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1. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4

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2. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
T. A. Cavanaugh

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In this essay I articulate Aristotle’s account of the voluntary with a view to weighing in on a contemporary ethical debate concerning the moral relevance of the intended / foreseen distinction. Natural lawyers employ this distinction to contrast consequentially comparable acts with different intentional structures. They propose, for example, that consequentially comparable acts of terror and tactical bombing morally differ, based on their diverse structures of intention. Opponents of double-effect reasoning hold that one best captures the widely acknowledged intuitive appeal of the distinction by contrasting agents, not acts. These thinkers hold that the terror bomber differs from the tactical bomber while terror bombing does not differ ethically from tactical bombing. Aristotle’s accounts of the voluntary and the deliberately decided upon provide grounds for the ethical relevance of the intended / foreseen distinction as applied to both acts and agents.
3. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Lawrence J. Hatab

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Like most philosophers, Heidegger gave little attention to childhood, but his philosophical emphasis on pre-reflective practice and understanding seems uniquely qualified to help make sense of a child’s experience and development. Moreover, it seems to me that many central Heideggerian concepts are best defended, exemplified, and articulated by bringing child development into the discussion. A Heideggerain emphasis on pre-theoretical world-involvement opens up a rich array of phenomena for studying child development, which can improve upon standard theories that have over-emphasized exclusive conditions or criteria. I begin by laying out some basic features of Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world as a preparation for understanding the world of the child. Then I will briefly discuss some of Heidegger’s remarks on childhood, followed by some reflections on language acquisition and the correlation of anxiety and meaning.
4. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Michael Oliver Wiitala

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The Euthyphro is generally considered one of Plato’s early dialogues. According to the developmental approach to reading the dialogues, when writing the Euthyphro Plato had not yet developed the sort of elaborate “theory of forms” that we see presented in the middle dialogues and further refined in the late dialogues. This essay calls the developmental account into question by showing how key elements from the theory of forms that appear in the late dialogues, particularly in the Statesman, are already operative in the Euthyphro. When one identifies the way in which each of Euthyphro’s definitions of piety fails in light of Socrates’s arguments, one already finds the conception of form that Plato presents in the middle and late dialogues.
5. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Shane Drefcinski

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In the Theaetetus Socrates states that we should become like God. Recent commentators disagree over the meaning of his directive. David Sedley argues that it urges us to assimilate to God in our present lifespan by a life of philosophical contemplation. Julia Annas thinks that it is just another way of stating that virtue (including moral virtue) is sufficient for happiness. Sandra Peterson denies that Socrates’s directive should be taken seriously. I argue that his directive is serious and includes both moral virtue and philosophical contemplation. Furthermore, I argue that this goal does not fall within the confines of our present lifespan. By this directive Socrates means that to become like God we should live virtuously in order to escape the cycle of reincarnation and achieve a specific, fulfilling kind of immortality.
6. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
A. S. Kleinherenbrink

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Current debates on freedom of will disregard that understanding is a necessary presupposition to experience the will as free. Theories of freedom such as those by Frankfurt, Watson, and Wolf are demonstrably incapable of explaining (the absence of) freedom in several quotidian situations because of a lack of a concept of understanding. In explicating why understanding is a necessary (and sufficient) condition for freedom, I present an alternative theory that I call the Understanding View. It proposes that the experience of freedom depends on the degree to which we understand the inner context of our identity and the outer context of a given situation. The Understanding View succeeds in accounting for freedom in those areas where its main rivals fail as well as in those situations to which they can successfully be applied. This makes the Understanding View more useful in addressing the question of the freedom of will.

contemporary currents

7. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Francis J. Beckwith

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In her ground-breaking 1971 article, “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that even if one grants to the prolifer her most important premise—that the fetus is a person—the prolifer’s conclusion, the intrinsic wrongness of abortion, does not follow. However, in her 1995 article, “Abortion: Whose Right?,” Thomson employs Rawlsian liberalism to argue that even though the prolifer’s view of fetal personhood is not unreasonable, the prochoice advocate is not unreasonable in rejecting it. Thus, because we should err on the side of liberty, the right to abortion is vindicated. In this article, I argue that Thomson’s latter reliance on Rawlsian thinking suggests a way of re-reading her earlier essay that casts doubt on whether she really grants the dominant prolife account of unborn human life.
8. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Amihud Gilead

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Challenging the idea of personal identity, Derek Parfit has argued that persons are replicable and that personal identity does not really matter. In a recent paper Parfit again defends the idea of personal replicability. Challenging this idea in turn, I explain why persons are absolutely not replicable. To prove this I rely on two arguments—the Author Argument and the Love Argument. The irreplicability of persons relies upon the singularity of each person and thus entails that personal identity is irreducible and that it really does matter.

book reviews and notices

9. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Mark J. Burke, S.J.

