Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Thomistic Metaphysics Of Participation Accounts For Embodied Rationality, Andrew Mullins

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Rationality should not be seen as a ghostly process exclusive of the world of matter, but rather as a transcendent process within matter itself by virtue of a participated power. A Thomistic metaphysics of embodied participation in being effectively answers Robert Pasnau’s objection that the standard hylomorphic account confuses ontological and representational immateriality, and is more satisfying than nonreductive physicalist accounts of rationality, and the Anglo-American hylomorphic accounts reliant on formal causality. When the active intellect is understood as a participated power and not as a formal or constitutive principle of rationality, the transcendent basis of rationality is clarified; all …

The Incoherence Challenge For Subject Combination: An Analytic Assessment, Itay Shani, Heath Williams

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Panpsychism is now a bona fide potential solution to the metaphysical quandary of consciousness. Much of the debate concerning the viability of panpsychism is centered on the combination problem (CP). Intriguingly, the literature analyzing this problem displays two competing interpretations which differ in their modal force. According to the first, which we call the ‘no-necessitation view', CP consists in the absence of a priori necessitation of macro-level phenomenal facts from micro-level phenomenal facts. In contrast, the second interpretation, which we label the ‘incoherence charge’ (IC), goes further by insisting that it can be positively demonstrated that micro-experiences cannot …

Catholic Education In An Age Of Unbelief, Optimism And Indifference: The Pastoral Vocation Of An Incarnational Educator, Glenn Morrison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Arbitrariness Arguments Against Temporal Discounting, Timothy Smartt

IES Papers and Journal Articles

Craig Callender [2022] provides a novel challenge to the non-arbitrariness principle. His challenge plays an important role in his argument for the rational permissibility of a non-exponential temporal discounting rate. But the challenge is also of wider interest: it raises significant questions about whether we ought to accept the non-arbitrariness principle as a constraint on rational preferences. In this paper, I present two reasons to resist Callender’s challenge. First, I present a reason to reject his claim that the non-arbitrariness principle only targets pure time preferences. Second, I criticize the inference Callender draws from a modest claim to a much …

A Content Analysis Of Euthanasia Polls In Australia And New Zealand: Words Do Matter, Graham Grove, Ian Hughes, Melanie Lovell, Megan Best

IES Papers and Journal Articles

Aim: To explore whether public support for and opposition to Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide (EPAS) as measured in historic Australian and New Zealand polls has been influenced by the wording of survey questions.

Methods: Australian and New Zealand random-sample post-1995 EPAS poll questions asked of the general public were identified and subjected to content analysis. Individual phrases and words were considered in terms of their favourability towards or unfavourability against EPAS and each poll question was assigned a net favourability score. Variation of support for EPAS based on year, location and favourability of language was analysed by various statistical …

Factors Influencing Nurse Spiritual Care Practices At The End Of Life: A Systematic Review, Rita Mascio, Megan Best, Sandra Lynch, Jane Phillips, Kate Jones

IES Papers and Journal Articles

Objectives: The aim was to identify determinants of nurse spiritual/existential care practices toward end-of-life patients. Nurses can play a significant role in providing spiritual/existential care, but they actually provide this care less frequently than desired by patients.

Methods: A systematic search was performed for peer-reviewed articles that reported factors that influenced nurses’ spiritual/existential care practices toward adult end-of-life patients.

Results: The review identified 42 studies and included the views of 4,712 nurses across a range of hospital and community settings. The most frequently reported factors/domains that influenced nurse practice were patient-related social influence, skills, social/professional role and identity, intentions …

Situationism, Capacities And Culpability, Adam Piovarchy

IES Papers and Journal Articles

The situationist experiments demonstrate that most people’s behaviour is influenced by environmental factors much more than we expect, and that ordinary people can be led to behave very immorally. A number of philosophers have investigated whether these experiments demonstrate that subjects’ responsibility-relevant capacities are impeded. This paper considers how, in practice, we can assess when agents have a reduced capacity to avoid wrongdoing. It critiques some previously offered strategies including appeals to the reasonable person standard, appeals to counterfactuals and understandability of behaviour, and appeals to base rates of wrongdoing. It then proposes we should think a certain factor impeded …

