‘goal hierarchy’). Here, we studied the development of planning ability with respect to these global and problem‐specific aspects (search depth and goal hierarchy) of performance in 178 children from 6 to 13 years using the Tower of London task. As expected, global performance gradually developed with age. In accordance, planning durations increasingly reflected global problem demands with longer pre‐planning in harder problems. Furthermore, specific planning parameters revealed that children were increasingly capable of mentally searching ahead more steps. In contrast, the ability to derive a goal hierarchy did not show age‐related changes. While the global development of planning performance and adaptive planning durations were proposed to primarily reflect enhanced self‐monitoring, the specific increase in search depth across childhood that most likely proceeds until young adult age represents more directly planning‐related processes. Thus, development of planning ability is supported by multiple contributions.     

Deduction and definability in infinite statistical systems

Synthese - Classical accounts of intertheoretic reduction involve two pieces: first, the new terms of the higher-level theory must be definable from the terms of the lower-level theory, and second,...     

The Facts and Practices of Moral Responsibility

Strawsonians about moral responsibility often claim that our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, rather than the other way round. Many have argued that such ‘reversal’ claims have an unwelcome consequence: If our practices of holding morally responsible fix the facts of moral responsibility, does this not imply, absurdly, that if we held severely mentally ill people responsible, they would be responsible? We provide a new Strawsonian answer to this question, and we explore the relation between reversal claims and (in)compatibilism.