Ecumenical alethic pluralism

Ecumenical Alethic Pluralism (EAP) is a novel kind of alethic pluralism. It is ecumenical in that it widens the scope of alethic pluralism by allowing for a normatively deflated truth property alongside a variety of normatively robust truth properties. We establish EAP by showing how Wright’s Inflationary Arguments fail in the domain of taste, once a relativist treatment of the metaphysics and epistemology of that domain is endorsed. EAP is highly significant to current debates on the nature of truth insofar as it involves a reconfiguration of the dialectic between deflationists and pluralists.     

From equality and inclusion to cultural pluralism – Evolution and effects of cultural diversity perspectives in schools*

Schools are a major context for academic and socio-emotional development, but also an important acculturative context. This is notably the case in adolescence, which is a critical period for the development of a social and ethnic identity, as well as moral reasoning and intergroup attitudes. How schools approach cultural diversity issues is therefore likely to affect these developmental and acculturative processes and adaptation outcomes. In the present article, the manifestation and effects of the most prominent approaches to cultural diversity, namely those guided by a perspective of equality and inclusion, and those guided by a perspective of cultural pluralism, are reviewed and compared in the context of multi-ethnic schools. The aim is to explore when and how the potential of cultural diversity can best flourish, enhancing the academic and socio-emotional development of culturally diverse students.     

On Typologies for Relating Science and Religion

Geoffrey Cantor and Chris Kenny have criticized attempts to classify various ways of relating science and religion. They hold that all typologies are too simple and too static to illuminate the complex and changing historical interactions of science and religion. I argue that typologies serve a useful pedagogical function even though every particular interaction must be seen in its historical context. I acknowledge the problems in making distinctions between categories of classification and examine some alternative typologies that have been proposed. I leave as an open question whether my fourfold typology is applicable to differing religious traditions. Finally I consider some parallels between typologies for science‐religion interactions and typologies for relationships between religions. Can our discussions be both interdisciplinary and interreligious without the danger of imposing the conceptual framework of one discipline or religious tradition on another discipline or tradition?     

善的两种冲突

冲突一词在语言表达中其实有两个很不相同的意义和用法。一种用法是：冲突的命题不能同时为真的逻辑真理性冲突;另一种用法是：冲突的价值欲望不能同时满足的现实选择性冲突。本文对冲突的两种意义及用法进行了区别,分析了这两种冲突的意义和用法在道德善恶判断中的联系和混用,并对道德相对主义与道德多元主义提出了批评。     

Diverse knowledges and competing interests: An essay on socio-technical problem-solving

Solving complex socio-technical problems, this paper claims, involves diverse knowledges (cognitive diversity), competing interests (social diversity), and pragmatism. To explain this view, this paper first explores two different cases: Canadian pulp and paper mill pollution and siting nuclear reactors in seismically sensitive areas of California. Solving such socio-technically complex problems involves cognitive diversity as well as social diversity and pragmatism. Cognitive diversity requires one to not only recognize relevant knowledges but also to assess their validity. Finally, it is suggested, integrating the resultant set of diverse relevant and valid knowledges determines the parameters of the solution space for the problem. The author is a Professor of Philosophy at The University of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.     

WTO,Public Reason and Food Public Reasoning in the ‘Trade Conflict’ on GM-Food

Food trade is of economic importance for both developed and developing countries. Food, however, is a special commodity. Firstly, the lack of food – hunger, under-nourishment, and starvation – is one of the worlds pressing moral problems. But food is not only special because it is necessary for our survival; food is also special because it is strongly related to our social and cultural identity. Two recent transatlantic trade conflicts over food – over the use of artificial growth hormones in beef production and over the use of (modern) biotechnology in food production – show that food is a specific commodity. In these trade-conflicts, the obligations flowing from free-trade treaties collide with the cultural and social meanings of food. Current international trade agreements neglect this point and force countries to fight their case in the field of food safety science. This causes a bias in the discussion. Europes resistance towards artificial growth hormones and GM-food is not strictly science based; it is also culture based. For a fair resolution of trade-conflicts, this needs to be accommodated in international trade legislation. With the help of the notion of public reason I defend that (i) precaution with regard to scientific uncertainty, and (ii) the possibility for compulsory labelling with regard to sensitive non-nutritional properties of foodstuffs, need to be incorporated in international food trade regulations.     