Is Capital Punishment Contrary To The Dignity Of The Human Person? Reflections About The Meaning Of The Revised Paragraph 2267 Of The Catechism Of The Catholic Church, Mariusz Biliniewicz

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Situationism, Capacities And Culpability, Adam Piovarchy

IHR Papers and Journal Articles

The situationist experiments demonstrate that most people’s behaviour is influenced by environmental factors much more than we expect, and that ordinary people can be led to behave very immorally. A number of philosophers have investigated whether these experiments demonstrate that subjects’ responsibility-relevant capacities are impeded. This paper considers how, in practice, we can assess when agents have a reduced capacity to avoid wrongdoing. It critiques some previously offered strategies including appeals to the reasonable person standard, appeals to counterfactuals and understandability of behaviour, and appeals to base rates of wrongdoing. It then proposes we should think a certain factor impeded …

Effectiveness Of Spiritual Care Training For Rehabilitation Professionals: An Exploratory Controlled Trial, Kate Fiona Jones, Julie Pryor, Candice Care-Unger, Joseph Descallar, Grahame Kenneth Simpson

IES Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Spirituality may play an important role in neurorehabilitation, however research findings indicate that rehabilitation professionals do not feel well equipped to deliver spiritual care.

Objective: To evaluate a spiritual care training program for rehabilitation professionals.

Methods: An exploratory controlled trial was conducted. Participants enrolled in a two-module spiritual care training program. Spiritual care competency was measured with the Spiritual Care Competency Scale. Confidence and comfort levels were measured using the Spiritual Care Competency Scale domains. The Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale assessed participant attitudes and knowledge. Measures were administered three times: pre-program, post-program and six weeks follow-up. …

"Spirituality Is Everybody's Business": An Exploration Of The Impact Of Spiritual Care Training Upon The Perceptions And Practice Of Rehabilitation Professionals, Kate Fiona Jones, Julie Pryor, Candice Care-Unger, Grahame Simpson

IES Papers and Journal Articles

Purpose: This study explored the impact of a brief spiritual care training program upon the perceptions and self-reported practice of rehabilitation professionals working in traumatic injury.

Methodology and methods: A qualitative study. Semi-structured interviews were held with staff from a rehabilitation hospital in Sydney, Australia, between six and eight weeks after participation in spiritual care training. A thematic analysis was conducted.

Results: Of the 41 rehabilitation professionals who attended the training (1 h online, 1.5 h face to face), 16 agreed to be interviewed. The majority worked in spinal cord injury and were female. Half reported holding a Christian affiliation. …

Reconsidering The Rule Of Consideration: Probabilistic Knowledge And Legal Proof, Timothy Smartt

IES Papers and Journal Articles

In this paper, I provide an argument for rejecting Sarah Moss's recent account of legal proof. Moss's account is attractive in a number of ways. It provides a new version of a knowledge-based theory of legal proof that elegantly resolves a number of puzzles about mere statistical evidence in the law. Moreover, the account promises to have attractive implications for social and moral philosophy, in particular about the impermissibility of racial profiling and other harmful kinds of statistical generalisation. In this paper, I show that Moss's account of legal proof crucially depends on a moral norm called the rule of …

From Outside Of Ethics: Moss, Sarah. Probabilistic Knowledge, Timothy Smartt

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Book Review published in the "From Outside of Ethics" section of Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy.

Moss, Sarah. Probabilistic Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 288. $54.00 (cloth).

