Time
and Space in African (Igbo) Thought Abstract:This paper is an attempt to articulate an African (Igbo) conception of space and time. Igbo terms and phrases are explained in light of their traditional, non-European cultural and linguistic background. Care is taken to present a distinctively African account, not a neo-colonial one. The African conceptions of space and time account for some African beliefs and practices regarding causality, including such widely misunderstood phenomena as divination, the "medicine man," and "magic." Paradise
Well Lost: Communitarian Nostalgia and the Lonely Logic of the Liberal
Self Abstract:"Paradise Well Lost" offers a description and criticism of communitarian claims that in contemporary liberal society the self is in sad shape, that liberal society is out of harmony with the needs of the self, and that such a society makes the good life nearly impossible to achieve. It is argued that communitarian thought is driven by a false and deluded nostalgia for a self-world unity that never was and never can be, that human consciousness prohibits the neatly unified communialization of self and world that seems desired by much communitarian thinking. A final argument claims that there are nontrivial connections between the communitarian desire for self-world unity, and the twentieth-century emergence of totalitarian society--connections about which it is wise to be worried. Right Intention
and the Oil Factor in the Second Gulf War Abstract:This essay responds to the argument that US interest in Kuwaiti oil made its war against Iraq fail the just-war criterion of right intention. That argument is based on a misunderstanding of the criterion, namely, that right intention requires not merely the presence of a concern for justice but the absence of any other (especially self-interested) motives. Correction of this misunderstanding is important to application of the just-war theory to the general question of intervention in foreign wars. Moral Fanaticism
and the Holocaust: A Defense of Kant Against Silber Abstract: I defend Kant's moral psychology against John R. Silber's argument that Kant cannot account for the radical evil of Hitler. Silber's argument cannot be maintained, I argue, if Kant's account of theological and moral fanaticism, and the personality of the moral fanatic, are taken into account. I contend that Kant's writings support an analogy between the fanatical pursuit of religious and moral ideals and Hitler's fanatical pursuit of an ideal of racial purity. I conclude that Kant's account of moral fanaticism is adequate to account for the actions and moral psychology of Hitler. Identity,
Social Relations, and Time: The Implications of Mead for Democratic
Social Theory. Abstract: This essay analyzes the nature of social relations when individual identity is conceived as both autonomous and socially constructed. Viewing identity as autonomous and socially constructed makes it necessary both to conceive individuals as socially related to others in the present and past, and to incorporate individuals into multiple systems of social relations. I argue that George Herbert Mead's theory of social systems provides a basis for performing these tasks. By adding a concept of "contemporaneous consciousness" to Mead's notion of temporal systems, it is possible to view individuals as autonomous within a multiplicity of temporal systems. Death and
Pictures in Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus' Abstract: The Picture Theory based on a realist ontology is central to the argument of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein, however, makes idealist claims while discussing the notion of the metaphysical subject. In this paper, I develop an interpretation of this text in which realism and idealism are reconciled. The task is accomplished by focusing on the later remarks of the Tractatus in general and the remarks on death in particular. Constitution
and By-Laws No AbstractVolume 1, Number 2, Summer 1994MacIntyre's
Conservatism and Its Cure: The Formal Structure of Traditions.
Abstract: Conservative communitarian Alasdair MacIntyre makes a fundamental claim about the formal conditions for rationality, personhood, and intelligible valuation, and a detachable, less fundamental empirical claim that these formal conditions can be met only in a hierarchically organized social tradition. Having suggested a formal account of narrative tradition which relies on the schematic notion of systematic complexity, MacIntyre retreats to an account in terms of canon and authority. He thus obscures the structures that underlie his own metaphysics of morals, the structures of the practices, narrative unities, and traditions which on his account are both identity-constituting and value-creating. Once these structures are discerned, the possibility of good lives will no longer seem linked to preservation of the forms of the existing polis. Multiculturalism
and Welfare Reform Abstract: Multiculturalism has not yet systematically addressed, much less challenged, dominant approaches to poverty and welfare reform. This lacuna must be rectified since the widespread poverty experienced by people of color poses a substantive threat to the development of a truly inclusive and multicultural society. Present approaches to poverty, defined in the context of welfare reform, are defective for three reasons: First, welfare reform basically aims to reduce welfare "dependency" by moving so-called able-bodied welfare recipients off welfare and into the labor market. This project seems destined to fail given a chronic scarcity of jobs, and especially decent-paying jobs. Second, welfare reform does not provide an adequate framework for the general alleviation of poverty since many poor receive little or no welfare assistance. Third, welfare assistance is based on an invidious, stigmatizing distinction between the able-bodied poor (viewed as unworthy and disreputable) and the disabled poor. Thus, given disproportionate rates of poverty among people of color as well as a general (but mistaken) impression that US poverty is principally a "minority" problem, present policies and attitudes toward the poor insure that many people of color will bear the brunt of economic and symbolic marginalization despite gains which accrue to some people of color as the result of greater racial and cultural inclusiveness. Health Maintenance
as Responsibility for Self. Abstract: Many kinds of health compromising norms, habits, and beliefs are highly resistant to change thereby preventing new knowledge about health maintenance from advancing widespread better health. Persons would be more responsive if they used a health ethic to harmonize personal behavior with health-maintaining practices. We argue that common sense morality includes a portion of a health ethic in the guise of responsibilities to maintain health as well as avoid self destruction. We discuss an example in which its application can retard decline in older age that results from a sedentary lifestyle. Philosophy
of Liberation in the North American Context: Transforming Oppressor
Consciousness. Abstract: This paper utilizes concepts form the works of Paulo Freire and other Latin American philosophers of liberation to formulate a philosophy of liberation in a North American context. Since many North Americans experience a double consciousness, that is, both oppressor and oppressed consciousness, our liberating task is quite complex. This study offers both a philosophical framework and an example of the process of demythologizing one aspect of North American consciousness, the consciousness of privilege. The
Methodological Isolation of Religious Belief. Abstract: According to Langdon Gilkey, both religion and science are cognitive enterprises, but they are separated methodologically. As a result, science and religion are concerned with different, though related levels of truth. Against these claims, historical examples are used to argue that scientific and religious explanations cannot be so neatly separated. To the contrary, both fields frequently treat overlapping ranges of data in methodologically opportunistic ways. The
Sociopolitical Implications of Multiculturalism. Abstract: In this essay, I propose a definition of multiculturalism and provide pragmatic and theoretical reasons for accepting the multicultural perspective when it is defined in this manner. In addition, I discuss and defend three sociopolitical principles to which we are committed in adopting the multicultural perspective and discuss some of the concrete social and institutional changes needed for implementing these principles. Volume 1, Number 3, Fall 1994 Democratic
Public Judgment: The Role of "Mutual Comprehension".
