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My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad 2016 Université du Québec à Montréal & University of Southampton

My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

Only I can calculate my own welfare as net pleasure minus pain. No one else can do that calculation for me – nor for a population, and especially not averaging across some individuals’ pleasure and other individuals’ pain. Pain and pleasure are incommensurable and only pain matters morally. To maximize welfare is to minimize pain.


In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe 2016 Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy

In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe

Animal Sentience

Our relationship to fishes in the modern era is deeply problematic. We kill and consume more of them than any other group of vertebrates. At the same time, advances in our knowledge of fishes and their capabilities are gaining speed. Fish species diversity exceeds that of all other vertebrates combined, with a wide range of sensory adaptations, some of them (e.g., geomagnetism, water pressure and movement detection, and communication via electricity) alien to our own sensory experience. The evidence for pain in fishes (despite persistent detractors) is strongly supported by anatomical, physiological and behavioral studies. It is likely that fishes …


Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado 2016 Animal Ethics

Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado

Animal Sentience

In recent work Ng assumes that it is good to engage in activities aimed at promoting ecosystem conservation. The only way Ng can derive this from the axiology he assumes (the view that wellbeing is the only intrinsically valuable or disvaluable thing) would be to assume that ecosystem conservation would benefit the individuals involved. This can be so as long as value prevails over disvalue in the target environments. Ng seems to assume this is indeed the case, but he does not explain why, and it is a claim that goes against the conclusions he has argued for previously (Ng …


Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen 2016 Istanbul Technical University

Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen

Animal Sentience

I comment on two of Ng’s suggestions. There is a lack of support for his suggestion that some experiments on individual animals will be useful for future success, so they should be permitted. I also question his recommendation that animal advocacy should focus on farmed animals first and wild animals later. The lack of solid support for why this would be a more effective strategy leads me to suggest a more pluralistic support of a variety of types of advocacy.


Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, Stephen E. Harris 2016 Leiden University

Where Does The Cetanic Break Take Place? Weakness Of Will In Śāntideva’S Bodhicaryāvatāra, Stephen E. Harris

Comparative Philosophy

This article explores the role of weakness of will (akrasia) in the Indian Buddhist tradition, and in particular within Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practice of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra). In agreement with Jay Garfield, I argue that there are important differences between Aristotle’s account of akrasia and Buddhist moral psychology. Nevertheless, taking a more expanded conception of weakness of will, as is frequently done in contemporary work, allows us to draw significant connections with the pluralistic account of psychological conflict found in Buddhist texts. I demonstrate this by showing how Amélie Rorty’s expanded treatment of akrasia as including …


From Political Liberalism To Para-Liberalism: Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice, Musa al-Gharbi 2016 Columbia University

From Political Liberalism To Para-Liberalism: Epistemological Pluralism, Cognitive Liberalism & Authentic Choice, Musa Al-Gharbi

Comparative Philosophy

Advocates of political liberalism hold it as a superior alternative to perfectionism on the grounds that it avoids superfluous and/or controversial claims in favor of a maximally-inclusive approach undergirded by a "free-standing" justification for the ideology. These assertions prove difficult to defend: political interpretations of liberalism tend to be implicitly ethnocentric; they often rely upon a number of controversial, and even empirically falsified, assumptions about rationality--and in many ways prove more parochial than their perfectionist cousins. It is possible to reform political liberalism to address these challenges, but generally at the expense of the supposed normative force and universality of …


Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page, 2016 San Jose State University

Vol 7 No 2 Contents Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 2 Information Page, 2016 San Jose State University

Vol 7 No 2 Information Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page, 2016 San Jose State University

Vol 7 No 2 Cover Page

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.


Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta 2016 University of Santiago de Compostela

Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta

Animal Sentience

I argue that despite Ng’s claim that we should postpone the defense of those animals that live in the wild, we do have reasons to start spreading concern for them now. We can do it by (i) changing public attitude by heightening awareness of speciesism, by which we will also challenge animal exploitation; and (ii) by disseminating information about the situation of animals in the wild.