The Aristotelian Context Of The Existence-Essence Distinction In De Ente Et Essentia, Angus Brook

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

This paper explores the Aristotelian context of the real distinction between existence and essence thought to be posited in Thomas Aquinas’ early work De Ente Et Essentia. In doing so, the paper situates its own position in the context of contemporary scholarship and in relation to the contemporary trend to downplay Aristotle’s influence in Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy. The paper argues that re-reading De Ente Et Essentia in this way sheds new light on some of the crucial debates in contemporary Thomist scholarship, particularly with respect to the analogous relation between potency and act: essence and existence, the distinction between …

God’S Stumbler: On Being A Martyr In The World, Glenn J. Morrison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

The martyrs of the faith and charity reveal a dramatic narrative of Christian experience. Like Mary, the martyr’s soul magnifies God rejoicing in the glory of God’s salvation. Testifying to the Gospel, martyrs unearth the trauma of existence with the radiance and splendour of dying and rising with Christ. Equally, the Gospel calls the faithful to journey through the turbulence and stumbling of life towards the Kingdom of God. The Gospel life of the martyr provides an insight into the affectivity and otherness of Christian experience. For encountering people’s suffering, we stumble at the gravity of their pain and outrage, …

Disturbing Deacons: Upstanders Through Moral Resistance, Glenn Morrison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

In this article, I wish to explore the history and vocation of the deacon to highlight the hope for a new Golden Age of possessing a “thinking heart” of a martyr to inspire trust, truth and the evidence of love for the Church. Accordingly, deacons are called to be upstanders in Christ even to the point of demonstrating the disturbing resistance and counterforce of disobedience that will in time be seen and understood as the ethical action and ministry of speaking frankly in the name of those who are most vulnerable within the Church.

Gillick Competence: An Unnecessary Burden, Nigel Zimmermann

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

This study of the implications of Gillick competence argues it is an unnecessary burden with an unethical foundation. The ethics of adolescent medical decision-making is a fraught area for medical ethics because it deals with the threshold boundaries between childhood and adulthood and Gillick adds a burden upon children and adolescent patients that is unwarranted and through which damage is done to integral human relationships. In light of Gillick, it can be seen that the context of adolescent decision-making and childhood, is a neglected topic of ethical reflection.

A Website Supporting Sensitive Religious And Cultural Advance Care Planning (Acptalk): Formative And Summative Evaluation, Amanda Pereira-Salgado, Patrick Mader, Clare O'Callaghan, Leanne Boyd

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Advance care planning (ACP) promotes conversations about future health care needs, enacted if a person is incapable of making decisions at end-of-life that may be communicated through written documentation such as advance care directives. To meet the needs of multicultural and multifaith populations in Australia, an advance care planning website, ACPTalk, was funded to support health professionals in conducting conversations within diverse religious and cultural populations. ACPTalk aimed to provide religion-specific advance care planning content and complement existing resources.

Objective: The purpose of this paper was to utilize the context, input, process, and product (CIPP) framework to …

The Nature Of Nature: Concerning The Efficacy Of Natural Law Reasoning, Thomas V. Gourlay

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Recourse to natural law reasoning has long been a part of how Catholics and Christians engage in debates about issues of public and private morality with people and communities of people who do not share the Catholic/Christian faith. But with the rise of modernity, the scientific revolution, and the relative success of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, many Catholics have begun to question traditional natural law reasoning. Some, including theorists like Germain Grisez, and John Finnis have sought to modify traditional natural law reasoning and continue to employ it within debates concerning public and private ethics, while others, acknowledging the …

Book Review: Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Liturgy And Personality, Thomas V. Gourlay

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Book Review: Liturgy and Personality. By Dietrich von Hildebrand. Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press, 2016. Pp. 160. US$17.99. ISBN 9781939773005.