Abstract: The need to choose between good things in conflict lies at the heart of politics. Only citizens deliberating together can authoritatively form the democratic public judgment necessary to resolve such conflicts. The key step to arriving at a sound widely supported public judgment is getting all members of the public to "comprehend"--to understand and appreciate--the goods in conflict. Mutual comprehension enables us to combine our individual perspectives without loss, thereby providing the basis for collective deliberation. Such comprehension is essential because the mutual respect between citizens upon which democratic politics depends is impossible without it. Mutual comprehension is possible because we share a common human nature that, despite our manifest and irreducible differences is built around a limited and universal set of human needs and dispositions. Transforming
Stories: The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Birth of A Reflective
Life. Abstract: The problem addressed by this paper concerns the responsibility of higher education in the growing thoughtlessness of culture. By "thoughtlessness" is meant not the absence of mental "busyness," but indifference to the self-reflective life. How do we cope with the fact that, for so many, the educative act has little or nothing to do with the cultivation of self-reflection, especially when this indifference is amply represented within higher education as well as the wider culture? The paper unfolds in three sections. First, it explores the factors complicating the search for effective materials by which to instigate and encourage the transformation to a self-reflective life. Second, it argues that stories, particularly what it calls "transforming stories," play an important role in provoking and providing insight into the "turning around of the soul" from unreflective to reflective living. Finally, it illustrates how one such transforming story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, by Leo Tolstoy, helps accomplish this educational goal. Pluralism,
Integrity, and the Interpretive Model of Law Abstract: In Law's Empire, Ronald Dworkin argues that the choice between conflicting interpretations of law is, and should be, influenced by the aspiration to "integrity," that is, the construction of law as a coherent whole, as though it were the product of a single author. I argue that, particularly under conditions where opinion on relevant issues is significantly divided, the search for a single coherent explanation of law may be seriously misleading. The idea of integrity is a principled basis for legal interpretation only where there is an underlying unity, rather than an underlying plurality. Dworkin suggests that there is a basis for striving toward such unity, and for an obligation to obey the law, in our "associative" obligations to fellow members of our political community. I argue that such obligations, to the extent that they exist, are too weak to provide an adequate basis for a moral obligation to obey the law. Healing
the Ills of Unemployment, Societal Breakdown, and Ecological Degradation:
Gandhi's Vision for a Sustainable Way of Life. Abstract: In this paper I describe Gandhi's vision for a way of life that would be an essential part of any sustainable solution to world wide problems of unemployment, societal breakdown and ecological degradation. Gandhi's vision included a communitarian lifestyle of simplicity and non-accumulation in which agriculture would be supported by cottage industries using appropriate technologies (e.g., spinning). Assuming obligations to future generations, Gandhi's proposal highlights the degree to which our First-World lifestyle is morally impermissible. One objection to this criticism of our First-World lifestyles is that we can solve the problem of ecological degradation by exporting only appropriate technologies to the Third World and supplementing our use of consumptive technologies with technological cleanups. This suggestion is not only irresponsible and unjust, but also hopeless, for our resource consumptive standards are already the model for development worldwide. To counteract this destructive model we must begin to recreate, in the First World, sustainable lifestyles that others will want to emulate. Part of this task involves the inner work that has been a casualty of the ideologies of modernity, and Gandhi's vision is a blueprint for both the outer and inner work that are essential to recreate a sustainable society. Feminism
and Vegetarianism: A Critique of Peter Singer. Abstract:
Singer's ethics assume an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner.
Nonhuman animals, like human animals, have an interest in not suffering;
so we all agree on an impartial, rational, consistent minimum standard
of treatment that we see must extend to nonhuman animals. While
I think this kind of argument works well in the "liberal" context
of countries based on social contract reasoning, I am not convinced
it goes far enough in achieving the desired attitude shift. We are
still encouraged to think in terms of the self-interest of an autonomous,
impartial, abstract reasoner, and thus there are many instances
in which it is perfectly "reasonable" to harm nonhuman animals.
