“IF I WERE GOD”: EINSTEIN AND RELIGION

Designed as an introductory lecture for the conference “Einstein, God and Time,” this essay provides a brief survey of three sets of relations—between Einstein and time, God and time, and Einstein and God. The question is raised whether Einstein's rejection of absolute time held any implications for theology. It is argued that, despite Einstein's denial and his exemplary caution, the fact that Isaac Newton had associated absolute space and absolute time with a deity who constituted them meant that a revisitation of theological questions was inevitable. Consideration is then given to the time‐lessness and changelessness of God, with a brief reference to eschatological issues. The question whether there might be parallels between the renunciation of Newtonian time by physicists and by Christian theologians is discussed with reference to recent commentary on the eschatological thinking of Jürgen Moltmann. Whether Einstein himself would have sympathized with these theologies is to be doubted, given his antipathy to anthropomorphic and anthropopathic concepts of deity. Finally, in exploring Einstein's sometimes whimsical use of theological language, it becomes necessary to acknowledge that his well‐known affirmation of the complementarity of science and religion rested on a distinctive construction of religion that allowed him to say he was a “deeply religious unbeliever.” Attempts to categorize his convictions, or to appropriate them for conventional theistic purposes, miss their subtlety and their apophatic resonances.     

BUDDHISM,FREE WILL,AND PUNISHMENT: TAKING BUDDHIST ETHICS SERIOUSLY

In recent decades, there has been growing interest among philosophers in what the various Buddhist traditions have said, can say, and should say, in response to the traditional problem of free will. This article investigates the relationship between Buddhist philosophy and the historical problem of free will. It begins by critically examining Rick Repetti's Buddhism, Meditation, and Free Will (2019), in which he argues for a conception of “agentless agency” and defends a view he calls “Buddhist soft compatibilism.” It then turns to a more wide-ranging discussion of Buddhism and free will—one that foregrounds Buddhist ethics and takes seriously what the various Buddhist traditions have said about desert, punishment, and the reactive attitudes of resentment, indignation, and moral anger. The article aims to show that, not only is Buddhism best conceived as endorsing a kind of free will skepticism, Buddhist ethics can provide a helpful guide to living without basic desert moral responsibility and free will.     

Experimental philosophy of actual and counterfactual free will intuitions

Five experiments suggested that everyday free will and moral responsibility judgments about some hypothetical thought examples differed from free will and moral responsibility judgments about the actual world. Experiment 1 (N = 106) showed that free will intuitions about the actual world measured by the FAD-Plus poorly predicted free will intuitions about a hypothetical person performing a determined action (r = .13). Experiments 2–5 replicated this result and found the relations between actual free will judgments and free will judgments about hypothetical determined or fated actions (rs = .22–.35) were much smaller than the differences between them (η_p² = .2–.55). These results put some pressure on theoretical accounts of everyday intuitions about freedom and moral responsibility.     

A Confucian in Buddhist clothing? – Interpreting Nishida’s conception of the good as a realisation of the Mandate of Heaven

ABSTRACT

In this study, I examine the Confucian influence upon An Inquiry into the Good, the first publication of Nishida Kitarō. Nishida’s student Kōsaka Masaaki depicts his mentor’s conception of the good in terms of realising the 'Mandate of Heaven'. Taking this to be indicative of the importance of Confucianism for Nishida’s early thought, I compare his philosophy of pure experience and ethical project of ‘self-realisation’ with corresponding ideas found in the Confucian corpus. I especially focus on the Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean as interpreted by the Neo-Confucian Wang Yang-Ming. This study builds upon the pioneering work of Michel Dalissier, Dermott Walsh and David Williams on the Kyoto School and Confucianism. My portrayal of Confucianism is indebted to the ‘philosophical’ translations of Roger Ames, David Hall and Henry Rosemont, Jr., which bring into relief the tradition’s ‘relational ontology’ that Graham Parkes teaches is shared by the Kyoto School.     

算法歧视比人类歧视引起更少道德惩罚欲

算法歧视屡见不鲜, 人们对其有何反应值得关注。6个递进实验比较了不同类型歧视情境下人们对算法歧视和人类歧视的道德惩罚欲, 并探讨其潜在机制和边界条件。结果发现：相对于人类歧视, 人们对算法歧视的道德惩罚欲更少(实验1~6), 潜在机制是人们认为算法(与人类相比)更缺乏自由意志(实验2~4), 且个体拟人化倾向越强或者算法越拟人化, 人们对算法的道德惩罚欲越强(实验5~6)。研究结果有助于更好地理解人们对算法歧视的反应, 并为算法犯错后的道德惩罚提供启示。     

‘Brain-Malfunction’ Cases and the Dispositionalist Reply to Frankfurt's Attack on PAP

Harry Frankfurt has famously argued against the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) by presenting a case in which, apparently, a person is morally responsible for what he has done even though he could not have done otherwise. A number of commentators have proposed dispositionalist responses to Frankfurt, arguing that he has not produced a counterexample to PAP because, contrary to appearances, the ability to do otherwise is indeed present but is a disposition that has been ‘masked’ or ‘finked’ by the presence of a counterfactual controller. This article argues that this response to Frankfurt does not undercut his attack on PAP, since there are Frankfurt-style counterexamples to the principle—‘brain-malfunction’ cases—that evade the dispositionalist analysis.     

Action,interaction and inaction: post-Kantian accounts of thinking,willing, and doing in Fichte and Schopenhauer

This article features the contributions of Fichte and Schopenhauer to a philosophical account of action against the background of Kant's earlier and influential treatment of the topic. The article first presents Kant's pertinent contributions in the areas of general epistemology and metaphysics (“transcendental philosophy”), general practical philosophy (“moral philosophy”), the philosophy of law (“doctrine of right”) and ethic (“doctrine of virtues”). Then the focus is on Fichte's further original work on the issue of action in those same areas. Finally, the article turns to Schopenhauer's radical revision of the Kantian and Fichtean affirmative accounts of acting and willing through the correlated introduction of the irrational will, the self-negated will and ethical inaction.     

自由意志:实证心理学的视角

自由意志是哲学史上最古老、最持久和最艰难的问题之一,并且一直是哲学,包括实证主义哲学和人文主义哲学关注的问题.近年来,心理学家开始尝试用实证科学的方法探索自由意志的心理机制、影响及表达.研究发现虽然自由意志是一种错觉,但人们仍然相信它的存在,并受到它的影响.自由意志与道德责任、道德行为、创造力、自尊和幸福等概念有密切关系.未来研究应在自由意志的概念界定、产生机制、作用功能等方面进行更深入的探索,并从实证、理论和常识三种水平上综合考察、理解自由意志问题.     

ANIMAL SUFFERING,EVOLUTION, AND THE ORIGINS OF EVIL: TOWARD A “FREE CREATURES” DEFENSE

Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of ancient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns animal suffering and suggest a possible way forward which employs the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God's will that results in suffering and alienation from God's purposes—precedes the arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhuman animal world long before humans are ever tempted to go astray. This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understanding “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evolutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of freedom and degrees of moral culpability.