Wobbling on a One-Legged Stool: The Decline of American Pluralism and the Academic Treatment of Corporate Social Responsibility

B. Readings (University in Ruins. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996) argued that universities have abandoned their original project of promoting a national culture and have tried to substitute by embracing globalization, but the vagueness and incoherence of the concept has failed to return purpose to the University. The academic treatment of corporate social responsibility illustrates this dilemma. For a generation after H.R. Bowen (Social Responsibilities of the Businessman. New York: Harper & Row, 1953) founded the field, scholars struggled to fit the concept within a national system of pluralistic power-sharing among a variety of institutions that would define and enforce standards of responsibility necessary for the general good of American society. That understanding changed in the nineteen eighties, shortly after corporate executives had united to an unprecedented degree to direct the power of government in their interests, influence the public agenda, and roll back the power of unions. In response, business ethicists began to reformulate corporate social responsibility as a voluntary practice on the part of these same executives. Since the Kantian and Lockean principles upon which this approach was based were themselves problematic, it is not surprising that the experience gained over the last generation casts doubt on the efficacy of this reliance on voluntary restraint and personal initiative. However, circumstances that include the failure of globalization to deliver on its promises may have changed sufficiently in recent years to revive interest in approaches that acknowledge the importance of countervailing power for encouraging greater corporate social responsibility.     

Quine and Slater on Paraconsistency and Deviance

In a famous and controversial paper, B. H. Slater has argued against the possibility of paraconsistent logics. Our reply is centred on the distinction between two aspects of the meaning of a logical constant ^*c^* in a given logic: its operational meaning, given by the operational rules for ^*c^* in a cut-free sequent calculus for the logic at issue, and its global meaning, specified by the sequents containing ^*c^* which can be proved in the same calculus. Subsequently, we use the same strategy to counter Quine's meaning variance argument against deviant logics. In a nutshell, we claim that genuine rivalry between (similar) logics ^*L^* and ^*L^* is possible whenever each constant in ^*L^* has the same operational meaning as its counterpart in ^*L^* although differences in global meaning arise in at least one case.     

The multiple realization book

In this review of Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro’s The Multiple Realization Book I look at the positive account, Modest Identity Theory, that Polger and Shapiro advance. In §2 of this review, I outline P&S’s arguments against multiple realization and summarize the view they defend, Modest Identity Theory. In §3, I consider what consequences the adoption of Modest Identity Theory might have on the ontology of psychological or mental kinds. In particular, I highlight the ontological pluralism and anti-reductionism that Polger and Shapiro endorse. Modest Identity Theory tolerates multiple taxonomies of psychological kinds, which represents an important departure from earlier versions of Identity Theory. I conclude in §4 by arguing that the way Modest Identity Theory individuates psychological kinds very closely resembles the way that those kinds are individuated by functionalism. I argue that the causal properties individuative of psychological kinds can be used to group together distinct neuroanatomical characteristics. I illustrate this by describing research into the functional connectivity of the reading network. I conclude by emphasizing the value of using empirical evidence from neuroscience and cognitive science to inform the new pluralistic ontology of psychological and mental kinds with which Modest Identity Theory is compatible.     

The Subjective List Theory of Well-Being

A subjective list theory of well-being is one that accepts both pluralism (the view that there is more than one basic good) and subjectivism (the view, roughly, that every basic good involves our favourable attitudes). Such theories have been neglected in discussions of welfare. I argue that this is a mistake. I introduce a subjective list theory called disjunctive desire satisfactionism, and I argue that it is superior to two prominent monistic subjectivist views: desire satisfactionism and subjective desire satisfactionism. In the course of making this argument, I introduce a problem for desire satisfactionism: it cannot accommodate the fact that whenever someone experiences an attitudinal pleasure, his welfare is (other things equal) higher during the pleasure. Finally, I argue that any subjectivist about welfare should find disjunctive desire satisfactionism highly attractive.