Feminism
and Vegetarianism: A Response Abstract: Erin McKenna is correct to question the relative weight that I give to emotions and reason in Animal Liberation. In 1975 when the first edition was published, emotion played a key role in the campaigns of animal societies, and I wished to make an appeal to reason that would have ethical and political impact. I disagree with McKenna's conclusion that an impartial, objective stance is either impossible or undesirable. I argue that we should not abandon the attempt to reach an impartial position. Admittedly, in some disputes, giving equal weight to all interests will be extraordinarily difficult. But to do so is not impossible, just extraordinarily difficult, and a decision must be make regarding which course is better on the whole. This difficulty gives no reason to abandon impartiality. Can
Justice as Fairness Accommodate Diversity? An Examination of the
Representation of Minorities and Women in A Theory of Justice.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to expose a problem of application in John Rawls' theory of justice. An examination of his treatment of the application of his principles in A Theory of Justice reveals an insensitivity toward the proper representation of minorities and women. This problem, which is rooted in Rawls' conception of the relevant social position is not properly addressed by him, yet is grounded in inconsistencies which undermine the just practical implementation of his theory. A provisional solution to this problem is to provide the original position with historical information, as well as to place within its jurisdiction the application of the two principles of justice. Volume 1, Number 4, Winter 1994 Is
Deep Ecology Too Radical? Abstract: The theory of Deep Ecology is characterized as having two essential features: the belief that nature is inherently valuable, and the belief that one's self is truly realized by identification with nature. Four common but different meanings of the term "radical" are presented. Whether the theory of Deep Ecology is "too radical" depends upon which of these meanings one is using. A
Surprising Rediscovery and Partial Review of The Foundations
of Belief by James Balfour. Abstract: Well known as the British politician responsible for the Balfour Declaration during World War I, James Balfour was also a philosopher. Long forgotten, his remarkable book The Foundations of Belief (1985) merits contemporary reassessment. Critical of modern compartmentalization, Balfour argues for an integration of religion, philosophy, and science--a position now often identified as postmodern. This article presents some of Balfour's contemporary scholarly significance, and hints at his usefulness in undergraduate teaching. Moral
Growth in Children's Literature: A Primer with Examples.
Abstract: This essay applies a plausible model for moral growth to examples of secular and religious children's literature. The point is that moral maturation, given this model, requires imaginary worlds on both secular and religious presuppositions. Trying to guide a child's reading toward either religious or secular books rather than toward good literature is shown therefore to miss the mark of good parenting. Speaking
for Myself in Philosophy. Abstract: The conventions of positivism, still the standard model for academic discourse, require philosophers to take knowledge out of the context of personal experience. In this essay, I argue that such a decontextualization impoverished the development of moral and epistemological knowledge. I propose to contextualize such knowledge by using the personal essay as a style of philosophical writing. As literary style shapes what can be thought and said, adoption of a different literary style calls for a reinterpretation of philosophy's understanding of the self, the quest for truth. and the nature of universality. Five
Arguments for Vegetarianism. Abstract: Five different arguments for vegetarianism are discussed: the system of meat production deprives poor people of food to provide meat for the wealthy. thus violating the principle of distributive justice; the world livestock industry causes great and manifold ecological destruction; meat-eating cultures and societal oppression of women are intimately linked and so feminism and vegetarianism must both be embraced to transform our patriarchal culture; both utilitarian and rights-based reasoning lead to the conclusion that raising and slaughtering animals is immoral, and so we ought to boycott meat; meat consumption causes many serious diseases and lowers life expectancy, and so is unhealthy. Objections to each argument are examined. The conclusion reached is that the cumulative case successfully establishes vegetarianism as a virtuous goal. Feminist
Revaluation of the Mythical Triad, Lilith, Adam, Eve: A Contribution
to Role Model Theory. Abstract: This essay inquires into the need for and power of role models, and suggests some answers. The example it employs to study the issue is the contemporary Jewish feminist "role model," Lilith, first wife of Adam. Various and opposite forms of the Lilith-and-Adam myth through the ages are given, including new contributions from a Lilith anthology in preparation by the author and others. Those needs of women and men that the mythical "role model" is constructed to satisfy are suggested. Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 1995 Rorty,
Ironist Theory, and Socio-Political Control. Abstract: In Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty courageously takes a stand against the public dissemination of ironist philosophical theory, such as that produced by Nietzsche, because he sees it as being socially undermining and irreconcilable in theoretical terms with liberal democratic values. And yet, the intellectuals in his ideal society would, privately, share many of the same views from which Rorty would desire that the general public be protected. Thus Rorty would appear to trade tensions between the individual and the state for tensions between the intellectual and the nonintellectual--a dubious improvement. By redescribing both the motives of the typical ironist theorist and his basic view of large-scale, socio-political structure I will try to reinstate the social value of ironist theory. Throughout the paper I will formulate perspectives and raise questions illustrative of such theory and aimed at trying to maintain as full and open a communication as possible between the individual, whether intellectual or not, and socio-political structures within which he finds himself. Crisis
and Narrativity Abstract: Despite the dramatic changes in international politics it appears that crises--episodes in which decision-makers hazard urgent, perilous choices--will remain a prominent and dangerous feature of international relations. This realization prompts the question that informs this paper: why do American decision-makers define a situation as a crisis in the first place? I argue that prevailing theories do not adequately account for crises: the same situation (or perception of the situation) may be interpreted differently by various decision-makers. Specifically, it may be construed as an endurable problem to be resolved in due course, or an unendurable crisis demanding immediate resolution at considerable risk. I entertain the possibility that crises occur because crisis discourse has become the lingua franca in the halls of power. Taking a semiotic approach, I argue that crisis narratives are read into ambiguous situations to render them meaningful and dramatically self-valorizing. Cultural
Diversity and the Systems View. Abstract: While systems concepts had a tremendous impact on social thought in the 1950s and 1960s, they are increasingly under attack in the current postmodern climate with its emphasis on particularity and difference. The idea of the system is associated with technocracy, hierarchical forms of social organization, and the suppression of individual difference. However, there is a significant body of work within the systems tradition that fosters an appreciation of diversity through its ecological orientation, and supports more participatory forms of social organization based on its understanding of the self-organizing nature of living systems. While the issue of cultural diversity is often addressed in oppositional terms, I suggest that it might be more effectively served through an appreciation of the global interdependence between all peoples and between humans and nature that can only be sustained on a cooperative and participatory basis. Emancipatory
Social Science and Genealogy: Habermas on Nietzsche.