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10. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Xingming Hu

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11. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4
Joseph W. Koterski, S.J.

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12. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 4

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13. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3

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articles

14. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Carl N. Still

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Thomas Aquinas’s theory of self-knowledge stands out among medieval theories for its conceptual sophistication, yet it remains less studied than many other areas of his thought. Here I consider a significant philosophical critique of Aquinas on self-knowledge and respond to it. Anthony Kenny alleges that Aquinas does not sufficiently account for the individuation of thought in the knower. But Kenny’s analysis of how Aquinas individuates thought ironically confuses Aquinas’s account with that of Averroes, whose explanation Aquinas rejected. A closer reading of Aquinas’s texts reveals that intelligible species, not phantasms, individuate thought. Kenny’s central objection to Aquinas’s account of self-knowledge is thus resolved, but I leave open whether Aquinas’s account could be usefully supplemented by modern treatments of self-knowledge.
15. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Andrew Komasinski

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In this article I argue that The Sickness unto Death, authored by Kierkegaard under the pseudonym Johannes Anti-Climacus, has resources for an interesting critique of technology in some ways like that of Heidegger’s critiques in “Question Concerning Technology” and Being and Time. I suggest that Anti-Climacus’s account of “despair” resonates with much of what Heidegger says about inauthenticity and the self’s orientation toward death. But I also contend that in maintaining that the self can only be complete by understanding itself as essentially relating and related to God, Anti-Climacus has a critique of the sort of solution that Heidegger would provide. Finally, I trace the origin of this view to fundamental differences in ontology that must be settled outside of the problems posed by technology.
16. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
P. A. McGavin, T. A. Hunter

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The ethical theory espoused by a philosopher is often dominated by certain implicit epistemological assumptions. These “ways of knowing” may in turn be dominated by personality preferences that give rise to certain preferred worldviews that undergird various philosophies. Such preferred worldviews are seen in We believe positions, stated or unstated. The meaning of these claims about the interconnections of unexamined assumptions and their philosophical implications may be seen through an example. This paper will examine certain crucial aspects of the thought of John Doris, who promotes a form of situationist ethics. This example is intended to be suggestive rather than conclusive. It points to the need for an openness to other epistemological assumptions that might permit a more comprehensive appreciation of what moral agency involves, beyond what arises from the restricted methods of analytical philosophy and a positivist worldview. There have been other efforts to meet the situationist challenge to classical Aristotelian ethics, yet surprisingly little attention has been given to the role of implicit epistemologies and unexamined psychologies. This paper offers a critical examination of these prior We believe positions.
17. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Jesse Ciccotti

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In this paper I will argue for a plausible account for moral luck in the Ruist tradition. In part one I will offer a preliminary framework for moral luck to establish an intersection between Ruist virtue ethics and its counterparts outside of Ruism. I will situate the term moral luck in a Ruist context. Although the term moral luck does not appear in The Mengzi (or any other Ruist document for that matter) the concept was known to Master Meng (Mengzi 孟子) and is useful for comparison with its foreign counterparts. In part two, guided by Thomas Nagle’s four categories for moral luck, I show where Ruist moral luck can be found in The Mengzi. I conclude by highlighting the contributions that Ruism offers to the broader moral luck discussion.
18. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Stephen L. Brock

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Focusing mainly on two passages from the Summa theologiae, the article first argues that, on Aquinas’s view, an individual substance, which is the proper subject of being, can and normally does have a certain multiplicity of acts of being (actus essendi). It is only “a certain” multiplicity because the substance has only one unqualified act of being, its substantial being, which belongs to it through its substantial form. The others are qualified acts of being, added on to the substantial being through accidental forms. Having established this thesis, the rest of the article uses it as a basis for an approach to the so-called real distinction between act of being and essence or (more precisely) between act of being and substantial form. This approach is meant to be effective even in an Aristotelian setting where there may seem to be no place for a substantial act distinct from substantial form.
19. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Justin M. Anderson

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The social principle of subsidiarity, both regarding the federalism debate in North America and the principle’s role in the formation of the European Union, has garnished increased attention in recent years. In this paper I will argue that if one looks for the historical seed of the principle of subsidiarity in Aristotle—as many authors do—then attention should fall more properly on his analysis of practical reasoning in Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics than on Book I of the Politics. The treatment of practical reasoning more aptly explains the need for the principle of subsidiarity and, indeed, averring that it is based on an Aristotelian sense of autonomy is misplaced at best and dangerous at worst.

book reviews

20. International Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 54 > Issue: 3
Jeffrey Bloechl

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