The Challenge Of Teaching Chinese Philosophy: Some Thoughts On Method, Andrew Lambert 2016 CUNY College of Staten Island

The Challenge Of Teaching Chinese Philosophy: Some Thoughts On Method, Andrew Lambert

Publications and Research

In this essay I offer an alternative perspective on how to organize class material for courses in Chinese philosophy for predominately American students. Instead of selecting topics taken from common themes in Western discourses, I suggest a variety of organizational strategies based on themes from the Chinese texts themselves, such as tradition, ritual, family, and guanxi (關係), which are rooted in the Chinese tradition but flexible enough to organize a broad range of philosophical material.


I Dreamed In Terms Of Novels: Dorothy Day And The Ethics Of Nineteenth-Century Literature, Katherine Thomsen Pierson 2016 University of Nebraska-Lincoln

I Dreamed In Terms Of Novels: Dorothy Day And The Ethics Of Nineteenth-Century Literature, Katherine Thomsen Pierson

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

To the extent that she is known, Dorothy Day, a twentieth-century American Catholic journalist and social reformer currently under consideration for sainthood by the Vatican, is recognized for her religious influences. Pope Francis, in his 2015 speech before the American Congress, said she was inspired by “the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints.” Yet throughout her life Day was a consistent reader of secular texts and even said she “lived by” the vision of some of her favorite writers. This thesis examines Day’s secular influences—in particular Dickens’s David Copperfield and Little Dorrit—and begins to trace their …


Why We Should Not Postpone Awareness Of Wild Animal Suffering, Catia Faria 2016 Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Why We Should Not Postpone Awareness Of Wild Animal Suffering, Catia Faria

Animal Sentience

Ng (2016) restates his case for the importance of wild animal suffering (1995). Nevertheless, he suggests that the most effective way to reduce nonhuman suffering overall is to give short-term priority to the suffering of farmed animals. It is not clear that Ng puts forward a successful case. Our current efforts to prevent animal suffering overall should also include raising awareness of wild animal suffering now as well as promoting research on safe and feasible ways to prevent wild animal suffering in the future.


The Indwelling Of The Holy Spirit And Human Intentionality: A Constructive Proposal, John R. Kern 2016 Abilene Christian University

The Indwelling Of The Holy Spirit And Human Intentionality: A Constructive Proposal, John R. Kern

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does the Holy Spirit, by indwelling believers, guide them to act in ways that contribute to their spiritual progress? In this thesis, I will argue that, by indwelling believers, the Spirit redirects their intentionality towards their ultimate end in union with God, thus placing believers in the best possible position for acting in ways that contribute to that end. If the Spirit guides believers in the spiritual life on a day-to-day basis, then such guidance must connect with the actual processes by which humans generally act (especially intentions). Thus, by exploring the indwelling of the Spirit, grace, and human …


Society Challenges The Lawyer, Theodore H. Husted, Jr. 2016 St. John's University School of Law

Society Challenges The Lawyer, Theodore H. Husted, Jr.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.


Religion And The State, Robert F. Drinan, S.J. 2016 St. John's University School of Law

Religion And The State, Robert F. Drinan, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.


The Refugee - War Claims And International Law, Tadeusz B. Spitzer 2016 St. John's University School of Law

The Refugee - War Claims And International Law, Tadeusz B. Spitzer

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.


A Practical Note On A Type Of Juridical "Positivism", Rev. Peter Huizing, S.J. 2016 St. John's University School of Law

A Practical Note On A Type Of Juridical "Positivism", Rev. Peter Huizing, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.


The Connecticut Birth Control Ban And Public Morals, Richard J. Regan, S.J. 2016 St. John's University School of Law

The Connecticut Birth Control Ban And Public Morals, Richard J. Regan, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.


Provocations In Consideration Of Thomas Nail's The Figure Of The Migrant, Vernon W. Cisney 2016 Gettysburg College

Provocations In Consideration Of Thomas Nail's The Figure Of The Migrant, Vernon W. Cisney

Philosophy Faculty Publications

I am delighted to be part of the conversation surrounding this important work. Thomas Nail’s The Figure of the Migrant is one of those rare works that is at once timely and timeless. It is timely in the sense that the figure of the migrant has become a ubiquitous and undeniable reality of our time. As I write this at the end of spring 2016, the number of Syrian citizens displaced by civil war since 2011 has climbed to roughly 13.5 million; the United States is in the middle of its most racially charged presidential election of my lifetime (with …


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