Abstract: I argue that Habermas' critique of Nietzsche overlooks the similarities between his conception of an emancipatory social science and Nietzsche's conception of genealogy. I conclude that it is necessary to disagree with Habermas' contention that with Nietzsche the critique of modernity abandons its emancipatory content. No
Goddess Was Your Mother: Western Philosophy's Abandonment of Its
Multicultural Matrix. Abstract:
This paper begins with three observations: 1) At what is generally
believed to be its origin in ancient Greece, "Western" philosophy
is not sharply distinguished from poetry, science, or theology;
2) At what is generally believed to be its origin, "Western" philosophy
is not Western; it is born in a multicultural matrix consisting
of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Southern European influences;
3) As philosophy comes to think of itself as "Western," it separates
itself from poetry, science, and the rest of the world--particularly
from its roots in Northern Africa. Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 1995 Thoreauvian
Patriotism as an Environmental Virtue Abstract: In Walden Henry David Thoreau argues for and against patriotism. This paper argues that thoughtful environmentalists should do likewise. It explicates Thoreau's accounts of "settling" and farming as efforts to rethink and deepen his connections to the land. These efforts define a patriotism that is local, thoughtful and moral. Thoreau's economic philosophy can be seen as applied patriotism. Like other virtues such as courage or prudence, patriotism is liable to a skewed development and various kinds of misuse. Yet properly developed it is a part of a good human life. Thoreauvian patriotism provides a strong base from which to oppose militarism and xenophobia, which many intellectuals mistakenly equate with patriotism. Ted
Schoen on "The Methodological Isolation of Religious Belief."
Abstract: In this brief comment on Ted Schoen's paper, I tend to agree more than I disagree. Methodological isolation has been widely and uncritically accepted by thinkers about religion and science, and Schoen's dissipation of the isolationist discourse deserves positive notice. For too long, science has been the bully of the epistemic neighborhood, and religious thinkers have taken refuge in methodological isolation. As Schoen argues, neither religion nor science is isolated; rather, both are interacting in the same comprehensive and value-laden domain, which also includes art, poetry, ethics and metaphysics. A
Big Bang Cosmological Argument? Abstract: William Lane Craig has defended a modern First Cause argument based on 1) a principle of universal causality and 2) the claim that the universe must have had a beginning. But 1) is susceptible to counter examples from quantum theory. Moreover, Craig's defense of 2) is open to serious question. He claims that an actual infinity (of time) is impossible; he also claims that 2) is in fact supported by big bang theory. I argue that both of these claims are mistaken, and that in consequence we have no particular reason to suppose that 2) is true. I conclude that the First Cause argument fails, but I suggest that a weaker inductive argument might be worth a try. Kant
and the Land Ethic Abstract: Does Leopold's land ethic principle represent a break with traditional Western moral philosophies as some have argued? Or is it instead an extension of traditional Western moral ideas as Leopold believed? I argue that Leopold's principle is compatible with an ecologically-informed Kantianism. Philosophical
Counselling: Bridging the Narrative Rift Abstract: Self-understanding is to a great extent defined by narrative: who we are as human beings is determined by the stories we, and others, tell about ourselves. Yet many are unable to compose coherent personal narratives, as their experiences do not fall within the scope of an accepted conceptual framework. Survivors of trauma are particularly apt to fall into this "narrative rift, " where there can be no words to describe, and hence can be no assimilation of, their experiences. Using the example of child sexual abuse, and drawing on the work of Bass, Spence, Schafer, and Guignon, I propose an examination of the nature of narrative fragmentation itself. Philosophical counselling may succeed where psychoanalysis might not: for where the latter has theoretical commitments to specific narratives, the former, through its reluctance to force epistemological or metaphysical assumptions on the narrator, may well facilitate a more comprehensive self-understanding. Volume 2, Number 3, Fall 1995 Human-Centered
or Ecocentric Environmental Ethics? Abstract: Are ethical principles that guide human behavior suitable for the array of complex new environmental problems? Justice, nonmaleficence, noninterference, and fidelity seem by extension to apply. Conflicts between the principles of humanistic ethics and environmental ethics may perhaps be resolved, as Paul W. Taylor indicates, through the application of such "priority principles" as "self-defense," "proportionality," "minimum wrong," and "restitutive justice." Taylor suggests that these principles would forbid moral agents from perpetrating harm through direct killing, habitat destruction, environmental contamination, and pollution. On
The Alleged Uniqueness And Incomprehensibility Of The Holocaust.