The Ethics Of Narrative Art: Philosophy In Schools, Compassion And Learning From Stories, Laura D'Olimpio, Andrew Peterson

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Following neo-Aristotelians Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, we claim that humans are story-telling animals who learn from the stories of diverse others. Moral agents use rational emotions, such as compassion, which is our focus here, to imaginatively reconstruct others’ thoughts, feelings and goals. In turn, this imaginative reconstruction plays a crucial role in deliberating and discerning how to act. A body of literature has developed in support of the role narrative artworks (i.e. novels and films) can play in allowing us the opportunity to engage imaginatively and sympathetically with diverse characters and scenarios in a safe protected space that is …

Nature-Based Supportive Care Opportunities: A Conceptual Framework, Sarah Blaschke, Clare O'Callaghan, Penelope Schofield

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Objective: Given preliminary evidence for positive health outcomes related to contact with nature for cancer populations, research is warranted to ascertain possible strategies for incorporating nature-based care opportunities into oncology contexts as additional strategies for addressing multidimensional aspects of cancer patients’ health and recovery needs. The objective of this study was to consolidate existing research related to nature-based supportive care opportunities and generate a conceptual framework for discerning relevant applications in the supportive care setting.

Methods: Drawing on research investigating nature-based engagement in oncology contexts, a two-step analytic process was used to construct a conceptual framework for guiding nature-based supportive …

Thomas Aquinas On The Effects Of Original Sin: A Philosophical Analysis, Angus Brook

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

No abstract is available for this article.

"There Is Another Kingdom": On The Politics Of Virtue, Tracey Rowland

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

No abstract available for this article.

Definition Of Whole Person Care In General Practice In The English Language Literature: A Systematic Review, Hayley Thomas, Geoffrey Mitchell, Justin Rich, Megan Best

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

Objectives: The importance of ‘whole person’ or ‘holistic’ care is widely recognised, particularly with an increasing prevalence of chronic multimorbidity internationally. This approach to care is a defining feature of general practice. However, its precise meaning remains ambiguous. We aimed to determine how the term ‘whole person’ care is understood by general practitioners (GPs), and whether it is synonymous with ‘[w]holistic’ and ‘biopsychosocial’ care.

Design: Systematic literature review.

Methods: MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Proquest Dissertations and Theses, Science. gov (Health and Medicine database), Google Scholar and included studies’ reference lists were searched with …

Book Reviews: 'God And The Art Of Happiness' And 'Earthly Paradise: Myths And Philosophies', G Morrison

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Book Reviews:

God and the Art of Happiness. By Ellen T. Charry. Pp. xii, 299. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010, $24.92.

Earthly Paradise: Myths and Philosophies. By Milad Doueihi; translated by Jane Marie Todd. Pp. xiii, 171, Harvard University Press, 2009, $45.44.

Can Neuroscientific Studies Be Of Personal Value?, Andrew Mullins

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

This essay reflects on the ability of neuroscientific data to be of personal value and to enrich our lives by offering insight into our capacities for self management and choice. The theory of cognitive dualism proposed by Roger Scruton seeks to preserve rationality and allow for freedom of will, but he appears reluctant to engage with the data accruing in neural studies. I contrast this approach with a Thomistic hylomorphic approach to the philosophy of mind that is founded on participation in being. It offers the potential to draw on neurobiological knowledge for insights into rationality, motivation, and eudaimonia. …

Book Reviews: Practicing Medicine And Ethics: Integrating Wisdom, Conscience, And Goals Of Care, Megan Best

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Book review: -

Practicing Medicine and Ethics: Integrating Wisom, Conscience, and Goals of Care, Lauris Christopher Kaldjian. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1107012165

Locating Experience In Time And Place: A Look At Young Adult Fiction And Spiritual Intelligence, L Westenberg

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Spiritual intelligence describes self-awareness and intuition, with the development of creative thinking, compassion, and connectedness with others. Many researchers point to an awakening and development of spiritual intelligence that is enhanced through exploration of existential questions within the genre of young adult fiction. Such literature absorbs the adolescent reader so that they become transported into the narrative, exploring a sense of self and of others This article discusses the ways in which young adult fiction, including comparison of a novel of older context (An Episode of Sparrows) with contemporary dystopian fiction (The Maze Runner), can foster …

Patrick Mcnamara: The Neuroscience Of Religious Experience, R Younis

Philosophy Papers and Journal Articles

Book Review

Patrick McNamara: The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. Cambridge University Press 2009.