Abstract: A number of philosophers have argued that the Holocaust is incapable of philosophical analysis and explanation. There are two arguments for this view: (1) that it is unique, and thus resists such analysis; and (2) that it is incomprehensible, and thus incapable of being understood. In this article, several versions of both of these arguments are considered and shown not to support the conclusion that the Holocaust resists philosophical explanation. An alternative route to philosophical explanation is then suggested. The
Kevorkian Challenge Abstract: The problem of self-determination in the dying process confronts a dilemma regarding clients' desire to know and not to know. Ambivalence and guilt make "free choice" problematic in choosing the way to die. Telling dying clients the "whole truth" about their condition is an art or skill. The question of a meaningful death raises questions that philosophical analysis can help clarify. Galileo
and the Church: An Untidy Affair Abstract: In his recent review of the Galileo affair, Pope John Paul II confidently proclaimed the intellectual autonomy of religion, comfortably affirming that the methods and ideas of religion are cleanly separable from those of the sciences. Unfortunately, a close review of the actual details of the Galilean controversy reveals that the lesson to be learned from that famous case is not one of sanitary intellectual compartmentalization, but one of entangling interdependencies among scientific, religious, and philosophical thought. Volume 2, Number 4, Winter 1995 Between
Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism Abstract: Three ways of relating the structures of human existence to the world are offered by ecological holism, moral extensionism, and biotic communitarianism. Leopold's attempt to reconcile these three is examined in the light of Peirce's categories, in order to ascertain how far Leopold's final position is anthropocentric, ecocentric, neither, or both. Earthday
25: A Retrospective of Reform Environmental Movements.
Abstract: Industrial growth and environmental protection have been in perpetual conflict. Reform environmental movements have attempted to address some of the worst abuses of nature by demanding government intervention to restrain pollution. Also, these reform movements have cooperated with corporate elites to obtain some controls on pollution. The 104th Congress attempted to destroy even weak pollution controls. New efforts to mobilize resistance are occurring. The deep, long-range ecology movement inspires resistance by affirming the joy of human participation in nature. The
Self Well Lost: Psychotherapeutic Interpretation and Nelson Goodman's
Irrealism. Abstract: In this paper, I consider Goodman's philosophy in relation to psychotherapeutic interpretation. Goodman argues that we should understand our knowledge as a creative symbolic construction, and not as a set of ideas that match reality. The notion of "the world" does no epistemological work. Using an example of psychotherapeutic interpretation found in Erick Erickson's writings, I argue that while Erikson suggests that he discovers in the patient's showings and tellings the patient's message and its meaning, I argue (with Goodman) that Erikson creates a narrative identity for his patient. The self is not found but fashioned, and it is deemed the true self because it coheres with Erikson's general theoretic standpoint and is found to be cognitively and practically helpful for the patient. The conclusion is that selves, like worlds, are largely creative constructs. Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 1996 A
Feminist Interpretation of Vulnerability Abstract: Under patriarchy, the rationally autonomous agent engages in contractual relations in a marketplace society. The contractual model reinforces a negative conception of the vulnerable as weak and as susceptible to injury and exploitation. Recent feminist writing has a positive notion of vulnerability that is in conflict with contractualism. Positive notions of vulnerability, the paper argues, are found in Virginia Held's conception of mothering, Nel Noddings' analysis of teaching, and Annette Baier's development of trust as essential for social relationships. The
Teaching of Ethics Abstract: The most important philosophy course that contemporary undergraduates may take is ethics. Concerned with how to live a human life, ethics becomes ever more urgent as life unfolds. As the teacher, a philosopher likely wonders about the interaction in the classroom. This paper explores that interaction. Taking a cue from Aristotle, it is argued that the teaching of ethics is an invitation to self-reflection and self-responsibility, more so than a passing on of a set of ethical principles or laws. Epistemology
of Technology Assessment: Collingridge, Forecasting Methodologies,
and Technological Control. Abstract: This paper criticizes Collingridge's arguments against an epistemology of technological control. Collingridge claims that because prediction mechanisms are inadequate, his "dilemma of control" demonstrates that the sociopolitical impact of new technologies cannot be forecasted, and that, consequently, policy makers must concentrate their control measures on minimizing the costs required to alter entrenched technologies. I argue that Collingridge does not show on either horn that forecasting is impossible, and that his criticisms of forecasting methods are self-defeating for they undercut his positive case for the control of entrenched technologies. Finally, I indicate an empirical base for forecasting risk that may define epistemic principles of technology assessment. Sexual
Activity, Consent, Mistaken Belief, and Mens Rea. Abstract: The gendered subcultures of our society may have different value systems. Consequently, sexual activity that involves members of these subcultures may be problematic, especially concerning the encoding and decoding of consent. This has serious consequences for labelling the activity as sex or sexual assault. Conceiving consent not as a mental act but as a behavioural act (that is, using a performative standard) would eliminate these problems. However, if we remove the mental element from one aspect, then to be consistent we must remove it from all; and, as a result, the "mistaken belief" defense would be eliminated and mens rea would become insignificant (in other words, if what the woman means is irrelevant, then what the man believes or intends should also be irrelevant). This consequence suggests major changes to our current conceptions of legal justice, which changes, if undesirable, prompt reconsideration of the initial proposal to use a performative standard for consent. Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 1996 Is
Naturalized Epistemology Experientially Vacuous? Abstract: By naturalized epistemology, I mean those views expressed by Nozick and Margolis among others who favor an evolutionary account of human rationality as an adaptive mechanism which is unlikely to provide the means of its own legitimization and therefore unlikely to produce a single set of rules or norms which are certifiably rational. Analyzing the likely relativism that stems from such a view, namely that there could be divergent standards of rationality under different historical or environmental conditions, I conclude that evolutionary epistemologies are unable to account for rationality as an experienced capacity on the part of human beings. After giving a few examples of what seem to me to be cases where we do experience a form of reason that appears antinomian, I challenge a naturalized view of mind to embrace and provide some sort of explanatory account of this kind of mental elasticity that it both seems to make room for and is certainly not unfamiliar to other philosophical perspectives such as that of Zen Buddhism. Rethinking
Wilderness: The Need for a New Idea of Wilderness. Abstract: The "received" concept of wilderness as a place apart from and untouched by humans is five-times flawed: it is not universalizable, it is ethnocentric, it is ecologically naive, it separates humans from nature, and its referent is nonexistent. The received view of wilderness leads to dilemmas and unpalatable consequences, including the loss of designated wilderness areas by political and legislative authorities. What is needed is a more flexible notion of wilderness. Suggestions are made for a revised concept of wilderness. Toward
a Feminist Revision of Research Protocols on the Etiology of Homosexuality.
Abstract: Examining the language and paradigms of science as rhetorical, that is, arising from the sociocultural forces that shape ideology, reveals androcentric assumptions that tend to thwart democratic public policy as well as effective methodology. This paper applies some recent feminist critiques of the biological sciences to the current research on the possible hormonal and genetic factors contributing to homosexuality, clarifying how this research perpetuates hierarchical binaries and suggesting ways to reconceptualize human sexuality through revised research protocols. Incommensurable
Differences: Cultural Relativism and Anti-rationalism Concerning
Self and Other. Abstract: This paper is a defense of rationalism and a critique of what I call anti-rationalist themes in postmodernist, feminist and multiculturalist thought. I use the term rationalism in its broad sense to identify an extensive set of philosophic assumptions rooted in the Enlightenment. Rationalism in this sense encompasses the empiricist, materialist and Kantian positions out of which modern analytic philosophy develops. In particular, this paper focuses on criticisms that treat rationality and attendant presumptions of objectivity as a Eurocentric form of ethnocentrism. These anti-rationalist concerns are often expressed in prescriptions for multiculturalism and complaints about Western logocentrism and insensitivity to the importance of difference, diversity, attunement, and other. The paper identifies central themes that reflect this anti-modern and anti-rationalist temper and argues that each embodies a deep irresolvable philosophic confusion. In developing this critique, I try to show that the Enlightenment project, properly understood, provides the best and most comprehensive groundings for declaiming and remedying the faults of ethnocentrism and prejudice. Volume
3, Number 3, Fall 1996 Born
to Affirm the Eternal Recurrence: Nietzsche, Buber, and Springsteen.
Abstract: I argue that the Bruce Springsteen song "Born to Run" needs to be interpreted in light of--and thus gives evidence of a connection between--the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Buber. Along the way I give an in-depth reading of the Nietzschean doctrines of Eternal Recurrence and Overman as they emerge from Also Sprach Zarathustra, as well as a brief overview of Buber's I and Thou. Ethics
and MIS Education Abstract: In this paper, we document the need for an education in ethics in management information systems (MIS) curricula, identify the gap in current curricula materials for MIS, and propose material and an organization of material to include in MIS curricula. The paper contributes to the development of material on ethics for MIS curricula, and also advances the discussion between people educated in MIS and people educated in ethics. Fragmented
Selves and Loss of Community Abstract: In this paper we try to provide the beginning of an analysis of some of the crises of our time. We do so by arguing that a certain account of the individual blocks our ability to think about solutions at the individual and the social levels. As an example we take the industrialization of housework in the United States and its effects on women's identity and on notions of "home." We suggest that the rise of liberal individualism, the industrialization of public and private life, and the predomination of capitalism are central to the disintegration of the individual/self, and that they limit the possibilities of some to determine the content and direction of self change. We argue that a notion of self as integrated and in process is needed in order to address our rapidly changing world. The
Theory of Meaning: An Impasse Abstract: This paper endeavors to delineate the salient features of the theory of meaning and to show how meaning converges with metaphysics. For the British classical linguistic philosophers, meaning concerns only autonomous propositions, which allegedly in isolation clarify thought and facilitate understanding of language. But for the American philosophers W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson, meaning is inextricably related to human life and its problems. According to them, our experiences are interrelated and cannot be separated from one another. A statement cannot be meaningful in isolation; that is to say, it cannot have meaning without holistic connections and metaphysical presumptions. Volume 3, Number 4, Winter 1996 The
Supreme God in African (Igbo) Religious Thought. Abstract: From African ontology, religious experiences, myths of creation, and language, I argue that even though Africans (Igbo) conceive of supreme deities, none of the adjudged supreme deities is identifiable with the Supreme God propagated by Christian missionaries and theologians. To translate, therefore, the names of African deities, such as Chukwu or Chineke, to mean the God preached by Christians is to yoke to the Igbo religious thought the concept "creation out of nothing," which is alien to traditional African cosmology. Such a translation will not only distort the architecture of traditional African religion, it will impose on the Igbo the recognition of a deity that would be beyond the reach of their standard reciprocity arrangements with their Gods. Moreover, throughout Igboland, no shrines are dedicated to the worship of an unknown God identifiable with that propagated by Christians. I
Married an Empiricist: A Phenomenologist Examines Philosophical
Personae. Abstract: I suggest that philosophical writers should connect epistemological theorizing with life experience in order to explore the complex relationship between the two. The relationship of theory to experience does not fit the neat hierarchical model of a small number of general organizing principles giving form to or receiving form from a large mass of facts. Instead, as the narrative of my honeymoon and my life following it suggests, philosophical theories are one of the many genres of stories philosophers tell themselves in the process of creating and recreating personal identities and personae. Liberalism
and Consumerism Abstract: Communitarians have argued that liberalism somehow causes or leads to a consumer society. Moreover, they have argued that consumer society is somehow morally suspect. Given the connection between liberalism and consumerism, they have argued that the moral problems they have found in consumer society give reason to oppose liberalism. In this paper, after defining "consumerism" and "liberalism," I examine the various communitarian arguments against consumerism, and the various arguments that seek to connect liberalism to consumerism. I argue that only one of these arguments has any hope of establishing this connection. Re-claiming
Hestia: Goddess of Everyday Life. Abstract: The concepts of "hearth and home" and "keeping the home fire burning" can be traced back to ancient Greece and are associated with the oikos. Such metaphors remain pervasive (if often disregarded) expressions in contemporary life. The goddess Hestia, identified as the "goddess of the hearth," has been maligned in the patriarchal literature and ignored in feminist writing. This paper argues for re-visiting and re-claiming Hestia as a unifying principle in meeting the quotidian demands of everyday life. It suggests a new perspective for further philosophical exploration of the "private sphere" with special relevance for practical reasoning in the ethics and aesthetics involved in contemporary life. Volume 4, Numbers 1 & 2, Spring & Summer 1997 An
Incrementalist View of Proposed Uses of Information Technology in
Higher Education. Abstract: A number of national educational organizations and individual authors have called for the use of information technology to radically reform higher education. Several projections of how this reformation will unfold are presented here. Three different approaches to critically assessing these projections are considered in this article, two briefly and one in more detail. Brief consideration is given to an approach based on educational values and to an approach based on cost/benefit analysis. After some discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches, a third approach deriving from a theory of technology control (incrementalism) is elaborated in more detail and is found to offer helpful criticisms of the called for revolution in higher education. Some recommendations for how these new technologies can be developed in responsible ways are also offered. Authority,
Autonomy, Authenticity: An Etiological Understanding.
Abstract: This essay attempts to understand the search for authenticity in terms of the breakdown of authority in the modern world. The sense of autonomy, I argue, emerges from the need to choose the authorities one will accept. The ever-increasing difficulty of choosing from among authorities is internalized and is experienced as a difficulty of choosing, or "finding," oneself. The shattered authorities on the outside become a fragmented self on the inside. The search for the authentic self, then, is the search for an authority on the inside that has been broken and lost on the outside. The prospects for achieving such selfhood are critically evaluated. On
Cyberspace and Being: Identity, Self, and Hyperreality.
Abstract: Does it make sense to talk about cyberspace as an alternative social reality? Is cyberspace the new frontier for the realization of the postmodern self? For philosophers Taylor and Saarinen, and the psychologist Turkle, cyberspace is the practical manifestation of a postmodern reality, or rather hyperreality (Baudrillard). In hyperreal cyberspace, they argue, identity becomes plastic, "I can change my self as easily as I change my clothes." I will argue using Martin Heidegger that our being is being-in-the-world. To be-in-the-world means to be involved in the world; to have an involvement whole that is the always already present significance of what I do. Furthermore, that the making or choosing of self is only existentially meaningful in a horizon of significance, and involvement whole. I will argue that identity is tied to community, and community involves accepting some level of already there thrownness. Every cyber-traveler will eventually have to deal with the fact of being, always already, in-the-world. Matters
of Meaning: Authenticity, Autonomy, and Authority in Kierkegaard.
Abstract: I argue that at least some of Kierkegaard's authorship is designed to make a rational case for a religious and specifically Christian existence; he is not a total fideist. He argues that anything short of the existential stance of the "strong spiritual/moral evaluator" is despair. To overcome this we are compelled to reach for religious or transcendent sources of meaning; the authentic life is the life of constant ethical and spiritual evaluation grounded in the authority of God. But I ask how does Kierkegaard justify the stance of the strong evaluator in the first place? I argue that he crafts an existential and pragmatic case for it, but that this approach does not have the strength he suggests. Indeed, I argue that because this defense reflects his own Protestant Christian context, his case for Christian existence (as an existence of strong spiritual/moral evaluation) is seriously weakened. Consumerism,
the Procedural Republic, and the Unencumbered Self. Abstract: Communitarians have offered a number of arguments against liberalism that connect liberalism to consumerism. In this paper, I examine an argument to this effect developed by Michael Sandel. I argue that Sandel's argument fails to undermine liberalism, but that it does demonstrate that many contemporary liberals have placed too great an emphasis on the principle of political neutrality. I argue that liberalism, properly understood, requires both limited neutrality and an emphasis on democratic deliberation. If this is the case, than Sandel's argument misses its target. However, it does point out how contemporary liberalism needs to be reformed. By emphasizing more local democratic control over the economy, liberalism would not only become more theoretically consistent, but it would distance itself from consumerism. One
Oppression Or Many? Abstract: Enquiry into the relationship between kinds of oppression raises several possibilities. Perhaps there are multiple yet distinct oppressions. If this is so, are there philosophical relationships among them? What are the theoretical distinctions between racism and sexism, for example. The question raised here has to do with the philosophical structure of social dominance, rather than the discrete manifestations usually based on distinct target groups. Although the characteristics of peoples who are targets of each of the individual kinds of oppression are different, and even though many people are multiply oppressed, there is good reason to question the underlying assumption that each form of oppression is fundamentally separate and distinct from the others. There are many deep correspondences shared by specifically focused theories of oppression. It is plausible to suggest there is a single phenomenon called oppression. Perhaps there is only one monster with several heads, rather than many monsters hiding in our communal closet. Language,
Meaning, and Ethics: A Phenomenological Correlation of Morality
and Self-Conscious Signification. Abstract: This paper takes up an underdeveloped argument of Charles Taylor that linguisticality is constitutive of moral agency. Taylor's position is part of a set of contemporary arguments that language, especially as dialogue or discourse, is the normative framework which grounds or validates fundamental norms or values. Taylor's contribution to this "dialogical turn" is substantial and innovative, but it is not without weakness. Rather than deal with all the issues involved in this dialogical turn, I argue just that language does ground morality as a distinctively human way of creating meaning, that is, as Taylor argues, constitutive of the self and self-understanding. Self-understanding, or the appropriation of moral self-consciousness, is what is meant by the authenticity and autonomy which constitute moral authority. I argue in essence that language provides a necessary and constitutive link between private and public spheres of meaning in a way that renders moral discourse meaningful and constitutively human. Against
Cartmill on Hunting: Kinship with Animals and the Midcentric Fallacy.
Abstract: Three recent books offer alternative views of hunting: Matt Cartmill's A View to A Death in the Morning (Cartmill, 1993), James Swan's In Defense of Hunting (Swan 1995), and Forrest Wood's The Delights and Dilemmas of Hunting (Wood,1997). First, I argue that Cartmill's claim of continuity of kind between animals and persons is both overstated and logically disconnected from the hunting/anti-hunting debate. Second, I argue that Cartmill's claim that the suffering of sentient animals is somehow intrinsically undesirable exhibits an unjustified prejudice toward middle-sized organisms. Volume 4, Number 3, Fall 1997 Wallace
Stevens: A Portrait of the Artist as a Phenomenologist.
Abstract: Confusing modern poetry with philosophy is a common fault of literary criticism. Yet, the work of some poets can benefit critically from philosophical interpretations. Wallace Stevens is a poet who manifested an abiding interest in philosophy. His poems consistently display, in both their syntax and modulation of thought, philosophical parallels. Stevens' dominant mode of thought is phenomenological. This can be shown by analyzing parallels between phenomenological methodology and Stevens' poetry. Particularly three poems--"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" (1917), "The Snow Man" (1921), and "The Latest Freed Man" (1938)--embody, respectively, the poem as doing phenomenology, the poem as a description of the phenomenological mind, and the poem as a portrait of the phenomenologist. Impartialism,
Care, and the Self. Abstract: In this paper, I discuss the ethics of care as a response to impartialist ethical theories. In section 1, I contrast Gilligan's critique of impartial ethical theories with other objections to impartialism. In section 2, I analyze some of the ways in which impartialists have attempted to understand the ethics of care since the publication of Gilligan's text. In section 3, I argue against proponents of impartialism and show that care constitutes an ethical theory in its own right, not one which is dependent or parasitic upon impartialism. In section 4, I contrast care ethic's conception of the self with that offered by traditional ethical theories, and argue that the most important distinction between the care and impartialist accounts of morality lies in the conception of the moral self which informs each of these approaches. Ontological
Assumptions: Descartes, Searle, and Edelman. Abstract: The proposition that there is a purely causal explanation of subjective states of human consciousness is a philosophical one. The affirmation of such a proposition must be a premise to research. And the justification for such a premise will be found in part in the fundamental ontological assumptions of the researcher. By examining the assumptions of Rene Descartes, at the beginning of the scientific age, I hope to show a similar set of assumptions behind the thought of two recent contributors to the debate, John Searle and Gerald Edelman. I will conclude that a crucial question begged by all three. The
View From Nowhere and the Meaning of Life in Thomas Nagel.
Abstract: Thomas Nagel contends that the actual philosophical problem in the meaning of life is the independent world we live in, and only requires a self-transcendent being who glimpses and independent world. I argue that Nagel is mistaken to think that self-transcendence evokes the same anxiety for humans living in the world of Dante as Darwin. Nagel's view from nowhere is rather a modern version of the world. Secondly, while I concede that there is a common anxiety felt by self-transcendence in glimpsing an independent objective world, we also view that world through a set of beliefs that conditions how we see that world. The
Duty of Solidarity: Feminism and Catholic Social Teaching.
Abstract: Catholic Social Teaching of late has a lot more in common with feminist moral theory than might be evident at first glance, After a brief explanation of Catholic Social Teaching's duty of solidarity, and a look at some of the feminist critiques of this solidarity, I point out some of the significant similarities between feminist ethics and the duty of solidarity. The last section focuses on community and care, the epistemological role of experience and the world view of the other, the centrality of self-determination, and the final goal of both the duty of solidarity and feminist ethics: liberation from oppression. Community
of Choice and Community of Origin: Insights into Dewey's Theory
of Communication. Abstract: This essay unearths the meaning of community in John Dewey's Experience andNature, using Marilyn Friedman's terms "community of choice" and "community of origin." The authority of communication as determinative of Dewey's community comes out. In fact, communication seems to be the philosophical point of Dewey's descriptions in that book, which reveals his anticipation of a community wherever communication obtains. Dewey is shown, in conclusion. to call us beyond communities of choice or origin to a community of authority which holds both peculiar promise for, and demands of, individuals. Volume 4, Number 4, Winter 1998 APA
Central Division Group Session G1-3, May 7, 1998, Chicago, Illinois:
Engaging
Transcendence: Can We Think G-d and Philosophy Together?
No AbstractIt's
(Almost) All Greek To Me: Levinas's "Ethics As First Philosophy"
and Analytic Philosophy.
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